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<p>The garment . . . that the . . . leprosy is in--It is well known that infectious diseases, such as scarlet fever, measles, the plague, are latently imbibed and carried by the clothes. But the language of this passage clearly indicates a disease to which clothes themselves were subject, and which was followed by effects on them analogous to those which malignant leprosy produces on the human body--for similar regulations were made for the rigid inspection of suspected garments by a priest as for the examination of a leprous person. It has long been conjectured and recently ascertained by the use of a lens, that the leprous condition of swine is produced by myriads of minute insects engendered in their skin; and regarding all leprosy as of the same nature, it is thought that this affords a sufficient reason for the injunction in the Mosaic law to destroy the clothes in which the disease, after careful observation, seemed to manifest itself. Clothes are sometimes seen contaminated by this disease in the West Indies and the southern parts of America [WHITLAW, Code of Health]; and it may be presumed that, as the Hebrews were living in the desert where they had not the convenience of frequent changes and washing, the clothes they wore and the skin mats on which they lay, would be apt to breed infectious vermin, which, being settled in the stuff, would imperceptibly gnaw it and leave stains similar to those described by Moses. It is well known that the wool of sheep dying of disease, if it had not been shorn from the animal while living, and also skins, if not thoroughly prepared by scouring, are liable to the effects described in this passage. The stains are described as of a greenish or reddish color, according, perhaps, to the color or nature of the ingredients used in preparing them; for acids convert blue vegetable colors into red and alkalis change then into green [BROWN]. It appears, then, that the leprosy, though sometimes inflicted as a miraculous judgment (Num 12:10; Kg2 5:27) was a natural disease, which is known in Eastern countries still; while the rules prescribed by the Hebrew legislator for distinguishing the true character and varieties of the disease and which are far superior to the method of treatment now followed in those regions, show the divine wisdom by which he was guided. Doubtless the origin of the disease is owing to some latent causes in nature; and perhaps a more extended acquaintance with the archÃ&amp;brvbrology of Egypt and the natural history of the adjacent countries, may confirm the opinion that leprosy results from noxious insects or a putrid fermentation. But whatever the origin or cause of the disease, the laws enacted by divine authority regarding it, while they pointed in the first instance to sanitary ends, were at the same time intended, by stimulating to carefulness against ceremonial defilement, to foster a spirit of religious fear and inward purity.




Next: Leviticus Chapter 14</p>

<p>Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind--This prohibition was probably intended to discourage a practice which seemed to infringe upon the economy which God has established in the animal kingdom.

thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed--This also was directed against an idolatrous practice, namely, that of the ancient Zabians, or fire-worshippers, who sowed different seeds, accompanying the act with magical rites and invocations; and commentators have generally thought the design of this and the preceding law was to put an end to the unnatural lusts and foolish superstitions which were prevalent among the heathen. But the reason of the prohibition was probably deeper: for those who have studied the diseases of land and vegetables tell us, that the practice of mingling seeds is injurious both to flowers and to grains. &quot;If the various genera of the natural order GramineÃ&amp;brvbr, which includes the grains and the grasses, should be sown in the same field, and flower at the same time, so that the pollen of the two flowers mix, a spurious seed will be the consequence, called by the farmers chess. It is always inferior and unlike either of the two grains that produced it, in size, flavor, and nutritious principles. Independently of contributing to disease the soil, they never fail to produce the same in animals and men that feed on them&quot; [WHITLAW].

neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee--Although this precept, like the other two with which it is associated, was in all probability designed to root out some superstition, it seems to have had a further meaning. The law, it is to be observed, did not prohibit the Israelites wearing many different kinds of cloths together, but only the two specified; and the observations and researches of modern science have proved that &quot;wool, when combined with linen, increases its power of passing off the electricity from the body. In hot climates, it brings on malignant fevers and exhausts the strength; and when passing off from the body, it meets with the heated air, inflames and excoriates like a blister&quot; [WHITLAW]. (See Eze 44:17-18).</p>

<p>After God had set the blessing before them (the life and good which would make them a happy people if they would be obedient), he here sets the curse before them, the death and evil which would make them as miserable if they were disobedient. Let them not think themselves so deeply rooted as that God&#039;s power could not ruin them, nor so highly favoured as that his justice would not ruin them if they revolted from him and rebelled against him; no You only have I known, therefore I will punish you soonest and sorest. Amo 3:2. Observe,
I. How their sin is described, which would bring all this misery upon them. Not sins of ignorance and infirmity; God had provided sacrifices for those. Not the sins they repented of and forsook; but the sins that were presumptuously committed, and obstinately persisted in. Two things would certainly bring this ruin upon them: -
1. A contempt of God&#039;s commandments (Lev 26:14): &quot;If you will not hearken to me speaking to you by the law, nor do all these commandments, that is, desire and endeavour to do them, and, wherein you miss it, make use of the prescribed remedies.&quot; Thus their sin is supposed to begin in mere carelessness, and neglect, and omission. These are bad enough, but they make way for worse; for the people are brought in (Lev 26:15) as, (1.) Despising God&#039;s statutes, both the duties enjoined and the authority enjoining them, thinking meanly of the law and the Law-maker. Note, Those are hastening apace to their own ruin who begin to think it below them to be religious. (2.) Abhorring his judgments, their very souls abhorring them. Note, Those that begin to despise religion will come by degrees to loathe it; and mean thoughts of it will ripen into ill thoughts of it; those that turn from it will turn against it, and their hearts will rise at it. (3.) Breaking his covenant. Though every breach of the commandment does not amount to a breach of the covenant (we were undone if it did), yet, when men have come to such a pitch of impiety as to despise and abhor the commandment, the next step will be to disown God, and all relation to him. Those that reject the precept will come at last to renounce the covenant. Observe, It is God&#039;s covenant which they break: he made it, but they break it. Note, If a covenant be made and kept between God and man, God must have all the honour; but, if ever it be broken, man must bear all the blame: on him shall this breach be.
2. A contempt of his corrections. Even their disobedience would not have been their destruction if they had not been obstinate and impenitent in it, notwithstanding the methods God took to reclaim them. Their contempt of God&#039;s word would not have brought them to ruin, if they had not added to that a contempt of his rod, which should have brought them to repentance. Three ways this is expressed: - (1.) &quot;If you will not for all this hearken to me, Lev 26:18, Lev 26:21, Lev 26:27. If you will not learn obedience by the things which you suffer, but be as deaf to the loud alarms of God&#039;s judgments as you have been to the close reasonings of his word and the secret whispers of your own consciences, you are obstinate indeed.&quot; (2.) &quot;If you walk contrary to me, Lev 26:21, Lev 26:23, Lev 26:27. All sinners walk contrary to God, to his truths, laws, and counsels; but those especially that are incorrigible under his judgments. The design of the rod is to humble them, and soften them, and bring them to repentance; but, instead of this, their hearts are more hardened and exasperated against God, and in their distress they trespass yet more against him, Ch2 28:22. This is walking contrary to God. Some read it, &quot;If you walk at all adventures with me, carelessly and presumptuously, as if you heeded not either what you do, whether it be right or wrong, or what God does with you, whether it be for you or against you, blundering on in wilful ignorance.&quot; (3.) If you will not be reformed by these things. God&#039;s design in punishing is to reform, by giving men sensible convictions of the evil of sin, and obliging them to seek unto him for relief: this is the primary intention; but those that will not be reformed by the judgments of God must expect to be ruined by them. Those have a great deal to answer for that have been long and often under God&#039;s correcting hand, and yet go on frowardly in a sinful way; sick and in pain, and yet not reformed; crossed and impoverished, and yet not reformed; broken with breach upon breach, yet not returning to the Lord, Amo 4:6, etc.
II. How the misery is described which their sin would bring upon them, under two heads: -
1. God himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery. (1.) I will set my face against you (Lev 26:17), that is, &quot;I will set myself against you, set myself to ruin you.&quot; These proud sinners God will resist, and face those down that confront his authority. Or the face is put for the anger: &quot;I will show myself highly displeased at you.&quot; (2.) I will walk contrary to you (Lev 26:24, Lev 26:28); with the forward he will wrestle, Psa 18:26 [margin]. When God in his providence thwarts the designs of a people, which they thought well laid, crosses their purposes, breaks their measures, blasts their endeavours, and disappoints their expectations, then he walks contrary to them. Note, There is nothing got by striving with God Almighty, for he will break either the heart or the neck of those that contend with him, will bring them either to repentance or ruin. &quot;I will walk at all adventures with you,&quot; so some read; &quot;all covenant loving-kindness shall be forgotten, and I will leave you to common providence.&quot; Note, Those that cast off God deserve that he should cast them off. (3.) As they continued obstinate, the judgments should increase yet more upon them. If the first sensible tokens of God&#039;s displeasures do not attain their end, to humble and reform them, then (Lev 26:18), I will punish you seven times more, and again (Lev 26:21), I will bring seven times more plagues, and (Lev 26:24), I will punish you yet seven times, and (Lev 26:28), I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. Note, If less judgments do not do their work, God will send greater; for, when he judges, he will overcome. If true repentance do not stay process, it will go on till execution be taken out. Those that are obstinate and incorrigible, when they have weathered one storm must expect another more violent; and, how severely soever they are punished, till they are in hell they must still say, &quot;There is worse behind,&quot; unless they repent. If the founder have hitherto melted in vain (Jer 6:29), the furnace will be heated seven times hotter (a proverbial expression, used Dan 3:19), and again and again seven times hotter; and who among us can dwell with such devouring fire? God does not begin with the sorest judgments, to show that he is patient, and delights not in the death of sinners; but, if they repent not, he will proceed to the sorest, to show that he is righteous, and that he will not be mocked or set at defiance. (4.) Their misery is completed in that threatening: My soul shall abhor you, Lev 26:30. That man is as miserable as he can be whom God abhors; for his resentments are just and effective. Thus if any man draw back, as these are supposed to do, God&#039;s soul shall have no pleasure in him (Heb 10:38), and he will spue them out of his mouth, Rev 3:16. It is spoken of as strange, and yet too true, Hath thy soul loathed Zion? Jer 14:19.
2. The whole creation would be at war with them. All God&#039;s sore judgments would be sent against them; for he hath many arrows in his quiver. The threatenings here are very particular, because really they were prophecies, and he that foresaw all their rebellions knew they would prove so; see Deu 31:16, Deu 31:29. This long roll of threatening shows that evil pursues sinners. We have here,
(1.) Temporal judgments threatened. [1.] Diseases of body, which should be epidemical: I will appoint over you, as task-masters, to rule you with rigour, terror, consumption, and the burning ague, Lev 26:16. What we translate terror, some think, signifies a particular disease, probably (says the learned bishop Patrick) the falling sickness, which is terror indeed: all chronical diseases are included in the consumption, and all acute diseases in the burning ague or fever. These consume the eyes, and cause sorrow both to those that are visited with them and to their friends and relations. Note, All diseases are God&#039;s servants; they do what he appoints them, and are often used as scourges wherewith he chastises a provoking people. The pestilence is threatened (Lev 26:25) to meet them, when they are gathered together in their cities for fear of the sword. The greater the concourse of people is, the greater desolation does the pestilence make; and, when it gets among the soldiers that should defend a place, it is of most fatal consequence. [2.] Famine and scarcity of bread, which should be brought upon them several ways; as, First, By plunder (Lev 26:16): Your enemies shall eat it up, and carry it off as the Midianites did, Jdg 6:5, Jdg 6:6. Secondly, By unseasonable weather, especially the want of rain (Lev 26:19): I will make your heaven as iron, letting fall no rain, but reflecting heat, and then the earth would of course be as dry and hard as brass, and their labour in ploughing and sowing would be in vain (Lev 26:20); for the increase of the earth depends upon God&#039;s good providence more than upon man&#039;s good husbandry. This should be the breaking of the staff of bread (Lev 26:26), which life leans upon, and is supported by, on which perhaps they had leaned more than upon God&#039;s blessing. There should be so great a dearth of corn that, whereas every family used to fill an oven of their own with household bread, now ten families should have to fill but one over, which would bring themselves and their children and servants to short allowance, so that they should eat and not be satisfied. The less they had the more craving should their appetites be. Thirdly, By the besieging of their cities, which would reduce them to such an extremity that they should eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, Lev 26:29. [3.] War, and the prevailing of their enemies over them: &quot;You shall be slain before your enemies, Lev 26:17. Your choice men shall die in battle, and those that hate you shall reign over you, and justly, since you are not willing that the God that loved you should reign over you;&quot; Ch2 12:8. Miserable is that people whose enemies are their rulers and have got dominion over them, or whose rulers have become their enemies and under-hand seek the ruin of their interests. Thus God would break the pride of their power, Lev 26:19. God had given them power over the nations; but when they, instead of being thankful for that power, and improving it for the service of God&#039;s kingdom, grew proud of it, and perverted the intentions of it, it was just with God to break it. Thus God would bring a sword upon them to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, Lev 26:25. Note, God has a just quarrel with those that break covenant with him, for he will not be mocked by the treachery of perfidious men; and one way or other he will avenge this quarrel upon those that play at fast and loose with him. [4.] Wild beasts, lions, bears, and wolves, which should increase upon them, and tear in pieces all that come in their way (Lev 26:22), as we read of two bears that in an instant killed forty-two children, Kg2 2:24. This is one of the four sore judgments threatened Eze 14:21, which plainly refers to this chapter. Man was made to have dominion over the creatures, and, though many of them are stronger than he, yet none of them could have hurt him, nay, all of them would have served him, if he had not first shaken off God&#039;s dominion, and so lost his own; and now the creatures are in rebellion against him that is in rebellion against his Maker, and, when the Lord of those hosts pleases, they are the executioners of his wrath and the ministers of his justice. [5.] Captivity, or dispersion: I will scatter you among the heathen (Lev 26:33), in your enemies&#039; land, Lev 26:34. Never were any people so incorporated and united among themselves as they were; but for their sin God would scatter them, so that they should be lost among the heathen, from whom God had graciously distinguished them, but with whom they had wickedly mingled themselves. Yet, when they were scattered, divine justice had not done with them, but would draw out a sword after them, which would find them out, and follow them wherever they were. God&#039;s judgments, as they cannot be outfaced, so they cannot be outrun. [6.] The utter ruin and desolation of their land, which should be so remarkable that their very enemies themselves, who ha helped it forward, should in the review be astonished at it, Lev 26:32. First, Their cities should be waste, forsaken, uninhabited, and all the buildings destroyed; those that escaped the desolations of war should fall to decay of themselves. Secondly, Their sanctuaries should be a desolation, that is, their synagogues where they met for religious worship every sabbath, as well as their tabernacle where they met thrice a year. Thirdly, The country itself should be desolate, not tilled or husbanded (Lev 26:34, Lev 26:35); then the land should enjoy its sabbaths, because they had not religiously observed the sabbatical years which God appointed them. They tilled their ground when God would have them let it rest; justly therefore were they driven out of it; and the expression intimates that the ground itself was pleased and easy when it was rid of the burden of such sinners, under which it had groaned, Rom 8:20, etc. The captivity in Babylon lasted seventy years, and so long the land enjoyed her sabbaths, as is said (Ch2 36:21) with reference to this. [7.] The destruction of their idols, though rather a mercy than a judgment, yet, being a necessary piece of justice, is here mentioned, to show what would be the sin that would bring all these miseries upon them: I will destroy your high places, Lev 26:30. Those that will not be parted from their sins by the commands of God shall be parted from them by his judgments; since they would not destroy their high places, God would. And, to upbraid them with the unreasonable fondness they had shown for their idols, it is foretold that their carcases should be cast upon the carcases of their idols. Those that are wedded to their lusts will sooner or later have enough of them. Their idols would not be able to help either themselves or their worshippers; but, those that made them being like them, they should both perish alike, and fall together as blind into the ditch.
(2.) Spiritual judgments are here threatened. These should seize the mind; for he that made the mind can, when he pleases, make his sword approach to it. It is here threatened, [1.] That they should find no acceptance with God: I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours, Lev 26:31. Though the judgments of God upon them did not separate them and their sins, yet they extorted incense from them; but in vain - even their incense was an abomination, Isa 1:13. [2.] That they should have no courage in their wars, but should be quite dispirited and disheartened. They should not only fear and flee (Lev 26:17), but fear and fall, when none pursued, Lev 26:36. A guilty conscience would be their continual terror, so that not only the sound of a trumpet, but the very sound of a leaf, should chase them. Note, Those that cast off the fear of God expose themselves to the fear of every thing else, Pro 28:1. Their very fears should dash them one against another, Lev 26:37, Lev 26:38. And those that had increased one another&#039;s guilt would now increase one another&#039;s fears. [3.] That they should have no hope of the forgiveness of their sins (Lev 26:39): They shall pine away in their iniquity, and how should they then live? Eze 33:10. Note, It is a righteous thing with God to leave those to despair of pardon that have presumed to sin; and it is owing to free grace if we are not abandoned to pine away in the iniquity we were born in and have lived in.</p>

