Produced by Douglas L. Alley, III, Colin Bell and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive)










                             THE PROPHECIES

                                   OF

                               JEREMIAH.

                 =With a Sketch of His Life and Times.=





                              BY THE REV.
                           C. J. BALL, M.A.,
                      _Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn_;
             CONTRIBUTOR TO BISHOP ELLICOTT'S "COMMENTARY,"
                    "THE SPEAKER'S COMMENTARY," ETC.






                              =New York:=
                         A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON,
                             714 BROADWAY.
                                 1890.




                               CONTENTS.
                                                                  PAGE

  PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JEREMIAH                 1

                                   I.

  THE CALL AND CONSECRATION                                           58

                                  II.

  THE TRUST IN THE SHADOW OF EGYPT                                    74

                                  III.

  ISRAEL AND JUDAH--A CONTRAST                                       114

                                  IV.

  THE SCYTHIANS AS THE SCOURGE OF GOD                                134

                                   V.

  POPULAR AND TRUE RELIGION                                          149

                                  VI.

  THE IDOLS OF THE HEATHEN AND THE GOD OF ISRAEL                     215

                                  VII.

  THE BROKEN COVENANT                                                248

                                 VIII.

  THE FALL OF PRIDE                                                  280

                                  IX.

  THE DROUGHT AND ITS MORAL IMPLICATIONS                             300

                                   X.

  THE SABBATH--A WARNING                                             364

                                  XI.

  THE DIVINE POTTER                                                  377

                                  XII.

  THE BROKEN VESSEL--A SYMBOL OF JUDGMENT                            398

                                 XIII.

  JEREMIAH UNDER PERSECUTION                                         411




                   PRELIMINARY SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND
                           TIMES OF JEREMIAH.


A priest by birth, Jeremiah became a prophet by the special call
of God. His priestly origin implies a good literary training, in
times when literature was largely in the hands of the priests. The
priesthood, indeed, constituted a principal section of the Israelitish
nobility, as appears both from the history of those times, and from
the references in our prophet's writings, where kings and princes and
priests are often named together as the aristocracy of the land (i.
18, ii. 26, iv. 9); and this fact would ensure for the young prophet a
share in all the best learning of his age. The name of Jeremiah, like
other prophetic proper names, seems to have special significance in
connexion with the most illustrious of the persons recorded to have
borne it. It means _Iahvah foundeth_, and, as a proper name, The Man
that Iahvah foundeth; a designation which finds vivid illustration in
the words of Jeremiah's call: "Before I moulded thee in the belly, I
knew thee; and before thou camest forth from the womb, I consecrated
thee: a spokesman to the nations did I make thee" (i. 5). The not
uncommon name of Jeremiah--six other persons of the name are numbered
in the Old Testament--must have appeared to the prophet as invested
with new force and meaning, in the light of this revelation. Even
before his birth he had been "founded"[1] and predestined by God for
the work of his life.

The Hilkiah named as his father was not the high priest of that
name,[2] so famous in connexion with the reformation of king Josiah.
Interesting as such a relationship would be if established, the
following facts seem decisive against it. The prophet himself has
omitted to mention it, and no hint of it is to be found elsewhere. The
priestly family to which Jeremiah belonged was settled at Anathoth
(i. 1, xi. 21, xxix. 27). But Anathoth in Benjamin (xxxvii. 12), the
present _`Anâtâ_, between two and three miles NNE. of Jerusalem,
belonged to the deposed line of Ithamar (1 Chron. xxiv. 3; comp.
with 1 Kings ii. 26, 35). After this it is needless to insist that
the prophet, and presumably his father, resided at Anathoth, whereas
Jerusalem was the usual residence of the high priest. Nor is the
identification of Jeremiah's family with that of the ruling high
priest helped by the observation that the father of the high priest
was named Shallum (1 Chron. v. 39), and that the prophet had an
uncle of this name (Jer. xxxii. 7). The names Hilkiah[3] and Shallum
are too common to justify any conclusions from such data. If the
prophet's father was head of one of the twenty-four classes or guilds
of the priests, that might explain the influence which Jeremiah
could exercise with some of the grandees of the court. But we are
not told more than that Jeremiah ben Hilkiah was a member of the
priestly community settled at Anathoth. It is, however, a gratuitous
disparagement of one of the greatest names in Israel's history, to
suggest that, had Jeremiah belonged to the highest ranks of his caste,
he would not have been equal to the self-renunciation involved in the
assumption of the unhonoured and thankless office of a prophet.[4]
Such a suggestion is certainly not warranted by the portraiture of the
man as delineated by himself, with all the distinctive marks of truth
and nature. From the moment that he became decisively convinced of his
mission, Jeremiah's career is marked by struggles and vicissitudes of
the most painful and perilous kind; his perseverance in his allotted
path was met by an ever increasing hardness on the part of the people;
opposition and ridicule became persecution, and the messenger of
Divine truth persisted in proclaiming his message at the risk of his
own life. That life may, in fact, be called a prolonged martyrdom;
and, if we may judge of the unknown by the known, the tradition that
the prophet was stoned to death by the Jewish refugees in Egypt is
only too probable an account of its final scene. If "the natural
shrinking of a somewhat feminine character" is traceable in his own
report of his conduct at particular junctures, does not the fact
shed an intenser glory upon the man, who overcame this instinctive
timidity, and persisted, in face of the most appalling dangers, in
the path of duty? Is not the victory of a constitutionally timid and
shrinking character a nobler moral triumph than that of the man who
never knew fear--who marches to the conflict with others, with a light
heart, simply because it is his nature to do so--because he has had
no experience of the agony of a previous conflict with self? It is
easy to sit in one's library and criticize the heroes of old; but
the modern censures of Jeremiah betray at once a want of historic
imagination, and a defect of sympathy with the sublime fortitude
of one who struggled on in a battle which he knew to be lost. In a
protracted contest such as that which Jeremiah was called upon to
maintain, what wonder if courage sometimes flags, and hopelessness
utters its forsaken cry? The moods of the saints are not always the
same; they vary, like those of common men, with the stress of the
hour. Even our Saviour could cry from the cross, "My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me?" It is not by passing expressions, wrung from
their torn hearts by the agony of the hour, that men are to be judged.
It is the issue of the crisis that is all-important; not the cries of
pain, which indicate its overwhelming pressure.

"It is sad," says a well known writer, with reference to the noble
passage, xxxi. 31-34, which he justly characterizes as "one of those
which best deserve to be called the Gospel before Christ," "It is
sad that Jeremiah could not always keep his spirit under the calming
influence of these high thoughts. No book of the Old Testament, except
the book of Job and the Psalms, contains so much which is difficult
to reconcile with the character of a self-denying servant of Jehovah.
Such expressions as those in xi. 20, xv. 15, and especially xviii.
21-23, contrast powerfully with Luke xxiii. 34, and show that the
typical character of Jeremiah is not absolutely complete." Probably
not. The writer in question is honourably distinguished from a crowd
of French and German critics, whose attainments are not superior to
his own, by his deep sense of the inestimable value to mankind of
those beliefs which animated the prophet, and by the sincerity of
his manifest endeavours to judge fairly between Jeremiah and his
detractors. He has already remarked truly enough that "the baptism
of complicated suffering," which the prophet was called upon to pass
through in the reign of Jehoiakim, "has made him, in a very high
and true sense, a type of One greater than he." It is impossible to
avoid such an impression, if we study the records of his life with
any insight or sympathy. And the impression thus created is deepened,
when we turn to that prophetic page which may be called the most
_appealing_ in the entire range of the Old Testament. In the 53rd of
Isaiah the martyrdom of Jeremiah becomes the living image of that
other martyrdom, which in the fulness of time was to redeem the
world. After this, to say that "the typical character of Jeremiah is
not absolutely complete," is no more than the assertion of a truism;
for what Old Testament character, what character in the annals of
collective humanity, can be brought forward as a perfect type of the
Christ, the Man whom, in His sinlessness and His power, unbiassed
human reason and conscience instinctively suspect to have been also
God? To deplore the fact that this illustrious prophet "could not
always keep his spirit under the calming influence of his highest
thoughts," is simply to deplore the infirmity that besets all human
nature, to regret that natural imperfection which clings to a finite
and fallen creature, even when endowed with the most splendid gifts
of the spirit. For the rest, a certain degree of exaggeration is
noticeable in founding upon three brief passages of so large a work
as the collected prophecies of Jeremiah the serious charge that "no
book of the Old Testament, except the book of Job and the Psalms,
contains so much which is difficult to reconcile with the character
of a self-denying servant of Jehovah." The charge appears to me both
ill-grounded and misleading. But I reserve the further consideration
of these obnoxious passages for the time when I come to discuss their
context, as I wish now to complete my sketch of the prophet's life. He
has himself recorded the date of his call to the prophetic office. It
was in the thirteenth year of the good king Josiah, that the young[5]
priest was summoned to a higher vocation by an inward Voice whose
urgency he could not resist.[6] The year has been variously identified
with 629, 627, and 626 B.C. The place has been supposed to have been
Jerusalem, the capital, which was so near the prophet's home, and
which, as Hitzig observes, offered the amplest scope and numberless
occasions for the exercise of prophetic activity. But there appears
no good reason why Jeremiah should not have become known locally as
one whom God had specially chosen, before he abandoned his native
place for the wider sphere of the capital. This, in truth, seems to
be the likelier supposition, considering that his reluctance to take
the first decisive step in his career excused itself on the ground of
youthful inexperience: "Alas, my Lord Iahvah! behold, I know not (how)
to speak; for I am but a youth."[7] The Hebrew term may imply that
he was about eighteen or twenty: an age when it is hardly probable
that he would permanently leave his father's house. Moreover, he
has mentioned a conspiracy of his fellow-townsmen against himself,
in terms which have been taken to imply that he had exercised his
ministry among them, before his removal to Jerusalem. In chap. xi.
21, we read: "Therefore thus said Iahvah Sabaoth upon the men of
`Anathoth that were seeking thy life, saying, Prophesy not in the
name of Iahvah, that thou die not by our hand! Therefore thus said
Iahvah Sabaoth: Behold I am about to visit it upon them: the young
men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die
by the famine. And a remnant they shall have none; for I will bring
evil unto the men of `Anathoth, (in) the year of their visitation."
It is natural to see in this wicked plot against his life the reason
for the prophet's departure from his native place (but cf. p. 265).
We are reminded of the violence done to our Lord by the men of "His
own country" (ἡ πάτρις αὐτοῦ), and of His final and, as it would seem,
compulsory departure from Nazareth to Capernaum (St. Luke iv. 16-29;
St. Matt. iv. 13). In this, as in other respects, Jeremiah was a true
type of the Messias.

The prophetic discourses, with which the book of Jeremiah opens (ii.
1-iv. 2), have a general application to all Israel, as is evident not
only from the ideas expressed in them, but also from the explicit
address, ii. 4: "Hear ye the word of Iahvah, O house of Jacob, and
all the clans of the house of Israel!" It is clear enough, that
although Jeremiah belongs to the southern kingdom, his reflexions
here concern the northern tribes as well, who must be included in the
comprehensive phrases "house of Jacob," and "all the clans of the
house of Israel." The fact is accounted for by the circumstance that
these two discourses are summaries of the prophet's teaching on many
distinct occasions, and as such might have been composed anywhere.
There can be no doubt, however, that the principal contents of his
book have their scene in Jerusalem. In chap. ii. 1, 2, indeed, we
have what looks like the prophet's introduction to the scene of his
future activity. "And there fell a word of Iahvah unto me, saying, Go
and cry in the ears of Jerusalem." But the words are not found in the
LXX., which begins chap. ii. thus: "And he said, These things saith
the Lord, I remembered the lovingkindness (ἔλεος) of thy youth, and
the love of thine espousals (τελείωσις)." But whether these words
of the received Hebrew text be genuine or not, it is plain that if,
as the terms of the prophet's commission affirm, he was to be "an
embattled city, and a pillar of iron, and walls of bronze ... to the
kings of Judah, to her princes, to her priests," as well as "to the
country folk" (i. 18), Jerusalem, the residence of kings and princes
and chief priests, and the centre of the land, would be the natural
sphere of his operations. The same thing is implied in the Divine
statement: "A _nabî'_ to _the nations_ have I made thee" (i. 5). The
prophet of Judea could only reach the _gôyîm_--the surrounding foreign
peoples--through the government of his own country, and through his
influence upon Judean policy. The leaving of his native place, sooner
or later, seems to be involved in the words (i. 7, 8): "And Iahvah
said unto me, Say not, I am a youth: for upon whatsoever (journey)
I send thee, thou shalt go (Gen. xxiv. 42); and with whomsoever I
charge thee, thou shalt speak (Gen. xxiii. 8). Be not afraid of
them!" The Hebrew is to some extent ambiguous. We might also render:
"Unto whomsoever I send thee, thou shalt go; and whatsoever I charge
thee, thou shalt speak." But the difference will not affect my point,
which is that the words seem to imply the contingency of Jeremiah's
leaving Anathoth. And this implication is certainly strengthened by
the twice-given warning: "Be not afraid of them!" (i. 8), "Be not
dismayed at them, lest I dismay thee (indeed) before them!" (17). The
young prophet might dread the effect of an unpopular message upon his
brethren and his father's house. But his fear would reach a far higher
pitch of intensity, if he were called upon to confront with the same
message of unwelcome truth the king in his palace, or the high priest
in the courts of the sanctuary, or the fanatical and easily excited
populace of the capital. Accordingly, when after his general prologue
or exordium, the prophet plunges at once "into the agitated life of
the present,"[8] it is to "the men of Judah and Jerusalem" (iv. 3),
to "the great men" (v. 5), and to the throng of worshippers in the
temple (vii. 2), that he addresses his burning words. When, however
(v. 4), he exclaims: "And for me, I said, They are but poor folk; they
_do_ foolishly (Num. xii. 11), for they know not the way of Iahvah,
the rule (_i.e._, _religion_) of their God (Isa. xlii. 1): I will
get me unto the great men, and will speak with them; for _they_ know
the way of Iahvah, the rule of their God:" he again seems to suggest
a prior ministry, of however brief duration, upon the smaller stage
of Anathoth. At all events, there is nothing against the conjecture
that the prophet may have passed to and fro between his birthplace
and Jerusalem, making occasional sojourn in the capital, until at
last the machinations of his neighbours (xi. 19 _sqq._), and as
appears from xii. 6, his own kinsmen, drove him to quit Anathoth for
ever. If Hitzig be right in referring Psalms xxiii., xxvi.-xxviii.
to the prophet's pen, we may find in them evidence of the fact that
the temple became his favourite haunt, and indeed his usual abode.
As a priest by birth, he would have a claim to live in some one of
the cells that surrounded the temple on three sides of it. The 23rd
Psalm, though written at a later period in the prophet's career--I
shall refer to it again by-and-by--closes with the words, "And I will
return unto (Ps. vii. 17; Hos. xii. 7) the house of Iahvah as long
as I live," or perhaps, "And I will return (and dwell) in" etc., as
though the temple were at once his sanctuary and his home. In like
manner, Ps. xxvi. speaks of one who "washed his hands, in innocency"
(_i.e._ in a state of innocency; the symbolical action corresponding
to the real state of his heart and conscience), and so "compassed
the altar of Iahvah"; "to proclaim with the sound of a psalm of
thanksgiving, and to rehearse all His wondrous works." The language
here seems even to imply (Ex. XXX. 19-21), that the prophet took
part, as a priest, in the ritual of the altar. He continues: "Iahvah,
I love the abode of thine house, And the place of the dwelling of
Thy glory!" and concludes, "My foot, it standeth on a plain; In the
congregations I bless Iahvah," speaking as one continually present at
the temple services. His prayers "Judge me," _i.e._, Do me justice,
"Iahvah!" and "Take not away my soul among sinners, Nor my life
among men of bloodshed!" may point either to the conspiracies of the
Anathothites, or to subsequent persecutions at Jerusalem. The former
seem to be intended both here, and in Ps. xxvii., which is certainly
most appropriate as an Ode of Thanksgiving for the prophet's escape
from the murderous attempts of the men of Anathoth. Nothing could be
more apposite than the allusions to "evil-doers drawing near against
him to eat up his flesh" (_i.e._, according to the common Aramaic
metaphor, to slander him, and destroy him with false accusations); to
the "lying witnesses, and the man (or men) breathing out (or panting
after) violence" (ver. 12); and to having been forsaken even by his
father and mother (ver. 10). With the former, we may compare the
prophet's words, chap. ix. 2 _sqq._, "O that I were in the wilderness,
in a lodge of wayfaring men; that I might forsake my people, and
depart from among them! For all of them are adulterous, an assembly
of traitors. And they have bent their tongue, (as it were) their bow
for lying; and it is not by sincerity that they have grown strong in
the land. Beware ye, every one of his friend, and have no confidence
in any brother: for every brother will assuredly supplant" (יעקב עקוב
a reference to Jacob and Esau), "and every friend will gad about
for slander. And each will deceive his friend, and the truth they
will not speak: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; with
perverseness they have wearied themselves. Thy dwelling is in the
midst of deceit.... A murderous arrow is their tongue; deceit hath
it spoken; with his mouth one speaketh peace with his neighbour, and
inwardly he layeth an ambush for him." Such language, whether in the
psalm or in the prophetic oration, could only be the fruit of bitter
personal experience. (Cf. also xi. 19 _sqq._, xx. 2 _sqq._, xxvi. 8,
xxxvi. 26, xxxvii. 15, xxxviii. 6). The allusion of the psalmist to
being forsaken by father and mother (Ps. xxvii. 10) may be illustrated
by the prophet's words, chap. xii. 6.

Jeremiah came prominently forward at a serious crisis in the history
of his people. The Scythian invasion of Asia, described by Herodotus
(i. 103-106), but not mentioned in the biblical histories of the
time, was threatening Palestine and Judea. According to the old Greek
writer, Cyaxares the Mede, while engaged in besieging Nineveh, was
attacked by a great horde of Scythians, under their king Madyes, who
had entered Asia in pushing their pursuit of the Cimmerians, whom
they had expelled from Europe.[9] The Medes lost the battle, and the
barbarous victors found themselves masters of Asia. Thereupon they
marched for Egypt, and had made their way past Ascalon, when they
were met by the envoys of Psammitichus I. the king of Egypt, whose
"gifts and prayers," induced them to return. On the way back, some
few of them lagged behind the main body, and plundered the famous
temple of Atergatis-Derceto, or as Herodotus calls the great Syrian
goddess, Ourania Afrodite, at Ascalon (the goddess avenged herself by
smiting them and their descendants with impotence--θήλειαν νοῦσον,
cf. 1 Sam. v. 6 _sqq._). For eight and twenty years the Scythians
remained the tyrants of Asia, and by their exactions and plundering
raids brought ruin everywhere, until at last Cyaxares and his Medes,
by help of treachery, recovered their former sway. After this, the
Medes took Nineveh, and reduced the Assyrians to complete subjection;
but Babylonia remained independent. Such is the story as related by
Herodotus, our sole authority in the matter. It has been supposed[10]
that the 59th Psalm was written by king Josiah, while the Scythians
were threatening Jerusalem. Their wild hordes, ravenous for plunder,
like the Gauls who at a later time struck Rome with panic, are at any
rate well described in the verse

          "They return at eventide,
           They howl like the dogs,

the famished pariah dogs of an eastern town--

          And surround the city."

But the Old Testament furnishes other indications of the terror which
preceded the Scythian invasion, and of the merciless havoc which
accompanied it. The short prophecy of Zephaniah, who prophesied
"in the days of Josiah ben Amon king of Judah," and was therefore
a contemporary of Jeremiah, is best explained by reference to this
crisis in the affairs of Western Asia. Zephaniah's very first word
is a startling menace. "I will utterly away with everything from
off the face of the ground, saith Iahvah." "I will away with man
and beast, I will away with the birds of the air, and the fishes of
the sea, and the stumblingblocks along with the wicked (_i.e._ the
idols with their worshippers); and I will exterminate man from off
the face of the ground, saith Iahvah." The imminence of a sweeping
destruction is announced. Ruin is to overtake every existing thing;
not only the besotted people and their dumb idols, but beasts and
birds and even the fish of the sea are to perish in the universal
catastrophe. It is exactly what might be expected from the sudden
appearance of a horde of barbarians of unknown numbers, sweeping over
a civilised country from north to south, like some devastating flood;
slaying whatever crossed their path, burning towns and temples, and
devouring the flocks and herds. The reference to the fishes of the sea
is explained by the fact that the Scythians marched southward by the
road which ran along the coast through Philistia. "Gaza," cries the
prophet, "shall be forsaken,"--there is an inimitable paronomasia in
his words[11]--"And Ascalon a desolation: as for Ashdod, at noonday
they shall drive her into exile; and Ekron shall be rooted up. Alas
for the dwellers by the shore line, the race of the Cherethites! The
word of Iahvah is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines! And
I will destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant." It is true
that Herodotus relates that the Scythians, in their retreat, for the
most part marched past Ascalon without doing any harm, and that the
plunder of the temple was the work of a few stragglers. But neither is
this very probable in itself, nor does it harmonize with what he tells
us afterwards about the plunder and rapine that marked the period
of Scythian domination. We need not suppose that the information of
the old historian as to the doings of these barbarians was as exact
as that of a modern state paper. Nor, on the other hand, would it be
very judicious to press every detail in a highly wrought prophetic
discourse, which vividly sets forth the fears of the time, and gives
imaginative form to the feelings and anticipations of the hour; as
if it were intended by the writer, not for the moral and spiritual
good of his contemporaries, but to furnish posterity with a minutely
accurate record of the actual course of events in the distant past.

The public danger, which stimulated the reflexion and lent force to the
invective of the lesser prophet, intensified the impression produced
by the earlier preaching of Jeremiah. The tide of invasion, indeed,
rolled past Judea, without working much permanent harm to the little
kingdom, with whose destinies were involved the highest interests of
mankind at large. But this respite from destruction would be understood
by the prophet's hearers as proof of the relentings of Iahvah towards
His penitent people; and may, for the time at least, have confirmed
the impression wrought upon the popular mind by Jeremiah's passionate
censures and entreaties. The time was otherwise favourable; for the
year of his call was the year immediately subsequent to that in which
the young king Josiah "began to purify Judah and Jerusalem from the
high places and the Asherim, and the carven images and the molten
images," which he did in the twelfth year of his reign, _i.e._ in the
twentieth year of his age, according to the testimony of the Chronicler
(2 Chron. xxxiv. 3), which there is no good reason for disallowing.
Jeremiah was probably about the same age as the king, as he calls
himself a mere youth (na`ar). After the Scythians had retired--if we
are right in fixing their invasion so early in the reign--the official
reformation of public worship was taken up again, and completed by the
eighteenth year of Josiah, when the prophet might be about twenty-five.
The finding of what is called "the book of the Law," and "the book of
the Covenant,"[12] by Hilkiah the high priest, while the temple was
being restored by the king's order, is represented by the histories as
having determined the further course of the royal reforms. What this
book of the Law was, it is not necessary now to discuss. It is clear
from the language of the book of Kings, and from the references of
Jeremiah, that the substance of it, at any rate, closely corresponded
with portions of Deuteronomy. It appears from his own words (chap. xi.
1-8) that at first, at all events, Jeremiah was an earnest preacher of
the positive precepts of this book of the Covenant. It is true that his
name does not occur in the narrative of Josiah's reformation, as related
in Kings. There the king and his counsellors inquire of Iahvah through
the prophetess Huldah (2 Kings xxii. 14). Supposing the account to be
both complete and correct, this only shows that five years after his
call, Jeremiah was still unknown or little considered at court. But he
was doubtless included among the "prophets," who, with "the king and
all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem," "and the
priests ... and all the people, both small and great," after the words
of the newfound book of the Covenant had been read in their ears, bound
themselves by a solemn league and covenant, "to walk after Iahweh, and
to keep His commandments, and His laws, and His statutes, with all the
heart, and with all the soul" (2 Kings xxiii. 3). It is evident that
at first the young prophet hoped great things of this national league
and the associated reforms in the public worship. In his eleventh
chapter, he writes thus: "The word that fell to Jeremiah from Iahvah,
saying: Hear ye the words of this covenant"--presumably the words of
the newfound book of the Torah--"And speak ye to the men of Judah, and
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And thou shalt say unto them"--the
change from the second plural "hear ye," "speak ye," is noticeable. In
the first instance, no doubt, the message contemplates the leaders of
the reforming movement generally; the prophet is specially addressed in
the words, "And _thou_ shalt say unto them, Thus said Iahvah, the God of
Israel, Cursed is the man that will not hear the words of this covenant,
which I commanded your fathers, in the day when I brought them forth
from the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Hearken to My
voice, and do them, according to all that I command you; and ye shall
become to Me a people, and I--I will become to you Elohim: in order to
make good the oath that I sware to your fathers, to give them a land
flowing with milk and honey, as at this day.

"And I answered and said, So be it, Iahvah!

"And Iahvah said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of
Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of
this covenant, and do them. For I solemnly adjured your fathers, at the
time when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, (and) unto this
day, with all earnestness [earnestly and incessantly], saying, Hearken
ye to My voice. And they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, and
they walked individually in the stubbornness of their evil heart. So I
brought upon them all the words of this covenant"--_i.e._, the curses,
which constituted the sanction of it: see Deut. iv. 25 _sqq._, xxviii.
15 _sqq._--"(this covenant) which I commanded them to do, and they did
it not." [Or perhaps, "Because I bade them _do_, and they _did_ not;"
implying a general prescription of conduct, which was not observed. Or,
"I who had bidden them do, and they did not"--justifying, as it were,
God's assumption of the function of punishment. _His_ law had been set
at nought; the national reverses, therefore, were _His_ infliction,
and not another's.] This, then, was the first preaching of Jeremiah.
"Hear ye the words of this covenant!"--the covenant drawn out with
such precision and legal formality in the newfound book of the Torah.
Up and down the country, "in the cities of Judah" and "in the streets
of Jerusalem," everywhere within the bounds of the little kingdom that
acknowledged the house of David, he published this panacea for the
actual and imminent evils of the time, insisting, we may be sure, with
all the eloquence of a youthful patriot, upon the impressive warnings
embodied in the past history of Israel, as set forth in the book of the
Law. But his best efforts were fruitless. Eloquence and patriotism and
enlightened spiritual beliefs and lofty purity of purpose were wasted
upon a generation blinded by its own vices and reserved for a swiftly
approaching retribution. Perhaps the plots which drove the prophet
finally from his native place were due to the hostility evoked against
him by his preaching of the Law. At all events, the account of them
immediately follows, in this eleventh chapter (vers. 18 _sqq._). But
it must be borne in mind that the Law-book was not found until _five_
years after his call to the office of prophet. In any case, it is not
difficult to understand the popular irritation at what must have seemed
the unreasonable attitude of a prophet, who, in spite of the wholesale
destruction of the outward symbols of idolatry effected by the king's
orders, still declared that the claims of Iahweh were unsatisfied, and
that something more was needed than the purging of Judah and Jerusalem
from the high places and the Asherim, if the Divine favour were to be
conciliated, and the country restored to permanent prosperity. The
people probably supposed that they had sufficiently fulfilled the law
of their God, when they had not only demolished all sanctuaries but
His, but had done away with all those local holy places where Iahvah
was indeed worshipped, but with a deplorable admixture of heathenish
rites. The law of the one legal sanctuary, so much insisted upon in
Deuteronomy, was formally established by Josiah, and the national
worship was henceforth centralized in Jerusalem, which from this time
onward remained in the eyes of all faithful Israelites "the place where
men ought to worship." It is entirely in accordance with what we know
of human nature in general, and not merely of Jewish nature, that the
popular mind failed to rise to the level of the prophetic teaching,
and that the reforming zeal of the time should have exhausted itself
in efforts which effected no more than these external changes. The
truth is that the reforming movement began from above, not from below;
and however earnest the young king may have been, it is probable that
the mass of his subjects viewed the abolition of the high-places, and
the other sweeping measures, initiated in obedience to the precepts
of the book of the Covenant, either with apathy and indifference, or
with feelings of sullen hostility. The priesthood of Jerusalem were, of
course, benefited by the abolition of all sanctuaries, except the one
wherein they ministered and received their dues. The writings of our
prophet amply demonstrate that, whatever zeal for Iahvah, and whatever
degree of compunction for the past may have animated the prime movers
in the reformation of the eighteenth of Josiah, no radical improvement
was effected in the ordinary life of the nation. For some twelve years,
indeed, the well-meaning king continued to occupy the throne; years, it
may be presumed, of comparative peace and prosperity for Judah, although
neither the narrative of Kings and Chronicles nor that of Jeremiah
gives us any information about them. Doubtless it was generally supposed
that the nation was reaping the reward of its obedience to the law
of Iahvah. But at the end of that period, circ. B.C. 608, an event
occurred which must have shaken this faith to its foundations. In the
thirty-first year of his reign, Josiah fell in the battle of Megiddo,
while vainly opposing the small forces at his command to the hosts of
Egypt. Great indeed must have been the "searchings of heart" occasioned
by this unlooked-for and overwhelming stroke. Strange that it should
have fallen at a time when, as the people deemed, the God of Israel
was receiving His due at their hands; when the injunctions of the book
of the Covenant had been minutely carried out, the false and irregular
worships abolished, and Jerusalem made the centre of the cultus; a
time when it seemed as if the Lord had become reconciled to His people
Israel, when years of peace and plenty seemed to give demonstration of
the fact; and when, as may perhaps be inferred from Josiah's expedition
against Necho, the extension of the border, contemplated in the book of
the Law, was considered as likely to be realised in the near future. The
height to which the national aspirations had soared only made the fall
more disastrous, complete, ruinous.

The hopes of Judah rested upon a worldly foundation; and it was
necessary that a people whose blindness was only intensified by
prosperity, should be undeceived by the discipline of overthrow. No
hint is given in the meagre narrative of the reign as to whether the
prophets had lent their countenance or not to the fatal expedition.
Probably they did; probably they too had to learn by bitter
experience, that no man, not even a zealous and godfearing monarch, is
_necessary_ to the fulfilment of the Divine counsels. And the agony
of this irretrievable disaster, this sudden and complete extinction
of his country's fairest hopes, may have been the means by which
the Holy Spirit led Jeremiah to an intenser conviction that illicit
modes of worship and coarse idolatries were not the only things in
Judah offensive to Iahvah; that something more was needed to win
back His favour than formal obedience, however rigid and exacting,
to the letter of a written code of sacred law; that the covenant of
Iahvah with His people had an inward and eternal, not an outward and
transitory significance; and that not the letter but the spirit of the
law was the thing of essential moment. Thoughts like these must have
been present to the prophet's mind when he wrote (xxxi. 31 _sqq._):
"Behold, a time is coming, saith Iahvah, when I will conclude with the
house of Israel and with the house of Judah a fresh treaty, unlike the
treaty that I concluded with their forefathers, at the time when I
took hold of their hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; when
they, on their part, disannulled my treaty, and I--I disdained[13]
them, saith Iahvah. For this is the treaty that I will conclude with
the house of Israel after those days [_i.e._ in due time], saith
Iahvah: I will put my Torah within them and upon their heart will I
grave it; and I will become to them a God, and they--they shall become
to me a people."

It is but a dull eye which cannot see beyond the metaphor of the
covenant or treaty between Iahvah and Israel; and it is a strangely
dark understanding that fails to perceive here and elsewhere a
translucent figure of the eternal relations subsisting between God
and man. The error is precisely that against which the prophets, at
the high watermark of their inspiration, are always protesting--the
universal and inveterate error of narrowing down the requirements of
the Infinitely Holy, Just and Good, to the scrupulous observance of
some accepted body of canons, enshrined in a book and duly interpreted
by the laborious application of recognised legal authorities. It is
so comfortable to be sure of possessing an infallible guide in so
small a compass; to be spared all further consideration, so long
as we have paid the priestly dues, and kept the annual feasts, and
carefully observed the laws of ceremonial purity! From the first, the
attention of priests and people, including the official prophets,
would be attracted by the ritual and ceremonial precepts, rather
than by the earnest moral teaching of Deuteronomy. As soon as first
impressions had had time to subside, the moral and spiritual element
in that noble book would begin to be ignored, or confounded with the
purely external and mundane prescriptions affecting public worship
and social propriety; and the interests of true religion would
hardly be subserved by the formal acceptance of this code as the
law of the state. The unregenerate heart of man would fancy that it
had at last gotten that for which it is always craving--something
final--something to which it could triumphantly point, when urged by
the religious enthusiast, as tangible evidence that it was fulfilling
the Divine law, that it was at one with Iahvah, and therefore had a
right to expect the continuance of His favour and blessing. Spiritual
development would be arrested; men would become satisfied with
having effected certain definite changes bringing them into external
conformity with the written law, and would incline to rest in things
as they were. Meanwhile, the truth held good that to make a fetish of
a code, a system, a holy book, is not necessarily identical with the
service of God. It is, in fact, the surest way to forget God; for it
is to invest something that is not He, but, at best, a far-off echo of
His voice, with His sole attributes of finality and sufficiency.

The effect of the downfall of the good king was electrical. The nation
discovered that the displeasure of Iahvah had not passed away like
a morning cloud. Out of the shock and the dismay of that terrible
disillusion sprang the conviction that the past was not atoned for,
that the evil of it was irreparable. The idea is reflected in the
words of Jeremiah (xv. 1): "And Iahvah said unto me, If Moses were to
stand before Me (as an intercessor), and Samuel, I should not incline
towards this people: dismiss them from My presence, and let them go
forth! And when they say unto thee, Whither are we to go forth? thou
shalt say unto them, Thus said Iahvah, They that are Death's to death;
and they that are the Sword's to the sword; and they that are Famine's
to famine; and they that are Captivity's to captivity. And I will set
over them four families, saith Iahvah; the sword to slay, and the dogs
to draw (2 Sam. xvii. 13), and the birds of the air, and the beasts of
the earth, to devour and to destroy. And I will give them for worry
(Deut. xxviii. 25) to all the realms of earth; _because of_ (Deut.
xv. 10, xviii. 12; בנלל) _Manasseh ben Hezekiah king of Judah; for
what he did in Jerusalem_." In the next verses we have what seems to
be a reference to the death of Josiah (ver. 7). "I fanned them with
a fan"--the fan by which the husbandman separates wheat from chaff
in the threshing floor--"I fanned them with a fan, in the gates of
the land"--at Megiddo, the point where an enemy marching along the
maritime route might enter the land of Israel; "I bereaved, I ruined
my people (ver. 9). She that had borne seven, pined away; she breathed
out her soul; _her sun went down while it was yet day_." The national
mourning over this dire event became proverbial, as we see from Zech.
xii. 11: "In that day, great shall be the mourning in Jerusalem; like
the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo."

The political relations of the period are certainly obscure, if we
confine our attention to the biblical data. Happily, we are now able
to supplement these, by comparison with the newly recovered monuments
of Assyria. Under Manasseh, the kingdom of Judah became tributary to
Esarhaddon; and this relation of dependence, we may be sure, was not
interrupted during the vigorous reign of the mighty Ashurbanipal,
B.C. 668-626. But the first symptoms of declining power on the side
of their oppressors would undoubtedly be the signal for conspiracy
and rebellion in the distant parts of the loosely amalgamated empire.
Until the death of Ashurbanipal, the last great sovereign who reigned
at Nineveh, it may be assumed that Josiah stood true to his fealty.
It appears from certain notices in Kings and Chronicles (2 Kings
xxiii. 19; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 6) that he was able to exercise authority
even in the territories of the ruined kingdom of Israel. This may
have been due to the fact that he was allowed to do pretty much as
he liked, so long as he proved an obedient vassal; or, as is more
likely, the attention of the Assyrians was diverted from the West by
troubles nearer home in connection with the Scythians or the Medes and
Babylonians. At all events, it is not to be supposed that when Josiah
went out to oppose the Pharaoh at Megiddo, he was facing the forces
of Egypt alone. The thing is intrinsically improbable. The king of
Judah must have headed a coalition of the petty Syrian states against
the common enemy. It is not necessary to suppose that the Palestinian
principalities resisted Necho's advance, in the interests of their
nominal suzerain Assyria. From all we can gather, that empire was
now tottering to its irretrievable fall, under the feeble successors
of Ashurbanipal. The ambition of Egypt was doubtless a terror to
the combined peoples. The further results of Necho's campaign are
unknown. For the moment, Judah experienced a change of masters; but
the Egyptian tyranny was not destined to last. Some four years after
the battle of Megiddo, Pharaoh Necho made a second expedition to the
North, this time against the Babylonians, who had succeeded to the
empire of Assyria. The Egyptians were utterly defeated in the battle
of Carchemish, circ. B.C. 606-5, which left Nebuchadrezzar in virtual
possession of the countries west of the Euphrates (Jer. xlvi. 2).
It was the fourth year of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah,
when this crisis arose in the affairs of the Eastern world. The
prophet Jeremiah did not miss the meaning of events. From the first
he recognised in Nebuchadrezzar, or Nabucodrossor, an instrument in
the Divine hand for the chastisement of the peoples; from the first,
he predicted a judgment of God, not only upon the Jews, but upon all
nations, far and near. The substance of his oracles is preserved to us
in chapters xxv. and xlvi.-xlix. of his book. In the former passage,
which is expressly dated from the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and the
first of Nebuchadrezzar, the prophet gives a kind of retrospect of
his ministry of three-and-twenty years, affirms that it has failed
of its end, and that Divine retribution is therefore certain. The
"tribes of the north" will come and desolate the whole country (ver.
9), and "these nations"--the peoples of Palestine--"shall serve the
king of Babel seventy years" (ver. 11). The judgment on the nations
is depicted by an impressive symbolism (ver. 15). "Thus said Iahvah,
the God of Israel, unto me, Take this cup of wine, the (Divine) wrath,
from My hand, and cause all the nations, unto whom I send thee, to
drink it. And let them drink, and reel, and show themselves frenzied,
because of the sword that I am sending amongst them!" The strange
metaphor recalls our own proverb: _Quem Deus vult perdere, prius
dementat_. "So I took the cup from the hand of Iahvah, and made all
the nations drink, unto whom Iahvah had sent me." Then, as in some
list of the proscribed, the prophet writes down, one after another,
the names of the doomed cities and peoples. The judgment was set for
that age, and the eternal books were opened, and the names found in
them were these (ver. 18): "Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and
her kings, and her princes. Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants,
and his princes, and all his people. And all the hired soldiery, and
all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of
the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant
of Ashdod. Edom, and Moab, and the benê Ammon. And all the kings of
Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the island (_i.e._
Cyprus) that is beyond the sea. Dedan and Tema and Buz and all the
tonsured folk. And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the
hired soldiery, that dwell in the wilderness. And all the kings of
Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of Media. And all
the kings of the north, the near and the far, one with another; and
all the kingdoms of the earth that are upon the surface of the ground."

       *       *       *       *       *

When the mourning for Josiah was ended (2 Chron. xxxv. 24 _sqq._),
the people put Jehoahaz on his father's throne. But this arrangement
was not suffered to continue, for Necho, having defeated and slain
Josiah, naturally asserted his right to dispose of the crown of Judah
as he thought fit. Accordingly, he put Jehoahaz in bonds at Riblah
in the land of Hamath, whither he had probably summoned him to swear
allegiance to Egypt, or whither, perhaps, Jehoahaz had dared to
go with an armed force to resist the Egyptian pretensions, which,
however, is an unlikely supposition, as the battle in which Josiah
had fallen must have been a severe blow to the military resources of
Judah. Necho carried the unfortunate but also unworthy king (2 Kings
xxiii. 32) a prisoner to Egypt, where he died (_ibid._ 34). These
events are thus alluded to by Jeremiah (xxii. 10-12): "Weep ye not for
one dead (_i.e._ Josiah), nor make your moan for him: weep ever for
him that is going away; for he will not come back again, and see his
native land! For thus hath Iahvah said of Shallum (_i.e._ Jehoahaz, 1
Chron. iii. 15) ben Josiah, king of Judah, that reigned in the place
of Josiah his father, who is gone forth out of this place (_i.e._
Jerusalem, or the palace, ver. 1), He will not come back thither
again. For in the place whither they have led him into exile, there
he will die; and this land he will not see again." The pathos of this
lament for one whose dream of greatness was broken for ever within
three short months, does not conceal the prophet's condemnation of
Necho's prisoner. Jeremiah does not condole with the captive king
as the victim of mere misfortune. In this, as in all the gathering
calamities of his country, he sees a retributive meaning. The nine
preceding verses of the chapter demonstrate the fact.

In the place of Jehoahaz, Necho had set up his elder brother Eliakim,
with the title of Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiii. 34). This prince also
is condemned in the narrative of Kings (ver. 37), as having done
"the evil thing in the eyes of Iahvah, according to all that his
forefathers had done;" an estimate which is thoroughly confirmed
by what Jeremiah has added to his lament for the deposed king his
brother. The pride, the grasping covetousness, the high-handed
violence and cruelty of Jehoiakim, and the doom that will overtake
him, in the righteousness of God, are thus declared: "Woe to him that
buildeth his house by injustice, and his chambers by iniquity! that
layeth on his neighbour work without wages, and giveth him not his
hire! That saith, I will build me a lofty house, with airy chambers;
and he cutteth him out the windows thereof, panelling it with cedar,
and painting it with vermilion. Shalt thou _reign_, that thou art
hotly intent upon cedar?" (Or, according to the LXX. Vat., thou viest
with Ahaz--LXX. Alex., with Ahab; perhaps a reference to "the ivory
house" mentioned in 1 Kings xxii. 39). "Thy father, did he not eat
and drink and do judgment and justice? Then it was well with him. He
judged the cause of the oppressed and the needy: then it was well.
Was not this to know Me? saith Iahvah. For thine eyes and thine heart
are set upon nought but thine own lucre [thy plunder], and upon the
blood of the innocent, to shed it, and upon extortion and oppression
to do it. Therefore, thus hath Iahvah said of Jehoiakim ben Josiah,
king of Judah: They shall not lament for him with Ah, my brother! or
Ah, sister! They shall not lament for him with Ah, lord! or Ah, his
majesty! With the burial of an ass shall he be buried; with dragging
and casting forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem!"

In the beginning of the reign of this worthless tyrant, the prophet
was impelled to address a very definite warning to the throng of
worshippers in the court of the temple (xxvi. 4 _sqq._). It was to
the effect that if they did not amend their ways, their temple should
become like Shiloh, and their city a curse to all the nations of the
earth. There could be no doubt of the meaning of this reference to the
ruined sanctuary, long since forsaken of God (Ps. lxxviii. 60). It so
wrought upon that fanatical audience, that priests and prophets and
people rose as one man against the daring speaker; and Jeremiah was
barely rescued from immediate death by the timely intervention of the
princes. The account closes with the relation of the cruel murder of
another prophet of the school of Jeremiah, by command of Jehoiakim the
king; and it is very evident from these narratives that, screened as
he was by powerful friends, Jeremiah narrowly escaped a similar fate.

We have reached the point in our prophet's career when, taking a broad
survey of the entire world of his time, he forecasts the character of
the future that awaits its various political divisions. He has left the
substance of his reflexions in the 25th chapter, and in those prophecies
concerning the foreign peoples, which the Hebrew text of his works
relegates to the very end of the book, as chapters xlvi.-li., but which
the Greek recension of the Septuagint inserts immediately after chap.
xxv. 13. In the decisive battle at Carchemish, which crippled the power
of Egypt, the only other existing state which could make any pretensions
to the supremacy of Western Asia, and contend with the trans-Euphratean
empires for the possession of Syria-Palestine, Jeremiah had recognised
a signal indication of the Divine Will, which he was not slow to
proclaim to all within reach of his inspired eloquence. In common with
all the great prophets who had preceded him, he entertained a profound
conviction that the race was not necessarily to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong; that the fortune of war was not determined simply
and solely by chariots and horsemen and big battalions; that behind all
material forces lay the spiritual, from whose absolute will they derived
their being and potency, and upon whose sovereign pleasure depended the
issues of victory and defeat, of life and death. As his successor, the
second Isaiah, saw in the polytheist Cyrus, king of Anzan, a chosen
servant of Iahvah, whose whole triumphant career was foreordained in
the counsels of heaven; so Jeremiah saw in the rise of the Babylonian
domination, and the rapid development of the new empire upon the ruins
of the old, a manifest token of the Divine purpose, a revelation of
a Divine secret. His point of view is strikingly illustrated by the
warning which he was directed to send a few years later to the kings
who were seeking to draw Judah into the common alliance against Babylon
(chap. xxvii. 1 _sqq._). "In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah[14]
ben Josiah, king of Judah, fell this word to Jeremiah from Iahvah. Thus
said Iahvah unto me, Make thee thongs and poles, and put them upon thy
neck; and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to
the king of the benê Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of
Zidon, by the hand of the messengers that are come to Jerusalem, unto
Zedekiah the king of Judah. And give them a charge unto their masters,
saying, Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth, the God of Israel, Thus shall ye
say to your masters: I it was that made the earth, mankind, and the
cattle that are on the face of the earth, by My great strength, and
by Mine outstretched arm; and I give it to whom it seemeth good in My
sight. And now, I will verily give all these countries into the hand of
Nebuchadrezzar king of Babel, _My servant; and even the wild creatures
of the field will I give unto him to serve him_."

Nebuchadrezzar was invincible, and the Jewish prophet clearly
perceived the fact. But it must not be imagined that the Jewish people
generally, or the neighbouring peoples, enjoyed a similar degree of
insight. Had that been so, the battle of Jeremiah's life would never
have been fought out under such cruel, such hopeless conditions. The
prophet saw the truth, and proclaimed it without ceasing in reluctant
ears, and was met with derision, and incredulity, and intrigue, and
slander, and pitiless persecution. By-and-by, when his word had
come to pass, and all the principalities of Canaan were crouching
abjectly at the feet of the conqueror, and Jerusalem was a heap
of ruins, the scattered communities of banished Israelites could
remember that Jeremiah had foreseen and foretold it all. In the light
of accomplished facts, the significance of his prevision began to
be realised; and when the first dreary hours of dumb and desperate
suffering were over, the exiles gradually learned to find consolation
in the few but precious promises that had accompanied the menaces
which were now so visibly fulfilled. While they were yet in their own
land, two things had been predicted by this prophet in the name of
their God. The first was now accomplished; no cavil could throw doubt
upon actual experience. Was there not here some warrant, at least for
reasonable men, some sufficient ground for trusting the prophet at
last, for believing in his Divine mission, for striving to follow his
counsels, and for looking forward with steadfast hope out of present
affliction, to the gladness of the future which the same seer had
foretold, even with the unwonted precision of naming a limit of time?
So the exiles were persuaded, and their belief was fully justified
by the event. Never had they realised the absolute sovereignty of
their God, the universality of Iahvah Sabaoth, the shadowy nature,
the blank nothingness of all supposed rivals of His dominion, as now
they did, when at length years of painful experience had brought
home to their minds the truth that Nebuchadrezzar had demolished the
temple and laid Jerusalem in the dust, not, as he himself believed,
by the favour of Bel-Merodach and Nebo, but by the sentence of the
God of Israel; and that the catastrophe, which had swept them out of
political existence, occurred not because Iahvah was weaker than the
gods of Babylon, but because He was irresistibly strong; stronger than
all powers of all worlds; stronger therefore than Israel, stronger
than Babylon; stronger than the pride and ambition of the earthly
conqueror, stronger than the self-will, and the stubbornness, and the
wayward rebellion, and the fanatical blindness, and the frivolous
unbelief, of his own people. The conception is an easy one for us, who
have inherited the treasures both of Jewish and of Gentile thought;
but the long struggle of the prophets, and the fierce antagonism of
their fellow-countrymen, and the political extinction of the Davidic
monarchy, and the agonies of the Babylonian exile, were necessary to
the genesis and germination of this master-conception in the heart of
Israel, and so of humanity.

To return from this hasty glance at the remoter consequences of the
prophet's ministry, it was in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and the
first of Nebuchadrezzar (xxv. 1) that, in obedience to a Divine
intimation, he collected the various discourses which he had so far
delivered in the name of God. Some doubt has been raised as to the
precise meaning of the record of this matter (xxxvi.). On the one
hand, it is urged that "An historically accurate reproduction of the
prophecies would not have suited Jeremiah's object, which was not
historical but practical: he desired to give a salutary shock to the
people, by bringing before them the fatal consequences of their evil
deeds:" and that "the purport of the roll (ver. 29) which the king
burned was [only] that the king of Babylon should 'come and destroy
this land,' whereas it is clear that Jeremiah had uttered many other
important declarations in the course of his already long ministry."
And on the other hand, it is suggested that the roll, of which the
prophet speaks in chap. xxxvi., contained no more than the prophecy
concerning the Babylonian invasion and its consequences, which is
preserved in chap. xxv., and dated from the fourth year of Jehoiakim.

Considering the unsatisfactory state of the text of Jeremiah, it is
perhaps admissible to suppose, for the sake of this hypothesis, that
the second verse of chap. xxv., which expressly declares that this
prophecy was spoken by its author "to all the people of Judah, and to
all the inhabitants of Jerusalem," is "a loose inaccurate statement
due to a later editor;" although this inconvenient statement is found
in the Greek of the LXX. as well as in the Massoretic Hebrew text. But
let us examine the alleged objections in the light of the positive
statements of chap. xxxvi. It is there written thus: "In the fourth
year of Jehoiakim ben Josiah king of Judah, this word fell to Jeremiah
from Iahvah. Take thee a book-roll, and write on it all the words
that I have spoken unto thee, concerning Israel and Judah and all
the nations, from the day when I (first) spake unto thee,--from the
days of Josiah,--unto this day." This certainly seems plain enough.
The only possible question is whether the command was to collect
within the compass of a single volume, a sort of author's edition, an
indefinite number of discourses preserved hitherto in separate MSS.
and perhaps to a great extent in the prophet's memory; or whether we
are to understand by "all the words" the _substance_ of the various
prophecies to which reference is made. If the object was merely to
impress the people on a particular occasion by placing before them
a sort of historical review of the prophet's warnings in the past,
it is evident that a formal edition of his utterances, so far as he
was able to prepare such a work, would not be the most natural or
ready method of attaining that purpose. Such a review for practical
purposes might well be comprised within the limits of a single
continuous composition, such as we find in chap. xxv., which opens
with a brief retrospect of the prophet's ministry during twenty-three
years (vers. 3-7), and then denounces the neglect with which his
warnings have been received, and declares the approaching subjugation
of all the states of Phenicia-Palestine by the king of Babylon. But
the narrative itself gives not a single hint that such was the sole
object in view. Much rather does it appear from the entire context
that, the crisis having at length arrived, which Jeremiah had so long
foreseen, he was now impelled to gather together, with a view to their
preservation, all those discourses by which he had laboured in vain to
overcome the indifference, the callousness, and the bitter antagonism
of his people. These utterances of the past, collected and revised in
the light of successive events, and illustrated by their substantial
agreement with what had actually taken place, and especially by
the new danger which seemed to threaten the whole West, the rising
power of Babylon, might certainly be expected to produce a powerful
impression by their coincidence with the national apprehensions; and
the prophet might even hope that warnings, hitherto disregarded, but
now visibly justified by events in course of development, would at
last bring "the house of Judah" to consider seriously the evil that,
in God's Providence, was evidently impending, and "return every man
from his evil way," that even so late the consequences of their guilt
might be turned aside. This doubtless was the immediate aim, but it
does not exclude others, such as the vindication of the prophet's own
claims, in startling contrast with those of the false prophets, who
had opposed him at every step, and misled his countrymen so grievously
and fatally. Against these and their delusive promises, the volume of
Jeremiah's past discourses would constitute an effective protest, and
a complete justification of his own endeavours. We must also remember
that, if the repentance and salvation of his own contemporaries was
naturally the first object of the prophet in all his undertakings, in
the Divine counsels prophecy has more than a temporary value, and that
the writings of this very prophet were destined to become instrumental
in the conversion of a succeeding generation.

Those twenty-three years of patient thought and earnest labour, of
high converse with God, and of agonised pleading with a reprobate
people, were not to be without their fruit, though the prophet himself
was not to see it. It is matter of history that the words of Jeremiah
wrought with such power upon the hearts of the exiles in Babylonia, as
to become, in the hands of God, a principal means in the regeneration
of Israel, and of that restoration which was its promised and its
actual consequence; and from that day to this, not one of all the
goodly fellowship of the prophets has enjoyed such credit in the
Jewish Church as he who in his lifetime had to encounter neglect and
ridicule, hatred and persecution, beyond what is recorded of any other.

"So Jeremiah called Baruch ben Neriah; and Baruch wrote, from the
mouth of Jeremiah, all the words of Iahvah, that He had spoken unto
him, upon a book-roll" (ver. 4). Nothing is said about time; and there
is nothing to indicate that what the scribe wrote at the prophet's
dictation was a single brief discourse. The work probably occupied
a not inconsiderable time, as may be inferred from the datum of
the ninth verse (_vid. infr._). Jeremiah would know that haste was
incompatible with literary finish; he would probably feel that it
was equally incompatible with the proper execution of what he had
recognised as a Divine command. The prophet hardly had all his past
utterances lying before him in the form of finished compositions.
"And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying: I am detained (or confined);
I cannot enter the house of Iahvah; so enter _thou_, and read in the
roll, that thou wrotest from my mouth, the words of Iahvah, in the
ears of the people, in the house of Iahvah, upon a day of fasting: and
also in the ears of all Judah (the Jews), that come in (to the temple)
from their (several) cities, thou shalt read them. Perchance their
supplication will fall before Iahvah, and they will return, every one
from his evil way; for great is the anger and the hot displeasure
that Iahvah hath spoken (threatened) unto this people. And Baruch
ben Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded
him, reading in the book the words of Iahvah in Iahvah's house." This
last sentence might be regarded as a general statement, anticipative
of the detailed account that follows, as is often the case in Old
Testament narratives. But I doubt the application of this well-known
exegetical device in the present instance. The verse is more likely an
interpolation; unless we suppose that it refers to divers readings of
which no particulars are given, but which preceded the memorable one
described in the following verses. The injunction, "And also in the
ears of all Judah that come out of their cities thou shalt read them!"
might imply successive readings, as the people flocked into Jerusalem
from time to time. But the grand occasion, if not the only one, was
without doubt that which stands recorded in the text. "And it came to
pass in the _fifth_ year of Jehoiakim ben Josiah king of Judah, in the
_ninth_ month, they proclaimed a fast before Iahvah,--all the people
in Jerusalem and all the people that were come out of the cities
of Judah into Jerusalem. And Baruch read in the book the words of
Jeremiah, in the house of Iahvah, in the cell of Gemariah ben Shaphan
the scribe, in the upper (inner) court, at the entry of the new gate
of Iahvah's house, in the ears of all the people." The dates have an
important bearing upon the points we are considering. It was in the
fourth year of Jehoiakim that the prophet was bidden to commit his
oracles to writing. If, then, the task was not accomplished before
the _ninth_ month of the _fifth_ year, it is plain that it involved
a good deal more than penning such a discourse as the twenty-fifth
chapter. This datum, in fact, strongly favours the supposition that
it was a record of his principal utterances hitherto, that Jeremiah
thus undertook and accomplished. It is not at all necessary to assume
that on this or any other occasion Baruch read the entire contents
of the roll to his audience in the temple. We are told that he "read
_in_ the book the words of Jeremiah," that is, no doubt, some portion
of the whole. And so, in the famous scene before the king, it is not
said that the entire work was read, but the contrary is expressly
related (ver. 23): "And when Jehudi had read _three columns or four_,
he (the king) began to cut it with the scribe's knife, and to cast it
into the fire." Three or four columns of an ordinary roll might have
contained the whole of the twenty-fifth chapter; and it must have been
an unusually diminutive document, if the first three or four columns
of it contained no more than the seven verses of chap. xxv. (3-6),
which declare the sin of Judah, and announce the coming of the king
of Babylon. And, apart from these objections, there is no ground for
the presumption that "the purport of the roll which the king burnt
was [only] that the king of Babylon should 'come and destroy this
land.'" As the learned critic, from whom I have quoted these words,
further remarks, with perfect truth, "Jeremiah had uttered many other
important declarations in the course of his already long ministry."

That, I grant, is true; but then there is absolutely nothing to prove
that this roll did not contain them all. Chap. xxxvi. 29, cited by the
objector, is certainly not such proof. That verse simply gives the
angry exclamation with which the king interrupted the reading of the
roll, "Why hast thou written upon it, The king of Babylon shall surely
come and destroy this land, and cause to cease from it man and beast?"

This may have been no more than Jehoiakim's very natural inference
from some one of the many allusions to the enemy "from the north,"
which occur in the earlier part of the book of Jeremiah. At all
events, it is evident that, whether the king of Babylon was directly
mentioned or not in the portion of the roll read in his presence, the
verse in question assigns, not the sole import of the entire work,
but only the particular point in it, which, at the existing crisis,
especially roused the indignation of Jehoiakim. The 25th chapter may
of course have been contained in the roll read before the king.

And this may suffice to show how precarious are the assertions of the
learned critic in the _Encyclop. Brit._ upon the subject of Jeremiah's
roll. The plain truth seems to be that, perceiving the imminence of
the peril that threatened his country, the prophet was impressed with
the conviction that now was the time to commit his past utterances to
writing; and that towards the end of the year, after he had formed and
carried out this project, he found occasion to have his discourses
read in the temple, to the crowds of rural folk who sought refuge
in Jerusalem, before the advance of Nebuchadrezzar. So Josephus
understood the matter (_Ant._, x. 6, 2).

On the approach of the Babylonians, Jehoiakim made his submission;
but only to rebel again, after three years of tribute and vassalage
(2 Kings xxiv. 1). Drought and failure of the crops aggravated the
political troubles of the country; evils in which Jeremiah was not
slow to discern the hand of an offended and alienated God. "How long,"
he asks (xii. 4), "shall the country mourn, and the herbage of the
whole field wither? From the wickedness of them that dwell therein
the beasts and the birds perish." And in chap. xiv. we have a highly
poetical description of the sufferings of the time.

    "Judah mourneth, and her gates languish;
     They sit in black on the ground;
     And the outcry of Jerusalem hath gone up.
     And their nobles, they sent their menial folk for water;
     They came to the pits, they found no water;
     They returned with their vessels empty;
     They were ashamed and confounded and covered their head.
     On account of ye ground that is chapt,
     For rain hath not fallen in the land,
     The plowmen are ashamed--they cover their head.
     For even the hind in the field--
     She calveth and forsaketh her young;
     For there is no grass.
     And the wild asses, they stand on the scaurs;
     They snuff the wind[15] like jackals;
     Their eyes fail, for there is no herbage."


And then, after this graphic and almost dramatic portrayal of the
sufferings of man and beast, in the blinding glare of the towns, and
in the hot waterless plains, and on the bare hills, under that burning
sky, whose cloudless splendours seemed to mock their misery, the
prophet prays to the God of Israel.

    "If our misdeeds answer against us,
     O Iahvah, work for Thy name sake!
     Verily, our fallings away are many;
     Towards thee we are in fault.
     Hope of Israel, that savest him in time of trouble!
     Why shouldst thou be as a sojourner in the land,
     And as a traveller, that turneth aside to pass the night?
     Why shouldst thou be as a man stricken dumb,
     As a champion that cannot save?
     Yet Thou art in our midst, O Iahvah,
     And Thy name is called over us:
     Leave us not!"

And again, at the end of the chapter,

    "Hast Thou wholly rejected Judah?
     Hath Thy soul loathed Zion?
     Why hast Thou smitten us,
     That there is no healing for us?
     We looked for welfare, but bootlessly,
     For a time of healing, and behold terror!
     We know, Iahvah, our wickedness, the guilt of our fathers:
     Verily, we are in fault toward Thee!
     Be not scornful, for Thy name's sake!
     Dishonour not Thy glorious throne! [_i.e._ Jerusalem.]
     Remember, break not Thy covenant with us!
     Among the Vanities of the nations are there indeed raingivers?
     Or the heavens, can they yield showers?
     Art not Thou He (that doeth this), Iahvah our God?
     And we wait for Thee,
     For 'tis Thou that madest all this world."

In these and the like pathetic outpourings, which meet us in the later
portions of the Old Testament, we may observe the gradual development
of the dialect of stated prayer; the beginnings and the growth of
that beautiful and appropriate liturgical language in which both the
synagogue and the church afterwards found so perfect an instrument for
the expression of all the harmonies of worship. Prayer, both public and
private, was destined to assume an increasing importance, and, after the
destruction of temple and altar, and the forcible removal of the people
to a heathen land, to become the principal means of communion with God.

The evils of drought and dearth appear to have been accompanied
by inroads of foreign enemies, who took advantage of the existing
distress to rob and plunder at will. This serious aggravation of the
national troubles is recorded in chap. xii. 7-17. There it is said, in
the name of God, "I have left My house, I have cast off My heritage;
I have given the Darling of My soul into the hands of her enemies."
The reason is Judah's fierce hostility to her Divine Master: "Like a
lion in the forest she hath uttered a cry against Me." The result of
this unnatural rebellion is seen in the ravages of lawless invaders,
probably nomads of the desert, always watching their opportunity,
and greedy of the wealth, while disdainful of the pursuits of their
civilised neighbours. It is as if all the wild beasts, that roam at
large in the open country, had concerted a united attack upon the
devoted land; as if many shepherds with their innumerable flocks had
eaten bare and trodden down the vineyard of the Lord. "Over all the
bald crags in the wilderness freebooters (Obad. 5) are come; for a
sword of Iahweh's is devouring: from land's end to land's end no flesh
hath security" (ver. 12). The rapacious and heathenish hordes of the
desert, mere human wolves intent on ravage and slaughter, are a sword
of the Lord's, for the chastisement of His people; just as the king of
Babylon is His "servant" for the same purpose.

Only ten verses of the book of Kings are occupied with the reign of
Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiii. 34-xxiv. 6); and when we compare that flying
sketch with the allusions in Jeremiah, we cannot but keenly regret the
loss of that "Book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah," to which
the compiler of Kings refers as his authority. Had that work survived,
many things in the prophets, which are now obscure and baffling,
would have been clear and obvious. As it is, we are often obliged to
be contented with surmises and probabilities, where certainty would
be right welcome. In the present instance, the facts alluded to by
the prophet appear to be included in the statement that the Lord sent
against Jehoiakim bands of Chaldeans, and bands of Arameans, and
bands of Moabites, and bands of benê Ammon. The Hebrew term implies
marauding or predatory bands, rather than regular armies, and it need
not be supposed that they all fell upon the country at the same time
or in accordance with any preconcerted scheme. In the midst of these
troubles, Jehoiakim died in the flower of his age, having reigned
no more than eleven years, and being only thirty-six years old (2
Kings xxiii. 36). The prophet thus alludes to his untimely end. "Like
the partridge that sitteth on eggs that she hath not laid, so is he
that maketh riches, and not by right: in the midst of his days they
leave him; and in his last end he proveth a fool" (xvii. 11). We have
already considered the detailed condemnation of this evil king in the
22nd chapter. The prophet Habakkuk, a contemporary of Jeremiah, seems
to have had Jehoiakim in his mind's eye, when denouncing (ii. 9) woe
to one that "getteth an evil gain for his house, that he may set his
nest on high, that he may escape from the hand of evil!" The allusion
is to the forced labour on his new palace, and on the defences of
Jerusalem, as well as to the fines and presents of money, which this
oppressive ruler shamelessly extorted from his unhappy subjects. "The
stone out of the wall," says the prophet, "crieth out; and the beam
out of the woodwork answereth it."

The premature death of the tyrant removed a serious obstacle from the
path of Jeremiah. No longer forced to exercise a wary vigilance in
avoiding the vengeance of a king whose passions determined his conduct,
the prophet could now devote himself heart and soul to the work of his
office. The public danger, imminent from the north, and the way to avert
it, is the subject of the discourses of this period of his ministry.
His unquenchable faith appears in the beautiful prayer appended to his
reflexions upon the death of Jehoiakim (xvii. 12 _sqq._). We cannot
mistake the tone of quiet exultation, with which he expresses his sense
of the absolute righteousness of the catastrophe. "A throne of glory,
a height higher than the first (?), (or, higher than any before) is
the place of our sanctuary." Never before in the prophet's experience
has the God of Israel so clearly vindicated that justice which is the
inalienable attribute of His dread tribunal.

For himself, the immediate result of this renewal of an activity that
had been more or less suspended, was persecution and even violence.
The earnestness with which he besought the people to honestly keep
the law of the Sabbath, an obligation which was recognised in theory
though disregarded in practice; and his striking illustration of the
true relations between Iahvah and Israel as parallel to those that hold
between the potter and the clay (chap. xvii. 19 _sqq._), only brought
down upon him the fierce hostility and organised opposition of the false
prophets, and the priests, and the credulous and self-willed populace,
as we read in chap. xviii. 18 _sqq._ "And they said, Come, and let us
contrive plots against Jeremiah.... Come, and let us smite him with the
tongue, and let us not listen to any of his words. Should evil be repaid
for good, that they have digged a pit for my life?" And after his solemn
testimony before the elders in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, and before the
people generally, in the court of the Lord's house (chap. xix.), the
prophet was seized by order of Pashchûr, the commandant of the temple,
who was himself a leading false prophet, and cruelly beaten, and set
in the stocks for a day and a night. That the spirit of the prophet
was not broken by this shameful treatment, is evident from the courage
with which he confronted his oppressor on the morrow, and foretold
his certain punishment. But the apparent failure of his mission, the
hopelessness of his life's labour, indicated by the deepening hostility
of the people, and the readiness to proceed to extremities against him
thus evinced by their leaders, wrung from Jeremiah that bitter cry of
despair, which has proved such a stumbling-block to some of his modern
apologists.

Soon the prophet's fears were realised, and the Divine counsel, of which
he alone had been cognisant, was fulfilled. Within three short months
of his accession to the throne, the boy-king Jeconiah (or Jehoiachin or
Coniah), with the queen-mother, the grandees of the court, and the pick
of the population of the capital, was carried captive to Babylon by
Nebuchadrezzar (2 Kings xxiv. 8 _sqq._; Jer. xxiv. 1).

Jeremiah has appended his forecast of the fate of Jeconiah, and a
brief notice of its fulfilment, to his denunciations of that king's
predecessors (xxii. 24 _sqq._). "As I live, saith Iahvah, verily,
though Coniah ben Jehoiakim king of Judah be a signet ring upon My own
right hand, verily thence will I pluck thee away! And I will give thee
into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of those
of whom thou art afraid; and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of
Babel, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. And I will cast thee forth,
and thy mother that bare thee, into the foreign land, wherein ye were
not born; and there ye shall die. But unto the land whither they
long to return, thither shall they not return. Is this man Coniah a
despised broken vase, or a vessel devoid of charm? Why were he and his
offspring cast forth, and hurled into the land that they knew not? O
land, land, land, hear thou the word of Iahvah. Thus hath Iahvah said,
Write ye down this man childless, a person that shall not prosper in
his days: for none of his offspring shall prosper, sitting on the
throne of David, and ruling again in Judah."

No better success attended the prophet's ministry under the new king
Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadrezzar had placed on the throne as his vassal
and tributary. So far as we can judge from the accounts left us,
Zedekiah was a wellmeaning but unstable character, whose weakness and
irresolution were too often played upon by unscrupulous and scheming
courtiers, to the fatal miscarriage of right and justice. Soon the
old intrigues began again, and in the fourth year of the new reign
(xxviii. 1) envoys from the neighbour-states arrived at the Jewish
court, with the object of drawing Judah into a coalition against
the common suzerain, the king of Babylon. This suicidal policy of
combination with heathenish and treacherous allies, most of whom
were the heirs of immemorial feuds with Judah, against a sovereign
who was at once the most powerful and the most enlightened of his
time, called forth the prophet's immediate and strenuous opposition.
Boldly affirming that Iahvah had conferred universal dominion upon
Nebuchadrezzar, and that consequently all resistance was futile, he
warned Zedekiah himself to bow his neck to the yoke, and dismiss all
thought of rebellion. It would seem that about this time (circ. 596
B.C.) the empire of Babylon was passing through a serious crisis,
which the subject peoples of the West hoped and expected would result
in its speedy dissolution. Nebuchadrezzar was, in fact, engaged in a
life-and-death struggle with the Medes; and the knowledge that the
Great King was thus fully occupied elsewhere, encouraged the petty
princes of Phenicia-Palestine in their projects of revolt. If chaps.
l., li., are genuine, it was at this juncture that Jeremiah foretold
the fall of Babylon; for, at the close of the prophecy in question
(li. 59), it is said that he gave a copy of it to one of the princes
who accompanied Zedekiah to Babylon _in the fourth year of his reign_,
_i.e._ in 596 B.C. But the style and thought of these two chapters,
and the general posture of things which they presuppose, are decisive
against the view that they belong to Jeremiah. At all events the
prophet gave the clearest evidence that he did not himself share in
the general delusion that the fall of Babylon was near at hand. He
declared that all the nations must be content to serve Nebuchadrezzar,
and his son, and his son's son (xxvii. 7); and as chap. xxix. shows,
he did his best to counteract the evil influence of those fanatical
visionaries, who were ever promising a speedy restoration to the
exiles who had been deported to Babylon with Jeconiah. At last,
however, in spite of all Jeremiah's warnings and entreaties, the
vacillating king Zedekiah, was persuaded to rebel; and the natural
consequence followed--the Chaldeans appeared before Jerusalem. King
and people had refused salvation, and were now no more to be saved.

During the siege, the prophet was more than once anxiously consulted
by the king as to the issue of the crisis. Although kept in ward
by Zedekiah's orders, lest he should weaken the defence by his
discouraging addresses, Jeremiah showed that he was far above the
feeling of private ill-will, by the answers he returned to his
sovereign's inquiries. It is true that he did not at all modify the
burden of his message; to the king as to the people he steadily
counselled surrender. But strongly as he denounced further resistance,
he did not predict the king's death; and the tone of his prophecy
concerning Zedekiah is in striking contrast with that concerning his
predecessor Jehoiakim. It was in the tenth year of Zedekiah and the
eighteenth of Nebuchadrezzar, that is to say, circ. 589 B.C., when
Jeremiah was imprisoned in the court of the royal guard, within the
precincts of the palace (xxxii. 1 _sqq._); when the siege of Jerusalem
was being pressed on with vigour, and when of all the strong cities of
Judah, only two, Lachish and Azekah, were still holding out against
the Chaldean blockade; that the prophet thus addressed the king
(xxxiv. 2 _sqq._): "Thus hath Iahvah said, Behold, I am about to give
this city into the hand of the king of Babel, and he shall burn it
with fire. And thou wilt not escape out of his hand; for thou wilt
certainly be taken, and into his hand thou wilt be given. And thine
eyes shall see the king of Babel's eyes, and his mouth shall speak
with thy mouth, and to Babel wilt thou come. But hear thou Iahvah's
word, O Zedekiah king of Judah! Thus hath Iahvah said upon thee,
Thou wilt not die by the sword. In peace wilt thou die; and with the
burnings of thy fathers, the former kings that were before thee, so
will men burn (spicery) for thee, and with Ah, Lord! will they wail
for thee; for a promise have _I_ given, saith Iahvah." Zedekiah was
to be exempted from the violent death, which then seemed so probable;
and was to enjoy the funeral honours of a king, unlike his less worthy
brother Jehoiakim, whose body was cast out to decay unburied like
that of a beast. The failure of Jeremiah's earnest and consistent
endeavours to bring about the submission of his people to what he
foresaw to be their inevitable destiny, is explained by the popular
confidence in the defences of Jerusalem, which were enormously strong
for the time, and were considered impregnable (xxi. 13); and by the
hopes entertained that Egypt, with whom negotiations had long been in
progress, would raise the siege ere it was too late. The low state
of public morals is vividly illustrated by an incident which the
prophet has recorded (chap. xxxiv. 7 _sqq._). In the terror inspired
by the approach of the Chaldeans, the panic-stricken populace of the
capital bethought them of that law of their God, which they had so
long set at nought; and the king and his princes and the entire people
bound themselves by a solemn covenant in the temple, to release all
slaves of Israelitish birth, who had served six years and upwards,
according to the law. The enfranchisement was accomplished with all
the sanctions of law and of religion; but no sooner had the Chaldeans
retired from before Jerusalem in order to meet the advancing army
of Egypt, than the solemn covenant was cynically and shamelessly
violated, and the unhappy freedmen were recalled to their bondage.
After this, further warning was evidently out of place; and nothing
was left for Jeremiah but to denounce the outrage upon the majesty of
heaven, and to declare the speedy return of the besiegers, and the
desolation of Jerusalem. His own liberty had not yet been restricted
(xxxvii. 4) when these events happened; but a pretext was soon found
for venting upon him the malice of his enemies. After assuring the
king that the respite was not to be permanent, but that Pharaoh's army
would return to Egypt without accomplishing any deliverance, and that
the Chaldeans would "come again, and fight against the city, and take
it, and burn it with fire" (xxxvii. 8), Jeremiah availed himself of
the temporary absence of the besieging forces, to attempt to leave his
City of Destruction; but he was arrested in the gate by which he was
going out, and brought before the princes on a charge of attempted
desertion to the enemy. Ridiculous as was this accusation, when thus
levelled against one whose whole life was conspicuous for sufferings
entailed by a lofty and unflinching patriotism and a devotion, at the
time almost unique, to the sacred cause of religion and morality; it
was at once received and acted upon. Jeremiah was beaten and thrown
into a dungeon, where he languished for a long time in subterranean
darkness and misery, until the king desired to consult him again. This
was the saving of the prophet's life; for after once more declaring
his unalterable message, תִּנָּתֵן בָּבֶל מֶלֶרּ בְּיַר, "Into the
king of Babel's hand thou wilt be given!" he made indignant protest
against his cruel wrongs, and obtained from Zedekiah some mitigation
of his sentence. He was not sent back to the loathsome den under the
house of Jonathan the scribe, in whose dark recesses he had well nigh
perished (xxxvii. 20), but was detained in the court of the guard,
receiving a daily dole of bread for his maintenance. Here he appears
to have still used such opportunity as he had, in dissuading the
people from continuing the defence. At all events, four of the princes
induced the king to deliver him into their power, on the ground that
he "weakened the hands of the men of war," and sought not the welfare
but the hurt of the nation (xxxviii. 4). Unwilling for some reason
or other, probably a superstitious one, to imbrue their hands in the
prophet's blood, they let him down with cords into a miry cistern
(בּוֹר) in the court of the guard, and left him there to die of cold
and hunger. Timely help sanctioned by the king rescued Jeremiah from
this horrible fate; but not before he had undergone sufferings of the
severest character, as may easily be understood from his own simple
narrative, and from the indelible impression wrought upon others by
the record of his sufferings, which led the poet of the Lamentations
to refer to this time of deadly peril, and torture both mental and
physical, in the following terms:

          "They chased me sore like a bird,
           They that were my foes without a cause.
           They silenced my life in the pit,
           And they cast a stone upon me.
           Waters overflowed mine head;
           Methought, I am cut off.
           I called Thy name, Iahvah,
           Out of the deepest pit.
           My voice Thou heardest (saying),
           'Hide not Thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.'
           Thou drewest near when I called Thee;
           Thou saidst, 'Fear not'!
           Thou pleadedst, O Lord, my souls pleadings;
           Thou ransomedst my life."

After this signal escape, Jeremiah's counsel was once more sought by
the king, in a secret interview, which was jealously concealed from
the princes. But neither entreaties, nor assurances of safety, could
persuade Zedekiah to surrender the city. Nothing was now left for the
prophet, but to await, in his milder captivity, the long foreseen
catastrophe. The form now taken by his solitary musings was not
anxious speculation upon the question whether any possible resources
were as yet unexhausted, whether by any yet untried means king and
people might be convinced, and the end averted. Taking that end for
granted, he looks forth beyond his own captivity, beyond the scenes
of famine and pestilence and bloodshed that surround him, beyond the
strife of factions within the city, and the lines of the besiegers
without it, to a fair prospect of happy restoration and smiling peace,
reserved for his ruined country in the far-off yet ever-approaching
future (xxxii., xxxiii.).

Strong in this inspired confidence, like the Roman who purchased at
its full market value the ground on which the army of Hannibal lay
encamped, he did not hesitate to buy, with all due formalities of
transfer, a field in his native place, at this supreme moment, when
the whole country was wasted with fire and sword, and the artillery
of the foe was thundering at the walls of Jerusalem. And the event
proved that he was right. He believed in the depth of his heart that
God had not finally cast off His people. He believed that nothing, not
even human error and revolt, could thwart and turn aside the Eternal
purposes. He was sure--it was demonstrated to him by the experience of
an eventful life--that, amid all the vicissitudes of men and things, one
thing stands immutable, and that is the will of God. He was sure that
Abraham's family had not become a nation, merely in order to be blotted
out of existence by a conqueror who knew not Iahvah; that the torch of a
true religion, a spiritual faith, had not been handed on from prophet to
prophet, burning in its onward course with an ever clearer and intenser
flame, merely to be swallowed up before its final glory was attained, in
utter and eternal darkness. The covenant with Israel would no more be
broken than the covenant of day and night (xxxiii. 20). The laws of the
natural world are not more stable and secure than those of the spiritual
realm; for both have their reason and their ground of prevalence in the
Will of the One Unchangeable Lord of all. And as the prophet had been
right in his forecast of the destruction of his country, so did he prove
to have been right in his joyful anticipation of the future renascence
of all the best elements in Israel's life. The coming time fulfilled his
word; a fact which must always remain unaccountable to all but those who
believe as Jeremiah believed.

After the fall of the city, special care was taken to ensure the safety
of Jeremiah, in accordance with the express orders of Nebuchadrezzar,
who had become cognisant of the prophet's consistent advocacy of
surrender, probably from the exiles previously deported to Babylonia,
with whom Jeremiah had maintained communications, advising them to
settle down peaceably, accepting Babylon as their country for the time
being, and praying for its welfare and that of its rulers. Nebuzaradan,
the commander-in-chief, further allowed the prophet his choice between
following him to Babylon, or remaining with the wreck of the population
in the ruined country. Patriotism, which in his case was identified
with a burning zeal for the moral and spiritual welfare of his
fellow-countrymen, prevailed over regard for his own worldly interests;
and Jeremiah chose to remain with the survivors--disastrously for
himself, as the event proved (xxxix. 2, xl. 1).

