{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_27351/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_27351","id":"gutenberg_27351","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27351","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Jeremiah -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.","Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Jeremiah (Biblical prophet)"],"text":"Jeremiah\n\n                     Being The Baird Lecture for 1922\n\n                                    By\n\n                            George Adam Smith\n\n                                 New York\n\n                         George H. Doran Company\n\n                                   1924\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nDedication.\nPreface.\nPreliminary.\nLecture I. The Man And The Book.\nLecture II. The Poet.\nLecture III. The Prophet\u2014His Youth And His Call.\nLecture IV. The Prophet In The Reign Of Josiah.\n   1. His Earliest Oracles. (II. 2-IV. 4.)\n   2. Oracles on the Scythians. (With some others: IV. 5-VI. 29.)\n   3. Jeremiah and Deuteronomy. (Chs. VII, VIII. 8, XI.)\nLecture V. Under Jehoiakim.\n   1. From Megiddo to Carchemish, 608-605.\n   2. Parables. (XIII, XVIII-XX, XXXV.)\n   3. Oracles on the Edge of Doom. (VII. 16-XVIII _passim_, XXII, XLV.)\nLecture VI. To The End And After.\n   1. The Release of Hope. (XXIV, XXIX.)\n   2. Prophets and Prophets. (XXIII. 9-32, XXVII-XXIX, etc.)\n   3. The Siege. (XXI, XXXII-XXXIV, XXXVII, XXXVIII.)\n   4. And After. (XXX, XXXI, XXXIX-XLIV.)\nLecture VII. The Story Of His Soul.\n   1. Protest and Agony. (I, IV. 10, 19, VI. 11, XI. 18-XII. 6, XV.\n   10-XVI. 9, XVII. 14-18, XVIII. 18-23, XX. 7-18.)\n   2. Predestination. (I, XVIII, etc.)\n   3. Sacrifice.\nLecture VIII. God, Man And The New Covenant.\n   1. God.\n   2. Man and the New Covenant.\nAppendix I. Medes And Scythians.\nAppendix II. Necoh\u2019s Campaign.\nIndex Of Texts.\nIndex Of Names And Subjects.\nFootnotes\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATION.\n\n\nTO\nTHE UNION\nOF\nTHE SCOTTISH CHURCHES\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe purpose and the scope of this volume are set forth in the beginning of\nLecture I. Lecture II. explains the various metrical forms in which I\nunderstand Jeremiah to have delivered the most of his prophecies, and\nwhich I have endeavoured, however imperfectly, to reproduce in English.\nHere it is necessary only to emphasise the variety of these forms, the\nirregularities which are found in them, and the occasional passage of the\nProphet from verse to prose and from prose to verse, after the manner of\nsome other bards or rhapsodists of his race. The reader will keep in mind\nthat what appear as metrical irregularities on the printed page would not\nbe felt to be so when sung or chanted; just as is the case with the\nfolk-songs of Palestine to-day. I am well aware that metres so primitive\nand by our canons so irregular have been more rhythmically rendered by the\nstately prose of our English Versions; yet it is our duty reverently to\nseek for the original forms and melodies of what we believe to be the\nOracles of God. The only other point connected with the metrical\ntranslations offered, which need be mentioned here, is that I have\nrendered the name of the God of Israel as it is by the Greek and our own\nVersions\u2014The Lord\u2014which is more suitable to English verse than is either\nYahweh or Jehovah.\n\nThe text of the Lectures and the footnotes show how much I owe to those\nwho have already written on Jeremiah, as also in what details I differ\nfrom one or another of them.\n\nI have retained the form of Lectures for this volume, but I have very much\nexpanded and added to what were only six Lectures of an hour each when\ndelivered under the auspices of the Baird Trust in Glasgow in 1922.\n\nGeorge Adam Smith.\n\nCHANONRY LODGE,\nOLD ABERDEEN,\n_18th October, 1923._\n\n\n\n\n\nPRELIMINARY.\n\n\nFirst of all, I thank the Baird Trustees for their graceful appointment to\nthis Lecture of a member of what is still, though please God not for long,\nanother Church than their own. I am very grateful for the privilege which\nthey grant me of returning to Glasgow with the accomplishment of a work\nthe materials for which were largely gathered during the years of my\nprofessorship in the city. The value of the opportunity is enhanced by all\nthat has since befallen our nation and the world. The Great War invested\nthe experience of the Prophet, who is the subject of this Lecture, with a\nfresh and poignant relevance to our own problems and duties. Like\nourselves, Jeremiah lived through the clash not only of empires but of\nopposite ethical ideals, through the struggles and panics of small\npeoples, through long and terrible fighting, famine, and slaughter of the\nyouth of the nations, with all the anxieties to faith and the problems of\nProvidence, which such things naturally raise. Passionate for peace, he\nwas called to proclaim the inevitableness of war, in opposition to the\npopular prophets of a false peace; but later he had to counsel his people\nto submit to their foes and to accept their captivity, thus facing the\nhardest conflict a man can who loves his own\u2014between patriotism and common\nsense, between his people\u2019s gallant efforts for freedom and the stern\nfacts of the world, between national traditions and pieties on the one\nside and on the other what he believed to be the Will of God. These are\nissues which the successive generations of our race are called almost\nceaselessly to face; and the teaching and example of the great Prophet,\nwho dealt with them through such strenuous debates both with his\nfellow-men and with his God, and who brought out of these debates\nspiritual results of such significance for the individual and for the\nnation, cannot be without value for ourselves.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                Lecture I.\n\n\nTHE MAN AND THE BOOK.\n\n\nIn this and the following lectures I attempt an account and estimate of\nthe Prophet Jeremiah, of his life and teaching, and of the Book which\ncontains them\u2014but especially of the man himself, his personality and his\ntempers (there were more than one), his religious experience and its\nachievements, with the various high styles of their expression; as well as\nhis influence on the subsequent religion of his people.\n\nIt has often been asserted that in Jeremiah\u2019s ministry more than in any\nother of the Old Covenant the personality of the Prophet was under God the\ndominant factor, and one has even said that \u201chis predecessors were the\noriginators of great truths, which he transmuted into spiritual life.\u201d(1)\nTo avoid exaggeration here, we must keep in mind how large a part\npersonality played in their teaching also, and from how deep in their\nlives their messages sprang. Even Amos was no mere _voice crying in the\nwilderness_. The discipline of the desert, the clear eye for ordinary\nfacts and the sharp ear for sudden alarms which it breeds, along with the\ndesert shepherd\u2019s horror of the extravagance and cruelties of\ncivilisation\u2014all these reveal to us the Man behind the Book, who had lived\nhis truth before he uttered it. Hosea again, tells the story of his\noutraged love as _the beginning of the Word of the Lord by him_. And it\nwas the strength of Isaiah\u2019s character, which, unaided by other human\nfactors, carried Judah, with the faith she enshrined, through the first\ngreat crisis of her history. Yet recognise, as we justly may, the\npersonalities of these prophets in the nerve, the colour, the accent, and\neven the substance of their messages, we must feel the still greater\nsignificance of Jeremiah\u2019s temperament and other personal qualities both\nfor his own teaching and for the teaching of those who came after him.\nThanks to his loyal scribe, Baruch, we know more of the circumstances of\nhis career, and thanks to his own frankness, we know more of his\npsychology than we do in the case of any of his predecessors. He has, too,\npoured out his soul to us by the most personal of all channels; the charm,\npassion and poignancy of his verse lifting him high among the poets of\nIsrael.\n\nSo far as our materials enable us to judge no other prophet was more\nintrospective or concerned about himself; and though it might be said that\nhe carried this concern to a fault, yet fault or none, the fact is that no\nprophet started so deeply from himself as Jeremiah did. His circumstances\nflung him in upon his feelings and convictions; he was constantly\nsearching, doubting, confessing, and pleading for, himself. He asserted\nmore strenuously than any except Job his individuality as against God, and\nhe stood in more lonely opposition to his people.\n\nJeremiah was called to prophesy about the time that the religion of Israel\nwas re-codified in Deuteronomy\u2014the finest system of national religion\nwhich the world has seen, but only and exclusively national\u2014and he was\nstill comparatively young when that system collapsed for the time and the\nreligion itself seemed about to perish with it. He lived to see the Law\nfail, the Nation dispersed, and the National Altar shattered; but he\ngathered their fire into his bosom and carried it not only unquenched but\nwith a purer flame towards its everlasting future. We may say without\nexaggeration that what was henceforth finest in the religion of Israel\nhad, however ancient its sources, been recast in the furnace of his\nspirit. With him the human unit in religion which had hitherto been mainly\nthe nation was on the way to become the individual. Personal piety in\nlater Israel largely grew out of his spiritual struggles.(2)\n\nHis forerunners, it is true, had insisted that religion was an affair not\nof national institutions nor of outward observance, but of the people\u2019s\nheart\u2014by which heart they and their hearers must have understood the\nindividual hearts composing it. But, in urging upon his generation\nrepentance, faith and conversion to God, Jeremiah\u2019s language is more\nthorough and personal than that used by any previous prophet. The\nindividual, as he leaves Jeremiah\u2019s hands, is more clearly the direct\nobject of the Divine Interest and Grace, and the instrument of the Divine\nWill. The single soul is searched, defined and charged as never before in\nIsrael.\n\nBut this sculpture of the individual out of the mass of the nation, this\narticulation of his immediate relation to God apart from Law, Temple and\nRace, achieved as it was by Jeremiah only through intense mental and\nphysical agonies, opened to him the problem of the sufferings of the\nrighteous. In his experience the individual realised his Self only to find\nthat Self\u2014its rights, the truths given it and its best service for\nGod\u2014baffled by the stupidity and injustice of those for whom it laboured\nand agonised. The mists of pain and failure bewildered the Prophet and to\nthe last his work seemed in vain. Whether or not he himself was conscious\nof the solution of the problem, others reached it through him. There are\ngrounds for believing that the Figure of the Suffering Servant of the\nLord, raised by the Great Prophet of the Exile, and the idea of the\natoning and redemptive value of His sufferings were, in part at least, the\nresults of meditation upon the spiritual loneliness on the one side, and\nupon the passionate identification of himself with the sorrows of his\nsinful people on the other, of this the likest to Christ of all the\nprophets.(3)\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nFor our knowledge of this great life\u2014there was none greater under the Old\nCovenant\u2014we are dependent on that Book of our Scriptures, the Hebrew text\nof which bears the simple title \u201cJeremiah.\u201d\n\nThe influence of the life and therefore the full stature of the man who\nlived it, stretches, as I have hinted, to the latest bounds of Hebrew\nhistory, and many writings and deeds were worshipfully assigned to him.\nThus the Greek Version of the Old Testament ascribes Lamentations to\nJeremiah, but the poems themselves do not claim to be, and obviously are\nnot, from himself. He is twice quoted in II. Chronicles and once in Ezra,\nbut these quotations may be reasonably interpreted as referring to\nprophecies contained in our book, which were therefore extant before the\ndate of the Chronicler.(4) Ecclesiasticus XLIX. 6-7 reflects passages of\nour Book, and of Lamentations, as though equally Jeremiah\u2019s, and Daniel\nIX. 2 refers to Jeremiah XXV. 12. A paragraph in the Second Book of\nMaccabees, Ch. II. 1-8, contains, besides echoes of our Book of Jeremiah,\nreferences to other activities of the Prophet of which the sources and the\nvalue are unknown to us. But all these references, as well as the series\nof apocryphal and apocalyptic works to which the name either of Jeremiah\nhimself or of Baruch, his scribe, has been attached,(5) only reveal the\nlength of the shadow which the Prophet\u2019s figure cast down the ages, and\ncontribute no verifiable facts to our knowledge of his career or of his\nspiritual experience.\n\nFor the actual life of Jeremiah, for the man as he was to himself and his\ncontemporaries, for his origin, character, temper, struggles, growth and\nmodes of expression, we have practically no materials beyond the Canonical\nBook to which his name is prefixed.(6)\n\nRoughly classified the contents of the Book (after the extended title in\nCh. I. 1-3) are as follows:\u2014\n\n1. A Prologue, Ch. I. 4-19, in which the Prophet tells the story of his\ncall and describes the range of his mission as including both his own\npeople and foreign nations. The year of his call was 627-6 B.C.\n\n2. A large number of Oracles, dialogues between the Prophet and the Deity\nand symbolic actions by the Prophet issuing in Oracles, mostly introduced\nas by Jeremiah himself, but sometimes reported of him by another. Most of\nthe Oracles are in verse; the style of the rest is not distinguishable by\nus from prose. They deal almost exclusively with the Prophet\u2019s own people\nthough there are some references to neighbouring tribes. The bulk of this\nclass of the contents is found within Chs. II-XXV, which contain all the\nearlier oracles, i.e. those uttered by Jeremiah before the death of King\nJosiah in 608, but also several of his prophecies under Jehoiakim and even\n\u1e62edekiah. More of the latter are found within Chs. XXVII-XXXV: all these,\nexcept XXVIII and part of XXXII, which are introduced by the Prophet\nhimself, are reported by another.\n\n3. A separate group of Oracles on Foreign Nations, Chs. XLVI-LI, reported\nto us as Jeremiah\u2019s.\n\n4. A number of narratives of episodes in the Prophet\u2019s life from 608\nonwards under Jehoiakim and \u1e62edekiah to the end in Egypt, soon after 586;\napparently by a contemporary and eyewitness who on good grounds is\ngenerally taken to be Baruch the Scribe: Chs. XXVI, XXXVI-XLV; but to the\nsame source may be due much of Chs. XXVII-XXXV (see under 2).\n\n5. Obvious expansions and additions throughout all the foregoing; and a\nhistorical appendix in Ch. LII, mainly an excerpt from II. Kings XXIV-XXV.\n\nOn the face of it, then, the Book is a compilation from several sources;\nand perhaps we ought to translate the opening clause of its title not as\nin our versions \u201cThe Words of Jeremiah,\u201d but \u201cThe History of Jeremiah,\u201d as\nhas been legitimately done by some scholars since Kimchi.\n\nWhat were the nuclei of this compilation? How did they originate? What\nproofs do they give of their value as historical documents? How did they\ncome together? And what changes, if any, did they suffer before the\ncompilation closed and the Book received its present form?\n\nThese questions must be answered, so far as possible, before we can give\nan account of the Prophet\u2019s life or an estimate of himself and his\nteaching. The rest of this lecture is an attempt to answer them\u2014but in the\nopposite order to that in which I have just stated them. We shall work\nbackward from the two ultimate forms in which the Book has come down to\nus. For these forms are two.\n\nBesides the Hebrew text, from which the Authorised and Revised English\nVersions have been made, we possess a form of the Book in Greek, which is\npart of the Greek Version of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint.\nThis is virtually another edition of the same work. The Hebrew text\nbelongs to the Second or Prophetical Canon of the Jewish Scriptures, which\nwas not closed till about 200 B.C., or more than 350 years after\nJeremiah\u2019s death. The Greek Version was completed about the same time, and\npossibly earlier.\n\nThese two editions of the Book hold by far the greatest part of their\ncontents in common, yet they differ considerably in the amount and in the\narrangement of their contents, and somewhat less in the dates and personal\nreferences which they apply to various passages. We have thus before us\ntwo largely independent witnesses who agree in the bulk of their\ntestimony, and otherwise correct and supplement each other.