Like the Old Testament, the New is also filled with allusions to the great foundation promise of Gen 3:15.

Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13

The wilderness temptation of Jesus, which followed immediately upon his baptism, is recorded in detail by both Matthew and Luke. Mark has only a short allusion to the temptation (Mar 1:12,13), adding, however, something which Matthew and Luke both omit, that he “was with the wild beasts”. This minor point serves to stress that Jesus was reliving the temptation experience of his first parents, but with a big difference. Whereas they had been placed in a lovely garden of delights, where the animals were peaceably subject to their human masters (Gen 1:28), Jesus was placed in a fierce wilderness, among wild beasts (cp Psa 91:13) — their attitudes toward man reshaped by the fall itself.

Matthew and Luke each record different sequences of the three temptations. It is suggested that Matthew’s is the chronologically correct one because of the precise “then’s” (Mat 4:5,10) and “again” (v 8). But in view of Luke 4:2, it is not unreasonable to suppose that each of the temptations were considered and suppressed by Jesus more than once during his 40-day wilderness sojourn. So Luke’s different sequence should not necessarily be thought of as incorrect.

Luke, however, seems to have arranged the three temptations for reasons other than mere chronology. There is in his chosen sequence a clear echo of both Eve’s temptation and the Apostle John’s commentary on temptation:

Luke 4	Genesis 3:6	1 John 2:16
Jesus is tempted to…	“When the woman saw that the tree was…”	“All that is in the world…”
1. Turn stones into bread (vv 2-4)	1. “Good for food…”	1. “The lust of the flesh…”
2. Obtain the kingdoms of the world by worshiping the “devil” (vv 5-8)	2. “Pleasant to the eyes…”	2. “The lust of the eyes…”
3. Cast himself down from the Temple pinnacle (vv 9-12)	3. “To be desired to make one wise…”	3. “The pride of life…”

The three scenes express all the possible sources of temptation; as John wrote, these three are “all that is in the world”. There may be many subtle variations of worldly temptation, but they differ little from these main categories.

The first temptation played upon the lusts — the natural hungers — of human nature; the second temptation, upon the natural desire for power; and the third, the just-as-natural desire to be thought well of, to be worshipped and honored.

These three temptations epitomize the three shortcomings of natural man, those three things in which human nature desires to glory — wealth, might, and wisdom (Jer 9:23)! The three classes of leadership in Israel easily fitted into these categories (their twentieth-century “brethren” fit just as well into the same categories!):

1. The chief priests, Sadducees, and Herodians were the wealthy of the nation. They were content to subordinate every principle to the acquisition and maintenance of wealth. They wanted “bread” and lots of it!

2. The Zealots wanted the kingdom, or at any rate a kingdom — to throw off the grievous yoke of the Romans, and have power for themselves.

3. And the proud Pharisees, outwardly “righteous”, had succumbed to the most subtle of the temptations — they loved to be seen and admired of men as “wise” and “righteous”.

All these temptations Jesus faced in turn. Whereas each had played its part in luring Eve into sin (Gen 3:6), each was expressly considered and repudiated by the Lord. In that wherein she had failed, her “seed” (Gen 3:15) succeeded. She brought sin into the world; it coils, serpent-like, in the bosom of each of us, and its sting brings death. But her descendant Jesus, unlike Eve, did not grasp at equality with God (cp Gen 3:5 with Phi 2:6). Instead, he humbled himself and became obedient even unto death, knowing that — if he overcame where she had fallen — God would highly exalt him, at the proper time (Phi 2:9).

Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33

The carnal mind, or thinking of the flesh, was generated in our first parents by the serpent’s untruthful reasoning. Therefore, those who are unenlightened by God’s truth are the “serpent” in the flesh — a generation, or offspring, of vipers. Such language is used once in Scripture by John the Baptist (Mat 3:7), and twice more by Jesus, against the established leaders of Israel.

Their minds were contrary to the will of God. Like the first serpent, who was their “father”, they attempted to entrap their victim (in this case Jesus) by subtlety (Mat 26:4). Their sophistry, however, availed them nothing. He saw through their subterfuges and condemned them for what they were:

“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Gehenna?” (Mat 23:33).

Luke 10:19

Sending forth the seventy to preach, Jesus told them:

“Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions.”

This promise can be understood either literally (cp Mark 16:18) or figuratively — the serpent being symbolic, and “Satan” (Luke 10:18) being indicative, of Capernaum (v 15) and other proud cities that rejected the gospel. Perhaps both ideas have their place. No matter which, of course, the words of Jesus are obviously based upon Gen 3:15. The “seed of the woman” has power to crush underfoot the serpent, and he has committed that power also to his servants. Symbolically, in their own lives now, his followers must “tread upon” the “serpent” in their own natures. And in the future, they will be empowered from on high to tread underfoot, without harm to themselves, both literal serpents and the political and religious institutions of which the serpent was the symbol. The promise to the seventy in Luke 10:19 was the earnest, or pledge, of all this.

John 8:44

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

Jesus employed personification here in defining the spiritual pedigree of the “Jews” (v 22). In the beginning, the serpent spoke the first lie, “Ye shall not surely die” (Gen 3:4). This lie, believed and acted upon by Eve, brought sin and consequently death into the world. Thus the serpent became the father of liars in the same sense that Jubal became “the father of all such as handle the harp and organ” (Gen 4:21).

According to Jesus, men can have only one of two fathers: They can be the seed of Abraham (John 8:33) — but only if they do the works of Abraham (v 39) — fleshly descent is not enough. Or they can be the seed of the serpent (vv 41,44), if they do his works — that is, lying, subtlety, murder. In seeking to kill the true “seed of Abraham” (v 40), these Jews were admitting that they belonged in the other family.

So it is with us. Merely having a “name to live”, and coming into the Abrahamic covenant nominally, is not enough. We must do the works of Abraham before we can claim to be his spiritual seed, and thus sons of God and heirs of God’s precious promise given through Abraham. If we profess to follow Christ, while betraying him and denying him with our actions, then we have demonstrated that the Diabolism, the “serpent”, is our true father, and we will never be “free”.

Psalm 8

The subscription of Psalm 8 (mistakenly given in most Bibles as the superscription of Psalm 9) links this psalm with 1Sa 17. “Muth-labben” signifies “the death of the champion”, or “the death of the man who stands between (the camps)”, with an obvious link to 8:2:

“…that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”

Goliath was the champion of the Philistines and the enemy of Israel. Standing between the two camps, he defied the living God. David, who slew him with a Spirit-directed stone, was by contrast no more than a “babe” or “suckling” (v 2):

“When (Goliath) saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth” (1Sa 17:42).

Psalm 8 appears to be the rejoicing of David after a long and arduous day, as he gazes upon the moon and stars of heaven and realizes that the God who created such wonders has also ordained the strength of his arm and crowned him with glory and honor. What day (or more especially, what night) might this have been? The account in 1Sa 17 provides some clues.

After David’s victory over Goliath, the revitalized army of Israel proceeds to rout the Philistine host, pursuing them as far as the gates of their own cities. No doubt David participated in this chase. It is logical that they did not return until the evening, when David was ushered into Saul’s presence (v 57). (It looks as though Saul, sad and melancholy, had not even led his army in the evening campaign!) Saul would reaffirm the promise that the man who slew Goliath would receive great riches and his own daughter to wife.

So in one momentous day, from sunrise to sunset, the lowly shepherd boy David vaulted from obscurity to glory and honor and dominion (Psa 8:5,6). His faith in upholding the most excellent name of Yahweh against the blasphemies of the Philistine (Psa 8:1,9; 1Sa 17:45,46) was now rewarded. He stood once more over the body of the vanquished “champion” — whom God had put in subjection under his feet (Psa 8:6)! Goliath had threatened to give David’s flesh to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field, (1Sa 17:44), but that which he thought to do to David had been done to him (cp. Psa 8:7,8)!

The echoes of Genesis are plain in this psalm. God is seen as the Creator of the heavens (v 3) and of man (v 4). God has created man a little (or for a little time?) lower than the angels, so that he might undergo a period of probation (v 5). Yet man was the crowning glory of God’s creation; so God had given him dominion over all His other works (v 6; Gen 1:28). Implicit in David’s thoughts is Adam’s tragic loss of that dominion because of sin. Instead of benevolent rule over the animals there would be perpetual fear, uncertainty, and — in the case of the serpent especially — enmity (Gen 3:14,15).

The only remedy for the fall would be a special “seed”, who would be ordained by God to “still the enemy”, to gain ascendancy over the “serpent” of sin, and thus recapture that dominion and preeminence over all creation that Adam had lost. David’s victory over Goliath takes on a timeless aura in Psalm 8; it provides the pattern for Christ’s conquest over sin. It links David’s typical conquest with both Genesis (Eden lost) and Revelation (Eden recovered) through the eternally effective redemptive work of the seed of the woman.

The New Testament links with Psalm 8 (and thus indirectly with Gen 1:28 and 3:15) are many: Mat 21:16; 28:18; John 16:33; 17:1,2; 1Co 15:24-28; Eph 1:20-23; Phi 2:5-11; 3:20,21; Col 1:15-23; Heb 2:8-16; 1Pe 3:22; Rev 5:5,12-14. Some of the more obvious ones will be considered in later chapters.

Psalm 144 bears a strong resemblance to Psalm 8, especially in vv 3,4. It extols God, Who “teaches my hands to war” (v 1); and it asks deliverance from the “sons of the alien” (vv 7,11). It appears to be the song and prayer of David, which he composed (what a time to be composing a new song!) as he prepared to face Goliath. Its counterpart, Psalm 8, is the song celebrating that victory.

Psalm 22

These well-known words of David are indisputably prophetic of Jesus. Our Saviour, as he hung on the cross, quoted the opening words of the psalm:

“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” (Mat 27:46; Mark 15:34).

Among the extreme trials of crucifixion, Jesus experienced the shame and humiliation of nakedness. This is implied in the counting of his bones (Psa 22:17) and the parting of his garments (v 18). The women who witnessed his crucifixion stood “afar off” (Mat 27:55; Luke 23:49), possibly due to a natural modesty at the sight.

As he hung there, all the signs of corruption became a part of him — many being echoes of the curse of Genesis 3: the sweat (Gen 3:19), the dust (Gen 3:19 again), and the nakedness (Gen 3:7).

“Thou art He that took me out of the womb” (Psa 22:9) is a faint echo of the promise in Gen 3:15 — the special “seed of the woman” conceived by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. True to the Edenic curse, the woman was to have sorrow in conception (Gen 3:16); Mary knew such sorrow — a sword piercing her own soul also (Luke 2:35). But her sorrow would finally dissolve into joy, when her son was “born” from the tomb to new and glorious life (John 16:20-22).

The crucified Saviour finds his enemies encircling him like bulls (Psa 22:12), dogs (vv 16,20), and lions (vv 13,21). All God’s “creatures” were his enemies, but by his obedience (where the “first Adam” had failed) he would re-establish man’s promised dominion over them (Gen 1:28).

“Thou hast brought me Into the dust of death” (v 15) is a conscious remembrance of the curse of Eden; “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen 3:19).

