THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
Editor of "The Expositor"
THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
CHAPTERS XXI.-LII.
BY
W. H. BENNETT, M.A.
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCV
THE
BOOK OF JEREMIAH
CHAPTERS XXI.-LII.
BY
W. H. BENNETT, M.A.
PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE HACKNEY AND NEW COLLEGES
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCV
The present work deals primarily with
I regret that two important works, Prof. Skinner's Ezekiel in this series, and Cornill's Jeremiah in Dr. Haupt's Sacred Books of the Old Testament, were published too late to be used in the preparation of this volume.
I have again to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Rev. T. H. Darlow, M.A., for a careful reading and much valuable criticism of my MS.
(The larger figures in black type are the chief references. Passages in i.-xx. are only noticed by way of illustration of later sections)
chap. | page | |
i. | 7 | 295 |
10 | 295, 308 | |
10-12 | 340 | |
15 | 295 | |
18 | 82 | |
ii. | 10, 11 | 51 |
27 | 290 | |
34 | 272 | |
iii. | 14 | 352 |
15 | 324 | |
iv. | 19 | 327 |
21 | 302 | |
v. | 31 | 15 |
vi. | 28 | 275 |
vii. | 4 | 20 |
5-9 | 272 | |
12-14 | 14 | |
viii. | 28 | 275 |
ix. | 11, x. 22 | 306 |
xi. | 19 | 6 |
xii. | 14 | 323 |
xiii. | 18 | 90 |
xiv. | 8 | 308 |
xv. | 1 | 296 |
1-4 | 240 | |
4 | 202 | |
xvi. | 1 | 6 |
10 | 274 | |
13 | 308 | |
14, 15 | 320 | |
xvii. | 1 | 353 |
23 | 291 | |
xix. | 4 | 272 |
15 | 304 | |
xx. | 2 | 272 |
xxi. | 1-10 | 141 |
3-6 | 303 | |
xxii. | 1-9 | 295 |
10-12 | 3 | |
13-19 | 63 | |
17 | 272 | |
20-30 | 80 | |
xxiii., | xxiv. | 96 |
xxiii. | 3-8 | 319 |
12 | 299, 302 | |
14 | 272 | |
25-27 | 288 | |
25-32 | 340 | |
33, 34 | 304 | |
40 | 307 | |
xxiv. | 99 |
|
6, 7 | 319 | |
xxv. | 5 | 297 |
9 | 215 | |
10 | 306, 307 | |
12 | 316 | |
15-38 | 211 | |
34-38 | 101 | |
xxvi. | 10 | |
3 | 298 | |
6 | 307 | |
xxvii., | xxviii. | 115 |
xxvii. | 9 | 340 |
xxix. | 131 | |
8 | 340 | |
10 | 316 | |
4-14 | 259 | |
23 | 273 | |
xxx., | xxxi. | 319 |
xxxi. | 31-38 | 346 |
xxxii. | 308 | |
26-35 | 274 | |
34, 35 | 285 | |
xxxiii. | 319 | |
xxxiv. | 141 | |
2 | 305 | |
21 | 304 | |
22 | 305 | |
xxxv. | 44 | |
15 | 297 | |
17 | 304 | |
xxxvi. | 28 | |
2 | 298 | |
30, 31 | 63 | |
31 | 83, 304 | |
xxxvii. | 1-10 | 141 |
8 | 305 | |
11-21 | 155 | |
12 | 309 | |
xxxix. | 172 | |
15-18 | 155 | |
xl. | 172 | |
xli. | 172 | |
xlii., | xliii. | 187 |
8-13 | 220 | |
xliv. | 197 | |
30 | 220, 229 | |
xlv. | 54 | |
xlvi. | 220 | |
25 | 229 | |
xlvii. | 230 | |
xlviii. | 234 | |
xlix. | 1-6 | 242 |
7-22 | 243 | |
23-27 | 248 | |
28-33 | 251 | |
34-39 | 255 | |
l., | li. | 258 |
lii. | 172 |
In the present stage of investigation of Old Testament Chronology, absolute accuracy cannot be claimed for such a table as the following. Hardly any, if any, of these dates are supported by a general consensus of opinion. On the other hand, the range of variation is, for the most part, not more than three or four years, and the table will furnish an approximately accurate idea of sequences and synchronisms. In other respects also the data admit of alternative interpretations, and the course of events is partly a matter of theory—hence the occasional insertion of (?).
CLASSICAL SYNCHRONISMS | JUDAH AND JEREMIAH | ASSYRIA | EGYPT |
Traditional date of the foundation of Rome, 753 | MANASSEH (?) | ||
Esarhaddon, 681 Assurbanipal, 668 |
|||
XXVIth Dynasty Psammetichus I., 666 | |||
Jeremiah born, probably between 655 and 645 AMON, 640 JOSIAH, 638 |
|||
Jeremiah's call in the 13th year of Josiah, 626 Scythian inroad into Western Asia |
Last kings of Assyria, number and names uncertain, 626-607-6 | Psammetichus besieges Ashdod for twenty-nine years | |
Habakkuk Zephaniah Publication of Deuteronomy, 621 |
BABYLON. Nabopolassar, 626 |
||
Josiah slain at Megiddo, 608 JEHOAHAZ, 608 (xxii. 10-12, Ch. I.) Deposed by Necho, who appoints JEHOIAKIM, 608 (xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30, 31, VI.) Jeremiah predicts ruin of Judah and is tried for blasphemy (xxvi., II.) |
FALL OF NINEVEH, 607-6 | Necho, 612 | |
FOURTH YEAR OF JEHOIAKIM, 605-4 | BATTLE OF CARCHEMISH (xlvi., XVII.) |
||
Nebuchadnezzar For spelling see note, page 4 |
Nebuchadnezzar, 604 | ||
Baruch writes Jeremiah's prophecies in a roll, which is read successively to the people, the nobles, and Jehoiakim, and destroyed by the king (xxxvi., III.; xlv., V.) | |||
Nebuchadnezzar invades Judah (?), the Rechabites take refuge in Jerusalem (?), the Jews rebuked by their example (xxxv., IV.) | |||
Jehoiakim submits to Nebuchadnezzar, revolts after three years, is attacked by various "bands," but dies before Nebuchadnezzar arrives |
|||
JEHOIACHIN, 597 (xxii. 20-30, VII.) Continues revolt, but surrenders to Nebuchadnezzar on hisarrival; is deposed and carried to Babylon with many of his subjects. Nebuchadnezzar appoints |
|||
ZEDEKIAH, 596 | Psammetichus II., 596 | ||
Jeremiah attempts to keep Zedekiah loyal to Nebuchadnezzar, and contends with priests and prophets who support Egyptian party (xxiii., xxiv., VIII.) | Ezekial | ||
Solon's legislation, 594 | Proposed confederation against Nebuchadnezzar denounced by Jeremiah, but supported by Hananiah; proposal abandoned; Hananiah dies (xxvii., xxviii., IX.), 593-2 | ||
Controversy by letter with hostile prophets at Babylon (xxix., X.) | |||
Judah revolts, encouraged by Hophra. Jerusalem is beseiged by Chaldeans. There bing no prospect of relief by Egypt, Jeremiah regains his influence and pledges the people by covenant to release their slaves. | |||
On the news of Hophra's advance, the Chaldeans raise the siege; the Egyptian party again become supreme and annul the covenant (xxi. 1-10, xxxiv., xxxvii. 1-10, XI.) | |||
Jeremiah attempts to leave the city, is arrested and imprisoned |
|||
Hophra retreats into Egypt and the Chaldeans renew the siege (xxxvii. 11-21, xxxviii., xxxix. 15-18, XII.) | |||
While imprisoned Jeremiah buys his kinsman's inheritance (xxxii., XXX.) | |||
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, 586 | Siege of Tyre | ||
Jeremiah remains for a month a prisoner amongst the other captives. Nebuzaradan arrives; arranges for deportation of bulk of population; appoints Gedaliah governor of residue; releases Jeremiah, who elects to join Gedaliah at Mizpah. Gedaliah murdered. Jeremioah carried off, but rescued by Johanan (xxxix.-xli., lii., XIII.) | |||
Johanan, in spite of Jeremiah's protest, goes down to Egypt and takes Jeremiah with him (xlii., xliii., XIV.) | |||
Jews in Egypt hold festival in honour of Queen of Heaven. Ineffectual protest of Jeremiah (xliv., XV.) | Amasis, 570 | ||
Nebuchadnezzar invades Egypt, (?) 568 | |||
Evil-Merodach, 561 | |||
Pistratus, 560-527 | Release of Jehoiachin | ||
CYRUS CONQUERS BABYLON AND GIVES THE JEWS PERMISSION TO RETURN, 538 |
page | |
PREFACE | v |
INDEX OF CHAPTERS | vii |
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE | ix |
BOOK I | |
PERSONAL UTTERANCES AND NARRATIVES | |
CHAPTER I | |
INTRODUCTORY: JEHOAHAZ. xxii. 10-12 | 3 |
|
|
CHAPTER II | |
A TRIAL FOR HERESY. xxvi.: cf. vii.-x. | 10 |
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CHAPTER III | |
THE ROLL. xxxvi. | 28 |
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CHAPTER IV | |
THE RECHABITES. xxxv. | 44 |
|
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CHAPTER V | |
BARUCH. xlv. | 54 |
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CHAPTER VI | |
THE JUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM. xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30, 31 | 63 |
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CHAPTER V | |
BARUCH. xlv. | 54 |
|
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CHAPTER VII | |
JEHOIACHIN. xxii. 20-30 | 80 |
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CHAPTER VIII |
|
BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS. xxiii.; xxiv. | 96 |
|
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CHAPTER IX | |
HANANIAH. xxvii., xxviii. | 115 |
|
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CHAPTER X | |
CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE EXILES. xxix. | 131 |
|
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CHAPTER XI | |
A BROKEN COVENANT. xxi. 1-10, xxxiv.; xxxvii. 1-10 | 141 |
|
|
CHAPTER XII | |
JEREMIAH'S IMPRISONMENT. xxxvii. 11-21, xxxviii., xxxix. 15-18 | 155 |
|
|
CHAPTER XIII |
|
GEDALIAH. xxxix.-xli., lii. | 172 |
|
|
CHAPTER XIV | |
THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT. xlii., xliii. | 187 |
|
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CHAPTER XV | |
THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN. xliv. | 197 |
|
|
BOOK II | |
PROPHECIES CONCERNING FOREIGN NATIONS | |
CHAPTER XVI | |
JEHOVAH AND THE NATIONS. xxv. 15-38 | 211 |
|
|
CHAPTER XVII | |
EGYPT. xliii. 8-13, xliv. 30, xlvi. | 220 |
|
|
CHAPTER XVIII |
|
THE PHILISTINES. xlvii. | 230 |
|
|
CHAPTER XIX | |
MOAB. xlviii. | 234 |
|
|
CHAPTER XX | |
AMMON. xlix. 1-6 | 242 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXI | |
EDOM. xlix. 7-22 | 243 |
|
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CHAPTER XXII | |
DAMASCUS. xlix. 23-27 | 248 |
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|
CHAPTER XXIII |
|
KEDAR AND HAZOR. xlix. 28-33 | 251 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXIV | |
ELAM. xlix. 34-39 | 255 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXV | |
BABYLON. l., li. | 258 |
|
|
BOOK III | |
JEREMIAH'S TEACHING CONCERNING ISRAEL AND JUDAH | |
CHAPTER XXVI | |
INTRODUCTORY | 267 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXVII | |
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION | 270 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXVIII |
|
PERSISTENT APOSTASY | 283 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXIX | |
RUIN. xxii. 1-9, xxvi. 14 | 295 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXX | |
RESTORATIONâI. THE SYMBOL. xxxii. | 308 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXXI | |
RESTORATIONâII. THE NEW ISRAEL. xxiii. 3-8, xxiv. 6, 7, xxx., xxxi., xxxiii. | 319 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXXII | |
RESTORATIONâIII. REUNION. xxxi. | 329 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXXIII |
|
RESTORATIONâIV. THE NEW COVENANT. xxxi. 31-38:
cf. |
346 |
|
|
CHAPTER XXXIV | |
RESTORATIONâV. REVIEW. xxx.-xxxiii. | 357 |
EPILOGUE | |
CHAPTER XXXV | |
JEREMIAH AND CHRIST | 367 |
|
Cf. Preface.
xxii. 10-12.
"Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more."—Jer. xxii. 10.
Such was the situation in b.c. 605, to which our
first great group of prophecies belongs. Two oppressors
of Israel—Assyria and Egypt—had been struck down
in rapid succession. When Nebuchadnezzar We know little of Nebuchadnezzar's campaigns. In
In Hezekiah's time, there had been an Egyptian
We are told in
When we turn to Jeremiah himself, the date "the
fourth year of Jehoiakim" reminds us that by this
time the prophet could look back upon a long and
sad experience; he had been called in the thirteenth
year of Josiah, some twenty-four years before. With
what sometimes seems to our limited intelligence the
strange irony of Providence, this lover of peace and
quietness was called to deliver a message of ruin and
condemnation, a message that could not fail to be
Much of this Jeremiah must have anticipated, but
there were some from whose position and character the
prophet expected acceptance, even of the most unpalatable
teaching of the Spirit of Jehovah. The personal
vindictiveness with which priests and prophets repaid
his loyalty to the Divine mission and his zeal for truth
came to him with a shock of surprise and bewilderment,
which was all the greater because his most
determined persecutors were his sacerdotal kinsmen
and neighbours at Anathoth. "Let us destroy the
tree," they said, "with the fruit thereof, and let us
cut him off from the land of the living, that his name
may be no more remembered." xi. 19.
He was not only repudiated by his clan, but also
forbidden by Jehovah to seek consolation and sympathy
in the closer ties of family life: "Thou shalt not take
a wife, thou shalt have no sons or daughters." xvi. 2.
The twelve years that intervened between Josiah's
Reformation and his defeat at Megiddo were the happiest
part of Jeremiah's ministry. It is not certain that any
But Josiah's attempt to realise a Kingdom of God
was short-lived; and, in a few months, Jeremiah saw
the whole fabric swept away. The king was defeated
and slain; and his religious policy was at once reversed
either by a popular revolution or a court intrigue. The
people of the land made Josiah's son Shallum king,
under the name of Jehoahaz. This young prince of
twenty-three only reigned three months, and was then
deposed and carried into captivity by Pharaoh Necho;
yet it is recorded of him, that he did evil in the sight
of Jehovah, according to all that his fathers had done. Cf. xxii. 26.
xxii. 10-12.
Ezekiel adds admiration to sympathy: Jehoahaz was
a young lion skilled to catch the prey, he devoured
men, the nations heard of him, he was taken in their
pit, and they brought him with hooks into the land
of Egypt.
Thus, at the time when we take up the narrative, the
government was in the hands of the party hostile to
Jeremiah, and the king, Jehoiakim, seems to have been
his personal enemy. Jeremiah himself was somewhere
between forty and fifty years old, a solitary man without
wife or child. His awful mission as the herald of ruin
clouded his spirit with inevitable gloom. Men resented
the stern sadness of his words and looks, and turned
from him with aversion and dislike. His unpopularity
had made him somewhat harsh; for intolerance is twice
curst, in that it inoculates its victims with the virus
xxvi.: cf. vii.-x.
"When Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that Jehovah had commanded him to speak unto all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold on him, saying, Thou shalt surely die."—Jer. xxvi. 8.
At the command of Jehovah, Jeremiah appeared
before the concourse of Jews, assembled at the Temple The expression is curious; it usually means all the cities of Judah,
except Jerusalem; the LXX. reading varies between "all the Jews"
and "all Judah."
The prophet was to stand in the court of the Temple
and repeat once more to the Jews his message of
warning and judgment, "all that I have charged thee
to speak unto them, thou shalt not keep back a single
word." The substance of this address is found in the
various prophecies which expose the sin and predict
the ruin of Judah. They have been dealt with in the
former volume See especially the exposition of chaps. vii.-x., which are often
supposed to be a reproduction of Jeremiah's utterance on this
occasion.
According to the universal principle of Hebrew
prophecy, the predictions of ruin were conditional;
they were still coupled with the offer of pardon to repentance,
and Jehovah did not forbid his prophet to
cherish a lingering hope that "perchance they may
hearken and turn every one from his evil way, so that
I may repent Me of the evil I purpose to inflict upon
them because of the evil of their doings." Probably
the phrase "every one from his evil way" is primarily
Jeremiah's audience, it must be observed, consisted
of worshippers on the way to the Temple, and would
correspond to an ordinary congregation of church-goers,
rather than to the casual crowd gathered round
a street preacher, or to the throngs of miners and
labourers who listened to Whitfield and Wesley. As
an acknowledged prophet, he was well within his rights
in expecting a hearing from the attendants at the feast,
and men would be curious to see and hear one who
had been the dominant influence in Judah during the
reign of Josiah. Moreover, in the absence of evening
newspapers and shop-windows, a prophet was too
exciting a distraction to be lightly neglected. From
Jehovah's charge to speak all that He had commanded
him to speak and not to keep back a word, we may
assume that Jeremiah's discourse was long: it was
also avowedly an old sermon The Hebrew apparently implies that the discourse was a repetition
of former prophecies.
Men hardened their hearts against inspired prophets as easily as they do against the most pathetic appeals of modern evangelists. Mingled with the crowd were Jeremiah's professional rivals, who detested both him and his teaching—priests who regarded him as a traitor to his own caste, prophets who envied his superior gifts and his force of passionate feeling. To these almost every word he uttered was offensive, but for a while there was nothing that roused them to very vehement anger. He was allowed to finish what he had to say, "to make an end of speaking all that Jehovah had commanded him." But in this peroration he had insisted on a subject that stung the indifferent into resentment and roused the priests and prophets to fury.
"Go ye now unto My place which was in Shiloh,
where I caused My name to dwell at the first, and
see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people
Israel. And now, because ye have done all these
works, saith Jehovah, and I spake unto you, rising up
early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called
you, but ye answered not: therefore will I do unto the
house, that is called by My name, wherein ye trust,
and unto the place which I gave to you and to your
fathers, as I have done to Shiloh." vii. 12-14. Even if chaps. vii.-x. are not a report of Jeremiah's
discourse on this occasion, the few lines in xxvi. are evidently a
mere summary, and vii. will best indicate the substance of his
utterance. The verses quoted occur towards the beginning of vii.-x., but from the emphatic reference to Shiloh in the brief abstract in
xxvi., Jeremiah must have dwelt on this topic, and the fact that
the outburst followed his conclusion suggests that he reserved this
subject for his peroration.
The Ephraimite sanctuary of Shiloh, long the home of the Ark and its priesthood, had been overthrown in some national catastrophe. Apparently when it was destroyed it was no mere tent, but a substantial building of stone, and its ruins remained as a permanent monument of the fugitive glory of even the most sacred shrine.
The very presence of his audience in the place where
they were met showed their reverence for the Temple:
the priests were naturally devotees of their own shrine;
of the prophets Jeremiah himself had said, "The
prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule in
accordance with their teaching." v. 31.
Meanwhile the crowd was increasing: new worshippers
were arriving, and others as they left the
Temple were attracted to the scene of the disturbance.
Doubtless too the mob, always at the service of persecutors,
hurried up in hope of finding opportunities
for mischief and violence. Some six and a half
centuries later, history repeated itself on the same spot,
when the Asiatic Jews saw Paul in the Temple and
"laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help:
This is the man, that teacheth all men everywhere
against the people and the law and this place, ... and
all the city was moved, and the people ran together
and laid hold on Paul."
Our narrative, as it stands, is apparently incomplete:
we find Jeremiah before the tribunal of the princes, but
we are not told how he came there; whether the civil
authorities intervened to protect him, as Claudius
Lysias came down with his soldiers and centurions and
rescued Paul, or whether Jeremiah's enemies observed
legal forms, as Annas and Caiaphas did when they
arrested Christ. But, in any case, "the princes of
Judah, when they heard these things, came up from
the palace into the Temple, and took their seats as
judges at the entry of the new gate of the Temple."
The "princes of Judah" play a conspicuous part in
the last period of the Jewish monarchy: we have little
definite information about them, and are left to conjecture
that they were an aristocratic oligarchy or an
official clique, or both; but it is clear that they were
a dominant force in the state, with recognised constitutional
status, and that they often controlled the
king himself. We are also ignorant as to the "new
Before these judges, Jeremiah's ecclesiastical accusers
brought a formal charge; they said, almost in the
very words which the high priest and the Sanhedrin
used of Christ, "This man is worthy of death, for he
hath prophesied against this city, as ye have heard
with your ears"—i.e. when he said, "This house
shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate
without inhabitant." Such accusations have been
always on the lips of those who have denounced Christ
and His disciples as heretics. One charge against
Himself was that He said, "I will destroy this Temple
that is made with hands, and in three days I will
build another that is made without hands."
How was it that these priests and prophets thought
that their princes might be induced to condemn Jeremiah
to death for predicting the destruction of the
Temple? A prophet would not run much risk nowadays
by announcing that St. Paul's should be made
like Stonehenge, or St. Peter's like the Parthenon.
Expositors of Daniel and the Apocalypse habitually
fix the end of the world a few years in advance of
In order to realise the situation we must consider
the place which the Temple held in the hopes and
affections of the Jews. They had always been proud
of their royal sanctuary at Jerusalem, but within the
last hundred and fifty years it had acquired a unique
importance for the religion of Israel. First Hezekiah,
and then Josiah, had taken away the other high places
and altars at which Jehovah was worshipped, and had
said to Judah and Jerusalem, "Ye shall worship before
this altar."
When Hezekiah abolished the high places, did not
Jehovah set the seal of approval upon his policy by
destroying the army of Sennacherib? Was not this
great deliverance wrought to guard the Temple against
desecration and destruction, and would not Jehovah
work out a like salvation in any future time of danger?
The destruction of Sennacherib was essential to the
religious future of Israel and of mankind; but it had
a very mingled influence upon the generations immediately
following. They were like a man who has
won a great prize in a lottery, or who has, quite
unexpectedly, come into an immense inheritance. They
ignored the unwelcome thought that the Divine protection
depended on spiritual and moral conditions, and
they clung to the superstitious faith that at any moment,
even in the last extremity of danger and at the eleventh
hour, Jehovah might, nay, even must, intervene. The
priests and the inhabitants of Jerusalem could look on
with comparative composure while the country was
ravaged, and the outlying towns were taken and pillaged;
Jerusalem itself might seem on the verge of
falling into the hands of the enemy, but they still
trusted in their Palladium. Jerusalem could not perish,
because it contained the one sanctuary of Jehovah;
they sought to silence their own fears and to drown
the warning voice of the prophet by vociferating their
watchword: "The Temple of Jehovah! the Temple vii. 4.
In prosperous times a nation may forget its Palladium, and may tolerate doubts as to its efficacy; but the strength of the Jews was broken, their resources were exhausted, and they were clinging in an agony of conflicting hopes and fears to their faith in the inviolability of the Temple. To destroy their confidence was like snatching away a plank from a drowning man. When Jeremiah made the attempt, they struck back with the fierce energy of despair. It does not seem that at this time the city was in any immediate danger; the incident rather falls in the period of quiet submission to Pharaoh Necho that preceded the battle of Carchemish. But the disaster of Megiddo was fresh in men's memories, and in the unsettled state of Eastern Asia no one knew how soon some other invader might advance against the city. On the other hand, in the quiet interval, hopes began to revive, and men were incensed when the prophet made haste to nip these hopes in the bud, all the more so because their excited anticipations of future glory had so little solid basis. Jeremiah's appeal to the ill-omened precedent of Shiloh naturally roused the sanguine and despondent alike into frenzy.
Jeremiah's defence was simple and direct: "Jehovah
sent me to prophesy all that ye have heard against this
house and against this city. Now therefore amend
your ways and your doings, and hearken unto the
voice of Jehovah your God, that He may repent Him
of the evil that He hath spoken against you. As for
me, behold, I am in your hands: do unto me as it seems
But to return to the main feature in Jeremiah's
defence. His accusers' contention was that his teaching
was so utterly blasphemous, so entirely opposed
to every tradition and principle of true religion—or,
as we should say, so much at variance with all orthodoxy—that
it could not be a word of Jehovah. Jeremiah
does not attempt to discuss the relation of his
teaching to the possible limits of Jewish orthodoxy.
He bases his defence on the bare assertion of his
prophetic mission—Jehovah had sent him. He assumes
that there is no room for evidence or discussion; it is
At this point again the sequence of events is not clear; possibly the account was compiled from the imperfect recollections of more than one of the spectators. The pronouncement of the princes and the people seems, at first sight, a formal acquittal that should have ended the trial, and left no room for the subsequent intervention of "certain of the elders," otherwise the trial seems to have come to no definite conclusion, and the incident simply terminated in the personal protection given to Jeremiah by Ahikam ben Shaphan. Possibly, however, the tribunal of the princes was not governed by any strict rules of procedure; and the force of the argument used by the elders does not depend on the exact stage of the trial at which it was introduced.
Either Jeremiah was not entirely successful in his
attempt to get the matter disposed of on the sole
ground of his own prophetic authority, or else the
elders were anxious to secure weight and finality for
the acquittal, by bringing forward arguments in its
support. The elders were an ancient Israelite institution,
and probably still represented the patriarchal side
of the national life; nothing is said as to their relation
to the princes, and this might not be very clearly
defined. The elders appealed, by way of precedent,
to an otherwise unrecorded incident of the reign of
Hezekiah. Micah the Morasthite had uttered similar
threats against Jerusalem and the Temple: "Zion
shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall
become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the
high places of the forest."
We have here an early and rudimentary example of
religious toleration, of the willingness, however reluctant,
But unfortunately no precedent can bind succeeding
generations, and both Judaism and Christianity have
sinned grievously against the lesson of this chapter.
Jehoiakim himself soon broke through the feeble restraint
of this new-born tolerance. The writer adds
an incident that must have happened somewhat later, This incident cannot be part of the speech of the elders; it would
only have told against the point they were trying to make. The
various phases—prophesy, persecution, flight, capture, and execution—must
have taken some time, and can scarcely have preceded
Jeremiah's utterance "at the beginning of the reign of King
Jehoiakim."
This chapter is so full of suggestive teaching that
we can only touch upon two or three of its more
obvious lessons. The dogma which shaped the charge Assuming his sympathy with Deuteronomy.
xxxvi.
"Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee."—Jer. xxxvi. 2.
Under these circumstances, Jeremiah would find it necessary to restrict his activity. Utter indifference to danger was one of the most ordinary characteristics of Hebrew prophets, and Jeremiah was certainly not wanting in the desperate courage which may be found in any Mohammedan dervish. At the same time he was far too practical, too free from morbid self-consciousness, to court martyrdom for its own sake. If he had presented himself again in the Temple when it was crowded with worshippers, his life might have been taken in a popular tumult, while his mission was still only half accomplished. Possibly his priestly enemies had found means to exclude him from the sacred precincts.
Man's extremity was God's opportunity; this temporary and partial silencing of Jeremiah led to a new departure, which made the influence of his teaching more extensive and permanent. He was commanded to commit his prophecies to writing. The restriction of his active ministry was to bear rich fruit, like Paul's imprisonment, and Athanasius' exile, and Luther's sojourn in the Wartburg. A short time since there was great danger that Jeremiah and the Divine message entrusted to him would perish together. He did not know how soon he might become once more the mark of popular fury, nor whether Ahikam would still be able to protect him. The roll of the book could speak even if he were put to death.
But Jeremiah was not thinking chiefly about what
would become of his teaching if he himself perished.
He had an immediate and particular end in view. His
tenacious persistence was not to be baffled by the
In the record of the Divine command to Jeremiah, there is no express statement as to what was to be done with the roll; but as the object of writing it was that "perchance the house of Judah might hear and repent," it is evident that from the first it was intended to be read to the people.
There is considerable difference of opinion See Cheyne, Giesebrecht, Orelli, etc. R.V. "against." The Hebrew is ambiguous. So Septuagint. The Hebrew text has Israel, which is a less
accurate description of the prophecies, and is less relevant to this
particular occasion. Jeremiah (Men of the Bible), p. 132.
Jeremiah dictated his prophecies, as St. Paul did
his epistles, to an amanuensis; he called his disciple
Baruch Cf. Chap. V. on "Baruch."
It seems clear that, as in xxvi., the narrative does not
exactly follow the order of events, Verses 5-8 seem to be a brief alternative account to 9-26.
When the manuscript was ready, its authors had to
determine the right time at which to read it; they
found their desired opportunity in the fast proclaimed
in the ninth month. This was evidently an extraordinary
fast, appointed in view of some pressing danger;
and, in the year following the battle of Carchemish,
this would naturally be the advance of Nebuchadnezzar.
As our incident took place in the depth of winter, the
months must be reckoned according to the Babylonian
year, which began in April; and the ninth month,
Kisleu, would roughly correspond to our December.
The dreaded invasion would be looked for early in the
following spring, "at the time when kings go out to
battle."
Jeremiah does not seem to have absolutely determined
from the first that the reading of the roll by
Baruch was to be a substitute for his own presence.
He had probably hoped that some change for the
better in the situation might justify his appearance
before a great gathering in the Temple. But when
the time came he was "hindered" 'ĀCÃR: A.V., R.V., "shut up"; R.V. margin, "restrained." The
term is used in xxxiii. 1, xxxix. 15, in the sense of "imprisoned,"
but here Jeremiah appears to be at liberty. The phrase 'ĀC̦ÃR
W ĀZÃBH, A.V. "shut up or left" (
Accordingly it was Baruch who went up to the
Temple. Though he is said to have read the book
"in the ears of all the people," he does not seem to have
challenged universal attention as openly as Jeremiah
had done; he did not stand forth in the court of the
Temple, xxvi. 2. So Cheyne; the Hebrew does not make it clear whether the title
"scribe" refers to the father or the son. Giesebrecht understands
it of Shaphan, who appears as scribe in Cf. xxvi. 10.
"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose
the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the
yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye
break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the
hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out
to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou
cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine
own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the
morning, and thy healing shall spring forth speedily:
and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory
of Jehovah shall be thy rearward."
Jeremiah's opponents did not grudge Jehovah His
burnt-offerings and calves of a year old; He was
welcome to thousands of rams, and ten thousands of
rivers of oil. They were even willing to give their
firstborn for their transgression, the fruit of their body
for the sin of their soul; but they were not prepared
"to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with their God."
We are not told how Jeremiah and the priests and prophets formulated the points at issue between them, which were so thoroughly and universally understood that the record takes them for granted. Possibly Jeremiah contended for the recognition of Deuteronomy, with its lofty ideals of pure religion and a humanitarian order of society. But, in any case, these incidents were an early phase of the age-long struggle of the prophets of God against the popular attempt to make ritual and sensuous emotion into excuses for ignoring morality, and to offer the cheap sacrifice of a few unforbidden pleasures, rather than surrender the greed of grain, the lust of power, and the sweetness of revenge.
