THE EXPOSITORS BIBLE

EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
Editor of " The Expositor," etc.

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
CHAPTERS XXI.— LII.

W. H. BENNETT, M.A.

NEW YORK
C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
and S WEST EIGHTEENTH STREET
LONDON : HODDER AND STOUGHTON
1902

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The Pastoral Epistles.
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Isaiah 1. — xxxix.
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Isaiah xl. — lxvi.
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THE

BOOK OF JEREMIAH
CHAPTERS XXI.— LII.

W. H. BENNETT, M.A.
PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE
HACKNEY AND NEW COLLEGES

NEW YORK
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
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1902

Printed by Hazeli, Watson & Viney, Ld., Lonaon and Aylesbury, England.

PREFACE
' I ""HE present work deals primarily with Jeremiah
xxi. — Iii., thus forming a supplement to the
_volume of the Expositor's Bible on Jeremiah by the
Rev. C. J. Ball, M.A. References to the earlier
chapters are only introduced where they are necessary
to illustrate and explain the later sections.
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.

INDEX

( The larger figures in black type are ihe chief references. Passages
in i. — xx. are only noticed by way of illustration of later sections)

CHAP.

PAGE

CHAP.

PAGE

'• 7

• 295

xvi. 1

. 6

10

¦ 295, 308

10

¦ 274

10-12

• 34°

13

. 3°8

iS

• 29S

14, is ¦

. 320

18

. 82

xvii. 1

• 353

ii. 10, n

• 5i

23

. 291

27

. 290

xix. 4

. 272

34

. 272

15

• 3°4

iii. 14

• 352

XX. 2

. 272

IS

• 324

xxi. 1-10 .

. 141

iv. 19

• 327

3-6 •

¦ 3°3

21

. 302

xxii. 1-9 .

295

v. 31

. is

10-12 .

3

vi. 28

¦ 275

13-19 .

. 63

vii. 4 .

. 20

17

. 272

5-9

. 272

20-30

. 80

12-14

• H

xxiii., xxiv.

9G

ix. 11, x. s

.2 . . 306

xxiii. 3-8

. 319

xi. 19

. 6

12

• 299, 302

xii. 14

¦ 323

14

. 272

xiii. 18

. 90

25-27 .

. 288

xiv. 8

. 308

25-32 ,

• 34°

XV. I

. 296

33. 34 •

• 3°4

1-4

340

40

• 3°7

4

. 202

xxiv.

• 99

INDEX

CHAP.

PAGE

CHAP.

PAGE

xxiv. 6, 7

. 319

xxxvi

. 28

xxv. 5 ¦

• 297

2 .

. 298

9 •

. 215

3°, 31 •
. 63
10 .
306, 307
31 •
83, 3°4
12 .
316
xxxvii
I-IO
. 141
15-38 •
. 211
8 .
¦ 3°5
34-38 .
. 101
11-21
. 155
xxvi.
. 10
12 .
• 3°9
3 •
. 298
xxxviii.
155
6 .
¦ 3°7
xxxix.
172
xxvii., xxviii.
115
15-18 .
155
xxvii. 9 .
• 340
xl.
172
xxix.
. 131
xii.
. 172
8 .
340
xiii.,
xliii.
. 187
10 .
. 316
8-13 ¦
220
4-14
• 259
xliv.
. 197
23 ¦
• 273
30 .
220, 229
xxx,, xxxi.
319
xiv.
. 54
xxxi. 31-38
. 346
xlvi.
. 220
xxxii.
308
25 .
. 229
26-35
• 274
xlvii.
. 230
34,35
¦ 285
xlviii.
234
xxxiii.
. 319
xlix.
1-6
. 242
xxxiv.
. 141
7-22
. 243
2 .
¦ 305
23-27
. 248
21 .
3°4
28-33 •
. 251
22 .
¦ 3°5
34-39
. 255
xxxv.
44
1„ Ii.
. 258
15
• 297
Iii.
. 173
17 . . .
304
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

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 matter of
theory — hence the occasional insertion pf (?).

CLASSICAL
SYNCHRONISMS

JUDAH AND JEREMIAH

ASSYRIA

EGYPT

Traditional date
of the founda
tion of Rome,
753

MANASSEH (?)
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
HabakkukZephaniah Publication of Deuteronomy, 621

Esarhaddon, 681
Assurbanipal, 668
Last kings of As
syria, number and
names uncertain,
626 — 607-6

XXVIth Dynasty
Psammetichus I., 666
Psammetichus be
sieges Ashdod for
twenty-nine years

BABYLON.
Nabopolassar, 626

CLASSICAL
SYNCHRONISMS

JUDAH AND JEREMIAH

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 blas
phemy (xxvi., II.)
FOURTH YEAR OF JEHOIAKIM, 605-4
Nebuchadnezzar1 advances into Syria, is suddenly
recalled to Babylon— before subduing Judah (?)
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.;
xiv., 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 

FALL OF NINE
VEH, 607-6

Necho, 612

BATTLE OF CARCHEMISH
(xlvi., XVII.)
Nebuchadnez z ar,
604

For spelling see note, page 4

CLASSICAL
SYNCHRONISMS

Solon's legisla
tion, 594

JUDAH AND JEREMIAH

JEHOIACHIN, 597
(xxii. 20-30, VII.)
Continues revolt, but surrenders to Nebuchadnezzar
on his arrival ; is deposed and carried to Babylon with
many of his subjects. Nebuchadnezzar appoints
ZEDEKIAH, 596
Jeremiah attempts to keep Zedekiah loyal to Nebu
chadnezzar, and contends with priests and prophets who
support Egyptian party (xxiii., xxiv., VIII.)
Proposed confederation against Nebuchadnezzar de
nounced by Jeremiah, but supported by Hananiah ; pro
posal abandoned ; Hananiah dies (xxvii., xxviii., IX.),
593-2 Controversy by letter with hostile prophets at Baby
lon (xxix., X.)
Judah revolts, encouraged by Hophra. Jerusalem is
besieged by Chaldeans. There being 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. I-IO, xxxiv., xxxvii. 1-10, XI.)
Jeremiah attempts to leave the city, is arrested and
imprisoned

Ezekiel

Psammetichus II.,
596

Hophra, 591

CLASSICAL
SYNCHRONISMS

Pisistratus, 560-
527

JUDAH AND JEREMIAH

Hophra retreats into Egypt and the Chaldeans renew
the siege (xxxvii. n-21, xxxviii., xxxix. 15-18, XII.)
While imprisoned Jeremiah buys his kinsman's in
heritance (xxxii., XXX.)
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, 586
Jeremiah remains for a month a prisoner amongst the
other captives. Nebuzaradan arrives ; arranges for de
portation of bulk of population ; appoints Gedaliah gover
nor of residue; releases Jeremiah, who elects to join
Gedahah at Mizpah. Gedaliah murdered. Jeremiah
carried off, but rescued by Johanan (xxxix.-xli. , Iii., XIII.)
Johanan, in spite of Jeremiah's protest, goes down to
Egypt and takes Jeremiah with him (xiii., xliii., XIV.)
Jews in Egypt hold festival in honour of Queen of
Heaven. Ineffectual protest of Jeremiah (xliv., XV.)

Siege of Tyre

Release of Jehoiachin
CYRUS CONQUERS BABYLON AND GIVES THE JEWS PERMIS
SION TO RETURN, 538

Amasis, 570
Nebuchadnezzar invades Egypt, (?) 568
Evil-Merodach, 561

CONTENTS

PAGE
PREFACE .... .... V
INDEX OF CHAPTERS  vii
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE ...... ix
BOOK I
PERSONAL UTTERANCES AND
NARRATIVES
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY : JEHOAHAZ. XXli. IO-I2 ... 3
" Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him : but
weep sore for him that goeth away : for he shall return no
more." — xxii. 10 CHAPTER II
A TRIAL FOR HERESY. XXvi. : cf. vii. — X. . . .10
" 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." — xxvi. 8
CHAPTER III
THE ROLL. XXXvi. ....... 28
" Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the
words that I have spoken unto thee." — xxxvi. 2
xiii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV PAGE
THE RECHABITES. XXXV  44
"Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to
stand before Me for ever." — xxxv, 19

CHAPTER V
BARUCH. xiv  54
" Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey." — xiv. 5
CHAPTER VI
THE JUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM. xxii. 13-19, XXXvi. 30, 31 63
"Jehoiakim . . . slew him (Uriah) with the sword,
and cast his dead body into the graves of the common
people." — 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." — 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

CHAPTER VII
JEHOIACHIN. xxii. 20-30  80
" A despised broken vessel." — 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, ac
cording to all that his father had done." — 2 Kings xxiv. 8, 9

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VIII PAGE
BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS. xxiii., XXIV. . 96
" Woe unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter the
sheep of My pasture ! " — xxiii. 1
" Of what avail is straw instead of grain ? ... Is not
My word like fire, . . . like a hammer that shattereth the
rocks?" — xxiii. 28, 29 CHAPTER IX
hananiah. xxvii., xxviii  115
"Hear now, Hananiah ; Jehovah hath not sent thee, but
thou makest this people to trust in a lie." — xxviii. 15

CHAPTER X
CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE EXILES. xxix. . . -131
"Jehovah make thee like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom
the king of Babylon roasted in the fire." — xxix. 22

CHAPTER XI
A BROKEN COVENANT. xxi. 1-10, xxxiv., xxxvii. I-IO . 141
" All the princes and people . . . changed their minds
and reduced to bondage again all the slaves whom they had
set free." — xxxiv. 10, II

CHAPTER XII
jeremiah's imprisonment, xxxvii. 11-21, xxxviii.,
xxxix. 15-18 ....... 155
" Jeremiah abode in the court of the guard until the day
that Jerusalem was taken," — xxxviii. 28

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIII PAGE
gedaliah. xxxix. — xii., Iii.  172
"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." — xii. 2

CHAPTER XIV
THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT. xiii., xliii. . . .187
"They came into the land of Egypt, for they obeyed not
the voice of Jehovah." — xliii. 7
CHAPTER XV
THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN, xliv. . . . . -197
" Since we left off burning incense and offering libations
to the Queen of Heaven, we have been in want of every
thing, and have been consumed by the sword and the
famine." — xliv. 18
BOOK II
PROPHECIES CONCERNING FOREIGN
NATIONS
CHAPTER XVI
JEHOVAH AND THE NATIONS. XXV. 1 5-38 . . .211
" Jehovah hath a controversy with the nations." — xxv. 31
CHAPTER XVII
EGYPT, xliii. 8-13, xliv. 30, xlvi. .... 220
" 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." — xlvi. 25

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVIII
THE PHILISTINES. xlvii  230

PAGE

" O sword of Jehovah, how long will it be ere thou be
quiet ? put up thyself into thy scabbard ; rest, and be still."
— xlvii. 6

CHAPTER XIX
moab. xlviii  234
" Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because
he hath magnified himself against Jehovah." — 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." — xlviii. 47 CHAPTER XX
ammon. xlix. 1-6  242
" Hath Israel no sons ? hath he no heir ? why then
doth Moloch possess Gad, and his people dwell in the cities
thereof? " — xlix. I CHAPTER XXI
edom. xlix. 7-22 ,  243
"Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a
waste, and a curse." — xlix. 13
CHAPTER XXII
DAMASCUS, xlix. 23-27  248
" I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall
devour the palaces of Benhadad," — xlix. 27

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXIII PAGE
KEDAR AND HAZOR. xlix. 28-33 • • • -251
" Concerning Kedar, and the kingdoms of Hazor which
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon smote." — xlix. 28
CHAPTER XXIV
ELAM. xlix. 34-39 ....... 255
" I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might." —
xlix. 35 CHAPTER XXV
BABYLON. 1., li  258
" Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken
in pieces." — 1. 2

BOOK III
JEREMIAH'S TEACHING CONCERNING
ISRAEL AND JUDAH
CHAPTER XXVI
INTRODUCTORY  25~
" I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they
shall be My people." — xxxi. 1
CHAPTER XXVII
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION .... 270
"Very bad figs, . . . too bad to be eaten."— xxiv, 2, 8,
xxix. 17

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXVIII PAGE
PERSISTENT APOSTASY ....... 283
" They have forsaken the covenant of Jehovah their God,
and worshipped other gods, and served them." — xxii. 9
" Every one that walketh in the stubbornness of his heart."
xxiii. 17

CHAPTER XXIX
RUIN. xxii. 1-9, xxvi. 14 ..... . 295
"The sword, the pestilence, and the famine." — xxi, 9 and
passim. "Terror on every side." — vi. 25, xx. 10, xlvi. 5, xlix. 29 ;
also as proper name, MAGOR-MISSABIB, xx. 3

CHAPTER XXX
RESTORATION — I. THE SYMBOL. XXxii. , . . 308
" And I bought the field of Hanameel." — xxxii. 9
CHAPTER XXXI
RESTORATION — II. THE NEW ISRAEL. xxiii. 3-8, xxiv.
6, 7, xxx., xxxi., xxxiii  319
" In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall
dwell safely : and this is the name whereby she shall be
called, Jehovah our Righteousness."— xxxiii. 16
CHAPTER XXXII
RESTORATION — III. REUNION. xxxi  329
" I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah
with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast."— xxxi. 27

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXXIII PAGE
RESTORATION  IV. THE NEW COVENANT. XXxi. 31-38 I
cf. Hebrews viii. ....... 346
" I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and the house of Judah." — xxxi. 31

CHAPTER XXXIV
RESTORATION — V. REVIEW. xxx. — xxxiii. . . -357

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER XXXV

JEREMIAH AND CHRIST  367
"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

BOOK I
PERSONAL UTTERANCES AND NARRATIVES

, CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY:' JEHOAHAZ
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. lo.
AS the prophecies of Jeremiah are not arranged in
the order in which they were delivered, there is
no absolute chronological division between the first
twenty chapters and those which follow. For the
most part, however, chapters xxi. — Iii. fall in or after
the fourth year of Jehoiakim (b.c 605). We will three-
fore briefly consider the situation at Jerusalem in this
crisis. The period immediately preceding b.c. 605
somewhat resembles the era of the dissolution of the
Roman Empire or of the Wars of the French Revolu
tion. An old-established .international system was
breaking in pieces, and men were quite uncertain what
form the new order would take. For centuries the
futile assaults of the Pharaohs had only served to
illustrate the stability of the Assyrian supremacy in
Western Asia. Then in the last two decades of the
seventh century b.c the Assyrian Empire collapsed,
like the Roman Empire under Honorius and his suc
cessors. It was as if by some swift succession of
disasters modern France or Germany were to become
1 Cf. Preface. 3

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

suddenly and permanently annihilated as a military
power. For the moment, all the traditions and prin
ciples of European statesmanship would lose their mean
ing, and the shrewdest diplomatist would be entirely
at fault. Men's reason would totter, their minds would
lose their balance at the stupendous spectacle of so
unparalleled a catastrophe. The wildest hopes would
alternate with the extremity of fear ; everything would
seem possible to the conqueror.
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 Nebuchadnezzar1 was
suddenly recalled to Babylon by the death of his
father, the Jews would readily imagine that the Divine
judgment had fallen upon Chaldea and its king.
Sanguine prophets announced that Jehovah was about
to deliver His people from all foreign dominion, and
establish the supremacy of the Kingdom of God. Court
and people would be equally possessed with patriotic
hope and enthusiasm. Jehoiakim, it is true, was a
nominee of Pharaoh Necho; but his gratitude would
be far too slight to override the hopes and aspirations
natural to a Prince of the House of David.
In Hezekiah's time, there had been an Egyptian
1 We know little of Nebuchadnezzar's campaigns. In 2 Kings
xxiv. I we are told that Nebuchadnezzar " came up " in the days of
Jehoiakim, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years. It is not
clear whether Nebuchadnezzar "came up" immediately after the
battle of Carchemish, or at a later timeafter his return to Babylon.
In either case the impression made by his hasty departure from
Syria would be the same. Cf. Cheyne, Jeremiah (Men of the Bible),
p. 132. I call the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar— not Nebuchad
rezzar—because the former has been an English household word for
centuries.

xxii. 10-12.] INTRODUCTORY: JEHOAHAZ 5
and an Assyrian party at the court of Judah; the
recent supremacy of Egypt had probably increased the
number of her partisans. Assyria had disappeared, but
her former adherents would retain their antipathy to
Egypt, and their personal feuds with Jews of the
opposite faction ; they were as tools lying ready to
any hand that cared to use them. When Babylon
succeeded Assyria in the overlordship of Asia, she
doubtless inherited the allegiance of the anti-Egyptian
party in the various Syrian states. Jeremiah, like Isaiah,
steadily opposed any dependence upon Egypt ; it was
probably by his advice that Josiah undertook his ill-
fated expedition against Pharaoh Necho. The partisans
of Egypt would be the prophet's enemies ; and though
Jeremiah never became a mere dependent and agent
of Nebuchadnezzar, yet the friends of Babylon would
be his friends, if only because her enemies were his
enemies. We are told in 2 Kings xxiii. 37 that Jehoiakim did
evil in the sight of Jehovah according to all that his
father had done. Whatever other sins may be implied
by this condemnation, we certainly learn that the king
favoured a corrupt form of the religion of Jehovah in
opposition to the purer teaching which Jeremiah in
herited from Isaiah.
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

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

extremely offensive to most of his hearers, and to make
him the object of bitter hostility.
Much of this Jeremiah must have anticipated, but
there were some from whose position and character the
prophet expected acceptance, even of the most unpalat
able 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 bewilder
ment, 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." 1
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." 2 Like
Paul, it was good for Jeremiah "by reason of the
present distress " to deny himself these blessings. He
found some compensation in the fellowship of kindred
souls at Jerusalem. We can well believe that, in those
early days, he was acquainted with Zephaniah, and that
they were associated with Hilkiah and Shaphan and
King Josiah in the publication of Deuteronomy and its
recognition as the law of Israel. Later on Shaphan's
son Ahikam protected Jeremiah when his life was in
imminent danger.
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
1 xi, 19. * xvi. 2.

xxii. 10-12.] INTRODUCTORY: JEHOAHAZ 7
of the extant prophecies belong to this period. With
Josiah on the throne and Deuteronomy accepted as the
standard of the national life, the prophet felt absolved
for a season from his mission to pluck up and break
down, and perhaps began to indulge in hopes that the
time had come to build and to plant. Yet it is difficult
to believe that he had implicit confidence in the per
manence of the Reformation or the influence of
Deuteronomy. The silence of Isaiah and Jeremiah as
to the ecclesiastical reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah
stands in glaring contrast to the great importance
attached to them by the Books of Kings and Chronicles.
But, in any case, Jeremiah must have found life brighter
and easier than in the reigns that followed. Probably,
in these happier days, he was encouraged by the
sympathy and devotion of disciples like Baruch and
Ezekiel. 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.1
He — or, more probably, his ministers, especially the
queen-mother2 — must have been in a hurry to undo
Josiah's work. Jeremiah utters no condemnation of
Jehoahaz ; he merely declares that the young king will
1 2 Kings xxiii. 30-32. 2 Cf. xxii. 26.

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

never return from his exile, and bids the people lament
over his captivity as a more grievous fate than the
death of Josiah : —
"Weep not for the dead,
Neither lament over him :
But weep sore for him that goeth into captivity;
For he shall return no more,
Neither shall he behold his native land." '
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.2 Jeremiah and Ezekiel could not but feel
some tenderness towards the son of Josiah; and
probably they had faith in his personal character, and
believed that in time he would shake off the yoke of
evil counsellors and follow in his father's footsteps.
But any such hopes were promptly disappointed by
Pharaoh Necho, and Jeremiah's spirit bowed beneath
a new burden as he saw his country completely sub
servient to the dreaded influence 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
1 xxii. 10-12. 2 Ezek. xix. 3, 4.

xxii. 10-12.] INTRODUCTORY: JEHOAHAZ 9
of its own bitterness. His hopes and illusions lay
behind him ; he could only watch with melancholy pity
the eager excitement of these stirring times. If he
came across some group busily discussing the rout
of the Egyptians at Carchemish, or the report that
Nebuchadnezzar was posting in hot haste to Babylon,
and wondering as to all that this might mean for Judah,
his countrymen would turn to look with contemptuous
curiosity at the bitter, disappointed man who had had
his chance and failed, and now grudged them their
prospect of renewed happiness and prosperity. Never
theless Jeremiah's greatest work still lay before him.
Jerusalem was past saving; but more was at stake
than the existence of Judah and its capital. But for
Jeremiah the religion of Jehovah might have perished
with His Chosen People. It was his mission to save
Revelation from the wreck of Israel. Humanly speak
ing, the religious future of the world depended upon
this stern solitary prophet.

CHAPTER II
A TRIAL FOR HERESY
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.
THE date of this incident is given, somewhat
vaguely, as the beginning of the reign of Jehoia
kim. It was, therefore, earlier than b.c 605, the point
reached in the previous chapter. Jeremiah could offer
no political resistance to Jehoiakim and his Egyptian
suzerain ; yet it was impossible for him to allow Josiah's
policy to be reversed without a protest. Moreover,
something, perhaps much, might yet be saved for Jehovah.
The king, with his court and prophets and priests, was
not everything. Jeremiah was only concerned with
sanctuaries, ritual, and priesthoods as means to an end.
For him the most important result of the work he had
shared with Josiah was a pure and holy life for the
nation and individuals. Renan — in some passages,
for he is not always consistent — is inclined to minimise
the significance of the change from Josiah to Jehoia
kim ; in fact, he writes very much as a cavalier might
have done of the change from Cromwell to Charles II.
Both the Jewish kings worshipped Jehovah, each in
his own fashion : Josiah was inclined to a narrow

xxvi.] A TRIAL FOR HERESY II
puritan severity of a life ; Jehoiakim was a liberal,
practical man of the world. Probably this is a fair
modern equivalent of the current estimate of the kings
and their policy, especially on the part of Jehoiakim's
friends ; but then, as unhappily still in some quarters,
" narrow puritan severity " was a convenient designation
for a decent and honourable life, for a scrupulous and
self-denying care for the welfare of others. Jeremiah
dreaded a relapse into the old half-heathen ideas that
Jehovah would be pleased with homage and service
that satisfied Baal, Moloch, and Chemosh. Such a
relapse would lower the ethical standard, and corrupt
or even destroy any beginnings of spiritual life. Our
English Restoration is an object-lesson as to the im
moral effects of political and ecclesiastical reaction ; if
such things were done in sober England, what must
have been possible to hot Eastern blood ! In pro
testing against the attitude of Jehoiakim, Jeremiah
would also seek to save the people from the evil effects
of the king's policy. He knew from his own ex
perience that a subject might trust and serve God with
his whole heart, even when the -king was false to
Jehovah. What was possible for him was possible
for others. He understood his countrymen too well
to expect that the nation would continue to advance
in paths of righteousness which its leaders and teachers
had forsaken ; but, scattered here and there through
the mass of the people, was Isaiah's remnant, the seed
of the New Israel, men and women to whom the
Revelation of Jehovah had been the beginning of a
higher life. He would not leave them without a word
of counsel and encouragement.
At the command of Jehovah, Jeremiah appeared
before the concourse of Jews, assembled at the Temple

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

for some great fast or festival. No feast is expressly
mentioned, but he is charged to address " all the
cities of Judah " 1 ; all the outlying population would
only meet at the Temple on some specially holy day.
Such an occasion would naturally be chosen by
Jeremiah for his deliverance, just as Christ availed
Himself of the opportunities offered by the Passover
and the Feast of Tabernacles, just as modern philan
thropists seek to find a place for their favourite topics
on the platform of May Meetings.
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 2 on Jeremiah in this series, and are also
referred to in Book III.
According to the universal principle of Hebrew
prophecy, the predictions of ruin were conditional ;
they were still coupled with the offer of pardon to re
pentance, 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

1 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."
1 See especially the exposition of chaps, vii. — x., which are often
supposed to be a reproduction of Jeremiah's utterance on this
occasion.

xxvi.] A TRIAL FOR HERESY 13
collective rather than individual, and is intended to
describe a national reformation, which would embrace
all the individual citizens ; but the actual words suggest
another truth, which must also have been in Jeremiah's
mind. The nation is, after all, an aggregate of men
and women ; there can be no national reformation,
except through the repentance and amendment of
individuals. 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 x ; most of his audience
had heard it before, all of them were quite familiar
with its main topics. They listened in the various
moods of a modern congregation " sitting under " a
distinguished preacher. Jeremiah's friends and dis
ciples welcomed the ideas and phrases that had become
part of their spiritual life. Many enjoyed the speaker's
earnestness and eloquence, without troubling them-
1 The Hebrew apparently implies that the discourse was a repeti
tion of former prophecies.

i4 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
selves about the ideas at all. There was nothing
specially startling about the well-known threats and
warnings ; they had become
"A tale of little meaning tho' the words were strong."
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."1
1 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.,

xxvi.] A TRIAL FOR HERESY 15
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 build
ing 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." 1 Can we wonder that
" the priests and the prophets and all the people laid
hold on him, saying, Thou shalt surely die " ? For the
moment there was an appearance of religious unity in
Jerusalem ; the priests, the prophets, and the pious laity
on one side, and only the solitary heretic on the other.
It was, though on a small scale, as if the obnoxious
teaching of some nineteenth-century prophet of God
had given an unexpected stimulus to the movement for
Christian reunion ; as if cardinals and bishops, chair
men of unions, presidents of conferences, moderators
of assemblies, with great preachers and distinguished
laymen, united to hold monster meetings and denounce
the Divine message as heresy and blasphemy. In like
manner Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians found a
basis of common action in their hatred of Christ, and
Pilate and Herod were reconciled by His cross.
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.
1 v. 31.

16 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

Meanwhile the crowd was increasing: new wor
shippers 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 per
secutors, 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." x
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 con
jecture 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 con
stitutional status, and that they often controlled the
king himself. We are also ignorant as to the " new
1 Acts xxi. 27-30.

xxvi.] A TRIAL FOR HERESY 17
gate " ; it may possibly be the upper gate built by
Jotham l about a hundred and fifty years earlier.
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." 2 Stephen
was accused of speaking incessantly against the Temple
and the Law, and teaching that Jesus of Nazareth would
destroy the Temple and change the customs handed
down from Moses. When he asserted that " the Most
High dwelleth not in temples made with hands," the
impatience of his audience compelled him to bring
his defence , to an abrupt conclusion.3 Of Paul we
have already spoken.
How was it that these priests and prophets thought
that their princes might be induced to condemn Jere
miah to death for predicting the destruction of the
Temple ? A prophet would not run much risk nowa
days 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
1 2 Kings xv. 35. - z Mark xiv. 58.
3 Acts vi. 13, 14, vii. 48. 2

1 8 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
the date at which they write, and yet they do not incur
any appreciable unpopularity. It is true that Jeremiah's
accusers were a little afraid that his predictions might
be fulfilled, and the most bitter persecutors are those
who have a lurking dread that their victims are right,
while they themselves are wrong. But such fears
could not very well be evidence or argument against
Jeremiah before any court of law.
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."1 Doubtless the kings were following the
advice of Isaiah and Jeremiah. These prophets were
anxious to abolish the abuses of the local sanctuaries,
which were a continual incentive to an extravagant
and corrupt ritual. Yet they did not intend to assign
any supreme importance to a priestly caste or a conse
crated building. Certainly for them the hope of Israel
and the assurance of its salvation did not consist in
cedar and hewn stones, in silver and gold. And yet
the unique position given to the Temple inevitably
became the starting-point for fresh superstition. Once
Jehovah could be worshipped not only at Jerusalem,
but at Beersheba and Bethel and many other places
where He had chosen to set His name. Even then,
it was felt that the Divine Presence must afford some

' 2 Kings xviii. 4, xxiii. ; Isa, xxxvi. 7.

xxvi.] A TRIAL FOR HERESY 19
protection for His dwelling-places. But now that
Jehovah dwelt nowhere else but at Jerusalem, and
only accepted the worship of His people at this single
shrine, how could any one doubt that He would protect
His Temple and His Holy City against all enemies,
even the most formidable ? Had He not done so
already ?
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 imme
diately 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 pro
tection 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 pil
laged ; 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 I the Temple

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

of Jehovah ! The Temple of Jehovah is in our
midst ! " x
In prosperous times a nation may forget its Palla
dium, 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 inviola
bility 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 Car
chemish. 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

vu. 4.

xxvi.] A TRIAL FOR HERESY 21
good and right unto you. Only know assuredly that,
if ye put me to death, ye will bring the guilt of innocent
blood upon yourselves, and upon this city and its
inhabitants : for of a truth Jehovah sent me unto you
to speak all these words in your ears." There is one
curious feature in this defence. Jeremiah contemplates
the possibility of two distinct acts of wickedness on
the part of his persecutors : they may turn a deaf ear
to his appeal that they should repent and reform, and
their obstinacy will incur all the chastisements which
Jeremiah had threatened ; they may also put him to
death and incur additional guilt. Scoffers might reply
that his previous threats were so awful and compre
hensive that they left no room for any addition to the
punishment of the impenitent. Sinners sometimes find
a grim comfort in the depth of their wickedness ; their
case is so bad that it cannot be made worse, they may
now indulge their evil propensities with a kind of
impunity. But Jeremiah's prophetic insight made him
anxious to save his countrymen from further sin, even
in their impenitence; the Divine discrimination is not
taxed beyond its capabilities even by the extremity of
human wickedness.
But to return to the main feature in Jeremiah's
defence. His accusers' contention was that his teach
ing 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 ortho
doxy — that it could not be a word of Jehovah. Jere
miah 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

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

a question of the relative authority of Jeremiah and his
accusers, whether he or they had the better right to
speak for God. The immediate result seemed to justify
him in this attitude. He was no obscure novice, seek
ing for the first time to establish his right to speak in
the Divine name. The princes and people had been
accustomed for twenty years to listen to him, as to the
most fully acknowledged mouthpiece of Heaven ; they
could not shake off their accustomed feeling of deference,
and once more succumbed to the spell of his fervid and
commanding personality. " Then said the princes and
all the people unto the priests and the prophets, This
man is not worthy of death ; for he hath spoken to us
in the name of Jehovah our God." For the moment
the people were won over and the princes convinced ;
but priests and prophets were not so easily influenced
by inspired utterances ; some of these probably thought
that they had an inspiration of their own, and their
professional experience made them callous.
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 spec
tators. 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 pro
cedure ; 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.

xxvi.] A TRIAL FOR HERESY 23
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 institu
tion, 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." x But Hezekiah and his
people, instead of slaying Micah, had repented, and
the city had been spared. They evidently wished
that the precedent could be wholly followed in the
present instance; but, at any rate, it was clear that
one of the most honoured and successful of the kings
of Judah had accepted a threat against the Temple as
a message from Jehovah. Therefore the mere fact that
Jeremiah had uttered such a threat was certainly not
prima facie evidence that he was a false prophet. We
are not told how this argument was received, but the
writer of the chapter, possibly Baruch, does not attri
bute Jeremiah's escape either to his acquittal by the
princes or to the reasoning of the elders. The people
apparently changed sides once more, like the common
people in the New Testament, who heard Christ gladly
1 Micah iii. 12. As the quotation exactly agrees with the verse
in our extant Book of Micah, we may suppose that the elders were
acquainted with his prophecies in writing,

24 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
and with equal enthusiasm clamoured for His cruci
fixion. At the end of the chapter we find them eager
to have the prophet delivered into their hands that they
may put him to death. Apparently the prophets and
priests, having brought matters into this satisfactory
position, had retired from the scene of action; the
heretic was to be delivered over to the secular arm.
The princes, like Pilate, seemed inclined to yield to
popular pressure ; but Ahikam, a son of the Shaphan
who had to do with the finding of Deuteronomy, stood
by Jeremiah, as John of Gaunt stood by Wyclif, and
the Protestant Princes by Luther, and the magistrates
of Geneva by Calvin ; and Jeremiah could say with the
Psalmist : —
"I have heard the defaming of many.
Terror on every side :
While they took counsel together against me,
They devised to take away my life.
But I trusted in Thee, O Jehovah :
I said, Thou art my God.
My times are in Thy hand :
Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them
that persecute me.
Let the lying lips be dumb,
Which speak against the righteous insolently,
With pride and contempt.
Oh, how great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up
for them that fear Thee,
Which Thou hast wrought for them that put their trust in
Thee, before the sons of men." '
We have here an early and rudimentary example of
religious toleration, of the willingness, however reluctant,
1 Psalm xxxi. 13-15, 18, 19. The Psalm is sometimes ascribed to
Jeremiah, because it can be so readily applied to this incident. The
reader will recognise his characteristic phrase "Terror on every
side " (Magor-missabib),

xxvi.] . A TRIAL FOR HERESY 25
to hear as a possible Divine message unpalatable teach
ing, at variance with current theology ; we see too
the fountain-head of that freedom which since has
" broadened down from precedent to precedent."
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 re
straint of this new-born tolerance. The writer adds
an incident that must have happened somewhat later,1
to show how real was Jeremiah's danger, and how
transient was the liberal mood of the authorities. A
certain Uriah ben Shemaiah of Kirjath Jearim had the
courage to follow in Jeremiah's footsteps and speak
against the city "according to all that Jeremiah had
said." With the usual meanness of persecutors,
Jehoiakim and his captains and princes vented upon
this obscure prophet the ill-will which they had not
dared to indulge in the case of Jeremiah, with his
commanding personality and influential friends. Uriah -
fled into Egypt, but was brought back and slain, and
his body cast out unburied into the common cemetery.
We can understand Jeremiah's fierce and bitter in
dignation against the city where such things were
possible. 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

1 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 execu
tion — must have taken some time, and can scarcely have pre
ceded Jeremiah's utterance " at the beginning of the reign of King
Jehoiakim,"

26 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
against Jeremiah and caused the martyrdom of Uriah
was the inviolability of the Temple and the Holy City.
This dogma was a perversion of the teaching of Isaiah,
and especially of Jeremiah himself,1 which assigned a
unique position to the Temple in the religion of Israel.
The carnal man shows a fatal ingenuity in sucking
poison out of the most wholesome truth. He is always
eager to discover that something external, material,
physical, concrete — some building, organisation, cere
mony, or form of words — is a fundamental basis of the
faith and essential to salvation. If Jeremiah had died
with Josiah, the " priests and prophets " would doubt
less have quoted his authority against Uriah. The
teaching of Christ and His apostles, of Luther and
Calvin and their fellow-reformers, has often been
twisted and forged into weapons to be used against
their true followers. We are often tempted in the
interest of our favourite views to lay undue stress on
secondary and accidental statements of great teachers.
We fail to keep the due proportion of truth which
they themselves observed, and in applying their pre
cepts to new problems we sacrifice the kernel and save
the husk. The warning of Jeremiah's persecutors
might often " give us pause." We need not be sur
prised at finding priests and prophets eager and in
terested champions of a perversion of revealed truth.
Ecclesiastical office does not necessarily confer any
inspiration from above. The hereditary priest follows
the traditions of his caste, and even the prophet may
become the mouthpiece of the passions and prejudices
of those who accept and applaud him. When men will
not endure sound doctrine, they heap to themselves
1 Assuming his sympathy with Deuteronomy.

xxvi.] A TRIAL FOR HERESY 27
teachers after their own lusts; having itching ears,
they turn away their ears from the truth and turn unto
fables.1 Jeremiah's experience shows that even an
apparent consensus of clerical opinion is not always to
be trusted. The history of councils and synods is
stained by many foul and shameful blots ; it was the
CEcumenical Council at Constance that burnt Huss, and
most Churches have found themselves, at some time
or other, engaged in building the tombs of the pro
phets whom their own officials had stoned in days
gone by. We forget that Athanasius contra mundum
implies also Athanasius contra ecclesiam.
' 2 Tim. iv. 3.

CHAPTER III
THE ROLL

" Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that
I have spoken unto thee." — Jer. xxxvi. 2.
THE incidents which form so large a proportion
of the contents of our book do not make up
a connected narrative ; they are merely a series of
detached pictures : we can only conjecture the doings
and experiences of Jeremiah during the intervals.
Chapter xxvi. leaves him still exposed to the persistent
hostility of the priests and prophets, who had appar
ently succeeded in once more directing popular feeling
against their antagonist. At the same time, though the
princes' were not ill-disposed towards him, they were
not inclined to resist the strong pressure brought to
bear upon them. Probably the attitude of the populace
varied from time to time, according to the presence
among them of the friends or enemies of the prophet ;
and, in the same way, we cannot think of " the princes "
as a united body, governed by a single impulse. The
action of this group of notables might be determined
by the accidental preponderance of one or other of
two opposing parties. Jeremiah's only real assurance
of safety lay in the personal protection extended to
him by Ahikam ben Shaphan. Doubtless other princes
z8

xxxvi.] THE ROLL 29
associated themselves with Ahikam in his friendly
action on behalf of the prophet.
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-con
sciousness, 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 tem
porary 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

30 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
prospect of mob violence, or by exclusion from the
most favourable vantage-ground. Renan is fond of
comparing the prophets to modern journalists ; and
this incident is an early and striking instance of the
substitution of pen, ink, and paper for the orator's
tribune. Perhaps the closest modern parallel is that
of the speaker who is howled down at a public meeting
and hands his manuscript to the reporters.
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 1 as to
the contents of the roll. They are described as : " All
that I have spoken unto thee concerning 2 Jerusalem 3
and Judah, and all the nations, since I (first) spake
unto thee, from the time of Josiah until now." At first
sight this would seem to include all previous utterances,
and therefore all the extant prophecies of a date earlier
than B.c 605, i.e. those contained in chapters i. — xii.
and some portions of xiv. — xx. (we cannot determine
which with any exactness), and probably most of those
dated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e. xxv. and
parts of xiv. — xlix. Cheyne,4 however, holds that the
roll simply contained the striking and comprehensive
prophecy in chapter xxv. The whole series of chapters

1 See Cheyne, Giesebrecht, Orelli, etc.
2 R.V. " against." The Hebrew is ambiguous.
3 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,

xxxvi.] THE ROLL 31
might very well be described as dealing with Jerusalem,
Judah, and the nations; but at the same time xxv.
might be considered equivalent, by way of summary,
to all that had been spoken on these subjects. From
various considerations which will appear as we proceed
with the narrative, it seems probable that the larger
estimate is the more correct, i.e. that the roll contained
a large fraction of our Book of Jeremiah, and not
merely one or two chapters. We need not, however,
suppose that every previous utterance of the prophet,
even though still extant, must have been included in
the roll ; the " all " would of course be understood to
be conditioned by relevancy ; and the narratives of
various incidents are obviously not part of what
Jehovah had spoken.
Jeremiah dictated his prophecies, as St. Paul did
his epistles, to an amanuensis ; he called his disciple
Baruch1 ben Neriah, and dictated to him "all that
Jehovah had spoken, upon a book, in the form of a
roll." It seems clear that, as in xxvi., the narrative does not
exactly follow the order of events,2 and that verse 9,
which records the proclamation of a fast in the
ninth month of Jehoiakim's fifth year, should be read
before verse 5, which begins the account of the cir
cumstances leading up to the actual reading of the roll.
We are not told in what month of Jehoiakim's fourth
year Jeremiah received this command to write his
prophecies in a roll, but as they were not read till
the ninth month of the fifth year, there must have been
an interval of at least ten months or a year between the

1 Cf. Chap. V. on " Baruch."
2 Verses 5-8 seem to be a brief alternative account to 9-26.

32 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Divine command and the reading by Baruch. We can
scarcely suppose that all or nearly all this delay was
caused by Jeremiah and Baruch's waiting for a suitable
occasion. The long interval suggests that the dictation
took some time, and that therefore the roll was some
what voluminous in its contents, and that it was care-
fully compiled, not without a certain amount of revision.
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 extraor
dinary 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."1 Jeremiah does not seem to have absolutely deter
mined 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 " 2 — we are not told
how — and could not go into the Temple. He may
1 I Chron. xx. i.
2 'ACUR : A.V., R.V., " shut up " ; R.V. margin, " restrained." The
term is used in xxxiii. I, xxxix. 15, in the sense of "imprisoned,"
but here Jeremiah appears to be at liberty. The phrase 'ACUR
W AZUBH, A.V. "shut up or left " (Deut. xxxii. 36, etc.), has been

xxxvi.] THE ROLL 33
have been restrained by his own prudence, or dissuaded
by his friends, like Paul when he would have faced the
mob in the theatre at Ephesus ; the hindrance may have
been some ban under which he had been placed by the
priesthood, or it may have been some unexpected ill
ness, or legal uncleanness, or some other passing
accident, such as Providence often uses to protect its
soldiers till their warfare is accomplished.
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,1 but betook himself to the " chamber " of the
scribe, 2 or secretary of state, Gemariah ben Shaphan,
the brother of Jeremiah's protector Ahikam. This
chamber would be one of the cells built round the
upper court, from which the " new gate " 3 led into an
inner court of the Temple. Thus Baruch placed him
self formally under the protection of the owner of the
apartment, and any violence offered to him would have
been resented and avenged by this powerful noble with
his kinsmen and allies. Jeremiah's disciple and repre
sentative took his seat at the door of the chamber,
and, in full view of the crowds who passed and
understood, those under the restraints imposed upon ceremonial
uncleanness and those free from these restraints, i.e. everybody ;
the same meaning has been given to 'ACUR here.
1 xxvi. 2.
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 2 Kings xxii. 8. He points
out that in verse 20 Elishama is called the scribe, but we cannot
assume that the title was limited to a single officer of state.
8 Cf. xxvi. io. 3

34 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
repassed through the new gate, opened his roll and
began to read aloud from its contents. His reading
was yet another repetition of the exhortations, warnings,
and threats which Jeremiah had rehearsed on the
feast day when he spake to the people "all that
Jehovah had commanded him " ; and still both Jehovah
and His prophet promised deliverance as the reward
of repentance. Evidently the head and front of the
nation's offence had been no open desertion of Jehovah
for idols, else His servants would not have selected for
their audience His enthusiastic worshippers as they
thronged to His Temple. The fast itself might have
seemed a token of penitence, but it was not accepted
by Jeremiah, or put forward by the people, as a reason
why the prophecies of ruin should not be fulfilled. No
one offers the very natural plea : " In this fast we are
humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God, we
are confessing our sins, and consecrating ourselves
afresh to service of Jehovah. What more does He
expect of us ? Why does He still withhold His mercy
and forgiveness ? Wherefore have we fasted, and
Thou seest not ? Wherefore have we afflicted our
soul, and Thou takest no knowledge ? " Such a plea
would probably have received an answer similar to that
given by one of Jeremiah's successors : " Behold, in the
day of your fast ye find your own pleasure, and oppress
all your labourers. Behold, ye fast for strife and con
tention, and to smite with the fist of wickedness : ye
fast not this day so as to make your voice to be heard
on high. Is such the fast that I have chosen ? the day
for a man to afflict his soul ? Is it to bow down his
head as a rush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes
under him ? wilt thou call this a fast, and a day
acceptable to Jehovah ?

xxxvi.] THE ROLL 35
" 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." l
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." 2
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. ' Isa. lviii. 3-8. - Micah vi. 6-8.

