Jeremiah 6:4, commentary and pictures

The verse depicts an enemy calling for war against Jerusalem, eager to march up at midday and then crying out in dismay as the day slips away and the evening shadows grow long, showing both haste and relentless determination to press the attack. It stands among the prophecies of Jerusalem's fall. The departure of the day and the stretching of the evening shadows mean the sun is sinking fast toward the horizon and night is at hand.

The fading light and lengthening shadows signify a closing opportunity and warn that the season for labor will come to an end. The cry that the day is departing and almost gone presses hearers not to squander what time remains but to hasten and labor diligently in work and in preaching and inviting, instead of becoming idle or heedless. That sense that the time for action is ebbing is a summons to urgent exertion, prayer, love, and diligence, not an excuse for idleness or delay. It urges sinners to seek reconciliation with God and urges ministers and missionaries to work while time still lasts.

The lengthening evening shadows portray the close of human history and the nearing end of the time for gospel work. They therefore call for earnest effort while opportunity continues, for millions stand like a ripe harvest ready to be gathered yet still unwarned and unprepared. Though uttered more than twenty-five hundred years ago, the picture suits modern times and marks the nearness of the world's final hour. The lengthening shadows over the world announce earth's coming dark night of anguish and the night of eternal doom, discerned in the titanic struggle of the nations in Europe and in the spreading state of war, revolution, anarchy, and racial unrest, warning that the last conflict and the end are drawing on.

In these last days the verse reveals God calling out a people to keep the whole law, including the Sabbath as held by Christ and the apostles.