<p>Here is, I. The fatigue of Israel by a long march round the land of Edom, because they could not obtain passage through it the nearest way: The soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way, Num 21:4. Perhaps the way was rough and uneven, or foul and dirty; or it fretted them to go far about, and that they were not permitted to force their passage through the Edomites&#039; country. Those that are of a fretful discontented spirit will always find something or other to make them uneasy.
II. Their unbelief and murmuring upon this occasion, Num 21:5. Though they had just now obtained a glorious victory over the Canaanites, and were going on conquering and to conquer, yet they speak very discontentedly of what God had done for them and distrustfully of what he would do, vexed that they were brought out of Egypt, that they had not bread and water as other people had by their own care and industry, but by miracle, they knew not how. They have bread enough and to spare; and yet they complain there is no bread, because, though they eat angels&#039; food, yet they are weary of it; manna itself is loathed, and called light bread, fit for children, not for men and soldiers. What will those be pleased with whom manna will not please? Those that are disposed to quarrel will find fault where there is no fault to be found. Thus those who have long enjoyed the means of grace are apt to surfeit even on the heavenly manna, and to call it light bread. But let not the contempt which some cast upon the word of God cause us to value it the less: it is the bread of life, substantial bread, and will nourish those who by faith feed upon it to eternal life, whoever calls it light bread.
III. The righteous judgment which God brought upon them for their murmuring, Num 21:6. He sent fiery serpents among them, which bit or stung many of them to death. The wilderness through which they had passed was all along infested with those fiery serpents, as appears, Deu 8:15. but hitherto God had wonderfully preserved his people from receiving hurt by them, till now that they murmured, to chastise them for which these animals, which hitherto had shunned their camp, now invade it. Justly are those made to feel God&#039;s judgments that are not thankful for his mercies. These serpents are called fiery, from their colour, or from their rage, or from the effects of their bitings, inflaming the body, putting it immediately into a high fever, scorching it with an insatiable thirst. They had unjustly complained for want of water (Num 21:5), to chastise them for which God sends upon them this thirst, which no water would quench. Those that cry without cause have justly cause given them to cry out. They distrustfully concluded that they must die in the wilderness, and God took them at their word, chose their delusions, and brought their unbelieving fears upon them; many of them did die. They had impudently flown in the face of God himself, and the poison of asps was under their lips, and now these fiery serpents (which, it should seem, were flying serpents, Isa 14:29) flew in their faces and poisoned them. They in their pride had lifted themselves up against God and Moses, and now God humbled and mortified them, by making these despicable animals a plague to them. That artillery is now turned against them which had formerly been made use of in their defence against the Egyptians. He that brought quails to feast them let them know that he could bring serpents to bite them; the whole creation is at war with those that are in arms against God.
IV. Their repentance and supplication to God under this judgment, Num 21:7. They confess their fault: We have sinned. They are particular in their confession: We have spoken against the Lord, and against thee. It is to be feared that they would not have owned the sin if they had not felt the smart; but they relent under the rod; when he slew them, then they sought him. They beg the prayers of Moses for them, as conscious to themselves of their own unworthiness to be heard, and convinced of the great interest which Moses had in heaven. How soon is their tone altered! Those who had just before quarrelled with him as their worst enemy now make their court to him as their best friend, and choose him for their advocate with God. Afflictions often change men&#039;s sentiments concerning God&#039;s people, and teach them to value those prayers which, at a former period, they had scorned. Moses, to show that he had heartily forgiven them, blesses those who had cursed him, and prays for those who had despitefully used him Herein he was a type of Christ, who interceded for his persecutors, and a pattern to us to go and do likewise, and thus to show that we love our enemies.
V. The wonderful provision which God made for their relief. He did not employ Moses in summoning the judgment, but, that he might recommend him to the good affection of the people, he made him instrumental in their relief, Num 21:8, Num 21:9. God ordered Moses to make the representation of a fiery serpent, which he did, in brass, and set it up on a very long pole, so that it might be seen from all parts of the camp, and every one that was stung with a fiery serpent was healed by looking up to this serpent of brass. The people prayed that God would take away the serpents from them (Num 21:7), but God saw fit not to do this: for he gives effectual relief in the best way, though not in our way. Thus those who did not die for their murmuring were yet made to smart for it, that they might the more feelingly repent and humble themselves for it; they were likewise made to receive their cure from God, by the hand of Moses, that they might be taught, if possible, never again to speak against God and Moses. This method of cure was altogether miraculous, and the more wonderful if what some naturalists say be true, that looking upon bright and burnished brass is hurtful to those that are stung with fiery serpents. God can bring about his purposes by contrary means. The Jews themselves say that it was not the sight of the brazen serpent that cured them, but, in looking up to it, they looked up to God as the Lord that healed them. But there was much of gospel in this appointment. Our Saviour has told us so (Joh 3:14, Joh 3:15), that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so the Son of man must be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. Observe then a resemblance,
1. Between their disease and ours. The devil is the old serpent, a fiery serpent, hence he appears (Rev 12:3) as a great red dragon. Sin is the biting of this fiery serpent; it is painful to the startled conscience, and poisonous to the seared conscience. Satan&#039;s temptations are called his fiery darts, Eph 6:16. Lust and passion inflame the soul, so do the terrors of the Almighty, when they set themselves in array. At the last, sin bites like a serpent and stings like an adder; and even its sweets are turned into the gall of asps.
2. Between their remedy and ours. (1.) It was God himself that devised and prescribed this antidote against the fiery serpents; so our salvation by Christ was the contrivance of Infinite Wisdom; God himself has found the ransom. (2.) It was a very unlikely method of cure; so our salvation by the death of Christ is to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness. It was Moses that lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, and Moses wrote of him, Joh 3:14-16. Christ was lifted up by the rulers of the Jews, who were the successors of Moses. (3.) That which cured was shaped in the likeness of that which wounded. So Christ, though perfectly free from sin himself, yet was made in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3), so like that it was taken for granted that this man was a sinner, Joh 9:24. (4.) The brazen serpent was lifted up; so was Christ. He was lifted up upon the cross (Joh 12:33, Joh 12:34), for his was made a spectacle to the world. He was lifted up by the preaching of the gospel. The word here used for a pole signifies a banner, or ensign, for Christ crucified stands for an ensign of the people, Isa 11:10. Some make the lifting up of the serpent to be a figure of Christ&#039;s triumphing over Satan, the old serpent, whose head he bruised, when in his cross he made an open show of the principalities and powers which he had spoiled and destroyed, Col 2:15.
3. Between the application of their remedy and ours. They looked and lived, and we, if we believe, shall not perish; it is by faith that we look unto Jesus, Heb 12:2. Look unto me, and be you saved, Isa 45:22. We must be sensible of our wound and of our danger by it, receive the record which God has given concerning his Son, and rely upon the assurance he has given us that we shall be healed and saved by him if we resign ourselves to his direction. The brazen serpent&#039;s being lifted up would not cure if it was not looked upon. If any pored on their wound, and would not look up to the brazen serpent, they inevitably died. If they slighted this method of cure, and had recourse to natural medicines, and trusted to them, they justly perished; so if sinners either despise Christ&#039;s righteousness or despair of benefit by it their wound will, without doubt, be fatal. But whoever looked up to this healing sign, though from the outmost part of the camp, though with a weak and weeping eye, was certainly healed; so whosoever believes in Christ, though as yet but weak in faith, shall not perish. There are weak brethren for whom Christ died. Perhaps for some time after the serpent was set up the camp of Israel was molested by the fiery serpents; and it is the probable conjecture of some that they carried this brazen serpent along with them through the rest of their journey, and set it up wherever they encamped, and, when they settled in Canaan, fixed it somewhere within the borders of the land; for it is not likely that the children of Israel went so far off as this was into the wilderness to burn incense to it, as we find they did, Kg2 18:4. Even those that are delivered from the eternal death which is the wages of sin must expect to feel the pain and smart of it as long as they are here in this world; but, if it be not our own fault, we may have the brazen serpent to accompany us, to be still looked up to upon all occasions, by bearing about with us continually the dying of the Lord Jesus.</p>

<p>Having viewed the bright side of the cloud, which is towards the obedient, we have now presented to us the dark side, which is towards the disobedient. If we do not keep God&#039;s commandments, we not only come short of the blessing promised, but we lay ourselves under the curse, which is as comprehensive of all misery as the blessing is of all happiness. Observe,
I. The equity of this curse. It is not a curse causeless, nor for some light cause; God seeks not occasion against us, nor is he apt to quarrel with us. That which is here mentioned as bringing the curse is, 1. Despising God, refusing to hearken to his voice (Deu 28:15), which bespeaks the highest contempt imaginable, as if what he said were not worth the heeding, or we were not under any obligation to him. 2. Disobeying him, not doing his commandments, or not observing to do them. None fall under his curse but those that rebel against his command. 3. Deserting him. &quot;It is because of the wickedness of thy doings, not only whereby thou hast slighted me, but whereby thou hast forsaken me,&quot; Deu 28:20. God never casts us off till we first cast him off. It intimates that their idolatry, by which they forsook the true God for false gods, would be their destroying sin more than any other.
II. The extent and efficacy of this curse.
1. In general, it is declared, &quot;All these curses shall come upon thee from above, and shall overtake thee; though thou endeavour to escape them, it is to no purpose to attempt it, they shall follow thee whithersoever thou goest, and seize thee, overtake thee, and overcome thee,&quot; Deu 28:15. It is said of the sinner, when God&#039;s wrath is in pursuit of him, that he would fain flee out of his hand (Job 27:22), but he cannot; if he flee from the iron weapon, yet the bow of steel shall reach him and strike him through. There is no running from God but by running to him, no fleeing from his justice but by fleeing to his mercy. See Psa 21:7, Psa 21:8. (1.) Wherever the sinner goes, the curse of God follows him; wherever he is, it rests upon him. He is cursed in the city and in the field, Deu 28:16. The strength of the city cannot shelter him from it, the pleasant air of the country is no fence against these pestilential steams. He is cursed (Deu 28:19) when he comes in, for the curse is upon the house of the wicked (Pro 3:33), and he is cursed when he goes out, for he cannot leave that curse behind him, nor get rid of it, which has entered into his bowels like water and like oil into his bones. (2.). Whatever he has is under a curse: Cursed is the ground for his sake, and all that is on it, or comes out of it, and so he is cursed from the ground, as Cain, Gen 4:11. The basket and store are cursed, Deu 28:17, Deu 28:18. All his enjoyments being forfeited by him are in a manner forbidden to him, as cursed things, which he has no title to. To those whose mind and conscience are defiled every thing else is so, Tit 1:15. They are all embittered to him; he cannot take any true comfort in them, for the wrath of God mixes itself with them, and he is so far from having any security of the continuance of them that, if his eyes be open, he may see them all condemned and ready to be confiscated, and with them all his joys and all his hopes gone for ever. (3.) Whatever he does is under a curse too. It is a curse in all that he sets his hand to (Deu 28:20), a constant disappointment, which those are subject to that set their hearts upon the world, and expect their happiness in it, and which cannot but be a constant vexation. This curse is just the reverse of the blessing in the former part of the chapter. Thus whatever bliss there is in heaven there is not only the want of it, but the contrary to it, in hell. Isa 65:13, My servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry.
2. Many particular judgments are here enumerated, which would be the fruits of the curse, and with which God would punish the people of the Jews for their apostasy and disobedience. These judgments threatened are of divers kinds, for God has many arrows in his quiver, four sore judgments (Eze 14:21), and many more. They are represented as very terrible, and the descriptions of them are exceedingly lively and affecting, that men, knowing these terrors of the Lord, might, if possible, be persuaded. The threatenings of the same judgment are several times repeated, that they might make the more deep and lasting impressions, and to intimate that, if men persisted in their disobedience, the judgment which they thought was over, and of which they said, &quot;Surely the bitterness of it is past,&quot; would return with double force; for when God judges he will overcome. (1.) Bodily diseases are here threatened, that they should be epidemical in their land. These God sometimes makes use of for the chastisement and improvement of his own people. Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. But here they are threatened to be brought upon his enemies as tokens of his wrath, and designed for their ruin. So that according to the temper of our spirits, under sickness, accordingly it is to us a blessing or a curse. But, whatever sickness may be to particular persons, it is certain that epidemical diseases raging among a people are national judgments, and are so to be accounted. He here threatens, [1.] Painful diseases (Deu 28:35), a sore botch, beginning in the legs and knees, but spreading, like Job&#039;s boils, from heat to foot. [2.] Shameful diseases (v. 27), the botch of Egypt (such boils and blains as the Egyptians had been plagued with, when God brought Israel from among them), and the emerods and scab, vile diseases, the just punishment of those who by sin had made themselves vile. [3.] Mortal diseases, the pestilence (v. 21), the consumption (put for all chronical diseases), and the fever (for all acute diseases), v. 22. See Lev 26:16. And all incurable, Deu 28:27. (2.) Famine, and scarcity of provisions; and this, [1.] For want of rain (Deu 28:23, Deu 28:24): Thy heaven over thy head, that part that is over thy land, shall be as dry as brass, while the heavens over other countries shall distil their dews; and, when the heaven is as brass, the earth of course will be as iron, so hard and unfruitful. Instead of rain, the dust shall be blown out of the highways into the field, and spoil the little that there is of the fruits of the earth. [2.] By destroying insects. The locust should destroy the corn, so that they should not have so much as their seed again, Deu 28:38, Deu 28:42. And the fruit of the vine, which should make glad their hearts, should all be worm-eaten, Deu 28:39. and the olive, some way or other, should be made to cast its fruit, Deu 28:40. The heathen use many superstitious customs in honour of their idol-gods for preserving the fruits of the earth; but Moses tells Israel that the only way they had to preserve them was to keep God&#039;s commandments; for he is a God that will not be sported with, like their idols, but will be served in spirit and truth. This threatening we find fulfilled in Israel, Kg1 17:1; Jer 14:1, etc.; Joe 1:4. (3.) That they should be smitten before their enemies in war, who, it is likely, would be the more cruel to them, when they had them at their mercy, for the severity they had used against the nations of Canaan, which their neighbours in after-ages would be apt to remember against them, Deu 28:25. It would make their flight the more shameful, and the more grievous, that they might have triumphed over their enemies if they had but been faithful to their God. The carcases of those that were slain in war, or died in captivity among strangers, should be meat for the fowls (Deu 28:26); and an Israelite, having forfeited the favour of his God, should have so little humanity shown him as that no man should drive them away, so odious would God&#039;s curse make him to all mankind. (4.) That they should be infatuated in all their counsels, so as not to discern their own interest, nor bring any thing to pass for the public good: The Lord shall smite thee with madness and blindness, Deu 28:28, Deu 28:29. Note, God&#039;s judgments can reach the minds of men to fill them with darkness and horror, as well as their bodies and estates; and those are the sorest of all judgments which make men a terror to themselves, and their own destroyers. That which they contrived to secure themselves by should still turn to their prejudice. Thus we often find that the allies they confided in distressed them and strengthened them not, Ch2 28:20. Those that will not walk in God&#039;s counsels are justly left to be ruined by their own; and those that are wilfully blind to their duty deserve to be made blind to their interest, and, seeing they loved darkness rather than light, let them grope at noon-day as in the dark. (5.) That they should be plundered of all their enjoyments, stripped of all by the proud and imperious conqueror, such as Benhadad was to Ahab, Kg1 20:5, Kg1 20:6. Not only their houses and vineyards should be taken from them, but their wives and children, Deu 28:30, Deu 28:32. Their dearest comforts, which they took most pleasure in, and promised themselves most from, should be the entertainment and triumph of their enemies. As they had dwelt in houses which they built not, and eaten of vineyards which they planted not (Deu 6:10, Deu 6:11), so others should do by them. Their oxen, asses, and sheep, like Job&#039;s, should be taken away before their eyes, and they should not be able to recover them, v. 31. And all the fruit of their land and labours should be devoured and eaten up by the enemy; so that they and theirs would want necessaries, while their enemies were revelling with that which they had laboured for. (6.) That they should be carried captives into a far country; nay, into all the kingdoms of the earth, v. 25. Their sons and daughters, whom they promised themselves comfort in, should go into captivity (v. 41), and they themselves at length, and their king in whom they promised themselves safety and settlement, v. 36. This was fully accomplished when the ten tribes first were carried captive into Assyria (Kg2 17:6), and not long after the two tribes into Babylon, and two of their kings, Kg2 24:14, Kg2 24:15; Kg2 25:7, Kg2 25:21. That which is mentioned as an aggravation of their captivity is that they should go into an unknown country, the language and customs of which would be very uncouth, and their treatment among them barbarous, and there they should serve other gods, that is, be compelled to do so by their enemies, as they were in Babylon, Dan 3:6. Note, God often makes men&#039;s sin their punishment, and chooses their delusions. You shall serve other gods, that is, &quot;You shall serve those that do serve them;&quot; a nation is often in scripture called by the name of its gods, as Jer 48:7. They had made idolaters their associates, and now god made idolaters their oppressors. (7.) That those who remained should be insulted and tyrannized over by strangers, Deu 28:43, Deu 28:44. So the ten tribes were by the colonies which the king of Assyria sent to take possession of their land, Kg2 17:24. Or this may be meant of the gradual encroachments which the strangers within their gates should make upon them, so as insensibly to worm them out of their estates. We read of the fulfilling of this, Hos 7:9, Strangers have devoured his strength. Foreigners ate the bread out of the mouths of trueborn Israelites, by which they were justly chastised for introducing strange gods. (8.) That their reputation among their neighbours should be quite sunk, and those that had been a name, and a praise, should be an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, Deu 28:37. Some have observed the fulfilling of this threatening in their present state; for, when we would express the most perfidious and barbarous treatment, we say, None but a Jew would have done so. Thus is sin a reproach to any people. (9.) To complete their misery, it is threatened that they should be put quite out of the possession of their minds by all these troubles (Deu 28:34): Thou shalt be mad for the sight of thy eyes, that is, quite bereaved of all comfort and hope, and abandoned to utter despair. Those that walk by sight, and not by faith, are in danger of losing reason itself, when every thing about them looks frightful; and their condition is woeful indeed that are mad for the sight of their eyes.</p>

<p>a consumption--a wasting disorder; but the modern tuberculosis is almost unknown in Asia.

fever . . . inflammation . . . extreme burning--Fever is rendered &quot;burning ague&quot; (Lev 26:16), and the others mentioned along with it evidently point to those febrile affections which are of malignant character and great frequency in the East.

the sword--rather, &quot;dryness&quot;--the effect on the human body of such violent disorders.

