Jeremiah 31:8, 9 Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame… I. WHENCE HE GATHERS THEM. The place is spoken of very indefinitely, not from any doubt as to its reality, but because it was largely a terra incognita. It was the land away in the northward direction, but what its extent or what its power for mischief there were but few who could guess. One thing, however, was possible to consider in the days of exile, when the north country had become a sad actual experience, namely, how Jeremiah had been sent to speak joyful tidings as well as mournful ones with respect to the power of this north country. True, he had spoken again and again concerning the evil and the great destruction coming out of the north; but here is a word from the same man and under the same authority to say that the power of the north country is not to continue. God uses even great nations for his own purposes. There is indication that these powers of the north were astonished at their own success. "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" (Lamentations 4:12). They were only the agents of God, and God could take his people out of their midst again when once the Exile had done its work. Distance is no difficulty. God can hinder or facilitate in a journey just as seems him best. Once he kept his people forty years in a journey from one land to another that, if he had chosen, might have been accomplished in a very short time. II. THOSE WHOM HE GATHERS. The Lord's compassions fail not. To the young, the strong, the healthy, those perfect in body, nothing was needed but to say, "The time is come for return. Make your start." But then all were not so placed. The weaklings have ever to be considered, and God considers them, as it were, first of all. There are the blind - God will keep them in the way; there are the lame - God will provide that they be conveyed and sufficiently helped; there are women, with all their peculiar anxieties, who need to be dealt with very tenderly, and all grounds for alarm taken out of their way as far as possible. Well, God specifies these cases as representative of the provision he makes forevery sort of weakness. It is the mark of God's way for men that it is a way for the weak, a way in which provision is made forevery sort of infirmity. There are ways in the world which are only for the strong; the weak soon get pushed aside. And God can bring all these weak people along, because the right spirit is in them. They come in weeping and in prayer. You can be eyes to a blind man, if he admits his blindness and is willing to be guided; but if he insists upon it that he can see, what are you to do with him? This is the only means by which God's true people can be gathered into one way, moving with one purpose towards one place, namely, that they be each one of them from the very heart submitted to the Divine will and control. III. THE SPIRIT IN WHICH GOD GATHERS. The spirit of a father. Israel must needs go into exile and chastisement for a while; but the place left vacant is the child's place, and none but the child can fill it. It is the evidence of a father's tenderness that he cares for the blind and the lame and the weak. The house of Israel had said to a stock, "Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth." And their delusion had borne fruit in banishment and captivity. But the true Father remembered them all the time; and with the power of the true God and in the spirit of the true Father, he gathered them and guided them home. - Y. Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither. |
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