36 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
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 ful
filments 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

xxxvi.] THE ROLL 37
not only by the place he occupied, but also by the
presence of Gemariah's son, Micaiah.
The reading passed off without any hostile demon
stration 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, attend
ing 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 ht
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.1
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 informa
tion 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
1 §o Orelli. in loco.

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

coming execution. They exchanged looks of dismay
and horror, and when the reading was over, they said
to one another,1 "We must tell the king of all these
words." First, however, they inquired concerning the
exact circumstances under which the roll had been
written, that they might know how far responsibility
in this matter was to be divided between the prophet
and his disciple, and also whether all the contents
rested upon the full authority of Jeremiah. Baruch
assured them that it was simply a case of dictation :
Jeremiah had uttered every word with his own mouth,
and he had faithfully written it down ; everything was
Jeremiah's own.2
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.
1 Hebrew text " to Baruch," which LXX. omits.
2 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."

xxxvi.] THE ROLL 39
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.1 The king sent for the
roll by Jehudi, who had accompanied the princes into
the presence chamber ; and on his return the same
serviceable official read its contents before Jehoiakim
and the princes, whose number was now augmented
by the nobles in attendance upon the king. Jehudi
had had the advantage of hearing Baruch read the roll,
but ancient Hebrew manuscripts were not easy to
decipher, and probably Jehudi stumbled somewhat ;
altogether the reading of prophecies by a court-usher
would not be a very edifying performance, or very
gratifying to Jeremiah's friends. Jehoiakim treated the
matter with deliberate and ostentatious contempt. At
the end of every three or four columns,2 he put out his
hand for the roll, cut away the portion that had been
read, and threw it on the fire ; then he handed the
remainder back to Jehudi, and the reading was resumed
till the king thought fit to repeat the process. It at
once appeared that the audience was divided into two
parties. When Gemariah's father, Shaphan, had read
Deuteronomy to Josiah, the king rent his clothes; but
now the writer tells us, half aghast, that neither
Jehoiakim nor any of his servants were afraid or rent
1 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.
2 The English tenses " cut," " cast," are ambiguous, but the Hebrew
implies that the "cutting "and "casting on the fire" were repeatecj
again and again,

40 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
their clothes, but the audience, including doubtless both
court officials and some of the princes, looked on with
calm indifference. Not so the princes who had been
present at Baruch's reading : they had probably induced
him to leave the roll with them, by promising that it
should be kept safely ; they had tried to keep it out
of the king's hands by leaving it in Elishama's room,
and now they made another attempt to save it from
destruction. They entreated Jehoiakim to refrain from
open and insolent defiance of a prophet who might
after all be speaking in the name of Jehovah. But the
king persevered. The alternate reading and burning
went on ; the unfortunate usher's fluency and clearness
would not be improved by the extraordinary conditions
under which he had to read ; and we may well suppose
that the concluding columns were hurried over in a
somewhat perfunctory fashion, if they were read at all.
As soon as the last shred of parchment was shrivelling
on the charcoal, Jehoiakim commanded three of his
officers J to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch. But they had
taken the advice of the princes and were not to be
found: "Jehovah hid them."
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

1 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.

THE ROLL 41

princes had listened with anxious deference, but the
appeal had been received by the people with indiffer
ence and by the king with contempt. Nevertheless it
must have strengthened individuals in the true faith,
and it had proclaimed afresh that the religion of Jehovah
gave no sanction to the policy of Jehoiakim : the ruin
of Judah would be a proof of the sovereignty of Jehovah
and not of His impotence. But probably this incident
had more immediate influence over the king than we
might at first sight suppose. When Nebuchadnezzar
arrived in Palestine, Jehoiakim submitted to him, a
policy entirely in accordance with the views of Jeremiah.
We may well believe that the experiences of this fast-
day had strengthened the hands of the prophet's friends,
and cooled the enthusiasm of the court for more
desperate and adventurous courses. Every year's
respite for Judah fostered the growth of the true religion
of Jehovah.
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,1 we may be sure
that he was not allowed to remain in ignorance, at any
rate, of this portion of it.
The second roll was, doubtless, one of the main
1 For verses 29-31 see Chap. VI., where they are dealt with in
connection with xxii. 13-19.

42 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
sources of our present Book of Jeremiah, and the narra
tive of this chapter is of considerable importance for
Old Testament criticism. It shows that a prophetic
book may not go back to any prophetic autograph at
all ; its most original sources may be manuscripts
written at the prophet's dictation, and liable to all the
errors which are apt to creep into the most faithful
work of an amanuensis. It shows further that, even
when a prophet's utterances were written down during
his lifetime, the manuscript may contain only his recol
lections 1 of what he said years before, and that these
might be either expanded or abbreviated, sometimes
even unconsciously modified, in the light of subsequent
events. Verse 32 shows that Jeremiah did not hesitate
to add to the record of his former prophecies "many
like words " : there is no reason to suppose that these
were all contained in an appendix ; they would often
take the form of annotations.
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 intention
ally. 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
1 The supposition that Jeremiah had written notes of previous
prophecies is not an impossible one, but it is a pure conjecture,

xxxvi.] THE ROLL 43
Divine command, just as in the Hexateuch and the
Book of Samuel we read of Moses, Joshua, and Samuel
committing certain matters to writing at the bidding of
Jehovah. We have here the recognition of the inspi
ration of the scribe, as ancillary to that of the prophet.
Jehovah not only gives His word to His servants, but
watches over its preservation and transmission.1 But
there is no inspiration to write any new revelation :
the spoken word, the consecrated life, are inspired ; the
book is only a record of inspired speech and action.
1 Cf. Orelli, in loco.

CHAPTER IV
THE RECHABITES

"Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before
Me for ever." — Jer. xxxv. 19.
THIS incident is dated " in the days of Jehoiakim."
We learn from verse 1 1 that it happened at a
time when the open country of Judah was threatened
by the advance of Nebuchadnezzar with a Chaldean
and Syrian army. If Nebuchadnezzar marched into
the south of Palestine immediately after the battle of
Carchemish, the incident may have happened, as some
suggest, in the eventful fourth year of Jehoiakim ; or if
he did not appear in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem
till after he had taken over the royal authority at
Babylon, Jeremiah's interview with the Rechabites may
have followed pretty closely upon the destruction of
Baruch's roll. But we need not press the words
" Nebuchadnezzar . . . came up into the land " ; they
may only mean that Judah was invaded by an army
acting under his orders. The mention of Chaldeans
and Assyrians suggests that this invasion is the same
as that mentioned in 2 Kings xxiv. 1, 2, where we are
told that Jehoiakim served Nebuchadnezzar three years
and then rebelled against him, whereupon Jehovah sent
against him bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and
Ammonites, and sent them against Judah to destroy it,
44

xxxv.] THE RECHABITES 45
If this is the invasion referred to in our chapter it falls
towards the end of Jehoiakim's reign, and sufficient
time had elapsed to allow the king's anger against
Jeremiah to cool, so that the prophet could venture out
of his hiding-place.
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 i Chron. ii. 55, the Rechabites traced
their descent to a certain Hemath, and were a branch
of the Kenites, an Edomite tribe dwelling for the most
part in the south of Palestine. These Kenites had
maintained an ancient and intimate alliance with Judah,
and in time the allies virtually became a single people,
so that after the Return from the Captivity all distinc
tion of race between Kenites and Jews was forgotten,
and the Kenites were reckoned among the families of
Israel. In this fusion of their tribe with Judah, the
Rechabite clan would be included. It is clear from all
the references both to Kenites and to Rechabites that
they had adopted the religion of Israel and worshipped
Jehovah. We know nothing else of the early history
of the Rechabites. The statement in Chronicles that
the father of the house of Rechab was Hemath per
haps points to their having been at one time settled at
some place called Hemath near Jabez in Judah. Pos
sibly too Rechab, which means " rider," is not a
personal name, but a designation of the clan as
horsemen of the desert.
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

46 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
traditional customs of the clan had been formulated
into positive commands by Jonadab, the son of Rechab,
i.e. the Rechabite. This must be the same Jonadab
who co-operated with Jehu in overthrowing the house
of Omri and suppressing the worship of Baal. Jehu's
reforms concluded the long struggle of Elijah and
Elisha against the house of Omri and its half-heathen
religion. Hence we may infer that Jonadab and his
Rechabites had come under the influence of these great
prophets, and that their social and religious condition
was one result of Elijah's work. Jeremiah stood in
the true line of succession from the northern prophets
in his attitude towards religion and politics ; so that
there would be bonds of sympathy between him and
these nomad refugees.
The laws or customs of Jonadab, like the Ten Com
mandments, 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."1 Mohammed forbade his followers
.to drink any sort of wine or strong drink. But the
closest parallel is one often quoted from Diodorus
Siculus,2 who, writing about b.c 8, tells us that the
Nabatean Arabs were prohibited under the penalty of
death from sowing corn or planting fruit trees, using
1 Num. vi. 2. « xix. 94.

xxxv.] THE RECHABITES 47
wine or building houses. Such abstinence is not
primarily ascetic ; it expresses the universal contempt
of the wandering hunter and herdsman for tillers of
the ground, who are tied to one small spot of earth,
and for burghers, who further imprison themselves in
narrow houses and behind city walls. The nomad has
a not altogether unfounded instinct that such accept
ance of material restraints emasculates both soul and
body. A remarkable parallel to the laws of Jonadab
ben Rechab is found in the injunctions of the dying
highlander, Ranald of the Mist, to his heir : " Son of
the Mist ! be free as thy forefathers. Own no lord —
receive no law — take no hire — give no stipend — build
no hut — enclose no pasture — sow no grain."1 The
Rechabite faith in the higher moral value of their
primitive habits had survived their alliance with Israel,
and Jonadab did his best to protect his clan from the
taint of city life and settled civilisation. Abstinence
from wine was not enjoined chiefly, if at all, to guard
against intoxication, but because the fascinations of the
grape might tempt the clan to plant vineyards, or, at
any rate, would make them dangerously dependent
upon vine-dressers and wine-merchants.
Till this recent invasion, the Rechabites had faith
fully 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.2 Jeremiah was commanded to go
and bring them into the Temple, that is, into one of
the rooms in the Temple buildings, and offer them
' Scott, Legend of Montrose, chap. xxii.
2 The term " house of the Rechabites " in verse 2 means " family "
or " clan,'' and does not refer to a building.

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

wine. The narrative proceeds in the first person, " I
took Jaazaniah," so that the chapter will have been
composed by the prophet himself. In somewhat legal
fashion he tells us how he took " Jaazaniah ben Jere
miah, ben Habaziniah, and his brethren, and all his
sons, and all the clan of the Rechabites." All three
names are compounded of the Divine name Iah, Jehovah,
and serve to emphasise the devotion of the clan to
the God of Israel. It is a curious coincidence that
the somewhat rare name Jeremiah J should occur twice
in this connection. The room to which the prophet
took his friends is described as the chamber of the
disciples of the man of God 2 Hanan ben Igdaliah,
which was by the chamber of the princes, which was
above the chamber of the keeper of the threshold,
Maaseiah ben Shallum. Such minute details probably
indicate that this chapter was committed to writing
while these buildings were still standing and still had
the same occupants as at the time of this incident, but
to us the topography is unintelligible. The " man of
God " or prophet Hanan was evidently in sympathy
with Jeremiah, and had a following of disciples who
formed a sort of school of the prophets, and were a
sufficiently permanent body to have a chamber assigned
to them in the Temple buildings. The keepers of the
threshold were Temple officials of high standing. The
" princes " may have been the princes of Judah, who
might very well have a chamber in the Temple courts ;
but the term is general, and may simply refer to other
Temple officials. Hanan's disciples seem to have been
in good company.
These exact specifications of person and place are

Eight Jeremiahs occur in O.T.
Literally " sons of Hanan."

xxxv.] THE RECHABITES 49
probably designed to give a certain legal solemnity
and importance to the incident, and seem to warrant
us in rejecting Reuss' suggestion that our narrative
is simply an elaborate prophetic figure.1
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 admoni
tions : " 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
1 Jeremiah, according to this view, had no interview with the
Rechabites, but made an imaginary incident a text for his discourse. 4

50 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
appealed to by numerous prophets. Their Torah had
been simply given them by their father Jonadab ;
nevertheless the commands of Jonadab had been re
garded and those of Jehovah had been treated with
contempt. 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 obedi
ence 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

xxxv.] THE RECHABITES 51
their ancestral habits. Jehovah had spoken through
-Jeremiah long ago and said : " Pass over the isles
of Chittim, and see ; and send unto Kedar, and con
sider diligently, and see if there be any such thing.
Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no
gods? but My people have changed their glory for
that which doth not profit." l Centuries later Christ
found Himself constrained to upbraid the cities of
Israel, "wherein most of His mighty works were
done " : " Woe unto thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee,
Bethsaida 1 for if the mighty works which were done
in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ... It
shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day
of judgment than for you." 2 And again and again in
the history of the Church the Holy Spirit has been
grieved because those who profess and call themselves
Christians, and claim to prophesy and do many mighty
works in the name of Christ, are less loyal to the
gospel than the heathen to their own superstitions.
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 busi
ness 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
1 ii. 10, 11. * Matt. xi. 21, 22.

52 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
synods and Church meetings gives colour to such
charges, which could never have been made if Chris
tians had been as jealous for the Name of Christ as a
merchant is for his credit or a soldier for his honour.
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 sug
gested 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

xxxv.] THE RECHABITES 53
searched curiously for any trace of the continued
existence of the Rechabites. The notice in Chronicles
implies that they formed part of the Jewish community
of the Restoration. Apparently Alexandrian Jews
were acquainted with Rechabites at a still later date.
Psalm lxxi. is ascribed by the Septuagint to "the
sons of Jonadab." Eusebius1 mentions " priests of the
sons of Rechab," and Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish
traveller of the twelfth century, states that he met with
them in Arabia. More recent travellers have thought
that they discovered the descendants of Rechab
amongst the nomads in Arabia or the Peninsula of
Sinai that still practised the old ancestral customs.
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 repent
ance, 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." 1 Ch. Hist., ii. 23.

CHAPTER V
BARUCH xiv.
" Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey." — Jer. xiv. 5.
THE editors of the versions and of the Hebrew text
of the Old Testament have assigned a separate
chapter to this short utterance concerning Baruch ; thus
paying an unconscious tribute to the worth and import
ance of Jeremiah's disciple and secretary, who was the
first to bear the familiar Jewish name, which in its
Latinised form of Benedict has been a favourite with
saints and popes. Probably few who read of these
great ascetics and ecclesiastics give a thought to the
earliest recorded Baruch, nor can we suppose that
Christian Benedicts have been named after him. One
thing they may all have in common : either their own
faith or that of their parents ventured to bestow upon
a " man born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward "
the epithet " Blessed." We can scarcely suppose that
the life of any Baruch or Benedict has run so smoothly
as to prevent him or his friends from feeling that such
faith has not been outwardly justified and that the
name suggested an unkind satire. Certainly Jeremiah's
disciple, like his namesake Baruch Spinoza, had to
recognise his blessings disguised as distress and
persecution. 54

xiv.] Baruch 55
Baruch ben Neriah is said by Josephus1 to have
belonged to a most distinguished family, and to have
been exceedingly well educated in his native language.
These statements are perhaps legitimate deductions
from the information supplied by our book. His title
" scribe " 2 and his position as Jeremiah's secretary
imply that he possessed the best culture of his time ;
and we are told in li. 59 that Seraiah ben Neriah, who
must be Baruch's brother, was chief chamberlain (R.V.)
to Zedekiah. According to the Old Latin Version of
the Apocryphal Book of Baruch (i. 1) he was of the
tribe of Simeon, a statement by no means improbable
in view of the close connection between Judah and
Simeon, but needing the support of some better
authority. 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 suc
cessor of the prophet. The position has its analogue
in the service of the squire to the mediaeval 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.
1 Antt., a. 9, I. " xxxvi. 26, 32.

56 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Another less perfect parallel is the relation of the
members of a German theological "seminar" to their
professor. Baruch is first1 introduced to us in the narrative
concerning the roll. He appears as Jeremiah's amanu
ensis and representative, and is entrusted with the
dangerous and honourable task of publishing his pro
phecies to the people in the Temple. Not long before, -
similar utterances had almost cost the master his life,
so that the disciple showed high courage and devotion
in undertaking such a commission. He was called to
share with his master at once the same cup of perse
cution — and the same Divine protection.
We next hear of Baruch in connection with the
symbolic purchase of the field at Anathoth.2 He seems
to have been attending on Jeremiah during his imprison
ment in the court of the guard, and the documents
containing the evidence of the purchase were entrusted
to his care. Baruch's presence in the court of the
guard does not necessarily imply that he was himself
a prisoner. The whole incident shows that Jeremiah's
friends had free access to him ; and Baruch probably
not only attended to his master's wants in prison, but
also was his channel of communication with the outside
world. 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 3 with
Jeremiah, when the Jewish refugees fled thither after
the murder of Gedaliah. Apparently he had remained
with Jeremiah throughout the whole interval, had con-
1 In order of time, ch. xxxvi. * xxxii. 3 xliii.

xiv.] BARUCH 57
tinued to minister to him during his imprisonment, and
had been among the crowd of Jewish captives whom
Nebuchadnezzar found at Ramah. Josephus probably
makes a similar conjecture1 in telling us that, when
Jeremiah was released and placed under the protection
of Gedaliah at Mizpah, he asked and obtained from
Nebuzaradan the liberty of his disciple Baruch. At
any rate Baruch shared with his master the transient
hope and bitter disappointment of this period ; he
supported him in dissuading the remnant of Jews from
fleeing into Egypt, and was also compelled to share
their flight. According to a tradition recorded by
Jerome, Baruch and Jeremiah died in Egypt. But the
Apocryphal Book of Baruch places him at Babylon,
whither another tradition takes him after the death of
Jeremiah in Egypt.2 These legends are probably
mere attempts of wistful imagination to supply unwel
come blanks in history.
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 com
pile the " Life and Works of Jeremiah " than his
1 Anlt., x. y, I.
2 Bissell's Introduction to Baruch in Lange's Commentary.

58 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
favourite and faithful disciple. The personal prophecy
about Baruch does not occur in its proper place in
connection with the episode of the roll, but is appended
at the end of the prophecies,1 possibly as a kind of
subscription on the part of the editor. These data do
not constitute absolute proof, but they afford strong
probability that Baruch compiled a book, which was
substantially our Jeremiah. The evidence is similar in
character to, but much more conclusive than, that ad
duced for the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews
by Apollos.
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 con
siderable 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 Melanch-
1 So LXX., which here probably gives the true order.

xiv) Baruch 59
thon. Of many a great minister, his secretaries and
subordinates might say safely, in private, Cujus pars
magna fuimus.
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 xiv.
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 3'et 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." x Strong as these words
are, they are surpassed by many of Jeremiah's com
plaints to Jehovah, and doubtless even now they found
an echo in the prophet's heart. Human impatience of
suffering revolts desperately against the conviction
that calamity is inevitable ; hope whispers that some
unforeseen Providence will yet disperse the storm-
clouds, and the portents of ruin will dissolve like some
1 The clause " I am weary with my groaning " also occurs in
Psalm vi. 6.

60 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
evil dream. Jeremiah had, now as always, the harsh,
unwelcome task of compelling himself and his fellows
to face the sad and appalling reality. " Thus saith
Jehovah, Behold, I am breaking down that which I
built, I am plucking up that which I planted." 1 This
was his familiar message concerning Judah, but he had
also a special word for Baruch : " And as for thee,
dost thou seek great things for thyself?" What
" great things " could a devout and patriotic Jew, a
disciple of Jeremiah, seek for himself in those disastrous
times? The answer is at once suggested by the
renewed prediction of doom. Baruch, in spite of his
master's teaching, had still ventured to look for better
things, and had perhaps fancied that he might succeed
where Jeremiah had failed and might become the
mediator who should reconcile Israel to Jehovah. He
may have thought that Jeremiah's threats and entreaties
had prepared the way for some message of reconciliation.
Gemariah ben Shaphan and other princes had been
greatly moved when Baruch read the roll. Might not
their emotion be an earnest of the repentance of the
people ? If he could carry on his master's work to a
more blessed issue than the master himself had dared
to hope, would not this be a "great thing" indeed?
We gather from the tone of the chapter that Baruch's
aspirations were unduly tinged with personal ambition.
While kings, priests, and prophets were sinking into
a common ruin from which even the most devoted
servants of Jehovah would not escape, Baruch was
indulging himself in visions of the honour to be obtained
from a glorious mission, successfully accomplished.
1 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.

xiv.] BARUCH 61
Jeremiah reminds him that he will have to take his
share in the common misery. Instead of setting his
heart upon " great things " which are not according
to the Divine purpose, he must be prepared to endure
with resignation the evil which Jehovah "is bringing
upon all flesh." Yet there is a word of comfort and
promise : "I will give thee thy life for a prey in all
places whither thou goest." Baruch was to be protected
from violent or premature death.
According to Renan,1 this boon was flung to Baruch
half-contemptuously, in order to silence his unworthy
and unseasonable importunity : —
" Dans une catastrophe qui va englober l'humanite
tout entiere, il est beau de venir reclamer de petites
faveurs d'exception 1 Baruch aura la vie sauve partout
ou il ira ; qu'il s'en contente 1 "
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 pro
phecies, then indeed the life that was given him for
a prey must have been precious to him as the devoted
1 Hist, of Israel, iii., 293.

62 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
servant of God. Humanly speaking, the future of
revealed jeligion and of Christianity depended on the
survival of Jeremiah's teaching, and this hung upon
the frail thread of Baruch's life. After all, Baruch was
destined to achieve " great things," even though not
those which he sought after ; and as no editor's name
is prefixed to our book, he cannot be accused of self-
seeking. So too for every faithful disciple, his life,
even if given for a prey, even if spent in sorrow,
poverty, and pain, is still a Divine gift, because nothing
can spoil its opportunity of ministering to men and
glorifying God, even if only by patient endurance of
suffering. 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 redemp
tion of his own inward life.

CHAPTER VI
THE JUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM
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.
OUR last four chapters have been occupied with
the history of Jeremiah during the reign of
Jehoiakim, and therefore necessarily with the relations
of the prophet to the king and his government. Before
we pass on to the reigns of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah,
we must consider certain utterances which deal with
the personal character and career of Jehoiakim. We
are helped to appreciate these passages by what we
here read, and by the brief paragraph concerning this
reign in the Second Book of Kings. In Jeremiah the
king's policy and conduct are specially illustrated by
two incidents, the murder of the prophet Uriah and
the destruction of the roll. The historian states his
judgment of the reign, but his brief record 1 adds little
to our knowledge of the sovereign.
Jehoiakim was placed upon the throne as the nominee
1 2 Kings xxiii. 34 — xxiv. 7.
63

64 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
and tributary of Pharaoh Necho ; but he had the
address or good fortune to retain his authority under
Nebuchadnezzar, by transferring his allegiance to the
new suzerain of Western Asia. When a suitable
opportunity offered, the unwilling and discontented
vassal naturally " turned and rebelled against " his lord.
Even then his good fortune did not forsake him ;
although in his latter days Judah was harried by pre
datory bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and
Ammonites, yet Jehoiakim " slept with his fathers "
before Nebuchadnezzar had set to work in earnest to
chastise his refractory subject. He was not reserved,
like Zedekiah, to endure agonies of mental and physical
torture, and to rot in a Babylonian dungeon.
Jeremiah's judgment upon Jehoiakim and his doings
is contained in the two passages which form the sub
ject 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 deposi
tion of Jehoiachin, probably during the reign of
Zedekiah ; but the section on Jehoiakim must have been
uttered at an earlier period. Renan indeed imagines :
that Jeremiah delivered this discourse at the gate of the
royal palace at the very beginning of the new reign.
The nominee of Egypt was scarcely seated on the throne,
his "new name" Jehoiakim— " He whom Jehovah
establisheth " — still sounded strange in his ears, when
the prophet of Jehovah publicly menaced the king with

xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30,31.] THE JUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM 65
condign punishment. Renan is naturally surprised
that Jehoiakim tolerated Jeremiah, even for a moment.
But, here as often elsewhere, the French critic's
dramatic instinct has warped his estimate of evidence.
We need not accept the somewhat unkind saying that
picturesque anecdotes are never true, but, at the same
time, we have always to guard against the temptation
to accept the most dramatic interpretation of history as
the most accurate. The contents of this passage, the
references to robbery, oppression, and violence, clearly
imply that Jehoiakim had reigned long enough for his
government to reveal itself as hopelessly corrupt. The
final breach between the king and the prophet was
marked by the destruction of the roll, and xxii. 13-19,
like xxxvi. 30, 31, may be considered a consequence of
this breach.
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,1 a like judgment
was pronounced upon Jehoiakim's son and successor
Jehoiachin. The absence of this threat from xxii. 13-19
is doubtless due to the fact that the chapter was com
piled when the letter of the prediction seemed to have
been proved to be false by the accession of Jehoiachin.
Its spirit and substance were amply satisfied by the
latter's deposition and captivity after a brief reign of a
hundred days.
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 : —
1 xxii. 30.

66 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

"They shall not lament for him,
Alas my brother! Alas my brother!
They shall not lament for him,
Alas lord ! Alas lord I1
He shall be buried with the burial of an ass,
Dragged forth and cast away without the gates of
Jerusalem."
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
1 R.V., " Ah my brother ! or Ah sister I . . . Ah lord ! or Ah his
glory ! " The text is based on an emendation of Graetz, following the
Syriac. (Giesebrecht.)

xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30, 31.] THE JUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM 67
hesitation. Yet surely, if our veins run blood and not
water, our feelings, had we been in Jeremiah's place,
would have been as bitter and our words as fierce.
Jehoiakim was more guilty than our Queen Mary, but
the memory of the grimmest of the Tudors still stinks
in English nostrils. In our own days, we have not had
time to forget how men received the news of Han-
nington's murder at Uganda, and we can imagine what
European Christians would say and feel if their
missionaries were massacred in China.
And yet, when we read such a treatise as Lactantius
wrote Concerning the Deaths of Persecutors, we can
not but recoil. We are shocked at the stern satis
faction 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,1 in refusing to derive edifica
tion from a sermon in which Constantine the Great,
or the bishop who composed it for him, affected to
relate the miserable end of all the persecutors of the
Church. Nor can we share the exultation of the
Covenanters in the Divine judgment which they saw
in the death of Claverhouse ; and we are not moved
to any hearty sympathy with more recent writers, who
have tried to illustrate from history the danger of
touching the rights and privileges of the Church.
Doubtless God will avenge His own elect ; nevertheless
Nemo me impune lacessit is no seemly motto for the
1 Chap, xiii.

68 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Kingdom of God. Even Greek mythologists taught
that it was perilous for men to wield the thunderbolts
of Zeus. Still less is the Divine wrath a weapon for
men to grasp in their differences and dissensions, even
about the things of God. Michael the Archangel, even
when contending with the devil he disputed about the
body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing
judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.1
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 ? " 2
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
1 Jude 9. 2 Ape. vi. 10.

xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30, 31.] THEJUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM 69
intellect and our purblind conscience are ill qualified
to sit as assessors of the Eternal Justice.
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 uni
versal judgment, couched in Jeremiah's usual compre
hensive style : —

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

" 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 pre
faced by a statement of the crimes for which he was
punished. His eyes and his heart were wholly
possessed by avarice and cruelty ; as ah administrator
he was active in oppression and violence.1 But Jere
miah does not confine himself to these general charges ;
he specifies and emphasises one particular form of
Jehoiakim's wrong-doing, the tyrannous exaction of
forced labour for his buildings. To the sovereigns
of petty Syrian states, old Memphis and Babylon were
then what London and Paris are to modern Ameers,
Khedives, and Sultans. Circumstances, indeed, did not
permit a Syrian prince to visit the Egyptian or Chaldean
capital with perfect comfort and unrestrained enjoy
ment. Ancient Eastern potentates, like mediaeval
suzerains, did not always distinguish between a guest
and a hostage. But the Jewish kings would not be
debarred from importing the luxuries and imitating the
vices of their conquerors.
Renan says2 of this period : " L'Egypte 6tait, a cette
epoque, le pays ou les industries de luxe £taient le plus
developpees. Tout le monde raffolaient, en particulier,
de sa carrosserie et de ses meubles ouvragds. Joiaquin
et la noblesse de Jerusalem ne songeaient qu'a se
procurer ces beaux objets, qui realisaient ce qu'on avait
vu de plus exquis en fait de gout jusque-la."

1 xxii, 17. The exact meaning of the word translated "violence'
(so A. V., R.V.) is very doubtful.
2 Hist., etc., iii. 266.

xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30, 31.] THE JUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM 71
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 inces
santly." 1 This activity in building continued even
after the disaster to the Egyptian arms at Carchemish.
Nebuchadnezzar had an absolute mania for architec
ture. His numerous inscriptions are mere catalogues
of his achievements in building. His home administra
tion 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." 2 Nebu
chadnezzar created most of the magnificence that
excited the wonder and admiration of Herodotus a
century later.
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
1 Rawlinson, Ancient Egypt (Story of the Nations).
2 Dan. iv. 30.

72 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
" shabby reproduction " of Memphis or Babylon.
Nevertheless these foreign luxuries are always expen
sive ; and minor states had not then learnt the art
of trading on the resources of their powerful neigh
bours by means of foreign loans. Moreover Judah
had to pay tribute first to Pharaoh Necho, and then
to Nebuchadnezzar. The times were bad, and addi
tional taxes for building purposes must have been felt
as an intolerable oppression. Naturally the king did
not pay for his labour ; like Solomon and all other
great Eastern despots, he had recourse to the corvee,
and for this in particular Jeremiah denounced him.
"Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness
And his chambers by injustice ;
That maketh his neighbour toil without wages,
And giveth him no hire ;
That saith, ' I will build me a wide house
And spacious chambers,'
And openeth out broad windows, with woodwork of cedar
And vermilion painting."
Then the denunciation passes into biting sarcasm : —
"Art thou indeed a king,
Because thou strivest to excel in cedar ? " '
Poor imitations of Nebuchadnezzar's magnificent
structures could not conceal the impotence and de
pendence 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.
1 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).

xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30,31.] THEJUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM 73
Jeremiah contrasts Jehoiakim's government both as
to justice and dignity with that of Josiah : —
" Did not thy father eat and drink ? " '
(He was no ascetic, but, like the Son of Man, lived
a full, natural, human life.)
"And do judgment and justice?
Then did he prosper.
He judged the cause of the poor and needy,
Then was there prosperity.
Is not this to know Me ?
Jehovah hath spoken it."
Probably Jehoiakim claimed by some external observ
ance, 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
1 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.

74 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

moment when his policy had resulted in national
disaster, was not an emphatic declaration of Divine
displeasure. Jeremiah's contrary belief might be
explained and justified. Some such justification is
suggested by the prophet's utterance concerning
Jehoahaz : " Weep not for the dead, neither bemoan
him : but weep sore for him that goeth away." Josiah
had reigned with real authority, he died when inde
pendence was no longer possible ; and therein he was
happier and more honourable than his successors, who
held a vassal throne by the uncertain tenure of time
serving duplicity, and were for the most part carried
into captivity. " The righteous was taken away from
the evil to come." x
The warlike spirit of classical antiquity and of
Teutonic chivalry welcomed a glorious death upon the
field of battle :— "And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods ? "
No one spoke of Leonidas as a victim of Divine wrath.
Later Judaism caught something of the same temper.
Judas Maccabaeus, 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.2 Islam also is prodigal in its promises of
future bliss to those soldiers who fall fighting for its
sake. But the dim and dreary She6l of the ancient
1 Isa. Ivii. (English Versions). 2 Mace. ii. 59, ix. 10.

xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30, 31.] THEJUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM 75
Hebrews was no glorious Valhalla or houri-peopled
Paradise. The renown of the battle-field was poor
compensation for the warm, full-blooded life of the
upper air. When David sang his dirge for Saul and
Jonathan, he found no comfort in the thought that
they had died fighting for Israel. Moreover the
warrior's self-sacrifice for his country seems futile and
inglorious, when it neither secures victory nor post
pones defeat. And at Megiddo Josiah and his army
perished in a vain attempt to come
" Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites."
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 appa
rently 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 a Becket on
Henry II. of England. Moreover the data upon which
we have to base our judgment, including the unfavour
able estimate in the Book of Kings, come to us from

76 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Jeremiah or his disciples. Our ideas about Queen
Elizabeth would be more striking than accurate if our
only authorities for her reign were Jesuit historians
of England. But Jeremiah is absorbed in lofty moral
and spiritual issues ; his testimony is not tainted with
that sectarian and sacerdotal casuistry which is always
so ready to subordinate truth to the interests of "the
Church." He speaks of facts with a simple directness
which leaves us in no doubt as to their reality; his
picture of Jehoiakim may be one-sided, but it owes
nothing to an inventive imagination.
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 liberal et
modere," 1 but when this favourable estimate is coupled
with an apparent comparison with Louis Philippe,
we must leave students of modern history to decide
whether Renan is really less severe than Jeremiah.
Cheyne, on the other hand, holds2 that "we have no
reason to question Jeremiah's verdict upon Jehoiakim,
who, alike from a religious and a political point of
view, appears to have been unequal to the crisis in
the fortunes of Israel." No doubt this is true; and
yet perhaps Renan is so far right that Jehoiakim's
failure was rather his misfortune than his fault. We
may doubt whether any king of Israel or Judah would
have been equal to the supreme crisis which Jehoiakim
had to face. Our scanty information seems to indicate
a man of strong will, determined character, and able
' iii. 269. ' P. 142.

xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30, 31.] THE JUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM 77
statesmanship. Though the nominee of Pharaoh
Necho, he retained his sceptre under Nebuchadnezzar,
and held his own against Jeremiah and the powerful
party by which the prophet was supported. Under
more favourable conditions he might have rivalled
Uzziah or Jeroboam II. In the time of Jehoiakim, a
supreme political and military genius would have been
as helpless on the throne of Judah as were the
Palseologi in the last days of the Empire at Con
stantinople. Something may be said to extenuate his
religious attitude. In opposing Jeremiah he was not
defying clear and acknowledged truth. Like the
Pharisees in their conflict with Christ, the persecuting
king had popular religious sentiment on his side.
According to that current theology which had been
endorsed in some measure even by Isaiah and Jere
miah, the defeat at Megiddo proved that Jehovah
repudiated the religious policy of Josiah and his
advisers. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit enabled
Jeremiah to resist this shallow conclusion, and to
maintain through every crisis his unshaken faith in
the profounder truth. Jehoiakim was too conservative
to surrender at the prophet's bidding the long-accepted
and fundamental doctrine of retribution, and to follow
the forward leading of Revelation. He "stood by
the old truth" as did Charles V. at the Reformation.
"Let him that is without sin" in this matter "first
cast a stone at" him.
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 judg
ment we also condemn ourselves for our own in
tolerance, and for the prejudice and self-will which

78 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
have often blinded our eyes to the teachings of our
Lord and Master.
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 govern
ment 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

xxii. 13-19, xxxvi. 30, 31.] THE JUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM 79
of the individual, yet even now their action is often
cruelly oppressive to insignificant minorities. But, on
the other hand, the right of exacting labour was only
vested in the king as a public trust ; its abuse was as
much an injury to the community as to individuals.
If Jeremiah had to deal with modern civilisation, we
might, perchance, be startled by his passing lightly
over our religious and political controversies to denounce
the squandering of public resources in the interests of
individuals and classes, sects and parties.

