Jeremiah 4

4. The moral significance of circumcision is putting away everything impure and unclean. To this the Lord exhorts the people; else will His fury break forth like fire. H. C.—Even in the Pentateuch this initiatory rite of the covenant was shown to point to another circumcision, that of the lips and the heart, which in the future would become a great spiritual reality to all men. It is in this view of circumcision that Moses speaks of himself as of “uncircumcised lips”—that is, as unprepared for great spiritual work, while in Lev. 26:41 we read of “uncircumcised hearts,” and in Deuteronomy the command to circumcise the heart is explained as equivalent to being “no more stiff-necked” (10:16). Quite in accordance with this view, Jeremiah expresses his call to repentance in the words before us. And that this was intended to point to something very real appears from the circumstance that it forms the great Divine promise of the latter days: “Jehovah thy God will circumcise thine heart . . . to love Jehovah thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul” (De. 30:6). Circumcision then was not a merely outward rite, but symbolic of a spiritual reality; and it pointed beyond itself to the time of its spiritual accomplishment. Accordingly we find that in the prophetic writings it is associated with the glory of the latter days. Thus Isaiah calls on the holy city to awake and put on her beautiful garments, for that henceforth the uncircumcised and the unclean would no more enter her gates. And that the outward rite could not have been referred to appears from this, that Jeremiah (9:26) foretells that the days would come when Jehovah would equally punish the circumcised with the uncircumcised, for that while the Gentiles were uncircumcised, “all the house of Israel were uncircumcised in the heart.” A. E.

5,6. These verses solemnly announce the near impending invasion by the Chaldeans. The people are summoned to assemble for protection in their strongly fortified cities, and especially in Jerusalem. This is the sense of “setting up a standard toward Zion,” as a rallying point toward which the people should flee for safety. The word rendered “retire” (verse 6) means “hasten with your effects;” take what you value most, and fly in haste. “Evil from the north,” in the usage of Jeremiah, means the Chaldean armies. (See 1:14, 15 and 24:9.) H. C.

6. From the north. Babylonia, Chaldea, Assyria and Media are constantly represented in Scripture as being to the north of Judea. Probably the prophets speak of the kings of Babylonia and Chaldea not so much with a view to their geographical situation, which is rather to the east of Palestine, as to the course which they took in their expeditions against Judea. The deserts of Arabia being not practicable for an army, they commonly crossed the Euphrates at Tiphsah, or Thapsacus, and approached Judea on the north side, by way of Damascus and Syria. Calmet.

7. The lion is come up. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, whose monarchy is represented by a lion. He is called here “the destroyer of the Gentiles,” or rather nations; Judea and all the neighboring countries being given up into his hands by God’s decree. W. Lowth.

10. The next preceding verse refers to ungodly priests and false prophets. Through them the people had been greatly deceived, and the Lord had, in a sense, permitted these wicked agencies and their sad results. We need not assume that the prophet finds fault with God for what He had done. H. C.—The prophet takes care to remove all pretence of charging God by throwing the blame upon the people themselves. (See verse 18.) In one place “the sword” is said to “reach unto the soul;” in the other, the reason is assigned, because their “wickedness” had reached thither before. The people had been desperately wicked; would accept of no sober counsel nor bear any just reproof; they loved “smooth things;” they delighted in flattery and lies; they “walked after the imagination of their own hearts” (chap. 23:17); and therefore God gave them up to strong delusions, and suffered them to be grossly imposed on by lying prophets of their own choosing. In Scripture phrase, God is frequently said to do what He permits to be done, because all events are in His disposal and wait His pleasure. The device may be man’s; but God directs it to better purposes than man could think of; and so, by taking the thing into His own hands, and governing the issue of it, He makes it, in a certain sense, His own. Waterland.

