IIL The unfaithfulness of the leaders brinos penalties and calamities upon the feoflb. The constitution of human society is such that one must needs suffer for another. As the sins of the prophets and the Iniquities of the priests had no small share in bringing about the ruin of Jerusalem, so a corrupt literature and a selfish clergy will bring any nation, however powerful, into misery and contempt. — T.
Ver. 17. — Vain help and hope. When Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans its inhabitants seem to have looked for assistance fron their Egyptian neighbours. This was a policy and an expectation displeasing to Jehovah, who ever taught his people to rely, not upon an arm of flesh, but upon the eternal King of righteousness. In verse the prophtt pictures the attitude of the Jews as day after day they strained their weary eyes to catch some glimpse of an approaching deliverer. How striking a piotnre of the folly and vanity of those hopes which man fixes upon his fellow-man 1
I. The distressed and harassed naturally have recourse to hitman aib. As the Jews looked now to Assyria and again to Egypt for allies and helpan, m the children of men have recourse to himan counsellors, philosophers, and savloan f
OH. n. 1—22.] THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH. 75
deliver tliem from the perplexities and sorrows and fears to which human nature is always subject.
II. It is pbovidbntiallt appointed that experience should convinok hbw oj THE vanity of alIj HUMAN HELP. When application after application fails to bring relief, when hope after hope is disappointed, then, and perhaps not until then, men learn how vain is the help of man, and perceive the wisdom of the advice, " Put not your trust in man, or in the son of man, in whom is no help."
III. God INTENDS BY SUCH DISCIPLINARY EXPERIENCE TO DRAW HIS PEOPLE TO HIM-
seiIjF. When the eyes are dim and weary with looking earthward for deliverance, then they may he lifted heavenward. And when the help of man is sincerely acknowledged to be vain, then the help of God is at hand. — T.
Ver. 18. — The end is come I The progress of the enemy's works, the approach of the enemy's forces, the frequency of the enemy's assaults, all tended to dishearten the citizens of the besieged Jerusalem. The prophet represents the discouraged and dis- mayed citizens as gazing with terror upon the assailants and their strategy, and exclaim- ing in despair, " Our end is come ! " The dealing and the discipline of God with the souls of the disobedient and rebellious .may well awaken the same conviction and elicit the same cry.
I. The end of cub own besouboes. It is sometimes only when men have tried what is in their power, have done their best to solve their spiritual difficulties and to make their way secure, that, convinced of their own insufBciency, they admit themselves to be altogether in the wrong.
n. The end of oub besistance to oub foes. Men strive to carry on the conflict in their own strength, and they strive in vain. " Wearied in the greatness of their way," convinced that tjiey are no match for the spiritual enemy, they may confess that, left to themselTes, they cannot conquer, they cannot withstand.
III. The end of all our hopes of deliverance. Those hopes may have buoyed up foi days and years ; but when they have issued only in disappointment how can the discouiaged do other than at last for ever abandon them ?
IV. The end of our rebellion against God. If this be the effect produced by long experience of the wretchedness and the futility of such hostility, there will be reason for gratitude. They who lay down the weapons of rebellion shall receive mercy and experience deliverance. — T.
Vers. 1, 2. — Fallen reputation. I. The weight of this reputation. The position of the people was comparable to gold in its glitter and attraction. Gold has its use and iron has its use, and we may be glad we have both ; but if one of these two had to be given up, it would certainly be the gold. Iron means immensely more in modern civilization than gold. But if frequency of mention is to count for anything, gold was much more valued among the Israelites than iron, and being so, it had a large place in the symbolisms of the tabernacle service and in the splendours of Solomon's temple. Hence any one with a high reputation might very well be compared to gold. People run after such a one even as they do after gold. There is a time when the crowd are not contented to speak well of a man ; they must praise him extravagantly, using the language of superlatives, and showing that their standard, if standard it can truly be called, is far from an ideal one.
II. The oharactek of the beputation. Had Israel ever been worthy of this com- parison with fine gold ? On what was the comparison based ? It is to he feared that it rested very much on mere appearance. Kemember the saying, "All that glitters is not gold." Jehovah had made Israel to glitter by taking it out from among the nations and making it the object of great demonstrations of his power. But, so to speak, this was only gilding over the impure and incoherent mass of common humanity with a coating of pure gold for a certain purpose. The men and women who made up Israel were at heart like men and women elsewhere. But by giving them a certain outward splen- dour God furnished a symbol of that true gulden nation which is made up from individual believers in him.
III. The destruction of the reputation. The gold becomes dim. The com- parison was once to gold out of which vessels for honour are made, beautifully shaped
76 THK LAMENTATION? OF JEREMIAH. [ch. rv. 1— 22
and decorated. But now the comparison is to the common clay out of which the pottei makes his cheap and fragile ware. And yet, after all, if gold be a standard of precious- ness, these sons of Zion were indeed comparable to it ; only the gold is in the unpurified state, mixed very intimately with baser elements that talce away the use and glory of the gold. Man in his best natural state may have his reputation liftei! too high ; in his worst natural state that reputation may sink too low ; but when God takes the natural man in hand and renews, purifies, and disciplines him, then it will be seen that the most splendid and pleasing of visible objects is only a feeble hint of that glory wherewith God has chosen to glorify his own children. — Y.