\n\nIn size the Greek Book of Jeremiah is but seven-eighths of the Hebrew,(7)\nbut conversely it contains some hundred words that the Hebrew lacks. Part\nof this small Greek surplus is due to the translators\u2019 expansion or\nparaphrase of briefer Hebrew originals, or consists of glosses that they\nfound in the Hebrew MSS. from which they translated, or added of\nthemselves; the rest is made up of what are probably original phrases but\nomitted from the Hebrew by the carelessness of copyists; yet none of these\ndifferences is of importance save where the Greek corrects an irregularity\nin the Hebrew metre, or yields sense when the Hebrew fails to do so.(8)\n\nMore instructive is the greater number of phrases and passages found in\nthe Hebrew Book, and consequently in our English Versions, but absent from\nthe Greek. Some, it is true, are merely formal\u2014additions to a personal\nname of the title _king_ or _prophet_ or of the names of a father and\ngrandfather, or the more frequent use of the divine title _of Hosts_ with\nthe personal Name of the Deity or of the phrase _Rede of the Lord_.(9)\nAlso the Greek omits words which in the Hebrew are obviously mistakes of a\ncopyist.(10) Again, a number of what are transparent glosses or marginal\nnotes on the Hebrew text are lacking in the Greek, because the translator\nof the latter did not find them on the Hebrew manuscript from which he\ntranslated.(11) Some titles to sections of the Book, or portions of\ntitles, absent from the Greek but found in our Hebrew text, are also later\neditorial additions.(12) Greater importance, however, attaches to those\nphrases that cannot be mere glosses and to the longer passages, wanting in\nthe Greek but found in the Hebrew, many of which upon internal evidence\nmust be regarded as late intrusions into the latter.(13) And occasionally\na word or phrase in the Hebrew, which spoils the rhythm or is irrelevant\nto the sense, is not found in the Greek.(14)\n\nFinally, there is one great difference of arrangement. The group of\nOracles on Foreign Nations which appear in the Hebrew as Chs. XLVI-LI are\nin the Greek placed between verses 13 and 15(15) of Ch. XXV, and are\nranged in a different order\u2014an obvious proof that at one time different\neditors felt free to deal with the arrangement of the compilation as well\nas to add to its contents.(16)\n\nModern critics differ as to the comparative value of these two editions of\nthe Book of Jeremiah, and there are strong advocates on either side.(17)\nBut the prevailing opinion, and, to my view, the right one, is that no\ngeneral judgment is possible, and that each case of difference between the\ntwo witnesses must be decided by itself.(18) With this, however, we have\nnothing at present to do. What concerns us now is the fact that the Greek\nis not the translation of the canonical Hebrew text, but that the two\nBooks, while sharing a common basis of wide extent, represent two\ndifferent lines of compilation and editorial development which continued\ntill at least 200 B.C. Between them they are the proof that, while our\nBible was still being compiled, some measure of historical criticism and\nof editorial activity was at work on the material\u2014and this not only along\none line. We need not stop to discuss how far the fact justifies the\nexercise of criticism by the modern Church. For our present purpose it is\nenough to keep in mind that our Book of Jeremiah is the result of a long\ndevelopment through some centuries and on more than one line, though the\ntwo divergent movements started with, and carried down, a large body of\nmaterial in common.\n\nMoreover, this common material bears evidence of having already undergone\nsimilar treatment, _before_ it passed out on those two lines of further\ndevelopment which resulted in the canonical Hebrew text and the Greek\nVersion respectively. The signs of gradual compilation are everywhere upon\nthe material which they share in common. Now and then a chronological\norder appears, and indeed there are traces of a purpose to pursue that\norder throughout. But this has been disturbed by cross-arrangements\naccording to subject,(19) and by the intrusion of later oracles and\nepisodes among earlier ones(20) or _vice versa_(21) as if their materials\nhad come into the hands of the compilers or editors of the Book only\ngradually. Another proof of the gradual growth of those contents, which\nare common to the Hebrew and the Greek, is the fashion in which they tend\nto run away from the titles prefixed to them. Take the title to the whole\nBook,(22) Ch. I. 2, _Which was the Word of the Lord to Jeremiah in the\ndays of Josiah, son of Amon, King of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his\nreign_. This covers only the narrative of the Prophet\u2019s call in Ch. I, or\nat most a few of the Oracles in the following chapters. The supplementary\ntitle in verse 3\u2014_It came also in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of\nJosiah, King of Judah, up to [the end of]_(_23_)_ the eleventh year of\n\u1e62edekiah, the son of Josiah King of Judah, up to the exile of Jerusalem,\nin the fifth month_\u2014is probably a later addition, added when the later\nOracles of Jeremiah were attached to some collection of those which he had\ndelivered under Josiah; but even then the title fails to cover those words\nin the Book which Jeremiah spake after Jerusalem had gone into exile, and\neven after he had been hurried down into Egypt by a base remnant of his\npeople.(24) Moreover, the historical appendix to the Book carries the\nhistory it contains on to 561 B.C. at least.(25) Again there are passages,\nthe subjects of which are irrelevant to their context, and which break the\nclear connection of the parts of the context between which they have\nintruded.(26) The shorter sentences, that also disturb the connection as\nthey stand, appear to have been written originally as marginal notes which\na later editor or copyist has incorporated in the text.(27) To this class,\ntoo, may belong those brief passages which appear twice, once in their\nnatural connection in some later chapter and once out of their natural\nconnection in some earlier chapter.(28) And again in VII. 1-28 and XXVI.\n1-9 we have two accounts, apparently from different hands, of what may or\nmay not be the same episode in Jeremiah\u2019s ministry.\n\nThese data clearly prove that not only from the time when the Hebrew and\nGreek editions of the Book started upon their separate lines of\ndevelopment, but from the very beginnings of the Book\u2019s history, the work\nof accumulation, arrangement and re-arrangement, with other editorial\nprocesses, had been busy upon it.\n\nThe next question is, have we any criteria by which to discriminate\nbetween the elements in the Book that belong either to Jeremiah himself or\nto his contemporaries and others that are due to editors or compilers\nbetween his death soon after 586 and the close of the Prophetic Canon in\n200 B.C.? The answer is that we have such criteria. All Oracles or\nNarratives in the Book, which (apart from obvious intrusions) imply that\nthe Exile is well advanced or that the Return from Exile has already\nhappened, or which reflect the circumstances of the later Exile and\nsubsequent periods or the spirit of Israel and the teaching of her\nprophets and scribes in those periods, we may rule out of the material on\nwhich we can rely for our knowledge of Jeremiah\u2019s life and his teaching.\nOf such Exilic and post-Exilic contents there is a considerable, but not a\npreponderant, amount. These various items break into their context, their\nstyle and substance are not conformable to the style and substance of the\nOracles, which (as we shall see) are reasonably attributed to Jeremiah,\nbut they so closely resemble those of other writings from the eve of the\nReturn from Exile or from after the Return that they seem to be based on\nthe latter. In any case they reflect the situation and feelings of Israel\nin Babylonia about 540 B.C. Some find place in our Book among the earlier\nOracles of Jeremiah,(29) others in his later,(30) but the most in the\ngroup of Oracles on Foreign Nations.(31) And, finally, there are the long\nextracts from the Second Book of Kings, bringing, as I have said, the\nhistory down to at least 561.(32)\n\nAll these, then, we lay aside, so far as our search for Jeremiah himself\nand his doctrine is concerned, and we do so the more easily that they are\nlargely devoid of the style and the spiritual value of his undoubted\nOracles and Discourses. They are more or less diffuse and vagrant, while\nhis are concise and to the point. They do not reveal, as his do, a man\nfresh from agonising debates with God upon the poverty of his\nqualifications for the mission to which God calls him, or upon the\ncontents of that mission, or upon his own sufferings and rights; nor do\nthey recount his adventures with his contemporaries. They are not the\noutpourings of a single soul but rather the expression of the feelings of\na generation or of the doctrines of a school. We have in our Bible other\nand better utterances of the truths, questions, threats and hopes which\nthey contain.\n\nBut once more\u2014in what remains of the Book, what belongs to Jeremiah\nhimself or to his time, we have again proofs of compilation from more\nsources than one. Some of this is in verse\u2014among the finest in the Old\nTestament\u2014some in prose orations; some in simple narrative. Some Oracles\nare introduced by the Prophet himself, and he utters them in the first\nperson, some are reported of him by others. And any chronological or\ntopical order lasts only through groups of prophecies or narratives.\nFortunately, however, included among these are more than one account of\nhow the writing of them and the collection of them came about.\n\nIn 604-603 B.C., twenty-one, or it may have been twenty-three, years after\nJeremiah had begun to prophesy, the history of Western Asia rose to a\ncrisis. Pharaoh N\u0115coh who had marched north to the Euphrates was defeated\nin a battle for empire by Nebuchadrezzar, son of the King of Babylon. From\nthe turmoil of nations which filled the period Babylon emerged as that\nexecutioner of the Divine judgments on the world, whom Jeremiah since 627\nor 625 had been describing generally as _out of the North_. His\npredictions were justified, and he was able to put a sharper edge on them.\nHenceforth in place of the _enemy from the North_ Jeremiah could speak\ndefinitely of the _King of Babylon_ and of his people _the Chaldeans_.\n\nIn Ch. XXV we read accordingly that in that year, 604-3, he delivered to\nthe people of Jerusalem a summary of his previous oracles. He told them\nthat the cup of the Lord\u2019s wrath was given into his hand; Judah and other\nnations, especially Egypt, must drink it and so stagger to their doom.\n\nBut a spoken and a summary discourse was not enough. Like Amos and Isaiah,\nJeremiah was moved to commit his previous Oracles to writing. In Ch. XXXVI\nis a narrative presumably by an eyewitness of the transactions it\nrecounts, and this most probably the scribe who was associated with the\nProphet in these transactions. Jeremiah was commanded to _take a roll of a\nbook and write on __ it all the words which_ the Lord _had spoken to him\nconcerning Jerusalem_(_33_)_ and Judah and all the nations from the day_\nthe Lord first _spake to him, in the days of Josiah, even unto this day_.\nFor this purpose he employed Baruch, the son of Neriah, afterwards\ndesignated the Scribe, and Baruch wrote on the Roll to his dictation.\nBeing unable himself to enter the Temple he charged Baruch to go there and\nto read the Roll on a fast-day _in the ears of all the people of Judah who\nhave come in from their cities_. Baruch found his opportunity in the\nfollowing December, and read the Roll from the New Gate of the Temple to\nthe multitude. This was reported to some of the princes in the Palace\nbelow, who sent for Baruch and had him read the Roll over to them. Divided\nbetween alarm at its contents and their duty to the king, they sent\nJeremiah and Baruch into hiding while they made report to Jehoiakim. The\nking had the Roll read out once more to himself as he sat in his room in\nfront of a lighted brasier, for it was winter. The reading incensed him,\nand as the reader finished each three or four columns he cut them up and\nthrew them on the fire till the whole was consumed. But Jeremiah, in safe\nhiding with Baruch, took another Roll and dictated again the contents of\nthe first; _and there were added besides unto them many like words_.\n\nThe story has been questioned, but by very few, and on no grounds that are\nperceptible to common sense. One critic imagines that it ascribes\nmiraculous power to the Prophet in \u201cits natural impression that the\nProphet reproduces from memory and dictates all the words which the Lord\nhas spoken to him.\u201d(34) There is no trace of miracle in the story. It is a\nstraight tale of credible transactions, very natural (as we have seen) at\nthe crisis which the Prophet had reached. No improbability infects it, no\nreflection of a later time, no idealising as by a writer at a distance\nfrom the events he recounts. On the contrary it gives a number of details\nwhich only a contemporary could have supplied. Nor can we forget the power\nand accuracy of an Oriental\u2019s memory, especially at periods when writing\nwas not a common practice.\n\nThere is, of course, more room for difference of opinion as to the\ncontents of each of the successive Rolls, and as to how much of these\ncontents is included in our Book of Jeremiah. But to such questions the\nmost probable answer is as follows.\n\nThere cannot have been many of the Prophet\u2019s previous Oracles on the first\nRoll. This was read three times over in the same day and was probably\nlimited to such Oracles as were sufficient for its practical purpose of\nmoving the people of Judah to repentance at a Fast, when their hearts\nwould be most inclined that way. But when the first Roll was destroyed,\nthe immediate occasion for which it was written was past, and the second\nRoll would naturally have a wider aim. It repeated the first, but in view\nof the additions to it seems to have been dictated with the purpose of\ngiving a permanent form to _all_ the fruits of Jeremiah\u2019s previous\nministry. The battle of Carchemish had confirmed his predictions and put\nedge upon them. The destruction of the Jewish people was imminent and the\nProphet\u2019s own life in danger. His enforced retirement along with Baruch\nlent him freedom to make a larger selection, if not the full tale, of his\nprevious prophecies. Hence the phrase _there were added many words like_\nthose on the first Roll.(35)\n\nIf such a Roll as the second existed in the care of Baruch then the use of\nit in the compilation of our Book of Jeremiah is extremely probable, and\nthe probability is confirmed by some features of the Book. Among the\nOracles which can be assigned to Jeremiah\u2019s activity before the fourth\nyear of Jehoiakim there is on the whole more fidelity to chronological\norder than in those which were delivered later, and while the former are\nnearly all given without narrative attached to them, and are reported as\nfrom Jeremiah himself in the first person, the latter for the most part\nare embedded in narratives, in which he appears in the third person.(36)\n\nFurther let us note that if some of the Oracles in the earlier part of the\nBook\u2014after the account of the Prophet\u2019s call\u2014are undated, while the dates\nof others are stated vaguely; and again, if some, including the story of\nthe call, appear to be tinged with reflections from experiences of the\nProphet later than the early years of his career, then these two features\nsupport the belief that the Oracles were first reduced to writing at a\ndistance from their composition and first delivery\u2014a belief in harmony\nwith the theory of their inclusion and preservation in the Prophet\u2019s\n_second_ Roll.\n\nLet us now turn to the biographical portions of the Book. We have proved\nthe trustworthiness of Ch. XXXVI as the narrative of an eyewitness, in all\nprobability Baruch the Scribe, who for the first time is introduced to us.\nBut if Baruch wrote Ch. XXXVI it is certain that a great deal more of the\nbiographical matter in the Book is from his hand. This is couched in the\nsame style; it contains likewise details which a later writer could hardly\nhave invented, and it is equally free from those efforts to idealise\nevents and personalities, by which later writers betray their distance\nfrom the subjects of which they treat. It is true that, as an objector\nremarks, \u201cthe Book does not contain a single line that claims to be\nwritten by Baruch.\u201d(37) But this is evidence rather for, than against,\nBaruch\u2019s authorship. Most of the biographical portions of the Old\nTestament are anonymous. It was later ages that fixed names to Books as\nthey have fixed Baruch\u2019s own to certain apocryphal works. Moreover, the\nsuppression of his name by this scribe is in harmony with the modest\nmanner in which he appears throughout, as though he had taken to heart\nJeremiah\u2019s words to him: _Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them\nnot. Only thy life will I give thee for a prey in all places whither thou\ngoest._(38) But there is still more conclusive evidence. That Baruch had\nnot been associated with Jeremiah before 603-4 is a fair inference from\nthe fact that the Prophet had to dictate to him all his previous Oracles.