Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity.
Diligence in serving sin
Whereas the Lord had, by His prophets, frequently inculcated that exhortation, to taker pains on their own hearts, to bring forth the fruits of piety and righteousness; they, on the contrary, took pains enough in serving sin, wherein they wanted not fruit, though it should disappoint their expectation. This challenge is farther amplified and enlarged by showing what was the fountain and spring of all this wickedness; to wit, their carnal confidence in the sinful ways and courses they followed, both in matters of state and religion, and their confidence in their many valiant men.
1. Many are so perverse, as they are not only content to live in sin, neglecting their duty, but they will be at pains to promote sin, and will trouble themselves to undo themselves.
2. Sin is a very fertile weed among the children of men; such as are bent on it will soon get their hearts’ desire of it, and God will give up such as are diligent that way, to a height of impiety, as a plague upon them. “Ye have reaped iniquity.” By this we are not to understand God’s causing them to reap the fruit of sin in judgments, but that their labours in sin came to a ripe harvest of grown-up iniquity.
3. Whatever fruit sin seem to promise to its followers, or whatever present comforts or success men seem to have by it, yet it will prove but vain, and disappoint them.
4. Men’s carnal confidences are great snares to draw them upon sinful courses, and are promising fruits which will disappoint them.
5. There is no confidence that more easily ensnares men, and will disappoint them sooner, than their own witty projects and devices in matters civil and sacred, without respecting the law of God; and their seeming to have power enough to manage and uphold them in these contrived ways. For such is their snare here, which will surely disappoint them. (George Hutcheson.)
Sow a habit, reap a character
Professor William Jones, of Harvard, in his text-book on psychology, says: “Could the young but realise how soon they will become mere bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson’s play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, ‘I won’t count this time’ Well, he may not count it, and a kind heaven may not count it, but it is being counted none the less. Down among the nerve-cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up, to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. Of course, this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific, spheres by so many separate acts and hours of work.”
Because thou didst trust in thy way.
Trust in our own things
Israel, the ten tribes, had two great confidences. “Thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.”
I. In their way. That is, in the way of religion that they had chosen for themselves, and which was distinct from the way of Judah, from the true worship of God. They were confident that they were right, and would not hear anything to the contrary. That which is a man’s own way he is very ready to trust in, and to esteem highly. None are more ready to charge others with pride than the proud; and none are more ready to charge others with adhering to their own way than those who most stick to their own conceit.
II. In their mighty men. “They had an army to back them, to fight for them, and to maintain that way of theirs. When the outward strength of a kingdom goes along with a way of religion, men think it must needs be right, and that all its opponents are but weak men. Great armies are the confidence of careless hearts. Those that trust to any way of their own have need of creature strengths to uphold them. (Jeremiah Burroughs.).