Jeremiah 48:28
Abandon the towns and settle among the rocks, O dwellers of Moab! Be like a dove that nests at the mouth of a cave.
Sermons
Dove and RockHomiletic MagazineJeremiah 48:28














A father may chasten his son, but will be very wroth if he sees another man so dealing with him. No one may punish the child but the child's father. Now, thus is it with the Lord and his people. He will, he dogs, punish them himself, but he allows none other to do so; or, if they presume to touch them, as Moab had done to Israel, then sure, if not swift, vengeance follows. Then is fulfilled the saying, "He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye" (Deuteronomy 32:10; Zechariah 2:8). Now, why is this? The case supposed of the father who, though he chastens his own son, is yet angry if another touch him, may help us to answer this question.

1. The child is under no obligation to the stranger. The father has right to claim all obedience from his child; not so another.

2. The child is not beloved by a stranger. Anger and revenge can alone impel the stranger to do the child harm. But these are the last motives, are never the motives, of the chastisements the father inflicts.

3. The child is unknown to the stranger or but little known. Such a one, therefore, even if he be not actuated by evil motives, cannot possibly deal wisely with one of whom and whose character, circumstances, and needs he is ignorant.

4. The child will get no good from chastisement by a stranger. A father's chastisement, because of the father's love, cannot but have a mighty moral influence upon the child for his good. "What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" But what good could come, or ever did come, to Israel and Judah from the cruelties inflicted upon them by such. people as the Moabites, and of which the prophet here tells?

5. The child will very likely be dealt cruelly and injuriously with by a stranger. A father will chasten for his child's profit; wisdom and love will guide him. True, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, "We have had fathers of our flesh who verily chastened us after their own pleasure." But we trust that his experience was a limited one, and that there were, and yet more that there are, but few lathers who "for their own pleasure" would chastise their children.

6. And the child, with all its guilt - in the case of the Lord's children - deserves to suffer less than they who have presumed to punish him. Israel and Judah were guilty without doubt; but were Moab and Ammon, Babylon and the rest, less guilty? Had they nothing to answer for? Had they not far more? And so, whilst the sin of a child of God is sin indeed, yet it does not make him so heinous, so black, so repulsive, as the persistent, high-handed, never-repented-of sin of the godless, the profane, and the unbeliever. To see one who is chargeable with great sin punishing one whose sin is comparatively trivial; the man who had incurred the debt of ten thousand talents taking by the throat him whose debt was but a hundred pence; - that is evidently a monstrous thing.

7. But chief of all, because God's people are God's children in Christ. We are identified with the well beloved Son. "Members of his body, his flesh and his bones, one with him." It is so, but it is not so with those who have never yielded themselves to God. Such surrender, which is faith, vitalizes the connection between us and God, and he becomes our Father, in a sense that he never was before. Conclusion. All history demonstrates the truth now insisted on, that "he that toucheth you," etc. Let us thank God that he will suffer none to chasten us but himself. Seek that such chastisement may be no longer necessary. Strive to do good to all, "especially to them that are of the household of faith," and tremble to do them harm. "Whosoever offendeth one of these little ones," said our Lord, "it were better for him that a millstone," etc. - C.

Dwell in the rock, and be like the dove.
Homiletic Magazine.
I. GOD SHOWS MUCH COMPASSION NOT ONLY TO FRIENDS BUT TO FOES.

1. It is for Moab — guilty, apostate, persecuting Moab — that God expresses all this compassionate concern.

2. The New Testament is filled with warnings, invitations, and promises, addressed to those who are farthest off from God, intermingled with signal instances of the conversion of hardened transgressors.

II. GOD WOULD HAVE US FORSAKE FALSE REFUGES AND AVAIL OURSELVES OF THE TRUE. The wild doves and pigeons of the East delight in cool and inaccessible places. They build their nests in cliffs and caverns, overhanging fearful precipices, where man cannot tread. Learn the importance of shunning false confidences, and of resting our hope of salvation where alone it can be safe. God would have human weakness rely on almighty strength; human ignorance on almighty wisdom; human sinfulness on almighty mercy. The finite needs the Infinite; the sinner, the Saviour.

