# commentaries

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<p>Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of the Jordan against the strong habitation: for I will suddenly make them run away from it; and whoever is chosen, him will I appoint over it: for who is like Me? And who will appoint Me a time? And who is the shepherd who will stand before Me?- This verse is repeated word for word in <a href='B:300 50:44'>Jer 50:44</a>; is likewise about Babylon in <a href='B:300 50:45'>Jer 50:45</a>. There is a theme that all the nations around Judah were to be given the same appeal for repentance. It was God’s intention that they too repented, along with Israel and Judah, and formed part of a restored kingdom of God in the whole eretz promised to Abraham. This didn’t happen at the time, and so it is reapplied and rescheduled to the last days. The chosen shepherd appointed over Edom or Babylon will then ultimately be the Lord Jesus, the good shepherd. But in the immediate application, it could have been Cyrus the Persian or Darius the Mede, who were the shepherds to be appointed over Edom and Babylon (<a href='B:290 44:28'>Isa 44:28</a>).</p>


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<p>Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh that He has taken against Edom; and His purposes, that He has purposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely they shall drag them away, the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate over them- See on :19. But <a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a> clearly states that this purpose could have been changed, using the same word to say that God will "repent of the evil that I purposed to do to them". It was God’s intention that all the nations around Israel would repent along with His people, and turn to Him. Even Edom could have repented at this point. "Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh::." is surely an appeal for repentance. That God should make so much effort with hardened worldlings::. indicates His depth of concern for human salvation. And it should encourage us in our witness.</p>


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<p>The earth trembles at the noise of their fall; there is a cry, the noise which is heard in the Red Sea- The idea is that the entire area of Edom suffers an earthquake, reminiscent of the earthquake and topographical changes which seem to have occurred at the exodus. The Red Sea was the limit of their territory- <a href='B:110 9:26'>1Ki 9:26</a> speaks of "Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom". But this didn’t happen as planned at the time; see on :18.</p>


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<p>Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread out his wings against Bozrah: and the heart of the mighty men of Edom at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs- As noted on :16, the Edomites thought they were inaccessible as an eagle to Divine judgment; but a greater eagle would come upon them. Again the metaphor has hope of a new birth out of this calamity. The Divine hope was that Edom along with Moab (<a href='B:300 48:41'>Jer 48:41</a>) and Israel would repent and form a reborn people in the restored Kingdom of God in Israel.</p>


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<p>Of Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad; for they have heard evil news, they are melted away: there is sorrow on the sea; it can’t be quiet- This partly repeats the prophecy against Damascus of <a href='B:290 17:1-11'>Isa 17:1-11</a>; but <a href='B:290 17:7'>Isa 17:7</a> is insistent that as a result of this, some in Damascus would repent. These prophecies of doom are not just droning on negatively; the hope is that they would respond to the news being given them ahead of time regarding their fall. Thelanguage of the restless sea alludes to <a href='B:290 57:19-20'>Isa 57:19-20</a>. They need not have been like that; peace with God was possible through their repentance.</p>


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<p>Damascus has grown feeble, she turns herself to flee, and trembling has seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail- This was presumably because of the threat of Babylon, although there is little historical evidence about this; I suggest on :25 that this was part of a prophetic scenario which didn’t then come about. The reason for her judgment was because of what she had done to God’s people (<a href='B:370 1:3'>Amo 1:3</a>); she had judged them too harshly, with iron threshing instruments, overstepping the Divine command to judge His people. And that was to be the problem with Babylon herself, and the reason for her condemnation.</p>


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<p>How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of My joy!- This has to be a reference to Zion, the joy of the whole earth (<a href='B:230 48:2'>Psa 48:2</a>). Although Zion was far from being that at the time (<a href='B:310 2:15'>Lam 2:15</a>), God saw (as we should) to the realities of the future Kingdom of God as if they were present realities. The prophetic scenario was that&nbsp; Damascus would fall, but Zion would be again exalted and indeed become the joy of the whole earth, no longer forsaken as she currently was. But the lack of repentance by both Israel and Damascus meant that this didn’t work out at the time; perhaps that is why as noted on :24 the Babylonian desolation of Damascus didn’t happen at that time as it could. All these things will come to their final truth, in essence, in the last days.</p>


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<h4>Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, says Yahweh of Armies- This is the language of Zion’s judgment. What they had done or wanted to do to God’s people would be done to them. Again we see that even in Old Testament times, attitude to God’s people is the basis for judgment. And that is an abiding principle for us today.</h4>


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<h4>I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben Hadad- This is alluded to in Amo 1:4; Amo 1:14. But the context of those prophecies is that it will happen in the day when Yahweh roars from out of Zion (Amo 1:2), in "the day of the whirlwind" (Amo 1:14). I suggested on :24,25 that these judgments on Damascus didn’t come true as they could have done at the time, but will do so in the last days. And that seems to be the point of Amos repeating these words.</h4>


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<p>Of Kedar, and of the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck. Thus says Yahweh: Arise, go up to Kedar, and destroy the children of the east- Babylon is portrayed as obedient to a Divine command to do so, acting as Yahweh’s servant. Babylon’s judgment was because they overstepped what they were commanded to do. Kedar and Hazor refer to the Bedouin Arabs (:29). Hazor may not refer to the city of that name but may be a take on hazer, an unwalled village of the type the Bedouins lived in (:31).</p>


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<p>Their tents and their flocks shall they take; they shall carry away for themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels; and they shall cry to them, Terror on every side!- This "terror on every side" quotes the judgment upon Judah in <a href='B:300 6:25'>Jer 6:25</a>. Even the wandering Bedouin Arabs (see on :28) were to experience the judgments which came upon Judah. But this was so that they might be able to identify with God’s people through this experience, and come to accept Israel’s God. It is not simply so that ’what goes around comes around’; there is a purpose in these judgments repeating themselves. It was so that those who had witnessed and participated in the judgment of Israel might come to see how it felt, and thereby repent. We too are at times made to feel the effect of our actions upon others- for the same reason.</p>


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<p>Flee, wander far off, dwell in the depths, you inhabitants of Hazor, says Yahweh; for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has taken counsel against you, and has conceived a purpose against you- Hazor may not refer to the city of that name but may be a take on hazer, an unwalled village of the type the Bedouins lived in (:31). Taking counsel and conceiving a purpose are exactly the words used of what Yahweh does (<a href='B:300 29:11'>Jer 29:11</a>; <a href='B:300 49:20'>Jer 49:20</a>; <a href='B:300 50:45'>Jer 50:45</a>). But here, Nebuchadnezzar does so. Clearly God placed in his heart to fulfill His will. This is how God can work; placing desires and ideas in the human mind. This work upon the human spirit is achieved byGod’s Spirit; and this is how His Holy Spirit can work in our lives if we are open to it. Babylon was not condemned because they conceived these purposes; but because they overstepped the commissions given, leading them into the sin which called forth such condemnation.</p>


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<p>Arise, go up to a nation that is at ease, that dwells without care, says Yahweh; that have neither gates nor bars, that dwell alone- Just as Babylon "conceived a purpose" against those who live without bars and gates (:30), so the latter day invader led by Gog will "conceive a purpose" (s:w. <a href='B:330 38:10'>Eze 38:10</a>) to attack an Israel dwelling without gates and bars (<a href='B:330 38:11'>Eze 38:11</a>). The Babylonian attack upon the Bedouin Arabs therefore serves as a prototype of the latter day attack upon Israel. The description of these people as ’dwelling alone’ is the very phrase used of Israel (<a href='B:40 23:9'>Num 23:9</a>); this highlights the connection.</p>


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<p>Their camels shall be a booty, and the multitude of their livestock a spoil: and I will scatter to all winds those who have the corners of their beards cut off; and I will bring their calamity on them from every side, says Yahweh- Whether Nebuchadnezzar did this is not strongly attested to historically. But as noted on :2,24, we are seeing here a potential scenario of what could have come about, but which was rescheduled to fulfilment in the last days.</p>


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<h4>Hazor shall be a dwelling place of jackals, a desolation forever: no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of man live therein- Just as was predicted of Edom (<a href='B:300 49:18'>Jer 49:18</a>) and of the cities of Judah (<a href='B:300 10:22'>Jer 10:22</a>). Divine judgment has the same hallmark wherever it is executed.</h4>


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<h4>The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning Elam, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying- The book of Jeremiah is not chronological but thematic. The theme here is of the nations around Judah being judged for what they had done to Judah. The fact Elam is mentioned as being judged at the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign could imply that they had played some part in the early Babylonian attack upon Judah which resulted in the dethronement and captivity of Jehoiachin, whom Zedekiah replaced. Elam is not Persia proper; they were confederate with the Assyrians in attacking Judah earlier (Isa 22:6).</h4>


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<p>Thus says Yahweh of Armies: Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might- According to some of the cuneiform tablets acquired in 1878 by the British Museum, "At the very time when Nebuchadnezzar was taking an oath of allegiance from Zedekiah, he was also engaged in hostilities against Elam". So the breaking of Elam’s power was to be by Babylon. The breaking of Elam’s bow is because they had used their bow and quiver against Judah (<a href='B:290 22:6'>Isa 22:6</a>). Consistently, attitude toward God’s people is the basis for judgment; and that is the lesson for us. The day of judgment will not be a theological examination, but rather a consideration of how we dealt with the hungry, thirsty and naked.</p>


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<p>On Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of the sky, and will scatter them towards all those winds; and there shall be no nation where the outcasts of Elam shall not come- These four winds appear to refer to Angelic powers (<a href='B:450 6:5'>Zec 6:5</a>; <a href='B:230 104:4'>Psa 104:4</a>). And yet the reference is to Babylonian forces. Babylon was a manifestation of the four cherubim figures seen in Ezekiel 1; they were controlled by God, doing His will.</p>


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<p>I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before those who seek their life; and I will bring evil on them, even My fierce anger, says Yahweh; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them- As noted on :36, the Babylonians were sent by God. They were His sword, sent by Him. The simple takeaway from all this is that there is no radical evil in the cosmos; all is under God’s control and supervision.</p>


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<p>and I will set My throne in Elam, and will destroy from there king and princes, says Yahweh- This didn’t happen at Jeremiah’s time; but it was the potential. Their king and princes would be destroyed because Yahweh was to become their accepted king and they would thereby become part of His Kingdom. And it will come true at the last day; see on :39.</p>


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<p>But it shall happen in the latter days, that I will restore the fortunes of Elam, says Yahweh- They too were intended to participate in the peace to come upon the entire eretz promised to Abraham. It was God’s intention to restore not just Israel, but all the peoples within the land, many of whom were in fact relatives of Abraham. The final fulfilment of these prophecies will be in the last day. Although we perhaps see an incipient fulfilment in that there were Elamites who converted to the God of Israel in <a href='B:510 2:9'>Act 2:9</a>.</p>


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<p>The word that Yahweh spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet- To speak of Babylon in the hostile way the prophets do, especially as here signing oneself as the human author, was a brave and unpopular thing (Isaiah 13, 14, 21, 46; Jeremiah 50, 51; often in Zechariah). We know from Ezekiel 8, Jeremiah 44 and Zechariah 5 that many Jews had accepted the idols of their Babylonian conquerors, rather like Ahaz did after his defeat by Assyria (<a href='B:120 16:10'>2Ki 16:10</a>). The spirit of ridiculing the idolatry of Babylon whilst living in it, waiting the call to leave, is so relevant to modern Christians working, living and waiting in latter day Babylon. <a href='B:300 25:13'>Jer 25:13</a> had stated: "I will bring on that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations". These are clearly the words written in the prophecies against Babylon and the other nations here at the end of Jeremiah. The book of Jeremiah isn’t arranged chronologically; <a href='B:300 25:13'>Jer 25:13</a> sounds as if "this book" of Jeremiah had been finished at this point:&nbsp;</p>


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<h4>Declare among the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and don’t conceal: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is disappointed, Merodach is dismayed; her images are disappointed, her idols are dismayed- This is the ultimate end of all idolatry, of all life lived without total devotion to God- disappointment. Life is only in Yahweh; both eternal life, and meaningful life now. Just before the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem, the Jews within the city were making those very same idols, and would be disappointed in them just as Babylon was to be in the end (<a href='B:300 10:14'>Jer 10:14</a> s:w:). The desire to worship is built within the human condition. And we become like what we worship (<a href='B:230 115:8'>Psa 115:8</a>). It is therefore critically important to worship the right thing.</h4><h4>The news of Babylon’s fall was to be published. Jeremiah had been the object of special care from Nebuchadnezzar, and so these prophecies against Babylon would appear to be biting the hand which fed him. Perhaps this was why Jeremiah chose not to go to Babylon, but to remain with the poor remnant of Jews in Judah. He knew that Babylon was to fall and he was to proclaim that, but it would be easier to achieve his prophetic mission if he published that message from somewhere outside of Babylon. We too are in a similar apparently difficult position in proclaiming the fall of this world, upon which in a secular sense we depend.</h4>


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<h4>For out of the north there comes up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they are fled, they are gone, both man and animal- Just as Babylon had been the nation from the north who would bring God’ judgments, so now she is to be judged from the north. She was to be made to realize how she had made others feel. It is not simply so that ’what goes around comes around’; there is a purpose in these judgments repeating themselves. It was so that those who had witnessed and participated in the judgment of Israel might come to see how it felt, and thereby repent. We too are at times made to feel the effect of our actions upon others- for the same reason.</h4><h4>Time and again the prophets describe the judgments to fall upon Israel in the same terms as they speak of the condemnations of the surrounding nations (e:g. <a href='B:300 50:3'>Jer 50:3</a>; <a href='B:300 50:13'>Jer 50:13</a>). The message was clear: rejected Israel would be treated as Gentiles. Even if we are separated from this world externally, we can still act in a worldly way, and share the world’s condemnation.</h4>


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<p>In those days, and in that time, says Yahweh, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; they shall go on their way weeping, and shall seek Yahweh their God- This is critical for us to understand the prophecies about Babylon. The intended prophetic scenario was that the fall of Babylon would coincide with the repentance of both the ten tribes and Judah; they would come "together", on the basis of the common experience of weeping repentance, and return to Zion. It is the common experience of God’s grace and recognition of our sins which is the basis for unity in practice amongst God’s people, rather than any dry theological agreement. The weeping of Ezra and Nehemiah was the basis for their desire to return to Zion (<a href='B:150 10:1'>Ezr 10:1</a>; <a href='B:160 1:4'>Neh 1:4</a>). But the ’restoration’ of the Jews was generally not upon that basis. Many chose to remain in captivity, and those who did return were motivated by a desire for personal benefit in the land grants they expected to receive in the land. And the restoration prophets are clear that many of them were not at all spiritually motivated. So the intended prophetic scenario didn’t come about, and this in turn affected the outcome of the prophecies of the fall of Babylon.</p>


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<p>They shall inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned towards it saying, Come, and join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten- The potential new covenant of <a href='B:300 31:31'>Jer 31:31</a> is spoken about in Jeremiah 50, where we read that Babylon would fall as God’s revenge for what they did to God’s people, and then Judah in their exile would return to Zion whilst inviting others to come and join themselves to that same new covenant. Indeed at the time ofBabylon’s fall, Judah were to heed God’s call to “Remove out of the midst of Babylon”, who had taken them captives (<a href='B:300 50:8'>Jer 50:8</a>; <a href='B:300 50:33'>Jer 50:33</a>). Babylon did fall; and yet Judah did not return. Indeed, Daniel the Jew became a senior ruler in the administration that followed Babylon’s fall (<a href='B:340 5:31'>Dan 5:31</a>). They themselves refused the new covenant, and didn’t invite Babylon and the surrounding peoples to join it. They would "ask the way to Zion" although their faces were already set to go there (AV); they would accept the call of <a href='B:300 6:16'>Jer 6:16</a> to ask or inquire for the Godly ways (s:w:), asking for their own intention to be confirmed; for their faces were already "turned towards it". And they would have been answered. But there is no evidence that they did ask for this.</p>


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<h4>My people have been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray; they have turned them away on the mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill- God in His zeal to think positively about His people lays the blame upon their bad shepherds. But we have often noted throughout Jeremiah that the people and the leadership are usually addressed together; the people were punished for their own sins, and their shepherds were only teaching what they perceived the people themselves wanted to hear. But God is as it were gushing in His desire to be positive about His people; and that is how He feels toward us too. And we should reflect that positivity.</h4><h4>They have forgotten their resting place- Zion, their resting place, had been forgotten by them in exile, despite their cultural loyalty to it. This is proof enough that Christian culture of itself is not enough; in reality they had forgotten Zion, despite singing songs such as <a href='B:230 137:5'>Psa 137:5</a> which avow their eternal remembrance of Zion.</h4>


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<h4>All who found them have devoured them; and their adversaries said, We are not guilty, because they have sinned against Yahweh- The devourers of Israel considered themselves "not guilty" because Judah had sinned against their God. But the clear statement in <a href='B:300 2:3'>Jer 2:3</a> is that "All who devour him shall be held guilty". Punishing a sinner doesn’t mean that those who do the punishing are thereby justified; we can be used by God, but that is no guarantee of righteousness or acceptability. This needs to be remembered by those who consider they can punish sinners within the church; they may well be held equally guilty for the lack of love they showed.</h4><h4>The habitation of righteousness, even Yahweh, the hope of their fathers- Jerusalem would be known as the habitation of the righteous one when Messiah came. But they refused that potential. Babylon is presented as being Yahweh’s servant, doing what He commanded against both Israel and the nations. This raises the question as to whether God would then turn around and condemn Babylon for their obedience. I suggest that Babylon is condemned because they overstepped the bounds of their commission. Indeed God wanted Babylon to accept Him; that was His desire. It was their refusal to do so, and their abuse of God’s people beyond what they were commanded, which was the basis for their condemnation.</h4>


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<h4>Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans- The offer of rest was rejected by the exiles then; but is taken up now by all who accept Christ, realizing that they are in the same state as the exiles in Babylon. “Come out from among them and be ye separate” (<a href='B:540 6:17'>2Co 6:17</a>) is picking up the language of <a href='B:290 48:20'>Isa 48:20</a>; <a href='B:290 52:11'>Isa 52:11</a>; <a href='B:300 50:8'>Jer 50:8</a>; <a href='B:450 2:7'>Zec 2:7</a> concerning the return of the exiles from Babylon. The edict of Cyrus for the Jews to return to the land is in a sense pointing forward to God’s command to us to leave the spirit of Babylon, the Gentile world, and go up to do His work. The returned exiles are us. Those who left Babylon did so of their own freewill (<a href='B:150 7:13'>Ezr 7:13</a>), and yet providential events stirred up their spirits to do this (<a href='B:150 1:5'>Ezr 1:5</a>); and the way was prepared in miraculous way. And so it is for us, in our exodus from this world and from the flesh.</h4><h4>God will confirm us in coming out from the world. He told His people to flee from Babylon, to come out of her and return to His land and Kingdom (<a href='B:290 48:20'>Isa 48:20</a>; <a href='B:290 52:7'>Isa 52:7</a>; <a href='B:300 50:8'>Jer 50:8</a>; <a href='B:450 2:7'>Zec 2:7</a>). Babylon offered them a secure life, wealth, a society which accepted them (<a href='B:190 8:17'>Est 8:17</a>; <a href='B:190 10:3'>Est 10:3</a>), houses which they had built for themselves (<a href='B:300 29:5'>Jer 29:5</a>). And they were asked to leave all this, and travel the uncertain wilderness road to the ruins of Israel. They are cited in the NT as types of us in our exit from this world (<a href='B:540 6:17'>2Co 6:17</a>; <a href='B:730 18:4'>Rev 18:4</a>). Those who decided to obey God’s command and leave Babylon were confirmed in this by God: He raised up their spirit to want to return and re-build Jerusalem, and He touched the heart of Cyrus to make decrees which greatly helped them to do this (<a href='B:150 1:2-5'>Ezr 1:2-5</a>). And so the same Lord God of Israel is waiting to confirm us in our every act of separation from the kingdoms of this world, great or small; and He waits not only to receive us, but to be a Father unto us, and to make us His sons and daughters (<a href='B:540 6:18'>2Co 6:18</a>).</h4><h4>And be as the male goats before the flocks- The idea was that Judah’s repentance would have lead the Gentile flocks of nations to follow them to Zion in repentance. But this didn’t happen, because the Jews weren’t truly repentant, and the flocks didn’t want to follow. Yet in essence it will come true in the last days.</h4>


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<h4>For behold, I will stir up and cause to come up against Babylon a company of great nations from the north country; and they shall set themselves in array against her; from there she shall be taken- Just as God stirred or raised up Babylon to invade Judah (<a href='B:300 6:22'>Jer 6:22</a>), so He would stir up, or psychologically provoke, other nations to come and judge her (<a href='B:300 50:9'>Jer 50:9</a>; <a href='B:300 50:41'>Jer 50:41</a>; <a href='B:300 51:1'>Jer 51:1</a>; <a href='B:300 51:11'>Jer 51:11</a> s:w:). This is greatly emphasized. The activity of God directly upon human hearts is a great theme of the Biblical revelation, and is to encourage us that He is eager to transform hearts, and to place desires within us beyond our own unaided psychological ability.</h4><h4>Their arrows shall be as of an expert mighty man; none shall return in vain- Every arrow would be guided by God to its mark.</h4>


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<p>Chaldea shall be a prey: all who prey on her shall be satisfied, says Yahweh- <a href='B:420 2:8'>Hab 2:8</a> says that Chaldea would be a prey because of their violence against God’s land and city. They had been commanded to take the land and city of God; but it seems their violence and bloodlust overstepped the bounds set by God. So it was not that God punished Babylon for being His servant. They were punished because they overstepped the boundary between legitimate punishment and abuse.</p>


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<p>Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder My inheritance, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out the grain, and neigh as strong horses- As explained on :10, it was the wanton, joyful plundering of Zion which was the basis of their condemnation. It was as if they were unmuzzled beasts not merely treading out the grain [performing the required judgments] but also eating the grain for themselves.</p>


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<p>your mother shall be utterly disappointed; she who bore you shall be confounded: behold, she shall be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert- The judgment was to be upon all Babylonia, not just the city of Babylon, who is here described as the mother of Babylon. All attempts to apply this verse solely to the city of Babylon are therefore misplaced; it refers to all Babylonia. And the whole area didn’t become a literal desert; the fertile crescent remained fertile. This recalls how the similar judgments upon the area of Edom likewise didn’t come about at the time; see on <a href='B:300 49:18'>Jer 49:18</a>. But this will happen in the last days.</p>


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<p>Because of the wrath of Yahweh she shall not be inhabited, but she shall be wholly desolate: everyone who goes by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues- As explained on :12, this was part of a wider prophetic scenario, whereby Babylonian would be made like this and a repentant Judah and Israel would return to their land and their God (see on :3,4). But that scenario didn’t come completely true; although it will in the last days. The language of total desolation implies some radical intervention akin to what happened to Sodom; and that didn’t happen.</p>


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<p>Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she has sinned against Yahweh- I noted on :10,11 that the sin against Yahweh was in elevating herself to Divine status, and punishing Israel more than God intended. For Babylon had been God’s servant, obeying His commands concerning Judah and the nations.</p>


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<p>Shout against her all around: she has submitted herself; her bulwarks are fallen, her walls are thrown down; for it is the vengeance of Yahweh: take vengeance on her; as she has done, do to her- The command to "shout" to cause the fall of the walls of Jericho was a reflection of the belief Israel were to have in the fact that God had already given them the city- for the Hebrew for "shout" usually refers to a shout of victory. The word is translated "::. will I triumph" in <a href='B:230 60:8'>Psa 60:8</a>; <a href='B:230 108:9'>Psa 108:9</a>. The same idea of shouting in victory over a city which has been given to God’s people recurs in <a href='B:300 50:15'>Jer 50:15</a> - "Shout against her round about [cp. compassing the walls of Jericho]:::her foundations are [present tense] fallen, her walls [cp. Jericho’s] are thrown down". And this speaks of our latter day victory against Babylon- thus making the whole account of earnest relevance to us who live in the last days, and who will see Babylon fall by faith. Notice how literal Babylon fell by the water of the river being dried up, and the walls being opened- just the same sequence of events that occurred at Jericho.</p>


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<h4>Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him who handles the sickle in the time of harvest- Aristotle claims that grain was grown within the walled city area of Babylon. But even the agricultural workers were to be cut off. This didn’t really happen when the Medes conquered the city.</h4><h4>For fear of the oppressing sword they shall turn each one to his people, and they shall flee each one to his own land- The various captive peoples taken to Babylon would each return to their own land, and Judah were to do likewise. But this isn’t how things quite turned out. This was the prophetic ideal scenario, but it didn’t happen because many Jews preferred to remain in Babylon and they didn’t repent. The impression given is that the attack upon Babylon would reduce the city to ruins immediately. But this didn’t happen under the Medes; it was only some time later that Cyrus further demolished parts of Babylon’s wall, and there was a rebellion of Babylon at the time of Darius Hystapses. The deportation of some of the population happened even later in the time of Seleucus Nicanor. But the impression is given that all this would happen immediately at Babylon’s fall. It didn’t, because the preconditions related to Judah’s repentance didn’t come about. And so the prophecies were reapplied and rescheduled to the last days, and are alluded to throughout Revelation 18 with reference to the fall of latter day Babylon; which appears to not refer to the literal city of Babylon.</h4>


text:
<h4>Israel is a hunted sheep; the lions have driven him away: first, the king of Assyria devoured him; and now at the last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones- "At the last" suggests that Nebuchadnezzar’s abuse of Israel was "the last" suffering they would endure. That was the potential scenario; for had Israel repented at Babylon’s fall, then a Messianic Kingdom of God would have been reestablished in Israel. But this didn’t happen, and so this was not "the last" suffering of Israel.</h4><h4>The ’scattering’ or ’driving away’ to the gods of many different peoples (s:w. <a href='B:300 3:13'>Jer 3:13</a>) would result in them being appropriately scattered amongst those nations (s:w. <a href='B:190 3:8'>Est 3:8</a>; <a href='B:360 3:2'>Joe 3:2</a>). Judgment was really a reflecting back to them of what they in essence had done.</h4>


text:
<p>Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria- The Assyrians were overthrown by the Medes and the Chaldeans. The Medes would again be used against Babylon.</p>


text:
<p>I will bring Israel again to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead- As noted on :3,4, the prophetic potential was that the fall of Babylon would coincide with the return of Israel to their land. But these events didn’t happen together, because Judah didn’t repent, and most of the ten tribes and Judah preferred to stay in exile. Carmel, Bashan, Mount Ephraim, and Gilead, were in the territory of the ten tribes, and they showed no interest in repenting or returning to the land.</p>


text:
<p>In those days and in that time, says Yahweh, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant- This would be because they had accepted the new covenant (<a href='B:300 31:34'>Jer 31:34</a>). But they didn’t; and so the prophetic scenario was precluded from coming true at the time as was potentially possible. That will be true for Israel in the last days, and for those who accept the new covenant today. The wonderful certainty of salvation and freedom from condemnation is brought out by the wonderful figure of the courtroom. God is the prosecutor- yet He is the one who shall search for Israel’s sin, and admit that it cannot be found (<a href='B:300 50:20'>Jer 50:20</a>). God is both judge,advocate for the defence, and prosecutor- and this is God is for us, the guilty! <a href='B:520 8:33-34'>Rom 8:33-34</a> develops the figure at length. The person bringing the complaint of sin against us is God alone- for there is no personal devil to do so. And the judge who can alone condemn us is the Lord Jesus alone. And yet we find the one ‘brings the charge’ instead being the very one who justifies us, or as the Greek means, renders us guiltless. The one who brings the charge becomes this strange judge who is so eager to declare us guiltless. And the judge who can alone condemn, or render guilty, is the very one who makes intercession to the judge for us- and moreover, the One who died for us, so passionate is His love. The logic is breathtaking, literally so.</p>


text:
<p>Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod: kill and utterly destroy after them, says Yahweh, and do according to all that I have commanded you- These names are chosen because of their meaning; "Merathaim" is the word used in :24 for how they rebelled or struggled against Yahweh; "Pekod", where Nineveh was located and which had become a province of Babylon, is the same word used for "punish" in :18.</p>


text:
<p>A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction- Continually the stress is upon the destruction of "the land" of Babylon. To seek to apply these prophecies just to the city of Babylon is incorrect. The scenario of all Babylonia being destroyed didn’t quite come true at the time as envisaged; the exiles didn’t repent, and so the scenario didn’t at that time come about.</p>


text:
<p>How is the hammer of the whole earth cut apart and broken! How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!- Jeremiah had used the word for "hammer" earlier in describing the power of God’s word (<a href='B:300 23:29'>Jer 23:29</a>). Babylon had been a hammer on God’s behalf, in fulfilling His word. Now a repentant Israel were to become that hammer, breaking all in pieces (<a href='B:300 51:20-23'>Jer 51:20-23</a>). But this didn’t happen, because Israel were not repentant and were therefore unwilling to be used by God for this. They could have been the little stone of <a href='B:340 2:44'>Dan 2:44</a> which returned from Babylon and destroyed the kingdoms upon the eretz in order to prepare the way for Yahweh’s eternal kingdom. But they would not. And so these things are to come true in the last days, when a repentant and therefore willing Israel will become Yahweh’s weapons to establish His Kingdom and do all the necessary ’breaking’ (<a href='B:300 51:20'>Jer 51:20</a>).</p>


text:
<p>I have laid a snare for you, and you are also caught, Babylon, and you weren’t aware: you are found, and also caught, because you have struggled against Yahweh- The immediate application was in the Medes attacking Babylon unawares, by drying up the water of the protective river system around the city. Babylon had been given commands relating to Judah and the surrounding nations; but they had gone beyond fulfilling them, and had therefore striven against Yahweh, effectively declaring themselves to be Yahweh, and their kingdom as His Kingdom.</p>


text:
<p>Yahweh has opened His armoury and has brought forth the weapons of His indignation; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldeans- The Medes and their confederate peoples had been prepared by Yahweh for the work in hand; they had as it were been stored up in His armoury for this moment.</p>


text:
<p>Come against her from the utmost border; open her storehouses; cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly; let nothing of her be left- The impression is given that the famed storehouses of Babylon were to be opened at the same time as she was turned into heaps with nothing left. But this didn’t happen when the Medes took the city. It was only some time later that Cyrus further demolished parts of Babylon’s wall, and there was a rebellion of Babylon at the time of Darius Hystapses. The deportation of some of the population happened even later in the time of Seleucus Nicanor. But the impression is given that all this would happen immediately at Babylon’s fall. It didn’t, because the preconditions related to Judah’s repentance didn’t come about. And so the prophecies were reapplied and rescheduled to the last days, and are alluded to throughout Revelation 18 with reference to the fall of latter day Babylon; which appears to not refer to the literal city of Babylon.</p>


text:
<p>Kill all her bulls; let them go down to the slaughter: woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their visitation- It has been observed that the slaughterhouses were below the river, and when the river was dried up, the soldiers of the Medes approached into the city through those slaughterhouses.</p>


text:
<p>The voice of those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, todeclare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh our God, the vengeance of His temple- As noted on :3,4, we are reading here of a potential prophetic scenario which didn’t actually come about at the time. The command to flee and escape from Babylon was largely ignored. The idea was that around the time when Babylon fell, the repentant Jewish and Israelite exiles would return to Zion. There, they would declare with joy that Babylon had fallen. But this isn’t what happened. They didn’t repent and most didn’t return to the land. The prophecy is therefore to be reapplied and rescheduled to the last days, as Revelation 18 makes clear.</p>


text:
<h4>Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow; encamp against her all around; let none of it escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she has done, do to her- As noted on :26, much of Babylon did escape when the Medes attacked and conquered her. This projected scenario didn’t come about at the time, and yet will do in essence in its latter day fulfilment.</h4><h4>For she has been proud against Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel- I have repeatedly made the point that Babylon is presented as being Yahweh’s servant, doing what He commanded against both Israel and the nations, with Him putting the ideas into the king of Babylon’s mind. God surely would not then turn around and condemn Babylon for their obedience. I suggest that Babylon is condemned because they overstepped the bounds of their commission, they were proud, and established themselves as Yahweh with their kingdom as His kingdom.</h4>


text:
<p>Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all her men of war will be brought to silence in that day, says Yahweh- This is what was done to Jerusalem, as Jeremiah frequently expresses in his Lamentations.</p>


text:
<p>Behold, I am against you, you proud one, says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies; for your day has come, the time that I will visit you- Again, it was the pride of Babylon which led to her judgment; she had been Yahweh’s servant, doing His will upon Judah and her neighbours. But she went too far and became exalted with pride, just as Isaiah 14 and other prophecies against Babylon make clear. The judgments against Babylon are perhaps the parade example of how seriously God views pride.</p>


text:
<p>The proud one shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up; and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all who are around him- Again, as noted on :31, it was pride which was the reason for Babylon’s judgment and not the fact she had invaded Judah; for that had been at Yahweh’s bidding and initiative. The destruction of all the cities of Babylonia with fire didn’t happen; indeed, the Medes didn’t destroy Babylon itself with fire; see on :26. This was the potential prophetic scenario which didn’t come about, because Judah didn’t repent (see on :3,4).</p>


text:
<p>Thus says Yahweh of Armies: The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together; and all who took them captive hold them fast; they refuse to let them go- Because the Jews oppressed Gentiles (<a href='B:300 7:6'>Jer 7:6</a> s:w:), therefore they were to be oppressed by them (<a href='B:50 28:29'>Deu 28:29</a>; <a href='B:50 28:33'>Deu 28:33</a> s:w:). They were acting as "the oppressor" to God’s people too (<a href='B:300 21:12'>Jer 21:12</a> s:w:), and so they too were oppressed by the Babylonians. How they treated their brethren was directly related to how they would be treated in their judgment, and this principle applies for all time. Their judgments were appropriate to their sins, as were Babylon’s. But again we have here an example of why I say that we are reading about a potential prophetic scenario. There is no evidence that Israel and Judah actually strongly wanted to be allowed to return to their land at the end of 70 years; Judah responded poorly to the decree of Cyrus to return, and most of the ten tribes remained willfully in exile. But the prophetic potential was that Israel and Judah "together" would repent and return together. But they chose not to. Had they done so, and earnestly wanted to return to restore Zion, then Babylon would have been guilty of acting as Pharaoh, refusing to let God’s people go; and would have been punished appropriately:&nbsp;</p>


text:
<h4>Their Redeemer is strong- At that time, God was willing to be strong to show Himself Judah’s redeemer- but they chose to remain in Babylon under the Medo-Persian administration. So they did not ask the way to Zion and seek a new covenant with Yahweh; and thus the promises of a new covenant, strong redemption in Yahweh, a Messiah figure arising, were all delayed and re-interpreted in their fulfilment. &nbsp; See on :5.</h4><p>Yahweh of Armies is His name: He will thoroughly plead their cause- "Plead their cause" is legal language. As explained on <a href='B:300 25:31'>Jer 25:31</a>, it was a complicated case, with counter appeals which resulted in everyone being condemned- and yet Judah then being finally justified, by grace. Yahweh had this legal case with Judah whom He condemned, and then with the peoples who supported Babylon against her (<a href='B:300 25:31'>Jer 25:31</a>); and then He has this case against Babylon (<a href='B:300 51:36'>Jer 51:36</a>) during which He is advocate for Judah, whose cause He legally pleads in the court case (<a href='B:300 50:34'>Jer 50:34</a>) of which He is judge as well as advocate for the defence. Being both advocate and judge, we see the certainty of Judah’s final justification- if they chose to accept His amazing grace in justifying them.</p><h4>That He may give rest to the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon- The fall of Babylon was intended to lead to "rest" to the eretz promised to Abraham, in the form of the restored Kingdom of God in Israel. But this didn’t in fact happen at that time. The prophetic picture here is only to come true in the last days, as Revelation 18 makes clear.</h4>


text:
<p>A sword is on the Chaldeans, says Yahweh, and on the inhabitants of Babylon, on her princes and on her wise men- The idea of a sword hanging over Babylon is an image used elsewhere about Jerusalem, and the idea is that there was therefore an appeal for repentance. This is what God wanted to see from Babylon.</p>


text:
<p>A sword is on the boasters, and they shall become fools; a sword is on her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed- As noted on :31 and often, Babylon was judged above all for her pride and exaltation of human strength and wisdom. Babylon is set up as a fake Christ and Kingdom of God. She had proselytes and prophets ["boasters"] (<a href='B:300 50:36-37'>Jer 50:36-37</a>); a mountain (<a href='B:300 51:25'>Jer 51:25</a>); "The golden city" (<a href='B:290 14:4'>Isa 14:4</a>) with a thick, embellished wall (<a href='B:300 51:58'>Jer 51:58</a>); springs and rivers within her (<a href='B:300 51:36'>Jer 51:36</a>); “The praise of the whole earth” (<a href='B:300 51:41'>Jer 51:41</a>). Her sin was that she thought of herself in her own right as the kingdom of God, instead of humbling herself to become part of His Kingdom.</p>


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<p>A sword is on their horses, and on their chariots, and on all the mixed people who are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is on her treasures, and they shall be robbed- The idea of a sword hanging over Babylon is an image used elsewhere about Jerusalem, and the idea is that there was therefore an appeal for repentance. This is what God wanted to see from Babylon. It was trust in horses, chariots and wealth which was so abhorrent to God; this was the basis for the pride which brought about her judgment; see on :31.</p>


text:
<p>A drought is on her waters, and they shall be dried up; for it is a land of engraved images, and they are mad over idols- This was partly fulfilled by the Medes diverting the course of the Euphrates in order to take Babylon by surprise; although Layard uncovered inscriptions which say that Babylon opened her own gates in surrender. The judgments described here are upon her "land"; perhaps all the water sources are in view and not just the river around the city of Babylon. And this didn’t happen to all of Babylonia. What was in view was a destruction of all Babylonia after the pattern of Sodom’s destruction (:40). And that didn’t happen; the prophetic scenario didn’t come true at the time, and Revelation 18 alludes to these prophecies to demonstrate that they will come true in essence only in the very last days.</p>


text:
<p>Therefore the wild animals of the desert with the wolves shall dwell there, and the ostriches shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited forever; neither shall it be lived in from generation to generation- As noted on :26, much of Babylon did escape when the Medes attacked and conquered her, and the city continued being inhabited for some time. This projected scenario didn’t come about at the time, and yet will do in essence in its latter day fulfilment, as Revelation 18 explains.</p>


text:
<p>As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbouring cities, says Yahweh, so shall no man dwell there, neither shall any son of man live therein- Such dramatic destruction of Babylon didn’t happen at the hands of the Medes (see on :26). And we must bear in mind the many hints that the projected judgments were not just upon the city of Babylon but upon the land of Babylon i:e. Babylonia. The image of Sodom’s destruction suggests direct, miraculous Divine intervention. This didn’t happen at Jeremiah’s time, but Revelation 18 alludes to all this and makes it clear that such Divine intervention will occur against latter Babylon in the last days.</p>


text:
<p>Behold, a people comes from the north; and a great nation and many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth- Just as Babylon had been the nation from the north who would bring God’ judgments, so now she is to be judged from the north. She was to be made to realize how she had made others feel. It is not simply so that ’what goes around comesaround’; there is a purpose in these judgments repeating themselves. It was so that those who had witnessed and participated in the judgment of Israel might come to see how it felt, and thereby repent. We too are at times made to feel the effect of our actions upon others- for the same reason. For "stirred up", see on :9.</p>


