Holy Bible

The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond. Jeremiah 17:1 The deep seated character of sin I. WHAT IS SIN? If you ask the Pharisee of old what sin was — "Well," he said, "it is eating without washing your hands; it is drinking wine without having first of all strained out the gnats, for those insects are unclean, and if you should swallow any of them they will render you defiled." Many in these days have the same notion, with a variation. We have read of a Spanish bandit, who, when he confessed before his father confessor, complained that one sin hung with peculiar weight upon his soul that was of peculiar atrocity. He had stabbed a man on a Friday, and a few drops of the blood of the wound had fallen on his lips, by which he had broken the precepts of holy Church, in having tasted animal food on a fast day. The murder did not seem to arouse in his conscience any feeling of remorse at all — not one atom — he would have done the same tomorrow; but an accidental violation of the canons of mother Church excited all his fears. Singular, indeed, are the ideas which many men have of transgression. But such is not God's view of sin. Sin is a want of conformity to the will of God; sin is disobedience to God's command; sin is a forgetfulness of the obligations of the relation which exists between the creature and the Creator. This is the very essence of sin. Injustice to my fellow creature is truly sin, but its essence lies in the fact that it is sin against God, who constituted the relation which I have violated. It is a great and intolerable wrong that, being created by God, we yet refuse to yield to His will. It is right that He who is so good to us should have our love: it is sin that, living upon God's goodness, we do not return to Him our heart's affection. It is right that, being sustained by Divine beneficence from day to day, we should give to Him constant thankfulness; but, being so sustained, we do not thank Him, and herein lies the very soul of sin. Now, in the light of this truth, let me ask the believer to humble himself very greatly on account of sin. That I have not loved my God with all my heart; that I have not trusted Him with all my confidence; that I have not given to Him the glory due unto His name; that I have not acted as a creature should do, much less as a new creature is bound to do; that, receiving priceless mercies, I have made so small a return — let me confess this in dust and ashes, and then bless the name of the Atoner who, by His precious blood, hath put even this away, so that it shall not be mentioned against us any more forever. II. HOW IS THE FIXEDNESS OF SIN WHICH IS DECLARED IN THE TEXT PROVED? The prophet tells us that man's sinfulness is as much fixed in him as an inscription carved with an iron pen in granite. How is this fixedness proved? It is proved in two ways in the text, namely, that it is graven upon the table of their heart, and secondly, upon the horns of their altar. It clearly proves how deeply evil is fixed in man, when we reflect that sin is in the very heart of man. When a sin becomes intertwisted with the roots of the affections, you cannot uproot it; when the leprosy eats deep into the heart of humanity, who can expel it? It becomes henceforth a hopeless case, so far as human power is concerned. Since sin reigns and rules in man's affections, it is deep ingrained indeed. The second proof the prophet gives of the infixedness of human sin is, that it was written on the horns of their altars. These people sinned by setting up idols and departing from Jehovah: we sin in quite another way. When you get the unconverted man to be religious — which is a very easy thing — what form does the religion take? Frequently he prefers that which most gratifies his taste, his ears, or his sight. If your heart is touched, that is the worship of God; if your heart is drawn to God, that is the service of God; but if it is the mere ringing of the words, and the falling of the periods, and the cadence of the voice that you regard, why, you do not worship God, but on the very horns of your altars are your sins. You are bringing a delight of your own sensuous faculties and putting that in the place of true faith and love, and then saying to your soul, "I have pleased God," whereas you have only pleased yourself. When men become serious in religion, and look somewhat to the inward, they then defile the Lord's altar by relying upon their own righteousness. Man is much like a silkworm, he is a spinner and weaver by nature. A robe of righteousness is wrought out for him, but he will not have it; he will spin for himself, and like the silkworm, he spins, and spins, and he only spins himself a shroud. All the righteousness that a sinner can make will only be a shroud in which to wrap up his soul, his destroyed soul, for God will cast him away who relies upon the works of the law. In other ways men stain the horns of their altars. Some do it by carelessness. Those lips must be depraved indeed which even in prayer and praise still continue to sin. The horns of our altars are defiled by hypocrisy. You may have seen two fencers practising their art, and noticed how they seem to be seeking each other's death; how they strike and thrust as though they were earnestly contending for life; but after the show is over, they sit down and shake hands, and are good friends. Often so it is in your prayers and confessions; you will acknowledge your sins, and profess to hate them, and make resolutions against them, but it is all outward show — fencing, not real fighting — and when the fencing bout is over, the soul shakes hands with its old enemy, and returns to its former ways of sin. Oh, this foul hypocrisy is a staining of the horns of the altar with a vengeance! III. WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THIS? First, we must never forget the fall. We are none of us today as God made us. The human judgment is out of balance, it uses false weights and false measures. "It puts darkness for light and light for darkness." The human will is no longer supple, as it should be, to the Divine will; our neck is naturally as an iron sinew, and will not bow to Jehovah's golden sceptre. Our affections also are twisted away from their right bent. Whereas we ought to have been seeking after Jesus, and casting out the tendrils of our affections towards Him, we cling to anything but the right, and climb upon anything but the true. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint." Human nature is like a magnificent temple all in ruins. In addition, however, to our natural depravity, there come in, in the second place, our habits of sin. Well may sin be deeply engraven in the man who has for twenty, forty, fifty, or perhaps seventy years, continued in his iniquity. Put the wool into the scarlet dye, and if it lie there but a week, the colour will be so ingrained in the fabric that you cannot get it out; but if you keep it there for so many years, how shall you possibly be able to bleach it? You must recollect, in addition to this, that sin is a most clinging and defiling thing. Who does not know that if a man sins once, it is much easier to sin that way the next time, nay, that he is much more inclinable towards that sin? I may add that the prince of the power of the air, the evil spirit, takes care, so far as he can, to add to all this. He chimes in with every suggestion of fallen nature. He will never let the tinder lie idle for want of sparks, nor the ground lie waste for want of the seeds of thorns and thistles. IV. WHAT IS THE CURE FOR ALL THIS? Sin thus stamped into us, thus ingrained into our nature, can it ever be got out? It must be got out, or we cannot enter heaven, for there shall by no means enter within those pearly gates anything that defileth. We must be cleansed and purified, but how can it be done? It can only be done by supernatural process. Your only help lies in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became the Son of Man that He might lift the sons of men up from their natural degradation and ruin. How does Jesus Christ then take away these deeply-inscribed lines of sin from human nature? I answer, He does it first in this way. If our heart be like granite, and sin be written on it, Christ's ready method is to take that heart away. "A new heart also will I give you, and a right spirit will I put within you." Next to that, inasmuch as the guiltiness of sin is as permanent as sin itself, Jesus Christ is able to take our guilt away. His dying upon the Cross is the means by which the blackest sinner out of hell can be made white as the angels of God, and that, too, in a single instant. The Holy Spirit also comes in: the new nature being given and sin being forgiven, the Holy Ghost comes and dwells in us, as a Prince in his palace, as a God in his temple. Do I hear any say, "Then, I would to God that I may experience the Divine process — the new nature given, which is regeneration, the washing away of sin, which constitutes pardon and justification, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, which insures final perseverance and complete sanctification. Oh, how can I have these precious things?" Thou mayst have them, whoever thou mayst be, by simply believing in Jesus. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) The iron pen recording sins J. N. Norton, D. D. When Bishop Latimer was on trial for his life, a trial which ended in his being burned at the stake, he at first answered without duly considering how much a single unguarded word might cost him. Presently he heard the pen of a secretary, who was seated behind the tapestry, taking down every expression which fell from his lips. It would be well for us all to remember that there is a pen now recording behind the curtain of the skies, our every evil deed and word and thought and that for all these things God will bring us into judgment. The iron pen suggests two thoughts. 1. The record which it makes is deep and indelible. So, also, with the items which are filling up page after page in the book of God's remembrance. A wealthy English landlord was once guilty of an act of tyrannical injustice to a poor, helpless widow, who rented a small cottage from him. The widow's son, whose blood boiled with indignation when he witnessed this, grew up to be a distinguished painter, and he portrayed the scene, and placed it where the eye of the cruel landlord must rest upon it. When the hard-hearted oppressor saw it, he turned pale, and trembled, and offered any sum for it, that the terrible picture might be destroyed. 