---

The wisest men detect only some of the evils that blemish a nation; they are blind to more secret delinquencies. The Almighty Ruler detects every hidden iniquity, nor will he spare any form of sin.

I. OBSERVE THE CONTAGION OF WICKEDNESS. The first part of the chapter reveals God's judgment upon evil rulers now is brought to light the wrong-doing of men in private and unofficial stations. The sins of pride and violence soon filter down from magnates to merchants, from princes to peasants. Vice is more contagious than any bodily disease we are familiar with. As children easily learn to imitate the words and ways of parents, so men in inferior stations copy the deeds of those immediately above them. As thistle-down bears an abundant crop of seed, so do also most kinds of sin.

II. MARK THE EVIL AND BITTER FRUITS OF SELFISHNESS. Selfishness is the prolific mother of a thousand sins. In a ruler selfishness becomes as a scourge of scorpions to the people, and makes the man a monster; in a private person it works a world of minor mischiefs. In any form it is a malignant and despicable thing. As night casts its black shadow over every scene of natural beauty, so selfishness blights and disfigures every relationship between man and man.

1. Here are acts of malevolence. The rich and the strong eared only for themselves. Self-aggrandizement in them had grown into ill will for their neighbors. National calamity, which ought to have brought them nearer to each other for mutual help, had generated a malevolent temper.

2. This ill will led to acts of wanton destructiveness. Such portions of agricultural produce as they could not use themselves they destroyed, so that their poorer neighbors might be reduced to yet direr straits. Never was the fable of the dog in the manger more literally realized. Landlords who destroy cottages in order to drive out the poor from the parish, walk in these men's shoos.

3. Acts of personal cruelty. "They pushed the diseased with their horns until they had scattered them." The horns were weapons provided by God for their defense against their foes, and it was a strange abuse of God's kindness to use these weapons for the injury of their suffering fellows. Every form of disease is a mute, pathetic appeal to our better nature for sympathy and help. We do ourselves a lasting injury when we refuse assistance. We turn the natural milk of human kindness into gall. Men are members of one social organism; and in injuring each other they injure themselves. The culture of benevolence is a primary duty - a fountain of joy.

4. Self-blindness. To these self-indulgent men "it seemed a small thing" to treat their weaker and suffering brethren thus. Yet it was a very mountain of wickedness. A selfish eye looks through the wrong end of the telescope, and sees real objects greatly minimized. By-and-by their eyes will be opened. By-and-by the mist of appearances will vanish, and all human actions will be revealed in naked reality.

III. RIGHTEOUS DISCRIMINATION AND AWARD ARE NOT FAR AWAY. "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle." Probably many of these rich blustering men complained bitterly enough of the selfish violence of their rulers, and never surmised that they were committing the very same sin under another guise. They saw the mote in others' eyes, yet did not suspect that a beam filled their own eye. But an unseen Judge was there, and weighed in the balance of perfect equity every deed and word of man. It is a consolation to the suffering that deliverance from the highest source will come, and will come at the best possible moment. The great Refiner sits by and watches the refining process in the furnace. His plans to us are full of mystery, for our vision is very limited, while he sees the end from the beginning. His eye skillfully discriminates between every form and every degree of human offense. Men will not be judged (as they are often now) in classes, but as individuals. Some Canaanites will be accepted; some Israelites will be rejected. Some Pharisees shall find their way to heaven; some publicans will Perish. A rich man may be saved in spite of the encumbrance of riches; some poor men will be outcasts eternally because destitute of faith and love. The balance of God is an even balance, and in his presence the smallest deception is impossible. - D.

---

---

KJV: And as for you, O my flock, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats.

WEB: As for you, O my flock, thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, the rams and the male goats.