Psalm 41:9

The circumstances that gave rise to Psalm 41 were, almost certainly, Absalom’s rebellion and the traitorous behavior of Ahithophel, David’s counselor. But v 9 is cited in John 13:18 as applicable to Judas Iscariot in his betrayal of Christ:

“He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.”

This is, of course, an allusion to Gen 3:15, but with a peculiar twist! Judas is put in the place of the woman’s seed, lifting up his heel to crush a dangerous “serpent” underfoot — and that “serpent” is Jesus! Surely this tells us, by implication, something about the motives of Judas: that he had at least begun to accept the reasoning of Israel’s leaders, that the troublesome Jesus was an evil that must be gotten rid of!

The climax was that the “serpent” was indeed crushed in the death of Jesus, but certainly not in the way the leaders of Israel (and Judas!) expected. God used these wicked men to accomplish His righteous purpose — the condemnation of sinful flesh. Peter explained this to these men on the day of Pentecost:

“Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:22-24).

The “heel”

The allusion to “heel” in Psa 41:9, coupled with Gen 3:15, suggests an interesting word study:

“AQEB”, or “heel”, appears for the first time in Gen 3:15. “Aqeb” is the root word in the name Jacob, since Jacob took his brother by the heel when they were “born (Gen 25:26; Hos 12:3). Figuratively, then, to take by the heel signifies to trip up and to supplant — which, of course, Jacob did to his older brother Esau (Gen 27:36) in appropriating the blessing and birthright.

The antitype is Jesus, the “last Adam”, who has supplanted the first Adam in receiving the blessing and dominion which he lost. (Notice that Esau’s other name is Edom — virtually equivalent to “Adam”!)

The other Scripture occurrences of “aqeb” are not numerous, but some are quite suggestive:

1. Gen 49:17: In Jacob’s prophecy, Dan (“Judgment”) is called a serpent that bites the horse heels, causing its rider to fall backward. Perhaps Dan is given the serpent role because this tribe sponsored the introduction of idolatry among the twelve tribes (Judges 18; 30) — the reason, perhaps, also for Dan’s omission from Rev 7. The “idolatrous” influences (of a different sort!) in Israel at the time of Christ caused his bruising in the heel.

2. Gen 49:19: “Gad, a troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last “(literally, ‘at the heel’).” This is certainly typical of Jesus, overcome by a mighty “troop” in his death, yet finally himself overcoming his enemies “at the heel” — an obvious allusion to Gen 3:15!

3. Jos 8:13: In order to conquer the Canaanite city of Ai, Joshua set “liers in wait” nearby (literally, “at the heels” of the city!). By serpent-like subtlety, he drew the men out of the city, which was then captured by those who waited “at the heels”, and the power of Ai was broken!

4. Job 18:9: Bildad pictures, among the calamities that would befall the “wicked” Job, that “the gin (trap) shall take him by the heel (‘aqeb’)”. But the “gin” of God’s judgment that took Job by the heel finally proved out to his vindication, and to Bildad’s condemnation! The enemies of Christ set a snare for his heels also; but in the climax they found they had tripped up themselves (Pro 1:16-18)!

5. Psa 49:5: “Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?” But consider this alternate translation as suggestive of Christ: “Why should I fear in the days of evil, when my wicked supplanters (or those wicked ones who would trip up my heels) shall compass me about?” Jesus had nothing to fear from such men, for he knew that even when they “tripped him up” in death, God would “lift him up” out of the grave to vindication and glory.

6. Psa 56:5,6: “Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil. They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps (‘aqeb’), when they wait for my soul.” But…”In God have I put my trust; I will not “be afraid what man can do unto me… Wilt not Thou deliver my feet from falling?” (vv 11,13).

7. Psa 89:50,51: “Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servants; how I do bear in ray bosom the reproach of all the mighty people; wherewith thine enemies have… reproached the footsteps (‘aqeb’) of Thy Messiah.”

8. Song 1:8: When the Shullamite inquires where her beloved is to be found, she is counseled to follow the footsteps (or heels) of his flock. If we would follow in Christ’s “heels”, we will of course do as best we can what he did: use our “heels” to crush the head of the “serpent” Sin!

Psalm 72:9

A beautiful picture of the Kingdom age, modeled after the imperfect type of Solomon’s reign. When Christ shall have dominion (Gen 1:28) from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth (Psa 72:8), then they that dwell in the wilderness will bow down before him, and his enemies (the “seed of the serpent”) will lick the dust (Gen 3:14)!

Psalm 91:13

This was a passage recognized even by Christ’s tempter as prophetic of the Messiah, since vv 11,12 are quoted as justification for his casting himself down in the sight of all men (Mat 4:6; Luke 4:10). But Jesus understood that, while the prophecy applied to him, it could not be perfectly fulfilled until he had proven himself obedient unto the death of the cross. By a life of perfect obedience, and by a perfect sacrificial death, Jesus would “tread upon the adder” of sin (v 13). Thereafter, God would give His angels charge of Jesus (v 11), to bear him up from the grave (v 12); God would deliver him and exalt him to heaven (v 14) and show him His salvation (v 16).

In addition to obtaining salvation, Jesus would also receive dominion over all the wild beasts (v 13) — indeed, over all creation (Col 1:15-23).

Verse 1:

“How doth the city sit solitary (‘deserted’ — NIV),

that was full of people”; Compare Isa 3:8.

Well-known among students of ancient history is a medal struck by a Greek artist of the Roman Court to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and Vespasian in 70 AD It is called “Judea Capta” (“Judah Subjected”), and it depicts a powerful soldier standing triumphantly over a helpless woman, who sits destitute upon the ground. How did this come about? Let us ask ourselves and learn the answer well. It came about because Judah neglected its true strength — the Lord their God.

What do we naturally think of when we hear the words “many people”? Ideas that come to mind are a party, or a market place — people milling around, laughing, joking and empty of serious thoughts. This is how Isaiah pictured this same city, Jerusalem — “full of stirs, a tumultuous city, a joyous city” (Isa 22:2); a city, in fact, thoroughly opposed to the Divine will, and heedless of her impending punishment:

“And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: And behold (instead) joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die” (Isa 22:12,13).

To those who thought in their hearts, “Peace and safety”, came instead sudden destruction (1Th 5:3) by the wrath of God: “I will make your cities waste… desolation”, He had threatened through His prophet Moses (Lev 26:14-16, 31-35). But the people had continued to delight themselves in every imaginable form of wickedness until it was too late (Note the summary of Nebuchadnezzar’s destructions in Jer 52:12-23 — and remember that he was merely God’s “servant” — Jer 25:9 — to perform this).

“As a widow”: The city of Jerusalem had lost her husband, her lord and her protector (Jer 2:2). All of the pains associated with widowhood were hers — an absence of her “husband’s” favor and protection; sorrow and grief; a pitiful feeling of helplessness (Isa 54:6; Hos 3:3, 4).

Again, let us remember why such things came upon Jerusalem:

“Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves (ie, into slavery), and for your transgressions is your mother put away” (Isa 50:1). “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you” (Isa 59:2).

“She that was great among the nations”: Israel, in its beginning as a kingdom, was lavishly praised by Hiram of Tyre (“this great people” — 1Ki 5:7) and the queen of Sheba, who saw Solomon’s wealth (1Ki 10). The united kingdom of Solomon’s time must have been very nearly unsurpassed in commerce and power. And the kingdom of Judah continued to prosper at times in the years following the division of the kingdom.

“Princess among the provinces”: Especially in the times of David, Solomon, and Hezekiah, neighbouring countries served Jerusalem and Judah (1Ki 4:21; 1Ch 9:26; 32:23).

“How is she become tributary”: We are perhaps too accustomed to viewing Judah, during the period of the kings, as having much less majesty and authority than she actually had. Only when we realize what a magnificent position she once occupied, can such a phrase as this have its proper effect upon us. Just as God brought the splendour of Egypt and Babylon to the dust, so was He able to humble Judah. The word “tributary” refers to personal servitude (the same word as in Josh 16:10; 17:13). Compare Lam 5:8,13, 16. The princess had become a “slave” (NIV), a “vassal” (RSV).

Verse 2:

“She weepeth sore in the night”:

The Hebrew is most expressive: “Weeping she weepeth”. Her one occupation is weeping. The night is a darkness in the Jewish “heavens”, or ruling places. For 2500 years, Jerusalem has been trodden down. And she will continue to be so “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24). “Night” such as we see it in the world around us is assuredly a time of weeping and sorrow — for the natural Jews, who must battle ceaselessly with their many enemies.

For the saints as well, it is a time of mourning, for the bridegroom is still away (Luke 5:35). But the night in which we weep is a time for watching as well:

“Watchman, what of the night?” (Isa 21:11).

As followers of Christ, we must not allow the “night” to lull us into slumber:

“We are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober” (1Th 5:5, 6).

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psa 30:5). Joy will come to us if we are truly looking for and earnestly desiring the day of our Lord’s return. “Arise, cry out in the night” (Lam 2:19).

“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem,

which shall never hold their peace day nor night;

Ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,

and give Him no rest, till He establish,

and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth” (Isa 62:6,7).

The night around is dark indeed. How are we using our time? Are we searching fruitlessly for pleasure in the dark shadows of the night? Or are we behaving ourselves as “children of the light” — soon to dawn over all the earth? “Behold, the bridegroom cometh” (Mat 25:6).

“Her tears are on her cheeks”: The cheek is used scripturally as a symbol of persecution and submission — “Turn the other cheek” (Mat 5:39). For Abraham’s natural seed today, the persecution is endured involuntarily. For us, Abraham’s true seed and heirs according to the promise, submission must be given freely, lovingly. For we know that whatever we might endure now is merely God’s schooling for our future:

“We glory in tribulations also…” (Rom 5:3).

“Among all her lovers…”: Solomon inadvertently planted the seeds which led to Judah’s prostitution among the nations. He loved many strange women (1Ki 11). And these indiscretions led in short order to idol worship in the land and his very condoning of it. Furthermore, it led to political alliances of convenience with Gentile nations, rather than a single-minded faith and trust in God.

Later Judah trusted upon Egypt (Jer 2:36; Isa 30:7; 36:6), Babylon (Isa 39:3, 4) and Edom and Mob. Her alliances with such peoples is painfully reminiscent of the great whore, “with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication” (Rev 17:2).

“All her friends have dealt treacherously with her,

they are become her enemies”: All her flirtations were of no avail. As Ezekiel prophesied,

“Therefore, O Aholibah (or Jerusalem, v 8), thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee…” (Ezek 23:22).

None of Judah’s former friends came to her aid. Edom (Lam 4:21, 22; Oba 1:11, 12; Psa 137:7) and Ammon (Ezek 25:3, 6; Jer 40:14), who should have helped Judah, rejected even their ties of kinship and turned against her.

The Jews had rejected the strong arm of God, and they had chosen instead to lean on the friendly surrounding nations. These remained friendly only as long as it was advantageous to their own interests. When the Babylonians threatened, Jerusalem learned the lesson of Pro 19:6,7:

“Many will intreat the favour of the prince:

and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts.

All the brethren of the poor do hate him:

(For Judah was ‘poor’ in faith and thus poor in strength)–

how much more do his friends go far from him?

he pursueth them with words, yet they are wanting to him.”