\nNow it is striking that up to that year and the introduction of Baruch as\nJeremiah\u2019s scribe, we have few narratives of the Prophet\u2019s experience and\nactivity\u2014being left in ignorance as to the greater part of his life under\nJosiah\u2014and that these few narratives\u2014of his call, of his share in the\npropagation of Deuteronomy, of the plot of the men of Anathoth against\nhim, of his symbolic action with his waist-cloth, and of his visit to the\nhouse of the Potter\u2014are (except in the formal titles to some of them) told\nin the first person by Jeremiah himself,(39) while from 604-3 onwards the\nbiographical narratives are much more numerous and, except in three of\nthem,(40) the Prophet appears only in the third person. This coincidence\nof the first appearance of Baruch as the Prophet\u2019s associate with the\nstart of a numerous series of narratives of the Prophet\u2019s life in which he\nappears in the third person can hardly be accidental.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nSuch, then, are the data which the Book of Jeremiah offers for the task of\ndetermining the origins and authenticity of its very diverse contents.\nAfter our survey of them, those of you who are ignorant of the course of\nrecent criticism will not be surprised to learn that virtual agreement now\nexists on certain main lines, while great differences of opinion continue\nas to details\u2014differences perhaps irreconcilable. It is agreed that the\nbook is the result of a long and a slow growth, stretching far beyond\nJeremiah\u2019s time, out of various sources; and that these sources are in the\nmain three:\u2014\n\nA. Collections of genuine Oracles and Discourses of Jeremiah\u2014partly made\nby himself.\n\nB. Narratives of his life and times by a contemporary writer or writers,\nthe principal, if not the only, contributor to which is (in the opinion of\nmost) the Scribe Baruch.\n\nC. Exilic and Post-Exilic additions in various forms: long prophecies and\nnarratives; shorter pieces included among the Prophet\u2019s own Oracles; and\nscattered titles, dates, notes and glosses.\n\nMoreover, there is also general agreement as to which of these classes a\nvery considerable number of the sections of the Book belong to. There is\nnot, and cannot be, any doubt about the bulk of those which are apparently\nexilic or post-exilic. It is equally certain that a large number of the\nOracles are Jeremiah\u2019s own, and that the most of the Narratives are from\nhis time and trustworthy. But questions have been raised and are still\nreceiving opposite answers as to whether or not some of the Oracles and\nNarratives have had their original matter coloured or expanded by later\nhands; or have even in whole been foisted upon the Prophet or his\ncontemporary biographer from legendary sources.\n\nOf these questions some, however they be answered, so little affect our\nestimates of the Prophet and his teaching that we may leave them alone.\nBut there are at least four of them on the answers to which does depend\nthe accurate measure of the stature of Jeremiah as a man and a prophet, of\nthe extent and variety of his gifts and interests, of the simplicity or\ncomplexity of his temperament, and of his growth, and of his teaching\nthrough his long ministry of over forty years.\n\nThese four questions are\n\n\n    (1) The authenticity of the account of his call in Ch. I.\n\n\n    (2) The authenticity of the account of his support of the\n    promulgation of Deuteronomy, the Old Covenant, in Ch. XI.\n\n\n    (3) The authenticity of his Oracle on the New Covenant in Ch.\n    XXXI.\n\n\n    (4) And an even larger question\u2014Whether indeed any of the prose\n    Oracles attributed to him in the Book are his, or whether we must\n    confine ourselves to the passages in verse as alone his genuine\n    deliverances?\n\n\nThe first three of these questions we may leave for discussion to their\nproper places in our survey of his ministry. The fourth is even more\nfundamental to our judgment both of the Book and of the Man; and I shall\ndeal with it in the introduction to the next lecture on \u201cThe Poet\nJeremiah.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Lecture II.\n\n\nTHE POET.\n\n\nFrom last lecture I left over to this the discussion of a literary\nquestion, the answer to which is fundamental to our understanding both of\nthe Book and of the Man, but especially of the Man.\n\nThe Book of Jeremiah has come to us with all its contents laid down as\nprose, with no metrical nor musical punctuation; not divided into\n_stichoi_ or poetical lines nor marked off into stanzas or strophes. Yet\nmany passages read as metrically, and are as musical in sound, and in\nspirit as poetic as the Psalms, the Canticles, or the Lamentations. Their\nlanguage bears the marks that usually distinguish verse from prose in\nHebrew as in other literatures. It beats out with a more or less regular\nproportion of stresses or heavy accents. It diverts into an order of words\ndifferent from the order normal in prose. Sometimes it is elliptic,\nsometimes it contains particles unnecessary to the meaning\u2014both signs of\nan attempt at metre. Though almost constantly unrhymed, it carries\nalliteration and assonance to a degree beyond what is usual in prose, and\nprefers forms of words more sonorous than the ordinary. But these many and\ndistinct passages of poetry issue from and run into contexts of prose\nunmistakable. For two reasons we are not always able to trace the exact\nborder between the prose and the verse\u2014_first_ because of the frequent\nuncertainties of the text, and _second_ because the prose, like most of\nthat of the prophets, has often a rhythm approximating to metre. And thus\nit happens that, while on the one hand much agreement has been reached as\nto what Oracles in the Book are in verse, and what, however rhythmical,\nare in prose, some passages remain, on the original literary form of which\na variety of opinion is possible. This is not all in dispute. Even the\nadmitted poems are variously scanned\u2014that is either read in different\nmetres or, if in the same metre, either with or without irregularities.\nSuch differences of literary judgment are due partly to our still\nimperfect knowledge of the laws of Hebrew metre and partly to the variety\nof possible readings of the text. Nor is even that all. The claim has been\nmade not only to confine Jeremiah\u2019s genuine Oracles to the metrical\nportions of the Book, but, by drastic emendations of the text, to reduce\nthem to one single, exact, unvarying metre.\n\nThese questions and claims\u2014all-important as they are for the definition of\nthe range and character of the prophet\u2019s activity\u2014we can decide only after\na preliminary consideration of the few clear and admitted principles of\nHebrew poetry, of their consequences, and of analogies to them in other\nliteratures.\n\nIn Hebrew poetry there are some principles about which no doubt exists.\n_First_, its dominant feature is Parallelism, Parallelism of meaning,\nwhich, though found in all human song, is carried through this poetry with\na constancy unmatched in any other save the Babylonian. The lines of a\ncouplet or a triplet of Hebrew verse may be Synonymous, that is identical\nin meaning, or Supplementary and Progressive, or Antithetic. But at least\ntheir meanings respond or correspond to each other in a way, for which no\nbetter name has been found than that given it by Bishop Lowth more than a\ncentury and a half ago, \u201cParallelismus Membrorum.\u201d(41) _Second_, this\nrhythm of meaning is wedded to a rhythm of sound which is achieved by the\nobservance of a varying proportion between stressed or heavily accented\nsyllables and unstressed. That is clear even though we are unable to\ndiscriminate the proportion in every case or even to tell whether there\nwere fixed rules for it; the vowel-system of our Hebrew text being\npossibly different from what prevailed in ancient Hebrew. But on the whole\nit is probable that as in other primitive poetries(42) there were no exact\nor rigorous rules as to the proportion of beats or stresses in the single\nlines. For the rhythm of sense is the main thing\u2014the ruling factor\u2014and\nthough the effort to express this in equal or regularly proportioned lines\nis always perceptible, yet in the more primitive forms of the poetry just\nas in some English folk-songs and ballads the effort did not constantly\nsucceed. The art of the poet was not always equal to the strength of his\npassion or the length of his vision, or the urgency of his meaning. The\nmeaning was the main thing and had to be beat out, even though to effect\nthis was to make the lines irregular. As I have said in my Schweich\nLectures: \u201cIf the Hebrew poet be so constantly bent on a rhythm of sense\nthis must inevitably modify his rhythms of sound. If his first aim be to\nproduce lines each more or less complete in meaning, but so as to run\nparallel to its fellow, it follows that these lines cannot be always\nexactly regular in length or measure of time. If the governing principle\nof the poetry requires each line to be a clause or sentence in itself, the\nlines will frequently tend, of course within limits, to have more or fewer\nstresses than are normal throughout the poem.\u201d\n\nBut there are other explanations of the metrical irregularities in the\ntraditional text of Hebrew poems, which make it probable that these\nirregularities are often original and not always (as they sometimes are)\nthe blunders of copyists. In all forms of Eastern art we trace the\ninfluence of what we may call Symmetriphobia, an aversion to absolute\nsymmetry which expresses itself in more or less arbitrary disturbances of\nthe style or pattern of the work. The visitor to the East knows how this\ninfluence operates in weaving and architecture. But its opportunities are\nmore frequent, and may be used more gracefully, in the art of poetry. For\ninstance, in many an Old Testament poem in which a single form of metre\nprevails there is introduced at intervals, and especially at the end of a\nstrophe, a longer and heavier line, similar to what the Germans call the\n\u201cSchwellvers\u201d in their primitive ballads. And this metrical irregularity\nis generally to the profit both of the music and of the meaning.\n\nFurther, the fact that poems, such as we now deal with, were not composed\nin writing, but were sung or chanted is another proof of the possibility\nthat the irregularities in their metre are original. In the songs of the\npeasants of Palestine at the present day the lines vary as much as from\ntwo to five accents, and within the same metrical form from three to four;\nlines with three accents as written will, when sung to music, be stressed\nwith four, or with four as written will be stressed with five in order to\nsuit the melody.(43)\n\nNor are such irregularities confined to Eastern or primitive poetry. In\nthe later blank verse of Shakespeare, broken lines and redundant syllables\nare numerous, but under his hand they become things of beauty, and \u201cthe\nirregularity is the foundation of the larger and nobler rule.\u201d To quote\nthe historian of English prosody\u2014\u201cThese are quite deliberate indulgences\nin excess or defect, over or under a regular norm, which is so pervading\nand so thoroughly marked that it carries them off on its wings.\u201d(44) Heine\nin his unrhymed \u201cNordseebilder,\u201d has many irregular lines\u2014irregularities\nsuitable to the variety of the subjects of his verse.\n\nAgain, in relevance to the mixture of poetry with prose in the prophetic\nparts of the Book of Jeremiah, it is just to note that the early\npre-Islamic rhapsodists of Arabia used prose narratives to illustrate the\nsubjects of their chants; that many later works in Arabic literature are\nmedleys of prose and verse; that in particular the prose of the \u201cArabian\nNights\u201d frequently breaks into metre; while the singing women of Mecca\n\u201coften put metre aside and employ the easier form of rhymed prose\u201d(45) the\n\u201cSaj\u201d as it is called.\n\nIf I may offer a somewhat rough illustration, the works of some Eastern\npoets are like canoe voyages in Canada, in which the canoe now glides down\na stream and is again carried overland by what are called portages to\nother streams or other branches of the same stream. Similarly these works\nhave their clear streams of poetry, but every now and again their portages\nof prose. I may say at once that we shall find this true also of the Book\nof Jeremiah.\n\nAll these phenomena, both of Eastern and of Western poetry, justify us in\nregarding with scepticism recent attempts whether to eliminate\u2014by purely\narbitrary omissions and additions, not founded on the evidence of the\nManuscripts and Versions\u2014the irregularities in the metrical portions of\nthe Book of Jeremiah, or to confine the Prophet\u2019s genuine Oracles to these\nmetrical portions, and to deny that he ever passed from metre into\nrhythmical prose. And our scepticism becomes stronger when we observe to\nwhat different results these attempts have led, especially in the\nparticular form or forms of metre employed.\n\nProfessor Duhm, for instance, confines our prophet to one invariable form,\nthat of the Q\u00eenah or Hebrew Elegy, each stanza of which consists of four\nlines of alternately _three_ and _two_ accents or beats; and by drastic\nand often quite arbitrary emendation of the text he removes from this\nevery irregularity whether of defect or redundance in the separate\nlines.(46) On the other hand Cornill concludes that \u201cthe metrical pieces\nin the book are written throughout in _Oktastichs_,\u201d or eight lines a\npiece, but admits (and rightly) that \u201cin the metrical structure of the\nindividual lines there prevails a certain freedom, due to the fact that\nfor the prophet verse-making (_Dichten_) was not an end in itself.\u201d While\nhe allows, as all must, that Jeremiah frequently used the Q\u00eenah metre, he\nemphasises the presence of the irregular line, almost as though it were\nthe real basis of the prophetic metre.(47) Other modern scholars by\nstarting from other presuppositions or by employing various degrees of the\ntextual evidence of the Versions, have reached results different from\nthose of Duhm and Cornill.(48) But at the same time it is remarkable how\nmuch agreement prevails as to the frequent presence of the Q\u00eenah measure\nor its near equivalent.\n\nTo sum up: in view of the argument adduced from the obvious principles of\nHebrew verse and of the primitive poetic practice of other nations\u2014not to\nspeak of Shakespeare and some modern poets\u2014I am persuaded after close\nstudy of the text that, though Jeremiah takes most readily to the specific\nQ\u00eenah metre, it is a gross and pedantic error to suppose that he confined\nhimself to this, or that when it appears in our Book it is always to be\nread in the same exact form without irregularities. The conclusion is\nreasonable that this rural prophet, brought up in a country village and\naddressing a people of peasants, used the same license with his metres\nthat we have observed in other poetries of his own race. Nor is it\ncredible that whatever the purpose of his message was\u2014reminiscence, or\ndirge, or threat of doom or call to repent, or a didactic\npurpose\u2014Jeremiah, throughout the very various conditions of his long\nministry of forty years, employed but one metre and that only in its\nstrictest form allowing of no irregularities. This, I say, is not\ncredible.(49)\n\nThe other question, whether in addition Jeremiah ever used prose in\naddressing his people, may be still more confidently answered. Duhm\nmaintains that with the exception of the letter to the Jewish exiles in\nBabylonia,(50) the Prophet never spoke or wrote to his people in prose,\nand that the Book contains no Oracles from him, beyond some sixty short\npoems in a uniform measure. These Duhm alleges\u2014and this is all that he\nfinds in them\u2014reveal Jeremiah as a man of modest, tender, shrinking\ntemper, \u201cno ruler of spirits, a delicate observer, a sincere exhorter and\ncounsellor, a hero only in suffering and not in attack.\u201d(51) Every passage\nof the Book, which presents him in any character beyond this\u2014as an\nadvocate for the Law or as a didactic prophet\u2014is the dream of a later age,\ndefinitely separable from his own Oracles not more by its inconsistence\nwith the temper displayed in these than by its prose form; for in prose,\naccording to Duhm, Jeremiah never prophesied. On the evidence we have\nreviewed this also is not credible. That Jeremiah never passed from verse\nto prose when addressing his people is a theory at variance with the\npractice of other poets of his race; and the more unlikely in his case,\nwho was not only a poet but a prophet, charged with truths heavier than\ncould always be carried to the heart of his nation upon a single form of\nfolk-song. Not one of the older prophets, upon whom at first he leant, but\nused both prose and verse; and besides there had burst upon his young ear\na new style of prophetic prose, rhythmical and catching beyond any\nhitherto publicly heard in Israel. At least some portions of our Book of\nDeuteronomy were discovered in the Temple a few years after his call, and\nby order of King Josiah were being recited throughout Judah. Is it\nprobable that he, whose teaching proves him to have been in sympathy with\nthe temper and the practical purpose of that Book, should never have\nyielded to the use of its distinctive and haunting style?