Man's neglect of God's teaching.
I. GOD'S ATTITUDE AS A TEACHER TOWARDS MAN. God's complaint is that man turns to him the back and not the face. Hence we are. But God, looking from a higher point, sees the enduring bright result beyond. Observe in this passage—
I. GOD'S THOROUGH GOOD WILL TOWARDS HIS PEOPLE. His will is ever to show favour and do good to mankind. That will is always in action, but it can only be in manifestation when men themselves, by their spirit of submission to God and obedience to his directions, make such a manifestation possible. As he is thorough in his anger—against the rebellious and idolatrous, so he is thorough in his favour towards the repentant. It is well that we should ever remember this deep good will of God to men when things are going wrong with us. The fault of untoward experiences may be in us or it may be in others; it cannot be in God. We must not put down to arbitrariness in him the painful workings of that law which manifests itself in sequence to human ignorance and folly.
II. GOD'S SUFFICIENT OPPORTUNITY TO DO GOOD TO HIS PEOPLE. The confident tone that runs through this passage is most encouraging. Bad as the people have been, far as they have been driven, widely as they have been scattered, God can put all right again if only the people are willing to have it so. All God waits for is to hear the prodigal nation say, "I will arise and go to my Father." If only we give God the opportunity, he will make us to abound in supplies for our necessities and blessedness. We let many opportunities slip for doing good, and never do we use any such opportunity to the full. But God delights in the opportunities men give him, and here is an illustration of how he presses forward to use them. "I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul." Only be willing to be a plant of God's own planting, and there is no reason why you should not feel the whole heart and soul of God going out for your highest good.
III. GOD WORKING TOWARDS THE UNITY OF HIS PEOPLE. One is reminded of the unity proclaimed in Ephesians 4:3-6: one God, one people, one heart, one way, one covenant because an everlasting one, one character for the future. This unity stands out in contrast to the previous scattering. The previous scattering was only an outward symbol of the scattering within. If even the people had continued in Jerusalem, that would have given them no unity save the unity of place, which is the most precarious, mocking, and delusive of all unities. But the new unity is that of one heart. As one life flows through all the organs of the body, making the life of each the life of all and the life of all the life of each, so God will make it among his true people. God binds each to himself by the law written in the heart, and so all are bound to one another.
IV. THE EVERLASTING COVENANT THUS MADE POSSIBLE. God has now found something deep in the heart of his people whereby he can get an abiding hold. His covenant finds a firm anchorage in the regenerated inward man. With one heart and one way there is a starting point for doing Divine good, not to one generation, but to many. How much good we may hinder by our spiritual blindness and indifference! And on the other hand, what copious showers of blessing may be the result of a timely turning to God!—Y.