montes abierunt, a monte in collem profecti sunt, obliti sunt accubitus sui.
JOHN CALVIN tain to hill, they have forgotten their resting-place.
6. Grex perditus fuit populus meus, pastores eorum errare fecerunt ipsos, per montes abierunt, a monte in collem profecti sunt, obliti sunt accubitus sui.
As the clock strikes, I must stop here.
PRAYER
Grant, Almighty God, that we may not be inebriated with the sweetness of earthly blessings which thou bestowest continually on us, but learn to ascend to the hope of celestial life and eternal felicity, and in the meantime have such a taste of thy blessings, that we may know that thou art an inexhaustible fountain of all felicity, so that we may cleave to thee with a sincere heart and in perfect integrity, until we shall at length be brought to the full fruition of that kingdom, which thine only-begotten
Son has procured for us by his own blood. --- Amen.
LECTURE ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTIETH
THE, Prophet in the sixth verse compares God's people to lost sheep: he therefore says, that the Jews wandered on the mountains and went from mountain to hill He throws the blame on the shepherds, by whom the miserable people had been led astray. Notwithstanding, God does not extenuate the fault of the people; nor did he accuse the pastors as though their wickedness and perfidy absolved the people; but on the contrary, he commends the greatness of his own grace, that he had mercy on a flock that was lost and without hope. We now then understand the design of the Prophet when he thus spoke in the person of God, My people have become lost sheep, and the shepherds have seduced them, on the mountains have they made them to go astray, from mountain to hill have they gone; and he says, that they had forgotten their lying down; 412 for when there is no fixed station, the sheep have no place to rest. Flocks, we know, return in the evening to their folds. But the Prophet says that the Jews, when scattered, forgot their lying down, because they had no settled habitation. It afterwards follows, ---
Jeremiah 50:7
7. All that found them have devoured them: and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of justice, even the
LORD, the hope of their fathers.
7. Omnes qui invenerunt eos comederunt, et adversarii eorum dixerunt, Non peccamus, quia scelerati fuerunt contra Jehovam; habitaculum justitiae et expectatio
(vel, spes) patrum ipsorum, Jehova.
Jeremiah goes on with the same subject; for he tells us how miserable was the condition of the people until God looked on them to relieve them from their evils.
And this comparison, as I have before said, more fully sets forth the favor of God, because he raised up his people as it were from hell at a time when they were reduced to despair.
He says first, All who found them devoured them; that is, all who came in contact
412I render the verse thus, — 6. Lost sheep have become my people; Their shepherds have caused them to err, Having turned them here and there on the mountains; From mountain to hill have they gone; They have forgotten their resting-place. The meaning of {{שובביםis given by the Sept. and Vulg., ``causing them to wander;'' the verb {}שבis to turn; being here a reduplicate, it means to turn much, or again and again, or here and there; and this is confirmed by what follows --- they went, through the teaching of their pastors, from ``mountain to hill,'' that is, from one form of idolatry to another; and ``forgotten their resting-place,'' which was God. --- Ed