i:.tt THE BOOK 08- THE PltOtHET JEREMIAH, [oh. u. 1— €4.
world, tliey may communicate good everywhere. But if they form destroying purposes then their very eminence increases their destroying power. The mountain tljat by its very elevation helps to distribute pleasant and profitable waters over the face of the earth, when turned to a volcano is just as well placed for sending down the lava-torrents II. Its utter destruction. That which must be considered first of all is the safety of the whole earth. It is God's way to uproot all that menaces the security and peace of his universe. To Impair and enfeeble is not enough ; the evil thing must be destroyed. And this is possible because it is God who is against it. He can destroy and obliterate where men would not for a moment dream of such a possibility. Did not Jesus tell his disciples that great mountains could be plucked up and cast into the sea, great obstacles and great menaces to Christian progress be utterly removed ? And here the prophet signifies the completeness of the destruction by asserting that Babylon shall become as a mountain reduced as it were to mere ashes. To that mountain men have been in the habit of resorting to find comer-stones and foundation-stones, but such is their resort no longer. There is complete destruction of the enemies of God's people, and of course this implies complete safety of God's people themselves. (For a corresponding metaphor, see Isa. xxx, 14.) — Y.
Ver. 30. — Effeminacy. Doubtless in this utterance there is something of the then customary scorn with respect to women. But this must not make us forget that one ot the worst things to be said of a man is that he has become as a woman, just as one oi the worst things to be said of a woman is that she has become as a man.
I. This utterance does not betroach the woman, but the man. Woman has her natural limitations. Her usual place is not in the battle-field or on the walls of the attacked city. An army of women against an army of men would be an unnatural, a revolting spectacle. But this very difference between the proper place of women and the proper place of men intensifies the reproach against a man when it can truly lie said of him that he has become as a woman. Those qualities which in a woman are womanly in a man are only effeminate.
II. The corresponding possible reproach upon women. A woman must not allow it to be said of her that she has become as a man. She must never forget the limita- tions and duties of her sex. Yet on the other hand, she must not be too ready lo accept common opinion in interpreting those limitations and duties.
III. There are times when it mat be the greatest honoub to a man to BECOME AS A WOMAN. There are times when the strength of the man, without being lost, becomes unnoticed because of the presence of a woman-like tenderness. And of course there is the corresponding truth that woman may be honoured in becoming as the man, else where would be the fame of Joan of Arc and the Maid of Saragossa? Both men and women alike must have the courage to face mere external reproaches. Nothing is easier than to taunt a man with being unmanly and a woman with being unwomanly, but if only men and women alike persevere in what they feel to be right, they will in due time escape from the region of baseless taunts. After all, the humanity common to men and women alike is greater than peculiarities of lex. In Jesus Christ there ia neither male nor female. — Y.
Ver. 86. — Making the iprings dry. L Man's effobt to supply his need. There are the springs breaking forth among the hills and inviting men freely to use them. But there are also the wells men dig for themselves. Men must have water, yet thef cannot always go and live by the natural springs, and so where they have to live thej dig wells, and wonderfully do they succeed oftentimes in getting what they want. Water comes apparently in exhaustless abundance. Thus it is with the natural resources which man strives to obtain for himself. They open out before him far larger than any present wants. And thus when man sees all tliis within his reach, he naturally devises great undertakings on the strength of such great resources.
II. The selfish use or his bucoess. It not unfrequently happens that the man who digs a well for himself does it at the expense of others, making their wells to run dry. The thing may be done unintentionally, or almost on a commonly accepted prin- ciple of every one looking out for himself; still it is to be looked on as pure selfishness. The resources of Babylon were increased by diminishing the resources of other peoples.
en. LI. 1—64.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 311
This fei a point to be always locked at in estimating men of large resources, namely, how far those resources have been gained by leaving otiiers without resource at all or with but a scanty one.
ni. God's removal of his rbsouboeb. "I will make her springs dry." God can dry up all humanly ])rovided wells. We must not boast ourselves of their number, their depth, or the ease with which they keep to a certain level in spite of all drains upon them. Powerful nations, proud of their history and their achievements, need to remember this Divine interference. Men, looking back on a long course of individual success, need to remember the same. One can imagine a city in a time of siege, thoroughly provisioned, knowing exactly how much it had for food, and not troubling itself at all about drink, seeing that it had a deep well, the waters of which showed hardly any difference even in the driest summer. Yet all at once that well may fail, and, however large the other supplies, thirst will compel surrender. QoA dries up all wells that have been dug in covetousness and injustice.
IV. The implication of otheb bndueino besoukces. " With thee is the fountkin of life," says the psalmist (Ps. xxxvi. 9). We must look, not to the wells of our own digging, but to the springs from the everlasting hills. Especially we must catch the spirit of Ps. Ixxxvii. There the psalmist praises Zion, and finishes up by saying, " All my springs are in thee." Let our springs be in the holy and abiding mount of God (Heb. xii. 22).— Y.