CHAPTER VII
JEHOIACHIN1
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.
WE have seen that our book does not furnish
a consecutive biography of Jeremiah ; we are
not even certain as to the chronological order of the
incidents narrated. Yet these chapters are clear and
full enough to give us an accurate idea of what Jeremiah
did and suffered during the eleven years of Jehoiakim's
reign. He was forced to stand by while the king lent
the weight of his authority to the ancient corruptions
of the national religion, and conducted his home and
foreign policy without any regard to the will of Jehovah,
as expressed by His prophet. His position was
analogous to that of a Romanist priest under Elizabeth
or a Protestant divine in the reign of James II. Accord
ing to some critics, Nebuchadnezzar was to Jeremiah
what Philip of Spain was to the priest and William of
Orange to the Puritan.
During all these long and weary years, the prophet
1 Also called Coniah and Jeconiah.
80

xxii.20-30.] JEHOIACHIN 81
watched the ever multiplying tokens of approaching
ruin. He was no passive spectator, but a faithful
watchman to the house of Israel ; again and again he
risked his life in a vain attempt to make his fellow-
countrymen aware of their danger.1 The vision of the
coming sword was ever before his eyes, and he blew
the trumpet and warned the people ; but they would not
be warned, and the prophet knew that the sword would
come and take them away in their iniquity. He paid
the penalty of his faithfulness ; at one time or another
he was beaten, imprisoned, proscribed, and driven to
hide himself; still he persevered in his mission, as time
and occasion served. Yet he survived Jehoiakim, partly
because he was more anxious to serve Jehovah than
to gain the glorious deliverance of' martyrdom ; partly
because his royal enemy feared to proceed to extremi
ties against a prophet of Jehovah, who was befriended
by powerful nobles, and might possibly have relations
with Nebuchadnezzar himself. Jehoiakim's religion —
for like the Athenians he was probably "very religious "
— was saturated with superstition, and it was only
when deeply moved that he lost the sense of an external
sanctity attaching to Jeremiah's person. In Israel
prophets were hedged by a more potent divinity than
kings. 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
1 Considerable portions of chaps, i.— xx. are referred to the reigns
of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin : see previous volume on Jeremiah. 6

82 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
make His servant into " an iron pillar and brasen
walls." 1 The iron was tempered and hammered into
shape during these days of conflict and endurance,
like— "... iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And battered with the shocks of doom,
To shape and use."
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 sub
mitted 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 expe
riences 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

i. 18.

xxii. 20-30.] JEHOIACHIN 83
faith could still glow with white heat of indignant
passion, and within the shelter of the " brasen walls "
there still beat a human heart, touched with tender
sympathy for those less disciplined to endure.
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,1 succeeded his father and con
tinued his policy. Thus the accession of the new king
was no new departure, but merely a continuance of the
old order ; the government was still in the hands of
the party attached to Egypt, and opposed to Babylon
and hostile to Jeremiah. Under these circumstances
we are bound to accept the statement of Kings that
Jehoiakim "slept with his fathers," i.e. was buried in
the royal sepulchre.2 There was no literal fulfilment
of the prediction that he should "be buried with the
burial of an ass." Jeremiah had also declared con
cerning Jehoiakim : " He shall have none to sit upon
the throne of David."3 According to popular super-
1 The Chronicler's account of Jehoiakim's end (2 Chron. xxviii. 6-8)
is due to a misunderstanding of the older records. According to
Chronicles Jehoiachin was only eight, but all our data indicate that
Kings is right.
2 In LXX. of 2 Chron. xxxvi. 8, Jehoiakim, like Manasseh and
Amon, was " buried in the garden of Uzza " : B, Ganozas ; A, Ganozan.
Cheyne is inclined to accept this statement, which he regards as
derived from tradition.
3 xxxvi. 30*

84 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
stition, the honourable burial of Jehoiakim and the
succession of his son to the throne further discredited
Jeremiah and his teaching. Men read happy omens
in the mere observance of ordinary constitutional
routine. The curse upon Jehoiakim seemed so much
spent breath : why should not Jeremiah's other pre
dictions of ruin and exile also prove a mere vox et
prceterea nihil? In spite of a thousand disappointments,
men's hopes still turned to Egypt ; and if earthly re
sources failed they trusted to Jehovah Himself to inter
vene, and deliver Jerusalem from the advancing hosts
of Nebuchadnezzar, as from the army of Sennacherib.
Ezekiel's elegy over Jehoiachin suggests that the
young king displayed energy and courage worthy of
a better fortune : —
" He walked up and down among the lions,
He became a young lion;
He learned to catch the prey,
He devoured men.
He broke down ' their palaces,
He wasted their cities;
The land was desolate, and the fulness thereof,
At the noise of his roaring."2
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 pre-
1 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."
2 Ezek. xix. 5-7.

xxii. 20-30.] JEHOIACHIN 85
pare the way for the main body. He may even have
carried his victorious arms into the territory of Moab
or Ammon. But his career was speedily cut short :
"The servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon
came up to Jerusalem and besieged the city." Pharaoh
Necho made no sign, and Jehoiachin was forced to
retire before the regular forces of Babylon, and soon
found himself shut up in Jerusalem. Still for a time
he held out, but when it was known in the beleaguered
city that Nebuchadnezzar was present in person in
the camp of the besiegers, the Jewish captains lost
heart. Perhaps too they hoped for better treatment,
if they appealed to the conqueror's, vanity by offering
him an immediate submission which they had refused
to his lieutenants. The gates were thrown open ;
Jehoiachin and the Queen Mother, Nehushta, with his
ministers and princes and the officers of his household,
passed out in suppliant procession, and placed them
selves and their city at the disposal of the conqueror.
In pursuance of the policy which Nebuchadnezzar had
inherited from the Assyrians, the king and his court
and eight thousand picked men were carried away
captive to Babylon.1 For thirty-seven years Jehoiachin
languished in a Chaldean prison, till at last his
sufferings were mitigated by an act of grace, which
signalised the accession of a new king of Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar's successor Evil Merodach, " in the
year when he began to reign, lifted up the head of
Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison, and spake
kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of
the kings that were with him in Babylon. And
Jehoiachin changed his prison garments, and ate at
1 2 Kings xxiv, 8-17,

86 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
the royal table continually all the days of his life, and
had a regular allowance given him by the king, a
daily portion, all the days of his life." x At the age of
fifty-five, the last survivor of the reigning princes of
the house of David emerges from his dungeon, broken
in mind and body by his long captivity, to be a
grateful dependent upon the charity of Evil Merodach,
just as the survivor of the house of Saul had sat at
David's table. The young lion that devoured the prey
and caught men and wasted cities was thankful to be
allowed to creep out of his cage and die in comfort —
" a despised broken vessel."
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 offg^f n& ">
personal blame attached to his successor, and a promj ->t
submission might have appeased Nebuchadt^zzjr .
wrath against Judah and obtained his favour $jfxi!l*
new king. If a hot-headed young rajah o-*>* ^ jje
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. 1 2 Kings xxv. 27-30; Jer, Hi. 31-34,

xxii. 20-30.] JEHOIACHIN 87
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 " 1 : —
"Go up to Lebanon, and lament,
And lift up thy voice in Bashan,
And lament from Abarim,2
For thy lovers are all destroyed ! "
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.
" I spake unto thee ih thy prosperity ;
Thou saidst, I will not hearken.
This hath been thy way from thy youth,
That thou hast not obeyed My voice.
The tempest shall be the shepherd to all thy shepherds."
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 shep
herds who had spoiled and betrayed their flock would
themselves be as silly sheep in the hands of robbers.
"Thy lovers shall go into captivity.
Then, verity, shalt thou be ashamed and confounded
Because of all thy wickedness.
O thou that dwellest in Lebanon !
O thou that hast made thy nest in the cedar ! "
The former mention of Lebanon reminded Jeremiah
of Jehoiakim's halls of cedar. With grim irony he

1 The Hebrew verbs are in 2 s. fern; ; the person addressed is not
named, but from analogy she can only be the "Daughter of Zion,"
i.e. Jerusalem personified.
2 Identified wjth the mpimtains of Moab.

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

links together the royal magnificence of the palace and
the wild abandonment of the people's lamentation.
" How wilt thou groan ' when pangs come upon thee,
Anguish as of a woman in travail 1 "
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 them
selves of civic responsibility by neglecting their civic
duties; they stand aloof, and blame officials and pro
fessional 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. 1 R.V. margin, with LXX., Vulg., and Syr.

xxii. 20-30.] JEHOIACHIN 89
"As I live — Jehovah hath spoken it —
Though Coniah ben Jehoiakim king of Judah were a signet
ring upon My right hand  "
By a forcible Hebrew idiom Jehovah, as it were, turns
and confronts the king and specially addresses him : —
"Yet would I pluck thee thence."
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 !
" And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life.
Into the hand of them of whom thou art afraid,
Into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the
Chaldeans,

90 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
And I will hurl thee and the mother that bare thee into another
land, where ye were not born :
There shall ye die.
And unto the land whereunto their soul longeth to return,
Thither they shall not return.'7
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 sup
posed to be addressed to Jehoiachin and Nehushta : —
" Say unto the king and the queen mother,
Leave your thrones and sit in the dust,
For yeur glorious diadems are fallen."
The Queen Mother is a characteristic figure of poly
gamous 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 : —
"Is then this man Coniah a despised vessel, only fit to be
broken ?
Is he a tool, that no one wants ? "
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.

xxii. 20-30.] JEHOIACHIN

incredible, only worthy to be met with impatient scorn.
We may find a mediaeval analogy to the situation at
Jerusalem in the relations of Clement IV. to Conradin,
the last heir of the house of Hohenstaufen. When
this youth of sixteen was in the full career of victory,
the. Pope predicted that his army would be scattered
like smoke, and pointed out the prince and his allies as
victims for the sacrifice. When Conradin was executed
after his defeat at Tagliacozzo, Christendom was filled
with abhorrence at the suspicion that Clement had
countenanced the doing to death of the hereditary
enemy of the Papal See. Jehoiachin's friends felt
towards Jeremiah somewhat as these thirteenth-century
Ghibellines towards Clement.
Moreover the charge against Clement was probably
unfounded ; Milman x says of him, " He was doubtless
moved with inner remorse at the cruelties of 'his
champion ' Charles of Anjou." Jeremiah too would
lament the doom he was constrained to utter. Never
theless he could not permit Judah to be deluded to its
ruin by empty dreams of glory : —
" O land, land, land,
Hear the word of Jehovah."
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 Revela
tion, 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."
' Milman 's Latin Christianity, vi. 393.

92 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
" For saith Jehovah,
Write this man childless,
A man whose life shall not know prosperity :
For none of his seed shall prosper ;
None shall sit upon the throne of David,
Nor rule any more over Judah."
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,1 but the Messiah, the Son of David,
would not come of his line.
Two points suggest themselves in connection with
this utterance of Jeremiah ; first as to the sircumstances
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
1 I Chron. iii. 17 mentions the " sons " of Jeconiah, and in Matt. i. 12
Shealtiel is called his "son," but in Luke iii. 27 Shealtiel is called the
son of Neri.

xxii. 20-30.] JEHOIACHIN 93
world for 1866, and in 1867 fix a new date with
cheerful and undiminished assurance. But these
students of sacred records can always save the
authority of Scripture by acknowledging the fallibility
of their calculations. When their predictions fail, they
confess that they have done their sum wrong and
start it afresh. But Jeremiah's utterances were not
published as human deductions from inspired data;
he himself claimed to be inspired. He did not ask
his hearers to verify and acknowledge the accuracy of
his arithmetic or his logic, but to submit to the Divine
message from his lips. And yet it is clear that he
did not stake the authority of Jehovah or even his
own prophetic status upon the accurate and detailed
fulfilment of his predictions. Nor does he suggest
that, in announcing a doom which was not literally
accomplished, he had misunderstood or misinterpreted
his message. The details which both Jeremiah and
those who edited and transmitted his words knew to
be unfulfilled were allowed to remain in the record
of Divine Revelation — not, surely, to illustrate the
fallibility of prophets, but to show that an accurate
forecast of details is not of the essence of prophecy ;
such details belong to its form and not to its substance.
Ancient Hebrew prophecy clothed its ideas in concrete
images ; its messages of doom were made definite and
intelligible in a glowing series of definite pictures.
The prophets were realists and not impressionists.
But they were also spiritual men, concerned with the
great issues of history and religion. Their message
had to do with these : they were little interested in
minor matters; and they used detailed imagery as a
mere instrument of exposition. Popular scepticism
exulted when subsequent facts did not exactly corre-

94 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
spond to Jeremiah's images, but the prophet himself was
unconscious of either failure or mistake. Jehoiakim
might be magnificently buried, but his name was
branded with eternal dishonour; Jehoiachin might
reign for a hundred days, but the doom of Judah was
not averted, and the house of David ceased for ever
to rule in Jerusalem.
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 be
cause there is a better side to his nature, nor yet
ignores his virtues on account of his vices. For our
selves we may be content to leave the last word oil
this matter with Jeremiah. When he declares God's

xxii. 20-30.] JEHOIACHIN 95
sentence on Jehoiachin-, he does not suggest that it
was undeserved, but he refrains from any explicit
reproach. Probably if he had known how entirely
his prediction would be fulfilled, if he had foreseen
the seven-and-thirty weary years which the young
lion was to spend in his Babylonian cage, Jeremiah
would have spoken more tenderly and pitifully even
of the son of Jehoiakim.

CHAPTER VIII
BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS
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.
THE captivity of Jehoiachin and the deportation of
the flower of the people marked the opening of
the last scene in the tragedy of Judah and of a new
period in the ministry of Jeremiah. These events,
together with the accession of Zedekiah as Nebuchad
nezzar's nominee, very largely altered the state of
affairs in Jerusalem. And yet the two main features
of the situation were unchanged — the people and the
government persistently disregarded Jeremiah's exhorta
tions. " Neither Zedekiah, nor his servants, nor the
people of the land, did hearken unto the words of
Jehovah which He spake by the prophet Jeremiah."1
They would not obey the will of Jehovah as to their
life and worship, and they would not submit to
Nebuchadnezzar. " Zedekiah . . . did evil in the
sight of Jehovah, according to all that Jehoiakim had
done ; . . . and Zedekiah rebelled against the king of
Babylon." 2
1 xxxvii. 2. '*• 2 Kings xxiv. 18-20.
96

xxiii., xxiv.] BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS 97
It is remarkable that though Jeremiah consistently
urged submission to Babylon, the various arrange
ments 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 sub
mission, 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. Possibly the
two brothers owed their bias against Jeremiah and
his teaching to their mother, Josiah's wife Hamutal,
the daughter of another Jeremiah, the Libnite. Ezekiel
thus describes the appointment of the new king : " The
king of Babylon . . . took one of the seed royal, and
made a covenant with him ; he also put him under
an oath, and took away the mighty of the land : that
the kingdom might be base, that it might not lift itself
up, but that by keeping of his covenant it might stand." 2
Apparently Nebuchadnezzar was careful to choose a
feeble prince for his " base kingdom " ; all that we
read of Zedekiah suggests that he was weak and in
capable. Henceforth the sovereign counted for little
1 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10 makes Zedekiah the brother of Jehoiachin,
possibly using the word in the general sense of " relation." Zedekiah's
age shows that he cannot have been the son of Jehoiakim.
2 Ezek. xvii. 13, 14.

98 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
in the internal struggles of the tottering state. Josiah
had firmly maintained the religious policy of Jeremiah,
and Jehoiakim, as firmly, the opposite policy; but
Zedekiah had neither the strength nor the firmness
to enforce a consistent policy and to make one party
permanently dominant. Jeremiah and his enemies were
left to fight it out amongst themselves, so that now
their antagonism grew more bitter and pronounced than
during any other reign.
But whatever advantage the prophet might derive
from the weakness of the sovereign was more than
counterbalanced by the recent deportation. ' In select
ing 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 accept
ance 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 pro
phet 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

xxiii., xxiv.] BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS 99
types. When Jeremiah characterises the captives as
"good figs" and those left behind as "bad figs,"1 and
the judgment is confirmed and amplified by Ezekiel,2
we may be sure that most of the prophet's adherents
were in exile.
We have already had occasion to compare the
changes in the religious policy of the Jewish govern
ment 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 3 denounces the idolatry
of the princes, priests, and women of Judah, their
worship of creeping things and abominable beasts,
their weeping for Tammuz, their adoration of the sun,
Jeremiah is chiefly concerned with the perverse policy
of the government and the support it receives from
priests and prophets, who profess to speak in the name

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

of Jehovah. Jeremiah does not utter against Zedekiah
any formal judgment like those on his three prede
cessors. Perhaps the prophet did not regard this
impotent sovereign as the responsible representative
of the state, and when the long-expected catastrophe
at last befell the doomed people, neither Zedekiah nor
his doings distracted men's attention from their own
personal sufferings and patriotic regrets. At the point
where a paragraph on Zedekiah would naturally have
followed that on Jehoiachin, we have by way of
summary and conclusion to the previous sections a
brief denunciation of the shepherds of Israel.
" Woe unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter
the sheep of My pasture 1 ... 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,1 but
the denunciation of the rulers of Judah as unfaithful
shepherds is characteristic of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and
one of the prophecies appended to the Book of
Zechariah.2 Ezekiel xxxiv. expands this figure and
enforces its lessons : —

1 Gen. xlix. 24, J. from older source. Micah v. 5.
2 ix. — xi., xiii. 7-9.

xxiii., xxiv.] BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS 101
" Woe unto the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves !
Should not the shepherds feed the sheep ? Ye eat the fat, and
ye clothe you with the wool.
Ye kill the fatlings ; but ye feed not the sheep.
The diseased have ye not strengthened,
Neither have ye healed the sick,
Neither have ye bound up the bruised,
Neither have ye brought back again that which was driven away,
Neither have, ye sought for that which was lost,
But your rule over them has been harsh and violent.
And for want of a shepherd, they were scattered,
And became food for every beast of the field." '
So in Zechariah ix., etc., Jehovah's anger is kindled
against the shepherds, because they do not pity His
flock.2 Elsewhere3 Jeremiah speaks of the kings of
all nations as shepherds, and pronounces against them
also a like doom. All these passages illustrate the
concern of the prophets for good government. They
were neither Pharisees nor formalists ; their religious
ideals were broad and wholesome. Doubtless the elect
remnant will endure through all conditions of society ;
but the Kingdom of God was not meant to be a pure
Church in a rotten state. This present evil world is
no manure heap to fatten the growth of holiness : it
is rather a mass for the saints to leaven.
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
' Ezek. xxxiv. 2-5. 2 Zech, x. 3, xi, 5.
5 xxv. 34-38,

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

Ezekiel promises that God will set up one shepherd
over His people, "even My servant David." The
pastoral care of Jehovah for His people is most tenderly
and beautifully set forth in the twenty-third Psalm.
Our Lord, the root and the offspring of David, claims
to be the fulfilment of ancient prophecy when He calls
Himself " the Good Shepherd." The words of Christ
and of the Psalmist receive new force and fuller meaning
when we contrast their pictures of the true Shepherd
with the portraits of the Jewish kings drawn by the
prophets. Moreover the history of this metaphor warns
us against ignoring the organic life of the Christian
society, the Church, in our concern for the spiritual life
of the individual. As Sir Thomas More said, in
applying this figure to Henry VIII., " Of the multitude
of sheep cometh the name of a shepherd." : A shepherd
implies not merely a sheep, but a flock ; His relation
to each member is tender and personal, but He bestows
blessings and requires service in fellowship with the
Family of God.
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 Testa
ment 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
1 Froude, i. 205.

xxiii., xxiv.] BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS 103
with in two or three casual references. We use the
term " ecclesiastics " advisedly ; the prophets were now
a large professional class, more important and even
more clerical than the priests. The prophets and priests
together were the clergy of Israel. They claimed to
be devoted servants of Jehovah, and for the most part
the claim was made in all sincerity ; but they mis
understood His character, and mistook for Divine
inspiration the suggestions of their own prejudice and
self-will. 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.
" Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy
unto you.
They make fools of you :
The visions which they declare are from their own hearts,
And not from the mouth of Jehovah.
Who hath stood in the council of Jehovah,
To perceive and hear His word ?
Who hath marked His word and heard it ?
I sent not the prophets — yet they ran ;
I spake not unto them — yet they prophesied."
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 pro
fession, there will be men who are not qualified for
the vocation which they follow. They are indeed not

104 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
called to their vocation ; they " follow," but do not
overtake it. They are not sent of God, yet they run ;
they have no Divine message, yet they preach. They
have never stood in the council of Jehovah ; they
might perhaps have gathered up scraps of the King's
purposes from His true councillors ; but when they
had opportunity they neither " marked nor heard " ;
and yet they discourse concerning heavenly things with
much importance and assurance. But their inspiration,
at its best, has no deeper or richer source than their
own shallow selves ; their visions are the mere product
of their own imaginations. Strangers to the true
fellowship, their spirit is not " a well of water spring
ing up unto eternal life," but a stagnant pool. And,
unless the judgment and mercy of God intervene, that
pool will in the end be fed from a fountain whose bitter
waters are earthly, sensual, devilish.
We are always reluctant to speak of ancient pro
phecy or modern preaching as a "profession." We
may gladly dispense with the word, if we do not there
by 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

xxiii., xxiv.] BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS 105
barrister to the woolsack. Probably a refusal to re
cognise the element common to the ministry with law,
medicine, and other professions, injures both the
Church and its servants. One peculiar difficulty and
most insidious temptation of the Christian ministry
consists in its mingled resemblances to and differences
from the other professions. The minister has to work
under similar worldly conditions, and yet to control
those conditions by the indwelling power of the Spirit.
He has to " run," it may be twice or even three times
a week, whether he be sent or no : how can he always
preach only that which God has taught him ? He is
consciously dependent upon the exercise of his memory,
his intellect, his fancy : how can he avoid speaking
" the visions of his own heart " ? The Church can
never allow its ministers to regard themselves as mere
professional teachers and lecturers, and yet if they
claim to be more, must they not often fall under
Jeremiah's condemnation ?
It is one of those practical dilemmas which delight
casuists and distress honest and earnest servants of
God. In the early Christian centuries similar difficul
ties 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

106 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
of strong temptation to speak from and live for himself
— his lower, egotistic self — he will be correspondingly
driven to a more entire and persistent surrender to
God. The infinite fulness and variety of Revelation
is expressed by the manifold gifts and experience of
the prophets. If only the prophet be surrendered to
the Spirit, then what is most characteristic of himself
may become the most forcible expression of his message.
His constant prayer will be that he may have the
child's heart and may never resist the Holy Ghost,
that no personal interest or 'prejudice, no bias of train
ing or tradition or current opinion, may dull his hearing
when he stands in the council of the Lord, or betray
him into uttering for Christ's gospel the suggestions
of his own self-will or the .mere watchwords of his
ecclesiastical faction.
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 repent
ance; they would thus have given them yet another
opportunity of salvation.
" If they had stood in My council,
They would have caused My people to hear My words;
They would have turned them from their evil way,
And from the evil of their doings."
But now : —
"They walk in lies and strengthen the hands of evildoers,
That no one may turn away from his sin.

xxiii., xxiv.] BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS 107
They say continually unto them that despise the word of
Jehovah, '
Ye shall have peace ;
And unto every one that walketh in the stubbornness of his
heart they say,
No evil shall come upon you."
Unfortunately, when prophecy becomes professional in
the lowest sense of the word, it is governed by com
mercial 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 : —
"Therefore I am against the prophets, is the utterance of Jehovah,
Who steal My word from one another.''
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, Isaiah ii. 2-4 is almost identical with
Micah iv. 1-3 ; yet neither author acknowledges his
indebtedness to the other or to any third prophet.2
1 LXX. See R.V. margin.
2 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 sectjon,

108 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Uriah ben Shemaiah prophesied according to all the
'words of Jeremiah,1 who himself owes much to Hosea,
whom he never mentions. Yet he was not conscious
of stealing from his predecessor, and he would have
brought no such charge against Isaiah or Micah or
Uriah. In the New Testament 2 Peter and Jude have
so much in common that one must have used the other
without acknowledgment. Yet the Church has not,
on that ground, excluded either Epistle from the Canon.
In the goodly fellowship of the prophets and the glorious
company of the apostles no man says that the things
which he utters are his own. But the mere hireling
has no part in the spiritual communism wherein each
may possess all things because he claims nothing.
When a prophet ceases to be the messenger of God,
and sinks into the mercenary purveyor of his own clever
sayings and brilliant fancies, then he is tempted to
become a clerical Autolycus, " a snapper-up of uncon
sidered trifles." Modern ideas furnish a curious parallel
to Jeremiah's indifference to the borrowings of the true
prophet, and his scorn of the literary pilferings of the
false. We hear only too often of stolen sermons, but
no one complains of plagiarism in prayers. Doubtless
among these false prophets charges of plagiarism were
bandied to and fro with much personal acrimony. But
it is interesting to notice that Jeremiah is not denouncing
an injury done to himself; he does not accuse them
of thieving from him, but from one another. Probably
assurance and lust of praise and power would have
overcome any awe they felt for Jeremiah. He was
only free from their depredations, because — from their
point of view — his words were not worth stealing.
1 xxvi. 20,

xxiii., xxiv.] BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS 109
There was nothing to be gained by repeating his stern
denunciations, and even his promises were not exactly
suited to the popular taste.
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 pre
decessors, quoting their inspired utterances and
adopting their weighty phrases. As Jeremiah's con
temporaries 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
formulae 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 na-.
tions. The ancient records loved to tell how Jehovah
revealed Himself to the patriarchs in dreams. Jeremiah's
rivals included dreams in their clerical apparatus : —
"Behold, I am against them that prophesy lying dreams —
Ne'um Yahwe —
And tell them, and lead astray My people
By their lies and their rodomontade ;
It was not I who sent or commanded them,
Neither shall they profit this people at all,
Ne'um Yahwe '

no THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
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 : —
"Behold, I am against the prophets,
It is the utterance of Jehovah (Ne'um Yahwe),
That use their tongues
To utter utterances (Wayyin'amu Ne'um)."
"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 cari
cature 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 pro
phesied 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 pro
fanations 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 : —
"When this people, priest, or prophet shall ask thee,
What is the burden of Jehovah ?

xxiii., xxiv.] BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS 1 1 1
Then say unto them, Ye are the burden.1
But I will cast you off,. Ne'um Yahwe.
If priest or prophet or people shall say, The burden of
Jehovah,
I will punish that man and his house.
And ye shall say to one another,
What hath Jehovah answered ? and, What hath Jehovah
spoken ?
And ye shall no more make mention of the burden of
Jehovah :
For (if ye do) men's words shall become a burden to
themselves.
Thus shall ye inquire of a prophet,
What hath Jehovah answered thee?
What hath Jehovah spoken unto thee ?
But if ye say, The burden of Jehovah,
Thus saith Jehovah : Because ye say this word, The burden
of Jehovah,
When I have sent unto you the command,
Ye shall not say, The burden of Jehovah,
Therefore I will assuredly take you up,
And will cast away from before Me both you and the city
which I gave to you and to your fathers.
I will bring upon you everlasting reproach
And everlasting shame, that shall not be forgotten."
Jeremiah's insistence and vehemence speak for them
selves. Their moral is obvious, though for the most
part unheeded. The most solemn formulae, 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

1 So LXX. and modern editors : see Giesebrecht, in loco. R.V.
"What burden!"

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

such dishonoured relics of her noblest champions.
Even our Lord's own words have not escaped. There
is a fashion of discoursing upon " the gospel " which
almost tempts reverent Christians to wish they might
never hear that word again. Neither is this debasing
of the moral currency confined to religious phrases ;
almost every political and social watchword has been
similarly abused. One of the vilest tyrannies the
world has ever seen — the Reign of Terror — claimed
to be an incarnation of "Liberty, Equality, and
Fraternity." 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."1 One of the unknown authors
whose writings have been included in the Book of
Zechariah takes up the teaching of Amos and Jeremiah
and carries it a stage further : —
"In that day (it is the utterance of Jehovah Sabaoth) I will
cut off the names of the idols from the land,
They shall not be remembered any more ;

1 vii. 14; but cf. R.V., "I was," etc.

xxiii., xxiv.] BAD SHEPHERDS AND FALSE PROPHETS 1 13
Also the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness
Will I expel from the land.
When any shall yet prophesy,
His father and mother that begat him shall say unto him,
Thou shalt not live, for thou speakest lies in the name of
Jehovah :
And his father and mother that begat him shall thrust him
through when he prophesieth.
In that day every prophet when he prophesieth shall be
ashamed of his vision;
Neither shall any wear a hairy mantle to deceive :
He shall say, I am no prophet ;
I am a tiller of the ground,
I was sold for a slave in my youth." '
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." 2
Over against their fluent and unctuous cant Jeremiah
sets the terrible reality of his Divine message. Com
pared to this, their sayings are like chaff to the wheat ;
nay, this is too tame a figure- — -Jehovah's word is like
1 Zech. xiii. 2-5. Post-exilic, according to most critics (Driver's
Introduction, in loco).
2 Froude, ii. 474.

114 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
fire, like a hammer that shatters rocks.- He says of
himself : —
"My heart within me is broken; all my bones shake:
I am like a drunken man, like a man whom wine hath over
come,
Because of Jehovah and His holy words."
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, v/ho 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.

CHAPTER IX
HANANIAH
xxvii., xxviii.
"Hear now, Hananiah; Jehovah hath not sent thee, but thou
makest this people to trust in a lie." — Jer. xxviii. 15.
THE most conspicuous point at issue between
Jeremiah and his opponents was political rather
than ecclesiastical. Jeremiah was anxious that Zedekiah
should keep faith with Nebuchadnezzar, and not in
volve Judah in useless misery by another hopeless
revolt. The prophets preached the popular doctrine
of an imminent Divine intervention to deliver Judah
from her oppressors. They devoted themselves to the
easy task of fanning patriotic enthusiasm, till the Jews
were ready for any enterprise, however reckless.
During the opening years of the new reign, Nebu
chadnezzar's recent capture of Jerusalem and the con
sequent 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 1
1 The close connection between xxvii. and xxviii. shows that the
date in xxviii. I, " the fourth year of Zedekiah," covers both chapters,
"Jehoiakim" in xxvii, I is a misreading for "Zedekiah"; see R,V,
margin, »»5

n6 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
that the tributary Syrian states began to prepare for
a united revolt against Babylon. The Assyrian and
Chaldean annals constantly mention such combina
tions, which were formed and broken up and reformed
with as much ease and variety as patterns in a
kaleidoscope. On the present occasion the kings of
Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Zidon sent their
ambassadors to Jerusalem to arrange with Zedekiah
for concerted action. But there were more important
persons to deal with in that city than Zedekiah.
Doubtless the princes of Judah welcomed the oppor
tunity for a new revolt. But before the negotiations
were very far advanced, Jeremiah heard what was
going on. By Divine command, he made " bands and
bars," i.e. yokes, for himself and for the ambassadors
of the allies, or possibly for them to carry home to
their masters. They received their answer, not from
Zedekiah, but from the true King of Israel, Jehovah
Himself. They had come to solicit armed assistance
to deliver them from Babylon ; they were sent back with
yokes to wear as a symbol of their entire and helpless
subjection to Nebuchadnezzar. This was the word of
Jehovah : —
¦" The nation and the kingdom that will not put its neck beneath
the yoke of the king of Babylon,
That nation will I visit with sword and famine and pestilence
until I consume them by his hand."
The allied kings had been encouraged to revolt by
oracles similar to those uttered by the Jewish prophets
in the name of Jehovah ; but : —
" As for you, hearken not to your prophets, diviners, dreams,
soothsayers and sorcerers,
When they speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the
king of Babylon.

xxvii., xxviii.] HANANIAH 117
They prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your
land ;
That I should drive you out, and that you should perish.
But the nation that shall bring their neck under the yoke of
the king of Babylon, and serve him,
That nation will I maintain in their own land (it is the utter
ance of Jehovah), and they shall till it and dwell in
it."
When he had sent his message to the foreign
envoys, Jeremiah addressed an almost identical admoni
tion to his own king. He bids him submit to the
Chaldean yoke, under the same penalties for dis
obedience — 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 Nebu
chadnezzar 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 patrio
tic prophets were convinced that the golden candle
stick, 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 : —

n8 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

"Hearken not unto the words of your prophets, which prophesy
unto you,
Behold, the vessels of the house of Jehovah shall be brought back
from Babylon now speedily :
For they prophesy a lie unto you.''
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 ?
" Hearken not unto them ; serve the king of Babylon and live.
Why should this city become a desolation ? "
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. " If they are prophets and the word of Jehovah is with them,
Let them intercede with Jehovah Sabaoth, that the rest of the
vessels of the Temple, the Palace, and the City may not go
to Babylon."
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

xxvii., xxviii.] HANANIAH 119
of his opponents ; personal contact may have begotten
something of mutual kindliness ; and hence there arose
a transient gleam of hope that reconciliation and co
operation might still be possible. But it was soon
evident that the " patriotic " party would not renounce
their vain dreams ; Judah must drink the cup of wrath
to the dregs : the pillars, the sea, the bases, the rest of
the vessels left in Jerusalem must also be carried to
Babylon, and remain there till Jehovah should visit
the Jews and bring them back and restore them to
their own land.
Thus did Jeremiah meet the attempt of the govern
ment 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

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

character. Such a man, apparently, they found in
Hananiah ben Azzur of Gibeon. Let us consider for
a moment this mouthpiece and champion of a great
political and ecclesiastical party, we might almost say
of a National Government and a National Church.
He is never mentioned except in chapter xxviii., but
what we read here is sufficiently characteristic, and
receives much light from the other literature of the
period. As Gibeon is assigned to the priests in
Joshua xxi. 17, it has been conjectured that, like
Jeremiah himself, Hananiah was a priest. The special
stress laid on the sacred vessels would be in accordance
with this theory.
In our last chapter we expounded Jeremiah's descrip
tion of his prophetic contemporaries, as self-important
and time-serving, guilty of plagiarism and cant. Now
from this dim, inarticulate crowd of professional pro
phets, 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 imme
diately 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 secu
larist when he first makes the personal acquaintance
of a curate. We might possibly have discerned some
thing 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

xxvii., xxviii.] HANANIAH

own order, charged — as he believed — with a message of
promise for Jerusalem, Hananiah's face and bearing, as
he came forward to address his sympathetic audience,
betrayed nothing unworthy of the high calling of a
prophet. His words had the true prophetic ring, he
spoke with assured authority : —
"Thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel,
I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon."
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 con
vincing 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 Nebuchad
nezzar 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

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

stood in the Temple." Not " the true prophet " and
"the false prophet," not " the man of God " and " the
impostor," but simply " the prophet Jeremiah " and
"the prophet Hananiah."- The audience discerned no
obvious difference of status or authority between the
two-— if anything the advantage lay with Hananiah ;
they watched the scene as a modern churchman might
regard a discussion between ritualistic and evangelical
bishops at a Church Congress, only Hananiah was
their ideal of a " good churchman." The true" parallel
is - not debates between atheists and the Christian
Evidence Society, or between missionaries and
Brahmins, but controversies like those between Arius
and Athanasius, Jerome and Rufinus, Cyril and Chry
sostom. 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 con
summate 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 sufficent 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.

xxvii., xxviii.] HANANIAH 123
Jeremiah appealed to their authority for his message
of doom : —
" 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 circum
stances 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

124 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
oppressors. Jehovah promised Canaan to the Hebrews
of the Exodus, but their carcasses mouldered in the
desert because they had not courage enough to attack
formidable enemies. "Let us not," Hananiah might
have said, " imitate their cowardice, and thus share
alike their unbelief and its penalty."
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," 1 so now Hananiah
took the yoke off Jeremiah's neck and broke it before
the assembled people and said : —
"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
1 i Kings xxii. ii.

xxvii., xxviii.] HANANIAH 125
shaken his faith in himself and his message ; he may
have been staggered for a moment by Hananiah's
apparent earnestness and conviction. He could not
but remember that the gloomy predictions of Isaiah's
earlier ministry had been followed by the glorious
deliverance from Sennacherib. Possibly some similar
sequel was to follow his own denunciations. He
betook himself anew to fellowship with God, and awaited
a fresh mandate from Jehovah.
"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." x
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 tribu
taries. 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 assur
ance 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

1 The rest of this verse has apparently been inserted from xxvii. 6
by a scribe. It is omitted by the LXX.

126 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Hananiah, Hear now, Hananiah ; Jehovah hath not
sent thee, but thou makest this people to trust in a lie.
Therefore thus saith Jehovah : I will cast thee away
from off the face of the earth ; this year thou shalt die,
because thou hast preached rebellion against Jehovah."
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 x left on record prophecies concern
ing the appointment to the treasurership of Shebna
and Eliakim ; and elsewhere Jeremiah himself pro
nounces the doom of Pashhur ben Immer, the governor
of the Temple ; but the conclusion of this incident
reminds us most forcibly of the speedy execution of
the apostolic sentence upon Ananias and Sapphira.
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 sub
jective 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 obedi
ence ? '
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
1 xxii. 15-25.

xxvii., xxviii.] HANANIAH 127
may have been, he yet had an honest faith in his own
inspiration and in the truth of his own prophecies.
The conscious impostor, unhappily, is not unknown
either in ancient or modern Churches ; but we should
not look for edification from the study of this branch
of morbid spiritual pathology. There were doubt
less Jewish counterparts to " Mr. Sludge the Medium "
and to the more subtle and plausible " Bishop Blou-
gram " ; but Hananiah was of a different type. The
evident respect felt for him by the people, Jeremiah's
almost deferential courtesy and temporary hesitation
as to his rival's Divine mission, do not suggest
deliberate hypocrisy. Hananiah's " lie " was a false
hood in fact but not in intention. The Divine message
" Jehovah hath not sent thee " was felt by Jeremiah
to be no mere exposure of what Hananiah had known
all along, but to be a revelation to his adversary as
well as to himself.
The sweeping condemnation of the prophets in
chapter xxiii. does not exclude the possibility of
Hananiah's honesty, any more than our Lord's de
nunciation 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 con
sider which is Jeremiah and which Hananiah.
The point at issue between these two prophets was

128 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
exceedingly simple and practical — whether Jehovah
approved of the proposed revolt and would reward it
with success. Theological questions were only in
directly and remotely involved. Yet, in face of his
opponent's persistent asseverations, Jeremiah — perhaps
the greatest of the prophets — went his way in silence
to obtain fresh Divine confirmation of his message.
And the man who hesitated was right.
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

xxvii., xxviii.] HANANIAH 129
the old teaching, and require and receive a new
message. Like Jonah, he might have to proclaim ruin
one day and deliverance the next. A physician, even
after the most careful diagnosis, may have to recognise
unsuspected symptoms which lead him to cancel his
prescription and write a new one. The sickening and
healing of the soul involve changes equally unexpected.
The Bible does not teach that inspiration, any more
than science, has only one treatment for each and every
spiritual condition and contingency. The true prophet's
message is always a word in season.
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
9

130 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
not claim that this is an invariable test. Nor can he
have meant that you can always believe prophecies
of evil without any hesitation, but that you are to put
no faith in promises until they are fulfilled. Yet it is
not difficult to discern the truth underlying Jeremiah's
words. The prophet whose words are unpalatable to
his hearers is more likely to have a true inspiration
than the man who kindles their fancy with glowing
pictures of an imminent millennium. The divine mes
sage to a congregation of country squires is more likely
to be an exhortation to be just to their tenants than
a sermon on the fluty of the labourer to his betters.
A true prophet addressing an audience of working
men would perhaps deal with the abuses of trades
unions rather than with the sins of capitalists.
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 judg
ment. 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 con
science that authenticates the divine message.

