r's
repentance, the conditional nature of the threatenings, the possibility
of breaking the bond between sin and sorrow, the yet deeper thought that
righteousness must come from above, are all condensed in this brief
gospel before the Gospel.

But that bright gleam passes, and the old theme recurs. Once more we
have sin and punishment exhibited in their organic connection in verses
13 and 14. Israel's past had been just the opposite of sowing
righteousness and reaping mercy. Wickedness ploughed in, iniquity will
surely be its fruit. Sin begets sin, and is its own punishment. What
fruit have we of doing wrong? 'Lies'; that is, unfulfilled expectations
of unrealised satisfaction. No man gets the good that he aimed at in
sinning, or he gets something more that spoils it. At last the
deceitfulness of sin will be found out, but we may be sure of it now.
The root of all Israel's sin was the root of ours; namely, trust in
self, and consequent neglect of God. The first half of verse 13 is an
exhaustive analysis of the experience of every sinful life; the second,
a penetrating disclosure of the foundation of it.

Then the whole closes with the repeated threatening, dual as before, and
illustrated by the forgotten horrors of some dreadful siege, one of the
'unhappy, far-off things,' fallen silent now. A significant variation
occurs in the final threatening, in which Beth-el is set forth as the
cause, rather than as the object, of the destruction. 'They were the
ruin of him and of all Israel.' Our vices are made the whips to scourge
us. Our idols bring us no help, but are the causes of our misery.

The Prophet ends with the same double reference which prevails
throughout, when he once more declares the annihilation of the monarchy,
which, rather than a particular person, is meant by 'the king.' 'In the
morning' is enigmatical. It may mean 'prematurely,' or 'suddenly,' or
'in a time of apparent prosperity,' or, more probably, the Prophet
stands in vision in that future day of the Lord, and points to 'the
king' as the first victim. The force of the prophecy does not depend on
the meaning of this detail. The teaching of the whole is the certainty
that suffering dogs sin, but yet does so by no iron, impersonal law, but
according to the will of God, who will rain righteousness even on the
sinner, being penitent, and will endow with righteousness from above
every lowly soul that seeks for it.

DESTRUCTION AND HELP

'O Israe