2. The iron pen with its diamond point does not wear out. Be the record of one's sins as long as it may, that record will assuredly be made. It is a moment of profound interest in the life of an antiquarian, when he drags forth from the sands of Egypt some ancient obelisk, on which the iron pen has engraved, so many ages ago, the portraits of those who, in the shadowy past, acted their part on the crowded theatre of a bustling world. This, however, is as nothing, compared with the disclosures of that day, when, from the stillness and silence of the grave, shall be brought out into the dazzling light of noon, tablets covered with the sculptured history of the soul; a history which no power nor skill can then erase. And thus the prophet would teach us, by the striking figure of the iron pen with its diamond point, that sin is no trifling thing; that one single violation of the Divine law does not pass unnoticed; and that they who die with the guilt of sins unrepented of, and unpardoned, resting on their souls, have nothing to expect but the outpouring of God's terrible wrath. Vainly do we apologise for our shortcomings, on the ground of our natural bias to sin; or that the power of temptation proved too strong for us to resist. Forewarned, we ought to have been forearmed. Alas! who can contemplate his own sins against light and knowledge, against the strivings of conscience and the earnest pleadings of the Holy Spirit; who can count up his broken vows, and his contradictions of solemn confessions before God, and not tremble at the thought of the black catalogue which the iron pen has been writing down against him! When the great plague raged in London, in 1666, it was common to write over every infected house, "Lord, have mercy upon us!" Should the same inscription now be made over every abode where the plague of sin has entered, which of our habitations would not require to be thus labelled? ( J. N. Norton, D. D. ) The inward registrar Manton says: "If conscience speaketh not, it writeth; for it is not only a witness, but a register, and a book of record: 'The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and the point of a diamond' ( Jeremiah 17:1 ). We know not what conscience writeth, being occupied and taken up with carnal vanities, but we shall know hereafter, when the books are opened ( Revelation 20:12 ). Conscience keepeth a diary, and sets down everything. This book, though it be in the sinner's keeping, cannot be razed and blotted out. Well, then, a sleepy conscience will not always sleep; if we suffer it not to awaken here, it will awaken in hell; for the present it sleepeth in many, in regard of motion, check, or smiting, but not in regard of notice and observation." Let those who forget their sins take note of this. There is a chiel within you taking notes, and he will publish all where all will hear it. Never say, "nobody will see me," for you will see yourself, and your conscience will turn king's evidence against you. What a volume Mr. Recorder Conscience has written already! How many blotted pages he has in store, to be produced upon my trial. O Thou who alone canst erase this dreadful handwriting, look on me in mercy, as I now look on Thee by faith. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Sin ineradicable J. C. Hare. The mind of man has been compared to a white sheet of paper. Now it is like a white sheet of paper in this, that whatever we write upon it, whether with distinct purpose or no, nay, every drop of ink we let fall upon it, makes an abiding mark, a mark which we cannot rub out, without much injury to the paper; unless, indeed, the mark has been very slight from the first, and we set about erasing it while it is fresh. In one of the grandest tragedies of our great English poet, there is a scene which, when one reads it, is enough to make one's blood run cold. A woman, whose husband had made himself King of Scotland by means of several murders, and who had been the prompter and partner of his crimes, is brought in, while in her sleep, and continually rubbing her hands, as though she were washing them, crying ever and anon, "Yet here's a spot...What! will these hands ne'er be clean?...here's the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." In these words there is an awful power of truth. We can stain our souls; we can dye them, and double dye them, and triple dye them; we can dye them all the colours of hall's rainbow; but we cannot wash them white. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten them, all the fountains of the great deep will not wash one little spot out of them. The usurping Queen of Scotland had been guilty of murder; and the stain of blood, it has been very generally believed, cannot be washed out. But it is not the stain of blood alone; every stain soils the soul; and none of them can be washed out. Every little speck of ink eats into the paper; every sin, however small we may deem it, eats into the soul. If we try to write over it, we make a deeper blot; if we try to scratch it out, the next letters which we write on the spot are blurred. Therefore is it of such vast importance that we should be very careful of what we write. In the tragedy which I was quoting just now, the queen says, "What's done cannot be undone." This amounts to the same thing as what I have written, in the sense in which I am now calling upon you to consider these words. What's done cannot be undone. You know that this is true. You know you cannot push back the wheels of time, and make yesterday come again, so as to do over afresh what you did wrongly then. That which you did yesterday, yesterday will keep: you cannot change it; you cannot make it less or greater; if it was crooked, you cannot make it straight. You cannot turn back the leaves in the book of life, and read the lesson you have grabbed over again. That which you have written, you have written: that which you have done, you have done; and you cannot unwrite or undo it. ( J. C. Hare. ) Sin leaves its marks A. Mursell. Even pardoned sins must leave a trace in heavy self-reproach. You have heard of the child whose father told him that whenever he did anything wrong a nail should be driven into a post, and when he did what was good he might pull one out. There were a great many nails driven into the post, but the child tried very hard to get the post cleared of the nails by striving to do right. At length he was so successful in his struggles with himself that the last nail was drawn out of the post. The father was just about to praise the child, when, stooping down to kiss him, he was startled to see tears fast rolling down his face. "Why, my boy, why do you cry? Are not all the nails gone from the post? Oh yes! the nails are all gone, but the marks are left." That is a familiar illustration, but don't despise it because of that. It illustrates the experience of many a grey old sire, who, looking upon the traces of his old sins, as they yet rankle in his conscience, would give a hundred worlds to live himself back into young manhood, that he might obliterate the searing imprint of its follies. Have you never heard of fossil rain? In the stratum of the old red sandstone there are to be seen the marks of showers of rain which fell centuries and centuries ago, and they are so plain and perfect that they clearly indicate the way the wind was drifting, and in what direction the tempest slanted from the sky. So may the tracks of youthful sins be traced upon the tablet of the life when it has merged into old age, — tracks which it is bitter and sad remorse to look upon, and which call forth many a bootless longing for the days and months which are past. ( A. Mursell. ) Cursed be the man that trusteth in man. Jeremiah 17:5-8 The difference between trusting in the creature and the Creator Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons. I. THE FOLLY AND EVIL OF TRUSTING IN MAN. To "trust in man," in the sense of our text, is to expect that from creatures which can only come from the Creator: to confide in them, not as mere instruments, but as efficient causes; to look to them so as to look off from God; to cleave to them so as to depart from Him. 1. Idolatrous in its principle. 2. Grovelling in its aim. It looks no higher than present good, and things altogether unworthy of an immortal spirit. 3. Unreasonable in its foundation. It supposes that man can do what God cannot. 4. Destructive in its issue. "He shall be like the heath in the desert," — worthless, sapless, fruitless; "he shall not see when good cometh," — shall not enjoy it; "but he shall inhabit the parched places," etc.He shall prosper in nothing. (1) The frustration of his projects and hopes. (2) The melancholy state of his soul. (3) The unhappy end of his career. II. THE WISDOM AND BENEFIT OF TRUSTING IN THE LORD. Jehovah is his hope. He seeks and expects his all from Him. To know, love, and enjoy Him, — behold his chief good, — the object of his hopes, — his highest and ultimate end. Now this conduct is the complete contrast of the other. 1. It is pious in its principles. 2. Elevated in its aim. 3. Rational in its foundation. 4. Glorious in its issue.Blessed is the man, etc. "For he shall be like a tree," etc. (1) The success of his enterprises. (2) The settled comfort and satisfaction of his soul. (3) The loveliness and dignity of his character. (4) The usefulness of his life. (5) His eternal felicity.Application — 1. It is a great mistake to suppose the rich and gay happy; the poor and pious miserable. 2. An entire renunciation of creature confidence, and an unreserved dependence on God, can alone secure the Divine favour and our own felicity. ( Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons. ) Trust -- right and wrong Edward Thompson. I. MAN, AS A GROUND OF TRUST. 1. In what consists this dependence upon man for the salvation of the soul?(1) In being led by the example of others to the commission of sin and neglect of God.(2) In looking for that rest in the creature which is only to be found in God.(3) In depending on our own good works, in part, for our justification before God.(4) In taking our religion from the opinions of men, instead of the Word of God.(5) In resting in the means of grace. 2. See the consequences of trusting in man. "Cursed," etc. He that does so shall be —(1) Useless "as the heath in the desert."(2) Miserable. "Shall not see when good cometh."(3) Solitary, or forsaken of God. "Shall inhabit a salt land not inhabited."(4) Cursed by Jehovah Himself. "Lord, is it I?" II. JEHOVAH, AS A GROUND OF TRUST. 1. What is meant by trusting Jehovah? With the light of this dispensation, we may safely say it embraces dependence on the atonement of Christ; and implies —(1) Knowledge of it, as a fact and doctrine of Scripture.(2) Approval of it, as adapted to our circumstances.(3) Personal reliance on it for salvation; — a "confident venture" of our souls upon it. 2. The blessedness of trusting in Jehovah.(1) Nourishment. "Planted by the waters." A Christian's source of strength is out of himself.(2) Stability. "Spreadeth out his roots."(3) Comfort. "Shall not see when heat cometh." "Shall not be careful in the year of drought."(4) Adornment. "His leaf shall be green." Beauty of the woods in early spring. "A Christian is the highest style of man" ( Titus 2:10 ; 1 Peter 3:4 ).