3.THE RETURN TO BETHLEHEM. (Vers. 19-22.)

There are several features to note in connection with the return. When they reach Bethlehem, the whole place is moved, "Is this Naomi?" What havoc her departure had wrought, and she is forced to confess the sad truth herself. How her few words tell the story, her heart not yet fully restored. "Call me not Naomi (pleasant), call me Mara (bitter):for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me." She calls Him by that dread name which emphasizes His power rather than His love and care. As she thinks of her once happy home, forgetting her own responsibility for the change, she seems to charge the Almighty with it all. But the next words confess the truth, " I went out full." It was voluntary; she had not been compelled to go, and she was full when she went. " The Lord (Jehovah) hath brought me home again empty." Self-will took her away:grace brought her home (ah, it was home still). Is this not the confession of every restored soul? We may have made many excuses for our departure from God; circumstances were against us, friends became cold, we were misunderstood-ah multiply them as we will, the one reason for departure from God is expressed in that one brief sentence, "I went out full."

But in that confession the soul reaches God, for true confession can only be in His presence. So the next word is the covenant name, "Jehovah hath brought me home again." We would never come back ourselves. It is only the power of unchanging grace that restores the wanderer; but for that we would still remain in the land of Moab. Nor could we be brought back in any other condition than empty. There must be the brokenness suggested by that, to make the soul willing to yield to God's love.

But her condition is a witness of what an evil and bitter thing it is depart from the Lord-a warning to all against the folly of turning away from the house of plenty.

Dear brethren, look at that poor desolate widow, crushed with apparently hopeless sorrow, her brightness all behind her-and see a picture of the soul that wanders from God. Ah! how many blighted lives, filled with bitter, unavailing regrets are there among the saints of God.

" It might have been," says the aged man, looking back upon a lifetime of wasted energy and time. Who can measure the loss suffered by those who spend the life in gathering the "wood, hay, and stubble" of this world? Nor is such departure necessarily a moral declension. The world can be very upright, but it makes widows of God's people who yield to its seductions.

It is always the time of harvest when the wanderer returns. Ah, let the proud, stubborn will be broken, let there be the words of confession, and how soon will the poor wanderer find the ripened harvest with all its abundance and its joy.

Who but the God of all grace could have blessing for His people at all times, no matter how great their unfaithfulness. But in His presence, plenty abides. None can hunger there, and even for you, poor wandering child of His, there is more than enough. His voice is ever, Eat, yea drink abundantly, O beloved.
The prophets abound with pictures of this return of the widowed nation to God. The whole of the Lamentations of Jeremiah might be called Naomi. " How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! . . . She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. . . . From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed. . . . Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old. … Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me."

Here we see her wretched state, and a little later we hear the confession of the remnant:"The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against His commandment. … I have grievously rebelled. . . . My sighs are many and my heart is faint" (Lam. 1:).

We see too the recovering mercy of the Lord in the prophet Hosea, though there the house of Ephraim is prominent. "How shall I give thee up Ephraim ? how shall I deliver thee Israel? . . . My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim:for I am God and not man" (Hos. 11:). "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely:for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel:he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon."

Such passages abound throughout the prophets, showing the wretched yet repentant state of the nation on the one hand, and on the other the everlasting love of our God. What a day will it be when the Lord will again speak comfortably to Jerusalem, and when the land will again be married to Him. But before that time there must be a season of sorrow and deep exercise-the time of Jacob's trouble,- but at this we will look later.

( To be continued, if the Lord please.)