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Jeremiah
Chapter Forty-seven
Jeremiah 47
Chapter Contents
The calamities of the Philistines.
The Philistines had always been enemies to Israel; but
the Chaldean army shall overflow their land like a deluge. Those whom God will
spoil, must be spoiled. For when the Lord intends to destroy the wicked, he
will cut off every helper. So deplorable are the desolations of war, that the
blessings of peace are most desirable. But we must submit to His appointments
who ordains all in perfect wisdom and justice.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jeremiah》
Jeremiah 47
Verse 1
[1] The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet
against the Philistines, before that Pharaoh smote Gaza.
Before — In the time of the Philistines prosperity.
Verse 4
[4] Because of the day that cometh to spoil all the
Philistines, and to cut off from Tyrus and Zidon every helper that remaineth:
for the LORD will spoil the Philistines, the remnant of the country of Caphtor.
The day — Which God hath set, and appointed for their ruin.
Caphtor — Tyre and Sidon were neighbours to the Philistines, and
so were often called to their help. The Philistines and Caphtorim were related,
for their first progenitors, Philistim and Caphtorim, were both the sons of
Mizriam the son of Ham, one of the sons of Noah.
Verse 5
[5] Baldness is come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is cut off with the
remnant of their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself?
The remnant — Those who lived in the valleys
near Ashkelon.
But thyself — Why will you afflict yourselves,
when all your mourning will do you no good.
Verse 6
[6] O thou sword of the LORD, how long will it be ere thou
be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still.
O thou sword — Perhaps they are the words of the
prophet, lamenting the havock which he made among the Philistines by the
Chaldeans.
Verse 7
[7] How can it be quiet, seeing the LORD hath given it a
charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea shore? there hath he appointed it.
How — God lets the prophet know that he had given this sword
its commission, and therefore it could not stop 'till Ashkelon and the people
on the sea-shore were destroyed by it.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Jeremiah》
47 Chapter 47
Verses 1-7
Verse 5
How long wilt thou cut thyself?
The tender inquiry of a friend
Travellers in the East tell us that among the most melancholy
scenes they witness is the following:--Men inflict upon themselves very
grievous, voluntary wounds, and then exhibit themselves in public. They even
disfigure themselves with gashes m me presence of excited throngs. I am
speaking of what has occurred even within, the last few years among the Moslems. When some
great prophet or emir is coming that way, a certain number of fanatical
Mahometans take swords, spears, and other sharp instruments, and gash
themselves terribly therewith, cutting their breasts, their faces, their heads,
and all parts of their bodies. Frequently they have taken care to dress
themselves in white sheets, in order that, as the blood flows copiously from
their bodies, it may be the more clearly seen, that they may become the more
ghastly spectacles of misery, or the more fully display the religious
excitement under which they labour. As everything in the East remains for ever
the same, thin Moslem superstition carries us back to the olden times whereof
we read in the Old Testament, when the priests of Baal, having cried in vain to
their idol, cut themselves with lances and with knives. Our translators were
probably afraid to write the harsher words, and so they translated the passage
“knives and lances,” but they might have written swords and spears sharp
instruments of a desperate character. Thus they displayed their inward zeal,
and thus, perhaps, they hoped to move the pity of their god. The Lord expressly
forbade His people, the Jews, to perpetrate such folly. They were not even to
shave the corners of their beards, or to hack their hair, as the Orientals do
in the hour of their grief; and then they were further prohibited from injuring
their bodies by the command (Leviticus 19:28). Men in Eastern lands,
not only in connection with fanaticism, but in reference to domestic affairs,
will cut themselves to express their grief and anguish, or to make other people
believe that they are feeling
such grief and anguish. We may congratulate ourselves that we are free from at
least one foolish custom. The prophet here speaks to the Philistines who were
about to endure the tremendous judgments of God, and, indeed, to be crushed Out
as a nation by the Egyptians and the Chaldeans; and he says to Philistia “How
long wilt thou cut thyself?” How long would they continue to bring upon
themselves such terrible judgments?
I. I shall ask
this question very despairingly--“How long wilt thou cut thyself?”--for many
are cutting themselves very terribly, and will have to feel the wounds thereof
for a long time, neither can we induce them to cease therefrom.
