| Back to Home Page | Back to Book Index
|
Jeremiah
Chapter Thirty-four
Jeremiah 34
Chapter Contents
Zedekiah's death at Babylon foretold. (1-7) The Jews
reproved for compelling their poor brethren to return to unlawful bondage.
(8-22)
Commentary on Jeremiah 34:1-7
(Read Jeremiah 34:1-7)
Zedekiah is told that the city shall be taken, and that
he shall die a captive, but he shall die a natural death. It is better to live
and die penitent in a prison, than to live and die impenitent in a palace.
Commentary on Jeremiah 34:8-22
(Read Jeremiah 34:8-22)
A Jew should not be held in servitude above seven years.
This law they and their fathers had broken. And when there was some hope that
the siege was raised, they forced the servants they had released into their
services again. Those who think to cheat God by dissembled repentance and
partial reformation, put the greatest cheat upon their own souls. This shows
that liberty to sin, is really only liberty to have the sorest judgments. It is
just with God to disappoint expectations of mercy, when we disappoint the
expectations of duty. And when reformation springs only from terror, it is
seldom lasting. Solemn vows thus entered into, profane the ordinances of God;
and the most forward to bind themselves by appeals to God, are commonly most
ready to break them. Let us look to our hearts, that our repentance may be
real, and take care that the law of God regulates our conduct.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jeremiah》
Jeremiah 34
Verse 5
[5] But thou shalt die in peace: and with the burnings of
thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee, so shall they burn odours
for thee; and they will lament thee, saying, Ah lord! for I have pronounced the
word, saith the LORD.
Ah Lord — The Jews in their chronology, give us the form of the
lamentation thus. Alas! Zedekiah is dead, who drank the dregs of all ages: that
is, who was punished for the sins of all former ages.
Verse 17
[17] Therefore thus saith the LORD; Ye have not hearkened
unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his
neighbour: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the LORD, to the sword,
to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be removed into
all the kingdoms of the earth.
Behold — You shall perish by the sword, famine and pestilence,
and those of you who escape them, shall be slaves, in many nations.
Verse 18
[18] And I will give the men that have transgressed my
covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had
made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts
thereof,
Cut the calf — It seems these Jews in their
making of the solemn covenant with God about releasing their servants used this
rite; they caused a calf, or heifer to be cut in pieces, and the parts to be
laid in the temple, right over-against one another; then they recited this
covenant, and passed between the parts of the heifer so cut; silently agreeing
that God should cut them in pieces like that beast if they did not make their
words good.
Verse 22
[22] Behold, I will command, saith the LORD, and cause them
to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn
it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without an
inhabitant.
Behold — I will put into their hearts to return.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Jeremiah》
34 Chapter 34
Verses 1-22
Verse 17
Ye have not hearkened unto Me, in proclaiming liberty.
The liberty of sin
The Word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah that all bondservants in
Israel should be forthwith emancipated. At first the princes obeyed, and the
enslaved were allowed to go free. But eventually the princes played falsely,
and once more brought their old servants into bondage. Then comes the text with
its terrible irony.
I. The mutiny
against the law. In the first instance the governors felt the reasonableness of
the commandment, they agreed to it, but at length they resisted it, violated
it. And this spirit of revolt against the higher law is ever working in us and
displaying itself in some form of disobedience.
1. There is a theoretical repudiation of the law. Literary men are
ever urging upon us that the moral law as given in revelation is
unphilosophical, and the sooner it is renounced by all educated people the
better. One by one they ingeniously find us a way out of all the ten great
precepts. In our simplicity we thought the Saviour taught us that heaven and
earth might pass away, but that the moral commandments should persist in
absolute authority and force, but eloquent writers affect to show that the
commandments are mere bye-laws, ripe for repeal.
2. And if there is a theoretical repudiation of the law on the part
of the literary few, is there not a personal, practical mutiny against it on
the part of us all? In manifold ways we criticise the law, fret at it, evade
it, violate it. We spurn the circumscriptions which deny us so much, and in
blind passion break into forbidden ground. And yet how gracious and beautiful
is the law! How generous is the law referred to in the text enjoining upon the
rich and great mercy and brotherliness! And the whole of the moral law as
expressed in revelation is equally rational and benign. The “commandments are
not grievous.” No, indeed, they are gracious. Every commandment is an
illumination, a light shining in a dark place to guide our feet in a dim and
perilous way. Every commandment is a salvation. The commandment enjoining love
is to save us from the damnation of selfishness; enjoining meekness to save us
from the devil of pride; enjoining purity to save us from the hell of lust.
Every commandment is a benediction. Scientists are always descanting on the
grandeur of natural law, the law which builds the sky, which transfigures the
flower, which rules the stars. The scientist, the mathematician, the musician
will tell you that law is good, that the secret of the world’s beauty is to be
found in the wonderful laws which God wrote in tables of stone long before
Moses came. And ii natural law, which rules things, is so sublime, how much
does that moral law, which rules spirits, excel in glory! And yet how blindly
do we mutiny against the great words of light and love! Some time ago it was
told in the paper that a herd of cows was being driven through a long, dark,
wooden tubular bridge. Here and there in the woodwork were knotholes, which let in the
sun in bars of light. The animals were afraid of these sun-bars; they shied at
them, were terrified at them, and then, leaping over them, made a painful
hurdle-race of it, coming out at the other end palpitating and exhausted. We
are just like them. The laws of God are golden rays in a dark path, they are
for our guidance and infinite perfecting and consolation. But they irritate us,
they enrage us, we count them despotic barriers to our liberty and happiness,
and too often we put them under our feet. “So foolish was I, and ignorant, I
was as a beast before Thee.”
II. The liberty of
licence. “Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord.” These nobles
wished to be free themselves in enslaving their brethren, but in doing this
they gave themselves away into servitude; they wished to enrich themselves, and
they lost everything; they sought personal indulgence at the expense of their neighbours,
and they suffered sword and famine and pestilence. Disobedience always means
bondage, disgrace, suffering, death. A liberty to the sword, the famine, and
the pestilence! Most awful is the liberty of unrighteousness; who can express
the fulness of its woe! Some of you have visited the Castle of Chillon on the
Lake of Geneva. In that castle is a dungeon which contains a shaft, at the bottom of which you
see the waters of the lake; that shaft is called the way of liberty. Tradition
says that in the old days the jailor in the darkness of the dungeon would
whisper to the prisoner, “Three steps and liberty,” and the poor dupe, hastily
stepping forward, fell down this shaft, which was planted full of knives and
spikes, the mutilated, bloody corpse finally dropping into the depths. That is
precisely the liberty of sin. The dupe of sin takes a leap in the dark, he is
forthwith pierced through with many sorrows, and mangled and bleeding falls
into the gulf. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end
thereof are the ways of death.”
1. I want you to feel the madness of contending with God, for that is
exactly what sin means.
2. I want you to believe that only through self-limitation can you
find the highest liberty and blessedness. All civilisation is the giving up of
liberty to find a nobler liberty.
3. If you are to keep the law, you must seek the strength of God in
Christ. Born of God, living in fellowship with Him, full of faith, of love, of
hope, we shall find the yoke of the law easy, and its burden light. The inner
force is equal to the outward duty. (W. L. Watkinson.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》