Our Lord refers more often than to any other Old Testament Scripture to that word of Isaiah’s which tells of the Divine will, that “seeing, they [his enemies] may see and not perceive, and hearing, they may hear and not understand.” Men who will not hear come at length to find they cannot. So with Judah and

Jerusalem; they were at this time “given up to a strong delusion, that they should believe the lie”—that peace could be their lot in spite of what they were. We speak of Gospel-hardened men, and, alas! we too often see such. And this is in keeping with God’s law of habit—a law most beneficent to those who obey Him, but terrible in its effects on the disobedient. For separate actions crystallize into habits, whereby such actions, no matter what their character, become easy to us, and at last can be performed without any effort of our will. So that separate acts of obedience to God will at length become a blessed and holy habit of obedience, and separate acts of sin repeated again and again will become a direful habit of sin, from which we cannot break away. And because all this is in accordance with a Divine law, therefore God is said to harden men’s hearts, to hinder their understanding of His word, to give them over to strong delusions and, as here, to “deceive the people.” P. C.

13. These figures are plain; they are also magnificent and appalling. In numbers that appeared as a cloud—His chariots dashing like the whirlwind—His horses swifter than the eagle; the one thought that sinks into the heart is, We are lost! Alas! the nation is gone; wasted, sacked, spoiled!

14. “O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee?” Reverting suddenly to their only source of hope and help—the thorough repentance of the people, the putting away of all their heart sins—he pertinently appends to his description of coming ruin this call to moral cleansing as their only salvation. “How long shall vain thoughts, deceitful, delusive hopes, find a quiet lodging-place in your souls? Will you not open your eyes to your peril, and read here God’s testimony against your sin and guilt?” H. C.—The root of their corruption; the evil thoughts that lodged within them and defiled their hearts, from which they must wash their hearts. Thoughts of iniquity or mischief, these are the evil thoughts of the evil heart, from which all other wickedness is produced (Matt. 15:19). These are our own, and they are most dangerous when they lodge within us, when they are admitted and entertained as guests and are suffered to continue." H.

The sins and miseries of human history are the plentiful harvest of a single evil thought lodged in the mind of Eve. No foundation of virtue so solid evil thoughts will not undermine; no defence so impregnable they will not overthrow; no piety so sound they will not corrupt and ruin. We wonder as we read of crimes perpetrated by reputable persons, whose previous lives contradict them; but we should cease to wonder if we could see how evil thoughts have eaten out the heart, leaving nothing but the shell. Chapman.—Use not your thoughts to take their liberty and be ungoverned; for use will make them headstrong and not regard the voice of reason; and it will make reason careless and remiss. Use and custom have great power on our minds; where we use to go, our path is plain; but where there is no use, there is no way. Where the water useth to run there is a channel. Baxter.

The heart is determined by the thoughts; as the thoughts, so the character; the thoughts form the passions, the passions form the actions, the actions form the man. The thoughts are marked with an infinity of views and complexions, but it depends upon ourselves what thoughts we choose. The government of the thoughts is the government of the inward regions. A prince may possess the largest dominions and yet be the victim of his thoughts. R. Hall.

Thoughts are the expositors of the real condition of the heart, embodying those habits and displaying those passions which prudence or want of opportunity restrain from breaking forth into spoken or acted sin. They are a truer picture of ourselves than are our lives; because we have neither the same temptation nor power to gloss them over with a fair appearance. The Christian, therefore, should have the mastery of his thoughts, as well as of his appetites, and be able to turn them to the service of God. Bp. Jackson.

The first beginning and hatching of any sin is first in the thoughts of the heart; and if kings will have their servants in their accounts answer even for pence, why may not God call us to a reckoning even for our smallest debts? And if men punish words and deeds, because they see and know them, why then should not God punish our thoughts, which He knows far better than any man can do our outward actions? We must therefore make conscience of the idle rovings of our brains; our very thoughts and imaginations must stoop and do homage to God, who hath required of us to be loved with all our thoughts, and biddeth us tremble even at the very first rising of evil motions in our hearts, and sin not. Dyke, 1642.

