Behold, the days come, &c.— The prophet here describes the limits of that new Jerusalem which the Jews were to build upon their restoration. This must certainly refer to some future restoration; for that it was not fulfilled from the return out of Babylon to the days of Christ, we are assured from sacred history; where we read that mount Goath or Golgotha was situated without Jerusalem. The same may be said of the valley of dead bodies. As to Gareb, we know nothing certain. See Houbigant, and Zechariah 14:10. We may also add, that the last clause of this chapter cannot refer to the Jerusalem which was rebuilt after the captivity, and which was plucked up and thrown down by the Romans. We must necessarily recur, therefore, either to some future building of that city, or to the church of Jesus Christ, (of the faithful saints of God,) which hath been assured that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. See Matthew 16:18.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The great mercy that God had yet in store for his faithful people is here at large declared, for the support of their faith and hope.
1. They shall all be his, and he will work for them a greater deliverance than when he brought them out of Egypt. At the same time, in the latter days, will I be the God of all the families of Israel; he will take them into covenant with him, after their long alienation from him; and all shall know him, from the least to the greatest: and they shall be my people; drawn by his grace, and devoting themselves to his service. For, as of old the people who escaped the sword of Pharaoh in Egypt found grace in the wilderness, being preserved and protected, even Israel when I went to cause them to rest in Canaan; so now should they be preserved, and restored from their captive state to their own land. But then the people might be apt to say, admitting his past deliverances, The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, but now we see none of his tokens, and therefore conclude ourselves rejected: No, says God, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, am unchangeably the same, as determined as ever to bless my faithful spiritual Israel, and to receive every returning sinner into my fold: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee; I have delivered thee out of thy former troubles and from all thy captivity. Note; (1.) Long afflictions are apt to breed despondence; but we should remember the past experience of God's people, and comfort our souls in hope. (2.) All the mercies of the faithful in time or eternity flow from the love of God; and every sinner in the world may say, We have not chosen him, but he hath chosen us, and called us by his grace; but he has delivered the penitent from the horrible pit of nature, constrained the believer by the cords of love to follow him; and, with the powerful energy of his grace, has overcome the strong bias of our corruptions, and drawn every faithful soul from sin to holiness, from earth to heaven. Lord, thus draw me that I may run after thee!
2. They shall be re-settled, and blest with plenty; either literally, when they should return from the captivity in Babylon; or spiritually, when, being converted to the Lord, Israel should be presented a chaste virgin to Christ, be built up on him the sure foundation, a glorious church, and filled with the abundance of spiritual joy, far exceeding the music and dances with which they celebrated the ceremonial festivals. See Revelation 14:2-4; Revelation 19:7-9. In all their country, even Samaria, the seat of idolatry, Gospel churches, represented by vines, should be planted, and enriched with numerous converts, from whom the planters, the ministers of the Gospel, would receive the most abundant fruit.
3. They shall with one heart, and in one place, unite in the worship of God. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah shall be no more divided, but there shall be a day, the gospel-day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim, the ministers of the Gospel, shall say, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God. Though Ephraim was chief in the revolt from the house of David, and the worship at Jerusalem, now they shall be among the first to express their zeal for the worship and ordinances of the church of Christ, the spiritual Zion, and confess him to be their Lord and their God. Note; They who were once chief rebels against God, do frequently, when converted, become his most zealous subjects and servants.
4. The Gentiles are called upon to rejoice in the conversion of Israel, and to pray for their complete salvation; for thus our praises for past mercies should ever quicken our supplications, and confirm our faith of greater yet in store for us.