(5) Fruitfulness. "Neither shall cease from yielding fruit." ( Edward Thompson. ) The blessing and the curse W. Hay Aitken, M. A. Two contrasted types of experience, or laws of life, are brought before us — the one a life of trust in man, and the other a life of trust in God. These two types of experience are contrasted with each other — not primarily, with respect to their outward moral characteristics. The thought that our attention is first of all called to is, that these two lives stand in a contrasted relation to God. The man who lives the first of the two lives that are described here is represented as assuming and maintaining an attitude of independence of God; and the man who leads the second of these two lives is represented as living in a state of consciously recognised dependence upon God. The one finds his resources in self; the other finds his resources in Deity. Now these two lives are not only contrasted with each other, first of all, as to this their essential characteristic, but they are also contrasted as to their result in respect to the personal happiness and enjoyment which belongs to each. The one is represented as a life lived under a curse, and the other as a life lived under a blessing. Either your experience may be described, in the words of Paul, "The life that I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me"; or else you are living a life of which nothing of the kind can be affirmed, and, therefore, a life in which you are practically cut off from all direct communication with your Maker by sin and unbelief. And if the latter be your condition, you are at this moment, in spite of all your privileges, actually under the ban of God's curse and the frown of His wrath: one or other of these two cases you may be sure is yours. You will observe that in the first sentence of our text the prophet utters a curse on the man that trusteth in man; and he says this before he goes on to speak of the heart departing from the living God. This trust in man renders it impossible for the man who entertains it to trust in the living God; and it is, I am persuaded, just because, before we can really and honestly trust in the Father through the Son, it is absolutely necessary for us to turn our back upon all other forms of confidence, that so many lose the enjoyment of this blissful life of faith, and make proof in their own miserable experience of the blight and desolation of a life of practical unbelief. We are not prepared to strip ourselves of our false supports and of our fatal self-confidence, and thus we are not in a position to trust ourselves to the living Father through the Son. Consider some of these various forms of false confidence which it is absolutely necessary for us to abandon before we can enter upon the enjoyment of this life of faith. First, if I am to live by faith in God, I must make up my mind to have done with living by faith in the world. If I am to trust God at all, my trust in God must be exclusive of all other confidence. Or, again, it is possible that our confidence is reposed upon human systems — perhaps it may even be religious systems — which, practically, are allowed to take the place that belongs to God in the heart. How many a man one meets with who will tell us that he has opinions of his own. That may be, my brother, but the point is whether those opinions of yours coincide with God's facts; for opinions of our own may be the cause of mortal injury to us, if it should so happen that those opinions of our own are in direct opposition to facts. Or perhaps it is that we base our confidence on the opinions of other people. Some will tell you that they are earnest Church folks, others will state that they are conscientious Nonconformists; some that they are strong Catholics; some that they are decided Evangelicals. God calls upon us to trust to Himself, and to nothing but Himself; and when we substitute for personal trust in the living God confidence in any kind of system, whatever that system may be, or in any mere doctrine, whatever that doctrine may be, we are cut off by that attitude of heart from the possibilities of the life of faith. Perhaps you will ask, "Well, but why should my trust in doctrine, or my trust in ritual, or my trust in churchmanship, preclude me from trusting in God too?" Just because these things are not God; and, as I said a few moments ago, you cannot trust God and not-God at the same time. But we must consider yet another and still more frequent ease. There are a large number of persons who are strangers to the life of faith — not so much because they are wedded to any particular system on which they have based their confidence, as because they are reluctant to renounce their confidence in themselves. Now, we never really begin with God till we come to an end of ourselves. A considerable number of persons trust in their own quiet, even respectability. They really cannot see that they do anything to be distressed or alarmed about. What means all this hue and cry — this red-hot excitement or attempt to get up a red-hot excitement — these frequent services going on hour after hour all day long — these after meetings — these invitations to earnest inquirers? What does it all mean? The explanation of it all lies in the fact that you ask for an explanation. Let a man be dissatisfied with himself, let a man have a low opinion of himself, and then he will be ready to receive good from any kind of instrumentality, and a very commonplace sort of instrumentality will probably be used to bring that man to the attainment of that spiritual benefit which his ease requires. But let a man be sunk in the sleep of self-complacency — let a man be going on leading a calm, quiet, easy, regular life; but, observe, a life which is not a life of conscious, personal faith in God, but, on the contrary, a life of self-reliance, and therefore a life of self-complacency; and he is as much under the power of the great deceiver as it is possible for a man to be. And of all the undertakings which lie before the Divine Spirit, it seems to me that the very hardest undertaking which even God Himself can engage in is that of penetrating this impervious armour of self-complacency, and of bringing such an one to feel his need of salvation, and to seek and to find that salvation on God's own terms. If these, then, are some of the barriers to our leading a bright and happy life of faith, we shall perhaps, by God's blessing, be the more disposed to avoid or have done with them as we dwell for a little on the contrast offered between these two forms of life. Let us look at these pictures. "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is; for he shall be like a tree planted by the waterside, that spreadeth out her roots by the river." Observe, the tree is dependent, not upon a chance shower, but upon a perennial supply. The river is always flowing, and the tree has stretched out its roots beside the river, and so is in a position continuously to draw for itself from the river all the sustenance and all the moisture which it requires. Christian, if thou art a real Christian, here is thy picture. Thy roots are struck down into God. Thou art dependent upon no mere casual visitation of Divine mercy. It may be very advisable, from time to time, that extraordinary efforts should be made to reach the careless and to awaken the unconcerned, but thou, true child of God, art not dependent upon these for thy life and health. Thou hast struck down thy roots into the river, and there thou standest — uninjured by prevalent drought, unscathed by the fiery rays of the sun, thy leaf green, thy fruit never failing. Is this your ease! Are you drawing your life supplies from God? There are two ways in which the Christian grows. He grows in personal holiness of life and conversation, but he only grows in outward conduct, because he also grows in the knowledge mad love of God. Upon the depth and reality of his relation with God, his moral and religious character will depend. As God becomes more and more to him "a living, bright reality," so his personal life and character become more fully developed, and the beauty of the Lord will be exhibited in his conduct. As the result of the establishment of these relations with God, the supply of all the necessary wants of the soul is insured, and it has nothing to fear from the trials and disappointments of life: the tree planted by the waters shall not see when heat cometh. Observe, the prophet does not say that it shall be exposed to no heat, but that it shall not be injured by it. Let us ask ourselves, Are we growing in the knowledge of God? Are we getting fresh revelations of His character and His ability to meet and satisfy our every spiritual need? Oh, how vast is our spiritual wealth in Him, and how many a fear and misgiving might not be saved, if we would only acquaint ourselves with Him and be at peace. And this leads us on to the second feature mentioned here, "it shall not be careful in the year of drought." Happy the Christian man who realises his full privileges in this respect, and lives in the enjoyment of them! Happy the man of business on our own Stock Exchange, who, in the midst of all the vicissitudes of a commercial life, can leave himself calmly in the hands of God, and while the year of drought which has so long been affecting our own and other lands fills others with despair, enjoy a blessed immunity from anxiety, because he knows that he is planted by the waterside. Happy the mother who can cast all the cares of her family upon Him who careth for her, and leave them there, not fretting and fuming when things do not go as she would wish them, not cankered by cares or worried by troubles, but trusting Him in whom she finds the true calm of life to draw her ever the nearer to Himself by all its changeful circumstances! But further, the leaf of such a tree is described as being always green. The leaf of the tree shows the nature of the tree, and just so the profession we make should show what our religious character is. Now, it is a grand thing to have a fresh and green profession, so to speak! Once again we read, "Neither shall cease from yielding fruit." The Christian will always be a fruitful tree, because he is planted by the water. There will be no lack of fruitfulness when living in full communion with God. Some of us, perhaps, have had an opportunity of looking at that wonderful and famous vine at Hampton Court. A more beautiful sight you can scarcely see in all England than that vine when it is covered all over with the rich, luscious clusters of the vintage. Report attributes its extraordinary fertility to the fact that the roots, extending for a very considerable distance, have made their way down to the Thames, from whence it draws continuo