III. CONTEMPTUOUS NEGLECT OF WARNINGS AND MERCIES AGGRAVATES FINAL CONSEQUENCES. This was the case with Moab.

1. We may not presume on God's mercy and forbearance. The longer the judgment delays, the heavier its weight of woe.

2. Despair is to be banished. The atonement is all-sufficient.

3. Delay must be avoided. God's voice is always "To-day"; Satan's. To-morrow." 4, We must not be satisfied with our own safety, but aim at leading others to flee as doves to "the Rock."

(Homiletic Magazine.)

People
Chemosh, Gamul, Jeremiah, Sihon, Zoar
Places
Arnon, Aroer, Beth-diblathaim, Bethel, Beth-gamul, Beth-meon, Bozrah, Dibon, Elealeh, Heshbon, Holon, Horonaim, Jahaz, Jahzah, Jazer, Kerioth, Kir-hareseth, Kiriathaim, Luhith, Madmen, Mephaath, Moab, Nebo, Nimrim, Sea of Jazer, Sibmah, Zoar
Topics
Abyss, Arabah, Beyond, Cave, Cave's, Chasm, Cities, Cover, Crags, Dove, Dwell, Forsake, Gorge, Holes, Hole's, Inhabitants, Leave, Living-place, Makes, Maketh, Making, Moab, Mouth, Nest, Nests, O, Passages, Pit's, Rock, Rocks, Sides, Towns
Outline
1. The judgment of Moab
7. for their pride
11. for their security
14. for their carnal confidence
26. and for their contempt of God and his people
47. The restoration of Moab

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 48:28

     4218   cave
     4354   rock
     4636   dove
     4675   nest
     5167   mouth

Library
August 8. "Be Like the Dove" (Jer. Xlviii. 28).
"Be like the dove" (Jer. xlviii. 28). Harmless as a dove, is Christ's interpretation of the beautiful emblem. And so the Spirit of God is purity itself. He cannot dwell in an unclean heart. He cannot abide in the natural mind. It was said of the anointing of old, "On man's flesh it shall not be poured." The purity which the Holy Spirit brings is like the white and spotless little plant which grows up out of the heap of manure, or the black soil, without one grain of impurity adhering to its crystalline
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

How those are to be Admonished who Decline the Office of Preaching Out of Too Great Humility, and those who Seize on it with Precipitate Haste.
(Admonition 26.) Differently to be admonished are those who, though able to preach worthily, are afraid by reason of excessive humility, and those whom imperfection or age forbids to preach, and yet precipitancy impells. For those who, though able to preach with profit, still shrink back through excessive humility are to be admonished to gather from consideration of a lesser matter how faulty they are in a greater one. For, if they were to hide from their indigent neighbours money which they possessed
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Balaam's Prophecy. (Numb. xxiv. 17-19. )
Carried by the Spirit into the far distant future, Balaam sees here how a star goeth out of Jacob and a sceptre riseth out of Israel, and how this sceptre smiteth Moab, by whose enmity the Seer had been brought from a distant region for the destruction of Israel. And not Moab only shall be smitten, but its southern neighbour, Edom, too shall be subdued, whose hatred against Israel had already been prefigured in its ancestor, and had now begun to display Itself; and In general, all the enemies of
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Meditations for the Sick.
Whilst thy sickness remains, use often, for thy comfort, these few meditations, taken from the ends wherefore God sendeth afflictions to his children. Those are ten. 1. That by afflictions God may not only correct our sins past, but also work in us a deeper loathing of our natural corruptions, and so prevent us from falling into many other sins, which otherwise we would commit; like a good father, who suffers his tender babe to scorch his finger in a candle, that he may the rather learn to beware
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Section Chap. I. -iii.
The question which here above all engages our attention, and requires to be answered, is this: Whether that which is reported in these chapters did, or did not, actually and outwardly take place. The history of the inquiries connected with this question is found most fully in Marckius's "Diatribe de uxore fornicationum," Leyden, 1696, reprinted in the Commentary on the Minor Prophets by the same author. The various views may be divided into three classes. 1. It is maintained by very many interpreters,
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Prophet Joel.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. The position which has been assigned to Joel in the collection of the Minor Prophets, furnishes an external argument for the determination of the time at which Joel wrote. There cannot be any doubt that the Collectors were guided by a consideration of the chronology. The circumstance, that they placed the prophecies of Joel just between the two prophets who, according to the inscriptions and contents of their prophecies, belonged to the time of Jeroboam and Uzziah, is
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

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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