Churchwardens.
1. These are generally chosen from the friends of the Church, as they who are to defend and guard the Church's interests should be. Who should care for the Church if not her friends?
2. But sometimes men who are no friends of the Church have charge of her interests.
3. And not seldom they are amongst her best servants, and do their work diligently and well.
4. In these verses we have a signal instance of this. Here is the fierce, heathen, Israel-destroying Nebuchadnezzar, busying himself seriously about the safety of God's prophet Jeremiah. It is not simply a case of God shutting the lions' mouths, but constituting the lions his servant's sure though strange defence (aft verse 12). "Is Saul also among the prophets?"—that was thought to be a marvel. But that the Chaldean monarch should be the faith's defender and the prophet's guard is no less strange.
5. And there have been other such instances before and since this. See what Egypt was to Joseph and Moses, the Philistines to David, the Persians to Daniel, Greece to Jews in Alexandria, Rome to Paul; see also history of the Lollards, Reformers, etc. And how often in the straits of God's people have they had to confess that he has raised up for them from most unlikely sources the helpers they have needed! "The barbarous people showed us no little kindness" (Acts 28:2),—as we have seen sometimes a weak, defenceless creature dwelling in the same cage with strong, cruel beasts, and not only unharmed, but protected by them.
6. How is all this to be explained? In this instance of Jeremiah the motives of Nebuchadnezzar are clear and comprehensible. Jeremiah had done his best to persuade his countrymen to submit to Babylon. His influence would be strong with the captives in Babylon and serviceable to her monarch. The king would show that, whilst he punished his foes, he did not forget his friends. The reverence and awe which Jeremiah, so evidently God's prophet, aroused in the monarch's mind. But:
7. He was guarded of God. Jeremiah was no partisan of Babylon. The most terrible prophecies against her are his (cf. Jeremiah 1:1-19.). No other explanation than that the care of God was over him can account for their favour to one who spoke so plainly and so evil concerning them. And their forbearance is the more remarkable when we remember the proud, cruel, and arrogant character of the monarch whom Jeremiah thus, as it were, defied.
8. Many and most helpful are the lessons of such facts as these. Enemies God can make our friends, perils our protectors; and because "the Lord's portion is his people," his will is ever to do them good. Such deliverances as these are designed to foreshadow our final and perfect deliverance, and to deepen our confidence in regard thereto.—C.