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<p>They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on horses, each one set in array as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Babylon- This quotes the condemnation of Judah in <a href='B:300 6:23'>Jer 6:23</a> and applies it to Babylon. What Babylon had done to Judah was to be done to her. There is a continuity in God’s judgments, they all bear the same Divine hallmark. And the same desire to elicit repentance. The scenario here again doesn’t quite fit the picture of what happened to historical Babylon. There was much support for Darius the Mede within Babylon; both the Babylonian Chronicles and the Cyrus Cylinder describe Babylon being taken "without battle". So the main fulfilment of this must yet be future.</p>


text:
<p>The king of Babylon has heard the news of them, and his hands wax feeble: anguish has taken hold of him, pains as of a woman in labour- This is not quite the same as the impression given by surface level Bible teachers that the king of Babylon was rejoicing in his city, confident in his own strength, when the Medes diverted the course of the Euphrates and took the city by surprise. The record in Daniel 5 is correct, but that record doesn’t contradict the information given here- that the king was already deeply concerned at the advance of the Medes. Here we read that he was feeble at the news of the enemy advance. Hence we should give due weight to the discovery by Layard of inscriptions which say that Babylon opened her own gates in surrender.</p>


text:
<p>Behold, the enemy shall come up like a lion from the pride of the Jordan against the strong habitation: for I will suddenly make them run away from it; and whoever is chosen, him will I appoint over it: for who is like Me? And who will appoint Me a time? And who is the shepherd who can stand before Me?- This verse is repeated word for word in <a href='B:300 49:19'>Jer 49:19</a> about Edom; and :45 is likewise about Edom in <a href='B:300 49:20'>Jer 49:20</a>. There is a theme that all the nations around Judah were to be given the same appeal for repentance. It was God’s intention that they too repented, along with Israel and Judah, and formed part of a restored kingdom of God in the whole eretz promised to Abraham. This didn’t happen at the time, and so it is reapplied and rescheduled to the last days. The chosen shepherd appointed over Edom or Babylon will then ultimately be the Lord Jesus, the good shepherd. But in the immediate application, it could have been Cyrus the Persian or Darius the Mede, who were the shepherds to be appointed over Edom and Babylon (<a href='B:290 44:28'>Isa 44:28</a>).</p>


text:
<p>Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh that He has taken against Babylon; and His purposes, that He has purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely they shall drag them away, even the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate over them- See on :44. But <a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a> clearly states that this purpose could have been changed, using the same word to say that God will "repent of the evil that I purposed to do to them". It was God’s intention that all the nations around Israel would repent along with His people, and turn to Him. Even Babylon could have repented at this point. "Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh::." is surely an appeal for repentance. That God should make so much effort with hardened worldlings::. indicates His depth of concern for human salvation. And it should encourage us in our witness.</p>


text:
<p>At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembles, and the cry is heard among the nations- The fall of Babylon was intended to cause panic amongst the nations of the eretz promised to Abraham, and her "cry" is frightening for those nations. Revelation 18 interprets this for us, as meaning that the nations of the eretz were all confederate with and supportive of Babylon, and would take her fall as a body blow to themselves. But that was not the scene when the Medes took Babylon. Again, the prophetic scenario here described didn’t fully happen when the Medes captured Babylon, or as Layard claims, Babylon opened her gates in surrender to the Medes. We are looking at a potential scenario which was precluded by the lack of repentance and desire for restoration in Israel and Judah (see on :3,4). But this is not to say that the prophecy was proven false; it is reinterpreted and rescheduled for the last days in Revelation 18.</p>


text:
<p>Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will raise up a destroying wind against Babylon and against those who dwell in Lebkamai-&nbsp; see on <a href='B:20 12:23'>Exo 12:23</a>. For "raise", see on :11. God makes His Angels spirits or winds (<a href='B:230 104:4'>Psa 104:4</a>), so the invaders were under the direct control of God. "Lebkamai" is "Chaldea", written in the cypher called athbash (see on :41 and <a href='B:300 25:26'>Jer 25:26</a>); just as "Sheshach" in :41 is equivalent to Babel. But why this apparent attempt to hide the reference to Babylon, when "Babylon" has just been mentioned? One suggestion is that the prophecy was given earlier, and Jeremiah sought to hide the direct reference to Babylon; but later inspired editing added the name "Babylon". Or we could stick with the AV: "Them that dwell in the midst of her". But that would raise the question as to why "Lebkamai" is "Chaldea", written in athbash.</p>


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<p>I will send to Babylon strangers who shall winnow her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her around- The image of winnowing suggests that there would be some good grain which would fall to the ground. Again we see that the intention of God was that some in Babylon would repent as a result of the judgments. God never lashes out in anger as it were, with the frustration of a more powerful being. Always there is the hope and intention of reformation and salvation for some through His necessary judgments.</p>


text:
<p>Against him who bends let the archer bend his bow, and against him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail: don’t spare her young men; utterly destroy all her army- This wasn’t really the scene when the Medes took Babylon. There was much support for Darius the Mede within Babylon; the Nabonidus Chronicle records that the people of Babylon welcomed Cyrus by spreading green twigs before him (James Pritchard, ed:, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd ed:) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 306b). Both the Babylonian Chronicles and the Cyrus Cylinder describe Babylon being taken "without battle". So the main fulfilment of this must yet be future. See on :4.</p>


text:
<p>They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets- This isn’t the scenario which happened when the Medes took Babylon; see on :3. As mentioned often in commentary on Jeremiah 50, the judgments here are not only upon the city of Babylon, but upon the entire "land of the Chaldeans", Babylonia. The scale of sudden destruction implied didn’t happen when the Medes took Babylon. The prophetic scenario projected in these prophecies didn’t fully happen, although it will do so ultimately in the last days, as Revelation 18 makes clear. This was because Judah and Israel didn’t repent and earnestly seek to restore Zion; see on <a href='B:300 50:3-4'>Jer 50:3-4</a>; <a href='B:300 50:26'>Jer 50:26</a>. And this was intended to be connected with the realization of these prophecies upon Babylon:&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p>For neither Israel nor Judah is forsaken, of his God, of Yahweh of Armies; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel- The prophetic intention was that Israel and Judah would be reunited through the joint experience of repentance and receipt of forgiveness by grace, and would together return from exile to restore Zion; see on <a href='B:300 50:3-4'>Jer 50:3-4</a>. But they preferred to remain in exile, and therefore failed to make use of the amazing grace offered to them- that despite being so guilty, God had not forsaken them. The word specifically means to be forsaken in the sense of divorced in a marriage; although God had said that effectively they had ended the marriage by breaking the marital covenant, and they were therefore divorced, yet His love was such that they were not forsaken by Him, despite the "guilt" of their unfaithfulness. But this great grace was spurned by them.</p>


text:
<p>Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; don’t be cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of Yahweh’s vengeance; He will render to her a recompense- <a href='B:300 51:6'>Jer 51:6</a>; <a href='B:300 51:45'>Jer 51:45</a> make it clear that every single Jew (“every man his soul”) was ordered by God to leave Babylon- and <a href='B:300 51:60'>Jer 51:60</a> clarifies that all these words were written down and that Seraiah read them to the Jews of Babylon. They were all supposed to “let Jerusalem come into your mind” - but in the end, only a minority like Nehemiah did so. Judah’s disobedience was chronic and specific. They rejected all the wonderful things which God had worked out for them in potential. It was such a tragedy, as tragic as when we individually are our community as a whole repeat it in our contexts today. For the call to leave Babylon is quoted in the New Testament as an appeal for us to respond to in our day. Those who remained in Babylon rather than returning to Judah would be “cut off in her iniquity”. But actually this threatened judgment didn’t happen in that way. Most of the Jews did stay there, and simply assimilated into the world around them. And the scenario envisaged here therefore didn’t happen; when Cyrus took Babylon, he didn’t kill the Jews but rather encouraged them to return to their homeland, as he did the other exiled peoples he found there.</p>


text:
<p>Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh’s hand, who made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad- "Mad" is the Hebrew halal which is usually used about praise (s:w. <a href='B:300 20:13'>Jer 20:13</a>) which the nations shall finally give (<a href='B:300 31:7'>Jer 31:7</a> s:w:), although it can carry the sense of ’raving’. If madness was solely in view, another word would have been used. Perhaps the word choice was again to hint that they could come to repentance and praise of Yahweh as a result of the judgments- if they responded rightly.</p>


text:
<h4>Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed- Babylon was not "suddenly" destroyed by the Medes; full weight must be given to the inscriptions uncovered by Layard which say that in fact Babylon opened her own gates to the Medes in surrender. It was only some time later that Cyrus further demolished parts of Babylon’s wall, which was still standing; and there was a rebellion of Babylon at the time of Darius Hystapses. The deportation of some of the population happened even later in the time of Seleucus Nicanor. But the impression is given that all this would happen immediately at Babylon’s fall. It didn’t, because the preconditions related to Judah’s repentance didn’t come about. And so the prophecies were reapplied and rescheduled to the last days, and are alluded to throughout Revelation 18 with reference to the fall of latter day Babylon; which appears to not refer to the literal city of Babylon.</h4><h4>Wail for her; take her balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed- This opens another window into what God potentially planned at this time. Balm in <a href='B:300 46:11'>Jer 46:11</a> refers to repentance. Surely this passage speaks of Judah appealing to Babylon to repent, and then coming out of her, returning to Judah, and leaving her to perish in her iniquity if she didn’t repent. God’s intention here was not carried out by Judah. They made no appeal for Babylon to repent. Only a few of them returned to Judah, most preferring the Babylon life. But had they done what God suggested, then the whole prophecies about Babylon’s destruction would have become conditional prophecies, exactly after the pattern of Jonah’s pronunciation of destruction upon Nineveh, which actually never came to pass because they did repent. So although the doom of Babylon was often prophesied, even this could have been avoided if Babylon had hearkened to the witness which Israel were supposed to make to her of their wonderful God. Remember how Jeremiah told the exiles to pray for the good of Babylon and to seek its’ peace with God (<a href='B:300 29:7'>Jer 29:7</a>).</h4>


text:
<h4>We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go each one into his own country- Consider the nuance of John Bright’s strict translation of <a href='B:300 51:8-9'>Jer 51:8-9</a>: "Wail over (Babylon)! Get ointment for her hurt- perhaps it’s curable. Though we treated her, Babylon mends not". The implication is clearly that God intended to use Judah to bring about Babylon’s repentance, and only because this failed did He finally "Give her up" to destruction (<a href='B:300 51:9'>Jer 51:9</a>). If this scenario had happened, then the prophecies of judgment against Babylon would have been more clearly revealed for what I believe they were- conditional, upon her repentance.</h4><h4>For her judgement reaches to the sky, and is lifted up even to heaven- The idea of knowing God’s judgments is frightening. Sin is its own judgment. Sins rise up to Heaven (<a href='B:140 28:9'>2Ch 28:9</a>)- and the judgment for them is spoken of as rising up to Heaven (same Hebrew words, <a href='B:300 51:9'>Jer 51:9</a>). Sin and judgment are paralleled. Whenever we commit sin, we do so knowing (at least in one part of our brain) the judgment / condemnation which it is. The outcome of the judgment needn’t be something mysterious to us; it isn’t necessarily the great unknown to the thoughtful, self-reflective believer who knows and loves and studies God’s judgments with the verve of David in Psalms 119</h4>


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<h4>Yahweh has brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God- The exiles were warned time and again to flee from Babylon back to the land, so that they wouldn’t share in the destruction of the city. There’s no record they did so; and yet by grace, God seems to have preserved them from perishing or even suffering as a result of the Persian takeover of Babylon. Indeed, they prospered under the Persians, and as soon as Cyrus took Babylon he encouraged the Jews to return to rebuild Zion. The voice of the faithful remnant pleaded with the other exiles after the fall of Babylon: "Babylon is fallen::. forsake her [as they had been told to do before Babylon fell, <a href='B:300 51:6'>Jer 51:6</a>], and let us go and return to our own country::. and let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord" (<a href='B:300 51:8'>Jer 51:8</a>; <a href='B:300 51:10'>Jer 51:10</a>). God’s patient grace to the Jews in Babylon was amazing. The hope was that they would recognize that they had had righteousness imputed to them, and this was ’their’ righteousness which had been "brought forth"; and their response was to declare in Zion God’s work, i:e. to begin rebuilding and restoring the temple and God’s Kingdom there. But none of this was really fulfilled as was potentially possible.</h4>


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<h4>Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: Yahweh has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it: for it is the revenge of Yahweh, the revenge for His temple- Just as God stirred or raised up Babylon to invade Judah (Jer 6:22), sharpening her arrows (Eze 21:21), so He would stirup, or psychologically provoke, other nations to come and judge her (Jer 50:9; Jer 50:41; Jer 51:1; Jer 51:11 s:w:). This is greatly emphasized. The activity of God directly upon human hearts is a great theme of the Biblical revelation, and is to encourage us that He is eager to transform hearts, and to place desires within us beyond our own unaided psychological ability. But the Medes didn’t destroy Babylon; as explained on :3,8, there was no destruction of the city, and so much was left that it revived several times and asserted independence. He did not take full vengeance for what Babylon did in His temple because His own people were not eager to rebuild it and were not recognizant of their role in its destruction.</h4>


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<h4>Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes- The watchmen here are not the Babylonian defenders, but the attackers. The concept is used as in <a href='B:300 4:16'>Jer 4:16</a> "Watchers [i:e. besiegers] come from a far country".</h4><p>For Yahweh has both purposed and done that which He spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon- There is a vision described in <a href='B:110 22:22'>1Ki 22:22</a> of the Angels presenting their various plans of how to slay Ahab. God says to the one whose plan He accepts "Thou shalt persuade him (Ahab), and prevail also: go forth, and do so". Thus the Angel still has to "prevail" or ’struggle’ to operationalize a command from God which they know is His will to perform; and we have to do likewise, not least in the preaching of the Gospel, both obeying and prevailing. This makes more sense of <a href='B:300 51:12'>Jer 51:12</a>, which says that "The Lord (of Hosts / Angels, :14) hath both devised and done that which He spake" about Babylon.</p><h4>Israel were told to separate themselves from Babylon because God had purposed to destroy that nation; they were asked to believe that what God had planned, He would actually do (<a href='B:300 51:12'>Jer 51:12</a>), and therefore they should treat Babylon accordingly in their attitudes. Appreciating that God is beyond time, not just an everlasting being but without time, helps us to understand a whole range of Biblical issues. Faith is about adopting God’s time-less perspective. Israel were told to separate themselves from Babylon because God had purposed to destroy that nation; they were asked to believe that what God had planned, He would actually do, and therefore they should treat Babylon accordingly in their attitudes. Appreciating that God is beyond time, not just an everlasting being but without time, helps us to understand a whole range of Biblical issues.</h4>


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<p>You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your covetousness- As explained on :8, the victory of the Medes against Babylon was not then the "end" of Babylon. The prophecies of Jeremiah 50 and Jeremiah 51 imply a sudden fall of Babylon by supernatural means which would mean her immediate and permanent end. This didn’t happen when the Medes entered Babylon. Again we see that the prophetic scenario didn’t fully happen at that time; although Revelation 18 makes it clear that it will do so, in essence, in the last days.</p>


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<p>Yahweh of Armies has sworn by Himself saying, Surely I will fill you with men, as a swarm of locusts; and they shall lift up a shout against you- LXX "Sing songs of victory over you", an example of which we have in Isaiah 14, and one of which now follows in :15-19.</p>


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<p>He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding has He stretched out the heavens- As noted on :15, we have in :15-:19 a victory song which would be sung over Babylon. But the song of victory would be a declaration of Yahweh’s power in creation. Only His people could sing this. And there is no evidence that the Jews did rejoice when Babylon fell. Like Daniel, they continued to prosper under Cyrus as they had under the Babylonians. They were intended to rejoice that Yahweh’s wisdom was exalted, rather than that of the Babylonians.</p>


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<p>When He utters His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and He causes the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of His treasuries- His power in the natural creation was reflected in how He brought a destroying wind against Babylon (:1); the vapours or waters which He makes to ascend from the ends of the earth were reflected in how He brought people from the ends of the earth to destroy Babylon (:27,28). These words are a repeat of <a href='B:300 10:13'>Jer 10:13</a>, where they are in the context of rebuking belief in idols. The context is the same here (:17); and yet in reality, the Jews continued to believe in idols. For Ezekiel had to rebuke the exiles in Babylon for their idolatry. It was only after a few generations that they quit idolatry.</p>


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<p>Every man has become a brute, without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them- This is the very language used about the disappointment of the Jews when they made these Babylonian idols on the eve of Babylon’s conquest of Jerusalem (<a href='B:300 10:14'>Jer 10:14</a>). This is the ultimate end of all idolatry, of all life lived without total devotion to God- disappointment. Judah likewise would be disappointed in Egypt, the world (s:w. <a href='B:300 46:24'>Jer 46:24</a>). Life is only in Yahweh; both eternal life, and meaningful life now. It was the idols who were primitive and without knowledge (<a href='B:300 10:8'>Jer 10:8</a>); and those who make and worship idols become like unto them, also "primitive::." (<a href='B:230 115:8'>Psa 115:8</a>). The desire to worship is built within the human condition. And we become like what we worship. It is thereforecritically important to worship the right thing.</p>


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<p>They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish- This quotes the words of <a href='B:300 10:15'>Jer 10:15</a>, of how the Jews who made these Babylonian idols would be forced to this same realization.</p>


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<h4>The portion of Jacob is not like these- Jacob inherits God, having Him as his portion; and God inherits Israel / Jacob. We see here the mutuality intended between God and Israel. This is yet another reflection of God’s recognition that finally, Jacob fulfilled his promise to make Yahweh his God (<a href='B:10 28:20'>Gen 28:20</a>). The lessons of Jacob’s name change were finally learnt.</h4><h4>For He is the former of all things; and Jacob is the tribe of His inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is His name- It was the prophetic hope that Judah and the ten tribe kingdom would unite as one in the restored kingdom of God in Israel. "Israel" is therefore described here as a singular tribe.</h4>


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<p>You are my battle axe and weapons of war: and with you will I break in pieces the nations; and with you will I destroy kingdoms- The potential was that God would have used a revived Israel as an army to destroy Babylon (<a href='B:330 37:10'>Eze 37:10</a>). The same message is given here. The strong emphasis here in :20-22 upon ’breaking in pieces’ recalls the little stone of Daniel 2 cut out from the great mountain (Babylon) which was to destroy the kingdoms of men then dominating Israel and become a great kingdom of God on earth. This potential didn’t happen; but it shall do finally in the last days.</p>


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<p>And with you will I break in pieces the horse and his rider- This is the language of the victory song (see on :14) against Pharaoh and the Egyptians.</p>


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<p>And with you will I break in pieces the chariot and him who rides therein; and with you will I break in pieces man and woman; and with you will I break in pieces the old man and the youth; and with you will I break in pieces the young man and the virgin- The Divine intention seems to have been that the exiles repented and themselves would seek to return to restore Zion (see on <a href='B:300 50:3-4'>Jer 50:3-4</a>). Babylon would be given the opportunity to repent, and if they didn’t, then the Medes would take their city, although there is not much hint in the prophecies of violent conflict between the Medes and the Babylonians. The actual destruction of the impenitent Babylonians would be done by God’s use of Israel, to do to those Babylonians what they had done (according to Jeremiah’s Lamentations) to the men, women, old people and children in the streets of Jerusalem. But the entire scenario simply didn’t come about. For the prime mover in the whole sequence was the repentance of Israel, and this just didn’t happen. But these prophecies will have their essential fulfilment in the last days.</p>


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<p>And with you will I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; and with you will I break in pieces the farmer and his yoke; and with you will I break in pieces governors and deputies- Babylon had been a hammer on God’s behalf (<a href='B:300 50:23'>Jer 50:23</a>), in fulfilling His word (<a href='B:300 23:29'>Jer 23:29</a>). Now a repentant Israel were to become that hammer, breaking all in pieces (<a href='B:300 51:20-23'>Jer 51:20-23</a>). But this didn’t happen at the time, because Israel were not repentant and were therefore unwilling to be used by God for this. They could have been the little stone of <a href='B:340 2:44'>Dan 2:44</a> which returned from Babylon and destroyed the kingdoms upon the eretz in order to prepare the way for Yahweh’s eternal kingdom. But they would not. And so these things are to come true in the last days, when a repentant and therefore willing Israel will become Yahweh’s weapons to establish His Kingdom and do all the necessary ’breaking’ (<a href='B:300 51:20'>Jer 51:20</a>).</p>


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<p>I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says Yahweh- "In your sight" suggests that it was the same generation who could remember the devastation of Jerusalem who would now judge and destroy Babylon. The length of the exile period is again shown to be open ended; see on <a href='B:300 25:11-12'>Jer 25:11-12</a>; <a href='B:300 29:10'>Jer 29:10</a>. As explained on :22, Israel were not used at this time to judge the Babylonians, because they did not repent</p>


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<h4>Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain, says Yahweh, which destroys all the land; and I will stretch out My hand on you and roll you down from the rocks- Babylon is set up as a fake Christ and Kingdom of God. She had proselytes and prophets (<a href='B:300 50:36-37'>Jer 50:36-37</a>); a mountain (<a href='B:300 51:25'>Jer 51:25</a>); "The golden city" (<a href='B:290 14:4'>Isa 14:4</a>) with a thick, embellished wall (<a href='B:300 51:58'>Jer 51:58</a>); springs and rivers within her (<a href='B:300 51:36'>Jer 51:36</a>); “The praise of the whole earth” (<a href='B:300 51:41'>Jer 51:41</a>). Babylon was the mountain out of whom the little stone of the repentant exiles could have returned to reestablish God’s Kingdom in Israel (<a href='B:340 2:44'>Dan 2:44</a>). But they did not repent nor wish to restore God’s Kingdom, and they rejected the new covenant offered to them upon which that Kingdom could have been established. A mountain rolling down sounds like the stones and lava hurled from the crater of an exploding volcano; this would match the idea of Babylon being destroyed in a similarly dramatic way as Sodom (see on <a href='B:300 50:40'>Jer 50:40</a>). But this didn’t happen as projected; although it will in the last days, as Revelation 18 makes clear.</h4><h4>And will make you a burnt mountain- Heb. ’a burning mountain’. Babylon was not much burnt by the Medes when they took it. And so this idea of a burning mountain is applied in a latter day context in <a href='B:730 8:8'>Rev 8:8</a>. It is emphasized that the latter day Babylon will indeed be burnt (<a href='B:730 18:9'>Rev 18:9</a>; <a href='B:730 18:18'>Rev 18:18</a>). But this could potentially have happened in Jeremiah’s time, had Israel repented (see on :22).</h4>


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<p>They shall not take of you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but you shall be desolate for ever, says Yahweh- As explained on :25, this was to be because there would literally be no stone visible due to the effects of the volcano which was projected as happening. The lava flow would not leave a stone useful to any builder. But the volcano and Sodom-like destruction of Babylon and all Babylonia didn’t happen (<a href='B:300 50:40'>Jer 50:40</a>); it has been reapplied and deferred to the last days, and is alluded to in this context in Revelation 18.</p>


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<p>Set up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz: appoint a marshal against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough canker worm- LXX "like bristling locusts". "Prepare" is to sanctify. But we enquire whether these particular kingdoms were the ones who actually destroyed Babylon, and whether there was one specific "marshal" or LXX "commander" who coordinated her destruction. It’s hard to prove this historically, because the destruction of historical Babylon was slow, as explained on :8. And there was much support for Darius the Mede within Babylon; both the Babylonian Chronicles and the Cyrus Cylinder describe Babylon being taken "without battle". So the main fulfilment of this must yet be future. The potential prophetic scenario projected here didn’t happen, because the repentance of Israel which was to be associated with it didn’t happen (see on <a href='B:300 50:3-4'>Jer 50:3-4</a>). Whilst the essence of the prophecy will be fulfilled in the last days, as Revelation 18 makes clear through its allusions to Jeremiah 50 and Jeremiah 51, this is not to say that every detail will be:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, its governors, and all its deputies, and all the land of their dominion- These nations were indeed "prepared" by God to fulfill the potential scenario here projected. But as explained on :22, the lack of Israel’s repentance precluded the associated planned events from happening. So much Divine work goes to preparing potentials which we then waste.</p>


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<p>The land trembles and is in pain; for the plans of Yahweh against Babylon do stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without inhabitant- Again we note that this is said not only of the city of Babylon but of all Babylonia. The entire region was to be destroyed by an earthquake [the land trembling], related to the volcano of :25; there was to be supernatural destruction after the pattern of Sodom’s destruction (see on <a href='B:300 50:39-40'>Jer 50:39-40</a>). The image of Sodom’s destruction suggests direct, miraculous Divine intervention. This didn’t happen at Jeremiah’s time, but Revelation 18 alludes to all this and makes it clear that such Divine intervention will occur against latterBabylon in the last days. The statement that "the plans of Yahweh against Babylon do stand" suggest that God’s spoken words of judgment have a gap between them and their fulfilment; and in that gap, human repentance and mediation can result in a changed outcome. His desire therefore was that Babylon repent. But they did not, and so His plans stood.</p>


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<p>The mighty men of Babylon have declined to fight, they remain in their strongholds; their might has failed; they are become as women: her dwelling places are set on fire; her bars are broken- Hence we should give due weight to the discovery by Layard of inscriptions which say that Babylon opened her own gates in surrender. There was much support for Darius the Mede within Babylon; both the Babylonian Chronicles and the Cyrus Cylinder describe Babylon being taken "without battle". So the main fulfilment of this must yet be future.</p>


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<p>One runner will run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter- The idea is that bearing the news from opposite quarters, they meet at the king’s palace in the heart of the city.</p>


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<p>And the passages are seized, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are frightened- "Passages" can be "fords", and "reeds" can be "pools". This would then refer to the drying up of the river by the Medes in order to enter the city.</p>


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<p>For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her- Babylon "is" as if she has already been harvested and is being threshed; and yet harvest time is yet to "come for her". Here we have a parade example of God speaking in the present tense of things yet future, so certain are they of fulfilment. And yet within the metaphor of winnowing and harvest there is still the hope that at least some grain shall fall to the ground; that there would at least be some repentance in Babylon. This is always the hope resident within all Divine judgments.</p>


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<p>Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has, like a monster, swallowed me up, he has filled his maw with my delicacies; he has cast me out- These were to be the words of the captive exiles of Zion (:35). In response to this, God would take vengeance for them against Babylon (:36). But we wonder whether the exiles were by this stage really angry with the Babylonians. Daniel and other Jews like him were now acceptable in Babylonian society, just as they were later at Esther’s time. Ezekiel’s dialogues with the exiles in Ezekiel 18 and elsewhere indicate they were more bitter with God than they were with the Babylonians, and were in fact serving their gods. And so therefore the full vengeance of God in response to these projected words didn’t happen (:36); which is why the judgments upon Babylon didn’t come true at that time.</p>


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<p>The violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say- See on :34. "Done to me" suggests that it was the same generation who could remember the devastation of Jerusalem and its effects upon them and their children ("my flesh") who would now judge and destroy Babylon. The length of the exile period is again shown to be open ended; see on <a href='B:300 25:11-12'>Jer 25:11-12</a>; <a href='B:300 29:10'>Jer 29:10</a>. As explained on :22, Israel were not used at this time to judge the Babylonians, because they did not repent.</p>


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<p>Therefore thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry- See on :34. As explained on <a href='B:300 25:31'>Jer 25:31</a>, it was a complicated case, with counter appeals which resulted in everyone being condemned- and yet Judah then being finally justified, by grace. Yahweh had this legal case with Judah whom He condemned, and then with the peoples who supported Babylon against her (<a href='B:300 25:31'>Jer 25:31</a>); and then He has this case against Babylon (<a href='B:300 51:36'>Jer 51:36</a>) during which He is advocate for Judah, whose cause He legally pleads in the court case (<a href='B:300 50:34'>Jer 50:34</a>) of which He is judge as well as advocate for the defence. Being both advocate and judge, we see the certainty of Judah’s final justification- if they chose to accept His amazing grace in justifying them.</p>


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<h4>Babylon shall become heaps- The impression is given that she was turned into heaps with nothing left. But this didn’t happen when the Medes took the city. It was only some time later that Cyrus further demolished parts of Babylon’s wall, and there was a rebellion of Babylon at the time of Darius Hystapses. The deportation of some of the population happened even later in the time of Seleucus Nicanor. But the impression is given that all this would happen immediately at Babylon’s fall. It didn’t, because the preconditions related to Judah’s repentance didn’t come about. And so the prophecies were reapplied and rescheduled to the last days, and are alluded to throughout Revelation 18 with reference to the fall of latter day Babylon; which appears to not refer to the literal city of Babylon.</h4><h4>A dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment and a hissing, without inhabitant- The language in <a href='B:300 9:11'>Jer 9:11</a> ofJerusalem’s destruction into heaps haunted by jackals is applied to Babylon; and likewise the way Jerusalem was to become a hissing (<a href='B:300 19:8'>Jer 19:8</a>) is also now to be true of Babylon. What latter day Babylon does to Jerusalem shall be done to her; and that is the theme of the book of Revelation, where the seals of judgment upon Israel become the vials of judgment upon the beast system.</h4>


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<p>They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions’ cubs- This suggests a violent resistance from the lions of Babylon. But full weight must be given to the inscriptions uncovered by Layard which say that in fact Babylon opened her own gates to the Medes in surrender. There was much support for Darius the Mede within Babylon; the Nabonidus Chronicle records that the people of Babylon welcomed Cyrus by spreading green twigs before him (James Pritchard, ed:, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd ed:) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 306b). Both the Babylonian Chronicles and the Cyrus Cylinder describe Babylon being taken "without battle". So the main fulfilment of this must yet be future. See on :4.</p>


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<p>When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, says Yahweh- Although generally these prophecies have only a very loose fit with the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, this is indeed the scene described in Daniel 5 when Babylon fell during a feast. We note that they themselves made a feast, probably at the festival of the god Bel, and made themselves drunk; but God made them drunk. This is His way with men, to work through their own natural desires and decisions.</p>


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<p>I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats- Lambs, rams and goats may just be representative of all the classes of the people of Babylon. But there is no historical evidence that many people died when the Medes took the city, apart from Belshazzar. Such a fall of Babylon’s entire society in a moment is to happen in the last days (Revelation 18).</p>


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<h4>How is Sheshach taken and the praise of the whole earth seized! How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!- "Sheshach" is a code name for Babylon. The Jewish kabbalists had a system called athbash, whereby the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is read as the last one, the second letter as the second to last letter, etc. "Sheshach" is the spelling of "Babylon" according to this; and yet the word sheshach means "humiliation", which was to happen to Babylon (<a href='B:290 47:1'>Isa 47:1</a>). We wonder why Jeremiah at times uses this term whereas at other times he is clear that he refers to "Babylon". If he was scared of repercussions, then we wonder why at times he does refer to "Babylon". I suggest therefore that he is simply making the point that proud Babylon was to be humiliated. For the essence of all human sin is pride, and judgment is therefore about humiliating pride. And we are to humble ourselves now. However I suggested on :1 that part of this material may have been written earlier, when he was still nervous about mentioning Babylon by name; and this would account for the positive actions of Nebuchadnezzar toward him when Jerusalem fell.</h4><h4>We note that Babylon was setting itself up as an alternative Zion, "the praise of the whole earth" being the title of Zion. This was the kind of blasphemy which called forth these judgments, rather than simply the invasion of Judah- for Babylon had been commanded by God to do that.</h4>


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<p>The sea has come up on Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of its waves- As noted on <a href='B:300 50:40'>Jer 50:40</a>, the destruction of Babylonian was envisaged as also including miraculous Divine destruction after the pattern of Sodom, which is now apparently beneath the Dead Sea. Hence the references to Babylon being destroyed by a volcano (:25) and earthquake (:29). But this didn’t happen at the time, although it will in the last day fulfilment of these prophecies (Revelation 18). As explained on :22, the prophetic scenario didn’t happen at the time because of Israel’s lack of repentance. See on :62,63.</p>


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<p>Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land and a desert, a land in which no man dwells, neither does any son of man pass thereby- There is little point in claiming this was fulfilled in that historical Babylon was not rebuilt; the reference is to the plural "cities" and land of Babylonia. The entire territory was to be made like this; see on :42. In any case, the taking of Babylon by the Medes didn’t mean that people stopped living there; the city continued to prosper for long after that, several times asserting its independence. The fulfilment is to be in the last days, although the prophecy appears to be reapplied to a more symbolic "Babylon" in Revelation 18.</p>


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<h4>I will execute judgement on Bel in Babylon- This didn’t happen when Darius took Babylon. Soon after, Babylonia briefly recovered its independence under a native ruler, Nidinta-Bel, who took the name of Nebuchadnezzar III:&nbsp; A few years later, in 514 BC, Babylon again revolted and declared independence under the Armenian King Arakha; only on this occasion, after its capture by the Persians, were the walls partly destroyed. E-Saggila, the great temple of Bel, however, still continued to be kept in repair and to be a center of Babylonian patriotism. Among Babylonians, feelings were still strong that none had a right to rule over western Asia until he had been consecrated to the office by Bel and his priests. Accordingly, Cyrus henceforth assumed the imperial title of "King of Babylon", claiming to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and the avenger of Bel and portrayed himself as the savior, chosen by Bel to restore order and justice. So again we see that although the essence of these prophecies will be totally fulfilled in the last days, there was often no short term fulfilment of them; and the longer term fulfilment will be of the essence of the prophecies and not all the detail.</h4><p>And I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up- There was an element of this fulfilled in that Cyrus encouraged the exiled nations to return to their homelands, including the Jews. But there is also here the hint of a miracle; that the consumed Israel, eaten by the lion of Babylon, would somehow revive and resurrect, being brought forth out of the lion.</p><h4>And the nations shall not flow any more to him: yes, the wall of Babylon shall fall- We have to remember that Jeremiah’s prophecies about Babylon were given in the context of the prophecies aboutJudah’s restoration. The fall of Babylon was clearly intended to be the signal that the Jews should leave and return: "Down comes Babylon’s wall! Out from the midst of her, my people!" (<a href='B:300 51:44-45'>Jer 51:44-45</a>). And Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, made the decree for the Jews to return to their land. And yet::. most of them remained. As explained on :8, the wall of Babylon didn’t fall when Darius took Babylon. It was slowly destroyed over a long period. Passages like Jeremiah 50 imply that when Babylon fell, Judah would return to their land and flourish into the Kingdom of God. But this didn’t happen. Another scenario worked out- Darius took over the kingdom of Babylon (<a href='B:340 5:31'>Dan 5:31</a>), and the image prophecy of Daniel 2 explained that there would now have to be a succession of empires before the Kingdom of God would come. I therefore see Daniel 2 as a new prophetic scenario which would have to come into operation if Judah didn’t do as they were told in the prophetic word. Hence the vision has two ways of being read- the whole image could represent Babylon and its next rulers, which would be destroyed in toto and replaced by the restored Kingdom of God at the time it fell; or, it could be read as a long term prophecy of the ensuing centuries, if Judah didn’t turn into the Kingdom of God as they could have done. And this is the outworking that became necessary.</h4>


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<p>My people, go away from the midst of her, and save yourselves every man from the fierce anger of Yahweh- See on :6. The Jews didn’t leave Babylon to restore Zion because they were impenitent and didn’t wish to; and so the projected scenario didn’t happen. They did not suffer when Babylon fell to Cyrus, indeed as soon as he entered the city he urged the exiles from the various nations to take their gods and religious equipment and return to their homelands.</p>


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<p>Don’t let your heart faint, neither fear for the news that shall be heard in the land; for news shall come one year, and after that in another year shall come news, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler- "Ruler against ruler" is reapplied to the situation of the last days in <a href='B:490 21:10'>Luk 21:10</a>. In that same context, the Lord Jesus alluded to "Don’t let your heart faint" (<a href='B:490 21:36'>Luk 21:36</a>) again in relation to things of the last days. Likewise "violence in the land" is applied to the last days in <a href='B:490 21:23'>Luk 21:23</a>. The reference to the news coming one year and then again in the next year could mean that this fall of Babylon was to happen within two years of Jeremiah’s prophecy being published. As noted on :24, the length of the exile period is thus shown to be open ended; see on <a href='B:300 25:11-12'>Jer 25:11-12</a>; <a href='B:300 29:10'>Jer 29:10</a>.</p>


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<p>Therefore behold the days come, that I will execute judgement on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land shall be confounded; and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her- The conquest of Babylon by the Medes was achieved with very little loss of life apart from that of king Belshazzar; see on :3. As explained on :44,52, her god Bel was not immediately "confounded" either, at least not in the eyes of men. Nor was the whole land of Babylonia exactly confounded with shock at Babylon’s fall. And the implication of the prophecy is that all these things were to happen immediately, contiguous with Babylon’s fall. So again we see that the projected prophetic scenario didn’t come about at the time it potentially could have done, but will do so in the latter day fulfilment (Revelation 18).</p>


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<p>Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come to her from the north, says Yahweh- Here we have "heavens and earth" used as representative of God’s people. For it was Zion and the "daughters of Judah" who were commanded to rejoice at Babylon’s fall (<a href='B:230 48:11'>Psa 48:11</a>). But there is no record of them obeying this command; for they were too caught up in Babylon by this stage. And so the prophecy will be fulfilled in a reapplied and rescheduled manner in the last days, when a slightly different group would rejoice over Babylon’s fall: "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her" (<a href='B:730 18:20'>Rev 18:20</a>).</p>


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<p>As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land- Again, this didn’t happen when the Medes took Babylon, and the prophecies of Jeremiah 50, 51 imply that all these things will happen suddenly and simultaneously, not over an extended period. The conquest of Babylon by the Medes was achieved with very little loss of life apart from that of king Belshazzar; see on :3. Vengeance was not fully taken by God upon Babylon for what they did to Israel because Israel had not repented, recognizing that actually those judgments had been rightfully deserved by their gross sins</p>


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<p>You who have escaped the sword, go, don’t stand still; remember Yahweh from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind- See on :6. This is an appeal for the exiles to desire to return to rebuild Zion. The implication is again that it was the same generation who had escaped the Babylonian sword who were to now return. The appeal to remember Yahweh from afar alludes to the words of Moses and Solomon, envisioning a time when exiled Israel would repent "from afar". But they didn’t. See on :24,35. Those verses also suggest that it was the same generation who could remember the devastation of Jerusalem who would now judge and destroy Babylon. The length of the exile period is again shown to be open ended; see on <a href='B:300 25:11-12'>Jer 25:11-12</a>; <a href='B:300 29:10'>Jer 29:10</a>. As explained on :22, Israel were not used at this time to judge the Babylonians, because they did not repent.</p>


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<p>We are confounded, because we have heard reproach; confusion has covered our faces: for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of Yahweh’s house- Shame / confusion covered the faces of God’s people when the temple was desecrated, but this was because their faces had not been covered with shame at their sins. The same phrase is used for this in <a href='B:300 3:25'>Jer 3:25</a>. It’s shame for sin now, or shame at judgment day. This was the intended statement of repentance to be made by the Jews, and it was this repentance which would trigger the Babylon judgments outlined here (see on <a href='B:300 50:3-4'>Jer 50:3-4</a>). See on :52.</p>


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<p>Therefore behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will execute judgement on her engraved images; and through all her land the wounded shall groan- "Therefore::." means that because of the statement of repentance made by the exiles in :51, God would judge Babylon’s idols. Yet as demonstrated on :44,47, those idols were not immediately judged by the fall of Babylon to the Medes. The projected, potential judgment was precluded by Israel’s lack of repentance, just as the detailed temple prophecies of Ezekiel 40-48 were likewise not fulfilled as they could have been at the time. If we enquire why, then, are all these potential details given::. it is to teach us that likewise, finely detailed potential futures have been prepared for us in our lives. But unless we have the required humility and openness to God’s ways, they will not come about.</p>


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<p>Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from Me shall destroyers come to her, says Yahweh- This repeats the language used of Edom, who thought they were so protected by their high position that no judgment could ever reach them (<a href='B:300 49:16'>Jer 49:16</a>). The similarity is to show that it is pride which more than anything else was the reason for Babylon’s judgment. The language of <a href='B:290 14:13-14'>Isa 14:13-14</a> is also being alluded to; Babylon mounted up to heaven itself in her arrogance, playing God, effectively deposing Yahweh.</p>


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<p>The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!- I explained on :3 how there was much support for Darius the Mede within Babylon. Nor was the land of the Chaldeans, i:e. Babylonia, subject to the kind of "great destruction" envisaged here; see on :25. But the fall of Babylon with a great cry and supernatural Divine destruction will ultimately come about in the last days, as Revelation 18 makes clear, even though the definition of "Babylon" may be redefined. As I have repeatedly explained, the lack of repentance by Israel precluded these Babylon events occurring when they potentially could have done.</p>


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<p>For Yahweh lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is uttered- This suggests that the great voice of the king of Babylon will be replaced by the noise of waters which overcome her. Those raging waters could indeed represent the attacking nations; but as explained on :25, there has been projected the idea of Babylon being laid utterly waste as Sodom was, involving an earthquake and volcano, and then being plunged underwater as Sodom was in the Dead Sea. This potential scenario didn’t happen, because it was precluded by Israel’s impenitence.</p>


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<p>For the destroyer has come on her, even on Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces; for Yahweh is a God of recompenses, He will surely requite- This wasn’t quite the scene when the Medes took Babylon. There was much support for Darius the Mede within Babylon; both the Babylonian Chronicles and the Cyrus Cylinder describe Babylon being taken "without battle". So the main fulfilment of this must yet be future. Vengeance or "recompense" was not fully taken by God upon Babylon for what they did to Israel because Israel had not repented, recognizing that actually those judgments had been rightfully deserved by their gross sins.</p>


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<p>I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up, says the King whose name is Yahweh of Armies- Although generally these prophecies have only a very loose fit with the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, this is indeed the scene described in Daniel 5 when Babylon fell during a feast. We note that they themselves made a feast, probably at the festival of the god Bel, and made themselves drunk; but God made them drunk. This is His way with men, to work through their own natural desires and decisions. We note that "perpetual sleep" from which they would not awake indicates that the punishment is eternal death- and death is therefore unconsciousness. Eternal conscious torment is not a Bible teaching.</p>


