CHAPTER 4

(588 B.C.)

JERUSALEMS FORMER GLORY AND LATTER CONDITION

¹How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the Sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. (The gold in this Verse is figurative. It stands for the greatness and glory of the Temple in Jerusalem, and signifies Deity. It being dim proclaims the fact that Jehovah, while having left Judah and Jerusalem, still watches over her from afar.

How is the fine gold changed! refers to the Lords changed manner of operation, typified by the Sanctuary being torn down, stone by stone.)

²The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! (The People of God, typified as the precious sons of Zion, and compared to fine gold, have now been reduced to no more than a cheap earthen pitcher, which is easily broken and thrown away.

In regard to this, we might ask ourselves the question, How does the Lord look at us? Does He see fine gold or a cheap earthen pitcher?)

³Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of My People is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. (Sea monsters, would have been better translated jackals. The idea is: the people of God had so lost their way until cruelty was the norm.)

⁴The tongue of the sucking child cleaves to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaks it unto them. (This Verse proclaims the fact that little children at the time of the siege were begging for bread, and the adults who had bread would share none with them. Their hearts had grown so hard and cold that they could see a child staggering in the street for want of food and show no concern.)

⁵They who did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they who were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. (The Prophet speaks of the Nobles of Jerusalem, once rich, but now scavenging the streets for a little food. All of this could have been avoided, if, at any time during the many years of Jeremiahs Prophecies, they had only heeded the Word of the Lord.)

⁶For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. (Sodom sinned greatly and had to be destroyed; however, Judah sinned against Light, which is far worse! As such, they became worse than the surrounding heathen!)

⁷Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire (Jeremiah now alludes to Judah and Jerusalem as they once were, when they lived for God and consequently were greatly blessed by Him):

⁸Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. (Jeremiah, having thought back to the Jerusalem of the past, now portrays their present condition!)

⁹They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. (Exactly as the Prophet had predicted, the living now are worse off than the dead.)

¹⁰The hands of the pitiful women have s odden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people. (Moses, about a thousand years earlier, had prophesied that if Israel turned her back on God, the people would sink to the level of eating their own children. And thats exactly what happened! [Deut. 28:57].)

¹¹The LORD has accomplished His fury; He has poured out His fierce anger, and has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured the foundations thereof. (God cannot abide sin in any form, nor in any people. It must be judged. Wondrously so, it has been judged in Christ and what He did at the Cross. However, if men do not accept His Atoning Sacrifice, they will themselves become a sacrifice, but a sacrifice which will not atone.)

¹²The kings of the Earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem. (The miraculous acts of God among His People were legend among the nations of the world of that day. Even though they would not serve Him, they knew of His great Power. But when Gods People sinned against Him and refused to repent, even after repeated warnings, all that was great had to be destroyed.)

REASONS FOR THE JUDGMENT

¹³For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her Priests, who have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her (the blame is laid at the feet of the spiritual leaders, so-called, of Jerusalem, i.e., her prophets who prophesied falsely and her priests who perverted the Law. It is the same presently in the modern Church!),

¹⁴They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments. (They were the blind leading the blind, and all fell in the ditch [Mat. 15:14]. They have polluted themselves with blood, means that the blood of the people lost because of their false preaching would be required at their hands [Ezek. 3:17-18].)

¹⁵They cried unto them, Depart you; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there. (The idea of this Verse concerns the Jews who left the city for foreign lands before and after the fall of Jerusalem. They would be maltreated at each place they would go, with the people of that particular country saying, Depart you.

It is unclean, has the same idea as the leper who was unclean. In other words, in all these foreign countries, the Jews were treated as lepers.)

¹⁶The anger of the LORD has divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the Priests, they favoured not the Elders. (This refers to the fact that Judah had shown favor to the heathen priests of the idol gods who came to Jerusalem, but now, as they fled from the Babylonian horde, Judahs Priests were shown no respect or favor by these heathen.)

¹⁷As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us. (The nation that could not save us was Egypt. If they had sought the Lord, they would have been saved!

Vain help, adequately describes what Egypt provided; it also describes all that man can do in any circumstances or at any time!

These words should be read by those in the modern Church who advocate humanistic psychology as the answer to the perversions of man!)

¹⁸They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come. (The word they refers to the Chaldeans. Jeremiah now takes the Reader back to the moment of the fall of Jerusalem.)

¹⁹Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness. (The Jews who tried to escape the city at the time of the siege were easily caught by the Chaldeans.)

²⁰The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen. (The anointed of the LORD probably refers to king Zedekiah. He was the last king of Judah. The idea was probably held by some Jews that they could escape to a heathen country and live there under their own king. Such thinking was foolish!)

²¹Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwells in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto you: you shall be drunken, and shall make yourself naked. (Edom, a neighbor of Judah, rejoiced when Judah fell. However, the Prophet says that they would suffer the same judgment that Judah suffered. And so they did!)

FINAL RESTORATION OF JUDAH

²²The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; He will no more carry you away into captivity: He will visit your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will discover your sins. (For Edom, there is no promise of Restoration, but, on the contrary, a disclosure of her sins; for Zion, a full judgment, but a covering up of her sin, which will ultimately result in a complete Restoration, which will take place at the Second Coming.)