Jeremiah continued his
overview of the effects of the devastation which occurred to
Jerusalem and Judah after their rejection of the law of God. After
sharing about children starving and swooning in the streets, in
chapter two and verse thirteen Jeremiah struggles to find any example
of when a people have been more desecrated than they. He wrote:
What thing shall I take
to witness for you? what thing shall I liken to you, O daughter of
Jerusalem? what shall I equal to you, that I may comfort you, O
virgin daughter of Zion? for your breach is great like the
sea: who can heal you?
The
verse begins, “What thing shall I take to witness for you? what
thing shall I liken to you, O daughter of Jerusalem?” In an
effort to try to make some sense and explanation for the horror which
came upon Jerusalem, Jeremiah reaches for a historical example of
which to compare them. He finds none. He cannot make reference to any
“witness” which means to “return and turn again and
again” as though he circles over and over in his mind for any
example, but there are none. There is nothing to which he can “liken”
or “resemble and compare” this devastation to from the past. As
far as Jeremiah knew, no one had endured such depth of destruction as
Jerusalem.
The verse goes on to say, “what
shall I equal to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of
Zion?” In a continued effort to find some example, Jeremiah
next turns to something that would have had “equal” or
“level, equivalent or in the same place” as Jerusalem. His desire
is to “comfort” which means to “console, be sorry for,
suffer with, or have compassion upon” those to whom he writes. He
affectionately calls them “Virgin daughter of Zion” which
denotes he continued care for them even though they rejected the
Almighty God.
Finally
the verse continues, “for your breach is
great like the sea: who can heal you?” In
another attempt to find something of which to compare Jerusalem's
plight, Jeremiah employs “the sea”
to give an example of how vast their “breach”
or “breaking, fracture, crushing, breach, ruin, or
shattering” has been. Using the example of the sea which is
tremendously wide and far-reaching, Jeremiah is driven to ask, “who
can heal you?” or who could ever bring this fractured people
back together.
Jeremiah asked four
questions within this one verse, and completed it with “who can
heal you?” Perhaps we have experienced or known someone who has
experienced such great devastation within their lives that we might
wonder if anyone is capable of healing them. We may be inclined to
wonder if they are too far gone, beyond the reach of help, and
outside of the bounds of rescuing. Fortunately we have the Son of the
Almighty God, Jesus, who knows no boundaries that cannot be scaled.
He knows no person that is beyond His reach, and no matter how
horrific their lives have been, the saving grace of Jesus Christ is
able to save anyone who will reach out to Him. If we are that person,
then let us go to Him with all our hearts and minds and watch Him
bridge a gap that no one else can span.
Next
time we will see what the false prophets of Jerusalem told them, so
read ahead, and we shall join together then.
Until
tomorrow...there is more...
Look
for the daily devotional book “Equipped for Battle – From
Generation to Generation”, the marriage book “So, You Want to Be
Married”, and the new devotional “One Year in the Sermon on the
Mount” in all major bookstore sites, www.amazon.com ;
www.barnesandnobles.com ; download to e-books, and find it locally at
www.mrzlc.com/bookstore
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