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<h4>Thus says Yahweh of Armies: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown,and her high gates shall be burned with fire- As explained on :44, the walls were not destroyed by the Medes when they took Babylon, and they were only demolished bit by bit over subsequent history. The dramatic fall of her walls, surely alluding to the fall of the walls of Jericho, just didn’t happen. Indeed inscriptions have been discovered detailing the repair of damaged gates in the wall. Nor were they then burnt with fire, despite the impression given in these prophecies that all these judgments happen more or less simultaneously and not over an extended period of decades and even centuries. These things are all reapplied and reframed in the latter day destruction of "Babylon" in Revelation 18.</h4><h4>And the peoples shall labour for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary- See on <a href='B:420 2:13'>Hab 2:13</a>. GNB "The work of the nations is all for nothing; their efforts go up in flames. I, the LORD Almighty, have spoken". Yet Babylon continued long after the Medes took it, and several times reasserted its independence. It is only in the last days that Babylon along with all human works shall be burnt permanently with fire (<a href='B:730 18:8'>Rev 18:8</a>). But we can pause to take comfort and challenge from this- that all human labour shall ultimately come to nothing before God’s judgment. Only the things of His Kingdom shall eternally endure:&nbsp;</h4>


text:
<p>The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was chief quartermaster- It seems from <a href='B:300 51:59-64'>Jer 51:59-64</a> that Zedekiah made a visit to Babylon, along with his entourage, presumably to make some peace with Nebuchadnezzar before the final invasion. And yet Jeremiah takes the opportunity to send a prophecy of the doom of Babylon along with Seraiah, one of Zedekiah’s officers who accompanied him. Seraiah was brother to Baruch (<a href='B:300 32:12'>Jer 32:12</a>), Jeremiah’s scribe, and presumably therefore also loyal to Jeremiah and willing to undertake this very brave witness. For this was scarcely politically expedient; indeed, the whole message of Babylon’s impending destruction must have been extremely hard to distribute at that time, for a whole number of reasons, not least that the rest of the entourage desperately wanted to appease Babylon, whose puppet rulers they were. Jeremiah later had to do the same kind of thing when he and the refugee Jews arrived in Egypt. See on :1 and <a href='B:300 43:12'>Jer 43:12</a>.</p>


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<p>Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come on Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon- See on :6,59. We wonder why Jeremiah writes in the book and not Baruch, who had always been his scribe. Perhaps it was because Baruch’s brother Seraiah was to physically take it to Babylon (see on :59) and they felt it better to clarify that this was not just a family thing. Or perhaps Baruch had failed to take Jeremiah’s warning not to seek great things for himself (<a href='B:300 45:5'>Jer 45:5</a>) and was wary of getting into trouble with their Babylonian masters by condemning Babylon.</p>


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<p>Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words- As explained on :59, this was a hugely risky and unpopular thing to do. His fellow Jews would have been hugely angry with him for doing so- if indeed he did what Jeremiah asked. For it was a huge thing to do, which would have endangered his life. Perhaps he didn’t actually do it- because Nebuchadnezzar is very solicitous of Jeremiah’s welfare some time later when Jerusalem fell. That is hard to understand if he had heard Jeremiah’s words about Babylon.</p>


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<p>And say, Yahweh, You have spoken concerning this place to cut it off, that none shall dwell therein, neither man nor animal, but that it shall be desolate forever- This was a way of saying "Amen" to Yahweh’s words, giving a brief summary of them in his own name, addressed to Yahweh. The prophecy that Babylon would be cut off an uninhabited didn’t come true when the Medes took Babylon. Babylon existed for a long time afterwards. And yet the tenor of Jeremiah 50, 51 is that all these judgments were to happen simultaneously and not slowly over a period of years. This didn’t happen; and the only way Babylon could not be inhabited by animals would be if it were judged as Sodom and placed underwater- as previsioned in :42. Again we conclude that these prophecies about Babylon were what was potentially planned, but it was precluded by Israel’s lack of repentance, which was the required condition to as it were trigger the Babylon prophecies; see on :22. The ultimate fulfilment will be in the last days, seeing these prophecies are the basis of Revelation 18.</p>


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<p>It shall be, when you have made an end of reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates- Jeremiah’s ministry began with the statement that his prophetic words had the power to destroy. Those words are therefore here connected with their object, Babylon. As those words would plunge underwater, so would Babylon. As suggested on :42, Babylon would be&nbsp; judged as Sodom and placed underwater- the waters of the Euphrates would flood over the destroyed city. That didn’t happen at the time, for the reasons discussed on :62.</p>


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<h4>And you shall say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they shall be weary- See on :63. "Sink" is s:w. "quenched" (<a href='B:40 11:2'>Num 11:2</a>); as discussed on :25,26,42, Babylon was to be destroyed by a volcano, reduced to burning lava, and then submerged beneath the Euphrates for ever, never to rise up out of those waters. That was the prophetic potential for that time; but it was precluded from happening like that because Israel’s repentance was the required condition to as it were trigger the Babylon prophecies; see on :22. The ultimate fulfilment will be in the last days, seeing these prophecies are the basis of Revelation 18.</h4><h4>Thus far are the words of Jeremiah- This would suggest that Jeremiah 52 was added by inspiration by an editor, or it could be that Jeremiah 52 was also written by Jeremiah, as was the book of Lamentations, but was not bound up in the earlier volume or edition of his prophecies.</h4>


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<h4>Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem- Jeremiah’s words finished in <a href='B:300 51:64'>Jer 51:64</a>. This chapter agrees almost word for word with <a href='B:120 24:18'>2Ki 24:18</a> to <a href='B:120 25:30'>2Ki 25:30</a>, although we note that the section about Gedaliah in <a href='B:120 25:22-26'>2Ki 25:22-26</a> is omitted because the history of Gedaliah has been dealt with in more detail already in Jeremiah. It could be that the inspired editor of the book chose to as it were copy and paste the section from 2 Kings (with a few minor changes) as a helpful appendix to the book. Verses 28-30 give a different take however on their equivalent in <a href='B:120 24:1-20'>2Ki 24:1-20</a>.</h4><h4>And his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah- Zedekiah was thus brother of Jehoahaz but half-brother of Jehoiakim (<a href='B:120 23:31'>2Ki 23:31</a>; <a href='B:120 23:36'>2Ki 23:36</a>).</h4>


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<p>He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that Jehoiakim had done- The implication is that he was intended to have learnt from the fate of Jehoiakim his half brother, but instead he acted just the same. God also brings people into our lives so that we might learn from their life path and destiny. We never specifically read of Zedekiah worshipping idols, and he hardly comes over as the worst of Judah’s kings, but his "evil" was in the weakness of character which he displayed when faced with God’s demand for him to submit to Nebuchadnezzar.</p>


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<p>For through the anger of Yahweh it happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until He had cast them out from His presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon- Zedekiah’s rebellion was purely of his own device. But he is described here as rebelling "through the anger of Yahweh"; God intended to pour out His wrath, and so His hand was in the rebellion of Zedekiah, using that man’s freewill decisions although through Jeremiah pleading with him not to go that way. We marvel at the perfect balance and intimate involvement in the psychology and decision making of people.</p>


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<p>It happened in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about- These forts had been portrayed and ’built’ by Ezekiel when he drew them upon a tile in an acted parable (<a href='B:330 4:1-3'>Eze 4:1-3</a>). Had the earlier exiles in Babylon repented, then this would not have happened. Likewise if Zedekiah had repented, it would not have happened. We see here how God doesn’t just let things happen in a disinterested way, allowing natural forces to take their course. What happened was so avoidable; Zedekiah’s weakness could have been cancelled out, as it were, by the repentance of the exiles with Ezekiel. And their refusal to repent could have been cancelled out by Zedekiah’s repentance. Or if both of these elements failed, had the wealthy rulers of Jerusalem really let their slaves go free and not re-enslaved them, the siege could have been lifted. And there were other such factors and potential possibilities. Stubborn, proud refusal to bow our heads in repentance precludes so much from happening, and allows so much judgment to come which could have been averted.</p>


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<p>So the city was besieged to the eleventh year of king Zedekiah- <a href='B:300 39:1-2'>Jer 39:1-2</a> allows us to conclude that the city was besieged for exactly 18 months.</p>


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<p>In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land- Jeremiah had earlier prophesied that many would die from famine and plague during the siege. It was by special grace that Jeremiah in prison was given bread right up to the day that Jerusalem fell.</p>


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<h4>Then a breach was made in the city- The Babylonians made a breach in the wall to the north, from where the cherubim had left and would return. But Zedekiah tried to escape by digging a hole in the southern wall (<a href='B:330 12:12'>Eze 12:12</a>). He did to the city what the Babylonians did. This "breach" is the same word used for the breaking up of things at the time of the flood (<a href='B:10 6:11'>Gen 6:11</a>), a well established foretaste of the destruction of Jerusalem by the flood waters of the Babylonians, albeit with the promise of a new creation coming as a result of it.</h4><p>And all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night- "Went out" is the language of Judas going out (<a href='B:500 13:30'>Joh 13:30</a>), Cain ’"went out" (<a href='B:10 4:16'>Gen 4:16</a>), as did Zedekiah in the judgment of Jerusalem (<a href='B:300 39:4'>Jer 39:4</a>; <a href='B:300 52:7'>Jer 52:7</a>). Esau went out from the land of Canaan into Edom, slinking away from the face of his brother Jacob, sensing his righteousness and his own carnality (<a href='B:10 36:2-8'>Gen 36:2-8</a>). Even in this life, those who leave the ecclesia ’go out’ after the pattern of Judas, who also went out at night, condemning themselves in advance of the judgment by their attitude to the ecclesia (<a href='B:690 2:19'>1Jn 2:19</a> cp. <a href='B:510 15:24'>Act 15:24</a>). The unrighteous flee from God now, as they will then (<a href='B:350 7:13'>Hos 7:13</a>). Zedekiah’s experience of condemnation is presented as typical of every man condemned at the last day.</p><p>By the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden; (now the Chaldeans were against the city all around)- It seems Zedekiah had taken refuge in the temple. From there, he saw the princes of Babylon who had breached the northern wall and were now at the temple gate (<a href='B:300 39:3'>Jer 39:3</a>). And so they fled by "the king’s garden", which was his own private entrance to the temple, and then came to the double walls of the southern perimeter of the city. Zedekiah himself dug through those walls, the strongest point of his defence and human strength (<a href='B:330 12:12'>Eze 12:12</a>). He was being taught that all human defence, and the physical temple, was not going to save him.</p><h4>And they went towards the Arabah- The chalky depression in the midst of which the river Jordan ran.</h4>


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<p>But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him- The allusion is to how an Israel who broke covenant with their God would surely be overtaken by curses and judgment (<a href='B:50 28:15'>Deu 28:15</a>). As his pursuers closed the distance between them and him, with him unable to gather more speed nor find a suitable place to run, now completely alone and without his bodyguards, he was a living exemplification of how Divine judgment will catch up with every man. He would then have dearly wished he had had the humility to listen to Jeremiah’s pleas for repentance and submission. And he there was and is the exemplification of every man condemned before God.</p>


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<p>Then they took the king and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he gave judgement on him- Zedekiah fled, was overtaken, wept (<a href='B:330 7:27'>Eze 7:27</a>), judgment was given upon him (<a href='B:300 52:9'>Jer 52:9</a>), he was punished in the presence of the king (<a href='B:300 52:10'>Jer 52:10</a>), cast into prison (<a href='B:300 52:11'>Jer 52:11</a> cp. <a href='B:470 5:25'>Mat 5:25</a>). He had his judgment in this life; and perhaps he may yet therefore be saved in the last day, seeing he apparently repented (see on :11).</p>


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<p>The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he killed also all the princes of Judah in Riblah- We wonder why Zedekiah was spared but his sons were not. I will suggest on :11 that he later repented, even though he refused to repent and humble himself before God’s word when he ought to have done. His sons presumably were foreknown that they would not repent, and so they were slain. Perhaps seeing their deaths made Zedekiah realize that they were dying because he had not repented when he ought to have done; for it was his lack of repentance earlier which, he was told, would bring about the death of women and children. We may just possibly have some window here onto the terrible problem of the death of children.</p>


text:
<p>He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and imprisoned him until the day of his death- LXX "in the mill", as if he was in hard labour, now blinded, exactly like Samson (<a href='B:70 16:21'>Jdg 16:21</a>), and as the young men were made to (<a href='B:310 5:13'>Lam 5:13</a>). And the similarities continued, in that it seems Zedekiah likewise did finally repent. <a href='B:300 21:7'>Jer 21:7</a>; <a href='B:300 27:13'>Jer 27:13</a> had prophesied that Zedekiah would be slain by the sword of Nebuchadnezzar when Jerusalem fell. But Zedekiah wasn’t slain by Nebuchadnezzar, but rather died in captivity. Perhaps he repented; or God chose to work out another path of judgment with Zedekiah which would achieve more glory for Him and His objectivesthan simply having him slain by the sword. The statement in <a href='B:300 21:7'>Jer 21:7</a> that Nebuchadnezzar would not show him "pity nor have mercy" and not spare him was therefore not fulfilled; because he was reflecting the God who had also said He would not spare or pity, but yet He did:&nbsp;I explained on <a href='B:300 34:5'>Jer 34:5</a>&nbsp;that Zedekiah died "in peace", peace with God, and the threatened judgments upon him weren’t completely carried out- presumably because he did finally repent. If we are to finally repent, then let us repent now before suffering comes upon us to elicit that repentance.</p>


text:
<p>Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem- <a href='B:120 25:8'>2Ki 25:8</a> says on the seventh day of the month. It could be that he arrived on the seventh day, and burnt the houses and temple (:13) on the tenth day. I suggested on :1 that the Kings record has been as it were copied and pasted into this appendix to Jeremiah, so we could have here a simple error in copying.</p>


text:
<p>and he burned the house of Yahweh, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned he with fire- Jeremiah elsewhere criticized the building of these great houses on the walls of Jerusalem- for they were built on the back of abusing the poor for material and labour. They were finally torn down by the Babylonians, but even before that, the owners themselves broke them down and the materials were used to shore up the breaches in the city walls (<a href='B:300 33:4'>Jer 33:4</a>). Likewise there are foretastes of judgment ahead of time in the lives of all God’s people.</p>


text:
<p>All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around- We noted in the prophecies of Jeremiah 50 and Jeremiah 51 a special emphasis upon the breaking down of the walls of Babylon because of what they had done to Jerusalem, i:e. breaking down her walls. But we also observed on <a href='B:300 51:44'>Jer 51:44</a> that when the Medes took Babylon, the walls weren’t broken down, and in fact they were only broken down bit by bit over the course of many years. So the main fulfilment of this must yet be future. Vengeance or "recompense" was not fully taken by God upon Babylon for what they did to Israel because Israel had not repented, recognizing that actually those judgments had been rightfully deserved by their gross sins.</p>


text:
<p>Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the residue of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who fell to the king of Babylon, and the residue of the multitude- Or as AVmg. "residue of the artificers" or workmen. I suggested elsewhere that these may have been those skilled in building the defences; or it could refer to those who were the makers of idols. See on <a href='B:300 10:18'>Jer 10:18</a>.</p>


text:
<p>But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poorest of the land to be vineyard keepers and farmers- This was probably the majority of the population. The Babylonians, unlike the Assyrians, didn’t practice mass deportations. They removed the leadership of subjected peoples, and appointed locals as the leaders under their control. This is what they did to Judah, taking the royal family and priesthood into captivity, and establishing Gedaliah as puppet governor (<a href='B:300 40:7'>Jer 40:7</a>; <a href='B:120 25:2'>2Ki 25:2</a>) along with some local Jewish "elders" (<a href='B:310 5:12'>Lam 5:12</a>), with Mizpeh rather than Jerusalem as the capital:&nbsp; <a href='B:150 9:7'>Ezr 9:7</a> is clear that it was "our kings and our priests [who] have been delivered" into captivity. The Babylonians saw no economic purpose in bringing masses of unskilled peasant farmers into captivity in their cities. It’s been estimated that at least 90% of Judah were peasant farmers; and these, the impoverished masses, were left in the land and not deported (<a href='B:300 52:16'>Jer 52:16</a>; <a href='B:120 25:12'>2Ki 25:12</a>). See on <a href='B:330 11:15'>Eze 11:15</a>. The Babylonian policy regarding deportation and management of conquered lands is described in N:P. Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (Sheffield: JSOT, 1988) and D:L. Smith, The Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile (Bloomington, IN: Meyer Stone, 1989). God did not therefore scatter all the people quite as He intended. There is archaeological evidence for continued agricultural activity in the land after the deportations. And <a href='B:300 41:5'>Jer 41:5</a> seems to speak of men coming to the Jerusalem temple from Shechem and Shiloh, in the ten tribe area, in order to offer grain offerings at the site of the temple. Presumably the altar had been destroyed, hence no animal sacrifices are mentioned. It has been suggested that the book of Lamentations was written as part of a temple ritual or at least material to be recited at the site of the temple. See on <a href='B:300 12:4'>Jer 12:4</a>; <a href='B:300 13:19'>Jer 13:19</a>.</p>


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<p>The Chaldeans broke the pillars of brass that were in the house of Yahweh, and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the house of Yahweh they broke in pieces and carried all of their brass to Babylon- The breaking in pieces was likely for ease of transportation. But it also symbolized the ending of the temple system. Israel had broken the covenant, and the only way back to God was to be through repentantly accepting His new covenant, as explained on Jeremiah 31.</p>


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<p>They also took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the spoons and all the vessels of brass with which they ministered- These things were kept in Babylon and then sent back with the exiles, by the special decree of Cyrus. The new covenant offered to Israel at the time in Jeremiah 31 was not a repeat of the law of Moses, but it did include similar rituals. The worship system of Ezekiel 40-48 was command more thanprediction, and it utilized these vessels.</p>


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<p>The captain of the guard took away the cups, the fire pans, the basins, the pots, the lampstands, the spoons and the bowls; that which was of gold, in gold, and that which was of silver, in silver- We get the impression that an orderly inventory was kept, with the vessels divided up according to their metal.</p>


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<p>They took the two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made for the house of Yahweh. The brass of all these vessels was without weight- Although as noted on :21, the gold and silver was apparently weighed, and the bronze pillars measured.</p>


text:
<p>As for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a line of twelve cubits encircled it; and its thickness was four fingers. It was hollow- It seems the Babylonians weighed the gold and silver and also noted the height and diameter of the pillars. When the vessels were returned to the temple they were also weighed. There is the impression given that the temple was not pillaged in a wanton way.</p>


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<p>A capital of brass was on it; and the height of the one capital was five cubits, with network and pomegranates on the capital all around, all of brass: and the second pillar also had like these, and pomegranates- <a href='B:120 25:17'>2Ki 25:17</a> gives “three cubits”; perhaps this smaller number is the actual measurement of the network of the capital, excluding the pomegranates.</p>


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<p>There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides; all the pomegranates were one hundred on the network all around- In <a href='B:110 7:20'>1Ki 7:20</a>; <a href='B:110 7:42'>1Ki 7:42</a> each pillar is said to have had two rows of pomegranates, 100 in each, the one above and the other below the ornamental network of the capitals. The "100" may be a rough summary. "On the sides" could mean ’visible outwards i:e. four of the hundred in each row were hidden owing to the nearness of the pillar to the wall of the porch; leaving 96 visible, as stated here. Or it could be translated "hanging loosely", i:e. four of the pomegranates were fixed to the network on the capitals, while the rest hung in festoons between them.</p>


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<h4>The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest- An ancestor of Ezra (<a href='B:150 7:1'>Ezr 7:1</a>).</h4><h4>And Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold- The Zephaniah of <a href='B:300 21:1'>Jer 21:1</a> who refused to heed God’s word and was associated with persecuting Jeremiah for speaking it (<a href='B:300 29:25'>Jer 29:25</a>; <a href='B:300 29:29'>Jer 29:29</a>).</h4>


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<h4>And out of the city he took an officer who was set over the men of war; and seven men of those who saw the king’s face, who were found in the city- Five men in <a href='B:120 25:19'>2Ki 25:19</a>. ’The seven who saw the king’s face’ was likely a technical term for his immediate courtiers or politburo, although they may have only numbered five men.</h4><h4>And the scribe of the captain of the army, who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land, who were found in the midst of the city- These sixty were surely not arbitrarily chosen, but were likely the priests in the temple "in the midst of the city", perhaps those whom Ezekiel had seen offering incense to the sun god in the temple precincts.</h4>


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<p>Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah- They were obviously seen as representative of the civil and religious leadership of Judah. It was deemed that they needed to be killed so that there was no leadership left; but this then makes it all the more amazing that Zedekiah was not killed as God had said he would be. It would seem that he was the logical one to die. We recall how when the Medes took Babylon, there was little bloodshed but king Belshazzar was slain. All this was to highlight to Zedekiah the amazing grace of his survival, and it seemed he did respond in repentance (see on :11).</p>


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<p>The king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land- See on :26. I noted on&nbsp; :16 that perhaps the majority of Judah remained in the land. For most of the population were the poor masses. But the exile and destruction of the leadership is seen as "Judah" being carried away captive. But perhaps the phrase is used in order to connect with the description of the ten tribe kingdom being carried away captive out of his land (<a href='B:370 7:11'>Amo 7:11</a>; <a href='B:370 7:17'>Amo 7:17</a>; <a href='B:120 17:23'>2Ki 17:23</a>). It was as if to put a final end to Judah’s supposition that was somehow morally better than Israel. They shared an identical judgment.</p>


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<p>This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year three thousand and twenty-three Jews- This is the deportation of <a href='B:300 39:1'>Jer 39:1</a>. I noted on :1 that this chapter agrees almost word for word with2Ki 24:18 to <a href='B:120 25:30'>2Ki 25:30</a>, although we note that the section about Gedaliah in <a href='B:120 25:22-26'>2Ki 25:22-26</a> is omitted because the history of Gedaliah has been dealt with in more detail already in Jeremiah. It could be that the inspired editor of the book chose to as it were copy and paste the section from 2 Kings (with a few minor changes) as a helpful appendix to the book. But verses 28-30 give a different take on their equivalent in <a href='B:120 24:1-20'>2Ki 24:1-20</a>. It seems we should correct "seventh" into "seventeenth" (just as in <a href='B:140 36:9'>2Ch 36:9</a>, for "eight" we should read "eighteen"); this avoids the number conflict with <a href='B:120 24:14'>2Ki 24:14</a>; <a href='B:120 24:16'>2Ki 24:16</a>, which speak of those taken captive with Jehoiachin, earlier. The lower numbers in Jeremiah 52 are because they are omitting the Jews already taken into captivity in the previous incursions.</p>


text:
<p>in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar he carried away captive from Jerusalem eight hundred and thirty-two persons- These are those carried captive “from Jerusalem” itself, but not including those taken into exile after the capture of the city. The figures given in this section are far from complete, because <a href='B:150 2:64'>Ezr 2:64</a> speaks of 42,360 returning, which is far more than went into captivity, even though perhaps the majority remained in Babylon. Perhaps like Israel in Egypt they multiplied supernaturally; or maybe many exiles from other nations and even Babylonians returned with them, being assigned to Jewish tribes and localities. And yet we must ever bear in mind that the Hebrew term "thousand" is often used for a grouping, rather than being a literal figure. But more likely we are reading here just of the leadership classes who were taken away.</p>


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<p>in the twenty third year of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred and forty-five persons: all the persons were four thousand six hundred- This deportation is not recorded elsewhere, although Josephus (Antiquities 10:9. 7) says that "Nebuchadnezzar in his 23rd year carried on considerable warlike operations in the direction of Palestine and in Egypt, carrying off Jews from that country to Babylon".</p>


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<p>It happened in the thirty seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the twenty fifth day of the month, that Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison- Lifting up the head out of prison recalls Joseph (<a href='B:10 40:13'>Gen 40:13</a>; <a href='B:10 40:20'>Gen 40:20</a>); for the similarities with Joseph, see on :33.</p>


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<p>and he spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon- There is no reason given for this amazing grace toward Jehoiachin, who would have been considered the legitimate king of Judah. The lack of explanation is perhaps to simply highlight that it was indeed pure grace. He may well have repented, but that is not mentioned. We get the impression that God pitied His people in their well deserved captivity- simply because He so loved them.</p>


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<p>and changed his prison garments. Jehoiachin ate bread before him continually all the days of his life- See on :34. The change of garments by the king would have recalled the experience of Joseph in <a href='B:10 41:14'>Gen 41:14</a>. But Jehoiachin had not had the spirituality of Joseph, and he would have reflected upon that truth; and thereby perceived yet more the huge grace being shown him. We too may experience blessings which we are totally unworthy of, just so that we bow our heads in marvel at God’s grace.</p>


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<h4>and for his allowance, there was a continual allowance given him by the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his life- Reflect how Daniel refused to eat the food sent to him from the King of Babylon; but God arranged for this very thing to be sent to Jehoiachin as a sign of His recognition of his repentance (<a href='B:300 52:34'>Jer 52:34</a>)! God saw that Jehoiachin wasn’t on Daniel’s level, and yet He worked with him on his lower level.</h4><h4>Ezekiel had prophesied that those who survived the famine and invasion of Judah would go into captivity, "and I will draw out a sword after them" (<a href='B:330 5:2'>Eze 5:2</a>; <a href='B:330 5:12'>Eze 5:12</a>). We would expect from this that the exiles would be persecuted and slain in captivity, and this surely was God’s intended judgment. But in Esther we find the exiles in prosperity, in positions of power, and respected by their captors; and Jeremiah concludes his long prophecy with the information that Jehoiachin, Judah’s exiled King, was exalted "above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon" and he was given special favour and honour by the King of Babylon (<a href='B:300 52:31-34'>Jer 52:31-34</a>). I can only understand these things as pure grace. God showed tenderness and favour to His people in captivity, far above what He had intended or what they deserved. And He does the same with us- He gives us so much more than we deserve. And yet most of Judah abused that grace; they were so taken up with the good life God gave them in captivity that they chose to remain there and not participate in the restoration. And we so easily can end up abusing His grace likewise.</h4>


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<h4>How the city sits solitary, that was full of people!- Jeremiah was Judah’s representative; that is a key to understanding Lamentations. Jerusalem sat alone, or "solitary", so had he and so did he. Earlier, Jeremiah is rebuked for his attitude of resenting that he "sat alone" and had kept away from the "assembly" of the rejoicers (<a href='B:300 15:17'>Jer 15:17</a>; <a href='B:300 15:19'>Jer 15:19</a>); and so we are to assume that he said these things in resentment that he had had to stand alone amongst men. He resented how he "sat alone" (<a href='B:310 3:28'>Lam 3:28</a>); yet this is the very term used of how Jerusalem was to "sit alone [solitary]" (<a href='B:310 1:1'>Lam 1:1</a>). He was her representative, and yet he seems to have resented that. He was after all being representative of those who had hated him and tried to kill him. As Jeremiah wrongly lamented his own ’sitting alone’, so he ought to have perceived that he should not have lamented Jerusalem’s likewise. The book of Lamentations reveals Jeremiah, an undoubted man of God, in his lowest moments, as Jerusalem was at her lowest moment; just as the book of Job reveals Job at times. And yet the whole book is made up of five carefully structured acrostic laments, with each verse beginning with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The chapters only vary in length because the verses have different lengths. So Lamentations is not simply the pouring out of random emotional grief. It has been written up, under inspiration, and the acrostic structure was presumably to help assist memorization of it. And yet so much of it is negative, and reveals Jeremiah charging God wrongfully and contradicting statements from God revealed in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s momentary lapse of faith was representative of that of his people after the fall of Jerusalem. But the idea is that the book progresses through the stages of grief and anger to genuine repentance and desire for restoration; and Jeremiah invites Judah to follow his example as their representative.</h4><p>I suggest that the reason the book was inspired and was designed to be memorized was that it comes to a climax in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>. And the point is that there we have here a total confession of sin, and appeal for God to turn them to Himself (<a href='B:310 5:21'>Lam 5:21</a>) and restore His relationship and Kingdom with Judah as before (<a href='B:310 5:21'>Lam 5:21</a>). But the path there was a jagged graph; see on <a href='B:310 3:40'>Lam 3:40</a>. Throughout the book of Jeremiah, and often in Ezekiel, I have made the point that so much hinged upon whether Judah repented after Jerusalem fell. If they did, then the new covenant would have been accepted by them, and the promises of the restored Kingdom would have come true. They generally did not repent, but it was Jeremiah’s heartfelt desire that they did, following his own example. And so he wished them to identify with his feelings of anger with God, his struggle with God, his confusion::. and thereby to be led to this conclusion of the matter in repentance and desperate appeal for restoration. But it seems Judah got caught up in the early stages of grief, never moved on from them, and failed to follow through to this confession of sin and appeal for restoration which we have in Lamentations 5. The last verse of the book (<a href='B:310 5:22'>Lam 5:22</a>) appears starkly out of context with the immediately preceding verses, with their appeal for restoration and confession of sin: "But You have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us". I suggest this is purposeful, because this is as it were Judah’s response to the book and the appeal to repent and appeal for restoration. They remained caught up in their grief and refused to repent and return to God because they considered He had removed Himself too far from them. And so the great prophetic potentials for a repentant Judah, described in such detail in the book of Jeremiah, didn’t then come about; although the prophecies are reapplied and rescheduled to fulfilment in the last days.</p><p>Jeremiah was commanded not to make lamentation for the punishment of his people (<a href='B:300 16:5'>Jer 16:5</a>). But he did, and God inspired the record of them in Lamentations, and because they are inspired words, He spoke through those words to all subsequent generations, wishing His people to work through their grief about the fall of Jerusalem as Jeremiah did; going through all the stages, even of anger with God, to come to the confession of sin and earnest desire for the restoration of the Kingdom with which the book concludes. Even within Jeremiah, what begins as Jeremiah’s cry from the heart often merges into God’s- Jeremiah begins lamenting in <a href='B:300 8:18'>Jer 8:18</a>, and then we find Yahweh becomes the speaker in <a href='B:300 8:19'>Jer 8:19</a>. Jeremiah’s conflicted emotions can be read as his having a too positive view of Israel, and his book of lamentations could therefore be read as a statement of protest at God’s judgments. But it could also be that Jeremiah was so in tune with God’s thinking that these struggles at the amount of suffering brought upon Judah were also God’s. The struggles within Jeremiah would therefore reflect God’s changes of mind and feeling about judging His people were endlessly "kindled together", just as they were reflected in Hosea’s oscillations of feeling concerning Gomer; see on <a href='B:350 11:8'>Hos 11:8</a>.</p><h4>She has become a widow, she who was once great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a tributary!- The idea of God being destroyed in the destruction of His people (see on <a href='B:300 6:26'>Jer 6:26</a>) may be the basis of the descriptions of Zion as being left widowed (<a href='B:310 1:1'>Lam 1:1</a>; <a href='B:290 54:1-8'>Isa 54:1-8</a>). We ask thequestion- if she was a widow, who died? Her husband, God, was as it were dead. The very idea of the death of God&nbsp;is awful and obnoxious. But this was and is the depth of God’s feelings at His peoples’ destruction. But it could be that here we have Jeremiah in the utter depth of depression, feeling his God was dead. Earlier, in his own prophecies, he had spoken forth God’s perspective; that Judah had been as a whore, never really loving Him and endlessly going off with other men (the surrounding nations and their idols), and thereby they forsook Yahweh and broke the marriage covenant. But here Jeremiah feels that Israel are a forsaken widow whose husband has died. He describes her as a gracious princess; when actually God through himself had described her repeatedly as a whore. And so the Lamentations begin with Jeremiah at rock bottom, as were all Judah. He felt God was dead. But we see him progress onwards from that, through the various stages of grief, to the begging for forgiveness and restoration at the very end of the book.</h4>


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<h4>She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks- The phrase is only used in <a href='B:40 14:1'>Num 14:1</a>, of Israel weeping all night when they were told they were not to enter the promised land because of their lack of faith. And this was their fault, not God’s.</h4><h4>Among all her lovers she has none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies- This is one of many cases of self-justification in Lamentations (<a href='B:310 1:2'>Lam 1:2</a>; <a href='B:310 1:19'>Lam 1:19</a>; <a href='B:310 2:14'>Lam 2:14</a>; <a href='B:310 4:13'>Lam 4:13</a>; <a href='B:310 5:7'>Lam 5:7</a>), which contradicts the prophetic position, whereby blame is placed upon Judah, whereas now Jeremiah laments the situation as if Judah is being hard done by. In this case, for having lovers at all, in her unfaithfulness to Yahweh (Ezekiel 16, 23 etc:).</h4>


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<h4>Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction- The same word is used of Jeremiah’s affliction (<a href='B:310 3:1'>Lam 3:1</a>; <a href='B:310 3:19'>Lam 3:19</a>); he was setting himself up as Judah’s representative in the hope they too would pass through his pattern of depression, the stages of grief, and then repentance and begging for the restoration of the Kingdom which we find at the end in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>. See on <a href='B:310 1:1'>Lam 1:1</a>.</h4><p>And because of great servitude- This was the exaggeration of depression. For Judah were not abused in Babylon, nor were they put to slave labour as they were in Egypt; rather did they prosper so much that most didn’t want to return at the restoration. They preferred life in Babylon. Jeremiah had himself explained that because they had served idols, therefore they were to serve Babylon (s:w. <a href='B:300 25:6'>Jer 25:6</a>; <a href='B:300 25:11'>Jer 25:11</a>). Their "servitude" was therefore but the extension of their own choices. He had himself urged Zedekiah and the people to willingly serve the Babylonians in recognition of their own sins (s:w. <a href='B:300 40:9'>Jer 40:9</a>); it was their refusal to do so that had resulted in their servitude in exile. As we all do in depression, Jeremiah was unbalanced here, focusing upon one aspect of a situation which he had himself recognized as absolutely legitimate.</p><p>She dwells among the nations, she finds no rest- This was written therefore at the end of Jeremiah’s life when the exile was established, as he faced his own death in Egypt. He too as Israel’s representative (:1) dwelt among the nations. But again his depression leads to exaggeration; there is no evidence that the Jews were moved around the Babylonian empire, making them find no rest. He himself had urged them to build houses in Babylon and settle down there. Being restless was a result of breaking the covenant (s:w. <a href='B:50 28:65'>Deu 28:65</a>) which Jeremiah had repeatedly accused them of doing. They were suffering far less than their iniquities deserved. They refused to repent and in that sense they had no rest to their souls. If they had accepted the yoke of Babylon, then they could have rested in their own land (s:w. <a href='B:300 27:11'>Jer 27:11</a>).</p><h4>All her persecutors overtook her within the narrows- This alludes to the overtaking of Zedekiah as he fled Jerusalem; he was representative of his people. But as Jeremiah well knew, in another part of his brain, Zedekiah’s shameful flight and capture was completely his fault for not responding to Jeremiah’s pleas to him.</h4>


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<h4>The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly- This again is a very positive take on the gatherings held in the temple. Ezekiel was shown in vision how the priests and elders were solemnly worshipping idols within the temple. And so God said that He "hated" their "solemn assemblies" (s:w. <a href='B:290 1:14'>Isa 1:14</a>). Yet in depression, Jeremiah laments that these "solemn assemblies" were no more (<a href='B:310 1:4'>Lam 1:4</a>; <a href='B:310 2:6'>Lam 2:6</a>). It was in fact better that none came to them.</h4><h4>All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness- See on :13. The "ways of Zion" were "desolate" because the curse for breaking the covenant was that Israel’s "ways" would be "desolate" (<a href='B:30 26:22'>Lev 26:22</a> s:w:). Jeremiah multiple times used the word for "desolate" as the judgment which was to come; because "they [Judah] have made it desolate::. the whole land is [will be] made desolate" (<a href='B:300 12:11'>Jer 12:11</a>). But now he faces the reality of what he had so often preached, he finds it unbearable. For "afflicted", see on :12.</h4>


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<p>Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; for Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary- These terms are all allusive to the curses for breaking the covenant (<a href='B:50 28:44'>Deu 28:44</a>); Judah could have been the head of her adversaries had she been obedient to the covenant (<a href='B:50 28:13'>Deu 28:13</a>). And Jeremiah recognizes this, on one hand, and yet laments that the curses have come true.</p>


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<h4>From the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture- It was these very princes who had persecuted Jeremiah and sought to kill him (<a href='B:300 37:15'>Jer 37:15</a>; <a href='B:300 38:4'>Jer 38:4</a>; <a href='B:300 38:25'>Jer 38:25</a>; <a href='B:300 38:27'>Jer 38:27</a>) as they did other prophets (<a href='B:300 26:21'>Jer 26:21</a>). It is to Jeremiah’s spiritual credit that he did not rejoice at all in the fall of his enemies but rather shared God’s broken heart for the lost and the evil.</h4><h4>They are gone without strength before the pursuer- Another allusion to the princes fleeing Jerusalem with Zedekiah, only to be pursued, overtaken and slain. And Jeremiah finds this tragic and grieves for it. Only a heart with true love in it could come to these feelings.</h4>


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<p>Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, no one helped her; the adversaries saw her, they mocked at her desolations- The lack of help from Egypt and the nations to whom Judah had prostituted herself was quite clearly because Judah ought to have trusted in Yahweh and not them. So many times Jeremiah had predicted that Jerusalem would be mocked by her. We learn from this that it is one thing to preach a message, but quite another to actually see it come true. Jeremiah’s ministry had begun with the warning that his prophetic words would have within them the power of great destruction, and he had been promised Divine psychological strengthening for his ministry. But he seems not to have wanted to make use of that.</p>


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<p>Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she has become as an unclean thing; all who honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yes, she sighs, and turns backward- She turned backward in shame, but her nakedness was apparent. Jeremiah had used this very figure, with the crudest of language, in <a href='B:300 13:22-23'>Jer 13:22-23</a> (see notes there). Jerusalem had been a whore and was to be judged as one, naked before her lovers. But now it actually happened::. Jeremiah balked at the seriousness of sin, and how judgment really does come for sin.</p>


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<p>Her filthiness was in her skirts; she didn’t remember her latter end; therefore is she come down wonderfully; she has no comforter: see, Yahweh, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself- As noted on <a href='B:300 13:22-23'>Jer 13:22-23</a>, Judah had behaved as the worst harlot, with no thought to her future. And now that future had come. On one hand, Jeremiah saw perfectly that the situation was because of their sin; and yet he struggled with seeing the judgments actually come. And he asks Yahweh to see his affliction. Again, this reflects his love for his people, that he should feel afflicted for those who had refused to hear his message. And yet he feels there is "no comforter", despite surely being aware of Isaiah’s prophecy that Yahweh would comfort Zion at the restoration (s:w. <a href='B:290 51:3'>Isa 51:3</a>; <a href='B:290 51:12'>Isa 51:12</a> "I, even I, am He that comforts you"; <a href='B:290 66:13'>Isa 66:13</a> "so will I comfort you"; <a href='B:290 40:1'>Isa 40:1</a>; <a href='B:290 49:13'>Isa 49:13</a>; <a href='B:290 52:9'>Isa 52:9</a>). "Comfort" is the same word as "repent"; and God had said that He would repent (s:w:) if Judah repented (<a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a>; <a href='B:300 26:3'>Jer 26:3</a>). The real problem was that Judah had not repented, and Jeremiah refused to factor that into his feelings; see on <a href='B:310 2:13'>Lam 2:13</a>.</p>


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<h4>The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things- This is the language of rape, the rapist spreading out his hand upon the victim. See on :8,9,10.</h4><h4>For she has seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom You commanded that they should not enter into Your assembly- Jeremiah sees this as tragic, and yet he was fully aware that Judah had placed Gentile idols in Yahweh’s holy place (<a href='B:300 32:34'>Jer 32:34</a>).</h4>


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<p>All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul: look, Yahweh, and see; for I am become abject- Their "pleasant things" in :10 refer to their private parts. Jeremiah appears to excuse their prostitution by saying they did it because they were hungry. And yet his own prophecies had clarified that they were unlike whores who sold their bodies for money, but they even paid men to sleep with them. His feeling so abject was partly because of his refusal to face up to how sinful Judah had really been. But he reasons with all the obsessiveness of depression that they had prostituted themselves just to refresh (s:w. return or repent) their soul. Quite clearly they could do this through repentance and not sin. But he was utterly taken up with lamenting the judgments which had come and chose not (at this stage) to consider that all this was because of their sins:&nbsp;</p>


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<h4>Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me- The extent to which Jeremiah’s heart bled for his people is reflected in <a href='B:300 9:1-3'>Jer 9:1-3</a>. He wished he had more moisture in his body, so that he could weep both day and night for Judah- and yet he goes on to describe them as proceeding from evil to evil in an ever downward spiral, shooting lies everywhere… Everyone is special, nobody is like anyone else. This is how God sees His children, and we should reflect this perspective. It is this which will make us arrestingly different from the people with whom we daily walk. We will cry out with Jeremiah: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?”, unmoved and lost as they are in their own petty issues (<a href='B:310 1:12'>Lam 1:12</a>). Everyone is special, nobody is like anyone else. This is how God sees His children, and we should reflect this perspective. It is this which will make us arrestingly different from the people with whom we daily walk.</h4><h4>With which Yahweh has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger- The same word for how the people were "afflicted" (:4,5). Jeremiah was to be representative of Judah (see on :1).</h4>


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<h4>From on high has He sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them- Jeremiah parallels "me" and "them". He felt the burning of Jerusalem was a burning of his very bones. Such was his identity with a sinful people; see on :1. And such was his spirituality that there is never a hint of satisfaction in seeing those who had rejected and persecuted him getting their totally just deserts.</h4><h4>He has spread a net for my feet, He has turned me back- We sense here an anger with God, as if God had set a trap for him into which he had innocently fallen; and he says this in the midst of very strong identification with his people. It’s as if he like the Jews of Ezekiel 18 felt that God had deceived him and his people. And yet Jeremiah had so clearly warned them of the judgment to come. It was hardly a trap for the unsuspecting and uninformed. Such anger with God was expressed by Job, and yet at the end of the book God says that Job only spoke what was right about Him. It’s as if God accepted the cranky words of depression, and saw the anger with Himself as just part of the grieving process. The important thing was to move through the process stage by stage. And the end point in this grief was repentance and zeal for restoration (<a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>). Jeremiah’s path was intended to be that of all the people whom he represented.</h4><h4>He has made me desolate and faint all the day- The physical "desolation" of the land would be matched by the internal, psychological desolation of the priests (s:w. "astonished"; <a href='B:300 4:9'>Jer 4:9</a>). Jeremiah felt the same as the other priests; he was desolated / astonished (s:w:) at the desolation of Jerusalem (<a href='B:310 1:4'>Lam 1:4</a>; <a href='B:310 1:13'>Lam 1:13</a>). We can read this as meaning that he as the righteous totally identified with the wicked; or that he was too identified with the wicked priests, and felt like them when instead he should have perceived that this was exactly the astonishment of the priests which he had prophesied in <a href='B:300 4:9'>Jer 4:9</a>.</h4>


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<p>The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they are knit together, they have come up on my neck; He has made my strength to fail: the Lord has delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand- The anger with God of :13 now starts to mellow as increasingly Jeremiah recognizes his personal sins. He doesn’t yet repent in so many words, but he does recognize his sins. This was the path Judah and the exiles were intended to likewise take, coming like Jeremiah to recognize that they had no strength; and that somehow, God was in all this- for "the Lord has delivered me into their hands".</p>


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<p>The Lord has set at nothing all my mighty men in the midst of me; He has called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord has trodden as in a wine press the virgin daughter of Judah- Instead of feeling that God was dead (see on :1), Jeremiah now accepts that God has done the judgments, He had trodden the wine press. "My young men" may mean that his own personal male children had been killed in the invasion (also implied in :16). But it could be that he considered the young men of Judah as his children.</p>


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<h4>For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water- In <a href='B:330 24:23'>Eze 24:23</a> Judah is commanded not to weep but to lament beyond tears and all external mourning; they would mourn internally for their sins (s:w. <a href='B:330 33:10'>Eze 33:10</a>). We wonder why Jeremiah wrote Lamentations, which appears to be a record of his external mourning. Whilst the book was inspired by God, at times Jeremiah there appears to be lamenting in a way inappropriate. He ’wept’ (<a href='B:310 1:16'>Lam 1:16</a>), whereas in <a href='B:330 24:23'>Eze 24:23</a> Judah were told not to externally weep. He did not take on board the idea that there was to be no mourning or weeping externally, but rather deep internal recognition of their sins. It seems the Jews were not obedient to Ezekiel’s command not to externally weep but to internally mourn their own sinfulness; the same word for "weep" is used of how they did weep by the rivers of Babylon (<a href='B:230 137:1'>Psa 137:1</a>).</h4><p>Because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me- He feels there is "no comforter", when he implies there ought to have been. That comforter was God. Yet he says this despite surely being aware of Isaiah’s prophecy that Yahweh would comfort Zion at the restoration (s:w. <a href='B:290 51:3'>Isa 51:3</a>; <a href='B:290 51:12'>Isa 51:12</a> "I, even I, am He that comforts you"; <a href='B:290 66:13'>Isa 66:13</a> "so will I comfort you"; <a href='B:290 40:1'>Isa 40:1</a>; <a href='B:290 49:13'>Isa 49:13</a>; <a href='B:290 52:9'>Isa 52:9</a>). "Comfort" is the same word as "repent"; and God had said that He would repent (s:w:) if Judah repented (<a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a>; <a href='B:300 26:3'>Jer 26:3</a>). The real problem was that Judah had not repented. And yet Jeremiah appears to blame God for not being present as comforter. This all sets us up for the climax of the book in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>, when Jeremiah confesses sin and looks for restoration. And there are plenty of moments before then in the Lamentations when he comes closer and closer to that final realization, which for us too is the end point of the path of every depression and struggle with God.</p><h4>My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed- Perhaps Jeremiah’s children were literally killed. Or maybe even in his depression and anger with God, he still manifested God; God’s children were his children. But in that case, the enemy as it were prevailed [Heb. ’was stronger’] over God, whereas finally at the restoration, God shall prevail over His enemies (<a href='B:290 42:13'>Isa 42:13</a> s:w:).</h4>


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<h4>Zion spreads forth her hands; there is none to comfort her- As explained on :16, God was there to comfort- if they repented. But in the obsession of his depression, Jeremiah focused on just one part of the picture. There was none to comfort her; but that was because she would not repent and accept His comfort.</h4><p>Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries- Jeremiah appears here to be slipping back into the common mindset, that a nation’s god would support them and save them always. But Yahweh had a huge moral dimension to Him, which the pagan gods didn’t. He called for enemies o come upon His people.</p><h4>Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing- And therefore, the implication is, Yahweh was not protecting them. But so often Jeremiah had previously lamented the unclean state of Jerusalem.</h4>


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<p>Yahweh is righteous; for I have rebelled against His commandment: please hear, all you peoples, and see my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity- &nbsp;This rebellion could refer to the words previously recorded in this lament, but they could also be a reference to Jeremiah’s historical failure at the time of Jeremiah 15. In <a href='B:300 15:15'>Jer 15:15</a>, Jeremiah asks for vengeance on his persecutors, and in <a href='B:300 15:18'>Jer 15:18</a> accuses God of deceiving him. God’s response is to ask him to repent of this, so that he can resume his prophetic work: “If you [Jeremiah] return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me [prophetic language]. If you utter what is precious, and not what is base, you shall be as my mouth” (<a href='B:300 15:19'>Jer 15:19</a>). Perhaps Jeremiah had this incident in mind when he commented: “The Lord is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word” (<a href='B:310 1:18'>Lam 1:18</a>). This indicates that at least in Jeremiah’s case, he was not irresistibly carried along by the Spirit in some kind of ecstasy, having no option but to speak God’s word. His speaking of God’s word required that he shared the essentially loving and gracious spirit / disposition of his God. I have argued on :1 that the Lamentations are a path through depression and the various stages of grief; beginning with Jeremiah’s statement in :1 that God was effectively dead, the Lamentations progress to the final repentance and wholehearted plea for the restoration in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>. But there are points during the ’journey’ when Jeremiah does repent, and this is an example. But he quickly moves on from his confession of sin to lament again the present reality- that the young people had gone into exile.</p>


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<p>I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought themselves food to refresh their souls- Jeremiah laments the situation as if Judah is being hard done by. Judah should never have had lovers, for this was unfaithfulness to Yahweh as Jeremiah himself has earlier made clear. This is one of many cases of self-justification in Lamentations (<a href='B:310 1:2'>Lam 1:2</a>; <a href='B:310 1:19'>Lam 1:19</a>; <a href='B:310 2:14'>Lam 2:14</a>; <a href='B:310 4:13'>Lam 4:13</a>; <a href='B:310 5:7'>Lam 5:7</a>), which contradicts the prophetic position, whereby blame is placed upon Judah. The priests and elders had been condemned by Jeremiah for their extreme wickedness, and their death in the city by famine had been explicitly predicted by Jeremiah. The reason of course was because they had sinned so badly and impenitently. So Jeremiah’s confession of sin in :18 is soon drowned out, within his mind, by the sheer pain of the punishment for it, which he still feels to be unfair. And this is how repentance seems to go in practice; rarely is it just a momentary confession. There are waves and cycles to it, whereby we return time and again to our own self-justification and sense that the punishment for sin is disproportionate. This is the significance of the book ending with the confession of sin in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a> which is not then followed by another cycle of complaint at God’s judgments of sin.</p>


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<p>See, Yahweh; for I am in distress; my heart is troubled; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is as death- Jeremiah seemed to imagine that all the exiles were taken away to be slaughtered. That was true of some of the elders, but the exile generally was not to death camps. But clearly whilst these things were not totally true for him, he felt so totally identified with his condemned people that he speaks exactly as he imagined they felt.</p>


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<p>They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me; all my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that You have done it: You will bring the day that You have proclaimed, and they shall be like me- Here we have Jeremiah totally absorbed with the feelings of the exiles, absolutely united with them in representation. Again we note the complaint that there is no comforter, when in fact there was- if they would repent and accept God’s comfort. <a href='B:290 40:1-2'>Isa 40:1-2</a> speaks a message of comfort to the exiles: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God”. But [in full allusion to this prophecy], the exiles were like Rachael who refused to be comforted over her loss (<a href='B:300 31:15'>Jer 31:15</a>); they claimed they found “none to comfort” (Lam 12; <a href='B:310 1:16-17'>Lam 1:16-17</a>; <a href='B:310 1:21'>Lam 1:21</a>). But they were like Rachel who refused to be comforted, although the verses previous to that in Jeremiah 31 invite Israel to be not like Rachel but as the young woman who takes a tambourine and goes forth rejoicing in what God could do for her in restoring her. But they were willfully refusing the comfort of God’s repeated word of hope and restoration. They didn’t grasp the plain teaching of the prophetic word because they didn’t want to- it demanded too much of them, and a giving up of the comfortable Babylon life. Hence <a href='B:290 43:19'>Isa 43:19</a> laments: “I am doing a new thing: now it springs forth [in the decree to return to Zion?], do you not perceive it?”. And do we "not perceive it?" time and again in our own lives, as to the potentials God is opening up?</p>


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<p>Let all their wickedness come before You; do to them, as You have done to me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint- Jeremiah’s heart was "faint within me" both before (<a href='B:300 8:18'>Jer 8:18</a>) and after (<a href='B:310 1:22'>Lam 1:22</a>) the destruction of Jerusalem. He was so sure that the prophetic word would be fulfilled, that he even felt as if it had come true before it did. It was the heart of Judah which was faint (<a href='B:290 1:5'>Isa 1:5</a>), and Jeremiah identified totally with their feelings in sorrow with them. He eagerly asks God to judge the Babylonian confederacy for their sins. Yet there are many chapters in Jeremiah where he had prophesied that this would indeed happen, although as noted there, there was always an appeal and hope for their repentance. But Jeremiah is still at the stage of anger, with God and with any perceived instrument He had used:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, and hasn’t remembered His footstool in the day of His anger- It was Jeremiah who was angry (see on <a href='B:310 1:22'>Lam 1:22</a>). But he seems to transfer that anger onto God, and he implies that this Divine anger was too fierce and therefore unmerited. Despite having so often himself demonstrated why God’s anger was appropriate and deserved. He was focusing on just one part of the whole picture and obsessing about it. Which is typical depressive behaviour. The cloud between God and Israel was the cloud of their own sins. And Israel had used her "beauty" for prostitution and unfaithfulness to Him. Israel had refused to serve Him, preferring the service of idols and the Gentiles; and so they were hardly His footstool.</p>


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<h4>The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied- <a href='B:300 16:5'>Jer 16:5</a> had explained why God appeared to have withdrawn His pity. The reason was that God’s covenant, referred to as "kindness and mercy", was broken; they were not at peace with Him. And so they should not be pitied in their death. And yet although the covenant was broken by Israel, and God broke His side of it in response to that::. He in fact still treated them as His covenant people. This is not to say that God is not serious about His statements. He is; but His love, grace and pity is displayed as the more extraordinary, in that it leads Him to break the words and threats spoken in justifiable and understandable wrath. For the same Hebrew phrase "loving kindness and tender mercies" is used again by Jeremiah in <a href='B:310 3:22'>Lam 3:22</a>, where he reflects that these have not been withdrawn from God’s people, even though Zion is now in ruins. Again we see a progressive movement in Lamentations through the stages of grief, and towards an understanding that God does love and pity His people, but they had precluded the experience of this by refusing to repent. This is why the climax of the lamentations is in the confession of sin, wholeheartedly and without any self-justification, which we have in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>.</h4><p>He has thrown down in His wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground- Yet it was Jeremiah who had specifically "thrown down" Jerusalem and her fortifications through his prophetic word; see on <a href='B:300 1:10'>Jer 1:10</a>, where the same word is used. His lament is therefore at best an indication that like us, he failed to realize the huge potential in God’s word that he was preaching, and the eternal consequences which arise from someone hearing it.</p><h4>He has profaned the kingdom and its princes- But they had profaned themselves; and the princes were those who had conspired to kill Jeremiah (<a href='B:300 37:15'>Jer 37:15</a>; <a href='B:300 38:4'>Jer 38:4</a>; <a href='B:300 38:25'>Jer 38:25</a>; <a href='B:300 38:27'>Jer 38:27</a>) as they did other prophets (<a href='B:300 26:21'>Jer 26:21</a>). It is to Jeremiah’s spiritual credit that he did not rejoiceat all in the fall of his enemies but rather shared God’s broken heart for the lost and the evil.</h4>


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<h4>He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy- Jeremiah was willfully ignorant of the obvious truth of <a href='B:230 75:10'>Psa 75:10</a>: "I will cut off all the horns of the wicked, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up".</h4><h4>He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around- "Burned up" is used of how Babylon "consumed" Jerusalem with fire (<a href='B:160 2:3'>Neh 2:3</a>; <a href='B:160 2:13'>Neh 2:13</a> etc:). The people and their land were to be "consumed" by the fire which was contained in the words Jeremiah spoke (<a href='B:300 5:14'>Jer 5:14</a>; <a href='B:300 5:17'>Jer 5:17</a>). But all who devoured / consumed them would be "held guilty" (<a href='B:300 2:3'>Jer 2:3</a>; <a href='B:300 10:25'>Jer 10:25</a>; <a href='B:300 30:16'>Jer 30:16</a>). And yet in depression, Jeremiah lamented that the fire had consumed (<a href='B:310 2:3'>Lam 2:3</a>; <a href='B:310 4:11'>Lam 4:11</a>), when it was His owns words which had been that devouring fire. His lament was therefore tantamount to a statement of regret that he had been used as the vehicle for this devouring fire.</h4>


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<p>He has bent His bow like an enemy, He has stood with His right hand as an adversary, has killed all that were pleasant to the eye: in the tent of the daughter of Zion He has poured out His wrath like fire- see on <a href='B:310 3:13'>Lam 3:13</a>. Jeremiah appears now to be more angry with God than with the Babylonians, who had literally bent their bows and destroyed the temple. Jeremiah himself had been full of God’s wrath and had poured it out upon the people in his prophetic words (<a href='B:300 6:11'>Jer 6:11</a>). And now he apparently laments that, as if he was almost negating his own prophetic calling. It’s as if he had then been on God’s side, but was now too much on the side of his sinful people. What had once been deep within him he now as it were distances himself from.</p>


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<p>The Lord has become as an enemy, He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, He has destroyed his strongholds; He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation- The image of swallowing up portrays God as a beast, angry and judgmental upon His own people. It was the beast of Babylon who "swallowed up" Israel (<a href='B:300 51:34'>Jer 51:34</a> s:w:). The palaces, the great houses of the wealthy in Jerusalem, had been built on the back of abused labour, as Jeremiah had pointed out; and those houses were destroyed because offerings to idols had been made upon their roofs (<a href='B:300 19:13'>Jer 19:13</a>).</p>


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<h4>He has violently taken away His tent, as if it were just in a garden; He has destroyed His place of assembly: Yahweh has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion- This again is a very positive take on the gatherings held in the temple. Ezekiel was shown in vision how the priests and elders were solemnly worshipping idols within the temple. And so God said that He "hated" their "solemn assemblies" (s:w. <a href='B:290 1:14'>Isa 1:14</a>). Yet in depression, Jeremiah laments that these "solemn assemblies" were no more (<a href='B:310 1:4'>Lam 1:4</a>; <a href='B:310 2:6'>Lam 2:6</a>).</h4><h4>And has despised in the indignation of His anger the king and the priest- "Despise" is usually translated "provoke". Jeremiah was really hurt and provoked by the opposition of his family (<a href='B:300 23:17'>Jer 23:17</a>); and in that again he manifested Yahweh, who was likewise provoked by Israel (s:w. <a href='B:50 31:20'>Deu 31:20</a>; <a href='B:50 32:19'>Deu 32:19</a>). So Jeremiah seems to have forgotten all that and appears to object to God being provoked by His people; even though he had earlier lived out the same feelings of being provoked by the same group. Again we have the impression that now he is out of step with Yahweh, and yet even in this, he is manifesting the unreasonable pity of Yahweh for His condemned people.</h4>


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<h4>The Lord has cast off His altar, He has abhorred His sanctuary; He has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: they have made a noise in the house of Yahweh, as in the day of a solemn assembly- As explained on :6, the feasts and holy place had been abused by Judah. They had made it no longer a "sanctuary", a holy place, but rather a profane place. Jeremiah himself had made that point in his prophecies(e:g. <a href='B:300 7:11-14'>Jer 7:11-14</a>). But he chose, in his depression, to hold on to the old narrative, as we all do- in this case, that the temple site was holy space, and God had been wrong to allow the Gentiles to enter and profane it. But Isaiah as well as Jeremiah had often demonstrated that the holy place was within human hearts, and not any more to be understood in physical terms. Because the holy space had been made unholy by Israel. Jeremiah had taught in <a href='B:300 7:12'>Jer 7:12</a> and often that they were wrong to consider the temple a sacred space which somehow automatically preserved them from any prosecution for their sins. They had been reminded that God doesn’t operate sacred spaces like that. God’s earlier sacred space in Shiloh had been destroyed because of the wickedness of the people, and the Jerusalem temple was not going to be any different.</h4><h4>We note here and in :8 Jeremiah’s particular concern for the walls of the temple being destroyed, the wall of Zion (:8). But <a href='B:330 23:14'>Eze 23:14</a> says that they had used those walls to portray images of their idols. Jeremiah surely knew this. He was intent upon seeing just one aspect of a picture, repeating to himself a narrative which was seriously incomplete to the point of being wrong; and that was what his people were also doing.</h4>


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<h4>Yahweh has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion- The evil purposed need not have come about- if they repented. The "purpose" of God is therefore open ended and sensitive to human repentance. <a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a>; <a href='B:300 26:3'>Jer 26:3</a>; <a href='B:300 36:3'>Jer 36:3</a> use the same word to say that God will "repent of the evil that I purposed to do to them"- if they repented. They did not. And despite knowing all this, Jeremiah seems to lament the execution of the evil purposed.</h4><p>He has stretched out the line, He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying- "Not oppressed [the poor]" in <a href='B:330 18:17'>Eze 18:17</a> is literally ’to turn back the hand from’. God did not turn His hand back from destroying Jerusalem (<a href='B:310 2:8'>Lam 2:8</a> s:w:) because the people of Judah and those already in exile had not responded to Ezekiel’s call to ’turn back their hand’ from oppressing the poor. Their attitude to their poor brethren was to become God’s attitude to them. And that is taught by the Lord Jesus in His parables as being the principle by which we too shall be judged.</p><h4>He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together- The Biblical record contains a large number of references to the frequent tears of God’s people, both in bleeding hearts for other people, and in recognition of their own sin. And as we have seen, these things are related. Consider:</h4><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; “My eye pours out tears to God” [i:e. in repentance?] (<a href='B:220 16:20'>Job 16:20</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Isaiah drenches Moab with tears (<a href='B:290 16:9'>Isa 16:9</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Jeremiah is a fountain of tears for his people (<a href='B:300 9:1'>Jer 9:1</a>; <a href='B:310 2:8'>Lam 2:8</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; David’s eyes shed streams of tears for his sins (<a href='B:230 119:136'>Psa 119:136</a>; <a href='B:230 6:6'>Psa 6:6</a>; <a href='B:230 42:3'>Psa 42:3</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Jesus wept over Jerusalem (<a href='B:470 23:37'>Mat 23:37</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Blessed are those who weep (<a href='B:490 6:21'>Luk 6:21</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Mary washed the Lord’s feet with her tears (<a href='B:490 7:36-50'>Luk 7:36-50</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Paul wept for the Ephesians daily (<a href='B:510 20:19'>Act 20:19</a>; <a href='B:510 20:31'>Act 20:31</a>).</p><h4>We have to ask whether there are any tears, indeed any true emotion, in our walk with our Lord. Those who go through life with dry eyes are surely to be pitied. Surely, in the light of the above testimony, we are merely hiding behind a smokescreen if we excuse ourselves by thinking that we’re not the emotional type:&nbsp; Nobody can truly gothrough life humming to themselves “I am a rock, I am an island…and an island never cries”. The very emotional center of our lives must be touched. The tragedy of our sin, the urgency of the world’s salvation, the amazing potential provided and secured in the cross of Christ…surely we cannot be passive to these things. We live in a world where emotion and passion are decreasing. Being politically correct, looking right to others… these things are becoming of paramount importance in all levels of society. The passionless, postmodernist life can’t be for us, who have been moved and touched at our very core by the work and call and love of Christ to us. For us there must still be what Walter Brueggemann called “the gift of amazement”, that ability to feel and say “Wow!” to God’s grace and plan of salvation for us.</h4>


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<p>Her gates are sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; yes, her prophets find no vision from Yahweh- It was little use lamenting that Israel were now amongst those who didn’t live by Yahweh’s law; for they had despised that law, and broken it completely- bearing in mind that it was the marriage contract between God and themselves. The silence of Yahweh through the prophets is unsurprising. And yet God had spoken at length through Jeremiah as a prophet. But here he seems to mentally associate himself completely with the people in their unGodly self lamentation.</p>


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<p>The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, they keep silence; they have cast up dust on their heads; they have clothed themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground- see on <a href='B:220 2:12'>Job 2:12</a>. The elders here are of Zion rather than of Jerusalem, so perhaps the priesthood is in view. Jeremiah had frequently denounced them, and they had plotted his death. But now his heart bleeds for them- perhaps because as a priest he was related to them. Their grief for the loss of their temple was real enough. But they treated it as a mere talisman; Jeremiah had almost mocked their attachment to it earlier, in <a href='B:300 7:4'>Jer 7:4</a> Don’t trust in lying words by saying, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, are these". But now he feels so heartbroken for those who thought and felt like that. His identification at this time is completely with the people and not with the Divine, prophetic perspective. And yet it was this identification with them which led him to spurn the good life in Babylon and instead choose to live and die with the impenitent people in Egypt. We too are caught between our natural identification with humanity, and our knowledge of their sin and rejection of God’s ways.</p>


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<p>My eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; my liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city- This and :12 appear to refer to the sufferings of the people during the famine in the siege, which Jeremiah himself had prophesied several times. His ministry had begun with the assurance that his words would have the power of destruction; and he had been psychologically strengthened for that ministry. But now the reality of what he preached swamped him to the point of apparent regret he had had anything to do with this destruction. The obvious, glaring point is that the people had willfully ignored all his appeals for repentance, had despised God’s patience and grace- and so this had come because of that.</p>


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<p>They ask their mothers for grain and wine, whilst they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, with their soul poured out into their mothers’ bosom- We must remember that <a href='B:300 7:11'>Jer 7:11</a> and several times in Ezekiel have convicted the people of offering their children as sacrifices to idols in Yahweh’s temple. The tragic picture painted here of suffering children and distressed parents must be balanced by that fact; a society who allowed that to happen and trusted in those idols was now receiving an appropriate judgment. But Jeremiah struggles with this. He focuses on the narrative formed by his own gut reactions, rather than the prophetic word he had himself uttered.</p>


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<h4>What shall I testify to you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is great like the sea: who can heal you?- The broken earthen bottle which was smashed couldn’t be made whole again- apparently (<a href='B:300 19:11'>Jer 19:11</a>). But the miracle of grace was that like the useless burnt vine branch of Ezekiel 15 and the marred linen girdle buried by the Euphrates, the smashed bottle, like Ezekiel’s dry bones vision, could be made whole again. The stripes upon the suffering servant could ’heal’ Israel (s:w."made whole", <a href='B:290 53:5'>Isa 53:5</a>). Jeremiah had preached as much, that being made whole again was possible (<a href='B:300 3:22'>Jer 3:22</a>; <a href='B:300 30:17'>Jer 30:17</a>; <a href='B:300 33:6'>Jer 33:6</a> s:w:). The rhetorical question of <a href='B:310 2:13'>Lam 2:13</a>"Zion::. who can heal you / make you whole again?"(s:w:) had its answer in Yahweh. But we could read this as Jeremiah in depression appearing to have lost faith in the healing promised in <a href='B:300 30:13'>Jer 30:13</a>, for here he laments amongst the ruins of Jerusalem that Zion is without a healer.</h4><h4>Jeremiah earnestly wishes to comfort them, and is frustrated that he cannot- despite surely being aware of Isaiah’s prophecy that Yahweh would comfort Zion at the restoration (s:w. <a href='B:290 51:3'>Isa 51:3</a>; <a href='B:290 51:12'>Isa 51:12</a>"I, even I, am He that comforts you"; <a href='B:290 66:13'>Isa 66:13</a>"so will I comfort you"; <a href='B:290 40:1'>Isa 40:1</a>; <a href='B:290 49:13'>Isa 49:13</a>; <a href='B:290 52:9'>Isa 52:9</a>)."Comfort"is the same word as"repent"; and God had said that He would repent (s:w:) if Judah repented (<a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a>; <a href='B:300 26:3'>Jer 26:3</a>). The real problem was that Judah had not repented, and Jeremiah refused to factor that into his feelings; see on <a href='B:310 1:9'>Lam 1:9</a>.</h4>


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<h4>Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish visions; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity, but have seen for you false oracles and causes of banishment- There were many false prophets at the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel; when in fact the true word of prophecy could have ’turned away’ the captivity, if the exiles and the people left in Judah had responded to it (<a href='B:310 2:14'>Lam 2:14</a>). Indeed it could have been that Zedekiah returned as"the prince"of the restored kingdom; see on <a href='B:330 12:12'>Eze 12:12</a>. Ezekiel prophesied to the exiles in Babylon of what was going to happen to the Jews still in the land, exactly so that the exiles’ repentance might avert those in the land suffering further. An ameliorated program of judgment and events would have been possible if they had repented.</h4><p>This is one of many cases of self-justification in Lamentations (<a href='B:310 1:2'>Lam 1:2</a>; <a href='B:310 1:19'>Lam 1:19</a>; <a href='B:310 2:14'>Lam 2:14</a>; <a href='B:310 4:13'>Lam 4:13</a>; <a href='B:310 5:7'>Lam 5:7</a>), which contradicts the prophetic position, whereby blame is placed upon Judah, whereas now Jeremiah laments the situation as if Judah is being hard done by, with the masses suffering because of their false prophets- when Jeremiah himself has earlier said that the masses were as guilty as the false prophets, who only taught what the people wanted to hear.</p><h4>The whole exile and return need never have happened- the prophecies of this need not have come true in the way they did, for even before the Babylonian invasion, Judah had been offered the prospect of eternally remaining in their land, if they repented (<a href='B:300 7:7'>Jer 7:7</a>). And after it happened, Jeremiah commented: “Your prophets… did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity” (<a href='B:310 2:14'>Lam 2:14</a> NIV). It could have been ‘warded off’ by the peoples’ repentance. Note how Jeremiah, himself a prophet at the time, so wishes to take the blame upon himself for not&nbsp; pleading more powerfully with the people. Perhaps we will have similar feelings when the time of tribulation breaks forth in the very last days.</h4>


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<h4>All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem saying, Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole land?- Jeremiah had foretold this (<a href='B:300 19:8'>Jer 19:8</a>; <a href='B:300 22:8'>Jer 22:8</a>), but now he seems stunned to see it happen. And yet he was so certain of the fulfillments of the prophecies that he often speaks in the past tense of those things which were yet future. The hissing nd mocking was because Jerusalem had been praised in David’s psalms (e:g. <a href='B:230 48:2'>Psa 48:2</a>; <a href='B:230 50:2'>Psa 50:2</a>) as the joy of the whole earth and perfect in beauty. Those Psalms of David were well known; for David after the Bathsheba incident had vowed to preach the good news of Yahweh’s grace to the entire world. He had done so through his Psalms. His music ministry had been successful; the nations knew the songs about Zion being the joy of the whole earth and the perfection of beauty. And so they mocked it as it lay in ruins.</h4><h4>The Lord’s Bible mind would have found some sort of encouragement from those who mocked Him. For the Lord was so clearly bearing the judgment of Israel’s sins: “All who pass along the way clap their hands at you: they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem" (<a href='B:310 2:15'>Lam 2:15</a>). And note too <a href='B:300 48:27'>Jer 48:27</a> (LXX 31:27): “Is Israel a laughing stock? Was she caught between thieves that you wag your head?". This is exactly the Lord’s position, between thieves, and mocked- but by Israel. These prophecies imply it was the Gentiles who would mock Israel; thus by treating the Lord as they did, they declared themselves to be no longer God’s people but Gentiles.</h4>


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<p>All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it!- But Jeremiah earlier had portrayed these enemies as the"lovers"of Judah, to whom they had desperately prostituted themselves. They had sought their help against Babylon, making exclusive covenants with each of them, promising to worship their gods in the Jerusalem temple. And then the lovers realized that they were not the exclusive love of Judah, and therefore in anger turned against her and joined the Babylonians in destroying the temple which symbolized her adultery and unfaithfulness, both to God and man. But here again, Jeremiah is seeing things only from the perspective of what is immediately before his eyes; all he saw was these people as angry, exalting enemies. He shut his mind to the reasons why and the background. He is really a case study of man in depression.</p>


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<h4>Yahweh has done that which He purposed; He has fulfilled His word that He commanded in the days of old; He has thrown down, and has not pitied: He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you- The purpose of God to do these things had been expressed by Jeremiah himself. But he somehow distances himself from that, saying that this was stated"in the days of old". He imagines that it was the curses of Moses which were coming true. And that was long ago; and likewise he must have seen his own words of judgment as uttered as it were in another life, in olden days. He had forgotten his own prophetic mission.</h4><h4>He has exalted the horn of your adversaries-"Exalted"is the Hebrew word which forms part of the name"Jeremiah", ’Yah will exalt’. Jeremiah in depression is as it were mocking his own name, which he had assumed meant that Yahweh would finally exalt Israel, when now it seemed He was exalting her enemies. For"thrown down", see on :2.</h4>


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<h4>Their heart cried to the Lord: wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; give yourself no respite; don’t let the apple of your eye cease- Here we see a movement towards a more spiritual pole after the self absorption of the previous verses. But he doesn’t yet make explicit that the crying to the Lord should be in repentance, not simply for relief from present suffering. &nbsp;Jeremiah wanted his grief to be reflective of the grieving prayer of the remnant to their God: “Cry aloud to the Lord! O wall of daughter Zion! Let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!” (<a href='B:310 2:18'>Lam 2:18</a> RSV). His grief really was and is to be the pattern for others. Doubtless it influenced the Lord Himself, who wept over Zion (<a href='B:490 19:41'>Luk 19:41</a>), inevitably holding Jeremiah in His mind.</h4><p>Clearly there is an allusion to <a href='B:300 14:17'>Jer 14:17</a>"You shall say this word to them, Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease". This could be read as an invitation to repent in tears, in the desperate hope God may yet change His intended judgment; hence LXX"Let your eyes shed tears day and night, and let them not cease: for the daughter of my people has been sorely bruised, and her plague is very grievous". But there is an ambiguity in the text, whereby apparently God is the one who is mourning night and day. Perhaps this is purposeful; they were to mourn as He did, seeing the coming judgments from His perspective, rather than from the human perspective of considering them as just a tragic misfortune. Jeremiah himself entered into this, for he wept night and day for Zion. But here in <a href='B:310 2:18'>Lam 2:18</a>, Jeremiah appears to ask the remaining Jews in Jerusalem to pray night and day; and yet there too, the grammar is ambiguous. For he may be saying there that they had already done this. The truth was they had not, Jeremiah had done so, but contrary to what he hoped, God was not prepared to accept his tears of repentance and mourning as theirs (see on <a href='B:300 14:11'>Jer 14:11</a>).</p><h4>Isaiah had prophesied that God would not rest until Zion be restored. Watchmen would be set uponZion’s walls who would give Him no rest until the walls be rebuilt (<a href='B:290 62:1'>Isa 62:1</a>; <a href='B:290 62:6-7'>Isa 62:6-7</a>). At this time, Zion was felt by God to be the “apple of his eye” (<a href='B:450 2:8'>Zec 2:8</a>). This prophesy started to be fulfilled straight after the Babylonian invasion when Jeremiah urged the desolated people to pray: “O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease” (<a href='B:310 2:18'>Lam 2:18</a>). The prayerful remnant gave themselves no rest; and thus was fulfilled the prophecy that God would have no rest. Sincere prayer according to God’s will meant that there was a strange mutuality between the Father and those who prayed to Him. Both He and they considered Zion to be the apple of their eye; and thus the prayers were ultimately answered and Zion was restored.</h4>


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<h4>Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up your hands toward Him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street- Uplifted hands spoke of intense prayer. It is fitting that the Lord died with hands and arms lifted up above his head, rather than spread out in a crucifix form, seeing that uplifted hands is a symbol of God’s promises being confirmed (<a href='B:330 20:5-6'>Eze 20:5-6</a>; <a href='B:330 20:15'>Eze 20:15</a>; <a href='B:330 36:7'>Eze 36:7</a>; <a href='B:330 47:14'>Eze 47:14</a>), as well as intense prayer (<a href='B:310 2:19'>Lam 2:19</a>;&nbsp; <a href='B:610 2:8'>1Ti 2:8</a>;&nbsp; <a href='B:140 6:12-13'>2Ch 6:12-13</a>;&nbsp; <a href='B:230 28:2'>Psa 28:2</a>), which Christ was engaged in on the cross (<a href='B:650 5:7'>Heb 5:7</a>).</h4><h4>And yet the intense prayer was for the lives of their children, rather than in repentance. As the Lamentations progress, the desire to pray to God becomes more focused upon repentance, and comes to a climax at the very end in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>. Jeremiah had a lot to say about children in his prophecies, especially about the way the people offered their infants to the idols, and the way in which Zedekiah’s refusal to repent would lead to the suffering of innocent children. Although Jeremiah is getting ’warmer’ by appealing for prayer to God, he is still not asking for the repentance toward God which was so essential. But as the Lamentations progress, that will come.</h4>


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<p>Look, Yahweh, and see to whom You have done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?- This seems a placing of false guilt on God. The Jeremiah prophecies have repeatedly stated that judgment was really but an extension of the things they themselves did. They had offered their children to Gentile idols, and so their children would be slain by the Gentiles. The women were driven to eating their children in the famine, but they had earlier sacrificed their children to Baal. The prophets in view were the false prophets, who were responsible for teaching Judah to sin; and who had tried to murder Jeremiah. Jeremiah flips back into seeing things solely from the point of view of human tragedy, without factoring in all the background which he himself had been preaching for some years.</p>


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<p>The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: You have killed them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered, and not pitied- This had been the specific fate predicted by Jeremiah for their choosing to listen to false prophets rather than to him (<a href='B:300 14:16'>Jer 14:16</a>). But now the people were cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, Jeremiah, the true prophet, laments as if this judgment is somehow unreasonable. I feel that whilst the human tragedy was enough to make anybody cry"Too much!", Jeremiah is here out of step with the God who had inspired him to make just this prophecy in places like <a href='B:300 14:16'>Jer 14:16</a>.</p>


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<p>You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Yahweh’s anger: those that I have dandled and brought up has my enemy consumed- Perhaps Jeremiah lost his own children, hence his bitterness. But he could still be understood here as being totally identified with his own people, feeling their suffering as if it were his very own. Although in a sense he goes too far in this, his sense of identity with his sinful people is in another sense commendable. Seeing he had suffered so much from them and very nearly died at their hands, his love and identity toward them is a reflection of a truly spiritual heart. The terrors on every side were God’s judgments on the people for how they had treated Jeremiah. <a href='B:300 20:10'>Jer 20:10</a>"Terror everywhere (GNB) / on every side"is one meaning of"Magormissabib "in <a href='B:300 20:3'>Jer 20:3</a>. The terror to come upon Judah was partly because of their defamation of Jeremiah, who had spoken God’s word to them. And yet now it comes, Jeremiah feels that there are terrors around him on every side, so deep was his sense of identity with his people. See on :21.</p>


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<p>I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath- The same word is used of Judah’s affliction (<a href='B:310 1:3'>Lam 1:3</a>); he was setting himself up as Judah’s representative in the hope they too would pass through his pattern of depression, the stages of grief, and then repentance and begging for the restoration of the Kingdom which we find at the end in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>. See on <a href='B:310 1:1'>Lam 1:1</a>.</p>


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<p>He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light- <a href='B:310 2:21-22'>Lam 2:21-22</a> have revealed a peak of identity between Jeremiah and his sinful people, who had tried to murder him previously. Although he appears to go too far in justifying his people, his identity with his people reflected God’s identity with them even in their suffering for disobedience. Walking in darkness rather than light is the language of condemnation, and is used in John’s letters in that sense. He was identified with Israel even in their condemnation, and in this looks forward to the intensely representative work of the Lord Jesus.</p>


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<p>Surely against me He turns his hand again and again all the day- Jeremiah personalizes the suffering of Israel; he really felt he was the one being judged and condemned. See on :12.</p>


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<p>My flesh and my skin He has made old; He has broken my bones- What follows is based upon Jeremiah’s experience in the dungeon. But he seems to have reapplied those feelings to how he felt as the representative of God’s people in their condemnation and suffering at the hands of their invaders; see on :19. Just as his lamentations were originally written to lament the death of Josiah, but he has extended and reapplied them to his grief for Zedekiah and Jerusalem (<a href='B:140 35:25'>2Ch 35:25</a>). He applies his lament for himself in the dungeon to how he laments for himself as the subject of Divine condemnation at the hands of the Babylonians. Even though he was personally innocent and didn’t unduly suffer from the Babylonian invasion. In all this we have a window into the nature of the feelings of the Lord Jesus as He died on the cross, the death of a criminal, thereby tasting death for every sinful man- whilst personally innocent.</p>


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<h4>He has built against me, and surrounded me with gall and travail- Building against could refer to the building of bulwarks against the wall of Jerusalem (s:w. <a href='B:50 20:20'>Deu 20:20</a>), as if Jeremiah feels as if he is Jerusalem. But the same words are used of how Jeremiah had been given God’s word, in order to build against as well as destroy (<a href='B:300 1:10'>Jer 1:10</a>). He felt torn between identification with God’s word, and identification with his sinful people and his pity for them."Gall"was specifically the judgment for Israel’s sins (<a href='B:300 8:14'>Jer 8:14</a>; <a href='B:300 9:15'>Jer 9:15</a>) and for the false prophets (<a href='B:300 23:15'>Jer 23:15</a>)- the very ones who had plotted to murder Jeremiah. But now he identifies himself even with his worst enemies in pity for them.</h4><h4>Jeremiah’s deep identity with his people in their sinfulness and suffering for it all points forward to the Lord’s identity with us, bearing our nature and on the cross totally identifying with sinners. Therefore His sufferings on the cross have connections with the punishments for Israel’s sins (e:g. being offered gall to drink = <a href='B:300 8:14'>Jer 8:14</a>; <a href='B:310 3:5'>Lam 3:5</a>). Israel were temporarily forsaken by God because of their sins (<a href='B:290 49:14'>Isa 49:14</a>; <a href='B:290 54:7'>Isa 54:7</a>), and therefore so was Christ. Christ was chastened with the rod of men"and with the stripes of the children of men", i:e. Israel (<a href='B:290 53:5'>Isa 53:5</a>; <a href='B:670 2:24'>1Pe 2:24</a>; <a href='B:400 5:1'>Mic 5:1</a>), in His death on the cross.</h4>


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<p>He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead- And in this case, a priest like Jeremiah would feel ritually unclean and separated from God. It was the Lord’s intense identity with us as sinners which likewise led Him to genuinely feel forsaken by God (<a href='B:470 27:46'>Mat 27:46</a>). These feelings were in the first instance Jeremiah reworking his feelings when in the dungeon; see on :4. Perhaps that dark place felt like a tomb, and maybe dead bodies were thrown into it.</p>