CHAPTER X
CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE EXILES

"Jehovah make thee like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of
Babylon roasted in the fire." — Jer. xxix. 22.
NOTHING further is said about the proposed
revolt, so that Jeremiah's vigorous protest seems
to have been successful. In any case, unless irre
vocable steps had been taken, the enterprise could
hardly have survived the death of its advocate,
Hananiah. Accordingly Zedekiah sent an embassy
to Babylon, charged doubtless with plausible explana
tions and profuse professions of loyalty and devotion.
The envoys were Elasah ben Shaphan and Gemariah
ben Hilkiah. Shaphan and Hilkiah were almost
certainly the scribe and high priest who discovered
Deuteronomy in the eighteenth year of Josiah, and
Elasah was the brother of Ahikam ben Shaphan, who
protected Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim,
and of Gemariah ben Shaphan, in whose chamber
Baruch read the roll, and who protested against its
destruction. Probably Elasah and Gemariah were
adherents of Jeremiah, and the fact of the embassy,
as well as the choice of ambassadors, suggests that,
for- the moment, Zedekiah was acting under the
influence of the prophet. Jeremiah took the oppor-
131

1 32 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
tunity of sending a letter to the exiles at Babylon.
Hananiah had his allies in Chaldea : Ahab ben Kolaiah,
Zedekiah ben Maaseiah, and Shemaiah the Nehelamite,
with other prophets, diviners, and dreamers, had
imitated their brethren in Judah ; they had prophesied
without being sent and had caused the people to
believe a lie. We are not expressly told what they
prophesied, but the narrative takes for granted that
they, like Hananiah, promised the exiles a speedy
return to their native land. Such teaching naturally
met with much acceptance, the people congratulating
themselves because, as they supposed, " Jehovah hath
raised us up prophets in Babylon." The presence of
prophets among them was received as a welcome proof
that Jehovah had not deserted His people in their
house of bondage.
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

xxix.] CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE EXILES 133
prospect of an immediate return had very much the
same effect upon these Jews as the expectation of
Christ's Second Coming had upon the primitive Church
at Thessalonica. It made them restless and disorderly.
They could not settle to any regular work, but became
busybodies — wasting their time over the glowing
promises of their popular preachers, and whispering
to one another wild rumours of successful revolts in
Syria ; or were even more dangerously occupied in
planning conspiracies against their conquerors.
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 enumera
tion 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 : —
" Build houses and dwell in them ;
Plant gardens and eat the fruit thereof;
Marry and beget sons and daughters;
Marry your sons and daughters,
That they may bear sons and daughters,
That ye may multiply there and not grow few!
Seek the peace of the city whither I have sent you into
captivity :
Pray for it unto Jehovah;
For in its peace, ye shall have peace."
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

134 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
ordinary business. The concluding command to " seek
the peace of Babylon " is a distinct warning against
engaging in plots, which could only ruin the con
spirators. There is an interesting difference between
these exhortations and those addressed by Paul to his
converts in the first century. He never counsels them
to marry, but rather recommends celibacy as more
expedient for the present necessity. Apparently life
was more anxious and harassed for the early Christians
than for the Jews in Babylon. The return to Canaan
was to these exiles what the millennium and the Second
Advent were to the primitive Church. Jeremiah having
bidden his fellow-countrymen not to be agitated by
supposing that this much-longed event might come
at any moment, fortifies their faith and patience by a
promise that it should not be delayed indefinitely.
" When ye have fulfilled seventy years in Babylon I will visit you,
And will perform for you My gracious promise to bring you
back to this place." '
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
1 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 dpubts are unnecessary,

xxix.] CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE EXILES 135
years (b.c 586 — 536), but as our passage refers more
immediately to the prospects of those already in exile,
we should obtain an interval of sixty-five years from
the deportation of Jehoiachin and his companions in
b.c 601. But there can be no question of approxima
tion, however close. Either the " seventy years "
merely stands for a comparatively long period, or it
is exact. We do not save the inspiration of a date
by showing that it is only five years wrong, and not
twenty. For an inspired date must be absolutely
accurate ; a mistake of a second in such a case would
be as fatal as a mistake of a century.
Israel's hope is guaranteed by God's self-knowledge
of His gracious counsel : —
" I know the purposes which I purpose concerning you, is the
utterance of Jehovah,
Purposes of peace and not of evil, to give you hope for the
days to come."
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 : —
"Ye shall call upon Me, and come and pray unto Me,
And I will hearken unto you.
Ye shall seek Me, and find Me,
Because ye seek Me with all your heart.
I will be found of you — it is the utterance of Jehovah.

136 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
I will bring back your captivity, and will gather you from all
nations and places whither I have scattered you — it is the
utterance of Jehovah.
I will bring you back to this place whence I sent you away to
captivity."1
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
1 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.

xxix.]- CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE EXILES 137
him and destroyed his life " — possibly through the
agency of Assurbanipal's servants.1 One of the seven
brethren who were tortured to death in the persecu
tions of Antiochus Epiphanes is said to have been
"fried in the pan."2 Christian hagiology commemorates
St. Lawrence and many other martyrs, who suffered
similar torments- Such punishments remained part of
criminal procedure until a comparatively recent date ;
they are still sometimes inflicted by lynch law in the
United States, and have been defended even by
Christian ministers.
Jeremiah's letter caused great excitement and indig
nation 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 com-
1 Smith's Assurbanipal, p. 163. 2 2 Mace. vii. 5.

138 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
fortable doctrine must be ipso facto a dangerous and
deluded fanatic, needing to be placed under strict
restraint. This letter travelled to Jerusalem with the
returning embassy, and was duly delivered to Zephaniah.
Zephaniah is spoken of in the historical section common
to Kings and Jeremiah as " the second priest," x Seraiah
being the High Priest; like Pashhur ben Immer, he
seems to have been the governor of the Temple. He was
evidently well disposed to Jeremiah, to whom Zedekiah
twice sent him on important missions. On the present
occasion, instead of acting upon the suggestions made
by Shemaiah, he read the letter to Jeremiah, in order
that the latter might have an opportunity of dealing
with it.
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
1 Iii. 24; 2 Kings xxv. 18.

xxix.] CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE EXILES 139
this point his influence became dominant both at
Jerusalem and at Babylon, and that King Zedekiah
himself submitted to his guidance.
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." r The deduction is obvious : society
feels constrained to hang or burn " the unlucky male
factor " ; consequently such punishments are, if any
thing, too merciful for the false prophet. Moreover
the teaching which Jeremiah denounced was no mere
1 Ecce Homo, xxi,

140 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
dogmatism about abstruse philosophical and theologi
cal abstractions. Like the Jesuit propaganda under
Elizabeth, it was more immediately concerned with
politics than with religion. We are bound to be
indignant with a man, gifted in exploiting the emotions
of his docile audience, who wins the confidence and
arouses the enthusiasm of his hearers, only to entice
them into hopeless and foolhardy ventures.
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 ?

CHAPTER XI
A BROKEN COVENANT
xxi. i-io, xxxiv., xxxvii. I-IO.
" All the princes and people . . . changed their minds and reduced
to bondage again all the slaves whom they had set free." — Jer. xxxiv.
IO, II.
IN our previous chapter we saw that, at the point
where the fragmentary record of the abortive con
spiracy in the fourth year of Zedekiah came to an
abrupt conclusion, Jeremiah seemed to have regained
the ascendency he enjoyed under Josiah. The Jewish
government had relinquished their schemes of rebellion
and acquiesced once more in the supremacy of Babylon.
We may possibly gather from a later chapter x that
Zedekiah himself paid a visit to Nebuchadnezzar to
assure him of his loyalty. If so, the embassy of Elasah
ben Shaphan and Gemariah ben Hilkiah was intended
to assure a favourable reception for their master.
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
1 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. 141

142 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
conspiracy in Zedekiah's fourth year, there is a signifi
cant absence of any reference to Egypt. Jeremiah
succeeded in baffling his opponents partly because
their fears of Babylon were not quieted by any assur
ance of Egyptian support. Now there seemed a better
prospect of a successful insurrection.
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,1 Zedekiah took the initiative : " he rebelled
against him (Nebuchadnezzar) by sending his ambassa
dors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and
much people."
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 pre
pared 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
1 xvii. 15.

xxi. i-io, xxxiv., xxxvii. i-io.] A BROKEN COVENANT 143
expressly mentioned. A little later Tyre was besieged
by Nebuchadnezzar ; but as Ezekiel x represents Tyre
as exulting over the fall of Jerusalem, she can hardly
have been a benevolent neutral, much less a faithful
ally. Moreover, when Nebuchadnezzar began his march
into Syria, he hesitated whether he should first attack
Jerusalem or Rabbath Ammon : —
" 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."2 Later on Baalis, king of Ammon, received the Jewish
refugees and supported those who were most irrecon
cilable in their hostility to Nebuchadnezzar. Never
theless the Ammonites were denounced by Jeremiah
for occupying the territory of Gad, and by Ezekiel 3 for
sharing the exultation of Tyre over the ruin of Judah.
Probably Baalis played a double part. He may have
promised support to Zedekiah, and then purchased his
own pardon by betraying his ally.
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." 4
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 incon-
1 xxvi. 2. 2 Ezek. xxi. 21. 3 xxv. 1-7.
* 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.

144 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
sistency, sought to be reassured by the prophet
himself. He sent Pashhur ben Malchiah and Zephaniah
ben Maaseiah to Jeremiah with the message : —
" Inquire, I pray thee, of Jehovah for us, for Nebu
chadnezzar 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 Senna
cherib were fresh and vivid in men's minds. Isaiah's
denunciations had been as uncompromising as Jere
miah's, and yet Hezekiah had been spared. " Per
adventure," 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. Formid
able 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 pestil
ence, 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. i-io, xxxiv., xxxvii. i-io.] A BROKEN COVENANT 145
shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a
prey." x
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 : —
" I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon,
And he shall burn it with fire.
Thou shalt not escape out of his hand ;
Thou shalt assuredly be taken prisoner;
Thou shalt be delivered into his hand.
Thou shalt see the king of Babylon, face to face;
He shall speak to thee, mouth to mouth,
And thou shalt go to Babylon."
Yet there should be one doubtful mitigation of his
punishment : —

10

146 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
" Thou shalt not die by the sword ;
Thou shalt die in peace :
With the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings that were
before thee,
So shall they make a burning for thee ;
And they shall lament thee, saying, Alas lord 1
For it is I that have spoken the word — it is the utterance of
Jehovah."
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,1 but this had not been observed :
" Your fathers hearkened not unto Me, neither inclined
their ear." 2 A large proportion of those then in slavery
must have served more than six years ; 3 and partly
because of the difficulty of discrimination at such a
crisis, partly by way of atonement, the Jews under
took to liberate all their slaves. This solemn repara
tion was made because the limitation of servitude
was part of the national Torah, " the covenant that
Jehovah made with their fathers in the day that He
brought them forth out of the land of Egypt "—
i.e. the Deuteronomic Code. Hence it implied the
renewed recognition of Deuteronomy, and the restora
tion of the ecclesiastical order established by Josiah's
reforms. Even Josiah's methods were imitated. He had
assembled the people at the Temple and made them

1 Deut. xv. 12. Cf. Exod. xxi. 2, xxiii. 10.
2 xxxiv. 14. » xxxiv. 13.

xxi. i-io, xxxiv., xxxvii. i-io ] A BROKEN COVENANT 147
enter into " a covenant before Jehovah, to walk after
Jehovah, to keep His commandments and testimonies
and statutes with all their heart and soul, to perform
the words of this covenant that were written in this
book. And all the people entered into the covenant."1
So now Zedekiah in turn caused the people to make
a covenant before Jehovah, "in the house which was
called by His name," 2 " that every one should release
his Hebrew slaves, male and female, and that no one
should enslave a brother Jew." 3 A further sanction
had been given to this vow by the observance of an
ancient and significant rite. When Jehovah promised
to Abraham a seed countless as the stars of heaven,
He condescended to ratify His promise by causing the
symbols of His presence — a smoking furnace and a
burning lamp — to pass between the divided halves of
a heifer, a she-goat, a ram, and between a turtle-dove
and a young pigeon.4 Now, in like manner, a calf was
cut in twain, the two halves laid opposite each other,
and " the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the eunuchs,
the priests, and all the people of the land, . . . passed
between the parts of the calf."6 Similarly, after the
death of Alexander the Great, the contending factions
in the Macedonian army ratified a compromise by
passing between the two halves of a dog. Such
symbols spoke for themselves : those who used them
laid themselves under a curse ; they prayed that if they
violated the covenant they might be slain and mutilated
like the divided animals.
This covenant was forthwith carried into effect, the
princes and people liberating their Hebrew slaves
1 2 Kings xxiii. 3. s xxxiv. 9. ' xxxiv. 19.
2 xxxiv. 15. * Gen. xv.

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

according to their vow. We cannot, however, compare
this event with the abolition of slavery in British
colonies or with Abraham Lincoln's Decree of Emancipa
tion. The scale is altogether different : Hebrew bondage
had no horrors to compare with those of the American
plantations ; and moreover, even at the moment, the
practical results cannot have been great. Shut up in
a beleaguered city, harassed by the miseries and
terrors of a siege, the freedmen would see little to
rejoice over in their new-found freedom. Unless their
friends were in Jerusalem they could not rejoin them,
and in most cases they could only obtain sustenance
by remaining in the households of their former masters,
or by serving in the defending army. Probably this
special ordinance of Deuteronomy was selected as the
subject of a solemn covenant, because it not only
afforded an opportunity of atoning for past sin, but
also provided the means of strengthening the national
defence. Such expedients were common in ancient
states in moments of extreme peril.
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 gome forth out

xxi. i-io, xxxiv., xxxvii. i-io.] A BROKEN COVENANT 149
of Egypt " with a mighty army and a great company." 1
The sentinels on the walls of Jerusalem saw the
besiegers break up their encampment, and march away
to meet the relieving army. All thought of submitting
to Babylon was given up. Indeed, if Pharaoh Hophra
were to be victorious, the Jews must of necessity accept
his supremacy. Meanwhile they revelled in their
respite from present distress and imminent danger.
Surely the new covenant was bearing fruit. Jehovah
had been propitiated by their promise to observe the
Torah; Pharaoh was the instrument by which God
would deliver His people; or even if the Egyptians
were defeated, the Divine resources were not exhausted.
When Tirhakah advanced to the relief of Hezekiah,
he was defeated at Eltekeh, yet Sennacherib had
returned home baffled and disgraced. Naturally the
partisans of Egypt, the opponents of Jeremiah, re
covered their control of the king and the government.
The king sent, perhaps at the first news of the
Egyptian advance, to inquire of Jeremiah concerning
their prospects of success. What seemed to every one
else a Divine deliverance was to him a national mis
fortune; the hopes he had once more indulged of
averting the ruin of Judah were again dashed to the
ground. His answer is bitter and gloomy : —
" Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is come forth to help you,
Shall return to Egypt into their own land.
The Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city;
They shall take it, and burn it with fire.
Thus saith Jehovah :
Do not deceive yourselves, saying,
The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us:

Ezek, xvii. 17.

150 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
They shall not depart.
Though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans
that fight against you,
And there remained none but wounded men among them,
Yet should they rise up every man in his tent,
And burn this city with fire."
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 cere
monies, 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

xxi. i-io, xxxiv., xxxvii. i-io.] A BROKEN COVENANT 151
happy augury for the new dispensation of Divine pro
tection and blessing I
Jeremiah turned upon them in fierce wrath, like that
of Elijah against Ahab when he met him taking posses
sion of Naboth's vineyard. They had profaned the
name of Jehovah, and — •
" Therefore thus saith Jehovah :
Ye have not, hearkened unto Me to proclaim a release every one
to his brother and his neighbour :
Behold, I proclaim a release for you — it is the utterance of
Jehovah — unto the sword, the pestilence, and the famine ;
And I will make you a terror among all the kingdoms of the
earth."
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."
" I will give the men that have transgressed My covenant into the
hands of their enemies. . . .
Their dead bodies shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and
for the beasts of the earth.
Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into the
hand of - . . the host of the king of Babylon, which are gone
up from you.
Behold, I will command — it is the utterance of Jehovah — and will
bring them back unto this city:
They shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire.
I will lay the cities of Judah waste, without inhabitant."
Another broken covenant was added to the list of

152 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Judah's sins, another promise of amendment speedily
lost in disappointment and condemnation. Jeremiah
might well say with his favourite Hosea : —
"O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?
Your goodness is as a morning cloud,
And as the dew that goeth early away."1
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 — " Swear thou to-day, to-morrow is thine own " —
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 2: —
" 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

Hosea vi. 4.
! Milman's Latin Christianity, viii. 255.

xxi. i-io, xxxiv., xxxvii. i-io.] A BROKEN COVENANT 153
made into a promise to God. What can be more
binding upon the conscience than a promise to God ?
True ; but He to whom the promise is made may
always release from its performance. To persist in
what God neither requires nor desires because of a
promise to God seems absurd and even wicked. It
has been said that men " have a way of calling every
thing they want to do a dispensation of Providence."
Similarly, there are many ways by which a man may
persuade himself that God has cancelled his vows,
especially if he belongs to an infallible Church with a
Divine commission to grant dispensations. No doubt
these Jewish slaveholders had full sacerdotal absolution
from their pledge. The priests had slaves of their
own. Failing ecclesiastical aid, Satan himself will play
the casuist — it is one of his favourite parts — and will
find the traitor full justification for breaking the most
solemn contract with Heaven. If a man's whole soul
and purpose go with his promise, oaths are superfluous ;
otherwise, they are useless.
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

154 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
recruits to man the walls, this illustrates the ultimate
dependence of society upon the working classes. In
emergencies, desperate efforts are made to coerce or
cajole them into supporting governments by which they
have been neglected or oppressed. The sequel to this
covenant shows how barren and transient are conces
sions begotten by the terror of imminent ruin. The
social covenant between all classes of the community
needs to be woven strand by strand through long years
of mutual helpfulness and goodwill, of peace and
prosperity, if it is to endure the strain of national peril
and disaster.

CHAPTER Xii
JEREMIAH'S IMPRISONMENT
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.
" TT THEN the Chaldean army was broken up from
V V Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh's army, Jere
miah went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land
of Benjamin " to transact certain family business at
Anathoth.1 He had announced that all who remained in the
city should perish, and that only those who deserted
to the Chaldeans should escape. In these troubled
times all who sought to enter or leave Jerusalem were
subjected to close scrutiny, and when Jeremiah wished
to pass through the gate of Benjamin he was stopped
by the officer in charge — Irijah ben Shelemiah ben
Hananiah — and accused of being about to practise
himself what he had preached to the people: "Thou
fallest away to the Chaldeans." The suspicion was
natural enough ; for, although the Chaldeans had raised
the siege and marched away to the south-west, while
the gate of Benjamin was on the north of the city,
Irijah might reasonably suppose that they had left
detachments in the neighbourhood, and that this
1 Cf. xxxii. 6-8.
"55

156 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
zealous advocate of submission to Babylon had special
information on the subject. Jeremiah indeed had the
strongest motives for seeking safety in flight. The
party whom he had consistently denounced had full
control of the government, and even if they spared him
for the present any decisive victory over the enemy
would be the signal for his execution. When once
Pharaoh Hophra was in full march upon Jerusalem at
the head of a victorious army, his friends would show
no mercy to Jeremiah. Probably Irijah was eager to
believe in the prophet's treachery, and ready to snatch
at any pretext for arresting him. The name of the
captain's grandfather — Hananiah — is too common to
suggest any connection with the prophet who withstood
Jeremiah ; but we may be sure that at this crisis the
gates were in charge of trusty adherents of the princes
of the Egyptian party. Jeremiah would be suspected
and detested by such men as these. His vehement
denial of the charge was received with real or feigned
incredulity; Irijah " hearkened not unto him."
The arrest took place " in the midst of the people." x
The gate was crowded with other Jews hurrying out
of Jerusalem : citizens eager to breathe more freely
after being cooped up in the overcrowded city ; country
men anxious to find out what their farms and home
steads had suffered at the hands of the invaders ; not
a few, perhaps, bound on the very errand of which
Jeremiah was accused, friends of Babylon, convinced
that Nebuchadnezzar would ultimately triumph, and
hoping to find favour and security in his camp. Critical
events of Jeremiah's life had often been transacted
before a great assembly ; for instance, his own address
1 xxxvii, 12 ; so R.V., Streane (Camb. Bible), Kautzsch, etc.

xxxvii.fr.] JEREMIAH'S IMPRISONMENT 157

and trial in the Temple, and the reading of the roll.
He knew the practical value of a dramatic situation.
This time he had sought the crowd, rather to avoid
than attract attention ; but when he was challenged by
Irijah, the accusation and denial must have been heard
by all around. The soldiers of the guard, necessarily
hostile to the man who had counselled submission,
gathered round to secure their prisoner ; for a time
the gate was blocked by the guards and spectators.
The latter do not seem to have interfered. Formerly
the priests and prophets and all the people had laid
hold on Jeremiah, and afterwards all the people had
acquitted him by acclamation. Now his enemies were
content to leave him in the hands of the soldiers, and
his friends, if he had any, were afraid to attempt a
rescue. Moreover men's minds were not at leisure
and craving for new excitement, as at Temple festivals ;
they were preoccupied, and eager to get out of the
city. While the news quickly spread that Jeremiah
had been arrested as he was trying to desert, his
guards cleared a way through the crowd, and brought
the prisoner before the princes. The latter seem to
have acted as a Committee of National Defence ; they
may either have been sitting at the time, or a meeting,
as on a previous occasion,1 may have been called when
it was known that Jeremiah had been arrested. Among
them were probably those enumerated later on : 2
Shephatiah ben Mattan, Gedaliah ben Pashhur, Jucal
ben Shelemiah, and Pashhur ben Malchiah. Shephatiah
and Gedaliah are named only here ; possibly Gedaliah's
father was Pashhur ben Immer, who beat Jeremiah and
put him in the stocks. Both Jucal and Pashhur ben

158 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Malchiah had been sent by the king to consult Jere
miah. Jucal may have been the son of the Shelemiah
who was sent to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch after the
reading of the roll. We note the absence of the
princes who then formed Baruch's audience, some of
whom tried to dissuade Jehoiakim from burning the
roll ; and we especially miss the prophet's former
friend and protector, Ahikam ben Shaphan. Fifteen
or sixteen years had elapsed since these earlier events ;
some of Jeremiah's adherents were dead, others in
exile, others powerless to help him. We may safely
conclude that his judges were his personal and political
enemies. Jeremiah was now their discomfited rival :
a few weeks before he had been master of the city and
the court. Pharaoh Hophra's advance had enabled them
to overthrow him. We can understand that they would
at once take Irijah's view of the case. They treated
their fallen antagonist as a criminal taken in the .act :
" they were wroth with him," i.e. they overwhelmed
him with a torrent of abuse ; " they beat him, and put
him in prison in the house of Jonathan the secretary."
But this imprisonment in a private house was not mild
and honourable confinement under the care of a distin
guished noble, who was rather courteous host than
harsh gaoler. " They had made that the prison," duly
provided with a dungeon and cells, to which Jeremiah
was consigned and where he remained " many days."
Prison accommodation at Jerusalem was limited; the
Jewish government preferred more summary methods
of dealing with malefactors. The revolution which
had placed the present government in power had given
them special occasion for a prison. They had defeated
rivals whom they did not venture to execute publicly,
but who might be more safely starved and tortured to

xxxvii. ff.] JEREMIAH'S IMPRISONMENT 159
death in secret. For such a fate they destined Jeremiah.
We shall not do injustice to Jonathan the secretary if
we compare the hospitality which he extended to his
unwilling guests with the treatment of modern Arme
nians in Turkish prisons. Yet the prophet remained
alive " for many days " ; probably his enemies reflected
that even if he did not succumb earlier to the hardships
of his imprisonment, his execution would suitably adorn
the looked-for triumph of Pharaoh Hophra.
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 fugi
tives 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 van
guard appeared in sight and the Chaldeans occupied their
old lilies and re-formed the siege of the doomed city.
There was no longer any doubt that prudence dic
tated 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.

160 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
But though Zedekiah was, for the most part, power
less 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

xxxvii.fi-.] JEREMIAH'S IMPRISONMENT 161
of Thomas a Becket, unarmed and yet defiant before
his murderers; but the Jewish prophet showed himself
capable of a simpler and grander heroism. For "many
days " he had endured squalor, confinement, and semi-
starvation. His body must have been enfeebled and
his spirit depressed. Weak and contemptible as
Zedekiah was, yet he was the prophet's only earthly
protector from the malice of his enemies. He intended
to utilise this interview for an appeal for release from
his present prison. Thus he had every motive for
conciliating the man who asked him for a word from
Jehovah. He was probably alone with Zedekiah, and
was not nerved to self-sacrifice by any opportunity of
making public testimony to the truth, and yet he was
faithful alike to God and to the poor helpless king —
" Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king
of Babylon."
And then he proceeds, with what seems to us in
consequent 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
n

I62 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
guard occurred the incident of the purchase of the field
at Anathoth, which we have dealt with in another
chapter. This low ebb of the prophet's fortunes was
the occasion of Divine revelation of a glorious future in
store for Judah. But this future was still remote, and
does not seem to have been conspicuous in his public
teaching. On the contrary Jeremiah availed himself of
the comparative publicity of his new place of detention
to reiterate in the ears of all the people the gloomy
predictions with which they had so long been familiar :
" This city shall assuredly be given into the hand of
the army of the king of Babylon." He again urged
his hearers to desert to the enemy : " He that abideth
in this city shall die by the sword, the famine, and the
pestilence ; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans
shalllive." We cannot but admire the splendid courage
of the solitary prisoner, helpless in the hands of his
enemies and yet openly defying them. He left his
opponents only two alternatives, either to give up the
government into his hands or else to silence him.
Jeremiah in the court of the guard was really carrying
on a struggle in which neither side either would or could
give quarter. He was trying to revive the energies
of the partisans of Babylon, that they might overpower
the government and surrender the city to Nebuchad
nezzar. If he had succeeded, the princes would have
had a short shrift. They struck back with the prompt
energy of men fighting for their lives. No government
conducting the defence of a besieged fortress could
have tolerated Jeremiah for a moment. What would
have been the fate of a French politician who should
have urged Parisians to desert to the Germans during
the siege of 1870 ?x The princes' former attempt to
' Cf. Renan, iii. 333.

xxxvii. ff.] JEREMIAH'S IMPRISONMENT 163
deal with Jeremiah had been thwarted by the king;
this time they tried to provide beforehand against any
officious intermeddling on the part of Zedekiah. They
extorted from him a sanction of their proceedings.
" 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

1 64 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
if they left him in the empty cistern to starve to death
or be suffocated in the mud, than if they had his head
cut off. They acted in the spirit of Reuben's advice
concerning Joseph, who also was cast into an empty
pit, with no water in it : " Shed no blood, but cast him
into this pit in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon
him." ' By a similar blending of hypocrisy and super
stition, the mediaeval Church thought to keep herself
unstained by the blood of heretics, by handing them
over to the secular arm ; and Macbeth having hired
some one else to kill Banquo was emboldened to con
front his ghost with the words : —
"Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake
Thy gory locks at me."
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. Em
boldened by this public appeal to act according to the
dictates of his own heart and conscience, and possibly

Gen. xxxvii. 22-24,

xxxvii. ff.] JEREMIAH'S IMPRISONMENT 165
by the presence of other friends of Jeremiah, the king
acts with unwonted courage and decision.
" 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.1 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. Accord-
1 xxxix. 15-18.

166 _ THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
ingly he sent and took Jeremiah unto him for another
secret interview, this time in the " corridor of the
bodyguard,"1 a passage between the palace and 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 suffi
ciently master of his own actions to be able to escape
to the Chaldeans if he chose.
But evidently, when he first revolted against Babylon,
1 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.

xxxvii. ff.] JEREMIAH'S IMPRISONMENT 167
and more recently when the siege was raised, he had
been induced to behave harshly towards her partisans :
they had taken refuge in considerable numbers in the
enemy's camp, and now he was afraid of their venge
ance. Similarly, in Quentin Durward, Scott represents
Louis XI. on his visit to Charles the Bold as startled
by the sight of the banners of some of his own vassals,
who had taken service with Burgundy, and as seeking
protection from Charles against the rebel subjects of
France. 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 Nebu
chadnezzar, 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 re
assure 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

1 68 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Jehovah hath showed me : Behold, all the women left
in the palace shall be brought forth to the king of
Babylon's princes, and those women shall say, Thy
familiar friends have duped thee and got the better of
thee ; thy feet are sunk in the mire, and they have left
thee in the lurch." He would be in worse plight than
that from which Jeremiah had only just been rescued,
and there would no Ebed-melech to draw him out. He
would be humiliated by the suffering and shame of his
own family : " They shall bring out all thy wives and
children to the Chaldeans." He himself would share
with them the last extremity of suffering : " Thou shalt
not escape out of their hand, but shalt be taken by the
hand of the king of Babylon."
And as Tennyson makes it the climax of Geraint's
degeneracy that he was not only —
" Forgetful of his glory and his name,"
but also  "Forgetful of his princedom and its cares,''
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

xxxvii. ff.] JEREMIAH'S IMPRISONMENT 169
the domestics of the palace were within call. The
princes were unprepared ; they would never dream that
he was capable of anything so bold. It would be easy
to seize the nearest gate, and hold it long enough to
admit the Chaldeans. But no I he had not nerve
enough. Then his predecessors Joash, Amaziah,
and Amon had been assassinated, and for the moment
the daggers of the princes and their followers seemed
more terrible than Chaldean instruments of torture.
He lost all thought of his own honour and his duty
to his people in his anxiety to provide against this
more immediate danger. Never was the fate of a nation
decided by a meaner utterance. " Then said Zedekiah
to Jeremiah, No one must know about our meeting,
and thou shalt not die. If the princes hear that I
have talked with thee, and come and say unto thee,
Declare unto us now what thou hast said unto the
king ; hide it not from us, and we will not put thee to
death : declare unto us what the king said unto thee :
then thou shalt say unto them, I presented my supplica
tion unto the king, that he would not cause me to
return to Jonathan's house, to die there.
" Then all the princes came to Jeremiah, and asked
him; and he told them just what the king had com
manded. 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.

170 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
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 vert, 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.

xxxvii. ff] JEREMIAH'S IMPRISONMENT 171
Unwelcome teaching must not be allowed to inter
fere 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 disagree
able 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 com
promised 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 them
selves 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-conscious
ness which betrays men, sometimes even martyrs,
into theatrical ostentation.

CHAPTER XIII
GEDALIAH
xxxix. — xii., Iii.1
" 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. xii. 2.
WE now pass to the concluding period of Jeremiah's
ministry. His last interview with Zedekiah was
speedily followed by the capture of Jerusalem. With
that catastrophe the curtain falls upon another act in
the tragedy of the prophet's life. Most of the chief
dramatis personce make their final exit ; only Jeremiah
and Baruch remain. King and princes, priests and
prophets, pass to death or captivity, and new characters
appear to play their part for a while upon the vacant
stage. 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,
1 Chapter Iii. = 2 Kings xxiv. 18 — xxv. 30, and xxxix. 1-10 = Hi.
4-16, in each case with minor variations which do not specially bear
upon our subject. Cf. Driver, Introduction, in loco. The detailed treat
ment of this section belongs to the exposition of the Book of Kings.
172

xxxix.-xli., Hi.] GEDALIAH 173
we must remember, was not present in person with
the besieging army. His headquarters were at Riblah,
far away in the north. He had, however, given special
instructions concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan, the
general commanding the forces before Jerusalem :
" Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm ;
but do with him even as he shall say unto thee."
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.1 And
Jeremiah dwelt among the people.
This account is not only inconsistent with that given
in the next chapter, but it also represents Nebuzar
adan as present when the city was taken, whereas
later on 2 we are told that he did not come upon the
scene till a month later. For these and similar reasons,
this version of the story is generally considered the
less trustworthy. It apparently grew up at a time
when the other characters and interests of the period
had been thrown into the shade by the reverent
recollection of Jeremiah and his ministry. It seemed
natural to suppose that Nebuchadnezzar was equally
preoccupied with the fortunes of the great prophet
who had consistently preached obedience to his
authority. The section records the intense reverence
which the Jews of the Captivity felt for Jeremiah.
We are more likely, however, to get a true idea
of what happened by following the narrative in
chapter xl.

1 Literally " the house '' — either Jeremiah's or Gedaliah's, or pos
sibly the royal palace.
2 Iii. 6, 12.

174 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
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 Lamentations
ii. 20, 21, as a description of the sack of Jerusalem : —
"Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of
the Lord ?
The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets;
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword :
Thou hast slain them in the day of Thine anger;
Thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied."
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 Iii. 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 fortifica
tions, and was carried with the other captives to Ramah.
Here the Chaldean general found leisure to inquire

xxxix.-xli.,lii.] GEDALIAH 1 75
into the deserts of individual prisoners and to decide
how they should be treated. He would be aided in
this task by the Jewish refugees from whose ridicule
Zedekiah had shrunk, and they would at once inform
him of the distinguished sanctity of the prophet and
of the conspicuous services he had rendered to the
Chaldean cause.
Nebuzaradan at once acted upon their representa
tions. 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 whither
soever 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.

176 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
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 com
missioned 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,1 xv. 10-21 is a record of the inner struggle
through which Jeremiah came to a decision on this
matter. The section is not very clear, but it suggests
that at one time it seemed Jehovah's will that he should
go to Babylon, and that it was only after much hesitation
that he was convinced that God required him to remain
in Judah. Powerful motives drew him in either direc
tion. At Babylon he would reap the full advantage of
Nebuchadnezzar's favour, and would enjoy the order
and culture of a great capital. He would meet with
old friends and disciples, amongst the rest Ezekiel.

1 Pulpit Commentary, in loco. Cf. the previous volume on Jeremiah
in this series.

xxxix.-xli., Iii.] GEDALIAH 177
He would find an important sphere for ministry amongst
the large Jewish community in Chaldea, where the
flower of the whole nation was now in exile. In Judah
he would have to share the fortunes of a feeble and
suffering remnant, and would be exposed to all the
dangers and disorder consequent on the break-up of
the national government — -brigandage on the part of
native guerilla bands and raids by the neighbouring
tribes. These guerilla bands were the final effort of
Jewish resistance, and would seek to punish as traitors
those who accepted the dominion of Babylon.
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 protege' 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
12

178 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
coupled with the hope that the scattered refugees who
were rapidly gathering at Mizpah under Gedaliah
might lay the foundations of a new community, which
should become the instrument of the divine purpose.
Jeremiah was no deluded visionary, who would suppose
that the destruction of Jerusalem had exhausted God's
judgments, and that the millennium would forthwith
begin for the special and exclusive benefit of his
surviving companions in Judah. Nevertheless, while
there was an organised Jewish community left on native
soil, it would be regarded as the heir of the national
religious hopes and aspirations, and a prophet, with
liberty of choice, would feel it his duty to remain.
Accordingly Jeremiah decided to join Gedaliah.1
Nebuzaradan gave him food and a present, and let
him go.
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

1 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, ob
serving his hesitation, bade him return to Gedaliah and decide at
his leisure.

xxxix.-xli., Hi.] GEDALIAH 179
poorer sort, but not altogether, for among them were
" royal princesses " and doubtless others belonging to
the ruling classes. Apparently after these arrange
ments had been made the Chaldean forces were almost
entirely withdrawn, and Gedaliah was left to cope with
the many difficulties of the situation by his own unaided
resources." For a time all went well. It seemed at
first as if the scattered bands of Jewish soldiers still in
the field would submit to the Chaldean government and
acknowledge Gedaliah's authority. Various captains
with their bands came to him at Mizpah, amongst them
Ishmael ben Nethaniah, Johanan ben Kareah and his
brother Jonathan. Gedaliah swore to them that they
should be pardoned and protected by the Chaldeans.
He confirmed them in their possession of the towns
and districts they had occupied after the departure of
the enemy. They accepted his assurance, and their
alliance with him seemed to guarantee the safety and
prosperity of the settlement. Refugees from Moab, the
Ammonites, Edom, and all the neighbouring countries
flocked to Mizpah, and busied themselves in gathering
in the produce of the oliveyards and vineyards which
had been left ownerless when the .nobles were slain
or carried away captive. Many of the poorer Jews
revelled in such unwonted plenty, and felt that even
national ruin had its compensations.
Tradition has supplemented what the sacred record
tells us of this period in Jeremiah's history. We are
told x that "it is also found in the records that the
prophet Jeremiah " commanded the exiles to take with
them fire from the altar of the Temple, and further
exhorted them to observe the law. and to abstain from
' 2 Mace. ii. 1-8.

180 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
idolatry ; and that " it was also contained in the same
writing, that the prophet, being warned of God, com
manded the tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as
he went forth unto the mountain, where Moses climbed
up, and saw the heritage of God. And when Jeremiah
came thither, he found an hollow cave, wherein he laid
the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense, and
so stopped the door. And some of those that followed
him came to mark the way, but they could not find it :
which when Jeremiah perceived he blamed them, saying,
As for that place, it shall be unknown until the time that
God gather His people again together and receive them
to His mercy."
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.1
Moreover as the traveller leaves Jerusalem by the
Damascus Gate, he passes great stone quarries, where
Jeremiah's Grotto is still pointed out as the place where
the prophet composed his elegy.
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

1 Cf. Professor Adeney's Canticles and Lamentations in this
series.

xxxix.-xli., Hi.] GEDALIAH 181
was uncertain ; it was by no means a matter of course
that he would destroy the city. Jerusalem had been
spared by Pharaoh Necho after the defeat of Josiah,
and by Nebuchadnezzar after the revolt of Jehoiakim.
Jeremiah and the other Jews must have been in a state
of extreme suspense as to their own fate and that of
their city, very different from the attitude of Lamenta
tions. This suspense was ended when Nebuzaradan
arrived and proceeded to burn the city. Jeremiah
witnessed the fulfilment of his own prophecies when
Jerusalem was thus overtaken by the ruin he had
so often predicted. As he stood there chained amongst
the other captives, many of his neighbours must have
felt towards him as we should feel towards an
anarchist gloating over the spectacle of a successful
dynamite explosion ; and Jeremiah could not be
ignorant of their sentiments. His own emotions
would be sufficiently vivid, but they would not be
so simple as those of the great elegy. Probably they
were too poignant to be capable of articulate expres
sion ; and the occasion was not likely to be fertile in
acrostics. 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 pos
sessed 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 un
conquerable spirit already possessed with visions of a
brighter future, Jeremiah could not lose himself in mere
regrets for the past.

1 82 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
He was doomed to experience yet another disappoint
ment. Gedaliah had only held his office for about two
months,1 when he was warned by Johanan ben Kareah
and the other captains that Ishmael ben Nethaniah had
been sent by Baalis, king of the Ammonites, to assas
sinate him. Gedaliah refused to believe them. Johanan,
perhaps surmising that the governor's incredulity was
assumed, came to him privately and proposed to anti
cipate Ishmael : " Let me go, I pray thee, and slay
Ishmael ben Nethaniah, and no one shall know it :
wherefore should he slay thee, that all the Jews which
are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the
remnant of Judah perish ? But Gedaliah ben Ahikam
said unto Johanan ben Kareah, Thou shalt not do this
thing : for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael."
Gedaliah's misplaced confidence soon had fatal con
sequences. 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.

1 Cf. Hi. 12, "fifth month,'' and xli. I, "seventh month." Cheyne
however points out that no year is specified in xli. I, and holds that
Gedaliah's governorship lasted for over four years, and that the de
portation four years (Hi. 30) after the destruction of the city was the
prompt punishment of his murder.

xxxix.-xli., Hi.] GEDALIAH 183
Gedaliah feasted his guests. Johanan and the other
captains were not present ; they had done what they
could to save him, but they did not wait to share the
fate which he was bringing on himself.
" 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

1 84 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
had an ancient sanctuary. Hosea speaks of the priests,
princes, and people of Israel as having been " a snare
on Mizpah." Jeremiah may have sanctioned the use
of this local temple thinking that Jehovah would " set
His name there " till Jerusalem was restored, even as He
had dwelt at Shiloh before He chose the City of David.
But to whatever shrine these pilgrims were journeying,
their errand should have made them sacrosanct to all
Jews. Ishmael's hypocrisy, treachery, and cruelty in
this matter go far, to justify Jeremiah's bitterest in
vectives against the princes of Judah.
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 mas
sacres 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

xxxix.-xli., Hi.] GEDALIAH 185
themselves. They were overtaken " by the great
waters that are in Gibeon," only a very short distance
from Mizpah.
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 x which
bore the name of Chimham, 2 the son of David's
1 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.
2 2 Sam. xix. 31-40.

186 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
generous friend BarziUai. So far the fugitives had
acted on their first impulse of dismay ; now they
paused to take breath, to make a more deliberate
survey of their situation, and to mature their plans for
the future.

