Yer. 14. — 77ie occupation of the elders gone. L The plage of old men in a COMMUNITY. As men grow old they may get past certain kinds of work, but they need not cease to be useful, nor need age become, unless from bodily frailty, a burden and a wearinesa. There is much for an old man to tell from the stores of his exp'rience and observation. He may show what ought to be avoided, even if he cannot always tell what ought to be done. The elders sat in the gate, where the throng passed in and out, aiid where tliey could see more people probably than anywhere else. An old man should endeavour to be useful and to mingle with the life of the world as long as he can. It is right that he should be in the way of all the respect and veneration he can receive, not because these things are necessary to his happiness, but because those who give them are the better for their giving. A society without its troops of children at one end, full of life and eagerness, and its sprinkling of hoary heads crowned with glory at the other, would soon feel that very important elements were lacking. Elders sitting in the gate bore testimony to a certain stability and continuity in the social life of Jerusalem.
II. The PEonLiAB aspect op the calamity fubnished by the fact that the old MEN HAVE F0B8AKEN THE GATE. There is no longer anything to take them to the gate. Where of old they had many pleasures, now they will have nothing but pain. The place of honour would onlj' become a place of insult, and in all likelihood only too many of these elders had been advisers of the wrong sort, men with a serene and firmly rooted confidence in their own opinion. To the warnings of a prophet old men can often reply that such things have been said over and over again without coming true ; and then, when all at once the threatening takes effect, what can they do but retire into as much obscurity as possible ? These same old men, many of them, must have had much to do with the state of affairs that made all these calamities a Divine necessity.— T.
Ver. 16.— Discrowned Jerusalem. I. The past honour op Jerusalem. The crown has fallen from the head ; a crown, therefore, has been upon the head. The lament is not over something striven for and not attained, but over something, as it seems, securely possessed and now irretrievably lost. Notice how Ezekiel is instructed to put the matter (xvi. 12). In making Jerusalem to know her abominations there is a contrast with former privileges. Jehovah says, "I put a beautiful crown upon thine head . . . and thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty." Unques- tionably Jerusalem and the land of which she was the radiant centre shone forth gloriously among the Gentiles. The great example of this is that queen of the south who came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. God for his own purposes, inscrutable, and yet, as we must believe, beneficent, constituted it so that Jerusalem was like a fair woman crowned with a crown of pure gold. Other cities had their strength, glory, peculiarities, but Jerusalem was uniquely glorious. And so human individuals may have most attractive natural endowments. There may be physical beauty, or genius, or some ineffable charm of character, or great intellectual capacity, something that lifts man or woman above the common crowd, and thus puts upon them a bright and manifest natural crown. The same great secret power that glorified Israel glorifies men still, not for what they do, nor for any claim they have, but that in their glory they may stimulate and inspire others, and multiply the happiness of every life coming within their sway. It was for the sake of the nations that Jehovah glorified Jernsalem and made her beautiful.
XL Hbb present humiliation. The crown has fallen from the head, but the mark of paet and lost regality remains. It cannot be obliterated. The higher a nation climbs, the further it can fall and the more terrible becomes the spectacle of its fall, It neaded all the slow and majestic ascent of Rome to greatness to make Gibbon's great book possible. Thus, looking from such a height, he had pathetic struggles and contrasts to depict, which would else have been impossible. So, also, we contemplate
OH. ▼.1—22.] THE LAMENTATIONS Oe JEBiailAH. 9i
the aberrations and miseries, the cynicism and misanthropy coming out in the Utcs oi geniuses who have missed their way, men of richest endowments who, from the depths of self-indulgence and debauchery, mitsht well cry, " The crown is fallen from my head." And so we see that the great crown to be desired is, not that which comes througl natural differences or differences in social position, but that which comes through the divinely inspired quality of one's living. "The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness" (FhiL iv. 1; 2 Tim. It. 8: Jas. L 12: 1 Pel. V. 4).— y.
Ver. 17. — The faint heart and the dim et/e$, I. The PENETBATiKa ekfeot of the Divine oha8tisembnt8. Jerusalem had been satisfied with outward things. Wherever it turned, there had been enough to satisfy its pride and its pleasure. And now Jehovah, by efiScient agents, had taken these outward things away. The difference that had been made in Jerusalem was perceptible to any eye. But another difference could only be known when it was confessed, namely, the difference made in the hearts of the people when their outward circumstances were so completely changed. Proud, resolute men, full of joy in their selfish purposes, found the interest of life completely goneu It would have availed nothing if all these chastisements had ended in leaving the people real Stoics, able to say that it was all the same whether tiiey kept their temporal possessions or lost them. God did not desolate Jerusalem for any delight that he took in this ; it was to find away to humble hearts that were unsubdued after every prophetic appeal. When men are delightedly occupied with the things of sense, then it is a great end gained i^ through losses and changes, their hearts become f^nt and their eyes dim. For then they may accept the ministry of Christ to put into their hearts an energy which will tend for righteousness and direct their eyes to look on the world in tke ri^ht way.
IL The cause hgbe bpeouult hentioneo. The hill of Zion has become a desola- tes ; it has become again a mere height in the wilderness, such as doubtless it had been at some time before in the immemorial past. That Zion is here specified seems to point te tke sorrow and despair caused by the overthrow of religious ordinances. The vety fact that Jehovah had allowed the place devoted to him to become thus desolated made his displeasure with the people to become a much more vivid thing. It seemed as if he needed no more a habitation in their midst.— Y.