An old man, worn out with strife and struggle, and weighed down by
disappointment and the sense of failure, he might well have decided
to avail himself of the favour extended to him by the conqueror, and
to secure a peaceful end for a life of storm and conflict. But the
calamities of his country had not quenched his prophetic ardour; the
sacred fire still burnt within his aged spirit; and once more he
sacrificed himself to the work he felt called upon to do, only to
experience again the futility of offering wise counsel to headstrong,
proud, and fanatical natures. Against his earnest protestations, he
was forced to accompany the remnant of his people in their hasty
flight into Egypt (xlii.); and, in the last glimpse afforded us,
we see him there among his fellow-exiles making a final, and alas!
ineffectual protest against their stubborn idolatry (xliv.). A
tradition mentioned by Tertullian and St. Jerome which may be of
earlier and Jewish origin, states that these apostates in their wicked
rage against the prophet stoned him to death (cf. Heb. xi. 37).

The last chapter of his book brings the course of events down to about
561 B.C. The fact has naturally suggested a conjecture that the same
year witnessed the close of the prophet's life. In that case, Jeremiah
must have attained to an age of somewhere about ninety years; which,
taking all the circumstances into consideration, is hardly credible.
A celibate life is said to be unfavourable to longevity; but however
that may be, the other conditions in this instance make it extremely
unlikely. Jeremiah's career was a vexed and stormy one; it was his
fate to be divided from his kindred and his fellow-countrymen by the
widest and deepest differences of belief; like St. Athanasius, he was
called upon to maintain the cause of truth against an opposing world.
"Woe's me, my mother!" he cries, in one of his characteristic fits of
despondency, which were the natural fruit of a passionate and almost
feminine nature, after a period of noble effort ending in the shame of
utter defeat; "Woe's me, that thou gavest me birth, a man of strife,
and a man of contention to all the land! Neither lender nor borrower
have I been; yet all are cursing me" (xv. 10). The persecutions he
endured, the cruelties of his long imprisonment, the horrors of the
protracted siege, upon which he has not dwelt at length, but which
have stamped themselves indelibly upon his language (xviii. 21, 22,
xx. 16), would certainly not tend to prolong his life. In the 71st
Psalm, which seems to be from his pen, and which wants the usual
heading "A Psalm of David," he speaks of himself as conscious of
failing powers, and as having already reached the extreme limit of
age. Writing after his narrow escape from death in the miry cistern of
his prison, he prays

    "Cast me not off in the time of old age;
     Forsake me not, when my strength faileth."

And again,

    "Yea, even when I am old and grey-headed,
     O God forsake me not!"

And, referring to his signal deliverance,

    "Thou that shewedst me many and sore troubles,
     Thou makest me live again;
     And out of the deeps of the earth again Thou bringest me up."

The allusion in the 90th Psalm, as well as the case of Barzillai, who is
described as extremely old and decrepit at fourscore (2 Sam. xix. 33),
proves that life in ancient Palestine did not ordinarily transcend the
limits of seventy to eighty years. Still, after all that may be urged to
the contrary, Jeremiah may have been an exception to his contemporaries
in this, as in most other respects. Indeed, his protracted labours and
sufferings seem almost to imply that he was endowed with constitutional
vigour and powers of endurance above the average of men; and if, as
some suppose, he wrote the book of Job in Egypt, to embody the fruits
of his life's experience and reflexion, as well as arranged and edited
his other writings, it is evident that he must have sojourned among the
exiles in that country for a considerable time.

The tale is told. In meagre and broken outline I have laid before
you the known facts of a life which must always possess permanent
interest, not only for the student of religious development, but for
all men who are stirred by human passion, and stimulated by human
thought. And fully conscious as I am of failure in the attempt to
reanimate the dry bones of history, to give form and colour and
movement to the shadows of the past; I shall not have spent my pains
for nought, if I have awakened in a single heart some spark of living
interest in the heroes of old; some enthusiasm for the martyrs of
faith; some secret yearning to cast in their own lot with those who
have fought the battle of truth and righteousness and to share with
the saints departed in the victory that overcometh the world. And
even if in this also I have fallen short of the mark, these desultory
and imperfect sketches of a good man's life and work will not have
been wholly barren of result, if they lead any one of my readers to
renewed study of that truly sacred text which preserves to all time
the living utterances of this last of the greater prophets.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The same root is used in the Targ. on i. 15 for _setting_ or
fixing thrones, cf. Dan. vii. 9: (רְמִיו)

[2] Clem. Alex., _Strom._, I., § 120.

[3] At least seven times.

[4] Hitzig.

[5] i. 6.

[6] i. 2, xxv. 3.

[7] נער _puer_; (1) Ex. ii. 6, of a three months' babe; (2) of a young
man up to about the twentieth year, Gen. xxxiv. 19, of Shechem ben
Hamor; 1 Kings iii. 7, of Solomon, as here.

[8] Hitzig, _Vorbemerkungen_.

[9] The Cimmerians are the Gomer of Scripture, the Gimirrâ'a of the
cuneiform inscriptions.

[10] Ewald, _Die Psalmen_, 165.

[11] Zeph. ii. 4 _sqq._, תהיה עזובה עזה ... תעקר עקרון

[12] התורה ספר, 2 Kings xxii. 8; הברית ספר, 2 Kings xxiii. 2.

[13] Comparing the Hebrew verb with the Arabic [Arabic: **] _timuit_,
_fastidivit_. LXX., κἀγὼ ἠμέλησα αὐτῶν, Cf. Jer. iii. 14. Gesenius
rendered _fastidivit_, _rejecit_.

[14] So rightly the Syriac, for Jehoiakim.

[15] _i.e._ To scent food afar off, like beasts of prey. There was no
occasion to alter A.V.




                                   I.

                      _THE CALL AND CONSECRATION._


In the foregoing pages we have considered the principal events in
the life of the prophet Jeremiah, by way of introduction to the more
detailed study of his writings. Preparation of this kind seemed to be
necessary, if we were to enter upon that study with something more
than the vaguest perception of the real personality of the prophet. On
the other hand, I hope we shall not fail to find our mental image of
the man, and our conception of the times in which he lived, and of the
conditions under which he laboured as a servant of God, corrected and
perfected by that closer examination of his works to which I now invite
you. And so we shall be better equipped for the attainment of that
which must be the ultimate object of all such studies; the deepening
and strengthening of the life of faith in ourselves, by which alone we
can hope to follow in the steps of the saints of old, and like them to
realise the great end of our being, the service of the All-Perfect.

I shall consider the various discourses in what appears to be their
natural order, so far as possible, taking those chapters together
which appear to be connected in occasion and subject. Chap. i.
evidently stands apart, as a self-complete and independent whole.
It consists of a chronological superscription (vv. 1-3), assigning
the temporal limits of the prophet's activity; and secondly, of an
inaugural discourse, which sets before us his first call, and the
general scope of the mission which he was chosen to fulfil. This
discourse, again, in like manner falls into two sections, of which the
former (vv. 4-10) relates how the prophet was appointed and qualified
by Iahvah to be a spokesman for Him; while the latter (vv. 11-19),
under the form of two visions, expresses the assurance that Iahvah
will accomplish His word, and pictures the mode of fulfilment, closing
with a renewed summons to enter upon the work, and with a promise of
effectual support against all opposition.

It is plain that we have before us the author's introduction to the
whole book; and if we would gain an adequate conception of the meaning
of the prophet's activity both for his own time and for ours, we must
weigh well the force of these prefatory words. The career of a true
prophet, or spokesman for God, undoubtedly implies a special call or
vocation to the office. In this preface to the summarized account
of his life's work, Jeremiah represents that call as a single and
definite event in his life's history. Must we take this in its literal
sense? We are not astonished by such a statement as "the word of the
Lord came unto me;" it may be understood in more senses than one, and
perhaps we are unconsciously prone to understand it in what is called
a natural sense. Perhaps we think of a result of pious reflexion
pondering the moral state of the nation and the needs of the time:
perhaps of that inward voice which is nothing strange to any soul that
has attained to the rudiments of spiritual development. But when we
read such an assertion as that of ver. 9, "Then the Lord put forth
His hand, and touched my mouth," we cannot but pause and ask what it
was that the writer meant to convey by words so strange and startling.
Thoughtful readers cannot avoid the question whether such statements
are consonant with what we otherwise know of the dealings of God
with man; whether an outward and visible act of the kind spoken of
conforms with that whole conception of the Divine Being, which is, so
far as it reflects reality, the outcome of His own contact with our
human spirits. The obvious answer is that such corporeal actions are
incompatible with all our experience and all our reasoned conceptions
of the Divine Essence, which fills all things and controls all things,
precisely because it is not limited by a bodily organism, because its
actions are not dependent upon such imperfect and restricted media
as hands and feet. If, then, we are bound to a literal sense, we can
only understand that the prophet saw a vision, in which a Divine hand
seemed to touch his lips, and a Divine voice to sound in his ears.
But _are_ we bound to a literal sense? It is noteworthy that Jeremiah
does not say that Iahvah Himself appeared to him. In this respect,
he stands in conspicuous contrast with his predecessor Isaiah, who
writes (vi. 1), "In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord
sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up;" and with his successor
Ezekiel, who affirms in his opening verse (i. 1) that on a certain
definite occasion "the heavens opened," and he saw "visions of God."
Nor does Jeremiah use that striking phrase of the younger prophet's,
"The hand of Iahvah was upon me," or "was strong upon me." But when
he says, "Iahvah put forth His hand and touched my mouth," he is
evidently thinking of the seraph that touched Isaiah's mouth with the
live coal from the heavenly altar (vi. 7). The words are identical
(ויגע פי על), and might be regarded as a quotation. It is true that,
supposing Jeremiah to be relating the experience of a trance-like
condition or ecstasy, we need not assume any conscious imitation of
his predecessor. The sights and sounds which affect a man in such a
condition may be partly repetitions of former experience, whether
one's own or that of others; and in part wholly new and strange.
In a dream one might imagine things happening to oneself, which
one had heard or read of in connexion with others. And Jeremiah's
writings generally prove his intimate acquaintance with those of
Isaiah and the older prophets. But as a trance or ecstasy is itself
an involuntary state, so the thoughts and feelings of the subject of
it must be independent of the individual will, and as it were imposed
from without. Is then the prophet describing the experience of such
an abnormal state--a state like that of St. Peter in his momentous
vision on the housetop at Joppa, or like that of St. Paul when he was
"caught up to the third heaven," and saw many wonderful things which
he durst not reveal? The question has been answered in the negative
on two principal grounds. It is said that the vision of vv. 11, 12,
derives its significance not from the visible thing itself, but from
the name of it, which is, of course, not an object of sight at all;
and consequently, the so-called vision is really "a well-devised and
ingenious product of cool reflexion." But is this so? We may translate
the original passage thus: _And there fell a word of Iahvah unto me,
saying, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, A rod of a wake-tree_
(_i.e._ an almond) _is what I see. And Iahvah said unto me, Thou_
_hast well seen; for wakeful am I over My word, to do it_. Doubtless
there is here one of those plays on words which are so well known
a feature of the prophetic style; but to admit this is by no means
tantamount to an admission that the vision derives its force and
meaning from the "invisible name" rather than from the visible thing.
Surely it is plain that the significance of the vision depends on the
fact which the name implies; a fact which would be at once suggested
by the sight of the tree. It is the well known characteristic of the
almond tree that it wakes, as it were, from the long sleep of winter
before all other trees, and displays its beautiful garland of blossom,
while its companions remain leafless and apparently lifeless. This
quality of early wakefulness is expressed by the Hebrew name of the
almond tree; for _shāqḗd_ means _waking_ or _wakeful_. If this tree,
in virtue of its remarkable peculiarity, was a proverb of watching and
waking, the sight of it, or of a branch of it, in a prophetic vision
would be sufficient to suggest that idea, independently of the name.
The allusion to the name, therefore, is only a literary device for
expressing with inimitable force and neatness the significance of the
visible symbol of the "rod of the almond tree," as it was intuitively
apprehended by the prophet in his vision.

Another and more radical ground is discovered in the substance of the
Divine communication. It is said that the anticipatory statement of the
contents and purpose of the subsequent prophesyings of the seer (ver.
10), the announcement beforehand of his fortunes (vv. 8, 18, 19), and
the warning addressed to the prophet personally (ver. 17), are only
conceivable as results of a process of abstraction from real experience,
as prophecies conformed to the event (_ex eventu_). "The call of the
prophet," says the writer whose arguments we are examining, "was the
moment when, battling down the doubts and scruples of the natural man
(vv. 7, 8), and full of holy courage, he took the resolution (ver.
17) to proclaim God's word. Certainly he was animated by the hope of
Divine assistance (ver. 18), the promise of which he heard inwardly
in the heart. More than this cannot be affirmed. But in this chapter
(vv. 17, 18), the measure and direction of the Divine help are already
clear to the writer; he is aware that opposition awaits him (ver. 19);
he knows the content of his prophecies (ver. 10). Such knowledge was
only possible for him in the middle or at the end of his career; and
therefore the composition of this opening chapter must be referred to
such a later period. As, however, the final catastrophe, after which
his language would have taken a wholly different complexion, is still
hidden from him here; and as the only edition of his prophecies prepared
by himself, that we know of, belongs to the fourth year of Jehoiakim
(xxxvi. 45); the section is best referred to that very time, when the
posture of affairs promised well for the fulfilment of the threatenings
of many years (cf. xxv. 9 with vv. 15, 10; xxv. 13 with vv. 12-17; xxv.
6 with ver. 16. And ver. 18 is virtually repeated, chap. xv. 20, which
belongs to the same period)."

The first part of this is an obvious inference from the narrative
itself. The prophet's own statement makes it abundantly clear that
his conviction of a call was accompanied by doubts and fears, which
were only silenced by that faith which moves mountains. That lofty
confidence in the purpose and strength of the Unseen, which has
enabled weak and trembling humanity to endure martyrdom, might well be
sufficient to nerve a young man to undertake the task of preaching
unpopular truths, even at the risk of frequent persecution and
occasional peril. But surely we need not suppose that, when Jeremiah
started on his prophetic career, he was as one who takes a leap in the
dark. Surely it is not necessary to suppose him profoundly ignorant
of the subject-matter of prophecy in general, of the kind of success
he might look for, of his own shrinking timidity and desponding
temperament, of "the measure and direction of the Divine help." Had
the son of Hilkiah been the first of the prophets of Israel instead
of one of the latest; had there been no prophets before him; we might
recognise some force in this criticism. As the facts lie, however,
we can hardly avoid an obvious answer. With the experience of many
notable predecessors before his eyes; with the message of a Hosea,
an Amos, a Micah, an Isaiah, graven upon his heart; with his minute
knowledge of their history, their struggles and successes, the fierce
antagonisms they roused, the cruel persecutions they were called upon
to face in the discharge of their Divine commission; with his profound
sense that nothing but the good help of their God had enabled them
to endure the strain of a lifelong battle; it is not in the least
wonderful that Jeremiah should have foreseen the like experience for
himself. The wonder would have been, if, with such speaking examples
before him, he had not anticipated "the measure and direction of the
Divine help"; if he had been ignorant "that opposition awaited him";
if he had not already possessed a general knowledge of the "contents"
of his own as of all prophecies. For there is a substantial unity
underlying all the manifold outpourings of the prophetic spirit.
Indeed, it would seem that it is to the diversity of personal gifts,
to differences of training and temperament, to the rich variety of
character and circumstance, rather than to any essential contrasts
in the substance and purport of prophecy itself, that the absence of
monotony, the impress of individuality and originality is due, which
characterises the utterances of the principal prophets.

Apart from the unsatisfactory nature of the reasons alleged, it is
very probable that this opening chapter was penned by Jeremiah as an
introduction to the first collection of his prophecies, which dates
from the fourth year of Jehoiakim, that is, circ. B.C. 606. In that
case, it must not be forgotten that the prophet is relating events
which, as he tells us himself (chap. xxv. 3), had taken place three
and twenty years ago; and as his description is probably drawn from
memory, something may be allowed for unconscious transformation
of facts in the light of after experience. Still, the peculiar
events that attended so marked a crisis in his life as his first
consciousness of a Divine call must, in any case, have constituted,
cannot but have left a deep and abiding impress upon the prophet's
memory; and there really seems to be no good reason for refusing
to believe that that initial experience took the form of a twofold
vision seen under conditions of trance or ecstasy. At the same time,
bearing in mind the Oriental passion for metaphor and imagery, we are
not perhaps debarred from seeing in the whole chapter a figurative
description, or rather an attempt to describe through the medium of
figurative language, that which must always ultimately transcend
description--the communion of the Divine with the human spirit. Real,
most real of real facts, as that communion was and is, it can never be
directly communicated in words; it can only be hinted and suggested
through the medium of symbolic and metaphorical phraseology. Language
itself, being more than half material, breaks down in the attempt to
express things wholly spiritual.

I shall not stop to discuss the importance of the general
superscription or heading of the book, which is given in the first
three verses. But before passing on, I will ask you to notice that,
whereas the Hebrew text opens with the phrase _Dibrê Yirmeyáhu_
(יִרְמְיָהוּ דִּבְרֵי), "The words of Jeremiah," the oldest
translation we have, viz. the Septuagint, reads: "The word of God
which came to Jeremiah" (τὸ ρῆμα τοῦ Θεοῦ ὃ ἐγένετο ἐπὶ Ἱερεμίαν). It
is possible, therefore, that the old Greek translator had a Hebrew
text different from that which has come down to us, and opening
with the same formula which we find at the beginning of the older
prophets Hosea, Joel, and Micah. In fact, Amos is the only prophet,
besides Jeremiah, whose book begins with the phrase in question (עמוס
דברי--Λόγοι Ἀμώς); and although it is more appropriate there than
here, owing to the continuation "And he said," it looks suspicious
even there, when we compare Isaiah i. 1, and observe how much more
suitable the term "vision" (חֲזוֹן) would be. It is likely that the
LXX. has preserved the original reading of Jeremiah, and that some
editor of the Hebrew text altered it because of the apparent tautology
with the opening of ver. 2: "_To whom the word of the Lord_ (LXX. τοῦ
Θεοῦ) _came_ in the days of Josiah."

Such changes were freely made by the scribes in the days before
the settlement of the O. T. canon; changes which may occasion much
perplexity to those, if any there be, who hold by the unintelligent
and obsolete theory of verbal and even literal inspiration, but none
at all to such as recognise a Divine hand in the facts of history,[16]
and are content to believe that in holy books, as in holy men, there
is a Divine treasure in earthen vessels. The textual difference in
question may serve to call our attention to the peculiar way in which
the prophets identified their work with the Divine will, and their
words with the Divine thoughts; so that the words of an Amos or a
Jeremiah were in all good faith held and believed to be self-attesting
utterances of the Unseen God. The conviction which wrought in them
was, in fact, identical with that which in after times moved St. Paul
to affirm the high calling and inalienable dignity of the Christian
ministry in those impressive words, "Let a man so account of us as of
the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God."

Vv. 5-10, which relate how the prophet became aware that he was in
future to receive revelations from above, constitute in themselves an
important revelation. Under Divine influence he becomes aware of a
special mission. _Ere I began to form_ (mould, fashion, יצר, as the
potter moulds the clay) _thee in the belly, I knew thee; and ere thou
begannest to come forth from the womb,[17] I had dedicated thee, not
"regarded_ thee as holy," Isa. viii. 13; nor perhaps "_declared_ thee
holy," as Ges.; but "_hallowed_ thee," _i.e._ dedicated thee to God,
Judg. xvii. 3; 1 Kings ix. 3; especially Lev. xxvii. 14; of money and
houses. The pi. of _consecrating_ priests, Ex. xxviii. 41; altar,
Ex. xxix. 36, temple, mountain, etc.; perhaps also, "_consecrated_
thee" for the discharge of a sacred office. Even soldiers are called
_consecrated_ (מקֻדּשים Isa. xiii. 3), as ministers of the Lord of
Hosts, and probably as having been formally devoted to His service
at the outset of a campaign by special solemnities of lustration and
sacrifice; while guests bidden to a sacrificial feast had to undergo a
preliminary form of _consecration_ (1 Sam. xvi. 5; Zeph. i. 7), to fit
them for communion with Deity.

With the certainty of his own Divine calling, it became clear to
the prophet that the choice was not an arbitrary caprice; it was
the execution of a Divine purpose, conceived long, long before its
realisation in time and space. The God whose foreknowledge and will
directs the whole course of human history--whose control of events
and direction of human energies is most signally evident in precisely
those instances where men and nations are most regardless of Him, and
imagine the vain thought that they are independent of Him (Isa. xxii.
11, xxxvii. 26)--this sovereign Being, in the development of whose
eternal purposes he himself, and every son of man was necessarily
a factor, had from the first "known him,"--known the individual
character and capacities which would constitute his fitness for
the special work of his life;--and "sanctified" him; devoted and
consecrated him to the doing of it when the time of his earthly
manifestation should arrive. Like others who have played a notable
part in the affairs of men, Jeremiah saw with clearest vision that
he was himself the embodiment in flesh and blood of a Divine idea;
he knew himself to be a deliberately planned and chosen instrument
of the Divine activity. It was this seeing himself as God saw him,
which constituted his difference from his fellows, who only knew their
individual appetites, pleasures and interests, and were blinded, by
their absorption in these, to the perception of any higher reality.
It was the coming to this knowledge of _himself_, of the meaning and
purpose of HIS individual unity of powers and aspirations in the great
universe of being, of his true relation to God and to man, which
constituted the first revelation to Jeremiah, and which was the secret
of his personal greatness.

This knowledge, however, might have come to him in vain. Moments
of illumination are not always accompanied by noble resolves and
corresponding actions. It does not follow that, because a man sees
his calling, he will at once renounce _all_, and pursue it. Jeremiah
would not have been human, had he not hesitated a while, when, after
the inward light, came the voice, _A spokesman_, or Divine interpreter
(נביא), _to the nations appoint I thee_. To have passing flashes of
spiritual insight and heavenly inspiration is one thing; to undertake
_now_, in the actual present, the course of conduct which they
unquestionably indicate and involve, is quite another. And so, when
the hour of spiritual illumination has passed, the darkness may and
often does become deeper than before.

_And I said, Alas! O Lord Iahvah, behold I know not how to speak;
for I am but a youth._ The words express that reluctance to begin
which a sense of unpreparedness, and misgivings about the unknown
future, naturally inspire. To take the first step demands decision and
confidence; but confidence and decision do not come of contemplating
oneself and one's own unfitness or unpreparedness, but of steadfastly
fixing our regards upon God, who will qualify us for all that He
requires us to do. Jeremiah does not refuse to obey His call; the
very words "My Lord Iahvah"--'Adonai, Master, or my Master--imply a
recognition of the Divine right to his service; he merely alleges
a natural objection. The cry, "Who is sufficient for these things?"
rises to his lips, when the light and the glory are obscured for a
moment, and the reaction and despondency natural to human weakness
ensue. _And Iahvah said unto me, Say not, I am but a youth; for unto
all that I send thee unto, thou shalt go, and all that I command thee
thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of them; for with thee am I to rescue
thee, is the utterance of Iahvah._ "Unto all that I send thee unto";
for he was to be no local prophet; his messages were to be addressed
to the surrounding peoples as well as to Judah; his outlook as a seer
was to comprise the entire political horizon (ver. 10, xxv. 9, 15,
xlvi. _sqq._). Like Moses (Ex. iv. 10), Jeremiah objects that he is no
practised speaker; and this on account of youthful inexperience. The
answer is that his speaking will depend not so much upon himself as
upon God: "All that I command thee, thou shalt speak." The allegation
of his youth also covers a feeling of timidity, which would naturally
be excited at the thought of encountering kings and princes and
priests, as well as the common people, in the discharge of such a
commission. This implication is met by the Divine assurance: "Unto
all"--of whatever rank--"that I send thee unto, thou shalt go"; and
by the encouraging promise of Divine protection against all opposing
powers: "Be not afraid of them; for with thee am I to rescue thee."[18]

_And Iahvah put forth His hand and touched my mouth: and Iahvah said
unto me, Behold I have put My words in thy mouth!_ This word of the
Lord, says Hitzig, is represented as a corporeal substance; in
accordance with the Oriental mode of thought and speech, which invests
everything with bodily form. He refers to a passage in Samuel (2 Sam.
xvii. 5) where Absalom says, "Call now Hushai the Archite, and let us
hear _that which is in his mouth_ also;" as if what the old counsellor
had to say were something _solid_ in more senses than one. But we
need not press the literal force of the language. A prophet who could
write (v. 14): "Behold I am about to make my words in thy mouth fire
and this people logs of wood; and it shall devour them;" or again (xv.
16), "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word became
unto me a joy and my heart's delight," may also have written, "Behold
I have put My words in thy mouth!" without thereby becoming amenable
to a charge of confusing fact with figure, metaphor with reality. Nor
can I think the prophet means to say that, although, as a matter of
fact, the Divine word already dwelt in him, it was now "put in his
mouth," in the sense that he was henceforth to utter it. Stripped of
the symbolism of vision, the verse simply asserts that the spiritual
change which came over Jeremiah at the turning point in his career was
due to the immediate operation of God; and that the chief external
consequence of this inward change was that powerful preaching of
Divine truth, by which he was henceforth known. The great Prophet of
the Exile twice uses the phrase, "I have set My words in thy mouth"
(Isa. li. 16, lix. 21) with much the same meaning as that intended by
Jeremiah, but without the preceding metaphor about the Divine hand.

_See I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms,
to root out and to pull down, and to destroy and to overturn; to
rebuild and to replant._ Such, following the Hebrew punctuation,
are the terms of the prophet's commission; and they are well worth
consideration, as they set forth with all the force of prophetic idiom
his own conception of the nature of that commission. First, there is
the implied assertion of his own official dignity: the prophet is made
a _paqîd_ (Gen. xli. 34, "officers" set by Pharaoh over Egypt; 2 Kings
xxv. 19 a military prefect) a prefect or superintendent of the nations
of the world. It is the Hebrew term corresponding to the ἐπίσκοπος of
the New Testament and the Christian Church (Judg. ix. 28; Neh. xi. 9).
And secondly, his powers are of the widest scope; he is invested with
authority over the destinies of all peoples. If it be asked in what
sense it could be truly said that the ruin and renascence of nations
was subject to the supervision of the prophets, the answer is obvious.
The word they were authorised to declare was the word of God. But
God's word is not something whose efficacy is exhausted in the human
utterance of it. God's word is an irreversible command, fulfilling
itself with all the necessity of a law of nature. The thought is well
expressed by a later prophet: "For as the rain cometh down, and the
snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth,
and maketh it bring forth and spring; and yieldeth seed to the sower
and bread to the eater: so shall My word become, that goeth forth out
of My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty (ריקם), but shall surely
do that which I have willed, and shall carry through that for which I
sent it" (or "shall prosper him whom I have sent," Isa. lv. 10, 11).
All that happens is merely the selfaccomplishment of this Divine word,
which is only the human aspect of the Divine will. If, therefore, the
absolute dependence of the prophets upon God for their knowledge of
this word be left out of account, they appear as causes, when they are
in truth but instruments, as agents when they are only mouthpieces.
And so Ezekiel writes, "when I came to destroy the city" (Ezek. xliii.
3), meaning when I announced the Divine decree of its destruction.
The truth upon which this peculiar mode of statement rests--the truth
that the will of God must be and always is done in the world that
God has made and is making--is a rock upon which the faith of His
messengers may always repose. What strength, what staying power may
the Christian preacher find in dwelling upon this almost visible fact
of the self-fulfilling will and word of God, though all around him
he hear that will questioned, and that word disowned and denied! He
knows--it is his supreme comfort to know--that, while his own efforts
may be thwarted, that will is invincible; that though _he_ may fail in
the conflict, that word will go on conquering and to conquer, until it
shall have subdued all things unto itself.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Even in the history of the transmission of ancient writings.

[17] Isa. xliv. 24, מבָּטן יוצֶרך, xlix. 5, לו לֶעבד מבּטְןֶ יצְרִי.

[18] For the words of this promise, cf. ver. 19 _infr._, xv. 20, xlii.
11.




                                  II.

                  _THE TRUST IN THE SHADOW OF EGYPT._

                         JEREMIAH ii. 1-iii. 5.


The first of the prophet's public addresses is, in fact, a sermon
which proceeds from an exposure of national sin to the menace of
coming judgment. It falls naturally into three sections, of which
the first (ii. 1-13) sets forth Iahvah's tender love to His young
bride Israel in the old times of nomadic life, when faithfulness
to Him was rewarded by protection from all external foes; and then
passes on to denounce the unprecedented apostasy of a people from
their God. The second (14-28) declares that if Israel has fallen a
prey to her enemies, it is the result of her own infidelity to her
Divine Spouse; of her early notorious and inveterate falling away to
the false gods, who are now her only resource, and that a worthless
one. The third section (ii. 29-iii. 5) points to the failure of
Iahvah's chastisements to reclaim a people hardened in guilt, and
in a self-righteousness which refused warning and despised reproof;
affirms the futility of all human aid amid the national reverses; and
cries woe on a too late repentance. It is not difficult to fix the
time of this noble and pathetic address. That which follows it, and is
intimately connected with it in substance, was composed "in the days
of Josiah the king" (iii. 6), so that the present one must be placed
a little earlier in the same reign; and, considering its position in
the book, may very probably be assigned to the thirteenth year of
Josiah, _i.e._ B.C. 629, in which the prophet received his Divine
call. This is the ordinary opinion; but one critic (Knobel) refers
the discourse to the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, on account
of the connexion with Egypt which is mentioned in vv. 18, 36, and the
humiliation suffered at the hands of the Egyptians which is mentioned
in ver. 16; while another (Graf) maintains that chaps. ii.-vi. were
composed in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, as if the prophet had
committed nothing to writing before that date--an assumption which
seems to run counter to the implication conveyed by his own statement,
chap. xxxvi. 2. This latter critic has failed to notice the allusions
in chaps. iv. 14, vi. 8, to an approaching calamity which may be
averted by national reformation, to which the people are invited;--an
invitation wholly incompatible with the prophet's attitude at that
hopeless period. The series of prophecies beginning at chap. iv. 3 is
certainly later in time than the discourse we are now considering; but
as certainly belongs to the immediate subsequent years.

It does not appear that the first two of Jeremiah's addresses were
called forth by any striking event of public importance, such as the
Scythian invasion. His new-born consciousness of the Divine call would
urge the young prophet to action; and in the present discourse we have
the firstfruits of the heavenly impulse. It is a retrospect of Israel's
entire past and an examination of the state of things growing out of it.
The prophet's attention is not yet confined to Judah; he deplores the
rupture of the ideal relations between Iahvah and His people as a whole
(ii. 4; cf. iii. 6). As Hitzig has remarked, this opening address, in
its finished elaboration, leaves the impression of a first outpouring of
the heart, which sets forth at once without reserve the long score of
the Divine grievances against Israel. At the same time, in its closing
judgment (iii. 5), in its irony (ii. 28), in its appeals (ii. 21, 31),
and its exclamations (ii. 12), it breathes an indignation stern and
deep to a degree hardly characteristic of the prophet in his other
discourses, but which was natural enough, as Hitzig observes, in a first
essay at moral criticism, a first outburst of inspired zeal.

In the Hebrew text the chapter begins with the same formula as chap.
i. (ver. 4): "And there fell a word of Iahvah unto me, saying." But
the LXX. reads: "And he said, Thus saith the Lord," (καὶ εἶπε, τάδε
λέγει κύριος); a difference which is not immaterial, as it may be a
trace of an older Hebrew recension of the prophet's work, in which
this second chapter immediately followed the original superscription
of the book, as given in chap. i. 1, 2, from which it was afterwards
separated by the insertion of the narrative of Jeremiah's call and
visions (ויאמֽר: cf. Amos i. 2). Perhaps we may see another trace of
the same thing in the fact that whereas chap. i. sends the prophet to
the rulers and people of Judah, this chapter is in part addressed to
collective Israel (ver. 4); which constitutes a formal disagreement.
If the reference to Israel is not merely retrospective and
rhetorical,--if it implies, as seems to be assumed, that the prophet
really meant his words to affect the remnant of the northern kingdom
as well as Judah,--we have here a valuable contemporary corroboration
of the much disputed assertion of the author of Chronicles, that
king Josiah abolished idolatry "in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim
and Simeon even unto Naphtali, to wit, in their ruins round about" (2
Chron. xxxiv. 6), as well as in Judah and Jerusalem; and that Manasseh
and Ephraim and "the remnant of Israel" (2 Chron. xxxiv. 9, cf. 21)
contributed to his restoration of the temple. These statements of
the Chronicler imply that Josiah exercised authority in the ruined
northern kingdom, as well as in the more fortunate south; and so
far as this first discourse of Jeremiah was actually addressed to
Israel as well as to Judah, those disputed statements find in it an
undesigned confirmation. However this may be, as a part of the first
collection of the author's prophecies, there is little doubt that the
chapter was read by Baruch to the people of Jerusalem in the fourth
year of Jehoiakim (chap. xxxvi. 6).

_Go thou and cry in the ears of Jerusalem: Thus hath Iahvah said_
(or _thought_: This is the Divine thought concerning thee!) _I have
remembered for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine
espousals; thy following Me_ (as a bride follows her husband to his
tent) _in the wilderness, in a land unsown_. _A dedicated thing_
(קֹרֶשׁ: like the high priest, on whose mitre was graven לַיְהוָֹה
קֹרֶשׁ) _was Israel to Iahvah, His firstfruits of increase; all who
did eat him were held guilty, ill would come to them, saith Iahvah_
(vers. 2, 3).--"I have remembered for thee," _i.e._ in thy favour,
to thy benefit--as when Nehemiah prays, "Remember in my favour, O
my God, for good, all that I have done upon this people," (Neh. v.
19)--"the kindness"--חֶסֶד--the warm affection of thy youth, "the love
of thine espousals," or the charm of thy bridal state (Hos. ii. 15,
xi. 1); the tender attachment of thine early days, of thy new born
national consciousness, when Iahvah had chosen thee as His bride,
and called thee to follow Him out of Egypt. It is the figure which
we find so elaborately developed in the pages of Hosea. The "bridal
state" is the time from the Exodus to the taking of the covenant at
Sinai (Ezek. xvi. 8), which was, as it were, the formal instrument
of the marriage; and Israel's young love is explained as consisting
in turning her back upon "the flesh-pots of Egypt" (Ex. xvi. 3), at
the call of Iahvah, and following her Divine Lord into the barren
steppes. This forsaking of all worldly comfort for the hard life of
the desert was proof of the sincerity of Israel's early love. [The
evidently original words "in the wilderness, a land unsown," are
omitted by the LXX., which renders: "I remembered the mercy of thy
youth, and the love of thy nuptials (τελείωσις, consummation), so
that thou followedst the Holy One of Israel, saith Iahvah."] Iahvah's
"remembrance" of this devotion, that is to say, the return He made for
it, is described in the next verse. Israel became not "holiness" but
a holy or hallowed thing; a dedicated object, belonging wholly and
solely to Iahvah, a thing which it was sacrilege to touch; Iahvah's
"firstfruits of increase" (Heb. תבואתה ראשית). This last phrase is to
be explained by reference to the well-known law of the firstfruits
(Ex. xxiii. 19; Deut. xviii. 4, xxvi. 10), according to which the
first specimens of all agricultural produce were given to God. Israel,
like the firstlings of cattle and the firstfruits of corn and wine and
oil, was ליהוה קדש consecrated to Iahweh; and therefore none might eat
of him without offending. "To eat" or devour is a term naturally used
of vexing and destroying a nation (x. 25, l. 7; Deut. vii. 16, "And
thou shalt eat up all the peoples, which Jehovah thy God is about to
give thee;" Isa. i. 7; Ps. xiv. 4, "Who eat up My people as they eat
bread"). The literal translation is, "All his eaters become guilty
(or are treated as guilty, punished); evil cometh to them;" and the
verbs, being in the imperfect, denote what happened again and again in
Israel's history; Iahvah suffered no man to do His people wrong with
impunity. This, then, is the first count in the indictment against
Israel, that Iahvah had not been unmindful of her early devotion,
but had recognised it by throwing the shield of sanctity around her,
and making her inviolable against all external enemies (vv. 1-3).
The prophet's complaint, as developed in the following section (vv.
4-8), is that, in spite of the goodness of Iahvah, Israel has forsaken
_Him_ for idols. "_Hear ye the word of Iahvah, O house of Jacob, and
all the clans of the house of Israel!_" All Israel is addressed, and
not merely the surviving kingdom of Judah, because the apostasy had
been universal. A special reference apparently made in ver. 8 to the
prophets of Baal, who flourished only in the northern kingdom. We may
compare the word of Amos "against _the whole clan_," which Iahvah
"brought up from the land of Egypt" (Amos iii. 1), spoken at a time
when Ephraim was yet in the heyday of his power.

_Thus hath Iahvah said, What found your fathers in Me, that was
unjust_, (עָוֶל a single act of injustice, Ps. vii. 4; not to be found
in Iahvah, Deut. xxxii. 4) _that they went far from Me and followed
the Folly and were befooled_ (or _the Delusion and were deluded_)
(ver. 5). The phrase is used 2 Kings xvii. 15 in the same sense;
הַהֶבֶל "the (mere) breath," "the nothingness" or "vanity," being
a designation of the idols which Israel went after (cf. also chap.
xxiii. 16; Ps. lxii. 11; Job xxvii. 12); much as St. Paul has written
that "an idol is nothing in the world" (1 Cor. viii. 4), and that,
with all this boasted culture, the nations of classical antiquity
"became vain," or were befooled "in their imaginations" (ἐματαιώθησαν
= ויהבלו), "and their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom. i. 21). Both
the prophet and the apostle refer to that judicial blindness which
is a consequence of persistently closing the eyes to truth, and
deliberately putting darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter
for sweet, and sweet for bitter, in compliance with the urgency of the
flesh. For ancient Israel, the result of yielding to the seductions
of foreign worship was, that "They were stultified in their best
endeavours. They became false in thinking and believing, in doing and
forbearing, because the fundamental error pervaded the whole life of
the nation and of the individual. They supposed that they knew and
honoured God, but they were entirely mistaken; they supposed they were
doing His will, and securing their own welfare, while they were doing
and securing the exact contrary" (Hitzig). And similar consequences
will always flow from attempts to serve two masters; to gratify the
lower nature, while not breaking wholly with the higher. Once the soul
has accepted a lower standard than the perfect law of truth, it does
not stop there. The subtle corruption goes on extending its ravages
farther and farther; while the consciousness that anything is wrong
becomes fainter and fainter as the deadly mischief increases, until at
last the ruined spirit believes itself in perfect health, when it is,
in truth, in the last stage of mortal disease. Perversion of the will
and the affections leads to the perversion of the intellect. There
is a profound meaning in the old saying that, Men make their gods in
their own likeness. As a man is, so will God appear to him to be.
"With the loving, Thou wilt shew Thyself loving; With the perfect,
Thou wilt shew Thyself perfect; With the pure, Thou wilt shew Thyself
pure; And with the perverse, Thou wilt shew Thyself froward" (Ps.
xviii. 25 _sq._). Only hearts pure of all worldly taint see God in His
purity. The rest worship some more or less imperfect semblance of Him,
according to the varying degrees of their selfishness and sin.

_And they said not, Where is Iahvah, who brought us up out of the
land of Egypt, that guided us in the wilderness, in a land of wastes
and hollows_ (_or desert and defile_), _in a land of drought and
darkness_ (dreariness צלמות), _in a land that no man passed through,
and where no mortal dwelt_ (ver. 6). "They said not, Where is Iahvah,
who brought us up out of the land of Egypt." It is the old complaint
of the prophets against Israel's black ingratitude. So, for instance,
Amos (ii. 10) had written: "Whereas I--I brought you up from the
land of Egypt, and guided you in the wilderness forty years;" and
Micah (vi. 3 _sq._): "My people, what have I done unto thee, and how
have I wearied thee? Answer against Me. For I brought thee up from
the land of Egypt, and from a house of bondmen redeemed I thee." In
common gratitude, they were bound to be true to this mighty Saviour;
to enquire after Iahvah, to call upon Him only, to do His will, and
to seek His grace (cf. xxix. 12 _sq._). Yet, with characteristic
fickleness, they soon forgot the fatherly guidance, which had never
deserted them in the period of their nomadic wanderings in the wilds
of Arabia Petræa; a land which the prophet poetically describes
as "a land of wastes and hollows"--alluding probably to the rocky
defiles through which they had to pass--and "a land of drought and
darkness;"[19] the latter an epithet of the Grave or Hades (Job x.
21), fittingly applied to that great lone wilderness of the south,
which Isaiah had called "a fearsome land" (xxi. 1), and "a land of
trouble and anguish" (xxx. 6), whither, according to the poet of Job,
"The caravans go up and are lost" (vi. 18).

_And I brought you into the garden land, to eat its fruits and its
choicest things_ (טוּבָהּ Isa. i. 19; Gen. xlv. 18, 20, 23); _and ye
entered and defiled My land, and My domain ye made a loathsome thing!_
(ver. 7). With the wilderness of the wanderings is contrasted the
"land of the _carmel_," the land of fruitful orchards and gardens,
as in chap. iv. 26.; Isa. x. 18, xvi. 10, xxix. 17. This was Canaan,
Iahvah's own land, which He had chosen out of all countries to be His
special dwelling-place and earthly sanctuary; but which Israel no sooner
possessed, than they began to pollute this holy land by their sins,
like the guilty peoples whom they had displaced, making it thereby an
abomination to Iahvah (Lev. xviii. 24 _sq._, cf. chap. iii. 2).

_The priests they said not, Where is Iahvah? and they that handle the
law, they knew_ (_i.e._ regarded, heeded) _Me not; and as for the
shepherds_ (_i.e._ the king and princes, ver. 26), _they rebelled
against Me, and the prophets, they prophesied by_ (through) _the Baal,
and them that help not_ (_i.e._ the false gods) _they followed_ (ver.
8). In the form of a climax, this verse justifies the accusation
contained in the last, by giving particulars. The three ruling classes
are successively indicted (cf. ver. 26, ch. xviii. 18). The priests,
part of whose duty was to "handle the law," _i.e._ explain the
Torah, to instruct the people in the requirements of Iahvah, by oral
tradition and out of the sacred law-books, gave no sign of spiritual
aspiration (cf. ver. 6); like the reprobate sons of Eli, "they knew
not" (1 Sam. ii. 12) "Iahvah," that is to say, paid no heed to Him and
His will as revealed in the book of the law; the secular authorities,
the king and his counsellors ("wise men," xviii. 18), not only sinned
thus negatively, but positively revolted against the King of kings,
and resisted His will; while the prophets went further yet in the
path of guilt, apostatizing altogether from the God of Israel, and
seeking inspiration from the Phenician Baal, and following worthless
idols that could give no help. There seems to be a play on the words
Baal and Belial, as if Baal meant the same as Belial, "profitless,"
"worthless" (cf. 1 Sam. ii. 12: "Now Eli's sons were sons of Belial;
they knew not Iahvah." The phrase לֹא־יוֹעִלוּ "they that help not,"
or "cannot help," suggests the term בְּלִיַעַל Belial; which, however,
may be derived from בְּלִי "not," and על "supreme," "God," and so mean
"not-God," "idol," rather than "worthlessness," "unprofitableness," as
it is usually explained). The reference may be to the Baal-worship of
Samaria, the northern capital, which was organised by Ahab, and his
Tyrian queen (chap, xxiii. 13).

_Therefore_--on account of this amazing ingratitude of your
forefathers,--_I will again plead_ (reason, argue forensically)
_with you_ (the present generation in whom their guilt repeats
itself) _saith Iahvah, and with your sons' sons_ (who will inherit
your sins) _will I plead_. The nation is conceived as a moral unity,
the characteristics of which are exemplified in each successive
generation. To all Israel, past, present, and future, Iahvah will
vindicate his own righteousness. _For cross_ (the sea) _to the coasts
of the Citieans_ (the people of Citium in Cyprus) _and see; and to
Kedar_ (the rude tribes of the Syrian desert) _send ye, and mark well,
and see whether there hath arisen a case like this. Hath a nation
changed gods--albeit they are no-gods? Yet My people hath changed
his_ (true) _glory for that which helpeth not_ (or is worthless).
_Upheave, ye heavens_ (שמו שמים, a fine paronomasia), _at this, and
shudder_ (_and_) _be petrified_ (מְאֹד חַֽרְבוּ Ges., "be sore amazed"
= שמם; but Hitzig "be dry" = stiff and motionless, like syn. יבש in
1 Kings xiii. 4), _saith Iahvah; for two evil things hath My people
done: Me they have forsaken--a Fountain of living water--to hew them
out cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot_ (imperf. = potential)
_hold water_ (Heb. _the_ waters: generic article) (vv. 9-13). In these
five verses, the apostasy of Israel from his own God is held up as
a fact unique in history--unexampled and inexplicable by comparison
with the doings of other nations. Whether you look westward or
eastward, across the sea to Cyprus, or beyond Gilead to the barbarous
tribes of the Cedrei (Ps. cxx. 5), nowhere will you find a heathen
people that has changed its native worship for another; and if you
did find such, it would be no precedent or palliation of Israel's
behaviour. The heathen in adopting a new worship simply exchanges one
superstition for another; the objects of his devotion are "non-gods"
(ver. 11). The heinousness and the eccentricity of Israel's conduct
lies in the fact that he has bartered truth for falsehood; he has
exchanged "his Glory"--whom Amos (viii. 7) calls the Pride (A.V.
Excellency) of Jacob--for a useless idol; an object which the prophet
elsewhere calls "The Shame" (iii. 24, xi. 13), because it can only
bring shame and confusion upon those whose hopes depend upon it.
The wonder of the thing might well be supposed to strike the pure
heavens, the silent witnesses of it, with blank astonishment (cf. a
similar appeal in Deut. iv. 26, xxxi. 28, xxxii. 1, where the earth
is added). For the evil is not single but twofold. With the rejection
of truth goes the adoption of error; and both are evils. Not only
has Israel turned his back upon "a fountain of living waters;" he
has also "hewn him out cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot hold
water." The "broken cisterns" are, of course, the idols which Israel
made to himself. As a cistern full of cracks and fissures disappoints
the wayfarer, who has reckoned on finding water in it; so the idols,
having only the semblance and not the reality of life, avail their
worshippers nothing (vv. 8, 11). In Hebrew the waters of a spring
are called "living" (Gen. xxi. 19), because they are more refreshing
and, as it were, life-giving, than the stagnant waters of pools and
tanks fed by the rains. Hence by a natural metaphor, the mouth of
a righteous man, or the teaching of the wise, and the fear of the
Lord, are called a fountain of life (Prov. x. 11, xiii. 14, xiv. 27).
"The fountain of life" is with Iahvah (Ps. xxxvi. 10); nay, He is
Himself the Fountain of living waters (Jer. xvii. 13); because all
life, and all that sustains or quickens life, especially spiritual
life, proceeds from Him. Now in Ps. xix. 8 it is said that "The law
of the Lord--or, the teaching of Iahvah--is perfect, reviving (or
restoring) the soul" (cf. Lam. i. 11; Ruth iv. 15); and a comparison
of Micah and Isaiah's statement that "Out of Zion will go forth the
law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isa. ii. 3; Mic. iv.
2), with the more figurative language of Joel (iii. 18) and Zechariah
(xiv. 8), who speak of "a fountain going forth from the house of the
Lord," and "living waters going forth from Jerusalem," suggests the
inference that "the living waters," of which Iahvah is the perennial
fountain, are identical with His law as revealed through priests and
prophets. It is easy to confirm this suggestion by reference to the
river "whose streams make glad the city of God" (Ps. xlvi. 4); to
Isaiah's poetic description of the Divine teaching, of which he was
himself the exponent, as "the waters of Shiloah that flow softly"
(viii. 6), Shiloah being a spring that issues from the temple rock;
and to our Lord's conversation with the woman of Samaria, in which He
characterises His own teaching as "living waters" (St. John iv. 10),
and as "a well of waters, springing up unto eternal Life" (_ibid._ 14).

_Is Israel a bondman, or a homeborn serf? Why hath he become a prey?
Over him did young lions roar; they uttered their voice; and they
made his land a waste; his cities, they are burnt up_ (or _thrown
down_), _so that they are uninhabited. Yea, the sons of Noph and
Tahpan_(_h_)_es, they did bruise thee on the crown. Is not this what_
(the thing that) _thy forsaking Iahvah thy God brought about for thee,
at the time He was guiding thee in the way?_ (vv. 14-17). As Iahvah's
bride, as a people chosen to be His own, Israel had every reason
to expect a bright and glorious career. Why was this expectation
falsified by events? But one answer was possible, in view of the
immutable righteousness, the eternal faithfulness of God. _The ruin
of Israel was Israel's own doing._ It is a truth which applies to
all nations, and to all individuals capable of moral agency, in all
periods and places of their existence. Let no man lay his failure in
this world or in the world to come at the door of the Almighty. Let
none venture to repeat the thoughtless blasphemy which charges the
All-Merciful with sending frail human beings to expiate their offences
in an everlasting hell! Let none dare to say or think, God might have
made it otherwise, but He would not! Oh, no; it is all a monstrous
misconception of the true relations of things. You and I are free to
make our choice now, whatever may be the case hereafter. We may choose
to obey God, or to disobey; we may seek His will, or our own. The
one is the way of life; the other, of death, and nothing can alter
the facts; they are part of the laws of the universe. Our destiny
is in our own hands, to make or to mar. If we qualify ourselves for
nothing better than a hell--if our daily progress leads us farther and
farther from God and nearer and nearer to the devil--then hell will
be our eternal home. For God is love, and purity, and truth, and glad
obedience to righteous laws; and these things, realized and rejoiced
in, are heaven. And the man that lives without these as the sovereign
aims of his existence--the man whose heart's worship is centred upon
something else than God--stands already on the verge of hell, which
is "the place of him that knows not (and cares not for) God." And
unless we are prepared to find fault with that natural arrangement
whereby like things are aggregated to like, and all physical elements
gravitate towards their own kind; I do not see how we can disparage
the same law in the spiritual sphere, in virtue of which all spiritual
beings are drawn to their own place, the heavenly-minded rising to the
heights above, and the contrary sort sinking to the depths beneath.

The precise bearing of the question (ver. 14), "Is Israel a bondman,
or a homeborn slave?" is hardly self-evident. One commentator supposes
that the implied answer is an affirmative. Israel _is_ a "servant,"
the servant, that is, the worshipper of the true God. Nay, he is
more than a mere bondservant; he occupies the favoured position of
a slave born in his lord's house (cf. Abram's three hundred and
eighteen young men, Gen. xiv. 14), and therefore, according to the
custom of antiquity, standing on a different footing from a slave
acquired by purchase. The "home" or house is taken to mean the land
of Canaan, which the prophet Hosea had designated as Iahvah's "house"
(Hosea ix. 15, cf. 3); and the "Israel" intended is supposed to be
the existing generation born in the holy land. The double question
of the prophet then amounts to this: If Israel be, as is generally
admitted, the favourite bondservant of Iahvah, how comes it that his
lord has not protected him against the spoiler? But, although this
interpretation is not without force, it is rendered doubtful by the
order of the words in the Hebrew, where the stress lies on the terms
for "bondman" and "homeborn slave"; and by its bold divergence from
the sense conveyed by the same form of question in other passages of
the prophet, _e.g._ ver. 31 _infr._, where the answer expected is a
negative one (cf. also chap. viii. 4, 5, xiv. 19, xlix. 1. The formula
is evidently characteristic). The point of the question seems to
lie in the fact of the helplessness of persons of servile condition
against occasional acts of fraud and oppression, from which neither
the purchased nor the homebred slave could at all times be secure.
The rights of such persons, however humane the laws affecting their
ordinary status, might at times be cynically disregarded both by their
masters and by others (see a notable instance, Jer. xxxiv. 8 _sqq._).
Moreover, there may be a reference to the fact that slaves were
always reckoned in those times as a valuable portion of the booty
of conquest; and the meaning may be that Israel's lot as a captive
is as bad as if he had never known the blessings of freedom, and had
simply exchanged one servitude for another by the fortune of war. The
allusion is chiefly to the fallen kingdom of Ephraim. We must remember
that Jeremiah is reviewing the whole past, from the outset of Iahvah's
special dealings with Israel. The national sins of the northern and
more powerful branch had issued in utter ruin. The "young lions," the
foreign invaders, had "roared against" Israel properly so called, and
made havoc of the whole country (cf. iv. 7). The land was dispeopled,
and became an actual haunt of lions (2 Kings xvii. 25), until
Esarhaddon colonised it with a motley gathering of foreigners (Ezra
iv. 2). Judah too had suffered greatly from the Assyrian invasion in
Hezekiah's time, although the last calamity had then been mercifully
averted (Sanherib boasts that he stormed and destroyed forty-six
strong cities, and carried off 200,000 captives, and an innumerable
booty). The implication is that the evil fate of Ephraim threatens to
overtake Judah; for the same moral causes are operative, and the same
Divine will, which worked in the past, is working in the present, and
will continue to work in the future. The lesson of the past was plain
for those who had eyes to read and hearts to understand it. Apart from
this prophetic doctrine of a Providence which shapes the destinies of
nations, in accordance with their moral deserts, history has no value
except for the gratification of mere intellectual curiosity.

_Aye, and the children of Noph and Tahpanhes they bruise_ (_? used to
bruise; are bruising_: the Heb. ירעו may mean either) _thee on the
crown_ (ver. 16). This obviously refers to injuries inflicted by Egypt,
the two royal cities of Noph or Memphis, and Tahpanhes or Daphnæ, being
mentioned in place of the country itself. Judah must be the sufferer,
as no Egyptian attack on Ephraim is anywhere recorded; while we do
read of Shishak's invasion of the southern kingdom in the reign of
Rehoboam, both in the Bible (1 Kings xiv. 25), and in Shishak's own
inscriptions on the walls of the temple of Amen at Karnak. But the form
of the Hebrew verb seems to indicate rather some contemporary trouble;
perhaps plundering raids by an Egyptian army, which about this time
was besieging the Philistine stronghold of Ashdod (_Herod._, ii. 157).
"The Egyptians are bruising (or crushing) thee" seems to be the sense;
and so it is given by the Jewish commentator Rashi (ירצצו diffringunt).
Our English marginal rendering ("fed on") follows the traditional
pronunciation of the Hebrew term (יִרְעוּ), which is also the case with
the Targum and the Syriac versions; but this can hardly be right, unless
we suppose that the Egyptians infesting the frontier are scornfully
compared to vermin (read יְרֹעוּ with J. D. Mich.) of a sort which, as
Herodotus tells us, the Egyptians particularly disliked (but cf. Mic. v.
5; Ges., depascunt, "eating down.")

The A.V. of ver. 17 presents a curious mistake, which the Revisers
have omitted to correct. The words should run, as I have rendered
them, "Is not _this_"--thy present ill fortune--"the thing that thy
forsaking of Iahvah thy God did for thee--at the time when He was
guiding thee in the way?" The Hebrew verb does not admit of the
rendering in the perf. tense, for it is an impf., nor is it a 2nd
pers. fem. (תעשה _not_ תעשי) but a 3rd. The LXX. has it rightly
(οὐχὶ ταῦτα ἐποίησέ σοι τὸ καταλιπεῖν σε ἐμέ;), but leaves out
the next clause which specifies the time. The words, however, are
probably original; for they insist, as vv. 5 and 31 insist, on the
groundlessness of Israel's apostasy. Iahvah had given no cause for it;
He was fulfilling His part of the covenant by "guiding them in the
way." Guidance or leading is ascribed to Iahvah as the true "Shepherd
of Israel" (chap. xxxi. 9; Ps. lxxx. 1). It denotes not only the
spiritual guidance which was given through the priests and prophets;
but also that external prosperity, those epochs of established power
and peace and plenty, which were precisely the times chosen by
infatuated Israel for defection from the Divine Giver of her good
things. As the prophet Hosea expresses it, ii. 8 _sq._, "She knew not
that it was I who gave her the corn and the new wine and the oil; and
silver I multiplied unto her, and gold, which they made into the Baal.
Therefore will I take back My corn in the time of it, and My new wine
in its season, and will snatch away My wool and My flax, which were to
cover her nakedness." And (chap. xiii. 6) the same prophet gives this
plain account of his people's thankless revolt from their God: "When
I fed them, they were sated; sated were they, and their heart was
lifted up: therefore they forgot Me." It is the thought so forcibly
expressed by the minstrel of the Book of the Law (Deut. xxxii. 15),
first published in the early days of Jeremiah: "And Jeshurun waxed fat
and kicked; Thou waxedst fat, and gross and fleshy! And he forsook
the God that made him, And made light of his protecting Rock." And,
lastly, the Chronicler has pointed the same moral of human fickleness
and frailty in the case of an individual, Uzziah or Azariah, the
powerful king of Judah, whose prosperity seduced him into presumption
and profanity (2 Chron. xxvi. 16): "When he grew strong, his heart
rose high, until he dealt corruptly, and was unfaithful to Iahvah his
God." I need not enlarge on the perils of prosperity; they are known
by bitter experience to every Christian man. Not without good reason
do we pray to be delivered from evil "In all time of our wealth;" nor
was that poet least conversant with human nature who wrote that "Sweet
are the uses of adversity."

_And now_--a common formula in drawing an inference and concluding an
argument--_what hast thou to do with the way of Egypt, to drink the
waters of Shihor_ (the Black River, the Nile); _and what hast thou to
do with the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?_ (_par
excellence_, _i.e._, the Euphrates). _Thy wickedness correcteth thee,
and thy revolts it is that chastise thee. Know then, and see that
evil and bitter is thy forsaking Iahvah thy God, and thine having no
dread of Me, saith the Lord Iahvah Sabaoth_ (vv. 18, 19). And now--as
the cause of all thy misfortunes lies in thyself--what is the use of
seeking a cure for them abroad? Egypt will prove as powerless to help
thee now, as Assyria proved in the days of Ahaz (ver. 36 _sq._). The
Jewish people, anticipating the views of certain modern historians,
made a wrong diagnosis of their own evil case. They traced all that
they had suffered, and were yet to suffer, to the ill will of the two
great Powers of their time; and supposed that their only salvation lay
in conciliating the one or the other. And as Isaiah found it necessary
to cry woe on the rebellious children, "that walk to go down into
Egypt, and have not asked at My mouth; to strengthen themselves in
the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!" (Isa.
xxx. 1 _sq._), so now, after so much experience of the futility and
positive harmfulness of these unequal alliances, Jeremiah has to lift
his voice against the same national folly.

The "young lions" of ver. 15 must denote the Assyrians, as Egypt is
expressly named in ver. 16. The figure is very appropriate, for not
only was the lion a favourite subject of Assyrian sculpture; not only
do the Assyrian kings boast of their prowess as lion-hunters, while
they even tamed these fierce creatures, and trained them to the chase;
but the great strength and predatory habits of the king of beasts made
him a fitting symbol of that great empire whose irresistible power was
founded upon and sustained by wrong and robbery. This reference makes
it clear that the prophet is contemplating the past; for Assyria was
at this time already tottering to its fall, and the Israel of his day,
_i.e._ the surviving kingdom of Judah, had no longer any temptation to
court the countenance of that decaying if not already ruined empire.
The sin of Israel is an old one; both it and its consequences belong
to the past (ver. 20 compared with ver. 14); and the national attempts
to find a remedy must be referred to the same period. Ver. 36 makes it
evident that the prophet's contemporaries concerned themselves only
about an Egyptian alliance.

It is an interesting detail that for "the waters of Shihor," the LXX.
gives "waters of Gihon" (Γηῶν), which it will be remembered is the
name of one of the four rivers of Paradise, and which appears to have
been the old Hebrew name of the Nile (Ecclus. xxiv. 27; Jos., _Ant._,
i. 1, 3). Shihor may be an explanatory substitute. For the rest, it is
plain that the two rivers symbolize the two empires (cf. Isa. viii.
7; chap. xlvi. 7); and the expression "to drink the waters" of them
must imply the receiving and, as it were, absorption of whatever
advantage might be supposed to accrue from friendly relations with
their respective countries. At the same time, a contrast seems to be
intended between these earthly waters, which could only disappoint
those who sought refreshment in them, and that "fountain of living
waters" (ver. 13) which Israel had forsaken. The nation sought in
Egypt its deliverance from self-caused evil, much as Saul had sought
guidance from witches when he knew himself deserted by the God whom
by disobedience he had driven away. In seeking thus to escape the
consequences of sin by cementing alliances with heathen powers,
Israel added sin to sin. Hence (in ver. 19) the prophet reiterates
with increased emphasis what he has already suggested by a question
(ver. 17): "Thy wickedness correcteth thee, and thy revolts it is
that chastise thee. Know then, and see that evil and bitter is thy
forsaking of Iahweh thy God, and thine having no dread of Me!" Learn
from these its bitter fruits that the thing itself is bad (Read אֵלַי
פָחַדְתְּי as a 2nd pers. instead of פַחְדָּתִי. Job xxi. 33, quoted
by Hitzig, is not a real parallel; nor can the sentence, as it stands,
be rendered, "Und dass die Scheu vor mir nicht an dich kam"); and
renounce that which its consequences declare to be an evil course,
instead of aggravating the evil of it by a new act of unfaithfulness.

_For long ago didst thou break thy yoke, didst thou burst thy bonds,
and saidst, I will not serve: for upon every high hill, and under each
evergreen tree thou wert crouching in fornication_ (vv. 20-24). Such
seems to be the best way of taking a verse which is far from clear as
it stands in the Masoretic text. The prophet labours to bring home to
his hearers a sense of the reality of the national sin; and he affirms
once more (vv. 5, 7) that Israel's apostasy originated long ago, in the
early period of its history, and implies that the taint thus contracted
is a fact which can neither be denied nor obliterated. (The punctuators
of the Hebrew text, having pointed the first two verbs as in the 1st
pers. instead of the 2nd feminine, were obliged, further, to suggest
the reading אֶעֶבֹור לֹא, "I will not transgress," for the original
phrase אעבור לא "I will not serve;" a variant which is found in the
Targum, and many MSS. and editions. "Serving" and "bearing the yoke"
are equivalent expressions (xxvii. 11, 12); so that, if the first two
verbs were really in the 1st pers., the sentence ought to be continued
with, "And _I_ said, _Thou_ shalt not serve." But the purport of this
verse is to justify the assertion of the last, as is evident from the
introductory particle "for," כִּי. The Syriac supports אעבור; and the
LXX. and Vulg. have the two leading verbs in the 2nd pers., iv. 19.) The
meaning is that Israel, like a stubborn ox, has broken the yoke imposed
on him by Iahvah; a statement which is repeated in v. 5: "But these have
altogether broken the yoke, they have burst the bonds" (cf. ver. 31,
_infr._; Hos. iv. 16; Acts xxvi. 14).

_Yet I--I planted thee with_ (or, _as_) _noble vines, all of them
genuine shoots; and how hast thou turned Me thyself into the wild
offshoots of a foreign vine?_ (ver. 21). The thought seems to be
borrowed from Isaiah's Song of the Beloved's Vineyard (Isa. v.
1 _sqq._). The nation is addressed as a person, endowed with a
continuity of moral existence from the earliest period. "The days
of the life of a man may be numbered; but the days of Israel are
innumerable" (Ecclus. xxxvii. 25). It was with the true seed of
Abraham, the real Israel, that Iahvah had entered into covenant (Ex.
xviii. 19; Rom. ix. 7); and this genuine offspring of the patriarch
had its representatives in every succeeding generation, even in the
worst of times (1 Kings xix. 18). But the prophet's argument seems
to imply that the good plants had reverted to a wild state, and that
the entire nation had become hopelessly degenerate; which was not far
from the actual condition of things at the close of his career. The
culmination of Israel's degeneracy, however, was seen in the rejection
of Him to whom "gave all the prophets witness." The Passion of Christ
sounded a deeper depth of sacred sorrow than the passion of any of His
forerunners. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Thou that killest the prophets,
and stonest them that are sent unto thee!"

          "Then on My head a crown of thorns I wear;
           For these are all the grapes Sion doth bear,
           Though I My vine planted and watered there:
                       Was ever grief like Mine?"

_For if thou wash with natron, and take thee much soap, spotted_
(_crimsoned_; Targ. Isa. i. 18: or _written_, _recorded_) _is thy
guilt before Me, saith My Lord Iahvah._ Comparison with Isa. i. 18,
"Though thy sins be as scarlet ... though they be red like crimson,"
suggests that the former rendering of the doubtful word (נִכְתָּם) is
correct; and this idea is plainly better suited to the context than
a reference to the Books of Heaven, and the Recording Angel; for the
object of washing is to get rid of spots and stains.

_How canst thou say, I have not defiled myself; after the Baals I have
not gone: See thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done, O swift
she-camel, running hither and thither_ (literally _intertwining_ or
_crossing her ways_) (ver. 23). The prophet anticipates a possible
attempt at self-justification; just as in ver. 35 he complains of
Israel's self-righteousness. Both here and there he is dealing with
his own contemporaries in Judah; whereas the idolatry described in
ver. 20 _sqq._ is chiefly that of the ruined kingdom of Ephraim (ch.
iii. 24; 2 Kings xvii. 10). It appears that the worship of Baal proper
only existed in Judah for a brief period in the reign of Ahaziah's
usurping queen Athaliah, side by side with the worship of Iahvah
(2 Chron. xxiii. 17); while on the high-places and at the local
sanctuaries the God of Israel was honoured (2 Kings xviii. 22). So far
as the prophet's complaints refer to old times, Judah could certainly
boast of a relatively higher purity than the northern kingdom; and the
manifold heathenism of Manasseh's reign had been abolished a whole
year before this address was delivered (2 Chron. xxxiv. 3 _sqq._).
"The valley" spoken of as the scene of Judah's misdoings is that
of Ben-Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where, as the prophet elsewhere
relates (vii. 31, xxxii. 35; 2 Kings xxiii. 10), the people sacrificed
children by fire to the god Molech, whom he expressly designates as a
_Baal_ (xix. 5, xxxii. 35), using the term in its wider significance,
which includes all the aspects of the Canaanite sun-god. And because
Judah betook herself now to Iahvah, and now to Molech, varying, as
it were, her capricious course from right to left and from left to
right, and halting evermore between two opinions (1 Kings xviii. 21),
the prophet calls her "a swift young she-camel,"--swift, that is,
for evil--"intertwining, or crossing her ways." The hot zeal with
which the people wantonly plunged into a sensual idolatry is aptly
set forth in the figure of the next verse. A _wild ass, used to the
wilderness_ (Job xxiv. 5), _in the craving of her soul she snuffeth
up_ (xiv. 6) _the wind_ (_not_ "lässt sie kaum Athem genug finden,
indem sie denselben vorweg vergeudet," as Hitzig; but, as a wild beast
scenting prey, cf. xiv. 6, or food afar off, she scents companions
at a distance); _her greedy lust, who can turn it back? None that
seek her need weary themselves; in her month they find her._ While
passion rages, animal instinct is too strong to be diverted from its
purpose; it is idle to argue with blind appetite; it goes straight to
its mark, like an arrow from a bow. Only when it has had its way, and
the reaction of nature follows, does the influence of reason become
possible. Such was Israel's passion for the false gods. They had no
need to seek her (Hos. ii. 7; Ezek. xvi. 34); in the hour of her
infatuation, she fell an easy victim to their passive allurements.
(The "month" is the season when the sexual instinct is strong.)
Warnings fell on deaf ears. _Keep back thy foot from bareness, and thy
throat from thirst!_ This cry of the prophets availed nothing: _Thou
saidst, It is vain!_ (_sc._ that thou urgest me.) _No, for I love the
strangers and after them will I go!_ The meaning of the admonition is
not very clear. Some (_e.g._ Rosenmüller) have understood a reference
to the shameless doings, and the insatiable cravings of lust. Others
(as Gesenius) explain the words thus: "Do not pursue thy lovers in
such hot haste, as to wear thy feet bare in the wild race!" Others,
again, take the prohibition literally, and connect the barefootedness
and the thirst with the orgies of Baal-worship (Hitz.), in which the
priests leaped or rather limped with bare feet (what proof?) on the
blazing âltar, as an act of religious mortification, shrieking the
while till their throats were parched and dry (Ps. lxix. 4, נְּרֹונִי
נִחַר), in frenzied appeal to their lifeless god (cf. Ex. iii. 5; 2
Sam. xv. 30; 1 Kings xviii. 26). In this case, the command is, Cease
this self-torturing and bootless worship! But the former sense seems
to agree better with the context.

_Like the shame of a thief, when he is detected, so are the house of
Israel ashamed--they, their kings, their princes, and their priests,
and their prophets; in that they say_ (are ever saying) _to the wood_
(iii. 9 in Heb. masc.), _Thou art my father!_ (iii. 4) _and to the
stone_ (in Heb. fem.), _Thou didst bring me forth! For they_ (xxxii.
33) _have turned towards Me the back and not the face; but in the
time of their trouble they say_ (begin to say), _O rise and save us!
But where are thy gods that thou madest for thyself? Let them arise,
if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble; for numerous as
thy cities are thy gods become, O Judah!_ (vv. 26-28). "The Shame"
(הבשת) is the well-known title of opprobrium which the prophets apply
to Baal. Even in the histories, which largely depend on prophetic
sources, we find such substitutions as Ishbosheth for Eshbaal, the
"Man of Shame" for "Baal's Man." Accordingly, the point of ver. 26
_sqq._ is, that as Israel has served the Shame, the idol-gods, instead
of Iahvah, shame has been and will be her reward: in the hour of
bitter need, when she implores help from the One true God, she is put
to shame by being referred back to her senseless idols. The "Israel"
intended is the entire nation, as in ver. 3, and not merely the
fallen kingdom of Ephraim. In ver. 28 the prophet specially addresses
Judah, the surviving representative of the whole people. In the book
of Judges (x. 10-14) the same idea of the attitude of Iahvah towards
His faithless people finds historical illustration. Oppressed by the
Ammonites they "cried unto the Lord, saying, We have sinned against
Thee, in that we have both forsaken our own God, and have served the
Baals;" but Iahvah, after reminding them of past deliverances followed
by fresh apostasies, replies: "Go, and cry unto the gods which ye have
chosen; let _them_ save you in the time of your distress!" Here also
we hear the echoes of a prophetic voice. The object of such ironical
utterances was by no means to deride the self-caused miseries in
which Israel was involved; but, as is evident from the sequel of the
narrative in Judges, to deepen penitence and contrition, by making
the people realize the full flagrancy of their sin, and the suicidal
folly of their desertions of the God whom, in times of national
distress, they recognised as the only possible Saviour. In the same
way and with the same end in view, the prophetic psalmist of Deut.
xxxii. represents the God of Israel as asking (ver. 37) "Where are
their gods; the Rock in which they sought refuge? That used to eat
the flesh of their sacrifices, that drank the wine of their libation?
Let them arise and help you; let them be over you a shelter!" The
purpose is to bring home to them a conviction of the utter vanity of
idol-worship; for the poet continues: "See _now_ that I even I am
He"--the one God--"and there is no God beside Me" (with Me, sharing My
sole attributes); "'Tis I that kill and save alive; I have crushed,
and _I_ heal." The folly of Israel is made conspicuous, first by
the expression "Saying to the wood, Thou art my father, and to the
stone, Thou didst bring me forth;" and secondly, by the statement,
"Numerous as thy cities are thy gods become, O Judah!" In the former,
we have a most interesting glimpse of the point of view of the heathen
worshipper of the seventh century B.C., from which it appears that
by a _god_ he meant the original, _i.e._, the real author of his own
existence. Much has been written in recent years to prove that man's
elementary notions of deity are of an altogether lower kind than those
which find expression in the worship of a Father in heaven; but when
we see that such an idea could subsist even in connexion with the most
impure nature-worships, as in Canaan, and when we observe that it was
a familiar conception in the religion of Egypt several thousand years
previously, we may well doubt whether this idea of an Unseen Father of
our race is not as old as humanity itself.

The sarcastic reference to the number of Judah's idols may remind us
of what is recorded of classic Athens, in whose streets it was said to
be easier to find a god than a man. The irony of the prophet's remark
depends on the consideration that there is, or ought to be, safety
in numbers. The impotence of the false gods could hardly be put in a
stronger light in words as few as the prophet has used. In chap. xi.
13 he repeats the statement in an amplified form: "For numerous as thy
cities have thy gods become, O Judah; and numerous as the streets of
Jerusalem have ye made altars for The Shame, altars for sacrificing to
the Baal." From this passage, apparently, the LXX. derived the words
which it adds here: "And according to the number of the streets of
Jerusalem did they sacrifice to the (image of) Baal" (ἔθυον τῇ Βάαλ).

_Why contend ye with Me? All of you have rebelled against Me, saith
Iahvah._ (LXX. ἠσεβήσατε, καὶ πάντες ὑμεῖς ἠνομήσατε εἰς ἐμέ. "Ebenfalls
authentisch" says Hitzig). _In vain have I smitten your sons; correction
they_ (i.e., the people; but LXX. ἐδέξασθε may be correct), _received
not! your own_ _sword hath eaten up your prophets, like a destroying
lion. Generation that ye are! See the word of Iahvah! Is it a wilderness
that I have been to Israel, or a land of deepest gloom? Why have My
people said, We are free; we will come no more unto Thee? Doth a virgin
forget her ornaments, a bride her bands_ (or _garlands_, Rashi)? _yet
My people hath forgotten Me days without number_ (vv. 29-32). The
question, "Why contend, or dispute ye (תריבו), or, as the LXX. has it,
talk ye (תדברו) towards or about Me (אלי)?" implies that the people
murmured at the reproaches and menaces of the prophet (ver. 26 _sqq._).
He answers them by denying their right to complain. Their rebellion
has been universal; no chastisement has reformed them; Iahvah has done
nothing which can be alleged in excuse of their unfaithfulness; their
sin is, therefore, a portentous anomaly, for which it is impossible
to find a parallel in ordinary human conduct. In vain had "their
sons," the young men of military age, fallen in battle (Amos iv. 10);
the nation had stubbornly refused to see in such disasters a sign of
Iahvah's displeasure, a token of Divine chastisement; or rather, while
recognising the wrath of heaven, they had obstinately persisted in
believing in false explanations of its motive, and refused to admit that
the purpose of it was their religious and moral amendment. And not only
had the nation refused warning, and despised instruction, and defeated
the purposes of the Divine discipline. They had slain their spiritual
monitors, the prophets, with the sword; the prophets who had founded
upon the national disasters their rebukes of national sin, and their
earnest calls to penitence and reform (1 Kings xix. 10; Neh. ix. 26;
St. Matt. xxiii. 37). And so when at last the long deferred judgment
arrived, it found a political system ready to go to pieces through the
feebleness and corruption of the ruling classes; a religious system, of
which the spirit had long since evaporated, and which simply survived in
the interests of a venal priesthood, and its intimate allies, who made a
trade of prophecy; and a kingdom and people ripe for destruction.

At the thought of this crowning outrage, the prophet cannot restrain
his indignation. "Generation that ye are!" he exclaims, "behold the
word of the Lord. Is it a wilderness that I have been to Israel, or a
land of deepest gloom?" Have I been a thankless, barren soil, returning
nothing for your culture? The question is more pointed in Hebrew than in
English; for the same term (עבד `abad) means both to till the ground,
and to serve and worship God. We have thus an emphatic repetition of the
remonstrance with which the address opens: Iahweh has not been unmindful
of Israel's service; Israel has been persistently ungrateful for
Iahvah's gracious love. The cry "We are free!" (רדנו) implies that they
had broken away from a painful yoke and a burdensome service (cf. ver.
20); the yoke being that of the Moral Law, and the service that perfect
freedom which consists in subjection to Divine Reason. Thus sin always
triumphs in casting away man's noblest prerogative; in trampling under
foot that loyalty to the higher ideal which is the bridal adornment and
the peculiar glory of the soul.

_Why hurriest thou to seek thy love?_ (Lit. _why dost thou make good
thy way?_ somewhat as we say, "to make good way with a thing") (ver.
33). The key to the meaning here is supplied by ver. 36: _Why art thou
in such haste to change thy way? In_ (Of) _Egypt also thou shalt be
disappointed, as thou wert in Assyria._ The "way" is that which leads
to Egypt; and the "love" is that apostasy from Iahvah which invariably
accompanies an alliance with foreign peoples (ver. 18). If you go to
Assyria, you "drink the waters of the Euphrates," _i.e._, you are
exposed to all the malign influences of the heathen land. Elsewhere,
also (iv. 30), Jeremiah speaks of the foreign peoples, whose connexion
Israel so anxiously courted, as her "lovers"; and the metaphor is a
common one in the prophets.

The words which follow are obscure. _Therefore the evil things also
hast thou taught thy ways._ What "evil things"? Elsewhere the term
denotes _misfortunes_, _calamities_ (Lam. iii. 38); and so probably
here (cf. iii. 5). The sense seems to be: Thou hast done evil, and in
so doing hast taught Evil to dog thy steps! The term _evil_ obviously
suggests the two meanings of sin and the punishment of sin; as we
say, "Be sure your _sin_ will find you out!" Ver. 34 explains what
was the special sin that followed and clung to Israel: _Also, in thy
skirts_--the borders of thy garments--_are they_ (the evil things)
_found_, viz., _the life-blood of innocent helpless ones; not that
thou didst find them house-breaking_, and so hadst excuse for slaying
them (Exod. xxii. 2); _but for all these_ warnings or, because of all
these apostasies and dallyings with the heathen, which they denounced
(cf. iii. 7), _thou slewest them_. The murder of the prophets (ver.
30) was the unatoned guilt which clung to the skirts of Israel.