Let us learn this lesson well: No amount of preparation or planning or building of barns — or diplomacy — can take the place of trust in God. Riches will be lost or spent, youth and strength will evaporate, friends will desert us when most needed, and — at last — life itself will be taken from us. Our only deliverance, then, is found in the words of Paul:

“For our conversation (or our life, our treasure, and our hope) is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ…” (Phi 3:20).

Verse 3:

“Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction,

and because of great servitude”: Whether this phrase refers to Judah’s sins (afflicting the innocent — Jer 2:34), Judah’s punishments (ie, v 2), or both, is not completely certain.

Any of these would be appropriate.

“She dwelleth among the heathen”: When God maintained Israel as a separate nation, she was constantly straining at His bonds to return to the practice of the heathen nations around her. This was notably true for Moses’ generation, which had just left Egypt. At last Israel’s wish was realized — in a much different way than expected: her eminence was taken away, her people “perished among the heathen”, and they that were left alive “pined away in their iniquity in their enemies’ land” (Lev 26:36-39).

“She findeth no rest”: “And among these nations thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest… And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee…” (Deut 28:65, 66).

“Her persecutors (‘pursuers’ — RSV) overtook her between the straits”: The idea is that Israel, as a wanderer by God’s decree, finds herself trapped by thieves in a narrow pass, with no escape in sight. Perhaps this is a reference to the capture of Zedekiah and his captains, as they tried to escape from Jerusalem “between the two walls” (Jer 52:7; cp Lam 4:18, 19).

Verse 4:

“The ways of Zion do mourn”: The roads leading to Jerusalem were empty, since none came to the solemn feasts (2:6). But contrast this picture of desolation with the prophecy of Isaiah concerning the future kingdom:

“And an highway shall be there, and a way, and

it shall be called The way of holiness… And

the ransomed of the LORD shall return” (Isa 35:8, 10).

All the land was to mourn:

“The earth mourneth, and fadeth away…

because they have transgressed the laws…” (Isa 24:4, 5).

Jeremiah had promised the same punishment — in Jer 9:11 and 33:10-12. But again, the desolation is contrasted with the future blessedness of the same “ways of Zion”:

“Again, in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast… shall be an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down… (when) the Branch of righteousness shall grow up” (Jer 33:12, 15).

The “ways of Zion” mourned because of the wickedness of their inhabitants. But they will rejoice when Christ as king turns ungodliness from Jacob, and Israel leads the nations up to Jerusalem (Rom 11:26, Zec 8:22-3).

“None come to the solemn feasts”: The three annual feasts, which all the men of Israel were to attend — the Passover, Pentecost (the firstfruits), and the Feast of Tabernacles. But these, of course, ceased with the captivity:

“He hath violently taken away His tabernacle…

he hath destroyed His places of the assembly…

The LORD hath caused the solemn feasts…

to be forgotten in Zion” (2:6).

“All her gates are desolate”: Compare Jer 14:2. In eastern cities in Biblical times, the gates of a city were the main places of commerce — as well as of legal and social activities (5:14; Ruth 4:1; Job 29:7; Pro 31:23). They would be especially alive during the various feasts.

“Her priests sigh”: The priests, supposedly the spiritual leaders of Judah, are condemned in 4:13-16, for their grievous iniquity. Perhaps they “sigh” because of the famine (vv 11, 12, 18-20).

“Sigh”: The Hebrew word for “sigh” appears also in vv 8, 11 and 21.

“Her virgins are afflicted”: Compare 5:11, 13. The RSV follows the LXX in amending the text to read “… have been dragged away”. The virgins are mentioned as playing upon instruments on certain times of joyful celebration (Exo 15:20; Jer 31:13; Psa 68:25).

Verse 5:

“Her adversaries are the chief,

her enemies prosper”: This is just as Moses had warned the children of Israel, that if they disobeyed God,

“The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and

thou shalt come down very low…

He shall be the head, and thou shall be the tail” (Deut 28:43, 44).

“Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy”: The “children of Zion” were carried away by Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 52:28-30), but these same children, called the “children of Rachel”, “shall come again from the land of the enemy” (Jer 31:16) in the last days.

Verse 6:

“And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed”: The priestly garments of Aaron and his sons were given them “for glory and for beauty” (Exo 28:2). The beauty which they represented was the beauty of righteousness and holiness. This type of beauty had departed from the promiscuous daughter of Zion; she no longer maintained the “ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price” (1Pe 3:4).

The inner beauty had departed. Therefore it was left for God next to remove the external beauty, which had been meant to signify the righteousness of the Jews: the temple, the throne, the priesthood, and the religious services all departed.

The greatest beauty which the Jews possessed was God’s personal presence in their midst:

“Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion:

for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee” (Isa 12:6).

“God is known in her palaces for a refuge” (Psa 48:3).

This, sadly, was also taken away at the time of the captivity. The glory of Yahweh departed in successive stages — from the sanctuary, and then from the city, until it came to the Mount of Olives on the east of Jerusalem, from whence it disappeared (Ezek 9:5; 10:4; 11:22, 23).

We must note again, as we have before, that God will restore what He has taken away. The same glory of God will return, in a time of much greater happiness than the time of its removal. In the last days, “his feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives” (Zec 14:4). The glorious company of saints, led by Christ, will approach the city (Isa 63:1; Song 3:6, 7). This is what Ezekiel is referring to when he speaks in Ezek 43:2, 5:

“The glory of the God of Israel came from

the way of the east (‘the sun’s rising’ — Rev 16:12)…

and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house.”

“Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture”: David, in Psa 42:1, presents a picture of a hart panting after water in a dry and thirsty land. This is the picture intended here. The land of Israel has figuratively become a desert: the “water of life”, the true knowledge and fear of God, has vanished.

Also, the hart symbolizes timidity and meekness. The strong princes of Judah have become no better than cowards — who flee from their enemies, as did Zedekiah (2Ki 25:5; Jer 39:5). Those who once walked with great dignity and authority now run like hungry and frightened deer, not even looking behind to their children who depended upon them (Jer 47:3).

Verse 7:

“In the days of her affliction and of her miseries

Jerusalem remembered all her pleasant things

that she had in the days of old,

when her people fell into the hand of the enemy,

and none did help her:

the adversaries saw her,

and did mock at her sabbaths”: See 2:15-17:

“All that pass by clap their hands at thee…

Is this the city that men call The perfection

of beauty. The joy of the whole earth?…

He hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee…”

At this time, the sabbaths had no religious services. The service which has always set the Jews apart from surrounding peoples, more than any other, is the commemoration of the Sabbath. Thus the cessation of this was the target of much scorn. But, of course, this curtailment was the work of God — as is explained in Jer 25:8, 11. Judah had not observed her sabbaths as she should have, when she had the chance. Therefore, God forced her to observe the sabbath rest for 70 years:

“Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Because ye have not heard My words… this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”

Verse 8:

“Jerusalem hath grievously sinned,

therefore she is removed”: Jerusalem — or the nation of Judah — is presented here as a woman, a wicked adulteress, who has forsaken Yahweh her true husband (Isa 54:5; Hos 2:2) and who has sinned among her many lovers (v 2).

Thus, Judah is likened to a woman legally and ceremonially “unclean” (NIV) under the Law (vv 9, 17; Lev 12:2; 15:19), who is to be separated from the people.

The marginal rendering of this passage offers a different idea, though related to this: “She is become a wandering”. Jeremiah used the same phrase in Jer 34:17, where the Jews’ future dispersion is meant:

“I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.”

“All that honoured her despise her,

because they have seen her nakedness”: Exposure of one’s body was, to the Hebrews, a terrible disgrace — a shame they felt much more deeply than most modern peoples would. Stripping was thus part of the punishment meted out to a prostitute (Ezek 16:35-39; 23:29), and it is used, metaphorically, of the punishment of nations (Isa 47:2, 3; Lam 4:21; Nah. 3:5).

Israel’s glorious garments of holiness (cp Aaron’s garments, in Exo 28) were removed, leaving her — as the Laodiceans — “poor and blind and naked” (Rev 3:17). The Jews had forgotten their own clothing — the guilt was their own:

“Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?

Yet my people have forgotten Me days without number” (Jer 2:32).

The lessons for us from Israel’s experiences are well worth noting: our conduct is always obvious to the aliens around us, and they judge all Christadelphians by us. Furthermore, they judge God by our example. We are God’s representatives to the world, and as such we bear a tremendous responsibility. If we live our faith honestly, letting our light shine before men, then the Gentiles will glorify God because of us (1Pe 3:1). But if we are seen to be less than we proclaim to be, we will have the opposite effect on our friends and neighbors.

Also, we must take steps to cover the “nakedness” of our sins. We have done this first in baptism, by “putting on Christ”, “putting on the new man of righteousness and true holiness” (Eph 4:24). Then we must continually strive to keep our garments pure and spotless, looking to God for forgiveness when we fail, so that we will be properly dressed when we are called to appear at the marriage feast.

Verse 9:

“Her filthiness is in her skirts”: This filthiness is, first of all, the same as the legal impurity of v 8 (cp Jer 13:27), the defilement of her spiritual adulteries. But also it is the blood of her victims:

“Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents…” (Jer 2:34).

In this persecution of the innocent (Mat 23:34, 35), including Christ, Jerusalem bears a close resemblance to the other “holy city” (so-called), “Babylon the Great” and her hideous system:

“And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Rev 17:6; 18:24).

“She remembereth not her last end”: “She took no thought of her doom” (RSV). That is, she did not remember what God had threatened would be her end — the desolation she is experiencing here. God had pleaded incessantly for her to change her ways, but to no avail (Deut 32:29; Isa 65:2). Again, Jerusalem is comparable to “Babylon” of the Apocalypse, in her stubbornness:

“And thou saidst, I shall be a lady forever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it” (Isa 47:7; cp Rev 18:7).

“Therefore she came down wonderfully”: The verb “yarad” (to come down) is used of the humiliation of persons in Ezek 30:6 and Isa 47:1. Why was Israel humbled? “Because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD” (Isa 3:8). This was just as God had said, in Jer 13:17,18.

Verse 10:

“The adversary hath spread out his hand

upon all her pleasant things”: Called “precious” (RSV) or “desirable things” (margin). See note v 6 (“All her beauty is departed”). This includes the vessels of the temple, called “goodly vessels” (or “vessels of desire” — mg) in 2Ch 36:10, 19. Some of these vessels were brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar; the others were destroyed when God’s house was burned. Jeremiah himself had predicted these things (Jer 15:13; 20:5).

“For she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom Thou didst command that they should not enter into Thy congregation”: Compare Deut 23:3,4. In her life, the daughter of Zion had ignored the intents of such commands as these and had mingled freely with aliens and set up their gods in Yahweh’s house (eg, 2Ki 21:7). She thus brought these punishments upon herself.

Verse 11:

“All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat

to relieve the soul”: Again, the reference is to the famines of a besieged city, Jerusalem (see Jer 37:21; 38:9; 52:6). To make things worse Jeremiah prophesied of a dearth (Jer 14:1-6).

“Pleasant things”: Same word as v 10.

“I am become vile”: “I am despised” (RSV, NIV). Here is the beginning of Israel’s recognition of her guilt, to be seen more fully in v 18 and in ch.2. The narrative is interrupted by an outburst of the voice of the personified city — a desperate cry from one overcome by grief and despair.

