Jeremiah 18:23

Yet, LORD, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me: forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thus with them in the time of thine anger.

Forgive not - (Psalms 109:9; ). Denouncing the doom of their foreseen impenitence, not a prayer that they might be impenitent, and therefore not forgiven. So in the case of the enemies of the antitype, Messiah, in Ps

109.

Neither blot out their sin - image from an account book (; ).

Let them be overthrown before thee - hypocrites suppose God is not near, so long as they escape punishment; but when He punishes they are said to stand before Him, because they can no longer flatter themselves they can escape His eye (cf. ).

Deal thus with them - exert thy power against them (Maurer).

In the time of thine anger - though He seems to tarry, His time shall come at (Ecclesiastes 8:11; 2 Peter 3:9).

Remarks:

(1) God has absolute power over us, as the potter has over the clay which he fashions and moulds as He pleases (Jeremiah 18:2). This consideration sets aside all reliance on merely outward religious privileges, as if God could not cast off those who, for the time being, like the Jews of old, are favoured with them, and adopt others in their stead. Because of unbelief the Jews were broken off, and the Gentile Church stands solely by faith (). If an earthly potter can at will throw away a marred vessel, much more can the great God dash to pieces those of His creatures who have failed to answer the design for which He created them.

(2) He always acts on a fixed principle of wisdom, goodness, and justice, and does nothing through arbitrary caprice. His unchangeable principle is to deal goodness to the penitent, wrath to the impenitent (Jeremiah 18:7). And though we must not think to fathom all the reasons of His dealings as our absolute sovereign, we know that the sinner has life or death offered to him, and dependent on the course he takes; so that whosoever may be lost will lay all the blame on themselves, while the saved will attribute their salvation wholly to God's grace ().

(3) It is Satan's favourite plan either to keep sinners in a state of presumptuous self-confidence, full of hope as to eternity when they have no well-grounded hope; or else, when these false hopes have been dashed away to persuade them to despair of conversion and salvation, and to say, "There is no hope" (), we are hopelessly abandoned to our sins and their awful consequence. But let the sinner remember, 'While there is life there is hope:' it is never too late, on this side of the grave, to turn heartily to the Saviour.

(4) The ungodly fancy it liberty to walk after their own devices;" but slavery to one's own lusts, and "the imagination of the evil heart" is the worst slavery of all. As the wicked Jews "devised devices against" God's servant (), God in righteous retribution declares, "Behold, I devise a device against you" (). While they would "not give heed to any, of Jeremiah's words" () God "gave heed to His servant's prayers, and marked how they "recompensed evil for good," and plotted against the life of the very man who "stood before God to speak good for them, and to turn away God's, wrath from them" ().

(5) But the Jews' unnatural conduct to Jeremiah is far surpassed in guilt by those who, by their back-slidings, "crucify to themselves afresh, and put to an open shame (,) the great Intercessor. Truly may He say, "For my love they are mine adversaries" (Psalms 109:4); for such "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries" ().

(6) Let us beware of ever "forgetting" the love of God our Saviour (), and of "stumbling from the ancient paths," which patriarchs, prophets, and apostles have trodden, to walk in ways of our own devising! Let us rather ever keep close to the "well of living, waters, streams from Lebanon (), "cold flowing" as "the snow" (), for the refreshment of those souls that live by the faith of the Son of God.