Vera. 19-27.-The lulllowing of the sabbath day. I. T~ PLACE FOR ANNOUNCING THE MESSAGE. 1. It was a place where the king, as much as the people, would hear, Whatever-else may be signified by "the gate of the children of the people," it. seems clear that it was a gate in which, at certain times, the king would be found. In his own house it might be impossible to gain access to him ; but the gate was open to all ; and· there he could not choose but listen to a man who would speak earnestly and commandingly; because the word of Jehovah lodged in him, came from the depths of his concurring heart. The kings, doubtless, by their own individual leadership and encouragement, were responsible for much of the evil of sabbath-breaking. The state of Jerusalem in particular would be largely influenced by them. A corrupt court makes a corrupt capital, and a corrupt capital is not without effect towards the makin 6 of a corrupt nation. 2. It was the place/or the greatest general publicity. One gate is specified, but not one of the gates was to be omitted. The king, with his peculiar responsibilities, was warned in a peculiar way; but there was no one in such a private and irresponsible position as to be without concern in the message. The ten command- ments were commandments for every individual among the people; hence the need of a warning which, in the mode of giving it, should be likely to arrest the attention of all. It was Jehovah's message delivered at least as many times as there were gates in Jerusalem. We may well believe that it was delivered over and over again. No note of time is given, but of course the prophet would choose the time when there were most passengers; nor would he omit to deliver the message upon the sabbath day itself. 3. The message was given upon one of the most conspicuous scenes of transgression. If the prophet went to one of the most frequenteu gates on a sabbath, there he found transgressors, crowds of them, in the very act of transgression. '.l'hey could not deny the act, and all he needed to do was to adduce the commandment against it. God can always make it clear that he does not send forth his prophets without occasion. U. THE m;ssAGE ITSELF. This command with respect to the sabbath day seems to come in very abruptly here. And yet no one who considers the prominence of Jehovah's injunction to" remember the sabbath dny to keep it holy" will wonder at the definiteness and emphasis of the prophet's message. 'l'he details of his message make it only too sadly evident how far the people had departed from the original command- ment. Here we have one of two extremes of disobedience in which the practic11l attitude of Israel towards this commandment appears. The sacred day which God had hallowed both in word and deed was recklessly and shamelessly made lnto a common day. If n. stranger went into the streets of Jerusalem on a sabbath, he might have great difficulty in discerning by any external sign that it was a sabbath. 'l'he people would be going into the city and coming out of it much.as on any othor day. The other extreme is seen in the reasonless and fanatical formalism of the Jews, who so often attacked our Lord. '.l'here is certainly a great difference· externally between these two extremes. It is very wonderful to consider that such a transition should be possible from the careless crowding of the gates with burdens on the sabbath, to the savage bigotry which attacked Jesus for healing sick folk on the same day. Yet underneath external differences there was the same unabated, worldly, ungodly spirit. '!'hose whom Jesus bad to denounce for their shameless trafficking in the holy precincts were the children of those whom Jeremiah had to denounce for doing their own selfish will an<i needless acts on God's sabbath. And so we see that this passage from the prophet needs to be considered along with those passages in the Gospels whore Jesus deals with the sabbatarianism of his time. His painful experiences of such professed_ honourers of God and bis searching exposures of them, need to be complemented by tins message of Jerc:niah. We shall always find in Scripture something to check us from" the false- hood of extremes." Sabbatarians twist a commandment; sabbath-brcakcrs trample it underfoot. The evil which Jeremiah deals with here is dealt with even more solemnly 442 'l'llE !lOOK Ol!' TaE PROPltE'I' JEREMIAil. (cH. xvm. 1-23.
by Ezekiel (xxii. ~-12, where ~u ver. 8 sabbath-breaking is particularly referred to ae one of many terrible transgressions. See also Neh. ix. 14 • xiii. 15.....:22 • Isa lvi 2 • Ezek. xx. 12-24; xlvi. 1-5).-Y. • ' ' • • '
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