Verse 12:

“Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?

behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,

wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger”:

Compare 2:15. The fallen daughter of Zion speaks a challenging message to the mockers who pass by. This scene demonstrates the utter indifference of the Gentiles to the plight of the Jews, and often their hostility (Psa 89:41).

This is really a condemnation of the Gentiles, because of their complete lack of understanding of the “hope of Israel” (Acts 28:20). “Hath God cast away His people, whom He foreknew?” (Rom 11:1) The unenlightened Gentile would answer, “Yes!” — and thus dismiss Paul’s words to the Roman brethren:

“Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved… for this is My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Rom 11:25-27).

It is true that the Lord has afflicted Israel. But it is also true that “Salvation is (still) of the Jews” (John 4:22). In the last days, God plans to correct her and teach her His truth and place her in the most eminent position among the mortal nations of Christ’s kingdom, as the “first dominion” (Mic 4:8). Then ten men shall take hold of the skirt of a Jew; to go with him to worship his God (Zec 8:20-23).

“To crush my young men”: Compare 3:34; 5:13.

“As in a winepress”: Another common symbol of God’s judgments (Isa 63:2, 3; Rev 14:19; 19:15; Joel 3:13). This figure implies a ripeness for punishment. It is a vivid, even a gruesome symbol — the blood squeezed out of bodies like juice squeezed out of grapes.

This figure of speech implies also that those to be punished belong to God — that He is the Owner of the vineyard, so to speak, and that He is the Master of all (4:4; 17:4; 21:12). The fire from above is the “consuming fire” (Heb 12:29) of God’s judgment, the fiery two-edged sword of God’s word — to divide soul from spirit, to try and perfect men, and to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart (1Pe 1:7; Heb 4:12, 13). The wicked cannot stand such a searching fire, and it prevails against them. But a righteous remnant survives this “fire in their bones” (Jer 20:9, for example), and emerges more fit for God’s use.

“He hath spread a net for my feet”: A figure of speech found also in Ezek 12:13; Hos 7:12 and Jer 50:24. But the Jews made their own trap; they could not blame God for any unjust actions. They caught themselves in the net of their own sins. This is pictured in Pro 1:16-18:

“For their feet run to evil,

and make haste to shed blood.

Surely in vain the net is spread

in the sight of any bird.

And they lay wait for their own blood:

they lurk privily for their own lives.”

And also in Pro 5:22:

“His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself,

and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.”

“He hath turned me back”: He hath confused them (cp Psa 35:4; 70:2, 3; Isa 42:17), giving them over to a reprobate mind (Rom 1:28), sending upon them strong delusion (2Th 2:11), because they never appreciated the privilege they had once possessed.

“He hath made me desolate”: See v 1 and Isa 3:26. A picture of utter, hopeless misery — “There is none to comfort her”. The same word is used of Tamar after her humiliation by Amnon (2Sa 13:20).

Verse 14:

“The yoke of my transgressions”: This represents, first of all, Israel’s burden of sin, pressing down heavily upon its shoulders. The “yoke” was slavery, from which the children of Israel had been freed in Moses’ day (Lev 26:13) — just as we are freed from the yoke of slavery to sin at baptism.

But another “yoke” was waiting for them in Jeremiah’s time: Babylon’s “yoke of iron” (Deut 28:48; Jer 28:14). This yoke was the work of God’s “servant” Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 25:9), and it was to be accepted humbly as a chastening from God (Jer 37:8-12). But the Jews fought against receiving the yoke, and thus the hand of God became firmer and firmer upon them.

For us, the saints, there is the lesson here to submit ourselves meekly to our Father and His chastening (Heb 12:5, 6, 11) — to seek to learn the lessons He might teach us. For this reason, the same symbol of the yoke is used particularly in relation to us:

“It is good for a man that he bear the yoke

in his youth” (Lam 3:27).

And Jesus tells us:

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Mat 11:29).

“They are wreathed”: ie, “twisted together” or “entwined”, speaking of the strength of the cords of the yoke.

“From whom I am not able to rise up”: “They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him…” (Psa 49:6, 7). For those among the Jews who might learn the lesson from their condition: “My (ie God’s) strength is made perfect in weakness… Therefore I (Paul) take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in persecutions… for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2Co 12:9, 10).

Verse 15:

“The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me”: God fought against Jerusalem (2:5, 7). Judah’s “heroes” were captured in the midst of the city (2Ki 24:14-16) or else they fled in fear (25:4).

“An assembly against me…”: A solemn assembly called by God, as a feast (Lev 23:4). The enemies of Israel are called to witness and partake of the sacrifice of Israel herself, upon her own altar — Jerusalem:

“Woe to Ariel, to Ariel (sig. ‘God’s altar’), the city where David

dwelt… And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege

against thee… the multitude of all the nations that fight against

Ariel…” (Isa 29:1, 3, 7).

Other passages also represent Yahweh’s judgment upon Israel and other nations as sacrificial feasts (Zep 1:7, 8; Jer 46:10; Ezek 39:17-20; Isa 34:6).

“To crush my young men”: Compare 3:34; 5:13.

“As in a winepress”: Another common symbol of God’s judgments (Isa 63:2, 3; Rev 14:19; 19:15; Joel 3:13). This figure implies a ripeness for punishment. It is a vivid, even a gruesome symbol — the blood squeezed out of bodies like juice squeezed out of grapes.

This figure of speech implies also that those to be punished belong to God — that He is the Owner of the vineyard, so to speak, and that He is the Master of all flesh, and that He has the right to tread them down. Jeremiah amplifies this in Jer 14:17 by saying that the virgin daughter of his people is “trodden down” by sword and famine.

In Lam 1:15, Israel is trodden down “as in a winepress” by God. In 4:21, 22, “the daughter of Edom” is marked out to receive retribution (as a “cup”) for her part in this treading-down of Israel. And, finally, in Isa 63:2, 3 the particulars are given: Edom’s “cup” is produced from the treading of the winepress by the One who is “mighty to save” His people Israel!

Verse 16:

“For these things I weep”: See more in 3:48, 49.

“My children”: See 5:13.

“Desolate”: See 1:13.

Verse 17:

“Zion spreadeth forth her hands”:

1. Zion spreads her hands in prayer to God (cp Exo 9:29; 1Ki 8:22, 38). But her efforts are made useless by her many sins and her unchanged attitude (Isa 1:15-17).

2. Or perhaps Zion spreads forth her hands merely in lament and travail — with no thought of prayer, as Jeremiah prophesied in Jer 4:31.

“Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman”: Legal defilement (see vv 8, 9; Lev 15: 19-27), but also a type of moral and spiritual defilement, an “unclean” state (Lam 4:15). See also Ezekiel 36:17:

“When the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by

their own way and by their own doings: their way was before me as the

uncleanness of a removed woman.”

But even in the depths of their filthiness, the Jews will be offered the promise of being cleansed and healed by God:

“For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them” (Ezek 36:24-27).

“In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness” (Zec 13:1).

Verse 18:

“The Lord is righteous;

for I have rebelled against His commandment”: Literally, “His mouth” (same word as in Job 39:27; Pro 8:29). God is inherently good (Rom 1:17; Mat 19:17; Rev 16:5-7; 19:2; Psa 129:4). Man is inherently evil (Jer 17:9; Eccl 8:11; 1Co 2:11; Mat 15:18-19). These two facts are cardinal points of the Bible’s teaching.

Israel is more responsible to God than the other nations: “You only have I known…” (Amos 3:2); “He sheweth his word unto Jacob…” (Psa 147:19). Thus Israel has sorer punishment from God (see 4:16). Again, the lesson is very strongly outlined for us, as we see these punishments upon Jerusalem in 590 BC (and 70 AD). Just as the Jews at Mount Sinai, we have trembled before God and promised to do whatsoever He has commanded. Shall we meet the same fate as they did, and as their descendants did at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and Titus? “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb 2:3) For us, who know God’s laws and commands, there awaits the sorer punishment of the “many stripes”.

“Hear, I pray you, all people”: Again, it is stressed that the lesson of Jerusalem’s fall is for all people who seek to serve God (cp v 12). These things happened for “our admonition” (1Co 10:11).

“Behold my sorrow”: Or “suffering” (RSV, NIV).

Verse 19:

“My lovers”: See notes on v 2.

“My priests and my elders”: The ones to whom the Jews looked for spiritual leadership and direction were the most deeply mired in iniquity. They bound heavy (and unnecessary) burdens, and grievous to be borne, and laid them upon the shoulders of their followers; but they themselves made no effort to carry them (Mat 23:4). The blind leading the blind, all fell into the ditch. See more in v 4; 2:20; 4:7-9; 5:12.

“While they sought their meat to relieve their souls”: See notes, v 11.

Verse 20:

“Abroad the sword bereaveth”: Those who tried to flee for protection, possibly in Egypt, met certain death (Jer 9:21, 22; 14:18; Ezek 7:15). They could not escape God.

“At home there is as death”: Famine, pestilence for those who remained and tried to resist Nebuchadnezzar (v 11; Jer 9:21; 2Ki 25:3), for they were resisting God.

Verse 21:

“There is none to comfort me”: The seventh, and final, time that this thought is expressed (vv 2, 3, 7, 9, 16, 17, 21), for in the next chapter a remnant in Zion begins to realize that their help and comfort will surely come, from God (2:18, 19).

“They shall be like unto me”: This is the fearful but wonderful promise, spoken of more fully in 4:21, 22 in connection with “Edom”, a symbol of all Israel’s enemies who rejoice at the misfortunes of the “hope of Israel”. It was literally Edom who said of Jerusalem, “Rase it, rase it, even to the foundations thereof…” (Psa 137:7). From the time it turned against its former friends, Edom travelled slowly downward in esteem and power among the nations, becoming subservient to Babylon and Rome, losing its former territory and being forced to dwell among the Jews, and at last being annihilated by the Roman conquerors. In contrast to the nations of Mob and Ammon, Edom is the scene of “perpetual desolations”. Her fate, with no chance for repentance, stands as a type of all the “Edoms” at the present time who will remain unchanged in their hostility toward Israel. “For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen” (Oba 1:15). “I will curse him that curseth thee” (Gen 12:3). See also Joel 3:19; Zec 12:2, 3; Jer 25:29.

Verse 22:

“Let all their wickedness come before Thee”: As great Babylon will come into remembrance before God, “to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath” (Rev 16:19). The souls of them who are slain cry with a loud voice, “How long?” (Rev 6:10). But God is patient: it may appear that retribution will never come, but it is certain:

“For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Hab 2:3).

“For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint”: But then, all hands will faint, and every man’s heart will melt, when the day of the Lord is at hand upon “Babylon” and her allies (Isa 13:6-8).

Genesis 3:20

“And Adam called his wife’s name Eve (Heb ‘Chavah’); because she was the mother of all living.” Adam’s wife already had a name — “Isha” (2:23) — a name which fitly described her origin, for it signified “out of man (ish)”. But in view of the great redemptive promise just received, Adam evidently felt she needed a new name — one in keeping with her destiny. What more appropriate than “Life”! Through the woman, by a specially prepared birth, would come a son — the “seed of the woman”. He would (in some way probably only dimly perceived by Adam at this time) destroy the power of death brought by the serpent. Whereas the serpent was the “father” of death, this man-child would become the “father” of life (he is called, prophetically, the “father of eternity” in Isa 9:6), and his mother therefore would be the “mother of all life”!