Benson Commentary Jeremiah 17:1 The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars; Jeremiah 17:1-2 . The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron — Many of the Jews, though living in the habitual commission of the grossest crimes, were, nevertheless, self-righteous, and thought they did not deserve that God should enter into judgment with them in any such way as Jeremiah foretold he would do. Wherefore, said they, hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is our sin? chap. Jeremiah 16:10 . Here the prophet tells them their sin was too plain to be denied, and too bad to be excused: that it was written in indelible characters, not only before God, to whose omniscience it lay continually open, but in their own hearts and consciences; as if written with a pen of iron, or an engraving instrument, or the point of a diamond; instruments employed to make durable inscriptions on hard substances. As if he had said, Their sins are as manifest, and the remembrance of them as durable, as the memorable actions which have been engraven on pillars of stone, or tablets of brass, to give them notoriety, and preserve them from oblivion. The expression, it is graven upon the table of their hearts, may also be intended to signify the rooted affection which they had to sin, especially to the sin of idolatry; that it was woven into their very nature, and was as dear to them as that is to us, of which we say, It is engraven on our hearts. In like manner, their idolatrous altars and other monuments of their heathenish superstitions, were undeniable tokens of the corrupt inclinations of their hearts, which were altogether estranged from God and his true worship. Or their sin might be said to be engraven on the horns of their altars, because the blood of the sacrifices which they offered to their idols was sprinkled there, or because their altars had some inscription upon them, declaring to what idol each altar was consecrated. Whilst their children remember their altars — This shows how inveterate they were in this sin of idolatry, that they taught it to their children. Jeremiah 17:2 Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills. Jeremiah 17:3 O my mountain in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin, throughout all thy borders. Jeremiah 17:3-4 . O my mountain in the field — By this expression the prophet is thought, by many interpreters, to intend the temple, which stood on a mountain, called elsewhere, the mountain of the Lord’s house, ( Isaiah 2:2 ,) and the holy mountain. And this, as being the principal part of Jerusalem, is understood as being put, by way of synecdoche, for the whole city. Michaelis paraphrases it thus: “O Jerusalem, which hast long been situate on my chosen mountain, and surrounded by a most fertile country, the land of Canaan.” But Cocceius thinks that the Jewish people are hereby enigmatically compared with the rest of the world, as a mountain situated in the midst of a level plain, and distinguished with a glory which did not belong to the world in general. And it must be acknowledged that nations and princes of great power and eminence are often figuratively called mountains, in regard to their strength and elevation: see Jeremiah 51:25 ; Isaiah 41:15 ; Zechariah 4:7 . Judah, therefore, in general, as well as Jerusalem in particular, may be here styled God’s mountain, as having been chosen by him, and thereby raised to a degree of elevation above all other people: see a confirmation of this interpretation, Jeremiah 31:23 . I will give thy substance, and all thy treasures, to the spoil — Both the products of the country, and the stores of the city, shall be seized by the Chaldeans. Justly are men stripped of that with which they have served their idols, and which has been made the food and fuel of their lusts. And thy high places for sin — You have worshipped your idols on the high places, and now they shall be given for a spoil; in all your borders — See note on Jeremiah 15:13 . Observe, reader, what we make an occasion of sin, God will make a matter of spoil; for what comfort can we expect in that wherewith God is dishonoured? And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thy heritage — Shalt intermit the occupation of thy land, as the word ????? , here used, signifies, Exodus 23:11 . The prophet undoubtedly alludes to the seventh year of release, enjoined by Moses, Deuteronomy 15:1 , which law the Jews had a long time neglected out of covetousness, and refused to observe, even after a solemn engagement to the contrary, Jeremiah 34:8 , &c. So here the passage implies, that since they would not release their land nor their servants in the sabbatical years, as God had enjoined them, he would dispossess them of the inheritance which he had given them, and the land shall enjoy her sabbaths, according to the prescription of the law: see Leviticus 26:34 . And I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not — As a punishment for thy compelling thy servants to serve thee in thy own land, when I enjoined thee to set them at liberty. For ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, &c. — By your idolatries and other sins you have increased my wrath to such a fire that it shall burn for a long time in terrible judgments upon you in this world, and shall burn all such as remain impenitent for ever, in the world to come. Jeremiah 17:4 And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever. Jeremiah 17:5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. Jeremiah 17:5-6 . Cursed be the man that trusteth in man — Who places that confidence in the wisdom or power, the kindness or faithfulness of any man or number of men, which ought to be placed in God only; that is, miserable is the man that doth so, for he leans upon a broken reed, which will not only fail him, but will run into his hand and pierce it. It must be observed, however, that the prophet denounces this curse here chiefly with respect to the confidence which the Jews placed in the assistance of the Egyptians and their other allies, when threatened by the Chaldeans. And maketh flesh his arm — Trusts for support or aid in a mere mortal man, termed flesh, to show his weakness and frailty, in opposition to the power of the almighty and immortal God. And whose heart departeth from the Lord — As the hearts of all do who put their trust in man. They may perhaps draw nigh to God with their mouths, and honour him with their lips, but really their hearts are far from him. For he shall be like the heath in the desert — Hebrew, ????? like the tamarisk, as some render the word, virgultum tenue, humile, fragile, says Buxtorf, a small, low, and weak shrub. Sapless and useless; he shall be barren of solid comfort for the present, and destitute of well grounded hopes for the future. And shall not see when good cometh — Shall not partake of any good; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness — From whence he can derive no profit or consolation; in a salt land, &c. — Barren and unfruitful, Deuteronomy 29:23 ; Jdg 9:45 . Observe well, reader, they that trust in their own righteousness and strength, and think they can be saved without the merit and grace of Christ, thus make flesh their arm, and their souls cannot prosper either in graces or comforts; they can neither produce the fruits of acceptable obedience to God, nor reap the fruits of saving blessings from him, but dwell in a dry land. Jeremiah 17:6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Jeremiah 17:7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. Jeremiah 17:7-8 . Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord — That lives in continual obedience to him, and relies entirely upon him for every blessing he wants for his body or soul, for himself or others who, under God, are dependant upon him; and whose hope the Lord is — Who makes the Lord’s favour the good he hopes for, and his power the strength he hopes in. Trusting aright in the Lord necessarily implies walking closely with him, and not departing from him in heart. For it is naturally impossible that any one should repose confidence in another for any thing which had been promised under a condition, without a consciousness in himself that he had, at least in some good measure, complied with the condition upon which it was promised. For he shall be like a tree planted, &c. — He shall be prosperous and successful in his counsels and undertakings. He may be compared to a tree planted in a fertile soil, on the bank of a river, to which it extends its roots, and from which it derives abundance of sap and nourishment. And shall not see when heat cometh — ?? ?????????? ???? ???? ????? , say the LXX., shall not fear when heat cometh. They follow the reading of the Hebrew text, which is to be preferred before that of the margin. And shall not be careful in the year of drought — Shall not be solicitous for fear it should lack moisture; that is, in a time when the leaves of trees standing on dry mountainous places are parched and withered, it shall retain its verdure, and continue to yield its fruit. Blaney translates the clause, “And it is not sensible when heat cometh; but its leaf is green, and in a year of drought it is without concern; nor doth it decline bearing fruit.” Jeremiah 17:8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things , and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9-10 . The heart is deceitful above all things — This passage, considered in connection with what precedes, may be understood in two points of view: 1st, As assigning a reason why we should not trust in man; namely, because he is not only weak and frail, and therefore may want power to help us in our necessities and distresses, but is also false and deceitful. Or, 2d, As giving us a caution to take care lest we deceive ourselves in supposing we trust in God when really we do not; this being a thing respecting which our own hearts are very apt to deceive us, as appears by this, that our hopes and fears are wont to rise or fall, according as second causes appear to be favourable or adverse. But it is true in the general, that there is greater wickedness in our hearts, by nature, than we ourselves are aware of, or suspect to be there. Nay, and it is a common mistake among mankind to think their own hearts a great deal better than they really are. The heart of man, in his corrupt and fallen state, is false and deceitful above all things; deceitful in its apprehensions of things, calling evil good and good evil, putting false colours upon things, crying peace to those to whom peace does not belong, and cheating men to their own ruin; deceitful in the hopes and promises which it excites and nourishes, and in the assurances which it gives. And desperately wicked — Hebrews ????? ??? , literally, and desperate, or, as Blaney renders it, it is even past all hope; who can know it? That is, “humanly speaking, there is no possibility that any one should trace it through all its windings, and discover what is at the bottom of it.” In short, it is unsearchable by others, deceitful with reference to ourselves, and abominably wicked; so that neither can a man know his own heart, nor can any one know that of his neighbour. I the Lord search the heart — I am perfectly acquainted with it, and with all the wickedness that lodges in it: all its thoughts, counsels, and designs, however secret; all its intentions, affections, and determinations lie open to my inspection: and my piercing eye penetrates into its inmost recesses. I try the reins — To pass a true judgment on what I discern, and to give every thing therein its true character and due weight. I try the heart, as the gold is tried, whether it be standard weight or not; or, as the prisoner is tried, whether he be guilty or not. And this judgment, which I make of the hearts, is in order to my passing a true judgment upon the man, even to give to every man according to his ways — According to the desert and tendency of them; life to those that have walked in the ways of life, and death to those that have persisted in the paths of the destroyer; and according to the fruit of his doings — The effect and influence which his