blasting, and with mildew--two atmospheric influences fatal to grain.</p>

<p>We have here Ahaziah, the wicked king of Israel, under God&#039;s rebukes both by his providence and by his prophet, by his rod and by his word.
I. He is crossed in his affairs. How can those expect to prosper that do evil in the sight of the Lord, and provoke him to anger? When he rebelled against God, and revolted from his allegiance to him, Moab rebelled against Israel, and revolted from the subjection that had long paid to the kings of Israel, Kg2 1:1. The Edomites that bordered on Judah, and were tributaries to the kings of Judah, still continued so, as we find in the chapter before (v. 47), till, in the wicked reign of Joram, they broke that yoke (Kg2 8:22) as the Moabites did now. If men break their covenants with us, and neglect their duty, we must reflect upon our breach of covenant with God, and the neglect of our duty to him. Sin weakens and impoverishes us. We shall hear of the Moabites, Kg2 3:5.
II. He is seized with sickness in body, not from any inward cause, but by a severe accident. He fell down through a lattice, and was much bruised with the fall; perhaps it threw him into a fever, Kg2 3:2. Whatever we go, there is but a step between us and death. A man&#039;s house is his castle, but not to secure him against the judgments of God. The cracked lattice is a fatal to the son, when God pleases to make it so, as the bow drawn at a venture was to the father. Ahaziah would not attempt to reduce the Moabites, lest he should perish in the field of battle: but he is not safe, though he tarry at home. Royal palaces do not always yield firm footing. The snare is laid for the sinner in the ground where he thinks least of it, Job 18:9, Job 18:10. The whole creation, which groans under the man&#039;s sin, will at length sink and break under the weight, like this lattice. He is never safe that has God for his enemy.
III. In his distress he sends messengers to enquire of the god Ekron whether he should recover or no, Kg2 1:2. And here, 1. His enquiry was very foolish: Shall I recover? Even nature itself would rather have asked, &quot;What means may I use that I may recover?&quot; But as one solicitous only to know his fortune, not to know his duty, his question is only this, Shall I recover? to which a little time would give an answer. We should be more thoughtful what will become of us after death than how, or when, or where, we shall die, and more desirous to be told how we may conduct ourselves well in our sickness, and get good to our souls by it, than whether we shall recover from it. 2. His sending to Baal-zebub was very wicked; to make a dead and dumb idol, perhaps newly erected (for idolaters were fond of new gods), his oracle, was not less a reproach to his reason than to his religion. Baal-zebub, which signifies the lord of a fly, was one of their Baals that perhaps gave his answers either by the power of the demons or the craft of the priests, with a humming noise, like that of a great fly, or that had (as they fancied) rid their country of the swarms of flies wherewith it was infested, or of some pestilential disease brought among them by flies. Perhaps this dunghill-deity was as famous then as the oracle of Delphos was, long afterwards, in Greece. In the New Testament the prince of the devils is called Beel-zebub (Mat 12:24), for the gods of the Gentiles were devils, and this perhaps grew to be one of the most famous.
IV. Elijah, by direction from God, meets the messengers, and turns them back with an answer that shall save them the labour of going to Ekron. Had Ahaziah sent for Elijah, humbled himself, and begged his prayers, he might have had an answer of peace; but if he send to the god of Ekron, instead of the God of Israel, this, like Saul&#039;s consulting the witch, shall fill the measure of his iniquity, and bring upon him a sentence of death. Those that will not enquire of the word of God for their comfort shall be made to hear it, whether they will or not, to their amazement.
1. He faithfully reproves his sin (Kg2 1:3): Is it not because there is not (that is, because you think there is not) a God in Israel (because there is no God, none in Israel, so it may be read), that you go to enquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, a despicable town of the Philistines (Zac 9:7), long since vanquished by Israel? Here, (1.) The sin was bad enough, giving that honour to the devil which is due to God alone, which was done as much by their enquiries as by their sacrifices. Note, It is a very wicked thing, upon any occasion or pretence whatsoever, to consult with the devil. This wickedness reigned in the heathen world (Isa 47:12, Isa 47:13) and remains too much even in the Christian world, and the devil&#039;s kingdom is supported by it. (2.) The construction which Elijah, in God&#039;s name, puts upon it, makes it much worse: &quot;It is because you think not only that the God of Israel is not able to tell you, but that there is no God at all in Israel, else you would not send so far for a divine answer.&quot; Note, A practical and constructive atheism is the cause and malignity of our departures from God. Surely we think there is no God in Israel when we live at large, make flesh our arm, and seek a portion in the things of this world.
2. He plainly reads his doom: Go, tell him he shall surely die, Kg2 1:4. &quot;Since he is so anxious to know his fate, this is it; let him make the best of it.&quot; The certain fearful looking for of judgment and indignation which this message must needs cause cannot but cut him to the heart.
V. The message being delivered to him by his servants, he enquires of them by whom it was sent to him, and concludes, by their description of him, that it must be Elijah, Kg2 1:7, Kg2 1:8. For, 1. His dress was the same that he had seen him in, in his father&#039;s court. He was clad in a hairy garment, and had a leathern girdle about him, was plain and homely in his garb. John Baptist, the Elias of the New Testament, herein resembled him, for his clothes were made of hair cloth, and he was girt with a leathern girdle, Mat 3:4. He that was clothed with the Spirit despised all rich and gay clothing. 2. His message was such as he used to deliver to his father, to whom he never prophesied good, but evil. Elijah is one of those witnesses that still torment the inhabitants of the earth, Rev 11:10. He that was a thorn in Ahab&#039;s eyes will be so in the eyes of his son while he treads in the steps of his father&#039;s wickedness; and he is ready to cry out, as his father did, Hast thou found me, O my enemy? Let sinners consider that the word which took hold of their fathers is still as quick and powerful as ever. See Zac 1:6; Heb 4:12.</p>

<p>RAISES HER DEAD SON. (2Ki. 4:18-37)

My head, my head!--The cries of the boy, the part affected, and the season of the year, make it probable that he had been overtaken by a stroke of the sun. Pain, stupor, and inflammatory fever are the symptoms of the disease, which is often fatal.</p>

<p>took a thick cloth, &amp;c.--a coverlet. In the East, this article of bedding is generally a thick quilt of wool or cotton, so that, with its great weight, when steeped in water, it would be a fit instrument for accomplishing the murderous purpose, without leaving any marks of violence. It has been supposed by many doubtful that Hazael purposely murdered the king. But it is common for Eastern people to sleep with their faces covered with a mosquito net; and, in some cases of fever, they dampen the bedclothes. Hazael, aware of those chilling remedies being usually resorted to, might have, with an honest intention, spread a refreshing cover over him. The rapid occurrence of the king&#039;s death and immediate burial were favorable to his instant elevation to the throne.</p>

<p>A very warm dispute being begun between Job and his friends, Eliphaz here makes a fair motion to put the matter to a reference. In all debates perhaps the sooner this is done the better if the contenders cannot end it between themselves. So well assured is Eliphaz of the goodness of his own cause that he moves Job himself to choose the arbitrators (Job 5:1): Call now, if there be any that will answer thee; that is, 1. &quot;If there be any that suffer as thou sufferest. Canst thou produce an instance of any one that was really a saint that was reduced to such an extremity as thou art now reduced to? God never dealt with any that love his name as he deals with thee, and therefore surely thou art none of them.&quot; 2. &quot;If there be any that say as thou sayest. Did ever any good man curse his day as thou dost? Or will any of the saints justify thee in these heats or passions, or say that these are the spots of God&#039;s children? Thou wilt find none of the saints that will be either thy advocates or my antagonists. To which of the saints wilt thou turn? Turn to which thou wilt, and thou wilt find they are all of my mind. I have the communis sensus fidelium - the unanimous vote of the faithful on my side; they will all subscribe to what I am going to say.&quot; Observe, (1.) Good people are called saints even in the Old Testament; and therefore I know not why we should, in common speaking (unless because we must loqui cum vulgo - speak as our neighbours), appropriate the title to those of the New Testament, and not say St. Abraham, St. Moses, and St. Isaiah, as well as St. Matthew and St. Mark; and St. David the psalmist, as well as St. David the British bishop. Aaron is expressly called the saint of the Lord. (2.) All that are themselves saints will turn to those that are so, will choose them for their friends and converse with them, will choose them for their judges and consult them. See Psa 119:79. The saints shall judge the world, Co1 6:1, Co1 6:2. Walk in the way of good men (Pro 2:20), the old way, the footsteps of the flock. Every one chooses some sort of people or other to whom he studies to recommend himself, and whose sentiments are to him the test of honour and dishonour. Now all true saints endeavour to recommend themselves to those that are such, and to stand right in their opinion. (3.) There are some truths so plain, and so universally known and believed, that one may venture to appeal to any of the saints concerning them. However there are some things about which they unhappily differ, there are many more, and more considerable, in which they are agreed; as the evil of sin, the vanity of the world, the worth of the soul, the necessity of a holy life, and the like. Though they do not all live up, as they should, to their belief of these truths, yet they are all ready to bear their testimony to them.
Now there are two things which Eliphaz here maintains, and in which he doubts not but all the saints concur with him: -
I. That the sin of sinners directly tends to their own ruin (Job 5:2): Wrath kills the foolish man, his own wrath, and therefore he is foolish for indulging it; it is a fire in his bones, in his blood, enough to put him into a fever. Envy is the rottenness of the bones, and so slays the silly one that frets himself with it. &quot;So it is with thee,&quot; says Eliphaz, &quot;while thou quarrellest with God thou doest thyself the greatest mischief; thy anger at thy own troubles, and thy envy at our prosperity, do but add to thy pain and misery: turn to the saints, and thou wilt find they understand their interest better.&quot; Job had told his wife she spoke as the foolish women; now Eliphaz tells him he acted as the foolish men, the silly ones. Or it may be meant thus: &quot;If men are ruined and undone, it is always their own folly that ruins and undoes them. They kill themselves by some lust or other; therefore, no doubt, Job, thou hast done some foolish thing, by which thou hast brought thyself into this calamitous condition.&quot; Many understand it of God&#039;s wrath and jealousy. Job needed not be uneasy at the prosperity of the wicked, for the world&#039;s smiles can never shelter them from God&#039;s frowns; they are foolish and silly if they think they will. God&#039;s anger will be the death, the eternal death, of those on whom it fastens. What is hell but God&#039;s anger without mixture or period?
II. That their prosperity is short and their destruction certain, Job 5:3-5. He seems here to parallel Job&#039;s case with that which is commonly the case of wicked people. 1. Job had prospered for a time, seemed confirmed, and was secure in his prosperity; and it is common for foolish wicked men to do so: I have seen them taking root - planted, and, in their own and others&#039; apprehension, fixed, and likely to continue. See Jer 12:2; Psa 37:35, Psa 37:36. We see worldly men taking root in the earth; on earthly things they fix the standing of their hopes, and from them they draw the sap of their comforts. The outward estate may be flourishing, but the soul cannot prosper that takes root in the earth. 2. Job&#039;s prosperity was now at an end, and so has the prosperity of other wicked people quickly been. (1.) Eliphaz foresaw their ruin with an eye of faith. Those who looked only at present things blessed their habitation, and thought them happy, blessed it long, and wished themselves in their condition. But Eliphaz cursed it, suddenly cursed it, as soon as he saw them begin to take root, that is, he plainly foresaw and foretold their ruin; not that he prayed for it (I have not desired the woeful day), but he prognosticated it. He went into the sanctuary, and there understood their end and heard their doom read (Psa 73:17, Psa 73:18), that the prosperity of fools will destroy them, Pro 1:32. Those who believe the word of God can see a curse in the house of the wicked (Pro 3:33), though it be ever so finely and firmly built, and ever so full of all good things; and they can foresee that the curse will, in time, infallibly consume it with the timber thereof, and the stones thereof, Zac 5:4. (2.) He saw, at length, what he had foreseen. He was not disappointed in his expectation concerning him; the event answered it; his family was undone, and his estate ruined. In these particulars he plainly and very invidiously reflects on Job&#039;s calamities. [1.] His children were crushed, Job 5:4. They thought themselves safe in their eldest brother&#039;s house, but were far from safety, for they were crushed in the gate. Perhaps the door or gate of the house was highest built, and fell heaviest upon them, and there was none to deliver them from perishing in the ruins. This is commonly understood of the destruction of the families of wicked men, by the execution of justice upon them, to oblige them to restore what they have ill-gotten. They leave it to their children; but the descent shall not bar the entry of the rightful owners, who will crush their children, and cast them by due course of law (and there shall be none to help them), or perhaps by oppression, Psa 109:9, etc. [2.] His estate was plundered, Job 5:5. Job&#039;s was so. The hungry robbers, the Sabeans and Chaldeans, ran away with it, and swallowed it; and this, says he, I have often observed in others. What has been got by spoil and rapine has been lost in the same way. The careful owner hedged it about with thorns, and then thought it safe; but the fence proved insignificant against the greediness of the spoilers (if hunger will break through the stone walls, much more through thorn hedges), and against the divine curse, which will go through the thorns and briers, and burn them together, Isa 27:4.</p>

<p>Job, observing perhaps that his friends, though they would not interrupt him in his discourse, yet began to grow weary, and not to heed much what he said, here turns to God, and speaks to him. If men will not hear us, God will; if men cannot help us, he can; for his arm is not shortened, neither is his ear heavy. Yet we must not go to school to Job here to learn how to speak to God; for, it must be confessed, there is a great mixture of passion and corruption in what he here says. But, if God be not extreme to mark what his people say amiss, let us also make the best of it. Job is here begging of God either to ease him or to end him. He here represents himself to God,
I. As a dying man, surely and speedily dying. It is good for us, when we are sick, to think and speak of death, for sickness is sent on purpose to put us in mind of it; and, if we be duly mindful of it ourselves, we may in faith put God in mind of it, as Job does here (v. 7): O remember that my life is wind. He recommends himself to God as an object of his pity and compassion, with this consideration, that he was a very weak frail creature, his abode in this world short and uncertain, his removal out of it sure and speedy, and his return to it again impossible and never to be expected - that his life was wind, as the lives of all men are, noisy perhaps and blustering, like the wind, but vain and empty, soon gone, and, when gone, past recall. God had compassion on Israel, remembering that they were but flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again, Psa 78:38, Psa 78:39. Observe,
1. The pious reflections Job makes upon his own life and death. Such plain truths as these concerning the shortness and vanity of life, the unavoidableness and irrecoverableness of death, then do us good when we think and speak of them with application to ourselves. Let us consider then, (1.) That we must shortly take our leave of all the things that are seen, that are temporal. The eye of the body must be closed, and shall no more see good, the good which most men set their hearts upon; for their cry is, Who will make us to see good? Psa 4:6. If we be such fools as to place our happiness in visible good things, what will become of us when they shall be for ever hidden from our eyes, and we shall no more see good? Let us therefore live by that faith which is the substance and evidence of things not seen. (2.) That we must then remove to an invisible world: The eye of him that hath here seen me shall see me no more there. It is hadēs - an unseen state, Job 7:8. Death removes our lovers and friends into darkness (Psa 88:18), and will shortly remove us out of their sight; when we go hence we shall be seen no more (Psa 39:13), but go to converse with the things that are not seen, that are eternal. (3.) That God can easily, and in a moment, put an end to our lives, and send us to another world (Job 7:8): &quot;Thy eyes are upon me and I am not; thou canst look me into eternity, frown me into the grave, when thou pleasest.&quot;
Shouldst thou, displeased, give me a frowning look,
I sink, I die, as if with lightning struck.
- Sir R. Blackmore
He takes away our breath, and we die; nay, he but looks on the earth and it trembles, Psa 104:29, Psa 104:30. (4.) That, when we are once removed to another world, we must never return to this. There is constant passing from this world to the other, but vestigia nulla retrorsum - there is no repassing. &quot;Therefore, Lord, kindly ease me by death, for that will be a perpetual ease. I shall return no more to the calamities of this life.&quot; When we are dead we are gone, to return no more, [1.] From our house under ground (Job 7:9): He that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more until the general resurrection, shall come up no more to his place in this world. Dying is work that is to be done but once, and therefore it had need be well done: an error there is past retrieve. This is illustrated by the blotting out and scattering of a cloud. It is consumed and vanisheth away, is resolved into air and never knits again. Other clouds arise, but the same cloud never returns: so a new generation of the children of men is raised up, but the former generation is quite consumed and vanishes away. When we see a cloud which looks great, as if it would eclipse the sun and drawn the earth, of a sudden dispersed and disappearing, let us say, &quot;Just such a thing is the life of man; it is a vapour that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.&quot; [2.] To return no more to our house above ground (Job 7:10): He shall return no more to his house, to the possession and enjoyment of it, to the business and delights of it. Others will take possession, and keep it till they also resign to another generation. The rich man in hell desired that Lazarus might be sent to his house, knowing it was to no purpose to ask that he might have leave to go himself. Glorified saints shall return no more to the cares, and burdens, and sorrows of their house; nor damned sinners to the gaieties and pleasures of their house. Their place shall no more know them, no more own them, have no more acquaintance with them, nor be any more under their influence. It concerns us to secure a better place when we die, for this will no more own us.
2. The passionate inference he draws from it. From these premises he might have drawn a better conclusion that this (Job 7:11): Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak; I will complain. Holy David, when he had been meditating on the frailty of human life, made a contrary use of it (Psa 39:9, I was dumb, and opened not my mouth); but Job, finding himself near expiring, hastens as much to make his complaint as if he had been to make his last will and testament or as if he could not die in peace until he had given vent to his passion. When we have but a few breaths to draw we should spend them in the holy gracious breathings of faith and prayer, not in the noisome noxious breathings of sin and corruption. Better die praying and praising than die complaining and quarrelling.
II. As a distempered man, sorely and grievously distempered both in body and mind. In this part of his representation is he is very peevish, as if God dealt hardly with him and laid upon him more than was meet: &quot;Am I a sea, or a whale (Job 7:12), a raging sea, that must be kept within bounds, to check its proud waves, or an unruly whale, that must be restrained by force from devouring all the fishes of the sea? Am I so strong that there needs so much ado to hold me? so boisterous that no less than all these mighty bonds of affliction will serve to tame me and keep me within compass?&quot; We are very apt, when we are in affliction, to complain of God and his providence, as if he laid more restraints upon us that there is occasion for; whereas we are never in heaviness but when there is need, nor more than the necessity demands. 1. He complains that he could not rest in his bed, Job 7:13, Job 7:14. There we promise ourselves some repose, when we are fatigued with labour, pain, or traveling: &quot;My bed shall comfort me, and my couch shall ease my complaint. Sleep will for a time give me some relief;&quot; it usually does so; it is appointed for that end; many a time it has eased us, and we have awaked refreshed, and with new vigour. When it is so we have great reason to be thankful; but it was not so with poor Job: his bed, instead of comforting him, terrified him; and his couch, instead of easing his complaint, added to it; for if he dropped asleep, he was disturbed with frightful dreams, and when those awaked him still he was haunted with dreadful apparitions. This was it that made the night so unwelcome and wearisome to him as it was (Job 7:4): When shall I arise? Note, God can, when he pleases, meet us with terror even where we promise ourselves ease and repose; nay, he can make us a terror to ourselves, and, as we have often contracted guilt by the rovings of an unsanctified fancy, he can likewise, by the power of our own imagination, create us much grief, and so make that our punishment which has often been our sin. In Job&#039;s dreams, though they might partly arise from his distemper (in fevers, or small pox, when the body is all over sore, it is common for the sleep to be unquiet), yet we have reason to think Satan had a hand, for he delights to terrify those whom it is out of his reach to destroy; but Job looked up to God, who permitted Satan to do this (thou scarest me), and mistook Satan&#039;s representations for the terror of God setting themselves in array against him. We have reason to pray to God that our dreams may neither defile nor disquiet us, neither tempt us to sin nor torment us with fear, that he who keeps Israel, and neither slumbers nor sleeps, may keep us when we slumber and sleep, that the devil may not then do us a mischief, either as an insinuating serpent or as a roaring lion, and to bless God if we lie down and our sleep is sweet and we are not thus scared. 2. He covets to rest in his grave, that bed where there are no tossings to and fro, nor any frightful dreams, Job 7:15, Job 7:16. (1.) He was sick of life, and hated the thoughts of it: &quot;I loathe it; I have had enough of it. I would not live always, not only not live always in this condition, in pain and misery, but not live always in the most easy and prosperous condition, to be continually in danger of being thus reduced. My days are vanity at the best, empty of solid comfort, exposed to real griefs; and I would not be for ever tied to such uncertainty.&quot; Note, A good man would not (if he might) life always in this world, no, not though it smile upon him, because it is a world of sin and temptation and he has a better world in prospect. (2.) He was fond of death, and pleased himself with the thoughts of it: his soul (his judgment, he thought, but really it was his passion) chose strangling and death rather than life; any death rather than such a life as this. Doubtless this was Job&#039;s infirmity; for though a good man would not wish to live always in this world, and would choose strangling and death rather than sin, as the martyrs did, yet he will be content to live as long as pleases God, not choose death rather than life, because life is our opportunity of glorifying God and getting ready for heaven.</p>