Genesis 4:1

In no way did Eve lag behind her husband in this expectation of the fulfillment of God’s promise of a Redeemer. In fact, so eager was she for the promised deliverance that she seized upon her firstborn, Cain, as the “seed of the woman”. “I have gotten a man from the LORD” may just possibly be translated; “I have gotten a Yahweh-man!” By this Eve may have meant that this child was the special “seed” promised by Yahweh, the representative of Yahweh, and thus the “Yahweh-man” (we might say “God manifest in the flesh”) commissioned to defeat the serpent and abolish death.

But, alas! Eve’s firstborn proved himself to be instead a son of the serpent, by his enmity against the typical “seed of the woman”, Abel — an enmity which culminated in the death of his righteous brother. Thus Cain, like his “father” the old serpent, showed himself “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44; 1Jo 3:12).

The “Seed” passages

It is not often recognized that all the “Seed” passages of Genesis arise out of Gen 3:15. Each fresh reference is an amplification of the previous promises: The “seed of the woman” will be also the “seed” of Abraham (Gen 12), who shall inherit the land of promise (Gen 13), while the natural seed is disinherited (Gen 16). A type of the woman’s seed was Isaac, the “seed of promise” who was miraculously conceived (Gen 21), typically sacrificed (Gen 22), and then given a special bride selected out of the Gentiles on account of her faith (Gen 24).

---

Those who regularly use the RSV, which is In some respects a fine translation, should take careful note of Gen 13:15:

“For all the land which you (Abraham) see I will give to you and to your descendants (AV ‘seed’) for ever.”

On this point the RSV is not even internally consistent, since its translation of Gal 3:16 rightly states that this promise was to Abraham and his “offspring” — singular: “referring to one… which is Christ.”

Both “seed” and “offspring” appropriately translate the Hebrew original “zera”, which is itself ambiguous as to number. But the RSV’s interpretive translation, “descendants”, is in direct violation of Paul’s later exposition, and therefore clearly wrong. Only translators totally ignorant of the significance of the Abrahamic promises could make such a blunder.

The same erroneous translation occurs in the RSV of Gen 22:17,18:

“And your descendants (AV: ‘seed’) shall possess the gate of their (AV: ‘his’) enemies. And by your descendants (AV: ‘seed’) shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves.”

This, despite the fact that the New Testament repeatedly interprets this promise as fulfilled in Christ, who destroys his great enemy death by gaining possession over its “gate”, the grave (1Co 15:26,55,56; Rev 1:18; 20:6)!

1 Samuel 17

The story of David’s victory over the Philistine giant Goliath is an enacted parable of the promise of Gen 3:15. It typifies the work of Christ in two different, though related, aspects: (1) Christ’s moral victory over the power of sin in himself, and (2) Christ’s coming military victory over sin in its governmental forms. It was necessary that Christ first conquer the “world” in himself, by subduing the lusts of the flesh, so that he might be qualified to conquer the nations and rule over them. Both these victories — one now past, the other yet future — are beautifully outlined in the stirring drama of 1 Samuel 17. In this epic encounter between faith and force, spirit and flesh, the godly and the earthly, we see all the redemptive purpose of God, unfolding from Eden onward.

“The Philistines gathered together their armies to battle” (1Sa 17:1). The name “Philistine” has found a place in the English language as a common noun, describing those who are ignorant and uncultured, those who are “of the earth, earthy” (1Co 15:47), without the least aspiration toward higher things.

The Philistines pitched their tents in “Ephes-dammim”, which signifies “the border of blood”. This site was a little south of Jerusalem and halfway over toward the Mediterranean Sea, at the border between the Israelite hills and the Philistine plain. It was “between the seas in the glorious holy mountain” (Dan 11:45) — the locale where the great invader of Israel in the last days will meet ignominious destruction!

The “border of blood” marked the crest, or high point, of human power — the point where it was broken and turned back. It typifies both Golgotha in the past, and Armageddon in the future. “Ephes-dammim” is closely related in meaning to Acel-dama (“the field of blood”), where the traitor Judas met his fate (Acts 1:19).

“And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel… on the other side: and there was a valley between them” (1Sa 17:3). Mountains in Scripture often represent military powers (Zec 6:1), while valleys are places of sorrow, humiliation, and trial — and sometimes of destruction, such as the valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel 3:12), where the serpent-power of the Gentiles will be broken. Like David, Jesus had to go into “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psa 23:4) to conquer the “giant” of sin.

“Goliath” (v.4) means “exile”; “Gath” means “winepress”. The Philistine giant was, like Cain (Gen 4:14,16), an exile from God because of sin. He was trodden down by David, even as all human power and pride will be trodden down by Christ in the great winepress of the wrath of God (Rev 14:19). Goliath’s height was six cubits (the number of man: cp “666” in Rev 13:18) and a short span. Perhaps this “span” represents the brief transition period between six thousand years of human rule and the kingdom (it was the “span” portion of the Image that the little stone struck).

Goliath was covered with brass — symbol of flesh. He was the human equivalent of the brass serpent of Num 21 — the power of sin destroyed by Christ on the cross. He was arrayed in armor and weapons of the flesh, in contrast to the spiritual arsenal of Eph 6:13-17, which was David’s trust (1Sa 17:45) as well as Christ’s.

This mighty champion of the flesh came out into the valley between the two armies, every day for forty days, to defy the God of Israel. It was a sad, shameful spectacle; not a man of Israel, not even Saul (himself a giant — 1Sa 10:23!), had the faith and courage to confront this blasphemer (17:11).

Now comes a sudden break in the narrative (v 12), introducing the second antagonist in this epic struggle; David, a young man, a shepherd of Bethlehem (v 15), had been sent by his father to take provisions to his three older brothers serving in Saul’s army (vv 17-19).

David, when he came to his brethren, was met with mockery and derision (v 28). Likewise Jesus, when he came to save his brethren from the “giant” of sin, met the same ridicule. How much natural man needs salvation; yet how little he realizes it!

The boy David could not understand the inaction of Saul’s men:

“Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (v 26).

The words of this shepherd boy come to the ears of the distraught king, who is so desperate that he sends for him. And the poor shepherd boy says to the mighty king;

“Let no man’s heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine” (v 32).

Saul reasons according to the flesh, which is fatally obsessed with size and natural advantage:

“Thou art not able…” (v 33).

But why not, if God is with him? How often do we forget the strength of faith, and make the same mistake — tentative, timid, and even fearful? How often we forget that, if God be for us, no man or no thing can stand in our way!

David wisely refuses Saul’s offer of armor. The children of the Spirit are no match for the children of the flesh if they attempt to meet them on their own ground and do battle with their own weapons. The “seed of the woman” will always be outclassed by the “serpent brood” in numbers, experience, prestige, and learning. Their defense and offence must be in the “shield” of faith and the “sword” of the Spirit (Eph 6:16,17)!

For his weapon, David took his sling and then chose five smooth stones out of the brook. (Why five? Was it because Goliath had four brothers, also giants?) The sling, made of animal skin, would require a death for its preparation. Like the garments that God prepared to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness after their sin, the sling also typified a sacrificial death.

The sling (a sacrificial death) gave all the power to the stone which David hurled against the giant. The stone which brought down Goliath typifies Christ: He is the stone rejected by the builders, but later made the cornerstone of God’s building (Psa 118:22). He is also the stone cut out of the mountain of human flesh without hands (ie, born of a woman without human father: Gen 3:15), which smote and destroyed Nebuchadnezzar’s image (Dan 2:34), and then filled the whole earth.

The smiting of the “dream” image in Daniel 2 is parallel to David’s smiting of Goliath, with one significant difference: One stone smites Goliath in the head (cp Gen 3:15), which symbolizes the vital life center. The other strikes the image on the feet, symbolizing the time when destruction is accomplished. But the end result is the same — the Image destroyed, and Israel saved.

The Nebuchadnezzar image represents the accumulated history of the four great empires that collectively make up the “serpent-power” of the Kingdom of Men, which oppressed God’s kingdom of Israel. David’s selection of five stones relates his victory to the fifth great Kingdom, the Kingdom of God that will finally conquer all and fill the earth with His glory.

“The stone sank into Goliath’s forehead” (1Sa 17:49) — the typical fulfillment of the Edenic promise that the woman’s seed should bruise the serpent’s head. The antitype stretches from the cross to the military destruction of the last vestiges of human misrule and oppression, when Christ returns.

So “David ran… and drew out Goliath’s sword… and cut off his head” (v 51). And he brought the head to Jerusalem (v 54). David’s act symbolized the destruction of the head of sin, accomplished by Jesus in his own body, and finalized at Golgotha (the place of the skull!) just outside the walls of Jerusalem. (Hebrew tradition suggests that Golgotha was so named because it was the burial place of Goliath’s head.)

David’s act also prefigures the cutting off of all mortal ruling power, and the transferring of all the world’s headship to Jerusalem, “the city of the great king” (Mat 5:35).

David’s wonderful feat revitalized the army of Israel, which then went on to rout the Philistines. Those who were powerless and afraid to face Goliath received new strength and courage in the victory of David. Like David, Jesus was the only one capable of winning the special victory over the “serpent” Yet his victory over the “devil”, like David’s over Goliath, delivered his brethren who “through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:15).

“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?… But thanks be to God, Who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Co 15:55,57).

Leviticus 11:42

Among the animals forbidden for food were “whatsoever goeth upon the belly… and creeping things that creep upon the earth”. We are told elsewhere in Scripture that there is nothing unclean of itself (1Ti 4:4; Rom 14:14,20; Mark 7:15). Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that all the creatures rendered “unclean” by the Mosaic law were made so to teach moral lessons. What lesson is taught by Lev 11:42?

This verse is an obvious allusion to the curse upon the serpent in the Garden of Eden:

“Because thou hast done this (ie, enticed Eve into sin), thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” (Gen 3:14).

The serpent indirectly brought sin into the world, though without question the moral offence of Adam and Eve was greater than his — they being “under law”. The sin of our first parents was crystallized in a change of nature, from “very good” to mortal, which they experienced as a direct punishment from God. This change in nature also meant that their minds would thereafter be prone, or inclined, toward sin.

This mind of the flesh, or “serpent-mind”, has been inherited by all their descendants. It is a frame of mind characterized by thinking according to the natural desires, rather than the spiritual guidelines of God’s word. This is an “abomination”; any man who lets the flesh take over his mind is “going upon his belly”; He is letting the grosser, more materialistic impulses — his “belly” — crowd out and choke the Spirit-mind that a concentration upon Scripture could cultivate. Such a state of mind, if persisted in, will at last bring the curse of Eden upon its holders — death without remedy!

In similar language Paul speaks of such “natural men” — and he describes the moral (or immoral!) equivalent of this Mosaic “abomination”:

“The first man is of the earth, earthy” (1Co 15:47) — he never elevates himself above the dust of his origins, but is always looking downward and groveling in those things that are merely sensual. He “feeds” upon the “dust” (Gen 3:14)!