doings have had on others; or according to what is determined by the word of God to be the fruit of men’s doings, blessings to the obedient, and curses to the disobedient. Jeremiah 17:10 I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. Jeremiah 17:11 As the partridge sitteth on eggs , and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. Jeremiah 17:11 . As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not — Or rather, as the words ??? ?? ??? may be more literally rendered, hatcheth eggs which she did not lay; so he that getteth riches, and not by right — That is, not in a due, regular manner, by the blessing of God upon honest endeavours, but by arts of knavery and injustice; shall leave them in the midst of his days — Though he may make them his hope, he shall not have joy in them, nor the true and lasting possession of them; but they shall be soon taken from him, or he from them. And at his end shall be a fool — That is, he shall evidently appear such. He was indeed a fool all along, and doubtless his conscience often told him so; but at his end his folly will be manifest to all men. Bochart, with a great deal of learning, contends that ??? , here rendered partridge, is not that bird, nor any one known in these parts. Blaney gives it the Hebrew name kore, observing, “that it is a bird which frequents the mountains, and is of no great value, as may be learned from 1 Samuel 26:20 . Here it is said to sit upon and hatch the eggs of birds of another species. This want of distinction is common to many sorts of birds; and the partridge is no way remarkable for it. But where it is so done, the young ones, when fledged, are sure to forsake their supposititious dam, and to join with those of their own feather; in which circumstance the point of comparison seems to lie.” Jeremiah 17:12 A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. Jeremiah 17:12 . A glorious high throne, &c. — “As in the preceding verses was set forth the vain dependance of him who seeks to advance himself by indirect methods; so here we are taught the solid foundation which he builds upon who has recourse to the divine blessing, and seeks to recommend himself to the favour of that Being, to whom Israel was taught to look up for support, and whose kingdom, from all eternity, ruleth over all.” The temple at Jerusalem, where God manifested his special presence, where his lively oracles were lodged, where the people paid their homage to their sovereign, and whither they fled for refuge in distress, was the place of their sanctuary, and might properly be termed a glorious high throne. It was a throne of holiness, which made it glorious; it was God’s throne, which made it truly high. And it was the honour of Israel that God set up his throne among them. Jeremiah may mention this here partly as a plea with God to show mercy to their land in honour of the throne of his glory; and partly as an aggravation of the sin of the people, in forsaking God, though his throne was among them, and so profaning his crown and the place of his sanctuary. Jeremiah 17:13 O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters. Jeremiah 17:13 . O Lord, the hope of Israel — That is, He in whom alone thy true Israel can hope; all they that forsake thee shall be ashamed — Those who forsake thy law and that rule which thou hast given them, whereby to direct their conversation, will sooner or later be ashamed of such their disobedience. Or, as Lowth paraphrases the words, “Thou hast given many gracious promises to thy people, to encourage them to trust in thee; and they that forsake their interest in thy goodness will find all other expectations fail and disappoint them;” and they that depart from me — From my love and service, says God, and their reliance upon me, shall be written in the earth — Shall have no portion beyond the earth, on which they set their affections. Or, their names and memories shall be soon extinct; like words written in the dust: they shall not be registered among my people, nor shall their names be recorded in the book of life. The expression seems to allude to registers kept of the members of cities or corporations, the privileges of which none can pretend to but they who have their names entered in such registers; because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters — The only certain relief and comfort of any people, the fountain and origin of all the good they can hope for. See note on Jeremiah 2:13 . Jeremiah 17:14 Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise. Jeremiah 17:14 . Heal me, O Lord, &c. — Most interpreters understand the prophet as addressing God here in his own behalf. He represents himself as a person wounded, or sick, either with a sense of the dishonour done to God by the sins of the people, or with their reproaches poured upon himself, and he begs of God to heal him, God only having power to do it. Save me, for thou art my praise — It is from thee only that I expect relief and comfort in all my troubles: and as I acknowledge that all the blessings I enjoy come from thee, so it is to thee I return all thanks and praise. Jeremiah 17:15 Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of the LORD? let it come now. Jeremiah 17:15-18 . Behold, they say unto me — Scoffing at me, as if I had denounced threatenings in thy name, without any order or direction from thee: Where is the word of the Lord? — Like the scoffers, mentioned by St. Peter, 2 Peter 3:4 , saying, Where is the promise of his coming? This has been the practice of all wicked men, hardened in their sinful courses, and resolved to go on in them: they put the evil day far from them, and scoff at all denunciations of divine wrath. Let it come now — So said these scoffers, daring the vengeance of God, and challenging him to execute the judgments he had threatened. As for me, I have not hastened, &c. — Dr. Waterland translates this clause, “But as for me, I have not forced or intruded myself upon thee for a pastor.” To the same sense the Geneva translation interprets the words. According to which reading the prophet solemnly appeals to God that he had not intruded himself into the office of a prophet, nor had been desirous of an employment that foreboded so much evil to others, and brought a great deal of trouble upon himself. The words in the Hebrew, however, are literally as our translation expresses them, and may be paraphrased thus, “As I did not seek the office of a prophet, so when thou wast pleased to call me to it I did not decline it.” The LXX, render it, ??? ?? ??? ???????? ???????????? ????? ??? , I have not been weary of following thee. Neither have I desired the woful day — Namely, the day of the accomplishment of his prophecies. Though, when it came, it would prove him to have been a true prophet, which they had questioned, and would be the avenging of him upon his persecutors, and therefore, on those accounts, he might have been tempted to desire it; yet, as it would be a woful day to Jerusalem, he deprecated it, and could appeal to God that he wished it might never come. That which came out of my lips was right before thee — That is, it exactly agreed with what I had received from thee. Be not a terror unto me — Amidst all the terrors, with which mine adversaries threaten me, let me still find comfort in thee; and let not any apprehension of being forsaken by thee be added to my other fears. Let them be confounded, &c. — See notes on Jeremiah 11:20 ; Jeremiah 16:18 . Jeremiah 17:16 As for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before thee. Jeremiah 17:17 Be not a terror unto me: thou art my hope in the day of evil. Jeremiah 17:18 Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded: let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction. Jeremiah 17:19 Thus said the LORD unto me; Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; Jeremiah 17:19-24 . Thus saith the Lord, Go, &c. — Here we evidently have a distinct prophecy, which the prophet was commanded to deliver most probably soon, if not immediately, after the foregoing. Stand in the gate of the children of the people — By which It seems is meant the gate most frequented by the people; being that nearest the palace, where the kings of Judah held their most solemn courts of judicature, or by which they ordinarily went out of the city, and returned into it. And say, Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye kings of Judah — The word of the Lord equally concerns the highest and the lowest, the greatest princes as well as the meanest subjects. Thus saith the Lord, Take heed to yourselves — The Hebrew is, Take heed to your souls, intimating that the sanctification of the sabbath is an important thing, wherein the welfare of men’s souls is concerned. Neither carry forth a burden, &c. — See notes on Nehemiah 13:15-22 . Neither do ye any work — Servile work was forbidden to be done upon their solemn festivals, Leviticus 23:8 ; Leviticus 23:35 , much more upon the sabbath days. But hallow ye the sabbath days — “The sabbath was instituted as a sign or token of God’s covenant with his people, Exodus 31:13 , and the observance of it was the distinguishing character of a Jew, whereby he declared himself to be a worshipper of the true God, who made heaven and earth, and ordained the sabbath day as a memorial of the creation. So that for the Jews to profane the sabbath, was in effect to renounce their share in God’s covenant.” Jeremiah 17:20 And say unto them, Hear ye the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates: Jeremiah 17:21 Thus saith the LORD; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; Jeremiah 17:22 Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers. Jeremiah 17:23 But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction. Jeremiah 17:24 And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the LORD, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but hallow the sabbath day, to do no work therein; Jeremiah 17:25 Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain for ever. Jeremiah 17:25-27 . Then shall there enter into the gates of this city, &c. — “From hence it appears,” says Lowth, “that the judgments denounced against Jerusalem, at least as far as they threatened the city with utter destruction, were not irreversible. And from Jeremiah’s advice to Zedekiah, Jeremiah 38:17 , it may be concluded, that if the king had hearkened to that counsel, the city would not have been destroyed, and he himself might have continued a tributary king under Nebuchadnezzar. It is true, that in several other chapters of this prophecy, God, upon foresight of the Jews’ impenitence, pronounces a peremptory sentence upon them. See note on Jeremiah 4:28 .” From the land of Benjamin — See notes on Jeremiah 1:1 ; Jeremiah 6:1 . And from the plain, and from the mountain — “These divisions of the country belonging to the tribe of Judah may be found, Joshua 15:21 ; Joshua 15:33 ; Joshua 15:48 ; and these, together with the tribe of Benjamin, made up the whole kingdom of Judah, when taken separate from the kingdom of Israel, or of the ten tribes. See the same enumeration Jeremiah 32:44 .” Bringing burnt-offerings and sacrifices, &c. — The sum of these three verses