Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 6:16
Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where [is] the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk [therein].
16. saith ] rather, said, in His frequent remonstrances.
Of the branching paths the old established one will prove that which alone ye may follow with divine sanction.
the good way ] lit. the way of that which is good. Cp. Jer 18:15; Deu 32:7.
rest for your souls ] The words have not the significance which the similar expression bears in Mat 11:29. It is “not the inward peace which the soul has in fellowship with God, but the peace and safety which they will secure by adherence to God’s commands.” Pe.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
16 21. The third division. See introd. note to the ch.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The sense is: Gods prophet has declared that a great national calamity is at hand. Make inquiries; stand in the ways; ask the passers by. Your country was once prosperous and blessed. Try to learn what were the paths trodden in those days which led your ancestors to happiness. Choose them, and walk earnestly therein, and find thereby rest for your souls. The Christian fathers often contrast Christ the one goodway with the old tracks, many in number and narrow to walk in, which are the Law and the prophets.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jer 6:16
Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein.
The good old way
Were you called together to listen to the present preacher only, courtesy might demand at your hands an attentive hearing for him; but if an apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ were the preacher, he would have far higher claims; and if one of the ancient prophets were the speaker, or at any rate, could an angel or an archangel be permitted now to address you, we think you would all admit that to be inattentive to his words would be highly unbecoming: how much more so to be inattentive if the God of the whole earth were addressing you! And is He not? Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, etc.
I. To the way recommended in the text. Ask for the old paths, where is the good way. The words of the text are metaphorical, and represent true religion under the aspect of a pilgrimage or a journey. If, then, you ask me, What is the way to heaven? I refer to the words of the Lord Jesus when speaking to Thomas. I, said He, am the way. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. Christ is the way. He is the way from sin to holiness,–from darkness to light,–from bondage to liberty,–from misery to happiness,–from the gates of hell to the throne of heaven. But how is He the way? By His example: for leaving us an example, we should follow His steps. By His doctrine: for we know that He is true, and teaches the way of God in truth. By His sacrificial death: for we have boldness to eater into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. By His Spirit: when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all the truth. How, then, are we to walk in the way? By repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. Except ye repent ye shall all perish. Believe m the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. He that believeth shall not perish. But what are the epithets by which the way is described in our text? The way is not the broad way that leadeth to destruction; nor the hard way, pursued by transgressors; nor the way that only seemeth right to a man, while the end thereof is death; but it is the good way, and the old path.
1. It is an old way. True, there are persons who more than insinuate that the way, as just described to you, is a new thing. They say the way to heaven is not now what it formerly was, if our definition is correct. But what have we said? Have we not affirmed that salvation is by Christ, and through Him only? Have we not said that repentance and faith are the conditions of obtaining it from Him? And is this new doctrine? Why, this doctrine is as old as the days of Wesley and Whitfield, for they proclaimed it in England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and America. But go a step further back. What were the leading doctrines of the illustrious Reformers? For what were they traduced, slandered, excommunicated, and martyred, but for this? They asserted that penance was a human prescription–that works of supererogation were a delusion–that images, beads, holy water, crucifixes, and relics were but sanctified nonsense–that Christ was the only mediator between God and man. But we go further still. What did our Lord and the apostles themselves teach? They preached repent and believe! Nor do we stop here. What did the prophets–Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah, Malachi, and the rest–who flourished from seven hundred to a thousand years anterior to the Christian era teach? Did not they speak of the promised seed, the Messiah, the Redeemer, in whom men should believe, and by whom they should be saved? Go to that splendid treasury of ecclesiastical biography–the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and look at the fourth verse: By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead, yet speaketh. Well, then, some three thousand years elapsed between the time of Abels believing and that of Jeremiahs preaching, and the way had been tried during the whole of that long period, and was therefore properly called by the prophet the old path. Oh no; we bring no new doctrine to your ears, no new way before your eyes. We grant you that some of the circumstantials of religion have been changed since the days of Abel; but the essentials have remained the same. A Saviour, a mediator, a sacrifice, an atonement; repentance, faith, prayer, and holy living–thane all abide ever. The way is called new by the apostle, in reference to that fuller and clearer development of it furnished by the life and death of the Lord Jesus; and even when contrasting it with those ritualistic observances on which the Jews had long laid more than sufficient stress: but in all ages Christ has been the Saviour of men, and faith in Him the prime condition of salvation.
2. The text speaks of this way as a good one. Where is the good way? It is not only a good way, but the good way–good emphatically; the only good way, therefore, par excellence, the good way. God is the author of it, and He is good. He is the good Being: His name God implies this, as it is a contraction of the adjective good. Christ is the way, and He is good. Pilates question, What evil hath He done? remains still unanswered. The Holy Spirit recommends this way; and He would not recommend anything evil. The Bible is a good book–all insinuations by scoffers to the contrary notwithstanding,–and it strongly urges us to pursue this way. There have been–and, thank God! still are–some good men in the world, bad as it is; and they have travelled, or are travelling in this way. However vile they may have been ere entering this way, they became virtuous and happy when they began to travel on this path. Men have said the way of salvation by faith in the merits of another is not good, for it will lead to licentiousness–to latitudinarianism. But such men speak without experience. The faith that saves us is not a nominal thing–not merely speculative, but practical, evangelical faith. Show me thy faith without thy works, O objector, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Ah, there it is. This faith of ours works, and has works; it works by love, and purifies the heart. While we repose on the merits of the Saviour, we copy the example of the Saviour; while we believe He died for us, we exhibit the genuineness of our belief by a holy life.
II. The duty the text enjoins. Stand ye in the ways, etc.
1. Stand in the ways, and see. These words seem to refer to the position of a traveller on foot, who, in prosecuting his pilgrimage, has reached a point where there is a junction of several roads; and who is perplexed by this circumstance, and at a loss which way to pursue. What can he do in this case? The text says, Stand, halt, ere you go astray, and try to ascertain the proper direction, or you may lose time in losing your way, and perchance may haw to retrace your steps, amid the jeers of witnesses, and under the self-inflicted penalty of regretful reproach. He takes from his pocket a book and a map, from which he learns that the road to the right goes to one place, that to the left to another, but the one straight on to the place of his destination. He then, after due examination, prosecutes his pilgrimage with pleasurable satisfaction; having no tormenting doubts as to his course, but a strong assurance of reaching, by and by, the desired end. Now, the traveller to eternity–the man in search of the path of life–has been graciously provided with an itinerary; that is, Gods own road book, the Bible. Hence, says the Saviour, Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me. Go, then, fellow traveller, to the ever-blessed book; pore over its lessons; study its precepts; imitate its examples; and realise its promises.
2. Ask for the way. See that man with his map and book; he is still perplexed somewhat; he wants counsel; he needs a guide; let him ask advice of those who know by experience what he has yet to learn. Ah! up comes a person who knows the road intimately, who has travelled along it these many years, and who loves to give his best practical advice to all inquirers. Well, ask him. He is a Gospel minister, or some old weather-beaten pilgrim, who has borne the heat of many a summer, and the stormy blasts of many a winter; he will be right glad to tell thee the way thou shouldst go. And, if he fail, there is a Guide who never will; for, when the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all the truth.
3. Walk therein. Yes, it avails not what we read, how much information we acquire, with whomsoever we converse, or even how often we pray, unless we walk in the way. John Bunyan tells us of a Mr. Talkative, who was very ready and fluent in religious discussions and conversations; but who left the practical part of religion to others. Alas! that the descendants of that personage are not extinct. Remember that no man can get to heaven by looking at maps of the road, or conversing with those who are journeying thitherward; we must all walk in the way.
III. To the blessing promised. Ye shall find rest for your souls. The word rest is one of the sweetest monosyllables in our language. Robert Hall said he could think of the word tear till he wept; I could think of the word rest till I smiled. After a paroxysm of pain, how delicious is ease and rest after a hard days toil, how delightful to retire to rest! And if rest of the body be sweet, sweeter still is rest for the soul. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmities, but a wounded spirit who can bear? Rest for the soul we all long to find; we cannot help it. We must be in quest of rest do what we may. Peace, happiness, mental quietude, rest, every man of all things desiderates. But where may it be found? Secularists and quondam socialists say in gratifying our animal passions; the miser–significant name, literally miserable–hopes to find it among golden gains; the ambitious climbs up the rugged heights of power and fame, and hopes to descry it there; but the Christian is the only man who can exclaim with the exulting Greek, Eureka! Eureka! I have found it! (W. Antliff, D. D.)
The ancient paths
Transition is easy from an outward physical path to a moral meaning: roads men walk with their feet suggest the road mens thoughts habitually walk in, the path in which their feelings are accustomed to move, the way in which their conduct naturally flows. In this secondary sense, use text to point out the necessity, in all who would go right, of keeping upon the old ways, the ascertained ways, which, in the experience of mankind, have been proved beneficial.
I. Our boast of novelty, our glorying in our newness, as if we were in advance of everybody and everything else, is a fanciful mistake. Our thoughts, and all the channels of our thoughts, are the result of the thought and experience of thousands of years that are gone by. Political habits and customs, knowledge of right and equity, have been gradually unfolded from ages past. Combinations are new, elements are old.
II. The present time is noticeable for an extraordinary outbreak of activity along new lines of thought and belief.
1. Men are inclined to doubt generally the social and moral results of past experience, to repudiate long-accepted social maxims and customs.
2. General distrust is being thrown upon religions teachings: not positive unbelief, but uncertainty. And by having confidence in religion its real power is destroyed. Thus thousands are abandoning old paths–old thoughts, usages, customs, habits, convictions, virtues.
III. There are certain great permanencies of thought, character, and custom, especially necessary in our time.
1. Moral and social progress can never be so rapid as physical developments. Men cannot be changed in their principles, feelings, and inner life in the same ratio as external changes go on.
2. There is danger in giving up any belief or custom which has been entwined in our moral sense. Regard as sacred the first principles of truth.
3. In the transition from a lower to a higher form of belief there is peril. Hence, we are not to think it our duty in a headlong way to change mens beliefs simply because they are erroneous. As if changing from one mode of belief to another was going to change the conscience, reason, moral susceptibility, and character.
IV. The relinquishment of trust or of practice should always be from worse to better. If you want a traveller to have a better road, make that better road, and then he will need no argument to persuade him to walk in it. If you are teaching that one intellectual system is better than another, and that one religious organisation, church, or creed, is better, prove it by presenting better fruit than the other, and men will need little argument beyond. If a Church breeds meekness, fortitude, love, courage, disinterestedness; if it makes noble men–uncrowned but undoubted princes,–then it is a Church, a living epistle which will convince men.
V. All new truths, like new wines, must have a period of fermentation.
1. All truths are at first on probation; must be scrutinised, ransacked, vindicated.
2. Guard against wild and unseasonable urgency in throwing off traditional faiths and truths, for those you can discover for yourselves. Accept what other men construct for you. We are so related, by the laws of God, one to another, that no man can think out everything for himself.
VI. We do well to look cautiously at new truths and those who advocate them. There is a conceit, a dogmatism, a bigotry of science, as really as there is of religion. Application–
1. All the tendencies which narrow the moral sense and enlarge the liberty of the passions are dangerous.
2. All tendencies which increase self-conceit are to be suspected and disowned.
3. Those tendencies which extinguish in a man all spiritual elements, such as arise from faith in God, in our spirituality and immortality, must inevitably degrade our manhood.
4. All tendencies which take away your hope of and belief in another world, take away your motive for striving to reach a higher life. Without this hope men will have a weary pilgrimage in a world of unbelief. (H. W. Beecher.)
The old paths
I. The old paths are to be distinguished from theological creeds and dogmas. Lifted upon the shoulders of many generations, with opportunities for interpreting the Bible in the light of a developing Christianity, it would be strange if our horizon had not increased. Think as those men thought–not necessarily what they thought.
II. A return to the old paths does not call us away from vigorous life. Wherever human thought, in obedience to its best nature, essays to got wherever desire for higher and better things reaches out, there are the paths of the Lord. They are as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Treading them, every power finds sweet employ.
III. Some of the characteristics of the old paths.
1. They are plain. True, the fogs sometimes hang low upon them as upon worldly ways; but we can always, in the darkest hour, see one step before us, and that taken, we can see another. The engineer cannot see his track all the way from New York to Albany, but in the heaviest night he trusts his headlight and keeps on his way. So let the Christian do.
2. They are unchanging. Gods paths, like Himself, are the same yesterday, today, and forever.
3. They are paths of righteousness (Psa 23:3). Old coins lose their royal stamp by much handling. So with some of our grandest words. Righteousness is one of them. It is not formalism, it is not morality. It is right living, with a pure heart as its source.
4. They are paths of mercy (Psa 25:10).
5. They are paths of plenty (Psa 65:11). What a struggle men have for mere existence! They rise early and sit up late and eat the bread of affliction. They have left the paths of the Lord. They have chased phantoms. They must endure for the time the fruit of their doings. Yet, notwithstanding these seeming exceptions, the precious promise abides (Psa 37:3).
6. They are paths of life (Pro 2:19). What a path that where Christ is the support of our steps, guide of our way, and the crown of our journeys end!
7. They are paths of peace (Pro 3:17; Isa 26:3). There is no peace but in the narrow way where God gives pardon and reconciliation.
8. They are His paths (Isa 2:3). It is not possible, in a spiritual sense, that God should give us anything and not give us Himself. Without Himself the graces of the Spirit are only names.
IV. How to find these paths.
1. By standing. How hard it is to stop and stand still and think and search!
2. By seeing. With open eyes we may see whether the path be an old path, whether it is macadamised with living truth, whether they who are upon it wear the livery of the Great King.
3. By asking. Men are ever ready to ask counsel in worldly things. Why not of God and His servants in regard to heavenly things? Ask, and ye shall receive.
4. By walking. Having used sight and tongue and thoughts, we are then to act. God has united faith and works, prayer and activity.
V. The promise to those who obey. Rest. (E. P. Ingersoll, D. D.)
Novelty in religion exploded
Novelty is a term which, when applied to man, always involves a degree of previous ignorance. The astronomer finds out new stars, the botanist new plants, the linguist new tongues, the geometrician new modes of proof and illustration, the politician new laws, the geographer new islands, the navigator new creeks, anchorages and havens, the tradesman new articles of commerce, the artificer and mechanic new methods of accomplishing the work of their hands. Each successive generation, in a civilised country especially, makes advancement on the experiments of the former. In religious matters, however, it is different. We am to expect no new Bible, no new ordinances, no new Messiah, no new discoveries in the substance of truth and piety, any more than we look for a new sun, moon, and seasons, in the institutions of nature. We allow, indeed, that in ourselves, as we pass from a state of unregeneracy to that of renewal, old things pass away, and all things become new; that in the progress of sanctification, there is a succession of discoveries, as we grow in knowledge and grace; that in the pursuit of schemes of usefulness, new modes of operation may be struck out; but as to all the rest, it is established by the Great Head of the Church to be subjected to no alteration until the time of the restitution of all things, when there shall be a new heaven and earth, etc.
I. Trace the good old way.
1. There is the way of theory. This will be found in its grand and essential elements in the Word of truth; for this is the chart or map in which the path is laid down in which the pious have walked from the beginning.
2. There is the way of experience, or the application of these truths to the mind by such an influence and in such a way as to render them living principles of activity and enjoyment. Repentance for sin, dependence, devotion, etc.
3. There is the way of practice; and this with regard to God and our fellow creatures.
II. Show what is your duty with respect to the path which has been described.
1. Primarily, to institute a serious, a deliberate and cautious inquiry, that you may ascertain whether you are in the right way. One grand reason why many who profess to make the inquiry What is truth? do not succeed, is, that they indulge in a light, trifling temper of mind, quite unsuited to the character of their avowed engagement, and highly offensive to God.
2. Steadily pursue the path you have ascertained to be right. Aim to be established, strengthened, settled on your most holy faith, and guard against that versatility which will be an effective preventive to sanctification, comfort, and usefulness. With walking we always connect the idea, not of habit only, but of progress. Your knowledge, your sacred virtues, your practical obedience should be always on the advance.
