Thus said the LORD unto me; Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem;
Delivered in the reign of Jehoiakim, who undid the good effected by Josiah's reformation, especially as to the observance of the Sabbath (Eichorn).
Stand in the gate of the children of the people - the gate next the king's palace, called the gate of David, and the gate of the people, from its being the principal thoroughfare: now the Jaffa gate. It is probably the same as "the gate of the fountain" at the foot of Zion, near which were the king's garden and pool (Jeremiah 39:4; 2 Kings 25:4; Nehemiah 2:14; Nehemiah 3:15; Nehemiah 12:37).
Verse 20. Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye kings of Judah - he begins with the kings, as they ought to have repressed such a glaring profanation.
Verse 21. Take heed to yourselves - literally, to your souls. Maurer explains, 'as ye love your lives;' a phrase used here to give the greater weight to the command.
Sabbath - the non-observance of it was a chief cause of the captivity, the number of years of the latter, seventy, being exactly made to agree with the number of Sabbaths which elapsed during the 490 years of their possession of Canaan from Saul to their removal (Leviticus 26:34-35; exactly fulfilled according to 2 Chronicles 36:21). On the restoration, therefore, stress was especially laid on Sabbath observance, and for this purpose Nehemiah ordered "the gates of Jerusalem" to be kept closed during the Sabbath, to prevent Sabbath traffic, the very sin reprobated by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 17:21), (Nehemiah 13:19).
Bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem - it would have been scandalous anywhere, but in the capital, Jerusalem, it was an open insult to God. Sabbath-hallowing is intended as a symbol of holiness in general (Ezekiel 20:12, "I gave them my sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them."), therefore such stress is laid on it; the Jews' gross impiety is manifested in their setting God's will at nought in the case of such an easy and positive command.
Verse 23. They obeyed not, neither inclined their ear - (Jeremiah 7:24; Jeremiah 7:26).
Verse 24. If ye hallow the sabbath - a part put for the whole, 'If ye keep the Sabbath and my other laws.'
Verse 25. Then shall there enter into the gates ... kings ... in chariots. The kingdom at this time had been brought so low that this promise here was a special favour. The reward exactly corresponded to the obedience. If they would bring in no burden through the city gates on the Sabbath, then God would cause kings of David's line to enter in through the city gates with princely pomp!
And this city shall remain forever - Hebrew, be inhabited (Jeremiah 17:6; Isaiah 13:20).
Verse 26. From the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south (Joshua 15:1-4). The southern border had extended to the river of Egypt, but was now much curtailed by Egyptian invasions. (2 Chronicles 35:20; 2 Chronicles 36:3-4). The Hebrew for "south" means dry: the arid desert south of Judea is meant. The enumeration of all the parts of Judea-city, country plain, hill, and desert-implies that no longer shall there be aught wanting of the integrity of the Jewish land (Zechariah 7:7).
Sacrifices - as in Jeremiah 17:25, one constituent of Judea's prosperity is mentioned-namely, its kings on David's throne, the pledge of God being its guardian; so in this verse another constituent-namely, its priests, and the sacrifices brought into the house of the Lord from all quarters of the land, a pledge of God being propitious to it (Psalms 107:22).
Verse 27. But if ye will not hearken unto me, to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched - retribution answering to the sin; the scene of their sin shall be the scene of their punishment, fulfilled under Nebuzar-adan, Nebuchadnezzar's captain, who "burned the king's house-and all the houses of the great men," at Jerusalem (Jeremiah 52:13; 2 Kings 25:9).
Remarks:
(1) God would have His law of love to be "written upon the tables of our hearts, with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond" (Jeremiah 17:1); but, instead of this, sin is what is naturally graven there, until God's grace obliterates Satan's writing and substitutes the Gospel law, "written with the Spirit of the living God." Even "children" (Jeremiah 17:2) early enter Satan's service, and, instead of forsaking the sin of their fathers, keenly follow it up. The inevitable consequence must be the fathers and children, guilty alike, "kindle a fire in God's anger, which shall burn forever" (Jeremiah 17:4).
