Intercession unavailing.
God here forbids Jeremiah to intercede for the people in their sore trouble. Similar expressions are found in Jeremiah 7:16; Jeremiah 14:11; Jeremiah 15:1. It was evidently meant that the prophet should feel how unavailing all intercession was.
I. WE HAVE HERE A VERY PAINFUL EXCEPTION TO A VERY IMPORTANT RULE. The rule is to pray, to pray continually, and to pray with not the least fervency and devotion when our prayers are intercessions. God delights in the dependent and confiding approaches of his people; and intercession must be specially a joy to him because it looks away from individual good, and exemplifies most effectively the loving of one's neighbor as one's self. Moses, Job, Samuel, Daniel, are all found interceding for transgressors. Hence the very forbidding here makes continual remembrance of the needs of others all the more a duty. We have to pray for those who lack the faith or the disposition to pray for themselves. And especially we have to bear in mind him "who ever liveth to make intercession" for the spiritually needy. It is worth noting that, while God here forbids Jeremiah to intercede for the people, he is represented in Romans 11:2-4 as reproving and enlightening Elijah when he interceded against the people. We must give special pains to say for sinners all that we can. And in order to do this, we must be observant and pitiful; for as a general rule we have a quick eye for faults, and become censorious by a kind of second nature. It wonderfully suits the inclinations of fallen man in be an accuser of his brethren.
II. WHY THE EXCEPTION IS HERE MADE. There are two considerations here.
1. The petition, as to its literal aim, could not be granted. It was evidently a petition for the delivery of Judah and Jerusalem from the special calamity now so near. That calamity had become necessary. There was no choice for the people but to drink the waters of the full cup now wrung out for them. God, in refusing to hear Jeremiah, had really the same end in view as the prophet himself; but the prophet, in his keen sensitiveness, wished the end to come by some less painful way than through desolated Jerusalem. But God knew that this was the right way—just because it was the way of humiliation and loss, and thus, in refusing the special supplication of the prophet, God was really taking the best way of answering it—paradox though it may seem to say so.
2. Jeremiah's own position had to be considered. We may conclude that it was reckoned one of the distinctions of a prophet that he could act as intercessor. Jeremiah, we know, was asked to pray to God for the people (Jeremiah 37:3; Jeremiah 42:2); and just at the times when the refusal was most emphatic, the appeal for intercession may have been most urgent. Welt, then, was it that Jehovah should, as it were, stop the mouth of his servant in his supplication, so that no one could take up a reproach and say, "If thou weft indeed a prophet, thy petition for us would immediately avail." The honor of Jeremiah as a faithful servant was dear to his Divine Master. This is brought out very clearly by the reference to Moses and Samuel in Jeremiah 15:1. It was no shame to him to fail where Moses and Samuel could not have succeeded.
III. OBSERVE WHAT LAY BEYOND THE PRESENT REFUSAL. Though all is so stern and forbidding here, we look further on in the book, and there is brightness again. Jeremiah 29:1-14 is a beautiful contrast to the word we have been considering. Desolation and exile were a cheap price to pay for such a restoration into favor as God there provides. He has shut the gates of mercy for a while; but only for a little while—seventy years, two generations of men! The permanent command, only to be set aside by a special interference, is that which says, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee" (Psalms 122:6).—Y.
The fated olive tree.
I. GOD'S COMPARISON OF HIS PEOPLE TO THE OLIVE TREE. There would have been force in the comparison if applied to any flourishing and fruitful tree, but there was peculiar propriety in directing the thoughts of the people to the olive. The olive was already associated in sacred history with the return of hope after the Flood, and doubtless, in the times of Jeremiah, it was one of the most valuable of trees, as it still is, for the richness of its produce, and the variety of ways in which that produce meets the common wants of men. The extensive olive, groves, composed of trees that reach no great height, and unattractive to a mere casual glance, were yet more to the people than all the cedars of Lebanon. And as the people were led to consider these olive trees, full of vigor, abounding in blossoms, many of which never came to fruit, and yet, after all, left abundance of fruit behind, as they recollected all the use of the olive, for food, for light, for anointing, for soap making;—the thoughtful among them would feel that God could have employed no better figure to suggest how full Israel was of productivity of the most practical sort. Mention is made in Hosea (Hosea 14:6), as well as here, of the beauty of the olive tree. In one sense the olive was not beautiful. As far as the picturesque was concerned, many trees excelled it. But, after all, the deepest beauty, the only beauty that will bear inspection, is that which comes from pleasant experiences and associations; and those who were rich in profits from the labor of the olive would see in it a beauty absent from many trees otherwise more attractive. The olive, to one seeing it for the first time, might seem a tree of small practical use. But experience proved that its performance was great, and so it became more and more a name of honor. And this tree, having in it such capabilities, God had planted. The olive tree needs a special soil to bring out all its capabilities. Dr. Thomson says, speaking of a certain plain full of olive-orchards,
"The substratum of these plains is chalky marl, abounding in flint In such soil the tree flourishes best, both in the plains and upon the mountains. It delights to insinuate its roots into the clefts of the rocks and crevices of this flinty marl; and from thence it draws its richest stores of oil. If the overlying mould is so deep that its roots cannot reach the rock beneath, I am told that the tree languishes, and its berries are small and sapless.' And so God planted his people, being such as they were in his eye, in a land promised and duly prepared. Nay, in a certain sense, they were planted even before they reached the land of promise. They were planted and became fruitful as soon as ever God took them in hand, fruitful even amid the pains of Egypt and the desolations of the wilderness.
II. THE DESTRUCTION OF THIS OLIVE TREE. All the wealth that came from this olive tree was being used for bad purposes. The fatness of the soil went into the olive, but the fatness Of the olive did not come back to God in grateful and proportionate service. Nay, rather, it was used against him; and the harm it did was to some extent measurable by the good it might have done. The axe is laid, not only at the root of the tree that brings forth no fruit, but also at the root of the tree that brings forth its fruit to be used in hostility against him who planted the tree. Israel might say, "Is it not plain that God favors us, for are we not as the green, fair, fruitful olive? Why, then, should we believe threatenings that seem contradicted by these signs of favor?" These were signs of favor indeed, but they were also grounds of expectation. And when the expectation was utterly disappointed, and when the fruit of Jehovah's gracious dealings was used to prop up the abominations of idolatry, it was time for him to work in all the severity of righteous judgment.—Y.