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I. THE PLACE FOR ANNOUNCING THE MESSAGE.

1. It was a place where the king, as much as the people, would hear. Whatever else may be signified by "the gate of the children of the people" it seems clear that it was a gate in which, at certain times, the king would be found. In his own house it might be impossible to gain access to him; but the gate was open to all; and there he could not choose but listen to a man who would speak earnestly and commandingly; because the word of Jehovah lodged in him, came from the depths of his concurring heart. The king, doubtless, by their own individual leadership and encouragement, were responsible for much of the evil of Sabbath-breaking. The state of Jerusalem in particular would be largely influenced by them. A corrupt court makes a corrupt capital, and a corrupt capital is not without effect towards the making of a corrupt nation.

2. It was the place for the greatest general publicity. One gate is specified, but not one of the gates was to be omitted. The king, with his peculiar responsibilities, was warned in a peculiar way; but there was no one in such a private and irresponsible position as to be without concern in the message. The ten commandments were commandments for every individual among the people; hence the need of a warning which, in the mode of giving it, should be likely to arrest the attention of all. It was Jehovah's message delivered at least as many times as there were gates in Jerusalem. We may well believe that it was delivered over and over again. 1N note of time is given, but of course the prophet would choose the time when there were most passengers; nor would he omit to deliver the message upon the Sabbath day itself.

3. The message was given upon one of the most conspicuous scenes of transgression. If the prophet went to one of the most frequented gates on a Sabbath, there he found transgressors, crowds of them, in the very act of transgression. They could not deny the act, and all he needed to do was to adduce the commandment against it. God can always make it clear that he does not send forth his prophets without occasion.

II. THE MESSAGE ITSELF. This command with respect to the Sabbath day seems to come in very abruptly here. And yet no one who considers the prominence of Jehovah's injunction to "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy" will wonder at the definiteness and emphasis of the prophet's message. The details of his message make it only too sadly evident how far the people had departed from the original commandment. Here we have one of two extremes of disobedience in which the practical attitude of Israel towards this commandment appears. The sacred day which God had hallowed both in word and deed was recklessly and shamelessly made into a common day. If a stranger went into the streets of Jerusalem on a Sabbath, he might have great difficulty in discerning by any external sign that it was a Sabbath. The people would be going into the city and coming out of it much as on any other day. The other extreme is seen in the reasonless and fanatical formalism of the Jews, who so often attacked our Lord. There is certainly a great difference externally between these two extremes. It is very wonderful to consider that such a transition should be possible from the careless crowding of the gates with burdens on the Sabbath, to the savage bigotry which attacked Jesus for healing sick folk on the same day. Yet underneath external differences there was the same unabated, worldly, ungodly spirit. Those whom Jesus had to denounce for their shameless trafficking in the holy precincts were the children of those whom Jeremiah had to denounce for doing their own selfish will and needless acts on God's Sabbath. And so we see that this passage from the prophet needs to be considered along with those passages in the Gospels where Jesus deals with the sabbatarianism of his time. His painful experiences of such professed honorers of God, and his searching exposures of them, need w be complemented by this message of Jeremiah. We shall always find in Scripture something to check us from "the falsehood of extremes." Sabbatarians twist a commandment; Sabbath-breakers trample it underfoot. The evil which Jeremiah deals with here is dealt with even more solemnly by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 22:1-12, where in ver. 8 Sabbath-breaking is particularly referred to as one of many terrible transgressions. See also Nehemiah 9:14; Nehemiah 13:15-22; Isaiah 56:2; Ezekiel 20:12-24; Ezekiel 46:1-5). - Y.

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KJV: Thus said the LORD unto me; Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem;

WEB: Thus said Yahweh to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people, through which the kings of Judah come in, and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem;