Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 4.djvu/30

24 the first and last of this paragraph; but they are two dreadful words, and which speak, 1. Their case sad, very sad; (v. 6.) Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people. Miserable is the condition of that people whom God has forsaken, and great certainly must the provocation be, if he forsake those that have been his own people. This was the deplorable state of the Jewish church after they had rejected Christ; ''Migremus hinc—Let us go hence. Your house is left unto you desolate'', Matth. xxiii. 38. Whenever any sore calamity came upon the Jews, thus far the Lord might be said to forsake them, when he withdrew his help and succour from them, else they had not fallen into the hands of their enemies. But God never leaves any till they first leave him. 2. Their case desperate, wholly desperate; (v. 9.) Therefore forgive them not. This prophetical prayer amounts to a threatening, that they should not be forgiven: and so some think it may be read, And thou wilt not forgive them. This refers not to particular persons, (many of whom repented, and were pardoned,) but to the body of that nation against whom an irreversible doom was passed, that they should be wholly cut off, and their church quite dismantled, never to be formed into such a body again, nor ever to have their old charter restored to them.

II. Israel's desert of this doom, and the reasons upon which it is grounded; in general, it is sin; that is it, and nothing but that which provokes God to forsake his people. The particular sins he specifies, are such as abounded among them at that time, which he makes mention of for the conviction of those to whom he then preached, rather than that which afterward proved the measure-filling sin, their crucifying of Christ, and persecuting of his followers; for the sins of every age contributed toward the making up of the dreadful account at last. And there was a partial and temporary rejection of them by the captivity in Babylon hastening on, which was a type of their final destruction by the Romans, and which the sins here mentioned brought upon them.

Their sins were such as directly contradicted all God's kind and gracious designs concerning them.

1. God set them apart for himself, as a peculiar people distinguished from, and dignified above, all other people; (Numb, xxiii. 9.) but they were replenished from the east; they naturalized foreigners, not proselyted; and encouraged them to settle among them, and mingled with them, Hos. vii. 8. Their country was peopled with Syrians and Chaldeans, Moabites and Ammonites, and other eastern nations, and with them they admitted the fashions and customs of those nations, and pleased themselves in the children of strangers, were fond of them, preferred their country before their own, and thought that the more they conformed to them, the more polite and refined they were; thus did they profane their crown and their covenant. Note, Those are in danger of being estranged from God, who please themselves with those who are strangers to him, for we soon learn the ways of those whose company we love.

2. God gave them his oracles, which they might ask counsel of, not only the scriptures, and the seers, but the breast-plate of judgment; but they slighted these, and became soothsayers like the Philistines, introduced their arts of divination, and hearkened to those who, by the stars, or the clouds, or the flight of birds, or the entrails of beasts, or other magic superstitions, pretended to discover things secret, or foretell things to come; the Philistines were noted for diviners, 1 Sam. vi. 2. Note, Those who slight true divinity, are justly given up to lying divinations; and they will certainly be forsaken of God, who thus forsake him and their own mercies for lying vanities.

3. God encouraged them to put their confidence in him, and assured them that he would be their Wealth and Strength; but, distrusting his power and promise, they made gold their hope, and furnished themselves with horses and chariots, and relied upon them for their safety, v. 7. God had expressly forbidden even their kings to multiply horses to themselves, and greatly to multiply silver and gold, because he would have them to depend upon himself only; but they did not think their interest in God made them a match for their neighbours, unless they had as full treasures of silver and gold, and as formidable hosts of chariots and horses, as they had. It is not having silver and gold, horses and chariots, that is a provocation to God, but, (1.) Desiring them insatiably, so that there is no end of the treasures, no end of the chariots, no bounds or limits set to the desire of them. Those shall never have enough in God, (who alone is all-sufficient,) that never know when they have enough of this world, which, at the best, is insufficient (2.) Depending upon them, as if we could not be safe, and easy, and happy, without them, and could not but be so with them.

4. God himself was their God, the sole Object of their worship, and he himself instituted ordinances of worship for them; but they slighted both him and his institutions; (v. 8.) their land was full of idols, every city had its god, (Jer. xi. 13.) and, according to the goodness of their lands, they made goodly images, Hos. x. 1. They that think one God too little, will find two too many, and yet hundreds not sufficient; for they that love idols, will multiply them; so sottish were they, and so wretchedly infatuated, that they worshipped the work of their own hands; as if that could be a god to them, which was not only a creature, but their creature, and that which their own fancies had devised, and their own fingers had made. It was an aggravation of their idolatry, that God had enriched them with silver and gold, and yet of that silver and gold they made idols; so it was, Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked, Hos. ii. 8.

5. God had advanced them, and put honour upon them; but they basely diminished and disparaged themselves; (v. 9.) The mean man boweth down to his idol; a thing below the meanest that have any spark of reason left them. Sin is a disparagement to the poorest, and those of the lowest rank. It becomes the mean man to bow down to his superiors, but it ill becomes him to bow down to the stock of a tree, ch. xliv. 19. Nor is it only the illiterate and poor-spirited that do this, but even the great man forgets his grandeur, and humbles himself to worship idols, deifies men no better than himself, and consecrates stones so much baser than himself. Idolaters are said to debase themselves even to hell, ch. lvii. 9. What a shame is it, that great men think the service of the true God below them, and will not stoop to it; and yet will humble themselves to bow down to an idol! Some make this a threatening, that the mean men shall be brought down, and the great men humbled, by the judgments of God, when they come with commission.

10. Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the, and for the glory of his majesty. 11. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down; and the alone shall be exalted in that day. 12. For the day of the of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty,