CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 29
As chapter 28 gave us Ephraim and Jerusalem, spite of its evil alliance, taken; chapter 29 shews that a second attack against Jerusalem, brought to the utmost distress, will fail through divine power which will destroy its adversaries (verse 1-8).
If Jerusalem is a lion of God, when God speaks of the judgments He says, “I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee,” verse 3. The Assyrians were but instruments in His hand. He would Himself strike, but not exterminate His guilty people. He does not destroy, but chastens them. This humbles but it comforts; for love is there. See the case of Job: there are the instruments of judgment, and Satan behind them, but God above who directs all for the good of Job, who at the end is more blessed of Jehovah than at the beginning, bright as it was. Psalm 118 shews us these three things clearly. (See verse 10, 13, 18.) The nations surround in enmity, Satan seeks to destroy, but above them all Jehovah chastises and sorely, but does not deliver to death. All the nations of the earth shall be round Jerusalem and opposed to her, but they shall pass as a dream before Jehovah. See also Zechariah 12: 2-4; 14: 2, 3; Psalm 108; Micah 4:11, 12.
[p. 221] But we see here that the most ancient relations with God serve no good purpose when man lays his trust in them. When he is far from God, he attaches himself to the old things that God instituted, to reject what God may be actually giving. But one cannot deceive God as to right and wrong. “Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year: let them kill sacrifices. Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel,” verse 1, 2. He says elsewhere, He would destroy His house, His altar; as He did to Shiloh, so to the temple, whatever the presumption of His people, because He will have righteousness and holiness, not the things He established. God had established the altar, temple, sacrifices, feasts, and priests; but when iniquity is there, judgment must begin with His house, and its judgment is only the more terrible if the effects of the Holy Spirit are not there; the sole consequence of being near to God outwardly is the more unsparing judgment. Again, the more Christendom departs from truth and righteousness, the more it rests on institutions as being of God. It is not those who are occupied with the Lord of the temple that say, “The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah are these.” The more evil the conscience is, the more it attaches itself to forms.
No doubt sovereign mercy and faithfulness will work in a remnant, and God will deliver for His own name at the end. But we see in verses 9-14 at the side of these forms, that God despises the incapacity of His people judicially blinded of God: learned or ignorant alike reject the word of God. To the one the book is as sealed, and the other pleads that he is not learned: the revelation of God by prophecy they cannot seize. Yet He reveals all for the blessing of His people, not that aught should be covered. He has not given the Bible that it should not be understood. If Christians say that they cannot take it in, they say just what the Jews do here, the proof of their state of ruin. They thus evade the testimony which would save them from the consequences of the judgment. But in vain. “Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from Jehovah, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding? Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest?” verse 15-17.
But babes receive God’s testimony. “And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy in Jehovah, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel,” verse 18, 19.
The Lord does not present us here with the detailed history of His people in the last days. He takes cognisance of all that will happen to them; He has measured the force of the enemy; He has not only foreseen all, but makes us see that light behind all these means.
The state of the people in the time that precedes destruction is a voluntary ignorance, after which God closes intelligence and sheds profound slumber. This will happen to Christendom also. There will be “strong delusion” because they wished not the truth. It is the same here in verses 8-11. This iniquity will be like the bowing of a wall about to fall. They wish to hear no more vision threatening them with the terrible things that are to happen. It had been similar with the heathen who had not kept the knowledge of God, and were given over to a state of blindness (Romans 1: 22-24). God had already said of Israel, “Make the heart of this people fat,” a word applied for the last time in Acts 28. It is the case then for the heathen, the Jews, and Christendom, and it will be yet again true for the Jews. They have said to the seers, See not (chapter 30: 10). It is frightful to know the people at such a pitch that they can no more be extricated. This obstinacy assumes an appearance of reason, because it is a strong delusion.
[p. 223] Verses 13, 14. This is not an avowed infidelity which brings on the judgment. The people draw near to God with a shew of piety: they have a fear taught by the precept of men. It will be the same with Christendom: there will be a form of godliness; yes, and men will be lovers of themselves rather than of God. Such is what characterises the perilous times, the show of piety, but no conscience before God (verse 15). Then God turns all upside down. Lebanon is turned into Carmel. The fruitful field is esteemed a forest, and the forest a fruitful field. This is always what characterises such a state; but when God turns all upside down, verses 18-24 will be seen accomplished. All that is yet to come.