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<p>We have here God’s answer to Jeremiah’s prayer, designed to quiet his mind and make him easy; and it is a full discovery of the purposes of God’s wrath against the present generation and the purposes of his grace concerning the future generations. Jeremiah knew not how to <i>sing both of mercy and judgment</i>, but God here teaches to sing unto him of both. When we know not how to reconcile one word of God with another we may yet be sure that both are true, both are pure, both shall be made good, and not one iota or tittle of either shall fall to the ground. When Jeremiah was ordered to buy the field in Anathoth he was willing to hope that God was about to revoke the sentence of his wrath and to order the Chaldeans to raise the siege. “No,” says God, “the execution of the sentence shall go on; Jerusalem shall be laid in ruins.” Note, Assurances of future mercy must not be interpreted as securities from present troubles. But, lest Jeremiah should think that his being ordered to buy this field intimated that all the mercy God had in store for his people, after their return, was only that they should have the possession of their own land again, he further informs him that that was but a type and figure of those spiritual blessings which should then be abundantly bestowed upon them, unspeakably more valuable than fields and vineyards; so that in this <i>word of the Lord</i>, which came to Jeremiah, we have first as dreadful threatenings and then as precious promises as perhaps any we have in the Old Testament; life and death, good and evil, are here set before us; let us consider and choose wisely.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">I. The ruin of Judah and Jerusalem is here pronounced. The decree has gone forth, and shall not be recalled. 1. God here asserts his own sovereignty and power (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.27" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.27">Jer. 32:27</a>): <i>Behold, I am Jehovah</i>, a self-existent self-sufficient being; <i>I am that I am; I am the God of all flesh</i>, that is, of all mankind, here called <i>flesh</i> because weak and unable to contend with God (<a class="bibleref" title="Ps.56.4" href="/passage/?search=Ps.56.4">Ps. 56:4</a>), and because wicked and corrupt and unapt to comply with God. God is the Creator of all, and makes what use he pleases of all. He that is the God of Israel is the <i>God of all flesh</i> and of <i>the spirits of all flesh</i>, and, if Israel were cast off, could raise up a people to his name out of some other nation. If he be the <i>God of all flesh</i>, he may well ask, <i>Isa. any thing too hard for me</i>? What cannot he do from whom all the powers of men are derived, on whom they depend, and by whom all their actions are directed and governed? Whatever he designs to do, whether in wrath or in mercy, nothing can hinder him nor defeat his designs. 2. He abides by that he had often said of the destruction of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.28" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.28">Jer. 32:28</a>): <i>I will give this city into his hand</i>, now that he is grasping at it, <i>and he shall take it</i> and make a prey of it, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.29" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.29">Jer. 32:29</a>. <i>The Chaldeans shall come and set fire to it</i>, shall burn it and all the <i>houses in it</i>, God’s house not excepted, nor the king’s neither. 3. He assigns the reason for these severe proceedings against the city that had been so much in his favour. It is sin, it is that and nothing else, that ruins it. (1.) They were impudent and daring in sin. They <i>offered incense to Baal</i>, not in corners, as men ashamed or afraid of being discovered, but upon the <i>tops of their houses</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.29" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.29">Jer. 32:29</a>), in defiance of God’s justice. (2.) They designed an affront to God herein. They did it <i>to provoke me to anger</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.29" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.29">Jer. 32:29</a>. <i>They have only provoked me to anger with the works of their hands</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.30" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.30">Jer. 32:30</a>. They could not promise themselves any pleasure, profit, or honour out of it, but did it on purpose to offend God. And again (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.32" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.32">Jer. 32:32</a>), <i>All the evil which they have done was to provoke me to anger</i>. They knew he was a jealous God in the matters of his worship, and there they resolved to try his jealousy and dare him to his face. “Jerusalem has been <i>to me a provocation of my anger and fury</i>,” <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.31" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.31">Jer. 32:31</a>. Their conduct in every thing was provoking. (3.) They began betimes, and had continued all along provoking to God: “They have <i>done evil before me from