I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel
The dependence of universal being upon a benignant providence
Jezreel (seed of God) was a city in the tribe of Issachar.
The valley in which it stood was remarkable for its fertility. Jezreel, in the text, may be either the valley which bore the corn, wine, and oil, or the obedient part of the nation, restored to the country from which they had been carried away. One of the characteristics of the Book of Hosea is the frequent transition from the most distressful to the most delightful annunciations of futurity. Amid all that was adapted to alarm the disobedient many, there was a tender regard for the consolations and hopes of the pious few. The text is a passage of this description. It practically, Net philosophically, depicts the harmony of universal nature, operating under the benignant direction of Providence for the good of man. One seems to feel the piety of the sentiment more for this circuitous tracing of man’s enjoyment to his Maker’s bounty. We find that all second causes, tarry in them as long as we will, and multiply them as we may, yet must terminate in a great first cause. The Deity cannot be excluded from His own universe. The prophet’s description is, in the true spirit of poetry, the selection of a particular instance which is adorned with all the beauty of imagery, and then put forward as the illustration of a principle.
1. It is the fact that there is such a connection as the prophet has intimated, not only in that particular case, but in all the regions of matter and mind, blending them together, and making them one.
2. The influence of this fact upon our feelings and conduct, its righteous tendency or unrighteous application, its gloom or gladness, must arise from the notions of the Divine character with which it is associated in our convictions. There is not merely a community of properties, but a reciprocity of influence, from the minutest to the mightiest substances, from the nearest to the most remote, from the grain to the mass, from the mass to the mountain, from the mountain to the island or continent, from that to the solid globe, from our globe to the solar system, from that system to other systems, having their relative positions and combined movements, until it expands beyond our sense or imagination in the multiplicity of worlds, and the boundlessness of space. This connection applies to time as well as to space. In the mind and life of man it wilt be seen that the thoughts of the one and the events of the other have a similar connection, and are under similar influences. No idea springs up in the mind spontaneously, without something to introduce it, something which stands to it in the relation of a cause, itself the effect of something which preceded. The universe may be regarded as a great machine, but everything depends on our believing, or not, that this machine has a Mover and Maker, and on the notions we entertain of His dispositions and designs. Some blend this fact with the denial of God. Others blend the fact with the admission of a God, an Almighty Creator, but not a God whose love is the same to all the rational beings whom the system brings into existence--a God who is partly benevolent and partly malignant. It is the glory of our faith to blend with this fact the deepest conviction of the universal love of the Creator. All things lead us back to God, the infinite goodness. Learn--
1. A lesson of humility and of gratitude.
2. A lesson of caution.
3. Let our devotion be universal as the presence and influence of our God. Let it pervade our lives. (J. R. Beard.)
Second causes:--
1. God is wont to work good for His people by second causes. He sends not things immediately from heaven, but the heavens hear the earth, and the earth hears the corn and the wine. We must look to second causes, but take heed of resting on them. Though God sometimes works beyond means, and even contrary to them, ordinarily He uses second causes.
2. There is a concatenation in second causes, and not merely a use. Every one in their order ministers to the other. If we could see the comely order of the creatures, we should see them all linked together by a golden chain.
3. Nothing can be done by any link of the chain of second causes, but by God’s being at the uppermost link.
4. It is most comely, and a great blessing, when the right order and chain of second causes hold; as in nature, so in any society, when all preserve their due subordination. When they are out of order, it is a great misery to a city or kingdom. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Family prayers
By this very elaborate and poetically ingenious figure the prophet appears to be giving a contrived representation of the fact, that when God brings m the promised day of His universal reign on the earth, there will be a grand convergency of causes to prepare it, and, like so many concurrent prayers, to make common suit for it before Him. Thus he figures the world as being the beautiful valley called Jezreel, which is the garden, so to speak, of the land. And it is to be as when the people of Jezreel get their harvest, by having everything in a train of concurrent agency to prepare it--they make petition by their careful tillage to the corn, the grapes, and olives, that they will grow apace; these in turn make suit to the earth to give them nutriment; this again hears them, and lifts its petition to the heavens, asking rain and dew; whereupon, last of all, the heavens hand up the prayers to God, to furnish them water, and let them shed it down; which petition He graciously hears, and the harvest follows. So he conceives it will be as the harvest of the world approaches. It will be as if all things were put striving together, and a prayer were going up for it through all the concurrent circles of providence. God’s counsel and kingdom are constructing always a perfect harmony, by their convergence on His perfect end. Then, as the perfect end is neared, and the harmony with it grows complete, it will be as if more things were concurring in it, and asking for it, and prayer, falling in as a cause among causes, will have them all praying with it, or handing up its request. In which we may see what holds good of all prayer, and how or by what law it prevails. In one view the whole future is prayed in by the whole present, being such a future as the whole present demands. The more things therefore prayer can get into harmony with itself in its request, the more likely it is to prevail; and the more alone it is, and the more things it has opposite to it, in the field of causes, the less likely it is to prevail--even as Adam had less hope of success in praying for Cain, that the blood of Abel was crying to God against him from the ground. All prayer being under this general condition, family prayer will be, of course. I handle the subject in this form, in the conviction that the prayers of families are so often defeated by the want of any such concert in the aims, plans, tempers, works, and aspirations of the house, as are necessary to a common suit before God; in other words, because the prayers, commonly so called, are defeated by the suit of so many causes contrary to them. I drop out of notice family worship as observance, and speak of it only as the open state of prayer and communion with God in the house.