<p>Job here returns to his complaints; and, though he is not without hope of future bliss, he finds it very hard to get over his present grievances.
I. He complains of the particular hardships he apprehended himself under from the strictness of God&#039;s justice, Job 14:16, Job 14:17. Therefore he longed to go hence to that world where God&#039;s wrath will be past, because now he was under the continual tokens of it, as a child, under the severe discipline of the rod, longs to be of age. &quot;When shall my change come? For now thou seemest to me to number my steps, and watch over my sin, and seal it up in a bag, as bills of indictment are kept safely, to be produced against the prisoner.&quot; See Deu 32:34. &quot;Thou takest all advantages against me; old scores are called over, every infirmity is animadverted upon, and no sooner is a false step taken than I am beaten for it.&quot; Now, 1. Job does right to the divine justice in owning that he smarted for his sins and transgressions, that he had done enough to deserve all that was laid upon him; for there was sin in all his steps, and he was guilty of transgression enough to bring all this ruin upon him, if it were strictly enquired into: he is far from saying that he perishes being innocent. But, 2. He does wrong to the divine goodness in suggesting that God was extreme to mark what he did amiss, and made the worst of every thing. He spoke to this purport, Job 13:27. It was unadvisedly said, and therefore we will not dwell too much upon it. God does indeed see all our sins; he sees sin in his own people; but he is not severe in reckoning with us, nor is the law ever stretched against us, but we are punished less than our iniquities deserve. God does indeed seal and sew up, against the day of wrath, the transgression of the impenitent, but the sins of his people he blots out as a cloud.
II. He complains of the wasting condition of mankind in general. We live in a dying world. Who knows the power of God&#039;s anger, by which we are consumed and troubled, and in which all our days are passed away? See Psa 90:7-9, Psa 90:11. And who can bear up against his rebukes? Psa 39:11.
1. We see the decays of the earth itself. (1.) Of the strongest parts of it, Job 14:18. Nothing will last always, for we see even mountains moulder and come to nought; they wither and fall as a leaf; rocks wax old and pass away by the continual beating of the sea against them. The waters wear the stones with constant dropping, non vi, sed saepe cadendo - not by the violence, but by the constancy with which they fall. On this earth every thing is the worse for the wearing. Tempus edax rerum - Time devours all things. It is not so with the heavenly bodies. (2.) Of the natural products of it. The things which grow out of the earth, and seem to be firmly rooted in it, are sometimes by an excess of rain washed away, Job 14:19. Some think he pleads this for relief: &quot;Lord, my patience will not hold out always; even rocks and mountains will fail at last; therefore cease the controversy.&quot;
2. No marvel then if we see the decays of man upon the earth, for he is of the earth, earthy. Job begins to think his case is not singular, and therefore he ought to reconcile himself to the common lot. We perceive by many instances, (1.) How vain it is to expect much from the enjoyments of life: &quot;Thou destroyest the hope of man,&quot; that is, &quot;puttest an end to all the projects he had framed and all the prospects of satisfaction he had flattered himself with.&quot; Death will be the destruction of all those hopes which are built upon worldly confidences and confined to worldly comforts. Hope in Christ, and hope in heaven, death will consummate and not destroy. (2.) How vain it is to struggle against the assaults of death (Job 14:20): Thou prevailest for ever against him. Note, Man is an unequal match for God. Whom God contends with he will certainly prevail against, prevail for ever against so that they shall never be able to make head again. Note further, The stroke of death is irresistible; it is to no purpose to dispute its summons. God prevails against man and he passes away, and lo he is not. Look upon a dying man, and see, [1.] How his looks are altered: Thou changest his countenance, and this in two ways: - First, By the disease of his body. When a man has been a few days sick what a change is there in his countenance! How much more when he has been a few minutes dead! The countenance which was majestic and awful becomes mean and despicable - that was lovely and amiable becomes ghastly and frightful. Bury my dead out of my sight. Where then is the admired beauty? Death changes the countenance, and then sends us away out of this world, gives us one dismission hence, never to return. Secondly, By the discomposure of his mind. Note, The approach of death will make the strongest and stoutest to change countenance; it will make the most merry smiling countenance to look grave and serious, and the most bold daring countenance to look pale and timorous. [2.] How little he is concerned in the affairs of his family, which once lay so near his heart. When he is in the hands of the harbingers of death, suppose struck with a palsy or apoplexy, or delirious in a fever, or in conflict with death, tell him then the most agreeable news, or the most painful, concerning his children, it is all alike, he knows it not, he perceives it not, Job 14:21. He is going to that world where he will be a perfect stranger to all those things which here filled and affected him. The consideration of this should moderate our cares concerning our children and families. God will know what comes of them when we are gone. To him therefore let us commit them, with him let us leave them, and not burden ourselves with needless fruitless cares concerning them. [3.] How dreadful the agonies of death are (Job 14:22): While his flesh is upon him (so it may be read), that is, the body he is so loth to lay down,: it shall have pain; and while his soul is within him, that is, the spirit he is so loth to resign, it shall mourn. Note, Dying work is hard work; dying pangs are, commonly, sore pangs. It is folly therefore for men to defer their repentance to a death-bed, and to have that to do which is the one thing needful when they are really unfit to do any thing: but it is true wisdom by making our peace with God in Christ and keeping a good conscience, to treasure up comforts which will support and relieve us against the pains and sorrows of a dying hour.</p>

<p>UMBREIT has &quot;he&quot; for &quot;it,&quot; that is, &quot;in the rage of hunger he shall devour his own body&quot;; or, &quot;his own children&quot; (Lam 4:10). Rather, &quot;destruction&quot; from Job 18:12 is nominative to &quot;devour.&quot;

strength--rather, &quot;members&quot; (literally, the &quot;branches&quot; of a tree).

the first-born of death--a personification full of poetical horror. The first-born son held the chief place (Gen 49:3); so here the chiefest (most deadly) disease that death has ever engendered (Isa 14:30; &quot;first-born of the poor&quot;--the poorest). The Arabs call fever, &quot;daughter of death.&quot;</p>

<p>In this second part of Job&#039;s complaint, which is very bitter, and has a great many sorrowful accents in it, we may observe a great deal that he complains of and some little that he comforts himself with.
I. Here is much that he complains of.
1. In general, it was a day of great affliction and sorrow. (1.) Affliction seized him, and surprised him. It seized him (Job 30:16): The days of affliction have taken hold upon me, have caught me (so some); they have arrested me, as the bailiff arrests the debtor, claps him on the back, and secures him. When trouble comes with commission it will take fast hold, and not lose its hold. It surprised him (Job 30:27): &quot;The days of affliction prevented me,&quot; that is, &quot;they came upon me without giving me any previous warning. I did not expect them, nor make any provision for such an evil day.&quot; Observe, He reckons his affliction by days, which will soon be numbered and finished, and are nothing to the ages of eternity, Co2 4:17. (2.) He was in great sorrow by reason of it. His bowels boiled with grief, and rested not, Job 30:27. The sense of his calamities was continually preying upon his spirits without any intermission. He went mourning from day to day, always sighing, always weeping; and such cloud was constantly upon his mind that he went, in effect, without the sun, Job 30:28. He had nothing that he could take any comfort in. He abandoned himself to perpetual sorrow, as one that, like Jacob, resolved to go to the grave mourning. He walked out of the sun (so some) in dark shady places, as melancholy people use to do. If he went into the congregation, to join with them in solemn worship, instead of standing up calmly to desire their prayers, he stood up and cried aloud, through pain of body, or anguish of mind, like one half distracted. If he appeared in public, to receive visits, when the fit came upon him he could not contain himself, nor preserve due decorum, but stood up and shrieked aloud. Thus he was a brother to dragons and owls (Job 30:29), both in choosing solitude and retirement, as they do (Isa 34:13), and in making a fearful hideous noise as they do; his inconsiderate complaints were fitly compared to their inarticulate ones.
2. The terror and trouble that seized his soul were the sorest part of his calamity, Job 30:15, Job 30:16. (1.) If he looked forward, he saw every thing frightful before him: if he endeavoured to shake off his terrors, they turned furiously upon him: if he endeavoured to escape from them, they pursued his soul as swiftly and violently as the wind. He complained, at first, of the terrors of God setting themselves in array against him, Job 6:4. And still, which way soever he looked, they turned upon him; which way soever he fled, they pursued him. My soul (Heb., my principal one, my princess); the soul is the principal part of the man; it is our glory; it is every way more excellent than the body, and therefore that which pursues the soul, and threatens that, should be most dreaded. (2.) If he looked back, he saw all the good he had formerly enjoyed removed from him, and nothing left him but the bitter remembrance of it: My welfare and prosperity pass away, as suddenly, swiftly, and irrecoverably, as a cloud. (3.) If he looked within, he found his spirit quite sunk and unable to bear his infirmity, not only wounded, but poured out upon him, Job 30:16. He was not only weak as water, but, in his own apprehension, lost as water spilt upon the ground. Compare Psa 22:14, My heart is melted like wax.
3. His bodily diseases were very grievous; for, (1.) He was full of pain, piercing pain, pain that went to the bone, to all his bones, Job 30:17. It was a sword in his bones, which pierced him in the night season, when he should have been refreshed with sleep. His nerves were affected with strong convulsions; his sinews took no rest. By reason of his pain, he could take no rest, but sleep departed from his eyes. His bones were burnt with heat, Job 30:30. He was in a constant fever, which dried up the radical moisture and even consumed the marrow in his bones. See how frail our bodies are, which carry in themselves the seeds of our own disease and death. (2.) He was full of sores. Some that are pained in their bones, yet sleep in a whole skin, but, Satan&#039;s commission against Job extending both to his bone and to his flesh, he spared neither. His skin was black upon him, Job 30:30. The blood settled, and the sores suppurated and by degrees scabbed over, which made his skin look black. Even his garment had its colour changed with the continual running of his boils, and the soft clothing he used to wear had now grown so stiff that all his garments were like his collar, Job 30:18. It would be noisome to describe what a condition poor Job was in for want of clean linen and good attendance, and what filthy rags all his clothes were. Some think that, among other diseases, Job was ill of a quinsy or swelling in his throat, and that it was this which bound him about like a stiff collar. Thus was he cast into the mire (Job 30:19), compared to mire (so some); his body looked more like a heap of dirt than any thing else. Let none be proud of their clothing nor proud of their cleanness; they know not but some disease or other may change their garments, and even throw them into the mire, and make them noisome both to themselves and others. Instead of sweet smell, there shall be a stench, Isa 3:24. We are but dust and ashes at the best, and our bodies are vile bodies; but we are apt to forget it, till God, by some sore disease, makes us sensibly to feel and own what we are. &quot;I have become already like that dust and ashes into which I must shortly be resolved: wherever I go I carry my grave about with me.&quot;
4. That which afflicted him most of all was that God seemed to be his enemy and to fight against him. It was he that cast him into the mire (Job 30:19), and seemed to trample on him when he had him there. This cut him to the heart more than any thing else, (1.) That God did not appear for him. He addressed himself to him, but gained no grant - appealed to him, but gained no sentence; he was very importunate in his applications, but in vain (Job 30:20): &quot;I cry unto thee, as one in earnest, I stand up, and cry, as one waiting for an answer, but thou hearest not, thou regardest not, for any thing I can perceive.&quot; If our most fervent prayers bring not in speedy and sensible returns, we must not think it strange. Though the seed of Jacob did never seek in vain, yet they have often thought that they did and that God has not only been deaf, but angry, at the prayers of his people, Psa 80:4. (2.) That God did appear against him. That which he here says of God is one of the worst words that ever Job spoke (Job 30:21): Thou hast become cruel to me. Far be it from the God of mercy and grace that he should be cruel to any (his compassions fail not), but especially that he should be so to his own children. Job was unjust and ungrateful when he said so of him: but harbouring hard thoughts of God was the sin which did, at this time, most easily beset him. Here, [1.] He thought God fought against him and stirred up his whole strength to ruin him: With thy strong hand thou opposest thyself, or art an adversary against me. He had better thoughts of God (Job 23:6) when he concluded he would not plead against him with his great power. God has an absolute sovereignty and an irresistible strength, but he never uses either the one or the other for the crushing or oppressing of any. [2.] He thought he insulted over him (Job 30:22): Thou lifted me up to the wind, as a feather or the chaff which the wind plays with; so unequal a match did Job think himself for Omnipotence, and so unable was he to help himself when he was made to ride, not in triumph, but in terror, upon the wings of the wind, and the judgments of God did even dissolve his substance, as a cloud is dissolved and dispersed by the wind. Man&#039;s substance, take him in his best estate, is nothing before the power of God; it is soon dissolved.
5. He expected no other now than that God, by these troubles, would shortly make an end of him: &quot;If I be made to ride upon the wind, I can count upon no other than to break my neck shortly;&quot; and he speaks as if God had no other design upon him than that in all his dealings with him: &quot;I know that thou wilt bring me, with so much the more terror, to death, though I might have been brought thither without all this ado, for it is the house appointed for all living,&quot; Job 30:23. The grave is a house, a narrow, dark, cold, ill-furnished house, but it will be our residence, where we shall rest and be safe. It is our long home, our own home; for it is our mother&#039;s lap, and in it we are gathered to our fathers. It is a house appointed for us by him that has appointed us the bounds of all our habitations. It is appointed for all the living. It is the common receptacle, where rich and poor meet; it is appointed for the general rendezvous. We must all be brought thither shortly. It is God that brings us to it, for the keys of death and the grave are in his hand, and we may all know that, sooner or later, he will bring us thither. It would be well for us if we would duly consider it. The living know that they shall die; let us, each of us, know it with application.
6. There were two things that aggravated his trouble, and made it the less tolerable: - (1.) That it was a very great disappointment to his expectation (Job 30:26): &quot;When I looked for good, for more good, or at least for the continuance of what I had, then evil came&quot; - such uncertain things are all our worldly enjoyments, and such a folly is it to feed ourselves with great expectations from them. Those that wait for light from the sparks of their creature comforts will be wretchedly disappointed and will make their bed in the darkness. (2.) That is was a very great change in his condition (Job 30:31): &quot;My harp is not only laid by, and hung upon the willow-trees, but it is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of those that weep.&quot; Job, in his prosperity, had taken the timbrel and harp, and rejoiced at the sound of the organ, Job 21:12. Notwithstanding his gravity and grace, he had found time to be cheerful; but now his tune was altered. Let those therefore that rejoice be as though they rejoiced not, for they know not how soon their laughter will be turned into mourning and their joy into heaviness. Thus we see how much Job complains of; but,
II. Here is something in the midst of all with which he comforts himself, and it is but a little. 1. He foresees, with comfort, that death will be the period of all his calamities (Job 30:24): Though God now, with a strong hand, opposed himself against him, &quot;yet,&quot; says he, &quot;he will not stretch out his hand to the grave.&quot; The hand of God&#039;s wrath would bring him to death, but would not follow him beyond death; his soul would be safe and happy in the world of spirits, his body safe and easy in the dust. Though men cry in his destruction (though, when they are dying, there is a great deal of agony and out-cry, many a sigh, and groan, and complaint), yet in the grave they feel nothing, they fear nothing, but all is quiet there. &quot;Though in hell, which is called destruction, they cry, yet not in the grave; and, being delivered from the second death, the first to me will be an effectual relief.&quot; Therefore he wished he might be hidden in the grave, Job 14:13. 2. He reflects with comfort upon the concern he always had for the calamities of others when he was himself at ease (Job 30:25): Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Some think he herein complains of God, thinking it very hard that he who had shown mercy to others should not himself find mercy. I would rather take it as a quieting consideration to himself; his conscience witnessed for him that he had always sympathized with persons in misery and done what he could to help them, and therefore he had reason to expect that, at length, both God and his friends would pity him. Those who mourn with them that mourn will bear their own sorrows the better when it comes to their turn to drink of the bitter cup. Did not my soul burn for the poor? so some read it, comparing it with that of St. Paul, Co2 11:29, Who is offended, and I burn not? As those who have been unmerciful and hard-hearted to others may expect to hear of it from their own consciences, when they are themselves in trouble, so those who have considered the poor and succoured them shall have the remembrance thereof to make their bed easy in their sickness, Psa 41:1, Psa 41:3.</p>

<p>When man does not heed warnings of the night, he is chastened, &amp;c. The new thought suggested by Elihu is that affliction is disciplinary (Job 36:10); for the good of the godly.

multitude--so the Margin, Hebrew (Keri). Better with the text (Chetib), &quot;And with the perpetual (strong) contest of his bones&quot;; the never-resting fever in his bones (Psa 38:3) [UMBREIT].</p>

<p>life--that is, the appetite, which ordinarily sustains &quot;life&quot; (Job 38:39; Psa 107:18; Ecc 12:5). The taking away of desire for food by sickness symbolizes the removal by affliction of lust, for things which foster the spiritual fever of pride.