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<p>He has walled me about, that I can’t go forth; He has made my chain heavy- Jeremiah was kept it seems in a cabin in the wall of the dungeon, and in chains. This would have been the basis for his feelings of being walled about. As he sees Judah going into captivity in chains, he recalled the time when he was in chains. Thus he reapplied his feelings in the dungeon to how he now felt as he saw Judah taken captive; see on :4.</p>


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<p>Yes, when I cry, and call for help, He shuts out my prayer- The only way to eat in the dungeon would have been to have food lowered down, and seeing the city was suffering famine, chances of survival were slim. The pit in which there was no water (<a href='B:300 38:6'>Jer 38:6</a>) would have reminded him of Joseph’s experience (<a href='B:10 37:24'>Gen 37:24</a>), and he may well have looked therefore towards some miraculous deliverance. His thoughts at this time are here in Lamentations 3, where he wrote in his mind a prayer or psalm about it, but now reapplies this to his feelings for Israel. But he felt his prayers were shut out by the covering placed upon the dungeon (<a href='B:310 3:8'>Lam 3:8</a>; <a href='B:310 3:53'>Lam 3:53</a>), and he was enclosed within hewn stone (<a href='B:310 3:9'>Lam 3:9</a>)- what the dungeon walls were made of. It was presumably a sewer, with excrement falling before his face. He therefore felt he was in a living death and burial, surrounded by gravel stones as if in a grave (<a href='B:310 3:16'>Lam 3:16</a>). His enemies mocked him from above (<a href='B:310 3:14'>Lam 3:14</a>), pouring water that was probably excrement upon him (<a href='B:310 3:54'>Lam 3:54</a>; as the dungeon was a sewer), his teeth were broken from the beating and perhaps from the descent into the dungeon (<a href='B:310 3:16'>Lam 3:16</a>), and he felt bitter with God rather than full of faith and hope in deliverance (<a href='B:310 3:15'>Lam 3:15</a>). But then his faith revived, reflecting how God had still not destroyed Judah by His great grace (<a href='B:310 3:22'>Lam 3:22</a>), and therefore every day he survived until morning he saw as God’s grace to him, in which he could hope (<a href='B:310 3:23'>Lam 3:23</a>). He realized he was Judah’s representative; for they too were to be sent forth from Babylon, the pit in which there was no water (<a href='B:450 9:11'>Zec 9:11</a>). And this gave him hope; just as God’s great grace to Israel historically should be basis for our hope. And so again we see his totally identity with Israel; God would not hear their prayers, having told Jeremiah not to pray to Him for them; and he feels that is true for himself personally, such was his identity with his people.</p>


text:
<p>He has walled up my ways with cut stone; He has made my paths crooked- The cut stone was what he would have remembered from being in the dungeon; see on :8. The Jews had made their own paths crooked or perverse (s:w. <a href='B:300 3:21'>Jer 3:21</a>; <a href='B:300 9:5'>Jer 9:5</a>). But now Jeremiah seems to blame God for their sin as well as the judgment for it; see in :11. This total taking of their side is in one sense wrong, but yet it indicates the amazing identity of the Lord Jesus and even God Himself with impenitent sinners. For at the exile, God’s heart bled for His sinful people, as Jeremiah’s did, despite their impenitence.</p>


text:
<p>He is to me like a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places- Babylon and the nations are portrayed as the beast waiting to pounce upon Judah in judgment. Jeremiah clearly sees that God is behind them, and appears more angry with God than he does with those Gentile nations. But he repeatedly refuses to see Israel’s sin as the root cause for all this. See on :46.</p>


text:
<h4>He has turned aside my ways- As in :9, Jeremiah blames God for their sins. He recognizes that Israel’s way had turned aside from God (s:w. ’revolted’ <a href='B:300 5:23'>Jer 5:23</a>; <a href='B:300 6:28'>Jer 6:28</a>; <a href='B:330 6:9'>Eze 6:9</a>), and he identifies with them in that, feeling he has personally turned aside. But he wrongly blames God for it. It is this nadir of spirituality which serves to highlight the wonderful climax of the book in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a> when he comes to total confession of sin and desire for restoration, taking full guilt for sin without blaming God or circumstance.</h4><h4>And pulled me in pieces; He has made me desolate- Continuing the likeness of Yahweh to a lion in :10. But Jeremiah was treated very well by the Babylonian lion; he was given preferential treatment and offered a good retirement package in Babylon. But he as it were ignores that, and focuses upon his identity with God’s people who had been torn apart by the lion.</h4>


text:
<p>He has bent His bow, and set me as a target for the arrow- Again as in :3, Jeremiah is intensely personalizing Judah’s suffering. He feels he himself is mere target practice for God, and is the sole target for God’s wrath; and yet as noted on :33, he does move on from this. This is typical depressive feeling; that the sufferer alone is suffering. And yet Jeremiah arrived in that position because of his deep identity with God’s people. Depression is at times caused by identification with others who are suffering; internalizing their situation can be a factor in personal depression. It was so with Jeremiah; and yet he comes to this position from a basic love for the people.</p>


text:
<h4>He has caused the shafts of His quiver to enter into my kidneys- Notice how Jeremiah’s bowels were turned for his people, because he felt that he had shared in their sin. The arrows of God entered into his kidneys, and this is why he so cried out in pain. But God’s arrows were against a sinful Judah (<a href='B:310 2:4'>Lam 2:4</a>). Yet Jeremiah so identified with them that he felt they had entered him; and this is why he could cry out in the way he did. Even though he hadn’t rebelled, he felt that because they had, so had he, as he was so identified with them. He reached such a level of grief through identifying himself so closely with those for whom he grieved. Time and again, the descriptions of his personal suffering and grief are expressed in the terms of the very sufferings which he had prophesied as coming upon a sinful Israel. And so with us, if we feel and show a willful solidarity with the people of this world, with our brethren, then we will grieve for them. If we maintain the selfish, modern detachedness from them, then we will never have a heart that bleeds for them. Jeremiah could so easily have shrugged his shoulders and reasoned that Judah had had their chance; and it wasn’t on his head. But he didn’t. His attitude was that he had to seek the sheep until he found it.</h4><p>There are intentional parallels between Jeremiah and Judah; he was their representative, as well as God’s representative to them; just like the Lord Jesus. Jeremiah was afflicted (<a href='B:310 1:9'>Lam 1:9</a>; <a href='B:310 3:1'>Lam 3:1</a>) as Judah (s:w. <a href='B:310 1:3'>Lam 1:3</a>; <a href='B:310 1:7'>Lam 1:7</a>); Built against (:5), as Jerusalem was “built against” by the invaders, <a href='B:300 52:4'>Jer 52:4</a>; he “Waxed old”, i:e. prematurely aged (:4), as the heavens and earth of Judah were to “wax old” (s:w:) and pass away (<a href='B:230 102:26'>Psa 102:26</a>; <a href='B:230 50:9'>Psa 50:9</a>; <a href='B:230 51:6'>Psa 51:6</a>). Jeremiah felt his prayers were not heard (:), as Judah’s weren’t. They “Hedged me about, that I cannot get out… inclosed my ways” (:7,9), just as Judah “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up [s:w:] your way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths” (<a href='B:350 2:6'>Hos 2:6</a>). “He was unto me as a bear” (:10), as “I will meet them as a bear” (<a href='B:350 13:8'>Hos 13:8</a>; <a href='B:370 5:19'>Amo 5:19</a>); and “As a lion”, as God was to Judah through the Babylonians (<a href='B:300 5:6'>Jer 5:6</a>; <a href='B:300 49:19'>Jer 49:19</a>; <a href='B:300 50:44'>Jer 50:44</a> etc:). God bent His bow against him (:12), as against Judah (<a href='B:310 2:4'>Lam 2:4</a> s:w:). “Mine affliction and my misery” (3:19) are the same words in <a href='B:310 1:7'>Lam 1:7</a> “her affliction… her miseries”. He drank gall (3:5,19), as Judah had to (<a href='B:300 8:14'>Jer 8:14</a>; <a href='B:300 9:15'>Jer 9:15</a>; <a href='B:300 23:15'>Jer 23:15</a>). There were none to comfort him (<a href='B:310 1:21'>Lam 1:21</a>), as none to comfort her (<a href='B:310 1:9'>Lam 1:9</a>). He bore a yoke (<a href='B:310 3:27'>Lam 3:27</a>), as Judah bore the yoke of condemnation by Babylon (<a href='B:300 27:8'>Jer 27:8</a>; <a href='B:300 27:12'>Jer 27:12</a>).</p><h4>And so Jeremiah feels that he himself has committed Israel’s sin along with them: “We have transgressed and have rebelled” (<a href='B:310 3:42'>Lam 3:42</a>). He feels that God will not hear his prayer (<a href='B:310 3:44'>Lam 3:44</a>), even though this was only true for the people and not for Jeremiah personally. In this he looks forward to how the Lord Himself genuinely felt forsaken by the Father, even though He Himself was never forsaken.</h4>


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<p>I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day- Jeremiah has been identified so closely with the people, as demonstrated throughout this commentary so far. But this is the more noteworthy because he achieves this even although that people mocked him continually. He loved those who mocked him, and loved to the point of total self-identification with them.</p>


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<p>He has filled me with bitterness, He has sated my thirst with wormwood- When in the dungeon, which is the basis for this chapter, Jeremiah was at the mercy of his tormentors for food and water. And they lowered down to him water with wormwood. The Lord too was offered such bitter drink on the cross.</p>


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<p>He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; He has covered me with ashes- This gives the impression of a living death, as if the ashes of the funeral pyre and the gravel of the grave had been poured upon his body. Jeremiah didn’t die, neither in the dungeon nor in the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem. But he felt as if he had. He thereby as it were"tasted death for every man"as did the Lord, so intense was his identification with his people (<a href='B:650 2:9'>Heb 2:9</a>).</p>


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<p>You have removed my soul far off from peace; I forgot prosperity- GNB"I have forgotten what health and peace and happiness are". Jeremiah had only known peace and prosperity before his prophetic call. So he seems to be complaining about and resenting his entire prophetic call.</p>


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<p>I said, My strength is perished, and my expectation from Yahweh- Jeremiah appears to be alluding to <a href='B:240 10:28'>Pro 10:28</a>; <a href='B:240 11:7'>Pro 11:7</a>, using the same Hebrew words as there; with the implication that he is now amongst the condemned, who are left without hope- in contrast to the righteous, whose hope doesn’t perish. He so identified with his condemned people that he absolutely felt a personal, condemned sinner; and perhaps there was something of that in the Lord’s desperate cry"Why have You forsakenme?"; see on <a href='B:470 27:46'>Mat 27:46</a>.</p>


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<p>Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall- See on :1. He had likely been given gall to drink as this was the punishment for false prophets (<a href='B:50 29:18'>Deu 29:18</a>; <a href='B:300 23:15'>Jer 23:15</a>). And yet in the judgment of Jerusalem, Jeremiah so pitied those who did this to him that he feels as if he has drunk the gall which they were to drink, such was his identity with them (see on :5). Thus he reapplied his dungeon experiences to his grief for Jerusalem; see on :4. GNB gives"homelessness"for"misery"; as if he felt his own uncertain residency, living temporarily at Gedaliah’s house, was a way of fellowshipping the homeless exiles. <a href='B:300 40:6'>Jer 40:6</a> observes:"Then went Jeremiah to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and lived with him among the people who were left in the land". It is repeatedly emphasized that Jeremiah"lived::. among the people". Even though he lived in Gedaliah’s house in relatively luxury, his living is described according to how Jeremiah perceived it- he lived"among the people"(also <a href='B:300 40:1'>Jer 40:1</a>; <a href='B:300 39:14'>Jer 39:14</a>). And this of course is an example to us, wherever our lot be cast. In this manner we from relative luxury and stability can fellowship and identify with those who are literally homeless and exiles.</p>


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<p>My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me- The referent of"them"is unclear. If the suggestion on :19 is correct, then it would refer to the homeless exiles, with whom Jeremiah identified through his far less radical homelessness. Or the reference could be to his former peace and prosperity noted on :17.</p>


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<p>This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope- The referent of"this"would seem to refer to the grace of Yahweh which he comments upon in :22. Jeremiah had previously been looking only negatively at what he"remembered"- a former life of peace and prosperity (:17,20). But now he recalls to mind Yahweh’s many graces toward him. And again we have a lesson here for us in depression. We can focus solely upon the past losses, the negatives; but we can also choose to remember all the past graces. We have some power over what we recall to mind. And Jeremiah, who had been saved from death in the dungeon and other plots on his life by divine grace alone, had many"graces"he could remember.</p>


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<p>It is because of Yahweh’s graces that we are not consumed, because His compassion doesn’t fail- See on :21. Jeremiah was commanded not to make lamentation for the punishment of his people (<a href='B:300 16:5'>Jer 16:5</a>). But he did, and God inspired the record of them in Lamentations, and because they are inspired words, He spoke through those words to all subsequent generations. The reason for this was that God’s covenant, referred to as"kindness and mercy"in <a href='B:300 16:5'>Jer 16:5</a>, was broken; they were not at peace with Him. And so they should not be pitied in their death. And yet although the covenant was broken by Israel, and God broke His side of it in response to that::. He in fact still treated them as His covenant people. This is not to say that God is not serious about His statements. He is; but His love, grace and pity is displayed as the more extraordinary, in that it leads Him to break the words and threats spoken in justifiable and understandable wrath. For the same Hebrew phrase"loving kindness and tender mercies"is used again by Jeremiah in <a href='B:310 3:22'>Lam 3:22</a>, where he reflects that these have not been withdrawn from God’s people, even though Zion is now in ruins. See on :39.</p>


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<p>They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness- The fact life goes on morning by morning is itself a huge example of God’s grace (:21) and faithfulness. In the dungeon, existence was a daily struggle. The fact Jeremiah was alive each morning was evidence to him of God’s grace, and he recalls this to mind and applies it to the suffering of Judah. The fact some of them remained alive was evidence enough of His faithfulness. Remember that in the context, Jeremiah has been accusing God of unreasonably rejecting him and Judah. But now he sees that whilst there is life, there is no simply hope- but also the actual experience of God’s faithfulness and grace every morning. See on :39.</p>


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<p>Yahweh is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in Him- Jeremiah was a priest, and the priesthood were promised that although they would have no"portion"or inheritance, yet Yahweh was their portion (s:w. <a href='B:40 18:20'>Num 18:20</a>; <a href='B:50 10:9'>Deu 10:9</a>). Jeremiah returns to his basic, core spirituality. He had lost his peace, stability and prosperity (:17). But he shouldn’t have focused on those things, because his relationship with Yahweh was his real portion. And he therefore had hope that in the restored kingdom, he would receive an eternal inheritance. Jeremiah was identified with Israel, and they were to be a nation of priests:They had lost their physical inheritance, so that they might become a nation of priests who had Yahweh as their inheritance. Here we see how the Father was working through their loss of their natural inheritance. And Jeremiah is emerging from his depression in appreciating this.</p>


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<p>Yahweh is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him- Jeremiah reflects that in the dungeon, he had waited for Yahweh, and been delivered. Instead of focusing solely upon the losses, the tragedy of the invasion::. he now turns towards the concept of waiting for Yahweh, and hoping in Him. But he confesses that the waiting and hoping will only be for the one who seeks Yahweh. Jeremiah is yet to come to the unconditional repentance which is the climax of the book in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>, but he is edging towards it by reflecting that the"hope"for those who"wait"for Yahweh is only for those who seek Yahweh. Isaiah’s prophecies of a restored Kingdom for the exiles were for those who"wait for Him"(s:w. <a href='B:290 40:31'>Isa 40:31</a>; <a href='B:290 49:23'>Isa 49:23</a>). And Jeremiah was surely aware of those prophecies.</p>


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<p>It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh- Jeremiah had so far in Lamentations been implying that he expected Yahweh to act immediately to save Judah from their tragedies. But now he recognizes that it is good to have to wait for that salvation. He still hasn’t stated clearly that Judah must repent, and their condemnation [from which they needed salvation] was solely due to their sins. But he is edging closer to it.</p>


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<p>It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth- Jeremiah realizes that his own sufferings had led him to wait and hope in Divine salvation, especially when he was in the dungeon awaiting death. And he realizes that his personal path must be Judah’s. He had literally carried a yoke in the acted parable of warning Judah to submit to the yoke of Babylon (<a href='B:300 27:2'>Jer 27:2</a>). And Judah were now themselves beneath that yoke, which was a figure of servitude to the Gentiles in <a href='B:300 2:20'>Jer 2:20</a>. And he realized that it had been spiritually"good"for him. So instead of lamenting the exile, he was beginning to see a long term purpose and blessing in it.</p>


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<h4>Let him sit alone and keep silence, because He has laid it on him- Jeremiah may have himself in view here. See on :27. He considers such sitting alone as"good". Earlier he had been rebuked for his attitude of resenting that he"sat alone"and had kept away from the"assembly"of the rejoicers (<a href='B:300 15:17'>Jer 15:17</a>; <a href='B:300 15:19'>Jer 15:19</a>); and so we are to assume that he had said these things in resentment that he had had to stand alone amongst men. He had resented how he"sat alone"; yet this is the very term used of how Jerusalem was to"sit alone [solitary]"(<a href='B:310 1:1'>Lam 1:1</a>). He was her representative, and yet he seems to have resented that. He was after all being representative of those who had hated him and tried to kill him. As Jeremiah wrongly lamented his own ’sitting alone’, so he ought to have perceived that he should not have lamented Jerusalem’s likewise. But now he seems to have learnt his lesson, and sees his aloneness as"good".</h4><h4>Jeremiah sat in silence in the ruins of Zion just as the condemned Jews were to (<a href='B:300 25:37'>Jer 25:37</a> s:w:), totally identified with his sinful and judged people, in response to how there was to be no funeral wailing for the dead but rather, silence (<a href='B:330 24:17'>Eze 24:17</a>).</h4>


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<p>Let him put his mouth in the dust, if so be that in this case there may be hope- Here Jeremiah edges closer towards the concept of repentance; for putting the mouth in the dust surely implies some regret. But GNB"We should bow in submission, for there may still be hope"would continue the allusion to the need to bear the yoke of the Babylonians in :27,28, and thereby come to the ultimate freedom of God’s restored Kingdom in Israel.</p>


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<p>Let him give his cheek to Him who strikes him; let him be filled full with reproach- Without yet appealing for unconditional repentance, Jeremiah edges yet further towards it. For to be smitten on the cheek was the sign of reproof for some kind of wrong doing; and he urges Judah to give their cheek to God to strike, and to allow themselves ["let him be::."] to filled with shame. For it was from this basis that they could come to a position of waiting for the Lord in hope. When the Lord Jesus was smitten on the cheek we see how He absorbed the spirit of these things.</p>


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<p>For the Lord will not cast off forever- Yahweh ’cast off’ Judah (<a href='B:300 12:7'>Jer 12:7</a>; <a href='B:300 23:33'>Jer 23:33</a>) but only because they had cast Him off (<a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a> s:w:). And yet God did not cast off His people (<a href='B:300 33:26'>Jer 33:26</a>); Jeremiah personally was persuaded that God would not cast off His people for ever (<a href='B:310 3:31'>Lam 3:31</a>). He will show them mercy as if He had not cast them off (<a href='B:450 10:6'>Zec 10:6</a>); this reversal of their casting off was to be through the repentance of the exiled community (<a href='B:30 26:44'>Lev 26:44</a>). But even this didn’t happen, and yet God still did not cast them away (<a href='B:520 11:2'>Rom 11:2</a>). His love and grace was such that He holds on to them. This desperate holding on to His people is seen in the experience of every person who joins God’s people through baptism into Christ. They may indeed be cast off ultimately, but that is because they cast Him off, and wrestled against His insistent desire to keep hold of them eternally.</p>


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<p>For though He cause grief, yet He will have compassion according to the multitude of His graces-"Grief"or ’to grieve’ here is the same word for in :33, where Jeremiah moves on from simply lamenting the"grief"to appreciate that this was not done willingly; and he now realizes that at best there is a paradox, in that God causes grief and yet at the same time is the God of all grace. And somehow His compassion will be revealed. Previously in the Lamentations, Jeremiah has seen only one part of the picture- the immediate suffering. But now he moves on to realize that there is another side to the dialectic, and that is God’s grace."Compassion"is the word used of what would be revealed when the exiled Israel repented and returned to God (s:w. <a href='B:50 30:3'>Deu 30:3</a>). Jeremiah is moving towards the conclusion that radical repentance is required to release that revelation of compassion.</p>


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<p>For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men- This is a marked improvement from his earlier tone of criticism toward God. He had earlier complained that God was but an archer, using him for His target practice (:12). But now he recognizes that the ever present ’gracious’ side of God means that we can never conclude that suffering is inflicted willfully by God nor in any merely capricious sense.</p>


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<p>To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth- Instead, the restoration prophecies speak of Yahweh’s releasing of the prisoners (s:w. <a href='B:450 9:11-12'>Zec 9:11-12</a>; <a href='B:230 68:6'>Psa 68:6</a>; <a href='B:230 69:33'>Psa 69:33</a>; <a href='B:230 79:11'>Psa 79:11</a>; <a href='B:230 102:20'>Psa 102:20</a>). And yet Judah were prisoners, and apparently crushed. But Jeremiah begins to see that this is not to be man’s last end. The prophecies of restoration, uttered by himself too, spoke of freedom for the prisoners. They were not to be always imprisoned, let alone crushed. Jeremiah is speaking here firstly of his own experience of prison- he had not been crushed there, but released. And his path was to be Israel’s. But this is not to say that exiles were not crushed; the word is used about their crushing in <a href='B:290 57:15'>Isa 57:15</a>. But Jeremiah was coming to see that this was part of a bigger picture. He had used the same word of how a repentant Judah would be humbled or crushed, and then the suffering would end (<a href='B:300 44:10'>Jer 44:10</a>). They were not willingly crushed nor need they remain crushed; for salvation and restoration was and is part of God’s essential purpose and personality.</p>


text:
<p>To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High- The idea is that when men come before God’s face to be judged, God will not pervert their"right"or ’sentence’. This is parallel with :36- God will not"condemn a man unjustly in his judgment"(LXX). Jeremiah is rapidly moving away from his depressive focus upon just one part of the picture- i:e. the immediate suffering before his eyes. He accepts that God is just and will not bring condemnation for the sake of His own ulterior motives. Jeremiah is also recognizing that all the suffering was a result of a judgment given by God- and it was a right judgment.</p>


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<p>To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve- LXX"condemn a man unjustly in his judgment". As explained on :35, Jeremiah is now realizing that the judgments which Judah were experiencing were just. God would never condemn unjustly.</p>


text:
<p>Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t command it?- The obvious complaint a reader would make to Jeremiah’s earlier lamentations, his complaining about the judgments, is that they had all been prophesied by none other than Jeremiah himself. He had almost disassociated himself from his prophetic past. But now he reflects that the evil being experienced had all been spoken by Yahweh ahead of time. It was all within a tightly controlled Divine program.</p>


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<p>Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?- As noted on :37, Jeremiah is now accepting what to us the readers is glaringly obvious- the tragedy he has been lamenting had all arisen from the prophetic words which he himself had spoken. The evil came from Yahweh’s mouth or word. And Jeremiah is driven to the same conclusion as the restoration prophecy of <a href='B:290 45:5-7'>Isa 45:5-7</a> - that both good and evil are alike from Yahweh. In his depressed state, he had seen only the evil as coming from Him. But now he starts to see a wider picture.</p>


text:
<p>Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?- He had learnt in the dungeon that just to be alive is a sign of God’s grace. And the more we appreciate and understand the function of our own bodies, the more we will likewise accept that our existence every moment is but by God’s grace. This has been the force of Jeremiah’s conclusions in :22,23. And so a living man should not complain. And Jeremiah moves again closer to the final truth he will arrive at in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>; here he recognizes that the judgment is a punishment for sin, and anyone left alive after it had no reason to complain about anything. This may be a helpful tool in coping with depression. The"living man"whom he challenges may well be himself.</p>


text:
<h4>Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh- I have argued that the book of Lamentations begins with Jeremiah bitterly complaining that God is as good as dead (see on <a href='B:310 1:1'>Lam 1:1</a>), with him looking solely at the tragedy before his eyes, and progresses to a climax of unconditional repentance in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>. But the progression is a jagged graph. There are increasingly points at which he does recognize that the sufferings are directly due to Judah’s sins, he increasingly sees that there is a future hope and the God of judgment is also a God of grace. And he vaguely implies that repentance is needed, but always quickly returns to accusing God of unreasonable behaviour. And now in these verses he does speak clearly of the need for repentance. But his appeal for repentance here is still tinged with a cynicism, that God will not hear and has not listened (:42), and that He still lacks pity (:43), and has put a barrier between human prayer and His response (:44). Jeremiah has yet to come to the appeal for unconditional repentance with which the book climaxes.</h4><h4>And so in likely allusion to the descriptions of God searching and trying our hearts in the Psalms, Jeremiah says that Judah should"search and try our hearts"- we should seek to know ourselves as God does. David’s invitations to God to search and try him (<a href='B:230 17:3'>Psa 17:3</a>; <a href='B:230 26:2'>Psa 26:2</a>; Psalms 139; Psalms 23) imply he has done so himself (cp. <a href='B:230 77:6'>Psa 77:6</a>). God now searches and tries the hearts, and will [at judgment day] give every man as his work shall be (<a href='B:300 17:10'>Jer 17:10</a> cp. <a href='B:730 22:12'>Rev 22:12</a>). The spirit of man is [i:e. is intended to be] the candle which God also uses for His examination of men (<a href='B:240 20:27'>Pro 20:27</a>); there is thus a link intended between our self-examination and the way God looks at us. His judgment must be ours. As sin is condemned by Him, so we should examine ourselves to the point of self-condemnation.</h4>


text:
<p>Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens- As noted on :40, this appeal for repentance is still far from unconditional. Sacrifice was now impossible because the temple had been destroyed. But as a priest, Jeremiah surely had in view how that instead of ’lifting up’ the heave offerings of animal sacrifice, the people were instead to grab hold of their own hearts and lift them up to God, and they could lift them as high as heaven. This is surely consciously alluding to how David realized that sacrifice and offering was not what God was essentially looking for, but rather broken, repentant and contrite hearts (<a href='B:230 51:16-17'>Psa 51:16-17</a>) We marvel at how God worked through the loss of the temple to bring His people more fully to Himself.</p>


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<p>We have transgressed and have rebelled; You have not pardoned- As noted on :40, this apparent appeal for repentance is tinged with the self- justification which robs ’repentance’ of its real power. To say ’OK let’s repent, OK we sinned::. but God, You didn’t forgive us, and so [by implication] all this grief came upon us unfairly’::. is to miss the point. Repentance axiomatically requires a declaration that God is right and we are wrong, our sin is inexcusable, His judgment is right, and only by utter grace can we now be saved. David learnt all this very well at the time of his great repentance. Jeremiah has alluded to it in theory (see on :41), but he is still far from grasping the real spirit of David. And our repentance is often so similar. It’s why repentance in practice seems to end up a process, rather than the one time act that it is intended to be.</p>


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<p>You have covered with anger and pursued us; You have killed, You have not pitied- See on :40,42. Jeremiah is appealing for repentance, but goes straight on to accuse God of being a pitiless murderer. The word for"pitied"is used in a word play in <a href='B:140 36:15'>2Ch 36:15</a>; <a href='B:140 36:17'>2Ch 36:17</a>. God had pitied His people by patiently sending prophets like Jeremiah to them. But because they despised that pity, they didn’t want it, He sent upon them the Babylonians who did not pity them. And so in <a href='B:300 15:5'>Jer 15:5</a>, Jeremiah had asked the rhetorical question:"For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem?". And the answer was, only Yahweh. But now Jeremiah has slipped back to seeing only part of the picture, focusing on the tragedy before his eyes; and this refusal to see a bigger picture leads him to charge God wrongly with being pitiless. When Yahweh’s pity is one of the most recurrent themes of His self revelation. Truly God had threatened in <a href='B:330 5:11'>Eze 5:11</a>:"Neither shall My eye spare, and I also will have no pity". But the wonder of God’s grace was that His eye did spare and He did pity at the restoration (<a href='B:330 36:21'>Eze 36:21</a>; <a href='B:360 2:18'>Joe 2:18</a>; <a href='B:460 3:17'>Mal 3:17</a> s:w:), just as His eye had spared them in the desert (<a href='B:330 20:17'>Eze 20:17</a>). This reveals the emotion of God, His pity even for the spiritually weak, and how this triumphs over His judgment.</p>


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<p>You have covered Yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through- As explained on :40, here and in :43 Jeremiah seems to be tingeing his appeal for repentance with the thought that God had cut Himself off from His people, and placed a barrier between Him and them through which repentance couldn’t pass. This all sets the scene for the final unconditional confession and appeal for repentance and restoration by grace which we have at the end of the book in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>. Here Jeremiah appears to be almost sarcastic; the cloud of incense from the incense altar, which as a priest he was familiar with, represented prayer (<a href='B:730 8:3-4'>Rev 8:3-4</a>). But Jeremiah is saying that this cloud has been used by God as a barrier through which prayer could not pass. So his appeal for repentance in :40,41 is far from absolute.</p>


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<p>You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the nations- Paul alludes to this in <a href='B:530 4:13'>1Co 4:13</a>, where he says that God made him and the apostles like this to"the nations"to whom they preached; and yet more specifically, Paul considers that they were off-scouring and refuse in the eyes of the Jews. It’s as if he realized that Jeremiah was not quite correct here; for Israel had made themselves to be despised amongst the nations, to whom they had prostituted themselves. And so Paul is saying that the Gentile"nations"are as the Jews, and the true Jews are prophets like himself, the true and spiritual Israel.</p>


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<p>All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us- Jeremiah likens the Gentiles to a devouring beast, and yet He has called God just that (:10). He sees God as making Himself gross, in that He was manifest through those nations. And that is a deeply unfair take on the whole situation. Again, Jeremiah has slipped back to seeing only one aspect of the picture. As with Job, God may well have cut him some slack in this because he was reasoning as someone who is the parade example of a man in depression.</p>


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<h4>Fear and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction- Jeremiah initially wrote the lamentation of chapter 3 concerning his own enclosure in the pit / dungeon, in fear for his life. And yet he now reuses the material concerning Israel, his people with whom he was soidentified; and yet apparently forgetting that he had been revived from that pit by grace.</h4><h4><a href='B:300 48:44'>Jer 48:44</a>; <a href='B:300 49:5'>Jer 49:5</a> describe condemnation as fear being brought upon people (as <a href='B:220 3:25'>Job 3:25</a>; <a href='B:240 1:27'>Pro 1:27</a>), and <a href='B:290 24:18'>Isa 24:18</a> and other passages speak of the condemned fleeing from “the noise of the fear”. “The fear” is almost a way of saying ‘the judgment of God’ (<a href='B:310 3:47'>Lam 3:47</a>). The torment of the rejected will be their fear (<a href='B:690 4:18'>1Jn 4:18</a>). Psychologically, we need to get in touch with our own fears now, face our fears of condemnation eye to eye, and work through them- in repenting and coming to believe firmly in God’s gracious acceptance, living in the spirit of the true love which casts out fear. I know men and women who knew God and walked with the Lord, but now say ‘it means nothing to me’. They shrug when I nervously mention to them the reality of judgment to come- and I’m not very bold at bringing the conversations around to that issue, because it is just so fearsome and of such magnitude. They tell me that they’re indifferent. But somewhere deep within them, no matter what good actors they are before the stage of our human eyes, there has to be a deep and awful fear. And it is that fear which will be revealed and which will grip them in that final day. Perhaps the greatest mental torment of the rejected will be realizing how they could have been in the Kingdom of God; they will then perceive how great was the potential which they had had in the brief years of their mortality.</h4>


text:
<p>My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people- What he saw with his eye affected his mind / heart (:51). Let us not see the doom of others, the pain and suffering of another life, and walk on by not permanently moved. What we see should affect our heart- if we have a heart that bleeds. And a bleeding heart doesn’t merely bleed- it does something concrete, in prayer and action. Consider other examples of the bleeding heart of Jeremiah: “Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth [“my stomach is in knots”, the Net Bible], for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city” (<a href='B:310 2:11'>Lam 2:11</a>). “For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water… my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled” (<a href='B:310 1:16'>Lam 1:16</a>; <a href='B:310 1:20'>Lam 1:20</a>). And this is the more impressive when we recall that it was his own people who had tried to murder him, and very nearly succeeded when he was cast into the dungeon. In this he reflects the amazing love of God for His people.</p>


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<p>My eye pours down, and doesn’t cease, without any intermission- He considers his tears to be his prayer to God, begging for intervention (:50). God often considers our situation and feelings to be our prayer of intercession. Otherwise, the acceptability of prayer would simply be a reflection of our ability to verbalize. And some are better at this than others. His lack of"intermission"is alluding to the appeal of <a href='B:290 62:7'>Isa 62:7</a> to give God no rest until He reestablish Jerusalem. But again he is pleading a Scripture without attention to the wider context- which is that the reestablishment would come when Judah returned to their God. And then they would be returned to their land and Zion would return to her glory. Jeremiah has so often made this point in his prophecies, repeatedly playing on the word shub, to return / repent.</p>


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<p>Until Yahweh look down, and see from heaven- The aspect of repentance is still missing from all this emotional appeal to God. At this stage, Jeremiah is still asking God to respond to the tragedy simply for the sake of the tragedy. See on :49.</p>


text:
<p>My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city- What he saw with his eye affected his mind / heart. Let us not see the doom of others, the pain and suffering of another life, and walk on by not permanently moved. What we see should affect our heart- if we have a heart that bleeds.</p>


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<p>They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause- Jeremiah now reuses material from a previous composition about his feelings in the dungeon, but reapplies those feelings to suffering Israel with whom he so identified. Those who had chased Jeremiah without cause were the Jews. And now he parallels those Jews with the Babylonians, and himself with the Jews. He ought to have perceived that in fact the Jews who had so persecuted him were but receiving the same judgment which they had passed upon him. But he didn’t want to see that, because he in the end had a heart of love for his people; and that love manifested itself in a sense of identity with them. See on :66.</p>


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<p>They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me- See on :52. The rest of this lamentation directly concerns Jeremiah’s experience in the dungeon, where he experienced a living death. His point is that he now saw those experiences as those of Judah; he identified with them even in their death. And thus he points forward to the Lord Jesus, who by God’s grace tasted the death of a sinner for every sinful person; and yet was like Jeremiah resurrected from it and was personally innocent of their sins.</p>


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<p>Waters flowed over my head; I said, I am cut off- Jeremiah in the dungeon felt as if he was dead; see on :54. His enemies mocked him from above (<a href='B:310 3:14'>Lam 3:14</a>), pouring water that was probably excrement upon him, as the dungeon was a sewer.</p>


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<p>I called on Your name, Yahweh, out of the lowest dungeon- The implication was that as Jeremiah had called upon Yahweh and been saved from the dungeon, so should Judah. But still Jeremiah is begging for divine intervention simply on the basis that the people were in dire straits. Still he is not emphasizing the need for unconditional repentance, and that was what would lead to the deliverance and restoration he so hoped for.</p>


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<p>You heard my voice; don’t hide Your ear at my breathing, at my cry- This implies that Jeremiah was literally about to die, or he felt he was; and his last breaths were in prayer. And he wished Judah to pray likewise; although still in the analogy, there is no place for their repentance, which was so critical.</p>


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<p>You drew near in the day that I called on You; You said, Don’t be afraid- We don’t know whether or not Jeremiah heard a literal voice telling him not to be afraid; perhaps the voice of Yahweh was manifest in the voice of Ebedmelech, who would have removed the stone and called down to Jeremiah"Don’t be afraid!". But Jeremiah is now seeing this as hopefully representative of the restoration prophecies which assured Jacob not to fear, because they would be restored (<a href='B:290 43:1'>Isa 43:1</a>; <a href='B:300 30:10'>Jer 30:10</a>). And likewise Yahweh would ’draw near’ to the restored Judah (s:w. <a href='B:300 30:21'>Jer 30:21</a>).</p>


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<p>Lord, You have pleaded the causes of my soul; You have redeemed my life- Jeremiah understood his prayer as having entered the court of heaven, although it was offered from the absolutely lowest point; death by thirst and starvation in a deep sewer. And there in heaven, his case was judged, and the decision given to redeem his life from that living death. And so Ebedmelech was motivated by God to rescue him. And Jeremiah clearly thought this was possible for Judah, if they likewise prayed. But he is carefully omitting the factor of repentance, which was so critical for Judah.</p>


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<p>Yahweh, You have seen my wrong. Judge my cause- Jeremiah was the innocent suffering wrongfully, and he could rightly ask Yahweh to judge his case and deliver him by doing justice rightly. But the analogy with Judah breaks down; because they needed to repent, and were suffering less than their iniquities deserved, but rightfully. See on :58.</p>


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<p>You have seen all their vengeance and all their devices against me- The motive for Jeremiah’s persecution and consignment to death was a wrongful desire for revenge because he had faithfully spoken God’s word. But the situation of Judah was not analogous, because they were being judged for their"devices"against God (s:w. <a href='B:300 6:19'>Jer 6:19</a>). Jeremiah had asked to see Divine"vengeance"upon the Jews who threw him into the dungeon (s:w. <a href='B:300 11:20'>Jer 11:20</a>). But now he did see it, and his prayer was answered, he likes to change around the analogy; Babylon was taking vengeance upon Judah wrongfully, so he implied; and he asks God to take note of that and change things. But his appeal for ’right’ to be done by reversing the Babylonian victory is misplaced- only repentance and throwing themselves upon grace rather than any concept of vengeance could change things.</p>


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<p>You have heardtheir reproach, Yahweh, and all their devices against me- Jeremiah had prayed that the Jews would suffer Divine vengeance for reproaching him (s:w. <a href='B:300 15:15'>Jer 15:15</a>). But now he is asking for God to revenge the Babylonians for reproaching those same Jews. As explained on :60, his appeal for ’right’ to be done by reversing the Babylonian victory is misplaced- only repentance and throwing themselves upon grace rather than any concept of vengeance could change things. The reproach against Israel was to be"everlasting"(s:w. <a href='B:300 23:40'>Jer 23:40</a>). Only a desperate, repentant appeal to God’s grace could change that, and not until <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a> does Jeremiah finally advocate such an appeal.</p>


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<p>The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day- God not only heard the words spoken against Jeremiah, He even observed the lips of those who framed those words. This is how intensely He is sensitive to words; but see on :60,61.</p>


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<p>You see their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their song- As noted on :62, God sees the lips of those who speak hard things, just as He sees the fingers which tap them on keyboards today. And He watched their sitting down and rising up, their body language. This is His sensitivity to His people, and Jeremiah is asking that God be likewise sensitive to the sufferings of Judah; but see on :60,61.</p>


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<p>You will render to them a recompense, Yahweh, according to the work of their hands- These are the words of <a href='B:360 3:4'>Joe 3:4</a>; <a href='B:360 3:7'>Joe 3:7</a>; <a href='B:380 1:15'>Oba 1:15</a> about the works of Judah’s enemies being rendered back to them. Jeremiah had prayed for this to be done to Israel; but now he asks for this policy to be applied to Israel’s enemies. But see on :60,61. The truth was that Jeremiah had prayed for a recompense upon the Jews, and that was now happening before his eyes. And he was in vain seeking to backtrack and change things.</p>


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<p>You will give them hardness of heart, Your curse to them- This is yet more evidence that God can work directly upon the human heart, even in response to the prayers of others for that. The climax of Jeremiah’s imprecations against Israel was that they would be given hard hearts, and receive the curses for breaking the covenant. And indeed his prayer was heard. But now he was desperately trying (albeit in vain) to have his prayer reapplied to the enemies of Israel.</p>


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<p>You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Yahweh- Yet Jeremiah in :43 has just complained that God had pursued His people at the hands of the Babylonians. Now Jeremiah’s imprecation, uttered in the dungeon, had come true::. he bitterly regretted it and resented God doing what he had asked. The lesson clearly is to be careful what we pray for, lest it come true. To be destroyed from under the heavens is what God wanted to do to Israel for their idolatry, meaning to disown them as His people (s:w. <a href='B:50 9:14'>Deu 9:14</a>). That is what Jeremiah had prayed for his people when he was in the dungeon, and indeed they had broken the covenant and the curses for that were coming upon them (:65).</p>


