My Palestine Recollections. 8. "A Time to Weep and a Time to Laugh."

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WE read in Eccl. 3:44A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; (Ecclesiastes 3:4), there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh,” and in other Scriptures there is much said both about the “weeping” and the “laughing” in connection with Palestine and the Lord’s people Israel. Our present chapter brings the former very prominently into view.
We find the prophet Jeremiah saying, “Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of My people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow” (ch. 15:17). Such reflections were brought to mind by the abject appearance of the poor old Jew we before referred to. He was but a specimen of a very large proportion of the Jewish inhabitants of the City, and surely, we may add, illustrative of the condition of the nation of whom it is written their Messiah “came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:1111He came unto his own, and his own received him not. (John 1:11)). In Luke 19:4141And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, (Luke 19:41) we read that “When He was come near He beheld the City and wept over it.” Yes, it was for Jesus “a time to weep.”
“He wept alone and men pass’d on—the men whose sins he bore;
They saw the Man of Sorrows weep: they had seen Him weep before:
They asked not whom those tears were for, they asked not whence they flowed.
Those tears were for rebellious man: their source, the heart of God.”
It is a circumstance well known in Rabbinical history that prior to the overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus the Jewish scribes spelled the name of Jerusalem thus: Yod Resh Vav Sin Lamed Yod Mem (seven Hebrew letters—the perfect number); but since that event the second yod has been omitted, and Jerusalem is spelt, and has been for over 1,800 years, one letter short of the perfect number. But not only so: the two yods (.n), called “a jot” in our Lord’s words in Matt. 5:1818For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (Matthew 5:18): “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” The jot (or yod) being the smallest of the Hebrew letters, and the tittle one of those small particles which distinguish one letter from another. The double yod (vi), recognized by the Jewish scribes and Rabbis as the abbreviated form of Jehovah. Now in Jer. 25:2929For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts. (Jeremiah 25:29) and Dan. 9:1818O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. (Daniel 9:18), Jerusalem is spoken of by Jehovah as “the City upon which His name is called” (see margin), and thus we learn that before she refused her Messiah and His own words were fulfilled upon her, “Behold your house is left unto you desolate,” the name of Jehovah was incorporated in that of Jerusalem. But the glory is departed, and that name is enshrined there no longer. It is, indeed, a time of weeping, and Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles. But has God cast away His people? No! for the days of rejoicing shall yet come. Jerusalem will the Lord yet make to be a praise in the earth, and He shall reign in Mount Zion and in JERUSALEM (spelled, no doubt, once more with the two sacred yods), and before His ancients gloriously. That beautiful Psalm of degrees (No. 126) speaks of the time to laugh thus: “Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing” (verse 2), and concludes with those precious words: “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing his sheaves with him.”
One circumstance greatly impressed me as illustrating the state of these Jews in Jerusalem. A young Arab had followed us into the Jews’ place of wailing, and while we were silently contemplating the distress of the sons of Abraham and their affectionate regard for their venerable stones, which (no doubt rightly) they consider to have been placed there in the days of Solomon, he asked me with the utmost effrontery if I would give him bakksheesh and he would break off a piece of one of the stones to bring away as a memento. Many other things we saw in our morning’s walk in Jerusalem, reminding us that the present is with her a time of weeping. But the latter part of the day we spent with our “well-beloved Gaius.” Mr. Azam, and other friends he had invited to meet us, served well to engage our thoughts with other and happier associations. The very fruits upon the table reminded us of the words of the Lord in Deut. 8:88A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; (Deuteronomy 8:8): “A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of oil olive, and honey,” while the unrestrained fellowship of those from different lands who owned “one Lord, one faith,” seemed to give a sweet foretaste of the time when all the Lord’s people shall be gathered home to dwell With Him for ever.