When the multitudes caught the sound of Baruch's voice and saw him sitting in the doorway of Gemariah's chamber, they knew exactly what they would hear. To them he was almost as antagonistic as a Protestant evangelist would be to the worshippers at some great Romanist feast; or perhaps we might find a closer parallel in a Low Church bishop addressing a ritualistic audience. For the hearts of these hearers were not steeled by the consciousness of any formal schism. Baruch and the great prophet whom he represented did not stand outside the recognised limits of Divine inspiration. While the priests and prophets and their adherents repudiated his teaching as heretical, they were still haunted by the fear that, at any rate, his threats might have some Divine authority. Apart from all theology, the prophet of evil always finds an ally in the nervous fears and guilty conscience of his hearer.
The feelings of the people would be similar to those
with which they had heard the same threats against
Judah, the city and the Temple, from Jeremiah himself.
But the excitement aroused by the defeat of Pharaoh
and the hasty return of Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon
had died away. The imminence of a new invasion
made it evident that this had not been the Divine
deliverance of Judah. The people were cowed by
what must have seemed to many the approaching fulfilments
of former threatenings; the ritual of a fast
was in itself depressing; so that they had little spirit
to resent the message of doom. Perhaps too there was
less to resent: the prophecies were the same, but
Baruch may have been less unpopular than Jeremiah,
and his reading would be tame and ineffective compared
to the fiery eloquence of his master. Moreover the
powerful protection which shielded him was indicated
The reading passed off without any hostile demonstration
on the part of the people, and Micaiah went in
search of his father to describe to him the scene he
had just witnessed. He found him in the palace, in
the chamber of the secretary of state, Elishama, attending
a council of the princes. There were present,
amongst others, Elnathan ben Achbor, who brought
Uriah back from Egypt, Delaiah ben Shemaiah, and
Zedekiah ben Hananiah. Micaiah told them what he
had heard. They at once sent for Baruch and the roll.
Their messenger, Jehudi ben Nethaniah, seems to have
been a kind of court-usher. His name signifies "the
Jew," and as his great-grandfather was Cushi, "the
Ethiopian," it has been suggested that he came of a
family of Ethiopian descent, which had only attained in
his generation to Jewish citizenship. So Orelli, in loco.
When Baruch arrived, the princes greeted him with
the courtesy and even deference due to the favourite
disciple of a distinguished prophet. They invited him
to sit down and read them the roll. Baruch obeyed;
the method of reading suited the enclosed room and the
quiet, interested audience of responsible men, better
than the swaying crowd gathered round the door of
Gemariah's chamber. Baruch now had before him
ministers of state who knew from their official information
and experience how extremely probable it was that
the words to which they were listening would find a
speedy and complete fulfilment. Baruch must almost
have seemed to them like a doomster who announces
to a condemned criminal the ghastly details of his Hebrew text "to Baruch," which LXX. omits. In verse 18 the word "with ink" is not in the LXX., and may be
an accidental repetition of the similar word for "his mouth."
The princes were well aware that the prophet's action would probably be resented and punished by Jehoiakim. They said to Baruch: "Do you and Jeremiah go and hide yourselves, and let no one know where you are." They kept the roll and laid it up in Elishama's room; then they went to the king. They found him in his winter room, in the inner court of the palace, sitting in front of a brasier of burning charcoal. On this fast-day the king's mind might well be careful and troubled, as he meditated on the kind of treatment that he, the nominee of Pharaoh Necho, was likely to receive from Nebuchadnezzar. We cannot tell whether he contemplated resistance or had already resolved to submit to the conqueror. In either case he would wish to act on his own initiative, and might be anxious lest a Chaldean party should get the upper hand in Jerusalem and surrender him and the city to the invader.
When the princes entered, their number and their
manner would at once indicate to him that their errand
was both serious and disagreeable. He seems to have
listened in silence while they made their report of the
incident at the door of Gemariah's chamber and their
own interview with Baruch. The A.V. and R.V. "all the words" is misleading: it should
rather be "everything"; the princes did not recite all the contents of
the roll. The English tenses "cut," "cast," are ambiguous, but the Hebrew
implies that the "cutting" and "casting on the fire" were repeated
again and again. One is called Jerahmeel the son of Hammelech (A.V.), or "the
king's son" (R.V.); if the latter is correct we must understand merely
a prince of the blood-royal and not a son of Jehoiakim, who was only
thirty.
Thus the career of Baruch's roll was summarily
cut short. But it had done its work; it had been read
on three separate occasions, first before the people,
then before the princes, and last of all before the king
and his court. If Jeremiah had appeared in person,
he might have been at once arrested, and put to death
like Uriah. No doubt this threefold recital was, on
the whole, a failure; Jeremiah's party among the
The sequel showed how much more prudent it was
to risk the existence of a roll rather than the life of a
prophet. Jeremiah was only encouraged to persevere.
By the Divine command, he dictated his prophecies
afresh to Baruch, adding besides unto them many like
words. Possibly other copies were made of the whole
or parts of this roll, and were secretly circulated, read,
and talked about. We are not told whether Jehoiakim
ever heard this new roll; but, as one of the many like
things added to the older prophecies was a terrible
personal condemnation of the king, For verses 29-31 see Chap. VI., where they are dealt with in
connection with xxii. 13-19.
The second roll was, doubtless, one of the main The supposition that Jeremiah had written notes of previous
prophecies is not an impossible one, but it is a pure conjecture.
The important part played by Baruch as Jeremiah's secretary and representative must have invested him with full authority to speak for his master and expound his views; such authority points to Baruch as the natural editor of our present book, which is virtually the "Life and Writings" of the prophet. The last words of our chapter are ambiguous, perhaps intentionally. They simply state that many like words were added, and do not say by whom; they might even include additions made later on by Baruch from his own reminiscences.
In conclusion, we may notice that both the first and
second copies of the roll were written by the direct Cf. Orelli, in loco.
xxxv.
"Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before Me for ever."—Jer. xxxv. 19.
The marauding bands of Chaldeans and their allies
had driven the country people in crowds into Jerusalem,
and among them the nomad clan of the Rechabites.
According to
These Rechabites were conspicuous among the
Jewish farmers and townsfolk by their rigid adherence
to the habits of nomad life; and it was this peculiarity
that attracted the notice of Jeremiah, and made them
a suitable object-lesson to the recreant Jews. The
The laws or customs of Jonadab, like the Ten Commandments, were chiefly negative: "Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons for ever: neither shall ye build houses, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyards, nor have any: but all your days ye shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days in the land wherein ye are strangers."
Various parallels have been found to the customs of
the Rechabites. The Hebrew Nazarites abstained from
wine and strong drink, from grapes and grape juice
and everything made of the vine, "from the kernels
even to the husk." xix. 94. Scott, Legend of Montrose, chap. xxii.
Till this recent invasion, the Rechabites had faithfully
observed their ancestral laws, but the stress of
circumstances had now driven them into a fortified
city, possibly even into houses, though it is more
probable that they were encamped in some open space
within the walls. The term "house of the Rechabites" in verse 2 means "family"
or "clan," and does not refer to a building. Eight Jeremiahs occur in O.T. Literally "sons of Hanan."
These exact specifications of person and place are Jeremiah, according to this view, had no interview with the
Rechabites, but made an imaginary incident a text for his discourse.
After these details Jeremiah next tells us how he set before his guests bowls of wine and cups, and invited them to drink. Probably Jaazaniah and his clansmen were aware that the scene was intended to have symbolic religious significance. They would not suppose that the prophet had invited them all, in this solemn fashion, merely to take a cup of wine; and they would welcome an opportunity of showing their loyalty to their own peculiar customs. They said: "We will drink no wine: for our father Jonadab the son of Rechab commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons for ever." They further recounted Jonadab's other commands and their own scrupulous obedience in every point, except that now they had been compelled to seek refuge in a walled city.
Then the word of Jehovah came unto Jeremiah; he
was commanded to make yet another appeal to the
Jews, by contrasting their disobedience with the fidelity
of the Rechabites. The Divine King and Father of
Israel had been untiring in His instruction and admonitions:
"I have spoken unto you, rising up early and
speaking." He had addressed them in familiar fashion
through their fellow-countrymen: "I have sent also unto
you all My servants the prophets, rising up early and
sending them." Yet they had not hearkened unto the
God of Israel or His prophets. The Rechabites had
received no special revelation; they had not been
Obedience and disobedience would bring forth their natural fruit. "I will bring upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, all the evil that I have pronounced against them: because I have spoken unto them, but they have not heard; and I have called unto them, but they have not answered." But because the Rechabites obeyed the commandment of their father Jonadab, "Therefore thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before Me for ever."
Jehovah's approval of the obedience of the Rechabites
is quite independent of the specific commands which
they obeyed. It does not bind us to abstain from
wine any more than from building houses and sowing
seed. Jeremiah himself, for instance, would have had
no more hesitation in drinking wine than in sowing
his field at Anathoth. The tribal customs of the
Rechabites had no authority whatever over him. Nor
is it exactly his object to set forth the merit of obedience
and its certain and great reward. These truths
are rather touched upon incidentally. What Jeremiah
seeks to emphasise is the gross, extreme, unique
wickedness of Israel's disobedience. Jehovah had
not looked for any special virtue in His people. His
Torah was not made up of counsels of perfection. He
had only expected the loyalty that Moab paid to
Chemosh, and Tyre and Sidon to Baal. He would
have been satisfied if Israel had observed His laws
as faithfully as the nomads of the desert kept up ii. 10, 11.
Buddhists and Mohammedans have been held up as
modern examples to rebuke the Church, though as
a rule with scant justification. Perhaps material for
a more relevant contrast may be found nearer home.
Christian societies have been charged with conducting
their affairs by methods to which a respectable business
firm would not stoop; they are said to be less
scrupulous in their dealings and less chivalrous in
their honour than the devotees of pleasure; at their
gatherings they are sometimes supposed to lack the
mutual courtesy of members of a Legislature or a
Chamber of Commerce. The history of councils and
And yet these contrasts do not argue any real moral and religious superiority of the Rechabites over the Jews or of unbelievers over professing Christians. It was comparatively easy to abstain from wine and to wander over wide pasture lands instead of living cooped up in cities—far easier than to attain to the great ideals of Deuteronomy and the prophets. It is always easier to conform to the code of business and society than to live according to the Spirit of Christ. The fatal sin of Judah was not that it fell so far short of its ideals, but that it repudiated them. So long as we lament our own failures and still cling to the Name and Faith of Christ, we are not shut out from mercy; our supreme sin is to crucify Christ afresh, by denying the power of His gospel, while we retain its empty form.
The reward promised to the Rechabites for their obedience was that "Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before Me for ever"; to stand before Jehovah is often used to describe the exercise of priestly or prophetic ministry. It has been suggested that the Rechabites were hereby promoted to the status of the true Israel, "a kingdom of priests"; but this phrase may merely mean that their clan should continue in existence. Loyal observance of national law, the subordination of individual caprice and selfishness to the interests of the community, make up a large part of that righteousness that establisheth a nation.
Here, as elsewhere, students of prophecy have been
anxious to discover some literal fulfilment; and have Ch. Hist., ii. 23.
But the fidelity of Jehovah to His promises does not depend upon our unearthing obscure tribes in distant deserts. The gifts of God are without repentance, but they have their inexorable conditions; no nation can flourish for centuries on the virtues of its ancestors. The Rechabites may have vanished in the ordinary stream of history, and yet we can hold that Jeremiah's prediction has been fulfilled and is still being fulfilled. No scriptural prophecy is limited in its application to an individual or a race, and every nation possessed by the spirit of true patriotism shall "stand before Jehovah for ever."
xlv.
"Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey."—Jer. xlv. 5.
Baruch ben Neriah is said by Josephus Antt., x. 9, 1. xxxvi. 26, 32.
Baruch's relation to Jeremiah is not expressly defined,
but it is clearly indicated in the various narratives in
which he is referred to. We find him in constant
attendance upon the prophet, acting both as his "scribe,"
or secretary, and as his mouthpiece. The relation
was that of Joshua to Moses, of Elisha to Elijah, of
Gehazi to Elisha, of Mark to Paul and Barnabas, and
of Timothy to Paul. It is described in the case of
Joshua and Mark by the term "minister," while Elisha
is characterised as having "poured water on the hands
of Elijah." The "minister" was at once personal
attendant, disciple, representative, and possible successor
of the prophet. The position has its analogue
in the service of the squire to the mediæval knight,
and in that of an unpaid private secretary to a modern
cabinet minister. Squires expected to become knights,
and private secretaries hope for a seat in future cabinets.
Baruch is first In order of time, ch. xxxvi.
We next hear of Baruch in connection with the
symbolic purchase of the field at Anathoth. xxxii.
We are nowhere told that Baruch himself was either
beaten or imprisoned, but it is not improbable that he
shared Jeremiah's fortunes even to these extremities.
We next hear of him as carried down to Egypt xliii. Antt., x. 9, 1. Bissell's Introduction to Baruch in Lange's Commentary.
It has often been supposed that our present Book of
Jeremiah, in some stage of its formation, was edited
or compiled by Baruch, and that this book may be
ranked with biographies—like Stanley's Life of
Arnold—of great teachers by their old disciples.
He was certainly the amanuensis of the roll, which
must have been the most valuable authority for any
editor of Jeremiah's prophecies. And the amanuensis
might very easily become the editor. If an edition of
the book was compiled in Jeremiah's lifetime, we
should naturally expect him to use Baruch's assistance;
if it first took shape after the prophet's death, and if
Baruch survived, no one would be better able to compile
the "Life and Works of Jeremiah" than his So LXX., which here probably gives the true order.
Almost the final reference to Baruch suggests another
aspect of his relation to Jeremiah. The Jewish captains
accused him of unduly influencing his master against
Egypt and in favour of Chaldea. Whatever truth
there may have been in this particular charge, we
gather that popular opinion credited Baruch with considerable
influence over Jeremiah, and probably popular
opinion was not far wrong. Nothing said about
Baruch suggests any vein of weakness in his character,
such as Paul evidently recognised in Timothy. His
few appearances upon the scene rather leave the
impression of strength and self-reliance, perhaps even
self-assertion. If we knew more about him, possibly
indeed if any one else had compiled these "Memorabilia,"
we might discover that much in Jeremiah's policy and
teaching was due to Baruch, and that the master leaned
somewhat heavily upon the sympathy of the disciple.
The qualities that make a successful man of action do
not always exempt their possessor from being directed
or even controlled by his followers. It would be
interesting to discover how much of Luther is Melanchthon.
The short prophecy which has furnished a text for this chapter shows that Jeremiah was not unaware of Baruch's tendency to self-assertion, and even felt that sometimes it required a check. Apparently chapter xlv. once formed the immediate continuation of chapter xxxvi., the narrative of the incident of the roll. It was "the word spoken by Jeremiah the prophet to Baruch ben Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim." The reference evidently is to xxxvi. 32, where we are told that Baruch wrote, at Jeremiah's dictation, all the words of the book that had been burnt, and many like words.
Clearly Baruch had not received Jeremiah's message
as to the sin and ruin of Judah without strong protest.
It was as distasteful to him as to all patriotic Jews and
even to Jeremiah himself. Baruch had not yet been
able to accept this heavy burden or to look beyond to
the brighter promise of the future. He broke out into
bitter complaint: "Woe is me now! for Jehovah
hath added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my
groaning, and find no rest." The clause "I am weary with my groaning" also occurs in
The concluding clause of the verse is omitted by LXX., and is
probably a gloss added to indicate that the ruin would not be confined
to Judah, but would extend "over the whole earth." Cf. Kautzsch.
According to Renan, Hist. of Israel, iii., 293.
"Dans une catastrophe qui va englober l'humanité tout entière, il est beau de venir réclamer de petites faveurs d'exception! Baruch aura la vie sauve partout où il ira; qu'il s'en contente!"
We prefer a more generous interpretation. To a
selfish man, unless indeed he clung to bare life in
craven terror or mere animal tenacity, such an existence
as Baruch was promised would have seemed no boon
at all. Imprisonment in a besieged and starving city,
captivity and exile, his fellow-countrymen's ill-will and
resentment from first to last—these experiences would
be hard to recognise as privileges bestowed by Jehovah.
Had Baruch been wholly self-centred, he might well
have craved death instead, like Job, nay, like Jeremiah
himself. But life meant for him continued ministry
to his master, the high privilege of supporting him
in his witness to Jehovah. If, as seems almost certain,
we owe to Baruch the preservation of Jeremiah's prophecies,
then indeed the life that was given him for
a prey must have been precious to him as the devoted
We may venture on a wider application of the promise, "Thy life shall be given thee for a prey." Life is not merely continued existence in the body: life has come to mean spirit and character, so that Christ could say, "He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." In this sense the loyal servant of God wins as his prey, out of all painful experiences, a fuller and nobler life. Other rewards may come in due season, but this is the most certain and the most sufficient. For Baruch, constant devotion to a hated and persecuted master, uncompromising utterance of unpopular truth, had their chief issue in the redemption of his own inward life.
xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30, 31.
"Jehoiakim ... slew him (Uriah) with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people."—Jer. xxvi. 23.
"Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning Jehoiakim, ... He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem."—Jer. xxii. 18, 19.
"Jehoiakim ... did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his fathers had done."—2 Kings xxiii. 36, 37.
Jehoiakim was placed upon the throne as the nominee
Jeremiah's judgment upon Jehoiakim and his doings
is contained in the two passages which form the subject
of this chapter. The utterance in xxxvi. 30, 31,
was evoked by the destruction of the roll, and we may
fairly assume that xxii. 13-19 was also delivered after
that incident. The immediate context of the latter
paragraph throws no light on the date of its origin.
Chapter xxii. is a series of judgments on the successors
of Josiah, and was certainly composed after the deposition
of Jehoiachin, probably during the reign of
Zedekiah; but the section on Jehoiakim must have been
uttered at an earlier period. Renan indeed imagines iii. 274.
Let us now consider these utterances. In xxxvi. 30a
we read, "Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning
Jehoiakim king of Judah, He shall have none to sit
upon the throne of David." Later on, xxii. 30.
The next clause in the sentence on Jehoiakim runs: "His dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost." The same doom is repeated in the later prophecy:—
R.V., "Ah my brother! or Ah sister!... Ah lord! or Ah his glory!" The text is based on an emendation of Graetz, following the Syriac. (Giesebrecht.)
Jeremiah did not need to draw upon his imagination for this vision of judgment. When the words were uttered, his memory called up the murder of Uriah ben Shemaiah and the dishonour done to his corpse. Uriah's only guilt had been his zeal for the truth that Jeremiah had proclaimed. Though Jehoiakim and his party had not dared to touch Jeremiah or had not been able to reach him, they had struck his influence by killing Uriah. But for their hatred of the master, the disciple might have been spared. And Jeremiah had neither been able to protect him, nor allowed to share his fate. Any generous spirit will understand how Jeremiah's whole nature was possessed and agitated by a tempest of righteous indignation, how utterly humiliated he felt to be compelled to stand by in helpless impotence. And now, when the tyrant had filled up the measure of his iniquity, when the imperious impulse of the Divine Spirit bade the prophet speak the doom of his king, there breaks forth at last the long pent-up cry for vengeance: "Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saint"—let the persecutor suffer the agony and shame which he inflicted on God's martyr, fling out the murderer's corpse unburied, let it lie and rot upon the dishonoured grave of his victim.
Can we say, Amen? Not perhaps without some
And yet, when we read such a treatise as Lactantius
wrote Concerning the Deaths of Persecutors, we cannot
but recoil. We are shocked at the stern satisfaction
he evinces in the miserable ends of Maximin
and Galerius, and other enemies of the true faith.
Discreet historians have made large use of this work,
without thinking it desirable to give an explicit account
of its character and spirit. Biographers of Lactantius
feel constrained to offer a half-hearted apology for the
De Morte Persecutorum. Similarly we find ourselves
of one mind with Gibbon, Chap. xiii.
How far Jeremiah would have shared such modern
sentiment, it is hard to say. At any rate his personal
feeling is kept in the background; it is postponed to
the more patient and deliberate judgment of the Divine
Spirit, and subordinated to broad considerations of
public morality. We have no right to contrast Jeremiah
with our Lord and His proto-martyr Stephen, because
we have no prayer of the ancient prophet to rank with,
"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they
do," or again with, "Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge." Christ and His disciple forgave wrongs done
to themselves: they did not condone the murder of
their brethren. In the Apocalypse, which concludes
the English Bible, and was long regarded as God's
final revelation, His last word to man, the souls of the
martyrs cry out from beneath the altar: "How long,
O Master, the holy and true, dost Thou not judge and
avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" Apc. vi. 10.
Doubtless God will avenge His own elect, and the
appeal for justice may be neither ignoble nor vindictive.
But such prayers, beyond all others, must be offered
in humble submission to the Judge of all. When
our righteous indignation claims to pass its own
sentence, we do well to remember that our halting
When Saul set out for Damascus, "breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," the survivors of his victims cried out for a swift punishment of the persecutor, and believed that their prayers were echoed by martyred souls in the heavenly Temple. If that ninth chapter of the Acts had recorded how Saul of Tarsus was struck dead by the lightnings of the wrath of God, preachers down all the Christian centuries would have moralised on the righteous Divine judgment. Saul would have found his place in the homiletic Chamber of Horrors with Ananias and Sapphira, Herod and Pilate, Nero and Diocletian. Yet the Captain of our salvation, choosing His lieutenants, passes over many a man with blameless record, and allots the highest post to this blood-stained persecutor. No wonder that Paul, if only in utter self-contempt, emphasised the doctrine of Divine election. Verily God's ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.
Still, however, we easily see that Paul and Jehoiakim belong to two different classes. The persecutor who attempts in honest but misguided zeal to make others endorse his own prejudices, and turn a deaf ear with him to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, must not be ranked with politicians who sacrifice to their own private interests the Revelation and the Prophets of God.
This prediction which we have been discussing of Jehoiakim's shameful end is followed in the passage in chapter xxxvi. by a general announcement of universal judgment, couched in Jeremiah's usual comprehensive style:—
"I will visit their sin upon him and upon his children and upon his servants, and I will bring upon them and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah all the evil which I spake unto them and they did not hearken."
In chapter xxii. the sentence upon Jehoiakim is prefaced
by a statement of the crimes for which he was
punished. His eyes and his heart were wholly
possessed by avarice and cruelty; as an administrator
he was active in oppression and violence. xxii. 17. The exact meaning of the word translated "violence"
(so A.V., R.V.) is very doubtful.
Renan says Hist., etc., iii. 266.
The supreme luxury of vulgar minds is the use of
wealth as a means of display, and monarchs have
always delighted in the erection of vast and ostentatious
buildings. At this time Egypt and Babylon vied with
one another in pretentious architecture. In addition
to much useful engineering work, Psammetichus I.
made large additions to the temples and public
edifices at Memphis, Thebes, Sais, and elsewhere, so
that "the entire valley of the Nile became little more
than one huge workshop, where stone-cutters and
masons, bricklayers and carpenters, laboured incessantly." Rawlinson, Ancient Egypt (Story of the Nations).
Nebuchadnezzar had an absolute mania for architecture.
His numerous inscriptions are mere catalogues
of his achievements in building. His home administration
and even his extensive conquests are scarcely
noticed; he held them of little account compared with
his temples and palaces—"this great Babylon, which
I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might
of my power and for the glory of my majesty."
Jehoiakim had been moved to follow the notable
example of Chaldea and Egypt. By a strange irony
of fortune, Egypt, once the cynosure of nations, has
become in our own time the humble imitator of Western
civilisation, and now boulevards have rendered the
suburbs of Cairo "a shabby reproduction of modern
Paris." Possibly in the eyes of Egyptians and
Chaldeans Jehoiakim's efforts only resulted in a
Then the denunciation passes into biting sarcasm:—
I have followed R.V., but the text is probably corrupt. Cheyne follows LXX. (A) in reading "because thou viest with Ahab": LXX. (B) has "Ahaz" (so Ewald). Giesebrecht proposes to neglect the accents and translate, "viest in cedar buildings with thy father" (i.e. Solomon).
Poor imitations of Nebuchadnezzar's magnificent structures could not conceal the impotence and dependence of the Jewish king. The pretentiousness of Jehoiakim's buildings challenged a comparison which only reminded men that he was a mere puppet, with its strings pulled now by Egypt and now by Babylon. At best he was only reigning on sufferance.
Jeremiah contrasts Jehoiakim's government both as to justice and dignity with that of Josiah:—
According to Giesebrecht (cf. however the last note) this clause is an objection which the prophet puts into the mouth of the king. "My father enjoyed the good things of life—why should not I?" The prophet rejoins, "Nay, but he did judgment," etc.
(He was no ascetic, but, like the Son of Man, lived a full, natural, human life.)
Probably Jehoiakim claimed by some external observance, or through some subservient priest or prophet, to "know Jehovah"; and Jeremiah repudiates the claim.
Josiah had reigned in the period when the decay of
Assyria left Judah dominant in Palestine, until Egypt
or Chaldea could find time to gather up the outlying
fragments of the shattered empire. The wisdom and
justice of the Jewish king had used this breathing
space for the advantage and happiness of his people;
and during part of his reign Josiah's power seems to
have been as extensive as that of any of his predecessors
on the throne of Judah. And yet, according to current
theology, Jeremiah's appeal to the prosperity of Josiah
as a proof of God's approbation was a startling anomaly.
Josiah had been defeated and slain at Megiddo in the
prime of his manhood, at the age of thirty-nine. None
but the most independent and enlightened spirits could
believe that the Reformer's premature death, at the
The warlike spirit of classical antiquity and of Teutonic chivalry welcomed a glorious death upon the field of battle:—
No one spoke of Leonidas as a victim of Divine wrath.
Later Judaism caught something of the same temper.
Judas Maccabæus, when in extreme danger, said, "It
is better for us to die in battle, than to look upon the
evils of our people and our sanctuary"; and later on,
when he refused to flee from inevitable death, he
claimed that he would leave behind him no stain upon
his honour. Macc. ii. 59, ix. 10.
But the dim and dreary Sheôl of the ancient
We can hardly justify to ourselves Jeremiah's use of Josiah's reign as an example of prosperity as the reward of righteousness; his contemporaries must have been still more difficult to convince. We cannot understand how the words of this prophecy were left without any attempt at justification, or why Jeremiah did not meet by anticipation the obvious and apparently crushing rejoinder that the reign terminated in disgrace and disaster.
Nevertheless these difficulties do not affect the terms
of the sentence upon Jehoiakim, or the ground upon
which he was condemned. We shall be better able
to appreciate Jeremiah's attitude and to discover its
lessons if we venture to reconsider his decisions. We
cannot forget that there was, as Cheyne puts it, a
duel between Jeremiah and Jehoiakim; and we should
hesitate to accept the verdict of Hildebrand upon
Henry IV. of Germany, or of Thomas à Becket on
Henry II. of England. Moreover the data upon which
we have to base our judgment, including the unfavourable
estimate in the Book of Kings, come to us from
Even Renan, who, in Ophite fashion, holds a brief
for the bad characters of the Old Testament, does
not seriously challenge Jeremiah's statements of fact.
But the judgment of the modern critic seems at first
sight more lenient than that of the Hebrew prophet:
the former sees in Jehoiakim "un prince libéral et
modéré," iii. 269. P. 142.
Though we extenuate Jehoiakim's conduct, we are
still bound to condemn it; not however because he
was exceptionally wicked, but because he failed to
rise above a low spiritual average: yet in this judgment
we also condemn ourselves for our own intolerance,
and for the prejudice and self-will which
But Jeremiah emphasises one special charge against the king—his exaction of forced and unpaid labour. This form of taxation was in itself so universal that the censure can scarcely be directed against its ordinary and moderate exercise. If Jeremiah had intended to inaugurate a new departure, he would have approached the subject in a more formal and less casual fashion. It was a time of national danger and distress, when all moral and material resources were needed to avert the ruin of the state, or at any rate to mitigate the sufferings of the people; and at such a time Jehoiakim exhausted and embittered his subjects—that he might dwell in spacious halls with woodwork of cedar. The Temple and palaces of Solomon had been built at the expense of a popular resentment, which survived for centuries, and with which, as their silence seems to show, the prophets fully sympathised. If even Solomon's exactions were culpable, Jehoiakim was altogether without excuse.
His sin was that common to all governments, the
use of the authority of the state for private ends. This
sin is possible not only to sovereigns and secretaries
of state, but to every town councillor and every one
who has a friend on a town council, nay, to every clerk
in a public office and to every workman in a government
dockyard. A king squandering public revenues
on private pleasures, and an artisan pilfering nails and
iron with an easy conscience because they only belong
to the state, are guilty of crimes essentially the same.
On the one hand, Jehoiakim as the head of the state
was oppressing individuals; and although modern
states have grown comparatively tender as to the rights
Also called Coniah and Jeconiah.
xxii. 20-30.
"A despised broken vessel,"—Jer. xxii. 28.
"A young lion. And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion and he learned to catch the prey, he devoured men."—Ezek. xix. 5, 6.
"Jehoiachin ... did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his father had done."—2 Kings xxiv. 8, 9.
During all these long and weary years, the prophet Considerable portions of chaps. i.-xx. are referred to the reigns
of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin: see previous volume on Jeremiah.
Meanwhile Jeremiah was growing old in years and
older in experience. When Jehoiakim died, it was
nearly forty years since the young priest had first been
called "to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy
and to overthrow; to build and to plant"; it was more
than eleven since his brighter hopes were buried in
Josiah's grave. Jehovah had promised that He would i. 18.
He had long lost all trace of that sanguine youthful
enthusiasm which promises to carry all before it. His
opening manhood had felt its happy illusions, but they
did not dominate his soul and they soon passed away.
At the Divine bidding, he had surrendered his most
ingrained prejudices, his dearest desires. He had
consented to be alienated from his brethren at Anathoth,
and to live without home or family; although a patriot,
he accepted the inevitable ruin of his nation as the just
judgment of Jehovah; he was a priest, imbued by
heredity and education with the religious traditions
of Israel, yet he had yielded himself to Jehovah, to
announce, as His herald, the destruction of the Temple,
and the devastation of the Holy Land. He had submitted
his shrinking flesh and reluctant spirit to God's
most unsparing demands, and had dared the worst that
man could inflict. Such surrender and such experiences
wrought in him a certain stern and terrible
strength, and made his life still more remote from the
hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of common men.