their youth</i>, ever since they were first formed into a people (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.30" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.30">Jer. 32:30</a>), witness their murmurings and rebellions in the wilderness.” And as for Jerusalem, though it was the <i>holy city</i>, it has been <i>a provocation</i> to the holy God <i>from the day that they built it, even to this day</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.31" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.31">Jer. 32:31</a>. O what reason have we to lament the little honour God has from this world, and the great dishonour that is done him, when even in Judah, where <i>he is known</i> and <i>his name is great</i>, and in Salem where his <i>tabernacle is</i>, there was always that found that was a provocation to him! (4.) All orders and
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<p class="tab-1">II. The restoration of Judah and Jerusalem is here promised, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.36" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.36">Jer. 32:36</a> God will in judgment remember mercy, and there will a time come, a set time, to favour Zion. Observe, 1. The despair to which this people were now at length brought. When the judgment was threatened at a distance they had no fear; when it attacked them they had no hope. They said concerning the city (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.36" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.36">Jer. 32:36</a>), <i>It shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon</i>, not by any cowardice or ill conduct of ours, but by <i>the sword, famine, and pestilence</i>. Concerning the country they said, with vexation (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.43" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.43">Jer. 32:43</a>), <i>It is desolate, without man or beast</i>; there is no relief, there is no remedy. <i>It is given into the hand of the Chaldeans</i>. Note, Deep security commonly ends in deep despair; whereas those that keep up a holy fear at all times have a good hope to support them in the worst of times. 2. The hope that God gives them of mercy which he had in store for them hereafter. Though their carcases must fall in captivity, yet their children after them shall again see this good land and the goodness of God in it. (1.) They shall be brought up from their captivity and shall come and settle again in this land, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.37" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.37">Jer. 32:37</a>. They had been under God’s <i>anger and fury, and great wrath</i>; but now they shall partake of his grace, and love, and great favour. He had dispersed them, and <i>driven them into all countries</i>. Those that fled dispersed themselves; those that fell into the enemies; hands were dispersed by them, in policy, to prevent combinations among them. God’s hand was in both. But now God will find them out, and <i>gather them out of all the countries whither they were driven</i>, as he promised in the law (<a class="bibleref" title="Deut.30.3,Deut.30.4" href="/passage/?search=Deut.30.3,Deut.30.4"><span class="bibleref" title="Deut.30.3">Deut. 30:3</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Deut.30.4">4</span></a>) and the saints had prayed, <a class="bibleref" title="Ps.106.47,Neh.1.9" href="/passage/?search=Ps.106.47,Neh.1.9"><span class="bibleref" title="Ps.106.47">Ps. 106:47</span>; <span class="bibleref" title="Neh.1.9">Neh. 1:9</span></a>. He had banished them, but he will <i>bring them again to this place</i>, which they could not but have an affection for. For many years past, while they were in their own land, they were continually exposed, and terrified with the alarms of war; but now <i>I will cause them to dwell safely</i>. Being reformed, and having returned to God, neither their own consciences within nor their enemies without shall be a terror to them. He promises (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.41" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.41">Jer. 32:41</a>): <i>I will plant them in this land assuredly</i>; not only I will certainly do it, but they shall here enjoy a holy a security and repose, and they shall take root here, shall be <i>planted in stability</i>, and not again be unfixed and shaken. (2.) God will renew his covenant with them, a covenant of grace, the blessings of which are spiritual, and such as will work good things in them, to qualify them for the great things God intended to do for them. It is called an <i>everlasting covenant</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.32.40" href="/passage/?search=Jer.32.40">Jer. 32:40</a>), not only because God will be for ever faithful to it, but because the consequences of it will be everlasting. For, doubtless, here the promises look further than to Israel according to the flesh, and are sure to all believers, to every Israelite indeed. Good Christians may apply them to themselves and plead them with God, may claim the benefit of them and take the comfort of them. [1.] God will own them for his, and make over himself to them to be theirs (<a c
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