soul--desire.</p>

<p>God here, as King of nations, brings a sore calamity upon Egypt and Ethiopia, but, as King of saints, brings good to his people out of it. Observe,
I. The date of this prophecy. It was in the year that Ashdod, a strong city of the Philistines (but which some think was lately recovered from them by Hezekiah, when he smote the Philistines even unto Gaza, Kg2 18:8), was besieged and taken by an army of the Assyrians. It is uncertain what year of Hezekiah that was, but the event was so remarkable that those who lived then could by that token fix the time to a year. He that was now king of Assyria is called Sargon, which some take to be the same with Sennacherib; others think he was his immediate predecessor, and succeeded Shalmaneser. Tartan, who was general, or commander-in-chief, in this expedition, was one of Sennacherib&#039;s officers, sent by him to bid defiance to Hezekiah, in concurrence with Rabshakeh, Kg2 18:17.
II. The making of Isaiah a sign, by his unusual dress when he walked abroad. He had been a sign to his own people of the melancholy times that had come and were coming upon them, by the sackcloth which for some time he had worn, of which he had a gown made, which he girt about him. Some think he put himself into that habit of a mourner upon occasion of the captivity of the ten tribes. Others think sackcloth was what he commonly wore as a prophet, to show himself mortified to the world, and that he might learn to endure hardness; soft clothing better becomes those that attend in king&#039;s palaces (Mat 11:8) than those that go on God&#039;s errands. Elijah wore hair-cloth (Kg2 1:8), and John Baptist (Mat 3:4) and those that pretended to be prophets supported their pretension by wearing rough garments (Zac 13:4); but Isaiah has orders given him to loose his sackcloth from his loins, not to exchange it for better clothing, but for none at all - no upper garment, no mantle, cloak, or coat, but only that which was next to him, we may suppose his shirt, waistcoat, and drawers; and he must put off his shoes, and go barefoot; so that compared with the dress of others, and what he himself usually wore, he might be said to go naked. This was a great hardship upon the prophet; it was a blemish to his reputation, and would expose him to contempt and ridicule; the boys in the streets would hoot at him, and those who sought occasion against him would say, The prophet is indeed a fool, and the spiritual man is mad, Hos 9:7. It might likewise be a prejudice to his health; he was in danger of catching a cold, which might throw him into a fever, and cost him his life; but God bade him do it, that he might give a proof of his obedience to God in a most difficult command, and so shame the disobedience of his people to the most easy and reasonable precepts. When we are in the way of our duty we may trust God both with our credit and with our safety. The hearts of that people were strangely stupid, and would not be affected with what they only heard, but must be taught by signs, and therefore Isaiah must do this for their edification. If the dress was scandalous, yet the design was glorious, and what a prophet of the Lord needed not to be ashamed of.
III. The exposition of this sign, Isa 20:3, Isa 20:4. It was intended to signify that the Egyptians and the Ethiopians should be led away captive by the king of Assyria, thus stripped, or in rags, and very shabby clothing, as Isaiah was. God calls him his servant Isaiah, because in this matter particularly he had approved himself God&#039;s willing, faithful, obedient servant; and for this very thing, which perhaps others laughed at him for, God gloried in him. To obey is better than sacrifice; it pleases God and praises him more, and shall be more praised by him. Isaiah is said to have walked naked and barefoot three years, whenever in that time he appeared as a prophet. But some refer the three years, not to the sign, but to the thing signified: He has walked naked and barefoot; there is a stop in the original; provided he did so once that was enough to give occasion to all about him to enquire what was the meaning of his doing so; or, as some think, he did it three days, a day for a year; and this for a three years&#039; sign and wonder, for a sign of that which should be done three years afterwards or which should be three years in the doing. Three campaigns successively shall the Assyrian army make, in spoiling the Egyptians and Ethiopians, and carrying them away captive in this barbarous manner, not only the soldiers taken in the field of battle, but the inhabitants, young and old; and it being a very piteous sight, and such as must needs move compassion in those that had the least degree of tenderness left them to see those who had gone all their days well dressed now stripped, and scarcely having rags to cover their nakedness, that circumstance of their captivity is particularly taken notice of, and foretold, the more to affect those to whom this prophecy was delivered. It is particularly said to be to the shame of Egypt (v. 4), because the Egyptians were a proud people, and therefore when they did fall into disgrace it was the more shameful to them; and the higher they had lifted up themselves the lower was their fall, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of others.
IV. The use and application of this, Isa 20:5, Isa 20:6. 1. All that had any dependence upon, or correspondence with, Egypt and Ethiopia, should now be ashamed of them, and afraid of having any thing to do with them. Those countries that were in danger of being overrun by the Assyrians expected that Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, with his numerous forces, would put a stop to the progress of their victorious arms, and be a barrier to his neighbours; and with yet more assurance they gloried that Egypt, a kingdom so famous for policy and prowess, would do their business, would oblige them to raise the siege of Ashdod and retire with precipitation. But, instead of this, by attempting to oppose the king of Assyria they did but expose themselves and make their country a prey to him. Hereupon all about them were ashamed that ever they promised themselves any advantage from two such weak and cowardly nations, and were more afraid now than ever they were of the growing greatness of the king of Assyria, before whom Egypt and Ethiopia proved but as briers and thorns put to stop a consuming fire, which do but make it burn the more strongly. Note, Those who make any creature their expectation and glory, and so put it in the place of God, will sooner or later be ashamed of it, and their disappointment in it will but increase their fear. See Eze 29:6, Eze 29:7. 2. The Jews in particular should be convinced of their folly in resting upon such broken reeds, and should despair of any relief from them (Isa 20:6): The inhabitants of this isle (the land of Judah, situated upon the sea, though not surrounded by it), of this country (so the margin); every one shall now have his eyes opened, and shall say, &quot;Behold, such is our expectation, so vain, so foolish, and this is that which it will come to. We have fled for help to the Egyptians and Ethiopians, and have hoped by them to be delivered from the king of Assyria; but, now that they are broken thus, how shall we escape, that are not able to bring such armies into the field as they did?&quot; Note, (1.) Those that confide in creatures will be disappointed, and will be made ashamed of their confidence; for vain is the help of man, and in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills or the height and multitude of the mountains. (2.) Disappointment in creature confidences, instead of driving us to despair, as here (how shall we escape?), should drive us to God; for, if we flee to him for help, our expectation shall not be frustrated.</p>

<p>It is a very dark and melancholy scene that this prophecy presents to our view; turn our eyes which way we will, every thing looks dismal. The threatened desolations are here described in a great variety of expressions to the same purport, and all aggravating.
I. The earth is stripped of all its ornaments and looks as if it were taken off its basis; it is made empty and waste (Isa 24:1), as if it were reduced to its first chaos, Tohu and Bohu, nothing but confusion and emptiness again (Gen 1:2), without form and void. It is true earth sometimes signifies the land, and so the same word eretz is here translated (Isa 24:3): The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled; but I see not why it should not there, as well as Isa 24:1, be translated the earth; for most commonly, if not always, where it signifies some one particular land it has something joined to it, or at least not far from it, which does so appropriate it; as the land (or earth) of Egypt, or Canaan, or this land, or ours, or yours, or the like. It might indeed refer to some particular country, and an ambiguous word might be used to warrant such an application; for it is good to apply to ourselves, and our own hands, what the scripture says in general of the vanity and vexation of spirit that attend all things here below; but it should seem designed to speak what often happens to many countries, and will do while the world stands, and what may, we know not how soon, happen to our own, and what is the general character of all earthly things: they are empty of all solid comfort and satisfaction; a little thing makes them waste. We often see numerous families, and plentiful estates, utterly emptied and utterly spoiled, by one judgment or other, or perhaps only by a gradual and insensible decay. Sin has turned the earth upside down; the earth has become quite a different thing to man from what it was when God made it to be his habitation. Sin has also scattered abroad the inhabitants thereof. The rebellion at Babel was the occasion of the dispersion there. How many ways are there in which the inhabitants both of towns and of private houses are scattered abroad, so that near relations and old neighbours know nothing of one another! To the same purport is Isa 24:4. The earth mourns, and fades away; it disappoints those that placed their happiness in it and raised their expectations high from it, and proves not what they promised themselves it would be. The whole world languishes and fades away, as hastening towards a dissolution. It is, at the best, like a flower, which withers in the hands of those that please themselves too much with it, and lay it in their bosoms. And, as the earth itself grows old, so those that dwell therein are desolate; men carry crazy sickly bodies along with them, are often solitary, and confined by affliction, Isa 24:6. When the earth languishes, and is not so fruitful as it used to be, then those that dwell therein, that make it their home, and rest, and portion, are desolate; whereas those that by faith dwell in God can rejoice in him even when the fir-tree does not blossom. If we look abroad, and see in how many places pestilences and burning fevers rage, and what multitudes are swept away by them in a little time, so that sometimes the living scarcely suffice to bury the dead, perhaps we shall understand what the prophet means when he says, The inhabitants of the earth are burned, or consumed, some by one disease, others by another, and there are but few men left, in comparison. Note, The world we live in is a world of disappointment, a vale of tears, and a dying world; and the children of men in it are but of few days, and full of trouble.
II. It is God that brings all these calamities upon the earth. The Lord that made the earth, and made it fruitful and beautiful, for the service and comfort of man, now makes it empty and waste (Isa 24:1), for its Creator is and will be its Judge; he has an incontestable right to pass sentence upon it and an irresistible power to execute that sentence. It is the Lord that has spoken this word, and he will do the work (Isa 24:3); it is his curse that has devoured the earth (Isa 24:6), the general curse which sin brought upon the ground for man&#039;s sake (Gen 3:17), and all the particular curses which families and countries bring upon themselves by their enormous wickedness. See the power of God&#039;s curse, how it makes all empty and lays all waste; those whom he curses are cursed indeed.
III. Persons of all ranks and conditions shall share in these calamities (Isa 24:2): It shall be as with the people, so with the priest, etc. This is true of many of the common calamities of human life; all are subject to the same diseases of body, sorrows of mind, afflictions in relations, and the like. There is one event to those of very different stations; time and chance happen to them all. It is in a special manner true of the destroying judgments which God sometimes brings upon sinful nations; when he pleases he can make them universal, so that none shall escape them or be exempt from them; whether men have little or much, they shall lose it all. Those of the meaner rank smart first by famine; but those of the higher rank go first into captivity, while the poor of the land are left. It shall be all alike, 1. With high and low: As with the people, so with the priest, or prince. The dignity of magistrates and ministers, and the respect and reverence due to both, shall not secure them. The faces of elders are not honoured, Lam 5:12. The priests had been as corrupt and wicked as the people; and, if their character served not to restrain them from sin, how can they expect it should serve to secure them from judgments? In both it is like people, like priest, Hos 4:8, Hos 4:9. 2. With bond and free: As with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress. They have all corrupted their way, and therefore will all be made miserable when the earth is made waste. 3. With rich and poor. Those that have money before-hand, that are purchasing, and letting out money to interest, will fare no better than those that are so impoverished that they are forced to sell their estates and take up money at interest. There are judgments short of the great day of judgment in which rich and poor meet together. Let not those that are advanced in the world set their inferiors at too great a distance, because they know not how soon they may be set upon a level with them. The rich man&#039;s wealth is his strong city in his own conceit; but it does not always prove so.
IV. It is sin that brings these calamities upon the earth. The earth is made empty, and fades away, because it is defiled under the inhabitants thereof (Isa 24:5); it is polluted by the sins of men, and therefore it is made desolate by the judgments of God. Such is the filthy nature of sin that it defiles the earth itself under the sinful inhabitants thereof, and it is rendered unpleasant in the eyes of God and good men. See Lev 18:25, Lev 18:27, Lev 18:28. Blood, in particular, defiles the land, Num 35:33. The earth never spues out its inhabitants till they have first defiled it by their sins. Why, what have they done? 1. They have transgressed the laws of their creation, not answered the ends of it. The bonds of the law of nature have been broken by them, and they have cast from them the cords of their obligations to the God of nature. 2. They have changed the ordinances of revealed religion, those of them that have had the benefit of that. They have neglected the ordinances (so some read it), and have made no conscience of observing them. They have passed over the laws, in the commission of sin, and have passed by the ordinance, in the omission of duty. 3. Herein they have broken the everlasting covenant, which is a perpetual bond and will be to those that keep it a perpetual blessing. It is God&#039;s wonderful condescension that he is pleased to deal with men in a covenant-way, to do them good, and thereby oblige them to do him service. Even those that had no benefit by God&#039;s covenant with Abraham had benefit by his covenant with Noah and his sons, which is called an everlasting covenant, his covenant with day and night; but they observe not the precepts of the sons of Noah, they acknowledge not God&#039;s goodness in the day and night, nor study to make him any grateful returns, and so break the everlasting covenant and defeat the gracious designs and intentions of it.
V. These judgments shall humble men&#039;s pride and mar their mirth. When the earth is made empty, 1. It is a great mortification to men&#039;s pride (Isa 24:4): The haughty people of the earth do languish; for they have lost that which supported their pride, and for which they magnified themselves. As for those that have held their heads highest, God can make them hang the head. 2. It is a great damp to men&#039;s jollity. This is enlarged upon much (Isa 24:7-9): All the merry-hearted do sigh. Such is the nature of carnal mirth, it is but as the crackling of thorns under a pot, Ecc 7:6. Great laughters commonly end in a sigh. Those that make the world their chief joy cannot rejoice ever more. When God sends his judgments into the earth he designs thereby to make those serious that were wholly addicted to their pleasures. Let your laughter be turned into mourning. When the earth is emptied the noise of those that rejoice in it ends. Carnal joy is a noisy thing; but the noise of it will soon be at an end, and the end of it is heaviness. Two things are made use of to excite and express vain mirth, and the jovial crew is here deprived of both: - (1.) Drinking: The new wine mourns; it has grown sour for want of drinking; for, how proper soever it may be for the heavy heart (Pro 31:6), it does not relish to them as it does to the merry-hearted. The vine languishes, and gives little hopes of a vintage, and therefore the merry-hearted do sigh; for they know no other gladness than that of their corn, and wine, and oil increasing (Psa 4:7), and, if you destroy their vines and their fig-trees, you make all their mirth to cease, Hos 2:11, Hos 2:12. They shall not now drink wine with a song and with huzzas, as they used to, but rather drink it with a sigh; nay, Strong drink shall be bitter to those that drink it, because they cannot but mingle their tears with it; or, through sickness, they have lost the relish of it. God has many ways to embitter wine and strong drink to those that love them and have the highest gust of them: distemper of body, anguish of mind, the ruin of the estate or country, will make the strong drink bitter and all the delights of sense tasteless and insipid. (2.) Music: The mirth of tabrets ceases, and the joy of the harp, which used to be at their feasts, Isa 5:12. The captives in Babylon hang their harps on the willow trees. In short, All joy is darkened; there is not a pleasant look to be seen, nor has any one power to force a smile; all the mirth of the land is gone (Isa 24:11); and, if it was that mirth which Solomon calls madness, there is no great loss of it.
VI. The cities will in a particular manner feel from these desolations of the country (Isa 24:10): The city of confusion is broken, is broken down (so we read it); it lies exposed to invading powers, not only by the breaking down of its walls, but by the confusion that the inhabitants are in. Every house is shut up, perhaps by reason of the plague, which has burned or consumed the inhabitants, so that there are few men left, Isa 24:6. Houses infected are usually shut up that no man may come in. Or they are shut up because they are deserted and uninhabited. There is a crying for wine, that is, for the spoiling of the vintage, so that there is likely to be no wine. In the city, in Jerusalem itself, that had been so much frequented, there shall be left nothing but desolation; grass shall grow in the streets, and the gate is smitten with destruction (Isa 24:12); all that used to pass and repass through the gate are smitten, and all the strength of the city is cut off. How soon can God make a city of order a city of confusion, and then it will soon be a city of desolation!</p>