5. Notwithstanding all difficulties in the way, God will lead them safely home; either from Babylon, when no bodily infirmities should detain them, God being their strength and helper; or this may be interpreted spiritually of their recovery from the bondage of corruption, when God will lead the blind in the way that they knew not, and make the lame man leap as an hart; when the travailing soul shall find rest from its pangs in Christ, and all the faithful, a great company which no man can number, shall be brought into the church, with weeping for past offences, while they look upon him whom they have pierced; and with supplications for present grace, which, in the most abundant measure, God will bestow, like rivers of waters, to refresh them in their journey to glory; and he will make straight paths for their feet, that they may not err; whilst, as a father, with tenderest regard he watches over, and in his arms supports his faithful children, as Israel and Ephraim would then become. Note; (1.) All who return to God in truth, come to him with weeping and sorrow for past guilt, and supplication for present help. (2.) When we follow a divine call, we are sure of a divine protection, and shall find comfort in all the way. (3.) They who have God for their father, can want no manner of thing that is good.
2nd, The distant nation, and the isles afar off, are called upon to hear and observe the designs of mercy and grace which God hath toward his Israel.
1. He will collect them from their dispersion, keep them as a shepherd his flock, and redeem them from the hand of all their mighty enemies, who had prevailed against them, which was true of Israel after the flesh, when they were restored from Babylon; and will be still more eminently fulfilled, when they are brought in from their present state of captivity. But it is also especially applicable to all the spiritual Israel of God, pardoned through the blood of Jesus, rescued from the power of sin and Satan, and gathered into the fold of Christ from the state of nature and corruption in which they lay before, amid the ungodly and wilfully impenitent.
2. They shall be filled with plenty, joy, and gladness. The returning captives with delight once more will stand on Zion's hill, and sing his praise, Ezra 3:11. His goodness shall engage their hearts to him, and all temporal good things shall abound: they shall flourish as a watered garden; their sorrows be at an end; the voice of joy again fill the streets of Jerusalem; and God's hand, seen in the visitation, shall turn their mourning and sorrow into overflowing joy and consolation; so that both priests and people shall be satiated with God's goodness. The souls of sinners, whether Jews or Gentiles, shall also find this prophesy more gloriously fulfilled, when brought into the church of Christ, the spiritual Zion, their hearts shall be enlarged with love and praise; and, moved by the experience of divine goodness, and flowing together to Jesus, they shall be filled with good things, the heavenly bread of Gospel grace, the word of life; the cheering wine of the great and precious promises, whereby we become partakers of a divine nature; the oil of gladness, the unction from the holy One; and all the best of blessings that he has to bestow; making the soul as a watered garden, abounding in all the gifts and graces of the Spirit, in all the fruits of righteousness; the effects of which will be, the exchange of all their mourning over their sins, corruptions, temptations, desertions, for joy in the sense of pardon, strength, and the light of God's countenance lifted up upon them; so that both ministers and people shall be satisfied with God's goodness. And as thus the tears at present are wiped away from the eyes of all the faithful, so shall they quickly go where they shall not sorrow any more at all, where every cause of it will be removed for ever, and their everlasting blessedness be complete. Hasten, Lord, this happy day!
3. The great cause of their grief would be removed. Rachel, as if rising out of her grave, which lay between Ramah and Bethlehem, to bewail the dreadful catastrophe, personates the Jewish mothers with inconsolable anguish weeping over their children rain or gone into captivity; but the Lord silences her mourning, with assurances, that she has not borne these children in vain, since, though now they seemed lost irrecoverably, he would bring them to their own border again; so that there was still hope in their end, that it would be happy, and make the former days of sorrow forgotten. This prophesy, we are assured, had also a particular reference to the slaying of the infants by Herod, Matthew 2:16-18 the massacre reaching from Bethlehem to Ramah, and waking, as it were, Rachel, that mother of Israel, from her sepulchre, to lament the inhuman deed; and she is comforted with the assurance, that there is hope in their end, and at a resurrection-day these infants shall come from the land of Death, their enemy, to their own borders, the heavenly Canaan. Note; (1.) If we have hope in our end, we ought to be comforted under the troubles of the way. (2.) Parents are too apt to indulge inordinate sorrow for the death of their children, and refuse to be comforted; whereas, if they were gracious, they have cause to rejoice, and, if they died in infancy, have abundant reason to believe that there is hope in their end: we shall meet them in a better country.