In his isolation and his inspired self-sufficiency he had
become an "iron pillar." Doubtless he seemed to
many as hard and cold as iron; but this pillar of the
We have thus tried to estimate the development of Jeremiah's character during the second period of his ministry, which began with the death of Josiah and terminated with the brief reign of Jehoiachin. Before considering Jeremiah's judgment upon this prince we will review the scanty data at our disposal to enable us to appreciate the prophet's verdict.
Jehoiakim died while Nebuchadnezzar was on the
march to punish his rebellion. His son Jehoiachin,
a youth of eighteen, The Chronicler's account of Jehoiakim's end ( In LXX. of xxxvi. 30.
Ezekiel's elegy over Jehoiachin suggests that the young king displayed energy and courage worthy of a better fortune:—
So A. B. Davidson in Cambridge Bible, etc., by a slight conjectural emendation; there have been many other suggested corrections of the text. The Hebrew text as it stands would mean literally "he knew their widows" (R.V. margin); A.V., R.V., by a slight change, "he knew their (A.V. desolate) palaces."
However figurative these lines may be, the hyperbole
must have had some basis in fact. Probably before
the regular Babylonian army entered Judah, Jehoiachin
distinguished himself by brilliant but useless successes
against the marauding bands of Chaldeans, Syrians,
Moabites, and Ammonites, who had been sent to prepare
We feel a shock of surprise and repulsion as we turn from this pathetic story to Jeremiah's fierce invectives against the unhappy king. But we wrong the prophet and misunderstand his utterance if we forget that it was delivered during that brief frenzy in which the young king and his advisers threw away the last chance of safety for Judah. Jehoiachin might have repudiated his father's rebellion against Babylon; Jehoiakim s death had removed the chief offender, no personal blame attached to his successor, and a prompt submission might have appeased Nebuchadnezzar's wrath against Judah and obtained his favour for the new king. If a hot-headed young rajah of some protected Indian state revolted against the English suzerainty and exposed his country to the misery of a hopeless war, we should sympathise with any of his counsellors who condemned such wilful folly; we have no right to find fault with Jeremiah for his severe censure of the reckless vanity which precipitated his country's fate.
Jeremiah's deep and absorbing interest in Judah and
Jerusalem is indicated by the form of this utterance;
it is addressed to the "Daughter of Zion" The Hebrew verbs are in 2 s. fem.; the person addressed is not
named, but from analogy she can only be the "Daughter of Zion,"
i.e. Jerusalem personified.
Identified with the mountains of Moab.
Her "lovers," her heathen allies, whether gods or men, are impotent, and Judah is as forlorn and helpless as a lonely and unfriended woman; let her bewail her fate upon the mountains of Israel, like Jephthah's daughter in ancient days.
Kings and nobles, priests and prophets, shall be carried off by the Chaldean invaders, as trees and houses are swept away by a hurricane. These shepherds who had spoiled and betrayed their flock would themselves be as silly sheep in the hands of robbers.
The former mention of Lebanon reminded Jeremiah
of Jehoiakim's halls of cedar. With grim irony he
R.V. margin, with LXX., Vulg., and Syr.
The nation is involved in the punishment inflicted upon her rulers. In such passages the prophets largely identify the nation with the governing classes—not without justification. No government, whatever the constitution may be, can ignore a strong popular demand for righteous policy, at home and abroad. A special responsibility of course rests on those who actually wield the authority of the state, but the policy of rulers seldom succeeds in effecting much either for good or evil without some sanction of public feeling. Our revolution which replaced the Puritan Protectorate by the restored Monarchy was rendered possible by the change of popular sentiment. Yet even under the purest democracy men imagine that they divest themselves of civic responsibility by neglecting their civic duties; they stand aloof, and blame officials and professional politicians for the injustice and crime wrought by the state. National guilt seems happily disposed of when laid on the shoulders of that convenient abstraction "the government"; but neither the prophets nor the Providence which they interpret recognise this convenient theory of vicarious atonement: the king sins, but the prophet's condemnation is uttered against and executed upon the nation.
Nevertheless a special responsibility rests upon the ruler, and now Jeremiah turns from the nation to its king.
By a forcible Hebrew idiom Jehovah, as it were, turns and confronts the king and specially addresses him:—
A signet ring was valuable in itself, and, as far as an inanimate object could be, was an "alter ego" of the sovereign; it scarcely ever left his finger, and when it did, it carried with it the authority of its owner. A signet ring could not be lost or even cast away without some reflection upon the majesty of the king. Jehoiachin's character was by no means worthless; he had courage, energy, and patriotism. The heir of David and Solomon, the patron and champion of the Temple, dwelt, as it were, under the very shadow of the Almighty. Men generally believed that Jehovah's honour was engaged to defend Jerusalem and the house of David. He Himself would be discredited by the fall of the elect dynasty and the captivity of the chosen people. Yet everything must be sacrificed—the career of a gallant young prince, the ancient association of the sacred Name with David and Zion, even the superstitious awe with which the heathen regarded the God of the Exodus and of the deliverance from Sennacherib. Nothing will be allowed to stand in the way of the Divine judgment. And yet we still sometimes dream that the working out of the Divine righteousness will be postponed in the interests of ecclesiastical traditions and in deference to the criticisms of ungodly men!
Again the sudden change in the person addressed emphasises the scope of the Divine proclamation; the doom of the royal house is not only announced to them, but also to the world at large. The mention of the Queen Mother, Nehushta, reveals what we should in any case have conjectured, that the policy of the young prince was largely determined by his mother. Her importance is also indicated by xiii. 18, usually supposed to be addressed to Jehoiachin and Nehushta:—-
The Queen Mother is a characteristic figure of polygamous Eastern dynasties, but we may be helped to understand what Nehushta was to Jehoiachin if we remember the influence of Eleanor of Poitou over Richard I. and John, and the determined struggle which Margaret of Anjou made on behalf of her ill-starred son.
The next verse of our prophecy seems to be a protest against the severe sentence pronounced in the preceding clauses:—
Thus Jeremiah imagines the citizens and warriors of
Jerusalem crying out against him, for his sentence of
doom against their darling prince and captain. The
prophetic utterance seemed to them monstrous and
Moreover the charge against Clement was probably
unfounded; Milman Milman's Latin Christianity, vi. 392.
Isaiah had called all Nature, heaven and earth to bear witness against Israel, but now Jeremiah is appealing with urgent importunity to Judah. "O Chosen Land of Jehovah, so richly blessed by His favour, so sternly chastised by His discipline, Land of prophetic Revelation, now at last, after so many warnings, believe the word of thy God and submit to His judgment. Hasten not thy unhappy fate by shallow confidence in the genius and daring of Jehoiachin: he is no true Messiah."
Thus, by Divine decree, the descendants of Jehoiakim
were disinherited; Jehoiachin was to be recorded in
the genealogies of Israel as having no heir. He might
have offspring,
Two points suggest themselves in connection with this utterance of Jeremiah; first as to the circumstances under which it was uttered, then as to its application to Jehoiachin.
A moment's reflection will show that this prophecy
implied great courage and presence of mind on the part
of Jeremiah—his enemies might even have spoken of his
barefaced audacity. He had predicted that Jehoiakim's
corpse should be cast forth without any rites of
honourable sepulture; and that no son of his should
sit upon the throne. Jehoiakim had been buried like
other kings, he slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin
his son reigned in his stead. The prophet should have
felt himself utterly discredited; and yet here was
Jeremiah coming forward unabashed with new prophecies
against the king, whose very existence was a glaring
disproof of his prophetic inspiration. Thus the friends
of Jehoiachin. They would affect towards Jeremiah's
message the same indifference which the present
generation feels for the expositors of Daniel and the
Apocalypse, who confidently announce the end of the
Our second point is the application of this prophecy to Jehoiachin. How far did the king deserve his sentence? Jeremiah indeed does not explicitly blame Jehoiachin, does not specify his sins as he did those of his royal sire. The estimate recorded in the Book of Kings doubtless expresses the judgment of Jeremiah, but it may be directed not so much against the young king as against his ministers. Yet the king cannot have been entirely innocent of the guilt of his policy and government. In chapter xxiv., however, Jeremiah speaks of the captives at Babylon, those carried away with Jehoiachin, as "good figs"; but we scarcely suppose he meant to include the king himself in this favourable estimate, otherwise we should discern some note of sympathy in the personal sentence upon him. We are left, therefore, to conclude that Jeremiah's judgment was unfavourable; although, in view of the prince's youth and limited opportunities, his guilt must have been slight compared to that of his father.
And, on the other hand, we have the manifest
sympathy and even admiration of Ezekiel. The two
estimates stand side by side in the sacred record to
remind us that God neither tolerates man's sins because
there is a better side to his nature, nor yet
ignores his virtues on account of his vices. For ourselves
we may be content to leave the last word on
this matter with Jeremiah. When he declares God's
xxiii., xxiv.
"Woe unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!"—Jer. xxiii. 1.
"Of what avail is straw instead of grain?... Is not My word like fire, ... like a hammer that shattereth the rocks?"—Jer. xxiii. 28, 29.
xxxvii. 2.
It is remarkable that though Jeremiah consistently urged submission to Babylon, the various arrangements made by Nebuchadnezzar did very little to improve the prophet's position or increase his influence. The Chaldean king may have seemed ungrateful only because he was ignorant of the services rendered to him—Jeremiah would not enter into direct and personal co-operation with the enemy of his country, even with him whom Jehovah had appointed to be the scourge of His disobedient people—but the Chaldean policy served Nebuchadnezzar as little as it profited Jeremiah. Jehoiakim, in spite of his forced submission, remained the able and determined foe of his suzerain, and Zedekiah, to the best of his very limited ability, followed his predecessor's example.
Zedekiah was uncle of Jehoiachin, half-brother of
Jehoiakim, and own brother to Jehoahaz.
But whatever advantage the prophet might derive from the weakness of the sovereign was more than counterbalanced by the recent deportation. In selecting the captives Nebuchadnezzar had sought merely to weaken Judah by carrying away every one who would have been an element of strength to the "base kingdom." Perhaps he rightly believed that neither the prudence of the wise nor the honour of the virtuous would overcome their patriotic hatred of subjection; weakness alone would guarantee the obedience of Judah. He forgot that even weakness is apt to be foolhardy—when there is no immediate prospect of penalty.
One result of his policy was that the enemies and
friends of Jeremiah were carried away indiscriminately;
there was no attempt to leave behind those who might
have counselled submission to Babylon as the acceptance
of a Divine judgment, and thus have helped to
keep Judah loyal to its foreign master. On the
contrary Jeremiah's disciples were chiefly thoughtful
and honourable men, and Nebuchadnezzar's policy in
taking away "the mighty of the land" bereft the prophet
of many friends and supporters, amongst them
his disciple Ezekiel and doubtless a large class of
whom Daniel and his three friends might be taken as xxiv. vii.-xi.
We have already had occasion to compare the changes in the religious policy of the Jewish government to the alternations of Protestant and Romanist sovereigns among the Tudors; but no Tudor was as feeble as Zedekiah. He may rather be compared to Charles IX. of France, helpless between the Huguenots and the League. Only the Jewish factions were less numerous, less evenly balanced; and by the speedy advance of Nebuchadnezzar civil dissensions were merged in national ruin.
The opening years of the new reign passed in
nominal allegiance to Babylon. Jeremiah's influence
would be used to induce the vassal king to observe the
covenant he had entered into and to be faithful to his
oath to Nebuchadnezzar. On the other hand a crowd
of "patriotic" prophets urged Zedekiah to set up once
more the standard of national independence, to "come
to the help of the Lord against the mighty." Let us
then briefly consider Jeremiah's polemic against the
princes, prophets, and priests of his people. While
Ezekiel in a celebrated chapter viii.
"Woe unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!... Ye have scattered My flock, and driven them away, and have not cared for them; behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings."
These "shepherds" are primarily the kings, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Jehoiachin, who have been condemned by name in the previous chapter, together with the unhappy Zedekiah, who is too insignificant to be mentioned. But the term shepherds will also include the ruling and influential classes of which the king was the leading representative.
The image is a familiar one in the Old Testament
and is found in the oldest literature of Israel, ix.-xi., xiii. 7-9.
So in xxv. 34-38.
Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel turn from the unfaithful
shepherds whose "hungry sheep look up and are not
fed" to the true King of Israel, the "Shepherd of Israel
that led Joseph like a flock, and dwelt between the
Cherubim." In the days of the Restoration He will
raise up faithful shepherds, and over them a righteous
Branch, the real Jehovah Zidqenu, instead of the sapless
twig who disgraced the name "Zedekiah." Similarly Froude, i. 205.
By a natural sequence the denunciation of the
unfaithful shepherds is followed by a similar utterance
"concerning the prophets." It is true that the
prophets are not spoken of as shepherds; and Milton's
use of the figure in Lycidas suggests the New Testament
rather than the Old. Yet the prophets had a
large share in guiding the destinies of Israel in politics
as well as in religion, and having passed sentence on
the shepherds—the kings and princes—Jeremiah turns
to the ecclesiastics, chiefly, as the heading implies, to
the prophets. The priests indeed do not escape, but
Jeremiah seems to feel that they are adequately dealt
Jeremiah's indictment against them has various counts. He accuses them of speaking without authority, and also of time-serving, plagiarism, and cant.
First, then, as to their unauthorised utterances: Jeremiah finds them guilty of an unholy licence in prophesying, a distorted caricature of that "liberty of prophesying" which is the prerogative of God's accredited ambassadors.
The evils which Jeremiah describes are such as will
always be found in any large professional class. To
use modern terms—in the Church, as in every profession,
there will be men who are not qualified for
the vocation which they follow. They are indeed not
We are always reluctant to speak of ancient prophecy or modern preaching as a "profession." We may gladly dispense with the word, if we do not thereby ignore the truth which it inaccurately expresses. Men lived by prophecy, as, with Apostolic sanction, men live by "the gospel." They were expected, as ministers are now, though in a less degree, to justify their claims to an income and an official status, by discharging religious functions so as to secure the approval of the people or the authorities. Then, as now, the prophet's reputation, influence, and social standing, probably even his income, depended upon the amount of visible success that he could achieve.
In view of such facts, it is futile to ask men of the
world not to speak of the clerical life as a profession.
They discern no ethical difference between a curate's
dreams of a bishopric and the aspirations of a junior
It is one of those practical dilemmas which delight casuists and distress honest and earnest servants of God. In the early Christian centuries similar difficulties peopled the Egyptian and Syrian deserts with ascetics, who had given up the world as a hopeless riddle. A full discussion of the problem would lead us too far away from the exposition of Jeremiah, and we will only venture to make two suggestions.
The necessity, which most ministers are under, of "living by the gospel," may promote their own spiritual life and add to their usefulness. It corrects and reduces spiritual pride, and helps them to understand and sympathise with their lay brethren, most of whom are subject to a similar trial.
Secondly, as a minister feels the ceaseless pressure
But to return to the ecclesiastics who had stirred Jeremiah's wrath. The professional prophets naturally adapted their words to the itching ears of their clients. They were not only officious, but also time-serving. Had they been true prophets, they would have dealt faithfully with Judah; they would have sought to convince the people of sin, and to lead them to repentance; they would thus have given them yet another opportunity of salvation.
But now:—
LXX. See R.V. margin.
Unfortunately, when prophecy becomes professional in the lowest sense of the word, it is governed by commercial principles. A sufficiently imperious demand calls forth an abundant supply. A sovereign can "tune the pulpits"; and a ruling race can obtain from its clergy formal ecclesiastical sanction for such "domestic institutions" as slavery. When evildoers grow numerous and powerful, there will always be prophets to strengthen their hands and encourage them not to turn away from their sin. But to give the lie to these false prophets God sends Jeremiahs, who are often branded as heretics and schismatics, turbulent fellows who turn the world upside-down.
The self-important, self-seeking spirit leads further to the sin of plagiarism:—
The sin of plagiarism is impossible to the true
prophet, partly because there are no rights of private
property in the word of Jehovah. The Old Testament
writers make free use of the works of their predecessors.
For instance, Possibly, however, the insertion of this passage in one of the
books may have been the work of an editor, and we cannot be sure
that, in Jeremiah's time, collections entitled Isaiah and Micah both
included this section. xxvi. 20.
These prophets were prepared to cater for the average religious appetite in the most approved fashion—in other words, they were masters of cant. Their office had been consecrated by the work of true men of God like Elijah and Isaiah. They themselves claimed to stand in the genuine prophetic succession, and to inherit the reverence felt for their great predecessors, quoting their inspired utterances and adopting their weighty phrases. As Jeremiah's contemporaries listened to one of their favourite orators, they were soothed by his assurances of Divine favour and protection, and their confidence in the speaker was confirmed by the frequent sound of familiar formulæ in his unctuous sentences. These had the true ring; they were redolent of sound doctrine, of what popular tradition regarded as orthodox.
The solemn attestation NE'UM YAHWE, "It is the utterance of Jehovah," is continually appended to prophecies, almost as if it were the sign-manual of the Almighty. Isaiah and other prophets frequently use the term MASSA (A.V., R.V., "burden") as a title, especially for prophecies concerning neighbouring nations. The ancient records loved to tell how Jehovah revealed Himself to the patriarchs in dreams. Jeremiah's rivals included dreams in their clerical apparatus:—
These prophets "thought to cause the Lord's people to forget His name, as their fathers forgot His name for Baal, by their dreams which they told one another."
Moreover they could glibly repeat the sacred phrases as part of their professional jargon:—
"To utter utterances"—the prophets uttered them, not Jehovah. These sham oracles were due to no Diviner source than the imagination of foolish hearts. But for Jeremiah's grim earnestness, the last clause would be almost blasphemous. It is virtually a caricature of the most solemn formula of ancient Hebrew religion. But this was really degraded when it was used to obtain credence for the lies which men prophesied out of the deceit of their own heart. Jeremiah's seeming irreverence was the most forcible way of bringing this home to his hearers. There are profanations of the most sacred things which can scarcely be spoken of without an apparent breach of the Third Commandment. The most awful taking in vain of the name of the Lord God is not heard among the publicans and sinners, but in pulpits and on the platforms of religious meetings.
But these prophets and their clients had a special fondness for the phrase "The burden of Jehovah," and their unctuous use of it most especially provoked Jeremiah's indignation:—
So LXX. and modern editors: see Giesebrecht, in loco. R.V. "What burden!"
Jeremiah's insistence and vehemence speak for themselves.
Their moral is obvious, though for the most
part unheeded. The most solemn formulæ, hallowed
by ancient and sacred associations, used by inspired
teachers as the vehicle of revealed truths, may be
debased till they become the very legend of Antichrist,
blazoned on the Vexilla Regis Inferni. They are like
a motto of one of Charles's Paladins flaunted by his
unworthy descendants to give distinction to cruelty
and vice. The Church's line of march is strewn with
Yet the Bible, with that marvellous catholicity which lifts it so high above the level of all other religious literature, not only records Jeremiah's prohibition to use the term "Burden," but also tells us that centuries later Malachi could still speak of "the burden of the word of Jehovah." A great phrase that has been discredited by misuse may yet recover itself; the tarnished and dishonoured sword of faith may be baptised and burnished anew, and flame in the forefront of the holy war.
Jeremiah does not stand alone in his unfavourable
estimate of the professional prophets of Judah; a
similar depreciation seems to be implied by the words
of Amos: "I am neither a prophet nor of the sons
of the prophets." vii. 14; but cf. R.V.; "I was," etc.
No man with any self-respect would allow his fellows
to dub him prophet; slave was a less humiliating name.
No family would endure the disgrace of having a
member who belonged to this despised caste; parents
would rather put their son to death than see him a
prophet. To such extremities may the spirit of time-serving
and cant reduce a national clergy. We are
reminded of Latimer's words in his famous sermon to
Convocation in 1536: "All good men in all places
accuse your avarice, your exactions, your tyranny. I
commanded you that ye should feed my sheep, and ye
earnestly feed yourselves from day to day, wallowing
in delights and idleness. I commanded you to teach
my law; you teach your own traditions, and seek your
own glory." Froude, ii. 474.
Over against their fluent and unctuous cant Jeremiah
sets the terrible reality of his Divine message. Compared
to this, their sayings are like chaff to the wheat;
nay, this is too tame a figure—Jehovah's word is like
Thus we have in chapter xxiii. a full and formal statement of the controversy between Jeremiah and his brother-prophets. On the one hand, self-seeking and self-assurance winning popularity by orthodox phrases, traditional doctrine, and the prophesying of smooth things; on the other hand, a man to whom the word of the Lord was like a fire in his bones, who had surrendered prejudice and predilection that he might himself become a hammer to shatter the Lord's enemies, a man through whom God wrought so mightily that he himself reeled and staggered with the blows of which he was the instrument.
The relation of the two parties was not unlike that of St. Paul and his Corinthian adversaries: the prophet, like the Apostle, spoke "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power"; he considered "not the word of them which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." In our next chapter we shall see the practical working of this antagonism which we have here set forth.
xxvii., xxviii.
"Hear now, Hananiah; Jehovah hath not sent thee, but thou makest this people to trust in a lie."—Jer. xxviii. 15.
During the opening years of the new reign, Nebuchadnezzar's recent capture of Jerusalem and the consequent wholesale deportation were fresh in men's minds; fear of the Chaldeans together with the influence of Jeremiah kept the government from any overt act of rebellion. According to li. 59, the king even paid a visit to Babylon, to do homage to his suzerain.
It was probably in the fourth year of his reign The close connection between xxvii. and xxviii. shows that the
date in xxviii. 1, "the fourth year of Zedekiah," covers both chapters.
"Jehoiakim" in xxvii. 1 is a misreading for "Zedekiah": see R.V.
margin.
The allied kings had been encouraged to revolt by oracles similar to those uttered by the Jewish prophets in the name of Jehovah; but:—
When he had sent his message to the foreign envoys, Jeremiah addressed an almost identical admonition to his own king. He bids him submit to the Chaldean yoke, under the same penalties for disobedience—sword, pestilence, and famine for himself and his people. He warns him also against delusive promises of the prophets, especially in the matter of the sacred vessels.
The popular doctrine of the inviolable sanctity of the Temple had sustained a severe shock when Nebuchadnezzar carried off the sacred vessels to Babylon. It was inconceivable that Jehovah would patiently submit to so gross an indignity. In ancient days the Ark had plagued its Philistine captors till they were only too thankful to be rid of it. Later on a graphic narrative in the Book of Daniel told with what swift vengeance God punished Belshazzar for his profane use of these very vessels. So now patriotic prophets were convinced that the golden candlestick, the bowls and chargers of gold and silver, would soon return in triumph, like the Ark of old; and their return would be the symbol of the final deliverance of Judah from Babylon. Naturally the priests above all others would welcome such a prophecy, and would industriously disseminate it. But Jeremiah "spake to the priests and all this people, saying, Thus saith Jehovah:—
How could Jehovah grant triumphant deliverance to a carnally minded people who would not understand His Revelation, and did not discern any essential difference between Him and Moloch and Baal?
Possibly, however, even now, the Divine compassion might have spared Jerusalem the agony and shame of her final siege and captivity. God would not at once restore what was lost, but He might spare what was still left. Jeremiah could not endorse the glowing promises of the prophets, but he would unite with them to intercede for mercy upon the remnant of Israel.
The God of Israel was yet ready to welcome any beginning of true repentance. Like the father of the Prodigal Son, He would meet His people when they were on the way back to Him. Any stirring of filial penitence would win an instant and gracious response.
We can scarcely suppose that this appeal by
Jeremiah to his brother-prophets was merely sarcastic
and denunciatory. Passing circumstances may have
brought Jeremiah into friendly intercourse with some
Thus did Jeremiah meet the attempt of the government to organise a Syrian revolt against Babylon, and thus did he give the lie to the promises of Divine blessing made by the prophets. In the face of his utterances, it was difficult to maintain the popular enthusiasm necessary to a successful revolt. In order to neutralise, if possible, the impression made by Jeremiah, the government put forward one of their prophetic supporters to deliver a counter-blast. The place and the occasion were similar to those chosen by Jeremiah for his own address to the people and for Baruch's reading of the roll—the court of the Temple where the priests and "all the people" were assembled. Jeremiah himself was there. Possibly it was a feast-day. The incident came to be regarded as of special importance, and a distinct heading is attached to it, specifying its exact date, "in the same year"—as the incidents of the previous chapter—"in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month."
On such an occasion, Jeremiah's opponents would
select as their representative some striking personality,
a man of high reputation for ability and personal
In our last chapter we expounded Jeremiah's description of his prophetic contemporaries, as self-important and time-serving, guilty of plagiarism and cant. Now from this dim, inarticulate crowd of professional prophets, an individual steps for a moment into the light of history and speaks with clearness and emphasis. Let us gaze at him, and hear what he has to say.
If we could have been present at this scene immediately
after a careful study of chapter xxvii. even
the appearance of Hananiah would have caused us a
shock of surprise—such as is sometimes experienced
by a devout student of Protestant literature on being
introduced to a live Jesuit, or by some budding secularist
when he first makes the personal acquaintance
of a curate. We might possibly have discerned something
commonplace, some lack of depth and force in
the man whose faith was merely conventional; but we
should have expected to read "liar and hypocrite"
in every line of his countenance, and we should have
seen nothing of the sort. Conscious of the enthusiastic
support of his fellow-countrymen and especially of his
His special object was to remove the unfavourable impression caused by Jeremiah's contradiction of the promise concerning the sacred vessels. Like Jeremiah, he meets this denial in the strongest and most convincing fashion. He does not argue—he reiterates the promise in a more definite form and with more emphatic asseveration. Like Jonah at Nineveh, he ventures to fix an exact date in the immediate future for the fulfilment of the prophecy. "Yet forty days," said Jonah, but the next day he had to swallow his own words; and Hananiah's prophetic chronology met with no better fate:—
"Within two full years will I bring again to this place all the vessels of the Temple, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away."
The full significance of this promise is shown by the further addition:—
"And I will bring again to this place the king of Judah, Jeconiah ben Jehoiakim, and all the captives of Judah that went to Babylon (it is the utterance of Jehovah); for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon."
This bold challenge was promptly met:—
"The prophet Jeremiah said unto the prophet
Hananiah before the priests and all the people that
These prophets, however, display a courtesy and self-restraint that have, for the most part, been absent from Christian polemics.
"Jeremiah the prophet said, Amen: may Jehovah bring it to pass; may He establish the words of thy prophecy, by bringing back again from Babylon unto this place both the vessels of the Temple and all the captives."
With that entire sincerity which is the most consummate
tact, Jeremiah avows his sympathy with his
opponents' patriotic aspirations, and recognises that
they were worthy of Hebrew prophets. But patriotic
aspirations were not a sufficient reason for claiming
Divine authority for a cheap optimism. Jeremiah's
reflection upon the past had led him to an entirely
opposite philosophy of history. Behind Hananiah's
words lay the claim that the religious traditions of
Israel and the teaching of former prophets guaranteed
the inviolability of the Temple and the Holy City.
"The ancient prophets who were our predecessors prophesied war and calamity and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms."
It was almost a mark of the true prophet that he should be the herald of disaster. The prophetical books of the Old Testament Canon fully confirm this startling and unwelcome statement. Their main burden is the ruin and misery that await Israel and its neighbours. The presumption therefore was in favour of the prophet of evil, and against the prophet of good. Jeremiah does not, of course, deny that there had been, and might yet be, prophets of good. Indeed every prophet, he himself included, announced some Divine promise, but:—
"The prophet which prophesieth of peace shall be known as truly sent of Jehovah when his prophecy is fulfilled."
It seemed a fair reply to Hananiah's challenge. His
prophecy of the return of the sacred vessels and the
exiles within two years was intended to encourage
Judah and its allies to persist in their revolt. They
would be at once victorious, and recover all and more
than all which they had lost. Under such circumstances
Jeremiah's criterion of "prophecies of peace"
was eminently practical. "You are promised these
blessings within two years: very well, do not run the
terrible risks of a rebellion; keep quiet and see if the
two years bring the fulfilment of this prophecy—it is
not long to wait." Hananiah might fairly have replied
that this fulfilment depended on Judah's faith and
loyalty to the Divine promise; and their faith and
loyalty would be best shown by rebelling against their
Neither Jeremiah's premises nor his conclusions
would commend his words to the audience, and he
probably weakened his position by leaving the high
ground of authority and descending to argument.
Hananiah at any rate did not follow his example: he
adheres to his former method, and reiterates with
renewed emphasis the promise which his adversary
had contradicted. Following Jeremiah in his use of
the parable in action, so common with Hebrew prophets,
he turned the symbol of the yoke against its author.
As Zedekiah ben Chenaanah made him horns of iron
and prophesied to Ahab and Jehoshaphat, "Thus saith
Jehovah, With these shalt thou push the Syrians
until thou have consumed them,"
"Thus saith Jehovah, Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within two full years."
Naturally the promise is "for all nations"—not for Judah only, but for the other allies.
"And the prophet Jeremiah went his way." For the
moment Hananiah had triumphed; he had had the
last word, and Jeremiah was silenced. A public debate
before a partisan audience was not likely to issue in
victory for the truth. The situation may have even
"Then the word of Jehovah came unto Jeremiah,
... Go and tell Hananiah: Thou hast broken wooden
yokes; thou shalt make iron yokes in their stead. For
thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel: I have
put a yoke of iron upon the necks of all these
nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon." The rest of this verse has apparently been inserted from xxvii. 6
by a scribe. It is omitted by the LXX.
We are not told how long Jeremiah had to wait for this new message, or under what circumstances it was delivered to Hananiah. Its symbolism is obvious. When Jeremiah sent the yokes to the ambassadors of the allies and exhorted Zedekiah to bring his neck under the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, they were required to accept the comparatively tolerable servitude of tributaries. Their impatience of this minor evil would expose them to the iron yoke of ruin and captivity.
Thus the prophet of evil received new Divine assurance of the abiding truth of his message and of the reality of his own inspiration. The same revelation convinced him that his opponent was either an impostor or woefully deluded:—
"Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto the prophet
By a judgment not unmixed with mercy, Hananiah was not left to be convicted of error or imposture, when the "two full years" should have elapsed, and his glowing promises be seen to utterly fail. He also was "taken away from the evil to come."
"So Hananiah the prophet died in the same year
in the seventh month"—i.e. about two months after
this incident. Such personal judgments were most
frequent in the case of kings, but were not confined
to them. Isaiah xxii. 15-25.
The subjects of this and the preceding chapter raise some of the most important questions as to authority in religion. On the one hand, on the subjective side, how may a man be assured of the truth of his own religious convictions; on the other hand, on the objective side, how is the hearer to decide between conflicting claims on his faith and obedience?