<p>Pashur&#039;s doom was to be a terror to himself; Jeremiah, even now, in this hour of temptation, is far from being so; and yet it cannot be denied but that he is here, through the infirmity of the flesh, strangely agitated within himself. Good men are but men at the best. God is not extreme to mark what they say and do amiss, and therefore we must not be so, but make the best of it. In these verses it appears that, upon occasion of the great indignation and injury that Pashur did to Jeremiah, there was a struggle in his breast between his graces and his corruptions. His discourse with himself and with his God, upon this occasion, was somewhat perplexed; let us try to methodize it.
I. Here is a sad representation of the wrong that was done him and the affronts that were put upon him; and this representation, no doubt, was according to truth, and deserves no blame, but was very justly and very fitly made to him that sent him, and no doubt would bear him out. He complains,
1. That he was ridiculed and laughed at; they made a jest of every thing he said and did; and this cannot but be a great grievance to an ingenuous mind (Jer 20:7, Jer 20:8): I am in derision; I am mocked. They played upon him, and made themselves and one another merry with him, as if he had been a fool, good for nothing but to make sport. Thus he was continually: I was in derision daily. Thus he was universally: Every one mocks me; the greatest so far forget their own gravity, and the meanest so far forget mine. Thus our Lord Jesus, on the cross, was reviled both by priests and people; and the revilings of each had their peculiar aggravation. And what was it that thus exposed him to contempt and scorn? It was nothing but his faithful and zealous discharge of the duty of his office, Jer 20:8. They could find nothing for which to deride him but his preaching; it was the word of the Lord that was made a reproach. That for which they should have honoured and respected him - that he was entrusted to deliver the word of the Lord to them was the very thing for which they reproached and reviled him. He never preached a sermon, but, though he kept as closely as possible to his instructions, they found something or other in it for which to banter and abuse him. Note, It is sad to think that, though divine revelation be one of the greatest blessings and honours that ever was bestowed upon the world, yet it has been turned very much to the reproach of the most zealous preachers and believers of it. Two things they derided him for: - (1.) The manner of his preaching: Since he spoke, he cried out. He had always been a lively affectionate preacher, and since he began to speak in God&#039;s name he always spoke as a man in earnest; he cried aloud and did not spare, spared neither himself nor those to whom he preached; and this was enough for those to laugh at who hated to be serious. It is common for those that are unaffected with and disaffected to, the things of God themselves, to ridicule those that are much affected with them. Lively preachers are the scorn of careless unbelieving hearers. (2.) The matter of his preaching: He cried violence and spoil. He reproved them for the violence and spoil which they were guilty of towards one another; and he prophesied of the violence and spoil which should be brought upon them as the punishment of that sin; for the former they ridiculed him as over-precise, for the latter as over-credulous; in both he was provoking to them, and therefore they resolved to run him down. This was bad enough, yet he complains further.
2. That he was plotted against and his ruin contrived; he was not only ridiculed as a weak man, but reproached and misrepresented as a bad man and dangerous to the government. This he laments as his grievance, Jer 20:10. Being laughed at, though it touches a man in point of honour, is yet a thing that may be easily laughed at again; for, as it has been well observed, it is no shame to be laughed at, but to deserve to be so. But there were those that acted a more spiteful part, and with more subtlety. (1.) They spoke ill of him behind his back, when he had no opportunity of clearing himself, and were industrious to spread false reports concerning him: I heard, at second hand, the defaming of many, fear on every side (of many Magor-missabibs, so some read it), of many such men as Pashur was, and who may therefore expect his doom. Or this was the matter of their defamation; they represented Jeremiah as a man that instilled fears and jealousies on every side into the minds of the people, and so made them uneasy under the government, and disposed them to a rebellion. Or he perceived them to be so malicious against him that he could not but be afraid on every side; wherever he was he had reason to fear informers; so that they made him almost a Magor-missabib. These words are found in the original, verbatim, the same, Psa 31:13, I have heard the slander or defaming of many, fear on every side. Jeremiah, in his complaint, chooses to make use of the same words that David had made use of before him, that it might be a comfort to him to think that other good men had suffered similar abuses before him, and to teach us to make use of David&#039;s psalms with application to ourselves, as there is occasion. Whatever we have to say, we may thence take with us words. See how Jeremiah&#039;s enemies contrived the matter: Report, say they, and we will report it. They resolve to cast an odium upon him, and this is the method they take: &quot;Let some very bad thing be said of him, which may render him obnoxious to the government, and, though it be ever so false, we will second it, and spread it, and add to it.&quot; (For the reproaches of good men lose nothing by the carriage.) &quot;Do you that frame a story plausibly, or you that can pretend to some acquaintance with him, report it once, and we will all report it from you, in all companies, that we come into. Do you say it, and we will swear it; do you set it a going, and we will follow it.&quot; And thus both are equally guilty, those that raise and those that propagate the false report. The receiver is as bad as the thief. (2.) They flattered him to his face, that they might get something from him on which to ground an accusation, as the spies that came to Christ feigning themselves to be just men, Luk 20:20; Luk 11:53, Luk 11:54. His familiars, that he conversed freely with and put a confidence in, watched for his halting, observed what he said, which they could by any strained innuendo put a bad construction upon, and carried it to his enemies. His case was very sad when those betrayed him whom he took to be his friends. They said among themselves, &quot;If we accost him kindly, and insinuate ourselves into his acquaintance, per-adventure he will be enticed to own that he is in confederacy with the enemy and a pensioner to the king of Babylon, or we shall wheedle him to speak some treasonable words; and then we shall prevail against him, and take our revenge upon him for telling us of our faults and threatening us with the judgments of God.&quot; Note, Neither the innocence of the dove, no, nor the prudence of the serpent to help it, can secure men from unjust censure and false accusation.
II. Here is an account of the temptation he was in under this affliction; his feet were almost gone, as the psalmist&#039;s, Psa 73:2. And this is that which is most to be dreaded in affliction, being driven by it to sin, Neh 6:13. 1. He was tempted to quarrel with God for making him a prophet. This he begins with (Jer 20:7): O Lord! thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived. This as we read it, sounds very harshly. God&#039;s servants have been always ready to own that he is a faithful Master and never cheated them; and therefore this is the language of Jeremiah&#039;s folly and corruption. If, when God called him to be a prophet and told him he would set him over the kingdoms (Jer 1:10) and make him a defenced city, he flattered himself with an expectation of having universal respect paid to him as a messenger from heaven, and living safe and easy, and afterwards it proved otherwise, he must not say that God had deceived him, but that he had deceived himself; for he knew how the prophets before him had been persecuted, and had no reason to expect better treatment. Nay, God had expressly told him that all the princes, priests, and people of the land would fight against him (Jer 1:18, Jer 1:19), which he had forgotten, else he would not have laid the blame on God thus. Christ thus told his disciples what opposition they should meet with, that they might not be offended, Joh 16:1, Joh 16:2. But the words may very well be read thus: Thou hast persuaded me, and I was persuaded; it is the same word that was used, Gen 9:27, margin, God shall persuade Japhet. And Pro 25:15, By much forbearance is a prince persuaded. And Hos 2:14, I will allure her. And this agrees best with what follows: &quot;Thou wast stronger than I, didst over-persuade me with argument; nay, didst overpower me, by the influence of thy Spirit upon me, and thou hast prevailed.&quot; Jeremiah was very backward to undertake the prophetic office; he pleaded that he was under age and unfit for the service; but God over-ruled his pleas, and told him that he must go, Jer 1:6, Jer 1:7. &quot;Now, Lord,&quot; says he, &quot;since thou hast put this office upon me, why dost thou not stand by me in it? Had I thrust myself upon it, I might justly have been in derision; but why am I so when thou didst thrust me into it?&quot; It was Jeremiah&#039;s infirmity to complain thus of God as putting a hardship upon him in calling him to be a prophet, which he would not have done had he considered the lasting honour thereby done him, sufficient to counterbalance the present contempt he was under. Note, As long as we see ourselves in the way of God and duty it is weakness and folly, when we meet with difficulties and discouragements in it, to wish we had never set out in it. 2. He was tempted to quit his work and give it over, partly because he himself met with so much hardship in it and partly because those to whom he was sent, instead of being edified and made better, were exasperated and made worse (Jer 20:9): &quot;Then I said, Since by prophesying in the name of the Lord I gain nothing to him or myself but dishonour and disgrace, I will not make mention of him as my author for any thing I say, nor speak any more in his name; since my enemies do all they can to silence me, I will even silence myself, and speak no more, for I may as well speak to the stones as to them.&quot; Note, It is a strong temptation to poor ministers to resolve that they will preach no more when they see their preaching slighted and wholly ineffectual. But let people dread putting their ministers into this temptation. Let not their labour be in vain with us, lest we provoke them to say that they will take no more pains with us, and provoke God to say, They shall take no more. Yet let not ministers hearken to this temptation, but go on in their duty, notwithstanding their discouragements, for this is the more thankworthy; and, though Israel be not gathered, yet they shall be glorious.
III. Here is an account of his faithful adherence to his work and cheerful dependence on his God notwithstanding.
1. He found the grace of God mighty in him to keep him to this business, notwithstanding the temptation he was in to throw it up: &quot;I said, in my haste, I will speak no more in his name; what I have in my heart to deliver I will stifle and suppress. But I soon found it was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, which glowed inwardly, and must have vent; it was impossible to smother it; I was like a man in a burning fever, uneasy and in a continual agitation; while I kept silence from good my heart was hot within me, it was pain and grief to me, and I must speak, that I might be refreshed;&quot; Psa 29:2, Psa 29:3; Job 32:20. While I kept silence, my bones waxed old, Psa 32:3. See the power of the spirit of prophecy in those that were actuated by it; and thus will a holy zeal for God even eat men up, and make them forget themselves. I believed, therefore have I spoken. Jeremiah was soon weary with forbearing to preach, and could not contain himself; nothing puts faithful ministers to pain so much as being silenced, nor to terror so much as silencing themselves. Their convictions will soon triumph over temptations of that kind; for woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel, whatever it cost me, Co1 9:16. And it is really a mercy to have the word of God thus mighty in us to overpower our corruptions.
2. He was assured of God&#039;s presence with him, which would be sufficient to baffle all the attempts of his enemies against him (Jer 20:11): &quot;They say, We shall prevail against him; the day will undoubtedly be our own. But I am sure that they shall not prevail, they shall not prosper. I can safely set them all at defiance, for the Lord is with me, is on my side, to take my part against them (Rom 8:31), to protect me from all their malicious designs upon me. He is with me to support me and bear me up under the burden which now presses me down. He is with me to make the word I preach answer the end he designs, though not the end I desire. He is with me as a mighty terrible one, to strike a terror upon them, and so to overcome them.&quot; Note, Even that in God which is terrible is really comfortable to his servants that trust in him, for it shall be turned against those that seek to terrify his people. God&#039;s being a mighty God bespeaks him a terrible God to all those that take up arms against him or any one that, like Jeremiah, was commissioned by him. How terrible will the wrath of God be to those that think to daunt all about them and will themselves be daunted by nothing! The most formidable enemies that act against us appear despicable when we see the Lord for us as a mighty terrible one, Neh 4:14. Jeremiah speaks now with a good assurance: &quot;If the Lord be with me, my persecutors shall stumble, so that, when they pursue me, they shall not overtake me (Psa 27:2), and then they shall be greatly ashamed of their impotent malice and fruitless attempts. Nay, their everlasting confusion and infamy shall never be forgotten; they shall not forget it themselves, but it shall be to them a constant and lasting vexation, whenever they think of it; others shall not forget it, but it shall leave upon them an indelible reproach.&quot;
3. He appeals to God against them as a righteous Judge, and prays judgment upon his cause, Jer 20:12. He looks upon God as the God that tries the righteous, takes cognizance of them, and of every cause that they are interested in. He does not judge in favour of them with partiality, but tries them, and finding that they have right on their side, and that their persecutors wrong them and are injurious to them, he gives sentence for them. He that tries the righteous tries the unrighteous too, and he is very well qualified to do both; for he sees the reins and the heart, he certainly knows men&#039;s thoughts and affections, their aims and intentions, and therefore can pass an unerring judgment on their words and actions. Now this is the God, (1.) To whom the prophet here refers himself, and in whose court he lodges his appeal: Unto thee have I opened my cause. Not but that God perfectly knew his cause, and all the merits of it, without his opening; but the cause we commit to God we must spread before him. He knows it, but he will know it from us, and allows us to be particular in the opening of it, not to affect him, but to affect ourselves. Note, It will be an ease to our spirits, when we are oppressed and burdened, to open our cause to God and pour out our complaints before him. (2.) By whom he expects to be righted; &quot;Let me see thy vengeance on them, such vengeance as thou thinkest fit to take for their conviction and my vindication, the vengeance thou usest to take on persecutors.&quot; Note, Whatever injuries are done us, we must not study to avenge ourselves, but must leave it to that God to do it to whom vengeance belongs, and who hath said, I will repay.
4. He greatly rejoices and praises God, in a full confidence that God would appear for his deliverance, Jer 20:13. So full is he of the comfort of God&#039;s presence with him, the divine protection he is under, and the divine promise he has to depend upon, that in a transport of joy he stirs up himself and others to give God the glory of it: Sing unto the Lord, praise you the Lord. Here appears a great change with him since he began this discourse; the clouds are blown over, his complaints all silenced and turned into thanksgivings. He has now an entire confidence in that God whom (Jer 20:7) he was distrusting; he stirs up himself to praise that name which (Jer 20:9) he was resolving no more to make mention of. It was the lively exercise of faith that made this happy change, that turned his sighs into songs and his tremblings into triumphs. It is proper to express our hope in God by our praising him, and our praising God by our singing to him. That which is the matter of the praise is, He hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of the evil-doers; he means especially himself, his own poor soul. &quot;He hath delivered me formerly when I was in distress, and now of late out of the hand of Pashur, and he will continue to deliver me, Co2 1:10. He will deliver my soul from the sin that I am in danger of falling into when I am thus persecuted. He hath delivered me from the hand of evil-doers, so that they have not gained their point, nor had their will.&quot; Note, Those that are faithful in well-doing need not fear those that are spiteful in evil-doing, for they have a God to trust to who has well-doers under the hand of his protection and evil-doers under the hand of his restraint.</p>

<p>The complaints here are, for substance, the same with those in the foregoing part of the chapter; but in these verses the prophet, in the name of the lamenting church, does more particularly acknowledge the hand of god in these calamities, and the righteousness of his hand.
I. The church in distress here magnifies her affliction, and yet no more than there was cause for; her groaning was not heavier than her strokes. She appeals to all spectators: See if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, Lam 1:12. This might perhaps be truly said of Jerusalem&#039;s griefs; but we are apt to apply it too sensibly to ourselves when we are in trouble and more than there is cause for. Because we feel most from our own burden, and cannot be persuaded to reconcile ourselves to it, we are ready to cry out, Surely never was sorrow like unto our sorrow; whereas, if our troubles were to be thrown into a common stock with those of others, and then an equal dividend made, share and share alike, rather than stand to that we should each of us say, &quot;Pray, give me my own again.&quot;
II. She here looks beyond the instruments to the author of her troubles, and owns them all to be directed, determined, and disposed of by him: &quot;It is the Lord that has afflicted me, and he has afflicted me because he is angry with me; the greatness of his displeasure may be measured by the greatness of my distress; it is in the day of his fierce anger,&quot; Lam 1:12. Afflictions cannot but be very much our griefs when we see them arising from God&#039;s wrath; so the church does here. 1. She is as one in a fever, and the fever is of God&#039;s sending: &quot;He has sent fire into my bones (Lam 1:13), a preternatural heat, which prevails against them, so that they are burnt like a hearth (Psa 102:3), pained and wasted, and dried away.&quot; 2. She is as one in a net, which the more he struggles to get out of the more he is entangled in, and this net is of God&#039;s spreading. &quot;The enemies could not have succeeded in their stratagems had not God spread a net for my feet.&quot; 3. She is as one in a wilderness, whose way is embarrassed, solitary, and tiresome: &quot;He has turned me back, that I cannot go on, has made me desolate, that I have nothing to support me with, but am faint all the day.&quot; 4. She is as one in a yoke, not yoked for service, but for penance, tied neck and heels together (Lam 1:14): The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand. Observe, We never are entangled in any yoke but what is framed out of our own transgressions. The sinner is holden with the cords of his own sins, Pro 5:22. The yoke of Christ&#039;s commands is an easy yoke (Mat 11:30), but that of our own transgressions is a heavy one. God is said to bind this yoke when he charges guilt upon us, and brings us into those inward and outward troubles which our sins have deserved; when conscience, as his deputy, binds us over to his judgment, then the yoke is bound and wreathed by the hand of his justice, and nothing but the hand of his pardoning mercy will unbind it. 5. She is as one in the dirt, and he it is that has trodden under foot all her mighty men, that has disabled them to stand, and overthrown them by one judgment after another, and so left them to be trampled upon by their proud conquerors, Lam 1:15. Nay, she is as one in a wine-press, not only trodden down, but trodden to pieces, crushed as grapes in the wine-press of God&#039;s wrath, and her blood pressed out as wine, and it is God that has thus trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah. 6. She is in the hand of her enemies, and it is the Lord that has delivered her into their hands (Lam 1:14): He has made my strength to fall, so that I am not able to make head against them; nay, not only not able to rise up against them, but not able to rise up from them, and then he has delivered me into their hands; nay (Lam 1:15), he has called an assembly against me, to crush my young men, and such an assembly as it is in vain to think of opposing; and again (Lam 1:17), The Lord has commanded concerning Jacob that his adversaries should be round about him. He that has many a time commanded deliverances for Jacob (Psa 44:4) now commands an invasion against Jacob, because Jacob has disobeyed the commands of his law.
III. She justly demands a share in the pity and compassion of those that were the spectators of her misery (Lam 1:12): &quot;Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Can you look upon me without concern? What! are your hearts as adamants and your eyes as marbles, that you cannot bestow upon me one compassionate thought, or look, or tear? Are not you also in the body? Is it nothing to you that your neighbor&#039;s house is on fire?&quot; There are those to whom Zion&#039;s sorrows and ruins are nothing; they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. How pathetically does she beg their compassion! (Lam 1:18): &quot;Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: hear my complaints, and see what cause I have for them.&quot; This is a request like that of Job (Job 19:21), Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O you my friends! It helps to make a burden sit lighter if our friends sympathize with us, and mingle their tears with ours, for this is an evidence that, though we are in affliction, we are not in contempt, which is commonly as much dreaded in an affliction as any thing.
IV. She justifies her own grief, though it was very extreme, for these calamities (Lam 1:16): &quot;For these things I weep, I weep in the night (Lam 1:2), when none sees; my eye, my eye, runs down with water.&quot; Note, This world is a vale of tears to the people of God. Zion&#039;s sons are often Zion&#039;s mourners. Zion spreads forth her hands (Lam 1:17), which is here an expression rather of despair than of desire; she flings out her hands as giving up all for gone. Let us see how she accounts for this passionate grief. 1. Her God has withdrawn from her; and Micah, that had but gods of gold, when they were stolen from him cried out, What have I more? And what is it that you say unto me? What aileth thee? The church here grieves excessively; for, says she, the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me. God is the comforter; he used to be so to her; he only can administer effectual comforts; it is his word that speaks them; it is his Spirit that speaks them to us. His are strong consolations, able to relieve the soul, to bring it back when it is gone, and we cannot of ourselves fetch it again; but now he has departed in displeasure, he is far from me, and beholds me afar off. Note, It is no marvel that the souls of the saints faint away, when God, who is the only Comforter that can relieve them, keeps at a distance. 2. Her children are removed from her, and are in no capacity to help her: it is for them that she weeps, as Rachel for hers, because they were not, and therefore she refuses to be comforted. Her children were desolate, because the enemy prevailed against them; there is none of all her sons to take her by the hand (Isa 51:18); they cannot help themselves, and how should they help her? Both the damsels and the youths, that were her joy and hope, have gone into captivity, Lam 1:18. It is said of the Chaldeans that they had no compassion upon young men nor maidens, not on the fair sex, not on the blooming age, Ch2 36:17. 3. Her friends failed her; some would not and others could not give her any relief. She spread forth her hands, as begging relief, but there is none to comfort her (Lam 1:17), none that can do it, none that cares to do it; she called for her lovers, and, to engage them to help her, called them her lovers, but they deceived her (Lam 1:19), they proved like the brooks in summer to the thirsty traveller, Job 6:15. Note, Those creatures that we set our hearts upon and raise our expectations from we are commonly deceived and disappointed in. Her idols were her lovers. Egypt and Assyria were her confidants. But they deceived her. Those that made court to her in her prosperity were shy of her, and strange to her, in her adversity. Happy are those that have made God their friend and keep themselves in his love, for he will not deceive them! 4. Those whose office it was to guide her were disabled from doing her any service. The priests and the elders, that should have appeared at the head of affairs, died for hunger (Lam 1:19); they gave up the ghost, or were ready to expire, while they sought their meat; they went a begging for bread to keep them alive. The famine is sore indeed in the land when there is no bread to the wise, when priests and elders are starved. The priests and elders should have been her comforters; but how should they comfort others when they themselves were comfortless? &quot;They have heard that I sigh, which should have summoned them to my assistance; but there is none to comfort me. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me.&quot; 5. Her enemies were too hard for her, and they insulted over her; they have prevailed, Lam 1:16. Abroad the sword bereaves and slays all that comes in its way, and at home all provisions are cut off by the besiegers, so that there is as death, that is, famine, which is as bad as the pestilence, or worse - the sword without and terror within, Deu 32:25. And as the enemies, that were the instruments of the calamity, were very barbarous, so were those that were the standers by, the Edomites and Ammonites, that bore ill will to Israel: They have heard of my trouble, and are glad that thou hast done it (Lam 1:21); they rejoice in the trouble itself; they rejoice that it is God&#039;s doing; it pleases them to find that God and his Israel have fallen out, and they act accordingly with a great deal of strangeness towards them. Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them, that they are afraid of touching and are shy of, Lam 1:17. Upon all these accounts it cannot be wondered at, nor can she be blamed, that her sighs are many, in grieving for what is, and that her heart is faint (Lam 1:22) in fear of what is yet further likely to be.
V. She justifies God in all that is brought upon her, acknowledging that her sins had deserved these severe chastenings. The yoke that lies so heavily, and binds so hard, is the yoke of her transgressions, Lam 1:14. The fetters we are held in are of our own making, and it is with our own rod that we are beaten. When the church had spoken here as if she thought the Lord severe she does well to correct herself, at least to explain herself, but acknowledging (Lam 1:18), The Lord is righteous. He does us no wrong in dealing thus with us, nor can we charge him with any injustice in it; how unrighteous soever men are, we are sure that the Lord is righteous, and manifests his justice, though they contradict all the laws of theirs. Note, Whatever our troubles are, which God is pleased to inflict upon us, we must own that therein he is righteous; we understand neither him nor ourselves if we do not own it, Ch2 12:6. she owns the equity of God&#039;s actions, but owning the iniquity of her own: I have rebelled against his commandments (Lam 1:18); and again (Lam 1:20), I have grievously rebelled. We cannot speak ill enough of sin, and we must always speak worst of our own sin, must call it rebellion, grievous rebellion; and very grievous sins is to all true penitents. It is this that lies more heavily upon her than the afflictions she was under: &quot;My bowels are troubled; they work within me as the troubled sea; my heart is turned within me, is restless, is turned upside down; for I have grievously rebelled.&quot; Note, Sorrow for our sin must be great sorrow and must affect the soul.
VI. She appeals both to the mercy and to the justice of God in her present case. 1. She appeals to the mercy of God concerning her own sorrows, which had made her the proper object of his compassion (Lam 1:20): &quot;Behold, O Lord! for I am in distress; take cognizance of my case, and take such order for my relief as thou pleasest.&quot; Note, It is matter of comfort to us that the troubles which oppress our spirits are open before God&#039;s eye. 2. She appeals to the justice of God concerning the injuries that her enemies did her (Lam 1:21, Lam 1:22): &quot;Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, the day that is fixed in the counsels of God and published in the prophecies, when my enemies, that now prosecute me, shall be made like unto me, when the cup of trembling, now put into my hands, shall be put into theirs.&quot; It may be read as a prayer, &quot;Let the day appointed come,&quot; and so it goes on, &quot;Let their wickedness come before thee, let it come to be remembered, let it come to be reckoned for; take vengeance on them for all the wrongs they have done to me (Psa 109:14, Psa 109:15); hasten the time when thou wilt do to them for their transgressions as thou hast done to me for mine.&quot; This prayer amounts to a protestation against all thoughts of a coalition with them, and to a prediction of their ruin, subscribing to that which God had in his word spoken of it. Note, Our prayers may and must agree with God&#039;s word; and what day God has here called we are to call for, and no other. And though we are bound in charity to forgive our enemies, and to pray for them, yet we may in faith pray for the accomplishment of that which God has spoken against his and his church&#039;s enemies, that will not repent to give him glory.</p>