CHAPTER XIV
THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT
xiii., xliii.
"They came into the land of Egypt, for they obeyed not the
voice of Jehovah." — Jer. xliii. 7.
THUS within a few days Jeremiah had experienced
one of those sudden and extreme changes of
fortune which are as common in his career as in a
sensational novel. Yesterday the guide, philosopher,
and friend of the governor of Judah, to-day sees him
once more a helpless prisoner in the hands of his old
enemies. To-morrow he is restored to liberty and
authority, and appealed to by the remnant of Israel
as the mouthpiece of Jehovah. Johanan ben Kareah
and all the captains of the forces, " from the least even
unto the greatest, came near " and besought Jeremiah
to pray unto " Jehovah thy God," " that Jehovah thy
God may show us the way wherein we may walk, and
the thing we may do." Jeremiah promised to make
intercession and to declare faithfully unto them what
soever Jehovah should reveal unto him.
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
187

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

it be good or evil, that it may be well with us, when
we obey the voice of Jehovah our God."
The prophet returned no hasty answer to this
solemn appeal. As in his controversy with Hananiah,
he refrained from at once announcing his own judg
ment 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 : — " If you will still abide in this land,
I will build you and not pull you down,
I will plant you and not pluck you up."
The words of Jeremiah's original commission seem
ever present to his mind : —
" For I repent Me of the evil I have done unto you.''
They need not flee from Judah as an accursed land ;
Jehovah had a new and gracious purpose concerning
them, and therefore : —
" Be not afraid of the king of Babylon,
Of whom ye are afraid;
Be not afraid of him — it is the utterance of Jehovah —
For I am with you,
To save you and deliver you out of his hand.
I will put kindness in his heart toward you,
And he shall deal kindly with you,
And restore you to your lands."
It was premature to conclude that Ishmael's crime

xiii., xliii.] THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT 189
finally disposed of the attempt to shape the remnant
into the nucleus of a new Israel. Hitherto Nebuchad
nezzar had shown himself willing to discriminate;
when he condemned the princes, he spared and
honoured Jeremiah, and the Chaldeans might still
be trusted to deal fairly and even generously with
the prophet's friends and deliverers. Moreover the
heart of Nebuchadnezzar, like that of all earthly
potentates, was in the hands of the King of Kings.
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?
" Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile :
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars."
But Jeremiah had neither sympathy nor patience
with such weakness. Moreover, now as often, valour
was the better part of discretion, and the boldest

190 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
course was the safest. The peace and security of
Egypt had been broken in upon again and again by
Asiatic invaders; only recently it had been tributary
to Nineveh, till the failing strength of Assyria enabled
the Pharaohs to recover their independence. Now that
Palestine had ceased to be the seat of war the sound
of Chaldean trumpets would soon be heard in the
valley of the Nile. By going down into Egypt, they
were leaving Judah where they might be safe under
the broad shield of Babylonian power, for a country
that would soon be afflicted by the very evils they
sought to escape : —
" If ye finally determine to go to Egypt to sojourn there,
The sword, which ye fear, shall overtake you there in the land
of Egypt,
The famine, whereof ye are afraid, shall follow hard after you
there in Egypt,
And there shall ye die."
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 : —
"As Mine anger and fury hath been poured forth upon the
inhabitants of Jerusalem,
So shall My fury be poured forth upon you, when ye shall
enter 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 before
hand 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

xiii., xliii.] THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT 191
confirmation before he gave his decision. Already
he could see the faces of his hearers hardening into
obstinate resistance or kindling into hot defiance ;
probably they broke out into interruptions which left
no doubt as to their purpose. With his usual prompt- '
ness, he turned upon them with fierce reproof and
denunciation : —
"Ye have been traitors to yourselves.
Ye sent me unto Jehovah your God, saying,
Pray for us unto Jehovah our God ;
According unto all that Jehovah our God shall say,
Declare unto us, and we will do it.
I have this day declared it unto you,
But ye have in no wise obeyed the voice of Jehovah your God.
Ye shall die by the sword, the famine, and the pestilence,
In the place whither ye desire to go to sojourn."
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.1 1 Cf. chapter on " Baruch."

192 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
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
formulae 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.1 Before the disastrous expedition to
Ramoth Gilead, Jehoshaphat insisted on consulting a
prophet of Jehovah, and then acted in the teeth of
his inspired warning.2
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
1 I Sam. xiii. 2 I Kings xxii.

xiii., xliii.] THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT 193
with them, He might "repent." They promised to
obey, because there was at any rate a chance that
God's commands would coincide with their own inten
tions. Butler's remark that men may be expected to
act " not only upon an even chance, but upon much
less," specially applies to such promises as the Jews
made to Jeremiah. Certain tacit conditions may always
be considered attached to a profession of willingness
to be guided by a friend's advice. Our newspapers
frequently record breaches of engagements that should
be as binding as that entered into by Johanan and his
friends, and they do so without any special comment.
For instance, the verdicts of arbitrators in trade disputes
have been too often ignored by the unsuccessful parties ;
and — to take a very different illustration — the most
unlimited professions of faith in the infallibility of the
Bible have sometimes gone along with a denial of its
plain teaching and a disregard of its imperative com
mands. While Shylock expected a favourable decision,
Portia was " a Daniel come to judgment " : his subse
quent opinion of her judicial qualities has not been
recorded. Those who have never refused or evaded
unwelcome demands made by an authority whom they
have promised to obey may cast the first stone at Johanan.
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 fore
runners 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. 13

194 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
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.1 Johanan's movements had been
too hurried to admit of his gathering in the inhabitants
of outlying districts.
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
1 Hi. 30.

xiii., xliii.] THE DESCENT INTO EGYPT 195
the men of Judah ; and say unto them, Thus saith
Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel : —
"Behold, I will send and take My servant Nebuchadnezzar king
of Babylon :
I will set his throne upon these stones which I have hid,
And he shall spread his state pavilion over them."
He would set up his royal tribunal, and decide the
fate of the conquered city and its inhabitants.
" He shall come and smite the land of Egypt ;
Such as are for death shall be put to death,
Such as are for captivity shall be sent into captivity,
Such as are for the sword shall be slain by the sword.
I wiU kindle a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt ;
He shall burn their temples, and carry them away captive :
He shall array himself with the land of Egypt,
As a shepherd putteth on his garment."
The whole country would become a mere mantle for his
dignity, a comparatively insignificant part of his vast pos
sessions. "He shall go forth from thence in peace."
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 in
glorious 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 : —
" He also shall break the obelisks of Heliopolis, in the land of Egypt "
(so styled to distinguish this Beth-Shemesh from Beth-
Shemesh in Palestine),
"And shall burn with fire the temples of the gods of Egypt."

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

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,1 or the stones
might be inserted under the front or side of a raised
platform, or possibly the symbolic act was only to be
described and not performed. Mr. Flinders Petrie
recently discovered at Tell Defenneh a large brickwork
pavement, with great stones buried underneath, which
he supposed might be those mentioned in our narrative.
He also found there another Ipossible relic of these
Jewish emigres in the shape of the ruins of a large
brick building of the twenty-sixth dynasty — to which
Pharaoh Hophra belonged — still known as the " Palace
of the Jew's Daughter." It is a natural and attractive
conjecture that this was the residence assigned to the
Jewish princesses whom Johanan carried with him
into Egypt.
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.2

1 So Orelli, in loco.
2 For the prophecv against Egypt and its fulfilment see further
chapter XVII.

CHAPTER XV
THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN
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. 1 8.
THE Jewish exiles in Egypt still retained a sem
blance of national life, and were bound together
by old religious ties. Accordingly we read that they
came together from their different settlements — from
Migdol and Tahpanhes on the north-eastern frontier,
from Noph or Memphis on the Nile south of the site of
Cairo, and from Pathros or Upper Egypt — to a " great
assembly," no doubt a religious festival. The list of
cities shows how widely the Jews were scattered
throughout Egypt.
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 com
mission. He once again confronted his fellow-country
men 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 con-
197

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

sequences which had come upon the Holy Land,
through the sins of its inhabitants : —
"Ye have seen 'all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem,
and upon all the cities of Judah.
Behold, this day they are an uninhabited waste,
Because of their wickedness which they wrought to provoke
Me to anger,
By going to burn incense and to serve other gods whom neither
they nor their fathers knew."
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 : —
" Howbeit I sent unto you all My servants the prophets.
Rising up early and sending them, saying,
Oh do not this abominable thing that I hate.
But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ears, so as to turn
from their evil,
That they should not burn incense to other gods.
Wherefore My fury and My anger was poured forth."
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

xliv.] THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN 199
worshippers to degrade Him to the level of Baal and
Moloch is ignored as worthless : and Jeremiah, like
Ezekiel, finds the root of the people's sin in their
desertion of Jehovah. Their real religion was revealed
by their heathenish superstitions. Every religious life
is woven of many diverse strands ; if the web as a whole
is rotten, the Great Taskmaster can take no account of
a few threads that have a form and profession of
soundness. Our Lord declared that He would utterly
ignore and repudiate men upon whose lips His name
was a too familiar word, who had preached and cast
out devils and done many mighty works in that Holy
Name. These were men who had worked iniquity, who
had combined promising externals with the worship Of
" other gods," Mammon or Belial or some other of
those evil powers, who place
" Within His sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations ; and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profane ;
And with their darkness dare affront His light."
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 pre
dictions. The most positive declarations of doom are
often warnings and not final sentences. Jehovah does

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

not turn a deaf ear to the penitent, and the doom is
executed not because He exacts the uttermost farthing,
but because the culprit perseveres in his uttermost
wrong. Lack of faith and loyalty at Bethlehem and
idolatry in Egypt were both symptoms of the same
deep-rooted disease.
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 them
selves 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
" Poured their spirits in their husbands' ears,
And chastised, with the valour of their tongues,
All that impeded "
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

xliv.] THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN 201
burn incense and offer libations to the Queen of
Heaven, exactly as we have said and as we and our
fathers and kings and princes did in the cities of Judah
and in the streets of Jerusalem." !
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 condemna
tion of their idolatry and of His power to punish :
they argued that these misfortunes were a divine
spretcv injuria formce, 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'
1 Combined from verses 16, 17, and 25.

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

sins, probably they were guilty of participation as well
as connivance. Nothing however but the utmost
determination and moral courage would have curbed
the exuberant religiosity of these devout ladies. The
prompt suggestion that, if they have done wrong, their
husbands are to blame for letting them have their own
way, is an instance of the meanness which results from
the worship of " other gods."
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." x
His audience were equally positive that the national

xv. 4.

xliv.] THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN 203
ruin was the vengeance of the Queen of Heaven.
Josiah had destroyed her altars, and now the wor
shippers of Istar had retaliated by razing the Temple
to the ground. A Jew, with the vague impression that
Istar was as real as Jehovah, might find it difficult to
decide between these conflicting theories.
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 Eng
land 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 premiss upon which his
reasoning rests. Faith is not deduced from, but dic
tates 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 : —
" Were no inner eye in us to tell,
Instructed by no inner sense,
The light of heaven from the dark of hell,
That light would want its evidence."
Jeremiah, therefore, is quite consistent in refraining
from argument and replying to his opponents by re
iterating 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

204 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
the prophets, he gave them a sign — Pharaoh Hophra
should be delivered into the hand of his enemies as
Zedekiah had been. Such an event would indeed be
an unmistakable sign of imminent calamity to the
fugitives who had sought the protection of the Egyptian
king against Nebuchadnezzar.1
We have reserved for separate treatment the ques
tions suggested by the references to the Queen of
Heaven.2 This divine name only occurs again in the
Old Testament in vii. 18, and we are startled, at first
sight, to discover that a cult about which all other
historians and prophets have been entirely silent is
described in these passages as an ancient and national
worship. It is even possible that the " great as
sembly " was a festival in her honour. We have
again to remind ourselves that the Old Testament is
an account of the progress of Revelation and not a
History of Israel. Probably the true explanation is
that given by Kuenen. The prophets do not, as a
rule, speak of the details of false worship ; they use the
generic " Baal " and the collective " other gods." Even
in this chapter Jeremiah begins by speaking of " other
gods," and only uses the term " Queen of Heaven "
when he quotes the reply made to him by the Jews.
Similarly when Ezekiel goes into detail concerning

1 As to the fulfilment of this prophecy see Chap. XVII.
2 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, mTO being written
defectively for D^XJlpj 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.

xliv.] THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN 205
idolatry1 he mentions cults and ritual2 which do not
occur elsewhere in the Old Testament. The prophets
were little inclined to discriminate between different
forms of idolatry, just as the average churchman is
quite indifferent to the distinctions of the various
Nonconformist bodies, which are to him simply " dis
senters." One might read many volumes of Anglican
sermons and even some English Church History
without meeting with the term Unitarian.
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 Cozli, 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 a€Kr\vai 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 in connection with the worship of the sun.3
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

1 Ezek. viii.
2 The worship of Tammuz and of " creeping things and abominable
beasts " etc. 3 Kuenen, 208.

206 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
ancient deities. Schrader1 finds our goddess in the
Atar-samain (Athar-Astarte) who is mentioned in the
Assyrian ascriptions as worshipped by a North Arabian
tribe of Kedarenes. Possibly too the Assyrian Istar is
called Queen of Heaven.2
Istar, however, is connected with the moon as well
as with the planet Venus.3 For the present there
fore we must be content to leave the matter an open
question,4 but any day some new discovery may solve
the problem. Meanwhile it is interesting to notice
how little religious ideas and practices are affected by
differences in profession. " St. Isaac the Great, of
Antioch, who died about a.d. 460, tells us that the
Christian ladies of Syria — whom he speaks of very
ungallantly as " fools " — used to worship the planet
Venus from the roofs of their houses, in the hope that
she would bestow upon them some portion of her own
brightness and beauty. This experience naturally led
St. Isaac to interpret the Queen of Heaven as the
luminary which his countrywomen venerated.5
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 denuncia
tions at a recalcitrant audience. Vagrant fancy, hold
ing 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

1 Schrader (Whitehouse's translation), ii. 207.
2 Kuenen, 206.
3 Sayce, Higher Criticism, etc., 80.
4 So Giesebrecht on vii. 18. Kuenen argues for the identification
of the Queen of Heaven with the planet Venus.
6 Kuenen, 211.

xliv.] THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN 207
to Alexandria by Alexander the Great ; that he and
Baruch returned to Judea or went to Babylon and
died in peace ; that he returned to Jerusalem and
lived there three hundred years, — and other such
legends. As has been said concerning the Apocryphal
Gospels, these narratives serve as a foil to the his
tory they are meant to supplement : they remind us
of the sequels of great novels written by inferior
pens, or of attempts made by clumsy mechanics to con
vert a bust by some inspired sculptor into a full-length
statue. 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 be
fore 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 Deuteronomy xxxiv. to imply that no eye
was permitted to behold Moses in the hour of death,
we ~have in this incident a type of the reticence of
Scripture on such matters. Moreover a moment's
reflection reminds us that the inspired method is in
accordance with the better instincts of our nature. A
death in opening manhood, or the death of a soldier in
battle or of a martyr at the stake, rivets our attention ;
but when men die in a good old age, we dwell less
on their declining years than on the achievements of
their prime. We all remember the martyrdoms of
Huss and Latimer, but how many of those in whose

208 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
mouths Calvin and Luther are familiar as household
words know how those great Reformers died ?
There comes a time when we may apply to the aged
saint the words of Browning's Death in the Desert : —
"So is myself withdrawn into my depths,
The soul retreated from the perished brain
Whence it was wont to feel and use the world
Through these dull members, done with long ago."
And the poet's comparison of this soul to
" A stick once fire from end to end ;
Now, ashes save the tip that holds a spark."
Love craves to watch to the last, because the spark may
"Run back, spread itself
A little where the fire was. . . .
And we would not lose
The last of what might happen on his face."
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 " Second childishness, and mere oblivion ;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.''

BOOK II
PROPHECIES CONCERNING FOREIGN
NATIONS

209 14

CHAPTER XVI
JEHOVAH AND THE NATIONS
xxv. 15-38.
"Jehovah hath a controversy with the nations." — Jer. xxv. 31.
S the son of a king only learns very gradually that

A

his father's authority and activity extend beyond
the family and the household, so Israel in its childhood
thought of Jehovah as exclusively concerned with
itself. 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 inter
national relations, as our conception of the God of
Nature has expanded with the successive discoveries
of science. Hence, for the most part, the prophets

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

devote special attention to the concerns of Gentile
peoples. Hosea, Micah, Haggai, Zechariah, and
Malachi are partial exceptions. Some of the minor
prophets have for their main subject the doom of a
heathen empire. Jonah and Nahum deal with Nineveh,
Habbakuk with Chaldea, and Edom is specially
honoured by being almost the sole object of the
denunciations of Obadiah. Daniel also deals with the
fate of the kingdoms of the world, but in the Apocalyptic
fashion of the Pseudepigrapha. Jewish criticism rightly
declined to recognise this book as prophetic, and re
legated it to the latest collection of canonical scriptures.
Each of the other prophetical books contains a longer
or shorter series of utterances concerning the neigh
bours 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 con
cerned with Egypt and Ethiopia, Assyria and Babylon.1
In very short books like Joel and Zephaniah we could
not expect exhaustive treatment of this subject. Yet
even these prophets deal with the fortunes of the
Gentiles : Joel, variously held one of the latest or one
of the earliest of the canonical books, pronounces a
divine judgment on Tyre and Sidon and the Philistines,
on Egypt and Edom ; and Zephaniah, an elder con-
1 Doubts however have been raised as to whether any of the
sections about Babylon are by Isaiah himself.

xxv. 15-38.] JEHOVAH AND THE NATIONS 213
temporary of Jeremiah, devotes sections to the Philis
tines, Moab and Ammon, Ethiopia and Assyria.
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.1 He dwells with
repeated emphasis on Egypt, and Arabia is represented
by Kedar and Hazor. In one section the prophet
travels into what must have seemed to his con
temporaries the very far East, as far as Elam. On the
other hand, he is comparatively silent about Tyre, in
which Joel, Amos, the Book of Isaiah,2 and above all
Ezekiel display a lively interest. Nebuchadnezzar's
campaigns were directed against Tyre as much as
against Jerusalem ; and Ezekiel, living in Chaldea,
would have attention forcibly directed to the Phoenician
capital, at a time when Jeremiah was absorbed in the
fortunes of Zion.
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 : —
" Thus saith unto me Jehovah, the God of Israel :
Take at My hand this cup of the wine of fury,
And make all the nations, to whom I send thee, drink it.
They shall drink, and reel to and fro, and be mad,
Because of the sword that I will send among them."

1 Doubts have been expressed as to the genuineness of the
Damascus prophecy.
2 The Isaianio authorship of this prophecy (Isa. xxiii.) is rejected
by very many critics.

214 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
First and foremost of these nations, pre-eminent in
punishment as in privilege, stand " Jerusalem and the
cities of Judah, with its kings aiid princes."
This bad eminence is a necessary application of the
principle laid down by Amos x : —
" You only have I known of all the families of the earth :
Therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities."
But as Jeremiah says later on, addressing the Gentile
nations, —
" I begin to work evil at the city which is called by My
name.
Should ye go scot-free ? Ye shall not go scot-free."
And the prophet puts the cup of God's fury to their -
lips also, and amongst them, Egypt, the bete 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 popu
lation of Egypt."2 Then follows, in epic fashion, a
catalogue of " all the nations " as Jeremiah knew them :
" All the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the
land of the Philistines ; Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and
the remnant of Ashdod ; 3 Edom, Moab, and the
Ammonites ; all the kings 4 of Tyre, all the kings of
Zidon, and the kings of their colonies6 beyond the
sea ; Dedan and Tema and Buz, and all that have the

1 Amos iii. 2.
2 So Giesebrecht, Orelli, etc.
3 Psammetichus had recently taken Ashdod, after a continuous
siege of twenty-nine years.
4 The plural may refer to dependent chiefs or may be used for the
sake of symmetry.
5 Lit. " the coasts " (i.e. islands and coastland) where the Phce-
nicians had planted their colonies,

xxv 15-38.] JEHOVAH AND THE NATIONS 215
corners of their hair polled ; ' and all the kings of
Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed populations
that dwell in the desert ; all the kings of Zimri, all
the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes."
Jeremiah's definite geographical information is appar
ently exhausted, but he adds by way of summary
and conclusion : " And all the kings of the north, far
and near, one after the other ; and all the kingdoms
of the world, which are on the face of the earth."
There is one notable omission in the list. Nebu
chadnezzar, the servant of Jehovah,2 was the divinely
appointed scourge .of Judah and its neighbours and
allies. Elsewhere 3 the nations are exhorted to submit
to him, and here apparently Chaldea is exempted
from the general doom, just as Ezekiel passes no
formal sentence on Babylon. It is true that "all
the kingdoms of the earth" would naturally include
Babylon, possibly were even intended to do so. But
the Jews were not long content with so veiled a
reference to their conquerors and oppressors. Some
patriotic scribe added the explanatory note, " And the
king of Sheshach (i.e.. Babylon) shall drink after them." "
Sheshach is obtained from Babel by the cypher
'Athbash, according to which an alphabet is written out
and a reversed alphabet written out underneath it, and
the letters of the lower row used for those of the upper
and vice versa. Thus
Aleph B . . . . K L
T SH . . . . L K
1 See on xlix. 28-32.
2 xxv. 9.
3 xxvii. 8.
4 Sheshach (Sheshakh) for Babel also occurs in li. 41. This
explanatory note is omitted by LXX.

2i6 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

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 Phcenician 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.1
Thus Jeremiah's world is the district constantly shown
in Scripture atlases in a map comprising the scenes of
Old Testament history, Egypt, Arabia, and Western
Asia, south of a line from the north-east corner of
the Mediterranean to the southern end of the Caspian
Sea, and west of a line from the latter point to the
northern end of the Persian Gulf. How much of
history has been crowded into this narrow area ! Here
science, art, and literature won those primitive triumphs
which no subsequent achievements could surpass or
even equal. Here, perhaps for the first time, men
tasted the Dead Sea apples of civilisation, and learnt
how little accumulated wealth and national splendour
can do for the welfare of the masses. Here was Eden,
where God walked in the cool of the day to commune
with man ; and here also were many Mount Moriahs,
where man gave his firstborn for his transgression,
the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul, and no
angel voice stayed his hand.
And now glance at any modern map and see for
how little Jeremiah's world counts among the great
1 As to Damascus cf. note on p. 213,

xxv. 15-38.] JEHOVAH AND THE NATIONS 217
Powers of the nineteenth century. Egypt indeed is
a bone of contention between European states, but
how often does a daily paper remind its readers of the
existence of Syria or Mesopotamia? We may apply
to this ancient world the title that Byron gave to
Rome, " Lone mother of dead empires," and call it : —
" The desert, where we steer
Stumbling o'er recollections."
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 : —
"Troy shall sink in fire,
And Priam's city with himself expire."
The epitaphs of ancient civilisations are no mere
matters of archaeology ; 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 : —
" Howl, ye shepherds, and cry !
Roll yourselves in the dust, ye bell-wethers !
The time has fully come for you to be slaughtered.
I will cast you down with a crash, like a vase of porcelain.1
1 This line is somewhat paraphrased. Lit. " I will shatter you,
and ye shall fall like an ornamental vessel " (KELI HEMDA).

218 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Ruin hath overtaken the refuge of the shepherds,
And the way of escape of the bell-wethers."
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 ful
filled. 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 ; 1 if they were, we should
not hear so much of Judah's sin and Judah's punish
ment. He applied to heathen states as he did to his
own the divine standard of national righteousness, and
they too were found wanting. All history confirms
Jeremiah's judgment. This brings us to our second
point. Christian thinkers have been engrossed in
the evidential aspect of these national catastrophes.
They served to fulfil prophecy, and therefore the squalor
of Egypt and the ruins of Assyria to-day have seemed
to make our way of salvation more safe and certain.
But God did not merely sacrifice these holocausts of
men and nations to the perennial craving of feeble
faith for signs. Their fate must of necessity illustrate
His justice and wisdom and love. Jeremiah tells us
plainly that Judah and its neighbours had filled up
the measure of their iniquity before they were called
upon to drink the cup of wrath ; national sin justifies
God's judgments. Yet these very facts of the moral
failure and decadence of human societies perplex and
startle us. Individuals grow old and feeble and die,
but saints and heroes do not become slaves of vice and
1 Tacitus, History, v. 5.

xxv. 15-38.] JEHOVAH AND THE NATIONS 219
sin in their last days. The glory of their prime is
not buried in a dishonoured grave. Nay rather, when
all else fails, the beauty of holiness grows more pure
and radiant. But of what nation could we say : —
" Let me die the death of the righteous,
Let my last end be like his"?
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.

CHAPTER XVII
EGYPT
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.
THE kings of Egypt with whom Jeremiah was
contemporary — Psammetichus II. , Pharaoh Necho,
and Pharaoh Hophra — belonged to the twenty-sixth
dynasty. When growing distress at home compelled
Assyria to loose her hold on her distant dependencies,
Egypt still retained something of her former vigorous
elasticity. In the rebound from subjection under the
heavy hand of Sennacherib, she resumed her ancient
forms of life and government. She regained her unity
and independence, and posed afresh as an equal rival
with Chaldea for the supremacy of Western Asia. At
home there was a renascence of art and literature, and,
as of old, the wealth and devotion of powerful monarchs
restored the ancient temples and erected new shrines
of their own.
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 Constan
tine prolonged the decline of the Roman Empire, the
230

xliii. 8-13, xliv. 30, xlvi.] EGYPT

rally of a strong constitution in the grip of mortal
disease. These latter-day Pharaohs failed ignomini-
ously in their attempts to recover the Syrian dominion
of the Thothmes and Rameses ; and, like the Roman
Empire in its last centuries, the Egypt of the twenty-
sixth dynasty surrendered itself to Greek influence
and hired foreign mercenaries to fight its battles.
The new art and literature were tainted by pedantic
archaism. According to Brugsch,1 " Even to the
newly created dignities and titles, the return to ancient
times had become the general watchword. . . . The
stone door-posts of this age reveal the old Memphian
style of art, mirrored in its modern reflection after the
lapse of four thousand years." Similarly Meyer z tells
us that apparently the Egyptian state was reconstituted
on the basis of a religious revival, somewhat in the
fashion of the establishment of Deuteronomy by Josiah.
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. Accord
ing to Brugsch,3 in the age called the Egyptian Renas
cence the old Egyptian theology was adulterated with
Graeco-Asiatic elements — demons and genii of whom
the older faith and its purer doctrine had scarcely an
idea ; exorcisms became a special science, and are
favourite themes for the inscriptions of this period.
1 Second edition, ii. 291, 292.
2 Meyer, Geschichte des alten Agypten, 371, 373.
¦ ii. 293.

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

Thus, amid many differences, there are also to be found
striking resemblances between the religious movements
of the period in Egypt and amongst the Jews, and
corresponding difficulties in determining the dates of
Egyptian inscriptions and of sections of the Old
Testament. -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 inter
national 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 friendli
ness which only masks his bitter sarcasm, he invites
the Egyptians to take the field : —
"Prepare buckler and shield, and draw near to battle.
Harness the horses to the chariots, mount the chargers, stand
forth armed cap-a-pie for battle;
Furbish the spears, put on the coats of mail."
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-

xliii. 8-13, xliv. 30, xlvi.] EGYPT 223
stricken fugitives, and pours upon them the torrent of
his irony : —
"How is it that I behold this? These heroes are dismayed
and have turned their backs;
Their warriors have been beaten down ;
They flee apace, and do not look behind them :
Terror on every side — is the utterance of Jehovah."
Then irony passes into explicit malediction : —
"Let not the swift flee away, nor the warrior escape;
Away northward, they stumble and fall by the river Euphrates."
Then, in a new strophe, Jeremiah again recurs in
imagination to the proud march of the countless hosts
of Egypt :—
"Who is this that riseth up like the Nile,
Whose waters toss themselves Hke the rivers?
Egypt riseth up Hke the Nile,
His waters toss themselves like the rivers.
And he saith, I will go up and cover the land "
(like the Nile in flood);
" I will destroy the cities and their inhabitants "
(and, above all other cities, Babylon).
Again the prophet urges them on with ironical
encouragement : —
"Go up, ye horses; rage, ye chariots;
Ethiopians and Libyans that handle the shield,
Lydians that handle and bend the bow"
(the tributaries and mercenaries of Egypt).
Then, as before, he speaks plainly of coming disaster :
" That day is a day of vengeance for the Lord Jehovah Sabaoth,
whereon He will avenge Him of His adversaries "
(a day of vengeance upon Pharaoh Necho for Megiddo
and Josiah).

224 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
"The sword shall devour and be sated, and drink its fill of
their blood :
For the Lord Jehovah Sabaoth hath a sacrifice in the northern
land, by the river Euphrates."
In a final strophe, the prophet turns to the land left
bereaved and defenceless by the defeat at Carchemish : —
" Go up to Gilead and get thee . balm, O virgin daughter of
Egypt :
In vain dost thou multiply medicines ; thou canst not be
healed.
The nations have heard of thy shame, the earth is full of
thy cry :
For warrior stumbles against warrior ; they fall both together."
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 : —
"Declare in Egypt, proclaim in Migdol, proclaim in Noph and
Tahpanhes :
Say ye, Take thy stand and be ready, for the sword hath
devoured round about thee.

xliii. 8-13, xliv. 30, xlvi.] EGYPT 225
Why hath Apis ' fled and thy calf not stood ? Because
Jehovah overthrew it."
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.
' He maketh many to stumble ; they fall one against another.
Then they say, Arise, and let us return to our own people
and to our native land, before the oppressing sword."
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.
" Give unto Pharaoh king of Egypt the name '' Crash ; he hath
let the appointed time pass by."
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 Nebuchad
nezzar on favourable terms.
" As I live, is the utterance of the King, whose name is Jehovah
Sabaoth,
One shall come like Tabor among the mountains and like
Carmel by the sea."
It was not necessary to name this terrible invader;
it could be no other than Nebuchadnezzar.
1 Giesebrecht, with LXX. -
2 Giesebrecht, Orelli, Kautzsch, with LXX., Syr., and Vulg., by an
alteration of the pointing. is

226 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
"Get thee gear for captivity, O daughter of Egypt, that dwellest
in thine own land :
For Noph shall become a desolation, and shall be burnt up
and left without inhabitants.
Egypt is a very fair heifer, but destruction is come upon her
from the north."
This tempest shattered the Greek phalanx in which
Pharaoh trusted : —
"Even her mercenaries in the midst of her are like calves of
the stall ;
Even they have -turned and fled together, they have not stood :
For their day of calamity hath come upon them, their day
of reckoning."
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 con
fusion ; the disasters that fell thick upon Egypt crowd
into his vision without order or even coherence. Now
he turns again to Egypt herself: —
" Her voice goeth forth like the (low hissing of) the serpent ;
For they come upon her with a mighty army, and with axes
like woodcutters."
A like fate is predicted in Isaiah xxix. 4 for " Ariel,
the city where David dwelt " : —
" Thou shalt be brought low and speak from the ground ;
Thou shalt speak with a low voice out of the dust ;
Thy voice shall come from the ground, like that of a familiar
spirit,
And thou shalt speak in a whisper from the dust."
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

xliii. 8-13, xliv. 30, xlvi.] EGYPT 227
dominions, stretching far up the Nile, were surely vast
enough to afford her shelter somewhere ; but no ! the
" woodcutters " are too many and too mighty for her : —
"They cut down her forest — it is the utterance of Jehovah—
for it is impenetrable;
For they are more than the locusts, and are innumerable."
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 inde
pendent empire.
" The daughter of Egypt is put to shame ; she is delivered into
the hand of the northern people."
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 : —
" Thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel :
Behold, I will visit Amon of No,
And Pharaoh, and Egypt, and all her gods and kings,
Even Pharaoh and all who trust in him,"
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 pil
grimage 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,1
1 LXX. omits verse 26. Verses 27, 28 = xxx. 10, 1 1, and probably
are an insertion here.

228 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
from parallel passages, the more definite but sufficiently
obvious statement that Nebuchadnezzar and his servants
were to be the instruments of the Divine visitation.
A further addition is in striking contrast to the
sweeping statements of Jeremiah i —
" Afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old."
Similarly, Ezekiel foretold a restoration for Egypt : —
" At the end of forty years, I will gather the Egyp
tians, 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." x
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." 2
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,3 Apries (Hophra) was de-
1 Ezek. xxix. 13-15. 2 Isa. xix. 25. 3 Herodotus, II. clxix.

xliii. 8-13, xliv. 30, xlvi.] EGYPT 229
feated and imprisoned by his successor Amasis, after
wards delivered up by him to the people of Egypt,
who forthwith strangled their former king. This event
would be an exact fulfilment of the words, "I will
give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of
his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his
life," 1 if it were not evident from parallel passages 2
that the Book of Jeremiah intends Nebuchadnezzar to
be the enemy into% whose hands Pharaoh is to be
delivered. But Herodotus is entirely silent as to the
relations of Egypt and Babylon during this period ; for
instance, he mentions the victory of Pharaoh Necho at
Megiddo — which he miscalls Magdolium — but not his
defeat at Carchemish. Hence his silence as to Chaldean
conquests in Egypt has little weight. Even the his
torian's explicit statement as to the death of Apries
might be reconciled with his defeat and capture by
Nebuchadnezzar, if we knew all the facts. At present,
however, the inscriptions do little to fill the gap left
by the Greek historian ; there are, however, references
which seem to establish two invasions of Egypt by the
Chaldean king, one of which fell in the reign of Pharaoh
Hophra. But the spiritual lessons of this and the
following prophecies concerning the nations are not
dependent on the spade of the excavator or the skill of
the decipherers of hieroglyphics and cuneiform script ;
whatever their relation may be to the details of sub
sequent historical events, they remain as monuments
of the inspired insight of the prophet into the character
and destiny alike of great empires and petty states.
They assert the Divine government of the nations, and
the subordination of all history to the coming of the
Kingdom of God. 1 xliv. 30, "' xlvi. 25.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE PHILISTINES
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.
ACCORDING to the title placed at the head of
this prophecy, it was uttered " before Pharaoh
smote Gaza." The Pharaoh is evidently Pharaoh Necho,
and this capture of Gaza was one of the incidents of
the campaign which opened with the victory at
Megiddo and concluded so disastrously at Carchemish.
Our first impulse is to look for some connection
between this incident and the contents of the prophecy :
possibly the editor who prefixed the heading may have
understood by the northern enerny Pharaoh Necho on
his return from Carchemish ; but would Jeremiah have
described a defeated army thus ?
" Behold, waters rise out of the north, and become an over
flowing torrent;
They overflow the land, and all that is therein, the city and
its inhabitants.
Men cry out, and all the inhabitants of the land howl,
At the sound of the stamping of the hoofs of his stallions,
At the rattling of his chariots and the rumbling of his wheels."
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
230

xlvii.] THE PHILISTINES 231
instrument of Jehovah's supreme purpose. The utter
terror caused by the Chaldean advance is expressed
by a striking figure : —
"The fathers look not back to their children for slackness of
hands."
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 : —
" Because of the day that cometh for the spoiling of all the Philis
tines,
For cutting off every ally that remaineth unto Tyre and Zidon :
For Jehovah spoileth the Philistines, the remnant of the coast
of Caphtor.1
Baldness cometh upon Gaza ; Ashkelon is destroyed :
O remnant of the Anakini,2 how long wilt thou cut thyself?"
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 Nebuchad
nezzar's expedition was partly directed against these
cities, with which the Philistines had evidently been
allied. The Chaldean king would hasten the sub
mission of the Phoenicians, 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
1 Referring to their ancient immigration from Caphtor, probably
Crete. 2 Kautzsch, Giesebrecht, with LXX., reading 'Nqm for the Masoretic
'Mqm; Eng. Vers., "their valley."

232 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
the names of two of these cities may be given by way
of paronomasia in the text : Ashdod may be suggested
by the double reference to the spoiling and the spoiler,
Shdod and Shoded; Gath may be hinted at by the
word used for the mutilation practised by mourners,
Tithgoddadi, and by the mention of the Anakim, who
are connected with Gath, Ashdod, and Gaza in
Joshua xi. 22.
As Jeremiah contemplates this fresh array of victims
of Chaldean cruelty, he is moved to protest against
the weary monotony of ruin : —
"O sword of Jehovah, how long will it be ere thou be quiet?
Put up thyself into thy scabbard ; rest, and be still."
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 over
whelmed 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.
" How can it be quiet, seeing that Jehovah hath given it a
charge ?
Against Ashkelon and against the sea-shore, there hath He
appointed it."
Yet Ashkelon survived to be a stronghold of the
Crusaders, and Gaza to be captured by Alexander

xlvii.] THE PHILISTINES 233
and even by Napoleon. Jehovah has other instru
ments besides His devastating sword ; the victorious
endurance and recuperative vitality of men and nations
also come from Him.
" Come, and let us return unto Jehovah :
For He hath torn, and He will heal us ;
He hath smitten, and He will bind us up." '
1 Hosea vi. 1.

CHAPTER XIX
MOAB
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.
THE prophets show a very keen interest in Moab.
With the exception of the very short Book of
Joel, all the prophets who deal in detail with foreign
nations devote sections to Moab. The unusual length
of such sections in Isaiah and Jeremiah is not the
only resemblance between the utterances of these two
prophets concerning Moab. There are many parallels x
of idea and expression, which probably indicate the in
fluence of the elder prophet upon his successor ; unless
indeed both of them adapted some popular poem which
was early current in Judah.2
It is easy to understand why the Jewish Scriptures
1 E.g. xlviii. 5, " For by the ascent of Luhith with continual weep
ing shall they go up ; for in going down of Horonaim they have heard
the distress of the cry of destruction," is almost identical with
Isa. xv. 5. Cf. also xlviii. 29-34 with Isa. xv. 4, xvi. 6-1 1.
2 Verse 47 with the subscription, "Thus far is the judgment of
Moab," is wanting in the LXX. 234

xlviii.] MOAB 235
should have much to say about Moab, just as the sole
surviving fragment of Moabite literature is chiefly
occupied with Israel. These two Terahite tribes — the
children of Jacob and the children of Lot — had dwelt
side by side for centuries, like the Scotch and English
borderers before the accession of James I. They had
experienced many alternations of enmity and friendship,
and had shared complex interests, common and conflict
ing, after the manner of neighbours who are also kins
men. Each in its turn had oppressed the other ; and
Moab had been the tributary of the Israelite monarchy till
the victorious arms of Mesha had achieved independence
for his people and firmly established their dominion
over the debatable frontier lands. There are traces,
too, of more kindly relations : the House of David
reckoned Ruth the Moabitess amongst its ancestors,
and Jesse, like Elimelech and Naomi, had taken refuge
in Moab.
Accordingly this prophecy concerning Moab, in both
its editions, frequently strikes a note of sympathetic
lamentation and almost becomes a dirge.
"Therefore will I howl for Moab;
Yea, for all Moab will I cry out.
For the men of Kir-heres shall they mourn.
With more than the weeping of Jazer
Will I weep for thee, O vine of Sibmah,
Therefore mine heart soundeth like pipes for Moab,
Mine heart soundeth like pipes for the men of Kir-heres."
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 desfruc-

236 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
tion, fire and sword and captivity, dismay and wild
abandonment of wailing.
" ChemoslT shall go forth into captivity, his priests and his princes
together.
Every head is bald, and every beard clipped ;
Upon all the hands are cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth.
On all the housetops and in all the streets of Moab there is
everywhere lamentation ;
For I have broken Moab like a useless vessel — it is the utter
ance of Jehovah.
How is it broken down ! Howl ye ! Be thou ashamed !
How hath Moab turned the back !
All the^ neighbours shall laugh-' and shudder at Moab.
The heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day
Shall be like the heart of 1 woman in her pangs."
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 : —
"Cursed be 'he that doeth the work of Jehovah negligently,
Cursed be he that stinteth his sword of blood."
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 x a
1 The exact date of the prophecy is uncertain, but it must have
been written during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar,

xlviii.] MOAB 237

servant of Jehovah was at hand who would be careful
not to incur any curse for stinting his sword of blood.
We shrink from what seems to us the prophet's brutal
assertion that relentless and indiscriminate slaughter
is sometimes the service which man is called upon to
render to God. Such sentiment is for the most part
worthless and unreal ; it does not save us from
epidemics of war fever, and is at once ignored under
the stress of horrors like the Indian Mutiny. There
is no true comfort in trying to persuade ourselves that
the most awful events of history lie outside of the
Divine purpose, or in forgetting that the human scourges
of their kind do the work that God has assigned to
them. In this inventory, as it were, of the ruin of Moab
our attention is arrested by the constant and de
tailed 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 ; J but
Jeremiah's prophecy is a veritable Domesday Book of
Moab. With his epic fondness for lists of sonorous
names — after the manner of Homer's catalogue of the
ships — he enumerates Nebo, Kiriathaim, Heshbon, and
Horonaim, city after city, till he completes a tale of no
fewer than twenty-six,2 and then summarises the rest
as " all the cities of the land of Moab, far and near."
Eight of these cities are mentioned in Joshua 3 as part
of the inheritance of Reuben and Gad. Another,
Bozrah, is usually spoken of as a city of Edom.*
The Moabite Stone explains the occurrence of
1 Ezek. xxv. 9.
2 Some of the names, however, may be variants.
3 Josh. xiii. 15-28 (possibly on JE. basis).
4 xlix. 13, possibly this is not the Edomite Bozrah.