3rdly, We have,
1. Ephraim's repentance, representing the whole body of the Jewish people, and the figure of every awakened soul which returns to God. He bemoans himself in the remembrance of his past iniquities; acknowledges the justice of the chastisement which his sins had provoked; and reproaches his own stubbornness for struggling so long against God, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. He prays to the Lord for that converting grace which only can turn his perverse heart; and God will hear and work, and then shall the happy change be wrought, and he be enabled by faith to rest upon God, and claim an interest in his regard; for thou art the Lord my God. And when he can thus call his burden upon the Lord, instantly the blessed effects appear: Surely after that I was turned, I repented; the sense of the divine love, now more experimentally tasted, wrought a deeper sense of the evil and ingratitude of sin, and a greater abhorrence of it: and after that I was instructed, in the knowledge of his own impurity and pollution, by the light of God's Spirit, and of the transcendent excellence and infinite grace of the neglected Saviour; I smote upon my thigh, with holy indignation at his baseness, stupidity, and perverseness: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded; scarcely able to look up to God from the consciousness of guilt, because I did bear the reproach of my youth; all his sins, long since committed and forgotten, rose up fresh to his memory; which, even from the earliest days of youth, gave him abundant cause for confusion and self-abhorrence.
2. God's arms of love are open to receive the returning prodigal; with delight he bends over him, and pours out his paternal heart. Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? it expresses with a kind of surprise, the joy that God takes in seeing such a change wrought upon a hardened sinner, and intimates his readiness to own the endeared relation of father, however unworthy the sinner is to bear the name of child: a pleasant child too, for when the penitent returns to God, all his evil is forgiven and forgotten, and he becomes dear to God, as if he had never offended. For since I spake against him, corrected him with some rebukes, and threatened him with more, I do earnestly remember him still with tender affection; my bowels are troubled for him, grieved for his afflictions, yearning over him, lying in the dust of humiliation: I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord; pardon all that is past, restore him to what he has lost, bestow new favours, and make him the object of my grace and mercy. Note; (1.) God's compassions to his undutiful but returning children should teach parents never to be inexorable, however offended. (2.) When the heaviest afflictions for their sins light on those who have once known the Lord, it is not because he hath forgotten to be gracious, but that they have neglected to be dutiful; when they return to him, he will return to them, and will again be found a father of mercies.
3. The people of Israel, in the person of Ephraim, repentant and obtaining mercy with God, are called to return to their own land. Set thee up way-marks, make thee high heaps, as a direction in the road, that they may not err; set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest from Judea to Babylon; turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities, which God now would restore to them. How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? departing from God, and therefore wandering in endless mazes of error and misery; for the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, a woman shall compass a man, a mighty one, the Messiah, born of a virgin, by the immediate power of God, a strange and unheard–of conception; to him the gathering of people shall be, and the penitent be confident of their recovery, when this breaker shall go up before their king at the head of them. Note; (1.) The incarnation of Jesus is the foundation of every blessing to God's believing people. (2.) Go about where we will, our souls never can find rest, till we return from our backsliding to the God from whom we have so greatly departed. (3.) We may expect many a difficulty in our path, when our faces are turned from the house of our prison towards God's Zion, and therefore we had need set our heart towards it, discouraged by no opposition.
4. Great shall be the peace and prosperity of God's Israel. Those who behold them will admire them, and wish them the best of blessings; The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness, for such Jerusalem should become; and this, whatever reformation might be wrought by Nehemiah and Ezra, seems to have its full accomplishment yet to come. In consequence of such piety, great plenty should be given them of all good things; their flocks shall abound, and a liberal provision be made to replenish and satisfy every weary and sorrowful soul; and this is especially to be referred to the spiritual Israel, to whom God will raise up pastors after his own heart, under whose ministry they shall be abundantly replenished, and their souls, weary and heavy-laden with guilt and sin, be refreshed with a sense of the love of Christ, and their sorrows exchanged for joy and peace in believing.