<p>when he was strong . . . great horn was broken--The empire was in full strength at Alexander&#039;s death by fever at Babylon, and seemed then least likely to fall. Yet it was then &quot;broken.&quot; His natural brother, Philip Aridoeus, and his two sons, Alexander Ægus and Hercules, in fifteen months were murdered.

four . . . toward . . . four winds--Seleucus, in the east, obtained Syria, Babylonia, Media, &amp;c.; Cassander, in the west, Macedon Thessaly, Greece; PTOLEMY, in the south, Egypt, Cyprus, &amp;c.; Lysimachus, in the north, Thrace, Cappadocia, and the north parts of Asia Minor.</p>

<p>We here see that God bears long, but that he will not bear always, with a provoking people, both these God here showed the prophet: Thus hath the Lord God showed me, Amo 7:1, Amo 7:4, Amo 7:7. He showed him what was present, foreshowed him what was to come, gave him the knowledge both of what he did and of what he designed; for the Lord God reveals his secret unto his servants the prophets, Amo 3:7.
I. We have here two instances of God&#039;s sparing mercy, remembered in the midst of judgment, the narratives of which are so much like one another that they will be best considered together, and very considerable they are.
1. God is here coming forth against this sinful nation, first by one judgment and then by another. (1.) He begins with the judgment of famine. The prophet saw this in vision. He saw God forming grasshoppers, or locusts, and bringing them up upon the land, to eat up the fruits of it, and so to strip it of its beauty and starve its inhabitants, Amo 7:1. God formed these grasshoppers, not only as they were his creatures (and much of the wisdom and power of God appears in the formation of minute animals, as much in the structure of an ant as of an elephant), but as they were instruments of his wrath. God is said to frame evil against a sinful people, Jer 18:11. These grasshoppers were framed on purpose to eat up the grass of the land; and vast numbers of them were prepared accordingly. They were sent in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth, after the king&#039;s mowings. See here how the judgment was mitigated by the mercy that went before it. God could have sent these insects to eat up the grass at the beginning of the first growth, in the spring, when the grass was most needed, was most plentiful, and was the best in its kind; but God suffered that to grow, and suffered them to gather it in; the king&#039;s mowings were safely housed, for the king himself is served from the field (Ecc 5:9), and could as ill be without his mowings as without any other branch of his revenues. Uzziah, who was now king of Judah, loved husbandry, Ch2 26:10. But the grasshoppers were commissioned to eat up only the latter growth (the edgrew we call it in the country), the after-grass, which is of little value in comparison with the former. The mercies which God give us, and continues to us, are more numerous and more valuable than those he removes from us, which is a good reason why we should be thankful and not complain. The remembrance of the mercies of the former growth should make us submissive to the will of God when we meet with disappointments in the latter growth. The prophet, in vision, saw this judgment prevailing far. These grasshoppers ate up the grass of the land, which should have been for the cattle, which the owners must of course suffer by. Some understand this figuratively of a wasting destroying army brought upon them. In the days of Jeroboam the kingdom of Israel began to recover itself from the desolations it had been under in the former reigns (Kg2 14:25); the latter growth shot up, after the mowings of the kings of Syria, which we read of Kg2 13:3. And then God commissioned the king of Assyria with an army of caterpillars to come upon them and lay them waste, that nation spoken of Amo 6:14, which afflicted them from the entering of Hamath to the river of the wilderness, which seems to refer to Kg2 14:25, where Jeroboam is said to have restored their coast from the entering of Hamath to the sea of the plain. God can bring all to ruin when we think all is in some good measure repaired. (2.) He proceeds to the judgment of fire, to show that he has many arrows in his quiver, many ways of humbling a sinful nation (Amo 7:4): The Lord God called to contend by fire. He contended, for God&#039;s judgment upon a people are his controversies with them; in them he prosecutes his action against them; and his controversies are neither causeless nor groundless. He called to contend; he did by his prophets give them notice of his controversy, and drew up a declaration, setting forth the meaning of it. Or he called for his angels, or other ministers of his justice, that were to be employed in it. A fire was kindled among them, by which perhaps is meant a great drought (the heat of the sun, which should have warmed the earth, scorched it, and burnt up the roots of the grass which the locusts had eaten the spires of), or a raging fever, which was as a fire in their bones, which devoured and ate up multitudes, or lightning, fire from heaven, which consumed their houses, as Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed (Amo 4:11), or it was the burning of their cities, either by accident or by the hand of the enemy, for fire and sword used to go together; thus were the towns wasted, as the country was by the grasshoppers. This fire, which God called for, did terrible execution; it devoured the great deep, as the fire that fell from heaven on Elijah&#039;s altar licked up the water that was in the trench. Though the water designed for the stopping and quenching of this fire was as the water of the great deep, yet it devoured it; for who, or what, can stand before a fire kindled by the wrath of God! It did eat up a part, a great part, of the cities where it was sent; or it was as the fire at Taberah, which consumed the outermost parts of the camp (Num 11:1); when some were overthrown others were as brands plucked out of the fire. All deserved to be devoured, but it ate up only a part, for God does not stir up all his wrath.
2. The prophet goes forth to meet him in the way of his judgments, and by prayer seeks to turn away his wrath, Amo 7:2. When he saw, in vision, what dreadful work these caterpillars made, that they had eaten up in a manner all the grass of the land (he foresaw they would do so, if suffered to go on), then he said, O Lord God! forgive, I beseech thee (Amo 7:2); cease, I beseech thee, Amo 7:5. He that foretold the judgment in his preaching to the people, yet deprecated it in his intercessions for them. He is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee. It was the business of prophets to pray for those to whom they prophesied, and so to make it appear that though they denounced they did not desire the woeful day. Therefore, God showed his prophets the evils coming, that they might befriend the people, not only by warning them, but by praying for them, and standing in the gap, to turn away God&#039;s wrath, as Moses, that great prophet, often did. Now observe here,
(1.) The prophet&#039;s prayer: O Lord God! [1.] Forgive, I beseech thee, and take away the sin, Amo 7:2. He sees sin at the bottom of the trouble, and therefore concludes that the pardon of sin must be at the bottom of deliverance, and prays for that in the first place. Note, Whatever calamity we are under, personal or public, the forgiveness of sin is that which we should be most earnest with God for. [2.] Cease, I beseech thee, and take away the judgment; cease the fire, cease the controversy; cause they anger towards us to cease. This follows upon the forgiveness of sin. Take away the cause and effect will cease. Note, Those whom God contends with will soon find what need they have to cry for a cessation of arms; and there are hopes that though God has begun, and proceeded far, in his controversy, yet it may be obtained.
(2.) The prophet&#039;s plea to enforce this prayer: By whom shall Jacob arise, for he is small? Amo 7:2. And it is repeated (Amo 7:5) and yet no vain repetition. Christ, in his agony, prayed earnestly, saying the same words, again and again. [1.] It is Jacob that he is interceding for, the professing people of God, called by his name, calling on his name, the seed of Jacob, his chosen, and in covenant with him. It it Jacob&#039;s case that is in this prayer spread before the God of Jacob. [2.] Jacob is small, very small already, weakened and brought low by former judgments; and therefore, it these come, he will be quite ruined and brought to nothing. The people are few; the dust of Jacob, which was once innumerable, is now soon counted. Those few are feeble (it is the worm Jacob, Isa 41:14); they are unable to help themselves or one another. Sin will soon make a great people small, will diminish the numerous, impoverish the plenteous, and weaken the courageous. [3.] By whom shall he arise? He has fallen, and cannot help himself up, and he has no friend to help him, none to raise him, unless the hand of God do it; what will become of him, then, if the hand that should raise him to stretched out against him? Note, When the state of God&#039;s church is very low and very helpless it is proper to be recommended by our prayers to God&#039;s pity.
3. God graciously lets fall his controversy, in answer to the prophet&#039;s prayer, once and again (Amo 7:3): The Lord repented for this. He did not change his mind, for he is one mind and who can turn him? But he changed is way, took another course, and determined to deal in mercy and not in wrath. He said, It shall not be. And again (Amo 7:6), This also shall not be. The caterpillars were countermanded, were remanded; a stop was put to the progress of the fire, and thus a reprieve was granted. See the power of prayer, of effectual fervent prayer, and how much it avails, what great things it prevails for. A stop has many a time been put to a judgment by making supplication to the Judge. This was not the first time that Israel&#039;s life was begged, and so saved. See what a blessing praying people, praying prophets, are to a land, and therefore how highly they ought to be valued. Ruin would many a time have broken in if they had not stood in the breach, and made good the pass. See how ready, how swift, God is to show mercy, how he waits to be gracious. Amos moves for a reprieve, and obtains it, because God inclines to grant it and looks about to see if there be any that will intercede for it, Isa 59:16. Nor are former reprieves objected against further instances of mercy, but are rather encouragements to pray and hope for them. This also shall not be, any more than that. It is the glory of God that he multiplies to pardon, that he spares, and forgives, to more than seventy times seven times.
II. We have here the rejection of those at last who had been often reprieved and yet never reclaimed, reduced to straits and yet never reduced to their God and their duty. This is represented to the prophet by a vision (Amo 7:7, Amo 7:8) and an express prediction of utter ruin, Amo 7:9.
1. The vision is of a plumb-line, a line with a plummet at the end of it, such as masons and bricklayers use to run up a wall by, that they may work it straight and true, and by rule. (1.) Israel was a wall, a strong wall, which God himself had reared, as a bulwark, or wall of defence, to his sanctuary, which he set up among them. The Jewish church says of herself (Sol 8:10), I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. This wall was made by a plumb-line, very exact and firm. So happy was its constitution, so well compacted, and every thing so well ordered according to the model; it had long stood fast as a wall of brass. But, (2.) God now stands upon this wall, not to hold it up, but to tread it down, or, rather, to consider what he should do with it. He stands upon it with a plumb-line in his hand, to take measure of it, that it may appear to be a bowing, bulging wall. Recti est index sui et oblique - This plumb-line would discover where it was crooked. Thus God would bring the people of Israel to the trial, would discover their wickedness, and show wherein they erred; and he would likewise bring his judgments upon them according to equity, would set a plumb-line in the midst of them, to mark how far their wall must be pulled down, as David measured the Moabites with a line (Sa2 8:2) to put them to death. And, when God is coming to the ruin of a people, he is said to lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet; for when he punishes it is with exactness. It is now determined: &quot;I will not again pass by them any more; they shall not be spared and reprieved as they have been; their punishment shall not be turned away,&quot; Amo 1:3. Note, God&#039;s patience, which has long been sinned against, will at length be sinned away; and the time will come when those that have been spared often shall be no longer spared. My spirit shall not always strive. After frequent reprieves, yet a day of execution will come.
2. The prediction is of utter ruin, Amo 7:9. (1.) The body of the people shall be destroyed, with all those things that were their ornament and defence. They are here called Isaac as well as Israel, the house of Isaac (Amo 7:16), some think in allusion to the signification of Isaac&#039;s name; it is laughter; they shall become a jest among all their neighbours; their neighbours shall laugh at them. The desolation shall fasten upon their high places and their sanctuaries, either their castles or their temples, both built on high places. Their castles they thought safe, and their temples sacred as sanctuaries. These shall be laid waste, to punish them for their idolatry and to make them ashamed of their carnal confidences, which were the two things for which God had a controversy with them. When these were made desolate they might read their sin and folly in their punishment. (2.) The royal family shall sink first, as an earnest of the ruin of the whole kingdom: I will rise against the house of Jeroboam, Jeroboam the second, who was now king of the ten tribes; his family was extirpated in his son Zecharias, who was slain with the sword before the people, by Shallum who conspired against him, Kg2 15:10. How unrighteous soever the instruments were, God was righteous, and in them God rose up against that idolatrous family. Even king&#039;s houses will be no shelter against the sword of God&#039;s wrath.</p>

<p>Ye persuade yourselves that &quot;the evil day&quot; foretold by the prophets is &quot;far off,&quot; though they declare it near (Eze 12:22, Eze 12:27). Ye in your imagination put it far off, and therefore bring near violent oppression, suffering it to sit enthroned, as it were, among you (Psa 94:20). The notion of judgment being far off has always been an incentive to the sinner&#039;s recklessness of living (Ecc 8:12-13; Mat 24:48). Yet that very recklessness brings near the evil day which he puts far off. &quot;Ye bring on fever by your intemperance, and yet would put it far off&quot; [CALVIN].</p>

