Jeremiah Chapter 15



In the beginning of Jeremiah 15 the Lord is still more peremptory. At the most critical points in the past Moses and Samuel had cried to Jehovah, and not in vain. The people had cast off Jehovah as their God and as their king; yet had he hearkened to His servants, and staid the hand uplifted as it was in judgment. But now, said Jehovah to Jeremiah, "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, 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 saith 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, saith the Lord: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy. And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. For who shall have pity on thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go aside to ask how thou doest? Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: therefore will 1 stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting. 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, since they return not from their ways. Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the sees: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a spoiler at noonday: I have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city. She that hath borne seven languisheth, she hath given up the ghost; her sun 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, saith the lord." (Ver. 1-9.)

Most acutely does the prophet feel the anguish of such desolation from Jehovah's hand (ver. 10), not famine merely in the land, but a sweeping captivity out of it. The point of faith in such circumstances is ever the spirit of faith that accepts the strokes as righteously measured out of His hand, and not as the result either of mistake on the part of the people or of skill and strength in their enemies. God ruled in it all, and this in view of His people's shameless departure from Himself.

Nevertheless there is no time of retribution, chastening, and sorrow when the same faith which sees God in the circumstances is not given to see Him above them. "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. Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? Thy substance and thy treasures will I give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders. And 1 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." (Ver. 11-14.)

Here the prophet (ver. 15) looks for the judgment of his persecutors, who were found, alas! far more among the Jews than outside. He recounts the sweetness to his spirit of that divine word which brought him into pain perpetual in the sense of the people's sin, and of the judgments impending on them. (Ver. 16 18.) Isolated and crushed he groans to Jehovah, who gives him the needed comfort: "If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them. And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible (Ver. 19-21 . ) To return from one's own thoughts and feelings to Him is strength; and to have a heart for what is precious sifted and severed from the vile, fits one to be His mouthpiece. (Compare 2 Timothy 2:20-22. ) True grace makes one immovable and victorious, let the odds be what they may.