WHEN I WOULD HAVE HEALED ISRAEL - God begins anew by appealing to Israel, that all which He had done to heal them, had but served to make their sin more evident, and “that,” from highest to lowest, as to all manners and ways of sin. When the flash of God’s light on the sinner’s conscience enlightens... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THEY CONSIDER NOT IN THEIR HEARTS - Literally, (as in the E. M) “they say not to their hearts.” The conscience is God’s voice to the heart from within; man’s knowledge of the law of God, and his memory of it, is man’s voice, reminding his heart and rebellious affections to abide in their obedien... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY MAKE THE KING GLAD WITH THEIR WICKEDNESS - Wicked sovereigns and a wicked people are a curse to each other, each encouraging the other in sin. Their king, being wicked, had pleasure in their wickedness; and they, seeing him to be pleased by it, set themselves the more, to do what was evil, and... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY ARE ALL ADULTERERS - The prophet continues to picture the corruption of all kinds and degrees of people. “All of them,” king, princes, people; all were given to adultery, both spiritual, in departing from God, and actual, (for both sorts of sins went together,) in defiling themselves and others... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THE DAY OF OUR KING, THE PRINCES HAVE MADE HIM SICK WITH BOTTLES OF WINE - (Or, “with heat from wine.”) Their holydays, like those of so many Englishmen now, were days of excess. “The day of their king” was probably some civil festival; his birthday, or his coronation-day. The prophet owns the ki... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THEY HAVE MADE READY THEIR HEART LIKE AN OVEN - He gives the reason old their bursting out into open mischief; it was ever stored up within. They “made ready,” (literally, “brought near”) “their heart.” Their heart was ever brought near to sin, even while the occasion was removed at a distance f... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY ARE ALL HOT AS AN OVEN, AND HAVE DEVOURED THEIR JUDGES - Plans of sin, sooner or later, through God’s overruling providence, bound back upon their authors. The wisdom of God’s justice and of His government shows itself the more, in that, without any apparent agency of His own, the sin is guided... [ Continue Reading ]
EPHRAIM, HE HATH MIXED HIMSELF AMONG THE PEOPLE - i. e., with the pagan; he “mixed” or “mingled” himself among or with them, so as to corrupt himself, as it is said, “they were mingled among the pagan and learned their works” Psalms 106:35. God had forbidden all intermarriage with the pagan Exodus 3... [ Continue Reading ]
STRANGERS HAVE DEVOURED HIS STRENGTH, AND HE KNOWETH IT NOT - Like Samson, when, for sensual pleasure, he had betrayed the source of his strength and God had departed from him, lsrael knew not how or wherein his alliancs with the pagan had impaired his strength. He thought his losses at the hand of... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE PRIDE OF ISRAEL TESTIFIETH TO HIS FACE - His pride convicted him. All the afflictions of God humbled him not; yea, they but brought out his pride, which “kept him from acknowledging and repenting of the sins which had brought those evils upon him, and from “turning to God and seeking to Him”... [ Continue Reading ]
EPHRAIM IS - (become) like a silly dove “There is nothing more simple than a dove,” says the Eastern proverb. Simplicity is good or bad, not in itself, but according to some other qualities of the soul, good or evil, with which it is united, to which it opens the mind, and which lead it to good or m... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEN THEY GO - (Literally, “according as” they go, in all circumstances of time or place or manner, when whithersoever or howsoever they shall go,) I “will spread My net upon them,” so as to surround and envelop them on all sides and hold them down. The “dove” soaring aloft, with speed like the stor... [ Continue Reading ]
WOE UNTO THEM, FOR THEY HAVE FLED FROM ME - The threatening rises in severity, as did the measure of their sin. Whereas “Salvation belonged to God” Psalms 3:8 alone, and they only “abide under His shadow” Psalms 91:1, who make Him their “refuge, woe” must needs come on them, who leave Him. “They for... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THEY HAVE NOT CRIED UNTO HIM WITH THEIR HEART, WHEN THEY HOWLED UPON THEIR BEDS - Or, in the present time, “they cry not unto Me when they howl.” They did “cry,” and, it may be, they “cried” even “unto God.” At least, the prophet does not deny that they cried to God at all; only, he says, that t... [ Continue Reading ]
THOUGH I HAVE BOUND - Rather, (as in the E. M) “And I have chastened, I have strenghened their arms, and they imagine mischief against Me.” God had tried all ways with them, but it was all one. He chastened them in love, and in love He strengthened them; He brought the enemy upon them, (as aforetime... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY RETURN, BUT NOT TO THE MOST HIGH - God exhorts by Jeremiah, “If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, return unto Me” Jeremiah 4:1. They changed, whenever they did change, with a feigned, hypocritical conversion, but not to God, nor acknowledging His Majesty. Man, until truly converted, t... [ Continue Reading ]