“For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things” (Phi 3:18,19).

The fact that Paul uses the word “walk” of these men, and his exceeding sorrow at their conduct, imply that these men were nominally “brethren” of Christ. What had made them “enemies of the cross of Christ”? The cross was the means whereby Christ conclusively put to death the lusts of the flesh, and it is the invitation and the challenge to us to do the same: to crucify “the world” (Gal 6:14) within ourselves.

Any who aspire to put on the name of Christ, yet make no meaningful attempt to live as he did, are really his “enemies” and not his friends. They profess friendship, but their actions make them liars. Their God is not Yahweh — it is their “belly”; their mind is not on heavenly, spiritual things — but upon “earthly” things! They see all the enticements of the world. Like Eve did with the fruit of the tree, they desire, they take, and they “enjoy”; like the serpent, their “end is destruction”.

It is not surprising that many of the abominations and “uncleannesses” of the Law reflect the events in the Garden of Eden. Not only is the serpent an abomination (Lev 11:42), but nakedness is to be scrupulously avoided (Exo 20:26). In fact, to uncover another’s nakedness becomes, in the Hebrew, a euphemism for sexual union (Lev 18:6-19; 20:11) — probably because the sexual union of Adam and Eve followed close upon their realization of their “naked” state. Since the image of the “serpent-mind” is inherited by each generation from the preceding one, therefore childbirth brings a stigma of uncleanness (Lev 12:1-8). Even the reproductive functions of both men and women in their most innocent aspects are nevertheless “unclean” under the Law (Lev 15:16-28)!

Since death came into the world because of Adam’s sin, merely to touch a dead body brings an unclean condition. And the legal decree of Deu 21:23, finding its fulfillment in Gal 3:13 (“Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree”), no doubt has its origin and justification in the fact that sin first entered the world in the eating of fruit from a tree!

The tragedy of Eden, then, was kept before the eyes of the Jews in many ways. It must not be forgotten, since it was the reminder of how they had come to be in their fallen condition. But for those who looked beyond the surface, these were also prophetic types of the redemptive work of Christ. In becoming the “last Adam”, in order to undo the consequences of the first Adam’s sin, he came under all the effects of the Edenic curse: he was born “of a woman, under the law” (Gal 4:4), necessitating a cleansing sacrifice even by his birth (Luke 2:21-24). He possessed a “serpent-nature” in common with all men, and ultimately he crucified that nature by lifting it up on a “tree” (Num 21:6-9; John 3; 14), in the process being stripped naked. And thereby he died, again bringing legal uncleanness to himself and those who handled the body.

Numbers 21:6-9

When the children of Israel set out from Mount Hor, they grumbled in the wilderness against God and against Moses. So God sent fiery serpents among them which bit them, bringing death to many. After the people acknowledged their sin and begged Moses to intercede for them, the Lord commanded Moses to make a “bronze” serpent and lift it up on a pole. The erection of this brass snake was the token that God had conquered their plague, and the act of looking upon it was a gesture of faith in God’s work.

The children of Israel were notorious for giving in to their own lusts and complaining against God. In this enacted parable God emphasized their deep enslavement to sin, an enslavement without remedy unless He intervened. His intervention took the form of a lifeless, powerless brass serpent on a stake. Here was a “serpent” of brass — signifying man’s flesh, but a serpent that had been made incapable of stinging, now uplifted as an ensign witnessing to all men. The message was that the serpent-power of sin in human nature would be once and for all conquered by God, and those who had faith in Him would — despite their own personal shortcomings — be saved from death.

Jesus expressly connects this parabolic event in Num 21 with his own death:

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14,15).

In making comparison between those former Israelites and those to whom he was then speaking, Jesus was plainly intending to stress two resemblances.

1. The first — between the “snake-bitten” then and the “sin-bitten” now — is easy to grasp because we remember the role played by the serpent in the garden. Because sin entered into the world through the first couple’s acceptance of his suggestion, the serpent became the fitting symbol of sin. He was in fact the true Bible “devil” (Rev 20:2). By extension, then, the Bible “devil” now dwells in each of us because we bear the condemned nature of Adam, a nature prone to the blandishments of the “serpent”.

So, Jesus says, this generation is dying because it is bitten by “sin”. He scarcely needed to add that every generation since Adam has met or will meet the same fate. We are born of the flesh, “born in sin”, and dying just as surely as the Israelites fell in the wideness — unless a divine miracle brings us back to life.

2. Thus is the way prepared for the second intended comparison; between the serpent on the pole and Christ “lifted up”. The serpent was the symbol of sin and therefore the serpent on the pole was the symbol of sin conquered. By “lifting up”, Jesus unquestionably meant crucifixion (John 12:32,33). His crucifixion was to be the conquest of sin.

This of course implies that in some sense “sin” was attached to Jesus. But we err if we call him a “sinner”:

“He did no sin” (1Pe 2:22).

“He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15).

“Which of you convinceth (ie, convicteth) me of sin?” (John 8:46).

How then did Jesus the sinless man partake of “sin”? How could he, with any degree of reasonableness, be symbolized by a serpent? Paul gives the answer:

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3).

Jesus was associated with sin because he possessed “sinful flesh”. The death of Jesus accomplished in full what the erection of the brass snake had done in part. It condemned sin, or the serpent, in human flesh; it destroyed it; and it provided a focus for the faith of those who needed forgiveness and deliverance from their sins.

No individual Israelite in that day was able completely to destroy (by his own will and strength) the “serpent” or diabolism in his bosom. And neither can we! But one special member of the human race, with a nature just like theirs (and ours), totally subdued the evil desires of the flesh in himself, and finally took that serpent-nature that inevitably tended to sin and hung it upon a tree. What a wonderful illustration of our redemption is that serpent of brass!

---

It should be stressed here, so that no false conclusion be drawn, that the serpent in the Garden was undoubtedly a literal serpent. It is indisputable that other passages (for example, Rev 20:2) use “serpent” symbolically. But, as with other figures of speech, the only basis for such figurative language is a foundation of literal truth. In short, there could be no “serpent” symbology unless there had been a real serpent in the first place!

Verse 1:

“How is the gold become dim!”: Gold symbolizes faith — a tried faith in God, as gold that has passed through the fire and been purified (1Pe 1:7; Rev 3:18). Thus, gold — or faith — is the basis of the kingdom of God, both in the past and in the future. In Jeremiah’s time, true faith had all but completely disappeared, and thus the kingdom was removed from the “daughter of Zion” (Ezek 21:25-27). The gold in short, became “dim”.

“How is the most fine gold changed!”: This is a reference to the deeds of Solomon and Rehoboam (see 1Ki 10:17; 14:26, 27).

“The stones of the sanctuary”: “The holy stones” (RSV), perhaps the gems of the breastplate (Exo 28:17-21). This is figurative language; the literal gold and precious stones would never be discarded or ignored by the avaricious Babylonians. What was scattered about in the streets were the young children dying of hunger (see v 2 and 2:19)!

Verse 2:

“How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers”: Those who might have been precious stones and fine gold instead failed to please God, and like cheap pottery they were to be broken, as in Jer 18:2-6; 19:11; and Isa 30:14 (compare 2Ti 2:12).

Verse 3:

As in Isa 1:3 and Jer 8:7, the people of Israel are compared, and that unfavorably, to animals.

“Sea monsters”: By which the AV translators (so also those of the NEB) must have meant whales. But the Hebrew “tannin” may signify several different beasts — either of the water or the land. Since these particular “tannin” give suck to their young, some mammal must be intended here. Suggestions of various translators include “jackals” (RSV, NIV, and as in Isa 13:21), “she-wolves” (Keil), and “wild dogs” (Roth.).

“The daughter of my people is become cruel”: The Jews were compelled by God’s mercy (Exo 34:6, 7) to show mercy to others (Mat 22:37), but they failed, becoming covetous and proud (as in 2Ti 3:2-4), “without natural affection” (Rom 1:31).

“Like the ostriches in the wilderness (‘desert’)”: The ostriches are cannibals, eating their young (cp Job 39:13-18). See Lam 2:20 and 4:10 for the depth of the cruelty of Israel.

Even contemptible beasts of prey suckle their young, but the mothers of Israel under the pressures of the siege and famine behaved like the ostriches, notoriously indifferent toward their offspring (see Deut 58:53, 56, 57).

Verse 4:

See 1:11 and 2:11, 12.

Verse 5:

How fragile and unstable is “high society”, then and now! How sad that so much time and thought and wealth is given over to the cultivation of “good taste” — dress, furnishings, art and food — while the “weightier matters” of truth, justice and mercy are ignored! But some day (and it will be soon) the tables will be turned!

“They that did feed delicately”: “Those who feasted on dainties” (RSV). Isa 3:16-26 and Amos 6:3-7 provide the details for the same general condemnation of Israel: their sumptuous mode of life.

“Scarlet”: The garments of the wealthy (2Sa 1:24), connected with sin in Isa 1:18.

“Dunghills”: Better, “ash heaps” (RSV; NIV). Or “garbage” (Hillers), as though searching for food.

Verse 6:

“For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom”: Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed swiftly (Gen 19:24), but the final pangs of Jerusalem were intense and drawn-out (vv 8-10). Their deeds were the same (Isa 1:9, 10; Ezek 16:46-50), but the responsibility of the Jews was far greater (Amos 3:2; Mat 11:23, 24: see the introductory notes). The lesson is for us too (Heb 2:3; Luke 12:47). We are just as responsible to God — perhaps more so — than were these Jews.

“That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her”: Sodom was directly destroyed by God. But Jerusalem was left to human hands — a much worse fate, as witnessed by David’s choice of God’s punishment over man’s punishment (2Sa 24:14) and Christ’s reference to Sodom’s judgment (Mat 10:15; 11:24).

Sodom was “overthrown as in a moment”, yet Jude speaks of Sodom and Gomorrah “suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (v 7). This apparent contradiction is easily explained in that the effect of the fire (ie, absolute annihilation), but not the literal flames, was indeed eternal!

Verse 7:

The former state of Israel. This refers to holiness and dedication — Israel’s former state of mind toward God. Contrast this with v 8.

“Her Nazarites”: “Separated ones” (Num 6). Compare Amos 2:11, 12 and Jer 35 (the Rechabites). The entire nation had once been this way: reverent and healthy (cp David in 1Sa 16:17, Daniel in Dan 1:8-15, and Christ in Song 5:10).

“Polishing”: From a Hebrew word “gazar”, meaning “to divide”.

Verse 8:

“Their visage is blacker than a coal”: Symbolic of distress and depression (Job 30:25-31), mourning and famine (Rev 6:5, 6).

In Joel 2:6, to “gather blackness” means literally to “grow pale” (as in Nah. 2:10 also), in fear of coming judgments.

Verse 9:

Hunger and starvation, being prolonged, were worse than immediate death.

Verse 10:

The privations of the siege bring out the worst in men and women (cp 2:20; Jer 19:9; Lev 26:29; Deut 28:56; 2Ki 6:26-29). The darkness of this scene accentuates the brightness of Zechariah’s “Kingdom” promise, that the streets of this very city Jerusalem will one day be full of boys and girls at play (8:5).

