Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 138 · May 18
Settled on Their Lees
“And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil.”
"The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil." Those are the words of people in Jerusalem, and Zephaniah tells us where they said them: they "say in their heart." Nobody said it out loud. It was a quiet belief, sitting underneath years of comfortable living.
The key word is "lees." Lees are the sludge that settles at the bottom of a jar of wine. If the wine is left standing on it too long, it thickens and takes on the taste of its own sediment. The cure was to pour the wine off into a clean jar and leave the sludge behind. These men are "settled on their lees." They have been left undisturbed for years, and the settling has changed them in a way they cannot taste from the inside.
Jeremiah uses the same picture for Moab, a nation that had known long years of ease: "Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel." He goes on, "therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed." Moab had never been poured from jar to jar, so it had never changed, and in Jeremiah's sentence staying unchanged is exactly what is wrong.
Then comes the search: "I will search Jerusalem with candles." You light a candle to look into the corners and behind the jars, where daylight in the middle of the room will not reach. The people God is looking for are the settled ones. They still believe God exists. What they believe is that He does nothing, that nothing good or bad ever comes from Him. Nobody argues their way into that belief. People drift into it by being comfortable for a long time.
Yet the same small book holds out an invitation: "Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD's anger." Notice the words "it may be." God strikes no bargain here, and that honesty is part of why the invitation can be trusted. The pouring from jar to jar is open to anyone who asks God for it. When you ask Him to stir you and pour you out, it is far gentler than waiting until it is done to you, because the God who searches with a candle is looking for people He can still hide and keep.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 138 is Work Remembered (Hebrews 6:10).