I. The manner in which prayers of all kinds get their answers from God. Two things are wanted.
1. That the matter requested should agree with God’s beneficent aims, or the ends of good to which His plans are built.
2. That the prayer should agree with as many other prayers and as many other circles of causes as possible: for God is working always towards the largest harmony, and will not favour therefore the prayer of words, when everything else in the life is demanding something else, but will rather have respect to what has the widest reach of things and persons making suit with it. See how it is in the great realm of nature. The Bible history, too, shows a grand convergency of all the matters included in it, and a mysterious concert weaves all its facts together, and keeps them working towards the same result. In the same way, descending to a lower field, every conversion to God takes place when some largest harmony demands it. If we come directly to the matter of prayer itself, we meet the promise, that “If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us,” and “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them.” By the whole economy of prayer God is working toward the largest, most inclusive harmony, and prayer is to be successful just according to the amount of concurrency there is in it. First, there is to be the completest possible concurrency with God; then a concurrency of one or two hundred, or, if so it may be, two hundred millions of petitioners in a common suit; and then all these are to be total in the suit, bringing all their lustings, affections, works, plans, properties, and self-sacrifices into the petition; whereupon the prayer will grow strong, just in proportion to the amount of agreement or concurrence there is in it.
II. Conditions of successful family prayer. The great infirmity of family prayers, or of what is sometimes called family religion, is that it stands alone in the house, and has nothing put in agreement with it. It is a first point of religion itself, that by its very nature, it rules presidingly over everything desired, done, thought, planned for, and prayed for in the life. The mere observance kind of piety, that which prays in the family to keep up a reverent show, or acknowledgment of religion, is not enough. It leaves everything else in the life to be an open space for covetousness and all the gay lustings of worldly vanity. What is prayed for in the house by the father, is sometimes not prayed for by the mother in her family tastes and tempers. It is necessary that the practical ends, tastes, plans, aspirations, and works of the house should all come into the same circle of concert, and join their petition to reinforce the suit of the prayers. Here is the great lesson of family religion; it is that religion, being the supreme end and law of life, is to have everything put in the largest possible harmony with it. (Horace Bushnell, D. D.)
The chain of blessing
The language of this text is poetical and highly figurative, but quite easy of comprehension. Jezreel, the seed of God, is the name used by this prophet to designate the people of God. We have, then, a picture of the whole process by which God answers His people when they pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The passage is not only beautiful, but suggestive. Its range is very wide. It leads all along the chain of effect and cause, from man through nature up to God. Beginning at the lower extremity, we find ourselves first in the wide and busy domain of political economy, with its two branches of production and distribution. Stepping upwards, we reach the sphere of natural science, and the highest raises us to the lofty regions of theology. We begin, however, with the highest link.
1. However many links may seem to intervene in nature’s chain, if followed up, it always leads to God at last. If the harvest came by some process of evolution, whence came the process of evolution? We may carry back the chain of second causes as far as we may, we shall always find the farthest link fastened to the throne of the Omnipotent.
2. It is God that hears, not only at the extremity of the chain, but through it all, between each separate link, however long it may be. Not only is God the First Cause, He is in all intermediate causes too. We speak of “laws,” laws of nature. But who made the laws? And who enforces the laws? There must be power to do this. Where is it? What a remarkable thing is the regular proportion between what is produced and what is needed for consumption in a given year. The whole thing is left to individual choice, there must therefore be some power at work to preserve the necessary equilibrium. There is the law of supply and demand to regulate this. But this law, like all other laws, implies a lawgiver. It implies a power above ourselves.