Conclusion–
1. The lamentable consequences of a refusal to walk in this way.
2. The inestimable advantages of walking in the good old way. (John Clayton.)
The old paths
Perhaps the chief danger attending modem progress is the neglect of antiquity. This does not apply to literature and art, but to science and religion. A man who aspires to excellence in letters or art must go on pilgrimage to the old paths, and having found them must abide in them. Take the single example of sculpture. What has been gained for this art in the advancement of later times? Nothing has been gained, but much lost which can never be recovered. The most celebrated work of recent artists in stone is little more than an imitation of the masterpieces of Athens executed between two and three thousand years ago. The hope of the learner in this profession is to stand in the old paths. With some qualifications the same is true of literature. The Greek and Roman classics are still our teachers; and there is no prospect of the immediate declension of their authority. No liberal education is supposed to be possible without the languages of antiquity and the compositions that adorn them. Scientific culture has been repaid by abundant fruit in recent years: but the losses sustained by science through our ignorance of antiquity are inconceivable. Students in science will be the first to acknowledge and deplore this loss. But while literature cannot neglect the old paths, and science is devoutly engaged in retracing her lost ways, religion is in imminent danger of drifting from her ancient landmarks. The peril I desire to point out is not new in the history of the Christian faith. There is something in his nature which makes a human being feel after a God; and this act of search would be far more likely to touch the object sought when the race was young, when the impressions received were new, uncorrupted by speculation, unfettered by tradition, than at this time when the race is old and our impressions of the self within us, and of surrounding nature, are unconsciously weighted and often made false by hereditary influences, and by misleading ideas that swarm about us in childhood and are the spring of errors which it is the most difficult task of education to discover and correct. This invariable tendency to look for truth and wisdom and goodness, not to the possibilities of the present, not even to the lessons of the immediate past, but to the records and traditions of a remote age, is a striking confirmation of the biblical history of mankind. That wistful looking back on the part of the nations is a pathetic sign that something is missing which once was ours when heaven and truth were nearer to this earth than they are now. When I bring these problems to the ancient ways of God that, setting out from the creation of man and following the race, converge upon Christ, I discover the clue that leads to their interpretation. The old paths ran into Christ. His attitude towards the men who flourished before Him was neither hostile nor independent. He spoke of them with reverence; He quoted their teaching in support of His own claims; He proved that that teaching when divided from Himself was not only incomplete, but in some cases had no meaning; that He, in fact, was the complement of the older wisdom. He dwelt not only with contemporaries, but in the old paths as the Illuminating Presence of the past. Before Abraham was, I am. He lighted up the parables of the sages; He harmonised prediction with history, and type with the fulfilling event or person. And as the old paths met in Christ–as He was the Way to which all other paths and ways led the traveller, not only thoroughfares defined and laid down in systems of law and belief, but irregular tracks made by earnest but wandering feet in search of the Highway; as He was the Truth, in which all moral intimations, ideas, and aspirations found their fulfilment and satisfaction; as He was the Life, in which all the nobler elements of the heart attained their highest purity and their perfect expression–so He is now the centre and resting place of all doctrine, of all inquiry, and of all faith. What will be the result of the attempt to make the New Testament a modern publication? We smooth a hardness here, we read in a meaning there, we hide the significance of this doctrine behind the assumed importance of that, on the plea of keeping the Book in touch with a scientific age. There will be no end to this recasting until we end the Bible itself. We share the conquests of science, and partake the renown of scientific men; but theirs is the truth of research, ours is the truth of revelation. Their conclusions are necessarily subject to revision; many of them perish outright; but the Word of our God abideth, and shall stand forever. (E. E. Jenkins, LL. D.)
The old paths
I. Excellent general advice. Stand, and see, and ask. I take these words to be a call to thought and consideration. Now, to set men thinking is one great object which every teacher of religion should always keep before him. Serious thought, in short, is one of the first steps towards heaven. There are but few, I suspect, who deliberately and calmly choose evil, refuse good, turn their back on God, and resolve to serve sin as sin. The most part are what they are because they began their present course without thought. They would not take the trouble to look forward and consider the consequences of their conduct. By thoughtless actions they created habits which have become second nature to them. They have got into a groove now, and nothing but a special miracle of grace will stop them. There are none, we must all be aware, who bring themselves into so much trouble by want of thinking as the young. Too often they choose in haste a wrong profession or business, and find after two or three years, that they have made an irretrievable mistake, and, if I may borrow a railway phrase, have got on the wrong line of rails. But the young are not the only persons who need the exhortation of the text in this day. It is preeminently advice for the times. Hurry is the characteristic of the age in which we live. On every side you see the many driving furiously, like Jehu, after business or politics. They seem unable to find time for calm, quiet, serious reflection about their souls and a world to come. Men and brethren, consider your ways. Beware of the infection of the times.
II. A particular direction. Ask for the old paths. We want a return to the old paths of our reformers. I grant they were rough workmen, and made some mistakes. They worked under immense difficulties, and deserve tender judgment and fair consideration. But they revived out of the dust grand foundation truths which had been long buried and forgotten. By embalming those truths in our Articles and Liturgy, by incessantly pressing them on the attention of our forefathers, they changed the whole character of this nation, and raised a standard of true doctrine and practice, which, after three centuries, is a power in the land, and has an insensible influence on English character to this very day. Can we mend these old paths? Novelty is the idol of the day. But I have yet to learn that all new views of religion are necessarily better than the old. It is not so in the work of mens hands. I doubt if this nineteenth century could produce an architect who could design better buildings than the Parthenon or Coliseum, or a mason who could rear fabrics which will last so long. It certainly is not so in the work of mens minds. Thucydides is not superseded by Macaulay, nor Homer by Milton. Why, then, are we to suppose that old theology is necessarily inferior to new? I ask boldly, What extensive good has ever been done in the world, except by the theology of the old paths? and I confidently challenge a reply. There never has been any spread of the Gospel, any conversion of nations or countries, any successful evangelistic work, excepting by the old-fashioned distinct doctrines of the early Christians and the reformers.
III. A precious promise. Ye shall find rest to your souls. Let it never be forgotten that rest of conscience is the secret want of a vast portion of mankind. The labouring and heavy laden are everywhere: they are a multitude that man can scarcely number; they are to be found in every climate and in every country under the sun. Everywhere you will find trouble, care, sorrow: anxiety, murmuring, discontent, and unrest. Did God create man at the beginning to be unhappy? Most certainly not. Are human governments to blame because men are not happy? At most to a very slight extent. The fault lies far too deep to be reached by human laws. Sin and departure from God are the true reasons why men are everywhere restless, labouring, and heavy laden. Sin is the universal disease which infects the whole earth. The rest that Christ gives in the old paths is an inward thing. It is rest of heart, rest of conscience, rest of mind, rest of affection, rest of will. (Bishop J. C. Ryle.)
Standing in the old paths
I. The dangers of judging of religion, without long and diligent examination. Happy would it be for the present age if men were distrustful of their own abilities.
II. The reasonableness of searching into antiquity, or of asking for the old paths. With regard to the order and government of the primitive Church, we may doubtless follow their authority with perfect security; they could not possibly be ignorant of laws executed, and customs practised, by themselves; nor would they, even supposing them corrupt, serve any interests of their own, by handing down false accounts to posterity. Nor is this the only, though perhaps the chief use of these writers; for, in matters of faith, and points of doctrine, those, at least, who lived in the ages nearest to the times of the apostles, undoubtedly deserve to be consulted. The oral doctrines, and occasional explications of the apostles, must have been treasured up in the memory of their audiences, and transmitted for some time from father to son.
III. The happiness which attends a well-grounded belief and steady practice of religion. Suspense and uncertainty distract the soul, disturb its motions, and retard its operations; while we doubt in what manner to worship God, there is great danger lest we should neglect to worship Him at all. There is a much closer connection between practice and speculation than is generally imagined. A man disquieted with scruples concerning any important article of religion, will, for the most part, find himself indifferent and cold, even to those duties which he practised before with the most active diligence and ardent satisfaction. Let him then ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and he shall find rest for his soul. (S. Johnson, LL. D.)
On the appeal to antiquity in matters of religion
The appeal to antiquity is worth your closest observation, as one which may as well be made in our own days as in those of the prophet Jeremiah. The paths which are to be sought for are the old paths, and it is their age which seems represented as giving them safety. Now it were quite idle to assert that this is in all cases a sound view, or that it will necessarily hold good when applied to the businesses and sciences of life. If we attempted, for example, to introduce into natural philosophy, the principle that the old paths are the best, we should only be urging men to travel back to a broad waste of ignorance, and to settle themselves once more in the crudest and most erroneous of opinions. We are quite ready with the like admission, in matters of civil polity. We hold unreservedly that nothing human can come to its perfection at once; and that whilst there are certain fundamental principles which can never be swerved from with safety, the determination of the best form of government for a community demands many successive experiments; so that one generation is not to hand down its institutions to the next, as not to be violated because not to be improved. The legacy of the fathers should be their experience, and that experience should be carried by the children as a new element into their political competitions. But the principle which applies not to sciences or governments may be applicable, without reservation, to religion. Religious truth is matter of revelation, and not therefore left to be searched out and determined by successive experiments; whereas truth of any other description is only to be come at by painful investigation; and until that investigation has been carried to the farthest possible limit, we have no right to claim such a fixedness for our positions, that those who come after us must receive them as irreversible. Yet we would not have it thought, that even in matters of religion, we yield unqualified submission to the voice of antiquity. We hold that there is room for discovery, strictly and properly so called in theology, as well as in astronomy or chemistry. We ourselves must necessarily be more advantageously circumstanced than any of our fathers, when the matter in question is the fulfilment of prophecy. Prophecy is of course nothing but anticipated history; and the further on, therefore, we live, in the march of those occurrences which are to make up the story of our globe and its tenants, the more power have we to find the foretold in the fulfilled, and thus to lessen the amount of unaccomplished prediction. Now when this exception has been made, we do not hesitate to apply our text to the disclosures of revelation, and to assert that in all disputes upon doctrines, and in all debates upon creeds, it is the part of wise men to appeal to antiquity.
1. When we speak of antiquity, we refer to Christianity in its young days, whilst the Church was still warm with her first love, and her teachers were but little removed from those who had held intercourse with Christ and His apostles. It is in this manner, for example, that we introduce the authority of antiquity into the question of infant baptism. Unless apostles baptised infants, and unless they taught that infants were to be received into the Church, it seems well-nigh incredible that those who lived near their times, and must have obtained instruction almost from their very lips, should have adopted the custom of infant baptism. We would advance another illustration of the worth of the witness of antiquity, and we fetch it from a fundamental matter of doctrine. We believe, undoubtedly, that the Bible is adapted to all ages of the world and all ranks of society; and that the Spirit which indited it, is as ready now, as in the early days of Christianity, to act as its interpreter and open up its truths. We are assured, therefore, that the sublime doctrine of the Trinity, if it, indeed, be contained in the Word of inspiration, will be made known to every prayerful and diligent student; and that there will need no acquaintance with the creeds or the commentaries of primitive Christians, in order to the apprehending of this grand discovery of the nature of Godhead. But, at the same time, when all kinds of opinions are broached, diametrically at variance with the doctrine of the Trinity, and men labour to devise and support interpretations of Scripture which shall quite overthrow this foundation stone of Christianity, we count it of no mean worth, that in writings which have come down to us from days just succeeding the apostolic, we can find the Trinity in unity as broadly asserted, and as clearly defined, as in any of the treatises which now professedly undertake its defence. Now you will understand, from these instances, the exact use of antiquity, in matters of religion; and the sense in which it may fairly be expected that the old paths are the right. Where was your religion till Luther arose? is the question broached in every dispute between the Romish Church and the Reformed. The Romish Church prides itself on being the old Church, and reproaches the Reformed with being the new. And we admit, in all frankness, that if the Romish Church made good its pretensions–if it could win for itself the praise of antiquity, and fix fairly on the Protestant newness, Popery would gain an almost unassailable position; for we are inclined to hold it as little less than an axiom in religion, that the oldest Christianity is the best. But we are quite ready to meet the Roman Catholic on the ground of antiquity; and to decide the goodness by deciding the oldness of our paths. We contend, that whatever is held in common by the two Churches may be proved from Scripture, and shown to have been maintained by the earliest Christians; but that everything received by the Romish and rejected by the Protestant, can neither be substantiated by the Bible, nor sanctioned by the practice of the primitive Church.
2. There is not one amongst you, who ought not to know something of this appeal to antiquity. We may make the like assertion in regard to the Christian Sabbath. If asked for our authority for keeping holy the first day of the week, in place of the seventh, you cannot produce a direct scriptural command; but we are in possession of such clear proof, that the apostles and their immediate successors made the first day their Sabbath, that we may claim to the observance all the force of Divine institution. This, however, we must all see, is employing the practice of antiquity where we have not a distinct precept of Scripture; in other words, we prove the right paths by proving the old paths. We are not, indeed, able to appeal to primitive Christians, and to show you this union of Church or State as being sanctioned by apostolical practice. Of course, until the rulers of the kingdom embraced the faith of Christ (and this was not of early occurrence), Christianity could not become established. But, as Milner observes, from the earliest ages of patriarchal government, when holy men were favoured with a Divine revelation, governors taught the true religion, and did not permit their subjects to propagate atheism, idolatry, or false religion. There was, as under the Jewish constitution, an unquestionable authority which the magistrates possessed in ecclesiastical regulations: so that union between Church and State, in place of being novel, can be traced up almost from the beginning of the world. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The old paths
I. The denomination.
1. Old paths. Way of–
(1) Obedience.
(2) Worship.
(3) Piety.
2. Old, because–
(1) Ordained from eternity.
(2) Herein all the saints haw walked.
(3) Tried, and found pleasant and profitable.
II. The despot. Good way.
1. A path may be old, yet not good; this is both.
2. When may a path be called good?
(1) When safe.
(2) Direct.
(3) Frequented.
(4) Pleasant.
(5) Firm and passable.
III. The directions. They who seek this path should bell.
1. Cautious in their observations.
2. Earnest in their inquiries.
3. Prompt in entering thereon.
IV. The destination.
1. In the journey many blessings of rest will be enjoyed, as contentment, satisfaction, cheerfulness, security.
2. Afterwards there will be fulness of rest: the path leads to eternal repose, happiness, glory. (Sermon Framework.)
The good old path
Men are travellers. No continuing city here; no rest. Days upon earth but a shadow; none abiding. Must go on–from earth, with its cares and sorrows and privileges and joys–either to heaven or hell.
I. A solemn exhortation.
1. We should ascertain what path we are walking in. Men do not think enough about spiritual things. Many a poor misguided traveller would enter the right path and obtain eternal life if he gave heed to the things which make for his peace.
(1) This examination of the path should be made immediately. Not a moment to be lost. Next step may plunge you in some deadly pit.
(2) This examination should be made faithfully. Not superficially. Our being different from those around us is not enough, for we may still be wrong. Must bring our conduct and habits of life to the standard of Gods Word, and compare them with that.
(3) This examination should be made prayerfully. It is useless for us to make it in our own strength or wisdom; but, influenced and guided by the Spirit of Christ, we cannot err.
2. We must not only ascertain if our way be wrong, but inquire for the right path.
(1) It is here termed the old path. The way of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, good and holy of every clime and age. The everlasting Gospel has existed from eternity.
(2) It is to be sought out. Eternity depends on the issue.
3. Having found the right path, we are to walk in it. Knowledge alone is not sufficient; there must be practical application of it.
II. A gracious promise.
1. The rest promised is of the highest kind. For the soul. The soul requires it. Burdened with sin; filled with feverish anxiety; like a ship tossed on a troubled sea.
2. This rest can be bestowed by God alone. It is the fruit of our union with Him, the result of our being His dear children.
3. In what does it consist? In our being forgiven; in our being conscious of the Divine favour; in our having the Spirit of Christ in our souls; in our dependence upon the promises. (H. B. Ingrain.)
The good old way
I. The nature of the old way from which adam so fatally swerved, and all his descendants with him.
1. The way of self-denial. As this principle involves resistance to temptation, control of temper and overthrow of natural inclinations and habits, it is necessarily an important ingredient of true religion; from the nature of the case, from the bare fact of its being amenable to the superior will of the Almighty, an indispensable requisite of finite perfection in all instances whatsoever.
2. The way of implicit dependence upon God. Until the foul spirit of restless discontent took possession of his breast Adam was sufficed to rest and rely for everything upon the wisdom, power, love and benignity of Him who created him content to know no more than what He taught him, and to exercise his mental faculties and reasoning powers in entire subordination to his Superiors wish, questioning nothing, but taking everything as perfect that came from Him. The knowledge, service and worship of God were the objects of all he thought, saw, or did. Beyond them there was nothing he eared to desire or know.