_And thou saidst, Certainly I am absolved! Surely His wrath is
turned away from me! Behold I wilt reason with thee, because thou
sayest, I sinned not!_ (ver. 35). This is what the people said when
they murdered the prophets. They, and doubtless their false guides,
regarded the national disasters as so much atonement for their
sins. They believed that Iahvah's wrath had exhausted itself in the
infliction of what they had already endured, and that they were now
absolved from their offences. The prophets looked at the matter
differently. To them, national disasters were warnings of worse to
follow, unless the people would take them in that sense, and turn from
their evil ways. The people preferred to think that their account
with Iahvah had been balanced and settled by their misfortunes in war
(ver. 30). Hence they slew those who never wearied of affirming the
contrary, and threatening further woe, as false prophets (Deut. xviii.
20). The saying, "I sinned not!" refers to these cruel acts; they
declared themselves guiltless in the matter of slaying the prophets,
as if their blood was on their own heads. The only practical issue of
the national troubles was that instead of reforming, they sought to
enter into fresh alliances with the heathen, thus, from the point of
view of the prophets, adding sin to sin. _Why art thou in such haste
to change thy way?_ (_i.e._ thy course of action, thy foreign policy).
_Through Egypt also shalt thou be shamed, as thou hast been shamed
through Assyria. Out of this affair also_ (or, _from him_, as the
country is perhaps personified as a lover of Judah;) _shalt thou go
forth with thine hands upon thine head_ (in token of distress, 2 Sam.
xiii. 19: Tamar); _for Iahvah hath rejected the objects of thy trust,
so that thou canst not be successful regarding them_ (vv. 36, 37).
The Egyptian alliance, like the former one with Assyria, was destined
to bring nothing but shame and confusion to the Jewish people. The
prophet urges past experience of similar undertakings, in the hope of
deterring the politicians of the day from their foolish enterprise.
But all that they had learnt from the failure and loss entailed by
their intrigues with one foreign power was, that it was expedient to
try another. So they made haste to "change their way," to alter the
direction of their policy from Assyria to Egypt. King Hezekiah had
renounced his vassalage to Assyria, in reliance, as it would seem, on
the support of Taharka, king of Egypt and Ethiopia (2 Kings xviii. 7;
cf. Isa. xxx. 1-5); and now again the nation was coquetting with the
same power. As has been stated, an Egyptian force lay at this time on
the confines of Judah, and the prophet may be referring to friendly
advances of the Jewish princes towards its leaders.

In the Hebrew, ch. iii. opens with the word "saying" (לֵאמֹר). No real
parallel to this can be found elsewhere, and the Sept. and Syriac
omit the term. Whether we follow these ancient authorities, and do
the same, or whether we prefer to suppose that the prophet originally
wrote, as usually, "And the Word of Iahvah came unto me, saying,"
will not make much difference. One thing is clear; the division of
the chapters is in this instance erroneous, for the short section,
iii. 1-5, obviously belongs to and completes the argument of ch.
ii. The statement of ver. 37, that Israel will not prosper in the
negotiations with Egypt, is justified in iii. 1 by the consideration
that prosperity is an outcome of the Divine favour, which Israel
has forfeited. The rejection of Israel's "confidences" implies the
rejection of the people themselves (vii. 29). _If a man divorce
his wife and she go away from him_ (מֵאִתֹּו _de chez luı_), _and
become another man's, doth he_ (her former husband) _return unto
her again? Would not that land be utterly polluted?_ It is the case
contemplated in the Book of the Law (Deut. xxiv. 1-4), the supposition
being that the second husband may divorce the woman, or that the bond
between them may be dissolved by his death. In either contingency,
the law forbade reunion with the former husband, as "abomination
before Iahvah;" and David's treatment of his ten wives, who had been
publicly wedded by his rebel son Absalom, proves the antiquity of
the usage in this respect (2 Sam. xx. 3). The relation of Israel to
Iahvah is the relation to her former husband of the divorced wife who
has married another. If anything it is worse. _And thou, thou hast
played the harlot with many paramours; and shalt thou return unto
Me? saith Iahvah._ The very idea of it is rejected with indignation.
The Author of the law will not so flagrantly break the law. (With
the Heb. form of the question, cf. the Latin use of the infin. "Mene
incepto desistere victam?") The details of the unfaithfulness of
Israel--the proofs that she belongs to others and not to Iahvah--are
glaringly obvious; contradiction is impossible. _Lift up thine eyes
upon the bare fells, and see!_ cries the prophet; _where hast thou
not been forced? By the roadsides thou satest for them like a Bedawi
in the wilderness, and thou pollutedst the land with thy whoredom
and with thine evil_ (Hos. vi. 13). On every hill-top the evidence
of Judah's sinful dalliance with idols was visible; in her eagerness
to consort with the false gods, the objects of her infatuation, she
was like a courtesan looking out for paramours by the wayside (Gen.
xxxviii. 14), or an Arab lying in wait for the unwary traveller in
the desert. (There may be a reference to the artificial _bamoth_ or
"high places" erected at the top of the streets, on which the wretched
women, consecrated to the shameful rites of the Canaanite goddess
Ashtoreth, were wont to sit plying their trade of temptation: 2 Kings
xxiii. 8; Ezek. xvi. 25). We must never forget that, repulsive and
farfetched as these comparisons of an apostate people to a sinful
woman may seem to us, the ideas and customs of the time made them
perfectly apposite. The worship of the gods of Canaan involved the
practice of the foulest impurities; and by her revolt from Iahvah,
her lord and husband, according to the common Semitic conception
of the relation between a people and their god, Israel became a
harlot in fact as well as in figure. The land was polluted with her
"whoredoms," _i.e._, her worship of the false gods, and her practice
of their vile rites; and with her "evil," as instanced above (ii. 30,
35) in the murder of those who protested against these things (Num.
xxxv. 33; Ps. cvi. 38). As a punishment for these grave offences,
_the showers were withholden, and the spring rains fell not_; but the
merciful purpose of this Divine chastisement was not fulfilled; the
people were not stirred to penitence, but rather hardened in their
sins: _but thou hadst a harlot's forehead; thou refusedst to be made
ashamed_! And now the day of grace is past, and repentance comes too
late. _Hast thou not but now called unto Me, My Father! Friend of
my youth wert Thou? Will He retain His wrath for ever? or keep it
without end?_ (vv. 3, 5). The reference appears to be to the external
reforms accomplished by the young king Josiah in his twelfth year--the
year previous to the utterance of this prophecy; when, as we read in
2 Chron. xxxiv. 3, "He began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the
high places, and the Asherim, and the carven images, and the molten
images." To all appearance, it was a return of the nation to its old
allegiance; the return of the rebellious child to its father, of the
erring wife to the husband of her youth. By those two sacred names
which in her inexcusable fickleness and ingratitude she had lavished
upon stocks and stones, Israel now seemed to be invoking the relenting
compassion of her alienated God (ii. 27, ii. 2). But apart from the
doubt attaching to the reality of reformations to order, carried
out in obedience to a royal decree; apart from the question whether
outward changes so easily and rapidly accomplished, in accordance
with the will of an absolute monarch, were accompanied by any tokens
of a genuine national repentance; the sin of Israel had gone too
far, and been persisted in too long, for its terrible consequences
to be averted. _Behold_--it is the closing sentence of the address;
a sentence fraught with despair, and the certainty of coming
ruin;--_Behold, thou hast planned and accomplished the evil_ (ii. 33);
_and thou hast prevailed!_ The approaches of the people are met by the
assurance that their own plans and doings, rather than Iahvah's wrath,
are the direct cause of past and prospective adversity; ill doing is
the mother of ill fortune. Israel inferred from her troubles that God
was angry with her; and she is informed by His prophet that, had she
been bent on bringing those troubles about, she could not have chosen
any other line of conduct than that which she had actually pursued.
The term "evils" again suggests both the false and impure worships,
and their calamitous moral consequences. Against the will of Iahvah,
His people _had wrought for its own ruin_, and had prevailed.

And now let us take a farewell look at the discourse in its entirety.
Beginning at the beginning, the dawn of his people's life as a nation,
the young prophet declares that in her early days, in the old times of
simple piety and the uncorrupted life of the desert, Israel had been
true to her God; and her devotion to her Divine spouse had been rewarded
by guidance and protection. "Israel was a thing consecrated to Iahvah;
whoever eat of it was held guilty, and evil came upon them" (ii. 1-3).
This happy state of mutual love and trust between the Lord and His
people began to change with the great change in outward circumstances
involved in their conquest of Canaan and settlement among the aboriginal
inhabitants as the ruling race. With the lands and cities of the
conquered, the conquerors soon learned to adopt also their customs of
worship, and the licentious merriment of their sacrifices and festivals.
Gradually they lost all sense of any radical distinction between the
God of Israel and the local deities at whose ancient sanctuaries they
now worshipped Him. Soon they forgot their debt to Iahvah; His gracious
and long-continued guidance in the Arabian steppes, and the loving
care which had established them in the goodly land of orchards and
vineyards and cornfields. The priests ceased to care about ascertaining
and declaring His will; the princes openly broke His laws; and the
popular prophets spoke in the name of the popular Baals (vv. 4-8).
There was something peculiarly strange and startling in this general
desertion of the national God and Deliverer; it was unparalleled among
the surrounding heathen races. _They_ were faithful to gods that were
no gods; Israel actually exchanged her Glory, the living source of
all her strength and well-being, for a useless, helpless idol. Her
behaviour was as crazy as if she had preferred a cistern, all cracks
and fissures, that could not possibly hold water, to a never-failing
fountain of sweet spring water (vv. 9-13). The consequences were only
too plain to such as had eyes to see. Israel, the servant, the favoured
slave of Iahvah, was robbed and spoiled. The "lions," the fierce and
rapacious warriors of Assyria had ravaged his land, and ruined his
cities; while Egypt was proving but a treacherous friend, pilfering
and plundering on the borders of Judah. It was all Israel's own doing;
forsaking his God, he had forfeited the Divine protection. It was
his own apostasy, his own frequent and flagrant revolts which were
punishing him thus. Vain, therefore, utterly vain were his endeavours
to find deliverance from trouble in an alliance with the great heathen
powers of South or North (vv. 14-19). Rebellion was no new feature in
the national history. No; for of old the people had broken the yoke
of Iahvah, and burst the bonds of His ordinances, and said, I will
not serve! and on every high hill, and under every evergreen tree,
Israel had bowed down to the Baalim of Canaan, in spiritual adultery
from her Divine Lord and Husband. The change was a portent; the noble
vine-shoot had degenerated into a worthless wilding (vv. 20-21). The
sin of Israel was inveterate and ingrained; nothing could wash out the
stain of it. Denial of her guilt was futile; the dreadful rites in the
valley of Hinnom witnessed against her. Her passion for the foreign
worships was as insatiable and headstrong as the fierce lust of the
camel or the wild ass. To protests and warnings her sole reply was: "It
is in vain! I love the strangers, and them will I follow!" The outcome
of all this wilful apostasy was the shame of defeat and disaster, the
humiliation of disappointment, when the helplessness of the stocks
and stones, which had supplanted her Heavenly Father, was demonstrated
by the course of events. Then she bethought her of the God she had
so lightly forsaken, only to hear in His silence a bitterly ironical
reference to the multitude of her helpers, the gods of her own creation.
The national reverses failed of the effect intended in the counsels of
Providence. Her sons had fallen in battle; but instead of repenting of
her evil ways, she slew the faithful prophets who warned her of the
consequences of her misdeeds (vv. 20-30). It was the crowning sin; the
cup of her iniquity was full to overflowing. Indignant at the memory of
it, the prophet once more insists that the national crimes are what has
put misfortune on the track of the nation; and chiefly, this heinous
one of killing the messengers of God like housebreakers caught in the
act; and then aggravating their guilt by self-justification, and by
resorting to Egypt for that help, which they despaired of obtaining from
an outraged God. All such negotiations, past or present, were doomed
to failure beforehand; the Divine sentence had gone forth, and it was
idle to contend against it (vv. 31-37). Idle also it was to indulge in
hopes of the restoration of Divine favour. Just as it was not open to a
discarded wife to return to her husband after living with another; so
might not Israel be received back into her former position of the Bride
of Heaven, after she had "played the harlot with many lovers." Doubtless
of late she had given tokens of remembering her forgotten Lord, calling
upon the Father who had been the guide of her youth, and deprecating
the continuance of His wrath. But the time was long since past, when it
was possible to avert the evil consequences of her misdoings. She had,
as it were, steadily purposed and wrought out her own evils; both her
sins and her sufferings past and to come: the iron sequence could not
be broken; the ruin she had courted lay before her in the near future:
she had "prevailed." All efforts such as she was now making to stave it
off were like a deathbed repentance; in the nature of things, they could
not annihilate the past, nor undo what had been done, nor substitute the
fruit of holiness for the fruit of sin, the reward of faithfulness and
purity for the wages of worldliness, sensuality, and forgetfulness of
God.

Thus the discourse starts with impeachment, and ends with irreversible
doom. Its tone is comminatory throughout; nowhere do we hear, as in
other prophecies, the promise of pardon in return for penitence.
Such preaching was necessary, if the nation was to be brought to
a due sense of its evil; and the reformation of the eighteenth of
Josiah, which was undoubtedly accompanied by a considerable amount of
genuine repentance among the governing classes, was in all likelihood
furthered by this and similar prophetic orations.[20]

FOOTNOTES:

[19] צַלְמָוֶת, so far as the punctuation suggests that the term is
a compound, meaning "shadow of death," is one of the fictions of the
Masorets, like לִגְאֵיוֹנִים and חֵלְכָּאִים and חֵֽלְכָה in the Psalms.

[20] Perhaps, too, the immediate object of the prophet was attained,
which was, as Ewald thinks, to dissuade the people from alliance with
Psammitichus, the vigorous monarch who was then reviving the power and
ambition of Egypt. Jeremiah dreaded the effects of Egyptian influence
upon the religion and morals of Judah. Ewald notes the significant
absence of all reference to the enemy from the north, who appears in
all the later pieces.




                                  III.

                    _ISRAEL AND JUDAH: A CONTRAST._

                         JEREMIAH iii. 6-iv. 2.


The first address of our prophet was throughout of a sombre cast, and
the darkness of its close was not relieved by a single ray of hope.
It was essentially a comminatory discourse, the purpose of it being
to rouse a sinful nation to the sense of its peril, by a faithful
picture of its actual condition, which was so different from what
it was popularly supposed to be. The veil is torn aside; the real
relations between Israel and his God are exposed to view; and it is
seen that the inevitable goal of persistence in the course which has
brought partial disasters in the past, is certain destruction in the
imminent future. It is implied, but not said, that the only thing
that can save the nation is a complete reversal of policies hitherto
pursued, in Church and State and private life; and it is apparently
taken for granted that the thing implied is no longer possible. The
last word of the discourse was: "Thou hast purposed and performed the
evils, and thou hast conquered" (iii. 5). The address before us forms
a striking contrast to this dark picture. It opens a door of hope for
the penitent. The heart of the prophet cannot rest in the thought of
the utter rejection of his people; the harsh and dreary announcement
that his people's woes are self-caused cannot be his last word. "His
anger was only love provoked to distraction; here it has come to
itself again," and holds out an offer of grace first to that part of
the whole nation which needs it most, the fallen kingdom of Ephraim,
and then to the entire people. The all Israel of the former discourse
is here divided into its two sections, which are contrasted with each
other, and then again considered as a united nation. This feature
distinguishes the piece from that which begins chap. iv. 3, and which
is addressed to "Judah and Jerusalem" rather than to Israel and Judah,
like the one before us. An outline of the discourse may be given thus.
It is shown that Judah has not taken warning by Iahvah's rejection
of the sister kingdom (6-10); and that Ephraim may be pronounced
less guilty than Judah, seeing that she had witnessed no such signal
example of the Divine vengeance on hardened apostasy. She is,
therefore, invited to repent and return to her alienated God, which
will involve a return from exile to her own land; and the promise
is given of the reunion of the two peoples in a restored Theocracy,
having its centre in Mount Zion (11-19). All Israel has rebelled
against God; but the prophet hears the cry of universal penitence and
supplication ascending to heaven; and Iahvah's gracious answer of
acceptance (iii. 20-iv. 2).

The opening section depicts the sin which had brought ruin on Israel,
and Judah's readiness in following her example, and refusal to take
warning by her fate. This twofold sin is aggravated by an insincere
repentance. _And Iahvah said unto me, in the days of Josiah the
king, Sawest thou what the Turncoat_ or _Recreant Israel did? she
would go up every high_ _hill, and under every evergreen tree, and
play the harlot there. And methought that after doing all this she
would return to Me; but she returned not; and the Traitress, her
sister Judah saw it. And I[21] saw that when for the very reason
that she, the Turncoat Israel, had committed adultery, I had put her
away, and given her her bill of divorce, the Traitress Judah, her
sister, was not afraid, but she too went off and played the harlot.
And so, through the cry_ (cf. Gen. iv. 10, xviii. 20 _sq._) _of her
harlotry_ (or read רב for קל, _script. defect._ through her manifold
or abounding harlotry) _she polluted the land_ (וַתַּחֲנֵף ver. 2),
_in that she committed adultery with the Stone and with the Stock.
And yet though she was involved in all this guilt_ (lit. _and even in
all this_. Perhaps the sin and the penalties of it are identified;
and the meaning is: _And yet for all this liability_: cf. Isa. v.
25), _the Traitress Judah returned not unto Me with all her heart_
(with a _whole_ or _undivided_ heart, with entire sincerity[22])
_but in falsehood saith Iahvah_. The example of the northern kingdom
is represented as a powerful influence for evil upon Judah. This
was only natural; for although from the point of view of religious
development Judah is incomparably the more important of the sister
kingdoms; the exact contrary is the case as regards political power
and predominance. Under strong kings like Omri and Ahab, or again,
Jeroboam II., Ephraim was able to assert itself as a first-rate power
among the surrounding principalities; and in the case of Athaliah, we
have a conspicuous instance of the manner in which Canaanite idolatry
might be propagated from Israel to Judah. The prophet declares that
the sin of Judah was aggravated by the fact that she had witnessed
the ruin of Israel, and yet persisted in the same evil courses of
which that ruin was the result. She sinned against light. The fall of
Ephraim had verified the predictions of her prophets; yet "she was
not afraid," but went on adding to the score of her own offences, and
polluting the land with her unfaithfulness to her Divine Spouse. The
idea that the very soil of her country was defiled by Judah's idolatry
may be illustrated by reference to the well-known words of Ps. cvi.
38: "They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and their
daughters whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan; and the land
was defiled with the bloodshed." We may also remember Elohim's word
to Cain: "The voice of thy brother's blood is crying unto Me from the
ground!" (Gen. iv. 10). As Iahvah's special dwelling-place, moreover,
the land of Israel was holy; and foreign rites desecrated and profaned
it, and made it offensive in His sight. The pollution of it cried to
heaven for vengeance on those who had caused it. To such a state had
Judah brought her own land, and the very city of the sanctuary; "and
yet in all this"--amid this accumulation of sins and liabilities--she
turned not to her Lord with her whole heart. The reforms set on foot
in the twelfth year of Josiah were but superficial and half-hearted;
the people merely acquiesced in them, at the dictation of the court,
and gave no sign of any inward change or deep-wrought repentance. The
semblance without the reality of sorrow for sin is but a mockery of
heaven, and a heinous aggravation of guilt. Hence the sin of Judah
was of a deeper dye than that which had destroyed Israel. _And Iahvah
said unto me, The Turncoat or Recreant Israel hath proven herself more
righteous than the Traitress Judah._ Who could doubt it, considering
that almost all the prophets had borne their witness in Judah; and
that, in imitating her sister's idolatry, she had resolutely closed
her eyes to the light of truth and reason? On this ground, that Israel
has sinned less, and suffered more, the prophet is bidden to hold out
to her the hope of Divine mercy. The greatness of her ruin, as well as
the lapse of years since the fatal catastrophe, might tend to diminish
in the prophet's mind the impression of her guilt; and his patriotic
yearning for the restoration of the banished Ten Tribes, who, after
all, were the near kindred of Judah, as well as the thought that they
had borne their punishment, and thus atoned for their sin (Isa. xl.
2), might cooperate with the desire of kindling in his own countrymen
a noble rivalry of repentance, in moving the prophet to obey the
impulse which urged him to address himself to Israel. _Go thou, and
cry these words northward_ (toward the desolate land of Ephraim),
_and say: Return, Turncoat or Recreant Israel, saith Iahvah; I will
not let My countenance fall at the sight of you_ (lit. _against you_,
cf. Gen. iv. 5); _for I am loving, saith Iahvah, I keep not anger
for ever. Only recognise thy guilt, that thou hast rebelled against
Iahvah thy God, and hast scattered_ (or _lavished_: Ps. cxii. 9) _thy
ways to the strangers_ (hast gone now in this direction, now in that,
worshipping first one idol and then another; cf. ii. 23; and so, as it
were, dividing up and dispersing thy devotion) _under every evergreen
tree; but My voice ye have not obeyed, saith Iahvah._ The invitation,
"Return Apostate Israel!"--יש משבה שובה[23]--contains a play on words,
which seems to suggest that the exile of the Ten Tribes was voluntary,
or self-imposed; as if, when they turned their backs upon their true
God, they had deliberately made choice of the inevitable consequence
of that rebellion, and made up their minds to abandon their native
land. So close is the connexion, in the prophet's view, between the
misfortunes of his people and their sins.

_Return, ye apostate children_ (again there is a play on words--שובבים
בנים שובו--_Turn back, ye back-turning sons_, or _ye sons that turn the
back_ to Me) _saith Iahvah; for it was I that wedded you_ (ver. 14), and
am, therefore, your proper lord. The expression is not stranger than
that which the great prophet of the Return addresses to Zion: "Thy sons
shall marry thee." But perhaps we should rather compare another passage
of the book of Isaiah, where it is said: "Iahvah, our God! other lords
beside Thee have had dominion over us" (בְּעָלוּנוּ Isa. xxvi. 13), and
render: _For it is I that will be your lord_; or perhaps, _For it is I
that have mastered you_, and put down your rebellion by chastisements;
_and I will take you, one of a city and two of a clan, and will bring
you to Zion_. As a "city" is elsewhere spoken of as a "thousand" (Mic.
v. 1), and a "thousand" (אלף) is synonymous with a "clan" (משפחה), as
providing a thousand warriors in the national militia; it is clear
that the promise is that one or two representatives of each township
in Israel shall be restored from exile to the land of their fathers.
In other words, we have here Isaiah's doctrine of the remnant, which
he calls a "tenth" (Isa. vi. 13), and of which he declared that "the
survivors of the house of Judah that remain, shall again take root
downwards, and bear fruit upwards" (Isa. xxxvii. 31). And as Zion is
the goal of the returning exiles, we may see, as doubtless the prophets
saw, a kind of anticipation and foreshadowing of the future in the
few scattered members of the northern tribes of Asher, Manasseh and
Zebulun, who "humbled themselves," and accepted Hezekiah's invitation
to the passover (2 Chron. xxx. 11, 18); and, again, in the authority
which Josiah is said to have exercised in the land of the Ten Tribes
(2 Chron. xxxiv. 6; cf. 9). We must bear in mind that the prophets
do not contemplate the restoration of every individual of the entire
nation; but rather the return of a chosen few, a kind of "firstfruits"
of Israel, who are to be a "holy seed" (Isa. vi. 13), from which the
power of the Supreme will again build up the entire people according to
its ancient divisions. So the holy Apostle in the Revelation hears that
twelve thousand of each tribe are sealed as servants of God (Rev. vii.).

The happy time of restoration will also be a time of reunion. The
estranged tribes will return to their old allegiance. This is implied
by the promise, "I will bring you to Zion," and by that of the next
verse: _And I will give you shepherds after My own heart; and they
shall shepherd you with knowledge and wisdom_. Obviously, kings of
the house of David are meant; the good shepherds of the future are
contrasted with the "rebellious" ones of the past (ii. 8). It is the
promise of Isaiah (i. 26): "And I will restore thy judges as at the
first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning." In this connexion, we
may recall the fact that the original schism in Israel was brought
about by the folly of evil shepherds. The coming King will resemble
not Rehoboam but David. Nor is this all; for _It shall come to pass,
when ye multiply and become fruitful in the land, in those days,
saith Iahvah, men shall not say any more, The ark of the covenant of
Iahvah_, (or, as LXX., _of the Holy One of Israel); nor shall it_
(the ark) _come to mind; nor shall men remember it, nor miss it; nor
shall it be made any more_ (pointing יֵעָשֶׂה although the verb may be
impersonal. I do not understand why Hitzig asserts "_Man wird keine
andere machen_ (Movers) oder; _sie wird nicht wieder gemacht_ (Ew.,
Graf) als wäre nicht von der geschichtlichen Lade die Rede, sondern
von ihr begrifflich, können die Worte nicht bedeuten." But cf. Exod.
xxv. 10; Gen. vi. 14; where the same verb עשה is used. Perhaps,
however, the rendering of C. B. Michaelis, which he prefers, is more
in accordance with what precedes: _nor shall all that be done any
more_, Gen. xxix. 26, xli. 34. But פקד does not mean _nachforschen_:
cf. 1 Sam. xx. 6, xxv. 15). _In that time men will call Jerusalem the
throne of Iahvah; and all the nations will gather into it_ (Gen. i.
9), _for the name of Iahvah_ [_at Jerusalem_: LXX. om.]; _and they_
(the heathen) _will no longer follow the stubbornness of their evil
heart_ (vii. 24; Deut. xxix. 19).

In the new Theocracy, the true kingdom of God, the ancient symbol
of the Divine presence will be forgotten in the realization of that
presence. The institution of the New Covenant will be characterized by
an immediate and personal knowledge of Iahvah in the hearts of all His
people (xxxi. 31 _sq._). The small object in which past generations
had loved to recognise the earthly throne of the God of Israel, will
be replaced by Jerusalem itself, the Holy City, not merely of Judah,
nor of Judah and Israel, but of the world. Thither will all the
nations resort "to the name of Iahvah;" ceasing henceforth "to follow
the hardness (or callousness) of their own evil heart." That the more
degraded kinds of heathenism have a hardening effect upon the heart;
and that the cruel and impure worships of Canaan especially tended to
blunt the finer sensibilities, to enfeeble the natural instincts of
humanity and justice, and to confuse the sense of right and wrong,
is beyond question. Only a heart rendered callous by custom, and
stubbornly deaf to the pleadings of natural pity, could find genuine
pleasure in the merciless rites of the Molech-worship; and they who
ceased to follow these inhuman superstitions, and sought light and
guidance from the God of Israel, might well be said to have ceased
"to walk after the hardness of their own evil heart."[24] The more
repulsive features of heathenism chime in too well with the worst
and most savage impulses of our nature; they exhibit too close a
conformity with the suggestions and demands of selfish appetite;
they humour and encourage the darkest passions far too directly and
decidedly, to allow us to regard as plausible any theory of their
origin and permanence which does not recognise in them at once a cause
and an effect of human depravity (cf. Rom. i.).

The repulsiveness of much that was associated with the heathenism with
which they were best acquainted, did not hinder the prophets of Israel
from taking a deep spiritual interest in those who practised and were
enslaved by it. Indeed, what has been called the universalism of the
Hebrew seers--their emancipation in this respect from all local and
national limits and prejudices--is one of the clearest proofs of their
divine mission. Jeremiah only reiterates what Micah and Isaiah had
preached before him; that "in the latter days the mountain of Iahvah's
House shall be established as the chief of mountains, and shall be
exalted above the hills; and all the nations will flow unto it" (Isa.
ii. 2). In ch. xvi. 19 _sq._ our prophet thus expresses himself upon
the same topic. "Iahvah, my strength and my stronghold, and my refuge
in the day of distress! unto Thee shall nations come from the ends
of the earth, and shall say: Our forefathers inherited nought but a
lie, vanity, and things among which is no helper. Shall a man make him
gods, when they are no gods?" How largely this particular aspiration
of the prophets of the seventh and eighth centuries B.C. has since
been fulfilled in the course of the ages is a matter of history. The
religion which was theirs has, in the new shape given it by our Lord
and His Apostles, become the religion of one heathen people after
another, until at this day it is the faith professed, not only in the
land of its origin, but by the leading nations of the world. So mighty
a fulfilment of hopes, which at the time of their first conception
and utterance could only be regarded as the dreams of enthusiastic
visionaries, justifies those who behold and realize it in the joyful
belief that the progress of true religion has not been maintained for
six and twenty centuries to be arrested now; and that these old-world
aspirations are destined to receive a fulness of illustration in the
triumphs of the future, in the light of which the brightest glories of
the past will pale and fade away.

The prophet does not say, with a prophet of the New Covenant, that
all _Israel shall be saved_ (Rom. xi. 26). We may, however, fairly
interpret the latter of the true Israel, _the remnant according to the
election of grace_, rather than of _Israel according to the flesh_,
and so both will be at one, and both at variance with the unspiritual
doctrine of the Talmud, that _All Israel_, irrespective of moral
qualifications, will have _a portion in the world to come_, on account
of the surpassing merits of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and even of
Abraham alone (cf. St. Matt. iii. 9; St. John viii. 33).

The reference to the ark of the covenant in the sixteenth verse is
remarkable upon several grounds. This sacred symbol is not mentioned
among the spoils which Nebuzaradan (Nabû-zir-iddin) took from the
temple (lii. 17 _sqq._); nor is it specified among the treasures
appropriated by Nebuchadrezzar at the surrender of Jehoiachin. The
words of Jeremiah prove that it cannot be included among "the vessels
of gold" which the Babylonian conqueror "cut in pieces" (2 Kings xxiv.
13). We learn two facts about the ark from the present passage: (1)
that it no longer existed in the days of the prophet; (2) that people
remembered it with regret, though they did not venture to replace the
lost original by a new substitute. It may well have been destroyed
by Manasseh, the king who did his utmost to abolish the religion of
Iahvah. However that may be, the point of the prophet's allusion
consists in the thought that in the glorious times of Messianic rule
the idea of holiness will cease to be attached to things, for it will
be realized in persons; the symbol will become obsolete, and its
name and memory will disappear from the minds and affections of men,
because the fact symbolized will be universally felt and perceived to
be a present and self-evident truth. In that great epoch of Israel's
reconciliation, all nations will recognise in Jerusalem the _throne
of Iahvah_, the centre of light and source of spiritual truth; the
Holy City of the world. Is it the earthly or the heavenly Jerusalem
that is meant? It would seem, the former only was present to the
consciousness of the prophet, for he concludes his beautiful interlude
of promise with the words: _In those days will the house of Judah walk
beside the house of Israel; and they will come together from the land
of the North_ [_and from all the lands_: LXX add. cf. xvi. 15] _unto
the land that I caused your fathers to possess_. Like Isaiah (xi. 12
_sqq._) and other prophets his predecessors, Jeremiah forecasts for
the whole repentant and united nation a reinstatement in their ancient
temporal rights, in the pleasant land from which they had been so
cruelly banished for so many weary years.

"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." If, when we look
at the whole course of subsequent events, when we review the history
of the Return and of the narrow religious commonwealth which was at
last, after many bitter struggles, established on mount Sion; when
we consider the form which the religion of Iahvah assumed in the
hands of the priestly caste, and the half-religious, half-political
sects, whose intrigues and conflicts for power constitute almost all
we know of their period; when we reflect upon the character of the
entire post-exilic age down to the time of the birth of Christ, with
its worldly ideals, its fierce fanaticisms, its superstitious trust
in rites and ceremonies; if, when we look at all this, we hesitate
to claim that the prophetic visions of a great restoration found
fulfilment in the erection of this petty state, this paltry edifice,
upon the ruins of David's capital; shall we lay ourselves open to the
accusation that we recognise no element of truth in the glorious
aspirations of the prophets? I think not.

After all, it is clear from the entire context that these hopes of
a golden time to come are not independent of the attitude of the
people towards Iahvah. They will only be realized, if the nation
shall truly repent of the past, and turn to Him with the whole heart.
The expressions "at that time," "in those days" (vv. 17, 18), are
only conditionally determinate; they mean the happy time of Israel's
repentance, _if such a time should ever come_. From this glimpse of
glorious possibilities, the prophet turns abruptly to the dark page of
Israel's actual history. He has, so to speak, portrayed in characters
of light the development as it might have been; he now depicts the
course it actually followed. He restates Iahvah's original claim upon
Israel's grateful devotion (ii. 2), putting these words into the mouth
of the Divine Speaker: _And I indeed thought, How will I set thee among
the sons_ (of the Divine household), _and give thee a lovely land, a
heritage the fairest among the nations! And methought, thou wouldst call
Me 'My Father,' and wouldst not turn back from following Me._ Iahvah
had at the outset adopted Israel, and called him from the status of a
groaning bondsman to the dignity of a son and heir. When Israel was a
child, He had loved him, and called His son out of Egypt (Hos. xi. 1),
to give him a place and a heritage among nations. It was Iahvah, indeed,
who originally assigned their holdings to all the nations, and separated
the various tribes of mankind, _fixing the territories of peoples,
according to the number of the sons of God_ (Deut. xxxii. 8 Sept.).
If He had brought up Israel from Egypt, He had also brought up the
Philistines from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir (Amos ix. 7). But
He had adopted Israel in a more special sense, which may be expressed in
St. Paul's words, who makes it the chief advantage of Israel above the
nations that _unto them were committed the oracles of God_. (Rom. iii.
2). What nobler distinction could have been conferred upon any race of
men than that they should have been thus chosen, as Israel actually was
chosen, not merely in the aspirations of prophets, but as a matter of
fact in the divinely-directed evolution of human history, to become the
heralds of a higher truth, the hierophants of spiritual knowledge, the
universally recognised interpreters of God? Such a calling might have
been expected to elicit a response of the warmest gratitude, the most
enthusiastic loyalty and unswerving devotion. But Israel as a nation did
not rise to the level of these lofty prophetic views of its vocation;
it knew itself to be the people of Iahvah, but it failed to realize
the moral significance of that privilege, and the moral and spiritual
responsibilities which it involved. It failed to adore Iahvah as the
Father, in the only proper and acceptable sense of that honourable name,
the sense which restricts its application to one sole Being. Heathenism
is blind and irrational as well as profane and sinful; and so it does
not scruple to confer such absolutely individual titles as "God" and
"Father" upon a multitude of imaginary powers.

_Methought thou wouldst call Me 'My Father,' and wouldst not turn
back from following Me. But_ (Zeph. iii. 7) _a woman is false to
her fere; so were ye false to Me, O house of Israel, saith Iahvah._
The Divine intention toward Israel, God's gracious design for her
everlasting good, God's expectation of a return for His favour, and
how that design was thwarted so far as man could thwart it, and
that expectation disappointed hitherto; such is the import of the
last two verses (19, 20). Speaking in the name of God, Jeremiah
represents Israel's past as it appears to God. He now proceeds to
shew dramatically, or as in a picture, how the expectation may yet be
fulfilled, and the design realized. Having exposed the national guilt,
he supposes his remonstrance to have done its work, and he overhears
the penitent people pouring out its heart before God. Then a kind of
dialogue ensues between the Deity and His suppliants. _Hark! upon the
bare hills is heard the weeping of the supplications of the sons of
Israel, that they perverted their way, forgot Iahvah their God._ The
treeless hill-tops had been the scene of heathen orgies miscalled
worship. There the rites of Canaan performed by Israelites had
insulted the God of heaven (vv. 2 and 6). Now the very places which
witnessed the sin, witness the national remorse and confession. The
'high-places' are not condemned even by Jeremiah as places of worship,
but only as places of heathen and illicit worships. The solitude and
quiet and purer air of the hill-tops, their unobstructed view of
heaven and suggestive nearness thereto, have always made them natural
sanctuaries both for public rites and private prayer and meditation:
cf. 2 Sam. xv. 32; and especially St. Luke vi. 12.

In this closing section of the piece (iii. 19-iv. 2) 'Israel' means
not the entire people, but the northern kingdom only, which is spoken
of separately also in iii. 6-18, with the object of throwing into
higher relief the heinousness of Judah's guilt. Israel--the northern
kingdom--was less guilty than Judah, for she had no warning example,
no beacon-light upon her path, such as her own fall afforded to the
southern kingdom; and therefore the Divine compassion is more likely
to be extended to her, even after a century of ruin and banishment,
than to her callous, impenitent sister. Whether at the time Jeremiah
was in communication with survivors of the northern Exile, who were
faithful to the God of their fathers, and looked wistfully toward
Jerusalem as the centre of the best traditions and the sole hope of
Israelite nationality, cannot now be determined. The thing is not
unlikely, considering the interest which the prophet afterwards took
in the Judean exiles who were taken to Babylon with Jehoiachin (chap.
xxix.) and his active correspondence with their leaders. We may also
remember that "divers of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbled
themselves" and came to keep passover with king Hezekiah at Jerusalem.
It cannot, certainly, be supposed, with any show of reason, that the
Assyrians either carried away the entire population of the northern
kingdom, or exterminated all whom they did not carry away. The words
of the Chronicler who speaks of "a remnant ... escaped out of the
hand of the kings of Assyria," are themselves perfectly agreeable
to reason and the nature of the case, apart from the consideration
that he had special historical sources at his command (2 Chron.
xxx. 6, 11). We know that in the Maccabean and Roman wars the rocky
fastnesses of the country were a refuge to numbers of the people,
and the history of David shews that this had been the case from time
immemorial (cf. Judg. vi. 2). Doubtless in this way not a few survived
the Assyrian invasions and the destruction of Samaria (B.C. 721).
But to return to the text. After the confession of the nation that
they have _perverted their way_ (that is, their mode of worship, by
adoring visible symbols of Iahvah, and associating with Him as His
compeers a multitude of imaginary gods, especially the local Baalim,
ii. 23, and Ashtaroth), the prophet hears another voice, a voice of
Divine invitation and gracious promise, responsive to penitence and
prayer: _Return, ye apostate sons, let Me heal your apostasies!_ or
_If ye return, ye apostate sons, I will heal your apostasies!_ It is
an echo of the tenderness of an older prophet (Hos. xiv. 1, 4). And
the answer of the penitents quickly follows: _Behold us, we are come
unto Thee, for Thou art Iahvah our God_. The voice that now calls us,
we know by its tender tones of entreaty, compassion and love to be
the voice of Iahvah our own God; not the voice of sensual Chemosh,
tempting to guilty pleasures and foul impurities, not the harsh cry of
a cruel Molech, calling for savage rites of pitiless bloodshed. Thou,
Iahvah--not these nor their fellows--art our true and only God.

_Surely, in vain_ (for nought, bootlessly, 1 Sam. xxv. 21; chap. v. 2,
xvi. 19) _on the hills did we raise a din_ (lit. 'hath one raised';
reading בַּגְּבָעוֹת and הֵרִים); _surely, in Iahvah our God is the
safety of Israel!_ The Hebrew cannot be original as it now stands in
the Masoretic text, for it is ungrammatical. The changes I have made
will be seen to be very slight, and the sense obtained is much the
same as Ewald's _Surely in vain from the hills is the noise, from the
mountains_ (where every reader must feel that _from the mountains_ is a
forcible-feeble addition which adds nothing to the sense). We might also
perhaps detach the _mem_ from the term for 'hills,' and connect it with
the preceding word, thus getting the meaning: _Surely, for Lies are the
hills, the uproar of the mountains!_ (הָרִים הֲמֹון ... לִשְׁקָרִים);
that is to say, the high-places are devoted to delusive nonentities,
who can do nothing in return for the wild orgiastic worship bestowed on
them; a thought which contrasts very well with the second half of the
verse: _Surely, in Iahvah our God is the safety of Israel!_

The confession continues: _And as for the Shame_--the shameful idol,
the Baal whose worship involved shameful rites (chap. xi. 13; Hos. ix.
10), and who put his worshippers to shame, by disappointing them of
help in the hour of their need (ii. 8, 26, 27)--_as for the Shame_--in
contrast with Iahvah, the Safety of Israel, who gives all, and
requires little or nothing of this kind in return--_it devoured the
labour of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters_. The allusion is to the insatiable
greed of the idol-priests, and the lavish expense of perpetually
recurring feasts and sacrifices, which constituted a serious drain
upon the resources of a pastoral and agricultural community; and to
the bloody rites which, not content with animal offerings, demanded
human victims for the altars of an appalling superstition. _Let us
lie down in our shame, and let our infamy cover us! for toward Iahvah
our God we trespassed, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto
this day, and obeyed not the voice of Iahvah our God._ A more complete
acknowledgment of sin could hardly be conceived; no palliating
circumstances are alleged, no excuses devised, of the kind with
which men usually seek to soothe a disturbed conscience. The strong
seductions of Canaanite worship, the temptation to join in the joyful
merriment of idol-festivals, the invitation of friends and neighbours,
the contagion of example,--all these extenuating facts must have been
at least as well known to the prophet as to modern critics, but he is
expressively silent on the point of mitigating circumstances in the
case of a nation to whom such light and guidance had come, as came to
Israel. No, he could discern no ground of hope for his people except
in a full and unreserved admission of guilt, an agony of shame and
contrition before God, a heartfelt recognition of the truth that from
the outset of their national existence to the passing day they had
continually sinned against Iahvah their God and resisted His holy Will.

Finally, to this cry of penitents humbled in the dust, and owning
that they have no refuge from the consequences of their sin but in
the Divine Mercy, comes the firm yet loving answer: _If thou wilt
return, O Israel, saith Iahvah, unto Me wilt return, and if thou
wilt put away thine Abominations_ [_out of thy mouth and_, LXX.]
_out of My Presence, and sway not to and fro_ (1 Kings xiv. 15),
_but wilt swear 'By the Life of Iahvah!' in good faith, justice, and
righteousness; then shall the nations bless themselves by Him, and
in Him shall they glory_ (iv. 1, 2). Such is the close of this ideal
dialogue between God and man. It is promised that if the nation's
repentance be sincere--not half-hearted like that of Judah (iii. 10;
2 Chron. xxxiv. 33)--and if the fact be demonstrated by a resolute
and unwavering rejection of idol-worship, evinced by the disuse of
their names in oaths, and the expulsion of their symbols _from the
Presence_, that is, out of the sanctuaries and domain of Iahvah, and
by adhering to the Name of the God of Israel in oaths and compacts of
all kinds, and by a scrupulous loyalty to such engagements (Ps. xv. 4;
Deut. x. 20; Isa. xlviii. 1); then the ancient oracle of blessing will
be fulfilled, and Israel will become a proverb of felicity, the pride
and boast of mankind, the glorious ideal of perfect virtue and perfect
happiness (Gen. xii. 3; Isa. lxv. 16). Then, _all the nations will
gather together unto Jerusalem for the Name of Iahvah_ (iii. 17); they
will recognise in the religion of Iahvah the answer to their highest
longings and spiritual necessities, and will take Israel for what
Iahvah intended him to be, their example and priest and prophet.

Jeremiah could hardly have chosen a more extreme instance for pointing
the lesson he had to teach than the long-since ruined and depopulated
kingdom of the Ten Tribes. Hopeless as their actual condition must
have seemed at the time, he assures his own countrymen in Judah
and Jerusalem that even yet, if only the moral requirements of the
case were fulfilled, and the heart of the poor remnant and of the
survivors in banishment aroused to a genuine and permanent repentance,
the Divine promises would be accomplished in a people whose sun had
apparently set in darkness for ever. And so he passes on to address
his own people directly in tones of warning, reproof, and menace of
approaching wrath (iv. 3-vi. 30.)

FOOTNOTES:

[21] _She_ saw: Pesh. This may be right. And the Traitress, her sister
Judah, _saw it: yea, saw that even because the Turncoat Israel had
committed adultery, I put her away.... And yet the Traitress Judah,
her sister, was not afraid, etc._

[22] 1 Kings ii. 4, בֶּאֱמֶת = בּכָל־לְבָבָם

[23] As if "Turn back, back-turning Israel!" _i.e._ Thou that turnedst
thy back upon Iahvah, and, therefore, upon His pleasant land.

[24] Cf. also the Arabic [Arabic: **] _pravus_, [Arabic: **]
_pravitas_, with the Hebrew term.




                                  IV.

                 _THE SCYTHIANS AS THE SCOURGE OF GOD._

                         JEREMIAH iv. 3-vi. 30.


If we would understand what is written here and elsewhere in the pages
of prophecy, two things would seem to be requisite. We must prepare
ourselves with some knowledge of the circumstances of the time, and we
must form some general conception of the ideas and aims of the inspired
writer, both in themselves, and in their relation to passing events. Of
the former, a partial and fragmentary knowledge may suffice, provided
it be true so far as it goes; minuteness of detail is not necessary to
general accuracy. Of the latter, a very full and complete conception may
be gathered from a careful study of the prophetic discourses.

The chapters before us were obviously composed in the presence of a
grave national danger; and what that danger was is not left uncertain,
as the discourse proceeds. An invasion of the country appeared to be
imminent; the rumour of approaching war had already made itself heard
in the capital; and all classes were terror-stricken at the tidings.

As usual in such times of peril, the country people were already
abandoning the uncalled towns and villages, to seek refuge in the
strong places of the land, and, above all, in Jerusalem, which was at
once the capital and the principal fortress of the kingdom. The evil
news had spread far and near; the trumpet-signal of alarm was heard
everywhere; the cry was, _Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the
fenced cities!_ (iv. 5).

The ground of this universal terror is thus declared: _The lion is
gone up from his thicket, and the destroyer of nations is on his way,
is gone forth from his place; to make thy land a desolation, that thy
cities be laid waste, without inhabitant_ (ver. 7). _A hot blast over
the bare hills in the wilderness, on the road to the daughter of my
people, not for winnowing, nor for cleansing; a full blast from those
hills cometh at My beck_ (ver. 11). _Lo, like clouds he cometh up,
and, like the whirlwind, his chariots; swifter than vultures are his
horses. Woe unto us! We are verily destroyed_ (ver. 13). _Besiegers_
(lit. _watchmen_, Isa. i. 8) _are coming from the remotest land, and
they utter their cry against the cities of Judah. Like keepers of
a field become they against her on every side_ (vv. 16-17). At the
same time, the invasion is still only a matter of report; the blow
has not yet fallen upon the trembling people. _Behold, I am about to
bring upon you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, saith Iahvah; an
inexhaustible nation it is, a nation of old time it is, a nation whose
tongue thou knowest not, nor understandest_ (lit. _hearest_) _what it
speaketh. Its quiver is like an opened grave; they all are heroes.
And it will eat up thine harvest and thy bread, which thy sons and
thy daughters should eat; it will eat up thy flock and thine herd; it
will eat up thy vine and thy figtree; it will shatter thine embattled
cities, wherein thou art trusting, with the sword_ (v. 15-17). _Thus
hath Iahvah said: Lo, a people cometh from a northern land, and a
great nation is awaking from the uttermost parts of_ _earth. Bow and
lance they hold; savage it is, and pitiless; the sound of them is
like the sea, when it roareth; and on horses they ride; he is arrayed
as a man for battle, against thee, O daughter of Zion. We have heard
the report of him; our hands droop; anguish hath taken hold of us,
throes, like hers that travaileth_ (vi. 22 _sq._). With the graphic
force of a keen observer, who is also a poet, the priest of Anathoth
has thus depicted for all time the collapse of terror which befel his
contemporaries, on the rumoured approach of the Scythians in the reign
of Josiah. And his lyric fervour carries him beyond this; it enables
him to see with the utmost distinctness the havoc wrought by these
hordes of savages; the surprise of cities, the looting of houses,
the flight of citizens to the woods and the hills at the approach of
the enemy; the desertion of the country towns, the devastation of
fields and vineyards, confusion and desolation everywhere, as though
primeval chaos had returned; and he tells it all with the passion and
intensity of one who is relating an actual personal experience. _In
my vitals, my vitals, I quake, in the walls of my heart! My heart is
murmuring to me; I cannot hold my peace; for my soul is listening to
the trumpet-blast, the alarm of war! Ruin on ruin is cried, for all
the land is ravaged; suddenly are my tents ravaged, my pavilions in
a moment! How long must I see the standards, must I listen to the
trumpet-blast?_ (iv. 19-21). _I look at the earth, and lo, 'tis chaos:
at the heavens, and their light is no more. I look at the mountains,
and lo, they rock, and all the hills sway to and fro. I look, and lo,
man is no more, and the birds of the air are gone, I look, and lo, the
fruitful soil is wilderness, and all the cities of it are overthrown_
(iv. 23-26). _At the noise of horseman and_ _archer all the city is
in flight! They are gone into the thickets, and up the rocks they
have clomb: all the city is deserted_ (ver. 29). His eye follows the
course of devastation until it reaches Jerusalem: Jerusalem, the
proud, luxurious capital, now isolated on her hills, bereft of all
her daughter cities, abandoned, even betrayed, by her foreign allies.
_And thou, that art doomed to destruction, what canst thou do? Though
thou clothe thee in scarlet, though thou deck thee with decking of
gold, though thou broaden thine eyes with henna, in vain dost thou
make thyself fair; the lovers have scorned thee, thy life are they
seeking._[25] The "lovers"--the false foreigners--have turned against
her in the time of her need; and the strange gods, with whom she
dallied in the days of prosperity, can bring her no help. And now,
while she witnesses, but cannot avert, the slaughter of her children,
her shrieks ring in the prophet's ear: _A cry, as of one in travail,
do I hear; pangs as of her that beareth her firstborn; the cry of the
daughter of Zion, that panteth, that spreadeth out her hands: Woe's
me! my soul swooneth for the slayers!_ (vv. 30, 31).

Even the strong walls of Jerusalem are no sure defence; there is
no safety but in flight. _Remove your goods, ye sons of Benjamin,
from within Jerusalem! And in Tekoah_ (as if Blaston or Blowick or
Trumpington) _blow a trumpet-blast, and upon Beth-hakkérem raise
a signal_ (or _beacon_)! _for evil hath looked forth_ _from the
north, and mighty ruin_ (vi. 1, 2). The two towns mark the route
of the fugitives, making for the wilderness of the south; and the
trumpet-call, and the beacon-light, muster the scattered companies
at these rallying points or haltingplaces. _The beautiful and the
pampered one will I destroy--the daughter of Sion._ (Perhaps: _The
beautiful and the pampered woman art thou like, O daughter of Sion!_
3rd fem. sing. in -_i_.) _To her come the shepherds and their flocks;
they pitch the tents upon her round about; they graze each at his own
side_ (_i.e._ on the ground nearest him). The figure changes, with
lyric abruptness, from the fair woman, enervated by luxury (ver. 2)
to the fair pasture-land, on which the nomad shepherds encamp, whose
flocks soon eat the herbage down, and leave the soil stripped bare
(ver. 3); and then, again, to an army beleaguering the fated city,
whose cries of mutual cheer, and of impatience at all delay, the
poet-prophet hears and rehearses. _Hallow ye war against her! Arise
ye, let us go up_ (to the assault) _at noontide! Unhappy we! the day
hath turned; the shadows of eventide begin to lengthen! Arise ye, and
let us go up in the night, to destroy her palaces!_ (vv. 4, 5).

As a fine example of poetical expression, the discourse obviously
has its own intrinsic value. The author's power to sketch with a few
bold strokes the magical effect of a disquieting rumour; the vivid
force with which he realizes the possibilities of ravage and ruin
which are wrapped up in those vague, uncertain tidings; the pathos and
passion of his lament over his stricken country, stricken as yet to
his perception only; the tenderness of feeling; the subtle sweetness
of language; the variety of metaphor; the light of imagination
illuminating the whole with its indefinable charm; all these
characteristics indicate the presence and power of a master-singer.
But with Jeremiah, as with his predecessors, the poetic expression of
feeling is far from being an end in itself. He writes with a purpose
to which all the endowments of his gifted nature are freely and
resolutely subordinated. He values his powers as a poet and orator
solely as instruments which conduce to an efficient utterance of the
will of Iahvah. He is hardly conscious of these gifts as such. He
exists to "declare in the house of Jacob and to publish in Judah" the
word of the Lord.

It is in this capacity that he now comes forward, and addresses his
terrified countrymen, in terms not calculated to allay their fears with
soothing suggestions of comfort and reassurance, but rather deliberately
chosen with a view to heightening those fears, and deepening them to a
sense of approaching judgment. For, after all, it is not the rumoured
coming of the Scythian hordes that impels him to break silence. It is
his consuming sense of the moral degeneracy, the spiritual degradation
of his countrymen, which flames forth into burning utterance. _Whom
shall I address and adjure, that they may hear? Lo, their ear is
uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken; lo, the word of Iahvah hath
become to them a reproach; they delight not therein. And of the fury of
Iahvah I am full; I am weary of holding it in._ Then the other voice in
his heart answers: _Pour thou it forth upon the child in the street,
and upon the company of young men together!_ (vi. 10, 11). It is the
righteous indignation of an offended God that wells up from his heart,
and overflows at his lips, and cries woe, irremediable woe, upon the
land he loves better than his own life.

He begins with encouragement and persuasion, but his tone soon changes
to denunciation and despair (iv. 3 _sq._). _Thus hath Iahvah said
to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, Break you up the fallows, and
sow not into thorns! Circumcise yourselves to Iahvah, and remove
the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah, and ye inhabitants of
Jerusalem! lest My fury come forth like fire, and burn with none to
quench it, because of the evil of your doings._ Clothed with the
Spirit, as Semitic speech might express it, his whole soul enveloped
in a garment of heavenly light--a magical garment whose virtues impart
new force as well as new light--the prophet sees straight to the heart
of things, and estimates with God-given certainty the real state of
his people, and the moral worth of their seeming repentance. The first
measures of Josiah's reforming zeal have been inaugurated; at least
within the limits of the capital, idolatry in its coarser and more
repellent forms has been suppressed; there is a shew of return to
the God of Israel. But the popular heart is still wedded to the old
sanctuaries, and the old sensuous rites of Canaan; and, worse than
this, the priests and prophets, whose centre of influence was the
one great sanctuary of the Book of the Law, the temple at Jerusalem,
have simply taken advantage of the religious reformation for their
own purposes of selfish aggrandisement. _From the youngest to the
oldest of them, they all ply the trade of greed; and from prophet to
priest, they all practice lying. And they have repaired the ruin of_
[_the daughter_] _of my people in light fashion, saying, It is well,
it is well! though it be not well_ (vi. 13, 14). The doctrine of the
one legitimate sanctuary, taught with disinterested earnestness by
the disciples of Isaiah, and enforced by that logic of events which
had demonstrated the feebleness of the local holy places before the
Assyrian destroyers, had now come to be recognised as a convenient
buttress of the private gains of the Jerusalem priesthood and the
venal prophets who supported their authority. The strong current of
national reform had been utilized for the driving of their private
machinery; and the sole outcome of the self-denying efforts and
sufferings of the past appeared to be the enrichment of these grasping
and unscrupulous worldlings who sat, like an incubus, upon the heart
of the national church. So long as money flowed steadily into their
coffers, they were eager enough to reassure the doubting, and to
dispel all misgivings by their deceitful oracle that all was well. So
long as the sacrifices, the principal source of the priestly revenue,
abounded, and the festivals ran their yearly round, they affirmed
that Iahweh was satisfied, and that no harm could befal the people
of His care. This trading in things Divine, to the utter neglect of
the higher obligations of the moral law, was simply appalling to the
sensitive conscience of the true prophet of that degenerate age. _A
strange and a startling thing it is, that is come to pass in the land.
The prophets, they have prophesied in the Lie, and the priests, they
tyrannise under their direction; and My people, they love it thus;
and what will ye do for the issue thereof?_ (v. 30, 31.) For such
facts must have an issue; and the present moral and spiritual ruin of
the nation points with certainty to impending ruin in the material
and political sphere. The two things go together; you cannot have a
decline of faith, a decay of true religion, and permanent outward
prosperity; _that_ issue is incompatible with the eternal laws which
regulate the life and progress of humanity. One sits in the heavens,
over all things from the beginning, to whom all stated worship is a
hideous offence when accompanied by hypocrisy and impurity and fraud
and violence in the ordinary relations of life. _What good to me is
incense that cometh from Sheba, and the choice calamus from a far
country? your burnt offerings_ (holocausts) _are not acceptable, and
your sacrifices are not sweet unto Me._ Instead of purchasing safety,
they will ensure perdition: _Therefore thus hath Iahvah said: Lo, I am
about to lay for this people stumblingblocks, and they shall stumble
upon them, fathers and sons together, a neighbour and his friend; and
they shall perish_ (vi. 20 _sq._).

In the early days of reform, indeed, Jeremiah himself appears to have
shared in the sanguine views associated with a revival of suspended
orthodoxy. The tidings of imminent danger were a surprise to him, as
to the zealous worshippers who thronged the courts of the temple. So
then, after all, "the burning anger of Iahvah was not turned away"
by the outward tokens of penitence, by the lavish gifts of devotion;
this unexpected and terrifying rumour was a call for the resumption
of the garb of mourning and for the renewal of those public fasts
which had marked the initial stages of reformation (iv. 8). The
astonishment and the disappointment of the man assert themselves
against the inspiration of the prophet, when, contemplating the
helpless bewilderment of kings and princes, and the stupefaction of
priests and prophets in face of the national calamities, he breaks out
into remonstrance with God. _And I said, Alas, O Lord Iahvah! of a
truth, Thou hast utterly beguiled this people and Jerusalem, saying,
It shall be well with you; whereas the sword will reach to the life._
The allusion is to the promises contained in the Book of the Law,
the reading of which had so powerfully conduced to the movement for
reform. That book had been the text of the prophet-preachers, who were
most active in that work; and the influence of its ideas and language
upon Jeremiah himself is apparent in all his early discourses.

The prophet's faith, however, was too deeply rooted to be more than
momentarily shaken; and it soon told him that the evil tidings were
evidence not of unfaithfulness or caprice in Iahvah, but of the
hypocrisy and corruption of Israel. With this conviction upon him, he
implores the populace of the capital to substitute an inward and real
for an outward and delusive purification. _Break up the fallows!_ Do
not dream that any adequate reformation can be superinduced upon the
mere surface of life: _Sow not among thorns!_ Do not for one moment
believe that the word of God can take root and bear fruit in the hard
soil of a heart that desires only to be secured in the possession of
present enjoyments, in immunity for self-indulgence, covetousness, and
oppression of the poor. _Wash thine heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem!
that thou mayst be saved. How long shall the schemings of thy folly
lodge within thee? For hark! one declareth from Dan, and proclaimeth
folly from the hills of Ephraim_ (iv. 14 _sq._). The "folly" (_'awen_)
is the foolish hankering after the gods which are nothing in the world
but a reflexion of the diseased fancy of their worshippers; for it is
always true that man makes his god in his own image, when he _does_ make
him, and does not receive the knowledge of him by revelation. It was
a folly inveterate and, as it would seem, hereditary in Israel, going
back to the times of the Judges, and recalling the story of Micah the
Ephraimite and the Danites who stole his images. That ancient sin still
cried to heaven for vengeance; for the apostatizing tendency, which it
exemplified, was still active in the heart of Israel.[26] The nation had
"rebelled against" the Lord, for it was foolish and had never really
known Him; the people were silly children, and lacked insight; skilled
only in doing wrong, and ignorant of the way to do right (iv. 22). Like
the things they worshipped, they had eyes, but saw not; they had ears,
but heard not. Enslaved to the empty terrors of their own imaginations,
they, who cowered before dumb idols, stood untrembling in the awful
presence of Him whose laws restrained the ocean within due limits, and
upon whose sovereign will the fall of the rain and increase of the field
depended (v. 21-24). The popular blindness to the claims of the true
religion, to the inalienable rights of the God of Israel, involved a
corresponding and ever-increasing blindness to the claims of universal
morality, to the rights of man. Competent observers have often called
attention to the remarkable influence exercised by the lower forms of
heathenism in blunting the moral sense; and this influence was fully
illustrated in the case of Jeremiah's contemporaries. So complete,
so universal was the national decline that it seemed impossible to
find one good man within the bounds of the capital. Every aim in life
found illustration in those gay, crowded streets, in the bazaars, in
the palaces, in the places by the gate where law was administered,
except the aim of just and righteous and merciful dealing with one's
neighbour. God was ignored or misconceived of, and therefore man was
wronged and oppressed. Perjury, even in the Name of the God of Israel,
whose eyes regard faithfulness and sincerity, and whose favour is not
to be won by professions and presents; a self-hardening against both
Divine chastisement and prophetic admonition; a fatal inclination to
the seductions of Canaanite worship and the violations of the moral
law, which that worship permitted and even encouraged as pleasing to
the gods; these vices characterized the entire population of Jerusalem
in that dark period. _Run ye to and fro in the streets of Jerusalem,
and see now, and know, and seek ye in the broad places thereof, if ye
can find a man, if indeed there be one that doeth justice, that seeketh
sincerity; that I may pardon her. And if they say, By the life of
Iahvah! even so they swear falsely. Iahvah, are not thine eyes toward
sincerity? Thou smotest them, and they trembled not; Thou consumedst
them, they refused to receive instruction; they made their faces harder
than a rock, they refused to repent. And for me, I said_ (methought),
_These are but poor folk; they behave foolishly, because they know not
the way of Iahvah, the justice_ (ver. 1) _of their God: let me betake
myself to the great, and speak with them; for they at least know the
way of Iahvah, the justice of their God: but these with one consent had
broken the yoke, had burst the bonds in sunder_ (v. 1-5).

Then, as now, the debasement of the standard of life among the
ruling classes was a far more threatening symptom of danger to the
commonwealth than laxity of principle among the masses, who had never
enjoyed the higher knowledge and more thorough training which wealth
and rank, as a matter of course, confer. If the crew turn drunken and
mutinous, the ship is in unquestionable peril; but if they who have
the guidance of the vessel in their hands, follow the vices of those
whom they should command and control, wreck and ruin are assured.

The profligacy allowed by heathenism, against which the prophets cried
in vain, is forcibly depicted in the words: _Why should I pardon
thee? Thy sons have forsaken Me, and have sworn by them that are no
gods: though I had bound them_ (to Me) _by oath,[27] they committed_
(spiritual) _adultery, and into the house of the Fornicatress_ (the
idol's temple, where the harlot priestess sat for hire) _they would
flock. Stallions roaming at large were they; neighing each to his
neighbour's wife. Shall I not punish such offences, saith Iahvah;
and shall not My soul avenge herself on such a nation as this?_ The
cynical contempt of justice, the fraud and violence of those who were
in haste to become rich, are set forth in the following: _Among My
people are found godless men; one watcheth, as birdcatchers lurk; they
have set the trap, they catch men. Like a cage filled with birds, so
are their houses filled with fraud: therefore they are become great,
and have amassed wealth. They are become fat, they are sleek; also
they pass over_ (Isa. xl. 27) _cases_ (Ex. xxii. 9, xxiv. 14; cf. also
1 Sam. x. 2) _of wickedness--neglect to judge heinous crimes; the
cause they judge not, the cause of the fatherless, to make it succeed;
and the right of the needy they vindicate not_ (v. 26-28).

_She is the city doomed to be punished! she is all oppression
within. As a spring poureth forth its waters, so she poureth forth
her wickedness; violence and oppression resound in her; before Me
continually is_ _sickness and wounds_ (vi. 6, 7). There would seem
to be no hope for such a people and such a city. The prophet, indeed,
cannot forget the claims of kindred, the thousand ties of blood and
feeling that bind him to this perverse and sinful nation. Thrice,
even in this dark forecast of destruction, he mitigates severity with
the promise, _yet will I not make a full end_. The door is still left
open, on the chance that some at least may be won to penitence. But
the chance was small. The difficulty was, and the prophet's yearning
tenderness towards his people could not blind him to the fact, that
all the lessons of God's providence were lost upon this reprobate
race: _They have belied the Lord, and said, it is not He; neither
shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword and famine._ The
prophets, they insisted, were wrong both in the significance which
they attributed to occasional calamities, and in the disasters, which
they announced as imminent: _The prophets will become wind, and the
Word of God is not in them; so will it turn out with them_. It was,
therefore, wholly futile to appeal to their better judgment against
themselves: _Thus said Iahvah, Stop on the ways, and consider, and ask
after the eternal paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and
find rest for your soul: and they said, We will not walk therein. And
I will set over you watchmen_ (the prophets); _hearken ye to the call
of the trumpet!_ (the warning note of prophecy) _and they said We will
not hearken._ From such wilful hardness and impenitence, disdaining
correction and despising reproof, God appeals to the heathen
themselves, and to the dumb earth, to attest the justice of His
sentence of destruction against this people: _Therefore, hear, O ye
nations, and know, and testify what is among_ _them! Hear, O earth!
Lo, I am about to bring evil upon this people, the fruit of their own
devisings; for unto My words they have not hearkened, and as for Mine
instruction, they have rejected it._ Their doom was inevitable, for it
was the natural and necessary consequence of their own doings: _Thine
own way and thine Own deeds have brought about these evils for thee;
this is thine own evil; verily, it is bitter, verily, it reacheth unto
thine heart_. The discourse ends with a despairing glance at the moral
reprobation of Israel. _An assayer did I make thee among My people,
a refiner_ (reading _mec̰ārēf_, Mal. iii. 2, 3), _that thou mightest
know and assay their kind_ (lit. _way_). Jeremiah's call had been to
"sit as a refiner and purifier of silver" in the name of his God: in
other words, to separate the good elements from the bad in Israel,
and to gather around himself the nucleus of a people "prepared for
Iahvah." But his work had been vain. In vain had the prophetic fire
burnt within him; in vain had the vehemency of the spirit fanned the
flame; the Divine word--that solvent of hearts--had been expended
in vain; no good metal could come of an ore so utterly base. _They
are all the worst_ (1 Ki. xx. 43) _of rebels_ (or, _deserters to the
rebels_), _going about with slander; they are brass and iron; they all
deal corruptly.[28] The bellows blow; the lead_ (used for fining the
ore) _is consumed by the fire; in vain do they go on refining_ (or,
_does the refiner refine_[29]); _and the wicked are not separated.
Refuse silver are they called, for Iahvah hath refused them._

FOOTNOTES:

[25] The modern singer has well caught the echo of this ancient strain.

    "Wilt thou cover thine hair with gold, and with silver thy feet?
     Hast thou taken the purple to fold thee, and made thy mouth sweet?
     Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee shall hate:
     Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate."

                                              _Atalanta in Calydon._

[26] The second _'awen_, however, probably means "trouble," "calamity,"
as in Hab. iii. 7. The Sept. renders πόνος, and this agrees with the
mention of Dan in viii. 16. As Ewald puts it, "from the north of
Palestine the misery that is coming from the further north is already
being proclaimed to all the nations in the south (vi. 18)."

[27] With a different point: "When I had fed them to the full" (cf.
Hos. xiii. 6).

[28] This term--_mashchîthîm_--is certainly not the plur. of the
_mashchîth_, "pitfall" or "trap," of v. 26. The meaning is the same as
in Isa. i. 4. The original force of the root _shachath_ is seen in the
Assyrian _shachâtu_, "to fall down."

[29] The form--_c̰ārōf_--is like _bāchōn_, "assayer," in ver. 27.




                                   V.

                      _POPULAR AND TRUE RELIGION._

                        JEREMIAH vii.-x., xxvi.


In the four chapters which we are now to consider we have what is
plainly a finished whole. The only possible exception (x. 1-16)
shall be considered in its place. The historical occasion of the
introductory prophecy (vii. 1-15), and the immediate effect of its
delivery, are recorded at length in the twenty-sixth chapter of
the book, so that in this instance we are happily not left to the
uncertainties of conjecture. We are there told that it was _in the
beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah_,
that Jeremiah received the command to stand in the fore-court of
Iahvah's house, and to declare _to all the cities of Judah that were
come to worship_ there, that unless they repented and gave ear to
Iahvah's servants the prophets, He would make the temple like Shiloh,
and Jerusalem itself a curse to all the nations of the earth. The
substance of the oracle is there given in briefer form than here, as
was natural, where the writer's object was principally to relate the
issue of it as it affected himself. In neither case is it probable
that we have a verbatim report of what was actually said, though the
leading thoughts of his address are, no doubt, faithfully recorded by
the prophet in the more elaborate composition (chap. vii.). Trifling
variations between the two accounts must not, therefore, be pressed.

Internal evidence suggests that this oracle was delivered at a time
of grave public anxiety, such as marked the troubled period after
the death of Josiah, and the early years of Jehoiakim. _All Judah,
or all the cities of Judah_ (xxvi. 2), that is to say, the people of
the country towns as well as the citizens of Jerusalem, were crowding
into the temple to supplicate their God (vii. 2). This indicates an
extraordinary occasion, a national emergency affecting all alike.
Probably a public fast and humiliation had been ordered by the
authorities, on the reception of some threatening news of invasion. "The
opening paragraphs of the address are marked by a tone of controlled
earnestness, by an unadorned plainness of statement, without passion,
without exclamation, apostrophe, or rhetorical device of any kind;
which betokens the presence of a danger which spoke too audibly to the
general ear to require artificial heightening in the statement of it.
The position of affairs spoke for itself" (Hitzig). The very words
with which the prophet opens his message, _Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth,
the God of Israel, Make good your ways and your doings, that I may
cause you to dwell_ (_permanently_) _in this place!_ (ver. 3, cf. ver.
7) prove that the anxiety which agitated the popular heart and drove
it to seek consolation in religious observances, was an anxiety about
their political stability, about the permanence of their possession of
the fair land of promise. The use of the expression _Iahvah Sabaoth_
"Iahvah (the God) of Hosts" is also significant, as indicating that
war was what the nation feared; while the prophet reminds them thus
that all earthly powers, even the armies of heathen invaders, are
controlled and directed by the God of Israel for His own sovereign
purposes. A particular crisis is further suggested by the warning:
_Trust ye not to the lying words, 'The Temple of Iahvah, the Temple of
Iahvah, the Temple of Iahvah, is this!'_ The fanatical confidence in the
inviolability of the temple, which Jeremiah thus deprecates, implies
a time of public danger. A hundred years before this time the temple
and the city had really come through a period of the gravest peril,
justifying in the most palpable and unexpected manner the assurances of
the prophet Isaiah. This was remembered now, when another crisis seemed
imminent, another trial of strength between the God of Israel and the
gods of the heathen. Only part of the prophetic teachings of Isaiah
had rooted itself in the popular mind--the part most agreeable to it.
The sacrosanct inviolability of the temple, and of Jerusalem for its
sake, was an idea readily appropriated and eagerly cherished. It was
forgotten that all depended on the will and purposes of Iahvah himself;
that the heathen might be the instruments with which He executed his
designs, and that an invasion of Judah might mean, not an approaching
trial of strength between His omnipotence and the impotency of the false
gods, but the judicial outpouring of His righteous wrath upon His own
rebellious people.

Jeremiah, therefore, affirms that the popular confidence is
ill-founded; that his countrymen are lulled in a false security; and
he enforces his point, by a plain exposure of the flagrant offences,
which render their worship a mockery of God.

Again, it may be supposed that the startling word, _Add your
burnt-offerings to your_ (ordinary) _offerings, and eat the flesh_ (_of
them_) (vii. 21), implies a time of unusual activity in the matter of
honouring the God of Israel with the more costly offerings of which
the worshippers did not partake, but which were wholly consumed on the
altar; which fact also might point to a season of special danger.

And, lastly, the references to taking refuge behind the walls of
'defenced cities' (viii. 14; x. 17), as we know that the Rechabites and
doubtless most of the rural populace took refuge in Jerusalem on the
approach of the third and last Chaldean expedition, seem to prove that
the occasion of the prophecy was the first Chaldean invasion, which
ended in the submission of Jehoiakim to the yoke of Babylon (2 Kings
xxiv. 1). Already the northern frontier had experienced the destructive
onslaught of the invaders, and rumour announced that they might soon be
expected to arrive before the walls of Jerusalem (viii. 16, 17).

The only other historical occasion which can be suggested with any
plausibility is the Scythian invasion of Syria-Palestine, to which
the previous discourse was assigned. This would fix the date of the
prophecy at some point between the thirteenth and the eighteenth
years of Josiah (B.C. 629-624). But the arguments for this view do
not seem to be very strong in themselves, and they certainly do not
explain the essential identity of the oracle summarized in chap.
xxvi. 1-6, with that of vii. 1-15. The "undisguised references to the
prevalence of idolatry in Jerusalem itself (vii. 17; cf. 30, 31), and
the unwillingness of the people to listen to the prophet's teaching,
(vii. 27)," are quite as well accounted for by supposing a religious
or rather an irreligious reaction under Jehoiakim--which is every way
probable considering the bad character of that king (2 Kings xxiii.
37; Jer. xxii. 13 _sqq._), and the serious blow inflicted upon the
reforming party by the death of Josiah; as by assuming that the
prophecy belongs to the years before the extirpation of idolatry in
the eighteenth year of the latter sovereign.

And now let us take a rapid glance at the salient points of this
remarkable utterance. The people are standing in the outer court,
with their faces turned toward the court of the priests, in which
stood the holy house itself (Ps. v. 7). The prophetic speaker stands
facing them, "in the gate of the Lord's house," the entry of the
upper or inner court, the place whence Baruch was afterwards to read
another of his oracles to the people (xxxvi. 10). Standing here, as
it were between his audience and the throne of Iahvah, Jeremiah acts
as visible mediator between them and their God. His message to the
worshippers who throng the courts of Iahvah's sanctuary is not one of
approval. He does not congratulate them upon their manifest devotion,
upon the munificence of their offerings, upon their ungrudging and
unstinted readiness to meet an unceasing drain upon their means. His
message is a surprise, a shock to their self-satisfaction, an alarm
to their slumbering consciences, a menace of wrath and destruction
upon them and their holy place. His very first word is calculated to
startle their self-righteousness, their misplaced faith in the merit
of their worship and service. _Amend your ways and your doings!_
Where was the need of amendment? they might ask. Were they not at
that moment engaged in a function most grateful to Iahvah? Were they
not keeping the law of the sacrifices, and were not the Levitical
priesthood ministering in their order, and receiving their due share
of the offerings which poured into the temple day by day? Was not all
this honour enough to satisfy the most exacting of deities? Perhaps
it was, had the deity in question been merely as one of the gods of
Canaan. So much lip-service, so many sacrifices and festivals, so
much joyous revelling in the sanctuary, might be supposed to have
sufficiently appeased one of the common Baals, those half-womanish
phantoms of deity whose delight was imagined to be in feasting and
debauchery. Nay, so much zeal might have propitiated the savage heart
of a Molech. But the God of Israel was not as these, nor one of these;
though His ancient people were too apt to conceive thus of Him, and
certain modern critics have unconsciously followed in their wake.

Let us see what it was that called so loudly for amendment, and then we
may become more fully aware of the gulf that divided the God of Israel
from the idols of Canaan, and His service from all other service. It is
important to keep this radical difference steadily before our minds, and
to deepen the impression of it, in days when the effort is made by every
means to confuse Iahvah with the gods of heathendom, and to rank the
religion of Israel with the lower surrounding systems.

Jeremiah accuses his countrymen of flagrant transgression of the
universal laws of morality. Theft, murder, adultery, perjury, fraud
and covetousness, slander and lying and treachery (vii. 9, ix. 3-8),
are charged upon these zealous worshippers by a man who lived amongst
them, and knew them well, and could be contradicted at once if his
charges were false.

He tells them plainly that, in virtue of their frequenting it, the
temple is become a den of robbers.

And this trampling upon the common rights of man has its counterpart
and its climax in treason against God, in _burning incense to the
Baal, and walking after other gods whom they know not_ (vii. 9); in
an open and shameless attempt to combine the worship of the God who
had from the outset revealed Himself to their prophets as a "jealous,"
_i.e._, an exclusive God, with the worship of shadows who had not
revealed themselves at all, and could not be "known," because devoid
of all character and real existence. They thus ignored the ancient
covenant which had constituted them a nation (vii. 23).

In the cities of Judah, in the streets of the very capital, the
cultus of Ashtōreth, the Queen of Heaven, the voluptuous Canaanite
goddess of love and dalliance, was busily practised by whole families
together, in deadly provocation of the God of Israel. The first and
great commandment said, Thou shalt love Iahvah thy God, and Him only
shalt thou serve. And they loved and served and followed and sought
after and worshipped the sun and the moon and the host of heaven,
the objects adored by the nation that was so soon to enslave them
(viii. 2). Not only did a worldly, covetous and sensual priesthood
connive in the restoration of the old superstitions which associated
other gods with Iahvah, and set up idol symbols and altars within the
precincts of His temple, as Manasseh had done (2 Kings xxi. 4-5);
they went further than this in their "syncretism," or rather in their
perversity, their spiritual blindness, their wilful misconception of
the God revealed to their fathers. They actually confounded HIM--the
Lord _who exercised loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, and
delighted in_ the exhibition of these qualities by His worshippers
(ix. 24)--with the dark and cruel sun-god of the Ammonites. They
_rebuilt the high-places of the Tophet, in the valley of ben
Hinnom_, on the north side of Jerusalem, _to burn their sons and
their daughters in the fire_; if by means so revolting to natural
affection they might win back the favour of heaven--means which
Iahvah _commanded not, neither came they into His mind_ (vii. 31).
Such fearful and desperate expedients were doubtless first suggested
by the false prophets and priests in the times of national adversity
under king Manasseh. They harmonized only too well with the despair
of a people, who saw in a long succession of political disasters the
token of Iahvah's unforgiving wrath. That these dreadful rites were
not a "survival" in Israel, seems to follow from the horror which
they excited in the allied armies of the two kingdoms, when the king
of Moab, in the extremity of the siege, offered his eldest son as
a burnt-offering on the wall of his capital before the eyes of the
besiegers. So appalled were the Israelite forces by this spectacle
of a father's despair, that they at once raised the blockade, and
retreated homeward (2 Kings iii. 27). It is probable, then, that the
darker and bloodier aspects of heathen worship were of only recent
appearance among the Hebrews, and that the rites of Molech had not
been at all frequent or familiar, until the long and harassing
conflict with Assyria broke the national spirit and inclined the
people, in their trouble, to welcome the suggestion that costlier
sacrifices were demanded, if Iahvah was to be propitiated and His
wrath appeased. Such things were not done, apparently, in Jeremiah's
time; he mentions them as the crown of the nation's past offences; as
sins that still cried to heaven for vengeance, and would surely entail
it, because the same spirit of idolatry which had culminated in these
excesses, still lived and was active in the popular heart. It is the
persistence in sins of the same character which involves our drinking
to the dregs the cup of punishment for the guilty past. The dark
catalogue of forgotten offences witnesses against us before the Unseen
Judge, and is only obliterated by the tears of a true repentance, and
by the new evidence of a change of heart and life. Then, as in some
palimpsest, the new record covers and conceals the old; and it is
only if we fatally relapse, that the erased writing of our misdeeds
becomes visible again before the eye of Heaven. Perhaps also the
prophet mentions these abominations because at the time he saw around
him unequivocal tendencies to the renewal of them. Under the patronage
or with the connivance of the wicked king Jehoiakim, the reactionary
party may have begun to set up again the altars thrown down by Josiah,
while their religious leaders advocated both by speech and writing a
return to the abolished cultus. At all events, this supposition gives
special point to the emphatic assertion of Jeremiah, that Iahvah had
_not_ commanded nor even thought of such hideous rites. The reference
to the false labours of the scribes (chap. viii. 8) lends colour to
this view. It may be that some of the interpreters of the sacred law
actually anticipated certain writers of our own day, in putting this
terrible gloss upon the precept, _The firstborn of thy sons shalt thou
give unto Me_ (Ex. xxii. 29).

