Consideration besought.
How truly human is this language! How real was the eternal Lord to him who could shape his entreaty thus! As if to urge a plea for pity, the prophet implores him who has been offended by the nation's sins, who has suffered the nation's misery and apparent ruin, to consider; to remember who Judah is, and to have mercy,
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT CALL FOR CONSIDERATION.
1. Famine and the inhuman conduct to which famine sometimes leads.
2. Death by the sword,
3. The privation of those religious offices which are the centre and inspiration of the nation's life.
4. The common suffering of all classes; prophet and priest, children and old men, virgins and youth, are alike overtaken by want, by wounds, by death.
II. THE GROUNDS UPON WHICH CONSIDERATION IS BEGGED FOR.
1. The main appeal is to Divine pity and benevolence.
2. The former mercies shown to Judah seem to be brought implicitly forward in this language. Israel has been chosen by God himself, favoured with privileges, delivered, protected, and blessed in a thousand ways. Will God cast off those in whom he has taken an interest so deep, for whom he has done so great things?
III. THE HOPE WITH WHICH CONSIDERATION IS ASKED. Hitherto the regard of God in recent events has been a regard of displeasure and of censure. But if the attitude of the stricken be no longer one of defiance, but of submission, it may be that the Lord will turn him again, will be favourable unto his afflicted people, will restore them to former prosperity, enriched with the precious lessons of their adverse experience.—T.