Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
The word taken up is a lamentation against the house of Israel in a time when outward prosperity was marked by idolatry, depravity, injustice, and oppression. It opens the delineation of God's dealings with Israel and the recital of their crooked ways just before the severest chastisement, to force home conviction of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. It is directed to a people who had failed to live up to the light and responsibility given them, whose worship was an insult to God because their conduct did not follow His requirements.
The lamentation mingles love and mercy with justice. It still gives opportunity to individuals to repent and return and to seek God and live before the stroke falls upon the nation as a whole. In this it reveals God's character of love and long-suffering, showing His relation to His church and to the world and that His manner of dealing with them remains the same in principle.
The word taken up is a lamentation against the house of Israel in a time when outward prosperity was marked by idolatry, depravity, injustice, and oppression. It opens the delineation of God's dealings with Israel and the recital of their crooked ways just before the severest chastisement, to force home conviction of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. It is directed to a people who had failed to live up to the light and responsibility given them, whose worship was an insult to God because their conduct did not follow His requirements.
The lamentation mingles love and mercy with justice. It still gives opportunity to individuals to repent and return and to seek God and live before the stroke falls upon the nation as a whole. In this it reveals God's character of love and long-suffering, showing His relation to His church and to the world and that His manner of dealing with them remains the same in principle.