The seething-pot.
I. THE VESSEL. Jerusalem is compared to a seething-pot. The character of the city had certain points of resemblance.
1. Unity. All the parts are thrown into one vessel. There was a common life in the one city. All classes shared a common fortune. They who are united in sin will be united in doom.
2. Vain protection. The heat of the fire came through the vessel. The wails of Jerusalem did not save the doomed city. No earthly shelter will protect the guilty from the wrath of God.
3. Fatal imprisonment. The miserable inhabitants of Jerusalem were shut up to the horrible fate of a besieged city. There is no escape from the scene of Divine judgment. Indeed, the sufferings of a siege are worse than those of the open battle-field. They who hold out against God will be more miserably punished than those who meet him early.
II. THE CONTENTS OF THE VESSEL.
1. Flesh. The various joints of the butchered animal are flung into the seething-pot. They represent the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The punishment of sin falls on the persons of the sinners. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." There is something humiliating in this comparison with mere joints of meat. The doomed sinner is in a degraded condition. His higher spiritual nature has been neglected and well-nigh lost. He appears as "flesh," and, having sunk into the lower life of flesh, he must expect to receive the treatment of flesh. Sowing to the flesh, he reaps corruption (Galatians 6:8).
2. The choice parts. "The choice bones" are to be thrown into the seething-pot. The princes of Judah share the fate of their city; they are even selected for exceptional indignity and suffering. No earthly rank or wealth will save from the just punishment of sin. On the contrary, if large privileges have been abused, and high duties neglected, the penalty will be all the heavier.
III. THE FIRE. The seething-pot is to be put on a fire. Sin is punished by burning wrath.
1. Suffering. The symbol of fire certainly suggests pain, although we may dismiss the gross mediaeval picture of actual physical flames belching forth from some subterranean volcano.
2. Destruction. The fire is to go on beyond its wonted task till all the water is dried up and the contents of the vessel are burnt. This is the final issue of the penalties of sin. At first they come in suffering. But if there is no amendment, and the lessons of chastisement are not taken to heart, the broad road leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13), and "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).