238 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Reubenite cities in these lists. It tells us how Mesha
took Nebo, Jahaz, and Horonaim from Israel. Possibly
in this period of conquest Bozrah became tributary to
Moab, without ceasing to be an Edomite city. This
extension of territory and multiplication of towns points
to an era of power and prosperity, of which there are
other indications in this chapter. " We are mighty and
valiant for war," said the Moabites. When Moab fell
"there was broken a mighty sceptre and a glorious
staff." Other verses imply the fertility of the land and
the abundance of its vintage.
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,1 so Moab in its prosperity was puffed up with
unholy pride. Even in Isaiah's time this was the
besetting sin of Moab ; he says in an indictment which
Jeremiah repeats almost word for word : —
" We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud,
Even of his arrogancy .and his pride and his wrath." 2
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
1 Deut. xxxii. 15. 2 Isa. xvi. 6.

xlviii.] MOAB 239
Moab, that he is very proud (GE'EH) ; his loftiness
(GABHeHO), and his pride (Ge'ONO), and his
proudfulness (GA'aWATHO)."
Jeremiah dwells upon this theme : —
"Moab shall be destroyed from being a people,
Because he hath magnified himself against Jehovah."
Zephaniah bears like testimony J : —
" This shall they have for their pride,
Because they have been insolent, and have magnified themselves
Against the people of Jehovah Sabaoth."
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 —
"Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits,"
and apparently suggests that ruin and captivity were
necessary elements in the national discipline of Moab : — ¦¦
" Moab hath been undisturbed from his youth ;
He hath settled on his lees;
He hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel ;
He hath not gone into captivity :
Therefore his taste remaineth in him,
His scent is not changed.

240 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Wherefore, behold, the days come — it is the utterance of
Jehovah —
That I will send men unto him that shall tilt him up ;
They shall empty his vessels and break his ' bottles."
As the chapter, in its present form, concludes with a
note —
" I will bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days — it
is the utterance of Jehovah " —
we gather that even this rough handling was dis
ciplinary ; at any rate, the former lack of such vicissi
tudes 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, —
" I have refined thee, but not as silver ;
I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." 2
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

1 Kautzsch, Giesebrecht, with LXX.; A.V., R.V., with Hebrew
Text, "their bottles." 2 Isa. xlviii 10.

xlviii.] MOAB 241
blamed Josiah because he would not listen to the advice
and criticism of Pharaoh Necho. There may be warn
ings which we should do well to heed, even in the
acrimony of foreign journalists.
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 dis
cipline, 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,
" Lo ! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos 1
'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,
Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month
One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape."
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.

16

CHAPTER XX
AMMON
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. I
THE relations of Israel with Ammon were similar
but less intimate than they were with his twin-
brother Moab. Hence this prophecy is, mutatis mutan
dis, an abridgment of that concerning Moab. As Moab
was charged with magnifying himself against Jehovah,
and was found to be occupying cities which Reuben
claimed as its inheritance, so Ammon had presumed to
take possession of the Gadite cities, whose inhabitants
had been carried away captive by the Assyrians. Here
again the prophet enumerates Heshbon, Ai, Rabbah,
and the dependent towns, " the daughters of Rabbah."
Only in the territory of this half-nomadic people the
cities are naturally not so numerous as in Moab ; and
Jeremiah mentions also the fertile valleys wherein
the Ammonites gloried. The familiar doom of ruin
and captivity is pronounced against city and country
and all the treasures of Ammon ; Moloch,1 like
Chemosh, must go into captivity with his priests and
princes. This prophecy also concludes with a promise
of restoration : —
"Afterward I will bring again the captivity of the children of
Ammon — it is the utterance of Jehovah."
1 xlix. 3 : A. V., " their king " ; R.V., " Malcam," which here and in
verse I is a form of Moloch. 242

CHAPTER XXI
EDOM
xlix. 7-22.
" Bozrah shall become an astonishment, » reproach, a. waste, and
a curse." — Jer. xlix. 13.
THE prophecy concerning Edom is not formulated
along the same line as those which deal with the
the twin children of Lot, Moab and Ammon. Edom
was not merely the cousin, but the brother of Israel.
His history, his character and conduct, had marked
peculiarities, which received special treatment. Edom
had not only intimate relations with Israel as a whole,
but was also bound by exceptionally close ties to the
Southern Kingdom. The Edomite clan Kenaz had been
incorporated in the tribe of Judah ; x and when Israel
broke up into two states, Edom was the one tributary
which was retained or reconquered by the House of
David, and continued subject to Judah till the reign of
Jehoram ben Jehoshaphat.2
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
1 Cf. the designation of Caleb "ben Jephunneh the Kenizzite,"
Num. xxxii. 12, etc., with the genealogies which trace the descent
of Kenaz to Esau, Gen. xxxvi. 1 1, etc. Cf. also Expositor's Bible,
Chronicles, 2 Cf. I Kings xxii. 47 with 2 Kings viii. 20.
243

244 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
 w —
of Edom, and regarded the hostility of Mount Seir to
its former masters as ingratitude and treachery. In
moments of hot indignation against the manifold sins
of Judah Jeremiah might have announced with great
vehemence that Judah should be made a " reproach and
a proverb " ; but when, as Obadiah tells us, the Edomites
stood gazing with eager curiosity on the destruction
of Jerusalem, and rejoiced and exulted in the distress
of the Jews, and even laid hands on their substance
in the day of their calamity, and occupied the roads
to catch fugitives and deliver them up to the Chal
deans,1 then the patriotic fervour of the prophet broke
out against Edom. Like Moab and Ammon, he was
puffed up with pride, and deluded by baseless con
fidence into a false security. These hardy mountaineers
trusted in their reckless courage and in the strength of
their inaccessible mountain fastnesses.
" Men shall shudder at thy fate,2 the pride of thy heart hath
deceived thee,
O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest
the height of the hill :
Though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle,3
I will bring thee down from thence — it is the utterance of Jehovah."
Pliny speaks of the Edomite capital as "oppidum
1 Obadiah 11-15. The difference between A. V. and R.V. is more
apparent than real. The prohibition which R.V. gives must have
been based on experience. The short prophecy of Obadiah has very
much in common with this section of Jeremiah : Obad. 1-6, 8, are
almost identical with Jer. xlix. 14-16, 9, ioa, 7. The relation of
the two passages is matter of controversy, but probably both use a
common original. Cf. Driver's Introduction on Obadiah.
2 Lit. " thy terror," i.e. the terror inspired by thy fate. A.V., R.V.,
" thy tenibleness," 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.
3 Obad. 4 : "Though thou set thy. nest among the stars."

xlix. 7-22.] EDOM 245
circumdatum montibus inaccessis," 1 and doubtless the
children of Esau had often watched from their eyrie
Assyrian and Chaldean armies on the march to plunder
more defenceless victims, and trusted that their strength,
their good fortune, and their ancient and proverbial
wisdom would still hold them scatheless. Their neigh
bours — the Jews amongst the rest — might be plundered,
massacred, and carried away captive, but Edom could
look on in careless security, and find its account in
the calamities of kindred tribes. If Jerusalem was
shattered by the Chaldean tempest, the Edomites
would play the part of wreckers. But all this shrewd
ness was mere folly : how could these Solons of Mount
Seir prove so unworthy of their reputation ?
" Is wisdom no more in Teman ?
Has counsel perished, from the prudent ?
Has their wisdom vanished ? "
They thought that Jehovah would punish Jacob whom
He loved, and yet spare Esau whom He hated. But : —
" Thus saith Jehovah :
Behold, they to whom it pertained not to drink of the cup
shall assuredly drink.
Art thou he that shall go altogether unpunished ?
Thou shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt assuredly
drink" (12).
Ay, and drink to the dregs : —
" If grape-gatherers come to thee, would they not leave gleanings ?
If thieves came bynight, they would only destroy till they had enough.
But I have made Esau bare, I have stripped him stark naked ;
he shall not be able to hide himself.
His children, and his brethren, and his neighbours are given
up to plunder, and there is an end of him " (9, 10).
" I have sworn by Myself — is the utterance of Jehovah —
That Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a de
solation, and a curse;
1 Hist. Nat., vi. 28. Orelli.

246 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
All her cities shall become perpetual wastes.
I have heard tidings from Jehovah, and an ambassador is sent
among the nations, saying,
Gather yourselves together and come against her, arise to
battle" (13, 14).
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.1
In this picture of chastisement and calamity, there
is one apparent touch of pitifulness : —
" Leave thine orphans, I will preserve their lives ;
Let thy widows put their trust in Me" (11).
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,2 when they were dragged
away into captivity. We are reluctant to surrender
this beautiful and touching description of a God, who,
though He may visit the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and fourth generation,
yet even in such judgment ever remembers mercy. It
is impossible, however, to ignore the fact that such
ideas are widely different from the tone and sentiment
of the rest of the section. These words may be an
immediate sequel to the previous verse, "No Edomite
survives to say to his dying brethren, Leave thine
orphans to me," or possibly they may be quoted, in
1 xxxiv. 1. z Verse 20.

xlix. 7-22.] EDOM 247
bitter irony, from some message from Edom to Jeru
salem, inviting the Jews to send their wives and
children for safety to Mount Seir. Edom, ungrateful
and treacherous Edom, shall utterly perish — Edom that
offered an asylum to Jewish refugees, and yet shared
the plunder of Jerusalem and betray,ed her fugitives
to the Chaldeans.
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 : —
" For, behold, I will make thee small among the nations,
Despised among men " (15).
These words are scarcely consistent with the other
verses, which imply that, as a ipeople, 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," J an Edomite dynasty was reigning in Jerusalem.
1 Obadiah 21.

CHAPTER XXII
DAMASCUS
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 are a little surprised to meet with a prophecy
of Jeremiah concerning Damascus and the
palaces of Benhadad. The names carry our minds back
for more than a couple of centuries. During Elisha's
ministry, Damascus and Samaria were engaged in their
long, fierce duel for the supremacy over Syria and
Palestine. In the reign of Ahaz these ancient rivals
combined to attack Judah, so that Isaiah is keenly
interested in Damascus and its fortunes. But about
b.c. 745, about a hundred and fifty years before
Jeremiah's time, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser1
overthrew the Syrian kingdom and carried its people
into captivity. We know from Ezekiel,2 what we
might have surmised from the position and later
history of Damascus, that this ancient city continued
a wealthy commercial centre ; but Ezekiel has no oracle
concerning Damascus, and the other documents of the
period and of later times do not mention the capital of
Benhadad. Its name does not even occur in Jeremiah's

2 Kings xvi. 9. 2 Ezek. xxvii. 18.
248

xlix. 23-27.] DAMASCUS 249
exhaustive list of the countries of his world in xxv.
15-26. Religious interest in alien races depended on
their political relations with Israel ; when the latter
ceased, the prophets had no word from Jehovah con
cerning foreign nations. Such considerations have
suggested doubts as to the authenticity of this section,
and it has been supposed that it may be a late echo of
Isaiah's utterances concerning Damascus.
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 inter
national politics. Doubtless slaves were part of the
merchandise of Damascus, just as they were among
the wares of the Apocalyptic Babylon. Joel1 denounces
Tyre and Zidon for selling Jews to the Greeks, and
the Damascenes may have served as slave-agents to
Nebuchadnezzar and his captains, and thus provoked
the resentment of patriot Jews. . So many picturesque
and romantic associations cluster around Damascus,
that this section of Jeremiah almost strikes a jarring
note. We love to think of this fairest of Oriental cities,
" half as old as time," as the " Eye of the East " which
Mohammed refused to enter — because " Man," he said,
" can have but one paradise, and my paradise is fixed
above " — and as the capital of Noureddin and his still
more famous successor Saladin. And so we regret
that, when it emerges from the obscurity of centuries
into the light of Biblical narrative, the brief reference
1 Joel iii. 4.

250 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
should suggest a disaster such as it endured in later
days at the hands of the treacherous and ruthless
Tamerlane. " Damascus hath grown feeble :
She turneth herself to flee ;
Trembling hath seized on her.
How is the city of praise forsaken,1
The city of joy !
Her young men shall fall in the streets,
All the warriors shall be put to silence in that day."
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 them
selves 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.
1 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?"

CHAPTER XXIII
KEDAR AND HAZOR
xlix. 28-33.
"Concerning Kedar, and the kingdoms of Hazor which Nebuchad
nezzar king of Babylon smote." — Jer. xlix. 28.
FROM an immemorial seat of human culture, an
"eternal city" which antedates Rome by cen
turies, if not millenniums, we turn to those Arab tribes
whose national life and habits were as ancient and
have been as persistent as the streets of Damascus.
While Damascus has almost always been in the
forefront of history, the Arab tribes — except in the
time of Mohammed and the early Caliphs — have seldom
played a more important part than that of frontier
marauders. Hence, apart from a few casual references,
the only other passage in the Old Testament which
deals, at any length, with Kedar is the parallel prophecy
of Isaiah. And yet Kedar was the great northern tribe,
which ranged the deserts between Palestine and the
Euphrates, and which must have had closer relations
with Judah than most Arab peoples.
"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 Hdcer, a village ; and some of these are on or
beyond the southern frontier of Judah, in the wilderness
251

252 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
of the Exodus, where we might expect to find nomad
Arabs. But even these latter cities can scarcely be the
" Hazor " of Jeremiah, and the more northern are quite
out of the question. It is generally supposed that
Hazor here is either some Arabian town, or, more
probably, a collective term for the district inhabited
by Arabs, who lived not in tents, but in Hacerim, or
villages. This district would be in Arabia itself, and
more distant from Palestine than the deserts over
which Kedar roamed. Possibly Isaiah's " villages
(Hacerim) that Kedar doth inhabit " were to be found
in the Hazor of Jeremiah, and the same people were
called Kedar and Hazor respectively according as
they lived a nomad life or settled in more permanent
dwellings. 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

xlix. 28-33.] KEDAR AND HAZOR 253
revenge. The Bedouin always had their virtues, but
the wild liberty of the desert easily degenerated into
unbridled licence. Judah and every state bordering on
the wilderness knew by painful experience how large
a measure of rapine and cruelty might coexist with
primitive customs, and the Jewish prophet gives
Nebuchadnezzar a Divine commission as for a holy
war : —
"Arise, go up to Kedar;
Spoil the men of the east.
They (the Chaldeans) shall take away their tents and flocks;
They shall take for themselves their tent-coverings,
And all their gear and their camels :
Men shall cry concerning them,
Terror on every side." '
Then the prophet turns to the more distant Hazor
with words of warning : —
"Flee, get you far off, dwell in hidden recesses of the land,
O inhabitants of Hazor —
It is the utterance of Jehovah—
For Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon hath counselled a
counsel and purposed a purpose against you."
But then, as if this warning were a mere taunt, he
renews his address to the Chaldeans and directs their
attack against Hazor : —
" Arise, go up against a nation that is at ease, that dwelleth
without fear — it is the utterance of Jehovah —
Which abide alone, without gates or bars" —
like the people of Laish before the Danites came, and
like Sparta before the days of Epaminondas.
Possibly we are to combine these successive " utter
ances," and to understand that it was alike Jehovah's
will that the Chaldeans should invade and lay waste
1 Magor-missabib : cf. xlvi. 5.

254 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Hazor, and that the unfortunate inhabitants should
escape- — but escape plundered and impoverished : for
" Their camels shall become a spoil,
The multitude of their cattle a prey :
I will scatter to every wind them that have the corners of
their hair polled ; '
I will bring their calamity upon them from all sides.
Hazor shall be a. haunt of jackals, a desolation for ever :
No one shall dwell there,
No soul shall sojourn therein." 1 I.e. cut off.

CHAPTER XXIV
ELAM
xlix. 34-39
" I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might." — Jer.
xlix. 35.
WE do not know what principle or absence of
principle determined the arrangement of these
prophecies; but, in any case, these studies in ancient
geography and politics present a series of dramatic
contrasts. From two ancient and enduring types of
Eastern life, the city of Damascus and the Bedouin
of the desert, we pass to a state of an entirely different
order, only slightly connected with the international
system of Western Asia. Elam contended for the palm
of supremacy with Assyria and Babylon in the farther
east, as Egypt did to the south-west. Before the time
of Abraham Elamite kings ruled over Chaldea, and
Genesis xiv. tells us how Chedorlaomer with his sub
ject-allies collected .his tribute in Palestine. Many
centuries later, the Assyrian king Ashur-bani-pal (b.c
668 — 626) conquered Elam, sacked the capital Shushan,
and carried away many of the inhabitants into cap
tivity. According to Ezra iv. 9, 10, Elamites were
among the mingled population whom "the great and
noble Asnapper " (probably Ashur-bani-pal) settled in
Samaria, 255

256 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

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, liow the" sworn1 anumlf lollow
them into their distant places of refuge and utterly
consume them.
"I will set My throne in Elam;
I will destroy out of it both king and princes —
It is the utterance of Jehovah."
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

xlix. 34-39.] ELAM 257
judgment-seat of a mightier Potentate ; and his inspired
utterances remind the believer that every battle may
be an Armageddon, and that at every congress there
is set a mystic throne from which the Eternal King
overrules the decisions of plenipotentiaries.
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 : —
"In the latter days I will bring again the captivity of Elam —
It is the utterance of Jehovah."
The Apostle Peter x tells us that the prophets " sought
and searched diligently " concerning the application of
their words, "searching what time and what manner
of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point
unto." We gather from these verses that, as Newton
could not have foreseen all that was contained in the
law of gravitation, so the prophets often understood
little of what was involved in their own inspiration.
We could scarcely have a better example than this
prophecy affords of the knowledge of the principles
of God's future action combined with ignorance of its
circumstances and details. If we may credit the current
theory, Cyrus, the servant of Jehovah, the deliverer of
Judah, was a king of Elam. If Jeremiah had foreseen
how his prophecies of the restoration of Elam and of
Judah would be fulfilled, we may be sure that this
utterance would not have been so brief, its hostile tone
would have been mitigated, and the concluding sentence
would not have been so cold and conventional.
1 1 Peter i. 10, 11. 17

CHAPTER XXV
BABYLON 1, li.
"Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in
pieces." — Jer. 1. 2.
THESE chapters present phenomena analogous to
those of Isaiah xl. — lxvi., and have been very
commonly ascribed to an author writing at Babylon
towards the close of the Exile, or even at some later
date. The conclusion has been arrived at in both
cases by the application of the same critical principles
to similar data. In the present case the argument is
complicated by the concluding paragraph of chapter li.,
which states that "Jeremiah wrote in a book all the
evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these
words that are written against Babylon," in the fourth
year of Zedekiah, and gave the book to Seraiah ben
Neriah to take to Babylon and tie a stone to it and
throw it into the Euphrates.
Such a statement, however, cuts both ways. On
the one hand, we seem to have — what is wanting in the
case of Isaiah xl, — lxvi.- — a definite and circumstantial
testimony as to authorship. But, on the other hand,
this very testimony raises new difficulties. If 1. and li.
had been simply assigned to Jeremiah, without any
specification of date, we might possibly have accepted
the tradition according to which he spent his last years
258

1., H.] BABYLON 259
at Babylon, and have supposed that altered circum
stances and novel experiences account for the differences
between these chapters and the rest of the book. But
Zedekiah's fourth year is a point in the prophet's
ministry at which it is extremely difficult to account
for his having composed such a prophecy. If, how
ever, li. 5 9-64 is mistaken in its exact and circumstantial
account of the origin of the preceding section, we must
hesitate to recognise its authority as to that section's
authorship. A detailed discussion of the question would be out
of place here,1 but we may notice a few passages which
illustrate the arguments for an exilic date. We learn
from Jeremiah xxvii. — xxix. that, in the fourth year of
Zedekiah,2 the prophet was denouncing as false teachers
those who predicted that the Jewish captives in Babylon
would speedily return to their native land. He him
self asserted that judgment would not be inflicted upon
Babylon for seventy years, and exhorted the exiles to
build houses and marry, and plant gardens, and to
pray for the peace of Babylon.3 We can hardly
imagine that, in the same breath almost, he called upon
these exiles to flee from the city of their captivity, and
summoned the neighbouring nations to execute Jehovah's
judgment against the oppressors of His people. And
yet we read : —
"There shall come the Israelites, they and the Jews together:
They shall weep continually, as they go to seek Jehovah their
God ;
1 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.
2 In xxvii. I we must read, " In the beginning of the reign of
Zedekiah," not Jehoiakim. ° xxix. 4-14.

260 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
They shall ask their way to Zion, with their faces hither
ward"1 (1. 4, 5).
"Remove from the midst of Babylon, and be ye as he-goats
before the flock" (1. 8).
These verses imply that the Jews were already in
Babylon, and throughout the author assumes the cir
cumstances 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.2 The ruin of Babylon is described as
imminent : — "Set up a standard on the earth,
Blow the trumpet among the nations,
Prepare the nations against her."
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 1. 1 — li. 58; the two sections may
once have existed separately, and may owe their con
nection to an editor, who met with 1. 1 — li. 58 as an
anonymous document, and thought he recognised in
it the "book" referred to in li. 59-64. Or again,
1. 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
1 " Hitherward " seems to indicate that the writer's local stand
point is that of Palestine.
2 1. 28, li. 11.

l.,li.] BABYLON 261
ideas of extant writings to supply the gap. In any
case, it must have been edited more than once, and
each time with modifications. Some support might be
obtained for any one of these theories from the fact that
1. 1 — li. 58 \s prima facie partly a cento of passages from
the rest of the book and from the Book of Isaiah.1
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
Isaiah xl. — lxvi. Chapters 1., li., may possibly be
Jeremiah's swan-song, called forth by one of those
Pisgah visions of a new dispensation sometimes granted
to aged seers; but such visions of a new era and a
new order can scarcely be combined with earlier teaching.
We will therefore only briefly indicate the character
and contents of this section.
It is apparently a mosaic, compiled 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 3 that the imminence of the attack
on Babylon is introduced afresh eleven times, and its
conquest and destruction nine times. The advent of
an enemy from the north is announced four times.3
The main theme is naturally that dwelt upon most
1 Cf. 1. 8, li. 6, with Isa. xlviii. 20; 1. 13 with xlix. 17; 1. 41-43 with
vi. 22-24; I. 44-46 with xlix. 19-21 ; li. 15-19 with x. 12-16.
2 Budde ap. Giesebrecht, in locq.
* 1- 3' 9, ", 41, 4&

262 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
frequently, the imminent invasion of Chaldea by
victorious enemies who shall capture and destroy
Babylon. Hereafter the great city and its territory
will be a waste, howling wilderness : —
"Your mother shall be sore ashamed,
She that bare you shall be confounded ;
Behold, she shall be the hindmost of the nations,
A wilderness, a parched land, and a desert.
Because of the wrath of Jehovah, it shall be uninhabited ;
The whole land shall be a desolation.
Every one that goeth by Babylon
Shall hiss with astonishment because of all her plagues." '
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.2 But the wrath
of Jehovah has been chiefly excited, not by false
religion, but by the wrongs inflicted by the Chaldeans
on His Chosen People. He is moved to avenge His
Temple 3 : —
" I will recompense unto Babylon
And all the inhabitants of Chaldea
All the evil which they wrought in Zion,
And ye shall see it — it is the utterance of Jehovah '' (li. 24).
Though He thus avenge Judah, yet its former sins are
not yet blotted out of the book of His remembrance : —
"Their adversaries said, We incur no guilt,
Because they have sinned against Jehovah, the Pasture of
Justice,
Against the Hope of their fathers, even Jehovah " (1. 7).
Yet now there is forgiveness : —
"The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be
none ; 1 1. 12, 13 : cf. 1. 39, 40, li. 26, 29, 37, 41-43.
2 li. 17, 18. 3 1. 28.

1., li.] BABYLON 263
And he sins of Judah, and they shall not be found :
For I will pardon the remnant that I preserve " (1. 20).
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
Jeremiah xxxi., Israel is to be restored as well as
Judah : —
" I will bring Israel again to his Pasture :
He shall feed on Carmel and Bashan ;
His desires shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and
in Gilead " (1. 19).

BOOK III
JEREMIAH'S TEACHING CONCERNING
ISRAEL AND JUDAH

265

CHAPTER XXVI

INTRODUCTORY

" I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My
people." — Jer. xxxi. I.
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 x chapters detach
themselves from the rest, and stand in no obvious
connection with any special incident of the prophet's
life. These are the main theme of this book, and have
been dealt with in the ordinary method of detailed
exposition. They have been treated separately, and
not woven into the continuous narrative, partly because
we thus obtain a more adequate emphasis upon im
portant aspects of their teaching, but chiefly because
their date and occasion cannot be certainly determined.
With them other sections have been associated, on
account of the connection of subject. Further material
for a synopsis of Jeremiah's teaching has been collected
from chapters xxi. — xlix. generally, supplemented by
brief2 references to the previous chapters. Inasmuch
as the prophecies of our book do not form an ordered
' xxx., xxxi., and, in part, xxxiii.
2 Brief, in order not to trespass more than is absolutely necessary
upon the ground covered by the previous Expositors Bible volume
on Jeremiah. 267

268 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
treatise on dogmatic theology, but were uttered with
regard to individual conduct and critical events, topics
are not exclusively dealt with in a single section, but
are referred to at intervals throughout. Moreover, as
both the individuals and the crises were very much
alike, ideas and phrases are constantly reappearing,
so that there is an exceptionally large amount of
repetition in the Book of Jeremiah. The method we
have adopted avoids some of the difficulties which
would arise if we attempted to deal with these doctrines
in our continuous exposition.
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 con
cerning 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 occur
ring in chapters xxi. — Hi. The reader will find fuller lists dealing
with the whole book in the Speaker's Commentary and the

CHARACTERISTIC EXPRESSIONS 269
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges. The Hebrew student
is referred to the list in Driver's fntroduction, upon which the
following is partly based.
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 Chron. xxxvi. 15, of God addressing His people
on sending the prophets.
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 Deut. xxix. 19 and Ps. lxxxi. 15.
3. The evil of your doings: iv. 4 ; xxi. 12 ; xxiii. 2, 22 ; xxv. 5 ;
xxvi. 3 ; xliv. 22 ; also Deut. xxviii. 20 ; 1 Sam. xxv. 3 ; Isa. i. 16 ;
Hos. ix. 15 ; Ps. xxviii. 4; and in slightly different form inxi. 18
and Zech. i. 4.
The fruit of your doings: xvii. 10; xxi. 14 ; xxxii. 19 ; also found
in Micah vii. 13.
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 ; xiii. 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 ; xiii. 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.

CHAPTER XXVII
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION
"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 con
spicuous 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 over
whelming 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
270

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION 271
sink of iniquity, an Augean stable, only to be cleansed
by turning through it the floods of Divine chastisement ?
The annalists of Egypt and Chaldea show no interest
in the morality of Judah ; but there is no reason to
believe that they regarded Jerusalem as more depraved
than Tyre, or Babylon, or Memphis. If a citizen of
one of these capitals of the East visited the city of
David he might miss something of accustomed culture,
and might have occasion to complain of the inferiority
of local police arrangements, but he would be as little
conscious of any extraordinary wickedness in the city
as a Parisian would in London. Indeed, if an English
Christian familiar with the East of the nineteenth
century could be transported to Jerusalem under King
Zedekiah, in all probability its moral condition would
not affect him very differently from that of Cabul or
Ispahan. 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,"1 and her
punishment is described in a corresponding phrase as
" the fruit of your doings," or as coming upon her
" because of the evil of your doings." The original of
" doings " is a peculiar word 2 occurring most frequently
' Characteristic Expressions (1), p. 269. 2 77VD.

272 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
in Jeremiah, and the phrases are very common in
Jeremiah, and hardly occur at all elsewhere. The
constant reiteration of this melancholy refrain is an
eloquent symbol of Jehovah's sweeping condemnation.
In the total depravity of Judah, no special sin, no one
group of sins, stood out from the rest. Their " doings "
were evil altogether.
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 illus
trated by Jeremiah's own experience of the bastinado 1
and the dungeon,2 and by the execution of Uriah ben
Shemaiah.3 The rights of less important personages
were not likely to be more scrupulously respected.
The reproach of shedding innocent blood is more than
once made against the people and their rulers ; 4 and
the more general charge of oppression occurs still
more frequently.6
The motive for both these crimes was naturally
covetousness ; 6 as usual, they were specially directed
against the helpless, " the poor," 7 " the stranger, the
fatherless, and the widow " ; and the machinery of
oppression was ready to hand in venal judges and
rulers. Upon occasion, however, recourse was had
to open violence — men could " steal and murder," as
well as " swear falsely " ; 8 they lived in an atmosphere
of falsehood, they " walked in a lie." 9 Indeed the
word " lie " is one of the keynotes of these pro-

' xx. 2, xxxvii. 15.

6 vi. 13.

2 xxxvii., xxxviii.

7 ii- 34-

3 xxvi. 20-24.

" vii. 5-9.

* ii. 34, xix. 4, xxii.

17.

tf xxiii. 14.

6 v. 25, vi. 6, vii. 5.

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION 273
phecies.1 The last days of the monarchy offered
special temptations to such vices. Social wreckers
reaped an unhallowed harvest in these stormy times.
Revolutions were frequent, and each in its turn meant
fresh plunder for unscrupulous partisans. Flattery
and treachery could always find a market in the court
of the suzerain or the camp of the invader. Naturally,
amidst this general demoralisation, the life of the
family did not remain untouched : " the land was full
of adulterers." 2 Zedekiah and Ahab, the false prophets
at Babylon, are accused of having committed adultery
with their neighbours' wives.3 In these passages
" adultery " can scarcely be a figure for idolatry ; and
even if it is, idolatry always involved immoral ritual.
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 Psalm cxv. 5, 6, " have eyes and see not " and
"have ears and hear not."4 In keeping with their
stupidity was an unconsciousness of guilt which even
rose into proud self-righteousness. They could still
come with pious fervour to worship in the temple of
Jehovah and to claim the protection of its inviolable
sanctity. They could still assail Jeremiah with righteous
indignation because he announced the coming destruc
tion of the place where Jehovah had chosen to set His
name.6 They said that they had no sin, and met the
1 Characteristic Expressions (2), p. 269.
2 xxiii. 10, 14.
3 xxix. 23.
4 v. 21, quoted by Ezekiel, xii. 2. The verse is also the founda
tion of the description of Israel as " the blind people that have eyes,
and-the deaf that have ears," in Isa. xiii. 18 ff., xliii. 8. Cf. Giesebrecht
on Jer. v. 21. 5 vii., xxvi. 18

274 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
prophet's rebukes with protests of conscious innocence :
" Wherefore hath Jehovah pronounced all this great
evil against us ? or what is our iniquity ? or what is
our sin that we have committed against Jehovah our
God?"1 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.2 The form of
their submission to Jehovah reveals their consciousness
that their deepest sin lay in their behaviour to their
helpless dependents. This prompt repudiation of a
most solemn covenant illustrated afresh their callous
indifference to the well-being of their inferiors.
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.3 They were all arch-rebels, given to
1 xvi. 10. 2 xxxiv.
3 xxxii. 26-35 : cf- P- 269> Characteristic Expressions (3).

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION 275
slander ; nothing but base metal ; x corrupters, every
one of them.2 The universal extent of total depravity
is most forcibly expressed when Zedekiah with his
court and people are summarily described as a basket
of " very bad figs, too bad to be eaten."
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." 3 Thus we see at
last that Jeremiah's teaching concerning the sin of Judah
can be summed up in one brief and comprehensive pro
position. Throughout their whole history all classes
of the community have been wholly given over to every
kind of wickedness.
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 inhabi
tants 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,
1 Literally " copper and iron." * vi. 28,
3 xxxii. 26-35.

276 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
they cast off all restraint, and blood toucheth blood."1
As a prophet of the Northern Kingdom," Hosea is mainly
concerned with his own country, but his casual refer
ences to Judah include her in the same condemnation.2
Amos again condemns both Israel and Judah : Judah,
" because they have despised the law of Jehovah, and
have not kept His commandments, and their lies caused
them to err, after the which their fathers walked " ;
Israel, " because they sold the righteous for silver and
the poor for a pair of shoes, and pant after the dust of
the earth on the head of the poor and turn aside the
way of the meek." 3 The first chapter of Isaiah is in a
similar strain : Israel is " a sinful nation, a people laden
with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers " ; " the whole head
is sick, the whole heart faint. From the sole of the
foot even unto the head there is no soundness in
it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.'
According to Micah, " Zion is built up with blood and
Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for
reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the
prophets thereof divine for money." 4
Jeremiah's older and younger contemporaries, Zepha
niah 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

1 Hosea iv. I, 2 ; also Hosea's general picture of the kingdom of
Samaria. 2 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.
3 Amos ii. 4-8. * Micah iii. 10, II.

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION 277
have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to
the law." x Ezekiel xx. traces the defections of Israel
from the sojourn in Egypt to the Captivity. Elsewhere
Ezekiel says that " the.land is full of bloody crimes, and
the city is full of violence";2 and in xxii. 23-31 he
catalogues the sins of priests, princes, prophets, and
people, and proclaims that Jehovah " sought for a man
among them that should make up the hedge, and stand
in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not
destroy it : but I found none."
We have now fairly before us the teaching of Jere
miah 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
formulae. 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
1 Zeph. iii. 3, 4. 2 Ezek. vii. 23: cf. vii. 9, xxii. 1-12,

278 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
ignorant of Moses and Joshua, David and Solomon,
and the kings " who did right in the eyes of Jehovah " ;
nor does he intend to contradict the familiar accounts
of ancient history. On the other hand, the universality
which the prophets ascribe to the corruption of their
people is no mere figure of rhetoric, and yet it is by no
means incompatible with the view that Jerusalem, in
its worst days, was not more conspicuously wicked
than Babylon or Tyre ; or even, allowing for the altered
circumstances of the times, than London or Paris. It
would never have occurred to Jeremiah to apply the
average morality of Gentile cities as a standard by
which to judge Jerusalem ; and Christian readers of the
Old Testament have caught something of the old pro
phetic spirit. The very introduction into the present
context of any comparison between Jerusalem and
Babylon may seem to have a certain flavour of irre
verence. We perceive with the prophets that the City
of Jehovah and the cities of the Gentiles must be placed
in different categories. The popular modern explanation
is that heathenism was so utterly abominable that
Jerusalem at its worst was still vastly superior to
Nineveh or Tyre. However exaggerated such views
may be, they still contain an element of truth ; but
Jeremiah's estimate of the moral condition of Judah was
based on entirely different ideas. His standards were
not relative but absolute, not practical but ideal. His
principles were the very antithesis of the tacit ignoring
of difficult and unusual duties, the convenient and
somewhat shabby compromise represented by the modern
word " respectable." Israel was to be judged by its
relation to Jehovah's purpose for His people. Jehovah
had called them out of Egypt, and delivered them from
a thousand dangers. He had raised up for them judges

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION 279
and kings, Moses, David, and Isaiah. He had spoken
to them by Torah and by prophecy. This peculiar
munificence of Providence and Revelation was not
meant to produce a people only better by some small
percentage than their heathen neighbours.
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,1 would have seemed a
ghastly irony even to the sons of Zeruiah, far more
to Nathan, Gad, or Isaiah. Nor had any class, as a
class, been wholly true to Jehovah at any period of
the history. If for any considerable time the numerous
order of professional prophets had had a single eye to
the glory of Jehovah, the fortunes of Israel would have
been altogether different, and where prophets failed,
priests and princes and common people were not likely
to succeed.
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 denuncia
tions of Jeremiah ? Not quite all. Jeremiah had had
1 Exod. xix. 6.

280 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
the mortification of seeing the great religious revival
under Josiah spend itself, apparently in vain, against
the ingrained corruption of the people. The reaction,
as under Manasseh, had accentuated the worst features
of the national life. At the same time the constant
distress and dismay caused by disastrous invasions
tended to general licence and anarchy. A long period
of decadence reached its nadir.
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 some
thing 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 in
struction from Jeremiah's judgment on the shortcomings

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION 281
of Judah. Jeremiah specially emphasises the uni
versality of corruption in individual character, in all
classes of society and throughout the whole duration
of history. Similarly we have to recognise that pre
valent social and moral evils lower the general tone
of individual character. Moral faculties are not set
apart in watertight compartments. " Whosoever shall
keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is
guilty of all," is no mere forensic principle. The one
offence impairs the earnestness and sincerity with
which a man keeps the rest of the law, even though
there may be no obvious lapse. There are moral
surrenders made to the practical exigencies of com
mercial, social, political, and ecclesiastical life. Probably
we should be startled and dismayed if we understood
the consequent sacrifice of individual character.
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 responsi
bility 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

282 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
deny Divine Providence and human hope by teaching
that the Golden Age lay in the past, that the Kingdom
of God had been realised and allowed to perish. He
was under no foolish delusion as to "the good old
times " ; in his most despondent moods he was not
given over to wistful reminiscence. His example may
help us not to become discouraged through exaggerated
ideas about the attainments orpast generations.
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.

CHAPTER XXVIII
PERSISTENT APOSTA-.SY
"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 con
fined, 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 King
dom, may have had a fuller experience and clearer
understanding of religious corruption than his con
temporaries 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 im
morality of Gibeah.1 The priests are not reproached
1 Hosea ix. 7-9 : cf. Judges xix. 22.
283

284 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
with incorrect ritual, but with conspiracy to murder.1
In Amos, the land is not so much punished on account
of corrupt worship, as the sanctuaries are destroyed
because the people are given over to murder, oppres
sion, and every form of vice. In Isaiah again the
main stress is constantly upon international politics
and public and private morality.2 For instance, none
of the woes in v. 8-24 are directed against idolatry
or corrupt worship, and in xxviii. 7 the charge brought
against Ephraim does not refer to ecclesiastical matters ;
they have erred through strong drink.
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 Hosea iii. 1. On
the other hand, references to idols are extremely rare
in Jeremiah. These facts suggest a special difficulty
in discussing the apostasy of Judah. The Jews often
combined the worship of other gods with that of
Jehovah. According to the analogy of other nations,
it was quite possible to worship Baal and Ashtaroth,
and the whole heathen Pantheon, without intending
to show any special disrespect to the national Deity.
Even devout worshippers, who confined their adora
tions to the one true God, sometimes thought they did
honour to Him by introducing into His services the
images and all the paraphernalia of the splendid cults
of the great heathen empires. It is not always easy
to determine whether statements about idolatry imply

Hosea vi. 9.
Isaiah xl. — lxvi. is excluded from this statement.

xxii. 9, xxiii. 17.] PERSISTENT APOSTASY 285
formal apostasy from Jehovah, or merely a debased
worship. When the early Mohammedans spoke with
lofty contempt of image-worshippers, they were re
ferring to the Eastern Christians ; the iconoclast
heretics denounced the idolatry of the Orthodox
Church, and the Covenanters used similar terms as to
prelacy. Ignorant modern Jews are sometimes taught
that Christians worship idols.
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 emphati
cally 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."1 The Pentateuch preserves
an ancient ordinance which the Moloch-worshippers
1 xxxii. 34, 35, repeating vii. 30, 31, with slight variations. A
similar statement occurs in xix. 4, 5. Cf. 2 Kings xvi. 3, xxi. 6, xxiii.
10; also Giesebrecht and Orelli in loco.

