Jeremiah 47:7
How can it rest when the LORD has commanded it? He has appointed it against Ashkelon and the shore of its coastland."
Sermons
The Sword that Cannot be QuietS. Conway Jeremiah 47:7
Apostrophe to the SwordD. Young Jeremiah 47:6, 7
The Sword of JehovahA.F. Muir Jeremiah 47:6, 7














This chapter tells of another of the Gentile nations on whom the judgment of God was to come. These nations all lay in the march of the Babylonian armies, and were one after another overthrown. Philistia is represented as asking of the sword of the Lord, when it will be quiet, and the answer is, "How can it be quiet, when," etc.? (ver. 7). It reminds -

I. OF THE SWORD OF CONSCIENCE. The Lord hath given it a charge, and, though we may blunt it, we cannot perfectly quiet it (cf. Macbeth, Judas, and other conscience-haunted men).

II. OF THE SWORD OF SCRIPTURE. "The Word of the Lord is not bound. How men have sought to sheathe it in the scabbard, to hide and hold it there, so that they may go on unchecked in their own ways! But it has leapt forth in spite of them; and, in spite of pagan, Roman, and other persecutions, has asserted its supreme might."

III. OF THE SWORD OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENT AGAINST SIN. Sin and sorrow are eternally married, and can never be put asunder. Where one is the other is never far off, and never will be in this world or the next. But forevery believer Christ has offered his own heart as a sheath for it. For such that sword is sheathed therein, and will be quiet there forever.

"When Christ gave up the ghost
The Law was satisfied;
And now to its most rigorous claims
I answer, 'Jesus died.'" C.

Put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still.
Notwithstanding all the boasted improvements of modern times, in knowledge and refinement, wars have not been less frequent than formerly, when mankind were in a rude and barbarous state. In making this reflection, the philosopher may profess his astonishment, but the genuine Christian will weep. Such are the mournful and ruinous effects which sin has produced in the world. Not only has it filled men's minds with enmity against God, but also with implacable enmity and revenge against one another.

I. WHENCE IT IS THAT THE SWORD OF WAR MAY BE CALLED THE SWORD OF THE LORD.

1. Because the seasons in which this sword is drawn are governed or appointed by the Lord. The kindling of war, or the settling of peace, are appointed by the providence of that God who ruleth over all the earth. The direction of cabinets, the ambition of princes, of governors, of statesmen, are only the instruments which God employs with a powerful and a holy hand, to execute His will.

2. Because it receives its direction from the Lord. When God gives the commission, when He opens the brazen gates of destruction, no country, no city is secured against the ravages of war; and when His providence forms a wall of protection around a country, no army can prevail, no weapon formed against it can prosper, for the Almighty God Himself is its fortress, its pillar, and its strength.

3. Because the execution done by it is of the Lord. It is a saying of King William, who had himself been in many battles, that "every bullet had its billet"; intimating that it was under God's direction whom to miss and whom to strike.

4. Because God sanctifies and glorifies Himself in its operation. In the management of war, the reputation of kings and statesmen, of generals or soldiers, is considered, but this is only a secondary consideration. The glory of the Lord, whom the Scriptures call a Man of War, is illustrated and made conspicuous in the eyes of the world. The slayer and those who are slain are His creatures and subjects, and the instruments which defend the one and kill the other are His sword.

II. THE REASON WHY ALL GOD'S PEOPLE SO ARDENTLY LONG TO SEE THE SWORD OF WAR SHEATHED AND AT REST.

1. Conviction that the wrath of God bringeth upon man the punishment of the sword, will cause the saints to long earnestly for its being sheathed and at rest.

2. All God's people will earnestly long to see the sword of war in -its scabbard and at rest, when they reflect what multitudes of men are hurried by it into eternity without thought or preparation.

3. God's people earnestly long to see the sword of war sheathed and at rest, when they reflect on the unparalleled distresses and miseries inflicted on those countries which are the seat of war. Gracious persons are deeply affected with the miseries of their fellow-creatures, even though they he enemies.

4. God's people earnestly desire to see the sword of war sheathed and at rest, that Christ's Gospel may be propagated throughout the whole world, and its Divine power and influence felt by all nations.

(James Hay, D. D.)

As patriots, prophets felt the miseries which they denounced; as mourners, they lamented the sins which brought on these miseries; and as men, they wept over the graves of the enemies by whom their country had been harassed and wasted.

