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Jeremiah 50:6

6. My people hath been lost sheep; their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain 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;1 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, --


1 I 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 Mybbws is given by the Sept. and Vulg., "causing them to wander;" the verb bs is 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.

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