Jeremiah 3:1-5 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return to her again?… If God is immanent in the universe, not a Deity immeasurable distances away from His creation; if without Him it could not hold together for a moment, there is nothing unreasonable in the thought that He should sometimes show resentment at the spirit of evil, indicate some emotion at least in the presence of ingratitude. We do the sage ourselves. Parents sometimes give children to feel that the penalty of ill-behaviour is the withdrawment of a privilege, the abbreviation of a holiday, the suspension of a pleasure. Sometimes by deprivation God inflicts punishment upon those who turn away from Him. In this case the penalty was one of deprivation — the showers had been withholden. Sometimes the penalty is positive, and there are too many showers. God drowns the world that denies Him. He does not withhold the showers for want of water; the debt, go is always ready: the river of God is full of water. It may be unscientific and ignorant to think that God interferes with nature, but it stands to our highest reason as a probable truth. If He made it, He may interfere with it; if He constructed it, He may sometimes wind it up, visit it, operate upon it, assert His eternal proprietorship. If the great landlord allows us to walk through his fields freely and joyously, he may sometimes, say, once in twenty-one years, put up a fence or a boundary, which being interpreted means, This path is mine, not yours; the boundary will be taken down again tomorrow, but it is here today to signify that you have acquired no rights by constant use. It is not an unnatural intervention, nor do we see that it is an unreasonable intervention on the part. of God if we deny Him, neglect Him, scorn Him, operate wholly against the spirit of His holiness, that He should now and again withhold the shower, or send such deluges upon the earth as shall wash away our seed and make a desert of our garden. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD. |
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