The Hammer and the Anvil
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 36:20-31
I don’t recall where I came across it, but I do remember finding and reading it in my early days of Bible college. It is a poem attributed to a man named John Clifford titled, “The Anvil of God’s Word.” I wonder if he might have read Jeremiah 36 when he got the idea for writing it. In chapter 36 the king listens as Jeremiah’s scroll is read to him. After every three or four lines he takes a knife, slices off that portion of the scroll, and throws it into the fire.
The king foolishly thinks he is getting rid of the word of the Lord by his defiant act of burning it. It was, after all, the only copy. In his devilish logic, Jeremiah couldn’t possibly reproduce it. What he failed to take into account was this was not the word of Jeremiah; it was the word of God. And God had no problem reproducing it. He did and He added an addendum. He added a special word about the fate of the man who sought to destroy His word. He himself would be destroyed.
That is what makes me think that John Clifford might have gotten some of his inspiration for his poem from the chapter of Jeremiah. No matter, for what he wrote is as true today as it was when he put pen to paper:
The Anvil of God's Word
“Last eve I paused beside the blacksmith’s door,
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
Then looking in, I saw upon the floor,
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.
“‘How many anvils have you had,’ said I,
‘To wear and batter all these hammers so?’
‘Just one,’ said he, and then with twinkling eye,
‘The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.’
“And so, I thought, the Anvil of God’s Word
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The Anvil is unharmed, the hammers gone.”
