JEREMIAH 4


5 Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet in the land: cry, gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities.

When an alarm was blown it portended great evil. See also Joel 2:1... When an alarm was blown it portended great evil.

Eureka 8.6.



6 Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.

The beasts being substituted for the metals represent of course the same dominions. The lion was a very appropriate symbol for the Assyrian dynasty; and it was as well understood to represent it in the days of the prophets, as it is now that the lion and unicorn are symbols of the British power. Hence, speaking of the overthrow coming upon Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah says...

7 The lion [of Babylon] is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.



13 Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.

Clouds - a multitude: Whirlwind - rushing and ferocious, demolishing everything in its path. No escape from the coming wrath for those who remained.

As a horse is warlike, so he is also a swift creature, and is therefore not only the symbol of conquest, but also of the speediness of it

Eureka 9.4.5.



14 O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

The choice is ours - cleanse ourselves of sin and be saved, or indulge the pleasures of sin for a season and perish.



14 O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

The prophets are full of such terrible forewarnings and declarations of coming evil. The judgments foretold have all been accomplished, and for long dreary centuries, the world has been witness of the desolation that has reigned in a land once fertile and full of human activity and joy; and a beholder and inflictor of the ignominy that has for ages been the portion of an exiled race, once the honoured inhabitants of the Lord's land.

In this we are interested as words cannot express. Assembled... as the children of Zion (for we are such by adoption, though not of Jewish blood), to call to remembrance the death of Zion's king, it is part of our joy to re-contemplate the hope that God has given us concerning the end of Zion's desolation, at His manifestation in power and great glory. They are no vain words that we sing when we say,

"The Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody."

Such is the declaration of the word of inspiration. Yahweh, who hath established the desolation, will bring to pass revival and prosperity and the gladness. So He hath promised, as we know.

"He hath torn, and he will heal us: he hath smitten, and he will bind us up" (Hos. 6:1).

"In my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee" (Isa. 60:10).

"He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock" (Jer. 31:10).

"For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer" (Isa. 54:7-8).

The desolation of Israel seems a small thing in the estimation of the children of the present world. They do not realise what glories were involved in the Mosaic constitution which God gave to Israel. They do not know the wretchedness that results to the human race from the absence of divine government. They cannot appreciate the unutterable goodness that will come to all people with the rebuilding of the house of David, and the extension of its shadowing power to every country under heaven...

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy."

Her night has been long and dark and bitter. She has

"drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury. She has drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out" (Isa. 51:17).

She lies speechless on the ground. But there is an end to her affliction. Yahweh commanded his servant Isaiah to speak comfortably to Jerusalem and to cry unto her, that her warfare should be accomplished, her iniquities pardoned, when she should have received of the hand of the Lord enough for all her sins (Isa. 40:1). Again, saith he.

"Hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine . . . Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: but I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee."

How long she should have to suffer was not at that time revealed. Jesus referred to the period of her affliction, saying she should be

"trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24).

The duration of these times of downtreading, characterised also by Gentile ascendancy, was approximately foreshown to Daniel and John. By the light of what was revealed to them, we are enabled to be assured that the time of deliverance is at hand-nay, that the time definitely appointed for desolation, is in the past.


Seasons 1.66.


23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

The Creation Chapter


Speaking of the Bible and science, the Jewish World remarks that "A notable contribution to the continual controversy on this subject is 'The First Chapter of Genesis,' by Professor Elmslie in the December Contemporary." Starting, says the Jewish World, from the impregnable position regarding the scientific quantity in the story of creation, that, "before we exact geology of Genesis we must enquire whether there is any in it; what the Biblical account of creation purposes to tell, and what it does not profess to relate," Professor Elmslie at the outset of his exegetical study strikes a note that might have hushed a world of discord to harmonious music, He writes:

"The chapter opens with a picture of primeval chaos, out of which God commands the universe of beauty, life, and order."

This description is at once simply and beautifully expressed; but it would be less susceptible of being wrongly employed, and a little less exclusive of the first fact of all, if it were to add that "at the same time, it must not be overlooked, that the creative power of God lies as generatively behind the 'primeval chaos,' as it does behind the 'universe of beauty' developed therefrom." The two first verses might be thus paraphrased:

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth . . . . . . and the earth, immediately introductory to its occupation by man, and the development of light, land, and life, was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

John introduces the "light of the world," by a "beginning" that antedates its appearance by 4,000 years. This might be dotted out in the same way thus:

"all things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made . . . . in Him was life (when He appeared), and the life was the light of men."

The interval indicated by the dots, may be said to correspond to the period lying between the first appearance of the Spirit upon the scene in the creation-week and its first-century incarnation in the "Word made flesh."

God created the political heavens and earth of the Mosaic constitution, be it observed, out of previously existing material, that had been slowly developing and accumulating, during a period of 2,463 years. When the time came to fit up the new world, and give it organized existence, the elements thereof were in a state of bondage and darkness in Egypt, and unseparated from the Egyptian deep, the billows of which, now rolled over them with merciless fury.

With the advent of Moses in Egypt, came the first streaks of light, introductory to their constitution into a body politic, possessing sun, moon, and stars, and all the belongings of a new political globe.

This view of the case, is reflected in the language wherewith Jeremiah depicts the overthrow of the nation, which he manifestly borrows from the first chapter of Genesis. Says he,

"I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and lo there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled" (Jer. 4:23 25).

The same idea is expressed by the darkening of the sun and moon (Joel 2:10); the turning of the sun into darkness and the moon into blood (Joel 2:31); and the going down of the sun at noon (Am. 8:9), or over the prophets (Mic. 3:6); or again the heavens being dissolved, the elements melting with fervent heat, and the earth and its works being burnt up (2 Pet. 3.)

And just the same idea is before us, of course, in the "new heavens and new earth" of Israel's new-covenant constitution, wherein her sun shall "no more go down," and her moon "no more withdraw itself."

The Christadelphian, Apr 1888