\n\nIt is true that, while the lyrics which are undoubtedly the prophet\u2019s own\nare terse, concrete, poignant and graceful, the style of many\u2014not of\nall\u2014of the prose discourses attributed to him is copious, diffuse, and\nsometimes cold. But then it is verse which is most accurately gripped by\nthe memory and firmly preserved in tradition; it is verse, too, which best\nguards the original fire. Prose discourses, whether in their first\nreporting or in their subsequent tradition more readily tend to dilate and\nto relax their style. Nor is any style of prose so open as the\nDeuteronomic to additions, parentheses, qualifications, needless\nrecurrence of formulas and favourite phrases, and the like.\n\nTherefore in the selection of materials available for estimating the range\nand character of Jeremiah\u2019s activities as a prophet, we must not reject\nany prose Oracles offered by the Book as his, simply because they are in\nprose. This reasonable caution will be of use when we come to consider the\nquestion of the authenticity of such important passages as those which\nrecount his call, or represent him as assisting in the promulgation of\nDeuteronomy, and uttering the Oracle on the New Covenant.(52)\n\nBut, while it has been necessary to reject as groundless the theory that\nJeremiah was exclusively a poet of a limited temper and a single form of\nverse and was not the author of any of the prose attributed to him, we\nmust keep in mind that he did pour himself forth in verse; that it was\nnatural for a rural priest such as he, aiming at the heart of what was\nmainly a nation of peasants, to use the form or forms of folk-song most\nfamiliar to them(53)\u2014in fact the only literary forms with which they were\nfamiliar; and that in all probability more of the man himself comes out in\nthe poetry than in the prose which he has left to us. By his native gifts\nand his earliest associations he was a poet to begin with; and therefore\nthe form and character of his poetry, especially as revealing himself,\ndemand our attention.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nFrom what has been said it is clear that we must not seek too high for\nJeremiah\u2019s rank as a poet. The temptation to this\u2014which has overcome some\nrecent writers\u2014is due partly to a recoil from older, unjust depreciations\nof his prophetic style and partly to the sublimity of the truths which\nthat mixed style frequently conveys. But those truths apart, his verse was\njust that of the folksongs of the peasants among whom he was\nreared\u2014sometimes of an exquisite exactness of tone and delicacy of\nfeeling, but sometimes full both of what are metrical irregularities\naccording to modern standards, and of coarse images and similes. To reduce\nthe metrical irregularities, by such arbitrary methods as Duhm\u2019s, may\noccasionally enhance the music and sharpen the edge of an Oracle yet\noftener dulls the melody and weakens the emphasis.(54) The figures again\nare always simple and homely, but sometimes even ugly, as is not\ninfrequent in the rural poetries of all peoples. Even the dung on the\npastures and the tempers of breeding animals are as readily used as are\nthe cleaner details of domestic life and of farming\u2014the house-candle, the\nhouse-mill, the wine skins, the ornaments of women, the yoke, the plough,\nand so forth. And there are abrupt changes of metaphor as in our early\nballads, due to the rush of a quick imagination and the crowd of concrete\nfigures it catches.\n\nSome of Jeremiah\u2019s verse indeed shows no irregularity. The following, for\ninstance, which recalls as Hosea loved to do the innocence and loyalty of\nIsrael\u2019s desert days, is in the normal Q\u00eenah rhythm of lines with\nalternately _three_ and _two_ accents each. The two first lines are\nrhymed, the rest not.\n\nII. 2f.:\u2014\n\n\n    The troth of thy youth I remember,\n      Thy love as a bride,\n    Thy follow of Me through the desert,\n      The land unsown.\n    Holy to the Lord was Israel,\n      Of His income the firstling,\n    All that would eat it stood guilty,\n      Evil came on them.\n\n\nOr II. 32:\u2014\n\n\n    Can a maiden forget her adorning,\n      Or her girdle the bride?\n    Yet Me have My people forgotten,\n      Days without number.\n    How fine hast thou fashioned thy ways,\n      To seek after love!\n    Thus \u2019t was thyself(55) to [those] evils\n      Didst train(56) thy ways.\n    Yea on thy skirts is found blood\n      Of innocent(57) souls.\n    Not only on felons(?) I find it,(58)\n      But over all these.\n\n\nHere again is a passage which, with slight emendations and these not\narbitrary, yields a fair constancy of metre (IV. 29-31):\u2014\n\n\n    From the noise of the horse and the bowmen\n      All the land is in flight,\n    They are into the caves, huddle in thickets,\n      And are up on the crags.(59)\n    Every town of its folk is forsaken,\n      With none to inhabit.\n    All is up! Thou destined to ruin,(?)(60)\n      What doest thou now\n    That thou deck\u2019st thee in deckings of gold\n      And clothest in scarlet,(61)\n    And with stibium widenest thine eyes?\n      In vain dost thou prink!\n    Though satyrs, they utterly loathe thee,\n      Thy life are they after.\n    For voice as of travail I hear,\n      Anguish as hers that beareth,\n    The voice of the Daughter of \u1e62ion agasp,\n      She spreadeth her hands:\n    \u201cWoe unto me, but it faints,\n      My life to the butchers!\u201d\n\n\nOn the other hand here is a metre,(62) for the irregularities of which no\nremedy is offered by alternative readings in the Versions, but Duhm and\nothers reduce these only by padding the text with particles and other\nterms. Yet these very irregularities have reason; they suit the meaning to\nbe expressed. Thus while some of the couplets are in the Q\u00eenah metre, it\nis instructive that the first three lines are _all_ short, because they\nare mere ejaculations\u2014that is they belong to the same class of happy\nirregularities as we recalled in Shakespeare\u2019s blank verse.\n\n\n      Israel a slave!\n      Or house-born serf!\n      Why he for a prey?\n    Against him the young lions roar,\n      Give forth their voice,\n    And his land they lay waste\n      Burning and tenantless.\n    Is not this being done thee\n      For thy leaving of Me?\n\n\nOr take the broken line added to the regular verse on Rachel\u2019s mourning,\nthe sob upon which the wail dies out:\u2014\n\n\n    A voice in Ramah is heard, lamentation\n      And bitterest weeping,\n    Rachel beweeping her children\n      And will not be comforted\u2014\n      For they are not!(63)\n\n\nSometimes, too, a stanza of regular metre is preceded or followed by a\npassionate line of appeal, either from Jeremiah himself or from another\u2014I\nlove to think from himself, added when his Oracles were about to be\nrepeated to the people in 604-3. Thus in Ch. II. 31 we find the cry,\n\n\n    O generation look at the Word of the Lord!\n\n\nbreaking in before the following regular verse,\n\n\n    Have I been a desert to Israel,\n      Or land of thick darkness?\n    Why say my folk, \u201cWe are off,\n      No more to meet Thee.\u201d\n\n\nThere is another poem in which the Q\u00eenah measure prevails but with\noccasional lines longer than is normal\u2014Ch. V. 1-6_a_ (alternatively to end\nof 5(64)).\n\n\n    Run through Jerusalem\u2019s streets,\n      Look now and know,\n    And search her broad places\n      If a man ye can find,\n    If there be that doth justice\n      Aiming at honesty.\n        [That I may forgive her.]\n    Though they say, \u201cAs God liveth,\u201d\n      Falsely they swear.\n    Lord, are thine eyes upon lies(65)\n      And not on the truth?\n    Thou hast smitten, they ail not,\n      Consumed them, they take not correction;\n    Their faces set harder than rock,\n      They refuse to return.\n\n\nOr take Ch. II. 5-8. A stanza of four lines in irregular Q\u00eenah measure\n(verse 5) is followed by a couplet of four-two stresses and several lines\nof three each (verses 6 and 7), and then (verse 8) by a couplet of\nthree-two, another of four-three, and another of three-three.(66) In Chs.\nIX and X also we shall find irregular metres.\n\nLet us now take a passage, IX. 22, 23, which, except for its last couplet,\nis of another measure than the Q\u00eenah. The lines have three accents each,\nlike those of the Book of Job:\u2014\n\n\n    Boast not the wise in his wisdom,\n    Boast not the strong in his strength,\n    Boast not the rich in his riches,\n    But in this let him boast who would boast\u2014\n    Instinct and knowledge of Me,\n    Me, the Lord, Who work troth\n    And(67) justice and right upon earth,\n        For in these I delight.\n\n\nOr this couplet, X. 23, in lines of four stresses each:\u2014\n\n\n    Lord, I know\u2014not to man is his way,\n    Not a man\u2019s to walk or settle his steps!\n\n\nNot being in the Q\u00eenah measure, both these passages are denied to Jeremiah\nby Duhm. Is not this arbitrary?\n\nThe sections of the Book which pass from verse to prose and from prose to\nverse are frequent.\n\nOne of the most striking is the narrative of the Prophet\u2019s call, Ch. I.\n4-19, which I leave to be rendered in the next lecture. In Chap. VII. 28\nff. we have, to begin with, two verses:\u2014\n\n\n    This is the folk that obeyed not\n      The voice of the Lord,(68)\n    That would not accept correction;\n      Lost(69) is truth from their mouth.\n    Shear and scatter thy locks,\n    Raise a dirge on the heights,\n    The Lord hath refused and forsaken\n      The sons of His wrath.\n\n\nThen these verses are followed by a prose tale of the people\u2019s sins. Is\nthis necessarily from a later hand, as Duhm maintains, and not naturally\nfrom Jeremiah himself?\n\nAgain Chs. VIII and IX are a medley of lyrics and prose passages. While\nsome of the prose is certainly not Jeremiah\u2019s, being irrelevant to the\nlyrics and showing the colour of a later age, the rest may well be from\nhimself.\n\nCh. XIV is also a medley of verse and prose. After the Dirge on the\nDrought (which we take later), comes a passage in rhythmical prose (verses\n11-16), broken only by the metrical utterance of the false prophets in\nverse 13:\u2014\n\n\n    Sword or famine ye shall not see,\n      They shall not be yours;\n    But peace and staith shall I give you\n      Within this Place.(70)\n\n\nAnd verse comes in again in verses 17-18, an Oracle of Jeremiah\u2019s own:\u2014\n\n\n    Let mine eyes with tears run down,\n      By night and by day,\n    Let them not cease from weeping(71)\n      For great is the breach\u2014\n    Broken the Virgin, Daughter of my people,\n      Most sore the wound!\n    Fare I forth to the field,\n      Lo, the slain of the sword;\n    If I enter the city,\n      Lo, anguish of famine.\n    Priest and prophet alike are gone begging\n      In a land they know not.\n    Hast Thou utterly cast away Judah,\n      Loathes \u1e62ion Thy soul?\n    Why then hast Thou smitten us,\n      Past our healing?\n    Hoped we for peace\u2014no good,\n    For time to heal\u2014and lo panic!\n    Lord we acknowledge our evil,\n      The guilt of our fathers\u2014\n      To Thee have we sinned.\n\n\nAnd now the measure changes to one of longer irregular lines, hardly\ndistinguishable from rhythmical prose, which Duhm therefore takes,\nprecariously, as from a later hand:\u2014\n\n\n    For Thy Name\u2019s sake do not despise,\n    Demean not the Throne of Thy Glory,\n    Remember and break not Thy Covenant with us!\n    Can any of the gentile Bubbles bring rain,\n    Or the Heavens give the showers?\n    Art not Thou He(72) on whom we must wait?\n      For all these Thou hast made.\n\n\nAgain in Ch. XV. 1-2, prose is followed by a couplet, this by more prose\n(verses 3, 4) and this by verse again (verses 5-9). But these parts are\nrelevant to each other, and some of Duhm\u2019s objections to the prose seem\ninadequate and even trifling. For while the heavy judgment is suitably\ndetailed by the prose, the following dirge is as naturally in verse:\u2014\n\n\n    Jerusalem, who shall pity,\n      Who shall bemoan thee?\n    Who shall but turn him to ask\n      After thy welfare?\n\n\nAnd once more, in the Oracle Ch. III. 1-6 the first verse, a quotation\nfrom the law on a divorced wife, is in prose, and no one doubts that\nJeremiah himself is the quoter, while the rest, recounting Israel\u2019s\nunfaithfulness to her Husband is in verse. See below, pages 98, 99.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nSo much for the varied and often irregular streams of the Prophet\u2019s verse\nand their interruptions and connections by \u201cportages\u201d of prose. Let us\nturn now from the measures to the substance and tempers of the poetry.\n\nAs in all folk-song the language is simple, but its general\ninevitableness\u2014just the fit and ringing word\u2014stamps the verse as a true\npoet\u2019s. Hence the difficulty of translating. So much depends on the music\nof the Hebrew word chosen, so much on the angle at which it is aimed at\nthe ear, the exact note which it sings through the air. It is seldom\npossible to echo these in another language; and therefore all versions,\nmetrical or in prose, must seem tame and dull beside the ring of the\noriginal. Before taking some of the Prophet\u2019s renderings of the more\nconcrete aspects of life I give, as even more difficult to render, one of\nhis moral reflections in verse\u2014Ch. XVII. 5 f. Mark the scarceness of\nabstract terms, the concreteness of the figures:\u2014\n\n\n    Curs\u00e9d the wight that trusteth in man\n    Making flesh his stay!\n    [And his heart from the Lord is turned]\n    Like some desert-scrub shall he be,\n    Nor see any coming of good,\n    But dwell in the aridest desert,\n    A salt, uninhabited land.\n    Bless\u00e9d the wight that trusts in the Lord,\n    And the Lord is his trust!\n    He like a tree shall be planted by waters,\n    That stretches its roots to the stream,\n    Unafraid(73) at the coming of heat,\n    His leaf shall be green.\n    Sans care in a year of drought,\n    He fails not in yielding his fruit.\n\n\nAs here, so generally, the simplicity of the poet\u2019s diction is matched by\nthat of his metaphors, similes, and parables. A girl and her ornaments, a\nman and his waist-cloth\u2014thus he figures what ought to be the clinging\nrelations between Israel and their God. The stunted desert-shrub in\ncontrast to the river-side oaks, the incomparable olive, the dropped sheaf\nand even the dung upon the fields; the vulture, stork, crane and swift;\nthe lion, wolf and spotted leopard coming up from the desert or the\njungles of Jordan; the hinnying stallions and the heifer in her heat; the\nblack Ethiopian, already familiar in the streets of Jerusalem, the potter\nand his wheel, the shepherd, plowman and vinedresser, the driver with his\nox\u2019s yoke upon his shoulders; the harlot by the wayside; the light in the\nhome and sound of the hand-mill\u2014all everyday objects of his people\u2019s sight\nand hearing as they herded, ploughed, sowed, reaped or went to market in\nthe city\u2014he brings them in simply and with natural ease as figures of the\ntruths he is enforcing. They are never bald or uncouth, though in\ntranslation they may sometimes sound so.\n\nIn the very bareness of his use of them there lurks an occasional irony as\nin the following\u2014a passage of prose broken by a single line of verse.(74)\nThe Deity is addressing the prophet:\u2014\n\n\n    And thou shalt say unto this people,\n      \u201cEvery jar shall be filled with wine,\u201d\n\n    and it shall be if they say unto thee, \u201cDon\u2019t we know of\n    course(75) that\n\n    \u201cEvery jar shall be filled with wine,\u201d\n\n    then thou shalt say unto them: Thus saith the Lord, Lo, I am about\n    to fill the inhabitants of this land, the kings and princes, the\n    priests and prophets, even Judah and all the inhabitants of\n    Jerusalem, with drunkenness [the drunkenness, that is, of horror\n    at impending judgments] and I will dash them one against another,\n    fathers and sons together. I will not pity, saith the Lord, nor\n    spare nor have compassion that I should not destroy them.\n\n\nHow one catches the irritation of the crowd on being told what seems to\nthem such a commonplace\u2014till it is interpreted!