The Lord's remnant.
Figuratively here is called to mind the fact that God's dealings are never wholly destructive; they never utterly desolate; there is always a mitigation, always a spared remnant. The figure used, of the few olive berries left for the gleaner, is a very striking one, if the customs of the olive-growing countries is understood. In Thomson's 'Land and the Book' there is a full description. "Early in autumn the berries begin to drop off of themselves, or are shaken off by the wind. They are allowed to remain under the trees for some time, guarded by the watchman of the town's very familiar Bible character. Presently public proclamations are made that the owners may gather the fruit. And in November comes the general and final summons. No olives are now safe unless the owner looks after them, for the watchmen are removed, and the orchards are alive with men, women, and children. It is a merry time, and the laugh and the song echo far and wide. Everywhere the people are in the trees,' shaking' them with all their might, to bring down the fruit. The effort is to make a clear sweep of all the crop; but in spite of shaking and beating, there is always a gleaning left—'two or three berries in the top of the uttermost boughs, four or five in the outermost fruitful branches.' These are afterwards gleaned up by the very poor, who have no trees of their own." Matthew. Henry well expresses the thought to which this figure directs us: "Mercy is here reserved, in a parenthesis, in the midst of judgment, for a remnant that should escape the common ruin of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Though the Assyrians took all the care they could that none should slip out of their net, yet the meek of the earth were hidden in the day of the Lord's anger, and had their lives given them for a prey, and made comfortable to them by their retirement to the land of Judah, where they had the liberty of God's courts." God's remnants are illustrated in the Flood; fate of Sodom; Captivity; Elijah's time; and siege by the Romans of Jerusalem. Always there has been "a remnant according to the election of grace." This remnant has shown in every age that God's judgments are never—
I. VINDICTIVE. They are always, and for every one—
II. DISCIPLINARY. And they are so mitigated as—
III. NEVER TO CRUSH OUT HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.—R.T.