Jeremiah 6:29

THE Prophets frequently spoke in parables. They did this partly to excite the attention of their hearers. Those to whom they spoke might not have listened to didactic truth expressed in abstract terms, but when they heard mention of common things, such as bellows and lead and brass, they turned aside and asked, "What is this which this man has to say?"

bellows . . . burned--So intense a heat is made that the very bellows are almost set on fire. ROSENMULLER translates not so well from a Hebrew root, "pant" or "snort," referring to the sound of the bellows blown hard. lead--employed to separate the baser metal from the silver, as quicksilver is now used.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase

THE Prophets frequently spoke in parables. They did this partly to excite the attention of their hearers. Those to whom they spoke might not have listened to didactic truth expressed in abstract terms, but when they heard mention of common things, such as bellows and lead and brass, they turned aside and asked, "What is this which this man has to say?" Moreover, metaphors often convey to the mind truth which otherwise would not have reached the understanding, for men frequently see under the guise and form of an illustration a doctrine which, if it had been nakedly stated, they could not have comprehended. Illustrations, like windows, let light into the chambers of the mind. There is this use also in a metaphor, that even if it is not understood at first, it excites thought and men exercise their minds upon it as children upon an enigma and so they learn, perhaps, more through a dark saying than through a sentence at first sight transparent. Yet further, metaphoric speech is apt to abide upon the memory—it retains its hold, even upon the unwilling mind—like a lion which has leaped upon a giraffe in the desert. Mere bald statements are soon forgotten, but illustrations stick in the soul like hooks in a fish's mouth. Therefore I thought it right, this morning, to take the simple and homely illustration of the text, which Jeremiah before had so well used, and see if we cannot impart thereby some arousing Truths of God to your minds. Perhaps you may with more pleasure attend to them, exercise more thought upon them and embrace them more earnestly in your memory because they come in homely pictorial garb. I. "The bellows are burned." This short sentence, as Jeremiah used it, was intended to apply to THE PROPHET HIMSELF. He likens the people of Israel to a mass of metal. This mass of metal claimed to be precious ore, such as gold or silver.