\n\nLike his fellow-prophets, whose moral atmosphere was as burning as their\nphysical summer, who living on the edge of the desert under a downright\nsun _drew breath_ (as Isaiah puts it) _in the fear of the Lord_ and saw\nthe world in the blaze of His justice, Jeremiah brings home to the hearts\nof his people the truths and judgments, with which he was charged, in the\nhard, hot realism of their austere world. Through his verse we see the\nbarer landscapes of Benjamin and Judah without shadow or other relief,\nevery ugly detail exposed by the ruthless noon, and beyond them the desert\nhills shimmering through the heat. Drought, famine, pestilence and\nespecially war sweep over the land and the ghastly prostrate things, human\nas well as animal, which their skirts leave behind are rendered with\nvividness, poignancy and horror of detail.\n\nTake, to begin with, the following, XIV. 1 ff.:\u2014\n\n\n    _The Word of the Lord to Jeremiah Concerning the Drought._\n\n    Jerusalem\u2019s cry is gone up,\n    Judah is mourning,\n    The gates thereof faint in\n    Black grief to the ground.\n\n    Her nobles sent their menials for water,\n    They came to the pits;\n    Water found none and returned,\n    Empty their vessels.\n    [Abashed and confounded\n    They cover their heads.](76)\n\n    The tillers(77) of the ground are dismayed,\n    For no rain hath been(78);\n    And abashed are the ploughmen,\n    They cover their heads.\n\n    The hind on the moor calves and abandons,\n    For the grass has not come.\n    On the bare heights stand the wild asses,\n    Gasping for air\n    With glazen eyes\u2014\n    Herb there is none!\n\n    Though our sins do witness against us,\n    Lord act for the sake of Thy Name!\n    [For many have been our backslidings,\n      \u2019Fore Thee have we sinned.]\n\n    Hope of Israel, His Saviour\n      In time of trouble,\n    Why be like a traveller(79) through the land,\n      Or wayfaring guest of a night?\n    Why art Thou as one that is stunned,\u2014\n      Strong yet unable to save?\n\n    Yet Lord, Thou art in our midst,\n    [O\u2019er us Thy Name hath been called]\n      Do not forsake us!\n\n      Thus saith the Lord of this people:\u2014\n\n    So fond to wander are they,\n      Their feet they restrain not,\n    The Lord hath no pleasure in them,\n      He remembers their guilt.(80)\n\n\nThe following dirge is on either a war or a pestilence, or on both, for\nthey often came together. The text of the first lines is uncertain, the\nHebrew and Greek differing considerably:\u2014\n\n\n    Call ye the keening women to come,\n      And send for the wise ones,\n    That they hasten and sing us a dirge,\n    Till with tears our eyes run down,\n      Our eyelids with water.\n\n    For death has come up by our windows,\n      And into our palaces,\n    Cutting off from the streets the children,\n      The youths from the places.\n    And fallen are the corpses of men\n      Like dung on the field,\n    Or sheaves left after the reaper,\n      And nobody gathers.(81)\n\n\nThe minatory discourses are sombre and lurid. Sometimes the terror\nforetold is nameless and mystic, yet even then the Prophet\u2019s simplicity\ndoes not fail but rather contributes to the vague, undefined horror. In\nthe following it is premature night which creeps over the hills\u2014night\nwithout shelter for the weary or refuge for the hunted.\n\n\n    Hear and give ear, be not proud,\n      For the Lord hath spoken!\n    Give glory to the Lord your God\n        Before it grows dark,\n    And before your feet stumble\u2014\n      On the mountains of dusk.\n    While ye look for light, He turns it to gloom\n      And sets it thick darkness.(82)\n\n\nThere this poem leaves the Doom, but in others Jeremiah leaps in a moment\nfrom the vague and far-looming to the near and exact. He follows a line\nwhich songs of vengeance or deliverance often take among unsophisticated\npeoples in touch with nature. They will paint you a coming judgment first\nin the figure of a lowering cloud or bursting storm and then in the\ntwinkling of an eye they turn the clouds or the lightnings into the ranks\nand flashing arms of invaders arrived. I remember an instance of this\nwithin one verse of a negro song from the time of the American Civil War:\u2014\n\n\n    Don\u2019t you see de lightning flashing in de cane-brakes?\n      Don\u2019t you think we\u2019se gwine to have a storm?\n    No you is mistaken\u2014dem\u2019s de darkies\u2019 bayonets,\n      And de buttons on de uniform!\n\n\nExamples of this sudden turn from the vague to the real are found\nthroughout Jeremiah\u2019s Oracles of Doom. Here are some of them:\u2014\n\n\n    Wind off the glow of the bare desert heights,\n      Right on the Daughter of My people,\n    It is neither to winnow nor to cleanse,\n      In full blast it meets me...:\n    Lo, like the clouds he is mounting,\n      Like the whirlwind his chariots!\n    Swifter than vultures his horses;\n      Woe! We are undone!\n\n    For hark a signal from Dan,\n      Mount Ephraim echoes disaster,\n    Warn the folk! \u201cThey are come!\u201d(83)\n      Make heard o\u2019er Jerusalem.\n    Lo, the beleaguerers (?) come\n      From a land far-off,\n    They let forth their voice on the townships of Judah,\n      [Close] as the guards on her suburbs\n    They are on and around her,\n      For Me she defied.(84)\n\n\nThere is a similar leap from the vagueness of IV. 23-26, which here\nfollows, to the vivid detail of verses 29-31 already rendered on page 45.\n\n\n    I looked to the earth, and lo, chaos,\n      To the heavens, their light was gone,\n    I looked to the mountains, they quivered,\n      The hills were all shuddering.\n    I looked and behold not a man,\n      All the birds of the heavens had fled.\n    I looked for the gardens, lo desert,\n      All the townships were burning.\n\n\nOr take a similar effect from the Oracle on the Philistines, Ch. XLVII. 2,\n3.\n\n\n    Lo, the waters are up in the North,\n      The torrents are plunging,\n    O\u2019erwhelming the land and her fulness,\n      The city and her dwellers.\n    Mankind is crying and howling,\n      Every man in the land,\n    At the noise of the stamp of the hoofs of his steeds\n      At the rush of his cars,\n      The rumble of his wheels.\n    Fathers look not back for their children,\n      So helpless their hands!(85)\n\n\nOr take the Prophet\u2019s second vision on his call, Ch. I. 13 ff., the\nboiling cauldron with its face from the North, which is to boil out over\nthe land; then the concrete explanation, _I am calling to all the kingdoms\nof the North, and they shall come and every one set his throne in the\ngates of Jerusalem_. There you have it\u2014that vague trouble brewing in the\nfar North and then in a moment the northern invaders settled in the gates\nof the City.\n\nBut the poetry of Jeremiah had other strains. I conclude this lecture with\nselections which deal with the same impending judgment, yet are wistful\nand tender, the poet taking as his own the sin and sufferings of the\npeople with whose doom he was charged.\n\nThe first of these passages is as devoid of hope as any we have already\nseen, but like Christ\u2019s mourning over the City breathes the regret of a\ngreat love\u2014a profound and tender Alas!\n\n\n    Jerusalem, who shall pity,\n      Who shall bemoan thee?\n    Or who will but turn him to ask\n      After thy welfare?\n\n\nThen follow lines of doom without reprieve and the close comes:\u2014\n\n\n    She that bore seven hath fainted,\n      She breathes out her life.\n    Set is her sun in the daytime,\n      Baffled and sham\u00e9d;\n    And their remnant I give to the sword\n      In face of their foes.(86)\n\n\nIn the following also the poet\u2019s heart is with his people even while he\ndespairs of them. The lines, VIII. 14-IX. 1, of which 17 and 19_b_ are\npossibly later insertions, are addressed to the country-folk of Judah and\nBenjamin:\u2014\n\n\n    For what sit we still?\n      Sweep together,\n    And into the fortified cities,\n      That there we may perish!\n    For our God(87) hath doomed us to perish,\n    And given us poison to drink,\n      For to Him(88) have we sinned.\n    Hope for peace there was once\u2014\n      But no good\u2014\n    For a season of healing\u2014\n      Lo, panic.(89)\n    From Dan the sound has been heard,(90)\n      The hinnying of his horses;\n    With the noise of the neighing of his stallions\n      All the land is aquake.\n    For that this grief hath no comfort,(91)\n      Sickens my heart upon me.\n    Hark to the cry of my people\n      Wide o\u2019er the land\u2014\n    \u201cIs the Lord not in \u1e62ion,\n      Is there no King there?\u201d(92)\n\n    Harvest is over, summer is ended\n      And we are not saved!\n    For the breach of the Daughter of my people\n      I break, I darken,\n    Horror hath seized upon me,\n      Pangs as of her that beareth.(93)\n    Is there no balm in Gilead,\n      Is there no healer?\n    Why will the wounds never stanch\n      Of the daughter of my people?\n    O that my head were waters,\n      Mine eyes a fountain of tears,\n    That day and night I might weep\n      For the slain of my people!\n\n\nSuch in the simple melodies of his music and in the variety of his\nmoods\u2014now sombre, stern and relentless, now tender and pleading, now in\ndespair of his people yet identifying himself with them\u2014was this rural\npoet, who was called to carry the burdens of prophecy through forty of the\nmost critical and disastrous years of Israel\u2019s history. In next lecture we\nshall follow the earlier stages which his great heart pursued beneath\nthose burdens.\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Lecture III.\n\n\nTHE PROPHET\u2014HIS YOUTH AND HIS CALL.\n\n\nJeremiah was born soon after 650 B.C. of a priestly house at Anathoth, a\nvillage in the country of Benjamin near Jerusalem. Just before his birth\nEgypt and the small states of Palestine broke from allegiance to Assyria.\nWar was imminent, and it may have been because of some hope in Israel of\nDivine intervention that several children born about the time received the\nname Yirmyahu\u2014_Yahweh hurls_ or _shoots_.(94) The boy\u2019s name and his\nfather\u2019s, Hil\u1e33iah, _Yahweh my portion_,(95) are tokens of the family\u2019s\nloyalty to the God of Israel, at a time when the outburst in Jewry of a\nvery different class of personal names betrays on the part of many a lapse\nfrom the true faith, and when the loyal remnant of the people were being\npersecuted by King Manasseh. Probably the family were descended from Eli.\nFor Abiathar, the last of that descent to hold office as Priest of the\nArk, had an ancestral estate at Anathoth, to which he retired upon his\ndismissal by Solomon.(96) The child of such a home would be brought up\nunder godly influence and in high family traditions, with which much of\nthe national history was interwoven. It may have been from his father that\nJeremiah gained that knowledge of Israel\u2019s past, of her ideal days in the\ndesert, of her subsequent declensions, and of the rallying prophecies of\nthe eighth century, which is manifest in his earlier Oracles. Some have\nclaimed a literary habit for the stock of Abiathar.(97) Yet the first\nwords of God to Jeremiah\u2014_before I formed thee in the body I knew thee,\nand before thou camest forth from the womb I hallowed thee_(98)\u2014as well as\nthe singular originality he developed, rather turn us away from his family\ntraditions and influence.\n\nWhat is more significant, for its effects appear over all his earlier\nprophecies, is the country-side on which the boy was born and reared.\n\nAnathoth, which still keeps its ancient name Anata, is a little village\nnot four miles north-north-east of Jerusalem, upon the first of the rocky\nshelves by which the central range of Palestine declines through desert to\nthe valley of the Jordan. The village is hidden from the main road between\nJerusalem and the North, and lies on no cross-road to the East. One of its\ninfluences on the spirit of its greatest son was its exposure to the East\nand the Desert. The fields of Anathoth face the sunrise and quickly merge\ninto the falling wilderness of Benjamin. It is the same open, arid\nlandscape as that on which several prophets were bred: Amos a few miles\nfarther south at Tekoa, John Baptist, and during His Temptation our Lord\nHimself. The tops of the broken desert hills to the east are lower than\nthe village. The floor of the Jordan valley is not visible, but across its\nfelt gulf the mountains of Gilead form a lofty horizon.\n\nThe descending foreground with no shelter against the hot desert winds,\nthe village herds straying into the wilderness, the waste and crumbling\nhills shimmering in the heat, the open heavens and far line of the Gilead\nhighlands, the hungry wolves from the waste and lions from the jungles of\nJordan are all reflected in Jeremiah\u2019s poems:\u2014\n\n\n    Light o\u2019 heel young camel,\n      Zig-zagging her tracks,\n    Heifer gone to school to the desert\u2014\n      In the heat of her passion,\n    Snapping the breeze in her lust,\n      Who is to turn her?\n\n    Wind off the glow of the bare desert heights,\n      Direct on my people,\n    Neither to winnow nor to sift,\n      In full blast it meets me.\n\n    A lion from the jungle shall smite,\n      A wolf from the wastes undo them,\n    The leopard shall prowl round their towns,\n      All faring forth shall be torn.\n\n    Even the stork in the heavens\n      Knoweth her seasons,\n    And dove, swift and swallow\n      Keep time of their coming.\n\n    Is there no balm in Gilead,\n      No healer there?(99)\n\n\nWe need not search the botany of that province for the suggestion of this\nlast verse. Gilead was the highland margin of the young prophet\u2019s view,\nhis threshold of hope. The sun rose across it.\n\nThe tribal territory in which Anathoth lay was Benjamin\u2019s. Even where not\nactually desert the bleak and stony soil accords with the character given\nto the tribe and its few historical personages. _Benjamin shall ravin as a\nwolf._(100) Of Benjamin were the mad King Saul, the cursing Shimei,\nJeremiah\u2019s persecutors in Anathoth, and the other Saul who breathed\nthreatenings and slaughter against the Church\u2014while Jeremiah himself, in\nhis moods of despair, seems to have caught the temper of the tribe among\nwhom his family dwelt. Whether in the land or in its sons it was hard,\nthorny soil that needed deep ploughing.(101) It was, too, as Isaiah had\npredicted, the main path of invasion from the North,(102) by Ai, Migron,\nMichmash, the Pass, Geba, Ramah, Gibeah of Saul, Laish, and _poor_\nAnathoth herself. It had been the scene of many massacres, and above all\nof the death of the Mother of the people, who returns to bewail their new\ndisasters:\u2014\n\n\n    A voice in Ramah is heard, lamentation\n      And bitterest weeping,\n    Rachel beweeping her children,\n      And will not be comforted,\n        For they are not.(103)\n\n\nThe cold northern rains and the tears of a nation\u2019s history alike swept\nthese bare uplands. The boy grew up with many ghosts about him\u2014not\nRachel\u2019s only but the Levite and his murdered wife, the slaughtered troops\nat Gibeah and Rimmon, Saul\u2019s sullen figure, Asahel stricken like a roe in\nthe wilderness of Gibeon, and the other nameless fugitives, whom through\nmore than one page of the earlier books we see cut down among the rocks of\nBenjamin.\n\nThe empty, shimmering desert and the stony land thronged with such\ntragedies\u2014Jeremiah was born and brought up on the edge between them.\n\nIt was a nursery not unfit for one, who might have been (as many think),\nthe greatest poet of his people, had not something deeper and wider been\nopened to him, with which Anathoth was also in touch. The village is not\nmore than an hour\u2019s walk from Jerusalem. Social conditions change little\nin the East; then, as now, the traffic between village and city was daily\nand close\u2014country produce taken to the capital; pottery, salted fish,\nspices, and the better cloths brought back in exchange. We see how the\nhistory of Jerusalem may have influenced the boy. Solomon\u2019s Temple was\nnearly four hundred years\u2019 old. There were the city walls, some of them\nstill older, the Palace and the Tombs of the Kings\u2014perhaps also access to\nthe written rolls of chroniclers and prophets. Above all, Anathoth lay\nwithin the swirl of rumour of which the capital was the centre. Jerusalem\nhas always been a tryst of the winds. It gathers echoes from the desert\nfar into Arabia, and news blown up and down the great roads between Egypt\nand Damascus and beyond to the Euphrates; or when these roads are deserted\nand men fear to leave their villages, news vibrating as it vibrates only\nin the tremulous East, from hamlet to hamlet and camp to camp across\nincredible spaces. As one has finely said of a rumour of invasion:\u2014\n\n\n    I saw the tents of Cush\u00e1n in affliction,\n    The curtains of Midian\u2019s land were trembling.(104)\n\n\nTo the north lay the more fruitful Ephraim\u2014more fruitful and more famous\nin the past than her sister of Benjamin, but now in foreign hands, her own\npeople long gone into exile. It was natural that her fate should lie heavy\non the still free but threatened homes of Benjamin, whose northern windows\nlooked towards her; and that a heart like Jeremiah\u2019s should exercise\nitself upon God\u2019s meaning by such a fate and the warning it carried for\nthe two surviving tribes.(105) Moreover, Shiloh lay there, Shiloh where\nEli and other priestly ancestors had served the Ark in a sanctuary now\nruined.