The former question is raised as to the personal
convictions of the two prophets. We have ventured
to assume that, however erring and culpable Hananiah
The sweeping condemnation of the prophets in chapter xxiii. does not exclude the possibility of Hananiah's honesty, any more than our Lord's denunciation of the Pharisees as "devourers of widows' houses" necessarily includes Gamaliel. In critical times, upright, earnest men do not always espouse what subsequent ages hold to have been the cause of truth. Sir Thomas More and Erasmus remained in the communion which Luther renounced: Hampden and Falkland found themselves in opposite camps. If such men erred in their choice between right and wrong, we may often feel anxious as to our own decisions. When we find ourselves in opposition to earnest and devoted men, we may well pause to consider which is Jeremiah and which Hananiah.
The point at issue between these two prophets was
Two lessons immediately follow, one as to practice, the other as to principle. It often happens that earnest servants of God find themselves at variance, not on simple practical questions, but on the history and criticism of the remote past, or on abstruse points of transcendental theology. Before any one ventures to denounce his adversary as a teacher of deadly error, let him, like Jeremiah, seek, in humble and prayerful submission to the Holy Spirit, a Divine mandate for such denunciation.
But again Jeremiah was willing to reconsider his
position, not merely because he himself might have
been mistaken, but because altered circumstances might
have opened the way for a change in God's dealings.
It was a bare possibility, but we have seen elsewhere
that Jeremiah represents God as willing to make a
gracious response to the first movement of compunction.
Prophecy was the declaration of His will, and that
will was not arbitrary, but at every moment and at
every point exactly adapted to conditions with which
it had to deal. Its principles were unchangeable and
eternal; but prophecy was chiefly an application of
these principles to existing circumstances. The true
prophet always realised that his words were for men
as they were when he addressed them. Any moment
might bring a change which would abrogate or modify
We turn next to the objective question: How is the hearer to decide between conflicting claims on his faith and obedience? We say the right was with Jeremiah; but how were the Jews to know that? They were addressed by two prophets, or, as we might say, two accredited ecclesiastics of the national Church; each with apparent earnestness and sincerity claimed to speak in the name of Jehovah and of the ancient faith of Israel, and each flatly contradicted the other on an immediate practical question, on which hung their individual fortunes and the destinies of their country. What were the Jews to do? Which were they to believe? It is the standing difficulty of all appeals to external authority. You inquire of this supposed divine oracle and there issues from it a babel of discordant voices, and each demands that you shall unhesitatingly submit to its dictates on peril of eternal damnation; and some have the audacity to claim obedience, because their teaching is "quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus."
One simple and practical test is indeed suggested—the
prophet of evil is more likely to be truly inspired
than the prophet of good; but Jeremiah naturally does
But this principle, which is necessarily of limited application, does not go far to solve the great question of authority in religion, on which Jeremiah gives us no further help.
There is, however, one obvious moral. No system of external authority, whatever pains may be taken to secure authentic legitimacy, can altogether release the individual from the responsibility of private judgment. Unreserved faith in the idea of a Catholic Church is quite consistent with much hesitation between the Anglican, Roman, and Greek communions; and the most devoted Catholic may be called upon to choose between rival anti-popes.
Ultimately the inspired teacher is only discerned by the inspired hearer; it is the answer of the conscience that authenticates the divine message.
xxix.
"Jehovah make thee like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire."—Jer. xxix. 22.
Thus when Jeremiah had confounded his opponents
in Jerusalem he had still to deal with their friends in
Babylon. Here again the issue was one of immediate
practical importance. In Chaldea as at Jerusalem the
prediction that the exiles would immediately return was
intended to kindle the proposed revolt. The Jews
at Babylon were virtually warned to hold themselves
in readiness to take advantage of any success of the
Syrian rebels, and, if opportunity offered, to render
them assistance. In those days information travelled
slowly, and there was some danger lest the captives
should be betrayed into acts of disloyalty, even after
the Jewish government had given up any present
intention of revolting against Nebuchadnezzar. Such
disloyalty might have involved their entire destruction.
Both Zedekiah and Jeremiah would be anxious to
inform them at once that they must refrain from any
plots against their Chaldean masters. Moreover the
Jeremiah's letter sought to bring about a better state of mind. It is addressed to the elders, priests, prophets, and people of the Captivity. The enumeration reminds us how thoroughly the exiled community reproduced the society of the ancient Jewish state—there was already a miniature Judah in Chaldea, the first of those Israels of the Dispersion which have since covered the face of the earth.
This is Jehovah's message by His prophet:—
There was to be no immediate return; their
captivity would last long enough to make it worth
their while to build houses and plant gardens. For the
present they were to regard Babylon as their home.
The prospect of restoration to Judah was too distant
to make any practical difference to their conduct of
Doubts have been expressed as to whether this verse originally formed part of Jeremiah's letter, or was ever written by him; but in view of his numerous references to a coming restoration those doubts are unnecessary.
Seventy is obviously a round number. Moreover the constant use of seven and its multiples in sacred symbolism forbids us to understand the prophecy as an exact chronological statement.
We should adequately express the prophet's meaning
by translating "in about two generations." We need
not waste time and trouble in discovering or inventing
two dates exactly separated by seventy years, one of
which will serve for the beginning and the other for
the end of the Captivity. The interval between the
destruction of Jerusalem and the Return was fifty
Israel's hope is guaranteed by God's self-knowledge of His gracious counsel:—
In the former clause "I" is emphatic in both places, and the phrase is parallel to the familiar formula "by Myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah." The future of Israel was guaranteed by the divine consistency. Jehovah, to use a colloquial phrase, knew His own mind. His everlasting purpose for the Chosen People could not be set aside. "Did God cast off His people? God forbid."
Yet this persistent purpose is not fulfilled without reference to character and conduct:—
The Hebrew Text inserts a paragraph (vv. 16-20) substantially identical with other portions of the book, especially xxiv. 8-10, announcing the approaching ruin and captivity of Zedekiah and the Jews still remaining in Judah. This section is omitted by the LXX., and breaks the obvious connection between verses 15 and 21.
As in the previous chapter, Jeremiah concludes with a personal judgment upon those prophets who had been so acceptable to the exiles. If verse 23 is to be understood literally, Ahab and Zedekiah had not only spoken without authority in the name of Jehovah, but had also been guilty of gross immorality. Their punishment was to be more terrible than that of Hananiah. They had incited the exiles to revolt by predicting the imminent ruin of Nebuchadnezzar. Possibly the Jewish king proposed to make his own peace by betraying his agents, after the manner of our own Elizabeth and other sovereigns.
They were to be given over to the terrible vengeance which a Chaldean king would naturally take on such offenders, and would be publicly roasted alive, so that the malice of him who desired to curse his enemy might find vent in such words as:—
"Jehovah make thee like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted alive."
We are not told whether this prophecy was fulfilled,
but it is by no means unlikely. The Assyrian king
Assurbanipal says, in one of his inscriptions concerning
a viceroy of Babylon who had revolted, that Assur and
the other gods "in the fierce burning fire they threw Smith's Assurbanipal, p. 163.
Jeremiah's letter caused great excitement and indignation among the exiles. We have no rejoinder from Ahab and Zedekiah; probably they were not in a position to make any. But Shemaiah the Nehelamite tried to make trouble for Jeremiah at Jerusalem. He, in his turn, wrote letters to "all the people at Jerusalem and to the priest Zephaniah ben Maaseiah and to all the priests" to this effect:—
"Jehovah hath made thee priest in the room of Jehoiada the priest, to exercise supervision over the Temple, and to deal with any mad fanatic who puts himself forward to prophesy, by placing him in the stocks and the collar. Why then hast thou not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who puts himself forward to prophesy unto you? Consequently he has sent unto us at Babylon: It (your captivity) will be long; build houses and dwell in them, plant gardens and eat the fruit thereof."
Confidence in a speedy return had already been
exalted into a cardinal article of the exiles' faith, and
Shemaiah claims that any one who denied this comfortable lii. 24;
Jeremiah was divinely instructed to reply to Shemaiah, charging him, in his turn, with being a man who put himself forward to prophesy without any commission from Jehovah, and who thus deluded his hearers into belief in falsehoods. Personal sentence is passed upon him, as upon Hananiah, Ahab, and Zedekiah; no son of his shall be reckoned amongst God's people or see the prosperity which they shall hereafter enjoy. The words are obscure: it is said that Jehovah will "visit Shemaiah and his seed," so that it cannot mean that he will be childless; but it is further said that "he shall not have a man to abide amongst this people." It is apparently a sentence of excommunication against Shemaiah and his family.
Here the episode abruptly ends. We are not told
whether the letter was sent, or how it was received,
or whether it was answered. We gather that, here
also, the last word rested with Jeremiah, and that at
Chapters xxviii., xxix., deepen the impression made by other sections of Jeremiah's intolerance and personal bitterness towards his opponents. He seems to speak of the roasting alive of the prophets at Babylon with something like grim satisfaction, and we are tempted to think of Torquemada and Bishop Bonner. But we must remember that the stake, as we have already said, has scarcely yet ceased to be an ordinary criminal punishment, and that, after centuries of Christianity, More and Cranmer, Luther and Calvin, had hardly any more tenderness for their ecclesiastical opponents than Jeremiah.
Indeed the Church is only beginning to be ashamed
of the complacency with which she has contemplated
the fiery torments of hell as the eternal destiny of
unrepentant sinners. One of the most tolerant and
catholic of our religious teachers has written: "If the
unlucky malefactor, who in mere brutality of ignorance
or narrowness of nature or of culture has wronged his
neighbour, excite our anger, how much deeper should
be our indignation when intellect and eloquence are
abused to selfish purposes, when studious leisure and
learning and thought turn traitors to the cause of
human well-being and the wells of a nation's moral
life are poisoned." Ecce Homo, xxi.
And yet we are brought back to the old difficulty, how are we to know the false prophet? He has neither horns nor hoofs, his tie may be as white and his coat as long as those of the true messenger of God. Again, Jeremiah's method affords us some practical guidance. He does not himself order and superintend the punishment of false prophets; he merely announces a divine judgment, which Jehovah Himself is to execute. He does not condemn men by the code of any Church, but each sentence is a direct and special revelation from Jehovah. How many sentences would have been passed upon heretics, if their accusers and judges had waited for a similar sanction?
xxi. 1-10, xxxiv., xxxvii. 1-10.
"All the princes and people ... changed their minds and reduced to bondage again all the slaves whom they had set free."—Jer. xxxiv. 10, 11.
li. 59, Hebrew Text. According to the LXX., Zedekiah sent
another embassy and did not go himself to Babylon. The section is
apparently a late addition.
The history of the next few years is lost in obscurity,
but when the curtain again rises everything is changed
and Judah is once more in revolt against the Chaldeans.
No doubt one cause of this fresh change of policy was
the renewed activity of Egypt. In the account of the
About the seventh year of Zedekiah, Psammetichus II.
of Egypt was succeeded by his brother Pharaoh Hophra,
the son of Josiah's conqueror, Pharaoh Necho. When
Hophra—the Apries of Herodotus—had completed the
reconquest of Ethiopia, he made a fresh attempt to
carry out his father's policy and to re-establish the
ancient Egyptian supremacy in Western Asia; and,
as of old, Egypt began by tampering with the allegiance
of the Syrian vassals of Babylon. According to
Ezekiel, xvii. 15.
The knowledge that an able and victorious general
was seated on the Egyptian throne, along with the
secret intrigues of his agents and partisans, was too
much for Zedekiah's discretion. Jeremiah's advice was
disregarded. The king surrendered himself to the
guidance—we might almost say, the control—of the
Egyptian party in Jerusalem; he violated his oath
of allegiance to his suzerain, and the frail and battered
ship of state was once more embarked on the stormy
waters of rebellion. Nebuchadnezzar promptly prepared
to grapple with the reviving strength of Egypt
in a renewed contest for the lordship of Syria. Probably
Egypt and Judah had other allies, but they are not xxvi. 2.
"The king of Babylon stood at the parting of the
way, ... to use divination: he shook the arrows to
and fro, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the
liver."
Later on Baalis, king of Ammon, received the Jewish
refugees and supported those who were most irreconcilable
in their hostility to Nebuchadnezzar. Nevertheless
the Ammonites were denounced by Jeremiah
for occupying the territory of Gad, and by Ezekiel xxv. 1-7.
Nevertheless the hearty support of Egypt was worth
more than the alliance of any number of the petty
neighbouring states, and Nebuchadnezzar levied a great
army to meet this ancient and formidable enemy of
Assyria and Babylon. He marched into Judah with
"all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth that
were under his dominion, and all the peoples," and
"fought against Jerusalem and all the cities thereof." xxi. 1-10. The exact date of this section is not given, but it is
closely parallel to xxxiv. 1-7, and seems to belong to the same period.
At the beginning of the siege Zedekiah's heart began
to fail him. The course of events seemed to confirm
Jeremiah's threats, and the king, with pathetic inconsistency,
"Inquire, I pray thee, of Jehovah for us, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us: peradventure Jehovah will deal with us according to all His wondrous works, that he may go up from us."
The memories of the great deliverance from Sennacherib were fresh and vivid in men's minds. Isaiah's denunciations had been as uncompromising as Jeremiah's, and yet Hezekiah had been spared. "Peradventure," thought his anxious descendant, "the prophet may yet be charged with gracious messages that Jehovah repents Him of the evil and will even now rescue His Holy City." But the timid appeal only called forth a yet sterner sentence of doom. Formidable as were the enemies against whom Zedekiah craved protection, they were to be reinforced by more terrible allies; man and beast should die of a great pestilence, and Jehovah Himself should be their enemy:—
"I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans.... I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a strong arm, in anger and fury and great wrath."
The city should be taken and burnt with fire, and the king and all others who survived should be carried away captive. Only on one condition might better terms be obtained:—
"Behold, I set before you the way of life and the
way of death. He that abideth in this city shall die
by the sword, the famine, and the pestilence; but he
that goeth out, and falleth to the besieging Chaldeans, xxi. 1-10.
On another occasion Zephaniah ben Maaseiah with a certain Tehucal ben Shelemiah was sent by the king to the prophet with the entreaty, "Pray now unto Jehovah our God for us." We are not told the sequel to this mission, but it is probably represented by the opening verses of chapter xxxiv. This section has the direct and personal note which characterises the dealings of Hebrew prophets with their sovereigns. Doubtless the partisans of Egypt had had a severe struggle with Jeremiah before they captured the ear of the Jewish king, and Zedekiah was possessed to the very last with a half-superstitious anxiety to keep on good terms with the prophet. Jehovah's "iron pillar and brasen wall" would make no concession to these royal blandishments: his message had been rejected, his Master had been slighted and defied, the Chosen People and the Holy City were being betrayed to their ruin; Jeremiah would not refrain from denouncing this iniquity because the king who had sanctioned it tried to flatter his vanity by sending deferential deputations of important notables. This is the Divine sentence:—
Yet there should be one doubtful mitigation of his punishment:—
King and people were not proof against the combined
terrors of the prophetic rebukes and the besieging
enemy. Jeremiah regained his influence, and Jerusalem
gave an earnest of the sincerity of her repentance by
entering into a covenant for the emancipation of all
Hebrew slaves. Deuteronomy had re-enacted the
ancient law that their bondage should terminate at the
end of six years, xxxiv. 14. xxxiv. 13.
Even Josiah's methods were imitated. He had
assembled the people at the Temple and made them xxxiv. 15. xxxiv. 9. xxxiv. 19.
This covenant was forthwith carried into effect, the
princes and people liberating their Hebrew slaves
In view of Jeremiah's persistent efforts, both before and after this incident, to make his countrymen loyally accept the Chaldean supremacy, we cannot doubt that he hoped to make terms between Zedekiah and Nebuchadnezzar. Apparently no tidings of Pharaoh Hophra's advance had reached Jerusalem; and the non-appearance of his "horses and much people" had discredited the Egyptian party, and enabled Jeremiah to overthrow their influence with the king and people. Egypt, after all her promises, had once more proved herself a broken reed; there was nothing left but to throw themselves on Nebuchadnezzar's mercy.
But the situation was once more entirely changed
by the news that Pharaoh Hophra had come forth out
Jeremiah's protest was unavailing, and only confirmed
the king and princes in their adherence to Egypt.
Moreover Jeremiah had now formally disclaimed any
sympathy with this great deliverance, which Pharaoh—and
presumably Jehovah—had wrought for Judah.
Hence it was clear that the people did not owe this
blessing to the covenant to which they had submitted
themselves by Jeremiah's guidance. As at Megiddo,
Jehovah had shown once more that He was with
Pharaoh and against Jeremiah. Probably they would
best please God by renouncing Jeremiah and all his
works—the covenant included. Moreover they could
take back their slaves with a clear conscience, to their
own great comfort and satisfaction. True, they had
sworn in the Temple with solemn and striking ceremonies,
but then Jehovah Himself had manifestly
released them from their oath. "All the princes and
people changed their mind, and reduced to bondage
again all the slaves whom they had set free." The
freedmen had been rejoicing with their former masters
in the prospect of national deliverance; the date of
their emancipation was to mark the beginning of a new
era of Jewish happiness and prosperity. When the
siege was raised and the Chaldeans driven away, they
could use their freedom in rebuilding the ruined cities
and cultivating the wasted lands. To all such dreams
there came a sudden and rough awakening: they were
dragged back to their former hopeless bondage—a
Jeremiah turned upon them in fierce wrath, like that of Elijah against Ahab when he met him taking possession of Naboth's vineyard. They had profaned the name of Jehovah, and—
The prophet plays upon the word "release" with grim irony. The Jews had repudiated the "release" which they had promised under solemn oath to their brethren, but Jehovah would not allow them to be so easily quit of their covenant. There should be a "release" after all, and they themselves should have the benefit of it—a "release" from happiness and prosperity, from the sacred bounds of the Temple, the Holy City, and the Land of Promise—a "release" unto "the sword, the pestilence, and the famine."
Another broken covenant was added to the list of
This incident has many morals; one of the most obvious is the futility of the most stringent oaths and the most solemn symbolic ritual. Whatever influence oaths may have in causing a would-be liar to speak the truth, they are very poor guarantees for the performance of contracts. William the Conqueror profited little by Harold's oath to help him to the crown of England, though it was sworn over the relics of holy saints. Wulfnoth's whisper in Tennyson's drama—
states the principle on which many oaths have been
taken. The famous "blush of Sigismund" over the
violation of his safe-conduct to Huss was rather a
token of unusual sensitiveness than a confession of
exceptional guilt. The Christian Church has exalted
perfidy into a sacred obligation. As Milman says Milman's Latin Christianity, viii. 255.
"The fatal doctrine, confirmed by long usage, by the decrees of Pontiffs, by the assent of all ecclesiastics, and the acquiescence of the Christian world, that no promise, no oath, was binding to a heretic, had hardly been questioned, never repudiated."
At first sight an oath seems to give firm assurance
to a promise; what was merely a promise to man is
However, the main lesson of the incident lies in its
added testimony to the supreme importance which the
prophets attached to social righteousness. When
Jeremiah wished to knit together again the bonds of
fellowship between Judah and its God, he did not make
them enter into a covenant to observe ritual or to
cultivate pious sentiments, but to release their slaves.
It has been said that a gentleman may be known by
the way in which he treats his servants; a man's
religion is better tested by his behaviour to his helpless
dependents than by his attendance on the means of
grace or his predilection for pious conversation. If we
were right in supposing that the government supported
Jeremiah because the act of emancipation would furnish
xxxvii. 11-21, xxxviii., xxxix. 15-18.
"Jeremiah abode in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken."—Jer. xxxviii. 28.
"When the Chaldean army was broken up from
Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh's army, Jeremiah
went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land
of Benjamin" to transact certain family business at
Anathoth. Cf. xxxii. 6-8.
The arrest took place "in the midst of the people." xxxvii. 12; so R.V., Streane (Camb. Bible), Kautzsch, etc. xxvi. 10. xxxviii. 1.
Few however of the "many days" had passed, before men's exultant anticipations of victory and deliverance began to give place to anxious forebodings. They had hoped to hear that Nebuchadnezzar had been defeated and was in headlong retreat to Chaldea; they had been prepared to join in the pursuit of the routed army, to gratify their revenge by massacring the fugitives and to share the plunder with their Egyptian allies. The fortunes of war belied their hopes; Pharaoh retreated, either after a battle or perhaps even without fighting. The return of the enemy was announced by the renewed influx of the country people to seek the shelter of the fortifications, and soon the Jews crowded to the walls as Nebuchadnezzar's vanguard appeared in sight and the Chaldeans occupied their old lines and re-formed the siege of the doomed city.
There was no longer any doubt that prudence dictated immediate surrender. It was the only course by which the people might be spared some of the horrors of a prolonged siege, followed by the sack of the city. But the princes who controlled the government were too deeply compromised with Egypt to dare to hope for mercy. With Jeremiah out of the way, they were able to induce the king and the people to maintain their resistance, and the siege went on.
But though Zedekiah was, for the most part, powerless in the hands of the princes, he ventured now and then to assert himself in minor matters, and, like other feeble sovereigns, derived some consolation amidst his many troubles from intriguing with the opposition against his own ministers. His feeling and behaviour towards Jeremiah were similar to those of Charles IX. towards Coligny, only circumstances made the Jewish king a more efficient protector of Jeremiah.
At this new and disastrous turn of affairs, which was an exact fulfilment of Jeremiah's warnings, the king was naturally inclined to revert to his former faith in the prophet—if indeed he had ever really been able to shake himself free from his influence. Left to himself he would have done his best to make terms with Nebuchadnezzar, as Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin had done before him. The only trustworthy channel of help, human or divine, was Jeremiah. Accordingly he sent secretly to the prison and had the prophet brought into the palace. There in some inner chamber, carefully guarded from intrusion by the slaves of the palace, Zedekiah received the man who now for more than forty years had been the chief counsellor of the kings of Judah, often in spite of themselves. Like Saul on the eve of Gilboa, he was too impatient to let disaster be its own herald; the silence of Heaven seemed more terrible than any spoken doom, and again like Saul he turned in his perplexity and despair to the prophet who had rebuked and condemned him. "Is there any word from Jehovah? And Jeremiah said, There is: ... thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon."
The Church is rightly proud of Ambrose rebuking
Theodosius at the height of his power and glory, and
And then he proceeds, with what seems to us inconsequent audacity, to ask a favour. Did ever petitioner to a king preface his supplication with so strange a preamble? This was the request:—
"Now hear, I pray thee, O my lord the king: let my supplication, I pray thee, be accepted before thee; that thou do not cause me to return to the house of Jonathan the secretary, lest I die there.
"Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard, and they gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers' street."
A loaf of bread is not sumptuous fare, but it is evidently mentioned as an improvement upon his prison diet: it is not difficult to understand why Jeremiah was afraid he would die in the house of Jonathan.
During this milder imprisonment in the court of the Cf. Renan, iii. 333.
"Then the princes said unto the king, Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death: for he weakeneth the hands of the soldiers that are left in this city, and of all the people, by speaking such words unto them: for this man seeketh not the welfare of this people, but the hurt." Certainly Jeremiah's word was enough to take the heart out of the bravest soldiers; his preaching would soon have rendered further resistance impossible. But the concluding sentence about the "welfare of the people" was merely cheap cant, not without parallel in the sayings of many "princes" in later times. "The welfare of the people" would have been best promoted by the surrender which Jeremiah advocated. The king does not pretend to sympathise with the princes; he acknowledges himself a mere tool in their hands. "Behold," he answers, "he is in your power, for the king can do nothing against you."
"Then they took Jeremiah, and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah ben Hammelech, that was in the court of the guard; and they let Jeremiah down with cords. And there was no water in the cistern, only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud."
The depth of this improvised oubliette is shown by
the use of cords to let the prisoner down into it. How
was it, however, that, after the release of Jeremiah
from the cells in the house of Jonathan, the princes did
not at once execute him? Probably, in spite of all that
had happened, they still felt a superstitious dread of
actually shedding the blood of a prophet. In some
mysterious way they felt that they would be less guilty
But the princes were again baffled; the prophet had friends in the royal household who were bolder than their master: Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an eunuch, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the cistern. He went to the king, who was then sitting in the gate of Benjamin, where he would be accessible to any petitioner for favour or justice, and interceded for the prisoner:—
"My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the cistern; and he is like to die in the place where he is because of the famine, for there is no more bread in the city."
Apparently the princes, busied with the defence of
the city and in their pride "too much despising" their
royal master, had left him for a while to himself. Emboldened
by this public appeal to act according to the
dictates of his own heart and conscience, and possibly
"The king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take with thee hence thirty men, and draw up Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern, before he die. So Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the palace under the treasury, and took thence old cast clouts and rotten rags, and let them down by cords into the cistern to Jeremiah. And he said to Jeremiah, Put these old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes under the cords. And Jeremiah did so. So they drew him up with the cords, and took him up out of the cistern: and he remained in the court of the guard."
Jeremiah's gratitude to his deliverer is recorded in
a short paragraph in which Ebed-melech, like Baruch,
is promised that "his life shall be given him for a
prey." He should escape with his life from the sack
of the city—"because he trusted" in Jehovah. As
of the ten lepers whom Jesus cleansed only the
Samaritan returned to give glory to God, so when
none of God's people were found to rescue His prophet,
the dangerous honour was accepted by an Ethiopian
proselyte. xxxix. 15-18.
Meanwhile the king was craving for yet another
"word of Jehovah." True, the last "word" given him
by the prophet had been, "Thou shalt be delivered
into the hand of the king of Babylon." But now that
he had just rescued Jehovah's prophet from a miserable
death (he forgot that Jeremiah had been consigned to
the cistern by his own authority), possibly there might
be some more encouraging message from God. Accordingly So Giesebrecht, in loco; A.V., R.V., "third entry." In any case it
will naturally be a passage from the palace to the Temple.
Here he implored the prophet to give him a faithful answer to his questions concerning his own fate and that of the city: "Hide nothing from me." But Jeremiah did not respond with his former prompt frankness. He had had too recent a warning not to put his trust in princes. "If I declare it unto thee," said he, "wilt thou not surely put me to death? and if I give thee counsel, thou wilt not hearken unto me. So Zedekiah the king sware secretly to Jeremiah, As Jehovah liveth, who is the source and giver of our life, I will not put thee to death, neither will I give thee into the hand of these men that seek thy life.
"Then said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: If thou wilt go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, thy life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned, and thou and thine house shall live; but if thou wilt not go forth, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand.
"Zedekiah said unto Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews that have deserted to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me."
He does not, however, urge that the princes will hinder any such surrender; he believed himself sufficiently master of his own actions to be able to escape to the Chaldeans if he chose.
But evidently, when he first revolted against Babylon,
Zedekiah is a perfect monument of the miseries that wait upon weakness: he was everybody's friend in turn—now a docile pupil of Jeremiah and gratifying the Chaldean party by his professions of loyalty to Nebuchadnezzar, and now a pliant tool in the hands of the Egyptian party persecuting his former friends. At the last he was afraid alike of the princes in the city, of the exiles in the enemy's camp, and of the Chaldeans. The mariner who had to pass between Scylla and Charybdis was fortunate compared to Zedekiah. To the end he clung with a pathetic blending of trust and fearfulness to Jeremiah. He believed him, and yet he seldom had courage to act according to his counsel.
Jeremiah made a final effort to induce this timid soul to act with firmness and decision. He tried to reassure him: "They shall not deliver thee into the hands of thy revolted subjects. Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of Jehovah, in that which I speak unto thee: so it shall be well with thee, and thy life shall be spared." He appealed to that very dread of ridicule which the king had just betrayed. If he refused to surrender, he would be taunted for his weakness and folly by the women of his own harem:—
"If thou refuse to go forth, this is the word that
And as Tennyson makes it the climax of Geraint's degeneracy that he was not only—
but also—
so Jeremiah appeals last of all to the king's sense of responsibility for his people: "Thou wilt be the cause of the burning of the city."
In spite of the dominance of the Egyptian party, and their desperate determination, not only to sell their own lives dearly, but also to involve king and people, city and temple, in their own ruin, the power of decisive action still rested with Zedekiah; if he failed to use it, he would be responsible for the consequences.
Thus Jeremiah strove to possess the king with some breath of his own dauntless spirit and iron will.
Zedekiah paused irresolute. A vision of possible
deliverance passed through his mind. His guards and
"Then all the princes came to Jeremiah, and asked him; and he told them just what the king had commanded. So they let him alone, for no report of the matter had got abroad." We are a little surprised that the princes so easily abandoned their purpose of putting Jeremiah to death, and did not at once consign him afresh to the empty cistern. Probably they were too disheartened for vigorous action; the garrison were starving, and it was clear that the city could not hold out much longer. Moreover the superstition that had shrunk from using actual violence to the prophet would suspect a token of Divine displeasure in his release.
Another question raised by this incident is that of the prophet's veracity, which, at first sight, does not seem superior to that of the patriarchs. It is very probable that the prophet, as at the earlier interview, had entreated the king not to allow him to be confined in the cells in Jonathan's house, but the narrative rather suggests that the king constructed this pretext on the basis of the former interview. Moreover, if the princes let Jeremiah escape with nothing less innocent than a suppressio veri, if they were satisfied with anything less than an explicit statement that the place of the prophet's confinement was the sole topic of conversation, they must have been more guileless that we can easily imagine. But, at any rate, if Jeremiah did stoop to dissimulation, it was to protect Zedekiah, not to save himself.
Zedekiah is a conspicuous example of the strange irony with which Providence entrusts incapable persons with the decision of most momentous issues; It sets Laud and Charles I. to adjust the Tudor Monarchy to the sturdy self-assertion of Puritan England, and Louis XVI. to cope with the French Revolution. Such histories are after all calculated to increase the self-respect of those who are weak and timid. Moments come, even to the feeblest, when their action must have the most serious results for all connected with them. It is one of the crowning glories of Christianity that it preaches a strength that is made perfect in weakness.
Perhaps the most significant feature in this narrative is the conclusion of Jeremiah's first interview with the king. Almost in the same breath the prophet announces to Zedekiah his approaching ruin and begs from him a favour. He thus defines the true attitude of the believer towards the prophet.
