Ver. 60. — A timely recollection amd iti pracHeal effect. Jehovah is making his severest judgments to fall on Babylon. How severe they are is indicated by the fact that two long chapters are occupied with denunciations upon her. But all the time Israel is in her midst. Israelites are domiciled and settled down. How far they lived by themselves and how far they mingled with their captors we cannot tell. One thing, however, we are sure of, that in the midst of so much destruction to Babylon they, or at least the bulk of them, were preserved. It must have been a very discom- posing time for them, even though they had tolerable confidence that all would turn out right. There may be real safety where as yet there is not clear perception of it, and therefore no possibility of untroubled peace. But at last the danger is over, and what will the Israelite do then? He may elect, for reasons personal to himself, to stay in Babylon. He may be tempted to forget his duty as a part in a greater whole. Not for himself, however, not to further any aims of his own, was he thus preserved. He has escaped the sword only that he may the better serve Gud. Present ease, pleasant associations, may rise attractively in his mind. Not, of course, that these could be found in desolated Babylon, but they might surely be found somewhere else than in Jerusalem so far away. Against natural thoughts of this kind the prophet's word comes in here as a guard. It is a word for those Israelites living in Babylon at the time of Babylon's downfall. The things near to them, which their eyes see and their hands handle, are the least important. The really important considerations are those which may most easily be forgotten. Thus, so to speak, they must be pushed before the mind. Every right- hearted Israelite would keep the God and the city of his fathers in his heart. And so we should keep Jehovah and Jerusalem in mind. The greatest duties and hopes of our Ufe come from our connection with such recollections. — Y.
Ver. 60. — EvU written in a book. L The fact that evil n wbitten as well AS SPOKEN. The evils that Jehovah denounced against Babylon were such as could be written in a book, because the denunciations were not those of selfish and hasty passion, but expressed the calm wrath of a righteous God. The judgment on Babylon ai-ose from the necessity of the position. A righteous God could not have acted otherwise. What a difference between his words in anger and our words 1 If all our angry, hasty, petulant words were perforce written in a book, what a record of shame there would be 1 Such a consequence of their utterance might make us a little more cautious, but still the words would come at times. If we are to understand what it is to be really angry and sin not, we must look at the deliberate records of Jehovah's wrath in the Scriptures. We are glad that our angry words should be forgotten ; God, so to speak, takes trouble that his words should be remembered.
IL The necessity that these wobos should be wbitten. It ii not er.ough'
312 THE BOOK OP THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, [oh. ui. 1—34
that tl.e words might be written— there had to be a reason for the writing. This ia found in the necessity for doing all that could be done by way of warning and prepara- tion. What was written could be shown first to one and then another. There was a necessity that even people of Babylon themselves should have ample opportunity to profit by the words spoken against their city. A necessity too in history. The fall of Babylon is a remarkable event in history, altogether outside of Scripture records, but the real secret of its fall is only to be known when we read such solemn and sustained predictions as are found in these two chapters.
III. God's denunciations abe not his only written words. God has to write down his threatenings, but we are bound to remember that they are only a part — anrl how small a part they are ! — of the total that he has caused to be written. How different he is in this respect from men ! Their threatenings and angry words would sometimes fill a goodly volume, but their words of kindness and long-suffering, oh, how few are they I God's delight is to cause words of grace and promises of reward to bu written. — ^Y.
Vers. 63, 64. — A symbol of irretrievable loss. It was fitting that the exhibition and record of a symbol such as this should close the long denunciation of Babylon, Where God determines to destroy no man can either avert or recover. This stone, perhaps, stil' lies at the bottom of Euphrates, and possibly even there may be something to signify the book once attached to it. We know not what relics of Old Testament times might yet be disentombed, what confirmations and revelations are still in actual existence.
L God's power of utter destruction, 'i'he impassibility of discovering this stone has to be considered relatively. Strictly speaking, it might perhaps have been recovered if it had been worth while. But for all practical purposes it was finally lost. Here is the difference between human destructions and the Divine destruction. Babylon is a wilderness stilL Where God has chosen to make special marks of his wrath with the unrighteousness of men there rests a blight which no human effort can overcome ; and generally speaking there is no disposition to overcome it. But where destruction comes simply through human passion and power there may be comparatively speedy recovery. This is a side of war on which we do well to reflect. Wars, with all their terrible accompaniments, may do something to get rid of some evils, and may thus be the condition of great good. Man cannot destroy where God wills to preserve. But where God destroys he destroys finally, and it is just this dreadful possibility of final ruin that should make men cautious in their estimate of the future, and prompt to turn from all evil and selfish paths.
IL The oheerino bide of God's utteb DESTBUonoirs. With QoA destruction always means salvation. Destruction is never for its own sake, never an arbitrary, aimless thing. All Divine destruction must be looked on as part of the process of salvation. Nations are scattered, human institutions overthrown, the temporal life of individuals ended, but the individual man in his abiding relations to God remains. This stone lost in one sense was not lost in another. Nay, it was serving a higher purpose than any it could have served simply as a stono. It became a teacher, and it is a teacher still. Abel, being dead, yet sptakoth. And this stone from the bottom of Euphrates speaks still, warning all ambitious men aud all neglectera of the command- ments and predictions of Jehovah. — Y.
EXPOSITION. CHAPTER LIL