(106)\n\nIt was, too, across Ephraim with its mixed population in touch with the\ncourt and markets of Nineveh, that rumours of war usually reached Benjamin\nand Judah:\u2014\n\n\n    Hark! They signal from Dan,\n    Mount Ephraim echoes disaster.(107)\n\n\nAfter a period of peace, and as Jeremiah was growing to manhood, such\nrumours began to blow south again from the Euphrates. Some thirteen years\nor so earlier, Asshurbanipal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, had\naccomplished the last Assyrian conquest in Palestine, 641 B.C., and for an\ninterval the land was quiet. But towards 625 word came that the Medes were\nthreatening Nineveh, and, though they were repelled, in that year\nAsshurbanipal died and Nabopolassar of Babylon threw off the Assyrian\nyoke. Palestine felt the grasp of Nineveh relax. There was a stir in the\nair and men began to dream. But quick upon hope fell fear. Hordes of a new\nrace whom\u2014after the Greeks\u2014we call Scythians, the Ashguzai of the Assyrian\nmonuments, had half a century before swarmed over or round the Caucasus,\nand since then had been in touch, and even in some kind of alliance, with\nthe Assyrians. Soon after 624 they forced the Medes to relinquish the\nsiege of Nineveh. They were horsemen and archers, living in the saddle,\nand carrying their supplies behind them in wagons. After (as it seems)\ntheir effective appearance at Nineveh, they swept over the lands to the\nsouth, as Herodotus tells us;(108) and riding by the Syrian coast were\nonly brought up by bribes on the border of Egypt.(109) This must have been\nsoon after the young prophet\u2019s call in 627-6. In short, the world, and\nespecially the North, was (to use Jeremiah\u2019s word) _boiling_ with events\nand possibilities of which God alone knew the end. Prophets had been\nproduced in Israel from like conditions in the previous century, and now\nafter a silence of nigh seventy years, prophets were again to appear:\nZephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah.\n\nFor these northern omens conspired with others, ethical and therefore more\narticulate, within Judah herself. It was two generations since Isaiah and\nHezekiah had died, and with them the human possibilities of reform. For\nnearly fifty years Manasseh had opposed the pure religion of the prophets\nof the eighth century, by persecution, by the introduction of foreign and\nsensual cults, and especially by reviving in the name of Israel\u2019s God(110)\nthe ancient sacrifice of children, in order to propitiate His anger. Thus\nit appears that the happier interests of religion\u2014family feasts, pieties\nof seed-time and harvest, gratitude for light, fountains and rain, and for\ngood fortune\u2014were scattered among a host both of local and of foreign\ndeities; while for the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Moses and\nIsaiah, the most horrible of superstitious rites were reserved, as if all\nthat His people could expect of Him was the abatement of a jealous and\nhungry wrath.\n\nA few voices crying through the night had indeed reminded Judah of what He\nwas and what He required. _He hath showed thee, O man, __ what is good;\nand what doth the Lord require but to do justly, and love mercy, and walk\nhumbly with thy God._(111) At last with the overthrow of Manasseh\u2019s\nsuccessor, Amon, signs of a dawn appeared. The child of eight years who\nwas heir to the throne was secured, perhaps through his mother\u2019s\ninfluence, by a party in Court and Temple that had kept loyal to the\nhigher faith; and the people, probably weary of the fanatic extravagance\nof Manasseh, were content to have it so.\n\nThe young King Josiah, who to the end was to prove himself worthy of his\ntraining, and the boy in the priest\u2019s home at Anathoth were of an age: a\nfact not to be omitted from any estimate of the influences which moulded\nJeremiah in his youth. But no trace of this appears in what he has left\nus; as a boy he may never have seen the King, and to the close of Josiah\u2019s\nreign he seems to have remained too obscure to be noticed by his monarch;\nyet at the last he has only good to say of Josiah:\u2014\n\n\n    Did he not eat and drink,\n    And do judgment and justice?\n    The cause of the poor and the needy he judged\u2014\n    Then was it well.(112)\n\n\nAttempts at reform were made soon after Josiah\u2019s accession,(113) but\nlittle was achieved, and that little only in the capital and its Temple.\nIn the latter for four hundred years no deity of the land had been\nworshipped save Yahweh, and He in no material form. It would be easy to\nremove from the streets of Jerusalem any recently introduced Baals and\npossibly, as Assyria\u2019s sovereignty relaxed, the worship of the Host of\nHeaven. But beyond Jerusalem the task was more difficult. Every village\nhad the shrine of a deity before the God of Israel came to the land. The\nnames of these local Baal\u00eem, or Lords, had mostly vanished,(114) and\nIsrael claimed the rural sanctuaries for Yahweh. But the old rites, with\nthe old conceptions of deity attached to them, seem to have been\ntransferred to Him by the ignorant worshippers, till instead of one\nYahweh\u2014one Lord\u2014unique in character and in power, there were as many as\nthere had been Baal\u00eem, and they bore the same inferior and sometimes\nrepulsive characters. We cannot exaggerate this division of the Godhead\ninto countless local forms:\u2014\n\n\n    As many as thy cities in number\n    So many O Judah thy gods!(115)\n\n\nTheir high places lay all round the Prophet and each had its bad\ninfluence, not religious only but ethical, not only idolatrous but\nimmoral, with impure rites and orgies.\n\n\n    Lift to the bare heights thine eyes,\n    Where not wast thou tumbled?\n    The land thou hast fouled with thy whoredoms,(116)\n\n\n\u2014spiritual and physical both; the one led to the other.\n\nThis dissipation of the national mind upon many deities was reflected in\nthe nation\u2019s politics. With no faith in One Supreme God the statesmen of\nJudah, just as in Isaiah\u2019s earlier days, fluttered between the great\npowers which were bidding for the empire of the world. Egypt under\nPsamtik\u2019s vigorous direction pressed north, flying high promises for the\nrestless vassals of Assyria. But Assyria, though weakened, had not become\nnegligible. Between the two the anchorless policy of Judah helplessly\ndrifted. To use Jeremiah\u2019s figure, suitable alike to her politics and her\nreligion, she was a faithless wife, off from her husband to one paramour\nafter another.\n\nAll this was chaos worse than the desert that crumbled before Anathoth, a\ntragedy more bitter than the past which moaned through the land behind.\nWhat had God to say? It was a singular mark of Israel, that the hope of a\ngreat prophet never died from her heart. Where earnest souls were left\nthey prayed for his coming and looked for the Word of the Lord by him more\nthan they who wait for the morning. The same conditions prevailed out of\nwhich a century before had come an Amos, a Hosea, a Micah and an Isaiah.\nIsrael needed judgment and the North again stirred with its possibilities.\nWho would rise and spell into a clear Word of God the thunder which to all\nears was rumbling there?\n\nThe call came to Jeremiah and, as he tells the story, came sudden and\nabrupt yet charged with the full range and weight of its ultimate meaning,\nso far as he himself was concerned:\u2014\n\n\n    Before in the body I built thee, I knew thee,\n    Before thou wast forth of the womb, I had hallowed thee,\n    And a prophet to the nations had set thee.(117)\n\n\nA thought of God, ere time had anything to do with him, or the things of\ntime, even father or mother, could make or could mar him; God\u2019s alone, and\nsent to the world; out of the eternities with the Divine will for these\ndays of confusion and panic and for the peoples, small and great, that\nwere struggling through them. It was a stupendous consciousness\u2014this that\nthen broke in the village of Anathoth and in the breast of the young son\nof one its priests; the spring of it deeper and the range of it wider than\neven that similar assurance which centuries later filled another priest\u2019s\nhome in the same hill country:\u2014\n\n\n    And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest,\n    For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord,\n        To prepare His ways.(118)\n\n\nThe questions of foreknowledge and predestination, with which Jeremiah\nengaged himself not a little, I leave for a future lecture.(119) Here we\nmay consider the range of his mission.\n\nThis was very wide\u2014not for Judah only, but _a prophet to the nations had I\nset thee_. The objection has been taken, that it is too wide to be\noriginal, and the alternative inferences drawn: either that it is the\nimpression of his earliest consciousness as a prophet but formed by\nJeremiah only after years of experience revealed all that had been\ninvolved in his call; or that it is not Jeremiah\u2019s own but the notion\nformed of him by a later exaggerating generation. It is true that Jeremiah\ndid not dictate the first words of the Lord to him till some twenty-three\nyears after he heard them, when it was possible and natural for him to\nexpand them in terms of his intervening experience. And we must remember\nthe summary bent of the Hebrew mind\u2014how natural it was to that mind to\ndescribe processes as if they were acts of a day, done by a fiat as in the\nstory of the Creation; or to state a system of law and custom, which took\ncenturies to develop, as though it were the edict of a single lawgiver and\nall spoken at once, when the development entered on a new and higher\nstage, as we see in the case of Deuteronomy and its attribution to Moses.\n\nYet the forebodings at least of a task so vast as that of _prophet to the\nnations_ were anything but impossible to the moment of Jeremiah\u2019s call;\nfor the time surged, as we have seen, with the movements of the nations\nand their omens for his own people. Indeed it would have been strange if\nthe soul of any prophet, conscious of a charge from the Almighty, had not\nthe instinct, that as the meaning of this charge was gradually unfolded to\nhim, it would reveal, and require from him the utterance of, Divine\npurposes throughout a world so full even to the uninspired eye of the\npossibilities both of the ruin of old states and of the rise of new ones\u2014a\nworld so close about his own people, and so fraught with fate for them,\nthat in speaking of _them_ he could not fail to speak of the _whole of it_\nalso. If at that time a Jew had at all the conviction that he was called\nto be a prophet, it must have been with a sense of the same\nresponsibilities, to which the older prophets had felt themselves bound:\nmen who knew themselves to be ministers of the Lord of Hosts, Lord of the\nPowers of the Universe, who had dealt not with Israel only but with Moab\nand Ammon and Aram, with Tyre and the Philistines and Egypt, and who had\nspoken of Assyria herself as His staff and the rod of His judgment.\nJeremiah\u2019s three contemporaries, \u1e62ephaniah, Nahum and Habakkuk, all deal\nwith the foreign powers of their day\u2014why should he in such an age not have\nbeen conscious from the first that his call from the Lord of Hosts\ninvolved a mission as wide as theirs? I am sure that if we had lived with\nthis prophet through his pregnant times, as we have lived through these\nlast ten years and have been compelled to think constantly not of our own\nnation alone\u2014concentrated as we had to be on our duties to her\u2014but of\n_all_ the nations of the world as equally involved in the vast spiritual\ninterests at stake, we should have no difficulty in understanding how\npossible and natural it was for Jeremiah to hear his mission _to the\nnations_ clearly indicated in the very moment of his call.\n\nAnd in fact Jeremiah\u2019s acknowledged Oracles\u2014some of them among his\nearliest\u2014travel far beyond Judah and show not merely a knowledge of, and\nvivid interest in, the qualities and fortunes of other peoples, but a wise\njudgment of their policies and therefore of what should be Judah\u2019s prudent\nattitude and duty towards them. For long before his call she had been\nintriguing with Egypt and Assyria.(120) Just then or immediately later the\nScythians, after threatening the Medes, were sweeping over Western Asia as\nfar as the frontier of Egypt, and in his Scythian songs Jeremiah(121)\nshows an intimate knowledge of their habits. In his Parable of the Potter\n(for which unfortunately there is no date) he declares God\u2019s power to\nmould or re-mould _any_ nation.(122) And Baruch, writing of Jeremiah\u2019s\nearlier ministry, says that he spoke _concerning all nations_.(123)\n\nNo wonder that Jeremiah shrank from such a task: _Ah, Lord God, I know not\nto speak, I am too young._(124) His excuse is interesting. Had he not\ndeveloped his gift for verse? Or, conscious of its rustic simplicity, did\nhe fear to take the prophet\u2019s thunder on lips, that had hitherto moved\nonly to the music of his country-side? In the light of his later\nexperience the second alternative is not impossible. When much practice\nmust have made him confident of his art as a singer, he tells us how\nburning he felt the Word of the Lord to be. But whatever was the motive of\nhis reluctance it was overcome. As he afterwards said:\u2014\n\n\n    Ah, Lord, Thou didst beguile me,\n      And beguiled I let myself be;\n    Thou wast too strong for me\n      And hast prevailed.(125)\n\n\nThe following shows how this came about:\u2014\n\n\n    And the Lord said unto me, Say not I am too young, for to all to\n    which I send thee thou shalt go, and all I command thee thou shalt\n    speak,\n\n    Be not afraid before them\n    For with thee am I to deliver,\n\n    Rede of the Lord. And the Lord put forth His hand and caused it to\n    touch my mouth, and the Lord said to me, Lo, I have set My Word in\n    thy mouth,\n\n    See I appoint thee this day\n      Over the nations and kingdoms,\n    To pull up and tear down and destroy,(126)\n      To build and to plant.\n\n\nTo this also objection has been taken as still more incredible in the\nspiritual experience of so youthful a rustic. It has been deemed the\nexaggeration of a later age, and described as the \u201cgigantic figure\u201d of a\n\u201cplenipotentiary to the nations,\u201d utterly inconsistent with the modest\nsinger of the genuine oracles of Jeremiah, \u201ca hero only in suffering, not\nin assault.\u201d(127) Such an objection rather strains the meaning of the\npassage. According to this Jeremiah is to be the carrier of the Word of\nthe Lord. That Word, rather than the man himself, is the power _to pull up\nand tear down and destroy, to build and to plant_(128)\u2014that Word which no\nHebrew prophet received without an instinct of its world-wide range and\nits powers of both destruction and creation.\n\nTwo visions follow. To appreciate the first we must remember the natural\nanxiety of the prophets when charged with pronouncements so weighty and\ndefinite. The Word, the ethical purpose of God for Israel was clear, but\nhow was it to be fulfilled? No strength appeared in the nation itself. The\nparty, or parties, loyal to the Lord had been in power a dozen years and\neffected little in Jerusalem and nothing beyond. The people were not\nstirred and seemed hopeless. Living in a village where little changed\nthrough the years, but men followed the habits of their fathers, Jeremiah\nfelt everything dead. Winter was on and the world asleep.\n\n\n    Then the Word of the Lord came to me saying, What art thou seeing,\n    Jeremiah; and I said, I am seeing the branch of an almond tree.\n    And the Lord said to me, Well hast thou seen, for I am awake over\n    My Word to perform it.\n\n\nThe Hebrew for almond tree is _sh\u0101k\u0113dh_, which also means _awakeness_ or\n_watchfulness_,(129) and the Lord was _awake_ or was\n_watchful_\u2014_sh\u014dk\u0113dh_\u2014the difference only of a vowel. In that first token\nof spring which a Palestine winter affords, the Prophet received the\nsacrament of his call and of the assurance that God was awake! That the\nsacrament took this form was natural. That of Isaiah of Jerusalem was the\nvision of a Throne and an Altar. That of Ezekiel, the exile, shone in the\nstormy skies of his captivity. This to the prophet of Anathoth burst with\nthe first blossom on his wintry fields. The sense of unity in which he and\nhis people conceived the natural and spiritual worlds came to his help;\nneither in the one world nor in the other did God slumber. God was\nwatching.\n\nThe Second Vision needs no comment after our survey of the political\nconditions of the time. The North held the forces for the fulfilling of\nthe Word. The Vision is followed by a charge to the Prophet himself.\n\n\n    And the word of the Lord came to me the second time, What art thou\n    seeing? And I said, A caldron boiling and its face is from (?) the\n    North.(130) And the Lord said unto me:\u2014\n\n    Out of the North shall evil boil forth(131)\n    On all that dwell in the land;\n    For behold, I am calling\n    All the realms(132) of the North.