The elements by which the Divine government punishes sin.
"And this shall be the plague," etc. In the third verse of this chapter we are told that "the Lord shall go forth and fight against those nations," that is, against those nations comprehended in the armies which destroyed Jerusalem; and we have elsewhere endeavoured to illustrate how God punishes bad men by bad men. This passage is a further illustration of the idea. There are three elements of punishment which Jehovah is represented as employing in these verses—physical diseases, mutual animosity, and temporal losses.
1. PHYSICAL DISEASES. "And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth." "This description of the plague-stricken people," says a modern author, "is shocking, but it is not more than what actually occurs" (see Defoe's 'Plague of London'). Kingsley says, "What so terrible as war? I will tell you what is ten times and ten thousand times more terrible than war, and that is outraged nature. Nature, insidious, inexpensive, silent, sends no roar of cannon, no glitter of arms, to do her work; she gives no warning note of preparation Man has his courtesies of war and his chivalries of war; he does not strike the unarmed man; he spares the woman and the child. But Nature … spares neither woman nor child … silently she strikes the sleeping child with as little remorse as she would strike the strong man with the musket or the pick axe in his hand." One could scarcely imagine a more revolting condition of humanity than is here presented—a living skeleton, nearly all the flesh gone, the eyes all but blotted out, the tongue withered. Physical disease has ever been one of the instruments by which God has punished men in this world—pestilences, plagues, epidemics, and so on. But it is not merely a plague amongst the people, but also amongst the castle, as we see in Zechariah 14:15. "And so shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts that shall be in these tents, as this plague." These words remind us of Byron's description of the destruction of Sennacherib's host. "
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf."
II. MUTUAL ANIMOSITY. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour." The idea is, perhaps, that God would permit such circum stances to spring up amongst them as would generate in their minds mutual misunderstandings, malignities, quarrellings, and battlings. "They shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour." "Every man's sword shall be against his brother." All the jealousies, envyings, contentions, that are rife in society may be regarded as the means by which sin is punished. Sin punishes sin, bad passions not only work misery, but are in themselves miseries.
III. TEMPORAL LOSSES. "And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem." Not against Jerusalem. "And the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in abundance." Earthly property men in their unrenewed state have always valued as the highest good. To attain it they devote all their powers with an unquenchable enthusiasm, and to hold it they are ever on the alert, and their grasp is unrelaxable and firm. To have it snatched from them is among their greatest calamities; and how often this occurs in society! By what we call accidents, by a commercial panic, legal flaws, chicaneries, and frauds, rich men frequently are deprived of their wealth, men who are born in palaces often die in a pauper's hovel. "Riches take to themselves wings, and fly away." This is another way in which Heaven punishes sin.
CONCLUSION. See those elements of retribution working everywhere around us. They have worked through all history. Because they are common we do not note them as we ought. We connect them not with the Justice that reigns over the universe. Albeit they are penal forces.—D.T.