II. In spite of unreciprocated affection. Israel had had other lovers, and she liad loved them In return. They had bestowed gifts on her, and she had bestowed gifts on them, and so there was profession of mutual regard as long as it was profitable to make it. But tliere was no love to God. His holiness, his goodness, was not seen. Year by year his open hand was stretohe'l forth, tilled with the corn and the wine and the oil ; and the people greedily laid hold of the gifts, and thought nothing' of the Giver. Not but what there were imlividuals whose hearts went out gratefully and devotedly to God, as the Psalms show. But then these individuals would not find very many to respond to the invitation, "Oh, love the Lord, all ye his saints." And still the love of God goes on. Men need the manifestntions ut God's love all the more, just because of their unreciprocating attitude towaids him. Love caimot prevent the headstrong prodigal from seeking his own desires, but it can keep things ready for the season of repentance and return. The manifestations of the Divine love are to constitute a great spectacle, breaking down the heart of the selfish man.
Hi. The love is declared when most the declaration is needed. Love does not always look like love. The spurious puts on the appearance of the genuine, and the genuine gets hidden behind the necessary minifestations of righteousness and fidelity to law. They that break law must be punished and suffer. They that have false, unstable, misleading lovers cannot escape the consequence of their foolish connection with them in the day when the lovers are destroyed and go into captivity (ch. xxii. 20, 22). Israel itself must suffer loss and go into exile and sit with dust and ushcs on its head. But in that very day conies the assurance of everlasting love. The lower skies are filled with cloud and stui'ui and rain, but the abiding sun is still above, and its radiance will remain when the storm has passed away. — Y.
Ver. 5. — Work yet to he found in the vineyard. Here is to be an evideEOt of the everlasting love spoken of in ver. 3.
I. The restoration of what had been lost. This is not the first prophecy in the hook concerning vineyards. It had been declared that the nation from afar should eat up the vines and the fig trees of Israel (ch. v. 17). " I will surely consume, saith the Lord. There shall be no grapes on the vine " (ch. viii. 13). The bright prophecy here could not have been made but for the dark piophecies going before. The literal fulfil- ment ol the prophecy is, of course, the least part of it. Tlie deepest meaning is thai, whatever we may lose through God's chastisements, we shall get much more in a spiritual and truly abiding way.
II. The future is described dj terms of the past. One of the occupations of the past had been to plant vineyards in Samaria. Wliat associations there must have been with the sunny slopes ! It is the way of God to speak of future comforts and glories in terms drawn from the present and from things around us. The future will give oppor- tunities for profitable work. We shall always have some place to work in which shall be as the mountains of Samaria, and some work to do which shall be as the planting of vines. Fruitless toil and crushed hopes are but a disciplining episode in the career of those who are the heirs of eternal life.
IH. The stability implied in this promise. Five years, according to the Mosaic Law, had to pass Irom the planting to the time of fiuitage. The prophecy was therefore a prophecy of peaceful settlement. The whole outlook gave a sense of security. Looked at in this light, one sees th" reason of previous overthrowing and destruction, 'i'he aim is to get down to something solid aud stable, to purify the heart from unworthy aims and love of the fleeting. The tilings that are shaken are removed, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.
IV. The racLusivENESs of this promise. Vineyards are to be planted, but vine- yards' are not the first necessity of life. To promise the planting of vineyards implied the promise of other things. The corn and the oil went along with the wine. The' vineyard is doubtless here mentioned as a symbol ot joy. He who is able to plant a' vineyard i* able to plant all good things. Note the evidence we have of the temporal
42 THE BOOK OP THE PfiOPHET JEREMIAH, [oh. xxxl 1— 4a
fulfilment of this promise. Prom vineyards our Lord drew some of his most sus<;estive teaching. We may be sure they had often been seen by him, and their spiritual signifi- cance apprehended. Vine-planting was a suitable industry, an industry to b.: ux|iected in the land out of which the spies had brought the ponderous cluster of grapes. — Y.
Vers. 8, 9. — Ood the Gatherer of his people. I. Whence he gathers thbm. The place is spoken of very indefinitely, not from any doiibt as to its reality, but because it was lar;j;ely a terra incognita. It was the land away in the northward direction, but what its extent or what its power for mischief there were but few who could guess. One thing, however, was possible to consider in the days of exile, when the north country had become a sad actual experience, namely, how Jeremiah had been sent to speak joyful tidings as well as mournful ones with respect to the power of this north country. True, he had spoken again and again concerning the evil and the great destruction coming out of the north ; but here is a word from the same man and under the same authority to say that the power of the north country is not to continue. God uses even great nations for his own purposes. There is indication that these powers of the north were astonished at their own success. " The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem" (Lam. iv. 12). They were only the agents of God, and God could take his people out of their midst again when once the Exile had done its work. Distance is no difficulty. God can hinder or facilitate in a journey just as seems him best. Once he kept his people forty years in a journey from one land to another that, if he had chosen, might have been accomplished in a very short time.