3. The way of humility. Knowledge says St. Paul, puffeth up, but charity edifieth. What knowledge? Not the chastened, subdued, heaven-taught and heaven-tempered wisdom which guided the soul and enlarged the understanding of Adam before he fell, but that meretricious counterfeit of it–that now delusive light, whose pride-awakening, man-flattering beams, brought first to bear on his foolish heart by the arch destroyer at the fall, allured him to his destruction.
II. How we may obey the command of the text in returning to this way. Whoever in earnest desires to recover his lost innocence, and the forfeited favour of his Creator, and to return to that better land, that state of ineffable bliss and purity, which was the original birthright of us all, are taught in the Gospel of the grace of God that the first step in that direction is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners; which is nothing else than that filial trust or confidence we have already mentioned as displayed by Adam before he fell.
III. The necessity and advantage, as well as duty, of obeying the advice given in the text. (S. H. Simpson.)
The respect due to antiquity
It has been well said by Lord Bacon, that the antiquity of past ages is the youth of the world–and therefore it is an inversion of the right order, to look for greater wisdom in some former generation than there should be in our present day. The time in which we now live, says he, is properly the ancient time, because now the world is ancient; and not that time which we call ancient, when we look in a retrograde direction, and by a computation backward from ourselves. There must be a delusion, then, in that homage which is given to the wisdom of antiquity, as d it bore the same superiority over the wisdom of the present times, which the wisdom of an old does over that of a young man. It is in vain to talk of Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle. Only grant that there may still be as many good individual specimens of humanity as before; and a Socrates now, with all the additional lights which have sprung up in the course of intervening centuries to shine upon his understanding, would be a greatly wiser man than the Socrates of two thousand years ago. But however important thus to reduce the deference that is paid to antiquity; and with whatever grace and propriety it has been done by him who stands at the head of the greatest revolution in philosophy.
we shall incur the danger of running into most licentious waywardness, if we receive not the principle, to which I have now adverted, with two modifications. Our first modification is, that though, in regard to all experimental truth, the world should be wiser now than it was centuries ago, this is the fruit not of our contempt or our heedlessness in regard to former ages, but the fruit of our most respectful attention to the lessons which their history affords. We do right in not submitting to the dictation of antiquity; but that is no cause why we should refuse to be informed by her–for this were throwing us back again to the worlds infancy, like the second childhood of him whom disease had bereft of all his recollections. And so, again, in the language of Bacon, Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand thereupon, and discover what is the best way; but when the discovery is well taken then to make progression. But there is a second modification, which, in the case of a single individual of the species, it is easy to understand, and which we shall presently apply to the whole species. We may conceive of a man, that, after many years of vicious indulgence, he is at once visited by the lights of conscience and memory; and is enabled to contrast the dislike, and the dissatisfaction, and the dreariness of heart, which now prey on the decline of his earthly existence, with all the comparative innocence which gladdened its hopeful and happy morning. As he bethinks him of his early home, of the piety which flourished there, and that holy atmosphere in which he was taught to breathe with kindred aspirations, he cannot picture to himself the bliss and the beauty of such a scene, mellowed as it is by distance, and mingled with the dearest recollections of parents, and sisters, and other kindred now mouldering in the dust, he cannot recall for a moment this fond, though faded imagery, without sighing in the bitterness of his heart, after the good old way. Now, what applies to one individual may apply to the species. In a prolonged course of waywardness, they may have wandered very far from the truth of heaven. And after, perhaps, a whole dreary millennium of guilt and of darkness, may some gifted individual arise, who can look athwart the gloom, and descry the purer and the better age of Scripture light which lies beyond it. And as he compares all the errors and the mazes of that vast labyrinth into which so many generations had been led by the jugglery of deceivers, with that simple but shining path which conducts the believer unto glory, let us wonder not that the aspiration of his pious and patriotic heart should be for the good old way. We now see wherein it is that the modern might excel the ancient. In regard to experimental truth, he can be as much wiser than his predecessors, as the veteran and the observant sage is wiser than the unpractised stripling, to whom the world is new, and who has yet all to learn of its wonders and of its ways. The voice that is now emitted from the schools, whether of physical or of political science, is the voice of the worlds antiquity. The voice emitted from the same schools, in former ages, was the voice of the worlds childhood, which then gave forth in lisping utterance the conceits and the crudities of its young unchastened speculation. But in regard to things not experimental, in regard even to taste, or to imagination, or to moral principle, as well as to the stable and unchanging lessons of Divine truth, there is no such advancement. For the perfecting of these, we have not to wait the slow processes of observation and discovery, handed down from one generation to another. They address themselves more immediately to the spirits eye; and just as in the solar light of day, our forefathers saw the whole of visible creation as perfectly as we–so in the lights, whether of fancy, or of conscience, or of faith, they may have had as just and vivid a perception of natures beauties; or they may have had as ready a discrimination, and as religious a sense of all the proprieties of life; or they may have had a veneration as solemn, and an acquaintance as profound, with the mysteries of revelation, as the men of our modern and enlightened day. And, accordingly, we have as sweet or sublime an eloquence, and as transcendent a poetry, and as much both of the exquisite and noble in all the fine arts, and a morality as delicate and dignified; and, to crown the whole, as exulted and as informed a piety in the remoter periods of the world, as among ourselves, to whom the latter ends of the world have come. In respect of these, we are not on higher vantage-ground than many of the generations that have gone by. But neither are we on lower vantage ground. We have access to the same objects. We are in possession of the same faculties. And, if between the age in which we live, and some bright and bygone era, there should have intervened the deep and the long-protracted haze of many centuries, whether of barbarism in taste, or of profligacy in morals, or of superstition in Christianity, it will only heighten, by comparison, to our eyes, the glories of all that is excellent; and if again awakened to light and to liberty, it will only endear the more to our hearts the good old way. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
Steadfastness in the old paths
In what respect should we follow old times? Now here there is this obvious maxim–what God has given us from heaven cannot be improved, what man discovers for himself does admit of improvement: we follow old times then so far as God has spoken in them; but in those respects in which God has not spoken in them, we are not bound to follow them. Now knowledge connected merely with this present world, we have been left to acquire for ourselves. How we may till our lands and increase our crops; how we may build our houses, and buy and sell and get gain; how we may cross the sea in ships; how we may make fine linen for the merchant, or, like Tubal-Cain, be artificers in brass and iron: as to these objects of this world, necessary indeed for the time, not lastingly important, God has given us no clear instruction. Here then we have no need to follow the old ways. Besides, in many of these arts and pursuits, there is really neither right nor wrong at all; but the good varies with times and places. Each country has its own way, which is best for itself, and bad for others. Again, God has given us no authority in questions of science. If we wish to boast ,bout little matters, we know more about the motions of the heavenly bodies than Abraham, whose seed was in number as the stars; we can measure the earth, and fathom the sea, and weigh the air, more accurately than Moses, the inspired historian of the creation; and we can discuss the varied inhabitants of this earth better than Solomon. But let us turn to that knowledge which God has given, and which therefore does not admit of improvement by lapse of time; this is religious knowledge. God taught Adam how to please Him, and Noah, and Abraham, and Job. He has taught every nation all over the earth sufficiently for the moral training of every individual. In all these cases, the worlds part of the work has been to pervert the truth, not to disengage it from obscurity. The new ways are the crooked ones. The nearer we mount up to the time of Adam, or Noah, or Abraham, or Job, the purer light of truth we gain; as we recede from it we meet with superstitions, fanatical excesses, idolatries, and immoralities. So again in the case of the Jewish Church, since God expressly gave them a precise law, it is clear man could not improve upon it; he could but add the traditions of men. Lastly, in the Christian Church, we cannot add or take away, as regards the doctrines that are contained in the inspired volume, as regards the faith once delivered to the saints. Other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ (1Co 3:11). But it may be said that, though the Word of God is an infallible rule of faith, yet it requires interpreting, and why, as time goes on, should we not discover in it more than we at present know on the subject of religion and morals? But this is hardly a question of practical importance to us as individuals; for in truth a very little knowledge is enough for teaching a man his duty: and, since Scripture is intended to teach us our duty, surely it was never intended as a storehouse of mere knowledge. Little knowledge is required for religious obedience. The poor and rich, the learned and unlearned, are here on a level. We have all of us the means of doing our duty; we have not the will, and this no knowledge can give. We have need to subdue our own minds, and this no other person can do for us. Practical religious knowledge is a personal gift, and, further, a gift from God; and, therefore, as experience has hitherto shown, more likely to be obscured than advanced by the lapse of time. But further, we know of the existence of an evil principle in the world, corrupting and resisting the truth in its measure, according to the truths clearness and purity. Our Saviour, who was the truth itself, was the most spitefully entreated of all by the world. It has been the case with His followers too. The purer and more valuable the gift which God bestows, far from this being a security for the truths abiding and advancing, rather the more grievously has been the gift abused (1Jn 2:18; 2Ti 3:13). Such is the case as regards the knowledge of our duty,–that kind of knowledge which alone is really worth earnest seeking. And there is an important reason why we should acquiesce in it;–because the conviction that things are so has no slight influence in forming our minds into that perfection of the religious character at which it is our duty ever to be aiming. While we think it possible to make some great and important improvements in the subject of religion, we shall be unsettled, restless, impatient; we shall be drawn from the consideration of improving ourselves, and from using the day while it is given us, by the visions of a deceitful hope, which promises to make rich but tendeth to penury. On the other hand, as we cease to be theorists we shall become practical men; we shall have less of self-confidence and arrogance, more of inward humility and diffidence; we shall be less likely to despise others, and think of our own intellectual powers with less complacency. It is one great peculiarity of the Christians character to be dependent; to be willing to serve, and to rejoice in the permission; to be able to view himself in a subordinate place; to love to sit in the dust. To his ears the words of the text are as sweet music: Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, etc. The history of the old dispensation affords us a remarkable confirmation of what has been argued; for in the time of the law there was an increase of religious knowledge by fresh revelations. From the time of Samuel especially to the time of Malachi, the Church was bid look forward for a growing illumination, which, though not necessary for religious obedience, subserved the establishment of religious comfort. Now, observe how careful the inspired prophets of Israel are to prevent any kind of disrespect being shown to the memory of former times, on account of that increase of religious knowledge with which the later ages were favoured; and if such reverence for the past were a duty among the Jews when the Saviour was still to come, much more is it the duty of Christians. Now, as to the reverence enjoined and taught the Jews towards persons and times past, we may notice first the commandment given them to honour and obey their parents and elders. This, indeed, is a natural law. But that very circumstance surely gives force to the express and repeated injunctions given them to observe it, sanctioned too (as it was) with a special promise. But, further, to bind them to the observance of this duty, the past was made the pledge of the future, hope was grounded upon memory; all prayer for favour sent them back to the old mercies of God. The Lord hath been mindful of us, He will bless us; this was the form of their humble expectation. Lastly, as Moses directed the eyes of his people towards the line of prophets which the Lord their God was to raise up from among them, ending in the Messiah, they in turn dutifully exalt Moses, whose system they were superseding. Samuel, David, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, each in succession, bear testimony to Moses. Oh, that we had duly drunk into this spirit of reverence and godly fear. Doubtless we are far above the Jews in our privileges; we are favoured with the news of redemption; we know doctrines, which righteous men of old time earnestly desired to be told, and were not. Yet our honours are our shame, when we contrast the glory given us with our love of the world, our fear of men, our lightness of mind, our sensuality, our gloomy tempers. What need have we to look with wonder and reverence at those saints of the old covenant, who with less advantages yet so far surpassed us; and still more at those of the Christian Church, who both had higher gifts of grace and profited by them! (J. H. Newman, D. D.)
Religion an ancient path, and a good way
I. The instructive view given of religion.
1. It is an ancient path. The Gospel is coeval with the Fall. All the Mosaic rites and ceremonies were typical of the blessings of the Gospel dispensation, and taught the faithful worshipper to look forward to the Saviour.
2. It is a good way.
(1) This is the way which God Himself, of His infinite wisdom and goodness, hath marked out for us.
(2) Those who walk in it may expect all necessary guidance and direction.
(3) In wisdoms way we have the best of company.
(4) It will afford the purest pleasure, as we advance in it, and will infallibly conduct us to perfect and endless happiness and glory.
II. The duty enjoined.
1. We are to use every endeavour to become acquainted with the ways of religion.
(1) If we are accountable beings, what shall we think of those who seem to have formed a resolution to banish serious reflection from their minds; who plunge themselves into vice, dissipate themselves in pleasure, in vanity, and in every trifle that strikes their imagination; and devote themselves to those things, body and soul, without ever stopping to consider what they are doing, whither they are going, and what the consequences must be of their madness and folly!
(2) To self-reflection we add reflection on the Word of God.
(a) The way therein marked out is a way of holiness and purity.
(b) The superior excellence of the Scriptures, as a rule of life, will be still further evident if we consider their high authority.
2. Our knowledge must be reduced to practice; when we have found the good way, we must walk in it.
(1) We should immediately enter upon a religious course, after due information concerning it.
(2) We should proceed in a religious course with the greatest care and circumspection.
(3) We should endeavour to make continual progress in a religious course.
3. It is our duty to persevere in a religious course, it will not answer a travellers purpose, who has a necessary journey before him, to proceed a little way in it, and then give over, or take a different path that leads a contrary way. So, in the ways of religion, he, and he only, who holds out to the end shall be saved.
III. The import of the gracious promise, by which the duty here enjoined is recommended and enforced. The rest here promised consists–
1. In our being delivered from those uneasy doubts and anxieties of mind which arise from an uncertainty as to the way in which we ought to go.
2. Those who walk in the good way of religion find rest to their souls, as they are thereby delivered from the great cause of inward uneasiness–the sense of unpardoned guilt; or, in other words, from the terrors of an accusing conscience.
3. They who walk in the ways of religion find rest to their souls, as they are thereby delivered from those sources of disquietude which spring from sinful and unruly passions.
4. This good way infallibly conducts those who walk in it to uninterrupted and everlasting happiness in the world to come. (James Ross, D. D.)
Reverence for the old things
Jeremiah was the most unpopular of the prophets. First because he was somewhat of a pessimist, uttering predictions which the events proved true enough, but which were painted in too gloomy colours to suit the tastes of the people. Secondly, because he never flattered. And a third, and even greater, reason for the dislike, was that they regarded him as old-fashioned, out of date, an antiquated, obsolete old fogey, with his eyes behind. He was always harping on the old times when people lived simple lives and feared God. And the people sneered at him as a sort of fossil, as a man who had been born a century too late. The people had a disease upon them which might be called Egyptomania. They wanted to form a close alliance with Egypt, and to adopt all their modes of life, their dress, furniture, luxuries, self-indulgences, political ideas, military system, laws, morals, and religion. There was to be a clean sweep made of all that Israel had loved and believed in and by taking heathen Egypt as a model they would speedily attain to Egypts greatness and splendour. This was the craze against which the prophet set himself, and protested in vain. For there are times when a people are determined to destroy themselves. Are the old paths always Divine, and the new ways always as dangerous as this prophet thought them? The answer has to be qualified, and there are more answers than one. The Bible does not always speak in the same voice about it. If Jeremiah looked back with lingering affection, St. Paul, who had seen the higher truth in Christ, had his eyes in front, and advised us to forget the things which are behind. And a greater than Paul has told us that every wise man will bring out of his treasury things new and old. The man who sneers at everything which is old, and fancies that wisdom always wears a brand new face, has precious little of the latter article himself. The alphabet and the simple rules of arithmetic are as ancient as an Egyptian mummy, but they are not out of date yet. We still need some of the things which Noah and Abraham prized. On the other hand, the man who sets his face against everything new is shutting his eyes to the light.