The people of Judah were misled, but they were willingly misled. When
Jeremiah declares to them, _Lo, ye are trusting, for your part, upon
the words of delusion, so that ye gain no good!_ (vii. 8) it is perhaps
not so much the smooth prophecies of the false prophets as the fatal
attitude of the popular mind, out of which those misleading oracles
grew, and which in turn they aggravated, that the speaker deprecates.
He warns them that an absolute trust in the _præsentia Numinis_ is
delusive; a trust, cherished like theirs independently of the condition
of its justification, viz., a walk pleasing to God. _What! will ye
break all My laws, and then come and stand with polluted hands before
Me in this house_ (Isa. i. 15), _which is named after Me 'Iahvah's
House'_, (Isa. iv. 1), _and reassure yourselves with the thought, We
are absolved from the consequences of all these abominations?_ (vv.
9-10. Lit. _We are saved, rescued, secured, with regard to having done
all these abominations_: cf. ii. 35. But perhaps, with Ewald, we should
point the Hebrew term differently, and read, "Save us!" _to do all these
abominations_, as if that were the express object of their petition,
which would really ensue, if their prayer were granted: a fine irony.
For the form of the verb, cf. Ezek. xiv. 14.) They thought their formal
devotions were more than enough to counterbalance any breaches of the
decalogue; they laid that flattering unction to their souls. They could
make it up with God for setting His moral law at nought. It was merely
a question of compensation. They did not see that the moral law is as
immutable as laws physical; and that the consequences of violating or
keeping it are as inseparable from it as pain from a blow, or death
from poison. They did not see that the moral law is simply the law of
man's health and wealth, and that the transgression of it is sorrow and
suffering and death.

"If men like you," argues the prophet, "dare to tread these courts, it
must be because you believe it a proper thing to do. But that belief
implies that you hold the temple to be something other than what it
really is; that you see no incongruity in making the House of Iahvah
a meeting-place of murderers (_spelunca latronum_: Matt. xxi. 13).
That you have yourselves made it, in the full view of Iahvah, whose
seeing does not rest there, but involves results, such as the present
crisis of public affairs; the national danger is proof that He has
seen your heinous misdoings." For Iahvah's seeing brings a vindication
of right, and vengeance upon evil (2 Chron. xxiv. 22; Ex. iii. 7). He
is the watchman that never slumbers nor sleeps; the eternal Judge,
Who ever upholds the law of righteousness in the affairs of man, nor
suffers the slightest infringement of that law to go unpunished. And
this unceasing watchfulness, this perpetual dispensation of justice,
is really a manifestation of Divine mercy; for the purpose of it is to
save the human race from self-destruction, and to raise it ever higher
in the scale of true well-being, which essentially consists in the
knowledge of God and obedience to His laws.

Jeremiah gives his audience further ground for conviction. He points
to a striking instance in which conduct like theirs had involved
results such as his warning holds before them. He establishes the
probability of chastisement by an historical parallel. He offers
them, so to speak, ocular demonstration of his doctrine. _I also,
lo, I have seen, saith Iahvah!_ Your eyes are fixed on the temple;
so are Mine, but in a different way. You see a national palladium;
_I_ see a desecrated sanctuary, a shrine polluted and profaned. This
distinction between God's view and yours is certain: _for, go ye now
to My place which was at Shiloh, where I caused My Name to abide at
the outset_ (of your settlement in Canaan); _and see the thing that I
have done to it, because of the wickedness of My people Israel_ (the
northern kingdom). _There_ is the proof that Iahvah seeth not as man
seeth; there, in that dismantled ruin, in that historic sanctuary
of the more powerful kingdom of Ephraim, once visited by thousands
of worshippers like Jerusalem to-day, now deserted and desolate, a
monument of Divine wrath.

The reference is not to the tabernacle, the sacred Tent of the
Wanderings, which was first set up at Nob (1 Sam. xxi. 22) and then
removed to Gibeon (2 Chron. i. 3), but obviously to a building more
or less like the temple, though less magnificent. The place and its
sanctuary had doubtless been ruined in the great catastrophe, when the
kingdom of Samaria fell before the power of Assyria (721 B.C.).

In the following words (vv. 13-15) the example is applied. _And
now_--stating the conclusion--_because of your having done all these
deeds_ (_saith Iahvah_, LXX. omits), _and because I spoke unto you_
(_early and late_, LXX. omits), _and ye hearkened not, and I called
you and ye answered not_ (Prov. i. 24): _I will do unto the house upon
which My Name is called, wherein ye are trusting, and unto the place
which I gave to you and to your fathers--as I did unto Shiloh._

Some might think that if the city fell, the holy house would escape,
as was thought by many like-minded fanatics when Jerusalem was
beleaguered by the Roman armies seven centuries later: but Jeremiah
declares that the blow will fall upon both alike; and to give greater
force to his words, he makes the judgment begin at the house of God.
(The Hebrew reader will note the dramatic effect of the disposition of
the accents. The principal pause is placed upon the word "fathers,"
and the reader is to halt in momentary suspense upon that word,
before he utters the awful three which close the verse: _as I--did
to--Shiloh_. The Massorets were masters of this kind of emphasis.)

_And I will cast you away from My Presence, as I cast_ (_all_: LXX.
omits[30]) _your kinsfolk, all the posterity of Ephraim_ (2 Kings
xvii. 20). Away from My Presence: far beyond the bounds of that holy
land where I have revealed Myself to priests and prophets, and where
My sanctuary stands; into a land where heathenism reigns, and the
knowledge of God is not; into the dark places of the earth, that
lie under the blighting shadow of superstition, and are enveloped
in the moral midnight of idolatry. _Projiciam vos a facie mea._ The
knowledge and love of God--heart and mind ruled by the sense of purity
and tenderness and truth and right united in an Ineffable Person,
and enthroned upon the summit of the universe--these are light and
life for man; where these are, there is His Presence. They who are
so endowed behold the face of God, in Whom is no darkness at all.
Where these spiritual endowments are non-existent; where mere power,
or superhuman force, is the highest thought of God to which man has
attained; where there is no clear sense of the essential holiness and
love of the Divine Nature; there the world of man lies in darkness
that may be felt; there bloody rites prevail; there harsh oppression
and shameless vices reign: for the dark places of the earth are full
of the habitations of cruelty.

_And thou, pray thou not for this people_ (xviii. 20), _and lift not
up for them outcry nor prayer, and urge not Me, for I hear thee not.
Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets
of Jerusalem? The children gather sticks, and the fathers light the
fire, and the women knead dough, to make sacred buns_ (xliv. 19) _for
the Queen of Heaven, and to pour libations to other gods, in order to
grieve Me_ (Deut. xxxii. 16, 21). _Is it Me that they grieve? saith
Iahvah; is it not themselves_ (rather), _in regard to the shame of
their own faces_ (16-19).

From one point of view, all human conduct may be said to be
_indifferent_ to God; He is αὐτάρκης, self-sufficing, and needs not
our praises, our love, our obedience, any more than He needed the
temple ritual and the sacrifices of bulls and goats. Man can neither
benefit nor injure God; he can only affect his own fortunes in this
world and the next, by rebellion against the laws upon which his
welfare depends, or by a careful observance of them. In this sense,
it is true that wilful idolatry, that treason against God, does not
"provoke" or "grieve" the Immutable One. Men do such things to their
own sole hurt, to the shame of their own faces: that is, the punishment
will be the painful realization of the utter groundlessness of their
confidence, of the folly of their false trust; the mortification of
disillusion, when it is too late. That Jeremiah should have expressed
himself thus is sufficient answer to those who pretend that the habitual
anthropomorphism of the prophetic discourses is anything more than a
mere accident of language and an accommodation to ordinary style.

In another sense, of course, it is profoundly true to say that human
sin provokes and grieves the Lord. God is Love; and love may be pained
to its depths by the fault of the beloved, and stirred to holy
indignation at the disclosure of utter unworthiness and ingratitude.
Something corresponding to these emotions of man may be ascribed, with
all reverence, to the Inscrutable Being who creates man "in His own
image," that is, endowed with faculties capable of aspiring towards
_Him_, and receiving the knowledge of His being and character.

_Pray not thou for this people ... for I hear thee not!_ Jeremiah was
wont to intercede for his people (xi. 14, xviii. 20, xv. 1; cf. 1
Sam. xii. 23). The deep pathos which marks his style, the minor key
in which almost all his public utterances are pitched, proves that
the fate which he saw impending over his country, grieved him to the
heart. "Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought;"
and this is eminently true of Jeremiah. A profound melancholy had
fallen like a cloud upon his soul; he had seen the future, fraught as
it was with suffering and sorrow, despair and overthrow, slaughter and
bitter servitude; a picture in which images of terror crowded one upon
another, under a darkened sky, from which no ray of blessed hope shot
forth, but only the lightnings of wrath and extermination. Doubtless
his prayers were frequent, alive with feeling, urgent, imploring,
full of the convulsive energy of expiring hope. But in the midst
of his strong crying and tears, there arose from the depths of his
consciousness the conviction that all was in vain. _Pray not thou for
this people, for I will not hear thee._ The thought stood before him,
sharp and clear as a command; the unuttered sound of it rang in his
ears, like the voice of a destroying angel, a messenger of doom, calm
as despair, sure as fate. He knew it was the voice of God.

In the history of nations as in the lives of individuals there are
times when repentance, even if possible, would be too late to avert
the evils which long periods of misdoing have called from the abyss to
do their penal and retributive work. Once the dike is undermined, no
power on earth can hold back the flood of waters from the defenceless
lands beneath. And when a nation's sins have penetrated and poisoned
all social and political relations, and corrupted the very fountains of
life, you cannot avert the flood of ruin that must come, to sweep away
the tainted mass of spoiled humanity; you cannot avert the storm that
must break to purify the air, and make it fit for men to breathe again.

_Therefore_--because of the national unfaithfulness--_thus said the
Lord Iahvah, Lo, Mine anger and My fury are being poured out toward
this place--upon the men, and upon the cattle, and upon the trees of
the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it will burn, and not
be quenched!_ (vii. 20). The havoc wrought by war, the harrying and
slaying of man and beast, the felling of fruit trees and firing of
the vineyards, are intended; but not so as to exclude the ravages of
pestilence and droughts (chap. xiv.) and famine. All these evils are
manifestations of the wrath of Iahvah. Cattle and trees and "the fruit
of the ground," _i.e._ of the cornlands and vineyards, are to share in
the general destruction (cf. Hos. iv. 3), not, of course, as partakers
of man's guilt, but only by way of aggravating his punishment. The
final phrase is worthy of consideration, because of its bearing upon
other passages. _It will burn and not be quenched_, or _it will burn
unquenchably_. The meaning is not that the Divine wrath once kindled
will go on burning for ever; but that once kindled, no human or other
power will be able to extinguish it, until it has accomplished its
appointed work of destruction.

_Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth, the God of Israel: Your holocausts add
ye to your common sacrifices, and eat ye flesh!_ that is, Eat flesh
in abundance, eat your fill of it! Stint not yourselves by devoting
any portion of your offerings wholly to Me. I am as indifferent to
your "burnt-offerings," your more costly and splendid gifts, as to
the ordinary sacrifices, over which you feast and make merry with
your friends (1 Sam. i. 4, 13). The holocausts which you are now
burning on the altar before Me will not avail to alter My settled
purpose. _For I spake not with your fathers, nor commanded them, in
the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, concerning
matters of holocaust and sacrifice, but this matter commanded I
them, "Hearken ye unto My voice, so become I God to you, and you--ye
shall become to Me a people; and walk ye in all the way that I shall
command you, that it may go well with you!"_ (22-23) cf. Deut. vi.
3. Those who believe that the entire priestly legislation as we now
have it in the Pentateuch is the work of Moses, may be content to
find in this passage of Jeremiah no more than an extreme antithetical
expression of the truth that to obey is better than sacrifice. There
can be no question that from the outset of its history, Israel, in
common with all the Semitic nations, gave outward expression to its
religious ideas in the form of animal sacrifice. Moses cannot have
originated the institution, he found it already in vogue, though he
may have regulated the details of it. Even in the Pentateuch, the
term "sacrifice" is nowhere explained; the general understanding of
the meaning of it is taken for granted (see Ex. xii. 27, xxiii. 18).
Religious customs are of immemorial use, and it is impossible in most
cases to specify the period of their origin. But while it is certain
that the institution of sacrifice was of extreme antiquity in Israel
as in other ancient peoples, it is equally certain, from the plain
evidence of their extant writings, that the prophets before the Exile
attached no independent value either to it or to any other part of the
ritual of the temple. We have already seen how Jeremiah could speak
of the most venerable of all the symbols of the popular faith (iii.
16). Now he affirms that the traditional rules for the burnt-offerings
and other sacrifices were not matters of special Divine institution,
as was popularly supposed at the time. The reference to the Exodus
may imply that already in his day there were written narratives which
asserted the contrary; that the first care of the Divine Saviour after
He had led His people through the sea was to provide them with an
elaborate system of ritual and sacrifice, identical with that which
prevailed in Jeremiah's day. The important verse already quoted (viii.
8) seems to glance at such pious fictions of the popular religious
teachers: _How say ye, We are wise, and the instruction_ (A. V. "law")
_of Iahvah is with us? But behold for lies hath it wrought--the lying
pen of the scribes!_

It is, indeed, difficult to see how Jeremiah or any of his
predecessors could have done otherwise than take for granted the
established modes of public worship, and the traditional holy places.
The prophets do not seek to alter or abolish the externals of religion
as such; they are not so unreasonable as to demand that stated
rites and traditional sanctuaries should be disregarded, and that
men should worship in the spirit only, without the aid of outward
symbolism of any sort, however innocent and appropriate to its object
it might seem. They knew very well that rites and ceremonies were
necessary to public worship; what they protested against was the
fatal tendency of their time to make these the whole of religion, to
suppose that Iahvah's claims could be satisfied by a due performance
of these, without regard to those higher moral requirements of His
law which the ritual worship might fitly have symbolized but could
not rightly supersede. It was not a question with Hosea, Amos, Micah,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, whether or not Iahvah could be better honoured
with or without temples and priests and sacrifices. The question
was whether these traditional institutions actually served as an
outward expression of that devotion to Him and His holy law, of that
righteousness and holiness of life, which is the only true worship, or
whether they were looked upon as in themselves comprising the whole of
necessary religion. Since the people took this latter view, Jeremiah
declares that their system of public worship is futile.

_Hearken unto My voice_: not as giving regulations about the ritual,
but as inculcating moral duty by the prophets, as is explained
immediately (ver. 25), and as is clear also from the statement that
_they walked in the schemes of their own evil heart_ [omit: _in the
stubbornness_, with LXX., and read _mô` açôth_ stat. constr.], _and
fell to the rear and not the front_. As they did not advance in the
knowledge and love of the spiritual God, who was seeking to lead them
by His prophets, from Moses downwards (Deut. xviii. 15), they steadily
retrograded and declined in moral worth, until they had become
hopelessly corrupt and past correction. (Lit. _and they became back
and not face_, which may mean, they turned their backs upon Iahvah
and His instruction.) This steady progress in evil is indicated by
the words, _and they hardened their neck, they did worse than their
fathers_ (ver. 26). It is implied that this was the case with each
successive generation, and the view of Israel's history thus expressed
is in perfect harmony with common experience. Progress, one way or the
other, is the law of character; if we do not advance in goodness, we
go back, or, what is the same thing, we advance in evil.

Finally, the prophet is warned that his mission also must fail, like
that of his predecessors, unless indeed the second clause of ver.
27, which is omitted by the Septuagint, be really an interpolation.
At all events, the failure is implied if not expressed, for he is
to pronounce a sentence of reprobation upon his people. _And thou
shalt speak all these words unto them_ [_and they will not hearken
unto thee, and thou shalt call unto them, and they will not answer
thee_: LXX. omits]. _And thou shalt say unto them, This is the nation
that hearkened not unto the voice of Iahvah its God, and received
not correction: Good faith is perished and cut off from their mouth_
(cf. ix. 3 _sq._). The charge is remarkable. It is one which Jeremiah
reiterates: see ver. 9, vi. 13, viii. 5, ix. 3 _sqq._, xii. 1. His
fellow-countrymen are at once deceivers and deceived. They have no
regard for truth and honour in their mutual dealings; grasping greed
and lies and trickery stamp their everyday intercourse with each
other; and covetousness and fraud equally characterise the behaviour
of their religious leaders. Where truth is not prized for its own
sake, there debased ideas of God and lax conceptions of morality creep
in and spread. Only he who loves truth comes to the light; and only he
who does God's will sees that truth is divine. False belief and false
living in turn beget each other; and as a matter of experience it is
often impossible to say which was antecedent to the other.

In the closing section of this first part of his long address (vv.
29-viii. 3), Jeremiah apostrophizes the country, bidding her bewail
her imminent ruin. _Shear thy tresses_ (coronal of long hair) _and
cast them away, and lift upon the bare hills a lamentation!_--sing
a dirge over thy departed glory and thy slain children, upon those
unhallowed mountain-tops which were the scene of thine apostasies
(iii. 21); _for Iahvah hath rejected and forsaken the generation of
His wrath_. The hopeless tone of this exclamation (cf. also vv. 15,
16, 20) seems to agree better with the times of Jehoiakim, when it had
become evident to the prophet that amendment was beyond hope, than
with the years prior to Josiah's reformation. His own contemporaries
are 'the generation of Iahvah's wrath,' _i.e._ upon which His wrath is
destined to be poured out, for the day of grace is past and gone; and
this, because of the desecration of the temple itself by such kings
as Ahaz and Manasseh, but especially because of the horrors of the
child-sacrifices in the valley of ben Hinnom (2 Kings xvi. 3, xxi.
3-6), which those kings had been the first to introduce in Judah.
_Therefore behold days are coming, saith Iahvah, and it shall no more
be called the Tophet_ (an obscure term, probably meaning something
like _Pyre_ or _Burningplace_: cf. the Persian _tab-idan_ "to burn,"
and the Greek θάπτω, ταφ-εῖν "to bury," strictly "to burn" a corpse;
also τύφω, "to smoke," Sanskrit _dhûp_: to suppose a reproachful
name like "Spitting" = "Object of loathing," is clearly against the
context: the honourable name is to be exchanged for one of dishonour),
_and the Valley of ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, and people
shall bury in_ [_the_] _Tophet for want of room_ (_elsewhere_)! A
great battle is contemplated, as is evident also from Deut. xxviii.
25, 26, the latter verse being immediately quoted by the prophet
(ver. 33). The Tophet will be defiled for ever by being made a burial
place; but many of the fallen will be left unburied, a prey to the
vulture and the jackal. In that fearful time, all sounds of joyous
life will cease in the cities of Judah and in the capital itself, _for
the land will become a desolation_. And the scornful enemy will not be
satisfied with wreaking his vengeance upon the living; he will insult
the dead, by breaking into the sepulchres of the kings and grandees,
the priests and prophets and people, and haling their corpses forth
to lie rotting in face of the sun, moon and stars, which they had so
sedulously worshipped in their lifetime, but which will be powerless
to protect their dead bodies from this shameful indignity. And as for
the survivors, _death will be preferred to life in the case of all the
remnant that remain of this evil tribe, in all the places whither I
shall have driven them, saith Iahvah Sabaoth_ (omit the second _that
remain_, with LXX. as an accidental repetition from the preceding
line, and as breaking the construction). The prophet has reached
the conviction that Judah will be driven into banishment; but the
details of the destruction which he contemplates are obviously of an
imaginative and rhetorical character. It is, therefore, superfluous
to ask whether a great battle was actually fought afterwards in the
valley of ben Hinnom, and whether the slain apostates of Judah were
buried there in heaps, and whether the conquerors violated the tombs.
Had the Chaldeans or any of their allies done this last, in search of
treasure for instance, we should expect to find some notice of it in
the historical chapters of Jeremiah. But it was probably known well
enough to the surrounding peoples that the Jews were not in the habit
of burying treasure in their tombs. The prophet's threat however,
curiously corresponds to what Josiah is related to have done at Bethel
and elsewhere, by way of irreparably polluting the high places (2
Kings xxiii. 16 _sqq._); and it is probable that his recollection of
that event, which he may himself have witnessed, determined the form
of Jeremiah's language here.[31]

In the second part of this great discourse (viii. 4-23) we have a fine
development of thoughts which have already been advanced in the opening
piece, after the usual manner of Jeremiah. The first half (or strophe)
is mainly concerned with the sins of the nation (vv. 4-13), the second
with a despairing lament over the punishment (14-23 = ix. 1). _And
thou shalt say unto them: Thus said Iahvah, Do men fall and not rise
again? Doth a man turn back, and not return? Why doth Jerusalem make
this people to turn back with an eternal_ (or perfect, utter, absolute)
_turning back? Why clutch they deceit, refuse to return?_ (The LXX.
omits "Jerusalem," which is perhaps only a marginal gloss. We should
then have to read שֹׁובַב _shobab_ for שֹׁובְבָה _shobebah_, as "this
people" is masc. The _He_ has been written twice by inadvertence. The
verb, however, is transitive in l. 19; Isa. xlvii. 10, etc.; and I
find no certain instance of the intrans. form besides Ezek. xxxviii.
8, participle.) _I listened and heard; they speak not aright_ (Ex. x.
29; Isa. xvi. 6); _not a man repenteth over his evil, saying_ (_or
thinking_), _"What have I done?" They all_ (lit. _all of him_, _i.e._
the people) _turn back into their courses_ (plur. Heb. text; sing. Heb.
marg.), _like the rushing horse into the battle_.

There is something unnatural in this obstinate persistence in evil. If
a man happens to fall he does not remain on the ground, but quickly
rises to his feet again; and if he turn back on his way for some
reason or other, he will usually return to that way again. There
is a play on the word 'turn back' or 'return,' like that in iii.
12, 14. The term is first used in the sense of turning back or away
from Iahvah, and then in that of returning to Him, according to its
metaphorical meaning "to repent." Thus the import of the question is:
Is it natural to apostatize and never to repent of it? (Perhaps we
should rather read, after the analogy of iii. 1, "Doth a man _go away_
(הֲיֵלֵךְ) on a journey, and not return?")

Others interpret: _Doth a man return, and not return?_ That is, if
he return, he does it, and does not stop midway; whereas Judah only
pretends to repent, and does not really do so. This, however, does not
agree with the parallel member, nor with the following similar questions.

It is very noticeable how thoroughly the prophets, who, after all,
were the greatest of practical moralists, identify religion with
right aims and right conduct. The beginning of evil courses is
turning away from Iahvah; the beginning of reform is turning back
to Iahvah. For Iahvah's character as revealed to the prophets is
the ideal and standard of ethical perfection; He does and delights
in love, justice and equity (ix. 23). If a man look away from that
ideal, if he be content with a lower standard than the Will and Law
of the All-Perfect, then and thereby he inevitably sinks in the scale
of morality. The prophets are not troubled by the idle question
of medieval schoolmen and sceptical moderns. It never occurred to
them to ask the question whether God is good because God wills it,
or whether God wills good because it is good. The dilemma is, in
truth, no better than a verbal puzzle, if we allow the existence of
a personal Deity. For the idea of God is the idea of a Being who is
absolutely good, the _only_ Being who is such; perfect goodness is
understood to be realized nowhere else but in God. It is part of His
essence and conception; it is the aspect under which the human mind
apprehends Him. To suppose goodness existing apart from Him, as an
independent object which He may choose or refuse, is to deal in empty
abstractions. We might as well ask whether convex can exist apart
from concave in nature, or motion apart from a certain rate of speed.
The human spirit can apprehend God in His moral perfections, because
it is, at however vast a distance, akin to Him--a _divinæ particula
auræ_; and it can strive towards those perfections by help of the
same grace which reveals them. The prophets know of no other origin
or measure of moral endeavour than that which Iahvah makes known to
them. In the present instance, the charge which Jeremiah makes against
his contemporaries is a radical falsehood, insincerity, faithlessness:
_they clutch_ or _cling to deceit, they speak what is not right_ or
_honest, straightforward_ (Gen. xlii. 11, 19). Their treason to God
and their treachery to their fellows are opposite sides of the same
fact. Had they been true to Iahvah, that is, to His teachings through
the higher prophets and their own consciences, they would have been
true to one another. The forbearing love of God, His tender solicitude
to hear and save, are illustrated by the words: _I listened_ _and
heard ... not a man repented over his evil, saying, What have I done?_
(The feeling of the stricken conscience could hardly be more aptly
expressed than by this brief question.) But in vain does the Heavenly
Father wait for the accents of penitence and contrition: _they all
return_--go back again and again (Ps. xxiii. 6)--_into their own race
or courses, like a horse rushing_ (lit. _pouring forth_: of rushing
waters, Ps. lxxviii. 20) _into the battle_. The eagerness with which
they follow their own wicked desires, the recklessness with which they
"give their sensual race the rein," in set defiance of God, and wilful
oblivion of consequences, is finely expressed by the simile of the
warhorse rushing in headlong eagerness into the fray (Job xxxix. 25).
_Also_ (or _even_) _the stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed
times, and turtledove, swift and crane observe the season of their
coming; but My people know not the ordinance of Iahvah_--what He
has willed and declared to be right for man (His Law; _jus divinum,
relligio divina_). The dullest of wits can hardly fail to appreciate
the force of this beautiful contrast between the regularity of
instinct and the aberrations of reason. All living creatures are
subject to laws upon obedience to which their well-being depends. The
life of man is no exception; it too is subject to a law--a law which
is as much higher than that which regulates mere animal existence,
as reason and conscience and spiritual aspiration are higher than
instinct and sexual impulse. But whereas the lower forms of life are
obedient to the laws of their being, man rebels against them, and
dares to disobey what he knows to be for his good; nay, he suffers
himself to be so blinded by lust and passion and pride and self-will
that at last he does not even recognise the Law--the ordinance of the
Eternal--for what it really is, the organic law of his true being, the
condition at once of his excellence and his happiness.

The prophet next meets an objection. He has just alleged a profound
moral ignorance--a culpable ignorance--against the people. He supposes
them to deny the accusation, as doubtless they often did in answer to
his remonstrances (cf. xvii. 15, xx. 7 _sq._) _How can ye say, "We
are wise"_--morally wise--"_and the teaching of Iahvah is with us!_"
[_but behold_: LXX. omits: either term would be sufficient by itself]
_for the Lie hath the lying pen of the scribes made it!_ The reference
clearly is to what Jeremiah's opponents call "the teaching (or _law:
torah_) of Iahvah"; and it is also clear that the prophet charges the
"scribes" of the opposite party with falsifying or tampering with
the teaching of Iahvah in some way or other. Is it meant that they
misrepresented the terms of a written document, such as the Book of
the Covenant, or Deuteronomy? But they could hardly do this without
detection, in the case of a work which was not in their exclusive
possession. Or does Jeremiah accuse them of misinterpreting the sacred
law, by putting false glosses upon its precepts, as might be done
in a legal document wherever there seemed room for a difference of
opinion, or wherever conflicting traditional interpretations existed
side by side? (Cf. my remarks on vii. 31.) The Hebrew may indicate
this, for we may translate: _But lo, into the lie the lying pen of
the scribes hath made it!_ which recalls St. Paul's description of
the heathen as changing the truth of God into a lie (Rom. i. 26).
The construction is the same as in Gen. xii. 2; Isa. xliv. 17. Or,
finally, does he boldly charge these abettors of the false prophets
with forging supposititious law-books, in the interest of their own
faction, and in support of the claims and doctrines of the worldly
priests and prophets? This last view is quite admissible, so far as
the Hebrew goes, which, however, is not free from ambiguity. It might
be rendered, _But behold, in vain_, or _bootlessly_ (iii. 23) _hath
the lying pen of the scribes laboured_; taking the verb in an absolute
sense, which is not a common use (Ruth ii. 19). Or we might transpose
the terms for "pen" and "lying," and render, _But behold, in vain
hath the pen of the scribes fabricated falsehood_. In any case, the
general sense is the same: Jeremiah charges not only the speakers, but
the writers, of the popular party with uttering their own inventions
in the name of Iahvah. These scribes were the spiritual ancestors
of those of our Saviour's time, who "made the word of God of none
effect for the sake of their traditions" (Matt. xv. 6). _For the Lie_
means, to maintain the popular misbelief. (It might also be rendered,
_for falsehood_, _falsely_, as in the phrase _to swear falsely_,
_i.e._, for deceit; Lev. v. 24.) It thus appears that conflicting
and competing versions of the law were current in that age. Has the
Pentateuch preserved elements of both kinds, or is it homogeneous
throughout? Of the scribes of the period we, alas! know little beyond
what this passage tells us. But Ezra must have had predecessors, and
we may remember that Baruch, the friend and amanuensis of Jeremiah,
was also a scribe (xxxvi. 26).

_The "wise" will blush, they will be dismayed and caught! Lo, the word
of Iahvah they rejected, and wisdom of what sort have they?_ (vi. 10).
The whole body of Jeremiah's opponents, the populace as well as the
priests and prophets, are intended by _the wise_, that is, the wise
in their own conceits (ver. 8); there is an ironical reference to
their own assumption of the title. These self-styled wise ones, who
preferred their own wisdom to the guidance of the prophet, will be
punished by the mortification of discovering their folly when it is
too late. Their folly will be the instrument of their ruin, for "He
taketh the wise in their own craftiness" as in a snare (Prov. v. 22).

They who reject Iahvah's word, in whatever form it comes to them, have
no other light to walk by; they must needs walk in darkness, and stumble
at noonday. For Iahvah's word is the only true wisdom, the only true
guide of man's footsteps. And this is the kind of wisdom which the
Holy Scriptures offer us; not a merely speculative wisdom, not what is
commonly understood by the terms science and art, but the priceless
knowledge of God and of His will concerning us; a kind of knowledge
which is beyond all comparison the most important for our well-being
here and hereafter. If this Divine wisdom, which relates to the proper
conduct of life and the right education of the highest faculties of
our being, seem a small matter to any man, the fact argues spiritual
blindness on his part; it cannot diminish the glory of heavenly wisdom.

Some well-meaning but mistaken people are fond of maintaining what
they call "the scientific accuracy of the Bible," meaning thereby an
essential harmony with the latest discoveries, or even the newest
hypotheses, of physical science. But even to raise such a preposterous
question, whether as advocate or as assailant, is to be guilty of a
crude anachronism, and to betray an incredible ignorance of the real
value of the Scriptures. That value I believe to be inestimable. But
to discuss "the scientific accuracy of the Bible" appears to me to
be as irrelevant to any profitable issue, as it would be to discuss
the meteorological precision of the Mahabharata, or the marvellous
chemistry of the Zendavesta, or the physiological revelations of the
Koran, or the enlightened anthropology of the Nibelungenlied.

A man may reject the word of Iahvah, he may reject Christ's word,
because he supposes that it is not sufficiently attested. He may urge
that the proof that it is of GOD breaks down, and he may flatter
himself that he is a person of superior discernment, because he
perceives a fact to which the multitude of believers are apparently
blind. But what kind of proof would he have? Does he demand more than
the case admits of? Some portent in earth or sky or sea, which in
reality would be quite foreign to the matter in hand, and could have
none but an accidental connexion with it, and would, in fact, be no
proof at all, but itself a mystery requiring to be explained by the
ordinary laws of physical causation? To demand a kind of proof which
is irrelevant to the subject is a mark not of superior caution and
judgment, but of ignorance and confusion of thought. The plain truth
is, and the fact is abundantly illustrated by the teachings of the
prophets and, above all, of our Divine Lord, that moral and spiritual
truths are self-attesting to minds able to realize them; and they no
more need supplementary corroboration than does the ultimate testimony
of the senses of a sane person.

Now the Bible as a whole is an unique repertory of such truths; this is
the secret of its age-long influence in the world. If a man does not
care for the Bible, if he has not learned to appreciate this aspect of
it, if he does not _love_ it precisely on this account, I, in turn, care
very little for his opinion about the Bible. There may be much in the
Bible which is otherwise valuable, which is precious as history, as
tradition, as bearing upon questions of interest to the ethnologist, the
antiquarian, the man of letters. But these things are the shell, _that_
is the kernel; these are the accidents, _that_ is the substance; these
are the bodily vesture, _that_ is the immortal spirit. A man who has not
felt this, has yet to learn what the Bible is.

In his text as we now have it, Jeremiah proceeds to denounce
punishment on the priests and prophets, whose fraudulent oracles
and false interpretations of the Law ministered to their own greedy
covetousness, and who smoothed over the alarming state of things
by false assurances that all was well (vv. 10-12). The Septuagint,
however, omits the whole passage after the words, _Therefore I will
give their wives to others, their fields to conquerors!_ and as these
words are obviously an abridgment of the threat, vi. 12 (cf. Deut.
xxviii. 30), while the rest of the passage agrees verbatim with vi.
13-15, it may be supposed that a later editor inserted it in the
margin here, as generally apposite (cf. vi. 10 with ver. 9), whence
it has crept into the text. It is true that Jeremiah himself is
fond of repetition, but not so as to interrupt the context, as the
"therefore" of ver. 10 seems to do. Besides, the "wise" of ver. 8 are
the self-confident people; but if this passage be in place here, "the
wise" of ver. 9 will have to be understood of their false guides, the
prophets and priests. Whereas, if the passage be omitted, there is
manifest continuity between the ninth verse and the thirteenth: _"I
will sweep, sweep them away," saith Iahvah; no grapes on the vine, and
no figs on the fig tree, and the foliage is withered, and I have given
them destruction_ (or _blasting_).

The opening threat is apparently quoted from the contemporary prophet
Zephaniah (i. 2, 3). The point of the rest of the verse is not quite
clear, owing to the fact that the last clause of the Hebrew text is
undoubtedly corrupt. We might suppose that the term "laws" (חֻקִּים) had
fallen out, and render, _and I gave them laws which they transgress_
(cf. v. 22, xxxi. 35). The Vulgate has an almost literal translation,
which gives the same sense: "et dedi eis quæ praetergressa sunt."[32]
The Septuagint omits the clause, probably on the ground of its
difficulty. It may be that bad crops and scarcity are threatened (cf.
chap. xiv., v. 24, 25). In that case, we may correct the text in the
manner suggested above שׁבָרִים or בָּרֹושִׁן xvii. 18, for יַעַבְרוּם;
or שִׁדָּפוֹן Amos iv. 9, for the יַעַבְדוּם of other MSS.. Others
understand the verse in a metaphorical sense. The language seems to be
coloured by a reminiscence of Micah vii. 1, 2; and the "grapes" and
"figs" and "foliage" may be the fruits of righteousness, and the nation
is like Isaiah's unfruitful vineyard (Isa. v.) or our Lord's barren fig
tree (Matt. xxi. 19), fit only for destruction (cf. also vi. 9 and ver.
20). Another passage which resembles the present is Hab. iii. 17: "For
the fig tree will not blossom, and there will be no yield on the vines;
the produce of the olive will disappoint, and the fields will produce no
food." It was natural that tillage should be neglected upon the rumour
of invasion. The country-folk would crowd into the strong places, and
leave their vineyards, orchards and cornfields to their fate (ver. 14).
This would, of course, lead to scarcity and want, and aggravate the
horrors of war with those of dearth and famine. I think the passage of
Habakkuk is a precise parallel to the one before us. Both contemplate
a Chaldean invasion, and both anticipate its disastrous effects upon
husbandry.

It is possible that the original text ran: _And I have given_ (_will
give_) _unto them their own work_ (_i.e._, the fruit of it, עֲבֹדָתָם:
used of field-work, Ex. i. 14; of the earnings of labour, Isa. xxxii.
17). This, which is a frequent thought in Jeremiah, forms a very
suitable close to the verse. The objection is that the prophet does
not use this particular term for "work" elsewhere. But the fact of its
only once occurring might have caused its corruption. (Another term,
which would closely resemble the actual reading, and give much the
same sense as this last, is עֲבוּרָם "their produce." This, too, as a
very rare expression, only known from Josh. v. 11, 12, might have been
misunderstood and altered by an editor or copyist. It is akin to the
Aramaic עִבּוּר, and there are other Aramaisms in our prophet.) One
thing is certain; Jeremiah cannot have written what now appears in the
Masoretic text.

It is now made clear what the threatened evil is, in a fine closing
strophe, several expressions of which recall the prophet's magnificent
alarm upon the coming of the Scythians (cf. iv. 5 with viii. 14; iv.
15 with viii. 16; iv. 19 with viii. 18). Here, however, the colouring
is darker, and the prevailing gloom of the picture unrelieved by any
ray of hope. The former piece belongs to the reign of Josiah, this
to that of the worthless Jehoiakim. In the interval between the two,
moral decline and social and political disintegration had advanced
with fearfully accelerated speed, and Jeremiah knew that the end could
not be far off.

The fatal news of invasion has come, and he sounds the alarm to his
countrymen. _Why are we sitting still_ (in silent stupefaction)?
_assemble yourselves, that we may go into the defenced cities, and be
silent_ (or _amazed_, _stupefied_, with terror) _there! for Iahvah our
God hath silenced us_ (with speechless terror) _and given us water of
gall to drink; for we trespassed toward Iahvah. We looked for peace_
(or, _weal_, _prosperity_), _and there is no good; for a time of
healing, and behold panic fear!_ So the prophet represents the effect
of the evil tidings upon the rural population. At first they are taken
by surprise; then they rouse themselves from their stupor to take
refuge in the walled cities. They recognise in the trouble a sign of
Iahvah's anger. Their fond hopes of returning prosperity are nipped
in the bud; the wounds of the past are not to be healed; the country
has hardly recovered from one shock, before another and more deadly
blow falls upon it. The next verse describes more particularly the
nature of the bad news; the enemy, it would seem, had actually entered
the land, and given no uncertain indication of what the Judeans might
expect, by his ravages on the northern frontier. _From Dan was heard
the snorting of his horses; at the sound of the neighings of his
chargers all the land did quake: and they came in_ (into the country)
_and eat up the land and the fulness thereof, a city and them that
dwelt_ _therein._ This was what the invaders did to city after city,
once they had crossed the border; ravaging its domain, and sacking
the place itself. Perhaps, however, it is better to take the perfects
as prophetic, and to render: "From Dan shall be heard ... shall
quake: and they shall come and eat up the land," etc. This makes the
connexion easier with the next verse, which certainly has a future
reference: _For behold I am about to send_ (or simply, _I send_)
_against you serpents, basilisks_ (Isa. xi. 8, the _çif·oni_ was a
small but very poisonous snake; Aquila βασιλίσκος, Vulg. regulus),
_for whom there is no charm, and they will bite you! saith Iahvah_.
If the tenses be supposed to describe what has already happened, then
the connexion of thought may be expressed thus: all this evil that you
have heard of has happened, not by mere ill fortune, but by the Divine
will: Iahvah Himself has done it, and the evil will not stop there,
_for_ He purposes to send these destroying serpents into your very
midst (cf. Num. xxi. 6).

The eighteenth verse begins in the Hebrew with a highly anomalous
word, which is generally supposed to mean "my source of comfort"
(מבליגיתי). But both the strangeness of the form itself, which can
hardly be paralleled in the language, and the indifferent sense which
it yields, and the uncertainty of the Hebrew MSS., and the variations
of the old versions, indicate that we have here another corruption of
the text. Some Hebrew copies divide the word, and this is supported by
the Septuagint and the Syro-Hexaplar version, which treat the verse
as the conclusion of ver. 17, and render "and they shall bite you
_incurably, with pain of your perplexed heart_" (Syro-Hex. "without
cure"). But if the first part of the word is "without" (מִבְּלִי "for
lack of" ...), what is the second? No such root as the existing
letters imply is found in Hebrew or the cognate languages. The Targum
does not help us: _Because they were scoffing_ (מלעיגין) _against the
prophets who prophesied unto them, sorrow and sighing will I bring_
(איתי) _upon them on account of their sins: upon them, saith the
prophet, my heart is faint._ It is evident that this is no better than
a kind of punning upon the words of the Masoretic text.[33] I incline
to read "How shall I cheer myself? Upon me is sorrow; upon me my
heart is sick." (The prophet would write עַל not עֲלֵי for "against,"
without a suffix. Read יָגוֹן עָלַי אַבְלִיגָה מָה Job ix. 27, x. 20;
Ps. xxxix. 14.) The passage is much like iv. 19.

Another possible emendation is: "Iahvah causeth sorrow to flash forth
upon me" (יהוה מבליג; after the archetype of Amos v. 9); but I prefer
the former.

Jeremiah closes the section with an outpouring of his own overwhelming
sorrow at the heart-rending spectacle of the national calamities.
No reader endued with any degree of feeling can doubt the sincerity
of the prophet's patriotism, or the willingness with which he would
have given his own life for the salvation of his country. This one
passage alone says enough to exonerate its author from the charge of
indifference, much more of treachery to his fatherland. He imagines
himself to hear the cry of the captive people, who have been carried
away by the victorious invader into a distant land: _Hark! the sound
of the imploring cry of the daughter of my people from a land far
away! "Is Iahvah not in Sion? or is not her King in her?"_ (cf. Mic.
iv. 9). Such will be the despairing utterance of the exiles of Judah
and Jerusalem; and the prophet hastens to answer it with another
question, which accounts for their ruin by their disloyalty to that
heavenly King; _O why did they vex Me with their graven images, with
alien vanities?_ Compare a similar question and answer in an earlier
discourse (v. 19). It may be doubted whether the pathetic words which
follow--_The harvest is past, the fruit-gathering is finished, but as
for us, we are not delivered!_--are to be taken as a further complaint
of the captives, or as a reference by the prophet himself to hopes
of deliverance which had been cherished in vain, month after month,
until the season of campaigns was over. In Palestine, the grain crops
are harvested in April and May, the ingathering of the fruit falls in
August. During all the summer months, Jehoiakim, as a vassal of Egypt,
may have been eagerly hoping for some decisive interference from that
quarter. That he was on friendly terms with that power at the time
appears from the fact that he was allowed to fetch back refugees
from its territory (xxvi. 22 _sq._). A provision for the extradition
of offenders is found in the far more ancient treaty between Ramses
II. and the king of the Syrian Chetta (fourteenth cent. B.C.). But
perhaps the prophet is alluding to one of those frequent failures of
the crops, which inflicted so much misery upon his people (cf. vers.
13, iii. 3, v. 24, 25), and which were a natural incident of times of
political unsettlement and danger. In that case, he says, the harvest
has come and gone, and left us unhelped and disappointed. I prefer the
political reference, though our knowledge of the history of the period
is so scanty, that the particulars cannot be determined.

It is clear enough from the lyrical utterance which follows (vv.
21-23), that heavy disasters had already befallen Judah: _For
the shattering of the daughter of my people am I shattered; I am
a mourner; astonishment hath seized me!_ This can hardly be pure
anticipation. The next two verses may be a fragment of one of the
prophet's elegies (_qinoth_). At all events, they recall the metre of
Lam. iv. and v.:

          _Doth balm in Gilead fail?
          Fails the healer there?
          Why is not bound up
          My people's deadly wound?_

          _O that my head were springs,
          Mine eye a fount of tears!
          To weep both day and night
          Over my people's slain._

It is not impossible that these two quatrains are cited from the
prophet's elegy upon the last battle of Megiddo and the death of
Josiah. Similar fragments seem to occur below (ix. 17, 18, 20) in the
instructions to the mourning-women, the professional singers of dirges
over the dead.

The beauty of the entire strophe, as an outpouring of inexpressible
grief, is too obvious to require much comment. The striking question
"Is there no balm in Gilead, is there no physician there?" has passed
into the common dialect of religious aphorism; and the same may be
said of the despairing cry, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved!"

The wounds of the state are past healing; but how, it is asked, can
this be? Does nature yield a balm which is sovereign for bodily hurts,
and is there nowhere a remedy for those of the social organism?
Surely that were something anomalous, strange and unnatural (cf.
viii. 7). _Is there no balm in Gilead?_ Yes, it is found nowhere else
(cf. Plin., _Hist. Nat._, xii. 25 _ad init._ "Sed omnibus odoribus
præfertur balsamum, _uni terrarum Judææ concessum_"). Then has Iahvah
mocked us, by providing a remedy for the lesser evil, and leaving
us a hopeless prey to the greater? The question goes deep down to
the roots of faith. Not only is there an analogy between the two
realms of nature and spirit; in a sense, the whole physical world is
an adumbration of things unseen, a manifestation of the spiritual.
Is it conceivable that order should reign everywhere in the lower
sphere, and chaos be the normal state of the higher? If our baser
wants are met by provisions adapted in the most wonderful way to their
satisfaction, can we suppose that the nobler--those cravings by which
we are distinguished from irrational creatures--have not also their
satisfactions included in the scheme of the world? To suppose it is
evidence either of capricious unreason, or of a criminal want of
confidence in the Author of our being.

_Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healer there?_ There is a
panacea for Israel's woes--the "law" or teaching of Iahvah; there
is a Healer in Israel, Iahvah Himself (iii. 22, xvii. 14), who has
declared of Himself, _I wound and I heal_ (Deut. xxxii. 39; chap. xxx.
17, xxxiii. 6). _Why then is no bandage applied to the daughter of my
people?_ This is like the cry of the captives, _Is Iahvah not in Sion,
is not her King in her?_ (ver. 19). The answer there is, Yes! it is
not that Iahvah is wanting; it is that the national guilt is working
out its own retribution. He leaves this to be understood here; having
framed his question so as to compel people, if it might be, to the
right inference and answer.

The precious balsam is the distinctive glory of the mountain land of
Gilead, and the knowledge of Iahvah is the distinctive glory of His
people Israel. Will no one, then, apply the true remedy to the hurt
of the state? No, for priests and prophets and people _know not--they
have refused to know_ Iahvah (ver. 5). The nation will not look to the
Healer and live. It is their misfortunes that they hate, not their
sins. There is nothing left for Jeremiah but to sing the funeral song
of his fatherland.

While weeping over their inevitable doom, the prophet abhors with his
whole soul his people's wickedness, and longs to fly from the dreary
scene of treachery and deceit. _O that I had in the wilderness a
lodging-place of wayfaring men_--some lonely khan on a caravan track,
whose bare, unfurnished walls, and blank almost oppressive stillness,
would be a grateful exchange for the luxury and the noisy riot of
Judah's capital--_that I might leave my people and go away from among
them!_ The same feeling finds expression in the sigh of the psalmist,
who is perhaps Jeremiah himself: _O for the wings of a dove!_ (Ps.
lv. 6 _sqq._) The same feeling has often issued in actual withdrawal
from the world. And under certain circumstances, in certain states of
religion and society, the solitary life has its peculiar advantages.
The life of towns is doubtless busy, practical, intensely real; but
its business is not always of the ennobling sort, its practice in the
strain and struggle of selfish competition is often distinctly hostile
to the growth and play of the best instincts of human nature; its
intensity is often the mere result of confining the manifold energies
of the mind to one narrow channel, of concentrating the whole complex
of human powers and forces upon the single aim of self-advancement
and self-glorification; and its reality is consequently an illusion,
phenomenal and transitory as the unsubstantial prizes which absorb
all its interest, engross its entire devotion, and exhaust its whole
activity. It is not upon the broad sea, nor in the lone wilderness,
that men learn to question the goodness, the justice, the very being
of their Maker. Atheism is born in the populous wastes of cities,
where human beings crowd together, not to bless but to prey upon each
other; where rich and poor dwell side by side, but are separated by
the gulf of cynical indifference and social disdain; where selfishness
in its ugliest forms is rampant, and is the rule of life with
multitudes:--the selfishness which grasps at personal advantage and
is deaf to the cries of human pain; the selfishness which calls all
manner of fraud and trickery lawful means for the achievement of its
sordid ends; and the selfishness of flagrant vice, whose activity is
not only earthly and sensual but also devilish, as directly involving
the degradation and ruin of human souls. No wonder that they whose
eyes have been blinded by the god of this world, fail to see evidence
of any other God; no wonder that they in whose hearts a coarse or a
subtle self-worship has dried the springs of pity and love can scoff
at the very idea of a compassionate God; no wonder that a soul, shaken
to its depths by the contemplation of this bewildering medley of
heartlessness and misery, should be tempted to doubt whether there is
indeed a Judge of all the earth, who doeth right.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is no truth, no honour in their dealings with one another;
falsehood is the dominant note of their social existence: _They are
all adulterers, a throng of traitors!_ The charge of adultery is no
metaphor (chap. v. 7, 8). Where the sense of religious sanctions is
weakened or wanting, the marriage tie is no longer respected; and that
which perhaps lust began, is ended by lust, and man and woman are
faithless to each other, because they are faithless to God.

_And they bend their tongue, their bow, falsely._[34] The tongue is as
a bow of which words are the arrows. Evildoers "stretch their arrow,
the bitter word, to shoot in ambush at the blameless man" (Ps. lxiv.
4; cf. Ps. xi. 2). The metaphor is common in the language of poetry;
we have an instance in Longfellow's "I shot an arrow into the air,"
and Homer's familiar ἔπεα πτερόεντα, "winged words," is a kindred
expression. (Others render, _and they bend their tongue as their bow
of falsehood_, as though the term _sheqer, mendacium_, were an epithet
qualifying the term for "bow." I have taken it adverbially, a use
justified by Pss. xxxviii. 20, lxix. 5, cxix. 78, 86.) In colloquial
English a man who exaggerates a story is said to "draw the long bow."

Their tongue is a bow with which they shoot lies at their neighbours,
_and it is not by truth_--faithfulness, honour, integrity--_that they
wax mighty in the land_; their riches and power are the fruit of craft
and fraud and overreaching. As was said in a former discourse, "their
houses are full of deceit, therefore they become great, and amass
wealth" (v. 27). _By truth_, or more literally _unto truth, according
to the rule or standard of truth_ (cf. Isa. xxxii. 1, "according to
right;" Gen. i. 11, "according to its kind"). With the idea of the
verb, we may compare Ps. cxii. 2: "Mighty in the land shall his
seed become" (cf. also Gen. vii. 18, 19). The passage chap. v. 2, 3,
is essentially similar to the present, and is the only one besides
where we find the term "by truth" (לאמונה _le'emunah_). The idiom
seems certain, and the parallel passages, especially v. 27, appear to
establish the translation above given; otherwise one might be tempted
to render: _they stretch their tongue, their bow, for lying_ (לשקר,
v. 2), _and it is not for truth that they are strong in the land_.
"Noblesse oblige" is no maxim of theirs; they use their rank and
riches for unworthy ends.

_For out of evil unto evil they go forth_--they go from one wickedness
to another, adding sin to sin. Apparently, a military metaphor. What
they have and are is evil, and they go forth to secure fresh conquests
of the same kind. Neither good nor evil is stationary; progress is the
law of each--_and Me they know not, saith Iahvah_--they know not that
I am truth itself, and therefore irreconcilably opposed to all this
fraud and falsehood.

_Beware ye, every one of his companion, and in no brother confide ye;
for every brother will surely play the Jacob,--and every companion
will go about slandering. And they deceive each his neighbour,
and truth they speak not: they have trained their tongue to speak
falsehood, to pervert_ (their way, iii. 21) _they toil_ (chap. xx.
9; cf. Gen. xix. 11). _Thine inhabiting is in the midst of deceit;
through deceit they refuse to know Me, saith Iahvah_ (3-5).[35]
As Micah had complained before him (Mic. vii. 5), and as bitter
experience had taught our prophet (xi. 18 _sqq._, xii. 6), neither
friend nor brother was to be trusted; and that this was not merely
the melancholy characteristic of a degenerate age, is suggested by
the reference to the unbrotherly intrigues of the far-off ancestor
of the Jewish people, in the traditional portrait of whom the best
and the worst features of the national character are reflected with
wonderful truth and liveliness.[36] _Every brother will not fail
to play the Jacob_ (Gen. xxv. 29 _sqq._, xxvii. 36; Hos. xii. 4),
to outwit, defraud, supplant; cunning and trickery will subserve
acquisitiveness. But though an inordinate love of acquisition may
still seem to be specially characteristic of the Jewish race, as in
ancient times it distinguished the Canaanite and Semitic nations in
general, the tendency to cozen and overreach one's neighbour is so
far from being confined to it, that some modern ethical speculators
have not hesitated to assume this tendency to be an original and
natural instinct of humanity. The fact, however, for which those who
would account for human nature upon purely "natural" grounds are
bound to supply some rational explanation, is not so much that aspect
of it which has been well-known to resemble the instincts of the
lower animals ever since observation began, but the aspect of revolt
and protest against those lower impulses which we find reflected so
powerfully in the documents of the higher religion, and which makes
thousands of lives a perpetual warfare.

Jeremiah presents his picture of the universal deceit and
dissimulation of his own time as something peculiarly shocking and
startling to the common sense of right, and unspeakably revolting in
the sight of God, the Judge of all. And yet the difficulty to the
modern reader is to detect any essential difference between human
nature then and human nature now--between those times and these. It
is still true that avarice and lust destroy natural affection; that
the ties of blood and friendship are no protection against a godless
love of self. The work of slander and misrepresentation is not left to
avowed enemies; your own acquaintance will gratify their envy, spite,
or mere ill-will in this unworthy way. A simple child may tell the
truth; but tongues have to be trained to expertness in lying, whether
in commerce or in diplomacy, in politics or in the newspaper press, in
the art of the salesman or in that of the agitator and the demagogue.
Men still make a toil of perverting their way, and spend as much
pains in becoming accomplished villains as honest folk take to excel
in virtue. Deceit is still the social atmosphere and environment,
and _through deceit_ men _refuse to know Iahvah_. The knowledge, the
recognition, the steady recollection of what Iahvah is, and what His
law requires, does not suit the man of lies; his objects oblige him
to shut his eyes to the truth. Men _do not will_ and _will not_, to
know the moral impediments that lie in the way of self-seeking and
self-pleasing. Sinning is always a matter of choice, not of nature,
nor of circumstances alone. To desire to be delivered from moral evil
is, so far, a desire to know God.

_Thine inhabiting is in the midst of deceit_: who that ever lifts
an eye above the things of time, has not at times felt thus? "This
is a Christian country." Why? Because the majority are as bent on
self-pleasing, as careless of God, as heartlessly and systematically
forgetful of the rights and claims of others, as they would have
been had Christ never been heard of? A Christian country? Why? Is
it because we can boast of some two hundred forms or fashions of
supposed Christian belief, differentiated from each other by heaven
knows what obscure shibboleths, which in the lapse of time have become
meaningless and obsolete; while the old ill-will survives, and the
old dividing lines remain, and Christians stand apart from Christians
in a state of dissension and disunion that does despite and dishonour
to Christ, and must be very dear to the devil? Some people are bold
enough to defend this horrible condition of things by raising a cry of
Free Trade in Religion. But religion is not a trade, not a thing to
make a profit of, except with Simon Magus and his numerous followers
both inside and outside of the Church.

A Christian country! But the rage of avarice, the worship of Mammon,
is not less rampant in London than in old Jerusalem. If the more
violent forms of oppression and extortion are restrained among us by
the more complete organization of public justice, the fact has only
developed new and more insidious modes of attack upon the weak and
the unwary. Deceit and fraud have been put upon their mettle by the
challenge of the law, and thousands of people are robbed and plundered
by devices which the law can hardly reach or restrain. Look where
the human spider sits, weaving his web of guile, that he may catch
and devour men! Look at the wonderful baits which the company-monger
throws out day by day to human weakness and cupidity! Do you call
him shrewd and clever and enterprising? It is a sorry part to play
in life, that of Satan's decoy, tempting one's fellow-creatures to
their ruin. Look at the lying advertisements, which meet your eyes
wherever you turn, and make the streets of this great city almost as
hideous from the point of view of taste as from that of morality! What
a degrading resource! To get on by the industrious dissemination of
lies, by false pretences, which one knows to be false! And to trade
upon human misery--to raise hopes that can never be fulfilled--to add
to the pangs of disease the smart of disappointment and the woe of a
deeper despair, as countless quacks in this Christian country do!

A Christian country: where God is denied on the platform and through
the press; where a novel is certain of widespread popularity, if its
aim be to undermine the foundations of the Christian faith; where
atheism is mistaken for intelligence, and an inconsistent Agnosticism
for the loftiest outcome of logic and reason; where flagrant lust
walks the streets unrebuked, unabashed; where every other person you
meet is a gambler in one form or another, and shopmen and labourers
and loafers and errand boys are all eager about the result of races,
and all agog to know the forecasts of some wily tipster, some wiseacre
of the halfpenny press!

A Christian country: where the rich and noble have no better use
for profuse wealth than horse-training, and no more elevating mode
of recreation than hunting and shooting down innumerable birds and
beasts; where some must rot in fever-dens, clothed in rags, pining for
food, stifling for lack of air and room; while others spend thousands
of pounds upon a whim, a banquet, a party, a toy for a fair woman. I
am not a Socialist; I do not deny a man's right to do what he will
with his own, and I believe that state interference would be in the
last degree disastrous to the country. But I affirm the responsibility
before God of the rich and great; and I deny that they who live and
spend for themselves alone are worthy of the name of Christian.

A Christian country: where human beings die, year after year, in the
unspeakable, unimaginable agonies of canine madness, and dogs are
kept by the thousand in crowded cities, that the sacrifice to the
fiend of selfishness and the mocking devil of vanity may never lack
its victims! There is a more than Egyptian worship of Anubis, in the
silly infatuation which lavishes tenderness upon an unclean brute, and
credulously invests instinct with the highest attributes of reason; and
there is a worse than heathenish besottedness in the heart that can
pamper a dog, and be utterly indifferent to the helplessness and the
sufferings of the children of the poor. And people will go to church,
and hear what the preacher has to say, and "think he said what he ought
to have said," or not, as the case may be, and return to their own
settled habits of worldly living, as a matter of course. Oh yes! it is a
Christian country--the name of Christ has been named in it for fifteen
centuries past; and for that reason Christ will judge it.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Therefore, thus said Iahvah Sabaoth: Lo, I am about to melt them and
put them to proof_ (Job xii. 11; Judg. xvii. 4; ch. vi. 25.); _for how
am I to deal in face of_ [_the wickedness of_, LXX: the term has fallen
out of the Heb. text: cf. iv. 4, vii. 12] _the daughter of My people?_
This is the meaning of the disasters that have fallen and are even
now falling upon the country. Iahvah will melt and assay this rough,
intractable human ore, in the fiery furnace of affliction; the strain
of insincerity that runs through it, the base earthy nature, can only
thus be separated and purged away (Isa. xlviii. 10). _A deadly arrow_
[LXX. a _wounding_ one, _i.e._, one which does not miss, but hits and
kills] _is their tongue; deceit it spake: with his mouth peace with his
companion he speaketh, and inwardly he layeth his ambush_ (Ps. lv. 22).
The verse again specifies the wickedness complained of, and justifies
our restoration of that word in the previous verse.

Perhaps, with the Peshito Syriac and the Targum, we ought rather to
render: _a sharp arrow is their tongue_. There is an Arabic saying
quoted by Lane, "Thou didst sharpen thy tongue against us," which
seems to present a kindred root[37] (cf. Ps. lii. 3, lvii. 4; Prov.
xxv. 18). The Septuagint may be right, with its probable reading:
_deceit are the words of his mouth_. This certainly improves the
symmetry of the verse.

_For such things_ (emphatic) _shall I not_--or _should I not_, with an
implied _ought_--_shall I not punish them, saith Iahvah, or on such a
nation shall not My soul avenge herself?_ (v. 9, 29, after which the
LXX. omits _them_ here.) These questions, like the previous one, _How
am I to deal_--or, _how could I act--in face of the wickedness of the
daughter of My people?_ imply the moral necessity of the threatened
evils. If Iahweh be what He has taught man's conscience that He is,
national sin must involve national suffering, and national persistence
in sin must involve national ruin. Therefore He will _melt and try_
this people, both for their punishment and their reformation, if it
may be so. For punishment is properly retributive, whatever may be
alleged to the contrary. Conscience tells us that we _deserve_ to
suffer for ill-doing, and conscience is a better guide than ethical
or sociological speculators who have lost faith in God. But God's
chastisements as known to our experience, that is to say, in the
present life, are reformatory as well as retributive; they compel us
to recollect, they bring us, like the Prodigal, back to ourselves,
out of the distractions of a sinful career, they humble us with the
discovery that we have a Master, that there is a Power above ourselves
and our apparently unlimited capacity to choose evil and to do it: and
so by Divine grace we may become contrite and be healed and restored.

The prophet thus, perhaps, discerns a faint glimmer of hope, but his
sky darkens again immediately. The land is already to a great extent
desolate, through the ravages of the invaders, or through severe
droughts (cf. iv. 25, viii. 20(?), xii. 4). _Upon the mountains will
I lift up weeping and wailing, and upon the pastures of the prairie
a lamentation, for they have been burnt up_ (ii. 15; 2 Kings xxii.
13), _so that no man passeth over them, and they have not heard the
cry of the cattle: from the birds of the air to the beasts, they are
fled, are gone_ (iv. 25). The perfects may be prophetic and announce
what is certain to happen hereafter. The next verse, at all events, is
unambiguous in this respect: _And I will make Jerusalem into heaps,
a haunt of jackals; and the cities of Judah will I make a desolation
without inhabitant_. Not only the country districts, but the fortified
towns, and Jerusalem itself, the heart and centre of the nation, will
be desolated. Sennacherib boasts that he took forty-six strong cities,
and "little towns without number," and carried off 200,150 male and
female captives, and an immense booty in cattle, before proceeding
to invest Jerusalem itself; a state which shews how severe the
sufferings of Judah might be, before the enemy struck at its vitals.

In the words _I will make Jerusalem heaps_, there is not necessarily a
change of subject. Jeremiah was authorized to "root up and pull down
and destroy" in the name of Iahvah.

He now challenges the popular wise men (viii. 8, 9) to account for
what, on their principles, must appear an inexplicable phenomenon.
_Who is the_ (_true_) _wise man, so that he understands this_ (Hos.
xiv. 9), _and who is he to whom the mouth of Iahvah hath spoken, so
that he can explain it_ [_unto you?_ LXX.]. _Why is the land undone,
burnt up like the prairie, without a passer by?_ Both to Jeremiah and
to his adversaries the land was Iahvah's land; what befel it must
have happened by His will, or at least with His consent. Why had He
suffered the repeated ravages of foreign invaders to desolate His own
portion, where, if anywhere on earth, He must display His power and
the proof of His deity? Not for lack of sacrifices, for these were
not neglected. Only one answer was possible, to those who recognised
the validity of the Book of the Law, and the binding character of
the covenant which it embodied. The people and their wise men cannot
account for the national calamities; Jeremiah himself can only do
so, because he is inwardly taught by Iahvah himself (ver. 12): _And
Iahvah said_. It may be supposed that ver. 11 states the popular
dilemma, the anxious question which they put to the official prophets,
whose guidance they accepted. The prophets could give no reasonable
or satisfying answer, because their teaching hitherto had been that
Iahvah could be appeased "with thousands of rams, and ten thousand
torrents of oil" (Mic. vi. 7). On such conditions they had promised
peace, and their teaching had been falsified by events. Therefore
Jeremiah gives the true answer for Iahvah. But why did not the people
cease to believe those whose word was thus falsified? Perhaps the
false prophets would reply to objectors, as the refugees in Egypt
answered Jeremiah's reproof of their renewed worship of the Queen
of Heaven: "It was in the years that followed the abolition of this
worship that our national disasters began" (xliv. 18). It is never
difficult to delude those whose evil and corrupt hearts make them
desire nothing so much as to be deluded.

_And Iahvah said: Because they forsook_ (lit. _upon_ = on account
of _their forsaking_) "_My Law which I set before them_" (Deut. iv.
18), _and they hearkened not unto My voice_ (Deut. xxviii. 15), _and
walked not therein_ (in My Law; LXX. omits the clause); _and walked
after the obstinacy of their own_ (_evil_: LXX.) _heart, and after the
Baals_ (Deut. iv. 3) _which their fathers taught them_--instead of
teaching them the laws of Iahvah (Deut. xi. 19). Such were, and had
always been, the terms of the answer of Iahvah's true prophets. Do you
ask _upon what ground_ (_`al mah_) misfortune has overtaken you? Upon
the ground of your having forsaken Iahvah's "law" or instruction, His
doctrine concerning Himself and your consequent obligations towards
Him. They had this teaching in the Book of the Law, and had solemnly
undertaken to observe it, in that great national assembly of the
eighteenth year of Josiah. And they had had it from the first in the
living utterances of the prophets.

This, then, is the reason why the land is waste and deserted. And
_therefore_--because past and present experience is an index of the
future, for Iahvah's character and purpose are constant--therefore the
desolation of the cities of Judah and of Jerusalem itself, will ere
long be accomplished. _Therefore thus said Iahvah Sabaoth_, the God
of Armies and _the God of Israel; Lo, I am about to feed them_--or,
_I continue to feed them_--to wit, _this people_ (an epexegetical
gloss omitted by the LXX.) _with wormwood, and I will give them to
drink waters of gall_ (Deut. xxix. 17. An Israelite inclining to
foreign gods is "a root bearing wormwood and gall"--bearing a bitter
harvest of defeat, a cup of deadly disaster for his people; cf. Am.
vi. 12), _and I will "scatter them among the nations," "whom they and
their fathers knew not"_ (Deut. xxviii. 36, 64). The last phrase is
remarkable as evidence of the isolation of Israel, whose country lay
off the beaten track between the Trans-Euphratean empires and Egypt,
which ran along the sea-coast. They knew not Assyria, until Tiglath
Pileser's intervention (circ. 734), nor Babylon till the times of
the New Empire. In Hezekiah's day, Babylon is still "a far country"
(2 Kings xx. 14). Israel was in fact an agricultural people, trading
directly with Phenicia and Egypt, but not with the lands beyond
the Great River. The prophets heighten the horror of exile by the
strangeness of the land whither Israel is to be banished.

_And I will send after them the sword, until I have consumed them._
The survivors are to be cut off (cf. viii. 3); there is no reserve,
as in iv. 27, v. 10, 18; a "full end" is announced; which, again,
corresponds to the aggravation of social and private evils in the time
of Jehoiakim, and the prophet's despair of reform.

The judgment of Judah is the ruin of her cities, the dispersion of
her people in foreign lands, and extermination by the sword. Nothing
is left for this doomed nation but to sing its funeral song; to send
for the professional wailing women, that they may come and chant
their dirges, not over the dead but over the living who are condemned
to die: _Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth_ (here as in ver. 6, LXX. omits
the expressive _Sabaoth_), _Mark ye well_ the present crisis, and
what it implies (cf. ii. 10; LXX. wrongly omits this emphatic term),
_and summon the women that sing dirges, that they come, and unto the
skilful women send ye, that they come_ [LXX. omits], _and hasten_
[LXX. _and speak and_] _to lift up the death-wail over us, that our
eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids pour down waters_.
The "singing women" of 2 Chron. xxxv. 25, or the "minstrels" of St.
Matt. ix. 23, are intended. The reason assigned for thus inviting
them assumes that the prophet's forecast is already fulfilled.
Already, as in viii. 19, Jeremiah hears the loud wailing of the
captives as they are driven away from their ruined homes: _For the
sound of the death-wail is heard from Sion, "How are we undone! We
are sore ashamed"_--of our false confidence and foolish security and
deceitful hopes--"_for_, after all, _we have left the land, for our
dwellings have cast_ (_us_) _out_!" The last two lines appear to be
parallels, which is against the rendering, _For men have cast down
our dwellings_. Cf. Lev. xviii. 25; chap. xxii. 28. From the wailing
women, the address now seems to turn to the Judean women generally;
but perhaps the former are still intended, as their peculiar calling
was probably hereditary and passed on from mother to daughter: _For
hear, ye women, the word of Iahvah, and let your ear take in the word
of His mouth! and teach ye your daughters the death-wail, and each her
companion the lamentation; for_

          "_Death scales our lattices,
           Enters our palaces,
           To cut off boy without,
           The young men from the streets._"

_And the corpses of men will fall_--the tense certifies the future
reference of the others--_like dung_ (viii. 2) _on the face of the
field_ (2 Kings ix. 37, of Jezebel's corpse)--left without burial rites
to rot and fatten the soil--_and like the corn-swath behind the reaper,
and none shall gather_ (_them_). The quatrain (ver. 20) is possibly
quoted from some familiar elegy; and the allusion seems to be to a
mysterious visitation like the plague, which used to be known in Europe
as "the Black Death" (cf. xv. 2, xviii. 21, xliii. 11). In this time
of closed gates and barred doors, death is represented as entering the
house, not by the door, but "climbing up some other way" like a thief
(Joel ii. 9; St. John x. 1). Bars and bolts will be futile against
such an invader. The figure is not continued in the second half of the
stanza.[38] The point of the closing comparison seems to be that whereas
the corn-swaths are gathered up in sheaves and taken home, the bodies
will lie where the reaper Death cuts them down.

_Thus said Iahvah: Let not a wise man glory in his wisdom, and let
not the mighty man glory in his might! Let not a rich man glory
in his riches, but in this let him glory that glorieth, in being
prudent and knowing Me_ (LXX. omits pronoun, cf. Gen. i. 4), _that I,
Iahvah, do lovingkindness_ (_and_: LXX. and Orientals), _justice and
righteousness upon the earth; for in these I delight, saith Iahvah._

It is not easy, at first sight, to see the connexion of this, one of
the finest and deepest of Jeremiah's oracles, with the sentence of
destruction which precedes it. It is not satisfactory to regard it
as stating "the only means of escape and the reason why it is not
used" (the latter being set forth in vv. 24, 25); for the leading
idea of the whole composition, from vii. 13 to ix. 22, is that
retribution is coming, and no escape, not even that of a remnant,
is contemplated. The passage looks like an appendix to the previous
pieces, such as the prophet might have added at a later period when
the crisis was over, and the country had begun to breathe again,
after the shock of invasion had rolled away. And this impression
is confirmed by its contents. We have no details about the first
interference of the new Chaldean power in Judah; we only read that
in Jehoiakim's days _Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon came up,
and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and
rebelled against him_ (2 Kings xxiv. 1). But before this, for some
two or three years, Jehoiakim was the vassal of the king of Egypt
to whom he owed his crown, and Nebuchadrezzar had to reduce Necho
before he could attend to Jehoiakim. It may be, therefore, that the
worst apprehensions of the time not having been realized, in the
year or two of lull which followed, the politicians of Judah began
to boast of their foresight and the caution and sagacity of their
measures for the public safety, instead of ascribing the respite to
God; the warrior class might vaunt the bravery which it had exhibited
or intended to exhibit in the service of the country; and the rich
nobles might exult in the apparent security of their treasures and
the new lease of enjoyment accorded to themselves. To these various
classes, who would not be slow to ridicule his dark forebodings as
those of a moody and unpatriotic pessimist (xx. 7, xxvi. 11, xxix. 26,
xxxvii. 13), Jeremiah now speaks, to remind them that if the danger
is over for the present, it is the lovingkindness and the righteous
government of Iahvah which has removed it, and to declare that it
is only suspended and postponed, not abolished for ever: _Behold,
days are coming, saith Iahvah, when I will visit_ (his guilt) _upon
every one that is circumcised in foreskin_ (only, and not _in heart_
also): _upon Egypt and upon Judah, and upon Edom and upon the benê
Ammon and upon Moab, and upon all the tonsured folk that dwell in the
wilderness: For all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house
of Israel are uncircumcised in heart._ Egypt is mentioned first, as
the leading nation, to which at the time the petty states of the west
looked for help in their struggle against Babylon (cf. xxvii. 3). The
prophet numbers Judah with the rest, not only as a member of the same
political group, but as standing upon the same level of unspiritual
life. Like Israel, Egypt also practised circumcision, and both the
context here requires and their kinship with the Hebrews makes it
probable that the other peoples mentioned observed the same custom
(Herod., ii. 36, 104), which is actually portrayed in a wall-painting
at Karnak. The "tonsured folk" or "cropt-heads" of the wilderness
are north Arabian nomads like the Kedarenes (xlix. 28, 32), and the
tribes of Dedan, Tema and Buz (xxv. 23), whose ancestor was the
circumcised Ishmael (Gen. xxv. 13 _sqq._, xvii. 23). Herodotus records
their custom of shaving the temples all round, and leaving a tuft of
hair on the top of the head (Herod., iii. 8), which practice, like
circumcision, had a religious significance, and was forbidden to the
Israelites (Lev. xix. 27, xxi. 5).

Now why does Jeremiah mention circumcision at all? The case is, I
think, parallel to his mention of another external distinction of
the popular religion, the Ark of the Covenant (iii. 15). Just as
in that place God promises _shepherds according to Mine heart which
shall shepherd_ the restored Israel _with knowledge and prudence_,
and then directly adds that, in the light and truth of those days,
the ark will be forgotten (iii. 15, 16); so here, he bids the ruling
classes, the actual shepherds of the nation, not to trust in their
own wisdom or valour or wealth (cf. xvii. 5 _sqq._), but in _being
prudent and knowing Iahvah_, and then adds that the outward sign of
circumcision, upon which the people prided themselves as the mark of
their dedication to Iahvah, was in itself of no value, apart from a
"circumcised heart," _i.e._, a heart purified of selfish aims and
devoted to the will and glory of God (iv. 4). So far as Iahvah is
concerned, all Judah's heathen neighbours are uncircumcised, in spite
of their observance of the outward rite. The Jews themselves would
hardly admit the validity of heathen circumcision, because the manner
of it was different, just as at this day the Muhammadan method differs
from the Jewish. But Jeremiah puts "all the house of Israel," who were
circumcised in the orthodox manner, on a level with the imperfectly
circumcised heathen peoples around them. All alike are uncircumcised
before God; those who have the orthodox rite, and those who have but
an inferior semblance of it; and all alike will in the day of judgment
be visited for their sins (cf. Amos i.).

With the increasing carelessness of moral obligations, an increasing
importance would be attached to the observance of such a rite as
circumcision, which was popularly supposed to devote a man to Iahvah
in such sense that the tie was indissoluble. Jeremiah says plainly
that this is a mistaken view. The outward sign must have an inward
and spiritual grace corresponding thereto; else the Judeans are no
better than those whose circumcision they despise as defective. His
meaning is that of the Apostle, "Circumcision verily profiteth, _if
thou keep the law_; but if thou be a breaker of law, thy circumcision
hath become uncircumcision" (Rom. ii. 25). "Circumcision is nothing,
and uncircumcision is nothing, _but the keeping of the commandments
of God," scil._ is everything (1 Cor. vii. 19). It is "faith working
by love," it is the "new creature" that is essential in spiritual
religion (Gal. v. 6, vi. 15).

_Hæc dicit Dominus: Non glorietur sapiens in sapientia sua._ Glancing
back over the whole passage, we discern an inward relation between
these verses and the preceding discourse. It is not the outward props
of state-craft, and strong battalions, and inexhaustible wealth, that
really and permanently uphold a nation; not these, but the knowledge of
Iahvah, a just insight into the true nature of God, and a national life
regulated in all its departments by that insight. At the outset of this
third section of his discourse (ix. 3-6), Jeremiah declared that corrupt
Israel _knew not_ and _refused to know_ its God. At the beginning of the
entire piece (vii. 3 _sq._), he urged his countrymen to _amend their
ways and their doings_, and not go on trusting in _lying words_ and
doing the opposite of _lovingkindness and justice and righteousness_,
which alone are pleasing to Iahvah (Mic. vi. 8), Who _delighteth in
lovingkindness and not sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God more than
in burnt-offerings_ (Hos. vi. 6). And just as in the opening section the
sacrificial worship was disparaged, taken as an "opus operatum," so here
at the close circumcision is declared to have no independent value as
a means of securing Divine favour (ix. 25). Thus the entire discourse
is rounded off by the return of the end to the beginning; and the main
thought of the whole, which Jeremiah has developed and enforced with so
much variety of feeling and oratorical and poetical ornament, is the
eternally true thought that a service of God which is purely external
is no service at all, and that rites without a loving obedience are an
insult to the Majesty of Heaven.

x. 17-25. The latter part of chap. x. resumes the subject suspended at
ix. 22. It evidently contemplates the speedy departure of the people
into banishment. _Away out of the land with thy pack_ (or _thy goods_;
LXX. ὑπόστασις, "property," Targ. "merchandise," the Heb. term, which
is related to "Canaan," occurs here only), _O thou that sittest in
distress!_ (or _abidest in the siege_: lii. 5; 2 Kings xxiv. 10).
Sion is addressed, and bidden to prepare her scanty bundle of bare
necessaries for the march into exile. So Egypt is bidden to "make for
herself vessels of exile," xlvi. 19. Some think that Sion is warned
to withdraw her goods from the open country to the protection of her
strong walls, before the siege begins, as in viii. 14; but we have
passed that stage in the development of the piece, and the next verse
seems to shew the meaning: _For thus hath Iahvah said, Lo, I am about
to sling forth the inhabitants of the land this time_--as opposed to
former occasions, when the enemy retired unsuccessful (2 Kings xvi.
5, xix. 36), or went off satisfied with plunder or an indemnity, like
the Scythians (see also 2 Kings xiv. 14)--_and I will distress them
that they may find out_ the truth, which now they refuse to see. The
aposiopesis _that they may find out!_ is very striking. The Vulgate
renders the verb in the passive: "Tribulabo eos ita ut inveniantur."
This, however, does not give so good a sense as the Masoretic
pointing, and Ewald's reference of the term to the goods of the
panic-stricken fugitives seems flat and tasteless ("the inhabitants
of the land will this time ... not be able to hide their goods from
the enemy!"). The best comment on the phrase is supplied by a later
oracle: _Lo, I am about to make them know this time--I will make them
know My hand and My might; that they may know that My name is Iahvah_
(xvi. 21). Cf. also xvii. 9; Eccles. viii. 17.

