quicunque cognoscitis nomen ejus, dicite, Quomodo fractus est baculus fortis? virga
JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS the punishment which he threatens to our enemies?'' Hence he says, ``Strengthen your minds for a little while, for God will presently stretch forth his hand and show that he is a defender who cares for you and your safety; for he will set himself against the Moabites, because they have been unfaithful and vexatious to you.'' It is, then, for this reason that he says, Near is their destruction, and their vengeance hastens
We may hence learn this useful doctrine, that whenever God promises anything, we ought to receive it as a present thing, though yet hidden and even remote. There is no distance which ought to impede our faith; but we ought to regard as certain whatever God promises, and as though it were before our eyes and in our hand. And the same ought to be the case as to threatenings; whenever God denounces anything hard and grievous, it ought to touch and move us the same as though we saw his hand armed with a sword, and as though the very execution of his vengeance was exhibited before our eyes. For we know what the Scripture teaches us elsewhere,
the wicked shall say, Peace and security, destruction comes suddenly on them, as the pain of childbearing, which seizes a woman when she thinks nothing of it.'' (1 Thessalonians 5:3)
Let us then learn to set God's favor ever as present, and also all punishments, so that we may really fear them. It follows ---
Jeremiah 48:17
17. All ye that are about him, bemoan him; and all ye that know his name, say,
How is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod!
17. Commovemini illi (id est, super Moab) quicunque estis in circuitu ejus, et quicunque cognoscitis nomen ejus, dicite, Quomodo fractus est baculus fortis? virga pulchritudinis (vel, excellentiae, nam {}תראפתsignificat decorum pulchritudine.)
The Prophet seems indeed to exhort all neighbors to sympathy; but we have stated for what purpose he did this; for it was not his object to show that the Moabites deserved pity, so that their neighbors ought to have condoled with them in their calamities: but by this figurative mode of speaking he exaggerated the grievousness of the evils which were soon to happen to the Moabites; as though he had said,
judgment of God will be so dreadful as to make all their neighbors to tremble; all who had previously known the state of the people of Moab, will be smitten with such terror as will make them to groan and mourn with them.'' In short, the Prophet had nothing else in view than to show that God's vengeance on the Moabites would not be less severe and dreadful than it had been on the ten tribes, and what it would be on the tribe of Judah.
Say ye, he says, how is the staff broken? He introduces here all their neighbors as astonished with wonder; for the same purpose are other things mentioned, even to show that the calamity of Moab would be deemed a prodigy, for the people thought them unassailable, and no one had ever dared to attempt anything against their land. This, then, was the reason why the Prophet here asks as one astonished, even in the person of all nations, How has it happened that the staff is broken? and the beautiful rod? 369 These are metaphorical words, which refer to the royal dignity
369The literal rendering is, — How has the rod of strength been broken, The staff of honor? "How" is by what means, or how much: the first seems to be the meaning here. The rod and the staff are the same — the sceptre an ensign of power and of honor or glory. — Ed.