I. To bind ourselves to the old paths is, for us at least, in many things impossible. We live in the midst of rapid movement and change, and we are carried along by it in spite of ourselves. And if we could do it, it would be paralysing. It would be the end of all healthy life and action. It is the distinguishing feature of Christian nations to be forever casting off the old and putting on the new. It is a dead religion which stands still and makes men stand still. The spirit of life in Christ Jesus urges the world on, away from a dead past nearer to the golden age which is to be. I hardly dare bring before you the things which are going on in China. And it all comes from a blind, brutal, obstinate clinging to the old paths. The world moves on, and the Chinese refuse to move. God in His mercy has brought us out of all that, and given us eyes to see that through the ages one unceasing purpose runs, and the minds of men are widened with the process of the suns. There are a hundred things in nearly every department of life which we do and know and understand better than our fathers. We should never dream of going back in science, machinery, politics, government, freedom of thought and speech, or in religion.
II. To forsake all the old paths is a folly quite as blind and self-destructive as to cling to them all. Wisdom was not born in the present century. It dwelt with God before the foundation of the world, and He gave some of it to men who lived thousands of years before our time. We are cleverer than the ancients in some things, but not in all. The Greek thinkers were superior to the best thinkers of today. We could not now produce such books as Plato wrote, and the Hebrew prophets and psalmists put all our cleverest writers into the shade. We cannot build temples as the men of old built. We cannot paint pictures or carve statues or create things of beauty as they did. We have no Homers and Virgils, Dantes, Miltons, Shakespeares, Bunyans. In moral and religious things many of those greatest men were far in advance of our best, and we can only reach some of their excellence by learning of them and treading in the old paths. In fact, in the greatest things of life the old ways are the everlasting ways, and the only ways of safety. They have stood the test of time. For the momentous questions of morality and righteousness, worship and reverence, sin and human need, God and immortality, spiritual mysteries and things unseen, we have still to sit like children at the feet of those giants of faith, those great souls from Moses to St. Paul, who walked with God and spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. We cannot dispense with the Ten Commandments yet. And as for the Sermon on the Mount, its very perfection is our despair. If you want to find the highest types of manhood, you will stand rather in the old paths than the new; you will look back rather than around you. If we want to know what sin is, we must go to the Bible and the Cross of Jesus Christ, and not to the modem ideas, which often make light of sin and treat it as irresponsible disease. If we want to learn the depth of penitence we must go to the soul-stricken David or the weeping Peter. And if we would see light beyond the grave we must go all that way back and stand with the women and the disciples before an open sepulchre. Yes, and perhaps above all things, if we would learn how to live and love, to endure and to hope, to suffer and to die, it is only in the old Bible paths that we can get the lesson. The new lights will show us how to get money faster, and to make life smoother and more comfortable, but they will not help us to be brave in difficulties, patient in cross bearing, and fearless in the hour of death. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.)
The Jesus way
You must not be discouraged, said a Kiowa Indian, if we Indians come slow. It is a long road for us to leave our old Indian ways, and we have to think a great deal; but I am sure that all the Indian people will come into the Jesus road for I see that these white Jesus people are here to help us, and I thank them for coming. Tell the Christian people to pray for us. We are ignorant, but we want to be led aright, that we may come into the Jesus road. The quaint Indian expressions are very suggestive. It is indeed a long road to leave our old ways; and when we feel that we are safe in the Jesus road, we should take time to ask ourselves if we are sure we are treading it as we should, if we are sure we are not walking in some path that seems to run parallel with it, but which in reality is leading us farther and farther away. (Christian Age.)
Ye shall find rest for your souls.—
Soul rest
It is the distinguishing mark of the good and old way that in it men find rest for their souls. You may judge between the true Gospel and the false, between that which is of God and that which is of man, by this one test. As by their fruits ye shall know them, so by this one fruit among the rest: Does it bring rest into the soul? If not, it is not of God; but if it brings a clear, sure, true, honest rest into the soul, then it cometh of standing in the good way. Remember that rest was the promise of the Saviour. Come unto Me–not to anything else, but unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I–Myself personally–will give you rest But what next? Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, and ye shall find rest–that is another rest, still deeper, which you find in service. Oh, what a blessed Saviour we follow, who everywhere giveth us rest! Rest is enjoyed by believers now. But you will never find it anywhere else; as in no other form of religion, so in no other form of pursuit. If you follow wealth you will not find rest there. I spoke some time ago with a gentleman whom I believed to own more than a million, and I ventured to say that I should think after a man had got a million, it would not be worth while to have any more, because he could not get through that lot. Ah, he said, I did not know; and, truly, I did not know; but yet I knew enough to perceive that if a man had a million millions he would not be content. And if you go in for health and pursue that with all diligence, as you might readily do, yet even in the best health there is no rest. It is a noble gift; they who lose it know how precious it is; but there is no rest in that. And as in honour, or any earthly thing, of themselves they are the occasion of disquiet; they often are a seed plot wherein thorns grow that pierce us. But there is rest in Jesus, there is rest in a solid, simple faith in Him, but there is no rest anywhere else.
I. In thy good way we find rest, if we walk therein.
1. There is the way of pardon by an atonement. What a rest that brings to the conscience! A crushed conscience is but an echo of a truth. There is that in the nature of God and in the necessity of things, of which the conscience is but a faint echo, and when your conscience tells you sin must be punished, it tells you the truth; there is no escape from that necessity, and because Jesus suffered in our room and stead here is a glorious gate of salvation, but there is no other. So the way of pardon by an atonement gives rest to the conscience.
2. The way of believing the Word of God as being inspired of God, and being our authoritative guide, is a great rest to the understanding, But do you understand it all? No, sir, I do not; I do not want to. I want to love a great deal more, but I do not care so much about growing in that particular direction of finding out riddles and being able to thread the spheres. But if I could love my Lord better, and be more like Him, I would be happy. Well, but you do not understand it, and yet you believe it. Yes, I do; I find it is such a great thing to move my little bark side by side with a great rock, so high that I cannot see the top of it, because then I know I shall be sweetly sheltered there. Well, it is almost as good not to know as it is to know about a great many things, and sometimes better not to know, because then you can adore and consider that when faith bows before the majesty of an awful mystery she pays to God such homage as cherubim and seraphim pay Him before His throne.
3. There is a way which Christians learn of trusting their affairs with God which gives a general rest to their minds. You see, if you are truly a Christian you have not got anything, you have given it all to the Lord. Cannot you therefore trust Him with it? And pray which part of your business would you like to manage yourself? Mark it off and then make a black mark against it, for you will have no end of mischief and trouble there. Oh, happy is that man who leaves everything, soul and body, entirely in the hands of God, and is content with His Divine will.
4. The way of obedience to the Lord gives rest to the soul. He that believes in Jesus obeys Jesus. Oh, if you do right and stand fast in your integrity you shall wear that little herb called heart-ease, and he that weareth that is more happy than a king! and if you can go home at night, and that little bird in your bosom, called conscience, can sweetly sing to you that you have done a right thing, you shall rest in peace. And, mark you, even as to temporal things in the long run you shall be no loser; but if you should be, you will count it an honour to lose for Christs sake and for the right, and in the end, if you lose silver you shall gain gold. The way of obedience to Divine command gives rest to the soul.
5. The way of close communion with Christ is a way of profound rest unto the soul. Once get to be in Him, and to abide in Him, let your communion with Him be unbroken day after day, month after month, and year after year, and ye shall find rest unto your soul.
II. The rest which is found by walking in the good way is good for the soul.
1. There is a rest which rusts and injures the soul; but Gospel rest is of a very peculiar kind; it brings satisfaction, but it never verges on self-satisfaction. Oh, to be satisfied in Christ Jesus! Full, and therefore craving to be fuller; fed, and therefore hungering to have more.
2. Next, the rest that comes with Christ is a sense of safety, but it is not a sense of presumption. The man that is most safe in Christ is just the man that would not run any risks whatever. Secure, but not carnally secure; in safety, but not presumptuous.
3. This blessed rest creates content, but it also excites a desire of progress. The man that is perfectly content to be saved in Christ Jesus is also very anxious to grow in grace.
4. He that rests in God is also delivered from all legal fears, but he is supplied with superior motives for holiness. The fear of hell and the hope of heaven are poor motives to effort; but to feel I cannot be lost; the blood of Christ is between me and the everlasting fire; I am bound for the everlasting kingdom, and by the certainties of the Divine promise as a believer I shall never be ashamed.
III. Rest of this kind ought to be enjoyed now by every Christian. It is enjoyed by many of us, and it is a grievous error when it is not the case with all real Christians. Some of you say: I trust I am a Christian, but I do not get much of this rest. It is your own fault. I will tell you one thing, though–you would find more rest if you walked in the middle of the way. The best walking to heaven is in the middle of the road; on either side where the hedges are there is a ditch as well. I do not care to go to heaven along the ditch, on the outside of the road. Have you never heard the American story of a gentleman who invited a friend up to his orchard to come and eat some of his apples–he had such exquisite apples? But though he invited his friend several times, he never came. At last he said: I wish you would come and taste my fruit–it is wonderful, just in perfection now. He said: Well, to tell you the truth! have tasted it, and I was ill after it. Well, said he, how came that about? Well, as I was riding along I picked up an apple that fell over into the road. Oh, dear, he said, you do not understand it. I went miles to buy that peculiar sort of apple to put round the edge of the orchard; that was for the boys, so that after they had once tasted that particular apple they might not think of coming any farther. But if you will go into the orchard you will find I have a very different sort of fruit inside. Now, do you know that round the margin of religion the trees of repentance and so forth grow–that fruit not over sweet to some palates. Oh, but if you would come inside, but if you would come into the very centre, what joy you would have! Surely, Christians, you have reason enough for delight. What a happy religion that is in which pleasure is a precept! Rejoice in the Lord always is as much a command as Thou shalt keep the Sabbath day. Remember that, and do pray God that you may get into the very middle of the road, know you are there, and keep there year after year by Divine grace, for then you shall find rest unto your souls. Well, then, this rest ought to be enjoyed now. We ought to throw aside these anxious cares of ours; if we do not, in what respect are we better than worldlings? An excursion to heaven is the best relief from the cares of earth, and you may soon be there. Last night a friend living in Colombo, Ceylon, said, Oh, it is a beautiful place to live in. Although it is very hot where we live, yet in a few hours we get up in the eternal snows where we shall be as cool as we wish. That is just what we are here. It is very hot: the cares and trials of life often parch us, but in five minutes we can be up there in the hill country, and behold the face of Him we love. Why do we not oftener go there? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The bugle call to rest
In nothing has God consulted economy less than in the provision He has made to guard us from danger; and the Divine solicitude to rescue us from ruin is strongly contrasted with our perpetual propensity to rush into it. In the moral constitution of the mind, also, the safeguards against danger are no less remarkable than the provisions for enjoyment. Why is conscience made so acutely wakeful and sensitive, but with a view to guard us against the first approaches of sin? Why is memory made so tenaciously to treasure up the results of past experience and failure, but to repress that inconsiderate eagerness which would hurry us on to ruin? In the Bible God has preeminently placed the strongest guards on the side of danger.
I. The attractive view of religion furnished in this one word rest. God might have made religion a state of penance and bondage, and it would still have been such had we been suffered to escape so as by fire. Instead of this, tie clothes His religion with attractiveness and tenderness.
1. It brings rest to the understanding by the truths it reveals.
2. It brings rest to the conscience by the pardon it imparts.
3. It brings rest by revealing an adequate object on which the affections can repose. The tendency of irreligion is to dishonour and degrade our nature, by confining us to the world and to time; that of real religion is to exalt and ennoble the mind by connecting us with God and eternity. The one leaves us to mourn, with orphaned heart; the other brings God before us as the object most worthy of our affections, and able to meet and satisfy the vast capacities of happiness which His own kindness has originated.
II. Causes of the rejection of religion by the worldly and inconsiderate.
1. A false estimate of themselves and of the evil and danger to which, in consequence of sin, they are exposed.
2. The unsuspected influence of evil habits, and the progressive and hardening tendency of uurepented sin. As Jeremy Taylor puts it: Vice first is pleasing, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed; then the man is impenitent, then he is obstinate, then he resolves never to repent, and then he dies.
3. The injurious and delusive results of a false and formal profession of religion. Despair is a near neighbour of presumption. The system which is founded in fraud must end in delusion. It fails to satisfy, as it fails to sanctify.
4. Because the period is extremely short in which the voice of God, as a Saviour, can be heard at all. Mercy is like the rainbow which God set in the clouds to remember mankind. It shines here as long as it is not hindered; but we must never look for it after it is night. (Homiletic Magazine.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see] Let us observe the metaphor. A traveller is going to a particular city; he comes to a place where the road divides into several paths, he is afraid of going astray; he stops short, – endeavours to find out the right path: he cannot fix his choice. At last he sees another traveller; he inquires of him, gets proper directions – proceeds on his journey – arrives at the desired place – and reposes after his fatigue. There is an excellent sermon on these words in the works of our first poet, Geoffrey Chaucer; it is among the Canterbury Tales, and is called Chaucer’s Tale. The text, I find, was read by him as it appears in my old MS. Bible: – Standith upon weies and seeth, and asketh of the olde pathes; What is the good weie? and goth in it, and gee schul fynden refresching to your soulis. The soul needs rest; it can only find this by walking in the good way. The good way is that which has been trodden by the saints from the beginning: it is the old way, the way of faith and holiness. BELIEVE, LOVE, OBEY; be holy, and be happy. This is the way; let us inquire for it, and walk in it. But these bad people said, We will not walk in it. Then they took another way, walked over the precipice, and fell into the bottomless pit; where, instead of rest, they find –
____________ a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur, unconsumed.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Having told the false prophets their doom, he now turns his speech to the people, and gives them counsel; for he rather propounds than commands, by a metaphor taken from travellers, that being in doubt of their way, do stand still, pause, and consider, whether the direction they have received from some ignorant person or false guide be right or not.
The old paths, Heb. paths of antiquity, such as their godly forefathers of old were wont to walk in, the ancient paths, Jer 18:15. Or, the oracles of God, what directions his word gives, Isa 8:20. Or, the providence of God. Observe what hath been Gods ways and method in times past, with reference to sin and punishment, Deu 4:3,4; Jdg 5:6,8; Jer 22:15,16, and what have been want to be the best courses, called here the
good way, or the best way to continue mercies and prevent judgments, Deu 32:7, he.: see 1Th 5:21.
Walk therein; when you have found what was best and most prosperous, keep it, stick to it.
Ye shall find rest; you will find God to stand by you, and be a sanctuary to you, Deu 33:12,29. See Mat 11:29. You will find things mend with you; it will be well with you, as it hath been with others; you will be satisfied and quiet; you will not doubt any longer which way to follow: see 1Ki 18:21.