The last verse (17) resembles a poetical quotation; and this one looks
like the explication of it. There the population is personified as a
woman; here we have instead the plain prose expression, "inhabitants
of the land." The figurative, "I will sling them forth" or "cast
them out," explains the bidding of Sion to _pack up her bundle_ or
_belongings_--there seems to be a touch of contempt in this isolated
word, as much as to signify that the people must go forth into exile
with no more of their possessions than they can carry like a beggar in
a bundle. The expression, "I will distress them," seems to shew that
"thou that sittest in the distress" is proleptic, or to be rendered
"thou that art to sit in distress," which comes to the same thing.

       *       *       *       *       *

And now the prophet imagines the distress and the remorse of this
forlorn mother, as it will manifest itself when her house is ruined
and her children are gone and she realizes the folly of the past (cf.
iv. 31):--

          "_Woe's me for my wound!
           Fatal is my stroke!_"

(perhaps quoted from a familiar elegy). _And yet I--I thought_
(chap. xxii. 21; Ps. xxx. 7), _Only this_--no more than this--_is my
sickness: I can bear it!_ (וה אך אשאנ חליי; LXX. σου, Vulg. _mea_).
The people had never fully realized the threatenings of the prophets,
until they began to be accomplished. When they heard them, they had
said, half-incredulously, half-mockingly, Is that all? Their false
guides, too, had treated apparent danger as a thing of little moment,
assuring them that their half reforms, and zealous outward worship,
were sufficient to turn away the Divine displeasure (vi. 14). And so
they said to themselves, as sinners are still in the habit of saying,
"If the worst come to the worst, I can bear it. Besides, God is
merciful, and things may turn out better for frail humanity than your
preachers of wrath and woe predict. Meanwhile--I shall do as I please,
and take my chance of the issue."

The lament of the mourning mother continues: _My tent is laid waste
and all my cords are broken; My sons went forth of me_ (to battle)
_and are not; There is none to spread my tent any more, And to
set up my curtains_ (cf. Amos ix. 11). Overhearing, as it were,
this sorrowful lamentation (_qinah_), the prophet interposes with
the reason of the calamity: _For the shepherds became brutish_ or
_behaved foolishly_, stulte egerunt (Vulg.)--the leaders of the nation
shewed themselves as insensate and silly as cattle--_and Iahvah they
sought not_ (ii. 8); _Therefore_--as they had no regard for Divine
counsel--_they dealt not wisely_ (iii. 15, ix. 23, xx. 11), _and all
their flock was scattered abroad_.

Once more, and for the last time, the prophet sounds the alarm: _Hark!
a rumour! lo, it cometh! and a great uproar from the land of the north;
to make the_ _cities of Judah a desolation, a haunt of jackals!_ It is
not likely that the verse is to be regarded as spoken by the mourning
country; she contemplates the evil as already done, whereas here it is
only imminent (cf. iv. 6, vi. 22, i. 15). The piece concludes with a
prayer (vv. 23-25), which may be considered either as an intercession
by the prophet on behalf of the nation (cf. xviii. 20), or as a form of
supplication which he suggests as suitable to the existing crisis. _I
know, Iahvah, that man's way is not his own; That it pertaineth not to
a man to walk and direct his own steps: Correct me, Iahvah, but with
justice; Not in Thine anger, lest Thou make me small!_ (Partly quoted,
Ps. vi. 1, xxxviii. 1.) _Pour out Thy fury upon the nations that know
Thee not, And upon tribes that have not called upon Thy name; For they
have devoured Jacob_ [_and will devour him_], [_and consumed him_], _and
his pasture they have desolated!_ (Ps. lxxix. 6, 7, quoted from this
place. In Jer. the LXX. omits "and will devour him;" while the psalm
omits both of the bracketed expressions.)

The Vulgate renders ver. 23: "Scio, Domine, quia non est hominis via
ejus; nec viri est ut ambulet, et dirigat gressus suos." I think this
indicates the correct reading of the Hebrew text (וְהָכֵין הָלךְ; cf.
ix. 23, where two infinitives absolute are used in a similar way). The
Septuagint also must have had the same text, for it translates, "nor
will (= can) a man walk and direct his own walking." The Masoretic
punctuation is certainly incorrect; and the best that can be made of it
is Hitzig's version, which, however, disregards the accents, although
their authority is the same as that of the vowel points: _I know Iahvah
that not to man belongeth his way, not to a perishing_ (lit. "going,"
"departing") _man--and_ _to direct his steps_. Any reader of Hebrew may
see at once that this is a very unusual form of expression. (For the
thought, cf. Prov. xvi. 9, xix. 21; Ps. xxxvii. 23.)

The words express humble submission to the impending chastisement. The
penitent people does not deprecate the penalty of its sins, but only
prays that the measure of it may be determined by right rather than by
wrath (cf. xlvi. 27, 28). The very idea of right and justice implies a
limit, whereas wrath, like all passions, is without limit, blind and
insatiable. "In the Old Testament, justice is opposed, not to mercy,
but to high-handed violence and oppression, which recognise no law but
subjective appetite and desire. The just man owns the claims of an
objective law of right."

_Non est hominis via ejus._ Neither individuals nor nations are
masters of their own fortunes in this world. Man has not his fate
in his own hands; it is controlled and directed by a higher Power.
By sincere submission, by a glad, unswerving loyalty, which honours
himself as well as its Object, man may co-operate with that Power, to
the furtherance of ends which are of all possible ends the wisest, the
loftiest, the most beneficial to his kind. Self-will may oppose those
ends, it cannot thwart them; at the most it can but momentarily retard
their accomplishment, and exclude itself from a share in the universal
blessing.

Israel now confesses, by the mouth of his best and truest
representative, that he has hitherto loved to choose his own path, and
to walk in his own strength, without reference to the will and way of
God. Now, the overwhelming shock of irresistible calamity has brought
him to his senses, has revealed to him his powerlessness in the hands
of the Unseen Arbiter of events, has made him see, as he never saw,
that mortal man can determine neither the vicissitudes nor the goal of
his journey. Now he sees the folly of the mighty man glorying in his
might, and the rich man glorying in his riches; now he sees that the
_how_ and the _whither_ of his earthly course are not matters within
his own control; that all human resources are nothing _against_ God,
and are only helpful when used _for_ and _with_ God. Now he sees that
the path of life is not one which we enter upon and traverse of our
own motion, but a path along which we are led; and so, resigning his
former pride of independent choice, he humbly prays, "Lead Thou me
on!" Lead me whither Thou wilt, in the way of trouble and disaster and
chastisement for my sins; but remember my human frailty and weakness,
and let not Thy wrath destroy me! Finally, the suppliant ventures to
remind God that others are guilty as well as he, and that the ruthless
destroyers of Israel are themselves fitted to be objects as well as
instruments of Divine justice. They are such (i) because they have not
"known" nor "called upon" Iahvah; and (ii) because they have "devoured
Jacob" who was a thing consecrated to Iahvah (ii. 3), and therefore
are guilty of sacrilege (cf. l. 28, 29).

It has never been our lot to see our own land overrun by a barbarous
invader, our villages burnt, our peasantry slaughtered, our towns
taken and sacked with all the horrors permitted or enjoined by a
non-Christian religion. We read of but hardly realize the atrocities
of ancient warfare. If we did realize them, we might even think a
saint justified in praying for vengeance upon the merciless destroyers
of his country. But apart from this, I see a deeper meaning in this
prayer. The justice of this terrible visitation upon Judah is admitted
by the prophet. Yet in Judah many righteous were involved in the
general calamity. On the other hand, Jeremiah knew something of the
vices of the Babylonians, against which his contemporary Habakkuk
inveighs so bitterly. They "knew not" nor "called upon" Iahvah; but
a base polytheism reflected and sanctioned the corruption of their
lives. A kind of moral dilemma, therefore, is proposed here. If the
purpose of this outpouring of Divine wrath be to bring Israel to
"find out" (ver. 18) and to acknowledge the truth of God and his own
guiltiness, can wrath persist, when that result is attained? Does not
justice demand that the torrent of destruction be diverted upon the
proud oppressor? So prayer, the forlorn hope of poor humanity, strives
to overcome and compel and prevail with God, and to wrest a blessing
even from the hand of Eternal Justice.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] The omissions of the Septuagint are not always intelligent. The
repetition of the "all" here intensifies the idea of the _totality_ of
the ruin of the northern kingdom. The two clauses balance each other:
_all your brethren--all the seed of Ephraim_. The objection that Edom
was also a "brother" of Israel (Deut. xxiii. 8; Amos i. 11) shews a
want of rhetorical sense.

In vii. 4 the Septuagint tastelessly omits the third "The Temple of
Iahvah!" upon which the rhetorical effect largely depends: cf. chap.
xxii. 29; Isa. vi. 3.

[31] NOTE ON vii. 25.--The word answering to "daily" in the Heb. simply
means "day," and ought to be omitted, as an accidental repetition either
from the previous line, or of the last two letters of the preceding
word "prophets." Cf. ver. 13, where a similar phrase, "rising early and
speaking," occurs in a similar context, but without "daily."

[32] _Wa'etten lahem_ can only mean "and I gave (in prophetic idiom
'and I will give') unto them," and this, of course, requires an
object. "I will give them to those who shall pass over them" is the
rendering proposed by several scholars. But _lahem_ does not mean
"to those," and the thought does not harmonize with what precedes,
and this use of עבר is doubtful, and the verb "to give" absolutely
requires an object. The Vulgate rendering is really more in accordance
with Hebrew syntax, as the masc. suffix of the verb might be used
in less accurate writing. Targum: "because I gave them My law from
Sinai, and they transgressed against it;" Peshito: "and I gave unto
them, and they transgressed them." So also the Syro-Hexaplar of Milan
(participle: "were transgressing") between asterisks.

[33] It seems to take the עלּי each time as עלּיהון־עלּי and to read
איתי מלעיגים for מבליגיתי: thus getting "Scoffers! I will bring upon
them sorrow; upon them my heart is faint."

[34] The irregular _Hiphil_ form of the verb--cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 22; Job
xix. 4--may be justified by Job xxviii. 8; we are not, therefore,
bound to render the Masoretic text: _and they make their tongue bend
their lying bow_. Probably, however, _Qal_ is right, the _Hiphil_
being due to a misunderstanding, like that of the Targum, "And they
taught their tongue words of lying."

[35] Ewald prefers the reading of the LXX., which divides the words
differently. If we suppose their version correct, they must have read:
"They have trained their tongue to speak falsehood, to distort. They
are weary of returning. Oppression in oppression, deceit in deceit!
They refuse to know Me, saith Iahvah." But I do not think this an
improvement on the present Masoretic text.

[36] If Jeremiah wrote Ps. lv., as Hitzig supposes, he may be alluding
to the treachery of a particular friend; cf. Ps. lv. 13, 14.

[37] _Shahadhta lisânaka `alaina._ In this case, we should follow the
Heb. margin or _Q'rê_.

[38] _Speak thou, Thus saith Iahweh_, is undoubtedly a spurious
addition, and does not appear in the LXX. Jeremiah never says _Koh
ne'um Iahvah_, and never uses the imperative _dabber_!




                                  VI.

                 _THE IDOLS OF THE HEATHEN AND THE GOD
                              OF ISRAEL._

                           JEREMIAH x. 1-16.


This fine piece is altogether isolated from the surrounding context,
which it interrupts in a very surprising manner. Neither the style nor
the subject, neither the idioms nor the thoughts expressed in them,
agree with what we easily recognise as Jeremiah's work. A stronger
contrast can hardly be imagined than that which exists between the
leading motive of this oracle as it stands, and that of the long
discourse in which it is embedded with as little regard for continuity
as an aerolite exhibits when it buries itself in a plain. In what
precedes, the prophet's fellow-countrymen have been accused of flagrant
and defiant idolatry (vii. 17 _sqq._, 30 _sqq._); the opening words
of this piece imply a totally different situation. _To the way of the
nations become not accustomed, and of the signs of heaven be not afraid;
for the nations are afraid of them._[39] Jeremiah would not be likely
to warn inveterate apostates not to "accustom themselves" to idolatry.
The words presuppose, not a nation whose idolatry was notorious, and
had just been the subject of unsparing rebuke and threats of imminent
destruction; they presuppose a nation free from idolatry, but exposed
to temptation from surrounding heathenism. The entire piece contains
no syllable of reference to past or present unfaithfulness on the part
of Israel. Here at the outset, and throughout, Israel is implicitly
contrasted with "the nations" (τὰ ἔθνη) as the servant of Iahvah with
the foolish worshippers of lifeless gods. There is a tone of contempt
in the use of the term _goyim_--"To the way of the _goyim_ accustom
not yourselves ... for the _goyim_ are afraid of them" (of the signs
of heaven); or as the Septuagint puts it yet more strongly, "for
_they_ (the besotted _goyim_) are afraid (_i.e._, worship) before
them;" as though that alone--the sense of Israel's superiority--should
be sufficient to deter Israelites from any bowings in the house
of Rimmon.[40] Neither this contemptuous use of the term _goyim_,
"Gentiles," nor the scathing ridicule of the false gods and their
devotees, is in the manner of Jeremiah. Both are characteristic of a
later period. The biting scorn of image-worship, the intensely vivid
perception of the utter incommensurableness of Iahvah, the Creator of
all things, with the handiwork of the carpenter and the silversmith,
are well-known and distinctive features of the great prophets of the
Exile (see especially Isa. xl.-lxvi.). There are plenty of allusions
to idolatry in Jeremiah; but they are expressed in a tone of fervid
indignation, not of ridicule. It was the initial offence, which issued
in a hopeless degradation of public and private morality, and would
have for its certain consequence the rejection and ruin of the nation
(ii. 5-13, 20-28, iii. 1-9, 23 _sqq._). All the disasters, past and
present, which had befallen the country, were due to it (vii. 9, 17
_sqq._, 30 _sqq._, viii. 2 etc.). The people are urged to repent and
return to Iahvah with their whole heart (iii. 12 _sqq._, iv. 3 _sqq._,
v. 21 _sqq._, vi. 8), as the only means of escape from deadly peril. The
Baals are things that cannot help or save (ii. 8, 11); but the prophet
does not say, as here (x. 5), "Fear them not; they cannot harm you!"
The piece before us breathes not one word about Israel's apostasy, the
urgent need of repentance, the impending ruin. Taken as a whole, it
neither harmonizes with Jeremiah's usual method of argument, nor does it
suit the juncture of affairs implied by the language which precedes and
follows (vii. 1-ix. 26, x. 17-25). For let us suppose that this oracle
occupies its proper place here, and was actually written by Jeremiah at
the crisis which called forth the preceding and following utterances.
Then the warning cry, "Be not afraid of the signs of heaven!" can only
mean "Be not afraid of the Powers under whose auspices the Chaldeans are
invading your country; Iahvah, the true and living God, will protect
you!" But consolation of this kind would be diametrically opposed to the
doctrine which Jeremiah shares with all his predecessors; the doctrine
that Iahvah Himself is the prime cause of the coming trouble, and that
the heathen invaders are His instruments of wrath (v. 9 _sq._, vi. 6);
it would imply assent to that fallacious confidence in Iahvah, which the
prophet has already done his utmost to dissipate (vi. 14, vii. 4 _sq._).

The details of the idolatry satirized in the piece before us point
to Chaldea rather than to Canaan. We have here a zealous worship of
wooden images overlaid and otherwise adorned with silver and gold,
and robed in rich garments of violet and purple (cf. Josh. vii.
21). This does not agree with what we know of Judean practice in
Jeremiah's time, when, besides the worship of the Queen of Heaven, the
people adored "stocks and stones;" probably the wooden symbols of the
goddess Asherah and rude sun-pillars, but hardly works of the costly
kind described in the text, which indicate a wealthy people whose
religion reflected an advanced condition of the arts and commerce.
The designation of the objects of heathen worship as "the signs of
heaven," and the gibe at the custom of carrying the idol-statues in
procession (Isa. xlvi. 1, 7), also point us to Babylon, "the land of
graven images" (l. 38), and the home of star-worship and astrological
superstition (Isa. xlvii. 13).

From all these considerations, it would appear that not Israel in
Canaan but Israel in Chaldea is addressed in this piece by some
unknown prophet, whose leaflet has been inserted among the works of
Jeremiah. In that case, the much disputed eleventh verse, written in
Aramaic, and as such unique in the volume of the prophets proper, may
really have belonged to the original piece. Aramaic was the common
language of intercourse between East and West both before and during
the captivity (cf. 2 Kings xviii. 26); and the suggestion that the
tempted exiles should answer in this dialect the heathen who pressed
them to join in their worship, seems suitable enough. The verse
becomes very suspicious, if we suppose that the whole piece is really
part and parcel of Jeremiah's discourse, and as such addressed to the
Judeans in the reign of Jehoiakim. Ewald, who maintains this view upon
grounds that cannot be called convincing, thinks the Aramaic verse was
originally a marginal annotation on verse 15, and suggests that it is
a quotation from some early book similar to the book of Daniel. At
all events, it is improbable that the verse proceeded from the pen of
Jeremiah, who writes Aramaic nowhere else, not even in the letter to
the exiles of the first Judean captivity (chap. xxix.).

But might not the piece be an address which Jeremiah sent to the
exiles of the Ten Tribes, who were settled in Assyria, and with whom
it is otherwise probable that he cultivated some intercourse? The
expression "House of _Israel_" (ver. 1) has been supposed to indicate
this. That expression, however, occurs in the immediately preceding
context (ix. 26), as does also that of "the nations"; facts which
may partially explain why the passage we are discussing occupies its
present position. The unknown author of the Apocryphal Letter of
Jeremiah and the Chaldee Targumist appear to have held the opinion
that Jeremiah wrote the piece for the benefit of the exiles carried
away with Jehoiachin in the first Judean captivity. The Targum
introduces the eleventh verse thus: "This is a copy of the letter
which Jeremiah the prophet sent to the remnant of the elders of the
captivity which was in Babylon. And if the peoples among whom ye are
shall say unto you, Fear the Errors, O house of Israel! thus shall
ye answer and thus shall ye say unto them: The Errors whom ye fear
are (but) errors, in which there is no profit: they from the heavens
are not able to bring down rain, and from the earth they cannot make
fruits to spring: they and those who fear them will perish from the
earth, and will be brought to an end from under these heavens. And
thus shall ye say unto them: We fear Him that maketh the earth by His
power," etc. (ver. 12). The phrase "the _remnant of the elders of the
captivity which was_ (or _who were_) _in Babylon_" is derived from
Jer. xxix. 1. But how utterly different are the tone and substance
of that message from those of the one before us! Far from warning
his captive countrymen against the state-worship of Babylon, far
from satirizing its absurdity, Jeremiah bids the exiles be contented
in their new home, and to pray for the peace of the city. The false
prophets who appear at Babylon prophesy in Iahvah's name (vv. 15, 21),
and in denouncing them Jeremiah says not a word about idolatry. It is
evident from the whole context that he did not fear it in the case of
the exiles of Jehoiachin's captivity. (See also the simile of the Good
and Bad Figs, chap. xxiv., which further illustrates the prophet's
estimation of the earlier body of exiles.)

The Greek Epistle of Jeremiah, which in MSS. is sometimes appended to
Baruch, and which Fritzsche refers to the Maccabean times, appear to
be partially based upon the passage we are considering. Its heading
is: "Copy of a letter which Jeremiah sent unto those who were about to
be carried away captives to Babylon, by the king of the Babylonians;
to announce to them as was enjoined him by God." It then begins thus:
"On account of your sins which ye have sinned before God ye will be
carried away to Babylon as captives by Nabuchodonosor king of the
Babylonians. Having come, then, into Babylon, ye will be there many
years, and a long time, until seven generations; but after this I
will bring you forth from thence in peace. But now ye will see in
Babylon gods, silvern and golden and wooden, borne upon shoulders,
shewing fear (an object of fear) to the nations. Beware then, lest ye
also become like unto the nations, and fear take you at them, when
ye see a multitude before and behind them worshipping them. But say
ye in the mind: Thee it behoveth us to worship, O Lord! For Mine
angel is with you, and He is requiring your lives." The whole epistle
is well worth reading as a kind of paraphrase of our passage. "For
their tongue is carven (or polished) by a carpenter, and themselves
are overlaid with gold and silver, but lies they are and they cannot
speak." "They _being cast about with purple apparel_ have their face
wiped on account of the dust from the house, which is plentiful upon
them" (13). "But he holds a dagger with right hand and an axe, but
_himself from war and robbers he will not_ (= cannot) _deliver_" (15),
cf. Jer. x. 15. "_He is like one of the house-beams_" (20, cf. Jer. x.
8, and perhaps 5). "Upon their body and upon their head alight bats,
swallows, and the birds, likewise also the cats; whence ye will know
that they are not gods; therefore fear them not" (cf. Jer. x. 5).
"At all cost are they purchased, in which there is no spirit" (25;
cf. Jer. x. 9, 14). "_Footless, upon shoulders they are carried_,
displaying their own dishonour to men" (26). "Neither if they suffer
evil from any one, nor if good, will they be able to recompense"
(34; cf. ver. 5). "But they that serve them will be ashamed" (39;
cf. ver. 14). "By carpenters and goldsmiths are they prepared; they
become nothing but what the craftsmen wish them to become. And the
very men that prepare them cannot last long; how then are the things
prepared by them likely to do so? for they left lies and a reproach
to them that come after. For whenever war and evils come upon them,
the priests consult together where to hide with them. How then is it
possible not to perceive that they are not gods, who neither save
themselves from war nor from evils? For being of wood and overlaid
with gold and silver they will be known hereafter, that they are lies.
To all the nations and to the kings it will be manifest that they are
not gods but works of men's hands, and no work of God is in them"
(45-51; cf. Jer. x. 14-15). "_A wooden pillar in a palace_ is more
useful than the false gods" (59). "_Signs_ among nations they will not
shew _in heaven_, nor yet will they shine like the sun, nor give light
as the moon" (67). "_For as a scarecrow in a cucumber-bed guarding
nothing, so their gods are wooden and overlaid with gold and with
silver_" (70; cf. Jer. x. 5). The mention of the sun, moon and stars,
the lightning, the wind, the clouds, and fire "sent forth from above,"
as totally unlike the idols in "forms and powers," seems to shew that
the author had verses 12, 13 before him.

When we turn to the Septuagint, we are immediately struck by its
remarkable omissions. The four verses 6-8 and 10 do not appear at all
in this oldest of the versions; while the ninth is inserted between
the first clause and the remainder of the fifth verse. Now, on the one
hand, it is just the verses which the LXX. translates, which both in
style and matter contrast so strongly with Jeremiah's authentic work,
and are plainly incongruous with the context and occasion; while,
on the other hand, the omitted verses contain nothing which points
positively to another author than Jeremiah, and, taken by themselves,
harmonise very well with what may be supposed to have been the
prophet's feeling at the actual juncture of affairs.

    "There is none at all like Thee, O Iahvah!
     Great art Thou, and great is Thy Name in might!
     Who should not fear Thee, O King of the nations? for 'tis Thy due
     For among all the wise of the nations and in all their kingdom
          there is none at all like Thee.
     And in one thing they are brute-like and dull;
     In the doctrine of Vanities, which are wood!
     But Iahvah Elohim is truth;
     He is a living God, and an eternal King:
     At His wrath the earth quaketh,
     And nations abide not His indignation."

As Hitzig has observed, it is natural that now, as the terrible
decision approaches, the prophet should seek and find comfort in the
thought of the all-overshadowing greatness of the God of Israel. If,
however, we suppose these verses to be Jeremiah's, we can hardly
extend the same assumption to verses 12-16, in spite of one or two
expressions of his which occur in them; and, upon the whole, the
linguistic argument seems to weigh decisively against Jeremiah's
authorship of this piece (see Naegelsbach).

It may be true enough that "the basis and possibility of the true
prosperity and the hope of the genuine community are unfolded in these
strophes" (Ewald); but that does not prove that they belong to Jeremiah.
Nor can I see much force in the remark that "didactic language is of
another kind than that of pure prophecy." But when the same critic
affirms that "the description of the folly of idolatry ... is also quite
new, and clearly serves as a model for the much more elaborate ones,
Isa. xl. 19-24 (20), xli. 7, xliv. 8-20, xlvi. 5-7;" he is really giving
up the point in dispute. Verses 12-16 are repeated in the prophecy
against Babylon (li. 15-19); but this hardly proves that "the later
prophet, chap. l.-li., found _all these words_ in our piece;" it is only
evidence, so far as it goes, for those verses themselves.

The internal connexion which Ewald assumes, is not self-evident.
There is no proof that "the thought that the gods of the heathen might
again rule" occurred for one moment to Jeremiah on this occasion; nor
the thought that "the maintenance of the ancient true religion in
conflict with the heathen must produce the regeneration of Israel."
There is no reference throughout the disputed passage to the spiritual
condition of the people, which is, in fact, presupposed to be good;
and the return in verses 17-25 "to the main subject of the discourse"
is inexplicable on Ewald's theory that the whole chapter, omitting
verse 11, is one homogeneous structure.

_Hear ye the word that Iahvah spake upon you, O house of Israel! Thus
said Iahvah._ The terms imply a particular crisis in the history of
Israel, when a Divine pronouncement was necessary to the guidance of
the people. Iahvah speaks indeed in all existence and in all events,
but His voice becomes audible, is recognised as His, only when human
need asserts itself in some particular juncture of affairs. Then,
in view of the actual emergency, the mind of Iahweh declares itself
by the mouth of His proper spokesmen; and the prophetic _Thus said
Iahvah_ contrasts the higher point of view with the lower, the
heavenly and spiritual with the earthly and the carnal; it sets forth
the aspect of things as they appear to God, in the sharpest antithesis
to the aspect of things as they appear to the natural unilluminated
man. _Thus said Iahvah_: This is the thought of the Eternal, this is
His judgment upon present conditions and passing events, whatever
_your_ thought and your judgment may happen or incline to be! Such, I
think, is the essential import of this _vox solennis_, this customary
formula of the dialect of prophecy.

On the present occasion, the crisis in view of which a prophet declares
the mind of Iahvah is not a political emergency but a religious
temptation. The day for the former has long since passed away, and the
depressed and scattered communities of exiled Israelites are exposed
among other trials to the constant temptation to sacrifice to present
expediency the only treasure which they have saved from the wreck of
their country, the faith of their fathers, the religion of the prophets.
The uncompromising tone of this isolated oracle, the abruptness with
which the writer at once enters _in medias res_, the solemn emphasis of
his opening imperatives, proves that this danger pressed at the time
with peculiar intensity. _Thus said Iahvah: Unto the way of the nations
use not yourselves, And of the signs of heaven stand not in awe, for
that the nations stand in awe of them!_ (cf. Lev. xviii. 3; Ezek. xx.
18). The "way" of the nations is their religion, the mode and manner
of their worship (v. 4, 5); and the exiles are warned not to suffer
themselves to be led astray by example, as they had been in the land of
Canaan; they are not to adore the signs of heaven, simply because they
see their conquerors adoring them. The "signs of heaven" would seem
to be the sun, moon and stars, which were the objects of Babylonian
worship; although the passage is unhappily not free from ambiguity.
Some expositors have preferred to think of celestial phenomena such
as eclipses and particular conjunctions of the heavenly bodies, which
in those days were looked upon as portents, foreshadowing the course
of national and individual fortunes. That there is really a reference
to the astrological observation of the stars, is a view which finds
considerable support in the words addressed to Babylon on the eve of
her fall, by a prophet, who, if not identical was at least contemporary
with him whose message we are discussing. In the forty-seventh chapter
of the book of Isaiah, it is said to Babylon: "Let now them that
parcel out the heavens, that gaze at the stars, arise and save thee,
prognosticating month by month the things that will come upon thee"
(Isa. xlvii. 13). The _signs of heaven_ are, in this case, the supposed
indications of coming events furnished by the varying appearances of
the heavenly bodies; and one might even suppose that the immediate
occasion of our prophecy was some eclipse of the sun or moon, or some
remarkable conjunction of the planets which at the time was exciting
general anxiety among the motley populations of Babylonia. The prophecy
then becomes a remarkable instance of the manner in which an elevated
spiritual faith, free from all the contaminating and blinding influences
of selfish motives and desires, may rise superior to universal
superstition, and boldly contradict the suggestions of what is accounted
the highest wisdom of the time, anticipating the results though not the
methods nor the evidence of science, at an epoch when science is as yet
in the mythological stage. And the prophet might well exclaim in a tone
of triumph, _Among all the wise of the nations none at all is like unto
thee_, O Lord, as a source of true wisdom and understanding for the
guidance of life (ver. 7).

The inclusion of eclipses and comets among the signs of heaven here
spoken of has been thought to be barred by the considerations that
these are sometimes alleged by the prophets themselves as signs of
coming judgment exhibited by the God of Israel; that, as a matter
of fact, they were as mysterious and awful to the Jews as to their
heathen neighbours; and that what is here contemplated is not the
terror inspired by rare occasional phenomena of this kind, but an
habitual superstition in relation to some ever-present causes. It
is certain that in another prophecy against Babylon, preserved in
the book of Isaiah, it is declared that, as a token of the impending
destruction, "the stars of heaven and the Orions thereof shall not
give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and
the moon shall not cause his light to shine" (Isa. xiii. 10); and the
similar language of the prophet Joel is well known (Joel ii. 2, 10,
30, 31, iii. 15). But these objections are not conclusive, for what
our author is denouncing is the heathen association of "the signs of
the heavens," whatever may be intended by that expression, with a
false system of religious belief. It is a special kind of idolatry
that he contemplates, as is clear from the immediate context. Not
only does the parallel clause "Unto the way of the nations use not
yourselves" imply a gradual conformity to a heathen religion; not
only is it the fact that the Hebrew phrase rendered in our versions
"Be not dismayed!" may imply religious awe or worship (Mal. ii.
5), as indeed terms denoting fear or dread are used by the Semitic
languages in general; but the prophet at once proceeds to an exposure
of the absurdity of image-worship: _For the ordinances_ (established
modes of worship; 2 Kings xvii. 8; here, established objects of
worship) _of the peoples are a mere breath_ (_i.e._, nought)! _for
it_ (the idol) _is a tree, which out of the forest one felled_ (so
the accents); _the handiwork of the carpenter with the bill. With
silver and with gold one adorneth it_ (or, _maketh it bright_); _with
nails and with hammers they make them fast, that one sway not_ (or,
_that there be no shaking_). _Like the scarecrow of a garden of gourds
are they, and they cannot_ _speak; they are carried and carried,
for they cannot take a step_ (or, _march_): _be not afraid of them,
for they cannot hurt, neither is it in their power to benefit!_ "Be
not afraid of them!" returns to the opening charge: "Of the signs of
heaven stand not in awe!" (cf. Gen. xxxi. 42, 53; Isa. viii. 12, 13).
Clearly, then, the _signa cœli_ are the idols against whose worship
the prophet warns his people; and they denote "the sun, the moon,
the constellations (of the Zodiac), and all the host of heaven" (2
Kings xxiii. 5). We know that the kings of Judah, from Ahaz onwards,
derived this worship from Assyria, and that its original home was
Babylon, where in every temple the exiles would see images of the
deities presiding over the heavenly bodies, such as Samas (the sun)
and his consort Aa (the moon) at Sippara, Merodach (Jupiter) and his
son Nebo (Mercurius) at Babylon and Borsippa, Nergal (Mars) at Cutha,
daily served with a splendid and attractive ritual, and honoured
with festivals and processions on the most costly and magnificent
scale. The prophet looks through all this outward display to the void
within, he draws no subtle distinction between the symbol and the
thing symbolized; he accepts the popular confusion of the god with
his image, and identifies all the deities of the heathen with the
materials out of which their statues are made by the hands of men. And
he is justified in doing this, because there can be but one god in his
sense of the word; a multitude of _gods_ is a contradiction in terms.
From this point of view, he exposes the absurdity of the splendid
idolatry which his captive countrymen see all around them. Behold
that thing, he cries, which they call a god, and before which they
tremble with religious fear! It is nothing but a tree trunk hewn in
the forest, and trimmed into shape by the carpenter, and plated with
silver and gold, and fixed on its pedestal with hammer and nails, for
fear it should fall! Its terrors are empty terrors, like those of the
palm-trunk, rough-hewn into human shape, and set up among the melons
to frighten the birds away.

          "Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum,
           Cum faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum,
           Maluit esse deum. Deus inde ego, furum ariumque
           Maxima formido." (Hor., _Sat._ i. 8, 1, _sqq._)

Though the idol has the outward semblance of a man, it lacks his
distinguishing faculty of speech; it is as dumb as the scarecrow,
and as powerless to move from its place; so it has to be borne about
on men's shoulders (a mocking allusion to the grand processions of
the gods, which distinguished the Babylonian festivals). Will you
then be afraid of things that can do neither good nor harm? asks the
prophet; in terms that recall the challenge of another, or perchance
of himself, to the idols of Babylon: _Do good or do evil, that we may
look at each other and see it together_ (Isa. xli. 23).

In utter contrast with the impotence, the nothingness of all the gods
of the nations, whether Israel's neighbours or his invaders, stands
for ever the God of Israel. _There is none at all like Thee, O Iahweh!
great art Thou, and great is Thy Name in might!_ With different vowel
points, we might render, _Whence_ (cometh) _Thy like, O Iahvah?_ This
has been supported by reference to chap. xxx. 7: _Alas! for great is
that day. Whence_ (is one) _like it?_ (_me`ayin?_); but there too,
as here, we may equally well translate, _there is none like it_. The
interrogative, in fact, presupposes a negative answer; and the Hebrew
particle usually rendered _there is not, are not_ (_`ayin, `ên_) has
been explained as originally identical with the interrogative _where?_
(_`ayin_, implied in _me`ayin_, "from where?" "whence?" cf. Job. xiv.
10: _where is he?_ = _he is not_). The idiom of the text expresses a
more emphatic negation than the ordinary form would do; and though
rare, is by no means altogether unparalleled (see Isa. xl. 17, xli.
24; and other references in Gesenius). _Great art Thou and great is
Thy Name in might_; that is to say, Thou art great in Thyself, and
great in repute or manifestation among men, in respect of _might_,
virile strength or prowess (Ps. xxi. 14). Unlike the do-nothing
idols, Iahvah reveals His strength in deeds of strength (cf. Exod.
xv. 3 _sqq._). _Who should not fear Thee, Thou King of the nations?_
(cf. v. 22) _for Thee it beseemeth_ (= it is Thy due, and Thine
only): _for among all the wise of the nations and in all their realm,
there is none at all_ (as in ver. 6) _like Thee_. Religious fear is
instinctive in man; but, whereas the various nations lavish reverence
upon innumerable objects utterly unworthy of the name of deity,
rational religion sees clearly that there can be but One God, working
His supreme will in heaven and earth; and that this Almighty being is
the true "King of the nations," and disposes their destinies as well
as that of His people Israel, although they know Him not, but call
other imaginary beings their _kings_ (a common Semitic designation of
a national god: Ps. xx. 9; Isa. vi. 5, viii. 21). He, then, is the
proper object of the instinct of religious awe; all the peoples of
the earth owe Him adoration, even though they be ignorant of their
obligation; worship is His unshared prerogative.

_Among all the wise of the nations and in all their realm, not one
is like Thee!_ Who are the wise thus contrasted with the Supreme
God? Are the false gods the reputed wise ones, giving pretended
counsel to their deluded worshippers through the priestly oracle?
The term "kingdom" seems to indicate this view, if we take "their
kingdom" to mean the kingdom of the wise ones of the nations, that
is, the countries whose "kings" they are, where they are worshipped
as such. The heathen in general, and the Babylonians in particular,
ascribed wisdom to their gods. But there is no impropriety from an
Old Testament point of view in comparing Iahvah's wisdom with the
wisdom of man. The meaning of the prophet may be simply this, that
no earthly wisdom, craft or political sagacity, not even in the most
powerful empires such as Babylon, can be a match for Iahvah the
All-wise, or avail to thwart His purposes (Isa. xxxi. 1, 2). "Wise"
and "sagacious" are titles which the kings of Babylon continually
assert for themselves in their extant inscriptions; and the wisdom and
learning of the Chaldeans was famous in the ancient world. Either view
will agree with what follows: _But in one thing they_--the nations,
or their wise men--_will turn out brutish and besotted_: (in) _the
teaching of Vanities which are wood_. The verse is difficult; but the
expression "the teaching (or doctrine) of Vanities" may perhaps be
regarded as equivalent to _the idols taught of_; and then the second
half of the verse is constructed like the first member of ver. 3:
_The ordinances of the peoples are Vanity_, and may be rendered, _the
idols taught of are mere wood_ (cf. ver. 3 _b_, ii. 27, iii. 9). It
is possible also that the right reading is "foundation" (_mûsad_) not
"doctrine" (_mûsar_): _the foundation_ (basis, substratum, substance)
_of idols is wood_. (The term "Vanities"--_habalim_--is used for
"idols," viii. 19, xiv. 22; Ps. xxxi. 7). And, lastly, I think, the
clause might be rendered: _a doctrine of Vanities, of mere wood,
it_--their religion--_is_![41] This supreme folly is the "one thing"
that discredits all the boasted wisdom of the Chaldeans; and their
folly will hereafter be demonstrated by events (ver. 14).

The body of the idol is wood, and outwardly it is decorated with silver
and gold and costly apparel; but the whole and every part of it is the
work of man. _Silver plate_ (lit. _beaten out_) _from Tarshish_--from
far away Tartessus in Spain--_is brought, and gold from Uphaz_ (Dan.
x. 5), _the work of the smith, and of the hands of the founder_--who
have beaten out the silver and smelted the gold: _blue and purple is
their clothing_ (Ex. xxvi. 31, xxviii. 8): _the work of the wise_--of
skilled artists (Isa. xl. 20)--_is every part of them_. Possibly the
verse might better be translated: _Silver to be beaten out_--argentum
malleo diducendum--_which is brought from Tarshish, and gold_ which is
brought _from Uphaz_, are _the work of the smith and of the hands of the
smelter; the blue and purple_ which are _their clothing_, are _the work
of the wise all of them_. At all events, the point of the verse seems to
be that, whether you look at the inside or the outside of the idol, his
heart of wood or his casing of gold and silver and his gorgeous robes,
the whole and every bit of him as he stands before you is a manufactured
article, the work of men's hands. The supernatural comes in nowhere. In
sharpest contrast with this lifeless fetish, _Iahvah is a God that is
truth_, _i.e._, a true God (cf. Prov. xxii. 21), or _Iahvah is God in
truth_--is really God--_He is a_ _living God, and an eternal King_; the
sovereign whose rule is independent of the vicissitudes of time, and the
caprices of temporal creatures: _at His wrath the earth quaketh, and
nations cannot abide His indignation_: the world of nature and the world
of man are alike dependent upon His Will, and He exhibits His power and
his righteous anger in the disturbances of the one and the disasters of
the other.

According to the Hebrew punctuation, we should rather translate:
_But Iahvah Elohim_ (the designation of God in the second account of
creation, Gen. ii. 4-iii. 24) _is truth_, _i.e._, reality; as opposed to
the falsity and nothingness of the idols; or _permanence, lastingness_
(Ps. xix. 10), as opposed to their transitoriness (vv. 11-15).

The statement of the tenth verse respecting the eternal power and
godhead of Iahvah is confirmed in the twelfth and thirteenth by
instances of His creative energy and continual activity as exhibited
in the world of nature. _The Maker of the earth by His power,
Establishing the habitable world by His wisdom, And by His insight He
did stretch out the heavens: At the sound of His giving voice_ (Ps.
lxxvii. 18; _i.e._, thundering) _there is an uproar of waters in the
heavens, And He causeth the vapours to rise from the end of the earth;
Lightnings for the rain He maketh, And causeth the wind to go forth
out of His treasuries._ There is no break in the sense between these
sentences and the tenth verse. The construction resembles that of Amos
v. 8, ix. 5, 6, and is interrupted by the eleventh verse, which in all
probability was, to begin with, a marginal annotation.

The solid earth is itself a natural symbol of strength and stability.
The original creation of this mighty and enduring structure argues
the omnipotence of the Creator; while the "establishing" or "founding"
of it upon the waters of the great deep is a proof of supreme wisdom
(Ps. xxiv. 2; cxxxvi. 6), and the "spreading out" of the visible
heavens or atmosphere like a vast canopy or tent over the earth (Ps.
civ. 2; Isa. xl. 22), is evidence of a perfect insight into the
conditions essential to the existence and wellbeing of man.

It is, of course, clear enough that physical facts and phenomena are
here described in popular language as they appear to the eye, and
by no means with the severe precision of a scientific treatise. It
is not to be supposed that this prophet knew more about the actual
constitution of the physical universe than the wise men of his time
could impart. But such knowledge was not necessary to the enforcement
of the spiritual truths which it was his mission to proclaim; and
the fact that his brief oracle presents those truths in a garb which
we can only regard as poetical, and which it would argue a want of
judgment to treat as scientific prose, does not affect their eternal
validity, nor at all impair their universal importance. The passage
refers us to God as the ultimate source of the world of nature.
It teaches us that the stability of things is a reflexion of His
eternal being; that the persistence of matter is an embodiment of His
strength; that the indestructibility which science ascribes to the
materials of the physical universe is the seal which authenticates
their Divine original. Persistence, permanence, indestructibleness,
are properly sole attributes of the eternal Creator, which He
communicates to His creation. Things are indestructible as regards
man, not as regards the Author of their being.

Thus the wisdom enshrined in the laws of the visible world, all its
strength and all its stability, is a manifestation of the Unseen God.
Invisible in themselves, the eternal power and godhead of Iahvah
become visible in His creation. And, as the Hebrew mode of expression
indicates, His activity is never suspended, nor His presence
withdrawn. The conflict of the elements, the roar of the thunder,
the flash of the lightning, the downpour of waters, the rush of the
stormwind, are His work; and not less His work, because we have found
out the "natural" causes, that is, the established conditions of
their occurrence; not less His work, because we have, in the exercise
of faculties really though remotely akin to the Divine Nature,
discovered how to imitate, or rather mimic, even the more awful of
these marvellous phenomena. Mimicry it cannot but appear, when we
compare the overwhelming forces that rage in a tropical storm with
our electric toys. The lightnings in their glory and terror are still
God's arrows, and man cannot rob His quiver.

Nowadays more is known about the machinery of the world, but hardly
more of the Intelligence that contrived it, and keeps it continually
in working order, nay, lends it its very existence. More is known
about means and methods, but hardly more about aims and purposes. The
reflexion, how few are the master-conceptions which modern speculation
has added to the treasury of thought, should suggest humility to the
vainest and most self-confident of physical inquirers. In the very
dawn of philosophy the human mind appears to have anticipated as it
were by sudden flashes of insight some of the boldest hypotheses of
modern science, including that of Evolution itself.

The unchangeable or invariable laws of nature, that is to say, the
uniformity of sequence which we observe in physical phenomena, is not
to be regarded as a thing that explains itself. It is only intelligible
as the expression of the unchanging will of God. The prophet's word
is still true. It is God who "causes the vapours to rise from the end
of the earth," drawing them up into the air from oceans and lakes by
the simple yet beautiful and efficient action of the solar heat; it is
God who "makes lightnings for the rain," charging the clouds with the
electric fluid, to burst forth in blinding flashes when the opposing
currents meet. It is God who "brings the wind out of His treasuries."
In the prophet's time the winds were as great a mystery as the thunder
and lightning; it was not known whence they came nor whither they went.
But the knowledge that they are but currents of air due to variations of
temperature does not really deprive them of their wonder. Not only is it
impossible, in the last resort, to comprehend what heat is, what motion
is, what the thing moved is. A far greater marvel remains, which cries
aloud of God's wisdom and presence and sovereignty over all; and that
is the wonderful consilience of all the various powers and forces of
the natural world in making a home for man, and enabling so apparently
feeble a creature as he to live and thrive amidst the perpetual
interaction and collision of the manifold and mighty elements of the
universe.

The true author of all this magnificent system of objects and forces,
to the wonder and the glory of which only custom can blind us, is the
God of the prophet. This sublime, this just conception of God was
possible, for it was actually realized, altogether apart from the
influence of Hellenic philosophy and modern European science. But it
was by no means as common to the Semitic peoples. In Babylon, which
was at the time the focus of all earthly wisdom and power, in Babylon
the ancient mother of sciences and arts, a crude polytheism stultified
all the wisdom of the wise, and lent its sanction to a profound moral
corruption. Rapid and universal conquests, enormous wealth accruing
from the spoils and tributes of all nations, only subserved the luxury
and riotous living which issued in a general effeminacy and social
enervation; until the great fabric of empire, which Nabopalassar and
Nebuchadrezzar had reared by their military and political genius, sank
under the weight of its own vices.

Looking round upon this spectacle of superstitious folly, the prophet
declares that _all men are become too brute-like for knowledge_; too
degraded to appreciate the truth, the simplicity of a higher faith;
too besotted with the worship of a hundred vain idols, which were the
outward reflexion of their own diseased imaginations, to receive the
wisdom of the true religion, and to perceive especially the truth
just enunciated, that it is Iahvah who gives the rain and upon whom
all atmospheric changes depend (cf. xiv. 22): and thus, in the hour
of need, _every founder blushes for the image, because his molten
figure is a lie, and there is no breath in them_; because the lifeless
idol, the work of his hands, can lend no help. Perhaps both clauses
of the verse rather express a prophecy: _All men will be proven
brutish, destitute of knowledge; every founder will blush for the
graven image._ Wise and strong as the Babylonians supposed themselves
to be, the logic of events would undeceive them. They were doomed to
a rude awakening; to discover in the hour of defeat and surrender
that the molten idol was a delusion, that the work of their hands was
an embodied lie, void of life, powerless to save. _Vanity_--a mere
breath, nought--_are they, a work of knaveries_ (a term recurring
only in li. 18; the root seems to mean "to stammer," "to imitate");
_in the time of their visitation they will perish!_ or simply _they
perish!_--in the burning temples, in the crash of falling shrines.

It has happened so. At this day the temples of cedar and marble, with
their woodwork overlaid with bronze and silver and gold, of whose
glories the Babylonian sovereigns so proudly boast in their still
existing records, as "shining like the sun, and like the stars of
heaven," are shapeless heaps or rather mountains of rubbish, where
Arabs dig for building materials and treasure trove, and European
explorers for the relics of a civilisation and a superstition which
have passed away for ever. "Vana sunt, et opus risu dignum." In the
revolutions of time, which are the outward measures of the eternally
self-unfolding purposes of God, the word of the Judean prophets has
been amply fulfilled. Babylon and her idols are no more.

All other idols, too, must perish in like manner. _Thus shall ye say
of them: The gods who the_ heavens _and earth did not make, perish
from the earth and from under the heavens shall these!_ The assertion
that the idols of Babylon were doomed to destruction, was not the
whole of the prophetic message. It is connected with and founded upon
the antithetic assertion of the eternity of Iahvah. They will perish,
but He endures. The one eternal is El Elyon, the Most High God, the
Maker of heaven and earth. But heaven and earth and whatever partakes
only of their material nature are also doomed to pass away. And in
that day of the Lord, when the elements melt with fervent heat, and
the earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up (2 Pet.
iii. 10), not only will the idols of the heathen world, and the tawdry
dolls which a degenerate church suffers to be adored as a kind of
magical embodiment of the Mother of God, but all other idols which
the sensebound heart of man makes to itself, vanish into nothingness
before that overwhelming revelation of the supremacy of God.

There is something amazing in the folly of worshipping man, whether
in the abstract form of the cultus of "Humanity," or in any of the
various forms of what is called "Hero-worship," or in the vulgar form
of self-worship, which is the religion of the selfish and the worldly.
To ascribe infallibility to any mortal, whether Pope or politician,
is to sin in the spirit of idolatry. The Maker of heaven and earth,
and He alone, is worthy of worship. "Where wast thou when I laid the
foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding" (Job
xxxviii. 4). No human wisdom nor power presided there; and to produce
the smallest of asteroids is still a task which lies infinitely beyond
the combined resources of modern science. Man and all that man has
created is nought in the scale of God's creation. He and all the
mighty works with which he amazes, overshadows, enslaves his little
world, will perish and pass away; only that will survive which he
builds of materials which are imperishable, fabrics of spiritual worth
and excellence and glory (1 Cor. iii. 13). A Nineveh, a Babylon, a
London, a Paris, may disappear; _but he that doeth the will of God
abideth for ever_ (1 John ii. 17). _Not like these_ (cf. verse 11 _ad
fin._) _is Jacob's Portion, but the Maker and Moulder of the All--He
is his heritage; Iahvah Sabaoth is His_ _name!_ (Both here and at li.
19 = xxviii. 19 the LXX. omits: _and Israel is the tribe_, which seems
to have been derived from Deut. xxxii. 9. Israel is elsewhere called
_Iahvah's heritage_, Ps. xxxiii. 12, and _portion_, Deut. xxxii. 9;
but that thought hardly suits the connexion here.)

_Not like these_: for He is the Divine Potter who moulded all things,
including the signs of heaven, and the idols of wood and metal, and
their foolish worshippers. And he is _Jacob's portion_; for the
knowledge and worship of Him was, in the Divine counsels, originally
assigned to Israel (cf. Deut. iv. 19; and xxxii. 8, according to the
true reading, preserved in the LXX.); and therefore Israel alone knows
Him and His glorious attributes. _Iahvah Sabaoth is His name_: the
Eternal, the Maker and Master of the hosts of heaven and earth, is the
aspect under which He has revealed Himself to the true representatives
of Israel, His servants the prophets.

The portion of Israel is his God--his abiding portion; of which
neither the changes of time nor the misconceptions of man can avail
to rob him. When all that is accidental and transitory is taken away,
this distinction remains: Israel's portion is his God. Iahvah was
indeed the national God of the Jews, argue some of our modern wise
ones; and therefore He cannot be identified with the universal Deity.
He has been developed, expanded, into this vast conception; but
originally He was but the private god of a petty tribe, the Lar of a
wandering household. Now herein is a marvellous thing. How was it that
this particular household god thus grew to infinite proportions, like
the genius emerging from the unsealed jar of Arab fable, until, from
His prime foothold on the tent-floor of a nomad family, He towered
above the stars and His form overshadowed the universe? How did it
come to pass that His prophet could ask in a tone of indisputable
truth, recognised alike by friend and foe, "Do not I fill heaven and
earth, saith Iahvah"? (Jer. xxiii. 24). How, that this immense, this
immeasurable expansion took place in this instance, and not in that of
any one of the thousand rival deities of surrounding and more powerful
tribes and nations? How comes it that we to-day are met to adore
Iahvah, and not rather one of the forgotten gods of Canaan or Egypt or
Babylon? Merodach and Nebo have vanished, but Iahvah is the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ. It certainly looks very much as if the Hebrew
prophets were right; as if Iahvah were really the God of the creation
as well as the Portion of Jacob.

_The portion of Jacob._ Is His relation to that one people a
stumbling-block? Can we see no eternal truth in the statement of the
Psalmist that _the Lord's portion is His people_? Who can find fault
with the enthusiastic faith of holy men thus exulting in the knowledge
and love of God? It is a characteristic of all genuine religion,
this sweet, this elevating consciousness that God is _our_ God; this
profound sense that He has revealed Himself to us in a special and
peculiar and individual manner. But the actual historical results, as
well as the sacred books, prove that the sense of possessing God and
being possessed by Him was purer, stronger, deeper, more effectual,
more abiding, in Israel than in any other race of the ancient world.

One must tread warily upon slippery ground; but I cannot help
thinking that many of the arguments alleged against the probability
of God revealing Himself to man at all or to a single nation in
particular, are sufficiently met by the simple consideration that He
has actually done so. Any event whatever may be very improbable until
it has happened; and assuming that God has _not_ revealed Himself,
it may perhaps be shewn to be highly improbable that He would reveal
Himself. But, meanwhile, all religions and all faith and the phenomena
of conscience and the highest intuitions of reason presuppose this
improbable event as the fact apart from which they are insoluble
riddles. This is not to say that the precise manner of revelation--the
contact of the Infinite with the Finite Spirit--is definable. There
are many less lofty experiences of man which also are indefinable
and mysterious, but none the less actual and certain. Facts are
not explained by denial, which is about the most barren and feeble
attitude a man can take up in the presence of a baffling mystery. Nor
is it for man to prescribe conditions to God. He who made us and knows
us far better than we know ourselves, knows also how best to reveal
Himself to His creatures.

The special illumination of Israel, however, does not imply that no
light was vouchsafed elsewhere. The religious systems of other nations
furnish abundant evidence to the contrary. God "left not Himself
without witness," the silent witness of that beneficent order of the
natural world, which makes it possible for man to live, and to live
happily. St. Paul did not scruple to compliment even the degenerate
Athenians of his own day on the ground of their attention to religious
matters, and he could cite a Greek poet in support of his doctrine
that man is the offspring of the one God and Father of all.

We may see in the fact a sufficient indication of what St. Paul
would have said, had the nobler non-Christian systems fallen under
his cognisance; had heathenism become known to him not in the
heterogeneous polytheism of Hellas, which in his time had long since
lost what little moral influence it had ever possessed, nor in the
wild orgiastic nature worships of the Lesser Asia, which in their
thoroughly sensuous basis did dishonour alike to God and to man; but
in the sublime tenets of Zarathustra, with their noble morality and
deep reverence for the One God, the Spirit of all goodness and truth,
or in the reformed Brahmanism of Gautama the Buddha, with its grand
principle of self-renunciation and universal charity.

The peculiar glories of Bible religion are not dimmed in presence
of these other lights. Allowing for whatever is valuable in these
systems of belief, we may still allege that Bible religion comprises
all that is good in them, and has, besides, many precious features
peculiar to itself; we may still maintain that their excellences are
rather testimonies to the truth of the biblical teachings about God,
than difficulties in the way of a rational faith; that it would be
far more difficult to a thoughtful mind to accept the revelation of
God conveyed in the Bible, if it were the fact that no rays of Divine
light had cheered the darkness of the millions of struggling mortals
beyond the pale of Judaism, than it is under the actual circumstances
of the case: in short, that the truths implicated in imperfect
religions, isolated from all contact with Hebrew or Christian belief,
are a witness to and a foreshadowing of the truths of the gospel.

Our prophet declares that Jacob's portion--the God of Israel--is not
like the gods of contemporary peoples. How, then, does he conceive of
Him? Not as a metaphysical entity--a naked, perhaps empty abstraction
of the understanding. Not as the Absolute and Infinite Being, who is
out of all relation to space and time. His language--the language
of the Old Testament--possesses no adjectives like "Infinite,"
"Absolute," "Eternal," "Omniscient," "Omnipresent," nor even
"Almighty," although that word so often appears in our venerable
Authorized Version. It is difficult for us, who are the heirs of ages
of thought and intellectual toil, and whose thinking is almost wholly
carried on by means of abstract ideas, to realize a state of mind and
a habit of thought so largely different from our own as that of the
Hebrew people and even of the Hebrew prophets. Yet unless we make an
effort to realize it, however inadequately, unless we exert ourselves,
and strive manfully to enter through the gate of an instructed
imagination into that far-off stage of life and thought which presents
so many problems to the historical student, and hides in its obscurity
so many precious truths; we must inevitably fail to appreciate the
full significance, and consequently fail of appropriating the full
blessing of those wonderful prophecies of ancient Israel, which are
not for an age but for all time.

Let us, then, try to apprehend the actual point of view from which
the inspired Israelite regarded his God. In the first place, that
point of view was eminently practical. As a recent writer has forcibly
remarked, "The primitive mind does not occupy itself with things of no
practical importance, and it is only in the later stages of society
that we meet with traditional beliefs nominally accepted by every one
but practically regarded by none; or with theological speculations
which have an interest for the curious, but are not felt to have a
direct bearing on the concerns of life."

The pious Israelite could not indulge a morbidly acute and restlessly
speculative intellect with philosophical or scientific theories
about the Deity, His nature in Himself, His essential and accidental
attributes, His relation to the visible world. Neither did such theories
then exist ready made to his hand, nor did his inward impulses and the
natural course of thought urge him to pry into such abstruse matters,
and with cold irreverence to subject his idea of God to critical
analysis. Could he have been made to understand the attitude and the
demands of some modern disputants, he would have been apt to exclaim,
"Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out Shaddai
unto perfection? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? deeper
than hell, what canst thou know?" To find out and to know God as the
understanding finds out and knows, how can that ever become possible
to man? Such knowledge depends entirely upon processes of comparison;
upon the perception of similarity between the object investigated and
other known objects; upon accurate naming and classification. But who
can dream of successfully referring the Deity to a class? "To what
will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto Him?" In the
brief prophecy before us, as in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, with
which it presents so many points of contact, we have a splendid protest
against all attempts at bringing the Most High within the limitations of
human cognition, and reducing God to the category of things known and
understood. Directed in the first instance against idolatry--against
vain efforts to find an adequate likeness of the Supreme in some one of
the numberless creations of His hand, and so to compare and gauge and
comprehend Himself,--that protest is still applicable, and with even
greater force, against the idolatrous tendencies of the present age:
when one school of devotees loudly declares,

          "Thou, Nature, art our goddess; to thy law
           Our services are bound: wherefore should we
           Stand in the plague of custom?"

and another is equally loud in asserting that it has found the true
god in man himself; and another proclaims the divinity of brute
force, and feels no shame in advocating the sovereignty of those
gross instincts and passions which man shares with the beasts that
perish. It is an unworthy and an inadequate conception of God, which
identifies Him with Nature; it is a deplorably impoverished idea,
the mere outcome of philosophic despair, which identifies him with
Humanity; but what language can describe the grovelling baseness of
that habit of thought which knows of nothing higher than the sensual
appetite, and seeks nothing better than its continual indulgence;
which sees the native impress of sovereignty on the brow of passing
pleasure, and recognises the image and likeness of God in a temporary
association of depraved instincts?

It is to this last form of idolatry, this utter heathenism in the
moral life, that all other forms really converge, as St. Paul has
shewn in the introduction of his Epistle to the Romans, where, in
view of the unutterable iniquities which were familiar occurrences
in the world of his contemporaries, he affirms that moral decadence
of the most appalling character is ultimately traceable to a
voluntary indulgence of those idolatrous tendencies which ignore
God's revelation of Himself to the heart and reason, and prefer to
find their deity in something less awful in purity and holiness,
less averse to the defilements of sin, less conversant with the
secrets of the soul; and so, not liking to retain the true and only
God in knowledge, change His truth into a lie, and worship and
serve the creature more than the Creator: changing the glory of the
incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man, or
even to birds and fourfooted beasts and creeping things.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] LXX. "for _they_ are afraid before them," לפניהם המה יחתו כי.

[40] This is the most natural interpretation of the passage according
to the Hebrew punctuation. Another is given below.

[41] It is against usage to divide the clause as Naegelsbach does,
"Vain instruction! It is wood!" or to render with Ewald "Simply vain
doctrine is the wood!" which would require the article (_ha'eç_).




                                  VII.

                         _THE BROKEN COVENANT._

                           JEREMIAH xi., xii.


There is no visible break between these two chapters. They seem to
summarize the history of a particular episode in the prophet's career.
At the same time, the style is so peculiar, that it is not so easy,
as it might appear at a first glance, to determine exactly what it is
that the section has to tell us. When we come to take a closer look at
it, we find a thoroughly characteristic mixture of direct narrative
and soliloquy, of statement of facts and reflexion upon those facts,
of aspiration and prayer and prophecy, of self-communing and communing
with God. Careful analysis may perhaps furnish us with a clue to the
disentanglement of the general sense and drift of this characteristic
medley. We may thus hope to get a clearer insight into the bearing of
this old-world oracle upon our own needs and perplexities, our sins
and the fruit of our sins, what we have done and what we may expect
as the consequence of our doings. For the Word of God is "quick and
powerful." Its outward form and vesture may change with the passing
of time; but its substance never changes. The old interpreters die,
but the Word lives, and its life is a life of power. By that Word
men live in their successive generations; it is at once creative
and regulative; it is the seed of life in man, and it is the law of
that life. Apart from the Divine Word, man would be no more than a
brute gifted with understanding, but denied all answer to the higher
cravings of soul and spirit; a being whose conscious life was a mere
mockery; a self-tormentor, tantalized with vain surmises, tortured
with ever-recurring problems; longing for light, and beset with
never-lifting clouds of impenetrable darkness; the one sole instance,
among the myriads of sentient beings, of a creature whose wants Nature
refuses to satisfy, and whose lot it is to consume for ever in the
fires of hopeless desire.

The sovran Lord, who is the Eternal Wisdom, has not made such a mistake.
He provides satisfaction for all His creatures, according to the varying
degrees of their capacity, according to their rank in the scale of
being, so that all may rejoice in the fulness and the freedom of a happy
life for their allotted time. Man is no exception to the universal rule.
His whole constitution as God has fashioned it is such that he can find
his perfect satisfaction in the Word of the Lord. And the depth of his
dissatisfaction, the poignancy and the bitterness of his disappointment
and disgust at himself and at the world in which he finds himself, are
the strongest evidence that he has sought satisfaction in things that
cannot satisfy; that he has foolishly endeavoured to feed his soul upon
ashes, to still the cravings of his spirit with something other than
that Word of God which is the Bread of Life.

You will observe that the discourse we are to consider, is headed:
"_The word that fell to Jeremiah from Iahvah_ (lit. _from with_,
that is, _from the presence of_ the Eternal), _saying_." I think
that expression "saying" covers all that follows, to the end of the
discourse. The prophet's preaching the Law, and the consequences of
that preaching as regarded himself; his experience of the stubbornness
and treachery of the people; the varying moods of his own mind under
that bitter experience; his reflexions upon the condition of Judah,
and the condition of Judah's ill-minded neighbours; his forecasts of
the after-course of events as determined by the unchanging will of a
righteous God; all these things seem to be included in the scope of that
"Word from the presence of Iahvah," which the prophet is about to put
on record. You will see that it is not a single utterance of a precise
and definite message, which he might have delivered in a few moments of
time before a single audience of his countrymen. The Word of the Lord is
progressively revealed; it begins with a thought in the prophet's mind,
but its entire content is unfolded gradually, as he proceeds to act
upon that thought or Divine impulse; it is, as it were, evolved as the
result of collision between the prophet and his hearers; it emerges into
clear light out of the darkness of storm and conflict; a conflict both
internal and external; a conflict within, between his own contending
emotions and impulses and sympathies; and a conflict without, between an
unpopular teacher, and a wayward and corrupt and incorrigible people.
_From with Iahvah._ There may be strife and tumult and the darkness of
ignorance and passion upon earth; but the star of truth shines in the
firmament of heaven, and the eye of the inspired man sees it. This is
his difference from his fellows.

_Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak ye unto the men of
Judah, and upon the dwellers in Jerusalem! And say thou unto them,
Thus saith Iahvah, the God_ _of Israel, Accursed are the men that
hear not the words of this covenant, which I lay on your fathers, in
the day that I brought them forth from the land of Egypt, from the
furnace of iron, saying, Hearken unto My voice, and do these things,
according to all that I shall charge you: that ye may become for Me a
people, and that I Myself may become for you a God. That I may make
good_ (להקים vid. infr.) _the oath which I sware to your forefathers,
that I would give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it now
is_ (or simply, _to-day_). _And I answered and said, Amen, Iahvah!_
(xi. 1-5). "Hear ye ... speak ye unto the men of Judah!" The occasion
referred to is that memorable crisis in the eighteenth year of king
Josiah, when Hilkiah the high priest had "found the book of the law
in the house of the Lord" (2 Kings xxii. 8 _sqq._), and the pious
king had read in the hearing of the assembled people those fervid
exhortations to obedience, those promises fraught with all manner of
blessing, those terrible denunciations of wrath and ruin reserved
for rebellion and apostasy, which we may still read in the closing
chapters of the book of Deuteronomy (Deut. xxvii. _sq._). Jeremiah
is recalling the events of his own ministry, and passes in rapid
review from the time of his preaching upon the Book of the Law, to the
Chaldean invasion in the reign of Jehoiachin (xiii. 18 _sqq._). He
recalls the solemn occasion when king and people bound themselves by
oath to observe the law of their God; when "the king stood upon the
platform, and made the covenant before Iahvah, that he would follow
Iahvah, and keep his commandments, and his laws and his statutes,
with whole heart and with whole soul; to make good (להקים) the words
of this covenant, that were written upon this roll; and all the
people stood to the covenant" (2 Kings xxiii. 3). At or soon after
this great meeting, the prophet gives, in the name of Iahvah, an
emphatic approval to the public undertaking; and bids the leaders
in the movement not to rest contented with this good beginning,
but to impress the obligation more deeply upon the community at
large, by sending a mission of properly qualified persons, including
himself, which should at once enforce the reforms necessitated by
the covenant of strict obedience to the Law, and reconcile the
people both of the capital and of the rural towns and hamlets to
the sudden and sweeping changes demanded of them, by shewing their
entire consonance with the Divine precepts. "Hear _ye_"--princes and
priests--"the words of this covenant; and speak _ye_ unto the men of
Judah!" Then follows, in brief, the prophet's own commission, which
is to reiterate, with all the force of his impassioned rhetoric, the
awful menaces of the Sacred Book: _Cursed be the men that hear not
the words of this covenant!_ Now again, in these last years of their
national existence, the chosen people are to hear an authoritative
proclamation of that Divine Law upon which all their weal depends;
the Law given them at the outset of their history, when the memory
of the great deliverance was yet fresh in their minds; the Law which
was the condition of their peculiar relation to the Universal God. At
Sinai they had solemnly undertaken to observe that Law; and Iahweh
had fulfilled His promise to their "fathers"--to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob--and had given them a goodly land, in which they had now been
established for at least six hundred years. The Divine truth and
righteousness were manifest upon a retrospect of this long period of
eventful history; and Jeremiah could not withhold his inward assent,
in the formula prescribed by the Book of the Law (Deut. xxvii. 15
_sqq._), to the perfect justice of the sentence: "Cursed be the men
that hear not the words of this covenant." _And I answered and said,
Amen, Iahvah!_[42] So to this true Israelite, thus deeply communing
with his own spirit, two things had become clear as day. The one
was the absolute righteousness of God's entire dealing with Israel,
from first to last; the righteousness of disaster and overthrow as
well as of victory and prosperity: the other was his own present
duty to bring this truth home to the hearts and consciences of his
fellow-countrymen. This is how he states the fact: _And Iahvah said
unto me, Proclaim thou all these words in the cities of Judah and in
the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant
and do them. For I earnestly adjured your fathers, when I brought them
up from the land of Egypt_ (_and I have done so continually_) _even
unto this very day, saying, Obey ye My voice! And they obeyed not, nor
inclined their ear; and they walked, each and all, in the hardness
of their wicked heart. So I brought upon them all the threats_ (lit.
_words_) _of this covenant, which I had charged them to keep, and they
kept it not._ (xi. 6-8). God is always self-consistent; man is often
inconsistent with himself; God is eternally true, man is ever giving
fresh proofs of his natural faithlessness. God is not only just in
keeping His promises; He is also merciful, in labouring ever to induce
man to be self-consistent, and true to moral obligations. And Divine
mercy is revealed alike in the pleadings of the Holy Spirit by the
mouth of prophets, by the voice of conscience, and in the retribution
that overtakes persistence in evil. The Divine Law is life and health
to them that keep it; it is death to them that break it. "Thou, Lord,
art merciful; for thou rewardest every man according to his works."

The relation of the One God to this one people was neither accidental
nor arbitrary. It is sometimes spoken of as a thing glaringly unjust to
the other nations of the ancient world, that the Father of all should
have chosen Israel only to be the recipient of His special favours.
Sometimes it is demanded, as an unanswerable dilemma, How _could_ the
Universal God be the God of the Jews, in the restricted sense implied
by the Old Testament histories? But difficulties of this kind rest upon
misunderstanding, due to a slavishly literal interpretation of certain
passages, and inability to take a comprehensive view of the general
drift and tenor of the Old Testament writings as they bear upon this
subject. God's choice of Israel was proof of His love for mankind. He
did not select one people, because He was indifferent or hostile to
all other peoples; but because He wished to bring all the nations of
the earth to the knowledge of Himself, and the observance of His law.
The words of our prophet shew that he was profoundly convinced that
the favour of Iahvah had from the outset depended upon the obedience
of Israel: _Hearken unto My voice, and do these things ... that ye may
become for Me a people, and that I Myself may become for you a God._
How strangely must such words have sounded in the ears of people who
believed, as the masses both in town and country appear for the most
part to have done, that Iahvah as the ancestral god was bound by an
indissoluble tie to Israel, and that He could not suffer the nation
to perish without incurring irreparable loss, if not extinction, for
Himself! It is as if the prophet had said: You call yourselves the
people of God; but it is not so much that you _are_ His people, as
that you may become such by doing His will. You suppose that Iahvah,
the Eternal, the Creator, is to you what Chemosh is to Moah, or Molech
to Ammon, or Baal to Tyre; but that is just what He is not. If you
entertain such ideas of Iahvah, you are worshipping a figment of your
own carnal imaginations; your god is not the Universal God but a gross
unspiritual idol. It is only upon your fulfilment of His conditions,
only upon your yielding an inward assent to His law, a hearty acceptance
to His rule of life, that He Himself--the One only God--can truly
become your God. In accepting His law, you accept Him, and in rejecting
His law, you reject Him; for His law is a reflexion of Himself; a
revelation, so far as such can be made to a creature like man, of His
essential being and character. Therefore think not that you can worship
Him by mere external rites; for the true worship is "righteousness, and
holiness of life."

The progress of the reforming movement, which was doubtless powerfully
stimulated by the preaching of Jeremiah, is briefly sketched in the
chapter of the book of Kings, to which I have already referred (2
Kings xxiii.). That summary of the good deeds of king Josiah records
apparently a very complete extirpation of the various forms of
idolatry, and even a slaughter of the idol-priests upon their own
altars. Heathenism, it would seem, could hardly have been practised
again, at least openly, during the twelve remaining years of Josiah.
But although a zealous king might enforce outward conformity to the
Law, and although the earnest preaching of prophets like Zephaniah and
Jeremiah might have considerable effect with the better part of the
people, the fact remained that those whose hearts were really open to
the word of the Lord were still, as always, a small minority; and the
tendency to apostasy, though checked, was far from being rooted up.
Here and there the forbidden rites were secretly observed; and the
harsh measures which had accompanied their public suppression may very
probably have intensified the attachment of many to the local forms
of worship. Sincere conversions are not effected by violence; and the
martyrdom of devotees may give new life even to degraded and utterly
immoral superstitions. The transient nature of Josiah's reformation,
radical as it may have appeared at the time to the principal agents
engaged in it, is evident from the testimony of Jeremiah himself. _And
Iahvah said unto me, There exists a conspiracy among the men of Judah,
and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have returned to the old
sins of their fathers, who refused to hear My words; and they too have
gone away after other gods, to serve them: the house of Israel and
the house of Judah have broken My covenant, which I made with their
forefathers. Therefore thus saith Iahvah, Behold I am about to bring
unto them an evil from which they cannot get forth; and they will cry
unto Me, and I will not listen unto them. And the cities of Judah and
the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry unto the gods to whom
they burn incense_ (i.e., now; ptcp.); _and they will yield them no
help at all in the time of their evil. For many as thy cities are thy
gods become, O Judah! and many as the streets of Jerusalem have ye
appointed altars to the_ _Shame, altars for burning incense to the
Baal. And as for thee, intercede thou not for this people, nor lift up
for them outcry_ (i.e., mourning) _and intercession; for I intend not
to hearken, in the time when they call unto Me, in the time of their
evil_ (so read: cf. vers. 12, בעת instead of בעד) (vv. 9-14). All this
appears to indicate the course of the prophet's reflexion, after it
had become clear to him that the reformation was illusory, and that
his own labours had failed of their purpose. He calls the relapse of
the people a plot or conspiracy; thereby suggesting, perhaps, the
secrecy with which the prohibited worships were at first revived, and
the intrigues of the unfaithful nobles and priests and prophets, in
order to bring about a reversal of the policy of reform, and a return
to the old system; and certainly suggesting that the heart of the
nation, as a whole, was disloyal to its Heavenly King, and that its
renewed apostasy was a wicked disavowal of lawful allegiance, and an
act of unpardonable treason against God.

But the word further signifies that a BOND has been entered into, a
bond which is the exact antithesis of the covenant with Iahvah; and it
implies that this bond has about it a fatal strength and permanence,
involving as its necessary consequence the ruin of the nation.
Breaking covenant with Iahvah meant making a covenant with other gods;
it was impossible to do the one thing without the other. And that is
as true now, under totally different conditions, as it was in the land
of Judah, twenty-four centuries ago. If you have broken faith with
God in Christ, it is because you have entered into an agreement with
another; it is because you have foolishly taken the tempter at his
word, and accepted his conditions, and surrendered to his proposals,
and preferred his promises to the promises of God. It is because,
against all reason, against conscience, against the Holy Spirit,
against the witness of God's Word, against the witness of His Saints
and Confessors in all ages, you have believed that a Being less than
the Eternal God could ensure your weal and make you happy. And now
your heart is no longer at unity in itself, and your allegiance is no
longer single and undivided. _Many as thy cities are thy gods become,
O Judah!_ The soul that is not unified and harmonized by the fear of
the One God, is torn and distracted by a thousand contending passions:
and vainly seeks peace and deliverance by worship at a thousand unholy
shrines. But Mammon and Belial and Ashtaroth and the whole rout of
unclean spirits, whose seductions have lured you astray, will fail you
at last; and in the hour of bitter need, you will learn too late that
there is no god but God, and no peace nor safety nor joy but in Him.

It is futile to pray for those who have deliberately cast off the
covenant of Iahvah, and made a covenant with His adversary. _Intercede
not for this people, nor lift up outcry and intercession for them!_
Prayer cannot save, nothing can save, the impenitent; and there is a
state of mind, in which one's own prayer is turned into sin; the state
of mind in which a man prays, merely to appease God, and escape the
fire, but without a thought of forsaking sin, without the faintest
aspiration after holiness. There is a degree of guilt upon which
sentence is already passed, which is "unto death," and for which
intercession is interdicted alike by the Apostle of the New as to the
prophet of the Old Covenant.

_What availeth it My beloved, that she fulfilleth her_ _intent in
Mine house? Can vows and hallowed flesh make thine evil to pass from
thee? Then mightest thou indeed rejoice_[43] (ver. 15). Such appears
to be the true sense of this verse, the only difficult one in the
chapter. The prophet had evidently the same thought in his mind as in
ver. 11: _I will bring unto them an evil, from which they cannot get
forth; and they will cry unto Me, and I will not hearken unto them._
The words also recall those of Isaiah (Isa. i. 11 _sqq._): "For what
to Me are your many sacrifices, saith Iahvah? When ye enter in to see
My face, who hath sought this at your hand, to trample My courts?
Bring no more a vain oblation; loathly incense it is to Me!" The term
which I have rendered "intent," usually denotes an evil intention; so
that, like Isaiah, our prophet implies that the popular worship is not
only futile but sinful. So true it is that "He that turneth away his
ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination" (Prov.
xxviii. 9); or, as the Psalmist puts the same truth, "If I incline
unto wickedness with my heart, the Lord will not hear me."

_"A flourishing olive, fair with shapely fruit, did Iahvah call thy
name. To the sound of a great uproar will He set her on fire; and his
hanging boughs will crackle_ (_in the flames_). _And Iahvah Sabaoth,
that planted thee, Himself hath pronounced evil upon thee; because
of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, which
they have done to themselves_ (iv. 18, vii. 19) _in provoking Me, in
burning incense to the Baal"_ (vers. 16-17). The figure of the olive
seems a very natural one (cf. Rom. xi. 17), when we remember the
beauty and the utility for which that tree is famous in Eastern lands.
_Iahvah called thy name_; that is, called thee into determinate being;
endowed thee at thine origin with certain characteristic qualities.
Thine original constitution, as thou didst leave thy Maker's hand, was
fair and good. Israel among the nations was as beautiful to the eye
as the olive among trees; and his "fruit," his doings, were a glory
to God and a blessing to men, like that precious oil, for "which God
and man honour" the olive (Judg. ix. 9). (Zech. iv. 3; Hos. xiv. 7;
Ps. lii. 10.) But now the noble stock had degenerated; the "green
olive tree," planted in the very court of Iahvah's house, had become
no better than a barren wilding, fit only for the fire. The thought is
essentially similar to that of an earlier discourse: "I planted thee
a noble vine, wholly a right seed; how then hast thou turned into the
degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me?" (ii. 21). Here, there is
an abrupt transition, which forcibly expresses the _suddenness_ of the
destruction that must devour this degenerate people: _To the sound of
a great uproar_--the din of invading armies--_he will set her_ (the
beloved, symbolized by the tree) _on fire; and his_ (the olive's)
_hanging boughs will crackle in the flames._ And this fierce work of
a barbarous soldiery is no chance calamity; it is the execution of a
Divine judgment: _Iahvah Sabaoth ... Himself hath pronounced evil upon
thee._ And yet further, it is the nation's own doing; the two houses
of Israel have persistently laboured for their own ruin; they have
brought it upon themselves. Man is himself the author of his own weal
and woe; and they who are not "working out their own salvation," are
working out their own destruction.

_And it was Iahvah that gave Me knowledge, so that I well knew; at
that time, Thou didst shew me their doings. But, for myself, like a
favourite_ (lit. tame, friendly, gentle: iii. 4) _lamb that is led
to the slaughter, I wist not that against me they had laid a plot.
'Let us fell the tree in its prime,[44] and let us cut him off out of
the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.' 'Yea,
but Iahvah[45] Sabaoth judgeth righteously, trieth reins and heart.
I shall see Thy vengeance on them; for unto Thee have I laid bare my
cause.' Therefore thus said Iahvah; Upon the men of Anathoth that
were seeking thy life, saying, Thou shalt not prophesy in the name of
Iahvah, that thou die not by our hand:--therefore thus said Iahvah
Sabaoth, Behold I am about to visit it upon them: the young men will
die by the sword; their sons and their daughters will die by the
famine. And a remnant they shall not have: for I will bring an evil
unto the men of Anathoth, the year of their visitation_ (vv. 18-23).