Thoughts are the mutineers in the soul, which set open the gates for Satan; he has held a secret intelligence with them, so far as he knows them, ever since the fall; and they are his spies to assist him in the execution of his devices. They prepare the tinder, and the next fiery dart sets all on a flame. Can we cherish these, if we consider that Christ died for them? He shed His blood for that which put the world out of order, which was accomplished by the sinful imagination of the first man, and continued by evil imaginations. He died to restore God to His right and man to his happiness; neither of which can be perfectly attained till those be thrown out of the possession of the heart. Charnock.

Unhallowed ambition may be replaced by the deepest humility. But unclean thoughts once harbored never leave the soul empty, and swept, and garnished. There is always a taint. Anon.—A man may commit the same sin a thousand times by renewing the pleasures of it in his thoughts. Though the act be past, yet as often as the mind runs over the passages and circumstances of the same sin, with the same delight, so often the soul is polluted with a new stain and laden with more guiltiness. Anon.

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts.” The heart—the heart—there is the evil! The imagination, which was given to spiritualize the senses, is often turned into a means of sensualizing the spirit. Beware of revery, and indulgence in forbidden images, unless you would introduce into your bosom a serpent, which will creep, and crawl, and leave the venom of its windings in your heart.

And now what is the remedy for this? How shall we avoid evil thoughts? First, by the fear of God—“Our God is a consuming fire.” Compare with this, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” An awful thought! a living God, infinitely pure, is conscious of your contaminated thoughts! So the only true courage sometimes comes from fear. We cannot do without awe; there is no depth of character without it. Tender motives are not enough to restrain from sin; yet neither is awe enough. Love and hope will keep us strong against passion, as they kept our Saviour strong in suffering, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.” Secondly, by the promises of God. Think of what you are—a child of God, an heir of heaven. Realize the grandeur of saintliness, and you will shrink from degrading your soul and debasing your spirit. F. W. Robertson.

Though we cannot keep evil thoughts from knocking at the door of our hearts, nor from entering in sometimes, yet we may forbear bidding them welcome or giving them entertainment. “How long shall evil thoughts lodge within thee?” It is bad to let them sit down with us, though but for an hour, but it is worse to let them lie or lodge with us. Swin-nock.—Though we cannot hinder them from haunting us, yet we may from lodging in us. The very sparkling of an abominable motion in our hearts is as little to be looked upon as the color of wine in a glass by a man inclined to drunkenness. Quench them instantly, as you would do a spark of fire in a heap of straw. We must not treat with them. Paul’s resolve is a good pattern, not to confer with flesh and blood. We do not debate whether we should shake a viper off our hands. Charnock.

Every man is responsible for the tenor of his thoughts. If not, there could be no room in this matter for remonstrance or appeal. The law of the association of ideas may be such that it is as impossible to prevent some particular thought from recurring to the mind as to stay the tide of the ocean; but it is certainly possible for us to regulate our habitual mental conditions. It is given to us by watchful, prayerful self-discipline, especially by occupying the mind with higher and nobler things, to secure that the main drift of our thinking shall be in the right direction. We can choose our own fields of daily contemplation. Those thoughts will “lodge” in us which we most encourage and cherish, and for this we are accountable. It is impossible to measure the corrupting power of such thoughts. No evil imagination or purpose can enter the mind, and be allowed for a moment to dwell there, without leaving some moral stain behind it. Accustom yourself to any extent to the play of such influences, your whole being becomes contaminated by them, and

“The baseness of their nature Shall have power to drag you down.”

Our minds cannot be in frequent contact with mean or grovelling objects of contemplation without finding that they poison all the streams of moral life within us. W.

The world must be very near us when the worldly thought is ever with us. Our best treasure must assuredly be there, else our heart and thought of our heart would not be always there. Thoughts that are always running on this world, on its hopes and fears, its gains and losses, its victories and defeats, are vain thoughts; and he that is wise will see betimes the peril and the danger with which they threaten the whole life of his soul, and will watch against them, as knowing that we may perish through things lawful as surely as through things unlawful. Trench.

