Jeremiah 34

Jeremiah 34:19-22 . The princes of Judah, &c., (see Jeremiah 29:2 ,) the eunuchs — The officers belonging to the court; the priests and all the people which passed between the parts of the calf — Assenting to the solemn and awful imprecation, Let us in like manner be cut in pieces if we do not perform what we now promise. I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, &c. — God does not here threaten all the Jews, but those only who had first made, and then broken, this solemn covenant, and thereby falsified their engagements, and dealt treacherously with him. The king and nobles, and great courtiers, as well as the people, he would give into the hand of their enemies, who sought, not their wealth only, or their service, but their lives: and who should obtain what they sought; and, not content therewith, should leave their dead bodies lying unburied upon the face of the earth, a loathsome spectacle to all mankind, and an easy prey to the fowls of the heaven and the beasts of the earth. Thus doth the Lord execute justice, without respect of persons, on all that do wickedly, and who will neither be won by his mercies, nor be brought to obey him by a dread of his wrath. Behold, I will command, and cause them to return to this city — Namely, the king of Babylon’s army, which had departed for a season, having gone to meet the army of the king of Egypt.

I will put it into their hearts to return, saith the Lord, to the siege, and they shall leave it no more till they have taken the city, and burned it with fire, and made the whole country desolate. The motions of armies are under the government of Divine Providence, they are all at God’s command; when he bids them come they come, and they shall certainly effect what he hath determined to be done. When we come to chapter 39. we shall read of the fulfilment of this prophecy. Observe here, reader, 1st, As an humble confidence in God is a hopeful presage of approaching deliverance, so security in sin is a sad omen of approaching destruction. 2d, When judgments are removed from a people before they have done their work, and leave them unhumbled and unreformed, they do but retreat to come on again with so much the greater force; for when God judges he will overcome. 3d, It is just with God to disappoint those expectations of mercy which his providence had excited, when we disappoint those expectations of duty which our professions, pretensions, and fair promises had given cause for. If we repent of the good we had promised, God will repent of the good he had purposed. The froward are an abomination to the Lord. With the froward he will show himself froward.