\n    They shall come and each set his throne\n    In the openings of the gates of Jerusalem,\n    On all of her walls round about,\n    And every township of Judah.\n    And My judgments by them(133) shall I utter\n    On the evil of those who have left Me,\n    Who have burned to other gods\n    And bowed to the works of their hands.\n\n    But thou shalt gird up thy loins,\n    Stand up and speak(134) all I charge thee.\n    Be not dismayed before them,\n    Lest to their face I dismay thee.\n    See I have thee set this day\n    A fenced city and walls of bronze\n    To the kings and princes of Judah,\n    Her priests and the folk of the land;\n    They shall fight but master thee never,\n    For with thee am I to deliver\u2014\n    Rede of the Lord.(135)\n\n\nJeremiah was silenced and went forth to his ministry\u2014the Word upon his\nlips and the Lord by his side.\n\nTwo further observations are natural.\n\n_First_, note the contrast between the two Visions\u2014the blossoming twig and\nthe boiling caldron brewing tempests from the North. Unrelated as these\nseem, they symbolise together Jeremiah\u2019s prophesying throughout. For in\nfact this was all blossom and storm, beauty and terror, tender yearning\nand thunders of doom\u2014up to the very end. Or to state the same more deeply:\nwhile the caldron of the North never ceased boiling out over his\nworld\u2014consuming the peoples, his own among them, and finally sweeping him\ninto exile and night\u2014he never, for himself or for Israel, lost the clear\nnote of his first Vision, that all was watched and controlled. There is\nhis value to ourselves. Jeremiah was no prophet of hope, but he was the\nprophet of that without which hope is impossible\u2014faith in Control\u2014that be\nthe times dark and confused as they may, and the world\u2019s movements\nruthless, ruinous and inevitable, God yet watches and rules all to the\nfulfilment of His Will\u2014though how we see not, nor can any prophet tell us.\n\n_Second_, note how the story leaves the issue, not with one will only, but\nwith two\u2014God\u2019s and the Man\u2019s, whom God has called. His family has been\ndiscounted, his people and their authorities, political and religious, are\nto be against him. _He_ is to stand up and speak, _He_ is not to let\nhimself be dismayed before them, lest God make him dismayed. Under God,\nthen, the Individual becomes everything. Here, at the start of his\nministry, Jeremiah has pressed upon him, the separateness, the awful\nresponsibility, the power, of the Single Soul. We shall see how the\nsignificance of this developed not for himself only, but for the whole\nreligion of Israel.\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Lecture IV.\n\n\nTHE PROPHET IN THE REIGN OF JOSIAH. 627-26-608 B.C.\n\n\nThis period of the Prophet\u2019s career may be taken in three divisions:\u2014\n\n_First_, His Earliest Oracles, which reflect the lavish distribution of\nthe high-places in Judah and Benjamin, and may therefore be dated before\nthe suppression of these by King Josiah, in obedience to the Law-Book\ndiscovered in the Temple in 621-20 B.C.\n\n_Second_, His Oracles on the Scythians, whose invasions also preceded that\nyear; with additions.\n\n_Third_, Oracles which imply that the enforcement of the Law-Book had\nalready begun, and reveal Jeremiah\u2019s attitude to it and to the course of\nthe reforms which it inspired.\n\nWe must keep in mind that the Prophet did not dictate his early Oracles\ntill the year 604-03, and that he added to them on the Second Roll _many\nlike words_.(136) We shall thus be prepared for the appearance among them\nof references to the changed conditions of this later date, when the\nScythians had long come and gone, the Assyrian Empire had collapsed, its\nrival Egypt had been defeated at the Battle of Carchemish, and\nNebuchadrezzar and his Chaldeans were masters of Western Asia.\n\n\n\n\n1. His Earliest Oracles. (II. 2-IV. 4.)\n\n\nThese bear few marks of the later date at which they were dictated by\nJeremiah\u2014in fact only a probable reference to Egypt\u2019s invasion of\nPalestine in 608, Ch. II. 16, and part, if not all, of Ch. III. 6-18. The\ngeneral theme is a historical retrospect\u2014Israel\u2019s early loyalty to her\nGod, and her subsequent declension to the worship of other gods, figured\nas adultery; along with a profession of penitence by the people, to which\nGod responds by a stern call to a deeper repentance and thorough reform;\nfailing this, her doom, though vaguely described as yet, is inevitable.\nThe nation is addressed as a whole at first in the second person singular\nfeminine, but soon also in the plural, and the plural prevails towards the\nend. The nation answers as a whole, sometimes as _I_ but sometimes also as\n_We_.\n\nBefore expounding the truths conveyed by these early Oracles it is well to\ntranslate them in full, for though not originally uttered at the same\ntime, they run now in a continuous stream of verse\u2014save for one of those\n\u201cportages\u201d of prose which I have described.(137) There is no reason for\ndenying the whole of this passage to Jeremiah, whether because it is in\nprose or because it treats of Northern Israel as well as Judah.(138) But\non parts of it the colours are distinctly of a period later than that of\nthe Prophet. All the rest of the Oracles may be taken to be from himself.\nDuhm after much hesitation has come to doubt the genuineness of Ch. II.\n5-13, but his suspicions of deuteronomic influence seem groundless, and\neven if they were sound they would be insufficient for denying the verses\nto Jeremiah.(139)\n\n\n    II. 1, 2, And he said, Thus sayeth the Lord:(140)\n\n    I remember the troth of thy youth,\n      Thy love as a bride,\n    Thy following Me through the desert,\n      The land unsown.\n    Holy to the Lord was Israel,  3\n      First-fruit of His income;\n    All that would eat it stood guilty,\n      Evil came on them.\n    Rede of the Lord\u2014\n    Hear the Lord\u2019s Word, House of Jacob,  4\n      All clans of Israel\u2019s race!\n    [Thus sayeth the Lord]  5\n    What wrong found your fathers in Me,\n      That so far they broke from Me,\n    And following after the Bubble(141)\n      Bubbles became.\n    Nor said they:  6\n    Where is the Lord who carried us up\n      From the land of Mi\u1e63raim?(142)\n    Who led us through the desert,\n    Land of waste and chasms,\n    Land of drought and barren,(143)\n    A land which nobody crosses,\n    Nor mankind settles upon it.\n    And I brought you into a garden,  7\n      To feed on its fruit and its wealth.\n    But coming ye fouled My land,\n      My heritage turned to loathing.\n    The priests never said,  8\n      Where is the Lord?\n    They who handle the Law knew Me not,\n      The rulers(144) rebelled against Me;\n    By Baal the prophets did prophesy,\n      And followed the worthless.\n    So still with you must I strive,(145)  9\n      And strive with your sons.(146)\n    For cross to the isles of Kitt\u00eem and look  10\n    Send to Ked\u00e1r, and think for yourselves,(147)\n      And see, was ever like this?\n    Have any nations(148) changed their gods,  11\n      And these no gods at all?\n    Yet My people exchanged their(149) Glory\n      For that which is worthless.\n    Be heavy,(150) O heavens, for this,  12\n      Shudder and shudder again!\n    Twain the wrongs My people have wrought\u2014  13\n      Me have they left,\n      The Fount of live water,\n      To hew themselves cisterns,\n      Cisterns broken,\n      That cannot hold water!\n\n    Israel a slave!  14\n    Or house-born serf!\n    Why he for a prey?\n    Against him the young lions roar,  15\n      Give forth their voice,\n    And his land they lay waste,\n      Burned are his towns and tenantless.\n    The sons, too, of Noph and Ta\u1e25pan\u1e25es have forced,  16\n      Have abused thee.(151)\n    Is not all this being done thee  17\n      For thy leaving of Me?(152)\n    And now what to thee is the road to Mi\u1e63raim,(153)\n      Nile\u2019s waters to drink?\n    Or what is to thee the road to Assh\u00far,  18\n      To drink of the River?\n    Be thy scourge thine own sin,  19\n      Thy doublings convict thee!\n    Know and see how sore for thyself,\n      How bitter to leave Me!\n    But never was awe of Me thine\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord thy God.(154)\n\n    From of old thou hast broken thy yoke,  20\n      Hast burst thy bonds,\n    Saying, \u201cI will not serve!\u201d\n    While upon every high hill,\n    And under each rustling tree,\n      Harlot thou sprawlest!\n    Yet a noble vine did I plant thee,  21\n      Wholly true seed;\n    How could\u2019st thou change to a corrupt,(155)\n      A wildling grape?\n    Yea, though thou scour thee with nitre,  22\n      And heap to thee lye,\n    Ingrained is thy guilt before Me,\n      Rede of the Lord, thy God.(156)\n    How sayest thou, \u201cI\u2019m not defiled,  23\n      Nor gone after the Baals.\u201d\n    Look at thy ways in the Valley,\n      And own thy deeds!\n    A young camel, light o\u2019 heel,(157)\n      Zig-zagging her tracks,\n    A heifer, schooled to the desert\u2014  24\n      In the heat of her lust,\n    Snapping the wind in her passion,\n      Who is to turn her?\n    None that would seek her need strain them,\n      In her month they shall find her.\n    Save thou thy feet from the peeling,  25\n      Thy throat from thirst!\n    But thou sayest, \u201cNo use!(158)\n    For with strangers I\u2019m fallen in love,\n      Them must I after!\u201d\n    Like the shame of the thief when he\u2019s caught,  26\n      Shall Israel\u2019s sons(159) be shamed.\n    [They and their kings and their princes,\n      Their priests and their prophets](160)\n    Who say to a stock \u201cThou my Father!\u201d  27\n      To a stone \u201cThou hast borne me!\u201d\n    Their(161) backs they have turned to Me\n      Never their(162) faces.\n    Yet in time of their trouble they say\n      \u201cRise up and save us!\u201d\n    Where be thy gods thou hast made thee?  28\n    Let them rise, if so they may save thee\n      In time of thy trouble;\n    For as thy townships in number,(163)\n      So be, O Judah, thy gods!\n    What quarrel have you against Me?  29\n      All you are the sinners;(164)\n    Against Me you all have rebelled\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord.\n    In vain have I smitten your sons  30\n      Ye(165) took not correction\n    Your(166) sword has devoured your prophets,\n      Like a ravaging lion.\n    O generation\u2014you!\u2014look at the Word of the Lord!(167)  31\n    Have I been a desert to Israel,\n      Or land of thick darkness?\n    Why say My folk \u201cWe are off,\n      No more to meet Thee!\u201d\n    Can a maiden forget her adorning,  32\n      Or her girdle a bride?\n    Yet Me have My people forgotten,\n      Days without number!\n    Why trimmest thou still thy ways  33\n      To seek after love?\n    Therefore thou also to evil\n      Thy ways hast trained:(168)\n    Yea, on thy skirts is found blood  34\n      Of innocent souls,\n    Not only on felons(?) I find it\n      But over all these.(169)\n    Yet thou said\u2019st, \u201cI am assoiled,  35\n      Sure His wrath turns from me!\u201d\n    Behold I am going to judge thee\n      For saying, \u201cI\u2019m sinless!\u201d\n    How very light dost thou take it,  36\n      To change thy ways!\n    E\u2019en of Mi\u1e63raim shalt thou be ashamed(170)\n      As ashamed of Ashsh\u00far.\n    Out of this too shalt thou come  37\n      With thy hands on thy head,\n    For spurned hath the Lord the things of thy trust,\n      Not by them shalt thou prosper!\n\n    III. 1. [Saying]:\u2014If a man dismiss his wife and she go from him\n    and become another man\u2019s, shall she return to him?(171) Is that\n    woman(172) not too polluted? But thou hast played the harlot with\n    many lovers and\u2014wouldest return unto Me? Rede of the Lord.\n\n    Lift to the clearings thine eyes,  2\n      Where not wast thou tumbled?\n    For them by the roads thou hast sate,\n      Like an Arab in desert,\n    Thou hast fouled the land with thy whoredoms\n      And with thy vices;\n    With thy lovers so many  3\n      It has meant but thy snare.(173)\n    The brow of a harlot was thine,\n      Shame thou hadst done with.\n    But now\u2014thou callest me \u201cFather,  4\n      Friend of my youth!\u201d\n    \u201cBears _He_ a grudge for ever,  5\n      Stands on His guard for aye?\u201d(174)\n    Lo, so thou hast spoken, yet done\n      Ills to thine utmost.\n\n    6. And the Lord said unto me in the days of Josiah, the king,(175)\n    Hast thou seen what recreant Israel did to Me(176) going up every\n    high hill and under each rustling tree, and there playing the\n    harlot. 7. And I said, After she has done all these things can she\n    return to Me?\u2014and she did not return. 8. And her treacherous\n    sister Judah saw, yes she saw,(177) that, all because recreant\n    Israel committed adultery, I had dismissed her and given her the\n    bill of her divorce; yet her sister treacherous Judah was not\n    afraid, but also went and played the harlot. 9. And it came to\n    pass that, through the wantonness of her harlotry, she polluted\n    the land, committing adultery with stones and with stocks. 10. And\n    yet, for all this, treacherous Judah(178) has not returned to Me\n    with all her heart, but only in feigning.(179) 11. And the Lord\n    said to me, Recreant Israel hath justified herself more than\n    treacherous Judah. 12. Go and call out these words toward the\n    North and say,\n\n    Turn thee to Me,(180) recreant Israel,\n      I frown(181) not upon thee;\n    For gracious am I (Rede of the Lord),\n      Nor for ever bear grudge.\n    Only acknowledge thy guilt,  13\n      That defying the Lord thy God,\n    Thou hast scattered to strangers thy ways\n      Under each rustling tree,\n    And hast(182) not obeyed My voice\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord.\n\n    14. [Return ye backsliding children, Rede of the Lord, for I am\n    your Baal,(183) and I will take you, one from a city and two from\n    a clan, and will bring you to \u1e62ion. 15. And I will give you\n    Shepherds after My heart, and they shall shepherd you with\n    knowledge and with skill. 16. And it shall be, when ye multiply\n    and increase in the land in those days (Rede of the Lord), they\n    shall not again say, \u201cThe Ark of the Covenant of the Lord!\u201d It\n    shall not come to mind, it shall be neither remembered nor\n    missed,(184) nor shall it be made again. 17. At that time they\n    shall call Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord and all nations shall\n    gather to her,(185) nor walk any more after the stubbornness of\n    their evil hearts. 18. In those days the House of Judah shall walk\n    with the House of Israel, that together they may come from the\n    land of the North to the land which I gave their(186) fathers for\n    a heritage.]\n\n    But I(187) had declared the How(?)  19\n      I should set thee(188) among the sons,\n    And should give thee a land of delight,\n      Fairest domain of the nations.\n    And said, Thou would\u2019st call Me Father,\n      Nor from after Me turn.\n    As a woman plays false to her fere,(189)  20\n      So to Me ye played false!\n    [O House of Israel, Rede of the Lord.]\n\n    Hark!  21\n    From the clearings weeping is heard,\n      Wailing of Israel\u2019s sons,\n    That they have perverted their way,\n      Forgotten the Lord their God.\n    Return ye oft-turning children,  22\n      Let me heal your back-turnings!\n    \u201cHere are we! to Thee we are come,\n      Thou Lord art our God.\n    \u201cSurely the heights are a fraud  23\n      The hills and their hubbub!(190)\n    \u201cAlone in the Lord our God\n      Is Israel\u2019s safety.\n    \u201cThe Baal hath devoured our toil  24\n      And our sires\u2019 from their youth,\n    \u201cTheir flocks and their herds,\n      Their sons and daughters\u2014\n    \u201cLie we low in our shame,  25\n      Our dishonour enshroud us!\n    \u201cFor to our God(191) have we sinned,\n    \u201c[We and our sires from our youth]\n    Up to this day!\n    \u201cNor have heeded the voice\n    Of the Lord our God.\u201d\n\n    [Israel, if thou wilt return,  IV. 1\n      Return to Me,\n    And thy loathly things put from thy mouth\n      Nor stray from My face.(192)\n    If in truth thou swear by the life of the Lord,  2\n      Honest and straight,\n    Then the nations shall bless them by Him\n      And in Him shall they glory.](193)\n\n    3. Thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants\n    of(194) Jerusalem:\n\n    Fallow up your fallow-ground,(195)\n      And sow not on thorns!\n    To your God(196) circumcise ye,  4\n      Off from your heart with the foreskin!\n    [O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem]\n    Lest My fury break out like fire,\n      And burn with none to quench!\n    [Because of the ill of your doings.]