Jeremiah 19

Jeremiah 19:1-9

g Task. xxv. &c. h x Kings xx. 11. & xxv. &c. &c. a火. 3. i 15. ii. 10. h 16th. 12. all the prize. k Chap. ii. 15. 19. l Iced. xiii. 14. 2 Or of the earth. Lev. xxvii. 15. m 16. 19. 15. Chap. v. 5. Am. 19. 20. 11. 6 Or spend the motherceer, a trout man to ding. &c. or against the mother, and the young men. n 1 Sam. ii. c. Am. xii. 9.

1. THEN said the LORD unto me, “Though Moïes and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be towards this people; cast them out of my light, and let them go forth. . . And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus faith the LORD, “Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity. . . And I will appoint over them four kinds, faith the LORD: the sword to say, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy. 4. And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth; because of Mansafeth the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. 5. For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemone thee? or who shall go aside to ask how thou dost? 6. Thou hast forsaken me, faith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting. 7. And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land: I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, with they return not from their ways. 8. Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas: I have brought upon them against the number of the young men, a spoiler at noon-day: I have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city. 9. She that hath born seven, languisteth: she hath given up the ghost, her son is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded, and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, faith the LORD.

When the measure of a nation’s iniquities are full, then vengeance to the uttermost will overtake them, and all interception for them it vain.

1. The decree is gone forth; terrible, irreversible. The greatest favourites of heaven, the mightiest men in prayer, if they were again upon earth, could avail nothing. They are abandoned to their fate, and deemed to destruction, v. 1. And if, when their ruin was told them, they should tauntingly say, Whither shall we go forth? the answer is ready. According to the divine decree, some should die by the sword, by settlement, by famine, and their carcasses unburied, v. 3. be food for dogs and the fowls of heaven, and the remnant go into a miserable captivity, v. 4. not a friend shall remain to pity their deplorable case, or to testify the least concern for them, v. 5. God’s patience is at an end; his hand stretched out to destroy them without fearing, v. 6. and they shall be dispersed as chaff before the sun: a spoiler at noon-day, Nebuchadnezzar, with the Chaldean army, shall

come upon them openly, suddenly condemn their men of war, increase the number of their widows, v. 8. and leave the mothers childless, robbed of those darlings which were as the light of their eyes; ashamed, confounded, and deprived of that support on which they trusted; part shall be then with the famine, and the residue fall by the sword of the enemy, when Jerusalem shall be taken. Nate, (1.) God’s Spirit will not always thrive, nor his patience wait for sinners: when their day of grace is trifled away, the day of recompense will overtake them. (2.) When the Lord begins, he will make an end. Let us fear to provoke his indignation, lest repentance should come too late.

2. The cause of these judgments is their sins, just and present: for God never smites without cause. Their former iniquities under Mansafeth, son of Hezekiah, his idolatry, murders, and abominations, aggravated by the confederation how horribly he had degenerated from his pious father’s ways, cried for vengeance; and the measure of the sins of that proverbial was filled by the impeniteness of the present. They forbid God, went backward, upholster from his commands and ways and worship, and, notwithstanding all the methods he had used to reclaim them both by his ministers and his providences, they returned not from their ways. And when sinners perish in their wickedness, and refuse to hearken, they may be assured eternal perdition will be the consequence.

BabamChad fear. a Job. ii. 1. &c. Chap. 10. 14. c Chap. vi. 5 Or seems the enemy for that c Chap. xii. 3. c Chap. xii. c Deut. xxix. 11.

10. ¶ “Wo is me, my mother, that thou hast born me a man of thrift, and a man of contention to the whole earth: I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me. 11. The LORD said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant, verily I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil, and in the time of affliction. 12. Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? 13. ‘Thy substance and thy treasures will give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders. 14. And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies, into a land which thou knowest not: for ‘a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you.

The ruin of Jerusalem and Judah is still the burden of the prophecy, and is presbytered by the breaking of a potter’s vessel. 1. In the presence of the elders, in the valley of Tophet, the approaching destruction, and the cause of it, is foretold, vers. 1—9. 2. The breaking of the vessel signified the irretrievable cause of their case, vers. 10—13. 3. The same proclamation is repeated in the temple, vers. 14, 15.

1. THUS faith the LORD, Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests, 2. And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the ealt-gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee: 3. And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Thus faith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle. 4. Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burnt incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents; 5. They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind: 6. Therefore behold, the days come, faith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter. 7. And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcasses will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. 8. And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss, because of all the plagues thereof. 9. And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons, and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straiteness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall stricken them.

To awaken conviction in the hearts of a stupid people every method it tried, that they may be left at last utterly inexcusable.

1. Jeremiah is ordered down to the valley of the son of Hinnom, the place where their most shocking idolatries were committed, and the destined spot of their terrible execution. He is commanded to take an earthen pitcher, and, as witnesses of what he was about to do and say, to bring with him some of the ancients of the priests and people; for when God speaks by the means of his prophets, the greatest should not think themselves above attending their ministry.