is, that if they would sanctify the Lord’s sabbath, observing also all the other parts of God’s law, which are doubtless included, they should either continue in, or be restored unto, their ancient, civil, and ecclesiastical state. Their city and temple should be preserved; they should have kings and princes in their former order and splendour, and men should come from all parts of the country bringing their usual sacrifices and offerings to the temple, and those of all sorts. But if you will not hearken unto me — Here the Lord denounces a threatening the reverse of the former promise, which should be executed upon their acting contrary to the duty to which that promise was annexed. God would destroy their city by fire; their highest and noblest structures should be burned down: and though the hand of the enemy should do this, yet God should order them to do it; so that it should be a fire of his kindling, and therefore should not be likely to be quenched till it had effected the purpose for which God appointed it. Jeremiah 17:26 And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the LORD. Jeremiah 17:27 But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Jeremiah 17:1 The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars; CHAPTER IX THE DROUGHT AND ITS MORAL IMPLICATIONS Jeremiah 14:1-22 ; Jeremiah 15:1-21 (17?) VARIOUS opinions have been expressed about the division of these chapters. They have been cut up into short sections, supposed to be more or less independent of each other; and they have been regarded as constituting a well-organised whole, at least so far as the eighteenth verse of chapter 17. The truth may lie between these extremes. Chapters 14, 15 certainly hang together; for in them the prophet represents himself as twice interceding with Iahvah on behalf of the people, and twice receiving a refusal of his petition, { Jeremiah 14:1-22 ; Jeremiah 15:1-4 } the latter reply being sterner and more decisive than the first. The occasion was a long period of drought, involving much privation for man and beast. The connection between the parts of this first portion of the discourse is clear enough. The prophet prays for his people, and God answers that He has rejected them, and that intercession is futile. Thereupon, Jeremiah throws the blame of the national sins upon the false prophets; and the answer is that both the people and their false guides will perish. The prophet then soliloquises upon his own hard fate as a herald of evil tidings, and receives directions for his own personal guidance in this crisis of affairs. { Jeremiah 15:10-21 ; Jeremiah 16:1-9 } There is a pause, but no real break, at the end of chapter 15. The next chapter resumes the subject of directions personally affecting the prophet himself; and the discourse is then continuous so far as Jeremiah 17:18 , although, naturally enough, it is broken here and there by pauses of considerable duration, marking transitions of thought, and progress in the argument. The heading of the entire piece is marked in the original by a peculiar inversion of terms, which meets us again, Jeremiah 46:1 ; Jeremiah 47:1 ; Jeremiah 49:34 , but which, in spite of this recurrence, wears a rather suspicious look. We might render it thus: "What fell as a word of Iahvah to Jeremiah, on account of the droughts" (the plural is intensive, or it signifies the long continuance of the trouble-as if one rainless period followed upon another). Whether or not the singular order of the words be authentic, the recurrence at Jeremiah 17:8 of the remarkable term for "drought" (Hebrews baccoreth of which baccaroth here is plur.) favours the view that that chapter is an integral portion of the present discourse. The exordium { Jeremiah 14:1-9 } is a poetical sketch of the miseries of man and beast, closing with a beautiful prayer. It has been said that this is not "a word of Iahvah to Jeremiah," but rather the reverse. If we stick to the letter, this no doubt is the case; but, as we have seen in former discourses, the phrase "Iahvah’s word" meant in prophetic use very much more than a direct message from God, or a prediction uttered at the Divine instigation. Here, as elsewhere, the prophet evidently regards the course of his own religious reflection as guided by Him who "fashioneth the hearts of men," and "knoweth their thoughts long before"; and if the question had suggested itself, he would certainly have referred his own poetic powers-the tenderness of his pity, the vividness of his apprehension, the force of his passion, -to the inspiration of the Lord who had called and consecrated him from the birth, to speak in His Name. There lies at the heart of many of us a feeling, which has lurked there, more or less without our cognisance, ever since the childish days when the Old Testament was read at the mother’s knee, and explained and understood in a manner proportioned to the faculties of childhood. When we hear the phrase "The Lord spake," we instinctively think, if we think at all, of an actual voice knocking sensibly at the door of the outward ear. It was not so; nor did the sacred writer mean it so. A knowledge of Hebrew idiom-the modes of expression usual and possible in that ancient speech-assures us that this Statement, so startlingly direct in its unadorned simplicity, was the accepted mode of conveying a meaning which we, in our more complex and artificial idioms, would convey by the use of a multitude of words, in terms far more abstract, in language destitute of all that colour of life and reality which stamps the idiom of the Bible. It is as though the Divine lay farther off from us moderns; as though the marvellous progress of all that new knowledge of the measureless magnitude of the world, of the power and complexity of its machinery, of the surpassing subtlety and the matchless perfection of its laws and processes, had become an impassable barrier, at least an impenetrable veil, between our minds and God. We have lost the sense of His nearness, of His immediacy, so to speak; because we have gained, and are ever intensifying, a sense of the nearness of the world with which He environs us. Hence, when we speak of Him, we naturally cast about either for poetical phrases and figures, which must always be more or less vague and undefined, or for highly abstract expressions, which may suggest scientific exactness, but are, in truth, scholastic formulae, dry as the dust of the desert, untouched by the breath of life; and even if they affirm a Person, destitute of all those living characters by which we instinctively and without effort recognise Personality. We make only a conventional use of the language of the sacred writers, of the prophets and prophetic historians, of the psalmists, and the legalists, of the Old Testament; the language which is the native expression of a peculiar intensity of religious faith, realising the Unseen as the Actual and, in truth, the only Real. "Judah mourneth and the gates thereof languish, They are clad in black down to the ground; And the cry of Jerusalem hath gone up. And their nobles have sent their lesser folk for water; They have been to the pits, and found no water: Their vessels have come back empty; Ashamed and confounded, they have covered their heads." "Because the ground is chapt, for there hath not been rain in the land, The ploughmen are ashamed, they have covered their heads. For even the hind in the field hath yeaned and forsaken her fawn, For there is no grass. And the wild asses stand on the bare fells They snuff the wind like jackals Their eyes fall, for there is no pasturage." "If our sins have answered against us, Iahweh, act for Thine own Name sake; For our relapses are many: Against Thee have we trespassed." "Hope of Israel, that savest him in time of trouble, Wherefore wilt Thou be as a stranger in the land, And as a traveller that leaveth the road but for the night? Wherefore wilt Thou be as a man o’erpowered with sleep, As a warrior that cannot rescue?" "Sith Thou art in our midst, O Iahvah, And Thy Name upon us hath been called; Cast us not down!" How beautiful both plaint and prayer! The simple description of the effects of the drought is as lifelike and impressive as a good picture. The whole country is stricken; the city gates, the place of common resort, where the citizens meet for business and for conversation, are gloomy with knots of mourners robed in black from head to foot, or, as the Hebrew may also imply, sitting on the ground, in the garb and posture of desolation. { Lamentations 2:10 ; Lamentations 3:28 } The magnates of Jerusalem send out their retainers to find water; and we see them returning with empty vessels, their heads muffled in their cloaks, in sign of grief at the failure of their errand. { 1 Kings 18:5-6 } The parched ground everywhere gapes with fissures; the yeomen go about with covered heads in deepest dejection. The distress is universal, and affects not man only, but the brute creation. Even the gentle hind, that proverb of maternal tenderness, is driven by sorest need to forsake the fruit of her hard travail; her starved dugs are dry, and she flies from her helpless offspring. The wild asses of the desert, fleet, beautiful, and keen-eyed creatures, scan the withered landscape from the naked cliffs, and snuff the wind, like jackals scenting prey; but neither sight nor smell suggests relief. There is no moisture in the air, no glimpse of pasture in the wide sultry land. The prayer is a humble confession of sin, an unreserved admission that the woes of man evince the righteousness of God. Unlike certain modern poets, who bewail the sorrows of the world as the mere infliction of a harsh and arbitrary and inevitable Destiny, Jeremiah makes no doubt that human sufferings are due to the working of Divine justice. "Our sins have answered against our pleas at Thy judgment seat; our relapses are many; against Thee have we trespassed," against Thee, the sovereign Disposer of events, the Source of all that happens and all that is. If this be so, what plea is left? None, but that appeal to the Name of Iahvah, with which the prayer begins and ends. "Act for Thine own Name sake." "Thy Name upon us hath been called." Act for Thine own honour, that is, for the honour of Mercy, Compassion, Truth, Goodness; which Thou hast revealed Thyself to be, and which are parts of Thy glorious Name. { Exodus 34:6 } Pity the wretched, and pardon the guilty: for so will Thy glory increase amongst men; so will man learn that the relentings of love are diviner affections than the ruthlessness of wrath and the cravings of vengeance. There is also a touching appeal to the past. The very name by which Israel was sometimes designated as "the people of Iahvah," just as Moab was known by the name of its god as "the people of Chemosh," { Numbers 21:29 } is alleged as proof that the nation has an interest in the compassion of Him whose name it bears; and it is implied that, since the world knows Israel as Iahvah’s people, it will not be for Iahvah’s honour that this people should be suffered to perish in their sins. Israel had thus, from the outset of its history, been associated and identified with Iahvah; however ill the true nature of the tie has been understood, however