The magnificent proclamation of the name of the Lord which closes the passage, is meant as at once a guarantee of His judgment and an enforcement of the call to be ready to meet Him.  He in creation forms the solid, changeless mountains and the viewless, passing wind.  The most stable and the most mobile are His work.  He reads men’s hearts, and can tell them their thoughts afar off.  He is the Author of all changes, both in the physical and the moral world, bringing the daily wonder of sunrise and the nightly shroud of darkness, and with like alternation blending joy and sorrow in men’s lives.  He treads ’on the high places of the earth,’ making all created elevations the path of His feet, and crushing down whatever exalts itself.  Thus, in creation almighty, in knowledge omniscient, in providence changing all things and Himself the same, subjugating all, and levelling a path for His purposes across every opposition, He manifests His name, as the living, eternal Jehovah, the God of the Covenant, and therefore of judgment on its breakers, and as the Commander and God of the embattled forces of the universe.  Is this a God whose coming to judge is to be lightly dealt with?  Is not this a God whom it is wise for us to be ready to meet?

THE SINS OF SOCIETY

’For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye Me, and ye shall live:  5.  But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba:  for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come to nought. 6.  Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Beth-el. 7.  Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, 8.  Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night:  that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth:  The Lord is His name:  9.  That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. 10.  They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. 11.  Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat:  ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. 12.  For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins:  they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right 13.  Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time. 14.  Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live:  and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. 15.  Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate:  it may be that the Lord God of hosts