Verse 12

VER. 12.

Sow to your selves in righteousness, reap in mercy.

The holy Ghost still goes on in this allegory of husbandry, continuing the metaphor that he had in the threatening, when he comes to exhortation. In the midst of his threats he falls to exhorting.

Though the sins of a people be great, and judgments near, yet who knows what an exhortation may do? Who knows what an exhortation may do to the worst people in the world? Oh! there were many things spoken concerning Israel that one would have thought it should have discouraged the Prophet to meddle with exhortation. But God would have him yet exhort, one cannot tell what an exhortation may do, in the most desperate hardness of men's hearts, and pride and stoutness of men's spirits, therefore the Prophet exhorts them, as if he should say, Well, if you would not plow, if you would not come under the yoke and be put into the furrows as you were threatened before, why then, sow to your selves, Oh! be willing to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, and sow to your selves in righteousness, and so you shall reap in mercy.