286 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
probably interpreted in. support of their unholy rites,
and Jeremiah's protests are partly directed against the
misinterpretation of the command " the first-born of
thy sons shalt thou give Me." The immediate context
also commanded that the firstlings of sheep and oxen
should be given to Jehovah. The beasts were killed ;
must it not be intended that the children should be
killed too ? x A similar blind literalism has been respon
sible for many of the follies and crimes perpetrated in
the name of Christ. The Church is apt to justify its
most flagrant enormities by appealing to a misused and
misinterpreted Old Testament. " Thou shalt not suffer
a witch to live " and " Cursed be Canaan " have been
proof-texts for witch-hunting and negro-slavery ; and
the Book of Joshua has been regarded as a Divine
charter, authorising the unrestrained indulgence of the
passion for revenge and blood.
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 Zephaniah2 was
not generally understood to be apostasy. The worship
of " other gods," " the sun, the moon, and all the host-
of heaven," 3 and of the " Queen of Heaven," would
be more difficult to explain as mere syncretism, but
the assimilation of Jewish worship to heathen ritual
and the confusion of the Divine Name with the titles
of heathen deities masked the transition from the
religion of Moses and Isaiah to utter apostasy.
1 Exod. xxii. 29 (JE.). Exod. xxxiv. 20 is probably a later
interpretation intended to guard against misunderstandings.
2 Baal is not mentioned in the other prophetical books.
3 vii. 2.

xxii. 9, xxiii. 17.] PERSISTENT APOSTASY 287
Such assimilation and confusion perplexed and
baffled the prophets.1 Social and moral wrongdoing
were easily exposed and denounced ; and the evils thus
brought to light were obvious symptoms of serious
spiritual disease. The Divine Spirit taught the prophets
that sin was often most rampant in those who professed
the greatest devotion to Jehovah and were most
punctual and munificent in the discharge of external
religious duties. When the prophecy in Isaiah i. was
uttered it almost seemed as if the whole system of
Mosaic ritual would have to be sacrificed, in order to
preserve the religion of Jehovah. But the further
development of the disease suggested a less heroic
remedy. The passion for external rites did not confine
itself to the traditional forms of ancient Israelite
worship. The practices of unspiritual and immoral
ritualism were associated specially with the names of
Baal and Moloch and with the adoration of the host
of heaven ; and the departure from the true worship
became obvious when the deities of foreign nations
were openly worshipped.
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,
1 Here and elsewhere, " prophet," unless specially qualified by the
context, is used of the true prophet, the messenger of Divine Revela
tion, and does not include the mere professional prophets. Cf.
Chap. VIII.

288 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

Jeremiah follows Hosea in calling them " backsliding," x
a falling away from true loyalty. When they ad
dressed themselves to their idols, even if they conse
crated them in the Temple and to the glory of the Most
High, they were not really looking to Him in reverent
supplication, but with impious profanity were turning
their backs upon Him : " They have turned unto Me
the back, and not the face." 2 These proceedings were
a violation of the covenant between Jehovah and
Israel.3 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," 4
may be borrowed from Amos, or may be an ancient
liturgical sentence; in any case, its use would be a
convenient protest against the doctrine that Jehovah
could be worshipped under the names of and after the
manner of Baal and Moloch. When Jehovah speaks of
the people forgetting " My name," He does not mean
either that the people would forget all about Him, or
would cease to use the name Jehovah; but that they
would forget the character and attributes, the purposes
and ordinances, which were properly expressed by His
Name. The prophets who " prophesy lies in My
name" " cause My people to forget My name."5 Baal
and Moloch had sunk into fit titles for a god who
could be worshipped with cruel, obscene, and idolatrous
rites, but the religion of Revelation had been for ever
1 ii. 19, etc.
2 xxxii. 33, etc.
3 xxii. 9 : cf. xi. 10, xxxi. 32, and Hosea vi. 7, viii. 1.
4 x. 16 : cf. Amos iv. 13.
0 xxiii. 25-27 : cf. Giesebrecht, in loco.

xxii. 9, xxiii. 17.] PERSISTENT APOSTASY 289
associated with the one sacred Name, when "Elohim
said unto Moses, Thou shalt say unto the Israelites :
Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me
unto you : this is My name for ever, and this is My
memorial unto all generations." All religious life and
practice inconsistent with this Revelation given through
Moses and the prophets — all such worship, even if
offered to beings which, as Jehovah, sat in the Temple
of Jehovah, professing to be Jehovah — were neverthe
less service and obedience paid to other and false gods.
Jeremiah's mission was to hammer these truths into
dull and unwilling minds.
His work seems to have been successful. Ezekiel,
who is in a measure his disciple,1 drops the phrase
"other gods," and mentions "idols" very frequently.2
Argument and explanation were no longer necessary
to show that idolatry was sin against Jehovah; the
word " idol " could be freely used and universally
understood as indicating what was wholly alien to the
religion of Israel.3 Jeremiah was too anxious to convince
the Jews that all syncretism was apostasy to distinguish
it carefully from the avowed neglect of Jehovah for
other gods. It is not even clear that such neglect
existed in his day. In chap. xliv. we have one detailed
account of false worship to the Queen of Heaven. It
was offered by the Jewish refugees in Egypt ; shortly
before, these refugees had unanimously entreated
Jeremiah to pray for them to Jehovah, and had promised
to obey His commands. The punishment of their false
1 Cheyne, Jeremiah : Life and Times, p. 150.
2 Jeremiah hardly mentions idols.
8 Cf. on this whole subject, Cheyne, Jeremiah: Life and Times,
P- 3J9- 19

290 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
worship was that they should no longer be permitted
to name the Holy Name. Clearly, therefore, they had
supposed that offering incense to the Queen of Heaven
was not inconsistent with worshipping Jehovah. We
need not dwell on a distinction which is largely ignored
by Jeremiah ; the apostasy of Judah was real and
widespread, it matters little how far the delinquents
ventured to throw off the cloak of orthodox profession.1
The most lapsed masses in a Christian country do not
utterly break their connection with the Church ; they
consider themselves legitimate recipients of its alms,
and dimly contemplate as a vague and distant possi
bility the reformation of their life and character through
Christianity. So the blindest worshippers of stocks
and stones claimed a vested interest in the national
Deity, and in the time of their trouble they turned to
Jehovah with the appeal "Arise and save us."2
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 Common
wealth, 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
1 The strongest expressions are in chap, ii., for which see previous
volume on Jeremiah.
2 ii. 27.

xxii. 9, xxiii. 17.] PERSISTENT APOSTASY 291
attain the high social ideal of the Mosaic dispensation.
Naturally, this continuous failure is associated with
persistent apostasy from the religious teaching of the
Mosaic and prophetic Revelation. Exodus, Deutero
nomy and the Chronicler agree with Jeremiah that
the Israelites were a stiff-necked people ; x and, in the
Chronicler's time at any rate, Israel had played a part
in the world long enough for its character to be
accurately ascertained ; and subsequent history has
shown that, for good or for evil, the Jews have never
lacked tenacity. Syncretism, the tendency to adulterate
true teaching and worship with elements from heathen
sources, had been all along a morbid affection of
Israelite rehgion. The Pentateuch and the historical
books are full of rebukes of the Israelite passion for
idolatry, which must for the most part be understood
as introduced into or associated with the worship of
Jehovah. Jeremiah constantly refers to " the stubborn
ness of their evil heart " : 2 " they . . . have walked
after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the
Baalim." This stubbornness was shown in their resist
ance to all the means which Jehovah employed to wean
them from their sin. Again and again, in our book,
Jehovah speaks of Himself as "rising up early"3 to
speak to the Jews, to teach them, to send prophets
to them, to solemnly adjure them to submit themselves
to Him ; but they would not hearken either to Jehovah
or to His prophets, they would not accept His teaching
or obey His commands, they made themselves stiff-
necked and would not bow to His will. He had sub
jected them to the discipline of affliction, instruction
1 xvii. 23: cf. Exod. xxxii. 9, etc. (JE.); Deut. ix. 6; 2 Chron. xxx. 8.
2 Characteristic Expressions, p. 269.
' Ibid., p. 269.

292 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
had become correction ; Jehovah had wounded them
" with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement
of a cruel one " ; but as they had been deaf to exhorta
tion, so they were proof against chastisement — " they
refused to receive correction." Only the ruin of the
state and the captivity of the people could purge out
this evil leaven.
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
Phcenician 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 Revela
tion 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

xxii. 9, xxiii. 17.] PERSISTENT APOSTASY 293
violent revolution to control the established institutions
and orders of the state — palace and temple, king and
princes, priests and prophets. For a moment the
Reformation of Josiah, and the covenant entered into
by king and people to observe the law as laid down
in the newly discovered Book of Deuteronomy, seemed
to have raised Judah from its low estate. But the
defeat and death of Josiah and the deposition of
Jehoahaz followed to discredit Jeremiah and his friends.
In the consequent reaction it seemed as if the religion
of Jehovah and the life of His people had become
hopelessly corrupt.
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

294 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
new Queen of Heaven was honoured with unlimited
incense. The Reformed Churches in their turn, after
the first " kindness of their youth," the first " love of
their espousals," have often fallen into the very abuses
against which their great leaders protested ; they have
given way to the ritualistic spirit, have put the Church
in the place of Christ, and have claimed for human
formulae the authority that can only belong to the
inspired Word of God. They have immolated their
victims to the Baals and Molochs of creeds and con
fessions, and thought that they were doing honour
to Jehovah thereby.
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.

CHAPTER XXIX
RUIN
xxii. 1-9, xxvi. 14.
" The sword, the pestilence, and the famine." — Jer. xxi. 9 and
passim. '
"Terror on every side." — Jer. vi. 25, xx. 10, xlvi. 5, xlix. 29;
also as proper name, MAGOR-MISSABIB, xx. 3.
WE have seen, in the two previous chapters, that
the moral and religious state of Judah not only
excluded any hope of further progress towards the
realisation of the Kingdom of God, but also threatened
to involve Revelation itself in the corruption of His
people. The Spirit that opened Jeremiah's eyes to
the fatal degradation of his country showed him that
ruin must follow as its swift result. He was elect from
the first to be a herald of doom, to be set " over the
nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to
break down, and to destroy and to overthrow."2 In
his earliest vision he saw the thrones of the northern
conquerors set over against the walls of Jerusalem and
the cities of Judah.3
But Jeremiah was called in the full vigour of early man
hood;4 he combined with the uncompromising severity
1 Characteristic Expressions, p. 269.
2 i. 10. 3 i. 15.
* 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. 295

296 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
of youth its ardent affection and irrepressible hope.
The most unqualified threats of Divine wrath always
carried the implied condition that repentance might
avert the coming judgment ; x and Jeremiah recurred
again and again to the possibility that, even in these
last days, amendment might win pardon. Like Moses
at Sinai and Samuel at Ebenezer, he poured out his
whole soul in intercession for Judah, only to receive the
answer, "Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me,
yet My mind could not be toward this people : cast them
out of My sight and let them go forth."2 The record
of these early hopes and prayers is chiefly found in
chapters i. — xx., and is dealt with in the previous volume
on Jeremiah. The prophecies in xiv. I — xvii. 18 seem
to recognise the destiny of Judah as finally decided, and
to belong to the latter part of the reign of Jehoiakim,3
and there is little in the later chapters of an earlier date.
In xxii. 1-5 the king of Judah is promised that if he and
his ministers and officers will refrain from oppression,
faithfully administer justice, and protect the helpless,
kings of the elect dynasty shall still pass with magni
ficent retinues in chariots and on horses through the
palace gates to sit upon the throne of David. Possibly
this section belongs to the earlier part of Jeremiah's
career. But there were pauses and recoils in the
advancing tide of ruin, alternations of hope and despair ;
and these varying experiences were reflected in the
changing moods of the court, the people, and the prophet
himself. We may well believe that Jeremiah hastened
to greet any apparent zeal for reformation with a
renewed declaration that sincere and ladical amend-

1 Cf. the Book of Jonah 2 xv. 1.
8 Driver, Introduction, p. 242.

xxii. 1-9, xxvi. 14.] RUIN 297
ment would be accepted by Jehovah. The proffer of
mercy did not avert the ruin of the state, but it com
pelled the people to recognise that Jehovah was neither
harsh nor vindictive. His sentence was only irrevocable
because the obduracy of Israel left no other way open
for the progress of Revelation, except that which led
through fire and blood. The Holy Spirit has taught
mankind in many ways that when any government or
church, any school of thought or doctrine, ossifies so
as to limit the expansion of the soul, that society or
system must be shattered by the forces it seeks to
restrain. The decadence of Spain and the distractions
of France sufficiently illustrate the fruits of persistent
refusal to abide in the liberty of the Spirit.
But, until the catastrophe is clearly inevitable, the
Christian, both as patriot and as churchman,1 will be
quick to cherish all those symptoms of higher life
which indicate that society is still a living organism.
He will zealously believe and teach that even a small
leaven may leaven the whole mass. He will remember
that ten righteous men might have saved Sodom ; that,
so long as it is possible, God will work by encourag
ing and rewarding willing obedience rather than by
chastising and coercing sin.
Thus Jeremiah, even when he teaches that the day
of grace is over, recurs wistfully to the possibilities of
salvation once offered to repentance.2 Was not this
the message of all the prophets : " Return ye now
every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your
doings, and dwell in the land that Jehovah hath
given unto your fathers " ? 3 Even at the beginning of
1 " Church " is used, in the true Catholic sense, to embrace all
Christians. 2 xxvii. 18. " xxv. 5, xxxv. 15.

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

Jehoiakim's reign Jehovah entrusted Jeremiah with a
message of mercy, saying : " It may be they will
hearken, and turn every man from his evil way ; that
I may repent Me of the evil, which I purpose to do
unto them because of the evil of their doings." x When
the prophet multiplied the dark and lurid features of
his picture, he was not gloating with morbid enjoyment
over the national misery, but rather hoped that the
awful vision of judgment might lead them to pause,
and reflect and repent. In his age history had not
accumulated her now abundant proofs that the guilty
conscience is panoplied in triple brass against most
visions of judgment. The sequel of Jeremiah's own
mission was added evidence for this truth.
Yet it dawned but slowly on the prophet's mind.
The covenant of emancipation2 in the last days of
Zedekiah was doubtless proposed by Jeremiah as a
possible beginning of better things, an omen of salva
tion, even at the eleventh hour. To the very last the
prophet offered the king his life and promised that
Jerusalem should not be burnt, if only he would
submit to the Chaldeans, and thus accept the Divine
judgment and acknowledge its justice.
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

xxvi. 3, xxxvi. 2. 2 Chap. XI.

xxii. 1-9, xxvi. 14.] RUIN 299
hopefulness had quickly worn itself away, Jeremiah
knew in his inmost heart that, in spite of prayers and
promises and exhortations, the fate of Judah was
sealed. Let us therefore try to reproduce the picture
of coming, ruin which Jeremiah kept persistently before
the eyes of his fellow-countrymen. The pith and
power of his prophecies lay in the prospect of their
speedy fulfilment. With him, as with Savonarola, a
cardinal doctrine was that "before the regeneration
must come the scourge," and that " these things will
come quickly." Here again, Jeremiah took up the
burden of Hosea's utterances. The elder prophet said
of Israel, " The days of visitation are come " ; x and his
successor announced to Judah the coming of " the year
of visitation." 2 The long-deferred assize was at hand,
when the Judge would reckon with Judah for her
manifold infidelities, would pronounce sentence and
execute judgment.
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," 3 i.e. the Assyrians. Jeremiah and Ezekiel both
speak very frequently of the destroyers of Judah as
coming from the north. Probably the early references
in our book to northern enemies denote the Scythians,
who invaded Syria towards the beginning of Josiah's
reign; but later on the danger from the north is the
restored Chaldean Empire, under its king Nebuchad
nezzar. " North " is even less accurate geographically
1 Hosea ix. 7. 2 xxiii. 12. 3 Isa. xiv. 31.

300 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
for Chaldea than for Assyria. Probably it was accepted
in a somewhat symbolic sense for Assyria, and then
transferred to Chaldea as her successor in the hege
mony of Western Asia.
Nebuchadnezzar is first x introduced in the fourth
year of Jehoiakim ; after the decisive defeat of Pharaoh
Necho by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish, Jeremiah
prophesied the devastation of Judah by the victor ; it
is also prophesied that he is to carry Jehoiachin away
captive,2 and similar prophecies were repeated during
the reign of Zedekiah.3 Nebuchadnezzar and his
Chaldeans very closely resembled the Assyrians, with
whose invasions the Jews had long been only too
familiar ; indeed, as Chaldea had long been tributary
to Assyria, it is morally certain that Chaldean princes
must have been present with auxiliary forces at more
than one of the many Assyrian invasions of Palestine.
Under Hezekiah, on the other hand, Judah had been
allied with Merodach-baladan of Babylon against his
Assyrian suzerain. So that the circumstances of
Chaldean invasions and conquests were familiar to
the Jews before the forces of the restored empire first
attacked them ; their imagination could readily picture
the horrors of such experiences.
But Jeremiah does not leave them to their unaided
imagination, which they might preferably have employed

1 xxv. 1-14 : "first," i.e., in time, not in the order of chapters in our
Book of Jeremiah.
2 xxii. 25. Jehoiachin (Kings, Chronicles, and Jer. Hi. 31) is also
called Coniah (Jer. xxii. 24, 28, xxxvii. 1) and Jeconiah (Chronicles,
Esther, Jer. xxiv. I, xxvii. 20, xxviii. 4, xxix. 2). They are virtually
forms of the same name, the " Yah " of the Divine Name being
prefixed in the first and affixed in the last two.
* xxi. 7, xxviii. 14.

xxii. 1-9, xxvi. 14.] RUIN

upon more agreeable subjects. He makes them see
the future reign of terror, as Jehovah had revealed it
to his shuddering and reluctant vision. With his usual
frequency of iteration, he keeps the phrase " the sword,
the famine, and the pestilence " ringing in their ears.
The sword was the symbol of the invading hosts, " the
splendid and awful military parade " of the " bitter
and hasty nation " that were " dreadful and terrible." x
" The famine " inevitably followed from the ravages
of the invaders, and the impossibility of ploughing,
sowing, and reaping. It became most gruesome in the
last desperate agonies of besieged garrisons, when,
as in Elisha's time and the last siege of Jerusalem,
" men ate the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their
daughters, and ate every one the flesh of his friend." 2
Among such miseries and horrors, the stench of unburied
corpses naturally bred a pestilence, which raged amongst
the multitudes of refugees huddled together in Jerusalem
and the fortified towns. We are reminded how the
great plague of Athens struck down its victims from
among the crowds driven within its walls during the
long siege of the Peloponnesian war.
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 Tolstoi, may
be stirred somewhat more by Jeremiah's grim rhetoric.
It will not be wanting in suggestiyeness to those
who have known battles and sieges. For students
1 Habakkuk i. 6, 7. * xix. 9.

302 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
of missionary literature we may roughly compare the
Jews, when exposed to the full fury of a Chaldean
attack, to the inhabitants of African villages raided by
slave-hunters. 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 x the
sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. . . . How long
shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the
trumpet ? " 2 Here, for once, Jeremiah expressed emo
tions that throbbed in every heart. There was " terror
on every hand " ; men seemed to be walking " through
slippery places in darkness," 3 or to stumble along rough
paths in a dreary twilight. Wormwood was their daily
food, and their drink maddening draughts of poison.4
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.

1 R.V. margin. 2 iv. 21. ' xxiii. 12. * xxiii. 15.

xxii. 1-9, xxvi. 14.] RUIN 303
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." x
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." 2 Not
even the most complete victory could avail to save the
city. 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
1 xxi. 3-6. 2 xxxvii. 10.

304 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zachariah
son of Barachiah,"1 so now Jehovah was about to bring
upon His Chosen People all the evil that He had
spoken against them 2 — all that had been threatened
by Isaiah and his brother-prophets, all the curses
written in Deuteronomy. But these threats were to
be fully carried out, not because predictions must be
fulfilled, nor even merely because Jehovah had spoken
and His word must not return to Him void, but
because the people had not hearkened and obeyed.
His threats were never meant to exclude the penitent
from the possibility of pardon.
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";3 "the people, the prophet, and the priest."4
This Last Judgment of Judah, as it took the form of
the complete overthrow of the State, necessarily in
cluded all under its sentence of doom. One of the
mysteries of Providence is that those who are most
responsible for national sins seem to suffer least by
public misfortunes. Ambitious statesmen and bellicose
journalists do not generally fall in battle and leave
destitute widows and children. When the captains
of commerce and manufacture err in their industrial
policy, one great result is the pauperism ai hundreds
of families who had no voice in the matter. A spend
thrift landlord may cripple the agriculture of half a
county. And yet, when factories are closed and
farmers ruined, the manufacturer and the landlord
' Matt, xxiii. 35. * xxxiv. 21.
2 xxxv. 17 : cf. xix. 15, xxxvi. 31. • xxiii. 33, 34.

xxii. 1-9, xxvi. 14.] RUIN 305
are the last to see want. In former invasions of
Judah, the princes and priests had some share of
suffering; but wealthy nobles might incur losses and
yet weather the storm by which poorer men were
overwhelmed. Fines and tribute levied by the in
vaders would, after the manner of the East, be wrung
from the weak and helpless. But now ruin was to
fall on all alike. The nobles had been flagrant in
sin, they were now to be marked out for most condign
punishment — " To whomsoever much is given, of him
shall much be required."
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.1 The Temple would
be laid in ruins like the ancient sanctuary of Israel at
Shiloh.2 The palaces 3 of the king and princes would be
special marks for the destructive fury of the enemy, and
their treasures and all the wealth of the city would be
for a spoil ; those who survived the sack of the city
would be carried captive to Babylon.4
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 ex
ceptional 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

1 xxxiv. 2, 22, xxxvn. 8. 3 vi. 5.
' vii. and xxvi. 4 xx. 5. 20

306 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
up and leave his meal to go and bury the corpse of a
murdered Jew, at the risk of his own life.1
Jeremiah prophesied of the slain in this last over
throw : " 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." 2 The only sign of life
amidst the desolate ruins of Jerusalem and the cities of
Judah would be the melancholy cry of the jackals round
the traveller's tent.3 •
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
formulae ; 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 pro
cession 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
' Tobit xii. 13: cf. ii. 2 xxv. 10. 3 ix. 11, x. 22.

xxii. 1-9, xxvi. 14.] RUIN 307
of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the
bridegroom and the voice of the bride." At any rate,
however, and whenever used, the figure could not fail
to arrest attention, and to serve as an emphatic declara
tion that the ordinary social routine would be broken
up and lost in the coming calamity.
Henceforth the land would be as some guilty habita
tion of sinners, devoted to eternal destruction, an
astonishment and a hissing and a perpetual desolation.1
When the heathen sought some curse to express the
extreme of malignant hatred, they would use the formula,
"God make thee like Jerusalem."2 Jehovah's Chosen
People would become an everlasting reproach, a per
petual shame, which should not be forgotten.3 The
wrath of Jehovah pursued even captives and fugitives.
In chapter xxix. Jeremiah predicts the punishment of
the Jewish prophets at Babylon. When we last hear
of him, in Egypt, he is denouncing ruin against "the
remnant of Judah that have set their faces to go into
the land of Egypt to sojourn there." He still reiterates
the same familiar phrases : " Ye shall die by the sword,
by the famine, and by the pestilence " ; they shall be
" an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and
a reproach." 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.
1 xxv. 9, 10. '' xxvi. 6. ' xxiii. 40.

CHAPTER XXX
RESTORATION— I. THE SYMBOL
xxxii
"And I bought the field of Hanameel." — Jer. xxxii. 9.
WHEN Jeremiah was first called to his prophetic
mission, after the charge " to pluck up and to
break down, and to destroy and to overthrow," there
were added — almost as if they were an afterthought —
the words " to build and to plant." x Throughout a
large part of the book little or nothing is said about
building and planting; but, at last, four consecutive
chapters, xxx. — xxxiii., are almost entirely devoted to
this subject. Jeremiah's characteristic phrases are
not all denunciatory ; we owe to him the description
of Jehovah as "the Hope of Israel."2 Sin and ruin,
guilt and punishment, could not quench the hope that
centred in Him. Though the day of Jehovah might be
darkness and not light,3 yet, through the blackness of
this day turned into night, the prophets beheld a
radiant dawn. When all other building and planting
were over for Jeremiah, when it might seem that much
that he had planted was being rooted up again in the
overthrow of Judah, he was yet permitted to plant
shoots in the garden of the Lord, which have since

xiv. 8, xvii. 13. 3 Amos v. 18, 20.
3°8

xxxii.] RESTORATION— I. THE SYMBOL 309
become trees whose leaves are for the healing of the
nations. 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," x i.e., as we gather from this chapter, to take
possession of an inheritance that devolved upon him.
As he was now unable to attend to this business at
Anathoth, his cousin Hanameel came to him in the
prison, to give him the opportunity of observing the
necessary formalities. In his enforced leisure Jeremiah
would often recur to the matter on which he had been
engaged when he was arrested. An interrupted piece
of work is apt to intrude itself upon the mind with
tiresome importunity ; moreover his dismal surroundings
would remind him of his business — it had been the
cause of his imprisonment. The bond between an
Israelite and the family inheritance was almost as close
and sacred as that between Jehovah and the Land of
Promise. Naboth had died a martyr to the duty he
owed to the land. " Jehovah forbid that I should give
1 xxxvii. 12 (RV.).

3io THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

thee the inheritance of my fathers," x said he to Ahab.
And now, in the final crisis of the fortunes of Judah,
the prophet whose heart was crushed by the awful
task laid upon him had done what he could to secure
the rights of his family in the " field " at Anathoth.
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 Hana
meel 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
1 I Kings xxi. 3.

xxxii.] RESTORATION— I. THE SYMBOL 311
presence a temporary mitigation of his gloomy sur
roundings, and was inspired with more cheerful and
kindly feelings. The solemn and formal appeal to fulfil
a kinsman's duty towards the family inheritance came
to him as a Divine command : " I knew that this was
the word of Jehovah."
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 com
municate 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.1
The leading case is that in the Book of Ruth, where,
however, the purchase of land is altogether secondary
to the levirate marriage. The land custom assumes
that an Israelite will only part with his land in case of
absolute necessity, and it was evidently supposed that
some member of the clan would feel bound to purchase.
On the other hand, in Ruth, the next-of-kin is readily
allowed to transfer the obligation to Boaz. Why
Hanameel sold his field we cannot tell ; in these days
of constant invasion, most of the small landowners must
have been reduced to great distress, and would gladly
have found purchasers for their property. The kinsman
to whom land was offered would pretty generally refuse
1 Lev. xxv. 25, Law of Holiness ; Ruth iv.

3i2 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
to pay anything but a nominal price. Formerly the de
mand that the next-of-kin should buy an inheritance
was seldom made, but the exceptional feature in this case
was Jeremiah's willingness to conform to ancient custom.
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.1 We know neither the size of
Hanameel's field nor the quality of the land, nor yet
the value of the shekels ; 2 but the symbolic use made
of the incident implies that Jeremiah paid a fair and
not a panic price.
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

1 2 Sam. xxiv. 24 : cf. I Chron. xxi. 25, where the price is six hundred
shekels of gold. It is scarcely necessary to point out that " thresh
ing-floor " (Sam.) and "place of the threshing-floor" (Chron.) are
synonymous. 2 By value here is meant purchasing power, to which the weight
denoted by the term shekel is now no clue.

xxxii.] RESTORATION— I. THE SYMBOL 313
affected by their imprisonment. A deed or deeds were
drawn up, signed by Jeremiah and the witnesses, and
publicly delivered to Baruch to be kept safely in an
earthen vessel. The legal formalities are described
with some detail ; possibly they were observed with
exceptional punctiliousness ; at any rate, great stress
'is laid upon the exact fulfilment of all that law and
custom demanded. Unfortunately, in the course of
so many centuries, much of the detail has become
unintelligible. For instance, Jeremiah the purchaser
signs the record of the purchase, but nothing is said
about Hanameel signing. When Abraham bought the
field of Machpelah of Ephron the Hittite there was no
written deed, the land was simply transferred in public
at the gate of the city.1 Here the written record
becomes valid by being publicly delivered to Baruch
in the presence of Hanameel and the witnesses. The
details with regard to the deeds are very obscure, and
the text is doubtful. The Hebrew apparently refers
to two deeds, but the Septuagint for the most part to
one only. The R.V. of verse 1 1 runs : "So I took
the deed of the purchase, both that which was sealed,
according to the law and the custom, and that which
was open." The Septuagint omits everything after
" that which was sealed " ; and, in any case, the words
"the law and the custom"- — better, as R.V. margin,
" containing the terms and the conditions" — are a gloss.
In verse 14 the R.V. has : " Take these deeds, this deed
of the purchase, both that which is sealed, and this deed
which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel."
The Septuagint reads : " Take this book of the purchase
and this book that has been read,2 and thou shalt put
1 Gen. xxiii. (P.).
2 iveyviaff/iivop, probably a corruption of toewyntiiov.

3i4 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

it in an earthen vessel." x It is possible that, as has
been suggested, the reference to two deeds has arisen
out of a misunderstanding of the description of a single
deed. Scribes may have altered or added to the text
in order to make it state explicitly what they supposed
to be implied. No reason is given for having two
deeds. We could have understood the double record
if each party had retained one of the documents, or if
one had been buried in the earthen vessel and the other
kept for reference, but both are put into the earthen
vessel. The terms "that which is sealed" and "that
which is open " may, however, be explained of either
of one or two documents 2 somewhat as follows : the
record was written, signed, and witnessed ; it was then
folded up and sealed ; part or the whole of the contents
of this sealed-up record was then written again on the
outside or on a separate parchment, so that the purport
of the deed could easily be ascertained without ex
posing the original record. The Assyrian and Chaldean
contract-tablets were constructed on this principle ; the
contract was first written on a clay tablet, which was
further enclosed in an envelope of clay, and on the
outside was engraved an exact copy of the writing
within. If the outer writing became indistinct or was
tampered with, the envelope could be broken and the
exact terms of the contract ascertained from the first
tablet. Numerous examples of this method can be
seen in the British Museum. The Jews had been
vassals of Assyria and Babylon for about a century,
and thus must have had ample opportunity to become
acquainted with their legal procedure; and, in this

The text varies in different MSS. of the LXX.
Cf. Cheyne, etc., in loco.

xxxii.] RESTORATION— I. THE SYMBOL 315
instance, Jeremiah and his friends may have imitated
the Chaldeans. Such an imitation would be specially
significant in what was intended to symbolise the
transitoriness of the Chaldean conquest.
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,1 but Jere
miah hesitated to accept an interpretation seemingly
at variance with the judgments he had, pronounced
upon the guilty people. When he had handed over
the deed to Baruch, and his mind was no longer
occupied with legal minutiae, he could ponder at leisure
on the significance of his purchase. The prophet's
meditations naturally shaped themselves into a prayer ;
he laid his perplexity before Jehovah.2 Possibly, even
from the court of the guard, he could see something of
1 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.
2 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.

316 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
the works of the besiegers; and certainly men would
talk constantly of the progress of the siege. Outside
the Chaldeans were pushing their mounds and engines
nearer and nearer to the walls, within famine and
pestilence decimated and enfeebled the defenders ; the
city was virtually in the enemy's hands. All this was
in accordance with the will of Jehovah and the mission
entrusted to His prophet. " What thou hast spoken of
is come to pass, and, behold, thou seest it." And yet,
in spite of all this, " Thou hast said unto me, O Lord
Jehovah, Buy the field for money and take witnesses —
and the city is in the hands of the Chaldeans ! "
Jeremiah had already predicted the ruin of Babylon
and the return of the captives at the end of seventy
years.1 It is clear, therefore, that he did not at first
understand the sign of the purchase as referring to
restoration from the Captivity. His mind, at the
moment, was preoccupied with the approaching cap
ture of Jerusalem ; apparently his first thought was
that his prophecies of doom were to be set aside, and
at the last moment some wonderful deliverance might
be wrought out for Zion. In the Book of Jonah,
Nineveh is spared in spite of the prophet's uncondi
tional and vehement declaration : " Yet forty days and
Nineveh shall be overthrown." Was it possible, thought
Jeremiah, that after all that had been said and done,
buying and selling, building and planting, marrying and
giving in marriage, were to go on as if nothing had
happened ? He was bewildered and confounded by the
idea of such a revolution in the Divine purposes.
Jehovah in His answer at once repudiates this idea.
He asserts His universal sovereignty and omnipotence ;
1 xxv. 12, xxix. lo.

xxxii.] RESTORATION— I. THE SYMBOL 317
these are to be manifested, first in judgment and then
in mercy. He declares afresh that all the judgments
predicted by Jeremiah shall speedily come to pass.
Then He unfolds His gracious purpose of redemption
and deliverance. He will gather the exiles from all
lands and bring them back to Judah, and they shall
dwell there securely. They shall be His people and
He will be their. God. Henceforth He will make an
everlasting covenant with them, that He will never
again abandon them to misery and destruction, but
will always do them good. By Divine grace they
shall be united in purpose and action to serve Jehovah ;
He Himself will put His fear in their hearts.
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.

318 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
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.

CHAPTER XXXI
RESTORATION— II. THE NEW ISRAEL
xxiii. 3-8, xxiv. 6, 7, xxx., xxxi., xxxiii. '
" 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.
THE Divine utterances in chapter xxxiii. were given
to Jeremiah when he was shut, up in the "court
of the guard " during the last days of the siege. It may,
however, have been committed to writing at a later date,
possibly in connection with chapters xxx. and xxxi.,
when the destruction of Jerusalem was already past.
It is in accordance with all analogy that the final
record of a " word of Jehovah " should include any
further light which had come to the prophet through
his inspired meditations on the original message.
Chapters xxx., xxxi., and xxxiii. mostly expound and
enforce leading ideas contained in xxxii. 37-44 and in
1 Vatke and Stade reject chapters xxx., xxxi., xxxiii., but they are
accepted by Driver, Cornill, Kautzsch (for the most part). Giese
brecht 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.
3'9

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

earlier utterances of Jeremiah. They have much in
common with II. Isaiah. The ruin of Judah and the
captivity of the people were accomplished facts to both
writers, and they were both looking forward to the
return of the exiles and the restoration of the kingdom
of Jehovah. We shall have occasion to notice indi
vidual points of resemblance later on.
In xxx. 2 Jeremiah is commanded to write in a
book all that Jehovah has spoken to him ; and accord
ing 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 pre
served 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 x else
where in Jeremiah, the promised deliverance from
Assyria and Babylon was to surpass all earlier mani
festations of the Divine power and mercy. The Exodus
would not be named in the same breath with it :
" Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that it shall
no more be said, As Jehovah liveth, that brought up
the Israelites out of the land of Egypt ; but, As
Jehovah liveth, that brought up the Israelites from
the land of the north, and from all the countries
whither He had driven them." This prediction has
waited for fulfilment to our own times : hitherto the
Exodus has occupied men's minds much more than the
1 xvi. 14, 15, xxiii. 7, 8.

xxx.ff.] RESTORATION— II. THE NEW ISRAEL 321
Return ; we are now coming to estimate the supreme
religious importance of the latter event.
Elsewhere again Jeremiah connects his promise with
the clause in his original commission " to build and to
plant " : x "I will set My eyes upon them (the captives)
for good, and I will bring them again to this land ;
and I will build them, and not pull them down ; and I
will plant them, and not pluck them up."2 As in
xxxii. 28-35, tne picture of restoration is rendered
more vivid by contrast with Judah's present state of
wretchedness ; the marvellousness of Jehovah's mercy
is made apparent by reminding Israel of the multitude
of its iniquities. The agony of Jacob is like that of
a woman in travail. But travail shall be followed by
deliverance and triumph. In the second Psalm the
subject nations took counsel against Jehovah and
against His Anointed : —
"Let us break their bands asunder,
And cast away their cords from us";
but now this is the counsel of Jehovah concerning His
people and their Babylonian conqueror : —
" I will break his yoke from off thy neck,
And break thy bands asunder." 3
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
1 i. 10. " xxiv. 6. 3 xxx. 5-8. 21

322 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
thee, saith Jehovah." Jerusalem was an outcast, of
whom men said contemptuously : " This is Zion, whom
no man seeketh after."1 But man's extremity was
God's opportunity; because Judah was helpless and
despised, therefore Jehovah said, "I will restore health
unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds." 2
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 op
portunity 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." 3

1 xxx. 12-17.
2 The two verses xxx. 10, 1 1, present some difficulty here. Accord
ing to Kautzsch, and of course Giesebrecht, they are a later addition.
The ideas can mostly be paralleled elsewhere in Jeremiah. Verse Iii,
"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."
3 xxxiii. 2, 3; "earth" is inserted with the LXX. Many regard
these verses as a later addition, based on II. Isaiah : cf. Isa. xlviii. 6.
The phrase "Jehovah is His name" and the terms "make" and
" fashion " are specially common in II. Isaiah, xxxiii. so largely repeats
the ideas of xxx. that it is most convenient to deal with them together.

xxx. ff.] RESTORATION— II. THE NEW ISRAEL 323
" 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."1
The healing of Zion naturally involved the punish
ment of her cruel and treacherous lovers.2 The Return,
like other revolutions, was not wrought by rose-water ;
the yokes were broken and the bands rent asunder by
main force. Jehovah would make a full end of all
the nations whither He had scattered them. Their
devourers should be devoured, all their adversaries
should go into captivity, those who had spoiled and
preyed upon them should become a spoil and a prey.
Jeremiah had been commissioned from the beginning
to pull down foreign nations and kingdoms as well as
his native Judah.3 Judah was only one of Israel's
evil neighbours who were to be plucked up out of
their land.4 And at the Return, as at the Exodus, the
waves at one and the same time opened a path of
safety for Israel and overwhelmed her oppressors.
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 ap-

1 xxxiii. 6-8, slightly paraphrased and condensed.
2 xxx. 8, 11, 16, 20. Cf. also the chapters on the prophecies
concerning foreign nations.
3 i. 10.
1 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.

324 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
pointed by Pharaoh Necho, and Zedekiah by Nebu
chadnezzar. We cannot doubt that the kings of
Egypt and Babylon were also careful to surround their
nominees with ministers who were devoted to the
interests of their suzerains. But now "their nobles
were to be of themselves, and their ruler was to pro
ceed out of their midst," x i.e. nobles and rulers were
to hold their offices according to national custom and
tradition. Jeremiah was fond of speaking of the leaders of
Judah as shepherds. We have had occasion already 2
to consider his controversy with the " shepherds " of
his own time. In his picture of the New Israel he
uses the same figure. In denouncing the evil shep
herds, he predicts that, when the remnant of Jehovah's
flock is brought again to their folds, He will set up
shepherds over them which shall feed them,3 shepherds
according to Jehovah's own heart, who should feed
them with knowledge and understanding.4
Over them Jehovah would establish as Chief Shep
herd a Prince of the House of David. Isaiah had
already included in his picture of Messianic times the
fertility of Palestine ; its vegetation,6 by the blessing of
Jehovah, should be beautiful and glorious : he had also
described the Messianic King as a fruitful Branch 6 out
of the root of Jesse. Jeremiah takes the idea of the
latter passage, but uses the language of the former.
For him the King of the New Israel is, as it were, a
Growth (cemah) out of the sacred soil, or perhaps more
definitely from the roots of the House of David, that
1 xxx. 21. 3 xxiii. 3, 4.
2 Cf. Chap. VIII. " iii. 15.
5 Isa. iv. 2, cemah ; A.V. and R.V. Branch, R.V. margin Shoot or
Bud. * Isa. xi. 1.

xxx.fr.] RESTORATION— II. THE NEW ISRAEL 325

ancient tree whose trunk had been hewn down and
burnt. Both the Growth (cemah) and the Branch
(necer) had the same vital connection with the soil of
Palestine and the root of David. Our English versions
exercised a wise discretion when they sacrificed literal
accuracy and indicated the identity of idea by trans
lating both " cemah " and " necer '' by " Branch."
" 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 ' Cidqenu,' Jehovah is our
righteousness." x Jehovah Cidqenu might very well
be the personal name of a Jewish king, though the
form would be unusual ; but what is chiefly in
tended is that His character shall be such as the
"name" describes. The "name" is a brief and
pointed censure upon a king whose character was the
opposite of that described in these verses, yet who
bore a name of almost identical meaning — Zedekiah,
Jehovah is my righteousness. The name of the last
reigning Prince of the House of David had been a
standing condemnation of his unworthy life, but the
King of the New Israel, Jehovah's true Messiah, would
realise in His administration all that such a name pro
mised. Sovereigns delight to accumulate sonorous
epithets in their official designations — Highness, High
and Mighty, Majesty, Serene, Gracious. The glaring
contrast between character and titles often only serves
to advertise the worthlessness of those who are
labelled with such epithets : the Majesty of James I.,
1 xxv. 5, 6; repeated in xxxiii. 15, 16, with slight variations,

326 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
the Graciousness of Richard III. Yet these titles point
to a standard of true royalty, whether the sovereign
be an individual or a class or the people ; they describe
that Divine Sovereignty which will be realised in the
Kingdom of God.1
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 pro
ceed 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." 2
The figure often used of the utter desolation of the
deserted country is now used to illustrate its complete
restoration : " Yet again there shall be heard in this
place . . . the voice of joy and the voice of gladness,
the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride."
Throughout all the land " which is waste, without man
and without beast, and in all the cities thereof," shep
herds shall dwell and pasture and fold their flocks ; and
in the cities of all the districts of the Southern Kingdom
(enumerated as exhaustively as in xxxii. 44) shall the

1 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 Cidqenu,
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 2 Sam. vii. 14-16, and is equivalent to
Jer. xxii. 4, 30. The form and substance of the Divine promise
imitate xxxi. 35-37. 2 xxx. 18-20.

xxx.ff.] RESTORATION— II. THE NEW ISRAEL 327
flocks again pass under the shepherd's hands to be
told.1 Jehovah's own peculiar flock, His Chosen People,
shall be fruitful and multiply according to the primaeval
blessing ; under their new shepherds they shall no
more fear nor be dismayed, neither shall any be
lacking.2 Jeremiah recurs again and again to the
quiet, the restfulness, the freedom from fear and dismay
of the restored Israel. In this, as in all else, the New
Dispensation was to be an entire contrast to those long
weary years of alternate suspense and panic, when
men's hearts were shaken by the sound of the trumpet
and the alarm of war.3 Israel is to dwell securely at
rest from fear of harm.4 When Jacob returns, he
" shall be quiet and at ease, and none shall make him
afraid."6 Egyptian, Assyrian, and Chaldean shall all
cease from troubling ; the memory of past misery shall
become dim and shadowy.
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 in
accessible 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

1 xxxiii. 10-13. lv- J9-
2 xxiii. 3, 4. * xxiii. 6.

