Jeremiah 17:11

As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days.

Riches gotten not by right

The illustration is taken from natural history. Some think it refers to an ancient practice still maintained amongst the Arabs, of driving the mother birds from place to place till they become exhausted, and are easily captured: in which case, of course, the poor partridge never has the joy of seeing her own progeny. Patiently has she sat for weeks in her nest, over eggs which another than herself is to hatch. I do not think this is the intended idea at all. On looking into the Septuagint, I find the rendering of the verse somewhat different, but practically the same as many of you will find in the margin of your Bibles. “As the partridge gathereth young which she has not herself brought forth.” That is more plain and natural. The partridge is in the habit of stealing eggs from the nests of other birds of a different species, and of sitting upon them: and then, shortly after these eggs are hatched, the young, forsaking their false parent, and associating with birds of their own order, make the old partridge look very foolish, as all her promising brood desert her.

I. The Bible has nothing to say against a man’s getting rich by just and honourable means. A fine healthy sight it is we may see every morning in London, the thousands of young men pressing in to the city on bus or car, or better still, on their own two feet, eager for business, and determined to get on. Diligence in business is one of the prime virtues of human life upon the earth, but the motive power which impels it is the expectation of gain. To be altogether indifferent to material profit, so far from being a recommendation, betokens an unmanly and defective character. It is all very well to moralize on the duty of being contented with our lot, bug there is a certain “contentment with our lot” that simply means indolence, and stupidity, and the lack of enterprise. The wish to get riches is not a sinful wish; nay, it may be a most laudable one, and, as I have said, a useful stimulus to industry. Hence, it is by no means a good thing for a man to have been “born with a silver spoon in his mouth”; it may, indeed, make him the envy of others, but his moral dangers are enormously increased thereby. I don’t pity you in the least, my young brothers, if you have had to begin life without a halfpenny; so long as you have good brains, sound health, high principle, and a fair opening, I have no fear of you; stick to your work; push on; go ahead; and may God prosper you!

II. Riches unrighteously gotten are no blessing. “There are many ways in which you may violate the spirit of the eighth commandment, without robbing the till, or forging a cheque, or making a false entry in the cashbook. Do let me entreat you to be straightforward and open in everything; let your conduct and character be above the shadow of suspicion; let truthfulness and honesty be a very law of your being; condescend to nothing which conscience does not thoroughly approve; have an instinctive horror of everything approaching duplicity or equivocation; hate a lie as you hate death; and let your whole action in business be such that you can invite the eye of God to search you through, confident that all is straight and right. Ah! believe me, such a character is the grandest capital in the long run: as John Bright wrote to a young man who applied to him for advice:--“In my judgment the value of a high character for strict honour and honesty in business can hardly be estimated too highly and it will often stand for more in the conscience, and even in the ledger, than all that can be gained by shabby and dishonest transactions.” It seems to the rogue, wrote Thomas Carlyle, that he has found out a short northwest passage to wealth, but he soon discovers that fraudulence is not only a crime but a blunder. Sin never pays. Said a pawky Scotch farmer to his son, “John, honesty’s the best policy; I’ve tried both ways mysel’.” There is a great deal of money made in trade, which, it must be confessed, is gotten not by right. Too often there is one code of virtue for the home circle, and another code for the factory or shop. One system of morals for the Sunday, another for the weekday. Violations of rectitude, which would be severely condemned in the family, are winked at in business. When we come to the strict standard of God’s law, we shall find a vast deal more unrighteousness in the mercantile world than most of us are willing to allow. Strange as it may seem, thousands of men are far more ready to be benevolent than just. Mr. Gladstone, in one of his speeches, sagaciously observed, “I would almost dare to say there are five generous men for one just; man. The passions will often ally themselves with generosity, but they always tend to divert from justice.” I am quite in a line with the text when I advise you to practise frugality. Don’t spend all our earnings; cultivate thrift. However small the sum, it will grow; and the tendency will be to develop in you self-denial, economy, and forethought. Then I would also suggest to you the wisdom, nay, the duty, of effecting, at as early a date as possible, an insurance on your life. When Jacob was bargaining with Laban about terms, he showed the sagacity that has ever been characteristic of his posterity; he was not going to remain in Laban’s service without fair wages; “and now,” he added, “when shall I provide for mine own house also?” I would almost go so far as to say that the small yearly sum it will now involve is not your own; if you spend it on unnecessary comforts, you may “leave them in the midst of your days, and at your end may be a fool.”