Unwelcome teaching must not be allowed to interfere with wonted respect and deference, or to provoke resentment. Possibly if this truth were less obvious men would be more willing to give it a hearing and it might be less persistently ignored. But the prophet's behaviour is even more striking and interesting as a revelation of his own character and of the true prophetic spirit. His faithful answer to the king involved much courage, but that he should proceed from such an answer to such a petition shows a simple and sober dignity not always associated with courage. When men are wrought up to the pitch of uttering disagreeable truths at the risk of their lives, they often develop a spirit of defiance, which causes personal bitterness and animosity between themselves and their hearers, and renders impossible any asking or granting of favours. Many men would have felt that a petition compromised their own dignity and weakened the authority of the divine message. The exaltation of self-sacrifice which inspired them would have suggested that they ought not to risk the crown of martyrdom by any such appeal, but rather welcome torture and death. Thus some amongst the early Christians would present themselves before the Roman tribunals and try to provoke the magistrates into condemning them. But Jeremiah, like Polycarp and Cyprian, neither courted nor shunned martyrdom; he was as incapable of bravado as he was of fear. He was too intent upon serving his country and glorifying God, too possessed with his mission and his message, to fall a prey to the self-consciousness which betrays men, sometimes even martyrs, into theatrical ostentation.
xxxix.-xli., lii. Chapter lii. =
"Then arose Ishmael ben Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote with the sword and slew Gedaliah ben Ahikam ben Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon had made king over the land."—Jer. xli. 2.
We would gladly know how Jeremiah fared on that night when the city was stormed, and Zedekiah and his army stole out in a vain attempt to escape beyond Jordan. Our book preserves two brief but inconsistent narratives of his fortunes.
One is contained in xxxix. 11-14. Nebuchadnezzar,
Accordingly Nebuzaradan and all the king of
Babylon's princes sent and took Jeremiah out of the
court of the guard, and committed him to Gedaliah ben
Ahikam ben Shaphan, to take him to his house. Literally "the house"—either Jeremiah's or Gedaliah's, or possibly
the royal palace.
This account is not only inconsistent with that given
in the next chapter, but it also represents Nebuzaradan
as present when the city was taken, whereas
later on lii. 6, 12.
According to this account, Jeremiah was not at once
singled out for any exceptionally favourable treatment.
When Zedekiah and the soldiers had left the city,
there can have been no question of further resistance.
The history does not mention any massacre by the
conquerors, but we may probably accept
Yet the silence of Kings and Jeremiah as to all this,
combined with their express statements as to captives,
indicates that the Chaldean generals did not order a
massacre, but rather sought to take prisoners. The
soldiers would not be restrained from a certain
slaughter in the heat of their first breaking into the
city; but prisoners had a market value, and were
provided for by the practice of deportation which
Babylon had inherited from Nineveh. Accordingly
the soldiers' lust for blood was satiated or bridled
before they reached Jeremiah's prison. The court of
the guard probably formed part of the precincts of the
palace, and the Chaldean commanders would at once
secure its occupants for Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah
was taken with other captives and put in chains. If
the dates in lii. 6, 12, be correct, he must have
remained a prisoner till the arrival of Nebuzaradan,
a month later on. He was then a witness of the
burning of the city and the destruction of the fortifications,
and was carried with the other captives to Ramah.
Here the Chaldean general found leisure to inquire
Nebuzaradan at once acted upon their representations. He ordered Jeremiah's chains to be removed, gave him full liberty to go where he pleased, and assured him of the favour and protection of the Chaldean government:—
"If it seem good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will look well unto thee; but if it seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear: behold, all the land is before thee; go whithersoever it seemeth to thee good and right."
These words are, however, preceded by two remarkable verses. For the nonce, the prophet's mantle seems to have fallen upon the Chaldean soldier. He speaks to his auditor just as Jeremiah himself had been wont to address his erring fellow-countrymen:—
"Thy God Jehovah pronounced this evil upon this place: and Jehovah hath brought it, and done according as He spake; because ye have sinned against Jehovah, and have not obeyed His voice, therefore this thing is come unto you."
Possibly Nebuzaradan did not include Jeremiah personally in the "ye" and "you"; and yet a prophet's message is often turned upon himself in this fashion. Even in our day outsiders will not be at the trouble to distinguish between one Christian and another, and will often denounce a man for his supposed share in Church abuses he has strenuously combated.
We need not be surprised that a heathen noble can talk like a pious Jew. The Chaldeans were eminently religious, and their worship of Bel and Merodach may often have been as spiritual and sincere as the homage paid by most Jews to Jehovah. The Babylonian creed could recognise that a foreign state might have its own legitimate deity and would suffer for disloyalty to him. Assyrian and Chaldean kings were quite willing to accept the prophetic doctrine that Jehovah had commissioned them to punish this disobedient people. Still Jeremiah must have been a little taken aback when one of the cardinal points of his own teaching was expounded to him by so strange a preacher; but he was too prudent to raise any discussion on the matter, and too chivalrous to wish to establish his own rectitude at the expense of his brethren. Moreover he had to decide between the two alternatives offered him by Nebuzaradan. Should he go to Babylon or remain in Judah?
According to a suggestion of Gratz, accepted by
Cheyne, Pulpit Commentary, in loco. Cf. the previous volume on Jeremiah
in this series.
On the other hand, Jeremiah's surviving enemies, priests, prophets, and princes, had been taken en masse to Babylon. On his arrival he would find himself again plunged into the old controversies. Many if not the majority of his countrymen there would regard him as a traitor. The protégé of Nebuchadnezzar was sure to be disliked and distrusted by his less fortunate brethren. And Jeremiah was not a born courtier like Josephus. In Judah, moreover, he would be amongst friends of his own way of thinking; the remnant left behind had been placed under the authority of his friend Gedaliah, the son of his former protector Ahikam, the grandson of his ancient ally Shaphan. He would be free from the anathemas of corrupt priests and the contradiction of false prophets. The advocacy of true religion amongst the exiles might safely be left to Ezekiel and his school.
But probably the motives that decided Jeremiah's
course of action were, firstly, that devoted attachment
to the sacred soil which was a passion with every
earnest Jew; and, secondly, the inspired conviction
that Palestine was to be the scene of the future
development of revealed religion. This conviction was
Accordingly Jeremiah decided to join Gedaliah. The sequence of verses 4 and 5 has been spoilt by some
corruption of the text. The versions diverge variously from the
Hebrew. Possibly the original text told how Jeremiah found
himself unable to give an immediate answer, and Nebuzaradan, observing
his hesitation, bade him return to Gedaliah and decide at
his leisure.
Gedaliah's headquarters were at Mizpah, a town not certainly identified, but lying somewhere to the north-west of Jerusalem, and playing an important part in the history of Samuel and Saul. Men would remember the ancient record which told how the first Hebrew king had been divinely appointed at Mizpah, and might regard the coincidence as a happy omen that Gedaliah would found a kingdom more prosperous and permanent than that which traced its origin to Saul.
Nebuzaradan had left with the new governor "men,
women, and children, ... of them that were not carried
away captive to Babylon." These were chiefly of the
Tradition has supplemented what the sacred record
tells us of this period in Jeremiah's history. We are
told
A less improbable tradition is that which narrates
that Jeremiah composed the Book of Lamentations
shortly after the capture of the city. This is first
stated by the Septuagint; it has been adopted by the
Vulgate and various Rabbinical authorities, and has
received considerable support from Christian scholars. Cf. Professor Adeney's Canticles and Lamentations in this
series.
Without entering into the general question of the
authorship of Lamentations, we may venture to doubt
whether it can be referred to any period of Jeremiah's
life which is dealt with in our book; and even whether
it accurately represents his feelings at any such period.
During the first month that followed the capture of
Jerusalem the Chaldean generals held the city and its
inhabitants at the disposal of their king. His decision
Doubtless when the venerable priest and prophet looked from Ramah or Mizpah towards the blackened ruins of the Temple and the Holy City, he was possessed by something of the spirit of Lamentations. But from the moment when he went to Mizpah he would be busily occupied in assisting Gedaliah in his gallant effort to gather the nucleus of a new Israel out of the flotsam and jetsam of the shipwreck of Judah. Busy with this work of practical beneficence, his unconquerable spirit already possessed with visions of a brighter future, Jeremiah could not lose himself in mere regrets for the past.
He was doomed to experience yet another disappointment.
Gedaliah had only held his office for about two
months, Cf. lii. 12, "fifth month," and xli. 1, "seventh month." Cheyne
however points out that no year is specified in xli. 1, and holds that
Gedaliah's governorship lasted for over four years, and that the deportation
four years (lii. 30) after the destruction of the city was the
prompt punishment of his murder.
Gedaliah's misplaced confidence soon had fatal consequences.
In the second month, about October, the
Jews in the ordinary course of events would have
celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, to return thanks
for their plentiful ingathering of grapes, olives, and
summer fruit. Possibly this occasion gave Ishmael a
pretext for visiting Mizpah. He came thither with ten
nobles who, like himself, were connected with the royal
family and probably were among the princes who
persecuted Jeremiah. This small and distinguished
company could not be suspected of intending to use
violence. Ishmael seemed to be reciprocating Gedaliah's
confidence by putting himself in the governor's power.
"Then arose Ishmael ben Nethaniah and his ten companions and smote Gedaliah ben Ahikam ... and all the Jewish and Chaldean soldiers that were with him at Mizpah."
Probably the eleven assassins were supported by a larger body of followers, who waited outside the city and made their way in amidst the confusion consequent on the murder; doubtless, too, they had friends amongst Gedaliah's entourage. These accomplices had first lulled any suspicions that he might feel as to Ishmael, and had then helped to betray their master.
Not contented with the slaughter which he had already perpetrated, Ishmael took measures to prevent the news getting abroad, and lay in wait for any other adherents of Gedaliah who might come to visit him. He succeeded in entrapping a company of eighty men from Northern Israel: ten were allowed to purchase their lives by revealing hidden stores of wheat, barley, oil, and honey; the rest were slain and thrown into an ancient pit, "which King Asa had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel."
These men were pilgrims, who came with shaven
chins and torn clothes, "and having cut themselves,
bringing meal offerings and frankincense to the house
of Jehovah." The pilgrims were doubtless on their
way to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles: with the
destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, all the joy of
that festival would be changed to mourning and its
songs to wailing. Possibly they were going to lament
on the site of the ruined temple. But Mizpah itself
But after this bloody deed it was high time for Ishmael to be gone and betake himself back to his heathen patron, Baalis the Ammonite. These massacres could not long be kept a secret. And yet Ishmael seems to have made a final effort to suppress the evidence of his crimes. In his retreat he carried with him all the people left in Mizpah, "soldiers, women, children, and eunuchs," including the royal princesses, and apparently Jeremiah and Baruch. No doubt he hoped to make money out of his prisoners by selling them as slaves or holding them to ransom. He had not ventured to slay Jeremiah: the prophet had not been present at the banquet and had thus escaped the first fierce slaughter, and Ishmael shrank from killing in cold blood the man whose predictions of ruin had been so exactly and awfully fulfilled by the recent destruction of Jerusalem.
When Johanan ben Kareah and the other captains
heard how entirely Ishmael had justified their warning,
they assembled their forces and started in pursuit.
Ishmael's band seems to have been comparatively small,
and was moreover encumbered by the disproportionate
number of captives with which they had burdened
However Ishmael's original following of ten may have been reinforced, his band cannot have been very numerous and was manifestly inferior to Johanan's forces. In face of an enemy of superior strength, Ishmael's only chance of escape was to leave his prisoners to their own devices—he had not even time for another massacre. The captives at once turned round and made their way to their deliverer. Ishmael's followers seem to have been scattered, taken captive, or slain, but he himself escaped with eight men—possibly eight of the original ten—and found refuge with the Ammonites.
Johanan and his companions with the recovered
captives made no attempt to return to Mizpah. The
Chaldeans would exact a severe penalty for the murder
of their governor Gedaliah, and their own fellow-countryman:
their vengeance was not likely to be
scrupulously discriminating. The massacre would be
regarded as an act of rebellion on the part of the
Jewish community in Judah, and the community would
be punished accordingly. Johanan and his whole
company determined that when the day of retribution
came the Chaldeans should find no one to punish.
They set out for Egypt, the natural asylum of the
enemies of Babylon. On the way they halted in the
neighbourhood of Bethlehem at a caravanserai The reading is doubtful; possibly the word (geruth) translated
"caravanserai," or some similar word to be read instead of it, merely
forms a compound proper name with Chimham.
xlii., xliii.
"They came into the land of Egypt, for they obeyed not the voice of Jehovah."—Jer. xliii. 7.
And they on their part said unto Jeremiah: "Jehovah
be a true and faithful witness against us, if we do not
according to every word that Jehovah thy God shall
send unto us by thee. We will obey the voice of
Jehovah our God, to whom we send thee, whether
The prophet returned no hasty answer to this solemn appeal. As in his controversy with Hananiah, he refrained from at once announcing his own judgment as the Divine decision, but waited for the express confirmation of the Spirit. For ten days prophet and people were alike kept in suspense. The patience of Johanan and his followers is striking testimony to their sincere reverence for Jeremiah.
On the tenth day the message came, and Jeremiah called the people together to hear God's answer to their question, and to learn that Divine will to which they had promised unreserved obedience. It ran thus:—
The words of Jeremiah's original commission seem ever present to his mind:—
They need not flee from Judah as an accursed land; Jehovah had a new and gracious purpose concerning them, and therefore:—
It was premature to conclude that Ishmael's crime
But Jeremiah knew too well what mingled hopes and fears drew his hearers towards the fertile valley and rich cities of the Nile. He sets before them the reverse of the picture: they might refuse to obey God's command to remain in Judah; they might say, "No, we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor hunger for bread, and there will we dwell." As of old, they craved for the flesh-pots of Egypt; and with more excuse than their forefathers. They were worn out with suffering and toil, some of them had wives and children; the childless prophet was inviting them to make sacrifices and incur risks which he could neither share nor understand. Can we wonder if they fell short of his inspired heroism, and hesitated to forego the ease and plenty of Egypt in order to try social experiments in Judah?
But Jeremiah had neither sympathy nor patience
with such weakness. Moreover, now as often, valour
was the better part of discretion, and the boldest
The old familiar curses, so often uttered against Jerusalem and its inhabitants, are pronounced against any of his hearers who should take refuge in Egypt:—
They would die "by the sword, the famine, and the pestilence"; they would be "an execration and an astonishment, a curse and a reproach."
He had set before them two alternative courses, and
the Divine judgment upon each: he had known beforehand
that, contrary to his own choice and judgment,
their hearts were set upon going down into Egypt;
hence, as when confronted and contradicted by
Hananiah, he had been careful to secure divine
His hearers were equally prompt with their rejoinder; Johanan ben Kareah and "all the proud men" answered him:—
"Thou liest! It is not Jehovah our God who hath sent thee to say, Ye shall not go into Egypt to sojourn there; but Baruch ben Neriah setteth thee on against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may slay us or carry us away captive to Babylon."
Jeremiah had experienced many strange vicissitudes,
but this was not the least striking. Ten days ago
the people and their leaders had approached him in
reverent submission, and had solemnly promised to
accept and obey his decision as the word of God. Now
they called him a liar; they asserted that he did not
speak by any Divine inspiration, but was a feeble
impostor, an oracular puppet, whose strings were pulled
by his own disciple. Cf. chapter on "Baruch."
Such scenes are, unfortunately, only too common in Church history. Religious professors are still ready to abuse and to impute unworthy motives to prophets whose messages they dislike, in a spirit not less secular than that which is shown when some modern football team tries to mob the referee who has given a decision against its hopes.
Moreover we must not unduly emphasise the solemn
engagement given by the Jews to abide Jeremiah's
decision. They were probably sincere, but not very
much in earnest. The proceedings and the strong
formulæ used were largely conventional. Ancient
kings and generals regularly sought the approval of
their prophets or augurs before taking any important
step, but they did not always act upon their advice.
The final breach between Saul and the prophet Samuel
seems to have been due to the fact that the king did
not wait for his presence and counsel before engaging
the Philistines.
Johanan and his company felt it essential to consult
some divine oracle; and Jeremiah was not only the
greatest prophet of Jehovah, he was also the only
prophet available. They must have known from his
consistent denunciation of all alliance with Egypt that
his views were likely to be at variance with their own.
But they were consulting Jehovah—Jeremiah was only
His mouthpiece; hitherto He had set His face against
any dealings with Egypt, but circumstances were
entirely changed, and Jehovah's purpose might change
After the scene we have been describing, the refugees set out for Egypt, carrying with them the princesses and Jeremiah and Baruch. They were following in the footsteps of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Jeroboam and many another Jew who had sought protection under the shadow of Pharaoh. They were the forerunners of that later Israel in Egypt which, through Philo and his disciples, exercised so powerful an influence on the doctrine, criticism, and exegesis of the early Christian Church.
Yet this exodus in the wrong direction was by no
means complete. Four years later Nebuzaradan could
still find seven hundred and forty-five Jews to carry
away to Babylon. lii. 30.
When Johanan's company reached the frontier, they would find the Egyptian officials prepared to receive them. During the last few months there must have been constant arrivals of Jewish refugees, and rumour must have announced the approach of so large a company, consisting of almost all the Jews left in Palestine. The very circumstances that made them dread the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar would ensure them a hearty welcome in Egypt. Their presence was an unmistakable proof of the entire failure of the attempt to create in Judah a docile and contented dependency and outpost of the Chaldean Empire. They were accordingly settled at Tahpanhes and in the surrounding district.
But no welcome could conciliate Jeremiah's implacable
temper, nor could all the splendour of Egypt tame his
indomitable spirit. Amongst his fellow-countrymen at
Bethlehem, he had foretold the coming tribulations of
Egypt. He now renewed his predictions within the
very precincts of Pharaoh's palace, and enforced them
by a striking symbol. At Tahpanhes—the modern
Tell Defenneh—which was the ancient Egyptian
frontier fortress and settlement on the more westerly
route from Syria, "the word of Jehovah came to
Jeremiah, saying, Take great stones in thine hand, and
hide them in mortar in the brick pavement, at the entry
of Pharaoh's palace in Tahpanhes, in the presence of
He would set up his royal tribunal, and decide the fate of the conquered city and its inhabitants.
The whole country would become a mere mantle for his dignity, a comparatively insignificant part of his vast possessions.
A campaign that promised well at the beginning has often ended in despair, like Sennacherib's attack on Judah, and Pharaoh Necho's expedition to Carchemish. The invading army has been exhausted by its victories, or wasted by disease and compelled to beat an inglorious retreat. No such misfortunes should overtake the Chaldean king. He would depart with all his spoil, leaving Egypt behind him subdued into a loyal province of his empire.
Then the prophet adds, apparently as a kind of afterthought:—
(so styled to distinguish this Beth-Shemesh from Beth-Shemesh in Palestine),
The performance of this symbolic act and the
delivery of its accompanying message are not recorded,
but Jeremiah would not fail to make known the divine
word to his fellow-countrymen. It is difficult to
understand how the exiled prophet would be allowed
to assemble the Jews in front of the main entrance of
the palace, and hide "great stones" in the pavement.
Possibly the palace was being repaired, So Orelli, in loco.
But while the ruined palace may testify to Pharaoh's
generosity to the Royal House that had suffered
through its alliance with him, the "great stones"
remind us that, after a brief interval of sympathy and
co-operation, Jeremiah again found himself in bitter
antagonism to his fellow-countrymen. In our next
chapter we shall describe one final scene of mutual
recrimination. For the prophecy against Egypt and its fulfilment see further
chapter XVII.
xliv.
"Since we left off burning incense and offering libations to the Queen of Heaven, we have been in want of everything, and have been consumed by the sword and the famine."—Jer. xliv. 18.
Nothing is said as to where and when this "great assembly" met; but for Jeremiah, such a gathering at all times and anywhere, in Egypt as at Jerusalem, became an opportunity for fulfilling his Divine commission. He once again confronted his fellow-countrymen with the familiar threats and exhortations. A new climate had not created in them either clean hearts or a right spirit.
Recent history had added force to his warnings.
He begins therefore by appealing to the direful consequences
The Israelites had enjoyed for centuries intimate personal relations with Jehovah, and knew Him by this ancient and close fellowship and by all His dealings with them. They had no such knowledge of the gods of surrounding nations. They were like foolish children who prefer the enticing blandishments of a stranger to the affection and discipline of their home. Such children do not intend to forsake their home or to break the bonds of filial affection, and yet the new friendship may wean their hearts from their father. So these exiles still considered themselves worshippers of Jehovah, and yet their superstition led them to disobey and dishonour Him.
Before its ruin, Judah had sinned against light and leading:—
Political and social questions, the controversies with
the prophets who contradicted Jeremiah in the name of
Jehovah, have fallen into the background; the poor
pretence of loyalty to Jehovah which permitted His
This profane blending of idolatry with a profession
of zeal for Jehovah had provoked the divine wrath
against Judah: and yet the exiles had not profited by
their terrible experience of the consequences of sin;
they still burnt incense unto other gods. Therefore
Jeremiah remonstrates with them afresh, and sets
before their eyes the utter ruin which will punish
persistent sin. This discourse repeats and enlarges
the threats uttered at Bethlehem. The penalties then
denounced on disobedience are now attributed to
idolatry. We have here yet another example of the
tacit understanding attaching to all the prophet's predictions.
The most positive declarations of doom are
often warnings and not final sentences. Jehovah does
On this occasion there was no rival prophet to beard Jeremiah and relieve his hearers from their fears and scruples. Probably indeed no professed prophet of Jehovah would have cared to defend the worship of other gods. But, as at Bethlehem, the people themselves ventured to defy their aged mentor. They seem to have been provoked to such hardihood by a stimulus which often prompts timorous men to bold words. Their wives were specially devoted to the superstitious burning of incense, and these women were present in large numbers. Probably, like Lady Macbeth, they had already in private
those husbands from speaking their minds to Jeremiah. In their presence, the men dared not shirk an obvious duty, for fear of more domestic chastisement. The prophet's reproaches would be less intolerable than such inflictions. Moreover the fair devotees did not hesitate to mingle their own shrill voices in the wordy strife.
These idolatrous Jews—male and female—carried things with a very high hand indeed:—
"We will not obey thee in that which thou hast
spoken unto us in the name of Jehovah. We are
determined to perform all the vows we have made to Combined from verses 16, 17, and 25.
Moreover they were quite prepared to meet Jeremiah on his own ground and argue with him according to his own principles and methods. He had appealed to the ruin of Judah as a proof of Jehovah's condemnation of their idolatry and of His power to punish: they argued that these misfortunes were a divine spretæ injuria formæ, the vengeance of the Queen of Heaven, whose worship they had neglected. When they duly honoured her,—
"Then had we plenty of victuals, and were prosperous and saw no evil; but since we left off burning incense and offering libations to the Queen of Heaven, we have been in want of everything, and have been consumed by the sword and the famine."
Moreover the women had a special plea of their own:—
"When we burned incense and offered libations to the Queen of Heaven, did we not make cakes to symbolise her and offer libations to her with our husbands' permission?"
A wife's vows were not valid without her husband's
sanction, and the women avail themselves of this
principle to shift the responsibility for their superstition
on the men's shoulders. Possibly too the unfortunate
Benedicts were not displaying sufficient zeal in the
good cause, and these words were intended to goad
them into greater energy. Doubtless they cannot be
entirely exonerated of blame for tolerating their wives'
But these defiant speeches raise a more important question. There is an essential difference between regarding a national catastrophe as a divine judgment and the crude superstition to which an eclipse expresses the resentment of an angry god. But both involve the same practical uncertainty. The sufferers or the spectators ask what god wrought these marvels and what sins they are intended to punish, and to these questions neither catastrophe nor eclipse gives any certain answer.
Doubtless the altars of the Queen of Heaven had been destroyed by Josiah in his crusade against heathen cults; but her outraged majesty had been speedily avenged by the defeat and death of the iconoclast, and since then the history of Judah had been one long series of disasters. Jeremiah declared that these were the just retribution inflicted by Jehovah because Judah had been disloyal to Him; in the reign of Manasseh their sin had reached its climax:—
"I will cause them to be tossed to and fro among all
the nations of the earth, because of Manasseh ben
Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in
Jerusalem." xv. 4.
His audience were equally positive that the national
To us, as to Jeremiah, it seems sheer nonsense to speak of the vengeance of the Queen of Heaven, not because of what we deduce from the circumstances of the fall of Jerusalem, but because we do not believe in any such deity. But the fallacy is repeated when, in somewhat similar fashion, Protestants find proof of the superiority of their faith in the contrast between England and Catholic Spain, while Romanists draw the opposite conclusion from a comparison of Holland and Belgium. In all such cases the assured truth of the disputant's doctrine, which is set forth as the result of his argument, is in reality the premise upon which his reasoning rests. Faith is not deduced from, but dictates an interpretation of history. In an individual the material penalties of sin may arouse a sleeping conscience, but they cannot create a moral sense: apart from a moral sense the discipline of rewards and punishments would be futile:—
Jeremiah, therefore, is quite consistent in refraining
from argument and replying to his opponents by reiterating
his former statements that sin against Jehovah
had ruined Judah and would yet ruin the exiles. He
spoke on the authority of the "inner sense," itself
instructed by Revelation. But, after the manner of As to the fulfilment of this prophecy see Chap. XVII.
We have reserved for separate treatment the questions
suggested by the references to the Queen of
Heaven. MELEKHETH HASHSHAMAYIM. The Masoretic pointing
seems to indicate a rendering "service" or work of heaven, probably
in the sense of "host of heaven," i.e. the stars, ×Ö°×Ö¶×ֶת being written
defectively for ×Ö°×Ö¶××ֶת, but this translation is now pretty generally
abandoned. Cf. C. J. Ball, Giesebrecht, Orelli, Cheyne, etc., on vii. 18,
and especially Kuenen's treatise on the Queen of Heaven—in the
Gesammelte Abhandlungen, translated by Budde—to which this section
is largely indebted. The worship of Tammuz and of "creeping things and abominable
beasts" etc.
It is easy to find modern parallels—Christian and heathen—to the name of this goddess. The Virgin Mary is honoured with the title Regina Cœli, and at Mukden, the Sacred City of China, there is a temple to the Queen of Heaven. But it is not easy to identify the ancient deity who bore this name. The Jews are accused elsewhere of worshipping "the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven," and one or other of these heavenly bodies—mostly either the moon or the planet Venus—has been supposed to have been the Queen of Heaven.
Neither do the symbolic cakes help us. Such emblems
are found in the ritual of many ancient cults: at
Athens cakes called Ïελá¿Î½Î±Î¹, and shaped like a full-moon
were offered to the moon-goddess Artemis; a
similar usage seems to have prevailed in the worship
of the Arabian goddess Al-Uzza, whose star was Venus,
and also of connection with the worship of the sun. Kuenen, 208.
Moreover we do not find the title "Queen of
Heaven" as an ordinary and well-established name
of any neighbouring divinity. "Queen" is a natural
title for any goddess, and was actually given to many Schrader (Whitehouse's translation), ii. 207. Kuenen, 206.
Istar, however, is connected with the moon as well
as with the planet Venus. Sayce, Higher Criticism, etc., 80. So Giesebrecht on vii. 18. Kuenen argues for the identification
of the Queen of Heaven with the planet Venus. Kuenen, 211.
The episode of the "great assembly" closes the
history of Jeremiah's life. We leave him (as we so
often met with him before) hurling ineffective denunciations
at a recalcitrant audience. Vagrant fancy, holding
this to be a lame and impotent conclusion, has
woven romantic stories to continue and complete the
narrative. There are traditions that he was stoned to
death at Tahpanhes, and that his bones were removed
For this story of Jeremiah's life is not a torso.
Sacred biography constantly disappoints our curiosity
as to the last days of holy men. We are scarcely ever
told how prophets and apostles died. It is curious
too that the great exceptions—Elijah in his chariot
of fire and Elisha dying quietly in his bed—occur before
the period of written prophecy. The deaths of
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, Peter, Paul, and John,
are passed over in the Sacred Record, and when we
seek to follow them beyond its pages, we are taught
afresh the unique wisdom of inspiration. If we may
understand
There comes a time when we may apply to the aged saint the words of Browning's Death in the Desert:—
And the poet's comparison of this soul to
Love craves to watch to the last, because the spark may
Such privileges may be granted to a few chosen disciples, probably they were in this case granted to Baruch; but they are mostly withheld from the world, lest blind irreverence should see in the aged saint nothing but
xxv. 15-38.
"Jehovah hath a controversy with the nations."—Jer. xxv. 31.
Such ideas as omnipotence and universal Providence
did not exist; therefore they could not be denied; and
the limitations of the national faith were not essentially
inconsistent with later Revelation. But when we
reach the period of recorded prophecy we find that,
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the prophets
had begun to recognise Jehovah's dominion over
surrounding peoples. There was, as yet, no deliberate
and formal doctrine of omnipotence, but, as Israel
became involved in the fortunes first of one foreign
power and then of another, the prophets asserted that
the doings of these heathen states were overruled by
the God of Israel. The idea of Jehovah's Lordship of
the Nations enlarged with the extension of international
relations, as our conception of the God of
Nature has expanded with the successive discoveries
of science. Hence, for the most part, the prophets
Each of the other prophetical books contains a longer
or shorter series of utterances concerning the neighbours
of Israel, its friends and foes, its enemies and
allies. The fashion was apparently set by Amos, who
shows God's judgment upon Damascus, the Philistines,
Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab. This list suggests
the range of the prophet's religious interest in the
Gentiles. Assyria and Egypt were, for the present,
beyond the sphere of Revelation, just as China and
India were to the average Protestant of the seventeenth
century. When we come to the Book of Isaiah, the
horizon widens in every direction. Jehovah is concerned
with Egypt and Ethiopia, Assyria and Babylon. Doubts however have been raised as to whether any of the
sections about Babylon are by Isaiah himself.
The fall of Nineveh revolutionised the international
system of the East. The judgment on Asshur was
accomplished, and her name disappears from these
catalogues of doom. In other particulars Jeremiah,
as well as Ezekiel, follows closely in the footsteps of
his predecessors. He deals, like them, with the group
of Syrian and Palestinian states—Philistines, Moab,
Ammon, Edom, and Damascus. Doubts have been expressed as to the genuineness of the
Damascus prophecy. The Isaianic authorship of this prophecy (
But in the passage which we have chosen as the subject for this introduction to the prophecies of the nations, Jeremiah takes a somewhat wider range:—
First and foremost of these nations, pre-eminent in punishment as in privilege, stand "Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with its kings and princes."
This bad eminence is a necessary application of the
principle laid down by Amos
But as Jeremiah says later on, addressing the Gentile nations,—
And the prophet puts the cup of God's fury to their
lips also, and amongst them, Egypt, the bête noir of
Hebrew seers, is most conspicuously marked out for
destruction: "Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants
and princes and all his people, and all the mixed population
of Egypt." So Giesebrecht, Orelli, etc. Psammetichus had recently taken Ashdod, after a continuous
siege of twenty-nine years. The plural may refer to dependent chiefs or may be used for the
sake of symmetry. Lit. "the coasts" (i.e. islands and coastland) where the Phœnicians
had planted their colonies. See on xlix. 28-32.
There is one notable omission in the list. Nebuchadnezzar,
the servant of Jehovah, xxv. 9. xxvii. 8. Sheshach (Sheshakh) for Babel also occurs in li. 41. This
explanatory note is omitted by LXX.
