Stages in the soups prestress from sin unto salvation.
"Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations," etc. These verses exhibit the exercise of mercy even in the execution of judgment; and they indicate certain stages in the restoration of a remnant of the people to the Lord Jehovah.
I. SIN LEADING TO PUNISHMENT. In dealing with previous paragraphs we have already spoken of the sin and of the punishment of the Israelites. Their chief sin was idolatry. It is spoken of in our text as whoredom. The chosen people are looked upon as the wife of Jehovah (cf. Jeremiah 2:2; Hosea 2:19, Hosea 2:20). And in turning from him to worship idols, they played the part of a wife that is unfaithful to her husband (cf. Jeremiah 3:9, Jeremiah 3:20). And when they persisted in this infidelity, despite exhortation, remonstrance, and warning, the righteous judgment of God came upon them—siege, famine, pestilence, sword, captivity. Sin ever leads to suffering. Sooner or later penalty follows transgression. "Be sure your sin will find you out;" "Whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him."
II. PUNISHMENT LEAVING TO RECOLLECTION. "They that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives." The goodness of God is designed to lead men to repentance (cf. Romans 2:4); but sometimes it fails to do so by reason of the perversity of the heart of man. Some men partake of the gifts of the Divine goodness without any thought of the bountiful Bestower. But affliction not unfrequently accomplishes that which prosperity failed to effect. It was in the far country, in poverty, degradation, and destitution, that the prodigal son came to himself, and remembered his father's house (Luke 15:14-17). And though Israel had forsaken the Lord, he had not forsaken them. Even his judgments were an evidence of this (cf. Hosea 2:6, Hosea 2:7). In wrath he remembers mercy. In his terrible visitation for their sins he spares a remnant of them. And in the miseries of captivity that remnant remembers him. As a faithless wife who has deserted a good husband will almost certainly have occasion to remember in bitterness of soul him whom she has so basely and cruelly wronged, so the remnant of the Israelites, in the sorrows of their exile, would remember the Lord Jehovah, whom they had rejected for vain idols. Suffering should induce recollection and reflection. Trials should lead us to review our life and consider our ways.
III. RECOLLECTION LEADING TO REPENTANCE. "When I have broken their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and their eyes, which go a-whoring after their idols; and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations." Where this rendering differs from that of the Authorized Version it is supported by Hengstenberg, Schroder, and the 'Speaker's Commentary.' Amongst the remnant of the Israelites, recollection prepared the way for repentance, of which three aspects are here indicated.
1. Repentance in its origin. "When I have broken their whorish heart." Whatever may be the means by which it is brought about, penitence is the product of Divine grace (cf. Acts 5:31; Acts 11:18). In this Christian age, God brings gracious gospel influences to bear upon the hearts of men by the operation of his Holy Spirit, in order to quicken them into penitence for sin.
2. Repentance in its seat. "When I have broken their heart." Repentance is not merely a change of mind, but a change of feeling. It is godly sorrow on account of sin (cf. 2 Corinthians 7:9, 2 Corinthians 7:10). "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."
3. Repentance in its expression. "They shall loathe themselves for the evils they have committed in all their abominations." The true penitent never seeks to excuse himself on account of his sins, or to explain them away, or to extenuate the guilt of them. He takes shame to himself on account of them; and humbly confesses them to God. He says, "I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me," etc. (Psalms 51:3-5); "O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lilt up my face to thee, my God," etc. (Ezra 9:6); "God be merciful to me a sinner." It is well when recollection thus leads to repentance unto life. It did so in the case of the psalmist: "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies," etc. (Psalms 119:59, Psalms 119:60). And David prophesied that it should be so throughout the world: "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord," etc. (Psalms 22:27).
IV. REPENTANCE LEADING TO DEVOUT RECOGNITION OF GOD. "And they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them." "The Lord would have spoken in vain, or to no purpose, if the event had not corresponded with the utterance. By the correspondence of utterance and event, they know that he who has spoken by the son of man is Jehovah—is God in the fullest sense" (Hengstenberg). They shall know him as the living and true God in contrast to the dead and vain idols (see on Ezekiel 6:7). And more than this, true repentance leads to forgiveness and reconciliation with God; and thus the penitent soul comes to know him by devout sympathy and hallowed communion with him.
CONCLUSION. Learn that pain and trial are blessed when by Divine grace they lead to earnest reflection, and sincere repentance, and saving knowledge of God (cf. Psalms 119:67, Psalms 119:71; Hebrews 12:10, Hebrews 12:11).—W.J.