“Sodden”: “Boiled” (RSV).

Verse 11:

“The LORD hath accomplished His fury;

He hath poured out His fierce anger,

and hath kindled a fire in Zion,

and it hath devoured the foundations thereof”: Jerusalem was besieged approximately 18 months (2Ki 25:1-3). A literal fire is mentioned in 2Ch 36:19, but fire is also a common symbol of any destruction (Jer 21:14; Deut 32:22).

Verse 12:

“The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem”: Wonderment, as in Deut 29:24-28; Psa 48:4-6; and Rev 18:9,10. The gates of Jerusalem had been saved by Hezekiah’s faith (Isa 36 and 37), but that faith had lasted only as long as that righteous king had lived. The once-fine gold was dim, the faith was gone (v 1). Judah trusted in idols, and thus relinquished her peculiarity and became as other nations, which God destroyed by Sennacherib (2Ki 18:35). The elaborate fortifications which had been built by Uzziah, Hezekiah and Manasseh to protect Jerusalem were useless before the Babylonians.

Verse 13:

“The sins of her prophets,

and the iniquities of her priests”: The “prophets” and priests, supposedly the spiritual leaders of Israel, bore the greatest burden of guilt (Hos 4:6-10; Isa 9:14-16; they caused the people to err) because of their idolatry and injustice.

“That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her”: As they almost did to Jeremiah (Jer 26:7, 23), and as they did in fact to the other prophets (2Ch 24:21; 2Ki 21:16; Mat 23:31, 37) and to Christ (Luke 23:22, 23).

Verse 14:

“They have wandered (‘staggered’) as blind men in the streets”: They were blind leaders of the blind (Mat 15:14; 23:16), in such a pitiful condition that they did not even realize their “blindness” (cp Rev 3:17).

“They have polluted themselves with blood”: They made no effort to cleanse their ways. They were ministers of God’s sanctuary, which they thoughtlessly polluted (Zep 3:4), worshipping “other gods” (Jer 19:4-6), and polluting at last all the land by their idolatry (Num 35:33).

The only remedy was for God to require their blood, or deaths.

Verse 15:

“They cried unto them”: The “they” are the men of v 14, who could not so much as touch the garments of the prophets and priests. See RSV.

“Depart ye… unclean… touch not”: An allusion to the leprous defilement of Lev 13:45.

“They shall no more sojourn there”: The type of Jew represented by the wicked priests and prophets became despised by his people and refused even by the Gentiles among whom he fled. So again with Jewry’s present religious leaders (Zec 13:3-6).

Verse 16:

“The anger of the Lord hath divided them”: “Scattered” (RSV).

“They respected not the persons of the priests”: The “they” here are the Babylonian invaders. Even the most barbarous of the Gentiles could see the hypocrisy of the Jewish priests (5:12).

Verses 17-20: This section describes the sins of the Common People. They were deceived by their leaders, condemned for false trust and for itching ears which wanted only to hear “smooth things” (Isa 30:10).

Verse 17:

“As for us”: Jeremiah speaks for the commoners, the poor of Israel, those without a shepherd whose part Christ took.

“In our watching we have watched”: Rotherham has, rather descriptively, “In our Watchtower have we watched”. In this verse Jeremiah is recalling actual events during the siege.

“A nation that could not save us”: Egypt (Isa 36:6; Jer 37:7), was neither willing nor able to help Israel when the crunch came — as, in the end, all Gentile nations will be unwilling or unable to help her.

Verse 18:

“They hunt our steps”: See 1:13 and 3:52.

Verse 19:

“Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of heaven”: Eagles are used as a symbol of Babylon in Jer 4:13 and of Rome in Deut 28:49.

“They pursued us upon the mountains”: As they did Zedekiah (Jer 39:4, 5; 52:8, 9).

Verse 20:

“The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD”: To whom was Jeremiah referring? Perhaps there are several answers:

1. Josiah, the last righteous king of Judah, and a type of Christ in many ways, but who had died 608 BC (2Ch 35:25).

2. Zedekiah, Judah’s last king, and the center of their feeble hopes, although a weak and wicked man — who was carried captive (2Ki 25:4-7).

3. As typical of later days, Christ himself, the only true hope of Israel (Luke 24:21), who was slain (Luke 19:14), leading to the dispersion of 70 AD.

“Was taken in their pits”: “Destruction” (Psa 107:20):

1. The “pit” of nations — from 588 BC to the twentieth century, a political “burial”.

2. Death, which Christ suffered (Luke 24:25, 26) to deliver others from this same “pit” (Psa 107:20).

“Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen”:

1. The nation’s sad, unrealized hopes in the kingship of Zedekiah.
2. The true hope found in Christ, fulfilled in vv 21, 22 — when Israel is cleansed (Zec 13:1).

Verse 21:

The “cup” is passed to “Edom”: compare the notes, 1:15, 21, 22.

“Daughter of Edom”: Which allied itself with Babylon against Judah (Oba 1:11; Joel 3:19; Psa 137:7).

“Edom” may symbolize “all nations” (as in Isa 34, where the two are used interchangeably). “Edom”, like “Adam”, is related to the Hebrew words for “red” (the color of sin) and “flesh” (the seat of sin). Thus it is a fitting symbol for that last great fleshly sin-power to oppose Christ’s kingdom, the Russian “Reds” and their allies — who will be destroyed by the “saviours” upon the mountains of Israel (Oba 1:21; cp Isa 63:1).

Of course, the ancient territory of Edom is currently occupied by the modern nations of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, nations that with their Arab allies may yet play a significant part in the developing affairs of the last days.

“That dwellest in the land of Uz”: “Uz”, the territory of righteous Job (Job 1:1), signifies “wisdom, advice, counsel”. The citizens were famed for their learning, and thus are typical of all Gentile enemies of Israel, who boast in the “wisdom of this world”, but are oblivious to the one “hope of Israel”.

“The cup also shall pass through unto thee”: Judgments, as in Psa 11:6; 75:8; Jer 49:12; Rev 14:10; 16:19 — “rendered double” (Rev 18:6). The exact sentiment was earlier expressed by Jeremiah 25:15.

“Thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked”: The association of drunkenness and self-exposure occurs also in Gen 9:21, 22 and Hab 2:15, 16. In the spiritual sense, Israel had become “drunken” in arrogance and worldliness, and she thereby uncovered the “nakedness” of her sin. Now she sees the same fate awaiting her neighbor Edom.

Verse 22:

“The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished”: Compare Isa 40:2: “Her warfare is accomplished… her iniquity is pardoned…” The Jews have received recompense enough for their sins, and they will now be healed in Christ’s kingdom (Zec 1:13-16, 13:1; Rom 11:23).

“He will no more carry thee away into captivity”: The Israelites, gathered back to the Holy Land (Mic 2:12; Zep 3:19), become the first dominion (Mic 4:6-8), sanctified unto God (Ezek 37:26-28). See also Jer 30:11: 31:10, 31-34; 33:15, 16; Zec 8:4, 5.

“He will discover thy sins”: “He hath stripped the veil from off thy sins” (Roth).

Among numerous Bible commentaries and translations consulted, several provided some help, especially with alternative renderings, ie:

• Keil and Delitzsch on Lamentations, by C. F. Keil

• Anchor Bible (Lamentations), by Delbert Hillers

• “Speaker’s Commentary” (Lamentations), by R. Payne Smith

• Studies in the Book of Lamentations, by Norman K. Gottwald

• The Companion Bible, by E. W. Bullinger

• Revised Standard Version (RSV)

• New International Version (NIV)

• Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible (Roth.)

In addition, we have consulted Christadelphian writings — both books and magazines — wherever they referred to the Lamentations (which was, unfortunately, not very often). We mention specifically those studies which contribute something to the book as a whole:

• E. F. Higham, “The Lamentations of Jeremiah”, a series running in The Berean Christadelphian from September, 1953 (v ol. 41, no. 9, p. 270) through May, 1954 (v ol. 42, no. 5, p. 154).

• John Lockyer, “The Book of Lamentations”, 4 articles in The Christadelphian, Vol. 115 (July through October, 1978).

• Derek Brook, “The Lamentations of Jeremiah”, The Testimony, Vol. 32, no. 378 (June, 1962), p.202; no. 379 (July, 1962), p. 221.

The words of the hymns pertaining to the “Desolation of Israel” are taken from The Christadelphian Hymn Book of 1874.

Various Greek texts entitle this elegy “A Prayer”. Other manuscripts add “of Jeremiah”.

Verse 1:

“Remember”: Compare 1:20; 2:20; 3:19. The Lord will remember the sufferings of the Jews. He will also remember the sufferings of the saints — as He did those of Christ (cp Psa 89:50, 51).

As James says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16). The prayer of Hezekiah is a prime example (Isa 37:14-20). We are commanded to pray, in the same way, for the peace of Jerusalem (Psa 122:6).

“Behold our reproach”: Our shame, disgrace (RSV, NIV), and infamy. From a root word meaning “autumn” or “ripeness” — perhaps signifying here the fulness of iniquity, as the wicked finally reap what has been sown (v 7, notes; Gal 6:7). Jeremiah, true to his feeling for the “hope of Israel”, places himself among those who have sinned grievously. In a true spirit of brotherliness, he accepts partial responsibility for the sins of his countrymen.

Verse 2:

“Our inheritance is turned to strangers”: The inheritance is the promised land (Gen 13:15; Lev 26:5, 6), a land of milk and honey (Exo 3:8; Lev 20:24), given only temporarily and conditionally to the nation of Israel — if they followed God (Jer 3:19).

But the same inheritance is promised eternally to us: still, “our inheritance” may be also “turned to strangers” if we are rejected at the judgment seat (Mat 25:41).

Verse 3:

“We are orphans and fatherless”: God had been the Father to the Jews (Psa 68:5; 103:13; Jer 31:9, 10), but no longer.

Verse 4:

The Jews, as a result of the captivity, are now so degraded that they must buy from usurping strangers what was once their own property.

“We have drunken our water for money”: Judah is forced to buy her water, because she had rejected the true and living “water” (Isa 8:6; 55:1; John 4:10; 7:37); that is, she had rejected God, the fountain of living waters (Jer 2:13, 18; 17:3).

“For money”: Contrast Isa 55:1: “Without money”. This is the invitation of the gospel (Rev 21:6; 22:1, 17), which the Jews had spurned.

Verse 5:

“Our necks are under persecution”: The Jews, a stiff-necked people (2Ch 30:8; Isa 48:4), were down trodden (Psa 66:12; Isa 51:23). Compare 1:14; 3:34; 4:19.

Verse 6:

“We have given the hand”:

1. In submission, as in Jer 50:15.
2. Or in begging: “We have extended the hand.” What a come-down from the days when “Thou shah lend to others, but thou shalt not borrow” (Deut 15:6)!

3. Or in agreement: “We have made a pact with…” (Hillers). Compare Ezek 17:18 and thoughts in Jer 2:18, 36 and Hosea 7:11; 12:1. Perhaps all three ideas may find a place in a comprehensive view of this verse, and of Israel’s many-sided relationship with her neighbors.

“To the Egyptians”: After Josiah’s death (circa 608 BC), Egypt deposed his son Jehoahaz, and crowned Jehoiakin (2Ch 36:3, 4).

