Despair among the leaders in Israel.
Let us consider how Jehovah leads the prophet up to the emphatic, and what we may call consummating, announcement of this verse. One severe sentence comes on another, until at last the prophet himself, crushed and overwhelmed, gives utterance to the sense he feels of contradiction to former gracious words. This cheerless outlook to Israel, he says, is as a sword piercing to the soul. Looking back, then, through the previous eight verses, we find a spirit of thoroughness running through the whole. Jehovah has asked for thoroughness, and seems to intimate that the-demand will be practically neglected. Thoroughness in turning to him; thoroughness in the putting away of all abominations; thoroughness in observing the sanctity and obligation of the oath; thoroughness in the culture of spiritual life; thoroughness in circumcision of heart; thoroughness everywhere, is the order of the day. Then on the other hand—because, in spite of all remonstrances, there is a clinging to the superficial modes in which all merely human reformations are managed—we are confronted with the thoroughness of God's work. If men will not be thorough, at all events God will be so. His fury will come forth like the unquenchable flame; his agents, in the shape of invincible armies, will bear down resistlessly on his unfaithful people; and, as a sort of climax, the very heads and guides will acknowledge themselves utterly overcome. Such is the scene presented in Jeremiah 4:9. Consider—
I. HOW THE CONSTERNATION AND HUMILIATION OF THESE MEN NOW IS IN CONTRAST TO THEIR PREVIOUS CONDUCT. We do not stay here to make discriminations among the four classes of prominent men here indicated. The general truth underlying the conduct of all of them is that the leading persons in the State would assuredly lose their self-confidence. Brazen and complacent as that self-confidence is, Jehovah is undermining it in secret, and it wilt come down with a crash. These men were associated in deception; each one deceived, first of all, himself; and then by a continuous mutual action and reaction, the power both of deceiving and of being deceived became very great indeed. The king, upon giving the slightest encouragement, would become a center for all sorts of flatteries and arrogant assurances; and indeed, as long as it was a matter of keeping their own people in subjection, these leaders might have comparatively little difficulty. They knew what they were dealing with, and could keep it in bounds by virtue of long practice and cleverly transmitted tricks of management. There was a certain ground of experience which they went upon in all their contemptuous refusals to listen to God's prophet. But now there comes up, all at once, a danger outside their experience, and not only defying their resources, but coming down on those resources like a deluge, and utterly sweeping them away. When the downtrodden and aggrieved in their own borders begin to mutter sedition and meditate conspiracy, they may, perhaps, stop this peril in its beginning; but when the majestic destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way, how shall he be met? The lion out of the thicket is manageable enough if the man against whom he advances happens to have a loaded rifle in his hand, and the power of using it with unerring aim; but what if he has nothing more than a cudgel? Kings and princes, priests and prophets, might successfully join in counsel to mislead and keep down their own people; but a strong and proud army, that has come forth like a mighty wild beast intent on prey, is not to be turned back by mere counsels. In the last resort strength must be opposed to strength. The sole virtue of skill lies in this, that it can make the most of strength. But where the strength is lacking, skill can do nothing. No amount of skill can wake a walking-stick do the work of a rifle, and the great peril of most human lives lies just in this, that they go on in the contented use of ordinary resources for ordinary needs. Practically speaking, extraordinary needs are not thought of till they come. There are voices to us, even as to these kings, princes, priests, and prophets of old; but we do not heed them, and meanwhile the lion out of the thicket, all unsuspected, is coming nearer and nearer to us.
II. NOTE THE FORCIBLE EXPRESSION WITH REGARD TO THE KINGS AND PRINCES. Their hearts are to perish, not but what priests and prophets may have the same experience. Hebrew parallelism is to be borne in mind. The description of king and princes applies also to priest and prophet, and vice versa. They were overwhelmed in a common catastrophe. It is the heart-perishing itself we would call attention to, whoever the subject of it might he. One is reminded of the similar expression, tolerably frequent in the Old Testament, of the heart melting. With regard to the king, there would be an utter collapse of all kingly dignity and pretension. It is not the mere conquest of territory and the desolation of it that can turn the supreme master into a complete slave. Complete subjection is only achieved when body and mind are alike in bondage. Many a captive has shown himself nobler than his captor; his heart being swelled out with even an increase of vitality, courage, and resource in the very hour-when the ungodly seem to have triumphed. Discrowned kings have sometimes been more regal than on the coronation-day itself. The thing to be marked here is that these leaders being cast down outwardly were equally cast down inwardly. The whole nature crashes down in ruins. The dispossessed leader becomes as dejected in soul as he is in station. What a warning for us, then, is this melancholy prediction! It is very certain that to us the outward casting down, at all events, must come. Natural resources, limited and temporary at the best, are always showing weak points, always needing patching up, and the most that can be done is to postpone the evil day. And then what is the end to be? Are our hearts also to perish? Is there to come on us utter despair and brokenness of spirit? It need not be so. Look on the courage of genuine Christians in captivity, in martyrdom, in poverty, amid the attacks of slander, in the midst of spiritual non-success. If the heart perish, it will be for want of believing resort to the succors which come down from the heavenly places. God can so unite, inspire, instruct, and gladden the heart of every believer, as effectually to deliver At from perishing. And remember, we are every one called to be, if not kings, at all events viceroys in our own life. There must be no yielding to presumptuous and audacious dictation of men. He who leans upon the mere assertions of others, because he is himself indisposed to make the necessary effort for finding out truth, must be prepared at last to get into that state which is described as one in which the heart perishes.—Y.