When we see God in our punishments, we begin to take a right view of them; when they are nothing to us but self-humiliations or signs of contempt, they embitter us and harden our hearts; but when we see God at work in the very desolation of our fortunes, we axe sure that He has a reason for thus scourging us, and that if we accept the penalty, and bow down before His majesty, we shall be lifted up by His mighty hand. Zion says that the Lord hath made her strength to fail, the Lord hath trodden under foot all her mighty men, the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. But Zion does not accept these results with a hard heart; no: rather she says, “For these things I weep,” etc. Whatever brings us to this softness of heart is a helper to the soul in all upward and Divine directions. Zion confesses the righteousness of the Lord. In proportion as we can recognise the justice of our punishment, may we bear that punishment with some dignity. It has been pointed out that with this beginning of conversion the name of the Lord, or Jehovah, reappears. The people whom God has punished on account of their sins have, in the result, been enabled to recognise the justice of their punishment. Of this we have an example in the Book of Nehemiah (Neh_9:33-34). In the case of the Captivity, we see the extreme rigour of the law in the expression, “My virgins and my young men,” etc.: the most honoured and the most beautiful have perished of hunger, as it were, in the open streets. How impartial and tremendous are the judgments of God! May not virgins be spared? May not His priests be exempted from the operation of the law of judgment? Will not an official robe protect a soul against the lightning of Divine wrath? All history answers No; all experience testifies to the contrary, and thereby re-establishes and infinitely confirms our confidence in the living God. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The equity of punishment acknowledged
1. God’s people do acknowledge His justice in all His works, yea, even in His punishments laid upon them.
(1) His Word and Spirit hath reformed their judgments, teaching them how to think of His holy majesty in all things.
(2) The consciousness of their own sins causeth them to justify the Lord, and to accuse themselves.
2. It is the duty of God’s children to seek the cause of all their evils in themselves.
(1) God is righteous, and layeth nothing upon them but what they justly deserve.
(2) They know their own manifold sins, and their exceeding weakness in well-doing, which they cannot see in any others.
3. Though God punish us oft for other causes, yet the matter that He worketh upon is our sins.
4. We must not lessen our sins, but account them most heinous in our own eyes.
5. It is our duty (especially in religion) neither to go further nor to come shorter than God’s revealed will; but attend unto it as the servant’s eye doth unto his master’s hand (Psa_123:2).
6. It is rebellion against the Lord Himself to be disobedient unto the voice of His ministers teaching His truth (Luk_10:16).
7. We are constrained in our adversity to acknowledge God’s hand in those things which in our prosperity we neglected.
8. When God’s people are punished, they are not ashamed but willing to tell all men of it, and to declare their sins to be the cause of it.
(1) Above all things they desire to have the Lord justified in all men’s judgments.
(2) They desire that their own example may teach others to serve God better.
9. The manifesting of our punishments unto the world as from God’s hand because of our sins can neither dishonour the Lord nor harden others in their wickedness, but is a just occasion of the contrary. (J. Udall.)
Acknowledging the righteousness of God’s judgments
The cure token of Judah’s and Israel’s repentance shall be when, accepting the punishment of their iniquity as their just due, they shall justify God. It is the most hopeful sign in any sinner, when the Holy Spirit applying inwardly the lesson taught by outward distresses, teaches him to cry, “The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against His commandments.” (A. R. Fausset, M. A.)