“To the Assyrians”: Or to Babylon, which occupied their former lands (cp Jer 2:18). Also, a type of the “Assyrian” from the north in the last days, who will have consolidated all the old empires: Russia!

Verse 7:

“Our fathers have sinned, and are not”: The nation has at last recognized the reason for God’s heavy hand upon them, the same hand which fell upon their fathers. Compare the words of Zechariah, spoken 70 years later:

“Your fathers, where are they?… and they returned and said, Like as the LORD of Hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us” (Zec 1:5, 6).

“We have borne their iniquities”: The Jews, similarly, had in Christ’s time filled up the measure of their fathers’ iniquity (Mat 23:32). Although it is a Scriptural principle that every man bears personal responsibility for his own deeds (Ezek 18:20), it is still true that national sins are often unpunished for a time, and judgment is stored up until a later date, when it all falls at one time (2Ki 24:21; Exo 20:5; Jer 32:18; Gen 15:13-16). Such was the case with the kingdom of Judah.

Verse 8:

“Servants (‘slaves’) have ruled over us”: This always happened when Israel forgot their one true Ruler — Yahweh. They did not heed Joshua’s command to drive out the Canaanites (Josh 16:10), who remained in the land throughout the period of the judges, and mightily oppressed them.

One of the four things which the earth cannot “bear” is “a servant (slave) when he reigneth” (Pro 30:21, 22) — a sad fact evidenced again in Israel’s history when those ruthless Roman “slaves”, the Edomite (Idumean) Herods, reigned!

This verse may also be a reference to the governors who evidently were soon to begin ruling in the land (Neh 5:15).

Verse 9:

“We gat our bread with the peril of our lives

because of the sword of the wilderness”: Contrast this with the fortunes of the Jews who spent 40 years in the wilderness, where they gathered bread each day; they found it as the dew upon the ground! They had “no lack”.

The famine of bread in Jeremiah’s time was only the type of the far worse famine — the famine of God’s word (Amos 8:11, 12). There were still prophets to speak to Israel, but most refused to hear — and thus brought the hardships of a “famine” upon themselves.

Verse 10:

“Our skin was black”: Affliction, persecution, wandering (Song 1:5, 6; Psa 119:83; Lam 4:8), famine (Rev 6:5, 6).

“Like an oven”: Egypt was symbolized by an iron furnace (Deut 4:20). A similar thought is intended here: the fiery persecution of the Jews. Likewise, the Psalmist, in 119:83, pictures himself as a bottle, or a wineskin, blackened by the smoke.

Verse 11:

“They ravished the women in Zion,

and the maids in the cities of Judah”: This was predicted in Deut 28:30, 32 and Jer 6:12. Israel’s latter-day enemies will also do this (cp Zec 14:2); but God sees and remembers (v 1), and such deeds will be punished (as in Isa 13:16; Psa 137:7-9).

Verse 12:

“Princes”: The nation of Israel (which signifies “a prince with El“).

“Princes are hanged up by their hand”: Probably impaling after death. Thus, falling under a curse (Deut 21:23; Gal 3:13).

“The faces of elders were not honoured”: See 4:16.

Verse 13:

“They took the young men to grind”: A low menial task, usually assigned to female slaves (Exo 11:5; Isa 47:2) or other women (Mat 24:41). The Philistines could think of no greater degradation with which to torment their blinded former nemesis-Samson (Judges 16:21).

Verse 14:

“The elders have ceased from the gate”: Counsel (as Ruth 4:1), as well as social and commercial activity (as Job 29:7; Pro 31:23), had ceased.

Verse 15:

“The city of confusion is broken down” (Isa 24:7-11). cp Jer 7:34 and Psa 30:11.

“Our dance is turned into mourning”: Now was the “time to weep” (Eccl 3:4), as Nehemiah was to mourn when he later saw the city lying waste (Neh 2:2, 3).

But “joy cometh in the morning” (Psa 30:5), and “they that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psa 126:5, 6).

Verse 16:

”The crown”: In two senses the “crown” had fallen:

The crown is a symbol of royalty, which had been overthrown (Jer 13:18; Ezek 21:26; Psa 89:39; Hos 3:4).

The crown also symbolizes obedience to the Truth (Rev 2:10; 3:11), and dedication and priesthood (Exo 28:36-38).

Verse 17:

See 1:22 and 2:11.

Verse 18:

“Because of the mountain of Zion”: The center of all true Jewish hopes (Isa 2:2-4; 24:23; Psa 133:3).

“The foxes walk upon it”: Compare Psa 63:10. “Jackals” (RSV, NIV), unclean scavengers, representing the unclean nations who “walk upon” the hope of Israel.

Verse 19:

“Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever;

Thy throne from generation to generation”: This is the one means by which the Jews’ sorrowful condition may be changed: God’s kingdom was once on earth (1Ch 28:5; 2Ch 13:8), and it will be re-established (2Sa 7:12-16; Acts 1:6; 14:16) as His throne (Jer 3:17).

Verse 20:

“For ever”: Literally, “for the age” (see, for example, Dr. Thomas’ exposition in Eureka, vol. 1, pp. 127-130). The age is evidently this age: the time of the Gentiles, the prophetic period now drawing to a close.

Verse 21:

A quotation from Jer 31:18.

“Turn Thou us unto Thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned”: True humility at last! A recognition that, as the punishments came from God, so forgiveness must come from Him as well, and repentance and renewal of purpose, by His grace and strength, will follow. It is vain to lament the past if our grief does not help us to make the future better, by seeking help from the one unfailing Source.

“Renew our days as of old”:

“And He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years” (Mal 3:3, 4).

Verse 22:

In the Hebrew manuscripts, verse 21 is usually repeated after verse 22 — so as to close the book on a more hopeful note (the same type of repetition is found in printed editions of some Hebrew Bibles at the end of Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, and But a fuller understanding of verse 22 makes such an editorial addition superfluous.

“But Thou hast utterly rejected us;

Thou art very wroth against us”: This verse has been poorly translated. It implies an utter, complete rejection of the Jews for all eternity — which is perhaps what orthodox translators would like — but which is certainly not in harmony with the rest of Scripture (see, for one example, 3:31-33, notes).

Some translators simply render this verse as a question. Note the RSV, the margin of the AV, and Keil. Rotherham translates it:

“For though Thou hast not utterly rejected us,

Thou art wroth with us exceedingly.”

And Goodspeed renders it in this way:

“If Thou wert to reject us completely,

Thou wouldst be going too far in Thine anger against us.”

God would not be going too far for just deserts, but too far according to His previous utterances. Such a proposal would be out of harmony with all the promises of God. Moses said that God would raise unto Israel a leader like unto him, whom they would hear.

They rejected this leader when he came the first time, but their hearts will be turned from stone to flesh when he returns in power and glory; when their pride and self-confidence has been abased before the latter-day enemy, and when God fights for them as in the day of battle. Then shall they open the gates of their hearts unto him:

“Lift up your heads, O ye gates;

even lift them up, ye everlasting doors;

and the King of glory shall come in…

The LORD of Hosts,

He is the King of Glory” (Psa 24:9-10).

Then, shall they say:

“BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.”

****

O! Mourn ye for Zion, her beauty is faded,

Her joy is departed, her glory is fled:

The light and the hope or her prospects is shaded:

She wanders in darkness, her comforts are dead.

Oh! pray ye for Zion: though sad and forsaken,

Though scorned and derided, despised and forlorn;

The truth of Yahweh, our God, is unshaken,

Her night shall but usher a glorious morn.

Oh! Labor for Zion, though now, in her blindness,

She knows not her Saviour, Messiah, and Lord;

Yet, guided by mercy, the life-tones of kindness

Shall win her full ear to the voice of His word.

Oh watch ye for Zion; the day-spring is breaking,

Her night has been gloomy, but shortly will end:

Her long-promised Shepherd, His lost sheep is seeking,

The heart of the rebellious nation will bend.

Oh! hope ye for Zion; salvation is near,

And brighter than morn’s rosy glow shall be seen;

The great Sun of Righteousness soon shall appear;

The beam of His glory shall gladden the scene.

Rejoice ye for Zion! Yahweh has spoken;

Jerusalem ‘s outcasts shall yet be restored;

The bonds of the fetter-bound slave shall be broken,

And Judah set free at the word of the Lord.

Each of the Old Testament prophets may be considered as in some way typifying Christ, for they were all God’s spokesmen. They all sought to turn their countrymen from their ways of sin, and all were received by the majority with hostility and contempt.

Several things in the life and writings of Jeremiah, however, are especially indicative of Christ and his mission. In his birth and calling, Jeremiah certainly resembled Christ and his miraculous origin:

“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee… Then the LORD put forth His hand, and touched my mouth… and said unto me, Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth” (Jer 1:5, 9).

Jeremiah because of his teaching fell into such disrepute that he likened himself to “a lamb that is brought to the slaughter” (11:19). In this also we see Christ in prophecy (Isa 53:7) and fulfillment (1Pe 3:18; 2:20-24; John 1:29). Jeremiah by his preaching incurred the special displeasure of his own kindred (Jer 12:6), again as Christ (Psa 69:8; John 1:11).

Chapters 7 through 9 present several allusions to the experiences of Christ. Jeremiah, just as his greater successor, was faced with deep-rooted wickedness, found especially among the religious leaders, the priests and elders of the community. In his efforts to reform a cynical, hypocritical priesthood, and to cleanse the Temple of its idolatry, he firmly pointed forward to Christ. In these three short chapters we find the following familiar phrases:

“Is this house, which is called by My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD… They (the priests) have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, Peace, when there is no peace… In the time of their visitation, they shall be cast down… No grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree.”

One of the reasons Jeremiah was hated was that he taught the Jews to humble themselves before the Babylonians, realising that this was God’s way to chasten them for their wrongs (Jer 37:8-12). He was therefore despised by the haughty “patriots”. In the same way Christ’s teachings of humility and submission were scorned by many Jews of his time who felt Rome’s yoke must be cast off. Both Jeremiah and Jesus saw that true peace and true freedom could come only through obedience under God’s hand, a “bearing of the yoke” (Lam 3:27) and a patient waiting (v 26).

Lastly, Jeremiah’s lament for his people (9:1) evokes great similarities to Christ and his lament for the judgments to come upon his stubborn generation. The whole of the book of Lamentations is this type of sustained sorrow. And it is a sobering exhortation and warning to us. God has always given His people instructors and ample warning to change their ways. If His people refuse to listen, judgment is certain.

Jeremiah typifies Christ and his reward — and our future reward as well:

Jeremiah was at last put into prison (37:15), where he sank into the mire, just as Christ was killed by those he came to help, and was placed in the prison house of death. Jeremiah was freed from his prison, typifying the resurrection and immortalization of Jesus:

“So they drew up Jeremiah with cords, and took him up out of the dungeon” (38:13).

The last few chapters of Jeremiah deal with the destruction of Babylon and her allies in the last days (the last days of the kingdom of Judah). Christ also will bring judgment upon spiritual Babylon and her allies in the last days (of the kingdom of men), at which time the lamentations for the Hope of Israel will be at an end, when mourning will be turned to joy — for the saints and the faithful Jews.