man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart;" or, as 1 Kings 8: 39, "Give thou to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men." No king on his throne, not the haughtiest nor proudest of mortals, can escape his scrutiny or evade his righteous judgment. The writer and every reader of these lines must abide this one most searching and yet most righteous ordeal the All-seeing eye and the All-wise judgment of the Omniscient King and Lord of All.

11. As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.

In the first clause the English margin comes nearer the true meaning, which is, "As the partridge sitteth on eggs she has not laid"-eggs not her own, but stolen, according to the fable of the ancient naturalists. She incubates and hatches out foreign eggs, and finds to her cost that when hatched they are not homogeneous, and may not be very desirable, and will be likely to prove themselves not her own. This is the point of the comparison. Suppose they turn out to be the eggs of a viper?—So is he that getteth riches by unrighteous means. He will find that, at best, they will not stay by him, nor be as his own, and, at worst, they may "bite like a serpent and sting like an adder;" as is said here, "He shall leave them half-way through life, and at the last end will show himself to have been a fool." Note the slight distinction between what shall befall him half-way in life, and what at the latter end. He will lose them at the half-way point; at the end the evidence of his supreme folly will flash out before all eyes. What an admonition is this against the miserable folly of getting money by unrighteous means! Such gold or silver is cankered. The rust of it will be a witness against its unrighteous holder, and will eat his flesh as it were fire. It can not be well to heap such treasure together for the last days. (See James 5: 1-4.)

-Almost without doubt this passage had an eye to King Jehoiakim then reigning, but reigning with outrageous extortion, covetousness, and meanness. These charges against him are brought out yet more fully in chap. 22: 13-19.

12. A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.

That God rules righteously by knowing man's heart perfectly, and that he makes righteous retribution reach the king on his throne for his extortion and covetousness, combine to suggest the thought of this verse, viz., that he who sits in the place of our sanctuary has had a glorious, lofty throne from the beginningfrom of old, from the depths of a past eternity. The prophet

thinks of God as symbolically enthroned in his earthly temple, "the place of our sanctuary," yet really as filling his eternal throne in the highest heavens.

13. O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.

"Ashamed" as usual in the sense of confounded, put to confusion by being utterly disappointed and baffled in every purpose and hope. They that depart from me (God) shall be written in the dust, the sand, with only a perishable record of fame, because they have forsaken the Lord. The allusion to "the fountain," etc., carries our thoughts to chap. 2: 13: "They have forsaken" me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out for themselves broken cisterns that can not hold water. The change from the second person, "forsake thee," to the first person, "depart from me," is by no means uncommon in Hebrew. No speciality of meaning is indicated by it.

14. Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.

The prophet seems to think of those living waters as healing, medicinal; hence this prayer: "Heal me, for thou art my God."' "My praise" means the object of my trust and of my grateful praises. His mind feels. a new sense of want in view of the scoffs he meets in his prophetic work, of which he proceeds to speak.

15. Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of the LORD? let it come now.

This question is asked not inquiringly and modestly, but derisively and in a skeptical spirit. In the phrase, "Let it come now," we must not emphasize "now or take it as a particle of time, but rather as giving a tone of caustic irony, equal to-Pray let it come! Let us see it, if you please!

16. As for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I desired the woful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before thee.

This verse is a twofold vindication of himself; on the one hand, as toward God, and on the other, as toward the people. On the side toward God he says he has not torn himself away from the work of a prophet, has not refused to follow the manifest will of God in his pastoral work; and on the side toward the people, he

has not vindictively longed for that sad, woful day to come, as he might have been tempted to do when they impiously and tauntingly challenged him to let it come (v. 15). As to the side toward God, see chap. 15: 16. In the last clause the exact sense of the original is given without the word “right,” which stands in italics, the sense being, The utterances of my mouth were all before thee, known perfectly to thee.

17. Be not a terror unto me: thou art my hope in the day of evil.

He longs and prays that God would not confound him before the people, nor smite him with terror through fear of extreme violence from his enemies. His God is his only hope in the hour of sore calamity. It is therefore all of life to him to have peace and trust in his soul toward God.

18. Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded: let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed; bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.

The prophet's sympathies are entirely with God, and with righteousness and truth against wickedness, and against those who in this case represented wickedness and had identified themselves with it. Hence these utterances. The issue is fully made between them and me-them, as thine enemies and mine; me, as thy prophet, as the messenger of thy fearful words of judgment. Now, therefore, let them be confounded and dismayed, and not me. Break them with a double breaking for their shocking blasphemy in which they defy Almighty God! So ends this particular message, full of sharp, searching, solemn truth, indicating plainly that, as between the people on the one hand, and the prophet and his divine Master on the other, matters were hastening to their crisis.

19. Thus said the LORD unto me; Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem;

20. And say unto them, Hear ye the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates:

21. Thus saith the LORD; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;

22. Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work; but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.

The remaining portion of this chapter enjoins the sacred observance of the sabbath, and makes large promises on condition of obedience. Obviously obedience, in this case, is understood to imply obedience in other duties, and the spirit of obedience generally; else such promises could not attach to it. Besides, it is simply impossible that there can ever be the spirit of obedience in any one thing, and not the general spirit of obedience as to all known duty.The prophet is to proclaim this message specially in the one gate through which the king went in and out, and then in all the gates of the city, as being the place of public resort where people "most did congregate, This "king's gate" is most probably the gate of the fountain" leading out to the king's pool and garden, allusions to which may be seen Neh. 2: 14, and 3: 15, and 12: 17. It was by this gate that king Zedekiah escaped from the city. (Jer. 39: 4, and 2 Kings 25: 4.)-The phrase rendered, "Take heed to yourselves," is, in Hebrew, "Take heed by your own souls," as you value life. True, the word for soul sometimes means self; so also does it more often mean soul, and with a better sense here.The injunction turns specially on bearing burdens and doing ordinary work on the sabbath. The Lord had long ago given this precept to their fathers. (Ex. 20: 8-11, and 23: 12, and 31: 13-17.) It had long been violated.

23. But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.

24. And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the LORD, to bring in no burden through the gates of the city on the sabbath day, but hallow the sabbath day, to do no work therein;

25. Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain forever.

26. And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt-offerings, and sacrifices, and meat-offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the LORD.

27. But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.

The power of promise and of threatening combine here to enforce the duty. In the line of promise, the city shall stand forever; its kings and princes shall reign prosperously; the city and temple shall be the center of worship for a vast region round about. But if they will not hearken and obey, the Lord will kindle a fire under the gates and palaces of the city, that none shall quench. Note the striking correspondence in the terms between not bearing burdens through the gates and the entering in of their kings and princes in triumph and peace through those gates; and also the coming of the adjacent people through those same gates to bring their offering to Judah's temple. Such correspondence of phrases would naturally impress the thought and fix it more firmly in the mind.

CHAPTER XVIII.

This chapter constitutes apparently one distinct and entire message. We reach its date only through its subject-matter. It implies so much general depravity and apostasy from God, and withal, so much persecution of his prophet, that we must locate it after the death of Josiah; and yet since it gives no hint of their captivity as present or even near, we must locate it prior to the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and probably quite early in his reign.

-A potter making earthen vessels from clay is the text for this discourse, the great doctrine being that God can mold and shape the destinies of nations with equal ease and with absolute control,

1. The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

2. Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

3. Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

4. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

For the sake of more deeply impressing the truth which the Lord would teach both the prophet and the people, he directs Jeremiah to go down to the workshop of the potter and see him construct his earthen vessel. The reader need scarcely be told that this operation was probably performed then substantially as it is now, i. e., upon a horizontal revolving wheel, the centrifugal force being depended on largely to give shape to the plastic clay.