Chapter 3: Cistern Making
Chapter 3: Cistern Making
(JEREMIAH 2:13).
"Attempt, how vain—
With things of earthly sort, with aught but God,
With aught but moral excellence, truth and love—
To satisfy and fill the immortal soul!
To satisfy the ocean with a drop;
To marry immortality to death;
And with the unsubstantial slave of time
To fill the embrace of all eternity."
POLLOK'S "COURSE OF TIME."
THERE WAS PROBABLY but little interval between Jeremiah's call and his entrance upon his sacred work. When once the Spirit of God has established a code of communications between Himself and the soul whom He has selected to be his mouthpiece, He is likely to avail Himself of it constantly. The difficulty is to lay down the wire through the ocean depths; but when it is there, the messages flash to and fro repeatedly. So we are told that to this young ardent soul "the word of the Lord came" (ii. 1). Coming, it thrilled him.
He dwelt but lightly on the ominous mention of the inevitable conflict which the Divine voice prognosticated. He did not stay to gauge the full pressure of opposition indicated in the celestial storm-signal. He had been told that kings and princes, priests and people, would fight against him; but in the first blush of his young faith he thought more of the presence of Jehovah, who had promised to make him "a defenced city, an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land." How tenderly God veils our future, and leads us forward step by step! But there is a difference between the elastic hopefulness of youth and the experience of manhood. The earlier chapters of Jeremiah differ from his Lamentations, as the first green of spring from the sere foliage of autumn.
As we study the words and deeds of this most human of prophets, let us pass through his plaintive cries and tears and prayers, to that Divine Man, whose gentle spirit was so closely anticipated and reflected in that of his servant. In every age He is at work through his servants, striving against sin in every form, and seeking to set up his reign of righteousness, peace, and joy. In Jeremiah's words, we have His vehement beseechings and remonstrances; in Jeremiah's prayers, we have echoes of the unutterable Intercessions of the Holy Spirit; in Jeremiah's conflicts, we have the Divine antagonism against flesh and blood, and the rulers of the darkness of this world; in Jeremiah's Lamentations, we have the Divine grief over human wilfulness. This priest and prophet of the Jerusalem of David and Solomon had a remarkable course to pursue, in presenting in the obscure mirror of his life the cross and sorrow of the true Priest and Prophet of the restored Jerusalem.
I. THE PROPHET'S TWOFOLD BURDEN.—When Jeremiah began his ministry, going from Anathoth to Jerusalem for that purpose (ii. 2), Josiah, though only twenty-one years of age, had been for thirteen years on the throne. He was commencing those measures of reform which availed to postpone, though not to avert, the doom of city and nation. His measures were as drastic as those of Cromwell and his soldiers, in their determined effort to remove every vestige of popery from churches and public buildings. "They brake down the altars of the Baalim in his presence; and the sun-images, that were on high above them, he hewed down; and the Asherim, and the graven images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strewed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem" (2 Chron. 34:4, 5, R.V.).
There must have been a great cawing among the rooks when the trees in which they had so long nested were felled. For seventy years the grossest forms of idolatry had held almost undisputed sway. The impious orgies and degrading rites, which licensed vice as a part of religion, were in harmony with the depraved tastes of the people. What, there fore, ecclesiastics and their flocks felt towards Henry VIII when he demolished the monasteries, and to the Protector, when his officers pursued their work of devastation, must have found ready place in those early years of Josiah's reign.
The result was—first, that the work of reform was largely superficial; it did not strike beneath the surface, nor change the trend of national choice. And secondly, this policy compacted together a strong political party, determined to promote a closer alliance with Egypt, which, under Psammetichus, had just asserted her independence against the king of Assyria. In these two directions the young prophet was called to make his influence felt.
First, he protested against the prevalent sin around him.—The one thought of the people was to preserve the outward acknowledgment of Jehovah by the maintenance of the Temple services and rites. If these were rigorously observed, they considered that there was no sufficient cause for charging them with the sin of apostasy. They insisted that they were not polluted (ii. 23); and reiterated with wearisome monotony, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these" (vii. 4).