I. THE SWORD OF THE WARRIOR IS THE SWORD OF THE LORD.

1. The seasons in which the sword is drawn and sheathed are appointed by the Lord. The direction of cabinets, the ambition of princes, and the caprices of statesmen in these affairs, are subordinated by His invisible influence to His own will, without violating the order of second causes, or breaking in upon the freedom of rational agents.

2. The sword of the warrior is put in commission by the Lord.

3. The direction of the sword of the warrior is from the Lord. The seat of war is marked out, and its bounds circumscribed, in the purpose of the will of God; and thither the warrior marches without mistaking his way, whether it he to the shore of Tyrus, the valley of Jehoshaphat, the plains of Blenheim, the heights of Saratoga, or the mountains of Armageddon.

4. The execution done by the sword of the warrior is of the Lord. "A sparrow falleth not to the ground without our heavenly Father," and in the day of battle, no soldier loses his life without His knowledge and predetermination.

5. By the sword of the warrior the Lord sanctifies and magnifies Himself. According to the states of the sufferers wars of conquest and extirpation are corrections and punishments, and whichever of the sides gains or loses the victory, the supremacy of Jehovah over all is main, rained, and the glory of His justice and holiness displayed and magnified. The cause in which the sword is drawn is always sinful on one side, and frequently sinful on both sides. But whatever be the quality of the cause, the views of men, or the issues of the contest, the Lord will not lose His end. He rules in the seat of war, and commands on the day of battle.

II. THE REASONS FOR WHICH MOURNERS IN ZION LONG TO SEE THIS SWORD SHEATHED.

1. Compassion for those who are delivered to the sword, or subjected to the insolence and rage of fierce and lawless men whose tender mercies are cruelty.

2. Knowledge of the consequences of driving men unprepared into eternity.

3. The peace of God, which rules in the hearts of mourners in Zion, inclines and constrains them to cry for the sheathing of the sword of the warrior.

4. Convictions that the wrath of God bringeth upon men the punishment of the sword, dispose mourners in Zion to long for its being put up into the scabbard.

(A. Shanks.)

I. THE EVILS OF PROTRACTED WAR.

1. War is a tremendous evil.

2. Well might the prophet desire its speedy termination.

II. THE REASON OF ITS CONTINUANCE.

1. War is one of those judgments with which God punishes the sins of men.

2. Till He has effected His purposes by it, no human efforts can bring it to a close.

III. MEANS OF ITS TERMINATION.

1. The intention of God's chastisements is to bring us to repentance.

2. On the attainment of this end He will instantly remove HIS judgments from us.

IV. SOME HINTS RESPECTING THOSE HEAVY JUDGMENTS WHICH GOD HAS DENOUNCED AGAINST SINNERS IN ANOTHER WORLD, AND RESPECTING THE BEST MEANS OF AVERTING THEM FROM OUR SOULS.

(C. Simeon, M. A.).

People
Jeremiah, Pharaoh, Zidon
Places
Ashkelon, Caphtor, Gaza, Sidon, Tyre
Topics
Appointed, Ashkelon, Ash'kelon, Assigned, Attack, Canst, Charge, Coast, Command, Commanded, Directions, Order, Ordered, Orders, Possible, Quiet, Seacoast, Sea-land, Seashore, Sea-shore, Seeing, Shore, Shouldest
Outline
1. The destruction of the Philistines

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 47:6-7

     8404   commands, in OT

Library
The Sword of the Lord
'O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still. 7. How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge?'--JER. xlvii. 6, 7. The prophet is here in the full tide of his prophecies against the nations round about. This paragraph is entirely occupied with threatenings. Bearing the cup of woes, he turns to one after another of the ancestral enemies of Israel, Egypt and Philistia on the south and west, Moab on the south and
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Appendix ii.
NECOH'S CAMPAIGN (PP. 162, 163). In addition to the accounts in the Books of Kings and Chronicles of Pharaoh Necoh's advance into Asia in pursuance of his claim for a share of the crumbling Assyrian Empire there are two independent records: (1) Jeremiah XLVII. 1--and Pharaoh smote Gaza--a headline (with other particulars) wrongly prefixed by the Hebrew text, but not by the Greek, to an Oracle upon an invasion of Philistia not from the south but from the north (see above, pp. 13, 61); (2) by Herodotus,
George Adam Smith—Jeremiah

Jeremiah
The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than 650. The political and religious
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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