Bible Commentaries

CONTENTS

The Prophet, at the command of the Lord, is, in this chapter, lamenting for the princes of Israel. The language is, as usual, figurative.

This is a very instructive chapter, especially to Ministers of the Gospel. The Prophet, under the similitude of a lioness bereaved of her whelps, sets forth the desolate state of the royal house of David, and the kings of Israel and Judah; and the Lord commands the Prophet to feel for the ruined state of the land, and especially for the princes of it. She had sat as a queen among the nations, and in Solomon's days all the people of the earth had paid tribute to her. But now, like a lion fallen into a pit, and there taken in chains and carried to a cage, the Lord's heritage was given for a prey into the hands of her enemies. Reader! if we spiritualize the subject, and in what is here said, behold the Church of Jesus (for His Church it was before the after-fall in Adam), what a sad representation doth it afford! Who can behold the melancholy state of Zion, from the fall to the present hour, but must sensibly feel for the desolations the enemy of souls hath induced. And although, blessed be God, redemption is secure, and like Israel from Babylon, when the seventy years determined were run out, deliverance came, yet it behoves, the people of God to mourn during the triumphs of the accursed foe. Lamentations 1:12.

The Prophet is adverting to the Babylonish captivity, as he had before to that of Egypt, and from both raiseth a subject of lamentation. Reader! it is a very solemn consideration to the people of God, that amidst their security in Christ the Lord will not allow the slightest inattention to his precepts. In the charter of grace the covenant thus runs, If his children (the seed of Christ) break My laws, and keep not My commandments, then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Psalms 89:30-31.

The Prophet here useth another figure similar to the one adopted in Eze 15. The former prosperity of Jerusalem is elegantly represented, as a vine planted in a fruitful place by the rivers of waters: her present state as that of a wilderness. Spiritually considered, it is ever so when the soul becomes lean, in the divine life. A coolness and inattention to ordinances, and a neglect of the several means of grace, tend to bring the soul into captivity, and induce similar circumstances of sorrow to that of the Church in Babylon, when they hung their harp upon the willow. See Ps 139 throughout.

REFLECTIONS

READER! how truly blessed it is, that, amidst all the lamentable circumstances attending Israel and Judah, the God of Israel and Judah is the same, and the worth and efficacy of His salvation is forever and ever. Though Israel, like a lion's whelp, may be taken in a pit, and carried in chains into captivity, yet the Lion of the tribe of Judah must prevail, and all his enemies be brought under His feet. The royalties of His person and majesty, the courage and constancy of His labours, the triumphs of His glory and salvation, these open to our souls unceasing subjects of delight and joy, and especially when, from our union and oneness with Him, we know our interest in all His victories. Hail! Thou glorious, gracious Lion of the tribe of Judah! in Thy blood and righteousness our sure triumph, over death, hell, and the grave, is already accomplished, and we are now more than conquerors through Thy grace helping us.