The invasions of the Assyrians 34 So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. 35 The LORD shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head. 36 The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. 37 And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee. 38 Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it. 39 Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. 40 Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; for thine olive shall cast his fruit. 41 Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity. 42 All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume. 43 The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. and of the Romans threatened. shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail. 45 Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee: 46 And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. 47 Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; 48 Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. 49 The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; 50 A nation of fierce, countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young: 51 And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have de 44 He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he stroyed thee. LECTURE 353. The peril of not serving God with joyfulness. The doctrine of a judgment to come, after the end of this pre sent life, at the end of this present world, was one of those, which having been known to mankind from the beginning, suffered greatly by the progressive corruptions of the truth; insomuch that when idolatry became prevalent, it was so disfigured by fable and falsehood as to be rendered unworthy of belief. This might be one reason for God's dealing with the Israelites by a temporal dispensation; by a system of rewards and punishments, which seemed to say to the beholders, If you cannot receive the evidence of things unseen, you at least cannot deny the things which you actually feel; and you shall be convinced by your own senses in the flesh, from the signal happiness of my chosen people if obedient, and from their signal woe if disobedient, that verily "there is a God that judgeth the earth." Ps. 58. 10. Well fitted for such an end as this were the judgments threatened in the words before us; well fitted to convince those who suffered, and those who saw, and us also who now read of them, that God is One who will by no means let the wicked go unpunished; so that such of them as seem at present to escape, may be sure that He will hereafter overtake them. The afflictions of his people by disease, and by the failure of the fruit of their land, their subjection to their enemies, their being carried away into captivity, the universal contempt they would meet with, and the iron yoke of hunger and thirst, of nakedness, and want of all things, in which they would have to serve their enemies, all these curses, previously touched upon, are here repeated and enlarged. And especially the two great nations, which God would chiefly use for chastising them, seem to be here distinctly pointed out. "The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known." These words, and those which follow, foreshew the Babylonish captivity, in which their kings were so remarkably concerned. See 2 Kings 24. 12, 14. 25. 7. Whilst the dwelling place of the Romans, their rigour, their very ensign, the utter diversity of their language, and perhaps also their national expression of face, are foretold in these remarkable words: "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance." Let us observe that these curses were to overtake the people not only by reason of their gross transgressions; but also, as it is here expressed, "Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things." Let us think of this, in our abundance, both temporal and spiritual. Let us remember that joyfulness is our duty. And let us take warning, that if we will not rejoice in the Lord, for the great salvation He has wrought in our behalf, we shall be given up to serve Satan, his enemy, and ours, under the iron yoke of everlasting destruction. A dreadful siege, and universal dispersion, threatened. 52 And he shall besiege thee in are written in this book, that all thy gates, until thy high and thou mayest fear this glorious fenced walls come down, wherein and fearful name, THE LORD thou trustedst, throughout all thy THY GOD; land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee. 53 And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee: 54 So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave: 55 So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates. 56 The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, 57 And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates. 58 If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that 59 Then the LORD will male thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance. 60 Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee. 61 Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed. 62 And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the LORD thy God. 63 And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. 64 And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. 65 And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: 66 And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: 67 In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. 68 And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you. LECTURE 354. The certainty and fearfulness of future punishments. Of all the horrors which the Romans brought upon the Jews, the most remarkable was the siege of Jerusalem. Of this siege we have an accurate account, come down to our times, in the writings of Josephus, the historian of the Jews. And his relation of the things which took place, agrees so exactly with those which are here threatened, that this passage, which was written at least fifteen hundred years before the taking of Jerusalem, may be considered as one of the most remarkable of all the prophecies in holy writ. Who could have conceived beforehand, that a mother would have been induced, by any straitness of the siege, to eat the flesh of her own infant child? Yet this happened amongst the Jews, according to Josephus, at the siege of Jerusalem; and we know that it had also happened before, in the kingdom of Israel, at the siege of Samaria. See 2 Kings 6. 29. Who could have thought, that this one family of mankind, after being so greatly reduced in number, and then dispersed from one end of the earth to the other, should still have been preserved as a distinct race, though every where made subject to oppression, extortion, cruelty, and scorn; such as might seem to have been sufficient in the course of nearly eighteen hundred years, to wear out their distinctive character, if not to make the whole race extinct? But above all, who could have believed, that with these many sufferings threatened so expressly, the people should have ever dared to disobey, should have followed after idols, instead of fearing" this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;" and instead of helping to prepare others for the coming of Christ, should themselves have cried, "Crucify him, crucify him?" Luke 23. 21. This would indeed be most hard to conceive beforehand. But alas, we know that it did really happen. And alas, we daily witness a degree of hardihood, still greater in many called Christians; who though they brave not sufferings on earth, dare to defy the vengeance of eternal fire. Let them learn from these threatenings already fulfilled, the certainty of punishments yet to come. And if it has proved in this case so grievous a thing to fall into the hands of man, let them think how much more fearful it must be "to fall into the hands of the living God." Heb. 10. 31. O. T. VOL. I. PART II. . The covenant made with Israel in the land of Moab. 1 These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb. 2 And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; 3 The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles: 9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do. 10 Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, 4 Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. 5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot. 6 Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink that ye might know that I am the LORD your God. 7 And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them: 8 And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh. 11 Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water: 12 That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day: 13 That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; 15 But with him that standethi here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day: 16 (For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by; 17 And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them :) LECTURE 355. The gain of every fresh tie to God's service. After concluding the rehearsal of the Law, see ch. 26, the last part of this book describes the measures ordained by God, and revealed by Moses, for impressing it on the people. First there was the writing it on plaistered stones; and the solemn act of assent to the blessings and curses at mount Gerizim, and mount Ebal. See ch. 27. Then followed the promises and threatenings, conditional on obedience and transgression. Next we have the |