We will not walk therein; it notes their great wilfulness and obstinacy, that though the prophets had directed them in the right way, and though they knew others had experimented it to be so, yet they would not be persuaded to walk in it, but deliberately refused those favours offered, Isa 8:11-13; Jer 18:11,12.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. Image from travellers whohave lost their road, stopping and inquiring which is the right wayon which they once had been, but from which they have wandered.
old pathsIdolatry andapostasy are the modern way; the worship of God the old way.Evil is not coeval with good, but a modern degeneracy fromgood. The forsaking of God is not, in a true sense, a “way castup” at all (Jer 18:15;Psa 139:24; Mal 4:4).
rest (Isa 28:12;Mat 11:29).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see,…. These are the words of the Lord to the people, whom he would have judge for themselves, and not be blindly led by the false prophets and priests; directing them to do what men should, when they are in a place where two or more ways meet, and know not which way to take; they should make a short stop, and look to the way mark or way post, which points whither each path leads, and so accordingly proceed. Now, in religious things, the Scriptures are the way mark to direct us which way we should take: if the inquiry is about the way of salvation, look up to these, which are able to make a man wise unto salvation; these show unto men that the way of salvation is not works of righteousness done by them, but Christ only: if the question is about any doctrine whatever, search the Scriptures, examine them, they are profitable for doctrine; they tell us what is truth, and what is error: if the doubt is about the matter or form of worship, and the ordinances of it, look into the Scriptures, they are the best directory to us what we should observe and do:
and ask for the old paths; of righteousness and holiness, which Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others, walked in, and follow them; and the way of salvation by Christ, which, though called a new way,
Heb 10:20, yet is not newly found out, for it was contrived in eternity; nor newly revealed, for it was made known to Adam and Eve immediately after the fall; nor newly made use of, for all the Old Testament saints were saved by the same grace of Christ, and justified by his righteousness, and their sins pardoned through his blood, and expiated by his sacrifice, as New Testament saints; only of late, or in these last days, it has been more clearly made known; otherwise there is but one way of salvation; there never was any other, nor never will be; inquire therefore for this old path, which all true believers have trodden in:
where is the good way, and walk therein; or, “the better or best way” x, and more excellent way, which is Christ, Joh 14:6, he is the way of access to God, and acceptance with him, and the way of conveyance of all the blessings of grace; he is the way to the Father, and to eternal happiness; he is the living way which always continues, and is ever the same; and is a plain, pleasant, and safe way, and therefore a good one; there is no one better, nor any so good; and therefore this must be the right way to walk in, and to which there is great encouragement, as follows:
and ye shall find rest for your souls; there is rest and peace enjoyed in the ways of God, and in the ordinances of the Gospel; wisdom’s ways are ways of peace, which are the lesser paths; and in the doctrines of the Gospel, when the heart is established with them, the mind is tranquil and serene, and at rest, which before was fluctuating and wavering, and tossed to and fro with every wind; but the principal rest is in Christ himself, in whom the true believer, that walks by faith in him, has rest from the guilt and dominion of sin, from the curse and bondage of the law, and from the wrath of God in his conscience; and enjoys a spiritual peace, arising from the blood, sacrifice, and righteousness of Christ, Mt 11:28:
but they said, we will not walk therein; in the old paths, and in the good way but in their own evil ways, which they chose and delighted in; and therefore, as their destruction was inevitable, it was just and righteous.
x “quae sit via melior”, Vatablus; “via optima”, Schmidt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The judgment cannot be turned aside by mere sacrifice without a change of heart. – Jer 6:16. “Thus hath Jahveh said: Stand on the ways, and look, and ask after the everlasting paths, which (one) is the way of good, and walk therein; so shall ye find rest for your souls. But they say, We will not go. Jer 6:17. And I have set over you watchmen, (saying): Hearken to the sound of the trumpet; but they say, We will not hearken. Jer 6:18. Therefore hear, ye peoples, and know, thou congregation, what happens to them. Jer 6:19. Hear, O earth! Behold, I bring evil on this people, the fruit of their thoughts; for to my words they have not hearkened, and at my law they have spurned. Jer 6:20. To what end, then, is their incense coming to me from Sheba, and the good spice-cane from a far land? Your burnt-offerings are not a pleasure, and your slain-offerings are not grateful to me. Jer 6:21. Therefore thus hath Jahveh said: Behold, I lay stumbling-blocks for this people, that thereon fathers and sons may stumble, at once the neighbour and his friend shall perish.”
Jer 6:16 The Lord has not left any lack of instruction and warning. He has marked out for them the way of salvation in the history of the ancient times. It is to this reference is made when they, in ignorance of the way to walk in, are called to ask after the everlasting paths. This thought is clothed thus: they are to step forth upon the ways, to place themselves where several ways diverge from one another, and inquire as to the everlasting paths, so as to discover which is the right way, and then on this they are to walk. are paths that have been trod in the hoary time of old, but not all sorts of ways, good and bad, which they are to walk on indiscriminately, so that it may be discovered which of them is the right one (Hitz.). This meaning is not to be inferred from the fact, that in Jer 18:15 everlasting paths are opposed to untrodden ways; indeed this very passage teaches that the everlasting ways are the right ones, from which through idolatry the people have wandered into unbeaten paths. Thus the paths of the old time are here the ways in which Israel’s godly ancestors have trod; meaning substantially, the patriarchs’ manner of thinking and acting. For the following question, “which is the way,” etc., does not mean, amongst the paths of old time to seek out that which, as the right one, leads to salvation, but says simply thus much: ask after the paths of the old time, so as thus to recognise the right way, and then, when ye have found it, to walk therein. , not, the good way; for cannot be an objective appended to , since immediately after, the latter word is construed in as faem . “The good” is the genitive dependent on “way:” way of the good, that leads to the good, to salvation. This way Israel might learn to know from the history of antiquity recorded in the Torah. Graf has brought the sense well out in this shape: “Look inquiringly backwards to ancient history (Deu 32:7), and see how success and enduring prosperity forsook your fathers when they left the way prescribed to them by God, to walk in the ways of the heathen (Jer 18:15); learn that there is but one way, the way of the fear of Jahveh, on which blessing and salvation are to be found (Jer 32:39-40).” Find (with consec.), and find thus = so shall ye find; cf. Ew. 347, b; Ges. 130, 2. To “we will not go,” we may supply from the context: on the way of good.
Jer 6:17 But God does not let the matter end here. He caused prophets to rise up amongst them, who called their attention to the threatening evil. Watchers are prophets, Eze 3:17, who stand upon the watch-tower to keep a lookout, Hab 2:1, and to give the people warning, by proclaiming what they have seen in spirit. “Hearken to the sound,” etc., are not the words of the watchmen (prophets), for it is they who blow the trumpet, but the words of God; so that we have to supply, “and I said.” The comparison of the prophets to watchmen, who give the alarm of the imminent danger by means of the sound of the trumpet, involves the comparison of the prophets’ utterances to the clang of the signal-horn-suggested besides by Amo 3:6.
Jer 6:18 Judah being thus hardened, the Lord makes known to the nations what He has determined regarding it; cf. Mic 1:2. The sense of “Know, thou congregation,” etc., is far from clear, and has been very variously given. Ros., Dahl., Maur., Umbr., and others, understand of the congregation or assembly of the foreign nations; but the word cannot have this meaning without some further qualifying word. Besides, a second mention of the nations is not suitable to the context. the congregation must be that of Israel. The only question can be, whether we are by this to think of the whole people (of Judah), (Chald, Syr., Ew., and others), or whether it is the company of the ungodly that is addressed, as in the phrase (Hitz.). But there is little probability in the view, that the crew of the ungodly is addressed along with the nations and the earth. Not less open to debate is the construction of . In any case little weight can be attached to Hitz.’s assumption, that is used only to mark out the as relative pronoun: observe it, O company that is amidst them. The passages, Jer 38:16 ( Chet.), and Ecc 4:3, where seems to have this force, are different in kind; for a definite noun precedes, and to it the relation is subjoined. And then what, on this construction, is the reference of , amidst them? Hitz. has said nothing on this point. But it could only be referred to “peoples:” the company which is amidst the peoples; and this gives no reasonable sense. These three words can only be object to “know:” know what is amongst (in) them; or: what is or happens to them (against them). It has been taken in the first sense by Chald. (their sins), Umbr., Maur.: what happens in or amongst them; in the second by Ros., Dahl.: what I shall do against them. Ewald, again, without more ado, changes into : know, thou congregation, what is coming. By this certainly a suitable sense is secured; but there are no sufficient reasons for a change of the text, it is the mere expedient of embarrassment. All the ancient translators have read the present text; even the translation of the lxx: , has been arrived at by a confounding of letters ( with ). We understand “congregation” of Israel, i.e., not of the whole people of Judah, but of those to whom the title “congregation” was applicable, i.e., of the godly, small as their number might be. Accordingly, we are not to refer to “peoples:” what is occurring amidst the peoples, viz., that they are coming to besiege Jerusalem, etc. (Jer 6:3.). Nor is it to be referred to those in Judah who, according to Jer 6:16 and Jer 6:17, do not walk in the right way, and will not give ear to the sound of the trumpet. The latter reference, acc. to which the disputed phrase would be translated: what will happen to them (against them), seems more feasible, and corresponds better to the parallelism of Jer 6:18 and Jer 6:19, since this corresponds better to the parallelism of Jer 6:18 and Jer 6:19, since this same phrase is then explained in Jer 6:19 by: I bring evil upon this people.
(Note: So that we cannot hold, with Graf, that the reading of the text is “manifestly corrupted;” still less do we hold as substantiated or probable his conjectural reading: , and know what I have testified against them.)
Jer 6:19 In Jer 6:19 the evil is characterized as a punishment drawn down by them on themselves by means of the apposition: fruit of their thoughts. “Fruit of their thoughts,” not of their deeds (Isa 3:10), in order to mark the hostility of the evil heart towards God. God’s law is put in a place of prominence by the turn of the expression: My law, and they spurned at it; cf. Ew. 344, b, with 309, b.
Jer 6:20 The people had no shortcoming in the matter of sacrifice in the temple; but in this service, as being mere outward service of works, the Lord has no pleasure, if the heart is estranged from Him, rebels against His commandments. Here we have the doctrine, to obey is better than sacrifice, 1Sa 15:22. The Lord desires that men do justice, exercise love, and walk humbly with Him, Mic 6:8. Sacrifice, as opus operatum , is denounced by all the prophets: cf. Hos 6:6; Amo 5:21., Isa 1:11; Psa 50:8. Incense from Sheba (see on Eze 27:22) was required partly for the preparation of the holy incense (Exo 30:34), partly as an addition to the meat-offerings, Lev 2:1, Lev 2:15, etc. Good, precious cane, is the aromatic reed, calamus odoratus (Exo 30:23), calamus from a far country – namely, brought from India – and used in the preparation of the anointing oil; see on Exo 30:23. is from the language of the Torah; cf. Lev 1:3., Jer 22:19., Exo 28:38; and with : not to well-pleasing, sc. before Jahveh, i.e., they cannot procure for the offerers the pleasure or favour of God. With cf. Hos 9:4.
Jer 6:21 Therefore the Lord will lay stumbling-blocks before the people, whereby they all come to grief. The stumbling-blocks by which the people are to fall and perish, are the inroads, of the enemies, whose formidableness is depicted in Jer 6:22. The idea of totality is realized by individual cases in “fathers and sons, neighbour and his friend.” belongs to the following clause, and not the Keri, but the Cheth. , is the true reading. The Keri is formed after the analogy of Jer 46:6 and Jer 50:32; but it is unsuitable, since then we would require, as in the passages cited, to have in direct connection with .
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Vs. 16-21: REJECTION OF THE OLD PATHS LEADS TO RUIN
1. The Lord called upon Judah to stand at the crossroads and look – to ask for the ancient paths (vs. 16a; Jer 31:21; Isa 8:20; Mal 4:4; comp. Joh 5:45-47) wherein is the way that is good.
a. Walking therein they would find rest for their souls, (vs. 16b; comp. Mat 11:28-29).
b. But Judah responded: “We will NOT take !t!”
2. God also set over the nation watchmen (prophets) who urged them to “Heed the trumpet of alarm!” (vs. 17; Jer 25:4-7; Isa 58:1; Eze 3:16-21; Eze 33:1-19); they replied, “We will NOT heed it!”
3. The nations, and the earth, are called upon to hear what the Lord will do to His rebellious people, (vs. 18; comp. Jer 22:29; Isa 1:2-3; 1Pe 4:17).
4. Because they rejected, repudiated and condemned the law of the Lord, He will not accept their sacrifices and offerings – however costly they may be! (vs.19-20).
a. Their rituals are a mockery if their hearts are not in the offerings!
b. Sacrifice without obedience is NEVER acceptable to God, (1Sa 15:22; comp. Amo 5:21-24; Hos 6:6; Isa 1:10-20; Mic 6:6-8).
5. Thus, God will place such obstacles in their path as will result in their fall – father and son, neighbor and friend perishing together, (vs. 21; Jer 9:21-22; Isa 9:14-17).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
The Prophet teaches us here that the fault of the people could not be extenuated as though they had sinned through ignorance; for they had been warned more than necessary by God. The same sentiment is found in Isaiah,
“
This is your rest; but they would not hear.” (Isa 28:12.)
But our Prophet more at large condemns the Jews; for God had commanded them to stand in the ways, to look and to inquire respecting all the old paths. He uses a similitude: and we ought not to doubt respecting the way, since it has been shewn to us by the mouth of God. But the impiety of the people is exposed and reproved, because they did not so much as open their eyes, when God shewed them the way and allowed them a free choice: for he introduces God here, not strictly as one who commands, but as one who shews so much indulgence, that the people were free to choose the way they approved and thought best. When God deals so kindly with men, and so condescendingly sets before them what is useful and expedient, it is the basest ingratitude to reject such kindness on God’s part.
We now then understand the Prophet’s design in saying, that God had commanded them to stand in the ways and to consider what was best to be done. Consider, he says, and ye shall find rest, that is, that ye may find rest (for the copulative here denotes the end) to your souls (177) Here the Prophet means, that it remained only with the Jews to secure prosperity and a quiet state; for if they had obeyed the counsel of God, rest would have been provided for them: in short, he means, that they were miserable through their own willfulness; for God had set before them the prospect of a happy condition, but this favor had been despised by them, and wantonly despised, as these words intimate, And they said, We will not walk in it
We see that the people’s perverseness is here discovered; because they might have otherwise objected and said, that they had been deceived, and that if they had been in time warned, they would have obeyed good and wise counsels. In order to cut off this handle, Jeremiah says, that they from deliberate wickedness had rejected the rest offered them by God: they have said, We will not walk in it. This resolution deafly shews that they obstinately remained in their sins; so that the rest, which was within their reach, was not chosen by them.
This passage contains a valuable truth, — that faith ever brings us peace with God, and that not only because it leads us to acquiesce in God’s mercy, and thus, as Paul teaches us, (Rom 5:1,) produces this as its perpetual fruit; but because the will of God alone is sufficient to appease our minds. Whosoever then embraces from the heart the truth as coming from God, is at peace; for God never suffers his own people to fluctuate while they recumb on him, but shews to them how great stability belongs to his truth. If it was so under the Law and the Prophets, as we have seen from Isaiah, how much more shall we obtain rest under Christ, provided we submit, to his word; for he has himself promised it, “Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” And ye shall find rest, he says here, to your souls. This passage then serves to commend this celestial truth, that it avails to pacify consciences, so that there is no perplexity nor doubt. It follows —
(177) Blayney renders the word for “rest,” מרגוע, “restoration;” but his long note is not satisfactory. It is rendered, strangely enough, by the Septuagint, “ purification — ἁγνισμὸν;” but by the Vulgate, “ refreshment — refrigerium;” and by the Syriac and Targum, “ rest — requiem;” which seems to be its meaning, especially here, as it stands in contrast with the false peace promised by the false prophets.
The representation is that of travelers, who, when doubtful as to the right road, are to stand, that is, to stop, to look, and also to inquire. There were several old paths before them, but they were to inquire which was the good way, and to walk in it. This was what Jehovah by his prophets had exhorted the people to do, who had false prophets among them; but they refused to do so. It is a relation of what God had done, —
Thus has Jehovah said, — “Stand ye by the ways and look, And ask, as to the paths of old, Where that is, the good way; And walk ye in it, And ye shall find rest to your souls:” But they said, “We will not walk in it.”
There were many paths of old, or of antiquity, as there are still; but there was one good way, the way of God’s word. That the way is old is no proof that it is good. Error’s ways are as old as the way of truth. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
4. Prescription for deliverance (Jer. 6:16-21)
TRANSLATION
(16) Thus said the LORD: Stand along side the ways and observe. Ask for the old ways where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your soul. But they said, We will not walk in it! (17) I have set over you watchmen. Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they have said, We will not hearken! (18) Therefore hear, O nations! Know, O congregation, what is in them. (19) Hear, O earth. Behold, I am about to bring calamity unto this people, the fruit of their thoughts; for they have not paid attention to My words and as for My law, they have rejected it. (20) Why should you bring incense from Sheba, and sweet cane from a distant land. Your burnt offerings are not pleasing and your sacrifices do not satisfy Me. (21) Therefore thus says the LORD: Behold, I am about to give unto this people stumbling and they shall stumble over them, fathers and sons together. The neighbor and his friend shall perish.
COMMENTS
In the view of Jeremiah the nation was at a crossroads. He calls upon the people to stand, i.e., halt their headlong rush to destruction. Jeremiah urges them to select the old path of fidelity to God and adherence to His holy law and then to walk in that path. The old paths are those which previous generations have trodden to find salvation and divine blessing. There is but one way which has the blessing of the Lord and that is the way of obedient faith. True reformers are not those who are advocating new things but those who give due weight to old truths. The person who walks the old path will find spiritual rest for his soul. He will live a life free from anxiety about the here and now and the hereafter as well. In spite of this tender and gracious appeal on the part of God the people of Judah persist in stubbornly refusing to yield to His will. Their defiant response to the appeal is, We will not walk in it! (Jer. 6:16). Again God appeals to them to hearken to the alarm sounded by the prophetic watchmen whom He has placed over the nation (cf. Eze. 3:17; Eze. 33:1). Like watchmen of a city who stood on a high tower scanning the horizon for the first appearance of danger, so Gods watchmen would constantly be on the lookout for any danger to the continued existence of the nation of Judah. At the first appearance of danger these faithful watchmen would sound the alarm by blowing the trumpet of Gods warning word throughout the land. Gods second appeal is also rejected. The hardened people declare that they will not hearken to the alarm of the watchmen (Jer. 6:17).
