The house of mourning and the house of feasting alike forbidden.
It is made plain upon the surface of this command that the house of mourning and the house of feasting are not forbidden in themselves. The man on whom the injunction is laid is a special man, and he is spoken to in special circumstances. All others may cross the threshold of such houses; the prophet alone must remain outside. This peculiar conduct was meant to emphasize his predictions. Every time there is a funeral or a marriage-feast, the terrible judgments shortly coming on the land are once more set forth. The worst sorrows of the present are but as a child's shallow grief compared with the universal and dreadful experiences that are yet to come; and in the joys of the present it would be unseemly for the man to share whose breast is filled with the sense of how soon these joys must pass away. A man who had to live as Jeremiah lived, in such an age, with such a message, seeing visions of so much woe, how could he receive pleasure from any festive gathering, or bring pleasure to it? The more he advances in his mission as prophet the more he has to walk alone. This commanded attitude towards the house of mourning and the house of feasting indicates to us the spirit in which those who may have to make such visits should pay their visits. We must not go to fall in with the wishes of those who are visited, but rather to do the will of God, at whatever cost, and with whatever difficulty. Consider this—
I. WITH REGARD TO THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. One feels that the prophet must have been exposed to much misapprehension in carrying out this command with the symbolic prophecy involved in it. It would be said that he was not only an unpatriotic man but an unfeeling one. Happily we have abundant proof that, whatever the imperfections of Jeremiah, a cold indifference to the griefs of others was not one of them. He may often have had to do violence to his own impulses in keeping away from the homes where the dead were lying; and yet he only did by command what we should sometimes like to do by preference, if it were only possible to do it without wounding the feelings of others. Think of the houses of mourning where little or nothing can be said that is comforting. What could have been done to comfort stricken parents that night when there was one dead in every Egyptian household? There is a way of offering sympathy which, well intended as it is, only exacerbates instead of mollifying. What false consolations, what hackneyed commonplaces, are made use of in the house of mourning! There is a falling back on what is called the good moral character of the dead. Deathbed repentances may be made too much of. The chamber of mourning is the stronghold of an immense amount of very dangerous error in the attitude of man towards God. The temporary pain of the freshly wounded heart of man is more considered than the abiding truth of God. Then what censurable regrets there are! What utter and unconcealed selfishness on the part of survivors! It is not a feeling of pain for what the departed may have lost, but rebellious wrath for what the survivor may have lost. And so we may say that, to enter into a house of mourning where there is the right and Christian spirit, is a matter for joy and not for grief, because indeed the peace and the loving-kindness and mercies of God are there. Let us aim so to live, in such unworldliness and heavenliness of life, that survivors shall not be tempted into vain consolations when we are gone.
II. WITH REGARD TO THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. The absence of Jeremiah from festive gatherings would be as a most significant presence; seeing that he was absent, not by accident, not from any personal feeling, not from any ascetic dislike to such gatherings, but by the special command of God. Not only was he forbidden to become himself a bridegroom, he could not even congratulate any other. It will be noticed that the marriage-feast in particular is referred to. The wedding was a time for a special gathering, and invited guests would make special efforts to be present. Jesus, for instance, at the wedding-feast at Cana. Mere rioting and reveling, and the laughter of fools and such merry-making as cost the Baptist his life, were at all times forbidden. There is much of rebuke to us in this command of the prophet here. He did not take part even in an innocent festive gathering. It jarred on him as he thought of the future, so different and yet so near. And possibly, if we thought more as we ought to think on what has yet to come in the way of judgment and destruction, we should walk through the world feeling that we had no heart even for what is reckoned innocent merriment. We can never be sufficiently serious when the burden of human life, with all its vast and varied trials, comes to lie upon our thoughts.—Y.
Two great recollections.
Here once again we come upon the evangelical element in Jeremiah's prophecies; and once again we have to notice that, when this element does appear, it makes up for its infrequency by the brilliance and emphasis of the prediction. The prophet has just been compelled to speak of domestic suffering, national exile, and the withdrawal for a season of Divine favor. These necessary judgments must be magnified and stated in all their severity; not one of them can be omitted; the cup poured out by Jehovah must be drunk to its last drop. But when all these experiences are over, terrible and yet full of discipline, a glorious future remains. The manner of the prophecy is full of encouragement, and not least in this, that there is such a sudden turning from the deepest darkness to the brightness of noon. We have to consider—
I. THE INDICATION OF WHAT HAD BEES ONE OF THE MOST CUSTOMARY FORMS OF OATH HITHERTO. On important occasions, when a promise had to be made or an assertion verified, it was the Israelite's habit to make a solemn appeal to the living Jehovah. "As Jehovah liveth" was the general formula, to be combined with more particular references, agreeing with the occasion, as to what this living Jehovah had done in the past. The reference might be to something that had happened in the experience of the individual, and probably still more frequently to greater events in the larger experience of the nation. To give such an appeal all possible solemnity it was needful to think of Jehovah in the most magnifying way; and what could magnify him more than a recollection of the great deliverance from Egypt, which he had wrought out for Israel? That deliverance gave Israel its great chance of service and glory as the people of God. Up to that time a nation of helpless slaves and sufferers—helpless, that is, for anything they could do—they nevertheless became in a very few days a nation of free men, travelling towards a land of their own. And all this was by direct Divine intervention; and not only was it a great deliverance in itself, but all the circumstances made it doubly memorable. The narrative of what had been done needed no embellishments to grave it indelibly on the memory of each generation. Moreover, Jehovah himself had made provision for the continued recollection of the deliverance by the institution of the Passover. tie wished it to be remembered. We may well conclude that such a form of oath as appealed to him in his character as the Deliverer of Israel from Egyptian bondage, was peculiarly agreeable; it being always presumed, of course, that the oath was uttered sincerely.
II. THE INDICATION OF HOW THIS VENERATED OATH WAS TO BE SUPERSEDED. Probably at the time of the deliverance from Egypt many Israelites may have said to themselves, "Nothing can ever happen in the history of our nation more memorable than this. Whatever Our vicissitudes, whatever our perils, we cannot be more in need of Jehovah's intervention than we have lately been." But when either nations or individuals speak thus, it is in utter ignorance of how deep and terrible human need may become. There was a worse bondage than that of Egypt; it came with no external inconveniences, it was invisible to the outward eye, and, worst of all, it was heedlessly accepted by the bondman himself. The Israelites had fallen into the bodily slavery of Egypt by no fault of their own; there was no point at which it was possible for them to stop the process. But the spiritual enslavement to idols and to every sort of consequent evil came by their own act. They had stooped to the yoke. It is a greater thing that has to be done now, so far as the result to the Israelite is concerned, than was done when he was taken out of Egypt. Then he was delivered from Pharaoh and his host—a simple matter comparatively, for the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea did all that needed to be done. But now the Israelite has to be delivered from himself. There has to be some sort of change within him, and this we may well believe was brought about by the exile in Babylon. It is not enough to say that, after a time of exile, God brought them back to Jerusalem. The mere transport from one place to another would have been no whit more memorable than the deliverance from Egypt. Surely there must have been a state of heart in the returning generation which made them very different from the generation going away into captivity seventy years before. That they came back to a true, spiritual, steadfast service of Jehovah is not to be supposed; but neither would they come back to the old idolatry. The sin into which they were hereafter to fail was a formal service of the true God, mere ceremonialism and Pharisaism, not apostasy to idols. The great effect of the exile in Babylon was deliverance from formal idolatry, evidently a matter to be more celebrated than the deliverance, centuries before, from bondage in Egypt. But in the future beyond there was something greater still to be looked for. There was a possibility of yet another form of oath, if Jesus had not recommended his disciples to dispense with all additions to the simple, veracious "Yes" and "No." Israel needed to be delivered, not only from formal connection with false gods, but from a mere formal connection with the true God. The Lord lives, who brought Israel out of Egypt. The Lord lives, who further delivered Israel from temptation to fabricate idols and grovel before them in licentiousness and cruelty. And we may also add that the Lord lives, who makes individuals of every nation his children by the accepted indwelling of his Spirit; makes them partakers of the Divine nature, with all the glorious consequences thereof. Further, we may say that Jesus lives, who made the blind to see and who raised the dead. But it is a still greater thing to say, Jesus lives, who died to restore men to his Father, and rose again to bring life and immortality to light.—Y.