unworthily the relation has been conceived by the popular mind, however little the obligations involved in the call of their fathers have been recognised and appreciated. God must be true, though man be false. There is no weakness, no caprice, no vacillation in God. In bygone "times of trouble" the "Hope of Israel" had saved Israel over and over again; it was a truth admitted by all-even by the prophet’s enemies. Surely then He will save His people once again, and vindicate His Name of Saviour. Surely He who has dwelt in their midst so many changeful centuries, will not now behold their trouble with the lukewarm feeling of an alien dwelling amongst them for a time, but unconnected with them by ties of blood and kin and common country; or with the indifference of the traveller who is but coldly affected by the calamities of a place where he has only lodged one night. Surely the entire past shows that it would be utterly inconsistent for Iahvah to appear now as a man so buried in sleep that He cannot be roused to save His friends from imminent destruction. {cf. 1 Kings 18:27 , St. Mark 4:38 } He who had borne Israel and carried him as a tender nursling all the days of old ( Isaiah 63:9 ) could hardly without changing His own unchangeable Name, His character and purposes, cast down His people and forsake them at last. Such is the drift of the prophet’s first prayer. To this apparently unanswerable argument his religious meditation upon the present distress has brought him. But presently the thought returns with added force, with a sense of utmost certitude, with a conviction that it is Iahvah’s Word, that the people have wrought out their own affliction, that misery is the hire of sin. "Thus hath Iahvah said of this people: Even so have they loved to wander, Their feet they have not refrained; And as for Iahvah, He accepteth them not"; "He now remembereth their guilt, And visiteth their trespasses. And Iahvah said unto me, Intercede thou not for this people for good! If they fast, I will not hearken unto their cry; And if they offer whole offering and oblation, I will not accept their persons; But by the sword, the famine, and the plague, will I consume them." "And I said, Ah, Lord Iahvah! Behold the prophets say to them, Ye shall not see sword, And famine shall not befall you For peace and permanence will I give you in this place." "And Iahvah said unto me: Falsehood it is that the prophets prophesy in My Name. I sent them not, and I charged them not, and I spake not unto them. A vision of falsehood and jugglery and nothingness, and the guile of their own heart, They, for their part, prophesy you." "Therefore thus said Iahvah: Concerning the prophets who prophesy in My Name, albeit I sent them not, And of themselves say Sword and famine there shall not be in this land; By the sword and by the famine shall those prophets be fordone. And the people to whom they prophesy shall lie thrown out in the streets of Jerusalem, Because of the famine and the sword, With none to bury them,"- "Themselves, their wives, and their sons and their daughters: And I will pour upon them their own evil. And thou shalt say unto them this word: Let mine eyes run down with tears, night and day, And let them not tire; For with mighty breach is broken The virgin daughter of my people- With a very grievous blow. If I go forth into the field, Then behold! the slain of the sword; And if I enter the city, Then behold! the pinings of famine: For both prophet and priest go trafficking about the land, And understand not." It has been supposed that this whole section is misplaced, and that it would properly follow the close of chapter 13. The supposition is due to a misapprehension of the force of the pregnant particle which introduces the reply of Iahvah to the prophet’s intercession. "Even so have they loved to wander"; even so, as is naturally implied by the severity of the punishment of which thou complainest. The dearth is prolonged; the distress is widespread and grievous. So prolonged, so grievous, so universal, has been their rebellion against Me. The penalty corresponds to the offence. It is really "their own evil" that is being poured out upon their guilty heads ( Jeremiah 14:16 ; cf. Jeremiah 4:18 ). Iahvah cannot accept them in their sin; the long drought is a token that their guilt is before His mind, unrepented, unatoned. Neither the supplications of another, nor their own fasts and sacrifices, avail to avert the visitation. So long as the disposition of the heart remains unaltered; so long as man hates, not his darling sins, but the penalties they entail, it is idle to seek to propitiate Heaven by such means as these. And not only so. The droughts are but a foretaste of worse evils to come; "by the sword, the famine, and the plague will I consume them." The condition is understood, If they repent and amend not. This is implied by the prophet’s seeking to palliate the national guilt, as he proceeds to do, by the suggestion that the people are more sinned against than sinning, deluded as they are by false prophets; as also by the renewal of his intercession ( Jeremiah 14:19 ). Had he been aware in his inmost heart that an irreversible sentence had gone forth against his people, would he have been likely to think either excuses or intercessions availing? Indeed, however absolute the threats of the prophetic preachers may sound, they must, as a rule, be qualified by this limitation, which, whether expressed or not, is inseparable from the object of their discourses, which was the moral amendment of those who heard them. Of the "false," that is, the common run of prophets, who were in league with the venal priesthood of the time, and no less worldly and self-seeking than their allies, we note that, as usual, they foretell what the people wishes to hear; "Peace (Prosperity), and Permanence," is the burden of their oracles. They knew that invectives against prevailing vices, and denunciations of national follies, and forecasts of approaching ruin, were unlikely means of winning popularity and a substantial harvest of offerings. At the same time, like other false teachers, they knew how to veil their errors under the mask of truth; or rather, they were themselves deluded by their own greed, and blinded by their covetousness to the plain teaching of events. They might base their doctrine of "Peace and Permanence in this place!" upon those utterances of the great Isaiah, which had been so signally verified in the lifetime of the seer himself; but their keen pursuit of selfish ends, their moral degradation, caused them to shut their eyes to everything else in his teachings, and, like his contemporaries, they "regarded not the work of Iahvah, nor the operation of His hand." Jeremiah accuses them of "lying visions"; visions, as he explains, which were the outcome of magical ceremonies, by aid of which, perhaps, they partially deluded themselves, before deluding others, but which were none the less, "things of naught," devoid of all substance, and mere fictions of a deceitful and self-deceiving mind ( Jeremiah 14:14 ). He expressly declares that they have no mission: in other words, their action is not due to the overpowering sense of a higher call, but is inspired by purely ulterior considerations of worldly gain and policy. They prophesy to order; to the order of man, not of God. If they visit the country districts, it is with no spiritual end in view; priest and prophet alike make a trade of their sacred profession, and, immersed in their sordid pursuits, have no eye for truth, and no perception of the dangers hovering over their country. Their misconduct and misdirection of affairs are certain to bring destruction upon themselves and upon those whom they mislead. War and its attendant famine will devour them all. But the day of grace being past, nothing is left for the prophet himself but to bewail the ruin of his people ( Jeremiah 14:17 ). He will betake himself to weeping, since praying and preaching are vain. The words which announce this resolve may portray a sorrowful experience, or they may depict the future as though it were already present ( Jeremiah 14:17-18 ). The latter interpretation would suit Jeremiah 14:17 , but hardly the following verse, with its references to "going forth into the field," and "entering into the city." The way in which these specific actions are mentioned seems to imply some present or recent calamity; and there is apparently no reason why we may not suppose that the passage was written at the disastrous close of the reign of Josiah, in the troublous interval of three months, when Jehoahaz was nominal king in Jerusalem, but the Egyptian arms were probably ravaging the country, and striking terror into the hearts of the people. In such a time of confusion and bloodshed, tillage would be neglected, and famine would naturally follow; and these evils would be greatly aggravated by drought. The only other period which suits is the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim; but the former seems rather to be indicated by Jeremiah 15:6-9 . Heartbroken at the sight of the miseries of his country, the prophet once more approaches the eternal throne. His despairing mood is not so deep and dark as to drown his faith in God. He refuses to believe the utter rejection of Judah, the revocation of the covenant. (The measure is Pentameter). "Hast Thou indeed cast off Judah? Hath Thy soul revolted from Sion? Why hast Thou smitten us past healing? Waiting for peace, and no good came, For a time of healing, and behold terror!" "We know, Iahvah, our wickedness, our fathers’ guilt; For we have trespassed toward Thee. Scorn Thou not, for Thy Name sake Disgrace not Thy glorious throne! Remember, break not, Thy covenant with us!" "Are there, in sooth, among the Nothings of the nations senders of rain? And is it the heavens that bestow the showers? Is it not Thou, Iahvah our God? And we wait for Thee, For Thou it was that madest the world." To all this the Divine answer is stern and decisive. "And Iahvah said unto me: If Moses and Samuel were to stand" (pleading) "before Me, My mind would not be towards this people: send them away from before Me" (dismiss them from My Presence), "that they may go forth!" After ages remembered Jeremiah as a mighty intercessor, and the brave Maccabeus could see him in his dream as a grey-haired man "exceeding glorious" and "of a wonderful and excellent majesty" who "prayed much for the people and for the holy city" ( 2Ma 15:14 ). And the beauty of the prayers which lie like scattered pearls of faith and love among the prophet’s soliloquies is evident at a glance. But here Jeremiah himself is conscious that his prayers are unavailing; and that the office to which God has called him is rather that of pronouncing judgment than of interceding for mercy. Even a Moses or a Samuel, the mighty intercessors of the old heroic times, whose pleadings had been irresistible with God, would now plead in vain Exodus 17:11 sqq., Exodus 32:11 sqq.; Numbers 14:13 sqq. for Moses; 1 Samuel 7:9 sqq., 1 Samuel 12:16 sqq.; Psalm 99:6 ; Sir 46:16 sqq. for Samuel. The day of grace has gone, and the day of doom is come. His sad function is to "send them away" or "let