The prophet, it would seem, had made the round of the country places,
and come to Anathoth, on his return journey to Jerusalem. Here, in
his native town, he proclaimed to his own people that same solemn
message which he had delivered to the country at large. It is very
probable that the preceding verses (9-17) contain the substance of his
address to his kinsfolk and acquaintance; an address which stirred
them, not to repentance towards God but to murderous wrath against His
prophet. A plot was laid for Jeremiah's life by his own neighbours
and even his own family (xii. 6); and he owed his escape to some
providential circumstance, some "lucky accident," as men might say,
which revealed to him their unsuspected perfidy. What the event was
which thus suddenly disclosed the hidden danger, is not recorded;
and the whole episode is rather alluded to than described. But it is
clear that the prophet knew nothing about the plot, until it was ripe
for execution. He was as wholly unconscious of the death prepared for
him, as a petted lamb on the way to the altar. "Then"--when his fate
seemed sure--then it was that something happened by which "Iahvah
gave him knowledge," and "shewed him their doings." The thought or
saying attributed to his enemies, "Let us fell the tree(s) in the
prime thereof!" may contain a sarcastic allusion really made to the
prophet's own warning (ver. 16): "A flourishing olive, fair with
shapely fruit, did Iahvah call thy name: to the noise of a great
uproar will He set it on fire, and the branches thereof shall crackle
in the flames." The words that follow (ver. 20), "yea, but (or, and
yet) Iahvah Sabaoth judgeth righteously; trieth reins and heart"
(cf. xx. 12), is the prophet's reply, in the form of an unexpressed
thought, or a hurried ejaculation upon discovering their deadly
malice. The timely warning which he had received, was fresh proof to
him of the truth that human designs are, after all that their authors
can do, dependent on the will of an Unseen Arbiter of events; and the
Divine justice, thus manifested towards himself, inspired a conviction
that those hardened and bloodthirsty sinners would, sooner or later,
experience in their own destruction that display of the same Divine
attribute which was necessary to its complete manifestation. It was
this conviction, rather than personal resentment, however excusable
under the circumstances that feeling would have been, which led
Jeremiah to exclaim: "I shall see Thy vengeance on them, for unto Thee
have I laid bare my cause."

He had appealed to the Judge of all the earth, that doeth right; and
he knew the innocency of his own heart in the quarrel. He was certain,
therefore, that his cause would one day be vindicated, when that ruin
overtook his enemies, of which he had warned them in vain. Looked
at in this light, his words are a confident assertion of the Divine
justice, not a cry for vengeance. They reveal what we may perhaps
call the _human_ basis of the formal prophecy which follows; they
shew by what steps the prophet's mind was led on to the utterance of
a sentence of destruction upon the men of Anathoth. That Jeremiah's
invectives and threatenings of wrath and ruin should provoke hatred
and opposition was perhaps not wonderful. Men in general are slow
to recognise their own moral shortcomings, to believe evil of
themselves; and they are apt to prefer advisers, whose optimism,
though ill-founded and misleading, is pleasant and reassuring and
confirmatory of their own prejudices. But it does seem strange that
it should have been reserved for the men of his own birthplace, his
own "brethren and his father's house," to carry opposition to the
point of meditated murder. Once more Jeremiah stands before us, a
visible type of Him whose Divine wisdom declared that a prophet finds
no honour in his own country, and whose life was attempted on that
Sabbath day at Nazareth (St. Luke iv. 24 _sqq._).

The sentence was pronounced, but the cloud of dejection was not at
once lifted from the soul of the seer. He knew that justice must
in the end overtake the guilty; but, in the meantime, "his enemies
lived and were mighty," and their criminal designs against himself
remained unnoticed and unpunished. The more he brooded over it, the
more difficult it seemed to reconcile their prosperous immunity with
the justice of God. He has given us the course of his reflections
upon this painful question, ever suggested anew by the facts of life,
never sufficiently answered by toiling reason. _Too righteous art
Thou, Iahvah, for me to contend with Thee: I will but lay arguments
before Thee_ (i.e., argue the case forensically). _Wherefore doth the
way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are they undisturbed, all that
deal very treacherously? Thou plantest them, yea, they take root;
they grow ever, yea, they bear fruit: Thou art nigh in their mouth,
and far from their reins. And Thou, Iahvah, knowest me; Thou seest
me, and triest mine heart in Thy mind. Separate them like sheep for
the slaughter, and consecrate them for the day of killing! How long
shall the land mourn, and the herbage of all the country wither? From
the evil of the dwellers therein, beasts and birds perish: for they
have said_ (or, _thought_), _He cannot see our end_ (xii. 1-4). It is
not merely that his would-be murderers thrive; it is that they take
the holy Name upon their unclean lips; it is that they are hypocrites
combining a pretended respect for God, with an inward and thorough
indifference to God. He is nigh in their mouth and far from their
reins. They "honour Him with their lips, but have removed their heart
far from Him; and their worship of Him is a mere human commandment,
learned by rote" (Isa. xxix. 13). They swear by His Name, when they
are bent on deception (ch. v. 2). It is all this which especially
rouses the prophet's indignation; and contrasting therewith his own
conscious integrity and faithfulness to the Divine law, he calls upon
Divine Justice to judge between himself and them: _Pull them out like
sheep for slaughter, and consecrate them_ (_set them apart_--from the
rest of the flock) _for the day of killing_! It has been said that
Jeremiah throughout this whole paragraph speaks not as a prophet but
as a private individual; and that in this verse especially he "gives
way to the natural man, and asks the life of his enemies" (1 Kings
iii. 11; Job xxxi. 30). This is perhaps a tenable opinion. We have
to bear in mind the difference of standpoint between the writers of
the Old Covenant and those of the New. Not much is said by the former
about the forgiveness of injuries, about withholding the hand from
vengeance. The most ancient law, indeed, contained a noble precept,
which pointed in this direction: "If thou meet thine enemy's ox or
his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.
If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden,
and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him"
(Ex. xxiii. 4, 5). And in the book of Proverbs we read: "Rejoice not
when thine enemy falleth, And let not thine heart be glad when he
is overthrown." But the impression of magnanimity thus produced is
somewhat diminished by the reason which is added immediately: "Lest
the Lord see it and it displease Him, _And He turn away His wrath
from him_:" a motive of which the best that can be said is that it is
characteristic of the imperfect morality of the time (Prov. xxiv. 17
_sq._). The same objection may be taken to that other famous passage
of the same book: "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat;
And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: _For thou shalt heap
coals of fire upon his head_, And the Lord shall reward thee" (Prov.
xxv. 21 _sq._). The reflexion that the relief of his necessities will
mortify and humiliate an enemy to the utmost, which is what seems
to have been originally meant by "heaping coals of fire upon his
head," however practically useful in checking the wild impulses of a
hot-blooded and vindictive race, such as the Hebrews were, and such
as their kindred the Bedawi Arabs have remained to this day under
a system of faith which has _not_ said, "Love your enemies"; and
however capable of a new application in the more enlightened spirit
of Christianity (Rom. xii. 19 _sqq._); is undoubtedly a motive marked
by the limitations of Old Testament ethical thought. And edifying as
they may prove to be, when understood in that purely spiritual and
universal sense, to which the Church has lent her authority, how many
of the psalms were, in their primary intention, agonizing cries for
vengeance; prayers that the human victim of oppression and wrong might
"see his desire upon his enemies"? All this must be borne in mind; but
there are other considerations also which must not be omitted, if we
would get at the exact sense of our prophet in the passage before us.

We must remember that he is laying a case before God. He has admitted
at the outset that God is absolutely just, in spite of and in view of
the fact that his murderous enemies are prosperous and unpunished.
When he pleads his own sincerity and purity of heart, in contrast
with the lip-service of his adversaries, it is perhaps that God
may grant, not so much _their_ perdition, as the salvation of the
country from the evils they have brought and are bringing upon it.
Ascribing the troubles already present and those which are yet to
come, the desolations which he sees and those which he foresees, to
their steady persistence in wickedness, he asks, How long must this
continue? Would it not be better, would it not be more consonant with
Divine wisdom and righteousness to purify the land of its fatal taint
by the sudden destruction of those heinous and hardened offenders,
who scoff at the very idea of a true forecast of their "end" (ver.
4)? But this is not all. There would be more apparent force in the
allegation we are discussing if it were. The cry to heaven for an
immediate act of retributive justice is not the last thing recorded of
the prophet's experience on this occasion. He goes on to relate, for
our satisfaction, the Divine answer to his questionings, which seems
to have satisfied his own troubled mind. _If thou hast run but with
footracers, and they have wearied thee, how then wilt thou compete
with the coursers? And if thy confidence be in a land of peace_ (or,
_a quiet land_), _how then wilt thou do in the thickets_ (_jungles_)
_of Jordan?[46] For even thine own brethren and thy_ _father's
house, even they will deal treacherously with thee; even they will
cry aloud after thee: trust thou not in them, though they speak thee
fair!_ (xii. 5, 6). The metaphors convey a rebuke of impatience and
premature discouragement. Hitzig aptly quotes Demosthenes: "If they
cannot face the candle, what will they do when they see the sun?"
(_Plut. de vitioso pudore_, c. 5.) It is "the voice of the prophet's
better feeling, and of victorious self-possession," adds the critic;
and we, who earnestly believe that, of the two voices which plead
against each other in the heart of man, the voice that whispers good
is the voice of God, find it not hard to accept his statement in that
sense. The prophet is giving us the upshot of his reflexion upon the
terrible danger from which he had been mercifully preserved; and we
see that his thoughts were guided to the conclusion that, having once
accepted the Divine Call, it would be unworthy to abdicate his mission
on the first signal of danger. Great as that danger had been, he
now, in his calmer hour, perceives that, if he is to fulfil his high
vocation, he must be prepared to face even worse things. With serious
irony he asks himself, if a runner who is overcome in a footrace
can hope to outstrip horses? or how a man, who is only bold where
no danger is, will face the perils that lurk in the jungles of the
Jordan? He remembers that he has to fight a more arduous battle and
on a greater scene. Jerusalem is more than Anathoth; and "the kings
of Judah and the princes thereof" are mightier adversaries than the
conspirators of a country town. And his present escape is an earnest
of deliverance on the wider field: _They shall fight against thee,
but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee, said
Iahvah, to deliver thee_ (see i. 17-19). But to a deeply affectionate
and sensitive nature like Jeremiah's, the thought of being forsaken
by his own kindred might well appear as a trial worse than death.
This is the "contending with horses," the struggle that is almost
beyond the powers of man to endure; this is the deadly peril, like
that of venturing into the lion-haunted thickets of Jordan, which he
clearly foresees as awaiting him: _For even thine own brethren and thy
father's house, even they will deal treacherously with thee_.[47] It
would seem that the prophet, with whose "timidity" some critics have
not hesitated to find fault, had to renounce all that man holds dear,
as a condition of faithfulness to his call. Again we are reminded of
One, of whom it is recorded that "Neither did His brethren believe in
Him" (St. John vii. 5), and that "His friends went out to lay hold
on Him, for they said, He is beside Himself" (St. Mark iii. 21). The
closeness of the parallel between type and antitype, between the
sorrowful prophet and the Man of Sorrows, is seen yet further in the
words, "Even they will cry aloud after thee" (lit. _with full cry_).
The meaning may be: They will join in the hue and cry of thy pursuers,
the mad shouts of "Stop him!" or "Strike him down!" such as may
perhaps have rung in the prophet's ears as he fled from Anathoth.
But we may also understand a metaphorical description of the efforts
of his family to recall him from the unpopular path on which he had
entered; and this perhaps agrees better with the warning: "Trust them
not, though they speak thee fair." And understood in this sense, the
words coincide with what is told us in the Gospel of the attempt of
our Lord's nearest kin to arrest the progress of His Divine mission,
when His mother and His brethren "standing without, sent unto Him,
calling Him" (St. Mark iii. 31).

The lesson for ourselves is plain. The man who listens to the Divine
call, and makes God his portion, must be prepared to surrender
everything else. He must be prepared, not only to renounce much
which the world accounts good; he must be prepared for all kinds of
opposition, passive and active, tacit and avowed; he may even find,
like Jeremiah, that his foes are the members of his own household (St.
Matt. x. 36). And, like the prophet, his acceptance of the Divine
call binds him to close his ears against entreaties and flatteries,
against mockery and menace; and to act upon his Master's word: "If any
man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross,
and follow Me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and
whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel's shall save
it" (St. Mark viii. 34 _sq._). "If any man come unto Me, and hate not
his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters,
yea and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (St. Luke xiv.
26). A great prize is worth a great risk; and eternal life is a prize
infinitely great. It is therefore worth the hazard and the sacrifice
of all (St. Luke xviii. 29 _sq._).

The section which follows (vv. 7-17) has been supposed to belong to the
time of Jehoiakim, and consequently to be out of place here, having
been transposed from its original context, because the peculiar Hebrew
term which is rendered "dearly beloved" (ver. 7), is akin to the term
rendered "My beloved," chap. xi. 15. But this supposition depends on the
assumption that the "historical basis of the section" is to be found in
the passage 2 Kings xxiv. 2, which relates briefly that in Jehoiakim's
time plundering bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites
overran the country. The prophecy concerning Iahvah's "evil neighbours"
is understood to refer to these marauding inroads, and is accordingly
supposed to have been uttered between the eighth and the eleventh years
of Jehoiakim (Hitzig). It has, however, been pointed out (Naegelsbach)
that the prophet does not once name the Chaldeans in the present
discourse; which "he invariably does in all discourses subsequent to the
decisive battle of Carchemish in the fourth year of Jehoiakim," which
gave the Chaldeans the sovereignty of Western Asia. This discourse must,
therefore, be of earlier date, and belong either to the first years
of Jehoiakim, or to the time immediately subsequent to the eighteenth
of Josiah. The history as preserved in Kings and Chronicles is so
incomplete, that we are not bound to connect the reference to "evil
neighbours" with what is so summarily told in 2 Kings xxiv. 2. There
may have been other occasions when Judah's jealous and watchful enemies
profited by her internal weakness and dissensions to invade and ravage
the land; and throughout the whole period the country was exposed to
the danger of plundering raids by the wild nomads of the eastern and
southern borders. It is possible, however, that vv. 14-17 are a later
postscript, added by the prophet when he wrote his book in the fifth or
sixth year of Jehoiakim (xxxvi. 9, 32).

There is, in reality, a close connexion of thought between ver. 7 _sqq._
and what precedes. The relations of the prophet to his own family are
made to symbolise the relations of Iahvah to His rebellious people; just
as a former prophet finds in his own merciful treatment of a faithless
wife a parable of Iahvah's dealings with faithless Israel. _I have
forsaken My house, I have cast away My domain; I have given My soul's
love into the grasp of her foes. My domain hath become to Me like the
lion in the wood; she hath given utterance with her voice against Me;
therefore I hate her._ It is Iahvah who still speaks, as in ver. 6; the
"house" is His holy house,[48] the temple; the domain is His domain,
the land of Judah; His "soul's love," is the Jewish people. Yet the
expressions, "my house," "my domain," "my soul's love," equally suit
the prophet's own family and their estate; the mention of the "lion in
the wood" and its threatening roar, and the enmity provoked thereby,
recalls what was said about the "wilds of the Jordan" in ver. 5, and the
full outcry of his kindred after the prophet in ver. 6; and the solemn
words "I have forsaken Mine house, I have cast away My domain" ... "I
hate her," clearly correspond with the sentence of destruction upon
Anathoth, ch. xi. 21 _sqq._ The double reference of the language becomes
intelligible when we remember that in rejecting His messengers, Israel,
nay mankind, rejects God; and that words and deeds done and uttered by
Divine authority may be ascribed directly to God Himself. And regarded
in the light of the prophet's commission "to pluck up and to break down,
and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant" nations and
kingdoms (i. 10), all that is here said may be taken to be the prophet's
own deliverance concerning his country. This, at all events, is the case
with verses 12, 13.

_What! do I see my domain_ (_all_) _vultures_ (_and_) _hyenas?[49] Are
vultures all around her? Go ye, assemble all the beasts of the field!
Bring them to devour_ (ver. 9). The questions express astonishment at
an unlooked-for and unwelcome spectacle. The loss of Divine favour
has exposed Judah to the active hostility of man; and her neighbours
eagerly fall upon her, like birds and beasts of prey, swarming over
a helpless quarry. It is--so the prophet puts it--it is as if a
proclamation had gone forth to the wolves and jackals of the desert,
bidding them come and devour the fallen carcase.[50] In another oracle
he speaks of the heathen as "devouring Jacob" (x. 25). The people of
Iahvah are their natural prey (Ps. xiv. 4: "who eat up My people as
they eat bread"); but they are not suffered to devour them, until they
have forfeited His protection.

The image is now exchanged for another, which approximates more nearly
to the fact pourtrayed. _Many shepherds have marred My vineyard; they
have trodden down My portion; they have turned My pleasant portion into
a desolate wilderness. He_ (the foe, the instrument of this ruin) _hath
made it a desolation; it mourneth against Me, being desolate; desolated
is all the land, for there is no man that giveth heed_ (vv. 10, 11).
As in an earlier discourse, ch. vi. 3, the invaders are now compared
to hordes of nomad shepherds, who enter the land with their flocks and
herds, and make havoc of the crops and pastures. From time immemorial
the wandering Bedawis have been a terror to the settled peasantry of the
East, whose way of life they despise as ignoble and unworthy of free
men. Of this traditional enmity we perhaps hear a far-off echo in the
story of Cain the tiller of the ground and Abel the keeper of sheep; and
certainly in the statement that "every shepherd was an abomination unto
the Egyptians" (Gen. xlvi. 34). The picture of utter desolateness, which
the prophet suggests by a fourfold repetition, is probably sketched
from a scene which he had himself witnessed; if it be not rather a
representation of the actual condition of the country at the time of his
writing. That the latter is the case might naturally be inferred from a
consideration of the whole passage; and the twelfth verse seems to lend
much support to this view: _Over all bare hills in the wilderness have
come ravagers; for Iahvah hath a devouring sword: from land's end to
land's end no flesh hath peace_.[51] The language indeed recalls that
of ch. iv. 10, 11; and the entire description might be taken as an ideal
picture of the ruin that must ensue upon Iahvah's rejection of the land
and people, especially if the closing verses (14-17) be considered as a
later addition to the prophecy, made in the light of accomplished facts.
But, upon the whole, it would seem to be more probable that the prophet
is here reading the moral of present or recent experience. He affirms
(ver. 11) that the affliction of the country is really a punishment for
the religious blindness of the nation: _there is no man that layeth to
heart_ the Divine teaching of events as interpreted by himself (cf.
ver. 4). The fact that we are unable, in the scantiness of the records
of the time, to specify the particular troubles to which allusion is
made, is no great objection to this view, which is at least effectively
illustrated by the brief statement of 2 Kings xxiv. 2. The reflexion
appended in ver. 13 points in the same direction: _They have sown
wheat, and have reaped thorns; they have put themselves to pain_ (or,
_exhausted themselves_) _without profit_, (or, _made themselves sick
with unprofitable toil_); _and they are ashamed of their[52] produce_
(_ingatherings_), _through the heat of the wrath of Iahvah._ When the
enemy had ravaged the crops, thorns would naturally spring up on the
wasted lands; and "the heat of the wrath of Iahvah" appears to have been
further manifested in a parching drought, which ruined what the enemy
had left untouched (ver. 4, ch. xiv.).

Thus, then, Jeremiah receives the answer to his doubts in a painfully
visible demonstration of what the wrath of Iahvah means. It means
drought and famine; it means the exposure of the country, naked and
defenceless, to the will of rapacious and vindictive enemies. For
Iahvah's wrongs are far deeper and more bitter than the prophet's. The
misdeeds of individuals are lighter in the balance than the sins of
a nation; the treachery of a few persons on a particular occasion is
as nothing beside the faithlessness of many generations. The partial
evils, therefore, under which the country groans, can only be taken as
indications of a far more complete and terrible destruction reserved
for final impenitence. The perception of this truth, we may suppose,
sufficed for the time to silence the prophet's complaints; and in the
revulsion of feeling inspired by the awful vision of the unimpeded
outbreak of Divine wrath, he utters an oracle concerning his country's
destroyers, in which retributive justice is tempered by compassion and
mercy. _Thus hath Jehovah said, Upon all Mine evil neighbours, who
touch the heritage which I caused My people Israel to inherit: Lo I am
about to uproot_ (i. 10) _them from off their own land, and the house
of Judah will I uproot from their midst. And after I have uprooted
them, I will have compassion on them again, and will restore them each
to their own heritage and their own land. And if they truly learn the
ways of My people, to swear by My name, 'as Iahvah liveth!' even as
they taught My people to swear by the Baal; they shall be rebuilt in
the midst of My people. And if they will not hear, I will uproot that
nation, utterly and fatally; it is an oracle of Iahvah_ (14-17). The
preceding section (vv. 7-14), as we have seen, rapidly yet vividly
sketches the calamities which have ensued and must further ensue upon
the Divine desertion of the country. Iahvah has forsaken the land, left
her naked to her enemies, for her causeless, capricious, thankless
revolt against her Divine Lord. In this forlorn, defenceless condition,
all manner of evils befall her; the vineyards and cornfields are
ravaged, the goodly land is desolated, by hordes of savage freebooters
pouring in from the eastern deserts. These invaders are called Iahvah's
"evil neighbours;" an expression which implies, not individuals banded
together for purposes of brigandage, but hostile nations.[53] Upon these
nations also will the justice of God be vindicated; for that justice
is universal in its operation, and cannot therefore be restricted to
Israel. Judgment must "begin at the house of God;" but it will not
end there. The "evil neighbours," the surrounding heathen kingdoms,
have been Iahvah's instruments for the chastisement of His rebellious
people; but they are not on that account exempted from recompense.
They too must reap what they have sown. They have insulted Iahvah, by
violating His territory; they have indulged their malice and treachery
and rapacity, in utter disregard of the rights of neighbours, and the
moral claims of kindred peoples. As they have done, so shall it be done
unto them: Δράσαντι παθεῖν. They have laid hands on the possessions of
their neighbour, and their own shall be taken from them; _I am about
to uproot them from off their own land_ (cf. Amos i. 3-ii. 3). And not
only so, but _the house of Judah will I pluck up from their midst_. The
Lord's people shall be no more exposed to their unneighbourly ill-will;
the butt of their ridicule, the victim of their malice, will be removed
to a foreign soil as well as they; but oppressed and oppressors will no
longer be together; their new settlements will lie far apart; under the
altered state of things, under the shadow of the great conqueror of the
future, there will be no opportunity for the old injurious dealings.
All alike, Judah and the enemies of Judah, will be subject to the will
of the foreign lord. But that is not the end. The Judge of all the
earth is merciful as well as just. He is loth to blot whole peoples out
of existence, even though they have merited destruction by grievous
and prolonged transgression of His laws. Therefore banishment will be
followed by restoration, not in the case of Judah only, but of all the
expatriated peoples. After enduring the Divine probation of adversity,
they will be brought again, by the Divine compassion, "each to their
own heritage and their own land." And then, if they will profit by
the teaching of Iahvah's prophets, and "learn the ways," that is, the
religion of His people, making their supreme appeal to Iahvah, as the
fountain of all truth and the sovran vindicator of right and justice, as
hitherto they have appealed to the Baal, and misled Israel into the same
profane and futile course; then "they shall be built up," or rebuilt,
or brought to great and ever-growing prosperity, "in the midst of My
people." Such is to be the blessing of the Gentiles; they shall share in
the glorious future that awaits repentant Israel. The present condition
of things is to be completely reversed: now Judah sojourns in _their_
midst; then _they_ will be surrounded on every side by the emancipated
and triumphant people of God: now _they_ beset Judah with jealousies,
suspicions, enmities; then Judah will embrace them all with the arms
of an unselfish and protecting love. A last word of warning is added.
The doom of the nation that will not accept the Divine teaching will be
utter and absolute extermination.

The forecast is plainly of a Messianic nature; it recognises in
Iahvah the Saviour, not of a nation, but of the world. It perceives
that the disunion and mutual hatred of peoples, as of individuals,
is a breach of Divine law; and it proclaims a general return to God,
and submission to His guidance in all political as well as private
affairs, as the sole cure for the numberless evils that flow from that
hatred and disunion. It is only when men have learnt that God is their
common Father and Lord, that they come to see with the clearness and
force of practical conviction that they themselves are all members of
one family, bound as such to mutual offices of kindness and charity;
it is only when there is a conscious identity of interest with all our
fellows, based upon the recognition that all alike are children of God
and heirs of eternal life, that true freedom and universal brotherhood
become possible for man.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] But perhaps it is rather the prophet's love for his people, which
fervently prays that the oath of blessing may be observed, and Judah
maintained in the goodly land.

[43] Hitzig supposed that the "vows" and "hallowed flesh" were
thank-offerings for the departure of the Scythians. "It is plain that
the people are really present in the temple; they bring, presumably
after the retreat of the Scythians, the offerings vowed at that time."
But, considering the context, the reference appears to be more general.
I have partly followed the LXX. in emending an obviously corrupt verse;
the only one in the chap. which presents any textual difficulty. Read:
יַעְֽבַרוּ קדש ובשר הַנְּדָרִים הַֽמְזִמָּתָהּ עֲשׂוֹתָהּ בביתי לידידי
מה ׃ זִי תַּֽעֲלְֹ אָז רָעָתֵכִי מֵעָלַיְכִי. The article with a noun
with suffix, and the peculiar form of the 2 pers. pron. f., are found
elsewhere in Jer. But I incline to correct further thus: "What avail to
My beloved is her dealing (or sacrificing: עשה 2 Kings xvii. 32) in My
house?" וגו קדש ובשר הָרַבִּים הֲמִזְבְּחוֹת. "Can the many altars (ver.
13) and hallowed flesh cause thine evil to pass away from thee (or pass
thee by)?" This seems very apposite to what precedes. The Hebrew, as it
stands, cannot possibly mean what we read both in the A. V. and R. V.,
nor indeed anything else.

[44] Reading בְּלֵחוֹ, with Hitzig, instead of בְּלַחְמוֹ, which is
meaningless. Deut. xxxiv. 7; Ezek. xxi. 3. Perhaps it would be better
to keep _all_ the letters, and point בְּלֵחָמוֹ, understanding עֵץ as
collective, "the trees."

[45] Not a vocative: xx. 12, xvii. 10.

[46] That "the swelling" or "the pride of Jordan" should rather be
read "the wilds" or "jungles of Jordan," is clear from xlix. 19; Zech.
xi. 3; quoted by Hitzig. גאון means "growth," "overgrowth," among
other things; and the Heb. phrase coincides with the Ἰάρδην δρυμὸς of
Josephus (_Bell. Jud._, vii. 6, 5).

[47] The form of the Heb. verbs implies the _certainty_ of the event.
Hitzig supposes that ver. 6 simply explains the expression "land
of peace" in ver. 5. At Anathoth the prophet was at home; if he
"ran away" (reading בורח "fleest" for בוטח "art confident") there,
what would he do, when he had gone forth as a "sheep among wolves"
(St. Luke x. 3)? But I think it is much better to regard ver. 6 as
explaining the _whole_ of ver. 5 in the manner suggested above.

[48] Or perhaps rather the holy land itself, as Hitzig suggested: Hos.
ix. 15.

[49] Lit. "Is my domain vultures, hyenas, to me?" The dative expresses
the interest of the speaker in the fact (dat. ethic.). The Heb.
term צבוע only occurs here. It is the Arabic _dhabu`_, "hyena" (so
Sept.). St. Jerome renders _avis discolor_. So the Targum: "a strewn"
"sprinkled," or "spotted fowl".

[50] The references to "birds of prey," "beasts of the field," and
"spoilers" (ver. 12), are interpreted by the phrase "mine evil
neighbours" (ver. 14); and this constitutes a link between vv. 7-14
and 14-17.

[51] Such seems to be the best punctuation of the sentence. It
involves the transfer of Athnach to אכלה.

[52] So the LXX. This agrees better with the context than "So be ye
ashamed of _your_ fruits."

[53] As Hitzig has observed, only a people, or a king, or a national
god, could be spoken of as a "neighbour" to the God of Israel.




                                 VIII.

                          _THE FALL OF PRIDE._

                             JEREMIAH xiii.


This discourse is a sort of appendix to the preceding; as is indicated
by its abrupt and brief beginning with the words "Thus said Iahvah unto
me," without the addition of any mark of time, or other determining
circumstance. It predicts captivity, in retribution for the pride and
ingratitude of the people; and thus suitably follows the closing section
of the last address, which announces the coming deportation of Judah
and her evil neighbours. The recurrence here (ver. 9) of the peculiar
term rendered "swelling" or "pride" in our English versions (ch. xii.
5), points to the same conclusion. We may subdivide it thus: It presents
us with (i) a symbolical action, or acted parable, with its moral and
application (vv. 1-11); (ii) a parabolic saying and its interpretation,
which leads up to a pathetic appeal for penitence (vv. 12-17); (iii) a
message to the sovereigns (vv. 18, 19); and (iv) a closing apostrophe to
Jerusalem--the gay and guilty capital, so soon to be made desolate for
her abounding sins (vv. 20-27).

In the first of these four sections, we are told how the prophet was
bidden of God to buy a linen girdle, and after wearing it for a time,
to bury it in a cleft of the rock at a place whose very name might
be taken to symbolize the doom awaiting his people. A long while
afterwards he was ordered to go and dig it up again, and found it
altogether spoiled and useless. The significance of these proceedings
is clearly enough explained. The relation between Israel and the God
of Israel had been of the closest kind. Iahvah had chosen this people,
and bound it to Himself by a covenant, as a man might bind a girdle
about his body; and as the girdle is an ornament of dress, so had the
Lord intended Israel to display His glory among men (ver. 11). But now
the girdle is rotten; and like that rotten girdle will He cause the
pride of Judah to rot and perish (vv. 9, 10).

It is natural to ask, whether Jeremiah really did as he relates;
or whether the narrative about the girdle be simply a literary
device intended to carry a lesson home to the dullest apprehension.
If the prophet's activity had been confined to the pen; if he had
not been wont to labour by word and deed for the attainment of his
purposes; the latter alternative might be accepted. For mere readers,
a parabolic narrative might suffice to enforce his meaning. But
Jeremiah, who was all his life a man of action, probably did the
thing he professes to have done, not in thought nor in word only,
but in deed and to the knowledge of certain competent witnesses.
There was nothing novel in this method of attracting attention, and
giving greater force and impressiveness to his prediction. The older
prophets had often done the same kind of things, on the principle
that deeds may be more effective than words. What could have conveyed
a more vivid sense of the Divine intention, than the simple act of
Ahijah the Shilonite, when he suddenly caught away the new mantle of
Solomon's officer, and rent it into twelve pieces, and said to the
astonished courtier, "Take thee ten pieces! for thus said Iahvah, the
God of Israel, Behold I am about to rend the kingdom out of the hand
of Solomon, and will give the ten tribes to thee"? (1 Kings xi. 29
_sqq._) In like manner, when Ahab and Jehoshaphat, dressed in their
robes of state, sat enthroned in the gateway of Samaria, and "all the
prophets were prophesying before them" about the issue of their joint
expedition to Ramoth-gilead, Zedekiah, the son of a Canaanitess--as
the writer is careful to add of this false prophet--"made him horns
of iron and said, Thus said Iahvah, With these shalt thou butt the
Arameans, until thou make an end of them" (1 Kings xxii. 11). Isaiah,
Hosea, and Ezekiel, record similar actions of symbolical import.
Isaiah for a time walked half-clad and barefoot, as a sign that the
Egyptians and Ethiopians, upon whom Judah was inclined to lean,
would be led away captive, in this comfortless guise, by the king
of Assyria (Isa. xx.). Such actions may be regarded as a further
development of those significant gestures, with which men in what is
called a state of nature are wont to give emphasis and precision to
their spoken ideas. They may also be compared with the symbolism of
ancient law. "An ancient conveyance," we are told, "was not written
but acted. Gestures and words took the place of written technical
phraseology, and any formula mispronounced, or symbolical act
omitted, would have vitiated the proceeding as fatally as a material
mistake in stating the uses or setting out the remainders would, two
hundred years ago, have vitiated an English deed." (Maine, _Ancient
Law_, p. 276.) Actions of a purely symbolical nature surprise us,
when we first encounter them in Religion or Law, but that is only
because they are survivals. In the ages when they originated, they
were familiar occurrences in all transactions between man and man.
And this general consideration tends to prove that those expositors
are wrong who maintain that the prophets did not really perform the
symbolical actions of which they speak. Just as it is argued that the
visions which they describe, are merely a literary device; so the
reality of these symbolical actions has needlessly enough been called
in question. The learned Jews Abenezra and Maimonides in the twelfth
century, and David Kimchi in the thirteenth, were the first to affirm
this opinion. Maimonides held that all such actions passed in vision
before the prophets; a view which has found a modern advocate in
Hengstenberg: and Stäudlin, in the last century, affirmed that they
had neither an objective nor a subjective reality, but were simply a
"literary device." This, however, is only true, if true at all, of the
declining period of prophecy, as in the case of the visions. In the
earlier period, while the prophets were still accustomed to an oral
delivery of their discourses, we may be quite sure that they suited
the action to the word in the way that they have themselves recorded;
in order to stir the popular imagination, and to create a more vivid
and lasting impression. The narratives of the historical books leave
no doubt about the matter. But in later times, when spoken addresses
had for the most part become a thing of the past, and when prophets
published their convictions in manuscript, it is possible that they
were content with the description of symbolical doings, as a sort of
parable, without any actual performance of them. Jeremiah's hiding
his girdle in a cleft of the rock at "Euphrates" has been regarded
by some writers as an instance of such purely ideal symbolism. And
certainly it is difficult to suppose that the prophet made the long
and arduous journey from Jerusalem to the Great River for such a
purpose. It is, however, a highly probable conjecture that the place
whither he was directed to repair was much nearer home; the addition
of a single letter to the name rendered "Euphrates" gives the far
preferable reading "Ephrath," that is to say, Bethlehem in Judah
(Gen. xlviii. 7). Jeremiah may very well have buried his girdle at
Bethlehem, a place only five miles or so to the south of Jerusalem; a
place, moreover, where he would have no trouble in finding a "cleft
of the rock," which would hardly be the case upon the alluvial banks
of the Euphrates. If not accidental, the difference may be due to
the intentional employment of an unusual form of the name, by way of
hinting at the source whence the ruin of Judah was to flow. The enemy
"from the north" (ver. 20) is of course the Chaldeans.

The mention of the queen-mother (ver. 18) along with the king appears to
point unmistakably to the reign of Jehoiachin or Jechoniah. The allusion
is compared with the threat of ch. xxii. 26: "I will cast thee out, and
thy mother that bare thee into another country." Like Josiah, this king
was but eight years old when he began to reign (2 Chron. xxxvi. 9, after
which 2 Kings xxiv. 8 must be corrected); and he had enjoyed the name
of king only for the brief period of three months, when the thunderbolt
fell, and Nebuchadrezzar began his first siege of Jerusalem. The
boy-king can hardly have had much to do with the issue of affairs, when
"he and his mother and his servants and his princes and his eunuchs"
surrendered the city, and were deported to Babylon, with ten thousand
of the principal inhabitants (2 Kings xxiv. 12 _sqq._). The date of our
discourse will thus be the beginning of the year B.C. 599, which was the
eighth year of Nebuchadrezzar (2 Kings xxiv. 12).

It is asserted, indeed, that the difficult verse 21 refers to the
revolt from Babylon as an accomplished fact; but this is by no means
clear from the verse itself. _What wilt thou say_, demands the
prophet, _when He shall appoint over thee--albeit, thou thyself hast
instructed them against thyself;--lovers to be thy head?_ The term
"lovers" or "lemans" applies best to the foreign idols, who will one
day repay the foolish attachment of Iahvah's people by enslaving it
(cf. ch. iii. 4, where Iahvah himself is called the "lover" of Judah's
youthful days); and this question might as well have been asked in
the days of Josiah, as at any later period. At various times in the
past Israel and Judah had courted the favour of foreign deities. Ahaz
had introduced Aramean and Assyrian novelties; Manasseh and Amon had
revived and aggravated his apostasy. Even Hezekiah had had friendly
dealings with Babylon, and we must remember that in those times
friendly intercourse with a foreign people implied some recognition of
their gods, which is probably the true account of Solomon's chapels
for Tyrian and other deities.

The queen of ver. 18 might conceivably be Jedidah, the mother of
Josiah, for that king was only eight at his accession, and only
thirty-nine at his death (2 Kings xxii. 1). And the message to the
sovereigns (ver. 18) is not couched in terms of disrespect nor of
reproach: it simply declares the imminence of overwhelming disaster,
and bids them lay aside their royal pomp, and behave as mourners
for the coming woe. Such words might perhaps have been addressed to
Josiah and his mother, by way of deepening the impression produced
by the Book of the Law, and the rumoured invasion of the Scythians.
But the threat against "the kings that sit on David's throne" (ver.
13) is hardly suitable on this supposition; and the ruthless tone of
this part of the address-_-I will dash them in pieces, one against
another, both the fathers and the sons together: I will not pity,
nor spare, nor relent from destroying them_--considered along with
the emphatic prediction of an utter and entire captivity (ver. 19),
seems to indicate a later period of the prophet's ministry, when the
obduracy of the people had revealed more fully the hopelessness of his
enterprise for their salvation. The mention of the enemy "from the
north" will then be a reference to present circumstances of peril, as
triumphantly vindicating the prophet's former menaces of destruction
from that quarter. The carnage of conquest and the certainty of
exile are here threatened in the plainest and most direct style; but
nothing is said by way of heightening the popular terror of the coming
destroyer. The prophet seems to take it for granted that the nature of
the evil which hangs over their heads, is well known to the people,
and does not need to be dwelt upon or amplified with the lyric fervour
of former utterances (see ch. iv., v. 15 _sqq._, vi. 22 _sqq._).
This appears quite natural, if we suppose that the first invasion of
the Chaldeans was now a thing of the past; and that the nation was
awaiting in trembling uncertainty the consequences of Jehoiakim's
breach of faith with his Babylonian suzerain (2 Kings xxiv. i. 10).
The prophecy may therefore be assigned with some confidence to the
short reign of Jehoiachin, to which perhaps the short section, ch.
x. 17-25, also belongs; a date which harmonizes better than any other
with the play on the name Euphrates in the opening of the chapter. It
agrees, too, with the emphatic _Iahvah hath spoken!_ (ver. 15), which
seems to be more than a mere assertion of the speaker's veracity, and
to point rather to the fact that the course of events had reached a
crisis; that something had occurred in the political world, which
suggested imminent danger; that a black cloud was looming up on the
national horizon, and signalling unmistakably to the prophet's eye
the intention of Iahvah. What other view so well explains the solemn
tone of warning, the vivid apprehension of danger, the beseeching
tenderness, that give so peculiar a stamp to the three verses in which
the address passes from narrative and parable, to direct appeal?
_Hear ye and give ear: be not proud: for Iahvah hath spoken! Give
glory to Iahvah your God_--the glory of confession, of avowing your
own guilt and His perfect righteousness (Josh. vii. 19; St. John ix.
24); of recognising the due reward of your deeds in the destruction
that threatens you; the glory involved in the cry, "God be merciful
to me a sinner!"--_Give glory to Iahvah your God, before the darkness
fall, and before your feet stumble upon the twilight mountains; and
ye wait for dawn, and He make it deepest gloom, He turn it to utter
darkness._ The day was declining; the evening shadows were descending
and deepening; soon the hapless people would be wandering bewildered
in the twilight, and lost in the darkness, unless, ere it had become
too late, they would yield their pride, and throw themselves upon the
pity of Him who "maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the
deepest gloom into the morning" (Amos v. 8).

The verbal allusiveness of the opening section does not, according to
Oriental taste, diminish the solemnity of the speaker; on the contrary,
it tends to deepen the impression produced by his words. And perhaps
there is a psychological reason for the fact, beyond the peculiar
partiality of Oriental peoples for such displays of ingenuity. It is,
at all events, remarkable that the greatest of all masters of human
feeling has not hesitated to make a dying prince express his bitter and
desponding thoughts in what may seem an artificial toying and trifling
with the suggestiveness of his own familiar name; and when the king
asks: "Can sick men play so nicely with their names?" the answer is:
"No, misery makes sport to mock itself." (Rich. II., Act 2, Sc. i., 72
_sqq._) The Greek tragedian, too, in the earnestness of bitter sport,
can find a prophecy in a name. "_Who_ was for naming her thus, with
truth so entire? (Was it One whom we see not, wielding tongue happily
with full foresight of what was to be?) the Bride of Battles, fiercely
contested _Helen_: seeing that, in full accord with her name, _haler_ of
ships, _haler_ of men, _haler_ of cities, forth of the soft and precious
tapestries away she sailed, under the gale of the giant West" (Æsch.,
_Ag._, 681 _sqq._). And so, to Jeremiah's ear, Ephrath is prophetic
of Euphrates, upon whose distant banks the glory of his people is to
languish and decay. "I to Ephrath, and you to Phrath!" is his melancholy
cry. Their doom is as certain as if it were the mere fulfilment of an
old-world prophecy, crystallized long ages ago in a familiar name; a
word of destiny fixed in this strange form, and bearing its solemn
witness from the outset of their history until now concerning the
inevitable goal.

There is nothing so very surprising, as Ewald seems to have thought,
in the suggestion that the _Perath_ of the Hebrew text may be the
same as Ephrath. But perhaps the valley and spring now called _Furāh_
(or _Furāt_) which lies at about the same distance N.E. of Jerusalem,
is the place intended by the prophet. The name, which means _fresh_
or _sweet water_ is identical with the Arabic name of the Euphrates
(_Furāt_, [Arabic: **]), which again is philologically identical
with the Hebrew Perath. It is obvious that this place would suit
the requirements of the text quite as well as the other, while the
coincidence of name enables us to dispense with the supposition of
an unusual form or even a corruption of the original; but _Furāt_
or _Forāh_ is not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament. The old
versions send the prophet to the river Euphrates, which Jeremiah calls
simply "The River" in one place (ii. 18), and "_The river_ of Perath"
in three others (xlvi. 2, 6, 10); while the rare "Perath," without any
addition, is only found in the second account of the Creation (Gen.
ii. 14), in 2 Chron. xxxv. 20, and in a passage of this book which
does not belong, nor profess to belong, to Jeremiah (li. 63). We may,
therefore, conclude that "Perath" in the present passage means not the
great river of that name, but a place near Jerusalem, although that
place was probably chosen with the intention, as above explained, of
alluding to the Euphrates.

I cannot assent to the opinion which regards this narrative of the
spoiled girdle as founded upon some accidental experience of the
prophet's life, in which he afterwards recognised a Divine lesson. The
precision of statement, and the nice adaptation of the details of the
story to the moral which the prophet wished to convey, rather indicate a
symbolical course of action, or what may be called an acted parable. The
whole proceeding appears to have been carefully thought out beforehand.
The intimate connexion between Iahvah and Israel is well symbolized by a
girdle--that part of an Eastern dress which "cleaves to the loins of a
man," that is, fits closest to the body, and is most securely attached
thereto. And if the nations be represented by the rest of the apparel,
as the girdle secures and keeps that in its place, we may see an
implication that Israel was intended to be the chain that bound mankind
to God. The girdle was of _linen_, the material of the priestly dress,
not only because Jeremiah was a priest, but because Israel was called to
be "a kingdom of priests," or the Priest among nations (Ex. xix. 6). The
significance of the command to wear the girdle, but not to put it into
water, seems to be clear enough. The unwashed garment which the prophet
continues to wear for a time represents the foulness of Israel; just as
the order to bury it at Perath indicates what Iahvah is about to do with
His polluted people.

The exposition begins with the words, _Thus will I mar the great pride
of Judah and of Jerusalem_! The spiritual uncleanness of the nation
consisted in the proud self-will which turned a deaf ear to the warnings
of Iahvah's prophets, and obstinately persisted in idolatry (ver. 10).
It continues: _For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so made
I the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cleave unto
Me, saith Iahvah; that they might become to Me for a people, and for a
name, and for a praise, and for an ornament_ (Ex. xxviii. 2). Then their
becoming morally unclean, through the defilements of sin, is briefly
implied in the words, _And they obeyed not_ (ver. 11).

It is not the pride of the tyrant king Jehoiakim that is here
threatened with destruction. It is the _national_ pride which had all
along evinced itself in rebellion against its heavenly King--_the
great pride of Judah and Jerusalem_; and this pride, inasmuch as it
"trusted in man and made flesh its arm" (xvii. 5), and boasted in a
carnal wisdom, and material strength and riches (ix. 23, xxi. 13), was
to be brought low by the complete extinction of the national autonomy,
and the reduction of a high-spirited and haughty race to the status of
humble dependents upon a heathen power.

2. A parabolic saying follows, with its interpretation. _And say thou
unto them this word: Thus said Iahvah, the God of Israel: Every jar
is wont to be filled_ (or _shall be filled_) _with wine. And if they
say unto thee, Are we really not aware that every jar is wont to be
filled with wine? say thou unto them, Thus said Iahvah, Lo, I am about
to fill all the inhabitants of this land, and the kings that sit for
David upon his throne, and the priests and the prophets, and all the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness; and I will dash them in
pieces against one another, and the fathers and the sons together,
saith Iahvah: I will not forbear nor spare nor pity, so as not to mar
them_ (cf. vv. 7, 9).

The individual members of the nation, of all ranks and classes, are
compared to earthenware jars, not "skins," as the LXX. gives it, for
they are to be _dashed in pieces_, "like a potter's vessel" (Ps. ii. 9;
cf. ver. 14).[54] Regarding them all as ripe for destruction, Jeremiah
exclaims, "Every jar is filled with wine," in the ordinary course
of things; that is its destiny. His hearers answer with the mocking
question, "Do you suppose that we don't know that?" They would, of
course, be aware that a prophet's figure, however homely, covered an
inner meaning of serious import; but derision was their favourite retort
against unpopular truths (xvii. 15, xx. 7, 8). They would take it for
granted that the thing suggested was unfavourable, from their past
experience of Jeremiah. Their ill-timed banter is met by the instant
application of the figure. They, and _the kings_ then sitting on David's
throne, _i.e._, the young Jehoiachin and the queen-mother Nehushta (who
probably had all the authority if not the title of a regent), and the
priests and prophets who fatally misled them by false teachings and
false counsels, are the wine-jars intended, and the wine that is to fill
them is the wine of the wrath of God (Ps. lxxv. 8; Jer. xxv. 15; cf.
li. 7; Rev. xvi. 19; Isa. xix. 14, 15). The effect is intoxication--a
fatal bewilderment, a helpless lack of decision, an utter confusion
and stupefaction of the faculties of wisdom and foresight, in the very
moment of supreme peril (cf. Isa. xxviii. 7; Ps. lx. 5). Like drunkards,
they will reel against and overthrow each other. The strong term _I will
dash them in pieces_ is used, to indicate the deadly nature of their
fall, and because the prophet has still in his mind the figure of the
wine-jars, which were probably amphoræ, pointed at the end, like those
depicted in Egyptian mural paintings, so that they could not stand
upright without support. By their fall they are to be utterly "marred"
(the term used of the girdle, ver. 9).

But even yet one way of escape lies open. It is to sacrifice their
pride, and yield to the will of Iahvah. _Hear ye, and give ear, be
not haughty! for Iahvah hath spoken: give ye to Iahvah your God the
glory, before it grow dark_ (or _He cause darkness_), _and before your
feet stumble upon mountains of twilight; and_ _ye wait for the dawn,
and He make it gloom, turning it to cloudiness!_ (Isa. v. 30, viii.
20, 22; Amos viii. 9). It is very remarkable, that even now, when
the Chaldeans are actually in the country, and blockading the strong
places of southern Judah (ver. 19), which was the usual preliminary
to an advance upon Jerusalem itself (2 Chron. xii. 4, xxxii. 9;
Isa. xxxvi. 1, 2), Jeremiah should still speak thus; assuring his
fellow-citizens that confession and self-humiliation before their
offended God might yet deliver them from the bitterest consequences
of past misdoing. Iahvah had indeed spoken audibly enough, as it
seemed to the prophet, in the calamities that had already befallen the
country; these were an indication of more and worse to follow, unless
they should prove efficacious in leading the people to repentance. If
they failed, nothing would be left for the prophet but to mourn in
solitude over his country's ruin (ver. 17). But Jeremiah was fully
persuaded that the Hand that had stricken could heal; the Power that
had brought the invaders into Judah, could cause them to "return
by the way that they had come" (Isa. xxxvii. 34). Of course such a
view is unintelligible from the standpoint of unbelief; but then the
standpoint of the prophets is faith.

3. After this general appeal for penitence, the discourse turns
to the two exalted persons whose position and interest in the
country were the highest of all, the youthful king, and the empress
or queen-mother. They are addressed in a tone which, though not
disrespectful, is certainly despairing. They are called upon, not so
much to set the example of penitence (cf. Jonah iii. 6), as to take
up the attitude of mourners (Job ii. 13; Isa. iii. 26; Lam. ii. 10;
Ezek. xxvi. 16) in presence of the public disasters. _Say thou to
the_ _king and to the empress, Sit ye low on the ground_! (lit. _make
low your seat_! cf. Isa. vii. for the construction) _for it is fallen
from your heads[55]--your beautiful crown_! (Lam. v. 16). _The cities
of the south are shut fast, and there is none that openeth_ (Josh. vi.
1): _Judah is carried away captive all of her, she is wholly carried
away_. There is no hope; it is vain to expect help; nothing is left
but to bemoan the irreparable. The siege of the great fortresses of
the south country and the sweeping away of the rural population were
sure signs of what was coming upon Jerusalem. The embattled cities
themselves may be suggested by the fallen crown of beauty; Isaiah
calls Samaria "the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim" (Isa.
xxviii. 1), and cities are commonly represented in ancient art by
female figures wearing mural crowns. In that case, both verses are
addressed to the sovereigns, and the second is exegetical of the first.

As already observed, there is here no censure, but only sorrowful
despair over the dark outlook. In the same way, Jeremiah's utterance
(xxii. 20 _sqq._) about the fate of Jehoiachin is less a malediction
than a lament. And when we further consider his favourable judgment of
the first body of exiles, who were carried away with this monarch soon
after the time of the present oracle (chap. xxiv.), we may perhaps see
reason to conclude that the surrender of Jerusalem to the Chaldeans on
this occasion was partly due to his advice. The narrative of Kings,
however, is too brief to enable us to come to any certain decision about
the circumstances of Jehoiachin's submission (2 Kings xxiv. 10-12).

4. From the sovereigns, the prophet turns to Jerusalem. _Lift up thine
eyes_ (_O Jerusalem_[56]), _and behold them that came from the north!
Where is the flock that was given to thee, thy beautiful sheep? What
wilt thou say when He shall appoint over thee--nay, thou thyself hast
spurred them against thyself!--lovers_ (iii. 4, xi. 19) _for head?
Will not pangs take thee, as a woman in travail?_ Jerusalem sits upon
her hills, as a beautiful shepherdess. The country towns and unwalled
villages lay about her, like a fair flock of sheep and goats entrusted
to her care and keeping. But now these have been destroyed and their
pastures are made a silent solitude, and the destroyer is advancing
against herself. What pangs of shame and terror will be hers, when
she recognises in the enemy triumphing over her grievous downfall the
heathen "friends" whose love she had courted so long! Her sin is to be
her scourge. She shall be made the thrall of her foreign lovers. Iahvah
will "appoint them over her" (xv. 3, li. 27); they will become the
"head," and she the "tail" (Lam. i. 5; Deut. xxviii. 44). Yet this will,
in truth, be her own doing, not Iahvah's; she has herself "accustomed
them to herself" (x. 2), or "instructed" or "spurred them on" against
herself (ii. 33, iv. 18). The revolt of Jehoiakim, his wicked breach
of faith with Nebuchadrezzar, had turned friends to enemies (iv. 30).
But the chief reference seems to be more general--the continual craving
of Judah for foreign alliances and foreign worships. _And if thou say
in thine heart, "Wherefore did these things befall me?" through the
greatness of thy guilt were thy skirts uncovered, thine heels violated_
(Nah. iii. 5) or _exposed. Will a Cushite change his skin, or a leopard
his spots? ye, too, are ye able to do good, O ye that are wont to do
evil?_ If amid the sharp throes of suffering Jerusalem should still
fail to recognise the moral cause of them (v. 19), she may be assured
beforehand that her unspeakable dishonour is the reward of her sins;
_that_ is why "the virgin daughter of Sion" is surprised and ravished by
the foe (a common figure: Isa. xlvii. 1-3). Sin has become so ingrained
in her, that it can no more be eradicated than the blackness of an
African skin, or the spots of a leopard's hide. The habit of sinning has
become "a second nature," and, like nature, is not to be expelled (cf.
viii. 4-7).

The effect of use and wont in the moral sphere could hardly be expressed
more forcibly, and Jeremiah's comparison has become a proverb. Custom
binds us all in every department of life; it is only by enlisting this
strange influence upon the side of virtue, that we become virtuous.
Neither virtue nor vice can be pronounced perfect, until the habit of
either has become fixed and invariable. It is the tendency of habitual
action of any kind to become automatic; and it is certain that sin
may attain such a mastery over the active powers of a man that its
indulgence may become almost an unconscious exercise of his will, and
quite a matter of course. But this fearful result of evil habits does
not excuse them at the bar of common sense, much less at the tribunal
of God. The inveterate sinner, the man totally devoid of scruple,
whose conscience is, as it were, "seared with a hot iron," is not on
that account excused by the common judgment of his kind; the feeling
he excites is not forbearance, but abhorrence; he is regarded not as
a poor victim of circumstances over which he has no control, but as
a monster of iniquity. And justly so; for if he has lost control of
his passions, if he is no longer master of himself, but the slave of
vice, he is responsible for the long course of self-indulgence which
has made him what he is. The prophet's comparison cannot be applied in
support of a doctrine of immoral fatalism. The very fact that he makes
use of it, implies that he did not intend it to be understood in such
a sense. "_Will a Cushite change his skin, or a leopard his spots? Ye
also_--supposing such a change as that--_will be able to do good, O
ye that are taught_--trained, accustomed--_to do evil_!" (perhaps the
preferable rendering).

Not only must we abstain from treating a rhetorical figure as a
colourless and rigorous proposition of mathematical science; not only
must we allow for the irony and the exaggeration of the preacher: we
must also remember his object, which is, if possible, to shock his
hearers into a sense of their condition, and to awaken remorse and
repentance even at the eleventh hour. His last words (ver. 27) prove
that he did not believe this result, improbable as it was, to be
altogether impossible. Unless some sense of sin had survived in their
hearts, unless the terms, "good" and "evil," had still retained a
meaning for his countrymen, Jeremiah would hardly have laboured still
so strenuously to convince them of their sin.

For the present, when retribution is already at the doors, when already
the Divine wrath has visibly broken forth, his prevailing purpose is
not so much to suggest a way of escape, as to bring home to the heart
and conscience of the nation the true meaning of the public calamities.
They are the consequence of habitual rebellion against God. _And I will
scatter them like stubble passing away to_ (= before: cf. xix. 10) _the
wind of the wilderness. This is thy lot_ (_fem._ thine, O Jerusalem),
_the portion of thy measures_ (others: _lap_) _from Me, saith Iahvah;
because thou forgattest Me, and didst trust in the Lie. And I also--I
will surely strip thy skirts to thy face, and thy shame shall be seen!_
(Nah. iii. 5). _Thine adulteries and thy neighings, the foulness of thy
fornications upon the hills in the field_ (iii. 2-6)--_I have seen thine
abominations!_ (For the construction, compare Isa. i. 13.) _Woe unto
thee, O Jerusalem! After how long yet wilt thou not become clean?_ (2
Kings v. 12, 13). That which lies before the citizens in the near future
is not deliverance, but dispersion in foreign lands. The onset of the
foe will sweep them away, as the blast from the desert drives before it
the dry stubble of the corn-fields (cf. iv. 11, 12). This is no chance
calamity, but a recompense allotted and meted out by Iahvah to the
city that forgot Him and "trusted in the Lie" of Baal-worship and the
associated superstitions. The city that dealt shamefully in departing
from her God, and dallying with foul idols, shall be put to shame by Him
before all the world (ver. 26 recurring to the thought of ver. 22, but
ascribing the exposure directly to Iahvah). Woe--certain woe--awaits
Jerusalem; and it is but a faint and far-off glimmer of hope that is
reflected in the final question, which is like a weary sigh: _After how
long yet wilt thou not become clean?_ How long must the fiery process
of cleansing go on, ere thou be purged of thine inveterate sins? It is
a recognition that the punishment will not be exterminative; that God's
chastisements of His people can no more fail at last than His promises;
that the triumph of a heathen power and the disappearance of Iahvah's
Israel from under His heaven cannot be the final phase of that long
eventful history which began with the call of Abraham.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] Also xlviii. 12; Lam. iv. 2; Isa. xxx. 14.

[55] LXX. ἀπὸ κεφαλῆς ὑμῶν.. Read מֵרָאשֹׁתֵיכֶם = מֵרָאשׁיכֶם; and
cf. Assyrian _rešu_, plur. _rešêtu_ (= ראשות).

[56] For עיניכם we might read, with LXX., Vat., ם(ירושל) עיניך. The
Arabic has Israel. But Vulg. and Targ. agree with the Q'rê, and take the
verbs as plur.: "Lift ye up your eyes and see who are coming from the
north." The sing. fem. is to be preferred as the more difficult reading,
and on account of ver. 21, where it recurs. Jerusalem is addressed
(ver. 27), and "_your_ eyes," plur. masc. pron., may be justified as
indicating the _collective_ sense of the fem. sing. The population of
the capital is meant. Cf. Mic. i. 11; Jer. xxi. 13, 14. In ver. 23, the
masc. plur. appears again, the figure for a moment being dropped.




                                  IX.

               _THE DROUGHT AND ITS MORAL IMPLICATIONS._

                      JEREMIAH xiv., xv. (xvii.?).


Various opinions have been expressed about the division of these
chapters. They have been cut up into short sections, supposed to
be more or less independent of each other;[57] and they have been
regarded as constituting a well-organized whole, at least so far as
the eighteenth verse of chap. xvii. The truth may lie between these
extremes. Chapters xiv., xv. certainly hang together; for in them
the prophet represents himself as twice interceding with Iahvah on
behalf of the people, and twice receiving a refusal of his petition
(xiv. 1-xv. 4), the latter reply being sterner and more decisive than
the first. The occasion was a long period of drought, involving much
privation for man and beast. The connexion between the parts of this
first portion of the discourse is clear enough. The prophet prays
for his people, and God answers that He has rejected them, and that
intercession is futile. Thereupon, Jeremiah throws the blame of the
national sins upon the false prophets; and the answer is that both
the people and their false guides will perish. The prophet then
soliloquises upon his own hard fate as a herald of evil tidings, and
receives directions for his own personal guidance in this crisis of
affairs (xv. 10-xvi. 9). There is a pause but no real break at the
end of chap. xv. The next chapter resumes the subject of directions
personally affecting the prophet himself; and the discourse is then
continuous so far as xvii. 18, although, naturally enough, it is
broken here and there by pauses of considerable duration, marking
transitions of thought, and progress in the argument.

The heading of the entire piece is marked in the original by a
peculiar inversion of terms, which meets us again, chap. xlvi. 1,
xlvii. 1, xlix. 34, but which, in spite of this recurrence, wears a
rather suspicious look. We might render it thus: "What fell as a word
of Iahvah to Jeremiah, on account of the droughts" (the plural is
intensive, or it signifies the long continuance of the trouble--as
if one rainless period followed upon another). Whether or not the
singular order of the words be authentic, the recurrence at chap.
xvii. 8 of the remarkable term for "drought" (Heb. _bacc̰óreth_ of
which _bac̰c̰aróth_ here is plur.) favours the view that that chapter
is an integral portion of the present discourse. The exordium (xiv.
1-9) is a poetical sketch of the miseries of man and beast, closing
with a beautiful prayer. It has been said that this is not "a word
of Iahvah to Jeremiah," but rather the reverse. If we stick to the
letter, this no doubt is the case; but, as we have seen in former
discourses, the phrase "Iahvah's word" meant in prophetic use very
much more than a direct message from God, or a prediction uttered at
the Divine instigation. Here, as elsewhere, the prophet evidently
regards the course of his own religious reflexion as guided by Him
who "fashioneth the hearts of men," and "knoweth their thoughts long
before;" and if the question had suggested itself, he would certainly
have referred his own poetic powers--the tenderness of his pity, the
vividness of his apprehension, the force of his passion,--to the
inspiration of the Lord who had called and consecrated him from the
birth, to speak in His Name.

There lies at the heart of many of us a feeling, which has lurked
there, more or less without our cognisance, ever since the childish
days when the Old Testament was read at the mother's knee, and
explained and understood in a manner proportioned to the faculties of
childhood. When we hear the phrase "The Lord spake," we instinctively
think, if we think at all, of an actual voice knocking sensibly at the
door of the outward ear. It was not so; nor did the sacred writer mean
it so. A knowledge of Hebrew idiom--the modes of expression usual and
possible in that ancient speech--assures us that this statement, so
startlingly direct in its unadorned simplicity, was the accepted mode
of conveying a meaning which we, in our more complex and artificial
idioms, would convey by the use of a multitude of words, in terms
far more abstract, in language destitute of all that colour of life
and reality which stamps the idiom of the Bible. It is as though the
Divine lay farther off from us moderns; as though the marvellous
progress of all that new knowledge of the measureless magnitude of the
world, of the power and complexity of its machinery, of the surpassing
subtlety and the matchless perfection of its laws and processes,
had become an impassable barrier, at least an impenetrable veil,
between our minds and God. We have lost the sense of His nearness,
of His immediacy, so to speak; because we have gained, and are ever
intensifying, a sense of the nearness of the world with which He
environs us. Hence, when we speak of Him, we naturally cast about
either for poetical phrases and figures, which must always be more
or less vague and undefined, or for highly abstract expressions,
which may suggest scientific exactness, but are, in truth, scholastic
formulæ, dry as the dust of the desert, untouched by the breath of
life; and even if they affirm a Person, destitute of all those living
characters by which we instinctively and without effort recognise
Personality. We make only a conventional use of the language of the
sacred writers, of the prophets and prophetic historians, of the
psalmists, and the legalists of the Old Testament; the language which
is the native expression of a peculiar intensity of religious faith,
realizing the Unseen as the Actual and, in truth, the only Real.

    "Judah mourneth and the gates thereof languish,
     They are clad in black down to the ground;
     And the cry of Jerusalem hath gone up.
     And their nobles have sent their lesser folk for water;
     They have been to the pits, and found no water:
     Their vessels have come back empty;
     Ashamed and confounded, they have covered their heads.

    "Because the ground is chapt, for there hath not been rain in the
          land,
     The plowmen are ashamed, they have covered their heads.

    "For even the hind in the field hath yeaned and forsaken her fawn,
     For there is no grass.
     And the wild asses stand on the bare fells;
     They snuff the wind like jackals;
     Their eyes fail, for there is no pasturage.

    "If our sins have answered against us,
     Iahweh, act for Thine own Name sake;
     For our relapses are many;
     Against Thee have we trespassed.

    "Hope of Israel, that savest him in time of trouble,
     Wherefore wilt Thou be as a stranger in the land,
     And as a traveller that leaveth the road but for the night?
     Wherefore wilt Thou be as a man o'erpowered with sleep,
     As a warrior that cannot rescue?

    "Sith Thou art in our midst, O Iahvah,
     And Thy Name upon us hath been called;
     Cast us not down!"

How beautiful both plaint and prayer! The simple description of the
effects of the drought is as lifelike and impressive as a good picture.
The whole country is stricken; the city-gates, the place of common
resort, where the citizens meet for business and for conversation, are
gloomy with knots of mourners robed in black from head to foot, or,
as the Hebrew may also imply, sitting on the ground, in the garb and
posture of desolation (Lam. ii. 10, iii. 28). The magnates of Jerusalem
send out their retainers to find water; and we see them returning with
empty vessels, their heads muffled in their cloaks, in sign of grief
at the failure of their errand (cf. 1 Kings xviii. 5, 6). The parched
ground everywhere gapes with fissures;[58] the yeomen go about with
covered heads in deepest dejection. The distress is universal, and
affects not man only, but the brute creation. Even the gentle hind, that
proverb of maternal tenderness, is driven by sorest need to forsake the
fruit of her hard travail; her starved dugs are dry, and she flies from
her helpless offspring. The wild asses of the desert, fleet, beautiful
and keen-eyed creatures, scan the withered landscape from the naked
cliffs, and snuff the wind, like jackals scenting prey; but neither
sight nor smell suggests relief. There is no moisture in the air, no
glimpse of pasture in the wide sultry land.

The prayer is a humble confession of sin, an unreserved admission that
the woes of man evince the righteousness of God. Unlike certain modern
poets, who bewail the sorrows of the world as the mere infliction of
a harsh and arbitrary and inevitable Destiny, Jeremiah makes no doubt
that human sufferings are due to the working of Divine justice.
"Our sins have answered against our pleas at Thy judgment seat; our
relapses are many; against Thee have we trespassed," against Thee,
the sovereign Disposer of events, the Source of all that happens and
all that is. If this be so, what plea is left? None, but that appeal
to the NAME of Iahvah, with which the prayer begins and ends. "Act
for Thine own Name sake."... "Thy Name upon us hath been called." Act
for Thine own honour, that is, for the honour of Mercy, Compassion,
Truth, Goodness; which Thou hast revealed Thyself to be, and which
are parts of Thy glorious Name (Ex. xxxiv. 6). Pity the wretched, and
pardon the guilty; for so will Thy glory increase amongst men; so will
man learn that the relentings of love are diviner affections than the
ruthlessness of wrath and the cravings of vengeance.

There is also a touching appeal to the past. The very name by which
Israel was sometimes designated as "the people of Iahvah," just as
Moab was known by the name of its god as "the people of Chemosh" (Num.
xxi. 29), is alleged as proof that the nation has an interest in the
compassion of Him whose name it bears; and it is implied that, since
the world knows Israel as Iahvah's people, it will not be for Iahvah's
honour that this people should be suffered to perish in their sins.
Israel had thus, from the outset of its history, been associated and
identified with Iahvah; however ill the true nature of the tie has been
understood, however unworthily the relation has been conceived by the
popular mind, however little the obligations involved in the call of
their fathers have been recognised and appreciated. God must be true,
though man be false. There is no weakness, no caprice, no vacillation
in God. In bygone "times of trouble" the "Hope of Israel" had saved
Israel over and over again; it was a truth admitted by all--even by the
prophet's enemies. Surely then He will save His people once again, and
vindicate His Name of Saviour. Surely He who has dwelt in their midst
so many changeful centuries, will not now behold their trouble with
the lukewarm feeling of an alien dwelling amongst them for a time, but
unconnected with them by ties of blood and kin and common country; or
with the indifference of the traveller who is but coldly affected by the
calamities of a place where he has only lodged one night. Surely the
entire past shews that it would be utterly inconsistent for Iahvah to
appear now as a man so buried in sleep that He cannot be roused to save
His friends from imminent destruction (cf. 1 Kings xviii. 27) (St. Mark
iv. 38). He who had borne Israel and carried him as a tender nurseling
all the days of old (Isa. lxiii. 9) could hardly without changing His
own unchangeable Name, His character and purposes, cast down His people
and forsake them at last.

Such is the drift of the prophet's first prayer. To this apparently
unanswerable argument his religious meditation upon the present
distress has brought him. But presently the thought returns with added
force, with a sense of utmost certitude, with a conviction that it is
Iahvah's Word, that the people have wrought out their own affliction,
that misery is the hire of sin.

    "Thus hath Iahvah said of this people:
     Even so have they loved to wander,
     Their feet they have not refrained;
     And as for Iahvah, He accepteth them not;

    "He now remembereth their guilt,
     And visiteth their trespasses.
     And Iahvah said unto me,
     Intercede thou not for this people for good!
     If they fast, I will not hearken unto their cry;
     And if they offer whole-offering and oblation,
     I will not accept their persons;
     But by the sword, the famine, and the plague, will I consume them.

    "And I said, Ah, Lord Iahvah!
     Behold the prophets say to them, Ye shall not see sword,
     And famine shall not befall you;
     For peace and permanence will I give you in this place.

    "And Iahvah said unto me:
     Falsehood it is that the prophets prophesy in My Name.
     I sent them not, and I charged them not, and I spake not unto them.
     A vision of falsehood and jugglery and nothingness, and the guile
          of their own heart,
     They, for their part, prophesy you.

    "Therefore thus said Iahvah:
     Concerning the prophets who prophesy in My Name, albeit I sent
          them not,
     And of themselves say, Sword and famine there shall not be in
          this land;
     By the sword and by the famine shall those prophets be fordone.
     And the people to whom they prophesy shall lie thrown out in the
          streets of Jerusalem,
     Because of the famine and the sword,
     With none to bury them,--
     Themselves, their wives, and their sons and their daughters:
     And I will pour upon them their own evil.
     And thou shalt say unto them this word:
     Let mine eyes run down with tears, night and day,
     And let them not tire;
     For with mighty breach is broken
     The virgin daughter of my people--
     With a very grievous blow.
     If I go forth into the field,
     Then behold! the slain of the sword;
     And if I enter the city,
     Then behold! the pinings of famine:
     For both prophet and priest go trafficking about the land,
     And understand not."[59]

It has been supposed that this whole section is misplaced, and that
it would properly follow the close of chap. xiii. The supposition is
due to a misapprehension of the force of the pregnant particle which
introduces the reply of Iahvah to the prophet's intercession. "_Even
so_ have they loved to wander;" _even so_, as is naturally implied by
the severity of the punishment of which thou complainest. The dearth
is prolonged; the distress is widespread and grievous. _So_ prolonged,
_so_ grievous, _so_ universal, has been their rebellion against Me.
The penalty corresponds to the offence. It is really "their own evil"
that is being poured out upon their guilty heads (ver. 16; cf. iv.
18). Iahvah cannot accept them in their sin; the long drought is a
token that their guilt is before His mind, unrepented, unatoned.
Neither the supplications of another, nor their own fasts and
sacrifices, avail to avert the visitation. So long as the disposition
of the heart remains unaltered; so long as man hates, not his darling
sins, but the penalties they entail, it is idle to seek to propitiate
Heaven by such means as these. And not only so. The droughts are but
a foretaste of worse evils to come; _by the sword, the famine, and
the plague will I consume them_. The condition is understood, If they
repent and amend not. This is implied by the prophet's seeking to
palliate the national guilt, as he proceeds to do, by the suggestion
that the people are more sinned against than sinning, deluded as they
are by false prophets; as also by the renewal of his intercession
(ver. 19). Had he been aware in his inmost heart that an irreversible
sentence had gone forth against his people, would he have been likely
to think either excuses or intercessions availing? Indeed, however
absolute the threats of the prophetic preachers may sound, they must,
as a rule, be qualified by this limitation, which, whether expressed
or not, is inseparable from the object of their discourses, which was
the moral amendment of those who heard them.

Of the "false," that is, the common run of prophets, who were in
league with the venal priesthood of the time, and no less worldly and
self-seeking than their allies, we note that, as usual, they foretell
what the people wishes to hear; "Peace (Prosperity), and Permanence,"
is the burden of their oracles. They knew that invectives against
prevailing vices, and denunciations of national follies, and forecasts
of approaching ruin, were unlikely means of winning popularity and
a substantial harvest of offerings. At the same time, like other
false teachers, they knew how to veil their errors under the mask of
truth; or rather, they were themselves deluded by their own greed, and
blinded by their covetousness to the plain teaching of events. They
might base their doctrine of "Peace and Permanence in this place!"
upon those utterances of the great Isaiah, which had been so signally
verified in the lifetime of the seer himself; but their keen pursuit
of selfish ends, their moral degradation, caused them to shut their
eyes to everything else in his teachings, and, like his contemporaries,
they "regarded not the work of Iahvah, nor the operation of His hand."
Jeremiah accuses them of "lying visions;" visions, as he explains,
which were the outcome of magical ceremonies, by aid of which, perhaps,
they partially deluded themselves, before deluding others, but which
were, none the less, "things of nought," devoid of all substance, and
mere fictions of a deceitful and self-deceiving mind (ver. 14). He
expressly declares that they have no mission; in other words, their
action is not due to the overpowering sense of a higher call, but is
inspired by purely ulterior considerations of worldly gain and policy.
They prophesy to order; to the order of man, not of God. If they visit
the country districts, it is with no spiritual end in view; priest and
prophet alike make a trade of their sacred profession, and, immersed in
their sordid pursuits, have no eye for truth, and no perception of the
dangers hovering over their country. Their misconduct and misdirection
of affairs are certain to bring destruction upon themselves and upon
those whom they mislead. War and its attendant famine will devour them
all.

But the day of grace being past, nothing is left for the prophet
himself but to bewail the ruin of his people (ver. 17). He will betake
himself to weeping, since praying and preaching are vain. The words
which announce this resolve may portray a sorrowful experience, or
they may depict the future as though it were already present (vv. 17,
18). The latter interpretation would suit ver. 17, but hardly the
following verse, with its references to "going forth into the field,"
and "entering into the city." The way in which these specific actions
are mentioned seems to imply some present or recent calamity; and there
is apparently no reason why we may not suppose that the passage was
written at the disastrous close of the reign of Josiah, in the troublous
interval of three months, when Jehoahaz was nominal king in Jerusalem,
but the Egyptian arms were probably ravaging the country, and striking
terror into the hearts of the people. In such a time of confusion and
bloodshed, tillage would be neglected, and famine would naturally
follow; and these evils would be greatly aggravated by drought. The only
other period which suits is the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim;[60]
but the former seems rather to be indicated by chap. xv. 6-9.

Heartbroken at the sight of the miseries of his country, the prophet
once more approaches the eternal throne. His despairing mood is not so
deep and dark as to drown his faith in God. He refuses to believe the
utter rejection of Judah, the revocation of the covenant. (The measure
is Pentameter).

    "Hast Thou indeed cast off Judah?
     Hath Thy soul revolted from Sion?
     Why hast Thou smitten us, past healing?
     Waiting for peace, and no good came,
     For a time of healing, and behold terror!

    "We know, Iahvah, our wickedness, our fathers' guilt;
     For we have trespassed toward Thee.
     Scorn Thou not, for Thy Name sake,
     Disgrace not Thy glorious throne!
     Remember, break not, Thy covenant with us!

    "Are there, in sooth, among the Nothings of the nations senders of
          rain?
     And is it the heavens that bestow the showers?
     Is it not Thou, Iahvah our God?
     And we wait for Thee,
     For Thou it was that madest the world."[61]

To all this the Divine answer is stern and decisive. _And Iahvah said
unto me: If Moses and Samuel were to stand_ (pleading) _before Me, My
mind would not be towards this people: send them away from before Me_
(dismiss them from My Presence), _that they may go forth_! After ages
remembered Jeremiah as a mighty intercessor, and the brave Maccabeus
could see him in his dream as a grey-haired man "exceeding glorious"
and "of a wonderful and excellent majesty," who "prayed much for the
people and for the holy city" (2 Macc. xv. 14). And the beauty of
the prayers which lie like scattered pearls of faith and love among
the prophet's soliloquies is evident at a glance. But here Jeremiah
himself is conscious that his prayers are unavailing; and that the
office to which God has called him is rather that of pronouncing
judgment than of interceding for mercy. Even a Moses or a Samuel,
the mighty intercessors of the old heroic times, whose pleadings had
been irresistible with God, would now plead in vain (Ex. xvii. 11
_sqq._, xxxii. 11 _sqq._; Num. xiv. 13 _sqq._ for Moses; 1 Sam. vii.
9 _sqq._, xii. 16 _sqq._; Ps. xcix. 6; Ecclus. xlvi. 16 _sqq._ for
Samuel). The day of grace has gone, and the day of doom is come. His
sad function is to "send them away" or "let them go" from Iahvah's
Presence; to pronounce the decree of their banishment from the holy
land where His temple is, and where they have been wont to "see His
face." The main part of his commission was "to root out, and to pull
down, and to destroy, and to overthrow" (i. 10). _And if they say unto
thee, Whither are we to go forth? Thou shalt say unto them, thus hath
Iahvah said: They that belong to the Death_ (_i.e._ the Plague; as
the Black Death was spoken of in medieval Europe) _to death; and they
that belong to_ _the Sword, to the sword; and they that belong to the
Famine, to famine; and they that belong to Captivity, to captivity!_
The people were to "go forth" out of their own land, which was, as it
were, the Presence-chamber of Iahvah, just as they had at the outset
of their history gone forth out of Egypt, to take possession of it.
The words convey a sentence of exile, though they do not indicate the
place of banishment. The menace of woe is as general in its terms as
that lurid passage of the Book of the Law upon which it appears to
be founded (Deut. xxviii. 21-26). The time for the accomplishment of
those terrible threatenings "is nigh, even at the doors." On the other
hand, Ezekiel's "four sore judgments" (Ezek. xiv. 21) were suggested
by this passage of Jeremiah.

The prophet avoids naming the actual destination of the captive
people, because captivity is only one element in their punishment. The
horrors of war--sieges and slaughters and pestilence and famine--must
come first. In what follows, the intensity of these horrors is
realized in a single touch. The slain are left unburied, a prey to
the birds and beasts. The elaborate care of the ancients in the
provision of honourable resting places for the dead is a measure of
the extremity thus indicated. In accordance with the feeling of his
age, the prophet ranks the dogs and vultures and hyenas that drag and
disfigure and devour the corpses of the slain, as three "kinds" of
evil equally appalling with the sword that slays. The same feeling led
our Spenser to write:

                           "To spoil the dead of weed
          Is sacrilege, and doth all sins exceed."

And the destruction of Moab is decreed by the earlier prophet Amos,
"because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime," thus
violating a law universally recognised as binding upon the conscience
of nations (Amos ii. 1). Cf. also Gen. xxiii.

Thus death itself was not to be a sufficient expiation for the
inveterate guilt of the nation. Judgment was to pursue them even after
death. But the prophet's vision does not penetrate beyond this present
scene. With the visible world, so far as he is aware, the punishment
terminates. He gives no hint here, nor elsewhere, of any further
penalties awaiting individual sinners in the unseen world. The scope
of his prophecy indeed is almost purely national, and limited to the
present life. It is one of the recognised conditions of Old Testament
religious thought.

And the ruin of the people is the retribution reserved for what Manasseh
did in Jerusalem. To the prophet, as to the author of the book of
Kings, who wrote doubtless under the influence of his words, the guilt
contracted by Judah under that wicked king was unpardonable. But it
would convey a false impression if we left the matter here; for the
whole course of his after-preaching--his exhortations and promises,
as well as his threats--prove that Jeremiah did not suppose that the
nation could not be saved by genuine repentance and permanent amendment.
What he intends rather to affirm is that the sins of the fathers will
be visited upon children, who are partakers of their sins. It is the
doctrine of St. Matt. xxiii. 29 _sqq._; a doctrine which is not merely a
theological opinion, but a matter of historical observation.