In view of the double rejection of the appeal of God sentence must be pronounced against Judah. The nations of the world are called upon to hear the pronouncement (cf. Mic. 1:2; Isa. 18:3). The congregation of nations should note the sin and ingratitude which dwells in the heart of Gods chosen people. The ultimate objective of this instruction to the nation is didactic. God is about to teach a lesson to all the nations of the world by punishing His own people for their national sins. If the nations really know what is going on in Judah they will be able to apply the lesson to themselves (Jer. 6:18). The whole earth hears the horrible sentence of judgment: I am about to bring calamity unto this people. This punishment is the ripe fruit, the direct result, of their wicked and rebellious thoughts. They have not paid any attention to the word of God spoken through the prophets and furthermore they had rejected his written law (Jer. 6:19). Everywhere the Jews were scattered among the nations they became witnesses to their own guilt and the righteousness of the divine retribution against them.
Continued perfunctory observance of Temple ritual will not save the people from destruction. Someone has said, The less religion a man has in his heart the more he puts into his buildings and ceremonies. Whether or not that statement is universally true, the men of Judah certainly had an elaborate external religion completely divorced from personal holiness and morality. They went to much trouble and considerable expense to import the ingredients for the incense and anointing oil. Sheba was 1500 miles south of Jerusalem in southwestern Arabia. This may well have been the nearest location from which the proper ingredients specified in the law (Exo. 30:34) could be obtained. Sweet cane or calamus (Exo. 30:23), an ingredient of the holy anointing oil, was imported from a distant land, perhaps India. There was nothing wrong, of course, with the zeal of these people in obtaining these rare materials. Yet their burnt offerings and sacrifices were completely unacceptable to God. Jeremiah was not opposed to sacrifice. As a matter of fact he specifically approved of it (Jer. 17:26; Jer. 27:21-22; Jer. 33:10-11; Jer. 33:18). But Jeremiah, like all the prophets before him, regarded sacrifices without obedience as worthless.[170] The men of Judah were prone to make up in the outer what they did not possess in the inner. God has never been satisfied with mere externalities, with ceremonialism, with formalized and fossilized ritual. The men of Judah thought they were keeping God happy and on their side by going through the outward motions of worship. It was a tragic theological miscalculation, one which ultimately resulted in the destruction and ruin of the nation. They might be able to sidestep or rationalize the various disciplinary disasters which God had brought upon them. But in a very short period of time God would place before them a stumbling-block, Nebuchadnezzar, which they would not be able to sidestep. The whole nation would stumble over that obstacle and fall to their ruin (Jer. 6:21).
[170] 1Sa. 15:22; Isa. 1:11; Amo. 5:21-24; Hos. 6:6; Mic. 6:6-8.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(16) Stand ye in the ways.In the prophets mind the people were as a traveller who has taken a self-chosen path, and finds that it leads him to a place of peril. Is it not well that they should stop and ask where the old paths (literally, the eternal paths; the words going, as in Jer. 18:15, beyond the mere antiquity of the nations life) were, on which their fathers had travelled safely. Of these old paths they were to choose that which was most distinctly the good way, the way of righteousness, and therefore of peace and health also. The call, however, was in vain. The people chose to travel still in the broad way that led them to destruction.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
JUSTIFICATION OF THEIR OVERTHROW IN THEIR STUBBORN RESISTANCE, Jer 6:16-21.
16. Ask for the old paths The one remedy for all apostasy call back the old times. In what path did your holy and heroic fathers walk? Go back where the ways meet, and again enter those everlasting paths.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
YHWH Now Describes The Total Intransigence Of His People And Dismisses Their Attempts To Pacify Him By Religious Ritual And Offerings, Confirming To Them The Judgment That Is Inevitably Coming On Them Because Of Their Sins ( Jer 6:16-26 ).
The intransigence of the people is now brought out by their response to YHWH’s pleading. When He calls on them to walk in the old paths, they adamantly refuse. When He gives them watchmen in order to warn them of the consequences of their present behaviour they close their ears. It is not that they have not heard, it is because they have refused to listen. And that is why YHWH calls on the nations and the whole earth to witness the fact that He is bringing on them ‘evil, the fruit of their thoughts’. Because they have adamantly refused to listen to His words and have rejected His Instruction, they will reap what they have sown.
It is not that they have failed in the niceties of religious ritual. They still give the impression of desiring to worship Him by what they bring to His house. But it is all in vain if with it they are disobedient, for it reveals that they do not really know Him. That is why they will stumble and fall and a terrible enemy will come against them causing great grief and wailing, so that it will not even be safe to go outside the city walls. And the passage closes with Jeremiah’s call on his people to mourn because of the destroyer who will suddenly come upon them.
Judah’s Blatant Refusal To Obey YHWH.
Jer 6:16
‘Thus says YHWH, “Stand you in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk within it, and you will find rest for your souls.” But they said, “We will not walk in it.”
Had the people been willing to respond they could still have escaped the coming judgments, for YHWH was still calling on them to take their stance in the ways, and seek the old paths where the good way is, being established in the good way, so that they could walk in it (thus fulfilling the requirements of the covenant, God’s Law). And indeed He promised that if they did so they would find rest to their souls (true peace). But their only answer was to blatantly refuse, saying ‘we will not walk in it’. Their hearts were totally set against the requirements of the covenant.
This is the Old Testament equivalent of ‘take My yoke on you and learn of me — and you will find rest to your souls’ (Mat 11:29), except that here in Jeremiah the idea is possibly more on physical well-being. The idea of ‘walking in the ways of YHWH’ is a common one in Deuteronomy (Deu 5:33; Deu 8:6; Deu 10:12; Deu 11:22; Deu 19:9; Deu 26:17; Deu 28:9; Deu 30:16) and regularly linked with the idea of loving God. The two go together. We cannot claim to love God and refuse to walk in His ways.
Jer 6:17
‘And I set watchmen over you, saying, “Listen to the sound of the ram’s horn,” but they said, “We will not listen.”
YHWH had then set watchmen over them, His true prophets, who had, as it were, sounded the warning on the ram’s horn. But they had closed their ears saying, ‘we will not listen to your warnings’. So it was not that His people had not had every opportunity, it was that they had simply turned their backs on them.
The Inevitable Consequences Which Must Follow.
Jer 6:18-19
‘Therefore hear, you nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth. Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words, and as for my law, they have rejected it.’
The seriousness and solemnity of the situation is brought out by God’s wide appeal to witnesses as to what He is going to do, and why He is going to do it. He calls on the nations as witnesses, and on ‘the congregation’. And then He calls on the earth itself. The ‘congregation’ is a word commonly used to represent the whole of Israel, but it cannot mean that here, unless it refers to the congregation in exile, for they are to be witnesses of what is among the people of Judah. It is possible therefore that the appeal is to the congregation of God that stands in judgment (Psa 82:1). This would tie in with the contrast with ‘earth’. Alternatively it could be seen as referring to the righteous remnant (Christ would build His congregation on the righteous remnant – Mat 16:18).
What is to be witnessed is ‘what is among them’, their sin and its consequences. For He is bringing evil on this people, as the ‘fruit of their thoughts’. What they have sown in their thoughts, so will they reap. It will be the consequence of their having set their minds against Him by saying, ‘we will not walk in it’ and ‘we will not listen’ (Jer 6:16-17). It is because they have not listened to His words and warnings, and because they have rejected His Instruction (torah, law, instruction), in other words have rejected His covenant, that evil and judgment must come on them.
God Cannot Be ‘Buttered Up’.
Jer 6:20
‘To what purpose comes frankincense to me from Sheba,
And the sweet cane from a far country?
Your burnt-offerings are not acceptable,
Nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.
And in view of their rejection of the requirements of the covenant, and of His Law, there is little purpose in their bringing to Him expensive gifts. Frankincense from Sheba, and sweet cane from a far country may be all very well. But they do not replace good, old-fashioned obedience. Nor in those circumstances are offerings and sacrifices pleasing to Him. We have here the constantly repeated assertion by the prophets that ritual offerings are not sufficient in themselves, unless they are accompanied by love and obedience (compare 1Sa 15:22; Isa 1:11-18; Hos 6:6; Amo 5:21-22).
Sheba was in Arabia to the east, and a source of perfumes and scents. Frankincense was required for the preparation of the holy incense (Exo 30:34) and the holy anointing oil, while the ‘far country’ is probably India from where would come the aromatic calamus that was also required.
Jer 6:21
‘Therefore thus says YHWH, “Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together will stumble against them, the neighbour and his friend will perish.”
Having called on His witnesses YHWH now gives His verdict. He is going to fill their way with grave difficulties which will cause ‘this people’, who have sinned so greatly, to stumble totally against them, and they will all, both father and son, and the friend with his neighbour, perish together. They all got along together, and now they would all perish together.
The Invaders From The North.
Jer 6:22-23
‘Thus says YHWH, “Behold, a people come from the north country, and a great nation will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. They lay hold on bow and spear, they are cruel, and have no mercy, their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, every one set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, O daughter of Zion.”
The nature of the cause of stumbling is then described. YHWH will call from the north a people, a great nation (compare Jer 5:15; Jer 50:41), from the uttermost parts of the earth. Opinion is divided as to whether this refers to the Scythian hordes mentioned by Herodotus or to the Babylonians, or indeed to both for they sometimes operated together. They are described as laying hold of bow and spear, as cruel, as merciless, as advancing with loud war-cries (roaring like the sea), while riding on horses, and as well armed, all in all presenting a fearsome picture. And these fearsome warriors have banded together against the comely and delicate daughter of Zion, Jerusalem.
Whilst they either came from the Black Sea area or from Babylon, or from both, to most of the people of Judah this was the ‘uttermost parts of the earth’ for their knowledge of the world was very limited and these nations were at the furthest horizons of their world.
‘Cruel.’ The harshness of the Assyrians and Babylonians is well attested. It made the Palestinian nations, whose bloodthirstiness appals us, look like angels. They were pitiless and merciless, a trait brought out by Nebuchadnezzar’s later treatment of Zedekiah when he first slew his sons before his eyes and then gouged out his eyes. They would cut off hands and noses, put out eyes, flay their victims alive, and cast them alive into furnaces (compare Dan 3:11).
Judah’s Fearful And Mournful Response To Their Advance.
Jer 6:24
‘We have heard the report of them,
Our hands grow feeble,
Anguish has taken hold of us,
Birth-pains as of a woman in labour.”
The reaction of Judah to this news is then described. They were filled with fear, and anguish, and, in modern parlance, they went weak at the knees. Their hands began to shake and they lost their strength, anguish seized hold of them. They felt themselves as being like a woman undergoing her labour pains in expectancy of what was to come. The pictures vividly bring out the panic that takes hold of a nation in the face of an invincible and cruel enemy.
Jer 6:25
‘Do not go forth into the field,
Nor walk by the way,
For the sword of the enemy,
Terror is on every side (magor misabib).’
So desperate will the situation be, and so close the enemy, that it will no be longer safe to go out into the countryside, or walk along local roads outside the shelter of the cities, because the sword, and their enemy, and terror will be everywhere. This would at times be a repeated experience during the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, but would come to finalisation at the end of Zedekiah’s reign.
‘Terror is on every side.’ This became a watchword to Jeremiah, so much so that he would even give this appellation to his bitter enemy (Jer 20:3), and would have it thrown at him by the people (Jer 20:10). See also Jer 46:5; Jer 49:29.
Jer 6:26
‘O daughter of my people, gird yourself with sackcloth, and wallow yourself in ashes, make you mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation, for the destroyer will suddenly come upon us.’
The passage ends with a lament by Jeremiah, and a call to the people to go into serious mourning ‘as for an only son’, because the Destroyer is soon to come among them. They are not only to put on ashes but are to wallow in them. The wearing of sackcloth and pouring on the head of ashes was a regular evidence of grief and mourning, and here it was to be with ‘most bitter lamentation’. What greater grief indeed than that for an only son, who was the perpetuator of the family name, the heir to the inheritance and the one to whom the whole family would in future look for protection and provision. His death would be a devastating loss.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Impending Judgment Announced
v. 16. Thus saith the Lord, rather, v. 17. Also I set watchmen over you, v. 18. Therefore hear, ye nations, v. 19. v. 20. To what purpose cometh there to Me incense from Sheba, v. 21. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people, v. 22. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth, v. 23. They shall lay hold on bow and spear, v. 24. We have heard the fame thereof, v. 25. Go not forth into the field, v. 26. O daughter of My people, v. 27. I have set thee for a tower and a fortress among My people, v. 28. They are all grievous revolters, v. 29. The bellows are burned, v. 30. Reprobate silver shall men call them,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Jer 6:16. Stand ye in the ways “Imitate the traveller, when at a loss which way to direct his steps; inquire in what way the patriarchs of old walked: imitate their practices, wherein you will find true comfort and satisfaction.” See Lowth and Calmet.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 1040
THE GOOD OLD WAY
Jer 6:16. Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.
WHATEVER bears the stamp of antiquity upon it, finds, for the most part, a favourable reception in the world, while innovations are admitted with caution and reserve, The Gospel itself is often discarded under the idea that it is new. Even as far back as the days of Jeremiah, serious religion was deemed a novelty: but the prophet claimed the peoples regard to it, no less from the consideration of its antiquity than of its inherent excellence
To elucidate the words before us, we shall inquire,
I.
What is that old and good way here spoken of?
The explanation, which our Lord himself has given of this passage [Note: Mat 11:28-29.], shews, that we are not to confine its import to holiness alone, but must understand it as comprehending,
1.
A penitential affiance in God
[Christ declares that he himself is the way, the only way to the Father [Note: Joh 14:6.]. To him we must come, trusting in his mediation and intercession, and looking for acceptance through him alone, Now this is certainly the old way, marked out by all the Jewish sacrifices, and trodden by Abel and our first parents. Nor can we doubt of its being the good way, since it was appointed of God himself, and has been approved by all his saints from the beginning of the world.]
2.
A cheerful obedience to him
[Our Lord expressly says, Take my yoke upon you; nor can this ever be dispensed with. Though faith in Christ be the way of acceptance with God, yet obedience to him is the only means of manifesting the sincerity of our faith. Hence holiness is by the prophet called, The Lords highway [Note: Isa 35:8.]. This too is of great antiquity, and must be traced up through prophets and patriarchs to the days of righteous Abel. And it must be acknowledged to be good, since it tends so much to the perfecting of our nature, and to the adorning of our holy religion.]
This however is not a mere speculative point; as we shall see, if we inquire,
II.
What is our duty with respect to it?
God having so plainly revealed it to us, it becomes us all,
1.
To inquire after it
[We should not go on in a presumptuous confidence that we are right; but should stand and see, and attentively consider whither we are going. We should ask of those whom God has appointed to be as way-marks to the people, and whose lips should both keep, and dispense, knowledge. Moreover we should search the sacred oracles (which, as a map, delineate our path with infallible precision) comparing with them the various steps we have taken, and noticing with care the footsteps of Christ and his Apostles. Not however trusting in our own researches, we should above all implore the teaching and direction of Gods holy Spirit, who would bring us back from our wanderings, and guide our feet into the way of peace.]
2.
To walk in it
[To possess knowledge will be of little service unless it produce a practical effect. Having found the right way we must come into it, renouncing every other path, how pleasant or profitable soever it may have been. Nor must we only get into it, but walk therein continually, neither diverted from it by allurements, nor discouraged in it by any difficulties. Whatever advances we may have made, we are still to prosecute the same path, trusting in Christ as our advocate with God, and rendering to him an uniform and unreserved obedience.]
Nor will this appear hard to us, if we consider,
III.
The encouragement given us to perform this duty
To those who are out of this way, whatever they may boast, we are sure there is no solid peace: but they who walk in it shall find rest,
1.