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<p>How the gold has become dim! The most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street- Gold by its nature is supposed not to tarnish; the precious stones in the sanctuary (presumably referring to those in the breastplate) were likewise supposed to be valued by their very nature, and not just poured out at the head of every street. The idea is that what was thought to have been inviolate, the temple, had been violated. The precious stones are parallel with the precious sons of Zion (:2), who were perishing at the head of every street (<a href='B:310 2:19'>Lam 2:19</a>). The false prophets had taught that Jerusalem would not fall because God would never give up Zion. And it seems Jeremiah now laments that indeed the apparently inviolate had been violated. Again he appears to be identifying too strongly, or in an inappropriate manner, with his sinful people. For he was overlooking the fact that"at the head of every street"there had been idols (<a href='B:330 16:24'>Eze 16:24</a>; <a href='B:330 16:31'>Eze 16:31</a>) and little sanctuaries for them. And now their children were perishing in those very same places. The appeal needed to be for repentance, but instead Jeremiah is still focusing totally upon the tragedy before him and lamenting it; without&nbsp; considering the bigger picture as to why it was happening.</p>


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<h4>The precious sons of Zion- There is a connection with how earlier God had told Jeremiah He would reject him, unless he brought out the precious from among the base (see on <a href='B:300 15:19'>Jer 15:19</a>). And this he apparently failed to do, and so he laments it. See on :1.</h4><h4>Comparable to fine gold, how are they nowesteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!-"Potter"translates the same word Jeremiah has used of how God as the potter or former has formed Israel in order to do His work (<a href='B:300 18:2-6'>Jer 18:2-6</a>; <a href='B:300 18:11'>Jer 18:11</a>; <a href='B:300 19:1'>Jer 19:1</a>; <a href='B:300 19:11'>Jer 19:11</a>; <a href='B:300 33:2'>Jer 33:2</a>). According to Jeremiah’s own parables, those who didn’t respond to the potter’s hands were to be broken. But now Jeremiah seems to object to this happening to Israel.</h4>


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<p>Even the jackals draw out the breast, they nurse their young ones: the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness- The idea is that the mothers had become apparently cruel and uncaring for their children, because the famine and thirst had led to them being unable to provide breast milk for their own children. Jeremiah seems to imply that this is an untenable situation for God to tolerate, since even the wild animals are able to feed their young. Again, as explained on :1, in his depression he is focusing upon just one aspect of a complex picture; and willfully overlooking the fact that these same women had sacrificed their children to Baal, and were the very ones who stubbornly claimed that worshipping the queen of heaven was preferable to Yahweh worship (see on <a href='B:300 7:18'>Jer 7:18</a>; <a href='B:300 44:17'>Jer 44:17</a>).</p>


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<p>The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaks it to them- See on :3. ’Breaking bread’ or ’eating bread’ is simply an idiom for sharing in a meal (<a href='B:290 58:7'>Isa 58:7</a>; <a href='B:300 16:7'>Jer 16:7</a>; <a href='B:310 4:4'>Lam 4:4</a>; <a href='B:330 17:7'>Eze 17:7</a>; <a href='B:330 24:17'>Eze 24:17</a>; <a href='B:350 9:4'>Hos 9:4</a>; <a href='B:50 26:14'>Deu 26:14</a>; <a href='B:220 42:11'>Job 42:11</a>). ’Bread’ is used for any food, just as ’salt’ is used in the same way in Arabic. The way the Lord broke His bread with sinners, with anyone, is therefore evidence enough that the ’breaking of bread’ is inclusive and not exclusive.</p>


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<p>Those who fed delicately are desolate in the streets: those who were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills- Jeremiah seemed to find it especially tragic that the royal family [once"in scarlet", the colour of royalty] and the formerly wealthy were so desolate. But these were the very classes whom he had singled out for particular condemnation in his earlier prophecies. Now those prophecies had come true, he seems to almost resent it. We notice the connection with Job losing his wealth and sitting in dunghills- he was representative of Judah, and it seems his story was rewritten under inspiration during the exile to make it relevant for them. But his captivity was turned when he repented without reservation; and that is the critical factor Jeremiah only fully accepts at the end of Lamentations.</p>


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<p>For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were laid on her- The idea is that Sodom perished in an instant and not at the hands of cruel people. Jeremiah laments this- as if implying that he considered Jerusalem’s sin to have been less than Sodom’s, but her punishment was greater. And yet <a href='B:330 16:48'>Eze 16:48</a>, which was a contemporary prophecy which Jeremiah likely knew, states clearly that Judah sinned far more than Sodom. Jeremiah had commented in <a href='B:300 23:14'>Jer 23:14</a> that God considered Jerusalem as Sodom. But now he appears quite out of step with God’s assessment; because he simply will not adequately factor in Judah’s sin and need for penitence.</p>


text:
<p>Her nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire- Yet it was the nobles whom Jeremiah had singled out for particular condemnation. They were not at all snow white in God’s eyes; that could only come through repentance (Is 1:18). But Jeremiah likes to think they were like this despite their impenitence. AV and some manuscripts read"Nazirites". In this case, Jeremiah would be alluding to the idea that those who kept the Nazirite vow experienced great blessing in their health and bodily appearance; and Jeremiah laments that this is now not the case. And yet Daniel and his friends appeared more healthy than the other Jews because they refused to eat food and drink wine that had been part of idol worship; whereas it seems that Jerusalem and its religious classes at Jeremiah’s time were almost wholly given over to idolatry. Jeremiah’s path from thinking God was effectively dead (see on <a href='B:300 1:1'>Jer 1:1</a>) to the total repentance at the end of Lamentations 5 was not a smooth journey; it was a jagged graph. In <a href='B:310 3:40-42'>Lam 3:40-42</a> (see notes there) he has come to a very limited idea of the need for repentance, but now he has slipped back to being out of step with God because of his depressive insistence upon seeing only the immediate issues which were before his eyes, i:e. the suffering in judgment of God’s people.</p>


text:
<p>Their appearance is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin clings to their bones; it is withered, it has become like a stick- See on :7. This appears to speak of the situation during the famine which occurred during the siege- and this death by famine had been predicted by Jeremiah. This implies that Jeremiah was having these thoughts during the siege; for he speaks of the nobles suffering like this (:7), and it was they who were either slain or carried into exile once the city fell. So Lamentations provides us with another perspective upon the Jeremiah we meet in the book of Jeremiah, who appears to bravely speak God’s word and adopt His perspective. The reality is that at the same time, he was deeply struggling with the words he was teaching, and more than questioning some of it.</p>


text:
<p>Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field- The present tenses suggest Jeremiah was composing this lamentation as he observed (or heard about in prison) the effects of the famine during the siege; see on :8."The fruits of the field"would only be restored once Judah repented and entered a new covenant with God (s:w. <a href='B:330 36:30'>Eze 36:30</a>). But Jeremiah appears to think that they had a right to those fruits anyway, without that repentance.</p>


text:
<p>The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people- Jeremiah earlier had had much to say in condemnation of the women of Jerusalem, who had offered their own children to the idols, and who both before and after the siege insisted on worshipping the queen of heaven in preference to Yahweh (see on <a href='B:300 7:18'>Jer 7:18</a>; <a href='B:300 44:17'>Jer 44:17</a>).</p>


text:
<h4>Yahweh has accomplished His wrath, He has poured out His fierce anger; He has kindled a fire in Zion, which has devoured its foundations- The complaint that the foundations had been destroyed, when fire would typically only burn the edges and surface of a city wall, suggests Jeremiah is at a low ebb of faith that there could ever be restoration.</h4><h4>Both Yahweh and Israel are described as kindling the fire of judgment; He responded to what they had done (<a href='B:300 11:16'>Jer 11:16</a>; <a href='B:300 15:14'>Jer 15:14</a>; <a href='B:310 4:11'>Lam 4:11</a> cp. <a href='B:300 17:4'>Jer 17:4</a>). Likewise as they had kindled fire on their roofs in offering sacrifices to Baal, so Yahweh through the Babylonians would set fire to those same houses (<a href='B:300 32:29'>Jer 32:29</a>). Thus Israel were the ones who had kindled the fire of Yahweh’s condemnation (<a href='B:300 17:4'>Jer 17:4</a>).</h4>


text:
<p>The kings of the land didn’t believe, neither all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem- The fortifications of Jerusalem were apparently legendary; and indeed it took the might of Babylon 18 months to breach them. But the great prophetic theme is that all human strength is to be brought down by Divine judgment. We note that the eretz, the land promised to Abraham, is effectively"the world"from the perspective of the prophets. The prophets have little to say about the rest of the planet- including Russia and the Anglo-Saxon world.</p>


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<h4>It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her- As often noted, Jeremiah’s path is a jagged graph- through depression to the final confession of sin without reservation at the end of Lamentations. Having been very insistent so far in this chapter that Jerusalem is suffering unfairly, and the suffering of her priests and leadership is particularly tragic, Jeremiah now does bluntly recognize that all this has happened because of their sins. They had tried to shed his blood, and had succeeded in killing other prophets. They had shed the blood of children and other animal sacrifices- and the false prophets and priests who taught their false words were directly responsible for this.</h4><h4>And yet perhaps even these words of Jeremiah somewhat contradict the prophetic position, whereby blame was placed upon all Judah, every part of society; whereas now Jeremiah laments the situation as if Judah is being hard done by, suffering for the sins of the leadership:&nbsp;The blame is being unfairly placed by him just upon the priests and prophets; whereas Jeremiah himself has earlier stated that all Judah must carry the blame (see on <a href='B:300 17:20'>Jer 17:20</a>; <a href='B:300 22:2'>Jer 22:2</a>; <a href='B:300 25:5'>Jer 25:5</a>; <a href='B:300 37:2'>Jer 37:2</a>).</h4>


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<p>They wander as blind men in the streets, they are polluted with blood, so that men can’t touch their garments- The tenses are unclear in the Lamentations because Jeremiah has brought together various feelings that he had at different times- before, during (:14,17,18) and after the siege (:19) and exile (:18,20). LXX has"her watchmen staggered in the streets"; the watchmen were the prophets of:13. The reference is to the descriptions of blindness as a punishment for breaking the covenant (<a href='B:50 28:18'>Deu 28:18</a>; <a href='B:300 23:12'>Jer 23:12</a>; <a href='B:290 29:9'>Isa 29:9</a>). They were polluted with blood already because of their attempted murder of Jeremiah and actual murder of other prophets, as well as those they sacrificed to the idols. Now, they are portrayed as wandering the streets covered in blood. That may have been literally the case, but they were covered in blood anyway in God’s eyes. And this made them unclean.</p>


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<p>Depart! they cried to them, Unclean! Depart, depart, don’t touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, They shall not live here any more- Translated this way, the paradox is developed that they who were now so covered in blood that nobody would touch them for fear of being made unclean (:14)- were the very ones who had condemned others as ritually unclean and had ordered them to get far away from them. Remember it is the priests who are being addressed here (:13). As they had driven away others for being unclean (when they themselves were unclean and covered with blood guilt), so now they were being driven away from their land as unclean. As Jeremiah so often demonstrates in his prophecy, condemnation was articulated in language which showed it to be but a continuation of attitudes and positions the condemned had already adopted in their lives.</p>


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<h4>The anger of Yahweh has scattered them; He will no more regard them- Not regarding them, not having them in His sight, means that He would permanently end relationship with them. But as noted on <a href='B:310 4:15'>Lam 4:15</a>, this was but a reflection of how they had not regarded Him (s:w. <a href='B:290 5:12'>Isa 5:12</a>; <a href='B:290 22:11'>Isa 22:11</a>). And yet by lamenting that Yahweh would not again have relationship with them, Jeremiah was overlooking the prophecies of restoration which he himself had given. His depression was such that at this point, he focuses only upon the present pain and will not look wider.</h4><h4>They didn’t respect the persons of the priests, they didn’t favour the elders- The"they"appears to refer to the Babylonian soldiers. But Jeremiah has given reason after reason as to why the priests and elders were not worthy of any respect and deserved only condemnation. But now he laments that, identifying so strongly with Israel again, after in :15 beginning to accept that they were suffering only what they themselves had in essence done in their days of opportunity. He sees their guilt- and then slips back to simply lamenting the situation as it was at that moment.</h4>


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<h4>Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help- LXX"While we yet lived our eyes failed, while we looked in vain for our help". This may appear to contradict Jeremiah’s feelings explained on <a href='B:310 3:22-23'>Lam 3:22-23</a>; <a href='B:310 3:39'>Lam 3:39</a>, that to simply be alive is to know that God’s grace continues to us, and finally His"help"shall be articulated to us, even if not in terms of immediate salvation. And again Jeremiah seems to be implying that they were looking to God for help"in vain". This is the mentality noted on <a href='B:310 3:44'>Lam 3:44</a>, considering that God would not answer prayer. But Jeremiah was missing the point- that it wasn’t simply prayer for immediate rescue which was required, but rather the prayer of repentance for forgiveness.</h4><h4>In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save- A reference to Egypt, trust in whom was a large reason for their rejection by Yahweh. But Jeremiah appears to be writing here at the time of the siege or even after it, when Egypt was already no longer a viable help, having been crushed at the battle of Carchemish. And yet even then it would appear from <a href='B:330 29:16'>Eze 29:16</a> that they still vainly looked to Egypt for help, and the survivors of the siege fled there despite being warned not to. The attraction of trusting human strength rather than Yahweh was so great. Instead of watching or looking to Egypt they should have looked to and waited upon Yahweh.</h4>


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<h4>They hunt our steps, so that we can’t go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end has come- The tenses are unclear in the Lamentations because Jeremiah has brought together various feelings that he had at different times- before, during and after the siege and exile. See on :14.</h4><h4><a href='B:300 16:16'>Jer 16:16</a>&nbsp; suggests a total regathering of all who were in captivity as a result of fishers and"hunters"provoking the people to return to a restored kingdom. This didn’t happen because the exiles preferred the soft life in Persia. The effort made wasn’t responded to. Indeed Jeremiah later laments that the people were"hunted"after Jerusalem fell (s:w. <a href='B:310 3:52'>Lam 3:52</a>; <a href='B:310 4:18'>Lam 4:18</a>). He ought to have realized that the exiles were to be hunted back to the restored kingdom- if they responded. But in his depression, he focused only upon the negative, the glass half empty rather than half full.</h4>


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<p>Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky: they chased us on the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness- A reference to the Babylonian cavalry, and particularly of their pursuit and capture of Zedekiah as representative of all Judah. As noted on :14, Jeremiah now seems to be writing from some time after the fall of Jerusalem. He has edited his thoughts together in these Lamentations. He was not pursued nor chased; but he so identified with his people that he felt as if he had been.</p>


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<p>The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, Under His shadow we shall live among the nations- This sounds a far too positive take upon Zedekiah, whose demise was directly due to refusing to listen to Jeremiah’s words from God, and his impenitence. But instead of accepting that, Jeremiah seems to now think his demise to be so tragic. The way Zedekiah is described as"the prince"in <a href='B:330 12:12'>Eze 12:12</a> lays the basis for the later prophecies about"the prince"in Ezekiel 40-48. Had the exiles returned and rebuilt and operated the temple system as required there, another individual called"the prince"would have arisen. Perhaps the blind, repentant Zedekiah could have returned from exile and become the prince figure; this would then solve the otherwise strange prophecy of&nbsp; <a href='B:290 42:19'>Isa 42:19</a>, that the restored community would have had a blind leader. Likewise the exiles could have lived under the shadow of a great leader in exile (<a href='B:310 4:20'>Lam 4:20</a>), fulfilling the prophecies of Messiah as a great tree. But none of those involved lived up to their potential.</p>


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<p>Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom that dwells in the land of Uz: the cup shall pass through to you also; you shall be drunken, and shall make yourself naked- As Edom rejoiced against Jerusalem in the day of her destruction (<a href='B:230 137:7'>Psa 137:7</a>), so she is bidden sarcastically to rejoice because she would again be judged with Jerusalem’s judgment. Edom is noted as dwelling in Uz to point up the connection with Job; the whole book of Job was rewritten and reapplied to the drama of the exile, and it involved people from the land of Uz [the friends] being rebuked and finally having the imputed righteousness of Job revealed to them.</p>


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<p>The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, daughter of Zion; He will no more carry you away into captivity: He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom; He will uncover your sins- But Zion was carried into captivity by God again, not least under the Romans, as well as by Antiochus, and she will be again in the last days. What was potentially possible was that Judah repented, returned both to God and Zion, and the Kingdom of God would have been reestablished in Israel- never again to be destroyed. That was the potential, but their lack of repentance precluded it. So Jeremiah’s statement here appears to be his desperate hope that Zion’s judgment had ended and now there would be restoration. But again, he refuses to factor in the aspect of their repentance.</p>


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<p>Remember, Yahweh, what has come on us: look, and see our reproach- The invitation to"look"must be understood in the context of how Jeremiah has complained that God placed a cloud between Himself and His people, through which no prayer could pass (<a href='B:310 3:44'>Lam 3:44</a>). And in <a href='B:310 4:16'>Lam 4:16</a> he has just stated that God was not looking at His condemned people. He said thatin depression, just spot staring at the reality of suffering they were then experiencing. If it felt like God had permanently cast them off, then that was how he felt it was. But now he accepts that although God apparently will not look at them, yet He can be appealed to. But still he is asking God to simply take pity upon the tragedy of suffering people; he still must factor in the critical aspects of repentance and forgiveness.</p>


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<p>Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens- To lose an inheritance was a major tragedy in the thought of those times. The loss of inheritance was not a tragedy unfelt by God. God was losing His inheritance in that He was allowing it to be consumed (<a href='B:300 12:9'>Jer 12:9</a>), ’polluting it’ (<a href='B:290 47:6'>Isa 47:6</a>). No man would ever spoil his own inheritance like this; but God did, such was His belief in the need to punish His people for their sins. And yet the metaphor of lost / spoilt inheritance reflects how painful this was for God, felt as a personal loss. The whole idea elicits sympathy for God in this tragic loss.</p>


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<p>We are orphans and fatherless; our mothers are as widows- Again we note Jeremiah’s intense identification with those who had suffered. For he speaks of"we"and"our", rather than of"they"and"theirs". Surely Jeremiah means to remind God of His special care for these categories in His law.</p>


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<p>We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold to us- Perhaps the Bedouin tribes took over Jerusalem after it fell, and sold water and firewood to the Jews. See on :9.</p>


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<p>Our pursuers are on our necks: we are weary, and have no rest- Again his depression leads to exaggeration; there is no evidence that the Jews were moved around the Babylonian empire, making them find no rest. He himself had urged them to build houses in Babylon and settle down there. Being restless was a result of breaking the covenant (s:w. <a href='B:50 28:65'>Deu 28:65</a>) which Jeremiah had repeatedly accused them of doing. They were suffering far less than their iniquities deserved. They refused to repent and in that sense they had no rest to their souls. If they had accepted the yoke of Babylon, then they could have rested in their own land (s:w. <a href='B:300 27:11'>Jer 27:11</a>). Jeremiah had advocated accepting this yoke; and yet again he seems somewhat out of step with God as he complains about it.</p>


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<h4>We have given the hand to the Egyptians, to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread- Jeremiah appears to be writing here at the time of the siege or even after it, when Egypt was already no longer a viable help, having been crushed at the battle of Carchemish. And yet even then it would appear from <a href='B:330 29:16'>Eze 29:16</a> that they still vainly looked to Egypt for help, and the survivors of the siege fled there despite being warned not to. The attraction of trusting human strength rather than Yahweh was so great. Instead of watching or looking to Egypt they should have looked to and waited upon Yahweh.</h4><p>To give the hand was a metaphor for making a covenant agreement. <a href='B:330 17:18'>Eze 17:18</a> roundly condemns it as unfaithfulness to God. Yet Jeremiah appears to justify the way Judah had done this by saying that they did it"for bread"(<a href='B:310 5:6'>Lam 5:6</a>), as if the famine sent by God to bring about their repentance was so severe that the alliances were not just for political and military protection, but for basic food. This was how low the one time beautiful prostitute of Ezekiel 16 had fallen; just"for bread"she made the agreements which meant that she had to have the idols of these people in the Jerusalem temple. Clearly these ’givings of the hand’ were wrong, and yet Jeremiah laments as if they were somehow justifiable. But Ezekiel 17 clearly condemns them as immoral acts. For God as Judah’s husband would surely provide her with bread. The lack of it was to bring her back to Him, but instead she responded by madly making more spiritually adulterous covenants. We too can respond to God’s chastening hand either by total repentance and casting ourselves upon Him, or by madly seeking to get around His chastisement by yet further sin and unfaithfulness.</p><h4>But perhaps here we have the beginnings of a sense of repentance; for now finally Jeremiah begins to look back at their spiritually adulterous covenants with the nations, and recognizes that their exile is due to that. See on :16.</h4>


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<p>Our fathers sinned, and are no more; we have borne their iniquities- In <a href='B:330 16:56'>Eze 16:56</a>; <a href='B:330 16:63'>Eze 16:63</a> we noted that God wished to stop Israel using certain proverbs. He paid attention to their sayings, their language, their throwaway expressions. All language is significant to God, and He aimed to reform even the kind of language they spoke. Throughout Ezekiel 18, Ezekiel labours the point that they were not say any more that the children were suffering for the fathers’ sins. This was not to be stated any more (<a href='B:330 18:3'>Eze 18:3</a>). Not saying it any more was to be part of being in the new covenant- <a href='B:300 31:29'>Jer 31:29</a> had specifically stated this, contemporary with Ezekiel. Ezekiel is so labouring the point in Ezekiel 18, because he wants them to accept the new covenant in exile, and to live and speak according to it. And yet Jeremiah himself seems to say thatGod has in fact punished the children for their fathers’ sins (<a href='B:310 5:7'>Lam 5:7</a>). He was contradicting his own message in <a href='B:300 31:29'>Jer 31:29</a>. We would therefore have in this an example of a man who in depression says things which are wrong, struggling with God, as Job did; and yet still finally accepted. Although this unjust complaint against God contributes towards the sense of unsatisfactory conclusion which we are left with in this final chapter, leaving us wondering whether Jeremiah’s faith did in fact remain intact at the very end. This is one of many cases of self-justification in Lamentations (<a href='B:310 1:2'>Lam 1:2</a>; <a href='B:310 1:19'>Lam 1:19</a>; <a href='B:310 2:14'>Lam 2:14</a>; <a href='B:310 4:13'>Lam 4:13</a>; <a href='B:310 5:7'>Lam 5:7</a>), which contradicts the prophetic position, whereby blame is placed upon Judah, whereas now Jeremiah laments the situation as if Judah is being hard done by.</p>


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<p>Servants rule over us: there is none to deliver us out of their hand- The servants who ruled over them on behalf of Babylon were the likes of"Tobiah the servant"(<a href='B:160 2:10'>Neh 2:10</a>; <a href='B:160 2:19'>Neh 2:19</a>). It seems that they made the remaining Jews work for them as slaves and day labourers (:13). But this was exactly the abuse which they tolerated in their society even during the siege of Jerusalem; and it was exactly because they refused to release their servants and stop abusing them, that they became abused labourers and slaves (<a href='B:300 34:17'>Jer 34:17</a>). So there was in fact a potential deliverer"out of their hand"; but that depended upon repentance, which is a theme Jeremiah is so loath to raise.</p>


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<p>We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness- A reference to marauding Arab Bedouin bands. See on :4.</p>


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<p>Our skin is black like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine- After the siege was over, Jerusalem was burnt and the survivors almost perished of hunger. But famine was a punishment for sin and breaking the covenant. The prophecies of judgment implied at times that none would survive. The fact some came out of the fiery oven of Jerusalem, albeit with blackened skin, was to be seen as a sign of God’s grace- and yet Jeremiah laments it.</p>


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<p>They ravished the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah-"Virgins"can mean simply ’young women’. Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea have all presented Judah as a prostitute and unfaithful lover. She had made covenants of unique loyalty with the nations, undertaking to worship their gods. And then they discovered that she had made such covenants with multiple nations, and her temple in Jerusalem was full of the gods of her various lovers. She is therefore presented as a suffering the judgment of a prostitute, being burnt by fire; after having her skirts pulled above her head and being gang raped beforehand for good measure (<a href='B:300 13:22'>Jer 13:22</a>; <a href='B:300 13:26'>Jer 13:26</a> etc:). This is the shocking picture of her judgment which we find in the prophets. But Jeremiah so takes the side of his people that he presents this as meaning that she as an innocent, upright woman who was raped by some heartless beast.</p>


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<p>Princes were hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured- The judgment of the royal family and elders was&nbsp; a major part of Jeremiah’s message. And yet he seems to lament that they were not more respected by their conquerors. On one hand, his almost fanatical taking of Israel’s side, totally identifying with their feelings, represents the passionate love and pity of God for His condemned people. And yet on the other hand, Jeremiah appears to be out of step with God’s own perspective on the princes and elders as expressed in His own word through Jeremiah. Perhaps in this we see Jeremiah revealing to us the deep tension within God Himself when it came to judging His people; see on <a href='B:350 11:8'>Hos 11:8</a>.</p>


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<h4>The young men were made to grind at the mill; the children stumbled under the wood- <a href='B:300 52:11'>Jer 52:11</a> LXX says that the captive Zedekiah was put"in the mill", as if he was in hard labour, now blinded, exactly like Samson (<a href='B:70 16:21'>Jdg 16:21</a>), and as the young men were made to (<a href='B:310 5:13'>Lam 5:13</a>). And the similarities continued, in that it seems Zedekiah likewise did finally repent. Perhaps the young men did likewise.</h4><h4>It seems that they made the remaining Jews work for them as slaves and day labourers (8). But this was exactly the abuse which they tolerated in their society even during the siege of Jerusalem; and it was exactly because they refused to release their servants and stop abusing them, that they became abused labourers and slaves (<a href='B:300 34:17'>Jer 34:17</a>). So there was in fact a potential deliverer"out of their hand"; but that depended upon repentance, which is a theme Jeremiah is so loath to raise.</h4>


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<p>The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music- But there was great corruption in"the gate"; and the music of the young men was a reflection of their rejection of God. These young men and elders were those condemned in <a href='B:370 6:1-7'>Amo 6:1-7</a>:"Woe to those who are at ease in Zion::. Those who put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; who lie on beds of ivory, and stretch themselves on their couches::. who strum on the strings of a harp; who invent for themselves instruments of music, like David did;&nbsp; who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the best oils; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Therefore they will now go into captivity with the first who go captive; and the feasting and lounging will end". So again we see Jeremiah in depression focusing just upon the immediate experience, without wishing to recall the wider context.</p>


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<p>The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning- That their joy should cease was specifically prophesied for their disobedience, in these very Hebrew words (<a href='B:290 24:8'>Isa 24:8</a>; <a href='B:350 2:11'>Hos 2:11</a>). And yet Jeremiah laments it. But he surely saw the connection with these prophecies, and that his feelings of lamentation were in fact their fulfilment; and so this leads him to the obvious conclusion: that the real problem is Judah’s sin, and they need to repent. As he lamented that the girls were no longer dancing but mourning, his thoughts were led to his own earlier words of <a href='B:300 31:4'>Jer 31:4</a>; <a href='B:300 31:13'>Jer 31:13</a> - that a restored, repentant Israel would again dance, and when David repented, his mourning was turned into dancing (s:w. <a href='B:230 30:11'>Psa 30:11</a>). And thus we come to the climax of the book, in the unreserved, unqualified repentance of the next five verses.</p>


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<h4>The crown is fallen from our head: woe to us! For we have sinned- As noted on <a href='B:310 1:1'>Lam 1:1</a>; <a href='B:310 3:40'>Lam 3:40</a>,&nbsp; <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a> is the climax of the book of Lamentations. And the point is that we have here a total confession of sin, and appeal for God to turn them to Himself (:21) and restore His relationship and Kingdom with Judah as before (:21). The book of Lamentations begins with Jeremiah bitterly complaining that God is as good as dead (see on <a href='B:310 1:1'>Lam 1:1</a>), with him looking solely at the tragedy before his eyes, and progresses to a climax of unconditional repentance in <a href='B:310 5:16-21'>Lam 5:16-21</a>. But the progression is a jagged graph. There have been points at which he does recognize that the sufferings are directly due to Judah’s sins, he increasingly sees that there is a future hope and the God of judgment is also a God of grace. And he vaguely implies that repentance is needed, but always quickly returns to accusing God of unreasonable behaviour; and as noted on <a href='B:310 3:40-42'>Lam 3:40-42</a>, the appeals for repentance are very qualified and still accuse God of injustice. But now in these verses he does speak clearly of the need for repentance, without excuses, justification, reservation or qualification. The path of Jeremiah was intended by God and himself to be that of Israel; for he had so intensely identified with them throughout the Lamentations.</h4><p>It was because of this that"the crown"had fallen and the royal family had been ended (s:w. <a href='B:300 13:18'>Jer 13:18</a>; <a href='B:330 21:26'>Eze 21:26</a>). This may appear obvious to us, but in depression and focus upon the immediate tragedy, it was not so obvious to Jeremiah. But now he grasps it.</p><h4>&nbsp;Throughout the book of Jeremiah, and often in Ezekiel, I have made the point that so much hinged upon whether Judah repented after Jerusalem fell. If they did, then the new covenant would have been accepted by them, and the promises of the restored Kingdom would have come true. They generally did not repent, but it was Jeremiah’s heartfelt desire that they did, following his own example. And so he wished them to identify with his feelings of anger with God, his struggle with God, his confusion::. and thereby to be led to this conclusion of the matter in repentance and desperate appeal for restoration. But it seems Judah got caught up in the early stages of grief, never moved on from them, and failed to follow through to this confession of sin and appeal for restoration which we have in Lamentations 5. The last verse of the book (<a href='B:310 5:22'>Lam 5:22</a>) appears starkly out of context with the immediately preceding verses, with their appeal for restoration and confession of sin:"But You have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us". I suggest this is purposeful, because this is as it were Judah’s response to the book and the appeal to repent and appeal for restoration. They remained caught up in their grief and refused to repent and return to God because they considered He had removed Himself too far from them. And so the great prophetic potentials for a repentant Judah, described in such detail in the book of Jeremiah, didn’t then come about; although the prophecies are reapplied and rescheduled to fulfilment in the last days.</h4>


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<p>For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim- The stress is upon"for this"- their sins (:16). Jeremiah’s faint heart (<a href='B:310 1:13'>Lam 1:13</a> s:w:) wasour heart; his sudden realization of sinfulness and repentance was to be a pattern for them. It was because of their sin that dimness had come upon them, and they could not see their way; specifically because they had not given glory to Yahweh in repentance (<a href='B:300 13:16'>Jer 13:16</a> cp. <a href='B:60 7:19'>Jos 7:19</a>). And therefore repentance would give glory to Yahweh, and lift the dimness upon their hearts and eyes.</p>


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<p>for the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: the foxes walk on it- Now he recognizes that the tragic desolation of Zion, with unclean animals wandering around it, was not so much due to God nor the Babylonians, as Jeremiah has previously lamented; but was essentially due to their sins (:16). The sanctuary would be"desolate"because of their sins (s:w. <a href='B:30 26:31'>Lev 26:31</a>). And after a period of desolation there would be repentance and restoration (<a href='B:30 26:35'>Lev 26:35</a>; <a href='B:30 26:43'>Lev 26:43</a> s:w:). And so- ’let us repent right now if we want to see that restoration’. That was the glaringly obvious conclusion, and now Jeremiah grasps it. The unclean foxes wandered upon Zion because her prophets had been as foxes (s:w. <a href='B:330 13:4'>Eze 13:4</a>).</p>


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<p>You, Yahweh, remain forever; Your throne is from generation to generation- If God’s rulership would be"forever", then He must rule or be king over someone. He must therefore always have a people; and so Jeremiah reasons that God should not forsake His people"forever". See on :20. Solomon had imagined that Yahweh would"remain forever"in the temple (s:w. <a href='B:110 8:13'>1Ki 8:13</a>). The temple was now in ruins, and so Jeremiah was driven to the conclusion that because Yahweh Himself would"remain forever", therefore He must indwell not a sacred space, but a group of people in whom He would dwell by His Spirit. And so He asks God in :20,21 not to delay, but to revive that people spiritually so that He might dwell in them. God’s eternity was therefore of itself an implication that He would revive Zion (<a href='B:230 102:12-13'>Psa 102:12-13</a>). Zion, however it might be redefined, would"remain forever"as God Himself would (<a href='B:230 125:1'>Psa 125:1</a>). Jeremiah himself had taught earlier that if Zion repented, then like her God, her people would"remain forever"(<a href='B:300 17:25'>Jer 17:25</a>; <a href='B:300 25:5'>Jer 25:5</a>, also <a href='B:330 37:25'>Eze 37:25</a>). But this remaining forever was related to entering the new covenant, and that required repentance; and it required an acceptance of a Messianic seed of David, whose throne like Yahweh’s would be from generation to generation (<a href='B:230 89:4'>Psa 89:4</a> s:w:).</p>


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<p>Why do You forget us forever, and forsake us so long time?- As explained on :19, this is more of a rhetorical question. Because Yahweh was to remain forever, and forever have a people; therefore He would not forget and forsake His people forever. The period between the fall of Jerusalem and this lamentation was hardly a"long time". Perhaps that was how Jeremiah felt, as every moment of desolation appeared to drag eternally. Jeremiah was urging God not to forsake and forget the people, but to take the initiative in spiritually reviving them (:21). Yet perhaps Jeremiah was inspired to use this term"so long time"because his words and feelings here were to be the template and prototype for Judah’s final repentance, whenever that would be, perhaps a"long time"in the future.</p>


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<p>Turn us to Yourself, Yahweh, and we shall be turned. Renew our days as of old- This is the climax of the Lamentations. The appeal is not just for Judah to repent as Jeremiah, their representative, had done. Recognizing how critical is repentance in the return and restoration, it is asking God to take the initiative and give the people repentance. There is again the play on the word shub; returning / repenting would be the basis for God’s returning and restoring of His people. The new covenant involved an offer of God’s direct working upon the heart of His people, turning them so that they repented (see on <a href='B:300 31:19'>Jer 31:19</a>). Repentance itself [not just forgiveness] is therefore a gift (<a href='B:510 3:26'>Act 3:26</a>; <a href='B:510 11:18'>Act 11:18</a>)- to those who want it, or for those who have the likes of Jeremiah praying for them to receive it. And those who accept the new covenant today experience this same gift of the Spirit. And now Jeremiah begs for this gift of the new covenant to be given to his people, so that the restoration of the kingdom as in the"days of old"can begin."Renew"is also translated ’rebuild’, and is used of the rebuilding at the restoration (s:w. <a href='B:290 61:4'>Isa 61:4</a>).</p>


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<p>But You have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us- This could be read as by the LXX in the past tense:"For thou hast indeed rejected us; thou hast been very wroth against us", as if it is yet another statement that God’s judgments of them were just. But as explained on :16, it may be an intended juxtaposition with the preceding impassioned statement of repentance and begging for restoration; and the point would be that because they did not repent, God’s rejection of them continued. Jeremiah’s prophecies of gracious restoration were known by the exiles; but many passages in Isaiah, the Psalms (e:g. <a href='B:230 137:7-9'>Psa 137:7-9</a>) and Lamentations indicate that the exiles had little conviction they would be fulfilled, considering Judah as “utterly rejected” by God, and just getting on with their lives in Babylon without any real hope in God’s salvation. Considering the prosperity of their lives there, this was an all too convenient conclusion for them to draw. Once again we see that false interpretation of Scripture invariably has a moral subtext to it. And the belief that God is so angry with our sins that we have no real chance of revival::. is attractive because it enables us to remain in our status quo, no matter how miserable it is. The conservatism of human nature makes this sadly so attractive to many people, as it was to Judah.</p>


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<h4>Now it happened- The intention may be to connect with the previous prophecy, Jeremiah, which had concluded with Jeremiah sending a message to the captives urging them to accept their situation and not expect an immediate return from exile (<a href='B:300 51:59'>Jer 51:59</a> cp. <a href='B:300 29:1-32'>Jer 29:1-32</a>). Ezekiel was therefore encouraging the exiles that despite no immediate restoration, they could be sure of a huge activity of God for them which would bring about the restoration in due course.</h4><p>In the thirtieth year in the fourth month in the fifth of the month- This could refer to Ezekiel as a priest starting ministry at age 30 (:3). He was the priest of the"little sanctuary"in exile (<a href='B:330 11:16'>Eze 11:16</a>), a sanctuary that didn’t require a temple.</p><p>As I was among the captives by the river Chebar- The mention of the river was to connect with the description sitting by the rivers of Babylon weeping in depression (<a href='B:230 137:1'>Psa 137:1</a>).</p><h4>That the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God- Ezekiel’s opening vision of the cherubim was surely to encourage the captives in Babylon that above them was an awesome Angelic system, that was able to carry them with it back to the land- if they were workers together with God. Although it seemed that they were sitting still, nothing was happening, they were just passing time by the rivers of Babylon, above them there was an intensely active system of Angels working for their good. Asaph, writing Psalms in the captivity, perceived this when [surely referring to Ezekiel’s recent vision] he speaks of how the God who dwells between the cherubim is in fact actively leading Judah somewhere (<a href='B:230 80:1'>Psa 80:1</a>). And yet the common phrase “Lord of Hosts” / Angels never once occurs in Ezekiel or Daniel. This outstanding omission is surely reflective of the sad fact that the Angel-cherubim withdrew from the land during the captivity- the land where the Angelic eyes of the Lord had run to and fro previously. See on:20.</h4>


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<p>In the fifth of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity- At this time a year before, the false prophets of Judah were prophesying the overthrow of Babylon and the return of Jeconiah within two years (<a href='B:300 28:3'>Jer 28:3</a>). Ezekiel’s message was intended to help them reject these fanciful ideas of immediate salvation and to demonstrate that the things of God’s glory are far weightier and eternal than that.</p>


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<p>The word of Yahweh came specifically to Ezekiel the priest the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of Yahweh was there on him- As noted on :1, he became a priest at 30 and was intended to be the priest of the"little sanctuary"in exile (<a href='B:330 11:16'>Eze 11:16</a>).</p>


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<h4>I looked, and behold, a stormy wind came out ofthe north, a great cloud, with flashing lightning and a brightness around it; and out of its midst as it were glowing metal out of the midst of the fire- The primary potential fulfilment of Ezekiel to is in the restoration from Babylon. The great emphasis on the Angel-cherubim shows the importance of the Angels in it. The Cherubim of chapter 1"came out of the north"."The North"in the prophets often refers to"the north country"of Babylon. Is the whole vision primarily describing the Angels coming from Babylon, with the wheels"upon the earth"(:15) representing natural Israel under Angelic control? Thus"when the living creatures (Angels) went, the wheels went by them"(:19), due to the Angelic inspiration of the Jews and their touching the hearts of men like Cyrus, Ezra and Nehemiah"according to the good hand (Angel) of::. God upon"them;"the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels"(:20). Remember that the Angels are the vehicles of God’s Spirit. The visions of the glory progressively removing from the temple show the Angel departing from Jerusalem, and then in chapters 40-48 the glory Angel returns to a re-built Jerusalem. Recall how the Angel in Exodus 33, 34 is also described as the"glory". The idea is that as the depressed captives sat by the rivers of Babylon in"the north", they were to be aware that a huge, powerful, glorious system of Divine operation was hanging over them. If they identified with it, then this would ultimately return them to Zion.</h4><h4>And yet the cherubim vision also spoke of an invasion from Babylon unless there was repentance amongst the exiles and those still in the land. Ezekiel was taken captive in the second wave of deportations; but the temple had still not been sacked nor Jerusalem taken. Hence the cherubim vision had a double application. It could speak of a further invasion from the north, or of the return of the exiles. All alike would work out God’s glory.</h4>


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<h4>Out of its midst came the likeness of four living creatures. This was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man- The overall silhouette upon them was of a man. The cherubim were the heavenly representation of men, both the exiles and also perhaps the invading Babylonian armies. So there was something human about all this majesty of God’s glory. His care for man is paramount to His glory and personality. Ultimately this came to full term in His glorious manifestation in the face of Jesus Christ (<a href='B:540 4:6'>2Co 4:6</a>).</h4><h4>Ezekiel was prophesying against the background of the Assyrians and Babylonians. Their sculptures reveal winged bulls and lions with human heads. The cherubim alluded to them in that one aspect of meaning is that they could represent the invaders from the north which God would bring upon His people. But the"living creatures"were alive, not dead like the Babylonian ones. They were not quadrupeds, like the Assyrian and Babylonian forms. They were more human, and stood erect, having feet and hands as men have.</h4>


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<p>Each one had four faces, and each one of them had four wings- In <a href='B:730 4:7'>Rev 4:7</a> the four heads are distributed, one to each of the"living creatures", while here each has four faces. This is to highlight the sense of humanity, and of God’s awareness of every angle of human situation. That was the lesson so required by Judah in their depression by the rivers of Babylon.</p>


