For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:
Ver. 4. For thus saith the Lord] Or, truly thus saith the Lord; notwithstanding the former terrible sentence, which the prophet could not denounce with dry eyes; but takes up a lamentation, though less concerned in it, and might well say, as one did in another case,
“ Tu quibus ista legis, incertum est, lector ocellis,
Ipse quidem siccis dicere non potui. ”
All God's threatenings (for the most part) are conditional, Jeremiah 18:7 ; Jeremiah 26:2 , sc. if men repent not. As if they do, they may live in his sight, and be accounted worthy (such is God's great goodness) to escape all those things that shall befall the impenitent, Luke 21:36. The gospel is post naufragium tabula, writing tablet after the ship wreck, sand hath its reward too, Hebrews 11:6, sc. of grace and mercy. Do this and live, saith the law. Seek the Lord, and live, saith the gospel. "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him," and that is the force of the Hebrew word here used, which signifieth to inquire, to make serious search and scrutiny, to seek him out (εκζητησατε με, as the Seventy have it), when he is withdrawn; to seek him as a student doth sciences, a worldling gold, a hungry man meat, &c., as a man studiously turns over a commentary to find out the sense of a text, Isaiah 34:16. Do this, saith God, and ye shall live; not only have your lives for a prey, but live merrily, happily. "Now we live," saith the apostle; that is, we rejoice, 1 Thessalonians 3:8 : and "Thus shall ye say to him that liveth"; that is, hath a comfortable life, and a confluence of blessings, 1 Samuel 25:6. But besides all this, ye shall live for ever; and aeterna vita, vera vita, eternal life is the only life properly so called. Life (in what sense soever taken) is a sweet mercy: "A living dog is better than a dead lion," saith Solomon, Ecclesiastes 9:4; and "Joseph is yet alive," saith Jacob (he doth not say, Joseph is lord of Egypt), "I will get down, and see him before I die," Genesis 45:28. "But eternal life is" (by a speciality and with an accent) "the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord," Romans 6:23; and this gift he will freely bestow on all that so seek him as not to be satisfied without him, as Moses, who would not be put off with an angel, but said, "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence," Exodus 33:15; and as Luther, who when great gifts were sent him, refused them and said, Valde protestatus sum, me nolle sic satiari a Deo: I deeply protested that I would not be satisfied with these low things, but that I would have God or nothing. This was one of those brave apophthegms a of his, concerning which Melchior Adam well saith, A man would fetch them upon his knees from Rome, or Jerusalem, rather than be without them.
a A terse, pointed saying, embodying an important truth in few words; a pithy or sententious maxim. ŒD