Aleph | B | K | L | |||
T | SH | L | K |
The use of cypher seems to indicate that the note
was added in Chaldea during the Exile, when it was
not safe to circulate documents which openly denounced
Babylon. Jeremiah's enumeration of the peoples and
rulers of his world is naturally more detailed and more
exhaustive than the list of the nations against which
he prophesied. It includes the Phœnician states,
details the Philistine cities, associates with Elam the
neighbouring nations of Zimri and the Medes, and
substitutes for Kedar and Hazor Arabia and a number
of semi-Arab states, Uz, Dedan, Tema, and Buz. As to Damascus cf. note on p. 213.
And now glance at any modern map and see for
how little Jeremiah's world counts among the great
It is said that Scipio's exultation over the fall of Carthage was marred by forebodings that Time had a like destiny in store for Rome. Where Cromwell might have quoted a text from the Bible, the Roman soldier applied to his native city the Homeric lines:—
The epitaphs of ancient civilisations are no mere matters of archæology; like the inscriptions on common graves, they carry a Memento mori for their successors.
But to return from epitaphs to prophecy: in the list which we have just given, the kings of many of the nations are required to drink the cup of wrath, and the section concludes with a universal judgment upon the princes and rulers of this ancient world under the familiar figure of shepherds, supplemented here by another, that of the "principal of the flock," or, as we should say, "bell-wethers." Jehovah would break out upon them to rend and scatter like a lion from his covert. Therefore:—
This line is somewhat paraphrased. Lit. "I will shatter you, and ye shall fall like an ornamental vessel" (KELI HEMDA).
Thus Jeremiah announces the coming ruin of an ancient world, with all its states and sovereigns, and we have seen that the prediction has been amply fulfilled. We can only notice two other points with regard to this section.
First, then, we have no right to accuse the prophet
of speaking from a narrow national standpoint. His
words are not the expression of the Jewish adversus
omnes alios hostile odium; Tacitus, History, v. 5.
Apparently the collective conscience is a plant of very slow growth; and hitherto no society has been worthy to endure honourably or even to perish nobly. In Christendom itself the ideals of common action are still avowedly meaner than those of individual conduct. International and collective morality is still in its infancy, and as a matter of habit and system modern states are often wantonly cruel and unjust towards obscure individuals and helpless minorities. Yet surely it shall not always be so; the daily prayer of countless millions for the coming of the Kingdom of God cannot remain unanswered.
xliii. 8-13, xliv. 30, xlvi.
"I will visit Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with their gods and their kings; even Pharaoh, and all them that trust in him."—Jer. xlvi. 25.
But this revival was no new growth springing up
with a fresh and original life from the seeds of the
past; it cannot rank with the European Renascence of
the fifteenth century. It is rather to be compared with
the reorganisations by which Diocletian and Constantine
prolonged the decline of the Roman Empire, the Second edition, ii. 291, 292. Meyer, Geschichte des alten Ãgypten, 371, 373.
Inscriptions after the time of Psammetichus are written in archaic Egyptian of a very ancient past; it is often difficult to determine at first sight whether inscriptions belong to the earliest or latest period of Egyptian history.
The superstition that sought safety in an exact
reproduction of a remote antiquity could not, however,
resist the fascination of Eastern demonology. According
to Brugsch, ii. 293.
This enthusiasm for ancient custom and tradition was not likely to commend the Egypt of Jeremiah's age to any student of Hebrew history. He would be reminded that the dealings of the Pharaohs with Israel had almost always been to its hurt; he would remember the Oppression and the Exodus—how, in the time of Solomon, friendly intercourse with Egypt taught that monarch lessons in magnificent tyranny, how Shishak plundered the Temple, how Isaiah had denounced the Egyptian alliance as a continual snare to Judah. A Jewish prophet would be prompt to discern the omens of coming ruin in the midst of renewed prosperity on the Nile.
Accordingly at the first great crisis of the new international system, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, either just before or just after the battle of Carchemish—it matters little which—Jeremiah takes up his prophecy against Egypt. First of all, with an ostensible friendliness which only masks his bitter sarcasm, he invites the Egyptians to take the field:—
This great host with its splendid equipment must surely
conquer. The prophet professes to await its triumphant
return; but he sees instead a breathless mob of panic-stricken
Then irony passes into explicit malediction:—
Then, in a new strophe, Jeremiah again recurs in imagination to the proud march of the countless hosts of Egypt:—
(like the Nile in flood);
(and, above all other cities, Babylon).
Again the prophet urges them on with ironical encouragement:—
(the tributaries and mercenaries of Egypt).
Then, as before, he speaks plainly of coming disaster:
(a day of vengeance upon Pharaoh Necho for Megiddo and Josiah).
In a final strophe, the prophet turns to the land left bereaved and defenceless by the defeat at Carchemish:—
Nevertheless the end was not yet. Egypt was wounded to death, but she was to linger on for many a long year to be a snare to Judah and to vex the righteous soul of Jeremiah. The reed was broken, but it still retained an appearance of soundness, which more than once tempted the Jewish princes to lean upon it and find their hands pierced for their pains. Hence, as we have seen already, Jeremiah repeatedly found occasion to reiterate the doom of Egypt, of Necho's successor, Pharaoh Hophra, and of the Jewish refugees who had sought safety under his protection. In the concluding part of chapter xlvi., a prophecy of uncertain date sets forth the ruin of Egypt with rather more literary finish than in the parallel passages.
This word of Jehovah was to be proclaimed in Egypt, and especially in the frontier cities, which would have to bear the first brunt of invasion:—
Giesebrecht, with LXX.
Memphis was devoted to the worship of Apis, incarnate in the sacred bull; but now Apis must succumb to the mightier divinity of Jehovah, and his sacred city become a prey to the invaders.
We must remember that the Egyptian armies were largely composed of foreign mercenaries. In the hour of disaster and defeat these hirelings would desert their employers and go home.
Giesebrecht, Orelli, Kautzsch, with LXX., Syr., and Vulg., by an alteration of the pointing.
The form of this enigmatic sentence is probably due to a play upon Egyptian names and titles. When the allusions are forgotten, such paronomasia naturally results in hopeless obscurity. The "appointed time" has been explained as the period during which Jehovah gave Pharaoh the opportunity of repentance, or as that within which he might have submitted to Nebuchadnezzar on favourable terms.
It was not necessary to name this terrible invader; it could be no other than Nebuchadnezzar.
This tempest shattered the Greek phalanx in which Pharaoh trusted:—
We do not look for chronological sequence in such a poem, so that this picture of the flight and destruction of the mercenaries is not necessarily later in time than their overthrow and contemplated desertion in verse 15. The prophet is depicting a scene of bewildered confusion; the disasters that fell thick upon Egypt crowd into his vision without order or even coherence. Now he turns again to Egypt herself:—
A like fate is predicted in
Thus too Egypt would seek to writhe herself from
under the heel of the invader; hissing out the while
her impotent fury, she would seek to glide away
into some safe refuge amongst the underwood. Her
The whole of Egypt is overrun and subjugated; no district holds out against the invader, and remains unsubjugated to form the nucleus of a new and independent empire.
Her gods share her fate; Apis had succumbed at Memphis, but Egypt had countless other stately shrines whose denizens must own the overmastering might of Jehovah:—
Amon of No, or Thebes, known to the Greeks as Ammon and called by his own worshippers Amen, or "the hidden one," is apparently mentioned with Apis as sharing the primacy of the Egyptian divine hierarchy. On the fall of the twentieth dynasty, the high priest of the Theban Amen became king of Egypt, and centuries afterwards Alexander the Great made a special pilgrimage to the temple in the oasis of Ammon and was much gratified at being there hailed son of the deity.
Probably the prophecy originally ended with this
general threat of "visitation" of Egypt and its human
and divine rulers. An editor, however, has added, LXX. omits verse 26. Verses 27, 28 = xxx. 10, 11, and probably
are an insertion here.
A further addition is in striking contrast to the sweeping statements of Jeremiah:—
Similarly, Ezekiel foretold a restoration for Egypt:—
"At the end of forty years, I will gather the Egyptians,
and will cause them to return ... to their native
land; and they shall be there a base kingdom: it shall
be the basest of the kingdoms."
And elsewhere we read yet more gracious promises to Egypt:—
"Israel shall be a third with Egypt and Assyria, a
blessing in the midst of the land: whom Jehovah
Sabaoth shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My
people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel
Mine inheritance."
Probably few would claim to discover in history any literal fulfilment of this last prophecy. Perhaps it might have been appropriated for the Christian Church in the days of Clement and Origen. We may take Egypt and Assyria as types of heathendom, which shall one day receive the blessings of the Lord's people and of the work of His hands. Of political revivals and restorations Egypt has had her share. But less interest attaches to these general prophecies than to more definite and detailed predictions; and there is much curiosity as to any evidence which monuments and other profane witnesses may furnish as to a conquest of Egypt and capture of Pharaoh Hophra by Nebuchadnezzar.
According to Herodotus, Herodotus, II. clxix. xliv. 30. xlvi. 25.
xlvii.
"O sword of Jehovah, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard; rest, and be still."—Jer. xlvii. 6.
Here as elsewhere the enemy from the north is
Nebuchadnezzar. Pharaohs might come and go, winning
victories and taking cities, but these broken reeds count
for little; not they, but the king of Babylon is the
Their very bodies are possessed and crippled with fear, their palsied muscles cannot respond to the impulses of natural affection; they can do nothing but hurry on in headlong flight, unable to look round or stretch out a helping hand to their children:—
Referring to their ancient immigration from Caphtor, probably Crete.
Kautzsch, Giesebrecht, with LXX., reading 'Nqm for the Masoretic 'Mqm; Eng. Vers., "their valley."
This list is remarkable both for what it includes and
what it omits. In order to understand the reference
to Tyre and Zidon, we must remember that Nebuchadnezzar's
expedition was partly directed against these
cities, with which the Philistines had evidently been
allied. The Chaldean king would hasten the submission
of the Phœnicians, by cutting off all hope
of succour from without. There are various possible
reasons why out of the five Philistine cities only two—Ashkelon
and Gaza—are mentioned; Ekron, Gath,
and Ashdod may have been reduced to comparative
insignificance. Ashdod had recently been taken by
Psammetichus after a twenty-nine years' siege. Or
As Jeremiah contemplates this fresh array of victims of Chaldean cruelty, he is moved to protest against the weary monotony of ruin:—
The prophet ceases to be the mouthpiece of God, and breaks out into the cry of human anguish. How often since, amid the barbarian inroads that overwhelmed the Roman Empire, amid the prolonged horrors of the Thirty Years' War, amid the carnage of the French Revolution, men have uttered a like appeal to an unanswering and relentless Providence! Indeed, not in war only, but even in peace, the tide of human misery and sin often seems to flow, century after century, with undiminished volume, and ever and again a vain "How long" is wrung from pallid and despairing lips. For the Divine purpose may not be hindered, and the sword of Jehovah must still strike home.
Yet Ashkelon survived to be a stronghold of the
Crusaders, and Gaza to be captured by Alexander
xlviii.
"Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he hath magnified himself against Jehovah."—Jer. xlviii. 42.
"Chemosh said to me, Go, take Nebo against Israel ... and I took it ... and I took from it the vessels of Jehovah, and offered them before Chemosh."—Moabite Stone.
"Yet will I bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days."—Jer. xlviii. 47.
E.g. xlviii. 5, "For by the ascent of Luhith with continual weeping
shall they go up; for in going down of Horonaim they have heard
the distress of the cry of destruction," is almost identical with
Verse 47 with the subscription, "Thus far is the judgment of
Moab," is wanting in the LXX.
It is easy to understand why the Jewish Scriptures
Accordingly this prophecy concerning Moab, in both its editions, frequently strikes a note of sympathetic lamentation and almost becomes a dirge.
But this pity could not avail to avert the doom of
Moab; it only enabled the Jewish prophet to fully
appreciate its terrors. The picture of coming ruin
is drawn with the colouring and outlines familiar to
us in the utterances of Jeremiah—spoiling and destruction,
This section of Jeremiah illustrates the dramatic versatility of the prophet's method. He identifies himself now with the blood-thirsty invader, now with his wretched victims, and now with the terror-stricken spectators; and sets forth the emotions of each in turn with vivid realism. Hence at one moment we have the pathos and pity of such verses as we have just quoted, and at another such stern and savage words as these:—
These lines might have served as a motto for Cromwell
at the massacre of Drogheda, for Tilly's army at the
sack of Magdeburg, or for Danton and Robespierre
during the Reign of Terror. Jeremiah's words were
the more terrible because they were uttered with the
full consciousness that in the dread Chaldean king The exact date of the prophecy is uncertain, but it must have
been written during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.
In this inventory, as it were, of the ruin of Moab
our attention is arrested by the constant and detailed
references to the cities. This feature is partly
borrowed from Isaiah. Ezekiel too speaks of the
Moabite cities which are the glory of the country; Some of the names, however, may be variants. xlix. 13, possibly this is not the Edomite Bozrah.
The Moabite Stone explains the occurrence of
Moab in fact had profited by the misfortunes of its more powerful and ambitious neighbours. The pressure of Damascus, Assyria, and Chaldea prevented Israel and Judah from maintaining their dominion over their ancient tributary. Moab lay less directly in the track of the invaders; it was too insignificant to attract their special attention, perhaps too prudent to provoke a contest with the lords of the East. Hence, while Judah was declining, Moab had enlarged her borders and grown in wealth and power.
And even as Jeshurun kicked, when he was waxen
fat,
This verse is a striking example of the Hebrew method
of gaining emphasis by accumulating derivatives of the
same and similar roots. The verse in Jeremiah runs
thus: "We have heard of the pride (Ge'ON) of
Jeremiah dwells upon this theme:—
Zephaniah bears like testimony ii. 10.
Here again the Moabite Stone bears abundant testimony to the justice of the prophet's accusations; for there Mesha tells how in the name and by the grace of Chemosh he conquered the cities of Israel; and how, anticipating Belshazzar's sacrilege, he took the sacred vessels of Jehovah from His temple at Nebo and consecrated them to Chemosh. Truly Moab had "magnified himself against Jehovah."
Prosperity had produced other baleful effects beside a haughty spirit, and pride was not the only cause of the ruin of Moab. Jeremiah applies to nations the dictum of Polonius—
and apparently suggests that ruin and captivity were necessary elements in the national discipline of Moab:—
Kautzsch, Giesebrecht, with LXX.; A.V., R.V., with Hebrew Text, "their bottles."
As the chapter, in its present form, concludes with a note—
we gather that even this rough handling was disciplinary; at any rate, the former lack of such vicissitudes had been to the serious detriment of Moab. It is strange that Jeremiah did not apply this principle to Judah. For, indeed, the religion of Israel and of mankind owes an incalculable debt to the captivity of Judah, a debt which later writers are not slow to recognise. "Behold," says the prophet of the Exile,—
History constantly illustrates how when Christians
were undisturbed and prosperous the wine of truth
settled on the lees and came to taste of the cask; and—to
change the figure—how affliction and persecution
proved most effectual tonics for a debilitated Church.
Continental critics of modern England speak severely
of the ill-effects which our prolonged freedom from
invasion and civil war, and the unbroken continuity of
our social life have had on our national character and
manners. In their eyes England is a perfect Moab,
concerning which they are ever ready to prophesy after
the manner of Jeremiah. The Hebrew Chronicler
But any such suggestion raises wider and more difficult issues; for ordinary individuals and nations the discipline of calamity seems necessary. What degree of moral development exempts from such discipline, and how may it be attained? Christians cannot seek to compound for such discipline by self-inflicted loss or pain, like Polycrates casting away his ring or Browning's Caliban, who in his hour of terror,
But though it is easy to counsel resignation and the recognition of a wise loving Providence in national as in personal suffering, yet mankind longs for an end to the period of pupilage and chastisement and would fain know how it may be hastened.
xlix. 1-6.
"Hath Israel no sons? hath he no heir? why then doth Moloch possess Gad, and his people dwell in the cities thereof?"—Jer. xlix. 1
xlix. 3: A.V., "their king"; R.V., "Malcam," which here and in
verse 1 is a form of Moloch.
xlix. 7-22.
"Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse."—Jer. xlix. 13.
Cf. the designation of Caleb "ben Jephunneh the Kenizzite,"
Cf.
Much virtuous indignation is often expressed at
the wickedness of Irishmen in contemplating rebellion
against the dominion of England: we cannot therefore
be surprised that the Jews resented the successful revolt
Lit. "thy terror," i.e. the terror inspired by thy fate. A.V., R.V., "thy terribleness," suggests that Edom trusted in the terror felt for him by his enemies, but we can scarcely suppose that even the fiercest highlanders expected Nebuchadnezzar to be terrified at them.
Obad. 4: "Though thou set thy nest among the stars."
Pliny speaks of the Edomite capital as "oppidum Hist. Nat., vi. 28. Orelli.
They thought that Jehovah would punish Jacob whom He loved, and yet spare Esau whom He hated. But:—
Ay, and drink to the dregs:—
There was obviously but one leader who could lead
the nations to achieve the overthrow of Edom and
lead her little ones away captive, who could come up
like a lion from the thickets of Jordan, or "flying like
an eagle and spreading his wings against Bozrah" (22)—Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon, who had come up
against Judah with all the kingdoms and peoples of
his dominions. xxxiv. 1.
In this picture of chastisement and calamity, there is one apparent touch of pitifulness:—
At first sight, at any rate, these seem to be the words
of Jehovah. All the adult males of Edom would perish,
yet the helpless widows and orphans would not be
without a protector. The God of Israel would watch
over the lambs of Edom, Verse 20.
There is no word of restoration. Moab and Ammon and Elam might revive and flourish again, but for Esau, as of old, there should be no place of repentance. For Edom, in the days of the Captivity, trespassed upon the inheritance of Israel more grievously than Ammon and Moab upon Reuben and Gad. The Edomites possessed themselves of the rich pastures of the south of Judah, and the land was thenceforth called Idumea. Thus they earned the undying hatred of the Jews, in whose mouths Edom became a curse and a reproach, a term of opprobrium. Like Babylon, Edom was used as a secret name for Rome, and later on for the Christian Church.
Nevertheless, even in this prophecy, there is a hint that these predictions of utter ruin must not be taken too literally:—
These words are scarcely consistent with the other
verses, which imply that, as a people, Edom would
utterly perish from off the face of the earth. As a
matter of fact, Edom flourished in her new territory
till the time of the Maccabees, and when the Messiah
came to establish the Kingdom of God, instead of
"saviours standing on Mount Zion to judge the Mount of
Esau,"
xlix. 23-27.
"I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the palaces of Benhadad."—Jer. xlix. 27.
We know, however, too little of the history of the
period to warrant such a conclusion. Damascus would
continue to exist as a tributary state, and might furnish
auxiliary forces to the enemies of Judah or join with
her to conspire against Babylon, and would in either
case attract Jeremiah's attention. Moreover, in ancient
as in modern times, commerce played its part in international
politics. Doubtless slaves were part of the
merchandise of Damascus, just as they were among
the wares of the Apocalyptic Babylon. Joel
So Giesebrecht, with most of the ancient versions. A.V., R.V., with Masoretic Text, "not forsaken ... my joy," possibly meaning, "Why did not the inhabitants forsake the doomed city?"
We are moved to sympathy with the feelings of Hamath and Arpad, when they heard the evil tidings, and were filled with sorrow, "like the sea that cannot rest."
Yet even here this most uncompromising of prophets may teach us, after his fashion, wholesome though perhaps unwelcome truths. We are reminded how often the mystic glamour of romance has served to veil cruelty and corruption, and how little picturesque scenery and interesting associations can do of themselves to promote a noble life. Feudal castles, with their massive grandeur, were the strongholds of avarice and cruelty; and ancient abbeys which, even in decay, are like a dream of fairyland, were sometimes the home of abominable corruption.
xlix. 28-33.
"Concerning Kedar, and the kingdoms of Hazor which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon smote."—Jer. xlix. 28.
"The kingdoms of Hazor" are still more unknown
to history. There were several "Hazors" in Palestine,
besides sundry towns whose names are also derived
from Hāçēr, a village; and some of these are on or
beyond the southern frontier of Judah, in the wilderness
The great warlike enterprises of Egypt, Assyria, and Chaldea during the last centuries of the Jewish monarchy would bring these desert horsemen into special prominence. They could either further or hinder the advance of armies marching westward from Mesopotamia, and could command their lines of communication. Kedar, and possibly Hazor too, would not be slack to use the opportunities of plunder presented by the calamities of the Palestinian states. Hence their conspicuous position in the pages of Isaiah and Jeremiah.
As the Assyrians, when their power was at its height,
had chastised the aggressions of the Arabs, so now
Nebuchadnezzar "smote Kedar and the kingdoms of
Hazor." Even the wandering nomads and dwellers by
distant oases in trackless deserts could not escape the
sweeping activity of this scourge of God. Doubtless
the ravages of Chaldean armies might serve to punish
many sins besides the wrongs they were sent to
Magor-missabib: cf. xlvi. 5.
Then the prophet turns to the more distant Hazor with words of warning:—
But then, as if this warning were a mere taunt, he renews his address to the Chaldeans and directs their attack against Hazor:—
like the people of Laish before the Danites came, and like Sparta before the days of Epaminondas.
Possibly we are to combine these successive "utterances,"
and to understand that it was alike Jehovah's
will that the Chaldeans should invade and lay waste
I.e. cut off.
xlix. 34-39
"I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might."—Jer. xlix. 35.
When we begin to recall even a few of the striking facts concerning Elam discovered in the last fifty years, and remember that for millenniums Elam had played the part of a first-class Asiatic power, we are tempted to wonder that Jeremiah only devotes a few conventional sentences to this great nation. But the prophet's interest was simply determined by the relations of Elam with Judah; and, from this point of view, an opposite difficulty arises. How came the Jews in Palestine in the time of Jeremiah to have any concern with a people dwelling beyond the Euphrates and Tigris, on the farther side of the Chaldean dominions? One answer to this question has already been suggested: the Jews may have learnt from the Elamite colonists in Samaria something concerning their native country; it is also probable that Elamite auxiliaries served in the Chaldean armies that invaded Judah.
Accordingly the prophet sets forth, in terms already familiar to us, how Elamite fugitives should be scattered to the four quarters of the earth and be found in every nation under heaven, how the sword should follow them into their distant places of refuge and utterly consume them.
In the prophecy concerning Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar
was to set his throne at Tahpanhes to decide the fate
of the captives; but here Jehovah Himself is pictured
as the triumphant and inexorable conqueror, holding
His court as the arbiter of life and death. The vision
of the "great white throne" was not first accorded to
John in his Apocalypse. Jeremiah's eyes were opened
to see beside the tribunals of heathen conquerors the
But this sentence of condemnation was not to be the final "utterance of Jehovah" with regard to Elam. A day of renewed prosperity was to dawn for Elam, as well as for Moab, Ammon, Egypt, and Judah:—
The Apostle Peter
l., li.
"Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces."—Jer. l., 2.
Such a statement, however, cuts both ways. On
the one hand, we seem to have—what is wanting in the
case of
A detailed discussion of the question would be out
of place here, See against the authenticity Driver's Introduction, in loco; and
in support of it Speaker's Commentary, Streane (C.B.S.). Cf. also
Sayce, Higher Criticism, etc., pp. 484-486. In xxvii. 1 we must read, "In the beginning of the reign of
Zedekiah," not Jehoiakim. xxix. 4-14.
"Hitherward" seems to indicate that the writers local standpoint is that of Palestine.
These verses imply that the Jews were already in
Babylon, and throughout the author assumes the circumstances
of the Exile. "The vengeance of the
Temple," i.e. vengeance for the destruction of the
Temple at the final capture of Jerusalem, is twice
threatened. l. 28, li. 11.
If these words were written by Jeremiah in the fourth year of Zedekiah, he certainly was not practising his own precept to pray for the peace of Babylon.
Various theories have been advanced to meet the
difficulties which are raised by the ascription of this
prophecy to Jeremiah. It may have been expanded
from an authentic original. Or again, li. 59-64 may
not really refer to l. 1-li. 58; the two sections may
once have existed separately, and may owe their connection
to an editor, who met with l. 1-li. 58 as an
anonymous document, and thought he recognised in
it the "book" referred to in li. 59-64. Or again,
l. 1-li. 58 may be a hypothetical reconstruction of a
lost prophecy of Jeremiah; li. 59-64 mentioned such
a prophecy and none was extant, and some student and
disciple of Jeremiah's school utilised the material and Cf. l. 8, li. 6, with
In view of the great uncertainty as to the origin and
history of this prophecy, we do not intend to attempt
any detailed exposition. Elsewhere whatever non-Jeremianic
matter occurs in the book is mostly by way
of expansion and interpretation, and thus lies in the
direct line of the prophet's teaching. But the section
on Babylon attaches itself to the new departure in
religious thought that is more fully expressed in
It is apparently a mosaic, complied from lost as
well as extant sources; and dwells upon a few themes
with a persistent iteration of ideas and phrases hardly
to be paralleled elsewhere, even in the Book of Jeremiah.
It has been reckoned Budde ap. Giesebrecht, in loco. l. 3, 9, li. 41, 48.
The main theme is naturally that dwelt upon most
l. 12, 13: cf. l. 39, 40, li. 26, 29, 37, 41-43.
The gods of Babylon, Bel and Merodach, and all her
idols, are involved in her ruin, and reference is made
to the vanity and folly of idolatry. li. 17, 18. l. 28.
Though He thus avenge Judah, yet its former sins are not yet blotted out of the book of His remembrance:—
Yet now there is forgiveness:—
The Jews are urged to flee from Babylon, lest they
should be involved in its punishment, and are
encouraged to return to Jerusalem and enter afresh
into an everlasting covenant with Jehovah. As in
"I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people."—Jer. xxxi. 1.
In this third book an attempt is made to present a
general view of Jeremiah's teaching on the subject
with which he was most preoccupied—the political and
religious fortunes of Judah. Certain xxx., xxxi., and, in part, xxxiii. Brief, in order not to trespass more than is absolutely necessary
upon the ground covered by the previous Expositor's Bible volume
on Jeremiah.
Our general sketch of the prophet's teaching is naturally arranged under categories suggested by the book itself, and not according to the sections of a modern treatise on Systematic Theology. No doubt much may legitimately be extracted or deduced concerning Anthropology, Soteriology, and the like; but true proportion is as important in exposition as accurate interpretation. If we wish to understand Jeremiah, we must be content to dwell longest upon what he emphasised most, and to adopt the standpoint of time and race which was his own. Accordingly in our treatment we have followed the cycle of sin, punishment, and restoration, so familiar to students of Hebrew prophecy.
NOTE
SOME CHARACTERISTIC EXPRESSIONS OF JEREMIAH
This note is added partly for convenience of reference, and
partly to illustrate the repetition just mentioned as characteristic
of Jeremiah. The instances are chosen from expressions occurring
in chapters xxi.-lii. The reader will find fuller lists dealing
with the whole book in the Speaker's Commentary and the
1. Rising up early: vii. 13, 25; xi. 7; xxv. 3, 4; xxvi. 5; xxix.
19; xxxii. 33; xxxv. 14, 15; xliv. 4. This phrase, familiar to us
in the narratives of Genesis and in the historical books, is used
here, as in
2. Stubbornness of heart (A.V. imagination of heart): iii. 17;
vii. 24; ix. 14; xi. 8; xiii. 10; xvi. 12; xviii. 12; xxiii. 17; also
found
3. The evil of your doings: iv. 4; xxi. 12; xxiii. 2, 22; xxv. 5;
xxvi. 3; xliv. 22; also
The fruit of your doings: xvii. 10; xxi. 14; xxxii. 19; also found
in
Doings, your doings, etc., are also found in Jeremiah and elsewhere.
4. The sword, the pestilence, and the famine, in various orders, and either as a phrase or each word occurring in one of three successive clauses: xiv. 12; xv. 2; xxi. 7, 9; xxiv. 10; xxvii. 8, 13; xxix. 17, 18; xxxii. 24, 36; xxxiv. 17; xxxviii. 2; xlii. 17, 22; xliv. 13.
The sword and the famine, with similar variations: v. 12; xi. 22; xiv. 13, 15, 16, 18; xvi. 4; xviii. 21; xlii. 16; xliv. 12, 18, 27.
Cf. similar lists, etc., "death ... sword ... captivity" in xliii. 11; "war ... evil ... pestilence," xxviii. 8.
5. Kings ... princes ... priests ... prophets, in various orders and combinations: ii. 26; iv. 9; viii. 1; xiii. 13; xxiv. 8; xxxii. 32.
Cf. Prophet ... priest ... people, xxiii. 33, 34. Prophets ... divines ... dreamers ... enchanters ... sorcerers, xxvii. 9.
"Very bad figs, ... too bad to be eaten."—Jer. xxiv. 2, 8, xxix. 17.
Prophets and preachers have taken the Israelites for God's helots, as if the Chosen People had been made drunk with the cup of the Lord's indignation, in order that they might be held up as a warning to His more favoured children throughout after ages. They seem depicted as "sinners above all men," that by this supreme warning the heirs of a better covenant may be kept in the path of righteousness. Their sin is no mere inference from the long tragedy of their national history, "because they have suffered such things"; their own prophets and their own Messiah testify continually against them. Religious thought has always singled out Jeremiah as the most conspicuous and uncompromising witness to the sins of his people. One chief feature of his mission was to declare God's condemnation of ancient Judah. Jeremiah watched and shared the prolonged agony and overwhelming catastrophes of the last days of the Jewish monarchy, and ever and anon raised his voice to declare that his fellow-countrymen suffered, not as martyrs, but as criminals. He was like the herald who accompanies a condemned man on the way to execution, and proclaims his crime to the spectators.
What were these crimes? How was Jerusalem a
When we seek to learn from Jeremiah wherein the guilt of Judah lay, his answer is neither clear nor full: he does not gather up her sins into any complete and detailed indictment; we are obliged to avail ourselves of casual references scattered through his prophecies. For the most part Jeremiah speaks in general terms; a precise and exhaustive catalogue of current vices would have seemed too familiar and commonplace for the written record.
The corruption of Judah is summed up by Jeremiah
in the phrase "the evil of your doings," Characteristic Expressions (1), p. 269. ×צ××.
The picture suggested by the scattered hints as to
the character of these evil doings is such as might
be drawn of almost any Eastern state in its darker
days. The arbitrary hand of the government is illustrated
by Jeremiah's own experience of the bastinado xx. 2, xxxvii. 15. xxxvii., xxxviii. xxvi. 20-24. ii. 34, xix. 4, xxii. 17. v. 25, vi. 6, vii. 5.