1. I allude, first, to some professors of religion who have been
Church members for ten, twenty, or more years, and yet have practically done
nothing at all for the Saviour. If they were really to awaken to a sense of
their neglect, I do not know how long- they would be in anguish, or how deep
would be their distress; for if Titus mourned that he had lost a day when he
had done no good action for twenty-four hours, and he but a heathen, what would
happen to a Christian if he were really to see his responsibility before God,
and to feel that he has not only lost a day but a year--perhaps many years? Have
not some of you well-nigh lost a whole lifetime?
2. The same may be applied, and applied very solemnly, too, to those
who backslide--who, in addition to being- useless, are injurious, because their
example tends to hinder others from coming to Christ. Oh, if any of you that
name the name of Jesus, and have been happy in His service, and have enjoyed
high days and holy days in His presence, turn aside, I shall use this
lamentation over you! You will do yourselves terrible injury, and I shall
shudder as I see the edged tools of sin in your reckless hands. Every sin is a
gash in the soul. The Lord will bring you back and save you, as I believe; but
oh, how long will you cut yourselves?
3. There is one thing which comes after these, and comes in
connection with them. If you and I should know that souls have been lost--lost
as far as we are concerned--through our neglect, how long- shall we cut
ourselves on that account? Fathers, if you have never sought to bring your
children to repentance, how will you excuse yourselves? If you have never
prayed with them, or wept with them--if you have never even instructed them in
the things of God, what flattering unction will you lay to your guilty
consciences? What will you say, mother, if your daughter passes into eternity unforgiven,
and you have never tried to lead her to Jesus?
4. One other most solemn use may be made of this question” God grant
that it may never be so, but if any one of you should die in his sins, how long
will you regret it, think you? Oh, thou who hast lost eternal life, how long
wilt thou cut thyself? If thou shouldst miss Christ, and miss mercy, and miss
heaven, and miss eternal glory, if there were naught else, how long wilt thou
bemoan thyself? With what depth of anguish wilt thou smart to have lost all
this--to have, in fact, lost all which makes up life and joy!
II. i shall ask
this question hopefully, trusting that in many their sorrow is nearing- its
end.
1. This text may be very profitably and prudently applied to those
who have been bereaved, and who, being bereaved, sorrow, and sorrow to excess.
“How long wilt thou cut thyself?” Is not thy child in Jesus’ bosom? Has not thy
friend gone among the angels, to join the sweet singers of God? Is it not a
gain to the departed, though it be a loss to thee, that they are translated to
the place of everlasting bliss?
2. Turning to quite another character, I would use the same
expression for another purpose. There are some persons with whom God is dealing
in great love, and yet they are very rebellious. “How long wilt thou cut
thyself?” Already they have met with great disasters and misfortunes: they will
meet with many more when the dogs are out hunting, they run in packs. The
plagues of Egypt are ten at least, and every one who plays the Pharaoh may expect
the full number.
3. I might use this expression even to the Jewish nation itself. Ah,
God, through what seas of trouble have they had to swim since the day when they
said, “His blood be on us, and on our children”!
4. But, now, all this has rather kept me from my main design, which
is to speak to those dear friends of ours who are afflicting their souls with
needless fears. No good can possibly come by a continuance in their unhappy
moods: they are cutting themselves quite needlessly. They might at once have
peace, and rest, and joy if they were willing to accept the Lord s gracious way
of salvation. Despairing and desponding are not commanded in the Gospel, but
they are forbidden by it. Do not cultivate these gross follies, these deadly
sins. Do not multiply these poisonous weeds--this hemlock and this darnel--as
if they were fair flowers of paradise. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 6
Put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still.
War overruled for God’s glory
Notwithstanding all the boasted improvements of modem times, in
knowledge and refinement, wars have not been less frequent than formerly, when
mankind were in a rude and barbarous state. In making this reflection, the
philosopher may profess his astonishment, but the genuine Christian will weep.
Such are the mournful and ruinous effects which sin has produced in the world.
Not only has it filled men’s minds with enmity against God, but also with
implacable enmity and revenge against one another.
I. Whence it is
that the sword of war may be called the sword of the Lord.
1. Because the seasons in which this sword is drawn are governed or
appointed by the Lord. The kindling of war, or the settling of peace, are
appointed by the providence of that God who ruleth over all the earth. The
direction of cabinets, the ambition of princes, of governors, of statesmen, are
only the instruments which God employs with a powerful and a holy hand, to
execute His will.
2. Because it receives its direction from the Lord. When God gives
the commission, when He opens the brazen gates of destruction, no country, no
city is secured against the ravages of war; and when His providence forms a
wall of protection around a country, no army can prevail, no weapon formed
against it can prosper, for the Almighty God Himself is its fortress, its
pillar, and its strength.
