Defence, Job xxii. 23, 25. (2.) Their assemblies or tabernacles of meeting for religious worship. No mention is made of the temple, for the promise points at a time when not one stone of that shall be left upon another; but all the congregations of Christians, though but two or three meet together in Christ's name, shall be taken under the special protection of Heaven; they shall no more be scattered, no more disturbed, nor shall any weapon formed against them prosper. Note, We ought to reckon it a great mercy, if we have liberty to worship God in public, free from the alarms of the sword of war or persecution.
Now this writ of protection is drawn up, [1.] In a similitude taken from the safety of the camp of Israel, when they marched through the wilderness. God will give to the Christian church as real proofs, though not so sensible of his care of them, as he gave to them then. The Lord will again create a cloud and smoke by day, to screen them from the scorching heat of the sun, and the shining of a flaming fire by night, to enlighten and warm the air, which, in the night, is cold and dark. See Exod. xiii. 21. Neh. ix. 19. This pillar of cloud and fire interposed between the Israelites and the Egyptians, Exod. xiv. 20. Note, Though miracles are ceased, yet God is the same to the New Testament church, that he was to Israel of old; the very same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. [2.] In a similitude taken from the outside cover of rams' skins and badgers' skins, that was upon the curtains of the tabernacle, as if every dwelling-place of mount Zion and every assembly were as dear to God as that tabernacle was; Upon all the glory shall be a defence, to save it from wind and weather. Note, The church on earth has its glory; gospel-truths and ordinances, the scriptures and the ministry, are the church's glory; and upon all this glory there is a defence, and ever shall be, for the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. If God himself be the Glory in the midst of it, he will himself be a Wall of fire round about it, impenetrable, and impregnable. Grace in the soul is the glory of it, and those that have it, are kept by the power of God as in a strong hold, 1 Pet. i. 5.
2. Their tabernacle shall be a defence to them, v. 6. God's tabernacle was a pavilion to the saints, Ps. xxvii. 5. But when that is taken down, they shall not want a covert: the divine power and goodness shall be a tabernacle to all the saints, God himself will be their Hiding-place, (Ps. xxxii. 7.) they shall be at home in him, Ps. xci. 9. He will himself be to them as the shadow of a great rock, (ch. xxxii. 2.) and his name a strong tower, Prov. xviii. 10. He will be not only a Shadow from the heat in the day-time, but a Covert from storm and rain. Note, In this world we must expect change of weather, and all the inconveniences that attend it; we shall meet with storm and rain in this lower region, and at other times the heat of the day, no less burthensome: but God is a Refuge to his people, in all weathers.
CHAP. V.
In this chapter, the prophet, in God's name, shows the people of God their transgressions, even the house of Jacob their sins, and the judgments which were likely to be brought upon them for their sins: I. By a parable, under the similitude of an unfruitful vineyard, representing the great favours God had bestowed upon them, their disappointing of his expectations from them, and the ruin they had thereby deserved, v. 1..7. II. By an enumeration of the sins that did abound among them, with a threatening of punishments that should answer to the sins: 1. Covetousness, and greediness of worldly wealth, which shall be punished with famine, v. 8..10. 2. Rioting, revelling, and drunkenness, (v. 11, 12, 22.) which shall be punished with captivity and all the miseries that attend it, v. 13..17. 3. Presumption in sin, and defying the justice of God, v. 18, 19. 4. Confounding the distinctions between virtue and vice, and so undermining the principles of religion, v. 20. 5. Self-conceit, v. 21. 6. Perverting justice; for which, and the other instances of reigning wickedness among them, a great and general desolation is threatened, which should lay all waste, (v. 24, 26.) and which should be effected by a foreign invasion, (v. 26..30.) referring perhaps to the havoc made not long after by Sennacherib's army.
1.NOW will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill; 2. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine-press therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. 3. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. 4. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? 5. And now, go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: 6. And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. 7. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.
See what variety of methods the great God takes to awaken sinners to repentance, by convincing them of sin, and showing them their misery and danger, by reason of it: to this purport he speaks sometimes in plain terms, and sometimes in parables, sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse, as here; "We have tried to reason with you, (ch. i. 18.) now let us put your case into a poem, inscribed to the honour of my Well-beloved." God the Father dictates it to the honour of Christ his well-beloved Son, whom he has constituted Lord of the vineyard. The prophet sings it to the honour of Christ too, for he is his Well-beloved. The Old Testament prophets were friends of the Bridegroom: Christ is God's beloved Son, and our beloved Saviour: whatever is said or sung of the church, must be intended to his praise, even that which (like this) tends to our shame. This parable is put into a song, that it might be the more moving and affecting, might be the more easily learned, and exactly remembered, and the better transmitted to posterity; and it is an exposition of the song of Moses, (Deut. xxxii.) showing, that what he then foretold, was now fulfilled. Jerom says, Christ, the Well-beloved, did, in effect, sing this mournful song, when he beheld Jerusalem, and wept over it, (Luke xix. 41.) and had reference to it in the parable of the vineyard; (Matth. xxi. 33.) only here the fault was in the vines, there in the husbandmen. Here is,
I. The great things which God had done for the Jewish church and nation: when all the rest of the