2. God will tell him there his message, which he must proclaim about as an herald; and the purport of it is most tremendous, which all are summoned to attend, from the greatest to the least; and enough it is to make the ears of every one that heareth it to single, as thunder-Bruck with the dreadful sound. The sins charged upon them are most shocking and aggravated; a profancy from God, profanation of his temple, foul idolatry, barbarous cruelty, the inhuman sacrifice of infants to their abominable deities, yes, even the burning their sons with

fire, as burnt-offerings unto Baal; sacrifices abhorred of God, and such as he never thought of, nor expected from his worshippers. For these abominations judgment is threatened proportionate to such atrocious guilt: on that very spot the wrath of God should be executed upon them, and the valley acquire a new name: no more called Tophet, from the drums that were beat to drown the cries of infants burning alive in sacrifice to Moloch, but the valley of Slaughter, from the multitudes who should there be massacred by the Chaldeans. Their counsels then should be made vain, which in that place they had taken to oppose their invaders, or to fly to their idols for relief in the day of their calamity, v. 7. There they must fall by the sword of their merciless enemies, thrifting for their blood; their carcasses ignominiously exposed, and unburred; a prey to the fowls of heaven, and the beasts of the earth. Such plagues and desolation shall come upon their city and country, that astonishment at the greatness of the calamity shall mix with indignation against their sins in every pailer by: yes, to such straits should they be reduced in the siege, that famine should compel them to feed upon their dearest friends, and even their children, on their dead couples, or murdered to satisfy their raging hunger; a scene of wretchedness that makes us slander but to relate. O sin! sin! what hast thou done!

Babam Chaff etc.

10. Then shall thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, 11. And shall say unto them, Thus faith the LORD of hosts, Even so will I break this people and this city, as our breaketh a potter’s vessel that cannot be made whole again, and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury. 12. Thus will I do unto this place, faith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet. 13. And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burnt incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink-offerings unto other gods. 14. Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whether the LORD had sent him to prophecy, and he stood in the court of the LORD’s house, and laid to all the people, 15. Thus faith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns, all the evil that I have pronounced against it; because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.

Jeremiah 19:10-15

Jeremiah, returned from his public ministry, in private here pours out his complaints unto God.

1. He bewails his unhappy case; persecuted and reviled by his ungrateful countrymen; and this not without some appearance of impatience, as if angry with his mother for having born him: so hard it is, under great provocations, to keep the heart quiet. He complains he was a man of thrift: not contentious in his own spirit; but abused for his faithfulness, and every occasion taken to quarrel with him, though he had given them not the least cause: he had neither lent on usury, nor borrowed; had not entangled himself with secular affairs, but given himself up wholly to the work of his ministry; was engaged in no transactions and trade that could give occasion to debate, or afford matter for litigious suits at law: yet they cursed him; treated him with contempt or with abhorrence, pouring out curfew upon him for the fidelity he shewed in delivering the messages he received from God. Nate, (1.) It is the lot of the faithful ministers of God to meet with the basest usage, and the most ungrateful return for their labours. (2.) The gospel teaches us to follow peace with all men; yet, through the perverseness of the world, too commonly it happens, that when we speak to them of peace they make them ready to battle. (3.) Desirable as it is to live in friendship and quiet with those around us, it must never be purchased by base compliances, or flattering them in their sins. (4.) Ministers of God must not renange themselves with the affairs of this world; the care of men’s souls ought wholly to engross their time and thoughts.

2. The Lord in mercy answers him with gracious assurances of his protection: Verily it shall be well with thy remnant. The words are in form of an oath, assuring him of God’s blessing during the residue of his days: whatever became of the people, he should be preserved. Those very enemies, that were the rod of God’s indignation to his countrymen, should shew him kindness and favour, as was fulfilled chap. xxxix. 11, 12. Nate, (1.) They who are faithful to God, he will be careful of them. He hath in his hands the hearts of all men, and can raise us up friends where we least expected them. (2.) The zealous ministers of God have often found protection from those who shew no concern about religion, when bitterly persecuted by the false professors of it.

3. God threatens his enemies with ruin. Shall iron break the northern iron? Either the Jews should not be able to hurt him, who had been let, chap. i. 18. as an iron pillar against them; or rather, all their efforts to resist the northern army of the Chaldeans should be ufeless; these disbursers and treasures shall fall an easy prey; in shameful captivity they should be led to Babylon; and the heavy wrath of God purifier them; and this the just punishment of their sins, aggravated and universal in all their borders, the corruption of their manners being general, and spread from one end of the land to the other.

The judgment denounced is here,

1. Confirmed by a significant sign. The earthen bottle in his hand is dashed in places on the ground, and the application of it given, that so utter and irreparable should be their destruction. The city and people should be broken like this vessel, and the spot wherever they stood be the place of execution, where so many should be slain, that graves should be wanting to bury them; yes, the city of Jerusalem should be as Tophet, and every house defiled with corpses of the slain, and rendered filthy and abominable as that detested place, because of the idolatries that had been practised therein, and the incense which on their roofs they had offered to the hosts of heaven.