3. Food is produced where population is scanty, it is wanted mainly where population is dense. Whately says, “Man’s foresight often gets the credit for what is due to God’s wisdom.” All the foresight of man would fail for a work so stupendous as this. Many have the idea that the farmer is more dependent on the Divine power than the artisan and the manufacturer. It is a mistake. The chain along which we derive our manufactured goods from the Giver of all good may be longer than the other, but God is just as surely at the upper end of it, and in each intermediate link. No machine can produce power. All the force which is used in all our factories is ultimately traceable to the sun. It was the sun which, millions of years ago, poured its rays on the luxurious vegetation of the carboniferous era, and filled it full of a latent force, which, after the leaves and stems and roots containing it had been pressed and hardened and blackened underground, should be avail able to those who, in future ages, should dig it up as coal, and use it to heat their houses and drive their engines. Our manufactures as our agriculture are of God, and of Him only. (J. Monro Gibson, D. D.)
The promise of plenty
1. While the Lord’s people are within time, they may read their own frailty in needing so many things to uphold even their outward man.
2. Outward mercies do so far follow on the covenant as the confederate may be free of fear and anxiety about them. Albeit the Lord do not always see it meet to heap plenty of corn and wine and oil upon His people, yet they have as much as, with godliness and contentment, may suffice. When they seek the best things, other things will certainly be added.
3. God is so tender a respecter of necessities that He hath an ear to hear the dumb cries of very insensible creatures in their need.
4. God’s reconciled people are to read, not only God’s love in their plenty, but that all the creation do, in their kind, with a good will, concur to serve him who is now at peace with his Maker.
5. The Lord sets a mark of excellency upon man, and especially upon His Church, in that so many things concur to serve them and provide for them.
6. Whatever it be that one creature affords unto another, or may be in the course of nature expected from it, yet every creature in itself is empty, and must be supplied by God before it satisfy any.
7. As the Lord is not to be tempted, but waited on in His established order for anything, so we are not to rest on any such order or course of nature, but to see God’s hand in it, who establisheth and blesseth it for such ends.
8. The Lord’s former sad dispositions towards His people will not hinder Him to change His dealing; but He will make His kindness so much the sweeter. (George Hutcheson.)
God and His universe
I. The operations of the universe are under the intelligent direction of the great God. The universe is here represented as in action. There is nothing stationary; all things are full of labour. The universe is not a self-acting machine, left to itself to work out. The great Machinist is ever with it, observing and directing every motion. This fact serves several important purposes.
1. To account for the unbroken order of nature.
2. To impress us with the sanctity of nature.
3. To inspire us with reverence towards the greatness of God.
II. That the operations of the universe are generally conducted on the mediatory principle. “I will hear the heavens,” etc. Look at this mediatory principle in its relation to man--
1. As a material being. How did we receive these corporeal frames: how are they sustained; how are they broken up?
2. As a spiritual being. How does knowledge come to man? He has teachers.
III. The operations of the universe are mercifully subordinated to the interests of the good. Jezreel, or the children of God, receive from God three things.
1. The blessings they devoutly sought.
2. The multiplication of their number.
3. The heightening of the sympathy between them and God. “I will call them My people.” (Homilist.)
And they shall hear Jezreel.
The audience of Jezreel
The prophet refers, under the symbolic title Jezreel, to God’s own faithful people, the undefiled remnant of Israel; those who were brought back to their own land after the captivity in Babylon. In a larger sense we are to understand the passage as a prophecy of the blessings which such of the Jews as accept our Lord Christ, and those of the Gentiles who believe in Him, shall enjoy under the Gospel.
I. The way in which God promises to be gracious to his people at the last. He will deal with them through a chain of intermediate agencies.
I. Superficially the text is but a poetic way of saying that all the universe shall unite to help the people of God.
2. The deeper thought is, that in this mode of due order and proportion, having respect to the fitness of all things which He has made. God rules the universe, albeit for the sake of His people.
II. The broad and all-embracing method of the Divine operation ought to be a great strength to us in times of discouragement and doubt. The tendency of modern life seems to be to make men pessimistic. It seems as if the enormous natural forces brought out into the light, and harnessed to work man’s will for him, had somehow paralysed our human instincts. Human life seems to be becoming more and more but the life of a machine. God has promised to hear our prayers, but only on the condition that we approach Him in the way He has appointed. (Catholic Champion.)