In their way
[Sweet is the rest which a weary and heavy-laden sinner finds in Jesus Christ: he sees in his blood a sufficiency of virtue to expiate all his guilt, and to cleanse him from all his sin: he perceives that the foundation of his hope is sure and immoveable; and therefore, having peace in his conscience, he rejoices in hope of the glory of God. In the way of holy obedience, he enjoys, moreover, a present and a great reward: for while he vests from turbulent passions and tormenting fears, he finds, that the work of righteousness is peace, and the effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance for ever.]
2.
In their end
[If the ungodly have no peace in this world, much less have they in the world to come: but the obedient believer will enjoy perfect rest, when he shall have ceased from his present labours. There is a rest remaining for the people of God; and such a rest as neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived: at the instant of their dismission from the body, they shall be borne on the wings of angels into the regions of the blest, and lie in the bosom of their Lord to all eternity.]
Address
1.
To those who disregard religion
[You indeed may plead long prescription (even from the days of Cain) and general practice too, in favour of your habits: but do you doubt which is the better way? Do you not in your hearts envy those who walk in the good old way; and wish that you were able to live as they live? If then you would not persist in following a track, which you knew would lead to a place extremely distant from that which you were desirous to reach, attend to the warning now given, and turn unto God in the way marked out for you in his Gospel.]
2.
To those who seek indeed the paths of religion, but find no rest in them
[There are many who approve of coming to Christ for salvation, but wish to be excused from taking his yoke upon them; while others, on the contrary, would be content to render obedience to his law, if they might be at liberty to decline the humiliating method which he has prescribed for their acceptance with God. Others, again, profess to approve of the good old way; but cannot renounce the cares and pleasures of the world which retard their progress in it. No wonder then if such persons find no solid rest: indeed, it is well for them that they do not; since it would only deceive them to their eternal ruin. If we would have rest, either here or hereafter, it must be obtained in the way that has been pointed out; nor can it be obtained in any other to all eternity [Note: Joh 3:36. Heb 12:14.].]
3.
To those who are walking comfortably in the good way
[Be not contented to go to heaven alone; but labour in your respective spheres to bring others along with you. This was the disposition of the Church of old [Note: Son 1:4.]; and should be the desire of all who have a hope towards God. It is scarcely to be conceived how much the exertions of Christians in their several families would extend the benefits of ministerial labours. The public ministration of the word would be far better attended, and incomparably more improved. Since then all are commanded to seek instruction, let all endeavour to communicate it [Note: If this were the subject of a Sermon for Charity Schools, the propriety of subscribing liberally for the support of such institutions might be stated here.]. So will the good way be more frequented; and more abundant blessings flow down on all who walk in it.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
This is a beautiful verse, read with an eye to Christ: who is both the new and the living way; and also the old path to dwell in, being the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever. And who but Jesus is the rest of the soul? See all those scriptures. Joh 14:6 ; Rev 13:8 ; Heb 13:8 ; Mat 11:28-30 ; Isa 28:12 ; Psa 116:7 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 6:16 Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where [is] the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk [therein].
Ver. 16. Stand ye in the ways and see. ] Duly deliberate and take time to consider whether you are in the right or not.
Ask for the old paths.
“ Qui veteres linquit, calles sequiturque novatos
Saepius in fraudes incidet ille suns. ”
But they said, We will not walk therein. a
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 6:16-21
16Thus says the LORD,
Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths,
Where the good way is, and walk in it;
And you will find rest for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
17And I set watchmen over you, saying,
‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’
But they said, ‘We will not listen.’
18Therefore hear, O nations,
And know, O congregation, what is among them.
19Hear, O earth: behold, I am bringing disaster on this people,
The fruit of their plans,
Because they have not listened to My words,
And as for My law, they have rejected it also.
20For what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba
And the sweet cane from a distant land?
Your burnt offerings are not acceptable
And your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me.
21Therefore, thus says the LORD,
Behold, I am laying stumbling blocks before this people.
And they will stumble against them,
Fathers and sons together;
Neighbor and friend will perish.
Jer 6:16 YHWH uses five IMPERATIVES to call His people back to His covenant with them but they refused.
God’s truths and will were pictured as a clearly marked path (cf. Jer 18:15; Jer 31:21; Psalms 119; Psalms 105; Psa 139:24; Pro 6:23). This godly path brought rest and peace but they would not!
Lifestyle faith is characterized by the VERB walk (cf. Eph 2:10; Eph 4:1; Eph 4:17; Eph 5:2; Eph 5:15).
you will find rest for your souls Jesus quotes this in Mat 11:29. His teachings fulfill the ancient paths (i.e., Moses, cf. Jer 18:15) and surpasses them (cf. Mat 5:17-19; Mat 5:21-48; the book of Hebrews).
Jer 6:17 watchmen This refers to the prophets (cf. Eze 3:16-21; Eze 33:7).
Jer 6:18-19 There is a parallelism between
1. O nations (BDB 156)
2. O congregation (BDB 417 II). This line of Jer 6:18 is left untranslated by AB because of its difficulty and uncertainty, the UBS Handbook suggests that O congregation be revocalized to an INFINITIVE of know, thereby intensifying the VERB know (BDB 393, KB 390), p. 196
3. O earth (BDB 75)
These seem to be metaphorical of witnesses to court testimony and judgment. Each is matched with an IMPERATIVE.
For earth see Special Topic below.
SPECIAL TOPIC: LAND, COUNTRY, EARTH ()
Jer 6:19 The fruit of their plans They are reaping what they sowed.
My words. . .My law God’s people were His in name only! They rejected both the Torah/Law of Moses (i.e., the ancient paths), as well as the word of the true prophets (cf. Isa 1:10; Isa 5:24). Their lack of spiritual discernment is exemplified by their devotion to
1. idolatry
2. false prophets (cf. Isa 29:13)
3. greed and exploitation of the poor
Jer 6:20 This is sacrificial terminology.
1. frankincense, BDB 526 I, cf. Exo 30:34-38, this was used for temple incense
2. sweet cane, BDB 373 II and 889, this was holy anointing oil, possibly from India
3. burnt offerings, BDB 750, these were wholly burnt offerings symbolizing total dedication
4. sacrifices, BDB 257, cf. Lev 7:15-18; Lev 19:5-8, the offerer retained part for a fellowship meal to eat with friends and YHWH
your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me This is a shocking phrase (cf. Isa 1:11-14; Hos 6:6; Amo 5:21-23; Mic 6:6-8; and esp. Jer 7:21-23). It was not the sacrificial system (which God instigated) but the attitude of the worshipers that He rejected!
Jer 6:21 The imagery of this verse refers to the ancient paths of Jer 6:16. As walking on the path of God (i.e., Scripture, or the prophetic word) was a source of life, peace, and joy, anything that blocked that path (cf. Isa 8:14-15) caused pain, trouble, and confusion. The path God’s people were on was not His path! They refused to listen and repent, so there were societal and individual consequences! YHWH disciplines His people for their ultimate good!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Stand ye, &c. A gracious appeal to avoid the threatened calamity, as in Jer 2:2.
old paths. Compare Jer 18:15.
good = right.
find rest. Compare Mat 11:29, Mat 11:30; where a like invitation and promise is given to those who will “learn”. Following likewise on a preceding threatening of judgment. Compare Deu 28:65.
your souls = yourselves (emphatic). Hebrew. nephesh.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Jer 6:16-21
Jer 6:16
“Thus saith Jehovah, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way; and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls: but they said, We will not walk therein.”
James Hastings made this verse the text of one of his sermons on “Great Texts of the Bible. This is indeed a great text.
SEEK YE THE OLD PATHS
The title is a little misleading. One of the oldest paths is that of rebellion and licentiousness; thus a better title would be “Ask for the good way!”
I. There is a challenge for serious thought. “Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask.” What a stupid folly it is for men to proceed through life without a thoughtful, careful examination of “the way” they have chosen.
II. In this text, the ancient ways were the ways of faith, devotion, and honor of the One True God of Israel, as revealed and certified unto the people in the Pentateuch. In our own times the “good way” is the way of the Gospel of Christ.
III. There is the call for action. It is not enough to know about the good way; let men “Walk in it!”
IV. Those who walk in the good way, “Shall find rest unto your souls.” Jesus Christ surely identified himself with this good way in the glorying words of the Great Invitation (Mat 11:28-30).
V. Today, no less than in the times of Jeremiah, the people are vainly searching for “something new” in religion. “Give us anything except the way our father’s did it!” is the motto adopted by some. A church in our community recently appointed a committee with instructions to come up every week with a novel way of structuring the Lord’s Day services! Why not try jumping out the windows after church, some Sunday, instead of using the normal exits? “Idolatry and apostasy are the `modern way’; the worship of God is the old way.”
It is a remarkable fact that Geoffrey Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, has one that is called Chaucer’s Tale, the same being a sermon on this very text, a sermon which Adam Clarke called, “an excellent sermon.”
Jer 6:17-19
“And I set watchmen over you saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet; but they said, We will not hearken. Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth; behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.”
“We will not hearken …” (Jer 6:17). One needs to read this with the similar response in the preceding verse, where Israel rejected God’s invitation to walk in the good way, saying, “We will not walk therein.” The meaning is simply that the Chosen People had lost all desire to continue in the favor of God.
“Hear, ye nations, Hear O earth …” (Jer 6:18-19). This solemn invitation to the whole Gentile world, as well as the whole earth itself to hear what God will do is such an introduction that requires a special understanding of God’s promise here to “bring evil upon this people.” The Dean of Canterbury, quoting Cyprian, stated that: “A decree so solemnly proclaimed can be of no light importance; and therefore the Fathers (the Ante-Nicenes) not without reason understood it as referring to the rejection of the Jews from being God’s Church. This is a profoundly true observation, provided only that it should be understood as a removal only of the racial angle of God’s favor to Israel. After the captivity of the Jews, the racial Israel never again enjoyed the status of being the wife of God. All of the promises to Abraham would afterward be fulfilled in the New Israel, which is Christ; but no Jew was ever rejected because of his race; but at the same time, he would never again be automatically a member of the true Israel on account of his race.
Jer 6:20-21
“For what purpose cometh there to me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt-offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing unto me. Therefore thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people; and the fathers and the sons together shall stumble against them; the neighbor and his friend shall perish.”
“Your burnt-offerings are not acceptable …” (Jer 6:20). “This does not mean that Jehovah was against sacrifices per se; he was only against unethical sacrifices. When habitual sinners, insincere, hypocritical, and rebellious against God brought sacrifices to God, they were not merely unacceptable but were an abomination to the Holy God.
There was nothing capricious or vindictive on God’s part who is represented here as placing “stumbling blocks” in the way of Israel. “The stumbling blocks confronting the people were of their own making, when they had deliberately refused to walk in the good way (Jer 6:17). Yes God had placed the stumblingblocks in the way of evil which Judah elected to take with such disastrous consequences. It is, as if God had said, “Take your choice; choose your way, either (1) the ancient paths, the good way, or (2) the way with the stumbling-blocks.
3. The success of the foe (Jer 6:9-15)
Once again comparing Israel to a vineyard Jeremiah paints the picture of a complete and thorough judgment. Only a remnant of once powerful Israel remained after the ten northern tribes were ravished and deported by the Assyrians. Yet now even this remnant, i.e., Judah, is to undergo a severe sifting process. The enemy will thoroughly spoil sinful Judah as a grape gatherer who leaves nothing but leaves behind. The hand of the grape gatherer moves incessantly back and forth from the vine to the basket until the final grapes are picked (Jer 6:9). Here is a picture of the repeated calamities, deportations, and attacks which Judah experienced in the twenty years following the Battle of Carchemish in 605 B.C. So was the remnant of Israel, Judah, itself made a remnant.
Jeremiahs prophetic discouragement comes out in Jer 6:10. No one will listen to him as he sounds the warning of impending judgment. The word of the Lord is treated with derision. The ear of the people seems to be uncircumcised, covered as it were with a foreskin which prevents the prophetic word from penetrating their mind (cf. Act 7:51). Discouraged though he is, Jeremiah cannot refrain from preaching the word of judgment. He is filled with the message of divine wrath; it burns within him. He tries very hard to hold it back but only succeeds in making himself weary. In the last part of Jer 6:11 the problem arises as to who is speaking and to whom. Some think God is talking to Jeremiah urging him to pour out his message of doom upon the population. Others think Jeremiah is talking to God urging Him to hasten the day of judgment. The best view seems to be that Jeremiah is talking to himself. These are words of self-exhortation. He calls upon himself to announce the terrible day of Gods wrath. Whether or not the people listen he must sound the alarm. He must pour out his message to all segments of the population, from the very youngest to the very oldest, for all will ultimately be involved in the outpouring of divine judgment (Jer 6:11). Their houses, and fields, and wives will be turned over to the invading soldiers; for the hand of the Lord, once stretched out against the enemies of Israel (Exo 3:20; Deu 7:19) is now stretched out against them (Jer 6:12).
The judgment described in Jer 6:12 is appropriate to the root sin of the men of Judah, covetousness. Everyone in the nation, from the least to the greatest, was greedy for illicit gain. Even the prophets and priests practice deception and fraud to curry favor with the populace and thereby secure their good will and their gifts (Jer 6:13). For the love of filthy lucre they would offer flattering pictures of the future prospects of the nation (cf. Mic 3:5). All is well, they would say. Peace! Peace! These soft-soaping, self-seeking clergymen completely failed to come to grips with the serious ailment of the nation. The pious platitudes of these leaders would no more cure the wound of Judah than mercurochrome could heal a skin cancer. These leaders feel no shame at present, they have no conscience, they do not know how to blush. But the leaders will eventually share the fate of those they had misguided. They shall fall among those who are slain in battle; they shall disrespectfully be thrown to the ground by the ruthless conqueror (Jer 6:15).
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The Old Paths
Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.Jer 6:16.
In the Pilgrims Progress we are told that Christian and Hopeful as they went on they wished for a better way. Now, a little before them, there was on the left hand of the road a meadow, and a stile to go over into it; and that meadow is called By-path Meadow. Then said Christian to his fellow, If this meadow lieth along by our wayside, lets go over into it. Then he went to the stile to see; and, behold, a path lay along by the way on the other side of the fence. Tis according to my wish, said Christian; here is the easiest going: come, good Hopeful, and let us go over. Hopeful: But how if this path should lead us out of the way? Thats not like, said the other. Look, doth it not go along by the wayside? So Hopeful, being persuaded by his fellow, went after him over the stile. When they were gone over, and were got into the path, they found it very easy for their feet; and withal they, looking before them, espied a man walking as they did (and his name was Vain-Confidence); so they called after him, and asked him whither that way led. He said, To the Celestial Gate. Look, said Christian, did not I tell you so? By this you may see we are right. So they followed, and he went before them. But, behold, the night came on, and it grew very dark; so that they that went behind lost the sight of him that went before. He, therefore, that went before (Vain-Confidence by name), not seeing the way before him, fell into a deep pit, which was on purpose there made by the prince of those grounds to catch vain-glorious fools withal, and was dashed in pieces with his fall. We need not be reminded how the story goes on to tell of the finding of the two pilgrims by Giant Despair, and all they suffered at his hands, nor how they did not recover their full joy and rest of soul again until, as Bunyan has it, they came to the Kings highway again, and so were safe.
1. See, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein. We know quite well how ninety-nine people out of every hundred interpret this passage. It is one of the great texts of the Bible, and it has been appealed to again and again through all the generations. There are many who say that the old paths are the paths in which our fathers and forefathers walked, and they say to us, If we are to do the right thing, and if we are to realize the great end of life, we must follow closely in the footsteps of those who have gone before us. There must be no change in our theological belief; we must believe just what our fathers before us believed. If we do not do that we are leaving the old paths. And there must be no change in our forms of worship; we must worship God precisely as our fathers did.
Is that the meaning of the text? There are reasons for believing that it is not.
