Yer. 7. — The eonsequenee ^a wrong confldenee. I. The oaptube was thbib own WAOUC, Not idl captMM k w. Thiim may be a goii^ into durance for conscience' sake ;
244 THE BOOK OP THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, [oh. XLTm. 1— 47.
there may be the necessary surrender to superior strength ; the captured one may be the victim for a time to the unscrupulous selfishness of others. We must be careful not to draw rash conclusions from suffering to sin ; for therein we may be adding suffering to suffering. As a rule, when suffering comes from sin, the sufferer is not lett without a witness in his own heart. But inasmuch as it is a whole people that is here suffering nationally, there needs to be a distinct mention of why they are suffering. We are also reminde(i how important it is to make the distinction between what comes through our own fault and what comes through other causes.
II. Wrong objects of trust always involve bomb disasteb. It is but the form that differs ; the real, essential mischief is always there. God mentions here the best things a man can have outside of God himself. There is his own worth, that into which he puts his energy, skill, and experience ; where also he profits by the work of those who have gone before him. There are also the pleasures of life, all that a man, in his best judgment, reckons to be best. Moab would reckon among its pleasures its men of war, its chosen young men, its accumulation of wealth. But all these things, solid and extensive as they look, give no guarantee of abiding security and prosperity. They may, by the very falsehood of appearances, become the ministers of ruin. The case is as if a plant should seek root in its own substance, as if a man should try to maintain physical life from his own body. And to trust other people is an even more precarious ground of support than we find in ourselves. For in ourselves there is at all events the element of self-interest to help us. No doubt, by the work and the pleasures here men- tioned, there is a reference to the idol worshipped in Moab, which indeed is mentioned in the same verse. We can hardly understand the feeling ourselves, but great must have been the confidence of Moab in its god ; and this, of course, amounted to nothing else than its own imagination of deity. So we may be trusting in an apparent connection with God, in forms of religion, in works that look as if they were meant for God's glory and for our good. But nothing is of any use as a ground of confidence unless it has a living connection with the Infinite and the Eternal. — T.
Ver. 10. — Doing the work of Jehovah deceitfully. I. The entbustino 9F Jehoyab's WORK TO THE HANDS OF MEN. Here is a great work of judgment, and Jehovah effects such works either through operations of his own or through agents to whom he makes the awful duty evident. What he has done himself is sufficiently illustrated in many terrible visitations recorded in the Old Testament ; nor is there entire absence of such a record in the New. But men have also been called to visit upon others their iniquity in a solemn and thorough way. That men have made the command of God a pretext for the greatest cruelties, and for indiscriminate slaughter on an extensive scale, does not in the least alter the fact that such commands have been given, given out of the greatest wisdom and with the best results. Every nation reckons that the temporal life of its subjects is at its disposal ; they must be ready to serve with life or in death, as may lie required. And shall not the God of all the earth dispose of temporal life according as his all-comprehending wisdom sees may be best for the whole world and for all ages ?
II. The TEMPTATIONS TO DO THIS WORK DEOEiTPULliY. Not, perhaps, with an intention to deceive, but with sophistical evasions, with attempts to make something less than completeness seem complete. Such an act was that of Saul when he went out with a stei-n command ringing in his ears — ^the command of one proved to be a prophet, that he should utterly slay the Amalekites. He seemed to have reason in the pleas he urged for the imperfect execution of the command. And so it may often be. There looks to be needless severity, needless waste. Oftentimes there is an amount of suffering, suffering even of the innocent, which takes all will and vigour out of the arm that should strike God's blow. Besides, it needs to be always borne in mind that the Word of Qoi requiring severity and suffering is only a part of God's work. We shrink from it through mere sensitiveness to pain. But there is another large sphere of work where there is plain benefit, where we have to make no one suffer, where we are contributors to something positive. The husbandman is not for ever plucking up weeds; his main work is to sow good seed and reap it. " Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully " is a word that has its correspondence in Paul's ejaculation, " Woe is me if I preach not the gospel." Jesus put his servants through an exacting discipline, • sdf- revealing ou«, in order that they might do his work thoroughly, uprooting ail evil,
OT. XLvra. 1— 47.] THE BOOK OP THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 245
getting down to proper foundations, making no compromises, ready for all persecutions. They who, after preparation and warning and putting iheir hands to the work, yet do that work with slack hands, cannot wonder if God should in due time make manifest his anger with them for their heedlessness. — Y.
Vers. 11, 12. — Moab settled- on the lees. Here we find a not uncommon difficulty in the Old Testament, namely, that of an illustration which to us is by no means so clear as the thing to be illustrated. The words are spoken with regard to a wine country. This will be seen on looking at the references iu vers. 32, 33 to the wine of Sibniah, the spoiled vintage, the wine that has failed from the wine-presses, the silence where once was shouting of those who trod the grapes. An illustration drawn from the process of making wine perfect was, therefore, most appropriate. It would be imderstood and convey its lesson at once to those of the right disposition. We, however, must go to the underlying truth at once, without pretending to see the propriety of the illustration in all its parts. Moreover, we must look on Moab itself as representative of individuals. We have to look at individuals, at the possibilities of their life, at the experiences they ought to pass through, and the results which come from missing those experiences.