The motive for both these crimes was naturally
covetousness; vi. 13. ii. 34. vii. 5-9. xxiii. 14. Characteristic Expressions (2), p. 269. xxiii. 10, 14. xxix. 23.
In accordance with the general teaching of the Old
Testament, Jeremiah traces the roots of the people's
depravity to a certain moral stupidity; they are "a
foolish people, without understanding," who, like the
idols in v. 21, quoted by Ezekiel, xii. 2. The verse is also the foundation
of the description of Israel as "the blind people that have eyes,
and the deaf that have ears," in vii., xxvi. xvi. 10.
When the public conscience condoned alike the abuse
of the forms of law and its direct violation, actual legal
rights would be strained to the utmost against debtors,
hired labourers, and slaves. In their extremity, the
princes and people of Judah sought to propitiate the
anger of Jehovah by emancipating their Hebrew slaves;
when the immediate danger had passed away for a
time, they revoked the emancipation. xxxiv.
The depravity of Judah was not only total, it was
also universal. In the older histories we read how
Achan's single act of covetousness involved the whole
people in misfortune, and how the treachery of the
bloody house of Saul brought three years' famine upon
the land; but now the sins of individuals and classes
were merged in the general corruption. Jeremiah
dwells with characteristic reiteration of idea and phrase
upon this melancholy truth. Again and again he
enumerates the different classes of the community:
"kings, princes, priests, prophets, men of Judah and
inhabitants of Jerusalem." They had all done evil and
provoked Jehovah to anger; they were all to share the
same punishment. xxxii. 26-35: cf. p. 269, Characteristic Expressions (3). Literally "copper and iron." vi. 28.
The dark picture of Israel's corruption is not yet
complete—Israel's corruption, for now the prophet is
no longer exclusively concerned with Judah. The sin
of these last days is no new thing; it is as old as
the Israelite occupation of Jerusalem. "This city hath
been to Me a provocation of My anger and of My fury
from the day that they built it even unto this day";
from the earliest days of Israel's national existence,
from the time of Moses and the Exodus, the people
have been given over to iniquity. "The children of
Israel and the children of Judah have done nothing but
evil before Me from their youth up." xxxii. 26-35.
This gloomy estimate of God's Chosen People is
substantially confirmed by the prophets of the later
monarchy, from Amos and Hosea onwards. Hosea
speaks of Israel in terms as sweeping as those of
Jeremiah. "Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of
Israel; for Jehovah hath a controversy with the inhabitants
of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy,
nor knowledge of God in the land. Swearing and
lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery, The A.V. translation of xi. 12 ("Judah yet ruleth with God, and
is faithful with the saints") must be set aside. The sense is obscure
and the text doubtful.
Jeremiah's older and younger contemporaries, Zephaniah
and Ezekiel, alike confirm his testimony. In the
spirit and even the style afterwards used by Jeremiah,
Zephaniah enumerates the sins of the nobles and
teachers of Jerusalem. "Her princes within her are
roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves.... Her
prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests
We have now fairly before us the teaching of Jeremiah
and the other prophets as to the condition of
Judah: the passages quoted or referred to represent its
general tone and attitude; it remains to estimate its
significance. We should naturally suppose that such
sweeping statements as to the total depravity of the
whole people throughout all their history were not
intended to be interpreted as exact mathematical
formulæ. And the prophets themselves state or imply
qualifications. Isaiah insists upon the existence of a
righteous remnant. When Jeremiah speaks of Zedekiah
and his subjects as a basket of very bad figs, he also
speaks of the Jews who had already gone into captivity
as a basket of very good figs. The mere fact of
going into captivity can hardly have accomplished an
immediate and wholesale conversion. The "good figs"
among the captives were presumably good before they
went into exile. Jeremiah's general statements that
"they were all arch-rebels" do not therefore preclude
the existence of righteous men in the community.
Similarly, when he tells us that the city and people have
always been given over to iniquity, Jeremiah is not
The comparison between Israel and its neighbours
would no doubt be much more favourable under David
than under Zedekiah, but even then the outcome of
Mosaic religion as practically embodied in the national
life was utterly unworthy of the Divine ideal; to have
described the Israel of David or the Judah of Hezekiah
as Jehovah's specially cherished possession, a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation,
Hence, judged as citizens of God's Kingdom on earth, the Israelites were corrupt in every faculty of their nature: as masters and servants, as rulers and subjects, as priests, prophets, and worshippers of Jehovah, they succumbed to selfishness and cowardice, and perpetrated the ordinary crimes and vices of ancient Eastern life.
The reader is perhaps tempted to ask: Is this all
that is meant by the fierce and impassioned denunciations
of Jeremiah? Not quite all. Jeremiah had had
But these are mere matters of degree and detail; the main thing for Jeremiah was not that Judah had become worse, but that it had failed to become better. One great period of Israel's probation was finally closed. The kingdom had served its purpose in the Divine Providence; but it was impossible to hope any longer that the Jewish monarchy was to prove the earthly embodiment of the Kingdom of God. There was no prospect of Judah attaining a social order appreciably better than that of the surrounding nations. Jehovah and His Revelation would be disgraced by any further association with the Jewish state.
Certain schools of socialists bring a similar charge against the modern social order; that it is not a Kingdom of God upon earth is sufficiently obvious; and they assert that our social system has become stereotyped on lines that exclude and resist progress towards any higher ideal. Now it is certainly true that every great civilisation hitherto has grown old and obsolete; if Christian society is to establish its right to abide permanently, it must show itself something more than an improved edition of the Athens of Pericles or the Empire of the Antonines.
All will agree that Christendom falls sadly short of
its ideal, and therefore we may seek to gather instruction
from Jeremiah's judgment on the shortcomings
We might also learn from the prophet that the responsibility for our social evils rests with all classes. Time was when the lower classes were plentifully lectured as the chief authors of public troubles; now it is the turn of the capitalist, the parson, and the landlord. The former policy had no very marked success, possibly the new method may not fare better.
Wealth and influence imply opportunity and responsibility which do not belong to the poor and feeble; but power is by no means confined to the privileged classes; and the energy, ability, and self-denial embodied in the great Trades Unions have sometimes shown themselves as cruel and selfish towards the weak and destitute as any association of capitalists. A necessary preliminary to social amendment is a General Confession by each class of its own sins.
Finally, the Divine Spirit had taught Jeremiah that
Israel had always been sadly imperfect. He did not
In considering modern life it may seem that we pass to an altogether different quality of evil to that denounced by Jeremiah, that we have lost sight of anything that could justify his fierce indignation, and thus that we fail in appreciating his character and message. Any such illusion may be corrected by a glance at the statistics of congested town districts, sweated industries, and prostitution. A social reformer, living in contact with these evils, may be apt to think Jeremiah's denunciations specially adapted to the society which tolerates them with almost unruffled complacency.
"They have forsaken the covenant of Jehovah their God, and worshipped other gods, and served them."—Jer. xxii. 9.
"Every one that walketh in the stubbornness of his heart."—Jer. xxiii. 17.
The previous chapter has been intentionally confined,
as far as possible, to Jeremiah's teaching
upon the moral condition of Judah. Religion, in the
narrower sense, was kept in the background, and
mainly referred to as a social and political influence.
In the same way the priests and prophets were
mentioned chiefly as classes of notables—estates of
the realm. This method corresponds with a stage
in the process of Revelation; it is that of the older
prophets. Hosea, as a native of the Northern Kingdom,
may have had a fuller experience and clearer
understanding of religious corruption than his contemporaries
in Judah. But, in spite of the stress that
he lays upon idolatry and the various corruptions of
worship, many sections of his book simply deal with
social evils. We are not explicitly told why the
prophet was "a fool" and "a snare of a fowler," but
the immediate context refers to the abominable immorality
of Gibeah.
In Jeremiah's treatment of the ruin of Judah, he
insists, as Hosea had done as regards Israel, on the
fatal consequences of apostasy from Jehovah to other
gods. This very phrase "other gods" is one of
Jeremiah's favourite expressions, and in the writings
of the other prophets only occurs in
Hence when we read of the Jews, "They set their
abominations in the house which is called by My name,
to defile it," we are not to understand that the Temple
was transferred from Jehovah to some other deities,
but that the corrupt practices and symbols of heathen
worship were combined with the Mosaic ritual. Even
the high places of Baal, in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom,
where children were passed through the fire unto
Moloch, professed to offer an opportunity of supreme
devotion to the God of Israel. Baal and Melech, Lord
and King, had in ancient times been amongst His titles;
and when they became associated with the more
heathenish modes of worship, their misguided devotees
still claimed that they were doing homage to the national
Deity. The inhuman sacrifices to Moloch were offered
in obedience to sacred tradition and Divine oracles,
which were supposed to emanate from Jehovah. In
three different places, Jeremiah explicitly and emphatically
denies that Jehovah had required or sanctioned
these sacrifices: "I commanded them not, neither came
it into My mind, that they should do this abomination,
to cause Judah to sin." xxxii. 34, 35, repeating vii. 30, 31, with slight variations. A
similar statement occurs in xix. 4, 5. Cf.
When it was thus necessary to put on record
reiterated denials that inhuman rites of Baal and
Moloch were a divinely sanctioned adoration of Jehovah,
we can understand that the Baal-worship constantly
referred to by Hosea, Jeremiah, and Zephaniah Baal is not mentioned in the other prophetical books. vii. 2.
Such assimilation and confusion perplexed and
baffled the prophets. Here and elsewhere, "prophet," unless specially qualified by the
context, is used of the true prophet, the messenger of Divine Revelation,
and does not include the mere professional prophets. Cf.
Chap. VIII.
Jeremiah clearly and constantly insisted on the
distinction between the true and the corrupt worship.
The worship paid to Baal and Moloch was altogether
unacceptable to Jehovah. These and other objects of
adoration were not to be regarded as forms, titles, or
manifestations of the one God, but were "other gods,"
distinct and opposed in nature and attributes; in
serving them the Jews were forsaking Him. So far
from recognising such rites as homage paid to Jehovah, ii. 19, etc. xxxii. 33, etc. xxii. 9: cf. xi. 10, xxxi. 32, and
The same anxiety to discriminate the true religion
from spurious imitations and adulterations underlies
the stress which Jeremiah lays upon the Divine Name.
His favourite formula, "Jehovah Sabaoth is His name," x. 16: cf. xxiii. 25-27: cf. Giesebrecht, in loco.
His work seems to have been successful. Ezekiel,
who is in a measure his disciple, Cheyne, Jeremiah: Life and Times, p. 150. Jeremiah hardly mentions idols. Cf. on this whole subject, Cheyne, Jeremiah: Life and Times,
p. 319. The strongest expressions are in chap. ii., for which see previous
volume on Jeremiah. ii. 27.
Jeremiah also dwells on the deliberate and persistent
character of the apostasy of Judah. Nations have often
experienced a sort of satanic revival when the fountains
of the nether deep seemed broken up, and flood-tides
of evil influence swept all before them. Such, in a
measure, was the reaction from the Puritan Commonwealth,
when so much of English society lapsed into
reckless dissipation. Such too was the carnival of
wickedness into which the First French Republic was
plunged in the Reign of Terror. But these periods
were transient, and the domination of lust and cruelty
soon broke down before the reassertion of an outraged
national conscience. But we noticed, in the previous
chapter, that Israel and Judah alike steadily failed to xvii. 23: cf. Characteristic Expressions, p. 269. Ibid., p. 269.
Apostasy from the Mosaic and prophetic religion
was naturally accompanied by social corruption. It
has recently been maintained that the universal instinct
which inclines man to be religious is not necessarily
moral, and that it is the distinguishing note of the true
faith, or of religion proper, that it enlists this somewhat
neutral instinct in the cause of a pure morality. The
Phœnician and Syrian cults, with which Israel was
most closely in contact, sufficiently illustrated the
combination of fanatical religious feeling with gross
impurity. On the other hand, the teaching of Revelation
to Israel consistently inculcated a high morality
and an unselfish benevolence. The prophets vehemently
affirmed the worthlessness of religious observances by
men who oppressed the poor and helpless. Apostasy
from Jehovah to Baal and Moloch involved the same
moral lapse as a change from loyal service of Christ
to a pietistic antinomianism. Widespread apostasy
meant general social corruption. The most insidious
form of apostasy was that specially denounced by
Jeremiah, in which the authority of Jehovah was more
or less explicitly claimed for practices and principles
which defied His law. The Reformer loves a clear
issue, and it was more difficult to come to close quarters
with the enemy when both sides professed to be
fighting in the King's name. Moreover the syncretism
which still recognised Jehovah was able without any
We are too much accustomed to think of the idolatry of Israel as something openly and avowedly distinct from and opposed to the worship of Jehovah. Modern Christians often suppose that the true worshipper and the ancient idolater were as contrasted as a pious Englishman and a devotee of one of the hideous images seen on missionary platforms; or, at any rate, that they were as easily distinguishable as a native Indian evangelist from his unconverted fellow-countrymen.
This mistake deprives us of the most instructive
lessons to be derived from the record. The sin which
Jeremiah denounced is by no means outside Christian
experience; it is much nearer to us than conversion to
Buddhism—it is possible to the Church in every stage
of its history. The missionary finds that the lives of
his converts continually threaten to revert to a nominal
profession which cloaks the immorality and superstition
of their old heathenism. The Church of the Roman
Empire gave the sanction of Christ's name and authority
to many of the most unchristian features of Judaism
and Paganism; once more the rites of strange gods
were associated with the worship of Jehovah, and a
Moreover we have still to contend like Jeremiah with the continual struggle of corrupt human nature to indulge in the luxury of religious sentiment and emotion without submitting to the moral demands of Christ. The Church suffers far less by losing the allegiance of the lapsed masses than it does by those who associate with the service of Christ those malignant and selfish vices which are often canonised as Respectability and Convention.
xxii. 1-9, xxvi. 14.
"The sword, the pestilence, and the famine."—Jer. xxi. 9 and passim.
Characteristic Expressions, p. 269.
"Terror on every side."—Jer. vi. 25, xx. 10, xlvi. 5, xlix. 29; also as proper name, MAGOR-MISSABIB, xx. 3.
i. 10. i. 15.
But Jeremiah was called in the full vigour of early manhood; i. 7. The word for "child" (na'ar) is an elastic term, equalling
"boy" or "young man," with all the range of meaning possible in
English to the latter phrase. Cf. the Book of Jonah. xv. 1. Driver, Introduction, p. 242.
But, until the catastrophe is clearly inevitable, the
Christian, both as patriot and as churchman, "Church" is used, in the true Catholic sense, to embrace all
Christians.
Thus Jeremiah, even when he teaches that the day
of grace is over, recurs wistfully to the possibilities of
salvation once offered to repentance. xxvii. 18. xxv. 5, xxxv. 15. xxvi. 3, xxxvi. 2.
Yet it dawned but slowly on the prophet's mind.
The covenant of emancipation Chap. XI.
Faithful friends have sometimes stood by the drunkard
or the gambler, and striven for his deliverance through
all the vicissitudes of his downward career; to the
very last they have hoped against hope, have welcomed
and encouraged every feeble stand against evil habit,
every transient flash of high resolve. But, long before
the end, they have owned, with sinking heart, that the
only way to salvation lay through the ruin of health,
fortune, and reputation. So, when the edge of youthful xxiii. 12.
If the hour of doom had struck, it was not difficult
to surmise whence destruction would come or the man
who would prove its instrument. The North (named
in Hebrew the hidden quarter) was to the Jews the
mother of things unforeseen and terrible. Isaiah
menaced the Philistines with "a smoke out of the
north,"
Nebuchadnezzar is first xxv. 1-14: "first," i.e., in time, not in the order of chapters in our
Book of Jeremiah. xxii. 25. Jehoiachin (Kings, Chronicles, and xxi. 7, xxviii. 14.
But Jeremiah does not leave them to their unaided
imagination, which they might preferably have employed xix. 9.
An ordinary Englishman can scarcely do justice to
such prophecies; his comprehension is limited by a
happy inexperience. The constant repetition of general
phrases seems meagre and cold, because they carry
few associations and awaken no memories. Those
who have studied French and Russian realistic art, and
have read Erckmann-Chatrain, Zola, and Tolstoï, may
be stirred somewhat more by Jeremiah's grim rhetoric.
It will not be wanting in suggestiveness to those
who have known battles and sieges. For students
The Jews, therefore, with their extensive, first-hand
knowledge of the miseries denounced against
them, could not help filling in for themselves the rough
outline drawn by Jeremiah. Very probably, too, his
speeches were more detailed and realistic than the
written reports. As time went on, the inroads of the
Chaldeans and their allies provided graphic and ghastly
illustrations of the prophecies that Jeremiah still
reiterated. In a prophecy, possibly originally referring
to the Scythian inroads and afterwards adapted to the
Chaldean invasions, Jeremiah speaks of himself: "I am
pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me;
I cannot hold my peace; for my soul heareth R.V. margin. iv. 21. xxiii. 12. xxiii. 15.
Jeremiah and his prophecies were no mean part of the terror. To the devotees of Baal and Moloch Jeremiah must have appeared in much the same light as the fanatic whose ravings added to the horrors of the Plague of London, while the very sanity and sobriety of his utterances carried a conviction of their fatal truth.
When the people and their leaders succeeded in
collecting any force of soldiers or store of military
equipment, and ventured on a sally, Jeremiah was at
once at hand to quench any reviving hope of effective
resistance. How could soldiers and weapons preserve
the city which Jehovah had abandoned to its fate?
"Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Behold, I
will turn back the weapons in your hands, with which
ye fight without the walls against your besiegers, the
king of Babylon and the Chaldeans, and will gather
them into the midst of this city. I Myself will fight
against you in furious anger and in great wrath, with
outstretched hand and strong arm. I will smite the
inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall
die of a great pestilence." xxi. 3-6.
When Jerusalem was relieved for a time by the
advance of an Egyptian army, and the people allowed
themselves to dream of another deliverance like that from
Sennacherib, the relentless prophet only turned upon
them with renewed scorn: "Though ye had smitten the
whole hostile army of the Chaldeans, and all that were
left of them were desperately wounded, yet should they
rise up every man in his tent and burn this city." xxxvii. 10.
The final result of invasions and sieges was to be
the overthrow of the Jewish state, the capture and
destruction of Jerusalem, and the captivity of the
people. This unhappy generation were to reap the
harvest of centuries of sin and failure. As in the
last siege of Jerusalem there came upon the Jews
"all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the xxxv. 17: cf. xix. 15, xxxvi. 31.
As Jeremiah had insisted upon the guilt of every
class of the community, so he is also careful to
enumerate all the classes as about to suffer from the
coming judgment: "Zedekiah king of Judah and his
princes"; xxxiv. 21. xxiii. 33, 34.
Part of the burden of Jeremiah's prophecy, one of the
sayings constantly on his lips, was that the city would
be taken and destroyed by fire. xxxiv. 2, 22, xxxvii. 8. vii. and xxvi. vi. 5. xx. 5.
In this general ruin the miseries of the people would
not end with death. All nations have attached much
importance to the burial of the dead and the due
performance of funeral rites. In the touching Greek
story Antigone sacrificed her life in order to bury the
remains of her brother. Later Judaism attached exceptional
importance to the burial of the dead, and the
Book of Tobit lays great stress on this sacred duty.
The angel Raphael declares that one special reason
why the Lord had been merciful to Tobias was that
he had buried dead bodies, and had not delayed to rise
Jeremiah prophesied of the slain in this last overthrow: "They shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the face of the ground; ... their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth."
When these last had done their ghastly work, the
site of the Temple, the city, the whole land would be
left silent and desolate. The stranger, wandering
amidst the ruins, would hear no cheerful domestic sounds;
when night fell, no light gleaming through chink or
lattice would give the sense of human neighbourhood.
Jehovah "would take away the sound of the millstones
and the light of the candle." xxv. 10. ix. 11, x. 22.
The Hebrew prophets and our Lord Himself often
borrowed their symbols from the scenes of common
life, as they passed before their eyes. As in the days
of Noah, as in the days of Lot, as in the days of the
Son of Man, so in the last agony of Judah there was
marrying and giving in marriage. Some such festive
occasion suggested to Jeremiah one of his favourite
formulæ; it occurs four times in the Book of Jeremiah,
and was probably uttered much oftener. Again and
again it may have happened that, as a marriage procession
passed through the streets, the gay company
were startled by the grim presence of the prophet, and
shrank back in dismay as they found themselves made
the text for a stern homily of ruin: "Thus saith
Jehovah Sabaoth, I will take away from them the voice
Henceforth the land would be as some guilty habitation
of sinners, devoted to eternal destruction, an
astonishment and a hissing and a perpetual desolation. xxv. 9, 10. xxvi. 6. xxiii. 40.
We have now traced the details of the prophet's message of doom. Fulfilment followed fast upon the heels of prediction, till Jeremiah rather interpreted than foretold the thick-coming disasters. When his book was compiled, the prophecies were already, as they are now, part of the history of the last days of Judah. The book became the record of this great tragedy, in which these prophecies take the place of the choric odes in a Greek drama.
xxxii
"And I bought the field of Hanameel."—Jer. xxxii. 9.
i. 10. xiv. 8, xvii. 13.
The symbolic act dealt with in this chapter is a convenient introduction to the prophecies of restoration, especially as chapters xxx., xxxi., have no title and are of uncertain date.
The incident of the purchase of Hanameel's field is referred by the title to the year 587 b.c., when Jeremiah was in prison and the capture of the city was imminent. Verses 2-6 are an introduction by some editor, who was anxious that his readers should fully understand the narrative that follows. They are compiled from the rest of the book, and contain nothing that need detain us.
When Jeremiah was arrested and thrown into prison,
he was on his way to Anathoth "to receive his portion
there," xxxvii. 12 (R.V.).
Apparently he had failed. The oppression of his spirits would suggest that Jehovah had disapproved and frustrated his purpose. His failure was another sign of the utter ruin of the nation. The solemn grant of the Land of Promise to the Chosen People was finally revoked; and Jehovah no longer sanctioned the ancient ceremonies which bound the households and clans of Israel to the soil of their inheritance.
In some such mood, Jeremiah received the intimation that his cousin Hanameel was on his way to see him about this very business. "The word of Jehovah came unto him: Behold, thine uncle Shallum's son Hanameel is coming to thee, to say unto thee, Buy my field in Anathoth, for it is thy duty to buy it by way of redemption." The prophet was roused to fresh perplexity. The opportunity might be a Divine command to proceed with the redemption. And yet he was a childless man doomed to die in exile. What had he to do with a field at Anathoth in that great and terrible day of the Lord? Death or captivity was staring every one in the face; land was worthless. The transaction would put money into Hanameel's pocket. The eagerness of a Jew to make sure of a good bargain seemed no very safe indication of the will of Jehovah.
In this uncertain frame of mind Hanameel found his
cousin, when he came to demand that Jeremiah should
buy his field. Perhaps the prisoner found his kinsman's
The cousins proceeded with their business, which was in no way hindered by the arrangements of the prison. We must be careful to dismiss from our minds all the associations of the routine and discipline of a modern English gaol. The "court of the guard" in which they were was not properly a prison; it was a place of detention, not of punishment. The prisoners may have been fettered, but they were together and could communicate with each other and with their friends. The conditions were not unlike those of a debtors' prison such as the old Marshalsea, as described in Little Dorrit.
Our information as to this right or duty of the next-of-kin
to buy or buy back land is of the scantiest.
The price paid for the field was seventeen shekels of
silver, but, however precise this information may seem,
it really tells us very little. A curious illustration is
furnished by modern currency difficulties. The shekel,
in the time of the Maccabees, when we are first able
to determine its value with some certainty, contained
about half an ounce of silver, i.e. about the amount of
metal in an English half-crown. The commentaries
accordingly continue to reckon the shekel as worth half-a-crown,
whereas its value by weight according to the
present price of silver would be about fourteenpence.
Probably the purchasing power of silver was not more
stable in ancient Palestine than it is now. Fifty shekels
seemed to David and Araunah a liberal price for a
threshing-floor and its oxen, but the Chronicler thought
it quite inadequate. By value here is meant purchasing power, to which the weight
denoted by the term shekel is now no clue.
The silver was duly weighed in the presence of
witnesses and of all the Jews that were in the court
of the guard, apparently including the prisoners; their
position as respectable members of society was not á¼Î½ÎµÎ³Î½ÏÏμένον probably a corruption of á¼Î½ÎµÏγμένον. The text varies in different MSS. of the LXX. Cf. Cheyne, etc., in loco.
The earthen vessel would preserve the record from being spoilt by the damp; similarly bottles are used nowadays to preserve the documents that are built up into the memorial stones of public buildings. In both cases the object is that "they may continue many days."
So far the prophet had proceeded in simple obedience
to a Divine command to fulfil an obligation which
otherwise might excusably have been neglected. He
felt that his action was a parable which suggested that
Judah might retain its ancient inheritance, Verse 15 anticipates by way of summary verses 42-44, and is
apparently ignored in verse 25. It probably represents Jeremiah's
interpretation of God's command at the time when he wrote the
chapter. In the actual development of the incident, the conviction
of the Divine promise of restoration came to him somewhat later. What was said of verse 15 partly applies to verses 17-23 (with
the exception of the introductory words: "Ah, Lord Jehovah!").
These verses are not dealt with in the text, because they largely
anticipate the ideas and language of the following Divine utterance.
Kautzsch and Cornill, following Stade, mark these verses as a
later addition; Giesebrecht is doubtful. Cf. v. 20 ff. and xxvii. 5 f.
Jeremiah had already predicted the ruin of Babylon
and the return of the captives at the end of seventy
years. xxv. 12, xxix. 10.
Jehovah in His answer at once repudiates this idea.
He asserts His universal sovereignty and omnipotence;
And then returning to the symbol of the purchased field, Jehovah declares that fields shall be bought, with all the legal formalities usual in settled and orderly societies, deeds shall be signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of witnesses. This restored social order shall extend throughout the territory of the Southern Kingdom, Benjamin, the environs of Jerusalem, the cities of Judah, of the hill country, of the Shephelah and the Negeb. The exhaustive enumeration partakes of the legal character of the purchase of Hanameel's field.
Thus the symbol is expounded: Israel's tenure of the Promised Land will survive the Captivity; the Jews will return to resume their inheritance, and will again deal with the old fields and vineyards and oliveyards, according to the solemn forms of ancient custom.
The familiar classical parallel to this incident is found in Livy, xxvi. 11, where we are told that when Hannibal was encamped three miles from Rome, the ground he occupied was sold in the Forum by public auction, and fetched a good price.
Both at Rome and at Jerusalem the sale of land was a symbol that the control of the land would remain with or return to its original inhabitants. The symbol recognised that access to land is essential to all industry, and that whoever controls this access can determine the conditions of national life. This obvious and often forgotten truth was constantly present to the minds of the inspired writers: to them the Holy Land was almost as sacred as the Chosen People; its right use was a matter of religious obligation, and the prophets and legislators always sought to secure for every Israelite family some rights in their native soil.
The selection of a legal ceremony and the stress laid upon its forms emphasise the truth that social order is the necessary basis of morality and religion. The opportunity to live healthily, honestly, and purely is an antecedent condition of the spiritual life. This opportunity was denied to slaves in the great heathen empires, just as it is denied to the children in our slums. Both here and more fully in the sections we shall deal with in the following chapters, Jeremiah shows that he was chiefly interested in the restoration of the Jews because they could only fulfil the Divine purpose as a separate community in Judah.
Moreover, to use a modern term, he was no anarchist; spiritual regeneration might come through material ruin, but the prophet did not look for salvation either in anarchy or through anarchy. While any fragment of the State held together, its laws were to be observed; as soon as the exiles were re-established in Judah, they would resume the forms and habits of an organised community. The discipline of society, like that of an army, is most necessary in times of difficulty and danger, and, above all, in the crisis of defeat.
xxiii. 3-8, xxiv. 6, 7, xxx., xxxi., xxxiii. Vatke and Stade reject chapters xxx., xxxi., xxxiii., but they are
accepted by Driver, Cornill, Kautzsch (for the most part). Giesebrecht
assigns them partly to Baruch and partly to a later editor. It is
on this account that the full exposition of certain points in xxxii. and
elsewhere has been reserved for the present chapter. Moreover, if
the cardinal ideas come from Jeremiah, we need not be over-anxious
to decide whether the expansion, illustration, and enforcing of them
is due to the prophet himself, or to his disciple Baruch, or to some
other editor. The question is somewhat parallel to that relating to
the discourses of our Lord in the Fourth Gospel.
"In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name whereby she shall be called."—Jer. xxxiii. 16.
In xxx. 2 Jeremiah is commanded to write in a
book all that Jehovah has spoken to him; and according
to the present context the "all," in this case, refers
merely to the following four chapters. These prophecies
of restoration would be specially precious to the exiles;
and now that the Jews were scattered through many
distant lands, they could only be transmitted and preserved
in writing. After the command "to write in a
book" there follows, by way of title, a repetition of the
statement that Jehovah would bring back His people
to their fatherland. Here, in the very forefront of the
Book of Promise, Israel and Judah are named as being
recalled together from exile. As we read twice xvi. 14, 15, xxiii. 7, 8.
Elsewhere again Jeremiah connects his promise with
the clause in his original commission "to build and to
plant": i. 10. xxiv. 6.
but now this is the counsel of Jehovah concerning His people and their Babylonian conqueror:—
xxx. 5-8.
Judah's lovers, her foreign allies, Assyria, Babylon,
Egypt, and all the other states with whom she had
intrigued, had betrayed her; they had cruelly chastised
her, so that her wounds were grievous and her bruises
incurable. She was left without a champion to plead
her cause, without a friend to bind up her wounds,
without balm to allay the pain of her bruises. "Because
thy sins were increased, I have done these things unto xxx. 12-17. The two verses xxx. 10, 11, present some difficulty here. According
to Kautzsch, and of course Giesebrecht, they are a later addition.
The ideas can mostly be paralleled elsewhere in Jeremiah. Verse 11 b,
"I will correct thee with judgment, and will in no wise leave thee
unpunished," seems inconsistent with the context, which represents
the punishment as actually inflicted. Still, the verses might be a
genuine fragment misplaced. Driver (Introduction, 246) says: "The
title of honour 'My servant' ... appears to have formed the basis
upon which II. Isaiah constructs his great conception of Jehovah's
ideal servant."
While Jeremiah was still watching from his prison
the progress of the siege, he had seen the houses and
palaces beyond the walls destroyed by the Chaldeans
to be used for their mounds; and had known that
every sally of the besieged was but another opportunity
for the enemy to satiate themselves with
slaughter, as they executed Jehovah's judgments upon
the guilty city. Even at this extremity He announced
solemnly and emphatically the restoration and pardon
of His people. "Thus saith Jehovah, who established
the earth, when He made and fashioned it—Jehovah is
His name: Call upon Me, and I will answer thee, and
will show thee great mysteries, which thou knowest
not." xxxiii. 2, 3; "earth" is inserted with the LXX. Many regard
these verses as a later addition, based on II. Isaiah: cf.