328 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

habitation, a tent that shall not be removed, the stakes
whereof shall never be plucked up, neither shall any of
the cords thereof be broken. There Jehovah will be
with us in majesty, a place of broad rivers and streams ;
wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall
gallant ship pass thereby."1
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."2 This new David, as the Messianic King
is called,3 is to have the priestly right of immediate
access to God : " I will cause Him to draw near, and He
shall approach unto Me : for else who would risk his
life by daring to approach Me ? "4 Israel is liberated
from foreign conquerors to serve Jehovah their God
and David their King ; and the Lord Himself rejoices
in His restored and ransomed people.
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." 6

1 Isa. xxxiii. 16-21 : cf. xxxii. 15-18.
' xxxiii. 11. ' xxx. 21, as Kautzsch.
* xxx. 9. ° xxxiii. 9.

CHAPTER XXXII
RESTORATION— III. REUNION

" 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.
IN his prophecies of restoration, Jeremiah continually
couples together Judah and IsraeL1 Israel, it is
true, often stands for the whole elect nation, and is
so used by Jeremiah. After the disappearance of the
Ten Tribes, the Jewish community is spoken of as
Israel. But Israel, in contrast to Judah, will naturally
mean the Northern Kingdom or its exiled inhabitants.
In this chapter Jeremiah clearly refers to this Israel ;
he speaks of it under its distinctive title of Ephraim,
and promises that vineyards shall again be planted
on the mountains of Samaria. Jehovah had declared
that He would cast Judah out of His sight, as He had
cast out the whole seed of Ephraim.2 In the days to
come Jehovah would make His new covenant with
the House of Israel, as well as with the House of
Judah. Amos,3 who was sent to declare the captivity
of Israel, also prophesied its return ; and similar pro
mises are found in Micah and Isaiah.4 But, in his
attitude towards Ephraim, Jeremiah, as in so much
1 xxxiii., 7, etc. 3 Amos ix. 14.
2 vii. 15. * Micah ii. 12; Isa. xi. 10-16.
329

330 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
else, is a disciple of Hosea. Both prophets have the
same tender, affectionate interest in this wayward child
of God. Hosea mourns over Ephraim's sin and punish
ment : " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? how
shall I deliver thee to thine enemies, O Israel ? how
shall I make thee as Admah ? how shall I set thee
as Zeboim ? " x Jeremiah exults in the glory of
Ephraim's restoration. Hosea barely attains to the
hope that Israel will return from captivity, or possibly
that its doom may yet be averted. " Mine heart
is turned within Me, My compassions are kindled
together. I will not execute the fierceness of Mine
anger, I will not again any more destroy Ephraim :
for I am God, and not man ; the Holy One of Israel
in the midst of thee." 2 But Jehovah rather longs to
pardon than finds any sign of the repentance that
makes pardon possible ; and similarly the promise —
" I will be as the dew unto Israel : he shall blossom
as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His
branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the
olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon" — is conditioned
upon the very doubtful response to the appeal " O
Israel, return unto Jehovah thy God." 3 But Jeremiah's
confidence in the glorious future of Ephraim is dimmed
by no shade of misgiving. " They shall be My people,
and I will be their God," is the refrain of Jeremiah's
prophecies of restoration ; this chapter opens with a
special modification of the formula, which emphatically
and expressly includes both Ephraim and Judah — " I
will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they
shall be My people."
The Assyrian and Chaldean captivities carried men's
' Hosea xi. 8. 2 Hosea xi. 9. a Hosea xiv.

xxxi.] RESTORATION— III. REUNION 331
thoughts back to the bondage in Egypt ; and the
experiences of the Exodus provided phrases and figures
to describe the expected Return. The judges had
delivered individual tribes or groups of tribes.
Jeroboam II. had been the saviour of Samaria ; and
the overthrow of Sennacherib had rescued Jerusalem.
But the Exodus stood out from all later deliverances
as the birth of the whole people. Hence the prophets
often speak of the Return as a New Exodus.
This prophecy takes the form of a dialogue between
Jehovah and the Virgin of Israel, i.e. the nation per
sonified. 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,"1 — hath
found favour — hath entered — because Jehovah regards
His purpose as already accomplished.
Jehovah speaks from His ancient dwelling-place in
Jerusalem, and, when the Virgin of Israel hears Him in
her distant exile, she answers : —
" From afar hath Jehovah appeared unto me (saying),
With My ancient love do I love thee ;
Therefore My lovingkindness is enduring toward thee."2
His love is as old as the Exodus, His mercy has
1 So Giesebrecht, reading with Jerome and Targum Vmargoo for
the obscure and obviously corrupt l'hargl'6. The other versions vary
widely in their readings.
2 R.V. " with lovingkindness have I drawn thee," R.V. margin
" have I continued lovingkindness unto thee " ; the word for " drawn "
occurs also in Hosea xi. 4, "I drew them . . . with bands of love."

332 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
endured all through the long, weary ages of Israel's
sin and suffering.
Then Jehovah replies : —
"Again will I build thee, and thou shalt be built, O Virgin of
Israel ;
Again shalt thou take thy tabrets, and go forth in the dances of
them that make merry ;
Again shalt thou plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria,
while they that plant shall enjoy the fruit."
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 : —
" For the day cometh when the vintagers ' shall cry in the hill-
country of Ephraim,
Arise, let us go up to Zion, to Jehovah our God."
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 : —
" Thus saith Jehovah :
Exult joyously for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations ;
Make your praises heard, and say, Jehovah hath saved His
people,2 even the remnant of Israel.
1 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 deter
mine 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. 2 According to the reading of the LXX. and the Targum, the
Hebrew Text has (as R.V.) " O Jehovah, save Thy people."

xxxi.] RESTORATION— III. REUNION 333
Behold, I bring them from the land of the north, and gather
them from the uttermost ends of the earth ;
Among them blind and lame, pregnant women and women in
travail together."
None are left behind, not even those least fit for the
journey. "A great company shall return hither.
They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead
them."
Of old, weeping and supplication had been heard upon
the heights of Israel because of her waywardness
and apostasy;1 but now the returning exiles offer
prayers and thanksgiving mingled with tears, weeping
partly for joy, partly for pathetic memories.
" I will bring them to streams of water, by a plain path, wherein
they cannot stumble :
For I am become once more a father to Israel, and Ephraim is
My first-born son,"
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 exist
ence to the barrier which Samaria interposed between
Jerusalem and invaders from Assyria or Damascus.
Until the latter days of Samaria, Judah had no pro
phets 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

334 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
striking illustration of the stress laid by the prophets
on the unity of Israel, to which all sectional interests
were to be sacrificed. If Ephraim was required to for
sake his ancient shrines, Jeremiah was equally ready to
forego any pride of tribe or caste. Did we, in all our
different Churches, possess the same generous spirit,
Christian reunion would no longer be a vain and
distant dream. But, passing on to the next stanza, —
" Hear the word of Jehovah, O ye nations, and make it known in
the distant islands.
Say, He that scattered Israel doth gather him, and watcheth
over him as a shepherd over his flock.
For Jehovah hath ransomed Jacob and redeemed him from the
hand of him that was too strong for him.
They shall come and sing for joy in the height of Zion ;
They shall come in streams to the bounty of Jehovah, for corn
and new wine and oil and lambs and calves."
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.
" They shall be Hke a well-watered garden ; they shall no more be
faint and weary :
Then shall they rejoice — the damsels in the dance — the young
men and the old together.
I will turn their mourning into gladness, and will comfort them,
and will bring joy out of their wretchedness.
I will fill the priests with plenty, and My people shall be satisfied
with My bounty —
It is the utterance of Jehovah."
It is not quite clear how far, in this chapter, Israel is
to be understood exclusively of Ephraim. If the fore
going 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

xxxi.] RESTORATION— III. REUNION 335
specially to Ephraim, the priests belong to families
involved in the captivity of the ten tribes, and we have
further evidence of the catholic spirit of the Jewish
prophet. Another stanza : —
" Thus saith Jehovah :
A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refuseth to be comforted for her children, for they are not."
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.1
" 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 Gen. xxxv. 19,
Rachel's grave is placed between Bethel and Ephrath,2
and in 1 Sam. x. 2, in the border of Benjamin at
Zelzah ; only here has Rachel anything to do with
Ramah. The name, however, in its various forms, was
not uncommon. Ramah, to the north of Jerusalem,
seems to have been a frontier town, and debatable
territory 3 between the two kingdoms ; and Rachel's
appearance there might symbolise her relation to both.
1 Isaiah does not mention Benjamin.
2 "Which is Bethlehem," in Genesis, is probably a later explana
tory addition; and the explanation is not necessarily a mistake.
Cf. Matt. ii. 18. 3 I Kings xv. 17.

336 THE' BOOK OF JEREMIAH
This Ramah was also a slave depot for the Chaldeans x
after the fall of Jerusalem', and Rachel might well
revisit the glimpses of the moon at a spot where her
descendants had drunk the first bitter draught of the
cup of exile. In any case, the lines are a fresh appeal
to the spirit of national unity. The prophet seems to
say : " Children of the same mother, sharers in the
same fate, whether of ruin or restoration, remember
the ties that bind you and forget your ancient feuds."
Rachel, wailing in ghostly fashion, was yet a name to
conjure with, and the prophet hoped that her symbolic
tears could water the renewed growth of Israel's
national life. Christ, present in His living Spirit,
lacerated at heart by the bitter feuds of those who call
Him Lord, should temper the harsh judgments that
Christians pass on servants of their One Master. The
Jewish prophet lamenting the miseries of schismatic
Israel contrasts with the Pope singing Te Deums over
the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Then comes the answer : —
"Thus saith Jehovah :
Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears.
Thou shalt have wages for thy labour — it is the utterance of
Jehovah — they shall return from the enemy's land.
There is hope for thee in the days to come — it is the utterance of
Jehovah— thy children shall return to their own border." 2
The Niobe of the nation is comforted, but now is
heard another voice : —
" Surely I hear Ephraim bemoaning himself: Thou hast chastised
me ; I am chastised like a calf not yet broken to the yoke.
Restore me to Thy favour, that I may return unto Thee, for
Thou art Jehovah my God.
1 xl. I.
2 LXX. omits verse 17 b, i.e. from "Jehovah" to "border."

xxxi.] RESTORATION— III. REUNION 337
In returning unto Thee, I repent ; when I come to myself, I
smite upon my thigh in penitence." '
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 : —
" Can it be that Ephraim is indeed a son that is precious to Me ?
is he indeed » darling child ?
As often as I speak against him, I cannot cease to remember
him,2
Wherefore My tender compassion is moved towards him : verily
I will have mercy on him —
It is the utterance of Jehovah."
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 : —
" Set thee up pillars of stone,3 to mark the way; make thee guide-
posts: set thy heart toward the highway whereby thou
wentest.
Return, O Virgin of Israel, return unto these thy cities."

1 SHghtly paraphrased.
2 More literally as R.V., " I do earnestly remember him still."
* 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 parono
masia; at the same time the distance of the words and the complete
22

338 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH '
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 : —
" How long wilt thou wander to and fro, O backsliding daughter ?
Jehovah hath created a new thing in the earth — a woman
shall compass a man."
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.1
The meaning of the concluding enigma is as pro
found 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 Isaiah xliii. 19 the "new thing" which Jehovah

absence of point in this particular instance are remarkable. The
LXX., not understanding the word, represented it more suo by the
similar Greek word Ti/iioptav, 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.
1 Giesebrecht treats verses 21-26 as a later addition, but this
seems unnecessary.

xxxi.] RESTORATION— III. REUNION 339
does is to make a way in the untrodden desert and
rivers in the parched wilderness. A parallel interpreta
tion, suggested for our passage, is that women should
develop manly strength and courage, as abnormal to
them as roads and rivers to a wilderness. When
women were thus endowed, men could not for shame
shrink from the perils of the Return.
In Isaiah iv. 1 seven women court one man, and it
has been suggested1 that the sense here is "women
shall court men," but it is difficult to see how this
would be relevant. Another parallel has been sought
for in the Immanuel and other prophecies of Isaiah,
in which the birth of a child is set forth as a sign.
Our passage would then assume a Messianic character ;
the return of the Virgin of Israel would be postponed
till her doubts and difficulties should be solved by the
appearance of a new Moses.2 This view has much to
commend it, but does not very readily follow from the
usage of the word translated "compass." Still less
can we regard these words as a prediction of the
miraculous conception of our Lord.
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 head
ing of this stanza, "Thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, the
God of Israel," is different from that hitherto used, and
1 So Kautzsch. s Cf. Streane, Cambridge Bible.

34o THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH

has a special significance in its present context. It is
"the God of Israel" to whom Ephraim is a darling
child and a first-born son, the God of that Israel
which for centuries stood before the world as Ephraim ;
it is this God who blesses and redeems Judah. Her
faint and weary soul is also to be satisfied with His
plenty; Zion is to be honoured as the habitation of
justice and the mountain of holiness.
" 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 x had to be aroused,
like a man wakened out of his sleep, in order to
receive the Divine message ; and possibly Zechariah's
sleep was the ecstatic trance in which he had beheld
previous visions. Jeremiah, however, shows scant con
fidence 2 in the inspiration of those who dream dreams,
and it does not seem likely that this is a unique
exception to his ordinary experience. Perhaps we may
say with Orelli that the prophet had become lost in
the vision of future blessedness as in some sweet
dream. 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 scatter3 over the land, not dragons'
teeth, but the seed of man and beast. Recurring4
to Jeremiah's original commission, He promises that
as He watched over Judah to pluck up and to break
1 Zech. iv. I.
2 xxiii. 25-32, xxvii. 9, xxix. 8 : cf. Deut. xiii. 1-5.
3 Cf. Hosea ii. 23, " I will sow her unto Me in the earth " (or land),
in reference to Jezreel, understood as " Whom God soweth "
(R.V. margin). 4 i. 10-12.

xxxi.] RESTORATION— III. REUNION 341
down, to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so
now He will watch over them to build and to plant.
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." x Yet Jehovah
declared to Jeremiah that Manasseh's sins had irre
vocably fixed the doom of Judah, so that not even
the intercession of Moses and Samuel could procure
her pardon.2 Men might well doubt whether the
guilt of that wicked reign was even yet fully expiated,
whether their teeth might not still be set on edge
because of the sour grapes which Manasseh had eaten.
Therefore the prophet continues : " In those days men
shall no longer say, The "fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge ; but every
man shall die for his own transgression, all who eat
sour grapes shall have their own teeth set on edge."
Or to use the explicit words of Ezekiel, in the great
chapter in which he discusses this permanent theo
logical difficulty : " The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father,
neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son ;
the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him,
and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." 3
With the fall of Jerusalem, a chapter in the history
of Israel was concluded for ever ; Jehovah blotted out
the damning record of the past, and turned over a
new leaf in the annals of His people. The account

1 2 Kings xxiii. 25. 2 xv. 1-4.
3 Ezek. xviii. 20: cf. Cheyne, Jeremiah (Men of the Bible), p. 150.

342 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
between Jehovah and the Israel of the monarchy was
finally closed, and no penal balance was carried over
to stand against the restored community.
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

xxxi.] RESTORATION— III. REUNION 343
somewhat at variance both with the letter and spirit
of this prophecy, but that Samaria had only the
slightest claim to be included in Israel. Otherwise
the divisions between Hillel and Shammai, Sadducees
and Pharisees, Karaites, Sephardim and Ashkenazim,
Reformed and Unreformed Jews, have rather been
legitimate varieties of opinion and practice within
Judaism than a rending asunder of the Israel of God.
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. Isaiah1 struck the keynote of this
chapter when he prophesied that Ephraim should not
1 Isa, xi. 13.

344 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim. Our prophet,
in the same generous spirit, propounds a programme
of reconciliation. It might serve for a model to those
who construct schemes for Christian Reunion. When
two denominations are able to unite on such terms
that the one admits the other to be the first-born of
God, His darling child and precious in His sight, and
the latter is willing to accept the former's central
sanctuary as the headquarters of the united body, we
shall have come some way towards realising this ancient
Jewish ideal. Meanwhile Ephraim remains consumed
with envy of Judah; and Judah apparently considers
it her most sacred duty to vex Ephraim.
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 TertuUian 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

xxxi.] RESTORATION— III. REUNION 345
Christian states, and modern Churches sometimes avail
themselves of this jealousy to try and oust their rivals
from promising fields for mission work.
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 re
pentance, 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.

CHAPTER XXXIII
RESTORATION— IV. THE NEW COVENANT
xxxi. 31-38: cf. Hebrews viii.
" I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house
of Judah." — Jer. xxxi. 31.
THE religious history of Israel in the Old Testa
ment has for its epochs a series of covenants :
Jehovah declared His gracious purposes towards His
people, and made known the conditions upon which they
were to enjoy His promised blessings ; they, on their
part, undertook to observe faithfully all that Jehovah
commanded. We are told that covenants were made
with Noah, after the Flood ; with Abraham, when he
was assured that his descendants should inherit the land
of Canaan ; at Sinai, when Israel first became a nation ;
with Joshua, after the Promised Land was conquered ;
and, at the close of Old Testament history, when Ezra
and Nehemiah established the Pentateuch as the Code
and Canon of Judaism.
One of the oldest sections of the Pentateuch, Exodus
xx. 20 — xxiii. 33, is called the " Book of the Covenant," x
and Ewald named the Priestly Code the " Book of the
Four Covenants." Judges and Samuel record no cove
nants between Jehovah and Israel ; but the promise of
permanence to the Davidic dynasty is spoken of as an
1 Exod. xxiv. 7.
346

xxxi.] RESTORATION— IV. THE NEW COVENANT 347
everlasting covenant. Isaiah,1 Amos, and Micah make
no mention of the Divine covenants. Jeremiah,
however, imitates Hosea 2 in emphasising this aspect
of Jehovah's relation to Israel, and is followed in his
turn by Ezekiel and II. Isaiah,
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 3 in the Book of Jeremiah, and in
this case there is no doubt that the prophet was the
prime mover in inducing the Jews to release their
Hebrew slaves. This act of emancipation was adopted
in obedience to an ordinance of Deuteronomy,4 so that
Jeremiah's experience of former covenants was chiefly
connected with the code of Deuteronomy and the
older Book of the Covenant upon which it was based.
The Restoration to which Jeremiah looked forward
was to throw the Exodus into the shade, and to con
stitute 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

1 I.e. in the sections generally acknowledged.
2 Hosea ii. 18, vi. 7, viii. 1.
8 xxxiv.
* Cf. xxxiv. 14 with Deut. xv. 12 and Exod. xxi. 2.

348 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
would necessarily rest upon a New Covenant, which
would supersede the Covenant of Sinai.
" 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 sub
stance, 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.1
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
1 Cf. Prof. Adeney's Ezra, Nehemiah, etc., in this series.

xxxi.] RESTORATION— IV. THE NEW COVENANT 349
I was an husband unto them " ; x thus introducing
that Old Testament figure of marriage between Jehovah
and Israel which is transferred in Ephesians and the
Apocalypse to Christ and the Church. The margin
of the Revised Version has : " Forasmuch as they
brake My covenant, although I was lord over them."
There is little difference between these two translations,
both of which imply that in breaking the covenant
Israel was setting aside Jehovah's legitimate claim
to obedience. A third translation, on much the same
lines, would be " although I was Baal unto or over
them " ; 2 Baal or ba'al being found for lord, husband,
in ancient times as a name of Jehovah, and in
Jeremiah's time as a name of heathen gods. Jeremiah
is fond of paronomasia, and frequently refers to Baal,
so that he may have been here deliberately ambiguous.
The phrase might suggest to the Hebrew reader that
Jehovah was the true lord or husband of Israel, and
the true Baal or God, but that Israel had come to
regard Him as a mere Baal, like one of the Baals of
the heathen. " Forasmuch as they, on their part, set
at nought My covenant; so that I, their true Lord,
became to them as a mere heathen Baal." The
covenant and the God who gave it were alike treated
with contempt.
The Septuagint, which is quoted in Hebrews viii. 9,
has another translation : "And I regarded them not."3
Unless this represents a different reading,4 it is

1 So also Kautzsch, Reuss, Sugfried, and Stade. The same phrase
is thus translated in iii. 14.
2 " I was Baal " = " ba'alti."
8 ij/iflwjo-a.
* TOti); 5W occurs in xiv. 19, and is translated by A.V. and R.V.
"loathed."

350 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
probably due to a feeling that the form of the Hebrew
sentence required a close parallelism. Israel neglected
to observe the covenant, and Jehovah ceased to feel
any interest in Israel. But the idea of the latter clause
seems alien to the context.
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 accord
ing 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 some
thing 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 dispensa
tion ; 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,1 did not accept that dispensation of grace
which ultimately realised Jeremiah's prophecy. In a
narrow and unspiritual fashion the Jews of the Restora
tion observed the covenant of external ordinances ; so
that, in a certain sense, the Law was fulfilled before
the new Kingdom of God was inaugurated. But if
1 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.

xxxi.] RESTORATION— IV. THE NEW COVENANT 351
Isaiah and Jeremiah had reviewed the history of the
restored community, they would have declined to
receive it as, in any sense, the fulfilling of a Divine
covenant. The Law of Moses was not fulfilled, but
made void, by the traditions of the Pharisees. The
fact therefore remains, that failure in the lower forms,
so to speak, of God's school is still followed by
promotion to higher privileges. However little we
may be able to reconcile this truth with a priori views
of Providence, it has analogies in nature, and reveals
new depths of Divine love and greater resourcefulness
of Divine grace. Boys whose early life is unsatis
factory nevertheless grow up into the responsibilities
and privileges of manhood ; and the wilful, disobedient
child does not always make a bad man. We are apt
to think that the highest form of development is
steady, continuous, and serene, from good to better,
from better to best. The real order is more awful
and stupendous, combining good and evil, success and
failure, victory and defeat, in its continuous advance
through the ages. The wrath of man is not the only
evil passion that praises God by its ultimate subser
vience to His purpose. We need not fear lest such
Divine overruling of sin should prove any temptation
to wrongdoing, seeing that it works, as in the exile
of Israel, through the anguish and humiliation of the
sinner. The next verse explains the character of the New
Covenant ; once Jehovah wrote His law on tables of
stone, but now : —
" This is the covenant which I will conclude with the House of
Israel after those days — it islhe utterance of Jehovah —
I will put My law within them, and will write it upon their heait ;
And I will be their God, and they shall be My people."

35z THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
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 character
istics : 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,1 " When ye are multiplied and
increased in the land, ' The Ark of the Covenant of
Jehovah ' shall no longer be the watchword of Israel :
men shall neither think of the ark nor remember it ;
they shall neither miss the ark nor make another in
its place." The Ark and the Mosaic Torah were
inseparably connected ; if the Ark was to perish and
be forgotten, the Law must also be annulled.
Jeremiah moreover discerned with Paul that there

1 iii. 14, slightly paraphrased.

xxxi.] RESTORATION— IV. THE NEW COVENANT 353
was a law in the members warring against the Law
of Jehovah : " The sin of Judah is written with a pen
of iron, and with the point of a diamond : it is graven
upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of
their altars." x
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." 2 In the exposition of
the symbolic purchase of Hanameel's field, Jehovah
promises to make an everlasting covenant with His
people, that He will always do them good and never
forsake them. Such continual blessings imply that
Israel will always be faithful. Jehovah no longer
seeks to ensure their fidelity by an external law, with
its alternate threats and promises : He will rather
control the inner life by His grace. "I will give them
one heart and one way, that they may fear Me for
ever ; . . . I will put My fear in their hearts, that they
may not depart from Me." 3
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." 4 In
Deuteronomy, Israel is commanded to "love Jehovah
thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul,

xvii. 1. 3 xxxii. 39, 40.
xxiv. 7. J 1 Sam. x. 26. 23

354 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
and with all thy might. And these words, which I
command thee this day, shall be in thine heart." x
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 enforce
ment 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 : —
" Men shall no longer teach one another and teach each other'
saying, Know ye Jehovah 1
For all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest — it is the
utterance 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 attach
ing 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
1 Deut. vi. 5, 6,

xxxi.] RESTORATION— IV. THE NEW COVENANT 355
would not be at the mercy of pen, ink, and paper,
of scribe and priest. The man who had a book and
could read would no longer be able, with the self-
importance of exclusive knowledge, to bid his less
fortunate brethren to know Jehovah. He Himself
would be the one teacher, and His instruction would
fall, like the sunshine and the rain, upon all hearts alike.
And yet again Israel is assured that past sin shall
not hinder the fulfilment of this glorious vision : —
' ' For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember
no more."
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." x Now He promises that while
sun and moon and stars and sea continue in their
appointed order, Israel shall not cease from being a
nation. And, again, Jehovah will not cast off Israel
on account of its sin till the height of heaven can be
measured and the foundations of the earth searched out.2

1 Gen. viii. 22 (J.).
2 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 Isa. li. 15, " I am Jehovah thy God, which stirreth up," etc. It
seems clear that either this clause or 35-37 as a whole were added by an
editor acquainted with II. Isaiah. The prophecy, as it stands in the
Masoretic text, is concluded by a detailed description of the site of the
restored Jerusalem. The contrast between the glorious vision of the
New Israel and these architectural specifications is almost grotesque.

356 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Verses 38-40 are regarded by many as a later addition ; and even if
they are by Jeremiah, they form an independent prophecy and have
no connection with the rest of the chapter. Our knowledge of the
geographical points mentioned is not sufficient to enable us to define
the site assigned to the restored city. The point of verse 40 is that
the most unclean districts of the ancient city shall partake of the
sanctity of the New Jerusalem.

CHAPTER XXXIV
RESTORATION— V. REVIEW
xxx. — xxxiii.
IN reviewing these chapters we must be careful not
to suppose that Jeremiah knew all that would ulti
mately result from his teaching. When he declared
that the conditions of the New Covenant would be
written, not in a few parchments, but on every heart,
he laid down a principle which involved the most
characteristic teaching of the New Testament and the
Reformers, and which might seem to justify extreme
mysticism. When we read these prophecies in the
light of history, they seem to lead by a short and direct
path to the Pauline doctrines of Faith and Grace.
Constraining grace is described in the words : " I will
put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart
from Me."1 Justification by faith instead of works
substitutes the response of the soul to the Spirit of
God for conformity to a set of external regulations —
the writing on the heart for the carving of ordinances
on stone. Yet, as Newton's discovery of the law of
gravitation did not make him aware of all that later
astronomers have discovered,, so Jeremiah did not
anticipate Paul and Augustine, Luther and Calvin : he
was only their forerunner. Still less did he intend to
1 xxxii. 40.
357

358 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
affirm all that has been taught by the Brothers of the
Common Life or the Society of Friends. We have
followed the Epistle to the Hebrews in interpreting
his prophecy of the New Covenant as abrogating the
Mosaic code and inaugurating a new departure upon
entirely different 'lines. This view is supported by his
attitude towards the Temple, and especially the Ark.
At the same time we must not suppose that Jeremiah
contemplated the summary and entire abolition of the
previous dispensation. He simply delivers his latest
message from Jehovah, without bringing its contents
into relation with earlier truth, without indeed waiting
to ascertain for himself how the old and the new were
to be combined. But we may be sure that the Divine
writing on the heart would have included much that
was already written in Deuteronomy, and that both
books and teachers would have had their place in
helping men to recognise and interpret the inner
leadings of the Spirit.
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." x
Renan, with cynical frankness, heads a chapter on such
prophecies with the title " Pious Dreams." While
Jeremiah's glowing utterances rivet our attention, the
gracious words fall like balm upon our aching hearts,
and we seem, like the Apostle, caught up into Paradise,
But as soon as we try to connect our visions with any
realities, past, present, or in prospect, there comes a
rude awakening. The restored community attained to
no New Covenant, but was only found worthy of a
1 xxxi. 26.

xxx.-xxxiii.] RESTORATION— V. REVIEW 359
fresh edition of the written code. Instead of being
committed to the guidance of the ever-present Spirit of
Jehovah, they were placed under a rigid and elaborate
system of externals — "carnal ordinances, concerned
with faeats and drinks and divers washings, imposed
until a time of reformation."1 They still remained
under the covenant " from Mount Sinai, bearing children
unto bondage, which is Hagar. Now this Hagar is
Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to the Jerusalem
that now is : for she is in bondage with her children." 2
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 for
gotten. We need not underrate the merits and services
of Ezra and Nehemiah, of Simon the Just and Judas
Maccabaeus ; 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 igno
minious 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 thou
sand 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
' Heb. ix. 10. '' Gal, iv. 24, 25.

360 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
observances and superstitions.1 It is sometimes asserted
that Protestants lack faith and courage to trust to any
law written on the heart, and cling to a printed book,
as if there were no Holy Spirit — as if the Branch of
David had borne fruit once for all, and Christ were
dead. The movement for Christian Reunion seems
thus far chiefly to emphasise the feuds that^ make the
Church a kingdom divided against itself.
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 inade
quate. 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 e'gare's)." 2
The Judaism of the Return, with all its faults and
shortcomings, was still an advance in the direction
Jeremiah had indicated. However ritualistic the Penta
teuch 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,
1 Histoire du Peuple d 'Israel, iii., 340. 2 Renan, iii., 340.

xxx.-xxxiii.] RESTORATION— V. REVIEW 361
the Torah of Ezra introduced a large moral and spiritual
element, which served to bring the soul into direct
fellowship with Jehovah. " Pity and humanity are
pushed to their utmost limits, always of course in the
bosom of the family of Israel."1 The Torah moreover
included the great commands to love God and man,
which once for all placed the religion of Israel on a
spiritual basis. If the Jews often attached more im
portance to the letter and form of Revelation than to
its substance, and were more careful for ritual and
external observances than for inner righteousness, we
have no right to cast a stone at them.
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 pre-
1 Renan, iii., 425.

362 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
pared to receive and transmit that great resurrection
of prophetic teaching which came through Christ.
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," x super
seding that of Moses, are peculiar to Jeremiah, and
the New Testament consistently represents the Christian
dispensation as a fulfilment of Jeremiah's prophecy.
Besides the express and detailed application in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, Christ instituted the Lord's
Supper as the Sacrament of His New Covenant —
" This cup is the New Covenant in My blood " ; 2 and
St. Paul speaks of himself as " a minister of the New
Covenant."3 Christianity has not been unworthy of
the claim made on its behalf by its Founder, but has
realised, at any rate in some measure, the visible peace,
prosperity, and unity of Jeremiah's, New Israel, as well
as the spirituality of his New Covenant. Christendom
has its hideous blots of misery and sin, but, on the
whole, the standard of material comfort and intellectual
culture has been raised to a high average throughout
the bulk of a vast population. Internal order and
international concord have made enormous strides since
the time of Jeremiah. If an ancient Israelite could
1 We have the idea of a spiritual covenant in Isa. lix. 21, "This
is My covenant with them : . . . My spirit that is upon thee, and
My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of
thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth
of thy seed's seed, . . . from henceforth and for ever " ; but nothing
is said as to a new covenant.
2 Luke xxii. 20; I Cor. xi. 25. The word "new" is omitted by
Codd. Sin. and Vat. and the R.V. in Matt. xxvi. 28 and Mark xiv. 24.
3 2 Cor, iii. 6.

xxx.-xxxiii.] RESTORATION— V. REVIEW 363
witness the happy security of a large proportion of
English workmen and French peasants, he would think
that manj' of the predictions of his prophets had been
fulfilled. But the advance of large classes to a pros
perity once beyond the dreams of the most sanguine
only brings out in darker relief the wretchedness of
their less fortunate brethren. In view of the growing
knowledge and enormous resources of modern society,
any toleration of its cruel wrongs is an unpardonable
sin. Social problems are doubtless urgent because a
large minority are miserable, but they are rendered
still more urgent by the luxury of many and the comfort
of most. The high average of prosperity shows that
we fail to right our social evils, not for want of power,
but for want of devotion. Our civilisation is a Dives,
at whose gate Lazarus often finds no crumbs.
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 fellow
ship 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.

364 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
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. In Christ, God has raised up a
Branch of Righteousness unto David, and through
Him judgment and righteousness are wrought in the
earth. 1 xxxiii. 15,

EPILOGUE

365

CHAPTER XXXV
JEREMIAH AND CHRIST
"Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from amongst
thee, of thy brethren, Hke 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 de
nounce; 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
367

368 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
crimes which provoked and justified our prophet's fierce
indignation, and those of which we do read repel our
interest by a certain lack of the picturesque, so that
we do not take the trouble to realise their actual and
intense wickedness. Ahab is a by-word, but how many
people know anything about Ishmael ben Nethaniah ?
The cruelty of the nobles and the unctuous cant of their
prophetic allies are forgotten in — nay, they seem almost
atoned for by — the awful calamities that befell Judah
and Jerusalem. Jeremiah's memory may even be said
to have suffered from the speedy and complete fulfil
ment of his prophecies. The national ruin was a
triumphant vindication of his teaching, and his disciples
were eager to record every utterance in which he had
foretold the coming doom. Probably the book, in its
present form, gives an exaggerated impression of the
stress which Jeremiah laid upon this topic.
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 im
portant claims on the veneration and gratitude of the
Christian Church.
For Judaism was not slow to pay her tribute of
admiration and reverence to Jeremian as to a Patron
Saint and Confessor. His prophecy of the Restoration
of Israel is appealed to in Ezra and Daniel ; and the

JEREMIAH AND CHRIST 369
Hebrew Chronicler, who says as little as he can of
Isaiah, adds to the references made by the Book of
Kings to Jeremiah. We have already seen that apocry
phal legends clustered round his honoured name. He
was credited with having concealed the Tabernacle and
the Ark in the caves of Sinai.1 On the eve of a great
victory, he appeared to Judas Maccabaeus, in a vision,
as " a man distinguished by grey hairs, and a majestic
appearance ; but something wonderful and exceedingly
magnificent was the grandeur about him," and was
made known to Judas as a " lover of the brethren, who
prayeth much for the people and for the holy city, to
wit, Jeremiah the prophet of God. And Jeremiah
stretching forth his right hand delivered over to Judas
a sword of gold." 2 The Son of Sirach does not fail to
include Jeremiah in his praise of famous men;3 and
there is an apocryphal epistle purporting to be written
by our prophet.4 It is noteworthy that in the New
Testament Jeremiah is only mentioned by name in the
Judaistic Gospel- of St. Matthew.
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.6 The list might easily be enlarged, but
another parallel has been drawn which has supreme
claims on our consideration. The Jews in New Testa-
1 2 Mace. ii. 1-8.
* 2 Mace. xv. 12-16.
8 Ecclus. xlix. 6, 7.
4 Sometimes appended to the Book of Baruch as a sixth chapter.
5 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, art. " Jeremiah."
24

370 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
ment times looked for the return of Elijah or Jeremiah
to usher in Messiah's reign ; and it seemed to some
among them that the character and teaching of Jesus
of Nazareth identified him with the ancient prophet
who had been commissioned "to root out, pull down,
destroy and throw down, to build and to plant." The
suggested comparison has often been developed, but
undue stress has been laid on such accidental and
external circumstances as the prophet's celibacy and
the statement that he was " sanctified from the womb."
The discussion of such details does not greatly lend
itself to edification. But it has also been pointed out
that there is an essential resemblance between the cir
cumstances and mission of Jeremiah and his Divine
Successor, and to this some little space may be
devoted. 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 Jeru
salem; 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

JEREMIAH AND CHRIST 371
their heresy, as we have said, was practically one and
the same. To the champions of the Temple, their
teaching seemed purely destructive, an irreverent attack
upon fundamental doctrines and indispensable institu
tions. But the very opposite was the truth ; they de
stroyed nothing but what deserved to perish. Both in
Jeremiah's time and in our Lord's, men tried to assure
themselves of the permanence of erroneous dogmas and
obsolete rites by proclaiming that these were of the
essence of Divine Revelation. In either age to succeed
in this effort would have been to plunge the world into
spiritual darkness : the light of Hebrew prophecy would
have been extinguished by the Captivity, or, again, the
hope of the Messiah would have melted away like a
mirage, when the legions of Titus and Hadrian dispelled
so many Jewish dreams. But before the catastrophe
came, Jeremiah had taught men that Jehovah's Temple
and city were destroyed of His own set purpose, because
of the sins of His people ; there was no excuse for
supposing that He was discredited by the ruin of the
place where He had once chosen to set His Name.
Thus the Captivity was. not the final page in the history
of Hebrew religion, but the opening of a new chapter.
In like manner Christ and His Apostles, more especially
Paul, finally dissociated Revelation from the Temple
and its ritual, so that the light of Divine truth was not
hidden under the bushel of Judaism, but shone forth
upon the whole world from the many-branched candle
stick of the Universal Church.
Again, in both cases, not only was ancient faith
rescued from the ruin of human corruption and com
mentary, 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 com-

372 THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
plete change in the conditions and method of man's
service to God and God's beneficence to men. The
ancient Church, with its sanctuary, its clergy, and its
ritual, was to be superseded by a new order, without
sanctuary, clergy, or ritual, wherein every man would
enjoy immediate fellowship with his God. This great
ideal was virtually ignored by the Jews of the Restora
tion, but it was set forth afresh by Christ and His
Apostles. The " New Covenant " was declared to be
ratified by His sacrifice, and was confirmed anew at
every commemoration of His death. We read in
John iv. 21-23 : "The hour cometh, when neither in
this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the
Father. . . . The hour cometh, and now is, when the
true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and
truth." 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 : " II ajoute un facteur essentiel a l'ceuvre
humaine ; Jeremie est, avant Jean-Baptiste, l'homme
qui a le plus contribue' a la fondation du Christianisme ;
il doit compter, malgre la distance des siecles, entre
les precurseurs immediats de Je'sus." x

Hist., iii., 251, 305.