_And I will set over them four kinds--It is an oracle of Iahvah--the
sword to slay, and the dogs to hale, and the fowls of the air, and the
beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy. And I will make them
a sport_ _for all the realms of earth; on account of Manasseh ben
Hezekiah king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem._

Jerusalem!--the mention of that magical name touches another chord in
the prophet's soul; and the fierce tones of his oracle of doom change
into a dirge-like strain of pity without hope.

    "For who will have compassion on Thee, O Jerusalem?
     And who will yield thee comfort?
     And who will turn aside to ask of thy welfare?
     'Twas thou that rejectedst Me (it is Iahvah's word);
     Backward wouldst thou wend:
     So I stretched forth My hand against thee and destroyed thee;
     I wearied of relenting.
     And I winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land;
     I bereaved, I undid My people:
     Yet they returned not from their own ways.
     His widows outnumbered before Me the sand of seas:
     I brought them against the Mother of Warriors a harrier at high
          noon;
     I threw upon her suddenly anguish and horrors.
     She that had borne seven sons did pine away;
     She breathèd out her soul.
     Her sun did set, while it yet was day;
     He blushed and paled.
     But their remnant will I give to the sword
     Before their foes: (It is Iahvah's word)."

The fate of Jerusalem would strike the nations dumb with horror; it
would not inspire pity, for man would recognise that it was absolutely
just. Or perhaps the thought rather is, In proving false to Me,
thou wert false to thine only friend: Me thou hast estranged by thy
faithlessness; and from the envious rivals, who beset thee on every
side, thou canst expect nothing but rejoicing at thy downfall (Ps.
cxxxvi.; Lam. ii. 15-17; Obad. 10 _sqq._). The peculiar solitariness
of Israel among the nations (Num. xxiii. 9) aggravated the anguish of
her overthrow.

In what follows, the dreadful past appears as a prophecy of the yet
more terrible future. The poet-seer's pathetic monody moralizes the
lost battle of Megiddo--that fatal day when the sun of Judah set in
what seemed the high day of her prosperity, and all the glory and the
promise of good king Josiah vanished like a dream in sudden darkness.
Men might think--doubtless Jeremiah thought, in the first moments of
despair, when the news of that overwhelming disaster was brought to
Jerusalem, with the corpse of the good king, the dead hope of the
nation--that this crushing blow was proof that Iahvah had rejected His
people, in the exercise of a sovereign caprice, and without reference
to their own attitude towards Him. But, says or chants the prophet, in
solemn rhythmic utterance,

    "'Twas thou that rejectedst Me;
     Backward wouldst thou wend:
     So I stretched forth My hand against thee, and wrought thee hurt;
     I wearied of relenting."

The cup of national iniquity was full, and its baleful contents
overflowed in a devastating flood. "In the gates of the land"--the
point on the north-west frontier where the armies met--Iahvah
"winnowed His people with a fan," separating those who were doomed to
fall from those who were to survive, as the winnowing fan separates
the chaff from the wheat in the threshing-floor. There He "bereaved"
the nation of their dearest hope, "the breath of their nostrils, the
Lord's Anointed" (Lam. iv. 20); there He multiplied their widows. And
after the lost battle He brought the victor in hot haste against
the "Mother" of the fallen warriors, the ill-fated city, Jerusalem,
to wreak vengeance upon her for her ill-timed opposition. But, for
all this bitter fruit of their evil doings, the people "turned not
back from their own ways"; and therefore the strophe of lamentation
closes with a threat of utter extermination: "Their remnant"--the poor
survival of these fierce storms--"Their remnant will I give to the
sword before their foes."[62]

If the thirteenth and fourteenth verses be not a mere interpolation
in this chapter (see xvii. 3, 4), their proper place would seem to be
here, as continuing and amplifying the sentence upon the residue of
the people. The text is unquestionably corrupt, and must be amended by
help of the other passage, where it is partially repeated. The twelfth
verse may be read thus:

    "Thy wealth and thy treasures will I make a prey,
     For the sin of thine high places in all thy borders."[63]

Then the fourteenth verse follows, naturally enough, with an
announcement of the Exile:

    "And I will enthral thee to thy foes
     In a land thou knowest not:
     'For a fire is kindled in Mine anger,'
     That shall burn for evermore!"[64]

The prophet has now fulfilled his function of judge by pronouncing
upon his people the extreme penalty of the law. His strong perception
of the national guilt and of the righteousness of God has left him
no choice in the matter. But how little this duty of condemnation
accorded with his own individual feeling as a man and a citizen is
clear from the passionate outbreak of the succeeding strophe.

    "Woe's me, my mother," he exclaims, "that thou barest me,
     A man of strife and a man of contention to all the country!
     Neither lender nor borrower have I been;
     Yet all of them do curse me."

A desperately bitter tone, evincing the anguish of a man wounded to
the heart by the sense of fruitless endeavour and unjust hatred. He
had done his utmost to save his country, and his reward was universal
detestation. His innocence and integrity were requited with the
odium of the pitiless creditor who enslaves his helpless victim, and
appropriates his all; or the fraudulent borrower who repays a too
ready confidence with ruin.[65]

The next two verses answer this burst of grief and despair:

    "Said Iahvah, Thine oppression shall be for good;
     I will make the foe thy suppliant in time of evil and in time of
          distress.
     Can one break iron,
     Iron from the north, and brass?"

In other words, faith counsels patience, and assures the prophet
that all things work together for good to them that love God. The
wrongs and bitter treatment which he now endures will only enchance
his triumph, when the truth of his testimony is at last confirmed
by events, and they who now scoff at his message, come humbly to
beseech his prayers. The closing lines refer, with grave irony, to
that unflinching firmness, that inflexible resolution, which, as a
messenger of God, he was called upon to maintain. He is reminded of
what he had undertaken at the outset of his career, and of the Divine
Word which made him "a pillar of iron and walls of brass against all
the land" (i. 18). Is it possible that the pillar of iron can be
broken, and the walls of brass beaten down by the present assault?

There is a pause, and then the prophet vehemently pleads his own cause
with Iahvah. Smarting with the sense of personal wrong, he urges
that his suffering is for the Lord's own sake; that consciousness
of the Divine calling has dominated his entire life, ever since his
dedication to the prophetic office; and that the honour of Iahvah
requires his vindication upon his heartless and hardened adversaries.

    "_Thou_ knowest, Iahvah!
     Remember me, and visit me, and avenge me on my persecutors.
     Take me not away in thy longsuffering;
     Regard my bearing of reproach for Thee.

    "Thy words were found, and I did eat them,
     And it became to me a joy and mine heart's gladness;
     For I was called by Thy Name, O Iahvah, God of Sabaoth!

    "I sate not in the gathering of the mirthful, nor rejoiced;
     Because of Thine hand I sate solitary,
     For with indignation Thou didst fill me.

    "Why hath my pain become perpetual,
     And my stroke malignant, incurable?
     Wilt Thou indeed become to me like a delusive stream,
     Like waters which are not lasting?"

The pregnant expression, "_Thou_ knowest, Iahvah!" does not refer
specially to anything that has been already said; but rather lays the
whole case before God in a single word. The _Thou_ is emphatic; Thou,
Who knowest all things, knowest my heinous wrongs: Thou knowest and
seest it all, though the whole world beside be blind with passion and
self-regard and sin (Ps. x. 11-14). Thou knowest how pressing is my
need; therefore _Take me not away in Thy longsuffering_: sacrifice not
the life of Thy servant to the claims of forbearance with his enemies
and Thine. The petition shews how great was the peril in which the
prophet perceived himself to stand: he believes that if God delay to
strike down his adversaries, that longsuffering will be fatal to his
own life.

The strength of his case is that he is persecuted, because he is
faithful; he bears reproach for God. He has not abused his high
calling for the sake of worldly advantage; he has not prostituted
the name of prophet to the vile ends of pleasing the people,
and satisfying personal covetousness. He has not feigned smooth
prophecies, misleading his hearers with flattering falsehood; but he
has considered the privilege of being called a prophet of Iahvah as in
itself an all-sufficient reward; and when the Divine Word came to him,
he has eagerly received, and fed his inmost soul upon that spiritual
aliment, which was at once his sustenance and his deepest joy. Other
joys, for the Lord's sake, he has abjured. He has withdrawn himself
even from harmless mirth, that in silence and solitude he might listen
intently to the inward Voice, and reflect with indignant sorrow
upon the revelation of his people's corruption. _Because of Thine
Hand_--under Thy influence; conscious of the impulse and operation of
Thy informing Spirit;--_I sate solitary; for with indignation Thou
didst fill me_. The man whose eye has caught a glimpse of eternal
Truth, is apt to be dissatisfied with the shows of things; and the
lighthearted merriment of the world rings hollow upon the ear that
listens for the Voice of God. And the revelation of sin--the discovery
of all that ghastly evil which lurks beneath the surface of smooth
society--the appalling vision of the grim skeleton hiding its noisome
decay behind the mask of smiles and gaiety; the perception of the
hideous incongruity of revelling over a grave; has driven others,
besides Jeremiah, to retire into themselves, and to avoid a world from
whose evil they revolted, and whose foreseen destruction they deplored.

The whole passage is an assertion of the prophet's integrity and
consistency, with which, it is suggested, that the failure which has
attended his efforts, and the serious peril in which he stands, are
morally inconsistent, and paradoxical in view of the Divine disposal
of events. Here, in fact, as elsewhere, Jeremiah has freely opened
his heart, and allowed us to see the whole process of his spiritual
conflict in the agony of his moments of doubt and despair. It is an
argument of his own perfect sincerity; and, at the same time, it
enables us to assimilate the lesson of his experience, and to profit
by the heavenly guidance he received, far more effectually, than if
he had left us ignorant of the painful struggles at the cost of which
that guidance was won.

The seeming injustice or indifference of Providence is a problem which
recurs to thoughtful minds in all generations of men.

                  "O, goddes cruel, that govérne
          This world with byndyng of youre word eterne ...
          What governance is in youre prescience
          That gilteles tormenteth innocence?...
          Alas! I see a serpent or a theif,
          That many a trewé man hath doon mescheit,
          Gon at his large, and wher him luste may turne;
          But I moste be in prisoun."

That such apparent anomalies are but a passing trial, from which
persistent faith will emerge victorious in the present life, is the
general answer of the Old Testament to the doubts which they suggest.
The only sufficient explanation was reserved, to be revealed by Him,
who, in the fulness of time, "brought life and immortality to light."

The thought which restored the failing confidence and courage of
Jeremiah was the reflexion that such complaints were unworthy of one
called to be a spokesman for the Highest; that the supposition of the
possibility of the Fountain of Living Waters failing like a winter
torrent, that runs dry in the summer heats, was an act of unfaithfulness
that merited reproof; and that the true God could not fail to protect
His messenger, and to secure the triumph of truth in the end.

    "_To this Iahvah said thus_:
     If thou come again,
     I will make thee again to stand before Me;
     And if thou utter that is precious rather than that is vile,
     As My mouth shalt thou become:
     They shall return unto thee,
     But Thou shalt not return unto them.

    "And I will make thee to this people an embattled wall of brass;
     And they shall fight against thee, but not overcome thee,
     For I will be with thee to help thee and to save thee;
     It is Iahvah's word.
     And I will save thee out of the grasp of the wicked,
     And will ransom thee out of the hand of the terrible."

In the former strophe, the inspired poet set forth the claims of the
psychic man, and poured out his heart before God. Now he recognises a
Word of God in the protest of his better feeling. He sees that where
he remains true to himself, he will also stand near to his God. Hence
springs the hope, which he cannot renounce, that God will protect His
accepted servant in the execution of the Divine commands. Thus the
discords are resolved; and the prophet's spirit attains to peace,
after struggling through the storm.

It was an outcome of earnest prayer, of an unreserved exposure of
his inmost heart before God. What a marvel it is--that instinct of
prayer! To think that a being whose visible life has its beginning
and its end, a being who manifestly shares possession of this earth
with the brute creation, and breathes the same air, and partakes of
the same elements with them for the sustenance of his body; who is
organized upon the same general plan as they, has the same principal
members discharging the same essential functions in the economy of
his bodily system; a being who is born and eats and drinks and sleeps
and dies like all other animals;--that this being and this being only
of all the multitudinous kinds of animated creatures, should have and
exercise a faculty of looking off and above the visible which appears
to be the sole realm of actual existence, and of holding communion
with the Unseen! That, following what seems to be an original impulse
of his nature, he should stand in greater awe of this Invisible
than of any power that is palpable to sense; should seek to win its
favour, crave its help in times of pain and conflict and peril; should
professedly live, not according to the bent of common nature and
the appetites inseparable from his bodily structure, but according
to the will and guidance of that Unseen Power! Surely there is here
a consummate marvel. And the wonder of it does not diminish, when
it is remembered that this instinct of turning to an unseen Guide
and Arbiter of events, is not peculiar to any particular section
of the human race. Wide and manifold as are the differences which
characterize and divide the families of man, all races possess in
common the apprehension of the Unseen and the instinct of prayer. The
oldest records of humanity bear witness to its primitive activity, and
whatever is known of human history combines with what is known of the
character and workings of the human mind to teach us that as prayer
has never been unknown, so it is never likely to become obsolete.

May we not recognise in this great fact of human nature a sure index
of a great corresponding truth? Can we avoid taking it as a clear
token of the reality of revelation; as a kind of immediate and
spontaneous evidence on the part of nature that there is and always
has been in this lower world some positive knowledge of that which far
transcends it, some real apprehension of the mystery that enfolds the
universe? a knowledge and an apprehension which, however imperfect
and fragmentary, however fitful and fluctuating, however blurred in
outline and lost in infinite shadow, is yet incomparably more and
better than none at all. Are we not, in short, morally driven upon the
conviction that this powerful instinct of our nature is neither blind
nor aimless; that its Object is a true, substantive Being; and that
this Being has discovered, and yet discovers, some precious glimpses
of Himself and His essential character to the spirit of mortal man?
It must be so, unless we admit that the soul's dearest desires are a
mocking illusion, that her aspirations towards a truth and a goodness
of superhuman perfection are moonshine and madness. It cannot be
nothingness that avails to evoke the deepest and purest emotions of
our nature; not mere vacuity and chaos, wearing the semblance of an
azure heaven. It is not into a measureless waste of outer darkness
that we reach forth trembling hands.

Surely the spirit of denial is the spirit that fell from heaven, and the
best and highest of man's thoughts aim at and affirm something positive,
something that is, and the soul thirsts after God, the Living God.

We hear much in these days of our physical nature. The microscopic
investigations of science leave nothing unexamined, nothing
unexplored, so far as the visible organism is concerned. Rays from
many distinct sources converge to throw an ever-increasing light
upon the mysteries of our bodily constitution. In all this, science
presents to the devout mind a valuable subsidiary revelation of
the power and goodness of the Creator. But science cannot advance
alone one step beyond the things of time and sense; her facts belong
exclusively to the material order of existence; her cognition is
limited to the various modes and conditions of force that constitute
the realm of sight and touch; she cannot climb above these to a higher
plane of being. And small blame it is to science, that she thus lacks
the power of overstepping her natural boundaries. The evil begins
when the men of science venture, in her much-abused name, to ignore
and deny realities not amenable to scientific tests, and immeasurably
transcending all merely physical standards and methods.

Neither the natural history nor the physiology of man, nor both
together, are competent to give a complete account of his marvellous
and many-sided being. Yet some thinkers appear to imagine that
when a place has been assigned him in the animal kingdom, and his
close relationship to forms below him in the scale of life has been
demonstrated; when every tissue and structure has been analysed,
and every organ described and its function ascertained; then the
last word has been spoken, and the subject exhausted. Those unique
and distinguishing faculties by which all this amazing work of
observation, comparison, reasoning, has been accomplished, appear
either to be left out of the account altogether, or to be handled
with a meagre inadequacy of treatment that contrasts in the strongest
manner with the fulness and the elaboration which mark the other
discussion. And the more this physical aspect of our composite nature
is emphasized; the more urgently it is insisted that, somehow or
other, all that is in man and all that comes of man may be explained
on the assumption that he is the natural climax of the animal
creation, a kind of educated and glorified brute--that and nothing
more;--the harder it becomes to give any rational account of those
facts of his nature which are commonly recognised as spiritual, and
among them of this instinct of prayer and its Object.

Under these discouraging circumstances, men are fatally prone to
seek escape from their self-involved dilemma, by a hardy denial
of what their methods have failed to discover and their favourite
theories to explain. The soul and God are treated as mere metaphysical
expressions, or as popular designations of the unknown causes of
phenomena; and prayer is declared to be an act of foolish superstition
which persons of culture have long since outgrown. Sad and strange
this result is; but it is also the natural outcome of an initial
error, which is none the less real because unperceived. Men "seek the
living among the dead"; they expect to find the soul by _post mortem_
examination, or to see God by help of an improved telescope. They fail
and are disappointed, though they have little right to be so, for
"spiritual things are discerned spiritually," and not otherwise.

In speculating on the reasons of this lamentable issue, we must not
forget that there is such a thing as an unpurified intellect as
well as a corrupt and unregenerate heart. Sin is not restricted to
the affections of the lower nature; it has also invaded the realm
of thought and reason. The very pursuit of knowledge, noble and
elevating as it is commonly esteemed, is not without its dangers
of self-delusion and sin. Wherever the love of self is paramount,
wherever the object really sought is the delight, the satisfaction,
the indulgence of self, no matter in which of the many departments
of human life and action, there is sin. It is certain that the
intellectual consciousness has its own peculiar pleasures, and those
of the keenest and most transporting character; certain that the
incessant pursuit of such pleasures may come to absorb the entire
energies of a man, so that no room is left for the culture of humility
or love or worship. Everything is sacrificed to what is called the
pursuit of truth, but is in sober fact a passionate prosecution
of private pleasure. It is not truth that is so highly valued; it
is the keen excitement of the race, and not seldom the plaudits
of the spectators when the goal is won. Such a career may be as
thoroughly selfish and sinful and alienated from God as a career of
common wickedness. And thus employed or enthralled, no intellectual
gifts, however splendid, can bring a man to the discernment of
spiritual truth. Not self-pleasing and foolish vanity and arrogant
self-assertion, but a self-renouncing humility, an inward purity from
idols of every kind, a reverence of truth as divine, are indispensable
conditions of the perception of things spiritual.

The representation which is often given is a mere travesty. Believers
in God do _not_ want to alter His laws by their prayers--neither His
laws physical, nor His laws moral and spiritual. It is their chief
desire to be brought into submission or perfect obedience to the sum
of His laws. They ask their Father in heaven to lead and teach them,
to supply their wants in His own way, because He _is_ their Father;
because "It is He that made us, and His we are." Surely, a reasonable
request, and grounded in reason.

To a plain man, seeking for arguments to justify prayer may well seem
like seeking a justification of breathing, or eating and drinking and
sleeping, or any other natural function. Our Lord never does anything
of the kind, because His teaching takes for granted the ultimate
prevalence of common sense, in spite of all the subtleties and airspun
perplexities, in which a speculative mind delights to lose itself. So
long as man has other wants than those which he can himself supply,
prayer will be their natural expression.

If there be a spiritual as distinct from a material world, the
difficulty to the ordinary mind is not to conceive of their contact
but of their absolute isolation from each other. This is surely the
inevitable result of our own individual experience, of the intimate
though not indissoluble union of body and spirit in every living person.

How, it may be asked, can we really think of his Maker being cut off
from man, or man from his Maker? God were not God, if He left man to
himself. But not only are His wisdom, justice and love manifested forth
in the beneficent arrangements of the world in which we find ourselves;
not only is He "kind to the unjust and the unthankful." In pain and
loss He quickens our sense of Himself (cf. xiv. 19-22). Even in the
first moments of angry surprise and revolt, that sense is quickened; we
rebel, not against an inanimate world or an impersonal law, but against
a Living and Personal Being, whom we acknowledge as the Arbiter of our
destinies, and whose wisdom and love and power we affect for the time to
question, but cannot really gainsay. The whole of our experience tends
to this end--to the continual rousing of our spiritual consciousness.
There is no interference, no isolated and capricious interposition or
interruption of order within or without us. Within and without us,
His Will is always energizing, always manifesting forth His Being,
encouraging our confidence, demanding our obedience and homage.

Thus prayer has its Divine as well as its human side; it is the Holy
Spirit drawing the soul, as well as the soul drawing nigh unto God.
The case is like the action and reaction of the magnet and the steel.
And so prayer is not a foolish act of unauthorised presumption, not
a rash effort to approach unapproachable and absolutely isolated
Majesty. Whenever man truly prays, his Divine King has already
extended the sceptre of His mercy, and bidden him speak.

xvi.-xvii. After the renewal of the promise there is a natural pause,
marked by the formula with which the present section opens. When the
prophet had recovered his firmness, through the inspired and inspiring
reflexions which took possession of his soul after he had laid bare
his inmost heart before God (xv. 20, 21), he was in a position to
receive further guidance from above. What now lies before us is the
direction, which came to him as certainly Divine, for the regulation
of his own future behaviour as the chosen minister of Iahvah at this
crisis in the history of his people. "And there fell a word of Iahvah
unto me, saying: Thou shalt not take thee a wife; that thou get
not sons and daughters in this place." Such a prohibition reveals,
with the utmost possible clearness and emphasis, the gravity of the
existing situation. It implies that the "peace and permanence," so
glibly predicted by Jeremiah's opponents, will never more be known
by that sinful generation. "This place," the holy place which Iahvah
had "chosen, to establish His name there," as the Book of the Law
so often describes it; "this place," which had been inviolable to
the fierce hosts of the Assyrian in the time of Isaiah (Isa. xxxvii.
33), was now no more a sure refuge, but doomed to utter and speedy
destruction. To beget sons and daughters there was to prepare more
victims for the tooth of famine, and the pangs of pestilence, and the
devouring sword of a merciless conqueror. It was to fatten the soil
with unburied carcases, and to spread a hideous banquet for birds and
beasts of prey. Children and parents were doomed to perish together;
and Iahvah's witness was to keep himself unencumbered by the sweet
cares of husband and father, that he might be wholly free for his
solemn duties of menace and warning, and be ready for every emergency.

    "For thus hath Iahvah said:
     Concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in
          this place,
     And concerning their mothers that bear them,
     And concerning their fathers that beget them, in this land:
     By deaths of agony shall they die;
     They shall not be mourned nor buried;
     For dung on the face of the ground shall they serve;
     And by the sword and by the famine shall they be fordone:
     And their carcase shall serve for food
     To the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the earth" (xvi. 3-4).

The "deaths of agony" seem to indicate the pestilence, which always
ensued upon the scarcity and vile quality of food, and the confinement
of multitudes within the narrow bounds of a besieged city (see
Josephus' well-known account of the last siege of Jerusalem).

The attitude of solitary watchfulness and strict separation, which the
prophet thus perceived to be required by circumstances, was calculated
to be a warning of the utmost significance, among a people who attached
the highest importance to marriage, and the permanence of the family.

It proclaimed more loudly than words could do, the prophet's absolute
conviction that offspring was no pledge of permanence; that universal
death was hanging over a condemned nation. But not only this. It marks
a point of progress in the prophet's spiritual life. The crisis,
through which we have seen him pass, has purged his mental vision. He
no longer repines at his dark lot; no longer half envies the false
prophets, who may win the popular love by pleasing oracles of peace
and well-being; no longer complains of the Divine Will, which has
laid such a burden upon him. He sees now that his part is to refuse
even natural and innocent pleasures for the Lord's sake; to foresee
calamity and ruin; to denounce unceasingly the sin he sees around
him; to sacrifice a tender and affectionate heart to a life of rigid
asceticism; and he manfully accepts his part. He knows that he stands
alone--the last fortress of truth in a world of falsehood; and that
for truth it becomes a man to surrender his all.

That which follows tends to complete the prophet's social isolation.
He is to give no sign of sympathy in the common joys and sorrows of
his kind.

    "For thus hath Iahvah said:
     Enter thou not into the house of mourning,
     Nor go to lament, nor comfort thou them:
     For I have taken away My friendship from this people ('Tis
          Iahvah's utterance!)
     The lovingkindness and the compassion;
     And old and young shall die in this land,
     They shall not be buried, and men shall not wail for them;
     Nor shall a man cut himself, nor make himself bald, for them:
     Neither shall men deal out bread to them in mourning,
     To comfort a man over the dead;
     Nor shall they give them to drink the cup of consolation,
     Over a man's father and over his mother.

    "And the house of feasting thou shalt not enter,
     To sit with them to eat and to drink.
     For thus hath Iahvah Sabaoth, the God of Israel, said:
     Lo, I am about to make to cease from this place,
     Before your own eyes and in your own days,
     Voice of mirth and voice of gladness,
     The voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride."

Acting as prophet, that is, as one whose public actions were
symbolical of a Divine intent, Jeremiah is henceforth to stand
aloof, on occasions when natural feeling would suggest participation
in the outward life of his friends and acquaintance. He is to quell
the inward stirrings of affection and sympathy, and to abstain from
playing his part in those demonstrative lamentations over the dead,
which the immemorial custom and sentiment of his country regarded
as obligatory; and this, in order to signify unmistakably that what
thus appeared to be the state of his own feelings, was really the
aspect under which God would shortly appear to a nation perishing
in its guilt. "Enter not into the house of mourning ... _for_ I
have taken away My friendship from this people, the lovingkindness
and the compassion." An estranged and alienated God would view the
coming catastrophe with the cold indifference of exact justice.
And the consequence of the Divine aversion would be a calamity so
overwhelming, that the dead would be left without those rites of
burial, which the feeling and conscience of all races of mankind have
always been careful to perform. There should be no burial, much less
ceremonial lamentation, and those more serious modes of evincing grief
by disfigurement of the person,[66] which, like tearing the hair and
rending the garments, are natural tokens of the first distraction of
bereavement. Not for wife or child (מֵת: see Gen. xxiii. 3), nor for
father or mother should the funeral feast be held; for men's hearts
would grow hard at the daily spectacle of death, and at last there
would be no survivors.

In like manner, the prophet is forbidden to enter as guest "the
house of feasting." He is not to be seen at the marriage-feast,--that
occasion of highest rejoicing, the very type and example of innocent
and holy mirth; to testify by his abstention that the day of judgment
was swiftly approaching, which would desolate all homes, and silence
for evermore all sounds of joy and gladness in the ruined city. And it
is expressly added that the blow will fall "before your own eyes and
in your own days;" shewing that the hour of doom was very near, and
would no more be delayed.

In all this, it is noticeable that the Divine answer appears to bear
special reference to the peculiar terms of the prophet's complaint.
In despairing tones he had cried (xv. 10), "Woe's me, my mother, that
thou didst bear me!" and now he is himself warned not to take a wife,
and seek the blessing of children. The outward connexion here may be:
"Let it not be that thy children speak of thee, as thou hast spoken
of thy mother!"[67] But the inner link of thought may rather be this,
that the prophet's temporary unfaithfulness evinced in his outcry
against God and his lament that ever he was born is punished by the
denial to him of the joys of fatherhood--a penalty which would be
severe to a loving, yearning nature like his, but which was doubtless
necessary to the purification of his spirit from all worldly taint,
and to the discipline of his natural impatience and tendency to repine
under the hand of God. His punishment, like that of Moses, may appear
disproportionate to his offence; but God's dealings with man are not
regulated by any mechanical calculation of less and more, but by His
perfect knowledge of the needs of the case; and it is often in truest
mercy that His hand strikes hard. "As gold in the furnace doth He try
them"; and the purest metal comes out of the hottest fire.

Further, it is not the least prominent but the leading part of a man's
nature that most requires this heavenly discipline, if the best is
to be made of it that can be made. The strongest element, that which
is most characteristic of the person, that which constitutes his
individuality, is the chosen field of Divine influence and operation;
for here lies the greatest need. In Jeremiah this master element was
an almost feminine tenderness; a warmly affectionate disposition,
craving the love and sympathy of his fellows, and recoiling almost
in agony from the spectacle of pain and suffering. And therefore it
was that the Divine discipline was specially applied to this element
in the prophet's personality. In him, as in all other men, the good
was mingled with evil, which, if not purged away, might spread until
it spoiled his whole nature. It is not virtue to indulge our own
bent, merely because it pleases us to do so; nor is the exercise of
affection any great matter to an affectionate nature. The involved
strain of selfishness must be separated, if any naturally good gift
is to be elevated to moral worth, to become acceptable in the sight
of God. And so it was precisely here, in his most susceptible point,
that the sword of trial pierced the prophet through. He was saved from
all hazard of becoming satisfied with the love of wife and children,
and forgetting in that earthly satisfaction the love of his God. He
was saved from absorption in the pleasures of friendly intercourse
with neighbours, from passing his days in an agreeable round of
social amenities; at a time when ruin was impending over his country,
and well nigh ready to fall. And the means which God chose for the
accomplishment of this result were precisely those of which the
prophet had complained (xv. 17); his social isolation, which though in
part a matter of choice, was partly forced upon him by the irritation
and ill-will of his acquaintance. It is now declared that this trial
is to continue. The Lord does not necessarily remove a trouble, when
entreated to do it. He manifests His love by giving strength to bear
it, until the work of chastening be perfected.

An interruption is now supposed, such as may often have occurred in
the course of Jeremiah's public utterances. The audience demands to
know why all this evil is ordained to fall upon them. _What is our
guilt and what our trespass, that we have trespassed against Iahvah
our God?_ The answer is a twofold accusation. Their fathers were
faithless to Iahvah, and they have outdone their fathers' sin; and the
penalty will be expulsion and a foreign servitude.

    "Because your fathers forsook Me (It is Iahvah's word!)
     And went after other gods, and served them, and bowed down to them,
     And Me they forsook, and My teaching they observed not:
     And ye yourselves (or, as for you) have done worse than your
          fathers;
     And lo, ye walk each after the stubbornness of his evil heart,
     So as not to hearken unto Me.
     Therefore will I hurl you from off this land,
     On to the land that ye and your fathers knew not;
     And ye may serve there other gods, day and night,
     Since I will not grant you grace."

The damning sin laid to Israel's charge is idolatry, with all the
moral consequences involved in that prime transgression. That is to
say, the offence consisted not barely in recognising and honouring the
gods of the nations along with their own God, though that were fault
enough, as an act of treason against the sole majesty of Heaven; but
it was aggravated enormously by the moral declension and depravity,
which accompanied this apostasy. They and their fathers forsook Iahvah
"_and kept not His teaching_;" a reference to the Book of the Law,
considered not only as a collection of ritual and ceremonial precepts
for the regulation of external religion, but as a guide of life and
conduct. And there had been a progress in evil; the nation had gone
from bad to worse with fearful rapidity: so that now it could be
said of the existing generation that it paid no heed at all to the
monitions which Iahvah uttered by the mouth of His prophet, but walked
simply in stubborn self-will and the indulgence of every corrupt
inclination. And here too, as in so many other cases, the sin is to be
its own punishment. The Book of the Law had declared that revolt from
Iahvah should be punished by enforced service of strange gods in a
strange land (Deut. iv. 28, xxviii. 36, 64); and Jeremiah repeats this
threat, with the addition of a tone of ironical concession: there, in
your bitter banishment, you may have your wish to the full; you may
serve the foreign gods, and that without intermission (implying that
the service would be a slavery).

The whole theory of Divine punishment is implicit in these few words
of the prophet. They who sin persistently against light and knowledge
are at last given over to their own hearts' lust, to do as they
please, without the gracious check of God's inward voice. And then
there comes a strong delusion, so that they believe a lie, and take
evil for good and good for evil, and hold themselves innocent before
God, when their guilt has reached its climax; so that, like Jeremiah's
hearers, if their evil be denounced, they can ask in astonishment:
"What is our iniquity? or what is our trespass?"

They are so ripe in sin that they retain no knowledge of it as sin,
but hold it virtue.

    "And they, so perfect is their misery,
     Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
     But boast themselves more comely than before."

And not only do we find in this passage a striking instance of
judicial blindness as the penalty of sin. We may see also in the
penalty predicted for the Jews a plain analogy to the doctrine that
the permanence of the sinful state in a life to come is the penalty of
sin in the present life. "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still;
and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still!" and know himself to
be what he is.

The prophet's dark horizon is here apparently lit up for a moment by
a gleam of hope. The fourteenth and fifteenth verses, however, with
their beautiful promise of restoration, really belong to another
oracle, whose prevailing tones are quite different from the present
gloomy forecast of retribution (xxiii. 7 _sqq._). Here they interrupt
the sense, and make a cleavage in the connexion of thought, which can
only be bridged over artificially, by the suggestion that the import
of the two verses is primarily not consolatory but minatory; that is
to say, that they threaten Exile rather than promise Return; a mode
of understanding the two verses which does manifest violence to the
whole form of expression, and, above all, to their obvious force in
the original passage from which they have been transferred hither.
Probably some transcriber of the text wrote them in the margin of his
copy, by way of palliating the otherwise unbroken gloom of this oracle
of coming woe. Then, at some later time, another copyist, supposing
the marginal note indicated an omission, incorporated the two verses
in his transcription of the text, where they have remained ever since.
(See on xxiii. 7, 8.)

After plainly announcing in the language of Deuteronomy the expulsion
of Judah from the land which they had desecrated by idolatry, the
prophet develops the idea in his own poetic fashion; representing the
punishment as universal, and insisting that it _is_ a punishment, and
not an unmerited misfortune.

    "Lo, I am about to send many fishers (It is Iahvah's word!)
     And they shall fish them;
     And afterwards will I send many hunters,
     And they shall hunt them,
     From off every mountain,
     And from off every hill,
     And out of the clefts of the rocks."

Like silly fish, crowding helplessly one over another into the
net,[68] when the fated moment arrives, Judah will fall an easy prey
to the destroyer. And "afterwards," to ensure completeness, those who
have survived this first disaster will be hunted like wild beasts, out
of all the dens and caves in the mountains, the Adullams and Engedis,
where they have found a refuge from the invader.

There is clearly reference to two distinct visitations of wrath, the
latter more deadly than the former; else why the use of the emphatic
note of time "afterwards"? If we understand by the "fishing" of the
country the so-called first captivity, the carrying away of the boy-king
Jehoiachin and his mother and his nobles and ten thousand principal
citizens, by Nebuchadrezzar to Babylon (2 Kings xxiv. 10 _sqq._); and
by the "hunting" the final catastrophe in the time of Zedekiah; we get,
as we shall see, a probable explanation of a difficult expression in the
eighteenth verse, which cannot otherwise be satisfactorily accounted
for. The next words (ver. 17) refute an assumption, implied in the
popular demand to know wherein the guilt of the nation consists, that
Iahvah is not really cognisant of their acts of apostasy.

    "For Mine eyes are upon all their ways,
     They are not hidden away from before My face;
     Nor is their guilt kept secret from before Mine eyes."

The verse is thus an indirect reply to the questions of verse 10;
questions which in some mouths might indicate that unconsciousness of
guilt, which is the token of sin finished and perfected; in others,
the presence of that unbelief which doubts whether God can, or at
least whether He does regard human conduct. But "He that planted the
ear, can He not hear? He that formed the eye, can He not see?" (Ps.
xciv. 9). It is really an utterly irrational thought, that sight, and
hearing, and the higher faculties of reflexion and consciousness, had
their origin in a blind and deaf, a senseless and unconscious source
such as inorganic matter, whether we consider it in the atom or in the
enormous mass of an embryo system of stars.

The measure of the penalty is now assigned.

    "And I will repay first the double of their guilt and their
          trespass
     For that they profaned My land with the carcases of their loathly
          offerings,
     And their abominations filled Mine heritage."[69]


"I will repay _first_." The term "first," which has occasioned much
perplexity to expositors, means "the first time" (Gen. xxxviii. 28;
Dan. xi. 29), and refers, if I am not mistaken, to the first great
blow, the captivity of Jehoiachin, of which I spoke just now; an
occasion which is designated again (ver. 21), by the expression "this
once" or rather "at this time." And when it is said "I will repay the
double of their guilt and of their trespass," we are to understand
that the Divine justice is not satisfied with half measures; the
punishment of sin is proportioned to the offence, and the cup of
self-entailed misery has to be drained to the dregs. Even penitence
does not abolish the physical and temporal consequences of sin; in
ourselves and in others whom we have influenced they continue--a
terrible and ineffaceable record of the past. The ancient law required
that the man who had wronged his neighbour by theft or fraud should
restore double (Ex. xxii. 4, 7, 9); and thus this expression would
appear to denote that the impending chastisement would be in strict
accordance with the recognised rule of law and justice, and that Judah
must repay to the Lord in suffering the legal equivalent for her
offence. In a like strain, towards the end of the Exile, the great
prophet of the captivity comforts Jerusalem with the announcement that
"her hard service is accomplished, her punishment is held sufficient;
for she hath received of Iahvah's hand twofold for all her trespasses"
(Isa. xl. 2). The Divine severity is, in fact, truest mercy. Only thus
does mankind learn to realize "the exceeding sinfulness of sin," only
as Judah learned the heinousness of desecrating the Holy Land with
"loathly offerings" to the vile Nature-gods, and with the symbols
in wood and stone of the cruel and obscene deities of Canaan; viz.
by the fearful issue of transgression, the lesson of a calamitous
experience, confirming the forecasts of its inspired prophets.

    "Iahvah my strength and my stronghold and my refuge in the day of
          distress!
     Unto Thee the very heathen will come from the ends of the earth,
          and will say:
     'Mere fraud did our fathers receive as their own,
     Mere breath, and beings among whom is no helper.
     Should man make him gods,
     When such things are not gods?'

    "Therefore, behold I am about to let them know--
     At this time will I let them know My hand and My might,
     And they shall know that My name is Iahvah!"

In the opening words Jeremiah passionately recoils from the very
mention of the hateful idols, the loathly creations, the lifeless
"carcases," which his people have put in the place of the Living God.
An overmastering access of faith lifts him off the low ground where
these dead things lie in their helplessness, and bears him in spirit
to Iahvah, the really and eternally existing, Who is his "strength and
stronghold and refuge in the day of distress." From this height he
takes an eagle glance into the dim future, and discerns--O marvel of
victorious faith!--that the very heathen, who have never so much as
known the Name of Iahvah, must one day be brought to acknowledge the
impotence of their hereditary gods, and the sole deity of the Mighty One
of Jacob. He enjoys a glimpse of Isaiah's and Micah's glorious vision of
the latter days, when "the mountain of the Lord's House shall be exalted
as chief of mountains, and all nations shall flow unto it."

In the light of this revelation, the sin and folly of Israel in
dishonouring the One only God, by associating Him with idols and
their symbols, becomes glaringly visible. The very heathen (the
term is emphatic by position), will at last grope their way out of
the night of traditional ignorance, and will own the absurdity of
manufactured gods. Israel, on the other hand, has for centuries sinned
against knowledge and reason. They had "Moses and the prophets"; yet
they hated warning and despised reproof. They resisted the Divine
teachings, because they loved to walk in their own ways, after the
imaginings of their own evil hearts. And so they soon fell into
that strange blindness, which suffered them to see no sin in giving
companions to Iahvah, and neglecting His severer worship for the
sensuous rites of Canaan.

A rude awakening awaits them. Once more will Iahvah interpose to save
them from their infatuation. "This time" they shall be taught to know
the nothingness of idols, not by the voice of prophetic pleadings, not
by the fervid teachings of the Book of the Law, but by the sword of
the enemy, by the rapine and ruin, in which the resistless might of
Iahvah will be manifested against His rebellious people. Then, when the
warnings which they have ridiculed find fearful accomplishment, then
will they know that the name of the One God is IAHVAH--He Who alone was
and is and shall be for evermore. In the shock of overthrow, in the
sorrows of captivity, they will realize the enormity of assimilating the
Supreme Source of events, the Fountain of all being and power, to the
miserable phantoms of a darkened and perverted imagination.

xvii. 1-18. Jeremiah, speaking for God, returns to the affirmation of
Judah's guiltiness. He has answered the popular question (xvi. 10), so
far as it implied that it was no mortal sin to associate the worship
of alien gods with the worship of Iahvah. He now proceeds to answer it
with an indignant contradiction, so far as it suggested that Judah was
no longer guilty of the grossest forms of idolatry.

    1 "The trespass of Judah," he affirms, "is written with pen of iron,
            with point of adamant;
       Graven upon the tablet of their heart,
       And upon the horns of their altars:
       Even as their sons remember their altars,
       And their sacred poles by the evergreen trees,
       Upon the high hills.

    2 "O My mountain in the field!
       Thy wealth and all thy treasures will I give for a spoil,
       For the trespass of thine high-places in all thy borders.

       And thou shalt drop thine hand[70] from thy demesne which I gave
            thee;
       And I will enslave thee to thine enemies,
       In the land that thou knowest not;

      "For a fire have ye kindled in Mine anger;
       It shall burn for evermore."

It is clear from the first strophe that the outward forms of idolatry
were no longer openly practised in the country. Where otherwise would be
the point of affirming that the national sin was "written with pen of
iron, and point of adamant"--that it was "graven upon the tablet of the
people's heart?" Where would be the point of alluding to the children's
_memory_ of the altars and sacred poles, which were the visible adjuncts
of idolatry? Plainly it is implied that the hideous rites, which
sometimes involved the sacrifice of children, are a thing of the past;
yet not of the distant past, for the young of the present generation
remember them; those terrible scenes are burnt in upon their memories,
as a haunting recollection which can no more be effaced, than the guilt
contracted by their parents as agents in those abhorrent rites can be
done away. The indelible characters of sin are graven deeply upon their
hearts; no need for a prophet to remind them of facts to which their
own consciences, their own inward sense of outraged affections, and of
nature sacrificed to a dark and bloody superstition, bears irrefragable
witness. Rivers of water cannot cleanse the stain of innocent blood from
their polluted altars. The crimes of the past are unatoned for, and
beyond reach of atonement; they cry to heaven for vengeance, and the
vengeance will surely fall (xv. 4).

Hitzig rather prosaically remarks that Josiah had destroyed the
altars. But the stains of which the poet-seer speaks are not palpable
to sense; he contemplates unseen realities.

          "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
           Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
           The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
           Making the green one red."

The second strophe declares the nature of the punishment. The tender,
yearning, hopeless love of the cry with which Iahvah resigns His
earthly seat to profanation and plunder and red-handed ruin, enhances
the awful impression wrought by the slow, deliberate enunciation
of the details of the sentence--the utter spoliation of temple and
palaces; the accumulated hoards of generations--all that represented
the wealth and culture and glory of the time--carried away for ever;
the enforced surrender of home and country; the harsh servitude to
strangers in a far-off land.

It is difficult to fix the date of this short lyrical outpouring,
if it be assumed, with Hitzig, that it is an independent whole. He
refers it to the year B.C. 602, after Jehoiakim had revolted from
Babylon--"a proceeding which made a future captivity well-nigh
certain, and made it plain that the sin of Judah remained still to be
punished." Moreover, the preceding year (B.C. 603) was what was known
to the Law as a Year of Release or Remission (_shenath shemittah_);
and the phrase "thou shalt drop thine hand," _i.e._ "loose thine hold
of" the land (xvii. 4), appears to allude to the peculiar usages of
that year, in which the debtor was released from his obligations, and
the corn-lands and vineyards were allowed to lie fallow. The Year of
Release was also called the Year of Rest (_shenath shabbathon_, Lev.
xxv. 5); and both in the present passage of Jeremiah, and in the book
of Leviticus, the time to be spent by the Jews in exile is regarded as
a period of rest for the desolate land, which would then "make good
her sabbaths" (Lev. xxvi. 34, 35, 43). The Chronicler indeed seems to
refer to this very phrase of Jeremiah; at all events, nothing else is
to be found in the extant works of the prophet with which his language
corresponds (2 Chron. xxxvi. 21).

If the rendering of the second verse, which we find in both our
English versions, and which I have adopted above, be correct, there
arises an obvious objection to the date assigned by Hitzig; and the
same objection lies against the view of Naegelsbach, who translates:

    "As their children remember their altars,
     And their images of Baal _by_ (_i.e._ at the sight of) the green
          trees, by the high hills."

For in what sense could this have been written "not long before
the fourth year of Jehoiakim," which is the date suggested by this
commentator for the whole group of chapters, xiv.-xvii. 18? The entire
reign of Josiah had intervened between the atrocities of Manasseh
and this period; and it is not easy to suppose that any sacrifice
of children had occurred in the three months' reign of Jehoahaz,
or in the early years of Jehoiakim. Had it been so, Jeremiah, who
denounces the latter king severely enough, would certainly have placed
the horrible fact in the forefront of his invective; and instead
of specifying Manasseh as the king whose offences Iahvah would not
pardon, would have thus branded Jehoiakim, his own contemporary. This
difficulty appears to be avoided by Hitzig, who explains the passage
thus: "When they (the Jews) think of their children, they remember,
and cannot but remember, the altars to whose horns the blood of their
immolated children cleaves. In the same way, by a green tree on the
hills, _i.e._, when they come upon any such, their Asherim are brought
to mind, which were trees of that sort." And since it is perhaps
possible to translate the Hebrew as this suggests, "When they remember
their sons, their altars, and their sacred poles, by (_i.e._ by means
of) the evergreen trees (collective term) upon the high hills," and
this translation agrees well with the statement that the sin of Judah
is "graven upon the tablet of their heart," his view deserves further
consideration. The same objection, however, presses again, though with
somewhat diminished force. For if the date of the section be 602, the
eighth year of Jehoiakim, more than forty years must have elapsed
between the time of Manasseh's bloody rites and the utterance of this
oracle. Would many who were parents then, and surrendered their
children for sacrifice, be still living at the supposed date? And if
not, where is the appropriateness of the words "When they remember
their sons, their altars, and their Asherim?"

There seems no way out of the difficulty, but either to date the
piece much earlier, assigning it, _e.g._, to the time of the
prophet's earnest preaching in connexion with the reforming movement
of Josiah, when the living generation would certainly remember the
human sacrifices under Manasseh; or else to construe the passage in a
very different sense, as follows. The first verse declares that the
sin of _Judah_ is graven upon the tablet of _their heart_, and upon
the horns of _their_ altars. The pronouns evidently shew that it is
the guilt of _the nation_, not of a particular generation, that is
asserted. The subsequent words agree with this view. The expression,
"_Their_ sons" is to be understood in the same way as the expressions
"_their_ heart," "_their_ altars." It is equivalent to the "sons of
Judah" (_benê Jehudah_), and means simply the people of Judah, as
now existing, the present generation. Now it does not appear that
image-worship and the cultus of the high-places revived after their
abolition by Josiah. Accordingly, the symbols of impure worship
mentioned in this passage are not high-places and images but altars
and Asherim, _i.e._, the wooden poles which were the emblems of the
reproductive principle of Nature. What the passage therefore intends
to say would seem to be this: "The guilt of the nation remains, so
long as its children are mindful of their altars and Asherim erected
beside[71] the evergreen trees on the high hills"; _i.e._, so long as
they remain attached to the modified idolatry of the day.

The general force of the words remains the same, whether they accuse
the existing generation of serving sun-pillars (_maççeboth_) and
sacred poles (_asherim_), or merely of hankering after the old
forbidden rites. For so long as the popular heart was wedded to the
former superstitions, it could not be said that any external abolition
of idolatry was a sufficient proof of national repentance. The longing
to indulge in sin is sin; and sinful it is not to hate sin. The guilt
of the nation remained, therefore, and would remain, until blotted out
by the tears of a genuine repentance towards Iahvah.

But understood thus, the passage suits the time of Jehoiachin, as well
as any other period.

"Why," asks Naegelsbach, "should not Moloch have been the terror of
the Israelitish children, when there was such real and sad ground for
it, as in wanting in other bugbears which terrify the children of the
present day?" To this we may reply, (1) Moloch is not mentioned at
all, but simply altars and _asherim_; (2) would the word "remember" be
appropriate in this case?

The beautiful strophes which follow (5-13) are not obviously connected
with the preceding text. They wear a look of self-completeness, which
suggests that here and in many other places Jeremiah has left us, not
whole discourses, written down substantially in the form in which
they were delivered, but rather his more finished fragments; pieces
which being more rhythmical in form, and more striking in thought, had
imprinted themselves more deeply upon his memory.

    "Thus hath Iahvah said:
     Cursed is the man that trusteth in human kind,
     And maketh flesh his arm,
     And whose heart swerveth from Iahvah!
     And he shall become like a leafless tree in the desert,
     And shalt not see when good cometh;
     And shall dwell in parched places in the steppe,
     A salt land and uninhabited.

    "Blessed is the man that trusteth in Iahvah,
     And whose trust Iahvah becometh!
     And he shall become like a tree planted by water,
     That spreadeth its roots by a stream,
     And is not afraid when heat cometh,
     And its leaf is evergreen;
     And in the year of drought it feareth not,
     Nor leaveth off from making fruit."

The form of the thought expressed in these two octostichs, the curse
and the blessing, may have been suggested by the curses and blessings
of that Book of the Law of which Jeremiah had been so faithful an
interpreter (Deut. xxvii. 15-xxviii. 20); while both the thought
and the form of the second stanza are imitated by the anonymous
poet of the first psalm. The mention of "the year of drought" in
the penultimate line may be taken, perhaps, as a link of connexion
between this brief section and the whole of what precedes it so far as
chap. xiv., which is headed "Concerning the droughts." If, however,
the group of chapters thus marked out really constitute a single
discourse, as Naegelsbach assumes, one can only say that the style is
episodical rather than continuous; that the prophet has often recorded
detached thoughts, worked up to a certain degree of literary form, but
hanging together as loosely as pearls on a string. Indeed, unless we
suppose that he had kept full notes of his discourses and soliloquies,
or that, like certain professional lecturers of our own day, he had
been in the habit of indefinitely repeating to different audiences the
same carefully elaborated compositions, it is difficult to understand
how he would be able without the aid of a special miracle, to write
down in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the numerous utterances of the
previous three and twenty years. Neither of these suppositions appears
probable. But if the prophet wrote from memory, so long after the
original delivery of many of his utterances, the looseness of internal
connexion, which marks so much of his book, is readily understood.

The internal evidence of the fragment before us, so far as any such
is traceable, appears to point to the same period as what precedes,
the time immediately subsequent to the death of Jehoiakim. The curse
pronounced upon trusting in man may be an allusion to that king's
confidence in the Egyptian alliance, which probably induced him to
revolt from Nebuchadrezzar, and so precipitate the final catastrophe of
his country. He owed his throne to the Pharaoh's appointment (2 Kings
xxiii. 34), and may perhaps have regarded this as an additional reason
for defection from Babylon. But the chastisement of Egypt preceded that
of Judah; and when the day came for the latter, the king of Egypt durst
no longer go to the help of his too trustful allies (2 Kings xxiv. 7).
Jehoiakim had died, but his son and successor was carried captive to
Babylon. In the brief interval between those two events, the prophet may
have penned these two stanzas, contrasting the issues of confidence in
man and confidence in God. On the other hand, they may also be referred
to some time not long before the fourth year of Jehoiakim, when that
king, egged on by Egypt, was meditating rebellion against his suzerain;
an act of which the fatal consequences might easily be foreseen by
any thoughtful observer, who was not blinded by fanatical passion
and prejudice, and which might itself be regarded as an index of the
kindling of Divine wrath against the country.

    "Deep is the heart above all things else;
     And sore-diseased it is: who can know it?
     I, Iahvah, search the heart, I try the reins,
     And that, to give to a man according to his own ways,
     According to the fruit of his own doings.

    "A partridge that gathereth young which are not hers,
     Is he that maketh wealth not by right.
     In the middle of his days it will leave him,
     And in his end he shall prove a fool.

    "A throne of glory, a high seat from of old,
     Is the place of our sanctuary.
     Hope of Israel, Iahvah!
     All that leave Thee shall be ashamed;
     Mine apostates shall be written in earth;
     For they left the Well of Living Waters, even Iahvah.

    "Heal Thou me, Iahvah, and I shall be healed,
     Save Thou me, and I shall be saved,
     For Thou art my praise.

    "Lo, _they_ say unto me,
     Where is the Word of Iahvah? Prithee, let it come!
     Yet I, I hasted not from being a shepherd after Thee,
     And woeful day I desired not--_Thou_ knowest;
     The issue of my lips, before Thy face it fell.

    "Become not a terror to me!
     Thou art my refuge in the day of evil.
     Let my pursuers be ashamed, and let not me be ashamed!
     Let _them_ be dismayed, and let not me be dismayed;
     Let Thou come upon them a day of evil,
     And doubly with breaking break Thou them!"

In the first of these stanzas, the word "heart" is the connecting
link with the previous reflexions. The curse and the blessing had
there been pronounced not upon any outward and visible distinctions,
but upon a certain inward bent and spirit. He is called accursed,
whose confidence is placed in changeable, perishable man, and "whose
_heart_ swerveth from Iahvah." And he is blessed, who pins his faith
to nothing visible; who looks for help and stay not to the seen, which
is temporal, but to the Unseen, which is eternal.

The thought now occurs that this matter of inward trust, being a
matter of the heart, and not merely of the outward bearing, is a
hidden matter, a secret which baffles all ordinary judgment. Who
shall take upon him to say whether this or that man, this or that
prince confided or not confided in Iahvah? The human heart is a sea,
whose depths are beyond human search; or it is a shifty Proteus,
transforming itself from moment to moment under the pressure of
changing circumstances, at the magic touch of impulse, under the spell
of new perceptions and new phases of its world. And besides, its very
life is tainted with a subtle disease, whose hereditary influence
is ever interfering with the will and affections, ever tampering
with the conscience and the judgment, and making difficult a clear
perception, much more a wise decision. Nay, where so many motives
press, so many plausible suggestions of good, so many palliations of
evil, present themselves upon the eve of action; when the colours of
good and evil mingle and gleam together in such rich profusion before
the dazzled sight, that the mind is bewildered by the confused medley
of appearances, and wholly at a loss to discern and disentangle them
one from another; is it wonderful, if in such a case the heart should
take refuge in the comfortable illusion of self-deceit, and seek, with
too great success, to persuade itself into contentment with something
which it calls not positive evil but merely a less sublime good?

It is not for man, who cannot see the heart, to pronounce upon
the degree of his fellow's guilt. All sins, all crimes, are in
this respect relative to the intensity of passion, the force of
circumstances, the nature of surroundings, the comparative stress of
temptation. Murder and adultery are absolute crimes in the eye of
human law, and subject as such to fixed penalties; but the Unseen
Judge takes cognizance of a thousand considerations, which though
they abolish not the exceeding sinfulness of these hideous results of
a depraved nature, yet modify to a vast extent the degree of guilt
evinced in particular cases by the same outward acts. In the sight of
God, a life socially correct may be stained with a deeper dye than
that of profligacy or bloodshed; and nothing so glaringly shows the
folly of inquiring what is the unpardonable sin, as the reflexion that
any sin whatever may become such in an individual case.

Before God, human justice is often the liveliest injustice. And
how many flagrant wrongs, how many monstrous acts of cruelty and
oppression, how many wicked frauds and perjuries, how many of those
vile deeds of seduction and corruption, which are, in truth, the
murder of immortal souls; how many of those fearful sins, which make a
sorrow-laden hell beneath the smiling surface of this pleasure-wooing
world, are left unheeded, unavenged by any earthly tribunal! But all
these things are noted in the eternal record of Him who searches the
heart, and penetrates man's inmost being, not from a motive of mere
curiosity, but with fixed intent to award a righteous recompense for
all choice and all conduct.

The calamities which marked the last years of Jehoiakim, and his
ignominious end, were a signal instance of Divine retribution. Here
that king's lawless avarice is branded as not only wicked but foolish.
He is compared to the partridge, which gathers and hatches the eggs of
other birds, only to be deserted at once by her stolen brood.[72] "In
the middle of his days, it shall leave him" (or "it may leave him,"
for in Hebrew one form has to do duty for both shades of meaning). The
uncertainty of possession, the certainty of absolute surrender within
a few short years, this is the point which demonstrates the unreason
of making riches the chief end of one's earthly activity. "Truly man
walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain: he heapeth
up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them." It is the point
which is put with such terrible force in the parable of the Rich Fool.
"Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for thyself for many years; take
thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." "And the Lord said unto him,
Thou fool! this night shall thy soul be required of thee."

The covetousness, oppression, and bloodthirstiness of Jehoiakim are
condemned in a striking prophecy (xxii. 13-19), which we shall have to
consider hereafter. A vivid light is thrown upon the words, "In the
middle of his days it shall leave him," by the fact recorded in Kings
(2 Kings xxiii. 36), that he died in the thirty-sixth year of his
age; when, that is, he had fulfilled but half of the threescore years
and ten allotted to the ordinary life of man. We are reminded of that
other psalm which declares that "bloody and deceitful men shall not
live out half their days" (lv. 23).

Apart indeed from all consideration of the future, and apart from
all reference to that loyalty to the Unseen Ruler which is man's
inevitable duty, a life devoted to Mammon is essentially irrational.
The man is most truly a "fool"--that is, one who fails to understand
his own nature, one who has not attained to even a tolerable working
hypothesis as to the needs of life, and the way to win a due share of
happiness;--who has not discovered that

                 "riches have their proper stint
          In the contented mind, not mint;"

and that

              "those who have the itch
          Of craving more, are never rich;"

and who has missed all apprehension of the grand secret that

          "Wealth cannot make a _life_, but love."

From the vanity of earthly thrones, whether of Egypt or of Judah,
thrones whose glory is transitory, and whose power to help and succour
is so ill-assured, the prophet lifts his eyes to the one throne whose
glory is everlasting, and whose power and permanence are an eternal
refuge.

    "Thou Throne of Glory, High Seat from of old,
     Place of our Sanctuary, Hope of Israel, Iahvah!
     All who leave Thee blush for shame;
     Mine apostates are written in earth;
     For they have forsaken the Well of Living Water, even Iahvah!"

It is his concluding reflexion upon the unblest, unhonoured end of the
apostate Jehoiakim. If Isaiah could speak of Shebna as a "throne of
glory,"[73] _i.e._, the honoured support and mainstay of his family,
there seems no reason why Iahvah might not be so addressed, as the
supporting power and sovereign of the world.

The terms "Throne of Glory" ... "Place of our Sanctuary" seem to be used
much as we use the expressions, "the Crown," "the Court," "the Throne,"
when we mean the actual ruler with whom these things are associated. And
when the prophet declares "Mine[74] apostates are written in earth," he
asserts that oblivion is the portion of those of his people, high or
low, who forsake Iahvah for another god. Their names are not written in
the Book of Life (Ex. xxxii. 32; Ps. lxix. 28), but in the sand whence
they are soon effaced. The prophets do not attempt to expose

          "The sweet strange mystery
           Of what beyond these things may lie."

They do not in express terms promise eternal life to the individual
believer.

But how often do their words imply that comfortable doctrine! They
who forsake Iahvah must perish, for there is neither permanence nor
stay apart from IAHVAH, whose very Name denotes _He who Is_, the
sole Principle of Being and Fountain of Life. If they--nations and
persons--who revolt from Him must die, the implication, the truth
necessary to complete this affirmation, is that they who trust in Him,
and make Him their arm, will live; for union with Him is eternal life.

In this Fountain of Living Water Jeremiah now seeks healing for
himself. The malady that afflicts him is the apparent failure of
his oracles. He suffers as a prophet whose word seems idle to the
multitude. He is hurt with their scorn, and wounded to the heart with
their scoffing. On all sides men press the mocking question, "Where
is the word of Iahvah? Prithee, let it come to pass!" His threats of
national overthrow had not been speedily realized; and men made a mock
of the delays of Divine mercy. Conscious of his own integrity, and
keenly sensitive to the ridicule of his triumphant adversaries, and
scarcely able to endure longer his intolerable position, he pours out
a prayer for healing and help. _Heal me_, he cries, _and I shall be
healed, Save me and I shall be saved_--really and truly saved, as the
form of the Hebrew term implies; _for Thou art my praise_, my boast
and my glory, as the Book of the Law affirms (Deut. x. 21). I have not
trusted in man, but in God; and if this my sole glory be taken away,
if events prove me a false prophet, as my friends allege, applying
the very test of the sacred Law (Deut. xviii. 21 _sq._), then shall
I be of all men most forsaken and forlorn. The bitterness of his woe
is intensified by the consciousness that he has not thrust himself
without call into the prophetic office, like the false prophets whose
aim was to traffic in sacred things (xiv. 14, 15); for then the
consciousness of guilt might have made the punishment more tolerable,
and the facts would have justified the jeers of his persecutors. But
the case was far otherwise. He had been most unwilling to assume the
function of prophet; and it was only in obedience to the stress of
repeated calls that he had yielded. "But as for me," he protests, "I
hasted not from being a shepherd to follow Thee." It would seem, if
this be the correct, as it certainly is the simplest rendering of
his words, that, at the time when he first became aware of his true
vocation, the young prophet was engaged in tending the flocks that
grazed in the priestly pasture-grounds of Anathoth. In that case, we
are reminded of David, who was summoned from the sheepfold to camp
and court, and of Amos the prophet-herdsman of Tekoa. But the Hebrew
term translated "from being a shepherd" is probably a disguise of some
other original expression; and it would involve no very violent change
to read "I made no haste to follow after Thee fully" or "entirely"[75]
(Deut. i. 36); a reading which is partially supported by the oldest
version. Or it may be even better, as involving a mere change in the
punctuation,[76] to amend the text thus: "But as for me, I made no
haste, in following thee," more literally, "in accompanying thee"
(Judg. xiv. 20). This, however, is a point of textual criticism, which
leaves the general sense the same in any case.

When the prophet adds: "and the ill day I desired not," some think
that he means the day when he surrendered to the Divine calling,
and accepted his mission. But it seems to suit the context better,
if we understand by the "ill day" the day of wrath whose coming was
the burden of his preaching; the day referred to in the taunts of
his enemies, when they asked "Where is the word of Iahvah?" adding
with biting sarcasm: "Prithee, let it come to pass." They sneered at
Jeremiah as one who seized every occasion to predict evil, as one who
longed to witness the ruin of his country. The utter injustice of
the charge, in view of the frequent cries of anguish which interrupt
his melancholy forecasts, is no proof that it was not made. In all
ages, God's representatives have been called upon to endure false
accusations. Hence the prophet appeals from man's unrighteous judgment
to God the Searcher of hearts. "_Thou_ knowest; the utterance of my
lips (Deut. xxiii. 24) before Thy face it fell": as if to say, No word
of mine, spoken in Thy name, was a figment of my own fancy, uttered
for my own purposes, without regard of Thee. I have always spoken as
in Thy presence, or rather, in Thy presence. Thou, who hearest all,
didst hear each utterance of mine; and therefore knowest that all I
said was truthful and honest and in perfect accord with my commission.

If only we who, like Jeremiah, are called upon to speak for God, could
always remember that every word we say is uttered in that Presence,
what a sense of responsibility would lie upon us; with what labour and
prayers should we not make our preparation! Too often alas! it is to be
feared that our perception of the presence of man banishes all sense of
any higher presence; and the anticipation of a fallible and frivolous
criticism makes us forget for the time the judgment of God. And yet "by
our words we shall be justified, and by our words we shall be condemned."

In continuing his prayer, Jeremiah adds the remarkable petition,
"Become not Thou to me a cause of dismay!" He prays to be delivered
from that overwhelming perplexity, which threatens to swallow him
up, unless God should verify by events that which His own Spirit
has prompted him to utter. He prays that Iahvah, his only "refuge
in the day of evil," will not bemock him with vain expectations;
will not falsify His own guidance; will not suffer His messenger to
be "ashamed," disappointed and put to the blush by the failure of
his predictions. And then once again, in the spirit of his time, he
implores vengeance upon his unbelieving and cruel persecutors: "Let
them be ashamed," disappointed in their expectation of immunity, "let
_them_ be dismayed," crushed in spirit and utterly overcome by the
fulfilment of his dark presages of evil. "Let Thou come upon them a
day of evil, And doubly with breaking break Thou them!" This indeed
asks no more than that what has been spoken before in the way of
prophecy--"I will repay the double of their guilt and their trespass"
(xvi. 18)--may be forthwith accomplished. And the provocation was,
beyond all question, immense. The hatred that burned in the taunt
"Where is the word of Iahvah? Prithee, let it come to pass!" was
doubtless of like kind with that which at a later stage of Jewish
history expressed itself in the words "He trusted in God, let Him
deliver Him!" "If He be the Son of God, let Him now come down from the
cross, and we will believe on Him!"

And how much fierce hostility that one term "my pursuers" may cover,
it is easy to infer from the narratives of the prophet's evil
experience in chaps. xx., xxvi. and xxxviii. But allowing for all
this, we can at best only affirm that the prophet's imprecations
on his foes are natural and human; we cannot pretend that they are
evangelical and Christ-like.[77] Besides, the latter would be a
gratuitous anachronism, which no intelligent interpreter of Scripture
is called upon to perpetrate. It is neither necessary to the proper
vindication of the prophet's writings as truly inspired of God, nor
helpful to a right conception of the method of revelation.

FOOTNOTES:

[57] HITZIG: (1) xiv. 1-9, 19-22: "Lament and Prayer on occasion of
a Drought." (2) xiv. 10-18. "Oracle against the false Prophets and
the misguided People" (Hitzig mistakes the import of the phrase לנוע
אהבו כן, "_Thus_ have they loved to wander," ver. 10; supposing that
the "thus" refers to xiii. 27, and that xiv. 1-9 is misplaced). (3)
xv. 1-9. "The incorrigible People will be punished mercilessly."
Hitzig thinks C. B. Michaelis wrong in asserting close connexion with
the end of the preceding chapter, because the intercession, vv. 2-9,
does not agree with the prohibition, xiv. 11; and because xiv. 19-22,
merely prays for cessation of the Drought; while the rejection of "the
hypothetical intercession," xv. 1, delivers the people over to all
the horrors which follow in the train of war. xv. 1-9 may originally
have followed xiv. 18. But this is far from cogent reasoning. There
is nothing surprising in the renewal of the prophet's intercession,
except on a theory of strictly verbal inspiration; and xv. 1 _sqq._
in refusing deliverance from the Drought, or rather in answer to the
prayer imploring it, announces further and worse evils to follow.
(4) "Complaint of the Seer against Iahvah, and Soothing of his
Dejection," xv. 10-21. Hitzig thinks internal evidence here points to
the fourth year of Jehoiakim; and that xvii. 1-4 originally preceded
this section, especially as ch. xvi. connects closely with xv. 9. (5)
xvi. 1-20. "Prediction of an imminent general Judgment by Plague and
Captivity." Written immediately after xv. 1-9, and falls with that in
the short reign of Jehoiachin. (6) xvii. 1-4. "Judah's unforgotten
Guilt will be punished by Captivity." Wanting in LXX. (as early as
Jerome), but contains original of xv. 13, 14, and must therefore be
genuine. Belongs 602 B.C., year of Jehoiakim's revolt. (7) xvii. 5-18.
"The Vindication of Trust in God on Despisers and Believers. Prayer
for its Vindication." Date immediately after death of Jehoiakim. (8)
19-27. "Warning to keep the Sabbath." Time of Jehoiachin.

[58] The Heb. verb חַתָּה "is broken" may probably have this meaning.
"Dismayed" is not nearly so suitable, though it is the usual meaning
of the term. Cf. Isa. vii. 8.

[59] Cf. viii. 9. "And no wisdom is in them."

[60] So Dathe, Naegelsbach.

[61] Lit. "all these things," _i.e._, this visible world. There is no
Heb. special term for the "universe" or "world." "The all" or "heaven
and earth," or the phrase in the text, are used in this sense.

[62] The reference to an eclipse of the sun in the words

    "Her sun went down, while it yet was day;
     He blushed and paled."

appears fairly certain. Such an event is said to have occurred in that
part of the world, Sept. 30, B.C. 610.

[63] 13. Read במתיך "Thine high places" for במחיר לא "without price";
and transpose בחטאת (xvii. 3).

[64] 14. Read והעברתיך "and I will make thee serve" (xvii. 4) for
והעברתי "and I will make to pass through...."

The third member is a quotation from Deut. xxxii. 22. In the fourth,
read על־עולם "for ever" (xvii. 4) instead of עליכם "upon you."

[65] The tone of all this indicates that the prophet was no novice in
his office. It does not suit the time of Josiah; but agrees very well
with the time of confusion and popular dismay which followed his death.
That event must have brought great discredit upon Jeremiah and upon all
who had been instrumental in the religious changes of his reign.

[66] Practices forbidden, Lev. xxi. 5; Deut. xiv. 1. Jeremiah mentions
them as ordinary signs of mourning, and doubtless they were general in
his time. An ancient usage, having its root in natural feeling, is not
easily extirpated.

[67] Naegelsbach.

[68] The figure recalls the Persian custom of sweeping off the whole
population of an island, by forming a line and marching over it, a
process of extermination called by the Greek writers σαγηνεύειν,
"fishing with a seine or drag-net" (Herod. iii. 149, iv. 9, vi. 31).

[69] For the construction, cf. Gen. i. 22; Jer. li. 11. Or "With their
abominations they filled, etc.," a double accusative.

[70] _i.e._, Loose thine hold of ... let go ... release. Read ידך for
ובך. The uses of שִמט "to throw down," "let fall," resemble those of
the Greek ἵημι and its compounds. I corrected the passage thus, to
find afterwards that I had been anticipated by J. D. Michaelis, Graf,
and others.

[71] There is something strange about the phrase "by (upon, _`al_) the
evergreen tree." Twenty-five Heb. MSS., the Targ., and the Syriac,
read "every" (_kol_) for "upon" (_`al_). We still feel the want of a
preposition, and may confidently restore "under" (_taḫath_), from the
nine other passages in which "evergreen tree" (`_ec̰ ra`anan_) occurs
in connexion with idolatrous worship. In all these instances the
expression is "under every evergreen tree" (_taḫath kol `ec̰ ra`anan_);
from the Book of the Law (Deut. xii. 2), whence Jeremiah probably
drew the phrase, to 2 Chron. xxviii. 4. Jeremiah has already used the
phrase thrice (ii. 20, iii. 6, 13), in exactly the same form. The other
passages are Ezek. vi. 13; Isa. lvii. 5; 2 Kings xvi. 4, xvii. 10. The
corruption of _kol_ into _`al_ is found elsewhere. Probably _taḫath_ had
dropt out of the text, before the change took place here.

[72] A popular opinion of the time.

[73] Isa. xxii. 23.

[74] The Heb. term is probably written with omission of the final
_mem_, a common abbreviation; and the right reading may be וסורים "and
apostates."

[75] מלא for מרעה.

[76] מִרְעֵה for מֵרֹעִה.

[77] I have left this paragraph as I wrote it, although I feel great
doubts upon the subject. What I have remarked elsewhere on similar
passages, should be considered along with the present suggestions. We
have especially to remember, (i) the peculiar status of the speaker as
a true prophet; and (ii) the terrible invectives of Christ Himself on
certain occasions (St. Matt. xxiii. 33-35; St. Luke x. 15; St. John
viii. 44).




                                   X.

                       _THE SABBATH--A WARNING._

                         JEREMIAH xvii. 19-27.


_"Thus said Iahvah unto me: Go and stand in the gate of Benjamin,
whereby the kings of Judah come in, and whereby they go out; and
in all the gates of Jerusalem. And say unto them, Hear ye the word
of Iahvah, O kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all inhabitants of
Jerusalem, who come in by these gates!

"Thus said Iahvah: Beware, on your lives, and bear ye not a burden
on the Day of Rest, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem! Nor
shall ye bring a burden forth out of your houses on the Day of Rest,
nor shall ye do any work; but ye shall hallow the Day of Rest, as I
commanded your fathers. (Albeit, they hearkened not, nor inclined
their ear, but stiffened their neck against hearkening, and against
receiving instruction.)

"And it shall come to pass, if ye will indeed hearken unto Me, saith
Iahvah, not to bring a burden in by the gates of this city on the
Day of Rest, but to hallow the Day of Rest, not to do therein any
work; then there shall come in by the gates of this city kings_
[_and princes_] _sitting upon the throne of David, riding on the
chariots and on the horses, they and their princes, O men of Judah
and inhabitants of Jerusalem! and this city shall be inhabited for
ever. And people shall come in from_ _the cities of Judah and from
the places round Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from
the lowlands, and from the hill-country, and from the south, bringing
in burnt-offering and thank-offering, and oblation and incense; and
bringing a thanksgiving into the house of Iahvah.

"And if ye hearken not unto Me to hallow the Day of Rest, and not
to bear a burden and come in by the gates of Jerusalem on the Day
of Rest: I will kindle a fire in her gates, and it shall devour the
palaces of Jerusalem, and shall not be quenched."_

The matter and manner of this brief oracle mark it off from those
which precede it as an independent utterance, and a whole complete
in itself. Its position may be accounted for by its probable date,
which may be fixed a little after the previous chapters, in the
three months' reign of the ill-starred Jehoiachin; and by the
writer's or his editor's desire to break the monotony of commination
by an occasional gleam of hope and promise. At the same time, the
introductory formula with which it opens is so similar to that of the
two following oracles (chaps. xviii., xix.), as to suggest the idea of
a connexion in time between the members of the group. Further, there
is an obvious connexion of thought between chaps. xviii., xix. In the
former, the house of Israel is represented as clay in the hand of the
Divine Potter; in the latter, Judah is a potter's vessel destined
to be broken in pieces. And if we assume the priority of the piece
before us, a logical progress is observable, from the alternative here
presented for the people's choice, to their decision for the worse
part (xviii. 12 _sqq._), and then to the corresponding decision on the
part of Iahvah (xix.). Or, as Hitzig puts it otherwise, in the piece
before us the scales are still in equipoise; in chap. xviii. one goes
down; Iahvah intends mischief (ver. 11), and the people are invited
to appease His anger. But the warning is fruitless; and therefore
the prophet announces their destruction, depicting it in the darkest
colours (chap. xix.). The immediate consequence to Jeremiah himself is
related in chap. xx. 1-6; and it is highly probable that the section,
chap. xxi. 11-xxii. 9, is the continuation of the oracle addressed
to Pashchur: so that we have before us a whole group of prophecies
belonging to the same eventful period of the prophet's activity (xvii.
20 agrees closely with xxii. 2, and xvii. 25 with xxii. 4).

The circumstances of the present oracle are these. Jeremiah is
inwardly bidden to station himself first in "the gate of the sons of
the people"--a gate of Jerusalem which we cannot further determine,
as it is not mentioned elsewhere under this designation, but which
appears to have been a special resort of the masses of the population,
because it was the one by which the kings were wont to enter and leave
the city, and where they doubtless were accustomed to hear petitions
and to administer justice; and afterwards, he is to take his stand in
all the gates in turn, so as not to miss the chance of delivering his
message to any of his countrymen. He is there to address the "kings
of Judah" (ver. 20); an expression which may denote the young king
Jehoiachin and his mother (xiii. 18), or the king and the princes of
the blood, the "House of David" of chap. xxi. 12. The promise "kings
shall come in by the gates of this city ... and this city shall be
inhabited for ever," and the threat "I will kindle a fire in her
gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem," may be taken
to imply a time when the public danger was generally recognised. The
first part of the promise may be intended to meet an apprehension,
such as might naturally be felt after the death of Jehoiakim, that
the incensed Chaldeans would come and take away the Jewish place and
nation. In raising the boy Jehoiachin to the throne of his fathers,
men may have sorrowfully foreboded that, as the event proved, he would
never keep his crown till manhood, nor beget a race of future kings.

The matter of the charge to rulers and people is the due observance of
the fourth commandment: "ye shall hallow the Day of Rest, as I commanded
your fathers" (see Ex. xx. 8, "Remember the Day of Rest, to hallow
it"--which is probably the original form of the precept. Jeremiah,
however, probably had in mind the form of the precept as it appears in
Deuteronomy: "Observe the Day of Rest to hallow it, as Iahvah thy God
commanded thee:" Deut. v. 12). The Hebrew term for "hallow" means _to
separate_ a thing from common things, and devote it to God.

To hallow the Day of Rest, therefore, is to make a marked distinction
between it and ordinary days, and to connect it in some way with
religion. What is here commanded is to abstain from "bearing burdens,"
and doing any kind of work (_melakah_, Gen. ii. 2, 3; Ex. xx. 9, 10,
xxxi. 14, 15; Gen. xxxix. 11, "appointed task," "duty," "business").
The bearing of burdens into the gates and out of the houses clearly
describes the ordinary commerce between town and country. The country
folk are forbidden to bring their farm produce to the market in
the city gates, and the townspeople to convey thither from their
houses and shops the manufactured goods which they were accustomed
to barter for these. Nehemiah's memoirs furnish a good illustration
of the general sense of the passage (Neh. xiii. 15), relating how he
suppressed this Sabbath traffic between town and country. Dr. Kuenen
has observed that "Jeremiah is the first of the prophets who stands
up for a stricter sanctification of the seventh day, treating it,
however, merely as a day of rest.... What was traditional appears
to have been only abstinence from field-work, and perhaps also from
professional pursuits." In like manner, he had before stated that
"tendencies to such an exaggeration of the Sabbath rest as would
make it absolute, are found from the Chaldean period. Isaiah (i. 13)
regards the Sabbath purely as a sacrificial day." The last statement
here is hardly a fair inference. In the passage referred to Isaiah
is inveighing against the futile worship of his contemporaries; and
he only mentions the Sabbath in this connexion. And that "tradition"
required more than "abstinence from field-work" is evident from words
of the prophet Amos, written at least a century and a half before the
present oracle, and implying that very abstinence from trading which
Jeremiah prescribes. Amos makes the grasping dealers of his time cry
impatiently, "When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn?
and the sabbath, that we may set out wheat for sale?" (Amos viii. 5);
a clear proof that buying and selling were suspended on the sabbath
festival in the eighth century B.C.

It is hardly likely that, when law or custom compelled covetous dealers
to cease operations on the Sabbath, and buying and selling, the
principal business of the time, was suspended, the artisans of town or
country would be allowed by public opinion to ply their everyday tasks.
Accordingly, when Jeremiah adds to his prohibition of Sabbath trading,
a veto upon any kind of "work"--a term which includes this trafficking,
but also covers the labour of handicraftsmen (cf. 1 Kings v. 30; 2 Kings
xii. 12; Ex. xxxv. 35)--he is not really increasing the stringency of
the traditional rule about Sabbath observance.