"I will bring to this city healing and cure, and
will cause them to know all the fulness of steadfast
peace.... I will cleanse them from all their iniquities,
and will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have
sinned and transgressed against Me." xxxiii. 6-8, slightly paraphrased and condensed.
The healing of Zion naturally involved the punishment
of her cruel and treacherous lovers. xxx. 8, 11, 16, 20. Cf. also the chapters on the prophecies
concerning foreign nations. i. 10. xii. 14. xxx. 23, 24, is apparently a gloss, added as a suitable
illustration of this chapter, from xxiii. 19, 20, which are almost
identical with these two verses.
Israel, pardoned and restored, would again be
governed by legitimate kings of the House of David.
In the dying days of the monarchy Israel and Judah
had received their rulers from the hands of foreigners.
Menahem and Hoshea bought the confirmation of their
usurped authority from Assyria. Jehoiakim was appointed xxx. 21.
Jeremiah was fond of speaking of the leaders of
Judah as shepherds. We have had occasion already Cf. Chap. VIII. xxiii. 3, 4. iii. 15.
Over them Jehovah would establish as Chief Shepherd
a Prince of the House of David. Isaiah had
already included in his picture of Messianic times the
fertility of Palestine; its vegetation,
"Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will
raise up unto David a righteous Branch; and He shall
be a wise and prudent King, and He shall execute
justice and maintain the right. In His days Judah
shall be saved and Israel shall dwell securely, and His
name shall be Jehovah 'Ãidqenu,' Jehovah is our
righteousness." xxv. 5, 6; repeated in xxxiii. 15, 16, with slight variations. In xxxiii. 14-26 the permanence of the Davidic dynasty, the
Levitical priests, and the people of Israel is solemnly assured by a
Divine promise. These verses are not found in the LXX., and are
considered by many to be a later addition; see Kautzsch, Giesebrecht,
Cheyne, etc. They are mostly of a secondary character—15, 16, = xxiii.
5, 6; here Jerusalem and not its king is called Jehovah C̦idqenu,
possibly because the addition was made when there was no visible
prospect of the restoration of the Davidic dynasty. Verse 17 is based
on the original promise in
The material prosperity of the restored community is
set forth with wealth of glowing imagery. Cities and
palaces are to be rebuilt on their former sites with more
than their ancient splendour. "Out of them shall proceed
thanksgiving, and the voice of them that make
merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not
be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be
small. And the children of Jacob shall be as of old,
and their assembly shall be established before Me." xxx. 18-20. xxxiii. 10-13.
Jehovah's own peculiar flock, His Chosen People,
shall be fruitful and multiply according to the primæval
blessing; under their new shepherds they shall no
more fear nor be dismayed, neither shall any be
lacking. xxiii. 3, 4. iv. 19. xxiii. 6. xxx. 10.
The finest expansion of this idea is a passage which
always fills the soul with a sense of utter rest. "He
shall dwell on high: his refuge shall be the inaccessible
rocks: his bread shall be given him; his
waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the king
in his beauty: they shall behold a far-stretching land.
Thine heart shall muse on the terror: where is he that
counted, where is he that weighed the tribute? where
is he that counted the towers? Thou shalt not see
the fierce people, a people of a deep speech that thou
canst not perceive; of a strange tongue that thou canst
not understand. Look upon Zion, the city of our
solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet
For Jeremiah too the presence of Jehovah in majesty
was the only possible guarantee of the peace and
prosperity of Israel. The voices of joy and gladness
in the New Jerusalem were not only those of bride and
bridegroom, but also of those that said, "Give thanks
to Jehovah Sabaoth, for Jehovah is good, for His
mercy endureth for ever," and of those that "came
to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving in the house of
Jehovah." xxxiii. 11. xxx. 9. xxx. 21, as Kautzsch.
The city that was once a desolation, an astonishment,
a hissing, and a curse among all nations shall now be
to Jehovah "a name of joy, a praise and a glory,
before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all
the good that I do unto them, and shall tremble with
fear for all the good and all the peace that I procure
unto it." xxxiii. 9.
xxxi.
"I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast."—Jer. xxxi. 27.
xxxiii., 7, etc. vii. 15.
The Assyrian and Chaldean captivities carried men's
This prophecy takes the form of a dialogue between
Jehovah and the Virgin of Israel, i.e. the nation personified.
Jehovah announces that the Israelite exiles,
the remnant left by the sword of Shalmaneser and
Sargon, were to be more highly favoured than the
fugitives from the sword of Pharaoh, of whom Jehovah
sware in His wrath "that they should not enter into My
rest; whose carcases fell in the wilderness." "A people
that hath survived the sword hath found favour in the
wilderness; Israel hath entered into his rest," So Giesebrecht, reading with Jerome and Targum l'margô'ô for
the obscure and obviously corrupt l'hargî'ô. The other versions vary
widely in their readings.
Jehovah speaks from his ancient dwelling-place in Jerusalem, and, when the Virgin of Israel hears Him in her distant exile, she answers:—
R.V. "with lovingkindness have I drawn thee," R.V. margin
"have I continued lovingkindness unto thee"; the word for "drawn"
occurs also in
His love is as old as the Exodus, His mercy has
Then Jehovah replies:—
This contrasts with the times of invasion when the vintage was destroyed or carried off by the enemy. Then follows the Divine purpose, the crowning mercy of Israel's renewed prosperity:—
So Giesebrecht's conjecture of bocerim (vintages), for the nocerim (watchmen, R.V.). The latter is usually explained of the watcher who looked for the appearance of the new moon, in order to determine the time of the feasts. The practice is stated on negative grounds to be post-exilic, but seems likely to be ancient. On the other hand "vintagers" seems a natural sequel to the preceding clauses.
Israel will no longer keep her vintage feasts in schism at Samaria and Bethel and her countless high places, but will join with Judah in the worship of the Temple, which Josiah's covenant had accepted as the one sanctuary of Jehovah.
The exultant strain continues stanza after stanza:—
According to the reading of the LXX. and the Targum, the Hebrew Text has (as R.V.) "O Jehovah, save Thy people."
None are left behind, not even those least fit for the journey.
Of old, weeping and supplication had been heard upon
the heights of Israel because of her waywardness
and apostasy; iii. 21.
Of the two Israelite states, Ephraim, the Northern
Kingdom, had long been superior in power, wealth, and
religion. Judah was often little more than a vassal of
Samaria, and owed her prosperity and even her existence
to the barrier which Samaria interposed between
Jerusalem and invaders from Assyria or Damascus.
Until the latter days of Samaria, Judah had no prophets
that could compare with Elijah and Elisha. The
Jewish prophet is tenacious of the rights of Zion, but
he does not base any claim for the ascendency of Judah
on the geographical position of the Temple; he does
not even mention the sacerdotal tribe of Levi. Jew
and priest as he was, he acknowledges the political
and religious hegemony of Ephraim. The fact is a
Jeremiah does not dwell, in any grasping sacerdotal spirit, on the contributions which these reconciled schismatics would pay to the Temple revenues, but rather delights to make mention of their share in the common blessings of God's obedient children.
It is not quite clear how far, in this chapter, Israel is
to be understood exclusively of Ephraim. If the foregoing
stanza is, as it seems, perfectly general, the
priests are simply those of the restored community,
ministering at the Temple; but if the reference is
Another stanza:—
Rachel, as the mother of Benjamin and Joseph, claimed
an interest in both the Israelite kingdoms. Jeremiah
shows special concern for Benjamin, in whose territory
his native Anathoth was situated. Isaiah does not mention Benjamin.
"Her children" would be chiefly the Ephraimites and Manassites, who formed the bulk of the Northern Kingdom; but the phrase was doubtless intended to include other Jews, that Rachel might be a symbol of national unity.
The connection of Rachel with Ramah is not obvious;
there is no precedent for it. Possibly Ramah is not
intended for a proper name, and we might translate "A
voice is heard upon the heights." In "Which is Bethlehem," in Genesis, is probably a later explanatory
addition; and the explanation is not necessarily a mistake.
Cf. xl. 1.
Then comes the answer:—
LXX. omits verse 17 b, i.e. from "Jehovah" to "border."
The Niobe of the nation is comforted, but now is heard another voice:—
Slightly paraphrased.
The image of the calf is another reminiscence of Hosea, with whom Israel figures as a "backsliding heifer" and Ephraim as a "heifer that has been broken in and loveth to tread out the corn"; though apparently in Hosea Ephraim is broken in to wickedness. Possibly this figure was suggested by the calves at Bethel and Dan.
The moaning of Ephraim, like the wailing of Rachel, is met and answered by the Divine compassion. By a bold and touching figure, Jehovah is represented as surprised at the depth of His passionate affection for His prodigal son:—
More literally as R.V., "I do earnestly remember him still."
As with Hosea, Israel is still the child whom Jehovah loved, the son whom He called out of Egypt. But now Israel is called with a more effectual calling:—
The Hebrew Text has the same word, "tamrurim," here that is used in verse 15 in the phrase "bekhi tamrurim," "weeping of bitternesses" or "bitter weeping." It is difficult to believe that the coincidence is accidental, and Hebrew literature is given to paronomasia; at the same time the distance of the words and the complete absence of point in this particular instance are remarkable. The LXX., not understanding the word, represented it more suo by the similar Greek word ÏιμÏÏίαν, which may indicate that the original reading was "timorim," and the assimilation to "tamrurim" may be a scribe's caprice. In any case, the word here connects with "tamar," a palm, the post being made of or like a palm tree. Cf. Giesebrecht, Orelli, Cheyne, etc.
The following verse strikes a note of discord, that suggests the revulsion of feeling, the sudden access of doubt, that sometimes follows the most ecstatic moods:—
It is just possible that this verse is not intended to
express doubt of Israel's cordial response, but is merely
an affectionate urgency that presses the immediate
appropriation of the promised blessings. But such
an exegesis seems forced, and the verse is a strange
termination to the glowing stanzas that precede. It
may have been added when all hope of the return of
the ten tribes was over. Giesebrecht treats verses 21-26 as a later addition, but this
seems unnecessary.
The meaning of the concluding enigma is as profound a mystery as the fate of the lost tribes, and the solutions rather more unsatisfactory. The words apparently denote that the male and the female shall interchange functions, and an explanation often given is that, in the profound peace of the New Dispensation, the women will protect the men. This portent seems to be the sign which is to win the Virgin of Israel from her vacillation and induce her to return at once to Palestine.
In
In So Kautzsch. Cf. Streane, Cambridge Bible.
The next stanza connects the restoration of Judah
with that of Ephraim, and, for the most part, goes over
ground already traversed in our previous chapters;
one or two points only need be noticed here. It is
in accordance with the catholic and gracious spirit
which characterises this chapter that the restoration
of Judah is expressly connected with that of Ephraim.
The combination of the future fortunes of both in a
single prophecy emphasises their reunion. The heading
of this stanza, "Thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, the
God of Israel," is different from that hitherto used, and
"Hereupon," saith the prophet, "I awaked and
looked about me, and felt that my sleep had been
pleasant to me." The vision had come to him, in
some sense, as a dream. Zechariah xxiii, 25-32, xxvii. 9, xxix. 8: cf.
In the following stanza Jehovah promises to recruit
the dwindled numbers of Israel and Judah; with a
sowing more gracious and fortunate than that of
Cadmus, He will scatter Cf. i. 10-12.
The next verse is directed against a lingering dread,
by which men's minds were still possessed. More than
half a century elapsed between the death of Manasseh
and the fall of Jerusalem. He was succeeded by
Josiah, who "turned to Jehovah with all his heart, and
with all his soul, and with all his might." xv. 1-4.
The last portion of this chapter is so important that we must reserve it for separate treatment, but we may pause for a moment to consider the prophecy of the restoration of Ephraim from two points of view—the unity of Israel and the return of the ten tribes.
In the first place, this chapter is an eirenicon, intended to consign to oblivion the divisions and feuds of the Chosen People. After the fall of Samaria, the remnant of Israel had naturally looked to Judah for support and protection, and the growing weakness of Assyria had allowed the Jewish kings to exercise a certain authority over the territory of northern tribes. The same fate—the sack of the capital and the deportation of most of the inhabitants—had successively befallen Ephraim and Judah. His sense of the unity of the race was too strong to allow the prophet to be satisfied with the return of Judah and Benjamin, apart from the other tribes. Yet it would have been monstrous to suppose that Jehovah would bring back Ephraim from Assyria, and Judah from Babylon, only that they might resume their mutual hatred and suspicion. Even wild beasts are said not to rend one another when they are driven by floods to the same hill-top.
Thus various causes contributed to produce a kindlier
feeling between the survivors of the catastrophes of
Samaria and Jerusalem; and from henceforth those
of the ten tribes who found their way back to Palestine
lived in brotherly union with the other Jews. And,
on the whole, the Jews have since remained united
both as a race and a religious community. It is true
that the relations of the later Jews to Samaria were
Matters stand very differently with regard to the restoration of Ephraim. We know that individual members and families of the ten tribes were included in the new Jewish community, and that the Jews reoccupied Galilee and portions of Eastern Palestine. But the husbandmen who had planted vineyards on the hills of Samaria were violently repulsed by Ezra and Nehemiah, and were denied any part or lot in the restored Israel. The tribal inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh was never reoccupied by Ephraimites and Manassites who came to worship Jehovah in His Temple at Jerusalem. There was no return of the ten tribes that in any way corresponded to the terms of this prophecy or that could rank with the return of their brethren. Our growing acquaintance with the races of the world seems likely to exclude even the possibility of any such restoration of Ephraim. Of the two divisions of Israel, so long united in common experiences of grace and chastisement, the one has been taken and the other left.
Christendom is the true heir of the ideals of Israel,
but she is mostly content to inherit them as counsels
of perfection. Isaiah
Moreover the disappearance of what was at one time the most flourishing branch of the Hebrew Church has many parallels in Church History. Again and again religious dissension has been one of the causes of political ruin, and the overthrow of a Christian state has sometimes involved the extinction of its religion. Christian thought and doctrine owe an immense debt to the great Churches of Northern Africa and Egypt. But these provinces were torn by the dissensions of ecclesiastical parties; and the quarrels of Donatists, Arians, and Catholics in North Africa, the endless controversies over the Person of Christ in Egypt, left them helpless before the Saracen invader. To-day the Church of Tertullian and Augustine is blotted out, and the Church of Origen and Clement is a miserable remnant. Similarly the ecclesiastical strife between Rome and Constantinople lost to Christendom some of the fairest provinces of Europe and Asia, and placed Christian races under the rule of the Turk.
Even now the cause of Christians in heathen and
Mohammedan countries suffers from the jealousy of
It is a melancholy reflection that Jeremiah's effort at reconciliation came too late, when the tribes whom it sought to reunite were hopelessly set asunder. Reconciliation, which involves a kind of mutual repentance, can ill afford to be deferred to the eleventh hour. In the last agonies of the Greek Empire, there was more than one formal reconciliation between the Eastern and Western Churches; but they also came too late, and could not survive the Empire which they failed to preserve.
xxxi. 31-38: cf.
"I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah."—Jer. xxxi. 31.
One of the oldest sections of the Pentateuch, I.e. in the sections generally acknowledged.
Jeremiah had played his part in establishing
covenants between Israel and its God. He is not,
indeed, even so much as mentioned in the account
of Josiah's reformation; and it is not clear that he
himself makes any express reference to it; so that
some doubt must still be felt as to his share in
that great movement. At the same time indirect
evidence seems to afford proof of the common opinion
that Jeremiah was active in the proceedings which
resulted in the solemn engagement to observe the
code of Deuteronomy. But yet another covenant
occupies a chapter xxxiv. Cf. xxxiv. 14 with
The Restoration to which Jeremiah looked forward
was to throw the Exodus into the shade, and to constitute
a new epoch in the history of Israel more
remarkable than the first settlement in Canaan. The
nation was to be founded anew, and its regeneration
"Behold, the days come—it is the utterance of Jehovah—when I will enter into a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah: not according to the covenant into which I entered with your fathers, when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt."
The Book of the Covenant and Deuteronomy had both been editions of the Mosaic Covenant, and had neither been intended nor regarded as anything new. Whatever was fresh in them, either in form or substance, was merely the adaptation of existing ordinances to altered circumstances. But now the Mosaic Covenant was declared obsolete, the New Covenant was not to be, like Deuteronomy, merely a fresh edition of the earliest code. The Return from Babylon, like the primitive Migration from Ur and like the Exodus from Egypt, was to be the occasion of a new Revelation, placing the relations of Jehovah and His people on a new footing.
When Ezra and Nehemiah established, as the
Covenant of the Restoration, yet another edition of
the Mosaic ordinances, they were acting in the teeth
of this prophecy—not because Jehovah had changed
His purpose, but because the time of fulfilment had
not yet come. Cf. Prof. Adeney's Ezra, Nehemiah, etc., in this series.
The rendering of the next clause is uncertain, and,
in any case, the reason given for setting aside the
old covenant is not quite what might have been
expected. The Authorised and Revised Versions
translate: "Which My covenant they brake, although So also Kautzsch, Reuss, Sugfried, and Stade. The same phrase
is thus translated in iii. 14. "I was Baal" = "ba'alti."
The Septuagint, which is quoted in ἠμέληÏα. × ×¦×ת×; × ×¦× occurs in xiv. 19, and is translated by A.V. and R.V.
"loathed."
In any case, the new and better covenant is offered
to Israel, after it has failed to observe the first
covenant. This Divine procedure is not quite according
to many of our theories. The law of ordinances
is often spoken of as adapted to the childhood of the
race. We set children easy tasks, and when these
are successfully performed we require of them something
more difficult. We grant them limited privileges,
and if they make a good use of them the children
are promoted to higher opportunities. We might
perhaps have expected that when the Israelites failed
to observe the Mosaic ordinances, they would have
been placed under a narrower and harsher dispensation;
yet their very failure leads to the promise of
a better covenant still. Subsequent history, indeed,
qualifies the strangeness of the Divine dealing. Only
a remnant of Israel survived as the people of God.
The Covenant of Ezra was very different from the
New Covenant of Jeremiah; and the later Jews, as a
community, We usually underrate the proportion of Jews who embraced
Christianity. Hellenistic Judaism disappeared as Christianity
became widely diffused, and was probably for the most part
absorbed into the new faith.
The next verse explains the character of the New Covenant; once Jehovah wrote His law on tables of stone, but now:—
These last words were an ancient formula for the
immemorial relation of Jehovah and Israel, but they
were to receive new fulness of meaning. The inner
law, written on the heart, is in contrast to Mosaic
ordinances. It has, therefore, two essential characteristics:
first, it governs life, not by fixed external
regulations, but by the continual control of heart
and conscience by the Divine Spirit; secondly,
obedience is rendered to the Divine Will, not from
external compulsion, but because man's inmost nature
is possessed by entire loyalty to God. The new law
involves no alteration of the standards of morality or
of theological doctrine, but it lays stress on the spiritual
character of man's relation to God, and therefore on
the fact that God is a spiritual and moral being.
When man's obedience is claimed on the ground
of God's irresistible power, and appeal is made to
material rewards and punishments, God's personality
is obscured and the way is opened for the deification
of political or material Force. This doctrine of setting
aside of ancient codes by the authority of the Inner
Law is implied in many passages of our book. The
superseding of the Mosaic Law is set forth by a most
expressive symbol, iii. 16, slightly paraphrased.
Jeremiah moreover discerned with Paul that there xvii. 1.
Hence the heart of the people had to be changed
before they could enter into the blessings of the
Restoration: "I will give them an heart to know
Me, that I am Jehovah: and they shall be My people,
and I will be their God: for they shall return unto
Me with their whole heart." xxiv. 7. xxxii. 39, 40.
We must not, of course, suppose that these principles—of
obedience from loyal enthusiasm, and of the
guidance of heart and conscience by the Spirit of
Jehovah—were new to the religion of Israel. They
are implied in the idea of prophetic inspiration. When
Saul went home to Gibeah, "there went with him a
band of men, whose hearts God had touched."
The novelty of Jeremiah's teaching is that these principles are made central in the New Covenant. Even Deuteronomy, which approaches so closely to the teaching of Jeremiah, was a new edition of the Covenant of the Exodus, an attempt to secure a righteous life by exhaustive rules and by external sanctions. Jeremiah had witnessed and probably assisted the effort to reform Judah by the enforcement of the Deuteronomic Code. But when Josiah's religious policy collapsed after his defeat and death at Megiddo, Jeremiah lost faith in elaborate codes, and turned from the letter to the spirit.
The next feature of the New Covenant naturally follows from its being written upon men's hearts by the finger of Jehovah:—
In ancient times men could only "know Jehovah"
and ascertain His will by resorting to some sanctuary,
where the priests preserved and transmitted the sacred
tradition and delivered the Divine oracles. Written
codes scarcely altered the situation; copies would be
few and far between, and still mostly in the custody
of the priests. Whatever drawbacks arise from attaching
supreme religious authority to a printed book were
multiplied a thousandfold when codes could only be
copied. But, in the New Israel, men's spiritual life
And yet again Israel is assured that past sin shall not hinder the fulfilment of this glorious vision:—
Recurring to the general topic of the Restoration of
Israel, the prophet affixes the double seal of two solemn
Divine asseverations. Of old, Jehovah had promised
Noah: "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and
harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and
night, shall not cease." Verses 35-37 occur in the LXX. in the order 37, 35, 36. They
are considered by many critics to be a later addition. The most
remarkable feature of the paragraph is the clause translated by the
Authorised Version "which divideth [Revised Version, text "stirreth
up," margin "stilleth"] the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord
of Hosts is His name." This whole clause is taken word for word
from
xxx.-xxxiii.
xxxii. 40.
In rising from the perusal of these chapters the
reader is tempted to use the prophet's words with a
somewhat different meaning: "I awaked and looked
about me, and felt that I had had a pleasant dream." xxxi. 26.
For these bondservants of the letter, there arose no David, no glorious Scion of the ancient stock. For a moment the hopes of Zechariah rested on Zerubbabel, but this Branch quickly withered away and was forgotten. We need not underrate the merits and services of Ezra and Nehemiah, of Simon the Just and Judas Maccabæus; and yet we cannot find any one of them who answers to the Priestly King of Jeremiah's visions. The new Growth of Jewish royalty came to an ignominious end in Aristobulus, Hyrcanus, and the Herods, Antichrists rather than Messiahs.
The Reunion of long-divided Israel is for the most part a misnomer; there was no healing of the wound, and the offending member was cut off.
Even now, when the leaven of the Kingdom has been
working in the lump of humanity for nearly two thousand
years, any suggestion that these chapters are
realised in Modern Christianity would seem cruel irony.
Renan accuses Christianity of having quickly forgotten
the programme which its Founder borrowed from the
prophets, and of having become a religion like other
religions, a religion of priests and sacrifices, of external Histoire du Peuple d'Israel, iii., 340.
But we must not allow the obvious shortcomings of
Christendom to blind us to brighter aspects of truth.
Both in the Jews of the Restoration and in the Church of
Christ we have a real fulfilment of Jeremiah's prophecies.
The fulfilment is no less real because it is utterly inadequate.
Prophecy is a guide-post and not a mile-stone;
it shows the way to be trodden, not the duration of the
journey. Jews and Christians have fulfilled Jeremiah's
prophecies because they have advanced by the road along
which he pointed towards the spiritual city of his vision.
The "pious dreams" of a little group of enthusiasts have
become the ideals and hopes of humanity. Even Renan
ranks himself among the disciples of Jeremiah: "The
seed sown in religious tradition by inspired Israelites
will not perish; all of us who seek a God without
priests, a revelation without prophets, a covenant
written in the heart, are in many respects the disciples
of these ancient fanatics (ces vieux égarés)." Renan, iii., 340.
The Judaism of the Return, with all its faults and
shortcomings, was still an advance in the direction
Jeremiah had indicated. However ritualistic the Pentateuch
may seem to us, it was far removed from exclusive
trust in ritual. Where the ancient Israelite had relied
upon correct observance of the forms of his sanctuary, Renan, iii., 425.
It is a curious phenomenon that after the time of Ezra the further developments of the Torah were written no longer on parchment, but, in a certain sense, on the heart. The decisions of the rabbis interpreting the Pentateuch, "the fence which they made round the law," were not committed to writing, but learnt by heart and handed down by oral tradition. Possibly this custom was partly due to Jeremiah's prophecy. It is a strange illustration of the way in which theology sometimes wrests the Scriptures to its own destruction, that the very prophecy of the triumph of the spirit over the letter was made of none effect by a literal interpretation.
Nevertheless, though Judaism moved only a very
little way towards Jeremiah's ideal, yet it did move,
its religion was distinctly more spiritual than that of
ancient Israel. Although Judaism claimed finality and
did its best to secure that no future generation should
make further progress, yet in spite of, nay, even by
means of, Pharisee and Sadducee, the Jews were prepared
If even Judaism did not altogether fail to conform
itself to Jeremiah's picture of the New Israel, clearly
Christianity must have shaped itself still more fully
according to his pattern. In the Old Testament both
the idea and the name of a "New Covenant," We have the idea of a spiritual covenant in
Again Christ's Kingdom of the New Covenant has brought about a larger unity. We have said enough elsewhere on the divisions of the Church. Doubtless we are still far from realising the ideals of chapter xxxi., but, at any rate, they have been recognised as supreme, and have worked for harmony and fellowship in the world. Ephraim and Judah are forgotten, but the New Covenant has united into brotherhood a worldwide array of races and nations. There are still divisions in the Church, and a common religion will not always do away with national enmities; but in spite of all, the influence of our common Christianity has done much to knit the nations together and promote mutual amity and goodwill. The vanguard of the modern world has accepted Christ as its standard and ideal, and has thus attained an essential unity, which is not destroyed by minor differences and external divisions.
And, finally, the promise that the New Covenant should be written on the heart is far on the way towards fulfilment. If Roman and Greek orthodoxy interposes the Church between the soul and Christ, yet the inspiration claimed for the Church to-day is, at any rate in some measure, that of the living Spirit of Christ speaking to the souls of living men. On the other hand, a predilection for Rabbinical methods of exegesis sometimes interferes with the influence and authority of the Bible. Yet in reality there is no serious attempt to take away the key of knowledge or to forbid the individual soul to receive the direct teaching of the Holy Ghost. The Reformers established the right of private judgment in the interpretation of the Scriptures; and the interpretation of the Library of Sacred Literature, the spiritual harvest of a thousand years, affords ample scope for reverent development of our knowledge of God.
One group of Jeremiah's prophecies has indeed been
entirely fulfilled. xxxiii. 15.
"Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from amongst thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken."—Deut. xviii. 15.
"Jesus ... asked His disciples, saying, Who do men say that the Son of Man is? And they said, Some say John the Baptist; some, Elijah: and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets."—Matt. xvi. 13, 14.
English feeling about Jeremiah has long ago
been summed up and stereotyped in the single
word "jeremiad." The contempt and dislike which
this word implies are partly due to his supposed
authorship of Lamentations; but, to say the least, the
Book of Jeremiah is not sufficiently cheerful to remove
the impression created by the linked wailing, long
drawn out, which has been commonly regarded as an
appendix to its prophecies. We can easily understand
the unpopularity of the prophet of doom in modern
Christendom. Such prophets are seldom acceptable,
except to the enemies of the people whom they denounce;
and even ardent modern advocates of Jew-baiting
would not be entirely satisfied with Jeremiah—they
would resent his patriotic sympathy with sinful
and suffering Judah. Most modern Christians have
ceased to regard the Jews as monsters of iniquity, whose
chastisement should give profound satisfaction to every
sincere believer. History has recorded but few of the
Moreover, while the prophet's life is essentially tragic, its drama lacks an artistic close and climax. Again and again Jeremiah took his life in his hand, but the good confession which he witnessed for so long does not culminate in the crown of martyrdom. A final scene like the death of John the Baptist would have won our sympathy and conciliated our criticism.
We thus gather that the popular attitude towards Jeremiah rests on a superficial appreciation of his character and work; it is not difficult to discern that a careful examination of his history establishes important claims on the veneration and gratitude of the Christian Church.
For Judaism was not slow to pay her tribute of
admiration and reverence to Jeremiah as to a Patron
Saint and Confessor. His prophecy of the Restoration
of Israel is appealed to in Ezra and Daniel; and the Sometimes appended to the Book of Baruch as a sixth chapter.
In the Christian Church, notwithstanding the lack of
popular sympathy, earnest students of the prophet's life
and words have ranked him with some of the noblest
characters of history. A modern writer enumerates
as amongst those with whom he has been compared
Cassandra, Phocion, Demosthenes, Dante, Milton, and
Savonarola. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, art. "Jeremiah."
Jeremiah and our Lord appeared at similar crises in
the history of Israel and of revealed religion. The
prophet foretold the end of the Jewish monarchy, the
destruction of the First Temple and of ancient Jerusalem;
Christ, in like manner, announced the end of
the restored Israel, the destruction of the Second
Temple and of the newer Jerusalem. In both cases
the doom of the city was followed by the dispersion
and captivity of the people. At both eras the religion
of Jehovah was supposed to be indissolubly bound up
with the Temple and its ritual; and, as we have seen,
Jeremiah, like Stephen and Paul and our Lord Himself,
was charged with blasphemy because he predicted its
coming ruin. The prophet, like Christ, was at variance
with the prevalent religious sentiment of his time and
with what claimed to be orthodoxy. Both were regarded
and treated by the great body of contemporary religious
teachers as dangerous and intolerable heretics; and
Again, in both cases, not only was ancient faith
rescued from the ruin of human corruption and commentary,
but the purging away of the old leaven made
room for a positive statement of new teaching. Jeremiah
announced a new covenant—that is, a formal and complete
Thus when we confess that the Church is built upon
the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, we have
to recognise that to this foundation Jeremiah's ministry
supplied indispensable elements, alike by its positive
and in its negative parts. This fact was manifest even
to Renan, who fully shared the popular prejudices
against Jeremiah. Nothing short of Christianity,
according to him, is the realisation of the prophet's
dream: "Il ajoute un facteur essentiel à l'œuvre
humaine; Jérémie est, avant Jean-Baptiste, l'homme
qui a le plus contribué à la fondation du Christianisme;
il doit compter, malgré la distance des siècles, entre
les précurseurs immédiats de Jésus." Hist., iii., 251, 305.
i iii v vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xv xvi xvii xviii xix xx 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 265 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 367 368 369 370 371 372