'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 east, then northwards to Ammon, south to
Edom, north to Damascus, Kedar, Hagor, Elam, and finally to the great
foe--Babylon. In the hour of Israel's lowest fortunes and the foe's
proudest exultation these predictions are poured out. Jeremiah stands
as if wielding the sword of which our text speaks, and whirls and
points the flashing terror of its sharpened edge against the ring of
foes. It turns every way, like the weapon of the angelic guard before
the lost paradise, and wherever it turns a kingdom falls.
In the midst of his stern denunciations he checks himself to utter this
plaintive cry of pity and longing. A tender gleam of compassion breaks
through the heart of the thunder-cloud. It is very beautiful to note
that the point at which the irrepressible welling up of sweet waters
breaks the current of his prophecy is the prediction against Israel's
bitterest, because nearest, foe, 'these uncircumcised Philistines.' He
beholds the sea of wrath drowning the great Philistine plain, its rich
harvests trampled under foot by 'stamping of hoofs of his strong ones,'
and that desolation wrings from his heart the words of our text. I take
them to be spoken by the prophet. That, of course, is doubtful. It may
be that they are meant to give in a vivid dramatic form the effect of
the judgments on the sufferers. They recognise these as 'the sword of
the Lord.' Their only thought is an impatient longing that the
judgments would cease,--no confession of sin, no humbling of them
selves, but only--'remove Thy hand from us.'
And the answer is either the prophet's or the divine voice; spoken in
the one case to himself, in the other to the Philistines; but in either
setting forth the impossibility that the sweeping sword should rest,
since it is the instrument in God's hand, executing His charge and
fulfilling His appointment.