5. The vision afforded the prophet great satisfaction and delight. Upon this I awaked, perhaps with the transport of joy that he felt at the revelation of these designs of grace to God's believing people; and beheld, for nothing fills a faithful minister's heart with greater pleasure, than the prospect of Christ's kingdom increasing; and my sleep was sweet unto me, peculiarly refreshing and strengthening. Note; The mind much occupied on God will often in sleep find the communion still maintained with him, and the very dreams holy and comforting.
4thly, Farther discoveries of God's designs of grace towards his believing people are made.
1. They shall be multiplied exceedingly: as a field sown with seed, so shall both the men and cattle increase under the divine blessing; and, instead of their former desolations, God promises to turn his hand, and to be as careful to protect and prosper them, as ever he had watched over them to afflict and destroy them. Note; They are truly safe and happy who have God for their guardian.
2. They should no more be visited for their fathers' iniquities, and should have no more reason to complain that the fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge; being punished for the sins of their ancestors, particularly of Manasseh: but now every one shall die for his own iniquity; for though the nation be no more exposed to wrath as a body, sinful individuals should bear their own guilt. Every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge; and sin, however tempting to the eye, will ever be found sour in its effects, and produce much anguish to the soul, either in time or eternity.
3. God will establish his covenant with them: the covenant of grace in Christ Jesus, of which all the Israel of God are partakers; not of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also; for so the apostle understands these words, Hebrews 8:8-12. This covenant is called new, not as in substance different from that made with the people when they came out of Egypt, but in the form in which it was exhibited. Then it was delivered in type and figure, wrapped up under the figure of ceremonial rites and services; while now, as with open face, we behold the glory of God manifest in the face of Jesus Christ, and in the Gospel see the clearest discoveries of his grace. The first covenant made with them they quickly broke, by the most ungrateful departures from God, and setting up that hated thing idolatry; notwithstanding all the distinguishing kindness of God to them as a tender husband, patient under their provocations, and wooing them to return to him.
4. The tenor of the covenant here promised displays wondrous mercy; and the blessings are wholly spiritual, where God is all and in all. He engages to write his law upon the hearts of believers, and to strengthen them for the obedience which he demands. He will be their God, to bless them, and they shall be his people, feeling his powerful grace, and giving up themselves to his government. Abundance of divine knowledge shall then be diffused, and all the Israel of God be enriched with wisdom and spiritual understanding: and he concludes with the crowning blessing of all, I will forgive their iniquity, and I still remember their sin no more; and every true Israelite is now entitled to these inestimable blessings.
5thly, We have,
1. The perpetuity of the church of Christ—the continuation of the great work of God, engaged for by Jehovah. That Lord of Hosts, whose power created, and whose arm upholds and guides, the ordinances of heaven in regular succession; who first shut up the sea in bounds, and still, when it rages, causes the foaming billows to subside; who meted out the heavens, and laid the foundation of the deep; immense the space, unfathomable the abyss: this mighty God declares, that, sooner shall these heavenly orbs unruly leave their spheres, and the deep forsake its bed to cover again the earth, than Israel cease to be a nation; yea, sooner shall impossibilities be practicable, the immensity of space be measured, and the foundations of the earth be searched out, by what supported, and how it is hung in air, than the Jews as a nation be cast off, so as to be utterly abandoned, notwithstanding all that they have done. And this will be equally true of the church of Christ—of the work of God in the latter days: it shall not decay, but shall increase till the whole lump be leavened, and all the people praise Jehovah.
2. The rebuilding and duration of the city of Jerusalem, the figure of the church. Though it would quickly be laid in ruins, it should be raised again as large as ever, and be holy unto the Lord; no more polluted with idols, but wholly devoted to the worship and service of God. It shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever; which, if applied to the city of Jerusalem, can only signify that it should continue a long time; or, spoken of the church of Christ, the glorious revival of religion in the latter days, it may be taken in a most enlarged, extensive sense.