III. The penalty on the acquisition of unrighteous gain generally follows even in this life. Perhaps this does not hold so markedly in our times as under the old dispensation, because immortality, with its just retribution, is now more clearly revealed. Still, no thoughtful person can fail to see how often a terrible Nemesis pursues the fraudulent man, even “in the midst of his days,” and how, “at his end,” even the world styles him “a fool.” Some unexpected turn comes, some monetary crisis, some commercial disaster, and lo! all his hoarded gains take wing and fly away, and the unprincipled man is left like the silly partridge, to sit disconsolate in an empty nest! But though the money abide with him, there may be wretchedness untold, and he is ready to curse the gold that promised so much happiness, and now yields so little. Ill-gotten wealth will never make its owner really happy. There are plutocrats in this city whose tables are covered with silver plate, who drink their sparkling champagne, and roll along the streets in their sumptuous carriages, whose lives are unutterably miserable. A worm is gnawing at the root. Their fortune has been built upon a basis of deception, bringing with it deep, unutterable remorse; and though friends may flatter, an upbraiding voice from the unseen is ever whispering in their ear one little word of four letters--and two of them the same--“Fool!” Do not forget that your best possessions, even now, are things which cannot be weighed in a scale, nor measured by a rule; they are treasures which rust cannot tarnish, nor thieves carry away. It was a noble declaration of Marcus Aurelius, “My dominions are greater within than without”; and if this was the utterance of a heathen monarch, what ought a Christian to feel? Only let a living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ put you into connection with the riches of His grace, and let there burn within you the hope of a glorious immortality; then, I hesitate not to say, your fortune is made; you have the guarantee of peace and plenty here, and the promise of a blessed inheritance hereafter! (J. T. Davidson, D. D.)

Riches that escape from a man

Allusion is here made to a well-known fact in natural history. If a partridge or a quail or a robin brood the eggs of another species, the young will not stay with the one that happened to brood them, but at the first opportunity will assort with their own species. Those who have been brought up in the country have seen the dismay of the farmyard hen, having brooded aquatic fowls, when after a while they tumble into their natural element--the water. So the text suggests that a man may gather under his wings the property of others, but it will after a while escape; it will leave the man in a sorry predicament. (T. De Witt Talmage.)

Commercial morality

I. There are many wrong ways of getting riches, or seeking, at least, to get them, even where there is no violation of right or equity in a man’s transactions with his fellow men.

1. What right-minded man would rush into the strife and scramble for them in the headlong way that many do?

2. Can that man be said to be getting riches rightly who is scraping them together, and hoarding them up, without regarding the urgent necessities, not to say anything of the desirable comforts, of others?

3. Is it right to get riches in an irreligious way, by habitually neglecting God and putting our duty to Him out of the account altogether?

4. It is one thing to get riches in a way that is not right--that is, unworthily, hard-heartedly, and irreligiously--and another thing to get them “and not by right,”--that is, unrighteously, by downright dishonesty, by the violation of the law of equity, by the rupture of the bond of uprightness in the conduct of man to man. It is this latter way of getting riches which is expressly mentioned here, emphatically condemned, and threatened with an inevitable and appropriate punishment.

II. There is a remarkable connection between what is said about the human heart in verse 9, and what immediately follows. “The heart is deceitful,” etc. Here is a challenge. Fathom the depth of depravity, obscured and complicated by the deceitfulness, who can. There is only One who can accept the challenge; and He does. “I the Lord search,” etc. His judgment is ever according to truth. He stamps all human character with its proper die; calls all human conduct by its proper name; and will infallibly lead all human conduct, be it good or bad, to its appropriate issue. Not by right are riches gotten--

1. If by the deceptions of merchandise.

2. By the unfair remuneration of labour.

3. By the artifices of commerce.

Conclusion--Be industrious: seeking, by the hand of diligence, if it be God’s will, even to be rich. But beware of being carried away from moral principle, from a religious life, by the prevailing furor of business, the almost terrific money rage. “One thing is needful.” All things are ours, if we are Christ’s, for Christ is God’s. (H. Angus, D. D.)