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<h4>Their feet were straight feet- The return of the exiles led by Ezra made the journey by a"right way"from Babylon to Zion (<a href='B:150 8:21'>Ezr 8:21</a>). Yet this is the very word used about the"straight"feet of the Cherubim Angels here (also :23). The return from Babylon involved following in the path of the Angels, walking in step with them. The restoration prophecy of <a href='B:300 31:9'>Jer 31:9</a> spoke of how the returnees would walk"in a straight way"(s:w:)"by the rivers of waters"- and surely Ezra consciously alluded to this when by the river Ahava he fasted for the exiles to return in a"right / straight way". He knew that these prophecies of restoration would not just automatically come true- they had to be fulfilled by much prayer, fasting and stepping out in faith. But so very few perceived that. And the challenge remains for us today- to walk in the way which God’s Angels have potentially prepared for us, with prayer and boldness. I feel this is especially true in the matter of latter day witnessing. <a href='B:730 14:6'>Rev 14:6</a> describes the great latter fulfilment of the great preaching commission in terms of an Angel flying in Heaven with the Gospel of the Kingdom to be preached to all nations and languages. Surely the implication is that the latter day preachers of the Gospel are walking on earth in league with an Angelic system above them, empowering and enabling them.</h4><h4>And the soles of their feet were like the soles of a calf’s feet; and they gleamed like burnished brass- If the cherubim speak also of God’s people, as well as the Angelic hosts and the hosts of Babylon, then perhaps the message was simply that God was awesomely involved- as awesome as the cherubim vision- with His people on earth. The same Angelic system that brought the hosts of Babylon upon Judah also went with Judah into captivity, and would return from there with them- if they still wished to be part of that Angelic system. And yet most of Judah opted out of it, and remained in Babylon, just as we can opt out and remain in Babylon today. In this context it’s interesting that the vision of Jesus as the Son of Man in Revelation 1 has similarities with the cherubim vision of Ezekiel 1 (feet like brass, <a href='B:330 1:7'>Eze 1:7</a> = Rev 115; shining face, <a href='B:330 1:13'>Eze 1:13</a> = <a href='B:730 1:16'>Rev 1:16</a>; voice like many waters, <a href='B:330 1:24'>Eze 1:24</a>= <a href='B:730 1:15'>Rev 1:15</a>). Perhaps this suggests that Israel’s failure to identify with the cherubim led to a refulfilment of the prophecy in the person of the Lord Jesus, who was in person all that God intended Israel to have been. Thus the prophecies of Israel as"the servant of Yahweh", given in the context of the restoration, could have been fulfilled in the people of Israel, but were reapplied and fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus.</h4>


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<p>They had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and the four of them had their faces and their wings like this- See on :10. As noted on :5 and :6, one theme of the visions of glory was God’s humanity and how the function and direction of the huge system of Divine activity is influenced by and in a sense dependent upon man. This is why Ezekiel sees the hands of a woman under the wings on every side of them. This presence of human hands is so emphasized; each of them, on all four sides, had this image of human hands as it were supporting them. Because God’s work is responsive to human freewill, God is in a sense"in need of man", as Abraham Heschel put it.</p>


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<p>Their wings were joined one to another; they didn’t turn when they went; each one went straight forward- This is an intentional paradox; wings can hardly be joined to each other if they are used for flying. But this is the paradox and contradiction, as viewed from earth, of God’s glorious progress and activity for His people. The whole system would not be diverted- that is twice emphasized in saying that they didn’t turn, but went straight forward. See on :7. An alternative is to understand that they each moved with two wings upward and two always down (:11,24), and it was the two upward wings which touched each other and therefore appeared to be"joined". The word speaks of joining in fellowship. This huge system was united, for the ultimate good of God’s people and to restore Zion. Hence Jerusalem would be built as a city compacted or"joined"together (<a href='B:230 122:3'>Psa 122:3</a> s:w:).</p>


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<p>As for the likeness of their faces, they each had the face of a man; and the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; the four of them also had the face of an eagle- There are evident similarities between Ezekiel’s cherubim, and the four living creatures of Revelation 4. They are both described as"full of eyes"(<a href='B:330 1:18'>Eze 1:18</a> = <a href='B:730 4:6'>Rev 4:6</a>), with four very similar faces (lion, calf, man, eagle in <a href='B:730 4:7'>Rev 4:7</a> = lion, ox, man, eagle in <a href='B:330 1:10'>Eze 1:10</a>); and both have wings (<a href='B:730 4:8'>Rev 4:8</a> = <a href='B:330 1:8'>Eze 1:8</a>). Yet the living creatures of Revelation speak of being redeemed by the blood of Christ and made king-priests in God’s Kingdom (<a href='B:730 5:8-10'>Rev 5:8-10</a>)- as if they are the redeemed people of God. The four faces are likely to be connected with the four standards of the tribes of Israel (Lion = Judah, Man = Reuben, Ox = Ephraim, Eagle = Dan). Each of those tribes had two other tribes assigned to them in the encampment procedures of Numbers 2. There is extra-Biblical tradition that the cherubim in Solomon’s temple had the same four faces which Ezekiel saw on the cherubim- lion, ox, man and eagle (John Thomas, Eureka (West Beach: Logos, 1984 ed:) Vol. 2 Chronicles 4 sec. 4:2). Those to whom Ezekiel related his vision would have immediately understood the point- that the earthly sanctuary was a reflection of the Heavenly, and that above that was a huge Angelic system operating, which also represented God’s people- them. But that huge system was to remove to Babylon, and then the final visions of Ezekiel show that glory returning. Ezekiel, as the representative"son of man"as he’s so often styled, was caught up within that system and transported t ease between Babylon and Jerusalem- and those who wanted to opt in with God and His Angels could likewise be taken to Babylon and returned. Those who chose to remain in Babylon were therefore resisting being part of an awesome system of God manifestation and Angelic operation. We have that same choice in things great and small today.</p>


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<p>Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; two wings of each one touched another, and two covered their bodies- See on :9. Heb. ’were parted from above’. The impression is of unity in diversity. What appeared to the exiles to be contradictory was in fact working together in unity towards God’s purpose.</p>


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<h4>Each one went straight forward- Literally, ’in front of their faces’. Their faces were set and they didn’t flinch. The same idea was to be applied to Ezekiel in <a href='B:330 3:9'>Eze 3:9</a>. He was to identify with God’s way and the cherubim, and would be strengthened to follow in the one way if that was what he chose.</h4><h4>Where the spirit was to go, they went; they didn’t turn when they went- The cherubim, this massive system of Divine operation, was direct by God’s Spirit. The feature of not turning during their movement is a major feature (<a href='B:330 1:9'>Eze 1:9</a>; <a href='B:330 1:12'>Eze 1:12</a>; <a href='B:330 1:17'>Eze 1:17</a>; <a href='B:330 10:11'>Eze 10:11</a>; <a href='B:330 10:16'>Eze 10:16</a>). The impression was given of God’s unchanging massive help towards the realization of His purpose with His people.</h4>


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<p>As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches. The fire went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning- See on :7. The visual impression was of perpetual, churning activity and the cycling of power. This was a necessary encouragement for the exiles sitting in depression by the rivers of Babylon. God had not forgotten. His apparent silence only masked a hugely active and powerful system of operation.</p>


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<p>The living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning- Perhaps the idea was that they ran and returned between Jerusalem and the exiles’ camp in Babylon. The return from exile could be achieved in a flash, and likewise the Jews still in Judah could be taken to Babylon in a flash.</p>


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<p>Now as I saw the living creatures, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, for each of the four faces of it- The wheels make the living creatures appear as on a chariot, connecting with"the chariot of the cherubim"(<a href='B:130 28:18'>1Ch 28:18</a>). The firm grounding of this heavenly vision of power"on the earth"indicates that God’s glory and activity were not simply in Heaven but active upon earth, both to transport a repentant Judah back to the land, and also to bring forth chariots of enemies to further destroy the land and temple.</p>


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<h4>The appearance of the wheels and their work was like a beryl: and the four of them had one likeness; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel within a wheel- The wheels imply they were chariots, or mounted on chariots; indeed this is a root meaning of the Hebrew word translated"cherub". Zechariah sees the same Angel chariots emerging from between two bronze mountains (<a href='B:450 1:7-11'>Zec 1:7-11</a>), perhaps designed to recall the bronze pillars of the temple (Ki 7:15-22). The rebuilt temple was intended to be the point from which the Angel chariots would go forth; but that didn’t happen at the very limited restoration from Babylon, and so the first four seals of Revelation 6 are full of allusion to this Zechariah vision- it was not left unfulfilled because of Israel’s indolence, but rather was reapplied to the latter day events of which Revelation speaks.</h4><h4>The wheel within a wheel, each revolving as a gyroscope, deepens the impression of movement in contrary directions and yet all within the same direction. The confusion and contradictions which the exiles struggled with, as we do, were all somehow moving in the same direction, led by God’s Spirit. Daniel was contemporary with Ezekiel, and so the mention of the beryl would connect with his description of the future Messiah figure as having a body of beryl, also replete with torches of fire and lightning just as seen in the cherubim vision (<a href='B:340 10:6'>Dan 10:6</a>). As mentioned above, the final manifestation of God’s glory, Spirit, judgment and salvation was to be in the Lord Jesus.</h4>


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<p>When they went, they went in their four directions. They didn’t turn when they went- Like a complex series of gyroscopes within each other, so that the movement might be without turning to wherever they advanced. Thus each wheel was composed of two circles, cutting one another at right angles,"one"only of which appeared to touch the ground ("upon the earth":15), according to the direction the cherubim desired to move in. The idea was that what might appear to be contradictory direction was in fact all seamlessly part of movement in the same direction. And again this has so much meaning for our lives, as it did for the exiles by the river Chebar. What appears useless, taking us away from our intended direction, is being used by God in His bigger direction of our lives towards His Kingdom and restoration.</p>


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<p>As for their rims, they were high and dreadful; and the four of them had their rims full of eyes all around- See on :10. The abundance of eyes gave the impression of God’s awareness and intense gaze upon His people. The captives were tempted to think that God was no longer looking at them, unaware of their struggles, their losses, their history. But the vision impressed upon them that He was intensely aware. Likewise the same idea of many eyes is used to encourage the exiles to the same effect in <a href='B:450 3:9'>Zec 3:9</a>; <a href='B:450 4:10'>Zec 4:10</a>. And again, as noted on :16, Zechariah’s stone full of eyes looked forward to the Lord Jesus, the Messiah figure who was to be the quintessence and personalization of all this Spirit, power and glory.</p>


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<p>When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up- The wheels would speak of God’s active engagement with things upon the earth. And there were times when the whole chariot was lifted up above the earth.</p>


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<h4>Wherever the spirit was to go, they went under the spirit’s control- The wheels, it appears, represented God’s people Israel on earth. If they had kept in step with the Spirit-Angel, following Him both to Babylon and back to Judah at His bidding, they would have been in step with God’s plan for them, and all would have prospered. This passage appears to be behind Paul’s appeal to us to walk in step with the Spirit (<a href='B:550 5:25'>Gal 5:25</a>). Ezekiel himself was the great example of this, for he was “lifted up” by the Spirit just as the wheels were lifted up, and went wherever he was taken, backwards and forwards between Babylon and Judah (<a href='B:330 8:3'>Eze 8:3</a>; <a href='B:330 11:1'>Eze 11:1</a>). He became part of the Cherubic system. See on <a href='B:330 10:2'>Eze 10:2</a>; <a href='B:330 10:8'>Eze 10:8</a>.</h4><p>And the wheels were lifted up beside them, for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels- The spirit of the living creatures in the Heavens was the same spirit in the wheels, God’s people who operationalize God’s will here on earth:&nbsp; That vision was then immediately demonstrated in practice when the Spirit of God entered into Ezekiel and he was sent to preach; just as the Spirit of the living creatures had been in the wheels, and they were sent to and fro in the earth (<a href='B:330 2:2'>Eze 2:2</a>). And thus Ezekiel sees the hand of a man coming to him, just as he had seen it associated with the cherubim in the vision (<a href='B:330 1:8'>Eze 1:8</a> = <a href='B:330 2:9'>Eze 2:9</a>). And surely Ezekiel is addressed as “son of man” in this context because the living creatures have the “likeness of a man” (<a href='B:330 1:5'>Eze 1:5</a>); Ezekiel, God’s man on earth, alone and separate from his brethren, was merged with the huge Heavenly system above him, because God’s Spirit was in him, and he was willing to do God’s will. Just as the cherub “stretched forth his hand” to direct another Angel, so God’s hand was stretched forth [s:w:] upon Ezekiel and he likewise was sent to do God’s will (<a href='B:330 2:9'>Eze 2:9</a>; <a href='B:330 8:3'>Eze 8:3</a>; <a href='B:330 10:7'>Eze 10:7</a>). Knowing that we are part of this huge Heavenly system of working, identified with the Angels and the very cherubim of glory above, can eclipse to a large extent our human feelings of loneliness.</p><h4>The LXX gives"spirit of life". As will be explained in Ezekiel 20 and also was explicit in Jeremiah 31, the returning exiles were offered a new covenant which involved being enlivened with a new spirit, the Spirit which was to bring the dry bones of scattered Judah back to life and restoration to the land in Ezekiel 37. This was taught here right at the beginning of Ezekiel’s vision. See on :21.</h4>


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<p>When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up beside them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels- Later, <a href='B:330 37:14'>Eze 37:14</a> alludes directly back to this vision of the Angel-cherubim’s spirit being placed in the"wheels"of natural Israel:"I (the Angel) shall put My spirit in you, and ye shall live". The cherubim therefore can be interpreted in different ways. This was the Angelic system working with and for Israel, and repentant Judah were bidden become part of it.</p>


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<p>Over the head of the living creature there was the likeness of an expanse, like an awesome crystal to look on, stretched forth over their heads above- Continually we encounter the word and idea of"likeness". Ezekiel is seeing a vision of God’s operations with His people, and we are unwise to try to attach meaning to every detail. The overall impression is of hugely powerful and active operation of God through His Spirit. The"expanse"seems to be a kind of crystal platform for God Himself who presided over the workings of this great system.</p>


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<p>Under the expanse were their wings straight, the one toward the other: each one had two which covered their bodies on this side, and each one had two which covered their bodies on that side- For"straight"see on :7. The cherubim are not so much pictured as supporting God but covering themselves in bowed reverence beneath Him.</p>


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<p>When they went, I heard the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a noise of tumult like the noise of an army. When they stood, they let down their wings- See on :7. This great army was the Lord of hosts, of armies, of Angels. The cherubim also speak of God’s people. The noise is that of the LXX in <a href='B:330 3:12'>Eze 3:12</a>, which has"the voice as of a great earthquake". Later, Ezekiel hears the"noise"of"shaking"or earthquake as the bones of Israel in exile come together by the spirit / Angelic operation of Yahweh, thereby forming a great army (<a href='B:330 37:7'>Eze 37:7</a>). The Spirit came from four places (<a href='B:330 37:9'>Eze 37:9</a>)- just as there were four cherubim. As the sound of the cherubim was as of a great army, so revived Israel stood up as a great army (<a href='B:330 37:10'>Eze 37:10</a>):The Angel cherubim would work with God’s disillusioned and broken people, to revive them, so that they would become like the guardian Angels of Israel above them. The point was that the Angel cherubim system which Ezekiel had seen at work amongst the captives was able to gather them together, and give life to the nation. And yet that didn’t happen to those exiles- because they didn’t walk in step with the spirit.</p>


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<p>There was a voice above the expanse that was over their heads when they stood and let down their wings- It was God’s word which was paramount, and even more powerful than this huge system of Angelic power. And it was that word which Ezekiel was to speak to Israel.</p>


text:
<p>Above the expanse that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and on the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man on it above- The repeated sense of"likeness"is because here we have an impression of God Himself. We are made in God’s image; not mentally, because we need to develop that image within us. Therefore it seems that we are somehow in His literal image. Whatever word we use about God- corporeal, material, tangible etc:- seems somehow inappropriate. But the fact is that God is real, He exists in an actual personal form, we pray to Him as children in His image, and we can form personal relationship with Him. He is not a puff of smoke out in the cosmos, nor a mere abstraction, but a personal being who had a begotten Son.</p>


text:
<p>I saw as it were glowing metal, as the appearance of fire within it all around, from the appearance of his waist and upward. From the appearance of his waist and downward I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him- The idea is of the maximum heat known to people at that time- metal which was molten. The Babylonian worship of fire and the gods of fire was being deconstructed; Israel’s God was the ultimate fire greater than all others. And yet that intense heat was ameliorated by the grace and promise of the rainbow that appeared silhouetted over it (:28).</p>


text:
<p>As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh. When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of one that spoke- When Paul writes of our being transformed into “the image of Christ” (<a href='B:520 8:29'>Rom 8:29</a>; <a href='B:530 15:49'>1Co 15:49</a>) he seems to have in mind <a href='B:330 1:28'>Eze 1:28</a> LXX: “The appearance of the image of the glory of the Lord”. “The glory” in Ezekiel is personified-&nbsp; it refers to a person, and I submit that person was a prophetic image of Jesus Christ. But Paul’s big point is that we each with unveiled face have beheld the Lord’s glory (<a href='B:540 3:16'>2Co 3:16</a> to <a href='B:540 4:6'>2Co 4:6</a>); just as he did on the Damascus road, and just as Ezekiel did. It follows, therefore, that not only is Paul our example, but our beholding of the Lord’s glory propels us on our personal commission in the Lord’s service, whatever it may be.</p>


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<p>He said to me, son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you- We have just read of the cherubim sounding like a great army, and have noted on <a href='B:330 1:20-21'>Eze 1:20-21</a> some connections with the prophecy of Ezekiel 37, of a great army of Israel who were to stand upon their feet once the Spirit had revived them in captivity. Ezekiel perhaps represents the faithful remnant; he is asked to stand upon his feet, and yet in :2 it is the Spirit which stands him upon his feet. His willingness to be obedient was confirmed by the direct action of the Spirit, just as happens today. See on <a href='B:330 3:2'>Eze 3:2</a>.</p>


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<p>The spirit entered into me when He spoke to me, and set me on my feet; and I heard Him who spoke to me- see on <a href='B:330 1:20'>Eze 1:20</a>; <a href='B:330 2:1'>Eze 2:1</a>. Ezekiel represents the remnant of the captives who were intended to be filled with the Spirit and stand upon their feet as a great army (<a href='B:330 37:10'>Eze 37:10</a>).</p>


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<p>He said to me, Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against Me. They and their fathers have transgressed against Me even to this very day- In Ezekiel 18, the captives seem to reason that they are unjustly suffering because of their fathers’ sins. But here it is made clear that they were sinning themselves"to this very day". Most of Israel and Judah didn’t want to leave the lands of their exile and return to the land of Judah. They were rebellious against all God’s gracious plans for them, just as Israel had ’rebelled’ by refusing to enter the land of promise in <a href='B:40 14:9'>Num 14:9</a>&nbsp; (s:w:). Jehoiakim had ’rebelled’ against the king of Babylon, resulting in the earlier Babylonian invasion; and finally Zedekiah also rebelled, leading to the taking of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple (<a href='B:120 24:1'>2Ki 24:1</a>; <a href='B:120 24:20'>2Ki 24:20</a>; <a href='B:140 36:13'>2Ch 36:13</a>; <a href='B:330 17:15'>Eze 17:15</a> s:w:). Judah are portrayed as most miserable; in rebellion against Yahweh, and also against the king of Babylon. They were unhappy, rebels without a cause; just as are those today who will not totally surrender to God. God’s plan at the restoration was to purge out the rebels and save the remnant (<a href='B:330 20:38'>Eze 20:38</a> s:w:), and Ezekiel was to play a part in this.</p>


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<p>The children are impudent and stiff-hearted. I am sending you to them; and you shall tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh’- It was a tough ministry- to be sent to people who he was told from the beginning would not be responsive. Ministry work is easy enough when crowds are responding, but not when we know from the start we are working with hard hearts- because the God who alone knows the hearts has told us that they are stuff hearted.</p>


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<p>They, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear (for they are a rebellious house), will at least know that there has been a prophet among them- As noted on :4, it’s a hard ministry to keep witnessing to people whom God has revealed as hard hearted. We might think that they would only realize Ezekiel was a prophet when his predictions began to come true. And yet the return from exile was decades future. So they"knew"that he was a prophet in their consciences. Even those who reject the word and seem hard hearted to it- still have a conscience. And their aggression to us is often exactly because in their conscience, they know the truth of the word preached to them.</p>


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<h4>You, son of man, don’t be afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you, and you do dwell among scorpions- There was active opposition to Ezekiel’s witness to the exiles- they persecuted him as with"briars and thorns", behaving as scorpions to him. See on <a href='B:330 3:25'>Eze 3:25</a>. His face had to be hardened against their faces (<a href='B:330 3:8'>Eze 3:8</a>). This was in the very early days of the exile. Jewish tradition has it that Ezekiel was murdered at the command of senior Jews in Babylon (See The Lives And Deaths Of The Prophetsin J:H. Charlesworth, ed:, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Cambridge: C:U:P:, 1985). The same book claims that Isaiah was sawn in two by Manasseh, and Jeremiah was stoned to death by the Jews). By the time of Isaiah 66, we see that even well after the restoration had happened, there was still major persecution of the faithful remnant and their prophets.</h4><p>Don’t be afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house- Jeremiah speaks of how he came to see Israel for who they were: “The Lord made it known to me and I knew; then thou didst show me their evil deeds” (<a href='B:300 11:8'>Jer 11:8</a>). Ezekiel was shown “what the house of Israel is doing in the dark” (<a href='B:330 8:12'>Eze 8:12</a>). To pass through human life with this level of sensitivity must’ve been so hard. Psychologically and nervously, the stress would’ve been awful. It seems to me that the prophets had to be somehow psychologically strengthened by God to endure living that sensitively in this crass and unfeeling world- hence God made Ezekiel and Jeremiah as a wall and “iron pillar” to Israel, hardened their faces, so that they wouldn’t be “dismayed at [the] looks” of those who watched them with anger and consternation (<a href='B:300 1:18'>Jer 1:18</a>; <a href='B:300 15:20'>Jer 15:20</a>; <a href='B:330 2:4-6'>Eze 2:4-6</a>; <a href='B:330 3:8-9'>Eze 3:8-9</a>; <a href='B:330 3:27'>Eze 3:27</a>). This psychological strengthening was not aimed at making them insensitive, but rather in strengthening them to live sensitively to sin in a sinful world without cracking up. And He will do the same for us, too.</p><h4>The allusion is to <a href='B:50 1:17'>Deu 1:17</a>, where the judges of Israel were not to be afraid at the looks or faces (s:w:) of men,"because the judgment is God’s".</h4>


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<p>You shall speak My words to them, whether they will hear, or whether they will refuse to hear; for they are most rebellious- Sharing God’s word should be done whether or not there is response. Ezekiel was obviously tempted not to speak God’s words to them because they weren’t listening, but still he is encouraged to continue. This is a timeless principle for all ministry.</p>


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<p>But you, son of man, hear what I tell you; don’t be rebellious like that rebellious house: open your mouth, and eat that which I give you- By refusing to preach to the rebellious, Ezekiel himself would become like them-"rebellious". We have here a parade example of a sin of omission. It is such sins which are likely our problem rather than cold blooded sins of commission. For how many times have we not shared God’s word when we ought to have done, fearing how people might look at us (:6). But the sin of omission particularly in view here would have been refusing to eat the scroll- refusing to take God’s word for others deeply and personally within ourselves.</p>


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<p>When I looked, behold, a hand was put forth to me; and behold, a scroll of a book was therein- Whether Ezekiel read the words and then later repeated them is unlikely, because the opening rubric for the visions implies he had God’s word coming to him, and then spoke it out. The hand was perhaps"put forth"from the cherubim vision. That enormous Spirit activity was in response to God’s word, which Ezekiel was to now preach.</p>


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<p>He spread it before me. It was written within and without; and there were written therein lamentations and mourning and woe- These were the woes to come still upon Jerusalem. Remember Ezekiel went into captivity with the second batch of exiles, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple was yet to come. The purpose of sharing this"woe"with the captives in Babylon and perhaps also the Jews left in the land was surely so that they might repent. Just as Jonah announced Nineveh’s coming doom in orty days’ time::. with no mention of repentance. But the very existence of the prophecy elicited repentance, and so the judgment didn’t come.</p>


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<p>He said to me, Son of man, eat that which you find. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel- Eating the scroll spoke of the need at the beginning of his ministry to absorb the message personally into himself. Our preaching is not to be a mere forwarding of information to others, a sharing of fact in a mechanical way, a passive invitation to attend church social events. Rather is the reality of judgment to come and the real possibility of participating in the coming restored Kingdom of God to be part of our very core being. Only when we personally identify with it will our personal witness become compelling.</p>


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<p>So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat the scroll- Ezekiel was told to eat the scroll (:1), and when he expressed willingness to do so, he was made to eat the scroll- which otherwise, in a literal sense, would have been impossible. We recall how on <a href='B:330 2:1'>Eze 2:1</a> we noted that he was told to stand on his feet, and when willing to do so, the Spirit made him stand on his feet (<a href='B:330 2:2'>Eze 2:2</a>). And this is how God works with us today. See on :11.</p>


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<p>He said to me, Son of man, cause your belly to eat, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you. Then I ate it; and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth- As explained on :1, Ezekiel like all preachers had to internalize God’s word before preaching it. To eat a literal scroll would have seemed impossible; but he was willing, and so the Spirit - Angel empowered him to do so (:2). What he instinctively imagined to be bitter and impossible to digest- turned out as sweet as honey. But note:"In my mouth". The hope of the message was sweet to him, and to all who would accept it. But the content was"woe"to Jerusalem (<a href='B:330 2:10'>Eze 2:10</a>). That bitter judgment could be turned to sweet honey- for those who chose true spirituality. The same figure is used in <a href='B:730 10:9'>Rev 10:9</a>. There is indeed a silver lining to all suffering caused as a result of Divine judgment. But it’s not immediate; it is the hope of the Kingdom and personal salvation for God’s true people. But the reality was that the word would not be sweet for those judged by it; hence in <a href='B:730 10:9'>Rev 10:9</a> the scroll was sweet as honey in the mouth, but then bitter in his stomach. This may be reflected here by Ezekiel subsequently feeling"bitterness"(:14). Bitterness is the experience of the condemned, and the prophets so identified with their message and audience that like the Lord Jesus, they felt the bitterness of condemnation within themselves, whilst personally being innocent and experiencing the word and purpose of God as sweet as honey.</p>


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<p>He said to me, Son of man, go to the house of Israel, and speak My words to them-"Son of man"is of course the common title for the Lord Jesus, who Ezekiel pointed forward to. But the phrase can simply mean ’a human one’. It was Ezekiel’s humanity which was to be the basis of appeal to the audience, as ours should be likewise.</p>


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<p>For you are not sent to a people of a foreign speech and of a hard language, but to the house of Israel- see on <a href='B:300 23:18'>Jer 23:18</a>; <a href='B:300 23:22'>Jer 23:22</a>. The foreign, hard language is surely that of Assyria and Babylon (<a href='B:290 28:11'>Isa 28:11</a>; <a href='B:290 33:19'>Isa 33:19</a>).</p>


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<h4>Not to many peoples of a foreign speech and of a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you- The fact Gentiles would have responded in a given situation is often held up as an extra reason for Israel’s condemnation. The God who knows all possible futures sees this more clearly then we do; if he or she or they had been given what we have been, they would have responded far better. See on <a href='B:470 11:21'>Mat 11:21</a>.</h4><h4>We may well wonder why Ezekiel was sent to the first deportees in Babylon, to announce to them the sins of the Jews still in Judah and the impending destruction of the temple because of their idolatries. Why wasn’t he sent to tell this to the Jews in Judah, so that they might repent? Perhaps the implication was that if the Jews in exile, that first group taken captive, had repented, then their repentance would have been enough to forestall the planned judgment upon those back in Judah. But it didn’t work out like that. The tragedy was, according to <a href='B:330 3:6'>Eze 3:6</a>, that had Ezekiel preached his message in the Babylonian language to the Babylonians, they would’ve repented. In this we have an insight into the pain of God, knowing as He does all possible futures, all potential outcomes. Truly the hardness of heart of the exiles was something amazing. And God likewise looks down upon our lives today, seeing all possibilities, and how unbelievers would respond so much more to Him than His own dear people. It’s the pain of the parent, knowing that other children would respond so much more to their love than their own beloved offspring. The Lord Jesus had something of this when He commented that Tyre and Sidon would’ve repented had they had His message preached to them; but Israel would not (<a href='B:470 11:21'>Mat 11:21</a>). See on <a href='B:330 10:2'>Eze 10:2</a>; <a href='B:330 10:7'>Eze 10:7</a>.</h4>


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<p>But the house of Israel will not listen to you; for they will not listen to Me; for all the house of Israel are obstinate and hard-hearted- God told Ezekiel that Israel would not hear his preaching; and yet Ezekiel repeatedly prefaced his preaching addresses with an appeal to please hear God’s word (<a href='B:330 6:3'>Eze 6:3</a>; <a href='B:330 13:2'>Eze 13:2</a>; <a href='B:330 18:25'>Eze 18:25</a>; <a href='B:330 20:47'>Eze 20:47</a>; <a href='B:330 34:7'>Eze 34:7</a>; <a href='B:330 36:1'>Eze 36:1</a>; <a href='B:330 36:4'>Eze 36:4</a>). He was hoping against hope; his preaching work was asking him to attempt the impossible. To make a nation hear who would not hear. Jeremiah likewise was told that Israel wouldn’t hear him (<a href='B:300 7:27'>Jer 7:27</a>), but still he pleaded with them to hear (<a href='B:300 9:20'>Jer 9:20</a>; <a href='B:300 10:1'>Jer 10:1</a>; <a href='B:300 11:6'>Jer 11:6</a>; <a href='B:300 16:12'>Jer 16:12</a>; <a href='B:300 17:24'>Jer 17:24</a>; <a href='B:300 38:15'>Jer 38:15</a>).</p>


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<p>Behold, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads- The idea is that he was face to face up against the Jews. The hardness of their foreheads was a reflection of how stiff hearted they were, as earlier lamented (:7). The heart effectively means the mind. Ezekiel was to have the Spirit work upon his heart, confirming him in the path and mental positions he had chosen; just as God hadapparently confirmed Judah in their hard mindedness. There is an"evil spirit from the Lord"such as plagued Saul, and also the holy Spirit from Him. He confirms men in the mental path they choose."Hard"is the word translated"obstinate"in :7. They both were confirmed or hardened in the mental attitudes they adopted.</p>


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<p>As an adamant harder than flint have I made your forehead. Don’t be afraid of them, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house- The hearts of the captives were to be described with the same word,"adamant"(<a href='B:450 7:12'>Zec 7:12</a>). God can harden us in the way of either spirituality or hardness of heart. This psychological strengthening was necessary for Ezekiel as he engaged with Jews hardened by the experience of captivity. The command not to be dismayed is exactly that spoken to Israel as they first entered the promised land (<a href='B:50 1:21'>Deu 1:21</a>; <a href='B:50 31:8'>Deu 31:8</a>; <a href='B:60 1:9'>Jos 1:9</a>; <a href='B:60 8:1'>Jos 8:1</a>; <a href='B:60 10:25'>Jos 10:25</a>). Ezekiel and the repentant remnant could likewise leave Babylon (cp. Egypt) and enter and possess the land, against all apparent obstacles. The same word is used in <a href='B:290 51:7'>Isa 51:7</a>, where the faithful at the time of the captivity are urged not to be dismayed because of opposition from apostate Jews. Jeremiah had been given the same encouragement (<a href='B:300 1:17'>Jer 1:17</a>). Circumstances repeat between the lives of God’s children. We are not alone. No situation is totally unprecedented. This is the value of empathetic Bible reading, as well as of fellowship with others within God’s people; for through them we also realize that we are not alone.</p>


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<p>Moreover He said to me, Son of man, all My words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart, and hear with your ears- This appeal had been materially symbolized by the eating of the scroll with those words upon it. Ezekiel is several times encouraged not to be a mere purveyor or forwarder of information, but to internalize the message. This is even now what makes for credible, compelling witness.</p>


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<p>Go to them of the captivity, to the children of your people, and speak to them, and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh;’ whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear- Ezekiel was told to"go to them", he was willing, and was confirmed by the Spirit lifting him up and transporting him there in a moment. We have earlier seen this confirmation by the Spirit of his willingness; see on <a href='B:330 2:2'>Eze 2:2</a>; <a href='B:330 3:1-2'>Eze 3:1-2</a>.</p>


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<h4>Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of Yahweh from His place- As noted on :11, this was the Spirit’s confirmation of Ezekiel himself being willing to make the journey and"go". The Angels are involved with the Cherubim. Yet in Ezekiel’s context, the language of chariots inevitably suggests the approach of enemy armies (<a href='B:330 26:10'>Eze 26:10</a>). Thus the cherubim chariots represented not only the Angels, but also the chariots of God’s enemies; for the Lord of the Angelic hosts was manifested on earth in the Babylonian hosts. The word for the"rushing"noise of the cherubim wheels is used elsewhere about the noise of the chariots of Israel’s enemies and the Babylonian invasion (<a href='B:300 10:22'>Jer 10:22</a>; <a href='B:300 47:3'>Jer 47:3</a>; <a href='B:410 3:2'>Nah 3:2</a>). The Angelic armies of Heaven were therefore revealed on earth in the chariots of Babylon; it was both Babylon and the Angelic cherubim behind them who took Judah captive, and who could also return them to their land. Hence the stress in Ezekiel’s vision that the wheels of the cherubim were on the earth / land. Clearly enough, the things that go on in our lives, even those things which appear as brutal and tragic as the Babylonian chariots were to Judah, are not random machinations of men; they are, in some unfathomable way, under the direct control of a God of love, who only means to do us good at our latter end.</h4><h4>Yet the cherubim also speak of God’s people. The LXX here has"the voice as of a great earthquake". Later, he hears the"noise"of"shaking"or earthquake as the bones of Israel in exile come together by the spirit / Angelic operation of Yahweh (<a href='B:330 37:7'>Eze 37:7</a>). The Spirit came from four places (<a href='B:330 37:9'>Eze 37:9</a>)- just as there were four cherubim. As the sound of the cherubim was as of a great army (<a href='B:330 1:24'>Eze 1:24</a>), so revived Israel stood up as a great army (<a href='B:330 37:10'>Eze 37:10</a>):The Angel cherubim would work with God’s disillusioned and broken people, to revive them, so that they would become like the guardian Angels of Israel above them. The point was that the Angel cherubim system which Ezekiel had seen at work amongst the captives was able to gather them together, and give life to the nation. And yet that didn’t happen to those exiles- because they didn’t walk in step with the spirit.</h4>


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<p>I heard the noise of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the noise of the wheels beside them, even the noise of a great rushing- The four Angels or groups of Angels that comprised them had wings which"kissed one another"(A:V. mg. ) and moved with a soft, smooth sound, despite all four being distinct in some ways. Thus the loving co-operation of the Angels in their work is emphasized. See on <a href='B:10 1:26'>Gen 1:26</a>. The wings made a noise, but apparently didn’t turn or move as they"went"(<a href='B:330 1:9'>Eze 1:9</a>). This again is the paradox of God’s working- motion without movement, winged beings moving without moving their wings. And so it seemed to the exiles; the apparent lack of Divine movement was in fact movement. And this likewise explains the apparent silence of God in our human lives.</p>


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<h4>So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away- This was in confirmation of his own desire to"go"there in obedience (:11).</h4><h4>&nbsp;And I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; and the hand of Yahweh was strong on me- The bitterness is explained on :3. The word of judgment was sweet as honey in Ezekiel’s mouth, but when John ate a similar scroll, it was sweet as honey in his mouth but then bitter in his stomach (<a href='B:730 10:9'>Rev 10:9</a>). This is the bitterness spoken of here. Ezekiel had absorbed the word into himself, so that he felt the bitterness for those who would be judged by it. See on :15.</h4>


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<p>Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel Abib, by the river Chebar, and to where they lived; and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days- He sat astonished and silent among the captives for seven days when he arrived to them with his message of judgment. The connection with Job’s friends is obvious and intended. Ezekiel, the one whom Israel hated and rejected as they did all the prophets, beating some and killing some, felt their grief and sat with them, deeply sympathizing, just as Job’s friends initially did. The Hebrew translated “astonished” is usually translated “destroyed”, “desolate” or “wasted”. All that had happened to Israel for their sins, Ezekiel felt had happened to him, such was his identification with sinners. Two closely related words occur in <a href='B:330 3:14'>Eze 3:14</a>; <a href='B:330 3:26'>Eze 3:26</a> [marah cp. maree]: “I went in bitterness… they are a rebellious house”. Why was Ezekiel bitter / rebellious of spirit when he went to preach to his people; even though he personally was willing to preach to them? Surely it was because he shared their spirit with them; he so entered into their spirit that he reflected their feelings within himself, even though he was not ultimately rebellious personally as they were. BecauseIsrael’s heart would melt and be feeble “Because of the tidings” which Ezekiel taught, therefore his heart sighed and broke because he identified with how they would later feel when his words came true (<a href='B:330 21:6-7'>Eze 21:6-7</a>).</p>


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<p>It happened at the end of seven days, that the word of Yahweh came to me, saying- The seven days of Ezekiel’s silence could be interpreted as disobedience to the command to speak. Hence he needed encouragement. He perhaps feared their looks, perceiving they were men hardened by the traumas of captivity and exile. He was therefore temporarily disobedient, or hesitant to obey, the commands not to fear their looks.</p>


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<h4>Son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel: therefore hear the word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me- As suggested on :16, this can be read as a rebuke of Ezekiel’s seven days silence. If Ezekiel personally was Israel’s watchman, then he is the watchman in view in <a href='B:330 33:2'>Eze 33:2</a>; <a href='B:330 33:6-7'>Eze 33:6-7</a>.</h4><p>Ezekiel was prepared for his ministry by being told to eat and absorb the roll containing the words he was to preach. He was then picked up the spirit-wind, and transported to his audience (<a href='B:330 3:12-13'>Eze 3:12-13</a>). The noise of the wind in the wings of the cherubim is elsewhere interpreted as the sound of God’s word (<a href='B:330 10:5'>Eze 10:5</a>). Yet Ezekiel 3 goes on to warn Ezekiel that if he doesn’t preach the word to his audience, their blood will be upon his head (<a href='B:330 3:17-21'>Eze 3:17-21</a>). This warning was given after Ezekiel had been transported to the people but sat silent with them for 7 days (<a href='B:330 3:16'>Eze 3:16</a>). I understand from all this was that God’s intention was that His message was not to be merely parroted out by Ezekiel, but that it was to be fundamentally part of him; and the message of God’s word, symbolized by the awesome wind-spirit generated by the movement of the cherubim’s wings, was to propel him forward to make his witness to hard faced men and women. This is the ideal. And yet Ezekiel even when he failed to live to up it, was still propelled forward in the mission. And many a missionary knows the truth of this. I take the way that Ezekiel was told to go preach to the captives, and yet was then taken up and transported there, to suggest a reluctance on his part. Perhaps being struck dumb until the fulfilment of the prophecies (<a href='B:330 3:26'>Eze 3:26</a>; <a href='B:330 24:27'>Eze 24:27</a>) suggests this was a punishment of Ezekiel for a lack of faith- for this is exactly the judgment upon Zacharias for faithlessness (<a href='B:490 1:20'>Luk 1:20</a>).</p><h4>Many times we read of how those who hold God’s word are to shine it out to others. The Old Testament tends to use&nbsp;a Hebrew&nbsp;word translated"warn"in speaking of how prophets like Ezekiel were to warn-out, or shine out, God’s word to others (<a href='B:330 3:17-18'>Eze 3:17-18</a> etc:). Yet the same word occurs in <a href='B:340 12:3'>Dan 12:3</a> about how the preachers of God’s word will"shine"eternally in His Kingdom. The connection is clear- how we shine forth God’s word now, is how we will eternally shine it forth. Thus in the practice of preaching today, we are working out who and how we shall eternally be. The very concept of preaching is therefore partly designed by God for our benefit, to develop us into the persons we shall eternally be, by His grace. When we read that God will ’require the blood’ of those to whom we fail to preach His word (<a href='B:330 3:18'>Eze 3:18</a>), we may here have another referenceto a ’going through’ of our deeds at the day of judgment. There, perhaps,&nbsp;we will have to give an account, an explanation, of why our neighbours and workfellows lie eternally dead- because we were too shy, too weakly convinced of the eternal realities we knew, to tell them. For the Hebrew word translated"require"implies some kind of inquisition / explanation. Here we see the vital importance of witness.</h4>