(2) The Jews' proneness to rely at one time on Egypt, at another time on Assyria or Babylon, is only a sample of the universal tendency of fallen man "to trust in man, and make flesh his arm, and in heart to depart from the Lord" (Jeremiah 17:5). Like the heath in the desert, man isolated from God is bare, barren, and alone, removed far from all that is truly "good," and inheriting as his portion "parched places" and eternal desolation and barrenness (Jeremiah 17:6).
(3) We must first learn to renounce creature-trust, and next to 'make the Lord our trust and hope.' Like "a tree that is planted by the waters, and whose roots spread out by the rivers" (Jeremiah 17:8), the believer has in the Lord a never-failing source of spiritual freshness and vigour. This it is which constitutes his Blessedness, as it is departure from the Creator to the creature which constitutes the backslider's curse and misery; even as Asa "in his disease sought not to the Lord, but to the physician" (2 Chronicles 16:12). Trials may and do come upon the believer; but he need not be fretfully "careful" concerning them, because the Lord careth for him, and therefore on the Lord he casts all his care (1 Peter 5:7). Not only does he "not cease from yielding fruit" in the season of adversity, but his very "leaf" continues "green:" even then he retains, in his minutest words, tones, and bearing, something of the beauty which the presence of the Lord abiding in one is sure to impart.
(4) The heart of every man in its natural state is "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9) - incurably diseased, so far as man is concerned, because he cannot even fathom its depths of deceit much less heal this corrupt fountain. But its deceit and corruption are thoroughly "known" to God, who is the heart-searcher (Jeremiah 17:10), and who "gives to every man according to his ways;" not merely judging the outward acts, but the inward motives. How earnestly, then, we should pray, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; renew a right spirit within me" (Psalms 51:10); "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved" (Jeremiah 17:14); "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting"! (Psalms 139:23-24.) (5) Among the self-deceiving workings of the heart, none is more common or more fatal to the soul than men's keen pursuit of "riches, and not by right" (Jeremiah 17:11). God often shows openly that these self-wise and world-wise, men are after all but "fools," by cutting them off "in the midst of their days:" then of what avail to them are the riches so anxiously and unscrupulously acquired? (see Luke 12:13-21.) But the believer who makes "Yahweh, the hope of Israel," his hope, has in Him a "glorious high throne" and an inviolable "sanctuary" (Jeremiah 17:12-13), affording true riches and secure confidence, from which not even death can separate him (Romans 8:35-39). He has enough in Yahweh at the worst times to make up for the absence of all creature-comforts. Whosoever, on the contrary, forsakes Him forsakes "the fountain of living waters," and has his name "written," not in the heavenly book of life, but "in the earth," as being of the earth, and doomed to perish with the earth (Jeremiah 17:13). The unbeliever may mockingly ask now, "Where is the word of the Lord?" (Jeremiah 17:15:) show us any sign of the accomplishment of the threats of the Lord, to be executed at His second coming. But their very scoff is fulfilling one of the signs foreto ld as about to characterize "the last days," just before His coming (2 Peter 3:3-4), and so is a pledge to assure us that His coming itself draweth nigh.
(6) The Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between Yahweh and His people and the degree in which its sanctity is observed forms a good test of the state of spiritual religion in a nation, a family, and an individual. It is well said, 'The streams of religion run deep or shallow according as the banks of the Sabbath are kept up or neglected.' While we observe the letter of "bearing no burden on the Sabbath" (Jeremiah 17:21), let us obey the Sabbath ordinance in the spirit also, by being "in the Spirit on the Lord's day" (Revelation 1:10); laying aside every burden of earthly care (Jeremiah 17:26) and "bringing our sacrifices of praise unto the house of the Lord, "and worshipping Him," who is a Spirit, in spirit and truth."