Jeremiah 25:38

He hath forsaken his covert, as the lion: for their land is desolate because of the fierceness of the oppressor, and because of his fierce anger.

He hath forsaken his covert - the temple, where heretofore, like a lion, as its defender, by the mere terror of His voice, he warded off the foe; but now He leaves it a prey to the Gentiles (Calvin).

Their land is desolate because of the fierceness of the oppressor - rather, as the Hebrew for 'oppressor' [ hayownaah (H3238)] is an adjective feminine, the word sword is understood, which, in Jeremiah 46:14; Jeremiah 50:16, is expressed (indeed, some manuscripts and Septuagint, the Arabic, and Targum read "sword" [ chereb (H2719)] instead of "fierceness" [ chªrown (H2740)] here; probably interpolated from Jeremiah 46:16) - 'Because of the fierceness of the oppressing (sword).' The Hebrew for oppressing means also a dove; there may be, therefore, a covert allusion to the Chaldean standard, bearing a dove on it, in honour of Semiramis, the first queen, said in popular superstition to have been nourished by doves when exposed at birth, and at death to have been transformed into a dove. Her name may come from a root referring to the cooing of a dove. That bird was held sacred to the goddess Venus. The Vulgate so translates, 'the anger of the dove.'

His fierce anger - if the fierce anger of Nebuchadnezzar cannot be evaded, how much less the "fierce anger of the Lord" (cf. Jeremiah 25:37).

Remarks:

(1) The greatest aggravation to the sin of Judah was that God had abundantly warned them of the fatal consequences of their sinful course (Jeremiah 25:3). The prophets had spared no effort, late and early, showing them that their provocation of God could not affect His infinite glory and blessedness, but would only tend "to their own hurt" (Jeremiah 25:7): but that, in tender love to them, He invites them, "Turn ye again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and so shall ye dwell in the land that the Lord hath given unto you" (Jeremiah 25:5). God is the same God now as then. He warns every ungodly man, "He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death" (Proverbs 8:36). He invites all, Repent, and believe the gospel; so ye shall live forever in the heavenly land of promise. How it will aggravate the misery of the lost to look back on such warnings disregarded, such gracious promises slighted, because in their day of grace "they despised the pleasant land, they believed not His word" (Psalms 106:24). "The voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness" shall be hushed forever; and, instead, wailing, weeping, and gnashing of teeth shall be the eternal portion of unbelievers. And whereas the saints "shall need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light" (Revelation 22:5); "the candle of the wicked" man, even the little light which illumined his way on earth (Jeremiah 25:10), "shall be put out with him" in utter darkness (Job 18:6; Job 21:17; Matthew 25:8).

(2) The fixing of the number of years (Jeremiah 25:11) during which the Jews were to be captives in Babylon-namely, seventy years-was calculated ultimately to confirm the word of prophecy by the accurate fulfillment, and, in the meantime, to comfort the people of God with a promise of deliverance, which would be an incentive to believing prayer. Thus at all times God "remembers His covenant" of mercy "for His elect" (Psalms 106:45), amidst the judgments which He righteously inflicts on the hardened apostates; and by His promises supports them when cast down, and quickens them with His Spirit working in them as the spirit of supplication.

(3) If Judah, God's own people, must not be spared because of sin, how much less shall the pagan Babylon escape! "If judgment must begin at the house of God, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinners appear?" (1 Peter 4:17.) The rod will be cast into the consuming fire after God has served His purpose of chastising His people with it (Jeremiah 25:29). As the Babylonians treated God's people, so must they be treated themselves (Jeremiah 25:14; Jeremiah 25:29; Jeremiah 50:29). As they showed no mercy to age or sex, priest or sanctuary (Jeremiah 51:24; 2 Chronicles 36:17), so God will show no mercy to them. And there shall be this grand difference between the portion of Babylon's cup given her to drink and that of the elect nation, Judah-Judah fell but for a time, and then rose again more glorious than ever; whereas God-opposed Babylon fell "to rise no more" as a nation again (Jeremiah 25:27). So in the case of the believing elect, the spiritual Israel; "if her children forsake God's law, and keep not His commandments, then will God visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless, His loving-kindness will He not utterly take from" their Surety, the Antitype to David, "nor suffer His faithfulness to fail: His covenant will He not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of His lips" (Psalms 89:30-19).

(4) The stupefaction of drunkenness (Jeremiah 25:15) is the image employed to express the overwhelming effects of God's wrath on the guilty. Hence, we may learn to loathe that vice, most debasing to both mind and body, drunkenness, which in its sphere works out woeful results, having their counterpart only in the paralyzing stupefaction with which the judgments of an angry God overwhelm the guilty.

(5) God in history is the true clue to unravel the complicated web of the politics of nations. "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people" (Proverbs 14:34), furnishes in one sentence the true secret of the rise and fall of empires and peoples. Historians mostly deal only with secondary causes-the interests and material liberties, the passions and prejudices of men and states. The Bible alone gives us an insight into the secret spring which moves the whole-namely, God's purpose that the politics of nations shall progressively subserve, in spite of themselves, the grand consummation, the final manifestation of the Kingdom of God and His Anointed on earth. After man's governments have fulfilled their temporary purposes in the Providence of God, and, having been weighed in the balance of God's truth, have been found wanting in the main end of all authority delegated by God-the glorification of God on earth-they are successively set aside. The history of the greatness and the declension of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Edom, and the Philistines, illustrates this principle in ancient times: but it shall be fully and finally set forth just before the setting up of the visible Kingdom of Messiah on earth, when the Lord, in His "controversy with the nations, will plead with all flesh" (Jeremiah 25:31) in "the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion" (Isaiah 34:8).