I. It was coupletk. 1, They had wandered. The allurements of idolatry had led them on and on, and they had at length yielded to them. They had sought other pastures and acquired preferences for other worship. It is an evil sign when men lose taste for the simple services of a spiritual religion. God should be sought alone and for his own sake. 2. They became alienated. A natural consequence. Step by step they went so far that they could not find their way back. Spiritual unfaithfulness produces confusion and spiritual darkness. They forgot their own fjld. 3. They became degraded and morally odious. They bore the sign of their spiritual fall upon them. Their history, too, was the record of their shame to the neighbouring peoples. The backslider can never erase the past. He will bear his Cain-mark to the end, and even the heathen and unbeliever will despise him. Their oppressors are so struck with the justice of their sentence that they justify themselves in even greater cruelties than were warranted. There is no corner of the world where the backslider can escape God's curse or hide his shame. Do what he may, he will not be as other men.
II. Yet it did not baffle the shepherding of God. 1. To avenge. The over- done punishment is not lost sight of; it will be duly recompensed. And the sacred character of the exiles will add to the guilt of those who used it as an excuse for their cruelties. God is the Judge of his lost oops even to the end. He commits his authority to no other. He who causes a child of God to go further astray, and delights in hia degradation and ruin, will have to account terribly for this to his Father and Saviour.
2. To bring hack. God's arm is strong to destroy the detaining influences, and out- stretched far enough to reach his wanderers, even to the extremities of transgression and ruin. And he ciin detect them in every hiding-place and covert. He is the good Shep- herd. No wilderness too wide, no mountain too high or rocky, for him to tra.' "^s will bring them back to righteousness and then to happiness and peace. — M.
Ver. 20. — Divine forgivenesi an absolute oblivion. The attribute of completeness characterizes God's work of destruction (vers. 14 — 16) ; equally does it pertain to hit, work of salvatinn (vers. 19, 20). In both is manifested his rij^liteousaess in its elements of wrath and mercy. His forgiveness acts in ppi feet harmony with his severity.
I. How IT MANIFESTS ITSELF. 1. Eetrospeclivelij. bins that are past are to he blotted out. A complete severance is to bd effected between the era of apostasy and the new one upon which they are to enter. The strictest justice, the most jealous hostility, will tail to make out a valid indictment. 2. Prospectively. (1) In the character. It will be purified and confirmed in the righteousness of God. (2) In the conduct. There will be no more lapses or infidelities. Israel will be "a peculiar people, zealous of good works." It is for the sake of this new future that the guilty past has been cancelled ; and it is the legitimate fruit of the experience of God's par- doning grace that tlie " reserved" ones shall give themselves " with a glad heart and free " to his service and glory
•>,BQ THE BOOK Oi" THE PROPHET Jl.RBMIAH. [ch. l. 1— 4G
II. To WHAT IT 18 DtTB. Not to Divine goodness in conflict with Divine lighteous- ness, but to tlie satisfaction of Divine righteoutness. 1. In atonement. The saciifice of Christ was aniicipated, and for its sake the national tribulation throu;:li which Israel had passed was accounted a satisfaction for guilt incurred. In itself that tribulation could never effect such an end, nor in any sense as supiilementary of the sufferings of Christ, but only symbolically and representatively, such as the lamb slain on the temple altar. The sinner is identified with the Saviour. 2. In making righteous. "Justice I'loking at the sinner, not simply as the fit subject of punisliment, but as existing in a moral condition of unrighteousness, and so its own opposite, must desire that the sinner should cease to be in that condition; should cease to be unrit;hteous — should become righteous; righteousness in God craving for rigiiteousness in man, with a crav- ing which the realization of righteousness in man alone can satisfy. So of holiness." (Macleod Campbell.) — M.
Vers. 21 — ^23. — Z%e hammer broken. Babylon was to be crushed by Persia— one hammer by another. As univer.~al world-powers, the rise and fall of these had immense importance, and they illustrate the duties and responsibilities of power.
I. All poweb is a stewardship fbom God. The vast extent and influence of those empires, and the special mission divinely appointed them, cannot but impress one with a sense of special responsibility. There seems something supernatural in their very origin and continuance. And yet it is equally true that the humblest power is a responsibility. It might be said that a great deal of the influence of great nations arises unconsciously, mechanically, and as it were as the result of their own momentum ; and also that the distribution of official duties divides, if it does not quite dissipate, individual responsibility. Yet each contributes his quota to the general result, and in the end each wiU have to account for his own influence. The nation as a whole will be judged, and in that judgment each will be apportioned his due share. How much more, therefore, may the individual be held responsible for the use of those powers belonging to his own nature and person, and which are under his own control or have been in great part created by his own cultivation. We are doubly responsible, viz. (1) for the acquisition, and (2) /or the use of power.
II. It is possible to be the inbteument of Divnnt justice and yet be ociurT. Babylon was clearly and definitely " commanded " to perform its work of conqueit and destructinn. But it overdid its task through arrogance and unbelief. It was the land of " Double-defiance " (Merathaim), inasmuch as it had first illegitimately acquired its position by revolt against Assyria, and secondly it had triumphed in a cruel and unseemly manner over Israel (Naesielsbach). For this it was brought to account, and, therefore, is again named " Visitation." This self-sufficiency and unbelief ren- dered it guilty (" Against Jehovah hast thou striven," ver. 24), and yet the work it did, even in excess, was turned to account by God. We are responsible, not only for doing what God commands, but for doing it in the right spirit and manner. That Q-od should overrule our evil for the good of others does not alter its character, which depends upon motives and dispositions. Especially in judging or punishing others ought we to keep watch over ourselves and examine our own hearts. National and ofiicial action will entail moral responsibility as macb as personal, although, it may be, not so directly.