A parable of woes: 1. Woe to the rapacious!
I. THEIR PERSONS IDENTIFIED.
1. The Chaldean nation, in its kings and people, who were animated by a lust of conquest, which impelled them upon wars of aggression.
2. The enemies of the Church of God and of Jesus Christ, whether national or individual, in whom the same spirit dwells as resided in the Babylonian power. God's promises and threatenings in the Bible have almost always a wider sweep and a larger reference than simply to those to whom they were originally addressed.
II. THEIR SIN SPECIFIED. Spoliation, robbery, theft, plunder. A wickedness:
1. Unjust; as all theft is. In heaping up the spoils of plundered nations, the Chaldean was increasing what was not his; and the same is done by those who store up money or goods gotten by fraud or oppression. What men acquire by violence or guile is not theirs. How much of the wealth of modern nations and of private persons is of this character may not be told; to assert that none is may be charity, but is not truth. The practices complained of by James (James 5:4-6) have not bees unknown since his day.
2. Insatiable; as the lust of possession is prone to be. The plundered nations are depicted as asking—How long is this devastating power to go on despoiling peoples weaker than himself? Is his career of rapine never to be arrested? Will his thirst for what belongs to others never be quenched? So "he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase" (Ecclesiastes 5:10). The passion for heaping up ill-gotten gains grows by what it feeds on. Those who determine to enrich themselves at the expense of others seldom know when to stop. Almost never do they cry, "Enough!" till retribution, overtaking them, strips them of all.
3. Vain; as all sin will ultimately prove to be. The foreign property taken by the Chaldean from other nations, the prophet characterizes as "pledges" exacted from them by an unmerciful creditor, perhaps intending thereby to suggest that the Chaldean would be "compelled to disgorge them in due time" (Keil). The idea, true of all man's earthly possessions (Job 1:21)—
"Whate'er we fondly call our own
Belongs to heaven's great Lord;
The blessings lent us for a day
Are soon to be restored,"
—is much more applicable to wealth acquired by fraud or oppression (Jeremiah 17:11). The day will come when, if not by the robbed themselves, by God the rightful Owner of the wealth (Haggai 2:8) and the strong Champion of the oppressed (Psalms 10:18), it will be demanded back with interest (Job 20:15).
III. THEIR PUNISHMENT DESCRIBED.
1. Certain. "Shall not all these take up a parable against him?" The overthrow of the Chaldean is so surely an event of the future that the very nations and peoples he has plundered, or the believing remnant amongst them, will yet raise a derisive song over his miserable and richly merited fall; and just as surely will the rapacious plunderer of others be destroyed, and his destruction be a source of satisfaction to beholders (Proverbs 1:18, Proverbs 1:19).
2. Heavy. The wealth he has stolen from others will be to him as a "burden of thick clay" that will first crush him to the earth, making the heart within him wretched and the spirit sordid and grovelling, and finally sink him into a hopeless and cheerless grave (Ecclesiastes 2:22, Ecclesiastes 2:23; Ecclesiastes 6:2; Psalms 49:14).
3. Sudden. Retribution should fall upon the Chaldean in a moment—his biters should rise up suddenly, and his destroyers wake up as from a sleep to harass him (verse 7); and in such fashion will the end be of "everyone that is greedy of gain and taketh away the life of the owners thereof" (Proverbs 1:19); he may "spend his days in wealth," but "in a moment he shall go down to the grave" (Job 21:13); he may "heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay," but he shall "lie down and not be gathered;" he shall "open his eyes, and behold! he is not" (Job 27:16, Job 27:19).
4. Retributive. The Chaldean should be spoiled by the nations he had spoiled. So will violent and rapacious men reap what themselves have sowed. How often is it seen that money goes as it comes! Acquired by speculation or gambling, it is lost by the same means. He who robs others by violence or fraud not unfrequently is himself robbed by another stronger or craftier than he. "Whatsoever a man soweth," etc. (Galatians 6:7).
LESSONS.
1. "Provide things honest in the sight of all men" (Romans 12:17).
2. "Do violence to no man" (Luke 3:14).
3. "If thou do that which is evil, be afraid" (Romans 13:4).