Further, it is difficult to understand how Dr. Kuenen could gather
from this passage that Jeremiah treats the Sabbath "merely as a
day of rest." This negative character of mere cessation from work,
of enforced idleness, is far from being the sole feature of the
Sabbath, either in Jeremiah's view of it, or as other more ancient
authorities represent it. The testimony of the passage before us
proves, if proof were needed, that the Sabbath was a day of worship.
This is implied both by the phrase "ye shall hallow the Day of Rest,"
that is, consecrate it to Iahvah; and by the promise that if the
precept be observed faithfully, abundant offerings shall flow into
the temple from all parts of the country, that is, as the context
seems to require, for the due celebration of the Sabbath festival.
There is an intentional contrast between the bringing of innumerable
victims, and "bearing burdens" of flour and oil and incense on the
Sabbath, for the joyful service of the temple, including the festal
meal of the worshippers, and that other carriage of goods for merely
secular objects. And as the wealth of the Jerusalem priesthood chiefly
depended upon the abundance of the sacrifices, it may be supposed
that Jeremiah thus gives them a hint that it is really their interest
to encourage the observance of the law of the Sabbath. For if men
were busy with their buying and selling, their making and mending,
upon the seventh as on other days, they would have no more time or
inclination for religious duties, than the Sunday traders of our large
towns have under the vastly changed conditions of the present day.
Moreover, the teaching of our prophet in this matter takes for granted
that of his predecessors, with whose writings he was thoroughly
acquainted. If in this passage he does not expressly designate the
Sabbath as a religious festival, it is because it seemed needless to
state a thing so obvious, so generally recognised in theory, however
loosely observed in practice. The elder prophets Hosea, Amos, Isaiah,
associate Sabbath and new moon together as days of festal rejoicing,
when men appeared before Iahvah, that is, repaired to the sanctuary
for worship and sacrifice (Hos. ii. 11; Isa. i. 11-14), and when all
ordinary business was consequently suspended (Amos viii. 5).

It is clear, then, from this important passage of Jeremiah that in his
time and by himself the Sabbath was still regarded under the double
aspect of a religious feast and a day of cessation from labour, the
latter being, as in the ancient world generally, a natural consequence
of the former characteristic. Whether the abolition of the local
sanctuaries in the eighteenth year of Josiah resulted in any practical
modification of the conception of the Sabbath, so that, in the words
of Professor Robertson Smith, "it became for most Israelites an
institution of humanity divorced from ritual," is rendered doubtful by
the following considerations. The period between the reform of Josiah
and the fall of Jerusalem was very brief, including not more than
about thirty-five years (621-586, according to Wellhausen). But that
a reaction followed the disastrous end of the royal Reformer, is both
likely under the circumstances, and implied by the express assertions
of the author of Kings, who declares of the succeeding monarchs that
they "did evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that their
fathers had done." As Wellhausen writes: "the battle of Megiddo had
shown that in spite of the covenant with Jehovah the possibilities
of non-success in war remained the same as before": so at least it
would appear to the unspiritual mind of a populace, still hankering
after the old forms of local worship, with their careless connivance
at riot and disorder. It is not probable that a rapacious and bloody
tyrant, like Jehoiakim, would evince more tenderness for the ritual
laws than for the moral precepts of Deuteronomy. It is likely, then,
that the worship at the local high places revived during this and
the following reigns, just as it had revived after its temporary
abolition by Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 22). Moreover, it is with Judah,
not ruined and depopulated Israel, that we have to deal; and even in
Judah the people must by this time have been greatly reduced by war
and its attendant evils, so that Jerusalem itself and its immediate
neighbourhood probably comprised the main part of the population
to which Jeremiah addressed his discourses during this period. The
bulk of the little nation would, in fact, naturally concentrate upon
Jerusalem, in the troublous times that followed the death of Josiah.
If so, it is superfluous to assume that "most men could only visit
the central altar at rare intervals" during these last decades of the
national existence.[79] The change of view belongs rather to the
sixth than the seventh century, to Babylonia rather than to Judea.

The Sabbath observance prescribed by the old Law, and recommended by
Jeremiah, was indeed a very different thing from the pedantic and
burdensome obligation which it afterwards became in the hands of
scribes and Pharisees. These, with their long catalogue of prohibited
works, and their grotesque methods of evading the rigour of their
own rules, had succeeded in making what was originally a joyous
festival and day of rest for the weary, into an intolerable interlude
of joyless restraint; when our Lord reminded them that the Sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath (St. Mark ii. 27).
Treating the strict observance of the day as an end in itself, they
forgot or ignored the fact that the oldest forms of the sacred Law
agreed in justifying the institution by religious and humanitarian
considerations (Ex. xx. 8, 10; Deut. v. 12). The difference in the
grounds assigned by the different legislations--Deuteronomy alleging
neither the Divine Rest of Exodus xx., nor the sign of Exodus xxxi.
13, but the enlightened and enduring motive "that thy bondman and
thine handmaid may rest as well as thou," coupled with the feeling
injunction, "Remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt"
(Deut. v. 14, 15)--need not here be discussed; for in any case, the
different motives thus suggested were enough to make it clear to those
who had eyes to see, that the Sabbath was not anciently conceived
as an arbitrary institution established purely for its own sake,
and without reference to ulterior considerations of public benefit.
The Book of the Covenant affirmed the principle of Sabbath rest in
these unmistakable terms: "Six days thou mayst do thy works, and on
the seventh day thou shalt leave off, that thine ox and thine ass
may rest, and the son of thine handmaid"--the home-born slave--"and
the alien may be refreshed" (Ex. xxiii. 12), lit. recover breath,
have respite. The humane care of the lawgiver for the dumb toilers
and slaves requires no comment; and we have already noticed the same
spirit of humanity in the later precept of the Book of the Law (Deut.
v. 14, 15). These older rules, it will be observed, are perfectly
general in their scope, and forbid not particular actions (Ex. xvi.
23, xxxv. 3; Num. xv. 32), but the continuance of ordinary labour;
prescribing a merciful intermission alike for the cattle employed in
husbandry and as beasts of burden, and for all classes of dependents.

The origin of the Sabbath festival is lost in obscurity. When the
unknown writer of Gen. i. so beautifully connects it with the creation
of the world, he betrays not only the belief of his contemporaries in
its immemorial antiquity, but also a true perception of the utility
of the institution, its perfect adaptation to the wants of humanity.
He expresses his sense of the fact in the most emphatic way possible,
by affirming the Divine origin of an institution whose value to man
is divinely great; and by carrying back that origin to the very
beginning, he implies that the Sabbath was made for mankind and not
merely for Israel. To whom indeed could an ancient Jewish writer refer
as the original source of this unique blessing of a Day of Rest and
drawing near to God, if not to Iahvah, the fountain of all things good?

That Moses, the founder of the nation, gave Israel the Sabbath,
is as likely as anything can be. Whether, in doing so, he simply
sanctioned an ancient and salutary custom (investing it perhaps with
new and better associations), dating from the tribal existence of the
fathers in Chaldea, or ordered the matter so in purposeful contrast
to the Egyptian week of ten days, cannot at present be determined.
The Sabbath of Israel, both that of the prophets and that of the
scribes, was an institution which distinguished the nation from all
others in the period open to historical scrutiny; and with this
knowledge we may rest content. That which made Israel what it was, and
what it became to the world; the total of the good which this people
realized, and left as a priceless heritage to mankind for ever, was
the outcome, not of what it had in common with heathen antiquity,
but of what was peculiar to itself in ideas and institutions. We
cannot be too strongly on our guard against assuming external,
superficial, and often accidental resemblances, to be an index of
inward and essential likeness and unity. Whatever approximations
may be established by modern archæology between Israel and kindred
peoples, it will still be true that those points of contact do not
explain, though to the apprehension of individuals they may obscure
what is truly characteristic of Israel, and what alone gives that
nation its imperishable significance in the history of the world.
After all deductions made upon such grounds, nothing can abolish the
force of the fact that Moses and the prophets do not belong to Moab,
Ammon, or Edom; that the Old Testament, though written in the language
of Canaan, is not a monument of Canaanite but of Israelite faith;
that the Christ did not spring out of Babylon or Egypt, and that
Christianity is not explicable as the last development of Accadian
magic or Egyptian animal worship.

To those who believe that the prophets enjoyed a higher and less
fallible guidance than human fancy, reflexion, experience; who
recognise in the general aim and effect of their teaching, as
contrasted with that of other teachers, the best proof that their
minds were subject to an influence and a spirit transcending the
common limits of humanity; the prominence given by Jeremiah to the law
of the Sabbath will be sufficient evidence of the importance of that
law to the welfare of his contemporaries, if not of all subsequent
generations. If we have rightly assigned the piece to the reign of
Jehoiachin, we may suppose that among the contrary currents which
agitated the national life at that crisis, there were indications
of repentance and remorse at the misdoings of the late reign. The
present utterance of the prophet might then be regarded as a test of
the degree and worth of the revulsion of popular feeling towards the
God of the Fathers. The nation was trembling for its existence; and
Jeremiah met its fears, by pointing out the path of safety. Here was
one special precept hitherto but little observed. Would they keep it
now and henceforth, in token of a genuine obedience? Repentance in
general terms is never difficult. The rub is _conduct_. Recognition
of the Divine Law is easy, so long as life is not submitted to its
control. The prophet thus proposes, in a single familiar instance, a
plain test of sincerity, which is perhaps not less applicable in our
own day than it was then.

       *       *       *       *       *

The wording of the final threat suggests a thought of solemn
consequence for ourselves. "I will kindle a fire in her gates, and it
shall devour the castles of Jerusalem--and shall not be quenched!"
The gates were the scene of Judah's sinful breach of the Sabbath
law, and in them her punishment is to begin. So in the after life of
the lost those parts of the physical and mental organism which have
been the principal seats of sin, the means and instruments of man's
misdoing, will also be the seat of keenest suffering, the source
and abode of the most poignant misery. "The fire that never shall
be quenched"--Jesus has spoken of that awful mystery, as well as
Jeremiah. It is the ever-kindling, never-dying fire of hopeless and
insatiable desire; it is the withering flame of hatred of self, when
the castaway sees with open eyes what that self has become; it is the
burning pain of a sleepless memory of the unalterable past; it is the
piercing sense of a life flung recklessly to ruin; it is the scorching
shame, the scathing self-contempt, the quenchless, raging thirst
for deliverance from ourselves; it is the fearful consciousness of
self-destruction, branded upon the soul for ever and ever!

FOOTNOTES:

[78] The context is against supposing, with Graf, that the prophet's
call "hear ye!" extends also to princes yet unborn (cf. xiii. 13;
xxv. 18 is different). If, however, it be thought that Jeremiah
addressed not the sovereigns personally, but only the people passing
in and out of the gates; then the expression becomes intelligible as
a generalised plural, like the parallels in 2 Chron. xxviii. 3 ("his
children"), _ibid._ 16 ("the kings of Assyria" = Tiglath-pileser II.).
The prophet might naturally avoid the singular as too personal, in
affirming an obligation which lay upon the Judean kings in general.

[79] _Encycl. Britann._, _s.v._ Sabbath, p. 125.




                                  XI.

                          _THE DIVINE POTTER._

                            JEREMIAH xviii.


Jeremiah goes down into the Lower Town, or the valley between the
upper and lower city; and there his attention is arrested by a potter
sitting at work before his wheel. As the prophet watches, a vessel
is spoiled in the making under the craftsman's hand; so the process
begins afresh, and out of the same lump of clay another vessel is
moulded, according to the potter's fancy.

Reflecting upon what he had seen, Jeremiah recognised a Divine Word
alike in the impulse which led him thither, and in the familiar
actions of the potter. Perhaps as he sat meditating at home, or
praying in the court of the temple, the thought had crossed his mind
that Iahvah was the Potter, and mankind the clay in His hands; a
thought which recurs so often in the eloquent pages of the second
Isaiah, who was doubtless indebted to the present oracle for the
suggestion of it. Musing upon this thought, Jeremiah wandered
half-unconsciously down to the workshop of the potter; and there,
under the influence of the Divine Spirit, his thought developed itself
into a lesson for his people and for us.

_Cannot I do unto you like this potter, O house of_ _Israel? saith
Iahvah; Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in My
hand, O house of Israel._ Iahvah has an absolute control over His
people and over all peoples, to shape their condition and to alter
their destiny; a control as absolute as that of the potter over the
clay between his hands, which he moulds and remoulds at will. Men
are wholly malleable in the hands of their Maker; incapable, by the
nature of things, of any real resistance to His purpose. If the
first intention of the potter fail in the execution, he does not
fail to realize his plan on a second trial. And if man's nature and
circumstances appear for a time to thwart the Maker's design; if the
unyielding pride and intractable temper of a nation mar its beauty and
worth in the eyes of its Creator, and render it unfit for its destined
uses and functions; He can take away the form He has given, and reduce
His work to shapelessness, and remodel the ruined mass into accordance
with His sovereign design. Iahvah, the supreme Author of all
existence, can do this. It is evident that the Creator can do as He
will with His creature. But all His dealings with man are conditioned
by moral considerations. He meddles with no nation capriciously,
and irrespective of its attitude towards His laws. _At one moment I
threaten a nation and a kingdom that I will uproot and pull down and
destroy. And that nation which I threatened returneth from its evil,
and I repent of the evil that I purposed to do it. And at another
moment, I promise a nation and a kingdom that I will build and plant.
And it doeth the Evil in Mine eyes, in not hearkening unto My voice;
and I repent of the good that I said I would do it_ (vv. 7-10).

This is a bold affirmation, impressive in its naked simplicity and
directness of statement, of a truth which in all ages has taken
possession of minds at all capable of a comprehensive survey of national
experience; the truth that there is a power revealing itself in the
changes and chances of human history, shaping its course, and giving
it a certain definite direction, not without regard to the eternal
principles of morality. When in some unexpected calamity which strikes
down an individual sinner, men recognise a "judgment" or an instance of
"the visitation of God," they infringe the rule of Christian charity,
which forbids us to judge our brethren. Yet such judgment, liable as it
is to be too readily suggested by private ill-will, envy and other evil
passions, which warp the even justice that should guide our decisions,
and blind the mind to its own lack of impartiality, is in general the
perversion of a true instinct which persists in spite of all scientific
sophistries and philosophic fallacies. For it is an irrepressible
instinct rather than a reasoned opinion which makes us all believe,
however inconsistently and vaguely, that God rules; that Providence
asserts itself in the stream of circumstance, in the current of human
affairs. The native strength of this instinctive belief is shewn by its
survival in minds that have long since cast off allegiance to religious
creeds. It only needs a sudden sense of personal danger, the sharp shock
of a serious accident, the foreboding of bitter loss, the unexpected but
utter overthrow of some well-laid scheme that seemed assured of success,
to stir the faith that is latent in the depths of the most callous and
worldly heart, and to force the acknowledgment of a righteous Judge
enthroned above.

Compared with the mysterious Power which evinces itself continuously
in the apparent chaos of conflicting events, man's free will is like
the eddy whirling round upon the bosom of a majestic river as it
floats irresistibly onward to its goal, bearing the tiny vortex along
with it. Man's power of self-determination no more interferes with the
counsels of Providence than the diurnal revolution of the earth on its
axis interferes with its annual revolution round the sun. The greater
comprises the less; and God includes the world.

The Creator has implanted in the creature a power of choice between
good and evil, which is a pale reflexion of His own tremendous Being.
But how can we even imagine the dependent, the limited, the finite,
acting independently of the will of the Absolute and Infinite? The
fish may swim against the ocean current; but can it swim at all out
of the ocean? Its entire activity depends upon the medium in which it
lives and moves and has its being.

But Jeremiah exposes the secret of Providence to the eyes of his
fellow-countrymen for a particular purpose. His aim is to eradicate
certain prevalent misconceptions, so as to enable them to rightly
apprehend the meaning of God's present dealings with themselves.
The popular belief was that Zion was an inviolable sanctuary; that
whatever disasters might have befallen the nation in the past, or
might be imminent in the future, Iahvah could not, for His own sake,
permit the extinction of Judah as a nation. For then His worship,
the worship of the temple, the sacrifices of the one altar, would be
abolished; and His honour and His Name would be forgotten among men.
These were the thoughts which comforted them in the trying time when
a thousand rumours of the coming of the Chaldeans to punish their
revolt were flying about the land; and from day to day men lived in
trembling expectation of impending siege and slaughter. These were
the beliefs which the popular prophets, themselves probably in most
cases fanatical believers in their own doctrine, vehemently maintained
in opposition to Jeremiah. Above all, there was the covenant between
Iahvah and His people, admitted as a fact both by Jeremiah and his
opponents. Was it conceivable that the God of the Fathers, who had
chosen them and their posterity to be His people for ever, would turn
from His purpose, and reject His chosen utterly?

Jeremiah meets these popular illusions by applying his analogy of the
potter. The potter fashions a mass of clay into a vessel; and Iahvah had
fashioned Israel into a nation. But as though the mass of inert matter
had proven unwieldy or stubborn to the touches of his plastic hands;
as the wheel revolved, a misshapen product resulted, which the artist
broke up again, and moulded afresh on his wheel, till it emerged a fair
copy of his ideal. And so, in the revolutions of time, Israel had failed
of realizing the design of his Maker, and had become a vessel of wrath
fitted to destruction. But as the rebellious lump was fashioned again by
the deft hand of the master, so might this refractory people be broken
and built up anew by the Divine master hand.

In the light of this analogy, the prophet interprets the existing
complications of the political world. The serious dangers impending
over the nation are a sure symptom that the Divine Potter is at work,
"moulding" an evil fate for Judah and Jerusalem. "And now prithee say
unto the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem:

    "Thus hath Iahvah said,
     Behold I am moulding evil against you,
     And devising a device against you!"

But Iahvah's menaces are not the mere vent of a tyrant's caprice or
causeless anger: they are a deliberate effort to break the hard heart,
to reduce it to contrition, to prepare it for a new creation in a more
glorious likeness. Therefore the threat closes with an entreaty:

    "Return ye, I pray you, each from his evil way,
     And make good your ways and your doings!"

If the prophetic warning fulfil its purpose, and the nation repent,
then as in the case of Nineveh, which repented at the preaching of
Jonah, the sentence of destruction is revoked, and the doomed nation
is granted a new lease of life. The same truth holds good reversely.
God's promises are as conditional as His threats. If a nation lapse
from original righteousness, the sure consequence is the withdrawal
of Divine favour, and all of blessing and permanence that it confers.
It is evident that the prophet directly contradicts the popular
persuasion, which was also the current teaching of his professional
opponents, that Iahvah's promises to Israel are absolute, that is,
irrespective of moral considerations. Jeremiah is revealing, in terms
suited to the intelligence of his time, the true law of the Divine
dealings with Israel and with man. And what he has here written, it
is important to bear in mind, when we are studying other passages of
his writings and those of his predecessors, which foreshow judgments
and mercies to individual peoples. However absolute the language
of prediction, the qualification here supplied must usually be
understood; so that it is not too much to say that this remarkable
utterance is one of the keys to the comprehension of Hebrew prophecy.

But now, allowing for antique phraseology, and for the immense
difference between ancient and modern modes of thought and expression;
allowing also for the new light shed upon the problems of life and
history by the teaching of Him who has supplemented all that was
incomplete in the doctrine of the prophets and the revelation granted
to the men of the elder dispensation; must we pronounce this oracle
of Jeremiah's substantially true or the contrary? Is the view thus
formulated an obsolete opinion, excusable in days when scientific
thinking was unknown; useful indeed for the furtherance of the immediate
aims of its authors, but now to be rejected wholly as a profound
mistake, which modern enlightenment has at once exposed and rendered
superfluous to an intelligent faith in the God of the prophets?

Here and everywhere else, Jeremiah's language is in form highly
anthropomorphic. If it was to arrest the attention of the multitude,
it could not well have been otherwise. He seems to say that God
changes His intentions, according as a nation changes its behaviour.
Something must be allowed for style, in a writer whose very prose is
more than half poetry, and whose utterances are so often lyrical in
form as well as matter. The Israelite thinkers, however, were also
well aware that the Eternal is superior to change; as is clear from
that striking word of Samuel: "The Glory of Israel lieth not nor
repenteth; for He is not man, that He should repent" (1 Sam. xv. 29).
And prophetic passages like that in Kings, which so nobly declares
that the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain God (cf. Jer.
xxiii. 24), or that of the second Isaiah which affirms that the Divine
ways and purposes are as much higher than those of His people, as the
heavens are higher than the earth (Isa. lv. 9), prove that the vivid
anthropomorphic expressions of the popular teaching of the prophets
ought in mere justice to be limited by these wider conceptions of the
Divine Nature and attributes. These passages are quite enough to clear
the prophets of the accusation of entertaining such gross and crude
ideas of Deity as those which Xenophanes ridiculed, and which find
their embodiment in most mythologies.

There is indeed a sense in which all thinking, not only thought about
God, but about the natural world, must be anthropomorphic. Man is
unquestionably "the measure of all things," and he measures by a
human standard. He interprets the world without in terms of his own
consciousness; he imposes the forms and moulds of his own mind upon
the universal mass of things. Time, space, matter, motion, number,
weight, organ, function,--what are all these but inward conceptions
by which the mind reduces a chaos of conflicting impressions to order
and harmony? What the external world may be, apart from our ideas of
it, no philosopher pretends to be able to say; and an equal difficulty
embarrasses those who would define what the Deity is, apart from His
relations to man. But then it is only those relations that really
concern us; everything else is idle speculation, little becoming to
creatures so frail and ephemeral as we.

From this point of view, we may fairly ask, what difference it makes
whether the prophet affirm that Iahvah repents of retributive designs,
when a nation repents of its sins, or that a nation's repentance will
be followed by the restoration of temporal prosperity. It is a mere
matter of statement; and the former way of putting the truth was the
more intelligible way to his contemporaries, and has, besides, the
advantage of implying the further truth that the fortunes of nations
do not depend upon a blind and inexorable fate, but upon the Will
and Law of a holy God. It affirms a Lawmaker as well as a Law, a
Providence as well as an uniform sequence of events.

The prophet asserts, then, that nations reap what they have sown;
that their history is, in general, a record of God's judgments upon
their ways and doings. This is, of course, a matter of faith, as are
all beliefs about the Unseen; but it is a faith which has its root
in an apparently ineradicable instinct of humanity. Δράσαντι παθεῖν,
"The doer must suffer," is not a conviction of Hebrew religion only;
it belongs to the universal religious consciousness. Some critics are
fond of pronouncing the "policy" of the prophets a mistaken one. They
commend the high tone of their moral teachings, but consider their
forecasts of the future and interpretations of passing events, as
erroneous deductions from their general views of the Divine nature.
We are not well acquainted with the times and circumstances under
which the prophets wrote and spoke. This is true even in the case of
Jeremiah; the history of the time exists only in the barest outline.
But the writings of an Isaiah or an Amos make it difficult to suppose
that their authors would not have occupied a leading position in any
age and nation; their thought is the highest product of the Hebrew
mind; and the policy of Isaiah at least, during the Assyrian crisis,
was gloriously justified by the event.

We need not, however, stop here in attempting to vindicate the
attitude and aims of the prophets. Without claiming infallibility for
every individual utterance of theirs--without displaying the bad taste
and entire lack of literary tact which would be implied by insisting
upon the minute accuracy and close correspondence to fact, of all
that the prophets foreboded, all that they suggested as possible or
probable, and by turning all their poetical figures and similes into
bald assertions of literal fact; we may, I think, steadfastly affirm
that the great principles of revealed religion, which it was their
mission to enunciate and impress by all the resources of a fervid
oratory and a high-wrought poetical imagination, are absolutely and
eternally true. Man does reap as he sows; all history records it. The
present welfare and future permanence of a nation do depend, and have
always depended, upon the strength of its adhesion to religious and
moral convictions. What was it that enabled Israel to gain a footing
in Canaan, and to reduce, one after another, nations and communities
far more advanced in the arts of civilization than they? What but the
physical and moral force generated by the hardy and simple life of
the desert, and disciplined by wise obedience to the laws of their
Invisible King? What but a burning faith in the Lord of Hosts, Iahvah
Sabaoth, the true Leader of the armies of Israel? Had they only
remained uncontaminated by the luxuries and vices of the conquered
races; had they not yielded to the soft seduction of sensuous forms of
worship; had they continued faithful to the God who had brought them
out of Egypt, and lived, on the whole, by the teaching of the true
prophets; who can say that they might not have successfully withstood
the brunt of Assyrian or Chaldean invasion?

The disruption of the kingdom, the internecine conflicts, the
dynastic revolutions, the entanglements with foreign powers which
mark the progressive decline of the empire of David and Solomon,
would hardly have found place in a nation that steadily lived by the
rule of the prophets, clinging to Iahvah and Iahvah only, and "doing
justice and loving mercy" in all the relations of life. The gradual
differentiation of the idea of Iahvah into a multitude of Baals at
the local sanctuaries must have powerfully tended to disintegrate the
national unity. Solomon's temple and the recognition of the one God
of all the tribes of Israel as supreme, which that religious centre
implied, was, on the other hand, a real bond of union for the nation.
We cannot forget that, at the outset of the whole history, Moses
created or resuscitated the sense of national unity in the hearts of
the Egyptian serfs, by proclaiming to them Iahvah, the God of their
fathers. It is a one-sided representation which treats the policy
of the prophets as purely negative; as confined to the prohibition
of leagues with the foreigner, and the condemnation of walls and
battlements, chariots and horses, and all the elements of social
strength and display. The prophets condemn these things, regarded
as substitutes for trust in the One God, and faithful obedience to
His laws. They condemn the man who puts his confidence in man, and
makes flesh his arm, and forgets the only true source of strength and
protection. To those who allege that the policy of the prophets was a
failure, we may reply that it never had a full and fair trial.

    And they will say, Hopeless! for we will follow after our own
    devices, and will each practise the stubbornness of his own evil
    heart. Therefore thus hath Iahvah said:

    1. "Ask ye now among the heathen,
        Who hath heard the like?
        The virgin (daughter) of Israel
        Hath done a very horrible thing.

    2. "Doth the snow of Lebanon cease
        From overflowing the field?
        Do the running waters dry up,
        The icy streams?[80]

    3. "For My people have forgotten me,
        To vain things they burn incense;
        And they have made them stumble in their ways, the ancient
             paths,
        To walk in bypaths, a way not cast up:

    4. "To make their land a desolation,
        Perpetual hissings;
        Every one that passeth her by shall be amazed,
        And shall shake his head.

    5. "Like an east wind will I scatter them
        In the face of the foe;
        The back and not the face will I shew them,
        In the day of their overthrow."

God foresees that His gracious warning will be rejected as heretofore;
the prophet's hearers will cry "It is hopeless!" thy appeal is in vain,
thine enterprise desperate; "for after our own devices" or thoughts
"will we walk," not after thine, though thou urge them as Iahvah's; "and
we will each practise the stubbornness of his own evil heart"--this last
in a tone of irony, as if to say, Very well; we accept thy description
of us; our ways are stubborn, and our hearts evil: we will abide by our
character, and stand true to your unflattering portrait. Otherwise, the
words may be regarded as giving the substance of the popular reply, in
terms which at the same time convey the Divine condemnation of it; but
the former view seems preferable.

God foresees the obstinacy of the people, and yet the prophet does not
cease his preaching. A cynical assent to his invective only provokes
him to more strenuous endeavours to convince them that they are in the
wrong; that their behaviour is against reason and nature. Once more
(ii. 10 _sqq._) he strives to shame them into remorse by contrasting
their conduct with that of other nations. These were faithful to their
own gods; among _them_ such a crime as national apostasy was unheard
of and unknown. It was reserved for Israel to give the first example
of this abnormal offence; a fact as strange and fearful in the moral
world, as some unnatural revolution in the physical sphere. That
Israel should forget his duty to Iahvah was as great and inexplicable
a portent, as if the perennial snows of the Lebanon should cease to
supply the rivers of the land; or as if the ice-cold streams of its
glens and gorges should suddenly cease to flow. And certainly, when we
look at the matter with the eye of calm reason, the prophet cannot be
said to have here exaggerated the mystery of sin. For, however strong
the temptation that lures man from the path of duty, however occasion
may suggest, and passion urge, and desire yearn, these influences
cannot of themselves silence conscience, and obliterate experience,
and overpower judgment, and defeat reason. As surely as it is possible
to know anything, man knows that his vital interests coincide with
duty; and that it is not only weak but absolutely irrational to
sacrifice duty to the importunities of appetite.

When man forsakes the true God, it is to "burn incense to vain gods"
or things of nought. He who worships what is less than God, worships
nothing. No being below God can yield any true satisfaction to that
human nature which was made for God. The man who fixes his hope upon
things that perish in the using, the man who seeks happiness in things
material, the man whose affections have sole regard to the joys of
sense, and whose devotion is given wholly to worldly objects, is the man
who will at the last cry out, in hopeless disappointment and bitterness
of spirit, Vanity of vanities! all is vanity! "For what shall it profit
a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The soul's salvation
consists in devotion to its Lord and Maker; its eternal loss and ruin,
in alienation from Him who is its true and only life. The false gods are
nought as regards help and profit; they are powerless to bless, but they
are potent to hurt and betray. They "make men stumble out of their ways,
out of the ancient paths, to walk in bypaths, in a way not cast up."
So it was of old; so it is now. When the heart is estranged from God,
and devoted to some meaner pursuit than the advancement of His glory,
it soon deserts the straight road of virtue, the highway of honour,
and falls into the crooked and uneven paths of fraud and hypocrisy,
of oppression and vice. The end appears to sanctify the means, or at
least to make them tolerable; and, once the ancient path of the Law
is forsaken, men will follow the most tortuous, and often thorny and
painful courses, to the goal of their choice. The path which leads away
from God, leads both individuals and nations to final ruin. Degraded
ideas of the Deity, false ideas of happiness, a criminal indifference to
the welfare of others, a base devotion to private and wholly selfish
ends, must in the long run sap the vigour of a nation, and render it
incapable of any effectual resistance to its enemies. Moral declension
is a sure symptom of approaching political dissolution; so sure, that if
a nation chooses and persists in evil, in the face of all dissuasion, it
may be assumed to be bent on suicide. Like Israel, it may be said to do
thus, "in order to make its land an astonishment, perpetual hissings."
Men will be surprised at the greatness of its fall, and at the same time
will acknowledge by voice and gesture that its doom is absolutely just.

So far as his immediate hearers were concerned, the effect of the
prophet's words was exactly what had been anticipated (ver. 18; cf.
ver. 12). Jeremiah's preaching was a ministry of hardening, in a far
more complete sense than Isaiah's had been. On the present occasion,
the popular obduracy and unbelief evinced itself in a conspiracy
to destroy the prophet by false accusation. They would doubtless
find it not difficult to construe his words as blasphemy against
Iahvah, and treason against the state. And they said: _Come and let
us devise devices_--lay a plot--_against Jeremiah_. Dispassionate
wisdom, mere worldly prudence, would have said, Let us weigh well
the probability or even possibility of the truth of his message.
Moral earnestness, a sincere love of God and goodness, would have
recognised in the prophet's fearful earnest a proof of good faith,
a claim to consideration. Unbiassed common sense would have asked,
What has Jeremiah to gain by persistence in unpopular teaching?
What will be his reward, supposing his words come true? Is it to
be supposed that a man whose woeful tidings are uttered in a voice
broken with sobs, and interrupted by bursts of wild lamentation,
will look with glad eyes upon destruction when it comes, if it come
after all? But habitual sin blinds as well as pollutes the soul. And
when admonition is unacceptable, it breeds hatred. The heart that is
not touched by appeal becomes harder than it was before. The ice of
indifference becomes the adamant of malignant opposition. The populace
of Jerusalem, like that of more modern capitals, was enervated by
ease and luxury, altogether given over to the pursuit of wealth and
pleasure as the end of life. They hated the man who rebuked in the
gate, and abhorred him that spoke uprightly (Amos v. 10). They could
not abide one whose life and labours were a continual protest against
their own. And now he had done his best to rob them of their pleasant
confidence, to destroy the delusion of their fool's paradise. He had
burst into the heathenish sanctuary where they offered a worship
congenial to their hearts, and done his best to wreck their idols, and
dash their altars to the ground. He had affirmed that the accredited
oracles were all a lie, that the guides whom they blindly followed
were leading them to ruin. So the passive dislike of good blazes out
into murderous fury against the good man who dares to be good alone in
the face of a sinful multitude. That they are made thoroughly uneasy
by his message of judgment, that they are more than half convinced
that he is right, is plain from the frantic passion with which they
repeat and deny his words. _Law shall not perish from the priest, nor
counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet_: these things
cannot, _shall not_ be. When people have pinned their faith to a false
system--a system which accords with their worldly prejudices, and
flatters their ungodly pride, and winks at or even sanctions their
vices; when they have anchored their entire confidence upon certain
men and certain teachings which are in perfect harmony with their own
aims in life and their own selfish predilections, they are not only
disturbed and distressed but often enraged by a demonstration that
they are lulled in a false security. And anger of this kind is apt to
be so irrational, that they may think to escape from the threatened
evil by silencing its prophet. _Come and let us smite him with the
tongue, and let us not hearken to any of his words!_ They will first
get rid of him, and then forget his words of warning. Their policy is
no better than that of the bird which buries its head in the sand,
when its pursuers have run it down; an infatuated Out of sight, out of
mind. And Jeremiah's recompense for his disinterested zeal is another
conspiracy against his life.

Once more he lays his cause before the one impartial Judge; the one
Being who is exalted above all passion, and therefore sees the truth
as it is.

    "Hearken Thou, O Iahvah, unto me,
     And hear Thou the voice of mine adversaries.
     Should evil be recompensed for good?
     For they have digged a pit for my life.
     Remember my standing before Thee to speak good about them,
     To turn back Thy wrath from them."

Hearken Thou, since _they_ refuse to hearken; hear both sides, and
pronounce for the right. Behold the glaring contrast between my
innocence of all hurtful intent, and their clamorous injustice,
between my truth and their falsehood, my prayers for their salvation
and their outcry for my blood.

As we read this prayer of Jeremiah's, we are reminded of the very
similar language of the thirty-fifth and hundred and ninth psalms,
of which he was himself perhaps the author (see especially Ps. xxxv.
1, 4, 5, 7, 11, 12; cix. 2, 5). We have already partially considered
the moral aspect of such petitions. It is necessary to bear in
mind that the prophet is speaking of persons who have persistently
rejected warning, and ridiculed reproof; and now, in return for his
intercessions on their behalf, are attempting his life, not in a
sudden outbreak of uncontrollable fury, but with craft and deliberate
malice, after seeking, apparently, like their spiritual successors in
a later age, to entrap him into admissions that might be construed as
treason or blasphemy (Ps. xxxv. 19-21).

    "Therefore give their sons to the famine,
     And pour them into the hands of the sword;
     And let their wives be bereaved and widows,
     And let their husbands be slain of Death;
     Let their young men be stricken down of the sword in the battle!

    "Let a cry be heard from their houses,
     When Thou bringest a troop upon them suddenly!
     For they digged a pit to catch me,
     And snares they hid for my feet.

    "But of Thyself, Iahvah, Thou knowest all their plan against me for
          death;
     Pardon Thou not their iniquity,
     And blot not out their trespass from before Thee;
     But let them be made to stumble before Thee,
     In the time of Thine anger deal Thou with them!"

The passage is lyrical in form and expression, and something must be
allowed for the fact in estimating its precise significance. Jeremiah
had entreated God and man that all these things might not come to pass.
Now, when the attitude of the people towards his message and himself at
last leaves no doubt that their obduracy is invincible, in his despair
and distraction he cries, Be it so, then! They are bent on destruction;
let them have their will! Let the doom overtake them, that I have
laboured in vain to avert! With a weary sigh, and a profound sense of
the ripeness of his country for ruin, he gives up the struggle to save
it. The passage thus becomes a rhetorical or poetical expression of the
prophet's despairing recognition of the inevitable.

How vivid are the touches with which he brings out upon his canvas the
horrors of war! In language lurid with all the colours of destruction,
he sets before us the city taken by storm, he makes us hear the
cry of the victims, as house after house is visited by pillage and
slaughter. But stripped of its poetical form, all this is no more
than a concentrated repetition of the sentence which he has over and
over again pronounced against Jerusalem in the name of Iahvah. The
imprecatory manner of it may be considered to be simply a solemn
signification of the speaker's own assent and approval. He recalls the
sentence, and he affirms its perfect consonance with his own sense
of justice. Moreover all these terrible things actually happened in
the sequel. The prophet's imprecations received the Divine seal of
accomplishment. This fact alone seems to me to distinguish his prayer
from a merely human cry for vengeance. So far as his feelings as a
man and a patriot were concerned, we cannot doubt that he would have
averted the catastrophe, had that been possible, by the sacrifice of
his own life. That indeed was the object of his entire ministry. We
may call the passage an emotional prediction; and it was probably the
predictive character of it which led the prophet to put it on record.

While we admit that no Christian may ordinarily pray for the
annihilation of any but spiritual enemies, we must remember that no
Christian can possibly occupy the same peculiar position as a prophet
of the Old Covenant; and we may fairly ask whether any who may incline
to judge harshly of Jeremiah on the ground of passages like this, have
fully realized the appalling circumstances which wrung these prayers
from his cruelly tortured heart? _We_ find it hard to forgive small
personal slights, often less real than imaginary; how should we comport
ourselves to persons whose shameless ingratitude rewarded evil for good
to the extent of seeking our lives? Few would be content, as Jeremiah
was, with putting the cause in the hand of God, and abstaining from all
attempts at personal vindication of wrongs. It surely betrays a failure
of imaginative power to realize the terrible difficulties which beset
the path of one who, in a far truer sense than Elijah, was left alone
to uphold the cause of true religion in Israel, and not less, a very
inadequate knowledge of our own spiritual weakness, when we are bold to
censure or even to apologise for the utterances of Jeremiah.

The whole question assumes a different aspect, when it is noticed that
the brief "Thus said Iahvah!" of the next chapter (xix.) virtually
introduces the Divine reply to the prophet's prayer. He is now bidden
to foreshow the utter destruction of the Jewish polity by a symbolic
act which is even more unambiguous than the language of the prayer. He
is to take a common earthenware bottle (_baqbûq_, as if "pour-pour";
from _baqaq_, "to pour out"), and, accompanied by some of the leading
personages of the capital, heads of families and priests, to go out
of the city to the valley of ben Hinnom, and there, after a solemn
rehearsal of the crimes perpetrated on that very spot in the name of
religion, and after predicting the consequent retribution which will
shortly overtake the nation, he is to dash the vessel in pieces before
his companions' eyes, in token of the utter and irreparable ruin which
awaits their city and people.

Having enacted his part in this striking scene, Jeremiah returns to the
court of the temple, and there repeats the same terrible message in
briefer terms before all the people; adding expressly that it is the
reward of their stubborn obstinacy and deafness to the Divine voice.

The prophet's imprecations of evil thus appear to have been ratified
at the time of their conception by the Divine voice, which spoke in
the stillness of his after reflexion.

FOOTNOTE:

[80] Instead of שדי מצור "from the rock of the field," I have ventured
to read שדי מצוף (Lam. iii. 54; Deut. xi. 4; 2 Kings vi. 6). For ינתשו
"plucked up" "uprooted," which is inappropriate in connexion with
water, Schnurrer's ינתשו "dried up" (Isa. xix. 5; Jer. li. 30), is
probably right. In the second couplet, I read זבים for זרים, which is
meaningless, and transpose קרים with נוזלים.




                                  XII.

               _THE BROKEN VESSEL--A SYMBOL OF JUDGMENT._

                             JEREMIAH xix.


The result of his former address, founded upon the procedure of the
potter, had only been to bring out into clearer distinctness the
appalling extent of the national corruption. It was evident that Judah
was incorrigible, and the Potter's vessel must be broken in pieces by
its Maker.

_Thus said Iahvah: Go and buy a bottle_ (_baqbûq_, as if "a
pour-pour"; the meaning is alluded to in the first word of ver. 7:
_ubaqqothi_, "and I will pour out") _of a moulder of pottery_ (so
the accents; but perhaps the Vulgate is right: "lagunculam figuli
testeam," "a potter's earthen vessel," A.V.; lit. _a potter's bottle_,
viz., _earthenware_), _and_ (_take_: LXX. rightly adds) _some of the
elders of the people and of the elders of the priests, and go out
into the valley of ben Hinnom at the entry of the Pottery Gate_ (a
postern, where broken earthenware and rubbish were shot forth into the
valley: the term is connected with that for "pottery," ver. 1, which
is the same as that in Job ii. 8), _and cry there the words that I
shall speak unto thee_,--Jeremiah does not pause here, to relate how
he followed the Divine impulse, but goes on at once to communicate the
tenor of the Divine "words"; a circumstance which points to the fact
that this narrative was only written some time after the symbolical
action which it records;--_and say thou, Hear ye Iahvah's word, O
kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth,
the God of Israel: Lo, I am about to bring an evil upon this place,
such that, whoever heareth it, his ears shall tingle!_ If we suppose,
as seems likely, that this series of oracles (xviii.-xx.) belongs to
the reign of Jehoiachin, the expression "kings of Judah" may denote
that king and the queen-mother. Another view is that the kings of
Judah in general are addressed "as an indefinite class of persons,"
here and elsewhere (xvii. 20, xxii. 4), because the prophet did not
write the main portion of his book until after the siege of Jerusalem
(Ewald). The announcement of this verse is quoted by the compiler of
Kings in relation to the crimes of king Manasseh (2 Kings xxi. 12).

_Because that they forsook Me, and made this place strange_--alienated
it from Iahvah by consecrating it to "strange gods"; or as the Targum
and Syriac, "polluted" it--_and burnt incense therein to other gods,
whom neither they nor their fathers knew_ (xvi. 13); _and the kings
of Judah did fill this place with blood of innocents_ (so the LXX.
"Nor the kings of Judah" gives a poor sense; they are included in the
preceding phrase), _and built the bamoth Baal_ (High-places of Baal; a
proper name, Josh. xiii. 17), _to burn their sons in the fire_, [_as
burnt-offerings to the Baal_: LXX. omits, and it is wanting, vii. 31,
xxxii. 35. It may be a gloss, but is probably genuine, as there are
slight variations in each passage], _which I commanded not_, [_nor
spake_: LXX. omits], _neither came it into My mind: therefore, behold
days are coming, saith Iahvah, when this place will no more be called
the Tophet and valley of ben Hinnom but the Valley_ _of Slaughter!_
[_and in Tophet shall they bury, so that there be_--remain--_no room
to bury!_ This clause, preserved at the end of ver. 11, but omitted
there by the LXX., probably belongs here: see vii. 42]. _And I will
pour out_ (ver. 1; Isa. xix. 3) _the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem
in this place_--that is, I will _empty_ the land of all wisdom and
resourcefulness, as one empties a bottle of its water, so that the
heads of the state shall be powerless to devise any effectual scheme
of defence in the face of calamity (cf. xiii. 13)--_and I will cause
them to fall by the sword "before their enemies"_ (Deut. xxviii. 25),
_and by the hand of them that seek their life; and I will make "their
carcases food unto the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth"_
(Deut. xxviii. 26; chap. vii. 33, xvi. 4). _And I will set this city
"for an astonishment"_ (Deut. xxviii. 37) _and a hissing_ (xviii. 16);
_every one that passeth by her shall be astonished and hiss at all her
"strokes"_ (xlix. 17, l. 13) or "_plagues_" (Deut. xxviii. 59). _And
I will cause them to "eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of
their daughters," and each the flesh of his fellow shall they eat--"in
the stress and the straitness wherewith their enemies" and they that
seek their life "shall straiten them."_ It will be seen from the
references that the Deuteronomic colouring of these closing threats
(vv. 7-9) is very strong, the last verse being practically a quotation
(Deut. xxviii. 53). The effect of the whole oracle would thus be to
suggest that the terrible sanctions of the sacred Law would not remain
inoperative; but that the shameless violation of the solemn covenant
under Josiah, by which the nation undertook to observe the code of
Deuteronomy, would soon be visited with the retributive calamities so
vividly foreshadowed in that book.

_And break thou the bottle, to the eyes of the men that_ _go with
thee, and say unto them: Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth; So will I break
this people and this city, as one breaketh the potter's vessel so
that it cannot be mended again! Thus will I do to this place, saith
Iahvah, and to the inhabitants thereof and make_ (infin. constr. as
in xvii. 10, continuing the mood and person of the preceding verb;
which is properly a function of the infin. absol., as in ver. 13)
_this city like a Tophet_--make it one huge altar of human sacrifice,
a burning-place for thousands of human victims. _And the houses of
Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah_--the palace of David
and Solomon, in which king after king had reigned, and "done the
evil in Iahvah's eyes,"--_shall become like the place of the Tophet,
the defiled ones! even all the houses upon the roofs of which they
burnt incense unto all the host of heaven, and poured outpourings_
(libations of wine and honey) _unto other gods_. (So the Heb.
punctuation, which seems to give a very good sense. The principal
houses, those of the kings and grandees, are called "the defiled,"
because their roofs especially have been polluted with idolatrous
rites. The last clause of the verse explains the epithet, which might
have been referred to "the kings of Judah," had it preceded "like the
place of the Tophet." The houses were not to become "defiled"; they
were already so, past all cleansing; they were to be destroyed with
fire, and in their destruction to become the Tophet or sacrificial
pyre of their inhabitants. We need not, therefore, read _Tophteh_,
after Isa. xxx. 33, as I at first thought of doing, to find afterwards
that Ewald had already suggested it. The term rendered "even all," is
lit. "unto all," that is, "including all"; cf. Ezek. xliv. 9).[81]

The command _and break thou the bottle_ ... _and say unto them_ ...
compared with that of ver. 2, _and cry there the words that I shall
speak unto thee!_ seems to indicate the proper point of view from
which the whole piece is to be regarded. Jeremiah is recalling and
describing a particular episode in his past ministry; and he includes
the whole of it, with the attendant circumstances and all that he
said; first to the elders in the vale of ben Hinnom, and then to
the people assembled in the temple, under the comprehensive _Thus
said Iahvah!_ with which he begins his narrative. In other words, he
affirms that he was throughout the entire occurrence guided by the
impulses of the Spirit of God. It is very possible that the longer
first address (vv. 2-9) really gives the substance of what he said
to the people in the temple on his return from the valley, which is
merely summarized in verse 15.

_And Jeremiah came in_--into the temple--_from the Tophet, whither
Iahvah had sent him to prophesy, and took his stand in the court of
Iahvah's House, and said unto all the people: Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth
Israels God; Lo, I am about to bring upon_ (ver. 3) _this city and
upon all her cities_ [_and upon her villages_: LXX. adds] _all the
evil that I have spoken concerning her; because they stiffened their
neck_ (vii. 26), _not to hear My words!_ In this apparent epitome of
His discourse to the people in the temple, the prophet seems to sum
up all his past labours, in view of an impending crisis. "All the
evil" spoken hitherto concerning Jerusalem is upon the point of being
accomplished (cf. xxv. 3).

In reviewing the entire oracle, we may note as in former instances,
the care with which all the circumstances of the symbolical action
are chosen, in order to enhance the effect of it upon the minds
of the witnesses. The Oriental mind delights in everything that
partakes of the nature of an enigma; it loves to be called upon to
unravel the meaning of dark sentences, and to disentangle the wisdom
wrapped up in riddling words and significant actions. It would have
found eloquence in Tarquin's unspoken answer to his son's messenger.
"Rex velut deliberabundus in hortum ædium transit, sequente nuncio
filii: ibi inambulans tacitus summa papaverum capita dicitur baculo
decussisse" (Liv. i. 54). No doubt Jeremiah's companions would watch
his every step, and would not miss the fact that he carried his
earthenware vessel out of the city by the "Sherd Gate." Here was a
vessel yet whole, treated as though it were already a shattered heap
of fragments! They would be prepared for the oracle in the valley.

It is worth while, by the way, to notice who those companions were.
They were certain of "the elders of the people" and of the "the
elders of the priests." Jeremiah, it seems, was no wild revolutionary
dreamer and schemer, whose hand and voice were against all established
authority in Church and State. This was not the character of the
Hebrew prophets in general, though some writers have conceived thus of
them. There is no evidence that Jeremiah ever sought to divest himself
of the duties and privileges of his hereditary priesthood; or that
he looked upon the monarchy and the priestly guilds and the entire
social organisation of Israel, as other than institutions divinely
originated and divinely preserved through all the ages of the national
history. He did not believe that man created these institutions
though experience taught him that man might abuse and pervert them
from their lawful uses. His aim was always to reform, to restore, to
lead the people back to "the old paths" of primitive simplicity and
rectitude; not to abolish hereditary institutions, and substitute for
the order which had become an integral part of the national life, some
brand-new constitution which had never been tried, and would be no
more likely to fit the body corporate than the armour of Saul fitted
the free limbs of the young shepherd who was to slay Goliath.

The prophets never called for the abolition of those laws and customs,
civil and ecclesiastical, which were the very framework of the state,
and the pillars of the social edifice. They did not cry, "Down with
kings and priests!" but to both kings and priests they cried, "Hear ye
Iahvah's word!" And all experience proves that they were right. Paper
constitutions have never yet redeemed a nation from its vices, nor
delivered a community from the impotence and the decay which are the
inevitable fruits of moral corruption. Arbitrary legislative changes
will not alter the inward condition of a people; covetousness and
hypocrisy, pride and selfishness, intemperance and uncleanness and
cruelty, may be as rampant in a commonwealth as in a kingdom.

The contents of the oracle are much what we have had many times
already. The chief difference lies in a calm definiteness of
assurance, a tone of distinct certitude, as though the end were so
near at hand, as to leave no room for doubt or hesitation. And this
difference is fittingly and impressively suggested by the particular
symbol chosen--the shattering of an earthenware vessel, beyond the
possibility of repair. The direct mention of the king of Babylon and
the Babylonian captivity, in the sequel (chap. xx.), points to the
presence of a Babylonian invasion, probably that which ended with the
exile of Jeconiah and the chief citizens of Jerusalem.

The fatal sin, from which the oracle starts and to which it returns,
is forsaking Iahvah, and making the city of His choice "strange" to
Him, that is, hateful and unclean, by contact with foreign and bloody
superstitions, which were even falsely declared by their promoters to
be pleasing to Iahvah, the Avenger of innocent blood! (chap. vii. 31).
The punishment corresponds to the offence. The sacrifices of blood
will be requited with blood, shed in torrents on the very spot which
had been so foully polluted; they who had not scrupled to slay their
children for the sacrifice, were to slay them again for food under the
stress of siege and famine; the city and its houses, defiled with the
foreign worships, will become one vast Molech-fire (xxxii. 35), in
which all will perish together.

It may strike a modern reader that there is something repulsive and
cold-blooded in this detailed enumeration of appalling horrors.
But not only is it the case that Jeremiah is quoting from the Book
of the Law, at a time when, to an unprejudiced eye, there was
every likelihood that the course of events would verify his dark
forebodings; in the dreadful experience of those times such incidents
as those mentioned (ver. 9) were familiar occurrences in the obstinate
defence and protracted sufferings of beleaguered cities. The prophet,
therefore, simply affirms that obstinate persistence in following
their own counsels and rejecting the higher guidance will bring upon
the nation its irretrievable ruin. We know that in the last siege he
did his utmost to prevent the occurrence of these unnatural horrors by
urging surrender; but then, as always, the people "stiffened their
neck, not to hear Iahvah's words."

Jeremiah knew his countrymen well. No phrase could have better
described the resolute obstinacy of the national character. How
were the headstrong self-will, the inveterate sensuality, the blind
tenacity of fanatical and non-moral conceptions which characterized
this people, to be purified and made serviceable in the interests
of true religion, except by means of the fiery ordeal which all the
prophets foresaw and foretold? As we have seen, polytheism exercised
upon the popular mind a spell which we can hardly comprehend from
our modern point of view; a polytheism foul and murderous, which
violated the tenderest affections of our nature by demanding of the
father the sacrifice of his child, and violated the very instinct of
natural purity by the shameless indulgence of its worship. It was a
consecration of lust and cruelty,--that worship of Molech, those rites
of the Baals and Asheras. Meagre and monotonous as the sacred records
may on these heads appear to be, their witness is supplemented by
other sources, by the monuments of Babylon and Phenicia.

It is hard to see how the religious instinct of men in this peculiar
stage of belief and practice was to be enlightened and purified in
any other way than the actual course of Providence. What arguments
can be imagined that would have appealed to minds which found a fatal
fascination, nay, we must suppose an intense satisfaction, in rites so
hideous that one durst not even describe them; minds to which the lofty
monotheism of Amos, the splendid eloquence of an Isaiah, the plaintive
lyrical strain of a Jeremiah, appealed in vain? Appeals to the order of
the world, to the wonders of organic life, were lost upon minds which
made gods of the most obvious subjects of that order, the sun, moon, and
stars; which even personified and adored the physical principle whereby
the succession of life after life is perpetuated.

Nothing short of the perception _that the word of the prophets had
come to pass_, the recognition, therefore, that the prophetic idea of
God was the true idea, could have succeeded in keeping the remnant of
Judah safe from the contagion of surrounding heathenism in the land of
their exile, and in radically transforming once for all the religious
tendencies of the Jewish race.

In Jeremiah's view, the heinousness of Judah's idolatry is heightened by
the consideration that the gods of their choice are gods "whom neither
they nor their fathers knew" (ver. 4). The kings Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon,
had introduced novel rites, and departed from "the old paths" more
decidedly than any of their predecessors. In this connexion, we may
remember that, while modern Romish controversialists do not scruple
to accuse the Church of this country of having unlawfully innovated
at the Reformation, the Anglican appeal has always been to Scripture
and primitive antiquity. Such, too, was the appeal of the prophets
(Hos. vi. 1, 7, xi. 1; Jer. ii. 2, vi. 16, xi. 3). It is the glory of
our Church, a glory of which neither the lies of Jesuits nor the envy
of the sectaries can rob her, that she returned to "the old paths,"
boldly overleaping the dark ages of medieval ignorance, imposture, and
corruption, and planting her foot firmly upon the rock of apostolic
practice and the consent of the undivided Church.

Disunion among Christians is a sore evil, but union in the maintenance
and propaganda of falsehood is a worse; and the guilt of disunion lies
at the door of that system which abused its authority to crush out
legitimate freedom of thought, to retard the advancement of learning,
and to establish those monstrous innovations in doctrine and worship,
which subtle dialecticians may prove to their own satisfaction to be
innocent and non-idolatrous in essence and intention, though all the
world can see that in practice they are grossly idolatrous. God preserve
England from that toleration of serious error, which is so easy to
sceptical indifference! God preserve her from lending an ear to the
siren voices that would seduce her to yield her hard-won independence,
her noble freedom, her manly rational piety, to the unhistorical and
unscriptural claims of the Papacy!

If we reverence those Scriptures of the Old Testament to which our Lord
and His Apostles made their constant appeal, we shall keep steadily
before our minds the fact that, in the estimation of a prophet like
Jeremiah, the sin of sins, the sin that involved the ruin of Israel and
Judah, was the sin of associating other objects of worship with the
One Only God. The temptation is peculiarly strong to some natures. The
continual relapse of ancient Israel is not so great a wonder to those
of us who have any knowledge of mankind, and who can observe what is
passing around them at the present day. It is the severe demand of God's
holy law, which makes men cast about for some plausible compromise--it
is that demand which also makes them yearn after some intermediary
power, whose compassion will be less subject to considerations of
justice, whom prayers and entreaties and presents may overcome, and
induce to wink at unrepented sin. In an age of unsettlement, the more
daring spirits will be prone to silence their inconvenient scruples by
rushing into atheism, while the more timid may take refuge in Popery.
"For to disown a Moral Governour, or to admit that any observances of
superstition can release men from the duty of obeying Him, equally
serves the purpose of those, who resolve to be as wicked as they dare,
or as little virtuous as they can" (Bp. Hurd).

Then, too, there is the glory of the saints and angels of God. How
can frail man refuse to bow before the vision of their power and
splendour, as they stand, the royal children of the King of kings,
around the heavenly throne, deathless, radiant with love and joy and
purity, exalted far above all human weakness and human sorrows? If the
holy angels are "ministering spirits," why not the entire community
of the Blessed? And what is to hinder us from casting ourselves at
the feet of saint or angel, one's own appointed guardian, or chosen
helper? Let good George Herbert answer for us all.

    "Oh glorious spirits, who after all your bands
     See the smooth face of God, without a frown,
                   Or strict commands;
     Where every one is king, and hath his crown,
     If not upon his head, yet in his hands:

    "Not out of envy or maliciousness
     Do I forbear to crave your special aid.
                   I would address
     My vows to thee most gladly, blessed Maid,
     And Mother of my God, in my distress:

           *       *       *       *       *

    "But now, (alas!) I dare not; for our King,
     Whom we do all jointly adore and praise,
                   Bids no such thing:
     And where His pleasure no injunction lays,
     ('Tis your own case) ye never move a wing.

    "All worship is prerogative, and a flower
     Of His rich crown, from whom lies no appeal
                   At the last hour:
     Therefore we dare not from His garland steal,
     To make a posy for inferior power."

In this sense also, as in many others, the warning of St. John applies:

              LITTLE CHILDREN, KEEP YOURSELVES FROM IDOLS!

FOOTNOTE:

[81] LXX. ἀπὸ τῶν ἀκαθαρσιῶν αὐτῶν makes it possible that they read
מטמאים which would represent מְטֻמֶּאִים "defiled."




                                 XIII.

                     _JEREMIAH UNDER PERSECUTION._

                              JEREMIAH xx.


The prophet has now to endure something more than a scornful rejection
of his message. _And Pashchur ben Immer the priest_ (_he was chief
officer in the house of Iahvah_) _heard Jeremiah prophesying these
words. And Pashchur smote Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the
stocks, which were in the upper gate of Benjamin in the house of
Iahvah._ Like the priest of Bethel, who abruptly put an end to
the preaching of Amos in the royal sanctuary, Pashchur suddenly
interferes, apparently before Jeremiah has finished his address
to the people; and enraged at the tenour of his words, he causes
him--"Jeremiah _the prophet_," as it is significantly added, to
indicate the sacrilege of the act--to be beaten in the cruel Eastern
manner on the soles of the feet, inflicting probably the full number
of forty blows permitted by the Law (Deut.), and then leaving him,
in his agony of mind and body, fast bound in "the stocks." For the
remainder of that day and all night long the prophet sat there in the
gate, at first exposed to the taunts and jeers of his adversaries and
the rabble of their followers, and as the weary hours slowly crept on,
becoming painfully cramped in his limbs by the barbarous machine which
held his hands and feet near together, and bent his body double. This
cruel punishment seems to have been the customary mode of dealing
with such as were accounted false prophets by the authorities. It was
the treatment which Hanani endured in return for his warning to king
Asa (2 Chron. xvi. 10), some three centuries earlier than Jeremiah's
time; and a few years later in our prophet's history, an attempt was
made to enforce it again in his case (Jer. xxix. 26). Thus, like the
holy apostles of our Lord, was Jeremiah "counted worthy to suffer
shame" for the Name in which he spoke (Acts v. 40, 41); and like Paul
and Silas at Philippi, after enduring "many stripes" his feet were
"made fast in the stocks" (Acts xvi. 23, 24). The message of Jeremiah
was a message of judgment, that of the apostles was a message of
forgiveness; and both met with the same response from a world whose
heart was estranged from God. The heart that loves its own way, is
only at ease when it can forget God. Any reminder of His Presence, of
His perpetual activity in mercy and judgment, is unwelcome, and makes
its authors odious. From the outset, transgressors of the Divine law
have sought to hide _among the trees of the garden_--in the engrossing
pursuits and pleasures of life--from the Presence of God.

Pashchur's object was not to destroy Jeremiah, but to break his spirit,
and discredit him with the multitude, and so silence him for ever. But
in this expectation he was as signally disappointed as his successor
was in the case of St. Peter (Acts v. 24, 29). Now as then, God's
messenger could not be turned from his conviction that _we ought to obey
God rather than men_. And as he sat alone in his intolerable anguish,
brooding over his shameful wrongs, and despairing of redress, a Divine
Word came in the stillness of night to this victim of human tyranny.
For it _came to pass on the morrow that Pashchur brought Jeremiah forth
out of the stocks; and Jeremiah said unto him, Not Pashchur_[82]--as
if "Glad and free"--_but Magor-missabib_--"Fear on every side"--_hath
Iahvah called thy name_! Sharpened with misery, the seer's eye pierces
through the shows of life, and discerns the grim contrast of truth
and appearance. Before him stands this great man, clothed with all
the dignity of high office, and able to destroy him with a word; but
Iahvah's prophet does not quail before abused authority. He sees the
sword suspended by a hair over the head of this haughty and supercilious
official; and he realizes the solemn irony of circumstance, which has
connected a name suggestive of gladness and freedom with a man destined
to become the thrall of perpetual terrors. _For thus hath Iahvah said:
Lo, I am about to make thee a Fear to thyself and to all thy lovers;
and they will fall by the sword of their foes, while thine eyes look
on!_ This "glad and free" persecutor, wantoning in the abuse of power,
blindly fearless of the future, is not doomed to be slain out of hand;
a heavier fate is in store for him, a fate prefigured and foreshadowed
by his present sins. His proud confidence is to give place to a haunting
sense of danger and insecurity; he is to see his followers perish one
after another, and evermore to be expecting the same end for himself:
while the freedom which he has enjoyed and abused so long, is to be
exchanged for a lifelong captivity in a foreign land. _And all Judah
will I give into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will transport
them to Babylon, and smite them with the sword. And I will give all the
store of this city_--the hoarded wealth of all sorts, which constitutes
its strength and reserve force--_and all the gain thereof_--the produce
of labour--_and all the value thereof_--things rare and precious of
every kind, works of the carver's and the goldsmith's and the potter's
and the weaver's art;--_and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will
I give into the hand of their foes, that they may spoil them and take
them and bring them to Babylon_.

_And for thyself, Pashchur, and all that dwell in thine house, ye
shall depart among the captives; and to Babylon thou shall come, and
there thou shalt die, and there be buried, thyself and all thy lovers,
to whom thou hast prophesied with untruth_, or rather _by the Lie_,
i.e., _by the Baal_ (ii. 8, xxiii. 13, cf. xii. 16).

The play on the name of Pashchur is like that on Perath (ch. xiii.), and
the change to Magor-missabib is like the change of Tophet into "Valley
of Slaughter" (ch. xix.). Like Amos (vii. 16), Jeremiah repeats his
obnoxious prophecy, with a special application to his cruel persecutor,
and with the added detail that all the wealth of Jerusalem will be
carried as spoil to Babylon; a detail in which there may lie an oblique
reference to the covetous worldliness and the interested opposition of
such men as Pashchur. Riches and ease and popularity were the things
for which he and those like him had bargained away their integrity,
prophesying with conscious falsehood to the deluded people. His "lovers"
are his partisans, who eagerly welcomed his presages of peace and
prosperity, and doubtless actively opposed Jeremiah with ridicule and
threats. The last detail is remarkable, for we do not otherwise know
that Pashchur affected to prophesy. If it be not meant simply that
Pashchur accepted and lent the weight of his official sanction to the
false prophets, and especially those who uttered their divinations in
the name of "the Baal," that is to say, either Molech, or the popular
and delusive conception of the God of Israel, we see in this man one
who combined a steady professional opposition to Jeremiah with power
to enforce his hostility by legalized acts of violence. The conduct
of Hananiah on a later occasion (xxviii. 10), clearly proves that,
where the power was present, the will for such acts was not wanting in
Jeremiah's professional adversaries.

It is generally taken for granted that the name of "Pashchur" has
been substituted for that of "Malchijah" in the list of the priestly
families which returned with Zerubbabel from the Babylonian captivity
(Ezra ii. 38; Neh. vii. 41; cf. 1 Chron. xxiv. 9); but it seems quite
possible that "the sons of Pashchur" were a subdivision of the family
of Immer, which had increased largely during the Exile. In that case,
the list affords evidence of the fulfilment of Jeremiah's prediction
to Pashchur. The prophet elsewhere mentions another Pashchur, who was
also a priest, of the course or guild of Malchijah (xxi. 1, xxxviii.
1), which was the designation of the fifth class of the priests, as
"Immer" was that of the sixteenth (1 Chron. xxiv. 9, 14). The prince
Gedaliah, who was hostile to Jeremiah, was apparently a son of the
present Pashchur (Jer. xxxviii. 1).

It is not easy to determine the relation of the lyrical section which
immediately follows the doom of Pashchur, to the preceding account
(vv. 7-8). If the seventh verse be in its original place, it would
seem that the prophet's word had failed of accomplishment, with
the result of intensifying the unbelief and the ridicule which his
teachings encountered. There is also something very strange in the
sequence of the thirteenth and fourteenth verses, where, as the text
now stands, the prophet passes at once, in the most abrupt fashion
imaginable, from a fervid ascription of praise, a heartfelt cry of
thanksgiving for deliverance either actual or contemplated as such,
to utterances of unrelieved despair. I do not think that this is in
the manner of Jeremiah; nor do I see how the violent contrast of the
two sections (7-13 and 14-18) can fairly be accounted for, except by
supposing either that we have here two unconnected fragments, placed
in juxtaposition with each other because they belong to the same
general period of the prophet's ministry; or that the two passages
have by some accident of transcription been transposed, which is by
no means an uncommon occurrence in the MSS. of the Biblical writers.
Assuming this latter as the more probable alternative, we see in the
entire passage a powerful representation of the mental conflict into
which Jeremiah was thrown by Pashchur's high-handed violence and the
seeming triumph of his enemies. Smarting with the sense of utter
injustice, humiliated in his inmost soul by shameful indignities,
crushed to the earth with the bitter consciousness of defeat and
failure, the prophet like Job opens his mouth and curses his day.

    1. "Cursed be the day wherein I was born!
       The day that my mother bare me,
       Let it not be blest!

    2. Cursed be the man who told the glad tidings to my father,
       'There is born to thee a male child;'
       Who made him rejoice greatly.

    3. And let that man become like the cities that Iahweh overthrew,
            without relenting,
       And let him hear a cry in the morning,
       And an alarm at the hour of noon!

    4. For that he slew me not in the womb,
       That my mother might have become my grave,
       And her womb have been laden evermore!

    5. O why from the womb came I forth
       To see labour and sorrow,
       And my days fordone with shame?"

These five triplets afford a glimpse of the lively grief, the
passionate despair, which agitated the prophet's heart as the first
effect of the shame and the torture to which he had been so wickedly
and wantonly subjected. The elegy, of which they constitute the proem,
or opening strophe, is not introduced by any formula ascribing it to
Divine inspiration; it is simply written down as a faithful record
of Jeremiah's own feelings and reflexions and self-communings, at
this painful crisis in his career. The poet of the book of Job has
apparently taken the hint supplied by these opening verses, and has
elaborated the idea of cursing the day of birth through seven highly
wrought and imaginative stanzas. The higher finish and somewhat
artificial expansion of that passage leave little doubt that it was
modelled upon the one before us. But the point to remember here is
that both are lyrical effusions, expressed in language conditioned by
Oriental rather than European standards of taste and usage. As the
prophets were not inspired to express their thoughts and feelings in
a modern English dress, it is superfluous to inquire whether Jeremiah
was morally justified in using these poetic formulas of imprecation.
To insist on applying the doctrine of verbal inspiration to such a
passage is to evince an utter want of literary tact and insight, as
well as adhesion to an exploded and pernicious relic of sectarian
theology. The prophet's curses are simply a highly effective form of
poetical rhetoric, and are in perfect harmony with the immemorial
modes of Oriental expression; and the underlying thought, so
equivocally expressed, according to our ways of looking at things, is
simply that his life has been a failure, and therefore it would have
been better not to have been born. Who that is at all earnest for
God's truth, nay, for far lower objects of human interest and pursuit,
has not in moments of despondency and discouragement been overwhelmed
for a time by the like feeling? Can we blame Jeremiah for allowing us
to see in this faithful transcript of his inner life how intensely
human, how entirely natural the spiritual experience of the prophets
really was? Besides, the revelation does not end with this initial
outburst of instinctive astonishment, indignation and despair. The
proem is succeeded by a psalm in seven stanzas of regular poetical
form--six quatrains rounded off with a final couplet--in which the
prophet's thought rises above the level of nature, and finds in an
overruling Providence both the source and the justification of the
enigma of his life.

    1. "Thou enticedst me, Iahvah, and I was enticed,
       Thou urgedst[83] me, and didst prevail!
       I am become a derision all the day long.
       Every one mocketh at me.

    2. "For as oft as I speak, I cry alarm,
       Violence and havoc do I proclaim;
       For Iahvah's word is become to me a reproach,
       And a scoff all the day long.

    3. "And if I say, I will not mind it,
       Nor speak any more in His Name;
       Then it becometh in my heart like a burning fire prisoned in my
            bones.
       And I weary of holding it in[84] and am not able.

    4. "For I have heard the defaming of many, the terror on every
            side;[85]
       All the men of my friendship are watching for my fall;
       'Perchance he will be enticed, and we shall prevail over him,
       And take our revenge of him.'

    5. "Yet Iahvah is with me as a dread warrior,
       Therefore my pursuers shall stumble and not prevail;
       They shall be greatly ashamed, for that they have not prospered,
       With eternal dishonour that shall not be forgotten.

    6. "And Iahvah Sabaoth trieth the righteous,
       Seeth the reins and the heart;
       I shall see Thy revenge of them,
       For unto Thee have I committed my quarrel.

    7. Sing ye to Iahvah, acclaim ye Iahvah!
       For He hath snatched the poor man's life out of the hand of
            evildoers."

The cause was of God. _Thou didst lure me, Iahvah, and I let myself
be lured; Thou urgedst me and wert victorious._ He had not rashly
and presumptuously taken upon himself this office of prophet; he had
been called, and had resisted the call, until his scruples and his
pleadings were overcome, as was only natural, by a Will more powerful
than his own (chap. i. 6). In speaking of the inward persuasions which
determined the course of his life, he uses the very terms which are
used by the author of Kings in connexion with the spirit that misled
the prophets of Arab before the fatal expedition to Ramoth Gilead.
_And he said, Thou shalt entice, and also be victorious_ (1 Kings
xxii. 22). Iahvah, therefore, has treated him as an enemy rather
than a friend, for He has lured him to his own destruction. Half in
irony, half in bitter complaint, the prophet declares that Iahvah has
succeeded only too well in His malign purpose: _I am become a derision
all the day long; Every one mocketh at me_.

In the second stanza, the thought appears to be continued thus:
_Thou overcamest me; for as often as I speak_, I am a prophet of
evil, _I cry alarm_ (_`ez'aq_; cf. _zĕ`aqah_, vers. 16); I proclaim
the imminence of invasion, the _violence and havoc_ of a ruthless
conqueror. _Thou overcamest me_ also, in Thy purpose of making me a
laughing-stock to my adversaries; _for Iahvah's word is become to me a
reproach, and a scoff all the day long_ (the relation between the two
halves of the stanza is that of coordination; each gives the reason of
the corresponding couplet in the first stanza). His continual threats
of a judgment that was still delayed, brought upon him the merciless
ridicule of his opponents.

Or the prophet may mean to complain that the monotony of his message,
his ever-recurring denunciation of prevalent injustice, is made a
reproach against him. _For as often as I speak I make an outcry_ of
indignation at foul wrongdoing (Gen. iv. 10, xviii. 21, xix. 13); _wrong
and robbery do I proclaim_ (Hab. i. 2, 3)--the oppression of the poor
by the covetous and luxurious ruling classes. A third view is that
Jeremiah complains of the frequent attacks upon himself: _For_ _as
often as I speak I have to exclaim; Of assault and violence do I cry_;
but the first suggestion appears to suit best, as giving a reason for
the ridicule which the prophet finds so intolerable (cf. xvii. 15).

The third stanza carries this plea for justice a step further. Not
only was the prophet's overwhelming trouble due to his having yielded
to the persuasions and promises of Iahvah; not only has he been
rewarded with scorn and the scourge and the stocks for his compliance
with a Divine call. He has been in a manner forced and driven into his
intolerable position by the coercive power of Iahvah, which left him
no choice but to utter the word that burnt like a fire within him.
Sometimes his fears of perfidy and betrayal suggested the thought
of succumbing to the insuperable obstacles which seemed to block
his path; of giving up once for all a thankless and fruitless and
dangerous enterprise: but then the inward flame burnt so fiercely,
that he could find no relief for his anguish but by giving it vent in
words (cf. Ps. xxxix. 1-3).

The verse finely illustrates that vivid sense of a Divine constraint
which distinguishes the true prophet from pretenders to the office.
Jeremiah does not protest the purity of his motives; indirectly and
unconsciously he expresses it with a simplicity and a strength which
leave no room for suspicion. He has himself no doubt at all that what
he speaks is "Iahvah's word." The inward impulse is overpowering; he
has striven in vain against its urgency; like Jacob at Peniel, he
has wrestled with One stronger than himself. He is no vulgar fanatic
or enthusiast, in whom rooted prejudices and irrational frenzies
overbalance the judgment, making him incapable of estimating the
hazards and the chances of his enterprise; he is as well aware of
the perils that beset his path as the coolest and craftiest of his
worldly adversaries. Thanks to his natural quickness of perception,
his developed faculty of reflexion, he is fully alive to the probable
consequences of perpetually thwarting the popular will, of taking up
a position of permanent resistance to the policy and the aims and the
interests of the ruling classes. But while he has his mortal hopes
and fears, his human capacity for anxiety and pain; while his heart
bleeds at the sight of suffering, and aches for the woes that thickly
crowd the field of his prophetic vision; his speech and his behaviour
are dominated, upon the whole, by an altogether higher consciousness.
His emotions may have their moments of mastery; at times they may
overpower his fortitude, and lay him prostrate in an agony of
lamentation and mourning and woe; at times they may even interpose
clouds and darkness between the prophet and his vision of the Eternal;
but these effects of mortality do not last: they shake but cannot
loosen his grasp of spiritual realities; they cannot free him from the
constraining influence of the Word of Iahvah. That word possesses,
leads him captive, "triumphs over him," over all the natural
resistance of flesh and blood; for he is "not as the many"--the false
prophets--"who corrupt the Word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of
God, in the sight of God, he speaks" (2 Cor. ii. 14, 17).

And still, unless a man be thus impelled by the Spirit; unless he have
counted the cost and is prepared to risk all for God; unless he be
ready to face unpopularity and social contempt and persecution; unless
he knows what it is to suffer for and with Jesus Christ; I doubt if
he has any moral right to speak in that most holy Name. For if the
all-mastering motive be absent, if the love of Christ constrain him
not, how can his desires and his doings be such as the Unseen Judge
will either approve or bless?

       *       *       *       *       *

The fourth stanza explains why the prophet laboured, though vainly, to
keep silence. It was because of the malicious reports of his utterances,
which were carefully circulated by his watchful antagonists. They beset
him on every side; like Pashchur, they were to him a "magor-missabib,"
an environing terror (cf. vi. 25), as they listened to his harangues,
and eagerly invited each other to inform against him as a traitor (The
words "Inform ye, and let us inform against him!" or "Denounce ye, and
let us denounce him!" may be an ancient gloss upon the term _dibbah_,
"ill report," "calumny;" Gen. xxxvii. 2; Num. xiii. 32; Job xvii. 5. For
the construction, cf. Job xxxi. 37. They spoil the symmetry of the line.
That _dibbah_ really means "defaming," or "slander," appears not only
from the passages in which it occurs, but also from the Arabic _dabûb_;
"one who creeps about with slander," from _dabba_, "to move gently or
slowly about." The Heb. _ragal_, _riggel_, "to go about slandering," and
_rakîl_, "slander," are analogous).

And not only open enemies thus conspired for the prophet's
destruction. Even professed friends (for the phrase, cf. xxxviii. 22;
Ps. xli. 10) were treacherously watchful to catch him tripping (cf.
ix. 2, xii. 6). Those on whom he had a natural claim for sympathy
and protection, bore a secret and determined grudge against him. His
unpopularity was complete, and his position full of peril. We have
in the thirty-first and several of the following psalms outpourings
of feeling under circumstances very similar to those of Jeremiah on
the present occasion, even if they were not actually written by him
at the same crisis in his career, as certain striking coincidences
of expression seem to suggest (ver. 10; cf. Ps. xxxi. 13, xxxv. 15,
xxxviii. 17, xli. 9; ver. 13 with Ps. xxxv. 9, 10).

The prophet closes his psalm-like monologue with an act of faith.
He remembers that he has a Champion who is mightier than a thousand
enemies. Iahvah is with him, not with them (cf. 2 Kings vi. 16); their
plots, therefore, are foredoomed to failure, and themselves to the
vengeance of a righteous God (xi. 20). The last words are an exultant
anticipation of deliverance.

We thus see that the whole piece, like a previous one (xv. 10-21),
begins with cursing and ends with an assurance of blessing.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] The name is probably a quadriliteral from פשח, [Arabic: **]
Ethiopic ተፋሥሐ "to be glad," Assyrian [Assyrian: **] _pashâchu_ "to
be at ease," "to rest," (which comes nearest to the Hebrew root).
The Arabic verb means "The place was roomy, wide, ample"; whence
[Arabic: **] "free from distress or narrowness of mind." Thus Pashchur
= "case," "tranquillity," and is formed like Achbor, _kaphtor_, "a
capital," (LXX. Pashchor). But the name might remind a Hebrew of the
root פוש "to leap," "prance," Jer. l. 11, and חר "free" (plur. only),
as if it were a compound of _pāsh_ and _chōr_. "Glad and free:" cf.
the LXX. vocalisation Πασχώρ. I think this popular etymology pash +
chor is probably what Jeremiah thought of.

[83] Ex. xii. 33; Isa. viii. 11; Ezek. iii. 14; Jer. xv. 17.

[84] vi. 11 (or, of enduring, Mal. iii. 2).

[85] 'Denounce ye, and we will denounce him!'




Transcriber's Notes:


Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout.

Inconsistent hyphenation left as in the original text.

Footnote 31: This footnote was originally an author's note. Converted
to a footnote for ease of reference.

Footnote 78: There is no anchor for this in the original text, left as
in the original.