It was Jeremiah's mission to show that mere outward observance was worse than useless, and was compatible with a real forsaking of God. Like the hectic flush, it only concealed the corruption eating its way into the heart. Like the flowers on the edge of the precipice, it hid the fatal brink. Nominal profession is compatible with utter atheism, and with the worst form of atheism, because the heart parries every attack with the foil of apparent and avowed belief.
This will account for the plain denunciations of sin, that came burning hot from the lips of the young prophet. He includes the priests and expounders of the law, pastors and prophets, in his scathing words (ii. 8). The valley of Hinnom, with its obscene and cruel rites, is quoted in evidence against them (23). The blood of children flung into the fires is detected on their robes (34); the trees of the groves whisper what they have witnessed beneath their shadow; and the jagged rocks tell stories they dare not conceal (20; 3:6). Every metaphor is adopted that human art can suggest to bring home to the people their infidelity to their great Lover and Redeemer, God (iii. 20).
He also protested against the proposal to form an Egyptian alliance.—The little land of Canaan lay between the vast rival empires founded on the Nile and the Euphrates, much as Switzerland between France and Austria. It was, therefore, constantly exposed to the transit of immense armies, like locusts, destroying everything, or to the hostile incursions of one or other of its belligerent neighbours. It had always been the policy of a considerable party at the court of Jerusalem to cultivate alliance with Egypt or Assyria. In Hezekiah's and Manasseh's time the tendency had been towards Assyria; now it was towards Egypt, which had in a remarkable way thrown off the yoke which the great king Esarhaddon in three terrible campaigns had sought to rivet on its neck. The prophet strenuously opposed these overtures. Why should his people bind themselves to the fortunes of any heathen nation whatsoever? Was not God their King? Would not He succour them in times of overflowing calamity? Surely their true policy was to stand alone, untrammelled by foreign alliances, resting only on the mighty power of Jehovah, serving his purposes, true to his law, devoted to his will. "What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor (i.e., the black Nile); or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?" (ii. 18, 36, 37).
This, then, was Jeremiah's mission—to stand almost alone; to protest against the sins of the people, which were covered by their boasted reverence to Jehovah, whom they worshipped as the tutelary deity of their land, beside many false gods; and to oppose the policy of the court, which sought to cultivate friendly relations with the one power that seemed able to render aid to his fatherland in the awful struggle with the northern kingdom which he saw to be imminent (i. 15). And this ministry was exercised in the teeth of the most virulent opposition. Here was a priest denouncing the practices of priests, a prophet the lies of prophets. It was no light thing to expose the falsehoods alike of priest and prophet, and accuse them of healing the hurt of the daughter of his people slightly, saying, "Peace, peace," when there was no peace. Small wonder, therefore, that the most powerful parties in the state conspired against him; as in after days Pilate and Herod joined hands against Christ.
II. THE IMAGERY HE EMPLOYED.— It is a scene amongst the mountains. In that green glade a fountain rises icy cold from the depths, and pours its silver stream downward through the valley You can hear the music of its ripple, and trace its course by the vegetation that follows it. It is always flowing in abundance for young and old, for the villagers in the hamlets, and, when it has grown fuller and broader, for the inhabitants of large towns along its course. But its banks are unvisited, neither cup nor bucket descends into its crystal depths; for all practical purposes it might as well cease to flow.
Far away from that verdant valley you hear the clink of the chisel, and presently discover people of every age and rank engaged in making cisterns to supply their homes. The bead-drops stand thick upon their brow, as from early dawn to far on into the night they pursue their arduous toil, wrestling with the stubborn granite. They will not avail themselves of the materials of former times, nor utilize the half-hewn cisterns deserted by their ancestors. Each man has his own scheme, his own design. He toils at it when spring casts her green mantle over the pasture lands that come to the edge of the quarry, and when the summer heat makes the quarry like a kiln. Whilst others are gathering in the ruddy grape or golden corn, he remains constant to his toil, and he is there amid the biting cold of winter- After years of work he may achieve his purpose, and complete the cistern on which he has spent his years. He calls on his neighbours to view his accomplished purpose, and waits expectant of the shower. Presently it descends, and he is filled with pride and pleasure to think of the store of water which he has been able to secure. But lo it does not stay. As soon as it enters, it passes out. There is a fatal crack or flaw; perhaps the stone is too porous. He finds, what every one of his neighbours has found, or will find, that with the utmost care the cisterns wrought in the quarry can hold no water.