15-17. Dan lay on the northern border of Palestine, so that the first tidings of the Chaldean irruption from the north would come from that quarter. So also Mount Ephraim lay north from Jerusalem. The “watchers that come from a far country” are besiegers who come to invest the city, and shut the people in on every side, and so watch over them to prevent their escape. Verse 17 plainly refers to their besieging the city, and gives the reason—the rebellion of Judah against her God. H. C.

18. The cause is clear. “Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee.” It is from no decree of reprobation, from no predestination to sin, but from the inevitable action of the law of God which ordains that “ways” and “doings” such as Judah’s were shall at length so utterly deceive those who are guilty of them that the most glaring falsehood is not too glaring for them to believe. P. C.

19. The cause of this great sorrow is the trumpet-blast for war—the Chaldean armies coming to desolate the land.

21,22. The question “how long” involves the question “why.” Why does this fearful calamity come at all on this goodly land? Verse 22 meets this question as from the mouth of the Lord Himself, who replies: “My people are wholly given up to the folly of sin and rebellion. They act as if they had never known Me. They are cunning and intelligent in doing evil, but have no wisdom, no sense to do good. Sin has terribly perverted their intellectual powers.” This is the common law of sinning in its influence on the mind; it blinds the intellect, and, as to all that is morally good, seems to rob it of reason and good sense, and subject it to the supreme dominion of folly. This moral state of the people is the reason why such fearful calamities fall on the whole land. Nothing can be more important than to announce this to the people again and again, for all hope of saving the nation lies in their heeding it. H. C.

23-26. The images under which the prophet represents the approaching desolation as foreseen by him present a most striking picture of a ruined country. The earth is brought back to its primitive state of chaos and confusion; the cheerful light of the heavens is withdrawn, and succeeded by a dismal gloom; the mounmountains tremble and the hills shake under dreadful apprehensions of the Almighty’s displeasure; a frightful solitude reigns all around; not a vestige is to be seen of any of the human race; even the birds themselves have deserted the fields, unable to find any longer in them their usual food. The face of the country, in the once most fertile parts of it, now overgrown with briars and thorns, assumes the dreary wildness of the desert. The cities and villages are either thrown down and demolished by the hand of the enemy, or crumble into ruins, of their own accord, for want of being inhabited. Blayney.

27. “Yet will I not make a full end.” God’s reserve of mercy. This Divine resolve regarding the reserved remnant of the people of Judah and Jerusalem, who should be excepted from the desolation that was coming, is declared several times. Here in the text, then again in chap. 5:10; 30:11, and once again in chap. 46:28. And these are but the echo of what God said to Israel long ages before in the desert of Sinai, as we read in Lev. 26:44. And in other parts of Jeremiah’s prophecies, and in the writings of all the prophets, this Divine resolve to mercifully reserve from destruction a portion of Israel is more or less plainly declared. Thus, then, God does not conceal that the end He makes will not be a full end. And there were many reasons why this fact should be declared. It would show that God was mindful of His covenant with their fathers; that their “unfaithfulness could not make the faithfulness of God of none effect.” The scoff of the unbeliever, the dismay of the true-hearted, would be alike prevented, for, by God’s not making a full end, the way was yet plain for the accomplishment of all that He had spoken. Moreover, such declaration would sustain the faith of the faithful. They would see how they were not forgotten, that God’s watchful care was over them, and that amid the coming desolations He would find means to deliver those who put their trust in Him. And the keeping open of this door of hope was calculated to persuade some to enter through that door, and so be saved. But while the oft-repeated words of the text refer mainly to Judah and Jerusalem, they really declare a principle of the Divine procedure, a continual law of His government and rule. God’s way is, when making an end, not to make a full end. He has ever a reserve of mercy. P. C.

28. God’s purpose of delivering up the Jews into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar was irreversible upon the supposition that the greatest part

of them would continue impenitent, which He likewise foresaw. (See verse 22 and chaps. 7 : 16, 27, 28 ; 13 : 14 ; 14 : 11, 12 ; 25 : 9-11.) Though elsewhere upon their repentance, to which God frequently exhorted them by His prophets (see chap. 25 : 4, 5), He promises the removal of His judgments. W. Lowth.