2. What he now spake in the presence of the ancients, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, he reports solemnly in the courts of the Lord’s house before all the people, that if they continue impenitent, they may be at least inexcusable. All the denunciations of wrath God had spoken by Jeremiah were now ready to be executed on Jerusalem and all her towns, because they have hardened their mists, that they might not hear my words; obstinately persisting in their iniquities, and dead to all admonition. Note, (1.) Ministers must deliver their own souls, whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear. (2.) They who harden their hearts against God’s warnings, must perish without remedy. (3.) In the day of judgment the damned will only have themselves to blame, and the sense of their wilfulness will aggravate their misery.

Jeremiah 19:12

—11. We have here,

1. The prophet’s earnest application to God, appealing to him who feareth the heart for his integrity, and intreating the fulfilment of his promises.

(1.) He prays: O Lord, thou knowest my innocence, my suffering, and the malice of my enemies; remember me for good, and evils me with thy salvation, and revenge me of my persecutors. Perhaps this was his infirmity; or he desired it for God’s glory, in which name he had spoken: take me not away in thy long-suffering; give me my life for a prey, when they are cut off; or leave me not to their power and malice. He acknowledges that to the long-suffering of God he must owe it; the bulk, in the ingour of justice, being obnoxious to God’s wrath. Knew, acknowledge and make it evident to my enemies, by thy interposition on my behalf, that for thy fake I have suffered rebuke, because of his fidelity in discharging his office; and when this is really the cafe, we may confidently expel God will plead our quarrel, and vindicate our integrity from all the revilings of men. (2.) He pleads the diligence he used in executing his commitition, the delight he took in God’s word, and his carefulness to keep himself from every sinful compliance with them. The words were found, and I did not them, as a hungry man his food this ears were attentive to drink in what God delivered to him; he carefully thought over and digested the words in his mind, and his heart thrilled upon them: thy word was sent me the joy and rejoicing of my heart: either he hoped the terrible threatening he brought would move the people to repentance; or the gracious affluence that God would support him encouraged him; or, above all, amidst the dark judgments the promise of the incarnation of the Messiah, and his great salvation, which misgled therewith, revived and comforted his soul. For I am called by thy name, O Lord of hoffs, which he delighted in as his greatell honour, though others perhaps turned it to his reproach. I sat out in the assembly of matters, partaking with them in their sins, or by likeness perceiving at their wickedness; or until when that male mercy, levily being unconscionable with the forlousness of his character, and the melancholy muffage he bore; and rejoiced me, even partaking of any lawful recreation, which the dreadful evils he behold approaching would not suffer him to tithe. I sat alone, meditating on his muffage, and mourning over the people, because of thy hand, which he saw lighting down upon the nation in vengeance; or because of the spirit of prophecy which he felt; for thou hast filled me with imagination; either the indignation of the people against him, or his displeasure against them for their impenitence, or a sense of the heavy wrath of God ready to overtake them. Note, (1.) The word of God is the foregest repaid to the believer’s soul, and thinner he derives his most revirving draughts of confidante. (2.) When we have work to do for God, we must not only forsake what is in itself sinful, but forego what to others might be innocent. (3.) There is a holy indignation without sin, when ministers grieve over the hastiness of men’s hearts. (3.) He expounds with God: it seems with something of a mourning spirit: why is thy pain perpetual? which he suffered for the people’s sake in his own mind, or from their ill stage. Why is my wound incurable, which refused to be healed? there appearsing no hopes of a change for the better, or may end of their reproaches. With them he altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail? fearing him in their hands, though he had promised to deliver him, chap. i. 19. and giving his enemies occasion to reproach his confidence? No. God will not suffer him to be thus condemned, nor any that put their truth in him. Therefore. Vol. II. 2. God enforces his prayer. He had expressed some discredit and impatience; therefore, says God, if thou wilt return, ashamed of this impatience, and humbly concluding it, then I will bring the again to peace of conscience, and the exercise of the missity with which God had entrusted him; and thou shalt stand before me, established in his office as a prophet: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, speaking comfort to God’s people and terror to the impatient, thou shalt be as my mouth, employed in God’s mouth to the people. Let them return unto thee, in remitance and obedience to thy word; but return not thou unto them, giving way in the truth, keeping back a syllable of the themning to be denounced against them, or making any compliance with them: and then, if he appeared himself thus faithful, God would fulfil to him his promise, chap. i. 18. making him a broken mull, against which all the efforts of the princes should be vain and impatient: God’s patience should comfort, his power happort him, and save him from his foes, however many or mighty, v. 20, 21. Note, (1.) If we would return to the enjoyment of comfort, we must be restored to the right spirit from which we have departed. (2.) They who minister before God must carefully divide the word of truth, giving to the faithful their portion of comfort, and to the ungodly faithful warnings of their danger. (3.) When we approve ourselves faithful, we shall be supported against all opposition; God’s strength shall be made perfect in our weakness, and all our terrible foes shall be compelled to lick the dull.