them go" from Iahvah’s Presence; to pronounce the decree of their banishment from the holy land where His temple is, and where they have been wont to "see His face." The main part of his commission was "to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to overthrow" ( Jeremiah 1:10 ). "And if they say unto thee, Whither are we to go forth? Thou shalt say uno them, thus hath Iahvah said: They that belong to the Death" ( i.e., the Plague; as the Black Death was spoken of in mediaeval Europe) "to death; and they that belong to the Sword, to the sword; and they that belong to the Famine, to famine: and they that belong to Captivity, to captivity!" The people were to "go forth" out of their own land, which was, as it were, the Presence chamber of Iahvah, just as they had at the outset of their history gone forth out of Egypt, to take possession of it. The words convey a sentence of exile, though they do not indicate the place of banishment. The menace of woe is as general in its terms as that lurid passage of the Book of the Law upon which it appears to be founded. { Deuteronomy 28:21-26 } The time for the accomplishment of those terrible threatenings "is nigh, even at the doors." On the other hand, Ezekiel’s "four sore judgments" { Ezekiel 14:21 } were suggested by this passage of Jeremiah. The prophet avoids naming the actual destination of the captive people, because captivity is only one element in their punishment. The horrors of war-sieges and slaughters and pestilence and famine-must come first. In what follows, the intensity of these horrors is realised in a single touch. The slain are left unburied, a prey to the birds and beasts. The elaborate care of the ancients in the provision of honourable resting places for the dead is a measure of the extremity, thus indicated. In accordance with the feeling of his age, the prophet ranks the dogs and vultures and hyenas that drag and disfigure and devour the corpses of the slain, as three "kinds" of evil equally appalling with the sword that slays. The same feeling led our Spenser to write: "To spoil the dead of weed Is sacrilege, and doth all sins exceed." And the destruction of Moab is decreed by the earlier prophet Amos, "because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime," thus violating a law universally recognised as binding upon the conscience of nations. { Amos 2:1 } Cf. also Genesis 23:1-20 . Thus death itself was not to be a sufficient expiation for the inveterate guilt of the nation. Judgment was to pursue them even after death. But the prophet’s vision does not penetrate beyond this present scene. With the visible world, so far as he is aware, the punishment terminated. He gives no hint here, nor elsewhere, of any further penalties awaiting individual sinners in the unseen world. The scope of his prophecy indeed is almost purely national, and limited to the present life. It is one of the recognized conditions of Old Testament religious thought. And the ruin of the people is the retribution reserved for what Manasseh did in Jerusalem. To the prophet, as to the author of the book of Kings, who wrote doubtless under the influence of his words, the guilt contracted by Judah trader that wicked king was unpardonable But it would convey a false impression if we left the matter here: for the whole course of his after preaching-his exhortations and promises, as well as his threats-prove that Jeremiah did not suppose that the nation could not be saved by genuine repentance and permanent amendment. What he intends rather to affirm is that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon children who are partakers of their sins. It is the doctrine of St. Matthew 23:29 sqq.; a doctrine which is not merely a theological opinion, but a matter of historical observation. "And I will set over them four kinds-It is an oracle of Iahvah-the sword to slay, and the dogs to hale, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy. And I will make them a sport for all the realms of earth; on account of Manasseh ben Hezekiah king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem." Jerusalem!-the mention of that magical name touches another chord in the prophet’s soul; and the fierce tones of his oracle of doom change into a dirge-like strain of pity without hope. "For who will have compassion on Thee, O Jerusalem? And who will yield thee comfort? And who will turn aside to ask of thy welfare? ‘Twas thou that rejectedst Me (it is Iahvah’s word); Backward wouldst thou wend: So I stretched forth My hand against thee and destroyed thee; I wearied of relenting. And I winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I bereaved, I undid My people: Yet they returned not from their own ways. His widows outnumbered before Me the sand of seas: I brought them against the Mother of Warriors a harrier at high noon; I threw upon her suddenly anguish and horrors. She that had borne seven sons did pine away; She breathed out her soul. Her sun did set, while it yet was day; He blushed and paled. But their remnant will I give to the sword Before their foes: (It is Iahvah’s word)." The fate of Jerusalem would strike the nations dumb with horror; it would not inspire pity, for man would recognise that it was absolutely just. Or perhaps the thought rather is, In proving false to Me, thou wert false to thine only friend: Me thou hast estranged by thy faithlessness; and from the envious rivals, who beset thee on every side, thou canst expect nothing but rejoicing at thy downfall. { Psalm 136:1-26 ; Lamentations 2:15-17 ; Obadiah 1:10 sqq.} The peculiar solitariness of Israel among the nations { Numbers 23:9 } aggravated the anguish of her overthrow. In what follows, the dreadful past appears as a prophecy of the yet more terrible future. The poet-seer’s pathetic monody moralises the lost battle of Megiddo-that fatal day when the sun of Judah set in what seemed the high day of her prosperity, and all the glory and the promise of good king Josiah vanished like a dream in sudden darkness. Men might think-doubtless Jeremiah thought, in the first moments of despair, when the news of that overwhelming disaster was brought to Jerusalem, with the corpse of the good king, the dead hope of the nation-that this crushing blow was proof that Iahvah had rejected His people, in the exercise of a sovereign caprice, and without reference to their own attitude towards Him. But, says or chants the prophet, in solemn rhythmic utterance, "‘Twas thou that rejectedst Me; Backward wouldst thou wend: So I stretched forth My hand against thee, and wrought thee hurt; I wearied of relenting." The cup of national iniquity was full, and its baleful contents overflowed in a devastating flood. "In the gates of the land"-the point on the northwest frontier where the armies met-Iahvah doomed to fall from those who were to survive, as the winnowing fan separates the chaff from the wheat in the threshing floor. There He "bereaved" the nation of their dearest hope, "the breath of their nostrils, the Lord’s Anointed"; { Lamentations 4:20 } there He multiplied their widows. And after the lost battle He brought the victor in hot haste against the "Mother" of the fallen warriors, the ill-fated city, Jerusalem, to wreak vengeance upon her for her ill-timed opposition. But, for all this bitter fruit of their evil doings, the people "turned not back from their own ways"; and therefore the strophe of lamentation closes with a threat of utter extermination: "Their remnant"-the poor survival of these fierce storms" Their remnant will I give to the sword before their foes." If the thirteenth and fourteenth verses be not a mere interpolation in this chapter, {see Jeremiah 17:3-4 } their proper place would seem to be here, as continuing and amplifying the sentence upon the residue of the people. The text is unquestionably corrupt, and must be amended by help of the other passage, where it is partially repeated. The twelfth verse may be read thus: "Thy wealth and thy treasures will I make a prey, For the sin of thine high places in all thy borders." Then the fourteenth verse follows, naturally enough, with an announcement of the Exile: "And I will enthral thee to thy foes In a land thou knowest not: For a fire is kindled in Mine anger, That shall burn for evermore!" The prophet has now fulfilled his function of judge by pronouncing upon his people the extreme penalty of the law. His strong perception of the national guilt and of the righteousness of God has left him no choice in the matter. But how little this duty of condemnation accorded with his own individual feeling as a man and a citizen is clear from the passionate outbreak of the succeeding strophe. "Woe’s me, my mother," he exclaims, "that thou barest me, A man of strife and a man of contention to all the country! Neither lender nor borrower have I been; Yet all of them do curse me." A desperately bitter tone, evincing the anguish of a man wounded to the heart by the sense of fruitless endeavour and unjust hatred. He had done his utmost to save his country, and his reward was universal detestation. His innocence and integrity were requited with the odium of the pitiless creditor who enslaves his helpless victim, and appropriates his all; or the fraudulent borrower who repays a too ready confidence with ruin. The next two verses answer this burst of grief and despair: "Said Iahvah, Thine oppression shall be for good; I will make the foe thy suppliant in time of evil and in time of distress. Can one break iron, Iron from the north, and brass?" In other words, faith counsels patience, and assures the prophet that all things work together for good to them that love God. The wrongs and bitter treatment which he now endures will only enchance his triumph when the truth of his testimony is at last confirmed by events, and they who now scoff at his message come humbly to beseech his prayers. The closing lines refer, with grave irony, to that unflinching firmness, that inflexible resolution, which, as a messenger of God, he was called upon to maintain. He is reminded of what he had undertaken at the outset of his career, and of the Divine Word which made him "a pillar of iron and walls of brass against all the land". { Jeremiah 1:18 } Is it possible that the pillar of iron can be broken, and the walls of brass beaten down by the present assault? There is a pause, and then the prophet vehemently pleads his own cause with Iahvah. Smarting with the sense of personal wrong, he urges that his suffering is for the Lord’s own sake; that consciousness of the Divine calling has dominated his entire life, ever since his dedication to the prophetic office; and that the honour of Iahvah requires his vindication upon his heartless and hardened adversaries. Thou knowest, Iahvah! Remember me, and visit me, and avenge me on my persecutors. Take me not away in thy long suffering; Regard my bearing of reproach for Thee. Thy words were found and I did eat them, And it became to me a joy and mine heart’s gladness; For I was called by Thy Name, O Iahvah, God of Sabaoth! I sate not in the gathering of the mirthful, nor rejoiced; Because of Thine hand I sate solitary, For with indignation Thou didst fill me. "Why hath my pain become perpetual,