<p>It was the complaint of the Jews in Babylon that they saw not their signs, and there was no more prophet (Psa 74:9), which was a just judgment upon them for mocking and misusing the prophets. We read of no prophets they had in their return, as they had in their coming out of Egypt, Hos 12:13. God stirred them up immediately by his Spirit to exert themselves in that escape (Ezr 1:5); for, though God makes use of prophets, he needs them not, he can do his work without them. But the lamp of Old Testament prophecy shall yet make some bright and glorious efforts before it expire; and Haggai is the first that appears under the character of a special messenger from heaven, when the word of the Lord had been long precious (as when prophecy began, Sa1 3:1) and there had been no open vision. In the reign of Darius Hystaspes, the third of the Persian kings, in the second year of his reign, this prophet was sent; and the word of the Lord came to him, and came by him to the leading men among the Jews, who are here named, Hag 1:1. The chief governor, 1. In the state; that was Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, of the house of David, who was commander-in-chief of the Jews, in their return out of captivity. 2. In the church; and that was Joshua the son of Josedech, who was now high priest. They were great men and good men, and yet were to be stirred up to their duty when they grew remiss. What the people also were faulty in they must be told of, that they might use their power and interest for the mending of it. The prophets, who were extraordinary messengers, did not go about to set aside the ordinary institutions of magistracy and ministry, but endeavoured to render both more effectual for the ends to which they were appointed, for both ought to be supported. Now observe,
I. What the sin of the Jews was at this time, Hag 1:2. As soon as they came up out of captivity they set up an altar for sacrifice, and within a year after laid the foundations of a temple, Ezr 3:10. They then seemed very forward in it, and it was likely enough that the work would be done suddenly; but, being served with a prohibition some time after from the Persian court, and charged not to go on with it, they not only yielded to the force, when they were actually under it, which might be excused, but afterwards, when the violence of the opposition had abated, they continued very indifferent to it, had no spirit nor courage to set about it again, but seemed glad that they had a pretence to let it stand still. Though those who are employed for God may be driven off from their work by a storm, yet they must return to it as soon as the storm is over. These Jews did not do so, but continued loitering until they were afresh reminded of their duty. And that which they suggested one to another was, The time has not come, the time that the Lord&#039;s house should be built; that is, 1. &quot;Our time has not come for the doing of it, because we have not yet recovered, after our captivity; our losses are not repaired, nor have we yet got before-hand in the world. It is too great an undertaking for new beginners in the world, as we are; let us first get our own houses up, before we talk of building churches, and in the mean time let a bare altar serve us, as it did our father Abraham.&quot; They did not say that they would not build a temple at all, but, &quot;Not yet; it is all in good time.&quot; Note, Many a good work is put by by being put off, as Felix put off the prosecution of his convictions to a more convenient season. They do not say that they will never repent, and reform, and be religious, but, &quot;Not yet.&quot; And so the great business we were sent into the world to do is not done, under pretence that it is all in good time to go about it. 2. &quot;God&#039;s time has not come for the doing of it; for (say they) the restraint laid upon us by authority in a legal way is not broken off, and therefore we ought not to proceed, though there be a present connivance of authority.&quot; Note, There is an aptness in us to misinterpret providential discouragements in our duty, as if they amounted to a discharge from our duty, when they are only intended for the trial and exercise of our courage and faith. It is bad to neglect our duty, but it is worse to vouch Providence for the patronising of our neglects.
II. What the judgments of God were by which they were punished for this neglect, Hag 1:6, Hag 1:9-11. They neglected the building of God&#039;s house, and put that off, that they might have time and money for their secular affairs. They desired to be excused from such an expensive piece of work under this pretence, that they must provide for their families; their children must have meat and portions too, and, until they have got before-hand in the world, they cannot think of rebuilding the temple. Now, that the punishment might answer to the sin, God by his providence kept them still behind-hand, and that poverty which they thought to prevent by not building the temple God brought upon them for not building it. They were sensible of the smart of the judgment, and every one complained of the unseasonable weather, the great losses they sustained in their corn and cattle, and the decay of trade; but they were not sensible of the cause of the judgment, and the ground of God&#039;s controversy with them. They did not, or would not, see and own that it was for their putting off the building of the temple that they lay under these manifest tokens of God&#039;s displeasure; and therefore God here gives them notice that this is that for which he contended with them. Note, We need the help of God&#039;s prophets and ministers to expound to us, not only the judgments of God&#039;s mouth, but the judgments of his hands, that we may understand his mind and meaning in his rod as well as in his word, to discover to us not only wherein we have offended God, but wherein God shows himself offended at us. Let us observe,
1. How God contended with them. He did not send them into captivity again, nor bring a foreign enemy upon them, as they deserved, but took the correcting of them into his own hands; for his mercies are great. (1.) He that gives seed to the sower denied his blessing upon the seed sown, and then it never prospered; they had nothing, or next to nothing, from it. They sowed much (Hag 1:6), kept a great deal of ground in tillage, which, they might expect, would turn to a better advantage than usual, because their land had long lain fallow and had enjoyed its sabbaths. Having sown much, they looked for much from it, enough to spend and enough to spare too; but they were disappointed: They bring in little, very little (Hag 1:6); when they have made the utmost of it, it comes to little (Hag 1:9); it did not yield as they expected. Isa 5:10, The seed of a homer shall yield an ephah, a bushel&#039;s sowing shall yield a peck. Note, Our expectations from the creature are often most frustrated when they are most raised; and then, when we look for much, it comes to little, that our expectation may be from God only, in whom it will be outdone. We are here told how they came to be disappointed (Hag 1:10): The heaven over you is stayed from dew; he that has the key of the clouds in his hands shut them up, and withheld the rain when the ground called for it, the former or the latter rain, and then of course the earth is stayed from her fruit; for, if the heaven be as brass, the earth is as iron. The corn perhaps came up very well, and promised a very plentiful crop, but, for want of the dews at earing-time, it never filled, but was parched with the heat of the sun and withered away. The restored captives, who had long been kept bare in Babylon, thought they should never want when they had got their own land in possession again and had that at command. But what the better are they for it, unless they had the clouds at command too? God will make us sensible of our necessary and constant dependence upon him, throughout all the links in the chain of second causes, from first to last; so that we can at no time say, &quot;Now we have no further occasion for God and his providence.&quot; See Hos 2:21. But God not only withheld the cooling rains, but he appointed the scorching heats (Hag 1:11): I called for a drought upon the land, ordered the weather to be extremely hot, and then the fruits of the earth were burnt up. See how every creature is that to us which God makes it to be, either comfortable or afflictive, serving us or incommoding us. Nothing among the inferior creatures is so necessary and beneficial to the world as the heat of the sun; it is that which puts life into the plants and renews the face of the earth at spring. And yet, if that go into an extreme, it undoes all again. Our Creator is our best friend; but, if we make him our enemy, we make the best friends we have among the creatures our enemies too. This drought God called for, and it came at the call; as the winds and the waves, so the rays of the sun, obey him. It was universal, and the ill effects of it were general; it was a drought upon the mountains, which, lying high, were first affected with it. The mountains were their pasture-grounds, and used to be covered over with flocks, but now there was no grass for them. It was upon the corn, the new wine, and the oil; all failed through the extremity of the hot weather, even all that the ground brought forth; it all withered. Nay, it had a bad influence upon men; the hot weather enfeebled some, and made them weary and faint, and spent their spirits; it inflamed others, and put them into fevers. It should seem, it brought diseases upon cattle too. In short, it spoiled all the labour of their hands, which they hoped to eat of and maintain their families by. Note, Meat for the belly is meat that perishes, and, if we labour for that only, we are in danger of losing our labour; but we are sure our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord if we labour for the meat which endures to eternal life. For the hand of the diligent, in the business of religion, will infallibly make rich, whereas, in the business of this life, the most solicitous and the most industrious often lose the labour of their hands. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. (2.) He that gives bread to the eater denied his blessing upon the bread they ate, and then that did not nourish them. The cause of the withering and failing of the corn in the field was visible - it was for want of rain; but, besides that, there was a secret blast and curse attending that which they brought home. [1.] When they had it in the barn they were not sure of it: I did blow upon it, saith the Lord of hosts (Hag 1:9), and that withered it, as buds are sometimes blasted in the spring by a nipping frost, which we see the effects of, but know not the way of. I did blow it away; so the margin reads it. When men have heaped wealth together God can scatter it with the breath of his mouth as easily as we can blow away a feather. Note, We can never be sure of any thing in this world; it is exposed, not only when it is in the field, but when it is housed; for there moth and rust corrupt, Mat 6:19. And, if we would have the comfort and continuance of our temporal enjoyments, we must make God our friend; for, if he bless them to us, they are blessings indeed, but if he blow upon them we can expect no good from them: they make themselves wings and fly away. [2.] When they had it upon the board it was not that to them that they expected: &quot;You eat, but you have not enough, either because the meat is washy, and not satisfying, or because the stomach is greedy, and not satisfied. You eat, but you have no good digestion, and so are not nourished by it, nor does it answer the end, or you have not enough because you are not content, nor think it enough. You drink, but are not cooled and refreshed by it; you are not filled with drink; you are stinted, and have not enough to quench your thirst. The new wine is cut off from your mouth (Joe 1:5), nay, and you drink your water too by measure and with astonishment; you have no comfort of it, because you have no plenty of it, but are still in fear of falling short.&quot; [3.] That which they had upon their backs did them no good there: &quot;You clothe yourselves, but there is none warm; your clothes soon wear out, and wax old, and grow thin, because God blows upon them,&quot; contrary to what Israel&#039;s did in the wilderness when God blessed them. It is God that makes our garments warm upon us, when he quiets the earth, Job 37:17. [4.] That which they had in their bags, which was not laid out, but laid up, they were not sure of: &quot;He that earns wages by hard labour, and has it paid him in ready current money, puts it into a bag with holes; it drops through, and wastes away insensibly. Every thing is so scarce and dear that they spend their money as fast as they get it.&quot; Those that lay up their treasure on earth put it into a bag with holes; they lose it as they go along, and those that come after them pick it up. But, if we lay up our treasure in heaven, we provide for ourselves bags that wax not old, Luk 12:33.
2. Observe wherefore God thus contended with them, and stopped the current of the favours promised them at their return (Joe 2:24); they provoked him to do it: It is because of my house that is waste. This is the quarrel God has with them. The foundation of the temple is laid, but the building does not go on. &quot;Every man runs to his own house, to finish that, and to make that convenient and fine, and no care is taken about the Lord&#039;s house; and therefore it is that God crosses you thus in all your affairs, to testify his displeasure against you for that neglect, and to bring you to a sense of your sin and folly.&quot; Note, As those who seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof shall not only find them, but are most likely to have other things added to them, so those who neglect and postpone those things will not only lose them, but will justly have other things taken away from them. And if God cross us in our temporal affairs, and we meet with trouble and disappointment, we shall find this is the cause of it, the work we have to do for God and our own souls is left undone, and we seek our own things more than the things of Jesus Christ, Phi 2:21.
III. The reproof which the prophet gives them for their neglect of the temple-work (Hag 1:4): &quot;Is it time for you, O you! to dwell in your ceiled houses, to have them beautified and adorned, and your families settled in them?&quot; They were not content with walls and roofs for necessity, but they must have for gaiety and fancy. &quot;It is high time,&quot; says one, &quot;that my house were wainscoted.&quot; &quot;It is high time,&quot; says another, &quot;that mine were painted.&quot; And God&#039;s house, all this time, lies waste, and nothing is done at it. &quot;What!&quot; says the prophet, &quot;is it time that you should have your humour pleased, and not time you should have your God pleased?&quot; How much was their disposition the reverse of David&#039;s, who could not be easy in his house of cedar while the ark of God was in curtains (Sa2 7:2), and of Solomon&#039;s, who built the temple of God before he built a palace for himself. Note, Those are very much strangers to their own interest who prefer the conveniences and ornaments of the temporal life before the absolute necessities of the spiritual life, who are full of care to enrich their own houses, while God&#039;s temple in their hearts lies waste, and nothing is done for it or in it.
IV. The good counsel which the prophet gives to those who thus despised God, and whom God was therefore justly displeased with. 1. He would have them reflect: Now therefore consider your ways, Hag 1:5 and again Hag 1:7. &quot;Be sensible of the hand of God gone out against you, and enquire into the reason; think what you have done that has provoked God thus to break in upon your comforts; and think what you will do to testify your repentance, that God may return in mercy to you.&quot; Note, It is the great concern of every one of us to consider our ways, to set our hearts to our ways (so the word is), to think on our ways (Psa 119:59), to search and try them (Lam 3:40), to ponder the path of our feet (Pro 4:26), to apply our minds with all seriousness to the great and necessary duty of self-examination, and communing with our own hearts concerning our spiritual state, our sins that are past, and our duty for the future; for sin is what we must answer for, duty is what we must do; about these therefore we must be inquisitive, rather than about events, which we must leave to God. Many are quick-sighted to pry into other people&#039;s ways who are very careless of their own; whereas our concern is to prove every one his own work, Gal 6:4. 2. He would have them reform (Hag 1:8): &quot;Go up to the mountain, to Lebanon, and bring wood, and other materials that are wanting, and build the house with all speed; put it off no longer, but set to it in good earnest.&quot; Note, Our considering our ways must issue in the amending of whatever we find amiss in them. If any duty has been long neglected, that is not a reason why it should still be so, but why now at length it should be revived; better late than never. For their encouragement to apply in good earnest to this work, he assures them, (1.) That they should be accepted of him in it: Build the house, and I will take pleasure in it; and that was encouragement enough for them to apply to it with alacrity and resolution, and to go through with it, whatever it cost them. Note, Whatever God will take pleasure in, when it is done, we ought to take pleasure in the doing of, and to reckon that inducement enough to set about it, and go on with it in good earnest; for what greater satisfaction can we have in our own bosoms than in contributing any thing towards that which God will take pleasure in? It ought to be the top of our ambition to be accepted of the Lord, Co2 5:9. Though they had foolishly neglected the house of God, yet, if at length they will resume the care of it, God will not remember against them their former neglects, but will take pleasure in the work of their hands. Those who have long deferred their return to God, if at length they return with all their heart, must not despair of his favour. (2.) That he would be honoured by them in it: I will be glorified, saith the Lord. He will be served and worshipped in the temple when it is built, and sanctified in those that come nigh to him. It is worth while to bestow all possible care, and pains, and cost, upon that by which God may be glorified.</p>

<p>See here, I. What an industrious preacher Christ was; He went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Observe, 1. What Christ preached - the gospel of the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven, that is, of grace and glory, is emphatically the kingdom, the kingdom that was now to come; that kingdom which shall survive, as it doth surpass, all the kingdoms of the earth. The gospel is the charter of that kingdom, containing the King&#039;s coronation oath, by which he has graciously obliged himself to pardon, protect, and save the subjects of that kingdom; it contains also their oath of allegiance, by which they oblige themselves to observe his statutes and seek his honour; this is the gospel of the kingdom; this Christ was himself the Preacher of, that our faith in it might be confirmed. 2. Where he preached - in the synagogues; not there only, but there chiefly, because those were the places of concourse, where wisdom was to lift up her voice (Pro 1:21); because they were places of concourse for religious worship, and there, it was to be hoped, the minds of the people would be prepared to receive the gospel; and there the scriptures of the Old Testament were read, the exposition of which would easily introduce the gospel of the kingdom. 3. What pains he took in preaching; He went about all Galilee, teaching. He might have issued out a proclamation to summon all to come to him; but, to show his humility, and the condescensions of his grace, he goes to them; for he waits to be gracious, and comes to seek and save. Josephus says, There were above two hundred cities and towns in Galilee, and all, or most of them, Christ visited. He went about doing good. Never was there such an itinerant preacher, such an indefatigable one, as Christ was; he went from town to town, to beseech poor sinners to be reconciled to God. This is an example to ministers, to lay themselves out to do good, and to be instant, and constant, in season, and out of season, to preach the word.
II. What a powerful physician Christ was; he went about not only teaching, but healing, and both with his word, that he might magnify that above all his name. He sent his word, and healed them. Now observe,
1. What diseases he cured - all without exception. He healed all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease. There are diseases which are called the reproach of physicians, being obstinate to all the methods they can prescribe; but even those were the glory of this Physician, for he healed them all, however inveterate. His word was the true panpharmacon - all-heal.
Three general words are here used to intimate this; he healed every sickness, noson, as blindness, lameness, fever, dropsy; every disease, or languishing, malakian, as fluxes and consumptions; and all torments, basanous, as gout, stone, convulsions, and such like torturing distempers; whether the disease was acute or chronical; whether it was a racking or a wasting disease; none was too bad, none too hard, for Christ to heal with a word&#039;s speaking.
Three particular diseases are specified; the palsy, which is the greatest weakness of the body; lunacy, which is the greatest malady of the mind, and possession of the Devil, which is the greatest misery and calamity of both, yet Christ healed all: for he is the sovereign Physician both of soul and body, and has command of all diseases.
2. What patients he had. A physician who was so easy of access, so sure of success, who cured immediately, without either a painful suspense and expectation, or such painful remedies as are worse than the disease; who cured gratis, and took no fees, could not but have abundance of patients. See here, what flocking there was to him from all parts; great multitudes of people came, not only from Galilee and the country about, but even from Jerusalem and from Judea, which lay a great way off; for his fame went throughout all Syria, not only among all the people of the Jews, but among the neighbouring nations, which, by the report that now spread far and near concerning him, would be prepared to receive his gospel, when afterwards it should be brought them. This is given as the reason why such multitudes came to him, because his fame had spread so widely. Note, What we hear of Christ from others, should invite us to him. The queen of Sheba was induced, by the fame of Solomon, to pay him a visit. The voice of fame is &quot;Come, and see.&quot; Christ both taught and healed. They who came for cures, met with instruction concerning the things that belonged to their peace. It is well if any thing will bring people to Christ; and they who come to him will find more in him than they expected. These Syrians, like Naaman the Syrian, coming to be healed of their diseases, many of them being converts, Kg2 5:15, Kg2 5:17. They sought health for the body, and obtained the salvation of the soul; like Saul, who sought the asses, and found the kingdom. Yet it appeared, by the issue, that many of those who rejoiced in Christ as a Healer, forgot him as a Teacher.
Now concerning the cures which Christ wrought, let us, once for all, observe the miracle, the mercy, and the mystery, of them.
(1.) The miracle of them. They were wrought in such a manner, as plainly spake them to be the immediate products of a divine and supernatural power, and they were God&#039;s seal to his commission. Nature could not do these things, it was the God of nature; the cures were many, of diseases incurable by the art of the physician, of persons that were strangers, of all ages and conditions; the cures were wrought openly, before many witnesses, in mixed companies of persons that would have denied the matter of fact, if they could have had any colour for so doing; no cure ever failed, or was afterwards called in question; they were wrought speedily, and not (as cures by natural causes) gradually; they were perfect cures, and wrought with a word&#039;s speaking; all which proves him a Teacher come from God, for, otherwise, none could have done the works that he did, Joh 3:2. He appeals to these as credentials, Mat 11:4, Mat 11:5; Joh 5:36. It was expected that the Messiah should work miracles (Joh 7:31); miracles of this nature (Isa 35:5, Isa 35:6); and we have this indisputable proof of his being the Messiah; never was there any man that did thus; and therefore his healing and his preaching generally went together, for the former confirmed the latter; thus here he began to do and to teach, Act 1:1.
(2.) The mercy of them. The miracles that Moses wrought, to prove his mission, were most of them plagues and judgments, to intimate the terror of that dispensation, though from God; but the miracles that Christ wrought, were most of them cures, and all of them (except the cursing of the barren fig tree) blessings and favours; for the gospel dispensation is founded, and built up in love, and grace, and sweetness; and the management is such as tends not to affright but to allure us to obedience. Christ designed by his cures to win upon people, and to ingratiate himself and his doctrine into their minds, and so to draw them with the bands of love, Hos 11:4. The miracle of them proved his doctrine a faithful saying, and convinced men&#039;s judgments; the mercy of them proved it worthy of all acceptation, and wrought upon their affections. They were not only great works, but good works, that he showed them from his Father (Joh 10:32); and this goodness was intended to lead men to repentance (Rom 2:4), as also to show that kindness, and beneficence, and doing good to all, to the utmost of our power and opportunity, are essential branches of that holy religion which Christ came into the world to establish.
(3.) The mystery of them. Christ, by curing bodily diseases, intended to show, that his great errand into the world was to cure spiritual maladies. He is the Sun of righteousness, that arises with this healing under his wings. As the Converter of sinners, he is the Physician of souls, and has taught us to call him so, Mat 9:12, Mat 9:13. Sin is the sickness, disease, and torment of the soul; Christ came to take away sin, and so to heal these. And the particular stories of the cures Christ wrought, may not only be applied spiritually, by way of allusion and illustration, but, I believe, are very much intended to reveal to us spiritual things, and to set before us the way and method of Christ&#039;s dealing with souls, in their conversion and sanctification; and those cures are recorded, that were most significant and instructive this way; and they are therefore so to be explained and improved, to the honour and praise of that glorious Redeemer, who forgiveth all our iniquities, and so healeth all our diseases.</p>