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<h4>When I tell the wicked, You shall surely die- The same phrase used in Genesis for the condemnation of Adam. Adam is everyman.</h4><h4>And you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand- We may reason that if we fail to upbuild a brother, or preach, then God will somehow do it anyway. But this doesn’t seem to be the spirit of <a href='B:330 3:18'>Eze 3:18</a>. We are to appeal to men and women with the message that there is no third road; that it truly is a case of believe or perish. There is no example of apologetics in their preaching, but rather an utter confidence that they were holding out to men the words that gave eternal life. Their words, lives and body language reflected their deep sense of the peril of those outside of Christ. By preaching, they were freed from the blood of men (20:26); evidently alluding to how the watchman must die if he didn’t warn the people of their impending fate. In line with this, “necessity is laid upon me…woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel” (<a href='B:530 9:16'>1Co 9:16</a>). Not talking to folks is perhaps the easiest and commonest sin of omission in our lives.</h4>


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<p>Yet if you warn the wicked, and he doesn’t turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have saved your own life- The"you"in view is primarily Ezekiel, the watchman. By sitting there with the captives, scared of their hard, sceptical looks and saying nothing::. Ezekiel was risking his eternal salvation. By warning them, he was saving his life. We note that the captives were in a"wicked way"; and yet in Ezekiel 18 they apparently reasoned that they were innocent and unfairly suffering because of their fathers’ sins."Turn"is the word commonly used for repentance and also for the ’return’ from Babylon to the land. If the captives repented, then the return and restoration would have happened. This was the significance and deep weight of Ezekiel’s ministry.</p>


text:
<p>Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand- If a person turns to sin, God confirms them in that way by laying a stumbling block before them. We are not to do this; but God can. He confirms us in the way we choose to go. The idea of righteous deeds being remembered struck a chord with Nehemiah, who would have been aware of this prophecy; he asks for his good deeds to be"remembered"(<a href='B:160 13:14'>Neh 13:14</a>; <a href='B:160 13:31'>Neh 13:31</a>). This was not, therefore, a works reliant attitude. Nehemiah was citing Ezekiel’s words. We are saved by grace, the penny a day of the parable which all receive (<a href='B:470 20:2'>Mat 20:2</a>); and yet the nature of our eternity will be a reflection of the works we do in this life. All we do for God will have its eternal moment and significance. Our lives therefore should be devoted to such good works. For we are thereby shaping our eternal experience.</p>


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<p>Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man, that the righteous not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and you have saved your own life- The allusion is to Elisha warning (s:w:) the king of Israel, and the king thereby saving his life from the Syrians (<a href='B:120 6:10'>2Ki 6:10</a>). And the leadership of God’s people were again being warned by a prophet, and could save their lives from the potential invasion by Babylon. The sword was coming upon Judah, and Ezekiel as the watchman was warning them, so that they could save their lives and avert the invasion planned by God (<a href='B:330 33:3-9'>Eze 33:3-9</a> s:w:). This was the tragedy of the final Babylonian invasion which destroyed the temple and sacked Jerusalem. It was avoidable, if Ezekiel’s message had been heeded</p>


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<p>The hand of Yahweh was there on me; and He said to me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with you- Just as the Lord Jesus heard God’s word in private and then revealed it to Israel, so with Ezekiel."Plain"here could as well be translated"valley"as it is in <a href='B:330 37:1-2'>Eze 37:1-2</a>."The valley of dry bones"may have been the same valley in view as here.</p>


text:
<p>Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and behold, the glory of Yahweh stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell on my face- The point to note is that God’s glory was as much in that plain / valley, perhaps in the Jerusalem area, as it was by the Chebar in Babylonia. Stephen was to later point out that"the God of glory"likewise appeared to Abraham when he was outside of the promised land. He was not limited by geography nor nationality. The cherubim of glory are described as the Lord being “there”, and yet they move away to Babylon. Israel were being asked to follow their Angel, as they had followed the Angel in the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness. But they refused, generally, and therefore the great things the Angels had potentially made possible were not realized. Our following of the Angel is just as real, and just as much a matter of daily freewill choice, as it was for the exiles. See on <a href='B:330 35:10'>Eze 35:10</a>.</p>


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<h4>Then the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet- As noted on :22, the"plain"is the same Hebrew word translated"valley"in the valley of dry bones prophecy (<a href='B:330 37:1-2'>Eze 37:1-2</a>). And the connection continues, and that the Spirit enters Ezekiel and he stands on his feet- the very same words used of the dry bones in <a href='B:330 37:10'>Eze 37:10</a>. Ezekiel was representative of what could have happened to all the dry bones of Israel in captivity.</h4><h4>And He spoke with me, and said to me, Go, shut yourself inside your house- The wonderful vision given was to strengthen him for the pain of the abuse he was about to suffer. They Jews bound him and placed him under house arrest; but before that happened, he himself was to shut himself inside his house, representing how God had for the time being closed His house to the Jews. Psychologically this was also powerful, in that what they wanted to do to Ezekiel he had effectively already done to himself. They bond him with shackles (:25) but then God does this to Ezekiel in <a href='B:330 4:8'>Eze 4:8</a>. God was in control even of their own apparently freely chosen hatred of Ezekiel, and worked through it to further His appeal for repentance.</h4>


text:
<h4>But you, son of man, behold, they shall lay shackles on you and shall bind you with them- This suggests Ezekiel was actually tied up by the Jewish captives he prophesied to by the river Chebar; they set their foreheads hard against hearing the prophecies of hope (<a href='B:330 3:9'>Eze 3:9</a>). See on <a href='B:330 2:6'>Eze 2:6</a>. In <a href='B:330 4:8'>Eze 4:8</a> it is God who puts shackles (s:w:) upon Ezekiel so that he lives out an acted parable of captivity. But perhaps this refers to Him working through the angry Jews who bound Ezekiel with these shackles.</h4><h4>And you shall not go out among them- The same words are used of how Jeremiah had gone out among the people preaching his message, and was then imprisoned (<a href='B:300 37:4'>Jer 37:4</a>). Jeremiah was experiencing this about the same time as Ezekiel. Their lives were in parallel, just as through fellowship with other believers we too learn that we are not alone nor are our experiences as terribly unique and unprecedented as we may feel without that fellowship.</h4>


text:
<p>I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth, that you shall be mute, and unable to reprove them; for they are a rebellious house- This may not have been permanent, because we twice read of Ezekiel’s mouth being opened to prophecy (<a href='B:330 24:27'>Eze 24:27</a>, four years later; and <a href='B:330 29:21'>Eze 29:21</a>). The idea may be that their rejection of him and his message meant that there was no more word from Yahweh to the people. But it could be that he was dumb literally. This would have been a powerful acted parable. They likely would have liked to imagine that being struck dumb was judgment from God as in <a href='B:490 1:22'>Luk 1:22</a>. But the more perceptive would have realized it was in fact God’s silence toward hem, and Ezekiel was a living embodiment of the word he preached. For he had internalized the word preached, represented by eating the scroll of the words, and therefore he was the word made flesh to his audience, as we should be.</p>


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<p>But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: He who hears, let him hear; and he who forbears, let him forbear;’ for they are a rebellious house- These words are quoted by the Lord Jesus when He invites those who have ears to hear, to hear (<a href='B:470 11:15'>Mat 11:15</a>; <a href='B:470 13:9'>Mat 13:9</a>). He was the One whose mouth Yahweh had opened supremely. The LXX&nbsp;"He who is disobedient, let him disobedient"is quoted in <a href='B:730 22:11'>Rev 22:11</a>. Clearly Ezekiel’s preaching to the captives is no mere historical record, but is set up by way of NT allusion as representative of all who hear the Gospel of the restored Kingdom and the call to repent in view of that.</p>


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<p>You also, son of man, take a tile, and lay it before yourself, and portray on it the city - Jerusalem- Such engraven tiles with cities upon them were common in Babylon. Again we see God working to appeal to people in local terms. And our witness of His word must be likewise. It’s unclear where Ezekiel was imprisoned in Ezekiel 3, with the captives in Babylonia or in Jerusalem. His message in the acted parable which follows is clearly to the effect that Babylon would come a third time against Jerusalem and destroy it (:16). The message of judgment was of course an appeal to"turn"in repentance, for that was the aim of Ezekiel’s witness as Ezekiel 3 has made clear. If this parable was acted out by the Chebar, then there was the possibility that the repentance of those already in captivity could have saved Jerusalem from the threatened destruction. For it was God’s intention that Judah repent and Jerusalem not be destroyed.</p>


text:
<p>Lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around- Presumably this was done by drawing these things upon the tile. But it was as if by doing so, a siege was actually laid against Jerusalem- so certain was this prophetic word of fulfilment. Presumably Ezekiel was still dumb at this time (<a href='B:330 3:26'>Eze 3:26</a>). Hence the acted parable, the still small voice of lived example which was and is more powerful than the spoken word.</p>


text:
<p>Take for yourself an iron pan and set it for a wall of iron between yourself and the city: and set your face toward it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel- The setting of Ezekiel’s face represented the setting of God’s face against Jerusalem (<a href='B:300 21:10'>Jer 21:10</a>; <a href='B:330 15:7'>Eze 15:7</a>). Jeremiah’s message in Jerusalem was being repeated by Ezekiel to the captives in Babylon. The iron pan speaks of the"northern iron"of Babylon (<a href='B:300 15:12'>Jer 15:12</a>; <a href='B:300 28:13'>Jer 28:13</a> - again we note similarities between Jeremiah and Ezekiel, prophesying at about the same time and delivering the same message, Jeremiah in Judah and Ezekiel to the captives already in Babylon). Later Ezekiel would liken the defences of Jerusalem to a weak"wall"of clay bricks that toppled easily (<a href='B:330 13:12'>Eze 13:12</a>; <a href='B:330 13:14'>Eze 13:14</a>). But Ezekiel represented God, and the iron wall spoke of the barrier between Jerusalem and God through which their desperate prayers would not penetrate. It was a"sign"in that"the house of Israel"were to realize this is how it would be, and repent so it didn’t happen. There is a gap between the Divine pronouncement and its realization, in which we can repent and change that pronouncement. We also live in such a gap, and have repented and changed the verdict of eternal death for us."The house of Israel"is a term used repeatedly in Ezekiel. And yet the captives he was among were apparently from Judah. But it was God’s plan that at the restoration, both the ten tribes and Judah would together repent and return to the land. Perhaps there were also members of the ten tribes in captivity in Babylon, or Ezekiel’s prophecies were to be taken to them, as they were apparently taken to the Jews still in Jerusalem.</p>


text:
<p>Moreover lie on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; according to the number of the days that you shall lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity- Again we see the"son of man"Ezekiel looking forward to the Lord Jesus, the ultimate bearer of Israel’s sins. Ezekiel was to"lie"on his side, but the Hebrew is often used for sleeping. Whilst sleeping he was to bear their sin and when he awoke from the final sleep, their sin would have been carried; again looking forward to the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Samaria, the capital of the ten tribe kingdom, is described by Ezekiel as being on the left side (<a href='B:330 16:46'>Eze 16:46</a>). To ’bear iniquity’ meant ’to bear the punishment for iniquity’ (<a href='B:20 28:43'>Exo 28:43</a>; <a href='B:40 18:1'>Num 18:1</a> etc:). They were as it were to sleep and then arise at the restoration.</p>


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<p>For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be to you a number of days, even three hundred and ninety days. So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel- Perhaps some restoration could have happened to the ten tribes after 390 years, if the right conditions had been fulfilled by them; although there’s no sign it ever did. &nbsp;See on :6. Perhaps God was willing to accept Ezekiel as the sin bearer for them, whether or not they repented; but they didn’t even accept that. The start of the 390 day-years may have begun some time earlier for Israel, the ten tribes. We note that 390 + 40 gives 430, which was the number of years Israel were in Egypt (<a href='B:20 12:40'>Exo 12:40</a>). The LXX reads 190, not 390. If we take the beginning of Israel’s punishment as the deportations under the reign of Pekah in BC 736, this brings us to BC546. If Judah’s punishment began with the destruction of Jerusalem in BC586, forty years from that comes to the same date, BC546.</p>


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<p>Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it to you- Ezekiel was asked to prophecy that Judah would suffer for their sins for 40 years. Perhaps something could’ve happened after 40 years::. And then, the starting point of the 70 or 40 years was somewhat flexible- for <a href='B:330 22:3-4'>Eze 22:3-4</a> records Ezekiel’s prophecy that the desolation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians [the starting point of the time periods] was actually being hastened, brought forward, by the terrible behaviour of the Jews living there after the initial Babylon invasion of the land. Closer study reveals the variableness of outworking of the time periods. <a href='B:300 25:11-12'>Jer 25:11-12</a> and <a href='B:300 29:10'>Jer 29:10</a> speak of a 70 year period of Babylonian rule over Judah, beginning with the invasion of BC597. But Babylon only ruled over Judah for 49 years, before Babylon fell to the Persians. This would connect with the way that <a href='B:450 4:3'>Zec 4:3</a> speaks of 7 menorah candlesticks each with 7 lamps, making 49 lamps. 49 is the cycle of 7 sabbath years that culminated in the jubilee year, and the jubilee year, the proclamation of liberty to the land (<a href='B:30 25:8-12'>Lev 25:8-12</a>; <a href='B:30 27:7-24'>Lev 27:7-24</a>) is a figure used so often in Isaiah to describe the freedom of Judah once released from Babylon. <a href='B:30 26:34'>Lev 26:34</a>; <a href='B:30 26:43'>Lev 26:43</a> speak of the land enjoying her Sabbaths whilst Israel were in exile for their sins- i:e. for 49 years. So it seems that there could have been some restoration after 49 years- but it didn’t happen. But <a href='B:340 9:2'>Dan 9:2</a> and <a href='B:140 36:21'>2Ch 36:21</a> seem to reinterpret those 70 years of Jeremiah’s prophecies as speaking of a 70 year period during which Jerusalem and the temple would be desolate See on <a href='B:330 6:8'>Eze 6:8</a>.</p>


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<p>You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm uncovered; and you shall prophesy against it- Ezekiel was representing God, whose arm was uncovered in His active judgment of Jerusalem. He was ready for action, and only desperate repentance would change this. But the same phrase"arm uncovered"is found only in <a href='B:290 52:10'>Isa 52:10</a>, which speaks of how God’s arm was uncovered in preparing to destroy the nations abusing Israel through the revelation of Messiah. There is always a silver lining in God’s judgments. The judgment of His people was to presage the destruction of Babylon and the establishment of His restored kingdom in Israel at the restoration, replete with a Messiah figure. But His people precluded this possibility by their disobedience.</p>


text:
<p>Behold, I lay shackles on you, and you shall not turn yourself from one side to the other, until you have accomplished the days of your siege-"Shackles"is the same word used of how the Jews bound Ezekiel with shackles in <a href='B:330 3:25'>Eze 3:25</a>. Perhaps this refers to Him working through the angry Jews who bound Ezekiel with these shackles. Our apparent limitations are used by God and even placed by Him, even through the hands of evil people; in order that we might be a witness to them and lead them to repentance.</p>


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<p>Take for yourself also wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt, and put them in one vessel and make bread of it; according to the number of the days that you shall lie on your side, even three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat of it- The idea was that whilst sleeping in captivity, Israel and Judah would eat only very basic food without meat. But the book of Esther reveals that this isn’t what happened in the longer term; many of Judah ended up prosperous. Again we have here a potential scenario which was precluded by the utter refusal of the Jews generally to repent. See on :16.</p>


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<p>Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time you shall eat it- The way Peter was given a vision and asked to eat what he had previously thought unclean has many similarities with Ezekiel going through a similar experience (<a href='B:330 4:10-14'>Eze 4:10-14</a> cp. <a href='B:510 10:14'>Act 10:14</a>). Peter was intended to have made the connection, which he apparently didn’t do. We too find points of contact between our experiences and those of Biblical characters. This is where familiarity with the basic text of scripture can open up the meaning of our lives to us.</p>


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<p>You shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time you shall drink- Not much less than a pint of water / day, less than what today would be considered a necessary fluid intake in a hot climate (<a href='B:110 22:27'>1Ki 22:27</a>; <a href='B:290 30:20'>Isa 30:20</a>). Ezekiel was effectively imprisoned at this time, as explained at the end of Ezekiel 3; the idea was that his captors would in turn suffer like this.</p>


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<p>You shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it in their sight with dung that comes out of man- This suggests a very stark existence without even firewood. But as noted on :9, God punished His people far less than He planned, less their iniquities deserved, as Ezra observed to the captives who returned (<a href='B:150 9:13'>Ezr 9:13</a>). Here we see how God’s statements may not come true because His mercy and pity is stronger than His judgment of sin. But that grace is not automatic, and is given depth and meaning the more we consider the reality of the statements of judgment made in His anger. See on :16; <a href='B:330 5:2'>Eze 5:2</a>.</p>


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<p>Yahweh said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean among the nations where I will drive them- They were to be purposefully defiled, made to eat unclean food (<a href='B:350 9:3'>Hos 9:3</a>), driven to realize that they existed as unclean in God’s eyes, their situation precluding perfect obedience to Divine law. And thereby they were to be driven to appreciate His grace. Again, there was purpose and intention behind all God’s judgments for sin.</p>


text:
<p>Then I said, Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now have I not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth- The implication might be that given such a lack of meat in the diet, the captives like Ezekiel would be driven to eat unclean meat. We wonder whether Ezekiel was in fact so totally technically obedient; his words recall that of the older brother who claimed total obedience to his father.</p>


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<p>Then He said to me, Behold, I have given you cow’s dung for man’s dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon- This was a concession to Ezekiel, showing how God is open to dialogue with man. However, the use of any dung would still have made the food ritually unclean; so the essential lesson of :13 was still to be learnt.</p>


text:
<p>Moreover He said to me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure, and in dismay- The situation acted out by Ezekiel was however to go on many years, not just during the siege of Jerusalem. The idea was that the deprivations of the siege were to continue throughout their captivity. But in wrath God remembered mercy and this didn’t in fact happen; see on :9,12.</p>


text:
<p>That they may want bread and water, and be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity- This pining away was that of <a href='B:30 26:39'>Lev 26:39</a>, the judgment for breaking covenant. But we must recall that they had just witnessed Ezekiel bearing their iniquity, in the spirit of the Christ. Their pining away, sitting depressed by the rivers of Babylon pining away in their sins, could have been resolved by realizing that Ezekiel had carried the punishment for their iniquity. He really was set up as their representative,"son of man"saviour. But as later with the Lord Jesus, they refused to accept that. Seeon <a href='B:330 5:3'>Eze 5:3</a>.</p>


text:
<p>You, son of man, take a sharp sword. You shall use it like a barber’s razor on yourself, and shall cause it to pass on your head and on your beard. Then take balances to weigh, and divide the hair- This was presumably to be done during the period Ezekiel was laying bound in Ezekiel 4. Ezekiel represented God, as made clear throughout the acted parable of Ezekiel 4. God like Ezekiel was taking the sword of the Babylonians into His own hand and as it were cutting off His own glory, represented by Ezekiel’s hair (<a href='B:530 11:15'>1Co 11:15</a>). Ezekiel may well have been a Nazirite with long hair. The eating of unclean food would have meant the end of his vow, and the need to shave his hair. The use of balances spoke of God’s judgment of His glory, His hair, His people. They in all their sinfulness, like us, were intended to be His glory. God was not therefore left without personal suffering and loss through the sword He was bringing upon His people.</p>


text:
<h4>A third part you shall burn in the fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled; and you shall take a third part, and strike with the sword around it; and a third part you shall scatter to the wind - and I will draw out a sword after them- We would expect from this that the exiles would be persecuted and slain in captivity, and this surely was God’s intended judgment. But in Esther we find the exiles in prosperity, in positions of power, and respected by their captors; and Jeremiah concludes his long prophecy with the information that Jehoiachin, Judah’s exiled King, was exalted" above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon"and he was given special favour and honour by the King of Babylon (<a href='B:300 52:31-34'>Jer 52:31-34</a>). I can only understand these things as pure grace; see on :9. God showed tenderness and favour to His people in captivity, far above what He had intended or what they deserved; they were punished less than their sins deserved at this time (<a href='B:150 9:13'>Ezr 9:13</a>; see on <a href='B:330 4:12'>Eze 4:12</a>). And He does the same with us- He gives us so much more than we deserve. And yet most of Judah abused that grace; they were so taken up with the good life God gave them in captivity that they chose to remain there and not participate in the restoration. And we so easily can end up abusing His grace likewise</h4><h4>The judgment of the people of Jerusalem by thirds becomes the basis for some of the visions of Revelation; and it is the same subject in view there, the latter day judgment upon the people of God in their land and city.</h4>


text:
<p>You shall take of it a few in number, and bind them in your skirts- A tiny remnant would survive, but even they would be reduced to a tiny remnant. Only a remnant of a remnant would survive, and these were intended to be the repentant group who would bring about the restored kingdom of God in Israel. But in His grace, God didn’t destroy on such a scale as here envisaged; and no repentant remnant therefore emerged. The"skirts"are s:w."wings"in the cherubim visions (<a href='B:330 1:9'>Eze 1:9</a>; <a href='B:330 1:11'>Eze 1:11</a>; <a href='B:330 1:23'>Eze 1:23</a> etc:). Ezekiel was representing God; he could have been for the salvation of the remnant; see on <a href='B:330 4:17'>Eze 4:17</a>. He was identified with the cherubim, as Judah also could have been. They too could have been transported with ease back to Jerusalem. But instead they imprisoned Ezekiel at the Chebar river.</p>


text:
<p>Of these again you shall take, and throw them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; from it shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel- Perhaps the idea is that the destruction of the tiny minority of faithful ones by the persecution of the Jews themselves was what would bring the fire of judgment upon all Israel. The latter chapters of Isaiah speak of the persecution of this remnant by the Jews; Jeremiah was imprisoned and almost killed, as was Ezekiel. And Jewish tradition says that both those prophets were finally murdered by the Jews. Jerusalem killed the prophets, as the Lord lamented. The LXX however links this with :5 to imply that it was the burning of the house of Israel which would lead to the fire of judgment spreading from Jerusalem to the surrounding peoples who had participated in it.</p>


text:
<p>Thus says the Lord Yahweh: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the peoples and countries which are around her- Jerusalem ought to have been the spiritual light of the world around her, but she was not. She was the city set on a hill for all to see. But she failed in this, and so the Lord reapplied that idea to every individual believer in Him (<a href='B:470 5:14-15'>Mat 5:14-15</a>).</p>


text:
<p>She has rebelled against My ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected My ordinances, and as for My statutes, they have not walked in them- The Jews of course insisted that they were compliant with the law and covenant; but God perceived that in essence they were totally disobedient, and instead of being a moral light to the nations (see on :5), they were worse than the nations. The AV implies that Judah"changed"God’s laws into wickedness.</p>


text:
<p>Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you are rebellious more than the nations that are around you and have not walked in My statutes, neither have kept My ordinances, neither have done after the ordinances of the nations that are around you- God was disappointed that His people had not only been disobedient to Him, but they had not even been obedient to their conquerors. He so values obedience, and had an attitude that sought to see if they would show it to at least someone, even if they had rejected Him. He analyzes every facet of human life, disobedience and obedience, and this highlights the depth of His grace.</p>


text:
<p>Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgments in the midst of you in the sight of the nations- Jerusalem and the temple was the location"in the midst of you", and the nations would view this in that their mercenaries were all part of the Babylonian army which sacked Jerusalem. But just as all the surrounding nations had been drawn against Zion to destroy it, so at the restoration it was God’s intention that they would be gathered together there again in repentant worship (<a href='B:300 3:17'>Jer 3:17</a>).</p>


text:
<p>I will do in you that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all your abominations- Again, this threat was ameliorated by God’s grace. For the time of final unprecedented trouble for Jacob is yet future (<a href='B:340 12:1-2'>Dan 12:1-2</a>; <a href='B:590 2:16'>1Th 2:16</a>). It could have come in the Babylonian invasion, but God’s grace didn’t let it happen; see on :2. But the essence will come true, the prophetic word is not falsified by this grace; it will come true in the last days.</p>


text:
<h4>Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of you, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments on you; and the whole remnant of you will I scatter to all the winds- This again repeats to the exiles in Babylon the words which Jeremiah had told to those in the land (<a href='B:300 19:9'>Jer 19:9</a>). These things did indeed happen (<a href='B:310 2:20'>Lam 2:20</a>; <a href='B:310 4:10'>Lam 4:10</a>), in fulfilment of the curses for breaking the covenant (<a href='B:30 26:29'>Lev 26:29</a>; <a href='B:50 28:53'>Deu 28:53</a>). But as Solomon’s prayer made clear, once those things had happened, then Israel were to look to Zion in repentance from the lands of their exile. And it was to this end that Ezekiel was amongst them. The scattering to the winds is again an allusion to the cherubim vision; the sound of wind is associated with them. They who could have saved Israel and returned them from captivity would further scatter them to the winds- and also, if the exiles were willing, return them. The Hebrew for"scatter"is literally to winnow, and again repeats Jeremiah’s message to those in the land (<a href='B:300 15:7'>Jer 15:7</a> s:w:). But the idea of winnowing is that the grain falls to the earth, and this again was the idea- that out of the scattering throughout the provinces of Babylon, a remnant would fall to the earth / land from where they were winnowed, namely to Zion.</h4><h4>However, the scattering was not at all to the extent that God had envisaged here and in other prophecies. In wrath He remembered mercy, or perhaps the intercession and repentance of a minority led Him to ameliorate His judgments for their sakes. The Babylonians, unlike the Assyrians, didn’t practice mass deportations. They removed the leadership of subjected peoples, and appointed locals as the leaders under their control. This is what they did to Judah, taking the royal family and priesthood into captivity, and establishing Gedaliah as puppet governor (<a href='B:300 40:7'>Jer 40:7</a>; <a href='B:120 25:2'>2Ki 25:2</a>) along with some local Jewish"elders"(<a href='B:310 5:12'>Lam 5:12</a>), with Mizpeh rather than Jerusalem as the capital:&nbsp; <a href='B:150 9:7'>Ezr 9:7</a> is clear that it was"our kings and our priests [who] have been delivered"into captivity. The Babylonians saw no economic purpose in bringing masses of unskilled peasant farmers into captivity in their cities. It’s been estimated that at least 90% of Judah were peasant farmers; and these, the impoverished masses, were left in the land and not deported (<a href='B:300 52:16'>Jer 52:16</a>; <a href='B:120 25:12'>2Ki 25:12</a>). See on <a href='B:330 11:15'>Eze 11:15</a>. The Babylonian policy regarding deportation and management of conquered lands is described in N:P. Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (Sheffield: JSOT, 1988) and D:L. Smith, The Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile (Bloomington, IN: Meyer Stone, 1989). God did not therefore scatter all the people quite as He intended. There is archaeological evidence for continued agricultural activity in the land after the deportations. And <a href='B:300 41:5'>Jer 41:5</a> seems to speak of men coming to the Jerusalem temple from Shechem and Shiloh, in the ten tribe area, in order to offer grain offerings at the site of the temple. Presumably the altar had been destroyed, hence no animal sacrifices are mentioned. It has been suggested that the book of Lamentations was written as part of a temple ritual or at least material to be recited at the site of the temple.</h4>


text:
<h4>Therefore as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations-"Defiled"is the word used in <a href='B:330 4:14'>Eze 4:14</a> of how Judah were to be defiled, to be ritually unclean, in their exile; but this is what they themselves had done by defiling or polluting the temple with the idols they placed within it, as Ezekiel will later reveal. So their judgment was as ever, appropriate to their sin. Their condemnation to defilement was in fact only a continuation of what they themselves had done.</h4><p>Therefore will I also diminish you- They would likewise be"diminished"justas they had"diminished"God’s laws and requirements (<a href='B:50 12:32'>Deu 12:32</a>), minimizing and practicing reductionism to the point that they had done away with His law. We too can tend towards reductionism, reasoning towards the lowest common denominator rather than to the highest.</p><h4>Neither shall My eye spare, and I also will have no pity- But the wonder of God’s grace was that His eye did spare and He did pity at the restoration (<a href='B:330 36:21'>Eze 36:21</a>; <a href='B:360 2:18'>Joe 2:18</a>; <a href='B:460 3:17'>Mal 3:17</a> s:w:), just as His eye had spared them in the desert (<a href='B:330 20:17'>Eze 20:17</a>). This reveals the emotion of God, His pity even for the spiritually weak, and how this triumphs over His judgment.</h4>


text:
<h4>A third part of you shall die with the plague and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of you; and a third part shall fall by the sword around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds- It seems doubtful whether two thirds of Jerusalem died during the Babylonian siege. Rather it seems that God’s grace was such that He didn’t carry out His threats to the full extent; as Ezra perceived about the situation, they were punished less than their iniquities deserved (<a href='B:150 9:13'>Ezr 9:13</a>; see on <a href='B:330 4:12'>Eze 4:12</a>). <a href='B:300 40:7-12'>Jer 40:7-12</a> is clear that a number of Jews did remain in the land immediately after the final Babylonian invasion.</h4><h4>And will draw out a sword after them- See on :2.</h4>


text:
<h4>Thus shall My anger be accomplished- These are the very words used about God’s intention to utterly destroy Israel at the time of <a href='B:20 32:10'>Exo 32:10</a>; <a href='B:20 32:12'>Exo 32:12</a>. But thanks to the intercession of Moses, this didn’t happen. Moses later uses the term in reflecting how God’s anger had been accomplished upon Israel, but not in the form of totally destroying them as He had first planned (<a href='B:230 90:7'>Psa 90:7</a>). The implication of course was that a Moses-like figure could arise in intercession, God had been open to change the outworking of His anger, and so by implication He was likewise open at Ezekiel’s time. And it seems He did relent, because as noted on :12, God did not totally destroy Jerusalem’s population to the extent He had threatened. And yet just as Moses perceived that His anger was still accomplished, although without the total destruction of Israel, so Jeremiah uses this phrase in reflecting how in fact God’s anger was accomplished in the Babylonian destruction (<a href='B:310 4:11'>Lam 4:11</a>). Ezekiel himself will later note this too (<a href='B:330 20:8'>Eze 20:8</a>; <a href='B:330 20:21'>Eze 20:21</a>).</h4><p>And I will cause My wrath toward them to rest, and I shall be comforted- The cessation, accomplishment or resting of God’s wrath is mentioned several times in Ezekiel, and nowhere else in this way (<a href='B:330 5:13'>Eze 5:13</a>; <a href='B:330 6:12'>Eze 6:12</a>; <a href='B:330 7:8'>Eze 7:8</a>; <a href='B:330 13:15'>Eze 13:15</a>; <a href='B:330 16:42'>Eze 16:42</a>; <a href='B:330 20:8'>Eze 20:8</a>; <a href='B:330 21:17'>Eze 21:17</a>; <a href='B:330 22:20'>Eze 22:20</a>; <a href='B:330 24:13'>Eze 24:13</a>). The idea is not that God was so angry that He had to express that anger and only calmed down once He had as it were lashed out. He does have real wrath; the huge love He has cannot exist in a dimensionless vacuum, it of itself implies He also has wrath. <a href='B:330 5:13'>Eze 5:13</a> continues:"I will cause My wrath toward them to rest, and I shall be comforted", and the Hebrew there for"comforted"is literally ’to sigh’, to be sorry, even to repent / change. Having expressed His legitimate anger, God knew that He would then be sorry and would then embark upon a process of restoration- by grace. For the objects of His wrath didn’t deserve any restoration."To rest"is the word translated"to place"in <a href='B:330 37:14'>Eze 37:14</a>:"I shall place you in your own land"at the restoration from captivity. His wrath had to be expressed, and yet it was part of His wider purpose toward restoring His people and Kingdom. We would be quite wrong, therefore, to read these words as meaning that God was furiously angry and needed to lash out and get it all expressed so that He could as it were calm down again. His judgments are always ultimately constructive, and therefore"the wrath of God is the love of God". His wrath is therefore described in <a href='B:330 5:15'>Eze 5:15</a> as the rebuke of His fury / wrath; it was intended to rebuke, to achieve instruction, that they should ’know Yahweh’. The tragedy was that the captives for the most part refused to perceive it this way and respond.</p><h4>They shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in My zeal, when I have accomplished My wrath on them- As noted on :12, God’s words in wrath were not actually totally fulfilled. The Hebrew here is phrased in such a way as to imply that when the wrath was accomplished, they would realize that these threats were spoken in anger and had not been totally fulfilled; although it seems they will be finally in the holocaust of the last days.</h4>


text:
<p>Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the peoples that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by- Again Ezekiel is repeating to the captives in Babylon the same message which Jeremiah was giving to the Jews in Judah (<a href='B:300 19:8'>Jer 19:8</a>). This was the punishment for breaking the covenant (<a href='B:30 26:13'>Lev 26:13</a>). But as shown on :12, God’s threatened judgments were not executed to the degree He had originally planned; in wrath He remembered mercy. For there is evidence that Jerusalem was broken down but not completely desolate, some lived there, and even operated some limited temple services after the Babylonian destruction.</p>


text:
<p>So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the peoples that are around you, when I shall execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath and in furious rebukes. I, Yahweh, have spoken it- God’s fury was in order to rebuke. It was unlike human fury poured out upon the weak by the stronger. See on :13.</p>


text:
<p>They shall see, when I shall send on them the evil arrows of famine that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you: when I will increase the famine on you, and will break your staff of bread- The arrows of famine may refer to the stabs of pain felt in extreme hunger, hence GNB"You will feel the pains of hunger like sharp arrows sent to destroy you"."Evil arrows"were thought to be cast by displeased gods; but here Yahweh insists that there is no supernatural evil, and He is going to be the one who fires such arrows. His omnipotence meant that there was no place left for any understanding of"evil"as coming from some cosmic evil being, such as the"satan"of modern theology.</p>


text:
<p>I will send on you famine and wild animals, and they shall bereave you; and pestilence and blood shall pass through you; and I will bring the sword on you: I, Yahweh, have spoken it- see on <a href='B:110 22:22'>1Ki 22:22</a>. The wild animals may be literal (as <a href='B:50 32:23-24'>Deu 32:23-24</a>). In 2Ki 1725 literal lions were sent by God to punish people. However there is no record of this happening; again, as explained on :12, in wrath God remembered mercy. But the reference could be figurative, to Babylon as the"lion"with"eagle’s wings"(<a href='B:340 7:4'>Dan 7:4</a>). But this would then be an awkward repetition of"the sword"coming upon them.</p>


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<p>The word of Yahweh came to me, saying- This phrase is used multiple times in Jeremiah and Ezekiel; but very rarely elsewhere. It is never once used in Isaiah. The fact it occurs so often in Jeremiah and Ezekiel supports the impression that they were giving very similar messages, often using the same words; Jeremiah to the Jews still in Judah, and Ezekiel to the Jews taken into captivity in the first and second invasions. Ezekiel was bidding the exiles to repent in order to avert the catastrophe which was otherwise to come upon the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem. This shows how much the spirituality of third parties can really affect people.</p>


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<p>Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them- We wonder why Ezekiel in Babylon would usefully prophecy against or towards the mountains of Israel. I suggest as on :1 that the repentance of the minority in Babylon could have affected the outcomes for the Jews still in Judah.</p>


text:
<h4>And say, You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh: Thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword on you- God told Ezekiel that Israel would not hear his preaching (<a href='B:330 3:7'>Eze 3:7</a>); and yet Ezekiel repeatedly prefaced his preaching addresses with an appeal to please hear God’s word (<a href='B:330 6:3'>Eze 6:3</a>; <a href='B:330 13:2'>Eze 13:2</a>; <a href='B:330 18:25'>Eze 18:25</a>; <a href='B:330 20:47'>Eze 20:47</a>; <a href='B:330 34:7'>Eze 34:7</a>; <a href='B:330 36:1'>Eze 36:1</a>; <a href='B:330 36:4'>Eze 36:4</a>). He was hoping against hope; his preaching work was asking him to attempt the impossible. To make a nation hear who would not hear. Jeremiah likewise was told that Israel wouldn’t hear him (<a href='B:300 7:27'>Jer 7:27</a>), but still he pleaded with them to hear (<a href='B:300 9:20'>Jer 9:20</a>; <a href='B:300 10:1'>Jer 10:1</a>; <a href='B:300 11:6'>Jer 11:6</a>; <a href='B:300 16:12'>Jer 16:12</a>; <a href='B:300 17:24'>Jer 17:24</a>; <a href='B:300 38:15'>Jer 38:15</a>). The"mountains"are put by metonymy for the people sacrificing to idols upon them; just as the altar is addressed in <a href='B:110 13:2'>1Ki 13:2</a>, when the people sacrificing upon it are in view.</h4><h4>And I will destroy your high places- Quoting from <a href='B:30 26:30'>Lev 26:30</a>; this was the result of having broken the covenant.</h4>


text:
<p>Your altars shall become desolate, and your incense altars shall be broken; and I will cast down your slain men before your idols-"Incense altars"is literally ’sun images’. But they had supposedly been destroyed inJosiah’s reformations (<a href='B:140 34:4'>2Ch 34:4</a>). This point is made so many times- that leaders destroyed idolatry but the people continued it. And it tends to be the same with so much apparent reform we may make in our lives. The corpses of the worshippers would be placed before their idols, because by worshipping them, the worshippers had effectively prostrated their lives before them. Again, the judgment was appropriate to the sin. They had effectively condemned themselves, and this will be true for all who are condemned at the last day.</p>


text:
<p>I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars- See on :4. The valley of dry bones vision in Ezekiel 37 depicted Israel in captivity as bones waiting to come together and return to the land as a great army. <a href='B:300 8:1'>Jer 8:1</a> and other passages earlier in Ezekiel (<a href='B:330 6:5'>Eze 6:5</a>; <a href='B:330 24:4'>Eze 24:4</a>) had described both Judah and Israel as dry bones. The feeling of those bones was that"our bones are dried and our hope is lost"(<a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>). Judah in captivity felt that they had no"hope", that God had cast them off, and that they were unable to have a full relationship with Him outside the land. However, it seems that this was a rather convenient piece of theology for them- they were doing well in Babylon, and despite the opportunity to return to the land, they largely chose to remain in Babylon.</p>


text:
<p>In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished- Here the idols are called the works of their hands. And here we see the essential relevance for us today, living in an age where physical idols don’t exist. The idols were attractive because they were the works of the hands of the worshippers. This is what is so relevant to us. What we have made in our lives and by our own device, a business, a self built home::. so easily thereby become our idols.</p>


text:
<p>The slain shall fall in the midst of you, and you shall know that I am Yahweh- The"midst"of the mountains may refer specifically to Jerusalem. They would know"I am Yahweh"in that they would all too late come to recognize Him. This is the tragedy of the Biblical pictures of condemnation; that all too late, the condemned come to realize the essence of Yahweh.</p>


text:
<p>Yet will I leave a remnant: you shall have some that escape the sword among the peoples, when you shall be scattered through the nations- This"remnant"were intended to return in repentance and be the basis of the restored kingdom of God. The same word is used in <a href='B:300 43:5'>Jer 43:5</a>:"Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces took all the remnant of Judah, who were returned from all the nations where they had been driven, to live in the land of Judah". But this remnant didn’t respond; having returned, they then began worshipping the sun again and went to Egypt, against God’s specific pleading with them through Jeremiah. The time spent in exile could have been far shorter than the 70 years of Jeremiah; there were various time frames potentially possible, as noted on <a href='B:330 4:6'>Eze 4:6</a>.</p>


text:
<h4>Those of you that escape shall remember Me among the nations where they shall be carried captive because I have been broken with their lewd heart which has departed from Me- When God said that"I have been broken with their whorish heart"(<a href='B:330 6:9'>Eze 6:9</a> RV), He meant it. Sinful Israel broke the heart of Almighty God. The tone of God’s speeches in Jeremiah varies wildly, moving abruptly from outraged cries of pain to warm entreaties of love, and then to desperate pleas for a new start. He is responding like a jilted lover, who gained His Israel by wooing them in the wilderness. He felt the pain of Israel’s rejection, and went through very human-like reactions to this. The book of Hosea shows all this lived out in a real human life. Hosea was representative of God, and yet he married a slut called Gomer, and in their life together they portrayed graphically the pain of God’s relationship with His people. The image of God as the wounded lover which we meet in Hosea and Jeremiah ought to deeply impress us. The God who created all of existence subjects Himself to such humiliation from His creation. One is almost haunted by the reality of a God who lets our response to Him count that much. God says that the remnant of His people would"remember"what they had done to Him. But they didn’t, and that is the abiding tragedy</h4><p>And with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols- As an alcoholic’s eyes dart immediately to the alcohol on display in a supermarket, so their eyes had a natural inclination and attraction towards idols. And the glance of their eyes, their mental predisposition toward idolatry, was prostitution in God’s eyes. We see powerfully portrayed the sensitivity of God toward our deepest psychology and the core yearning of our hearts. May that be ever toward Him alone.</p><h4>They shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations- But they didn’t. Ezekiel 18 explains how they considered they were suffering unjustly for the sins of their fathers, and sat depressed by the rivers of Babylon, still looking towards their idols."They shall::."do this was the Divine hope of the unrequited lover for the beloved. Or at best it was command rather than prediction.</h4>