3. Because the execution done by it is of the Lord. It is a saying of
King William, who had himself been in many battles, that “every bullet had its
billet”; intimating that it was under God’s direction whom to miss and whom to
strike.
4. Because God sanctifies and glorifies Himself in its operation. In
the management of war, the reputation of kings and statesmen, of generals or
soldiers, is considered, but this is only a secondary consideration. The glory
of the Lord, whom the Scriptures call a Man of War, is illustrated and made
conspicuous in the eyes of the world. The slayer and those who are slain are
His creatures and subjects, and the instruments which defend the one and kill
the other are His sword.
II. The reason why
all God’s people so ardently long to see the sword of war sheathed and at rest.
1. Conviction that the wrath of God bringeth upon man the punishment
of the sword, will cause the saints to long earnestly for its being sheathed
and at rest.
2. All God’s people will earnestly long to see the sword of war in
-its scabbard and at rest, when they reflect what multitudes of men are hurried
by it into eternity without thought or preparation.
3. God’s people earnestly long to see the sword of war sheathed and
at rest, when they reflect on the unparalleled distresses and miseries
inflicted on those countries which are the seat of war. Gracious persons are
deeply affected with the miseries of their fellow-creatures, even though they
he enemies.
4. God’s people earnestly desire to see the sword of war sheathed and
at rest, that Christ’s Gospel may be propagated throughout the whole world, and
its Divine power and influence felt by all nations. (James Hay, D. D.)
The sword of the warrior the sword of the Lord
As patriots, prophets felt the miseries which they denounced; as
mourners, they lamented the sins which brought on these miseries; and as men,
they wept over the graves of the enemies by whom their country had been
harassed and wasted.
I. The sword of
the warrior is the sword of the Lord.
1. The seasons in which the sword is drawn and sheathed are appointed
by the Lord. The direction of cabinets, the ambition of princes, and the
caprices of statesmen in these affairs, are subordinated by His invisible
influence to His own will, without violating the order of second causes, or
breaking in upon the freedom of rational agents.
2. The sword of the warrior is put in commission by the Lord.
3. The direction of the sword of the warrior is from the Lord. The
seat of war is marked out, and its bounds circumscribed, in the purpose of the
will of God; and thither the warrior marches without mistaking his way, whether
it he to the shore of Tyrus, the valley of Jehoshaphat, the plains of Blenheim,
the heights of Saratoga, or the mountains of Armageddon.
4. The execution done by the sword of the warrior is of the Lord. “A
sparrow falleth not to the ground without our heavenly Father,” and in the day
of battle, no soldier loses his life without His knowledge and
predetermination.
5. By the sword of the warrior the Lord sanctifies and magnifies
Himself. According to the states of the sufferers wars of conquest and
extirpation are corrections and punishments, and whichever of the sides gains
or loses the victory, the supremacy of Jehovah over all is main, rained, and
the glory of His justice and holiness displayed and magnified. The cause in
which the sword is drawn is always sinful on one side, and frequently sinful on
both sides. But whatever be the quality of the cause, the views of men, or the
issues of the contest, the Lord will not lose His end. He rules in the seat of
war, and commands on the day of battle.
II. The reasons for
which mourners in Zion long to see this sword sheathed.
1. Compassion for those who are delivered to the sword, or subjected
to the insolence and rage of fierce and lawless men whose tender mercies are
cruelty.
2. Knowledge of the consequences of driving men unprepared into
eternity.
3. The peace of God, which rules in the hearts of mourners in Zion,
inclines and constrains them to cry for the sheathing of the sword of the
warrior.
4. Convictions that the wrath of God bringeth upon men the punishment
of the sword, dispose mourners in Zion to long for its being put up into the
scabbard. (A. Shanks.)
The means of terminating war
I. The evils of
protracted war.
1. War is a tremendous evil.
2. Well might the prophet desire its speedy termination.
II. The reason of
its continuance.
1. War is one of those judgments with which God punishes the sins of
men.
2. Till He has effected His purposes by it, no human efforts can bring it to a close.
III. Means of its
termination.
1. The intention of God’s chastisements is to bring us to repentance.
2. On the attainment
of this end He will instantly remove HIS judgments from us.
IV. Some hints
respecting those heavy judgments which God has denounced against sinners in
another world, and respecting the best means of averting them from our souls. (C.
Simeon, M. A.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》