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I. THE NUMBER AND VARIETY OF HER SINS.

1. Rebellion. This, marking her attitude towards God, is amplified and detailed as consisting in four transgressions.

(1) Disobedience. She had not obeyed Jehovah's voice speaking to her through the Law and the prophets, adjoining on her precepts and imposing on her duties, but, like an ordinary heathen nation, had said, "Who is Jehovah, that we should serve him, or that he should reign over us?"

(2) Insubordination. She had not received correction, i.e. had not accepted with meek submission the discipline or chastisement Jehovah had laid upon her in consequence of her sins, as for instance when he brought against her Shishak of Egypt (1 Kings 14:25, 26), Jehoash of Israel (2 Kings 14:13), Sargon or Sennacherib of Assyria (2 Kings 18:17; 2 Chronicles 32:1), but had resented it, not only adhering to her disobedient ways, but improving on them, "rising early and corrupting all her doings."

(3) Unbelief. Not trusting in Jehovah, she had alternately trusted in Assyria and Egypt. Whereas her confidence in Jerusalem's stability and impregnability ought to have rested on the fact that Jehovah had chosen it to place his Name there, had entered into covenant with the nation of which it was the capital, had established in it his worship, and had promised to protect it, she was constantly basing her hopes on a political alliance either with the northern power against the southern, or with the southern against the northern (Isaiah 36:6; Hosea 14:3).

(4) Irreligion. Having renounced all faith in Jehovah, she had scarcely maintained the pretence of observing his worship - had not drawn near to him, either externally in the way of celebrating those rites he had prescribed, or internally by pouring out her heart before him in supplication of his favour and help.

2. Pollution. This declares what the city was in herself. The completeness of her defilement discovered itself in the wickedness of all classes of her population, but more especially of her civil and spiritual rulers. Of the latter,

(1) the prophets were light and treacherous persons, vain glorious boasters, boiling up with their own conceited imaginings, men of treacheries who published their own false dreams as if these had been the true visions of God (Jeremiah 23:32), and thus caused the people to err (Isaiah 9:16; Micah 3:5). As they exercised their callings without having themselves been called to these by God (Jeremiah 14:14), they were not his prophets, but hers. Scarcely less polluted were

(2) the priests, who, as Jehovah's ministers, ought to have been holy (Leviticus 21:6; Numbers 16:5), but who, through being themselves impure, profaned that which is holy, or defiled the sanctuary and all connected with it - its rites, persons, things, places, sacrifices, and violated the Law (Ezekiel 22:26) "by treating what was holy as profane."

3. Oppression. Revealing her behaviour towards man: her civic dignitaries practised cruelties ferocious and unprovoked upon those over whom they ruled.

(1) Her princes in the midst of her, i.e. her kings and nobles, like roaring lions rushing on their prey (Proverbs 27:15), ground down her poor and unresisting population by excessive taxations and labours.

(2) Her judges, in their administration of law and (so called) justice, were so fixedly bent on their own enrichment, and so insatiably greedy of their evil gains, that they seemed like hungry and rapacious evening wolves which could not leave a bone of their prey till the morning, but must devour it ere the night passed (Habakkuk 1:8; Jeremiah 5:6; Ezekiel 22:27).

II. THE AGGRAVATION AND HEINOUSNESS OF HER SINS.

1. Against Divine grace. She had been guilty of all the foregoing wickednesses, though Jehovah had been in the midst of her. That he chose at the first to establish his presence in her was a favour - a special favour; that he remained in her after she had become rebellious, polluted, and oppressive, was more than a special favour - was an exceeding great mercy.

2. Against Divine example. In all Jehovah's dealings with her he had shown himself "righteous," even proved that he would not and could not do iniquity; nevertheless, she had not followed in Jehovah's steps, but had turned aside into crooked paths and unclean ways.

3. Against Divine instruction. Jehovah had brought his judgment to light every morning by causing his Law to be proclaimed to the nation daily by the prophets. Yet she had rebelled against the light and done the works of darkness.

4. Against Divine warnings. She had seen Jehovah cutting off the nations around, throwing down their battlements, and rendering them desolate, "making their streets waste," etc. (ver. 6); and still she had closed her ears against the warnings these providential judgments gave.

5. Against Divine expectation. Jehovah had hoped she would fear him and receive the instruction and correction he had intended for her; but she had not done so. Rather she had risen early and corrupted herself, thereby proving herself one of the unjust who know no shame.

III. THE RECOMPENSE AND REWARD OF HER SINS.

1. A severe penalty. Woe; and the cutting off of her dwelling. Unless she repented and turned from her evil ways, she would be overwhelmed with the righteous indignation of God, and her place as a nation wiped out - an impressive symbol of the doom threatened against unbelieving and unrepentant sinners under the gospel.

2. A contingent penalty. If she feared Jehovah and accepted correction, her dwelling should not be cut off, and the vials of woe should not he outpoured upon her (Jeremiah 18:7). So are God's threatenings against sinners contingent on their continued impenitence. But this presupposed, it becomes:

3. A certain penalty. Nothing could avert the woe and the cutting off in Jerusalem's case but repentance and reformation, neither of which she showed; and so when within less than a century it became apparent that there was no remedy, the sluice gates of wrath were opened, and she was cut off without compassion (2 Chronicles 36:16, 17). So will it be with those under the gospel, who, being often reproved, vet harden their necks - they shall he utterly destroyed, and that without remedy (Proverbs 29:1). Learn:

1. The danger of sin.

2. The certainty of judgment. - T.W.

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KJV: Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!

WEB: Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city!