What an infinite mistake to miss the fountain freely flowing to quench the thirst, and hew out the broken cistern in which is disappointment and despair. Yet this, said the prophet, was the precise position of Israel. They had done as no nation else, though search were made from the far west of Chittim to the far east of Kedar. The heathen at least were constant to their gods. False religions were indigenous to the lands where they had originated—the same idols worshipped, the same rites performed, the same temples filled with succeeding generations. But the people of Jehovah had forsaken Him, as a maid might lay aside her ornaments, or a bride her attire; and in resorting to false religions and heathen alliances, they were hewing out for themselves broken cisterns which would fail them in their hour of need.
Very pathetically the prophet reminds them of the past. The kindness of their youth, the love of their espousals, their holiness to the Lord, and the song with which they celebrated their deliverance on the shores of the Red Sea, suggested a sad contrast to the evils that cursed the land. Through him the voice of God is heard inquiring the reason of this lamentable apostasy. The chapter is full of questions, as though God would elicit the charge upon which they had deserted Him. "What unrighteousness have your fathers found in Me, that they are gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity and are become vain? Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? or a land of thick darkness? Wherefore say my people, We are broken loose, we will come no more unto Thee?"
There is nothing sadder than the ebb of love, when we are compelled to sit on the beach and watch the slowly receding waters as they drop down from the high-water mark which they had reached with the dancing wavelets. This takes the light from the eye, and the spring from the foot. Life can never again be quite as it was. The tide may come up again; but it will never efface the recollection of the ebb, and the fear of its return. This in human experience is something like the pain felt by the Eternal, as He saw Israel, for whom He had done so much, turn from Him to strangers. Bitter, indeed, to hear them say to a stock, "Thou art my father;" and to a stone, "Thou hast brought me forth." Their apostasy was to God as though a wife should go from the husband that doted upon her, and become another man's (iii. 1).
III. ITS APPLICATION TO OURSELVES.— Many cistern-makers may read these words – each with soul-thirst craving satisfaction; each within easy reach of God, whose nature is as rock-water for those that are athirst. But all attempting the impossible task of satisfying the thirst for the Infinite and Divine, with men and things.
There is the cistern of Pleasure, embroidered with fruits and flowers, and bacchanalian figures, wrought at the cost of health and rest; the cistern of Wealth, gilded and inlaid with pearls, like the mangers of the stud of eastern kings; the cistern of Fame, hewn by the youth who tore himself from the welcome of home, and the embrace of human love, to climb, with his banner of strange device, the unfrequented solitudes of the mountain summit, far above all rivalry, and even companionship; the cistern of Human Love, which, however beautiful as a revelation of the Divine Love, can never satisfy the soul that rests in it alone—all these, made at infinite cost of time and pains, deceive and disappoint. In the expressive words of Jeremiah, they are "broken cisterns that can hold no water." And in the time of trouble they will not be able to save those that have constructed and trusted them.
At your feet, O weary cistern-hewer, the fountain of God's love is flowing through the channel of the Divine Man! Stoop to drink it. We must descend to the level of the stream, if its waters are to flow over our parched lips to slake our thirst. You have already dropped your tools, and are weary of your toil. List to the music that fills the air and floats around, like the chime of angel voices: "Come back to God. Do the first works. Forsake the alliances and idolatries which have alienated you from your best Friend. Open your heart, that He may create in you the fountain of living water, leaping up to eternal life. . . . The Spirit and the bride say, Come! And he that heareth, let him say, Come! And he that is athirst, let him come he that will, let him take the water of life freely."