(1) Jeremiah himself is the first reason. Jeremiah was the great religious reformer of his day. In the midst of a stolid and stiff-necked generation, he was the great mouthpiece of progress. He was a religious agitator. He gave neither king, nor priest, nor people any rest. He was probably a priest himself. He was what we should call a regularly ordained minister. It is true he got very little support from his brethren. They looked askance at him, and asked where this young man was going to lead them. He was very unsparing in his denunciation of their cold and hard formalism and their worse sins of covetousness. They were willing to condone the sins of their people for the sake of a pecuniary consideration. Now, Jeremiah was a very thorn in the side of these men, who, no doubt, called themselves old-fashioned Jews. He was intensely social and political in his teaching. He dealt with subjects that were startlingly modern. He was interested in the present-day life of the people. When he began to prophesy, he was, apparently, just a young man in close touch with his time: with his fingers on the nations pulse, prescribing Divine remedies for her slackness and dulness of spiritual life as well as for the fevered restlessness of her outward and sensuous life. He was severely practical. It was not doctrine he was concerned for so much as life. He knew perfectly well that if you cross-questioned this people, you would find them orthodox. Indeed, he himself says as much. He says: Though they say, the Lord liveth; surely they swear falsely. They say it, but they do not believe it. It is their creed, it is not their faith. Their doctrine is true, but it is not living. It has no relation to their life. They do not believe it. They hold it as a convenient intellectual formula and national creedbut they do not honour it with their own personal loyalty. Their orthodoxy is lifeless, barren, soulless. It has become a hollow sham and a miserable falsehood. It is worn as spotless clothing to veil the hideous corruption of the spirit. It is separable from the soul; and if you tear it off, you find the life it covers is foul and loathsome and false. These men, who boasted that they stood where their fathers did and held to the old paths, were aliens to the spirit and life of the sons of God; and Jeremiah felt that in the name of righteousness it was well that they should know.
We cannot but believe that in the future the whole conception of orthodoxy is destined to grow less and less prominent. Less and less men will ask of any opinion, Is it orthodox? More and more they will ask, Is it true? More and more the belief in the absolute safety of the freest truth-seeking, in truth-seeking as the only safe work of the human mind, will deepen and increase. Truth will come to seem not a deposit, fixed and limited, but an infinite domain wherein the soul is bidden to range with insatiable desire, guarded only by the care of God above it and the Spirit of God within it, educated by its mistakes, and attaining larger knowledge only as it attains complete purity of purpose and thoroughness of devotion and energy of hope. As that truer understanding of what truth is grows wide and clear, men will cease to talk or think much of orthodoxy, and the humble service which it is made to render it will render all the better when it is stripped of the purple and the sceptre, the dominion and tyranny, to which it has no right.1 [Note: Phillips Brooks, Essays and Addresses, 196.]
(2) Another reason is the Bible. For if there is a book in the world that illustrates on every page of it the principle of development, the principle of evolution, the principle of change, it is this book that we call the Bible. Take, for example, the name of God. Go to the Book of Genesis, and you find that the old Hebrews called God Elohim, the strong one. That was their idea of the Creatornot a bad idea, not a wrong idea. It is a great and glorious truth. But come down the stream, come down to the time when the Lord Jesus Christ clothed Himself in our humanity, and listen to His teaching. Is it the teaching of the Book of Genesis regarding God? Not at all. Jesus tells us that God is our Father. He taught His disciples to pray, Our Father which art in heaven. What a differencealmost as far as the East is from the Westbetween the Elohim of Genesis and the our Father of the gospel!
At first, faith need not be more than the acceptance of a few central facts of revelation. These will be sufficient to illuminate and justify that primitive, deep-seated instinct of kinship with God which we recognized at the beginning as the raw material of religion, and which we saw giving expression to itself in an imperfectly understood ritual of sacrifice and communion. Such a faith, again, will be sufficient to illuminate and justify the obstinate conviction that the values which we blindly pursue and cherish are perfectly realized and eternally conserved in Him who is the Word and Wisdom of the Father.
What an unlimited opening does faith thus provide for the development of religion; for the garnering of religious experience in prayer and meditation; for the confident quest of the true, the beautiful, and the good; for the practice of fellowship with all who share the clansmens sacrificial feast and are pledged thereby to mutual service!1 [Note: A. Chandler, Faith and Experience, 102.]
(3) A third reason is the history of the Church. For when we come down the history of the Christian Church we find precisely the same thing; change is stamped on every age and generation. We do not worship as our fathers worshipped fifty years ago, and we do not think as our fathers did in theological matters fifty years ago. The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. We cannot stand still. Why, if men acted on that principle the world would never have developed at all; there would have been no Christianity, no Reformation, no change whatever in mens thoughts and ideas through the ages. That is not Gods purpose. We are all children, and all in Gods school, and God is teaching us every day; and if we are true children of the Father we are coming to know Him more and more intimately and fully. We cannot stand in the old paths in that sense.
There is no saint in the Congregational denomination heldand deservedly heldin higher honour than Richard Baxter, who suffered imprisonment for his loyalty to the truth. Yet no man was more fiercely assailed by the rigid doctrinaires of his day as being a heretic. And his biographer, in defending him, uses this quaint illustration. The discussion of truth and the agitation of doctrines have always resulted in good to the Church and to the world. Even the waters of Bethesda in the very house of mercy itself needed to be agitated and disturbed to renew their healing power. It is, therefore, unseemly in theologians that, when some Doctor Angelicus descends among them and agitates the settled waters of their dull and stagnant orthodoxy, then always a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, and withered, creep from the five points of their five porches to brandish their crutches against the intruder, or to mutter their anathemas against the innovation, instead of welcoming the benignant visitor, sharing in the healthiness of the agitation, and becoming healed of whatsoever disease they had. You see, then, that if you are brave enough to trouble the settled waters of the theological Bethesda, you must expect to be threatened with the crutches of the very men you are anxious to heal. But you will remember that, long centuries ago, the Apostle Paul had to defend himself to the governor of the Jews because, as he said, After the way that they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers. And you will remember that, when the Catholic Church excommunicated Wycliffe, he was bold enough to say that, when they had first made Christ a heretic, it was a little matter to call His followers by the same name. Yes, there are men who would make a heretic of Christ. Some of the saintliest heroes who ever lived have been driven out of the Churches because, after the Way that men called heresy, so worshipped they the God of their fathers. It may be the highest honour to be called a heretic, if it comes from your loyalty to the living Christ and your impatience of phrases and forms that have concealed His reality, instead of expressing His relation to God and Man 1:1 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]
2. What, then, is the old way? It is simply the way of rightness. It is the good way because it is the way of goodness; it is the way of the keeping of the commandments of God. What Jeremiah meant was this: if the children of Israel were to be redeemed they must go back to the old paths of righteousness. They would never be saved by mere forms of ritual. They must go back to the old paths of right doing. Do justly, says the prophet Micah, do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God. And Jeremiah comes to the people in their distress, in their moral and spiritual degradation, and he says to them: There is just one hope for you, you must begin to do right, you must abandon all your unfaithful ways, you must go back to the old paths God has laid down from all eternity for mans lifethe paths of justice and truth.
Even an old house has a haunting grace enough, as a place where men have been born and died, have loved and enjoyed and suffered; but a road like this, ceaselessly trodden by the feet of pilgrims, all of them with some pathetic urgency of desire in their hearts, some hope unfulfilled, some shadow of sickness or sin to banish, some sorrow making havoc of home, is touched by that infinite pathos that binds all human hearts together in the face of the mystery of life. What passionate meetings with despair, what eager upliftings of desirous hearts, must have thrilled the minds of the feeble and travel-worn companies that made their slow journeys along the grassy road! And one is glad to think, too, that there must doubtless have been many that returned gladder than they came, with the burden shifted a little, the shadow lessened, or at least with new strength to carry the familiar load. For of this we may be sure, that, however harshly we may despise what we call superstition, or however firmly we may wave away what we hold to have been all a beautiful mistake, there is some fruitful power that dwells and lingers in places upon which the hearts of men have so concentrated their swift and poignant emotionsfor all, at least, to whom the soul is more than the body, and whose thoughts are not bounded and confined by the mere material shapes among which, in the days of our earthly limitations, we move uneasily to and fro.1 [Note: A. C. Benson, The Silent Isle, 381.]
3. This is the very truth which Christ always uttered. When the scribe came to Him demanding What must I do to have eternal life? He answered at once, Keep the commandments. And the Apostles after Him used the same language. Circumcision is nothing, said St. Paul, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Nothing can take the place of that. And if the gospel was new, it was new only in this that it made possible the keeping of the commandments of God. It made it possible for men to find the old paths, the good way, and to walk therein.
And so Jeremiah is at one with Jesus in offering rest of soul to those who find the old paths and walk in them. Only Jesus had the power, which Jeremiah had not, of giving the rest. Jeremiah could only recall the people to the way which their fathers found good; Jesus could call them to Himself. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. And how great is the difference between the memory of the past and the power of the present; how great is the difference between the thought of the law that is dead and the thought of the living, loving, self-sacrificing Redeemer.
David said long ago when his heart had been ill at ease, and he had felt the burden of his sin, My soul, O God, can find rest only in Thee. Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. And when you have found it, and when by-and-by you come to pass through the valley of the shadow, you will be able, like David of old, and with full assurance, to say: I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.1 [Note: R. Borland.]
The desire of rest planted in the heart is no sensual nor unworthy one, but a longing for renovation and for escape from a state whose every phase is mere preparation for another equally transitory, to one in which permanence shall have become possible through perfection. Hence the great call of Christ to men, that call on which St. Augustine fixed as the essential expression of Christian hope, is accompanied by the promise of rest; and the death bequest of Christ to men is peace.2 [Note: Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. ii. sec. i. chap. vi. (Works, iv. 114).]
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the days journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at the door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poetical Works, 339.]
The Old Paths
Literature
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), Mission Sermons, iii. 163.
Cremer (F. D.), The Swing of the Pendulum, 1.
Denny (C.), The Validity of Christian Experience, 1.
Fox (W. J.), Collected Works, iii. 317.
Gibbon (J. M.), in Sermons by Welshmen in English Pulpits, 147.
Gibson (E. C. S.), The Old Testament and Its Messages, 238.
Gray (W. H.), Old Creeds and New Beliefs, 1.
Greenhough (J. G.), Half-Hours in Gods Older Picture Gallery, 202.
Gutch (C.), Sermons, 18.
Horne (C. S.), in Sermons and Addresses, 24.
Matheson (G.), Rests by the River, 205.
Montefiore (C. G.), in Jewish Addresses, 149.
Ryle (J. C.), The Upper Room, 72.
Sandford (C. W.), Words of Counsel, 38.
Schulman (S.), in Sermons by American Rabbis, 36.
Shelford (L. E.), By Way of Remembrance, 143.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xlvii. (1901), No. 2748.
Steffe (T.), Sermons on Several Subjects, 88.
Christian Age, xxv. 148 (T. de W. Talmage); xxxiii. 34 (D. F. Lancing).
Christian World Pulpit, vii. 170 (H. W. Beecher); xxxii. 257 (C. H. Spurgeon); lxxvii. 7 (R. Borland); lxxx. 409 (H. W. Slader).
Church Pulpit Year Book, 1904, p. 13.
Homiletic Review, lv. 294 (T. Spurgeon).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
Stand: Jer 18:15, Deu 32:7, Son 1:7, Son 1:8, Isa 8:20, Mal 4:4, Luk 16:29, Joh 5:39, Joh 5:46, Joh 5:47, Act 17:11, Rom 4:1-6, Rom 4:12, Heb 6:12, Heb 11:2-40, Heb 12:1
and walk: Jer 7:23, Isa 2:5, Isa 30:21, Joh 12:35, Joh 13:17, Col 2:6
ye shall: Isa 28:12, Mat 11:28, Mat 11:29
We will: Jer 2:25, Jer 18:12, Jer 22:21, Jer 44:16, Mat 21:28-32
Reciprocal: Exo 18:20 – the way Exo 33:14 – rest Num 10:33 – a resting place 1Sa 12:23 – the good 1Ki 8:36 – the good way 2Ch 6:27 – good way Psa 25:4 – General Psa 36:4 – setteth Psa 95:11 – my rest Psa 107:7 – he led Psa 116:7 – thy rest Pro 2:9 – General Pro 2:20 – General Isa 11:10 – his rest Isa 48:17 – which leadeth Jer 11:8 – obeyed Jer 32:39 – one way Jer 42:3 – General Jer 50:5 – ask Eze 11:12 – General Eze 33:31 – and they Dan 9:6 – have we Hos 8:12 – but Hag 2:17 – yet Zec 1:4 – unto Zec 7:11 – they refused Zec 7:13 – as Mal 2:2 – ye will not hear Mat 7:14 – narrow Mat 19:8 – but Mat 21:32 – came Mat 22:3 – and they would not Mat 23:37 – how Luk 1:79 – to guide Luk 5:39 – General Luk 13:34 – and ye Luk 14:18 – all Joh 8:32 – ye shall Act 18:25 – instructed 2Ti 4:3 – they will Heb 4:3 – we 2Pe 2:2 – ways
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 6:16. Old paths being plural refers to the two items that are mentioned separately in tsa. 35: 8. The comments and definitions ot the original words are given at that place which is In the third volume ot this Commentary. When these unfaithful men were exhorted to follow In the pathway of righteousness they not only refused to do so. but defiantly declared that they would not.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 6:16-17. Stand ye in the ways, &c. He now turns his speech to the people, and gives them counsel; by a metaphor taken from travellers, who, being in doubt of their way, stand still, and consider, whether the direction, which they have received from some false guide, be right or not. Ask for the old paths Inquire in what way the patriarchs, the judges, the kings, and prophets of former times walked, and imitate their practices. And ye shall find rest for your souls You will find peace with God, will be safe under his protection, and in consequence thereof will have comfort and satisfaction in your own minds. See Mat 11:28-29. But they said, We will not walk therein If they did not say so in express words, yet such was the language of their actions: though the prophets had directed them into the right way, and though they knew others had experienced it to be so, yet they would not be persuaded to walk in it, but deliberately refused the blessings offered them. Also I set watchmen over you I gave you prophets, as so many watchmen, to warn you of the evils that threatened you. And they faithfully discharged their duty, admonishing you of your sins, and giving you faithful warning of the judgments they would bring upon you; saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet That is, to the warning given you of approaching danger. It was customary, in those days and countries, to have continually watchmen placed on high towers, or on hills, who observed the country all round, to prevent any sudden hostile invasion, by giving early notice of any appearance thereof by sound of trumpet. So the prophets, who were the observators of the manners of the people, and who had early notice from God what evils were coming, unless prevented by repentance and amendment of life, are called watchmen.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 6:16-21. Obedience more than Sacrifice.Yahweh vainly bade the people stand at the parting of the ways (Hebrew, by the ways), and seek the ancient road to prosperity, that they may find repose for themselves. The watchmen-prophets have called in vain. Yahwehs teaching (law, not necessarily written) has been rejected. For these moral faults far-fetched offerings and many sacrifices do not atone; Yahweh will make the people stumble to their ruin.
Jer 6:16. saith should be said. This verse must not be taken in the spiritual sense of Mat 11:29; the good is material well-being, the rest security, and your souls is no more than a reflexive pronoun here.
Jer 6:18. The latter part of the verse is corrupt and yields no good sense.
Jer 6:20. The Sabans of S. Arabia (Sheba, cf. 1Ki 10:1-13*) exported perfume (Isa 60:6); the calamus (mg.) used for incense (Exo 30:23) may have come from India.frankincense is a resinous gum exuding from certain trees; it became a usual accompaniment of the meal-offering; cf. Jer 17:26, Jer 41:5, Lev 2:1.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
6:16 Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the {o} old paths, where [is] the good way, and walk in it, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk [in it].
(o) In which the patriarchs and prophets walked, directed by the word of God: signifying that there is no true way, but that which God prescribes.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The inadequacy of mere ritual worship 6:16-21
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Yahweh commanded the Judahites to compare the paths in which they could walk. Then they should ask their leaders to direct them in the good old paths, the teachings of the Mosaic Covenant, or perhaps the ways of the patriarchs. [Note: Keil, 1:142, took the old paths to refer to the ways in which Israel’s godly ancestors had walked, "the patriarchs’ manner of thinking and acting."] Then they should walk in those ways and so experience rest (cf. Isa 28:12; Mat 11:28-29). But the people refused to follow those old paths. Probably they confused the ancient ways with obsolete ways, as many in our day do.
"The importance of the covenant for Jeremiah cannot be overrated. For him the covenant was fundamental to Israel’s very life, involving as it did the acknowledgment of Yahweh as Israel’s only sovereign Lord, and the glad acceptance of the covenant obligations. When Israel took this way she followed the ancient paths, the good way, and found rest. It was a theme to which Jeremiah returned again and again (Jer 7:22-23; Jer 11:1-13; etc.)." [Note: Thompson, p. 261.]