\n\n\nFrom his call the Prophet went forth, as we saw, with a heavy sense of the\nresponsibility and the power of the single soul, so far as he himself was\nconcerned; and while we study his ministry we shall find him coming to\nfeel the same for each of his fellow-men. But in these his earliest\nutterances he follows his predecessors, and especially Hosea, in\naddressing his people as a whole, and treating Israel as a moral unit from\nthe beginning of her history to the moment of his charge to her. He\ncontinues the figures which Hosea had used. Long ago in Egypt God chose\nIsrael for His child, for His bride, and led her through the desert to a\nfair and fruitful land of her own. Then her love was true. The term used\nfor it, _\u1e25e\u1e63edh_, is more than an affection; it is loyalty to a relation.\nTo translate it but _kindness_ or _mercy_, as is usually done, is\nwrong\u2014_troth_ is our nearest word.\n\n\n    I remember the troth of thy youth,\n      Thy love as a bride,\n    Thy following Me through the desert,\n      The land unsown.\n\n\nUpon the unsown land there were no rival gods. But in fertile Canaan the\nnation encountered innumerable local deities, the Baal\u00eem, husbands of the\nland, begetters of its fruits and lords of its waters. We conceive how\ntempting these Baal\u00eem were both to the superstitious prudence of tribes\nstrange to agriculture and anxious to conciliate the traditional powers\nthereof; and to the people\u2019s passions through the sensuous rites and\nfeasts of the rural shrines. Among such distractions Israel lost her\ninnocence, forgot what her own God was or had done for her, and ceased to\nenquire of Him. Hence her present vices and misery in contrast with her\nearly troth and safety. Hence the twin evils of the time\u2014on the one hand\nthe nation\u2019s trust in heathen powers and silly oscillation between Egypt\nand Assyria; on the other the gross immoralities to which the Baals had\nseduced its sons. There was a double prostitution, to gods and to men, so\nfoul that the young prophet uses the rankest facts in the rural life which\nhe is addressing in order to describe it.\n\nThe cardinal sin of the people, the source of all their woes is religious,\n\n\n    Is not this being done thee\n      For thy leaving of Me?\n\n\nThis was so, not only because He was their ancestral God\u2014though such an\napostasy was unheard of among the nations\u2014but because He was such a God\nand had done so much for them; because from the first He had wrought both\nwith grace and with might, while the gods they went after had neither\ncharacter nor efficiency\u2014mere breaths, mere bubbles!\n\nThe nerve of the faith of the prophets was this memory\u2014that their God was\nlove and in love had wrought for His people. The frequent expression of\nthis by the prophets and by Deuteronomy, the prophetic edition of the Law,\nis the answer to those abstractions to which some academic moderns have\nsought to reduce the Object of Israel\u2019s religion\u2014such as, \u201ca tendency not\nourselves that makes for righteousness.\u201d The God of Israel was Righteous\nand demanded righteousness from men; but to begin with He was Love which\nsought their love in return. First the Exodus then Sinai; first Redemption\nthen Law; first Love then Discipline. Through His Deeds and His Word by\nthe prophets He had made all this clear and very plain.\n\n\n    What wrong found your fathers in Me,\n      That so far they broke from Me?\n    Have I been a desert to Israel,\n      Or land of thick darkness?\n    Why say My folk, \u201cWe are off,\n      To meet Thee no more.\u201d\n\n\nJeremiah has prefaced this Divine challenge with a passionate exclamation\nin prose\u2014_O Generation\u2014you!\u2014look at the Word of the Lord!_\u2014which (as I\nhave said) I like to think was added to his earlier verses when he\ndictated these to Baruch. Cannot you see, cannot you see? He is amazed by\nthe stupidity, the callousness, the abandonment with which his people from\ntheir leaders down have treated a guidance so clear, a love so constant\nand yearning. And again his soul sways upon the contrast between the early\ninnocence and the present corruption of Israel.\n\n\n    A noble vine did I plant thee,\n      Wholly true seed,\n    How could\u2019st thou change to a corrupt,\n      A wildling grape?\n\n\nThe sense of their terrible guilt governs him, and of their indifference\nto it, saying we are clean, to which he answers:\u2014\n\n\n    Yea though thou scour thee with nitre\n      And heap to thee lye,\n    Ingrained is thy guilt before Me\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord.\n\n\nYet the fervency with which he pleads the Divine Love reveals a heart of\nhunger, if hardly of hope, for his nation\u2019s repentance. Indeed apart from\nhis own love for them he could not have followed Hosea so closely as he\ndoes at this stage of his career, without feeling some possibility of\ntheir recovery from even this, their awful worst; and his ear strains for\na sign of it. Like Hosea he hears what sounds like the surge of a national\nrepentance(197)\u2014was it when Judah listened to the pleadings and warnings\nof the discovered Book of the Law and _all the people stood to the\nCovenant_? But he does not say whether he found this sincere or whether it\nwas merely a shallow stir of the feelings. Probably he suspected the\nlatter, for in answer to it he gives not God\u2019s gracious acceptance, but a\nstern call to a deeper repentance and to a thorough trenching of their\nhearts.\n\n\n    Fallow up the fallow-ground,\n      Sow not on thorns!\n    To your God(198) circumcise ye,\n      Off from your heart with the foreskin!\n    Lest My wrath break out like the fire,\n      And burn with none to quench.(199)\n\n\nJeremiah has been called the blackest of pessimists, and among his\nbest-known sayings some seem to justify the charge:\u2014\n\n\n    Can the Ethiop change his skin,\n      Or the leopard his spots?\n    Then also may ye do good,\n      Who are wont to do evil.(200)\n\n\nAnd again,\n\n\n    False above all is the heart,\n      And sick to despair,\n      Who is to know it?\n\n\nBut to his question came the answer:\u2014\n\n\n    I, the Lord, searching the heart,\n      And trying the reins,\n    To give to each man as his ways,\n      As the fruit of his doings.(201)\n\n\nIn this answer there is awfulness but not final doom. The affirmation of a\nman\u2019s dread responsibility for his fate implies, too, the liberty to\nchange his ways. In the dim mystery of the heart freedom is clear.\nSimilarly, and even more plainly, is this expressed in the earlier call to\n_break up the fallow-ground_. This implies that beneath those surfaces of\nthe national life, whether of callous indifference on the one hand or of\nshallow feeling on the other, there is soil which, if thoroughly ploughed,\nwill be hospitable to the good seed and fit to bring forth fruits meet for\nrepentance. Human nature even at its worst has tracts other than those on\nwhich there has been careless sowing among thorns, moral possibilities\nbelow those of its abused or neglected surfaces. Let us mark this depth,\nwhich the Prophet\u2019s insight has already reached. Much will come out of it;\nthis is the matrix of all developments by himself and others of the\ndoctrine of man and his possibilities under God. And for all time the\ntruth is valid that many spoiled or wasted lives are spoiled or wasted\nonly on the surface; and that it is worth while ploughing deeper for their\npossibilities.(202)\n\nIn what form the deep ploughing required was _at first_ imagined by the\nProphet we see from the immediately following Oracles.\n\n\n\n\n2. Oracles on the Scythians. (With some others: IV. 5-VI. 29.)\n\n\nThe invasion of Western Asia by the Scythians happened some time between\n627 and 620 B.C.(203) The following series of brief poems unfold the panic\nactually caused, or to the Prophet\u2019s imagination likely to be caused, in\nJudah by the advance of these marauding hordes, and clearly reflect their\nappearance and manner of raiding. It is indeed doubtful that Judah was\nvisited by the Scythians, who appear to have swept only the maritime plain\nof Palestine. And once more we must remember that when the Prophet\ndictated his early Oracles to Baruch for the second time in 604, and\n_added to them many more like words_,(204) the impending enemy from the\nNorth was no longer the Scythians but Nebuchadrezzar and his Chaldeans;\nfor this will explain features of the poems that are not suited to the\nScythians and their peculiar warfare, which avoided the siege of fortified\ntowns but kept to the open country and the ruin of its villages and\nfields. Jeremiah does not give the feared invaders a name. The Scythians\nwere utterly new to his world; yet their name may have occurred in the\npoems as originally delivered and have been removed in 604, when the\nScythians were no longer a force to be reckoned with.(205)\n\n1. As it has reached us, the First Scythian Song, Ch. IV. 5-8, opens with\nthe general formula\u2014\n\n\n    Proclaim in Judah and Jerusalem,\n      Make heard and say!\n\n\nwhich may be the addition of a later hand, but is as probably Jeremiah\u2019s\nown; for the capital, though not likely to be besieged by the Scythians,\nwas just as concerned with their threatened invasion as the country folk,\nto whom, in the first place, the lines are addressed. The _trump_ or\n_horn_ of the first line was the signal of alarm, kept ready by the\nwatchman of every village, as Amos and Joel indicate.(206)\n\n\n    Strike up the trump through the land,  IV. 5_b_\n      Call with full voice,\n    And say, Sweep together and into\n      The fortified towns.\n    Hoist the signal towards \u1e62ion,  6\n      Pack off and stay not!\n    For evil I bring from the North\n      And ruin immense.\n    The Lion is up from his thicket,  7\n      Mauler of nations;\n    He is off and forth from his place,\n      Thy land(207) to lay waste;\n    That thy townships be burned\n      With none to inhabit!\n    Gird ye with sackcloth for this,  8\n      Howl and lament,\n    For the glow of the wrath of the Lord\n      Turns not from us.\n\n\nThese lines are followed by a verse with an introduction to itself, and\ntherefore too separate from the context, and indeed too general to have\nbelonged to so vivid a song:\u2014\n\n\n    9. And it shall be in that day\u2014Rede of the Lord\u2014\n\n    The heart of the king shall perish,\n      And the heart of the princes,\n    And the priests shall be aghast\n      And the prophets dismayed!\n\n\nAnd this is followed by one of the sudden protests to God, which are\ncharacteristic of Jeremiah:\u2014\n\n\n    10. And I said, Ah Lord God, surely Thou hast wholly deceived this\n    people and Jerusalem saying, \u201cPeace shall be yours,\u201d while the\n    sword strikes through to the life!\n\n\n2. The Second Scythian Song is like the first, prefaced by a double\naddress, which there is no reason to deny to Jeremiah. Jerusalem is named\ntwice in the song, and naturally, since the whole land is threatened with\nwaste and the raiders come up to the suburbs of the capital. The Prophet\nspeaks, but as so often the Voice of the Lord breaks through his own and\ncalls directly to the city and people (though the last line of verse 12\nmay be a later addition). On the other hand, the Prophet melts into his\npeople; their panic and pangs become his. This is one of the earliest\ninstances of Jeremiah\u2019s bearing of the sins of his people and of their\npunishment.\n\n\n    IV. 11.  At that time it was said to this people and to Jerusalem,\n\n    A wind off the blaze of the bare desert heights,\n      Straight on the Daughter of my people,\n    Neither to winnow nor to sift,\n      In full blast it meets me.  12\n    [Now will I speak My judgments upon them]\n    Lo, like the clouds he is mounting,  13\n      Like the whirlwind his cars!\n    Swifter than vultures his horses,\n      Woe, we are undone!\n    Jerusalem, cleanse thou thy heart,(208)  14\n      That thou be saved!\n    How long shalt thou harbour within thee\n      Thy guilty devices.\n    For hark! They signal from Dan,  15\n      Mount Ephraim echoes disaster.\n    Warn the folk, \u201cThey are come!\u201d(209)  16\n      Make heard o\u2019er Jerusalem.\n    Behold,(210) beleaguerers (?) coming\n      From a land far away;\n    They give out their voice on the townships of Judah;\n      Like the guards on her fields  17\n    They are round and upon her,\n      For Me she defied!(211)\n    Thy ways and thy deeds have done  18\n      These things to thee.\n    This evil of thine how bitter!\n      It strikes to the heart.\n    O my bowels! My bowels, I writhe!  19\n      O walls of my heart!\n    My heart is in storm upon me,\n      I cannot keep silence.(212)\n    For the sound of the trump thou hast heard,\n      O my soul,\n      The uproar of battle.\n    Ruin upon ruin is summoned,  20\n      The land is undone!\n    Suddenly undone my tents,\n      In a moment my curtains!\n    How long must I look for the signal  21\n      And hark for the sound of the trump!\n    [Yea, fools are My people  22\n      Nor Me do they fear.(213)\n    Children besotted are they,\n      Void of discretion.\n    Clever they are to do evil,\n      To do good they know not.\n\n\n3. The Third of the Scythian Songs is without introduction. Whether the\nwaste, darkness, earthquake and emptiness described are imminent or have\nhappened is still left uncertain, as in the previous songs. The Prophet\nspeaks, but as before the Voice of God peals out at the end.\n\n\n    I looked to the earth, and lo chaos,  23\n      To the heavens, their light was gone.\n    I looked to the hills and(214) they quivered,  24\n      All the heights were a-shuddering.\n    I looked\u2014and behold not a man!  25\n      All the birds of heaven were fled.\n    I looked to the gardens, lo desert,  26\n      All the townships destroyed,\n    Before the face of the Lord,\n      The glow of His wrath.\n    [For thus hath the Lord said,  27\n    All the land shall be waste\n      Yet full end I make not](215)\n    For this let the Earth lament,  28\n      And black be Heaven above!\n    I have spoken and will not relent,\n      Purposed and turn not from it.(216)\n\n\n4. The Fourth Scythian Song follows immediately, also without\nintroduction. The first four couplets vividly describe the flight of the\npeasantry, actual or imagined, before the invaders. The rest seems\naddressed to the City as though being threatened she sought to reduce her\nfoes with a woman\u2019s wiles, only to find that it was not her love but her\nlife they were after, and so expired at their hands in despair. All this\nis more suitable to the Chaldean than to the Scythian invasion, and may be\none of the Prophet\u2019s additions in 604 to his earlier Oracles. However we\ntake it, the figure is of Jeremiah\u2019s boldest and most vivid. The irony is\nkeen.\n\n\n    From the noise of the horse and the bowmen,  IV. 29\n      All the land(217) is in flight,\n    They are into the caves, huddle in thickets,(218)\n      Are up on the crags.\n    Every town of its folk is forsaken\n      No habitant in it.\n    All is up! Thou destined to ruin(?)(219)  30\n      What doest thou now?\n    That thou dressest in scarlet,\n      And deck\u2019st thee in deckings of gold,\n    With stibium widenest thine eyes.\n      In vain dost thou prink!\n    Though satyrs they utterly loathe thee,\n      Thy life are they after!\n    For voice as of travail I hear,  31\n      Anguish as hers that beareth,\n    The voice of the daughter of \u1e62ion agasp,\n      he spreadeth her hands:\n    \u201cWoe unto me, but it faints,\n      My life to the butchers!\u201d\n\n\nThe next poem, Ch. V. 1-13, says little of the Scythians, possibly only in\nverse 6, but details the moral reasons for the doom with which they\nthreatened the people. It describes the Prophet\u2019s search through Jerusalem\nfor an honest, God-fearing man and his failure to find one. Hence the\nfresh utterance of judgment. Perjury and whoredom are rife, with a\ncallousness to chastisement already inflicted. Some have relegated\nJeremiah\u2019s visit to the capital to a year after 621-20 when the\ndeuteronomic reforms had begun and Josiah had removed the rural priests to\nthe Temple.(220) But, as we have seen, Anathoth lay so near to Jerusalem,\nand intercourse between them was naturally so constant, that Jeremiah may\nwell have gained the following experience before he left his village for\nresidence in the city. The position of the poem among the Scythian Songs,\nalong with the possible allusion to the Scythians in verse 6, suggests a\ndate before 620. There is no introduction.\n\n\n    Range ye the streets of Jerusalem,  V. 1\n      Look now and know,\n    And search her broad places,\n      If a man ye can find\u2014\n    If there be that does justice,\n      Aiming at honesty.\n    [That I may forgive them(221)]\n    Though they say, \u201cAs God liveth,\u201d  2\n      Falsely(222) they swear\n    LORD, are Thine eyes upon lies(?)  3\n      And not on the truth(223)?\n    Thou hast smitten, they ail not,\n      Consumed them, they take not correction.\n    Their faces set harder than rock,\n      They refuse to return.\n    But I said, \u201cAh, they are the poor,  4\n      And therefore(224) the foolish!\n    \u201cThey know not the Way of the Lord,\n      The Rule of their God.\n    \u201cTo the great I will get me,  5\n      With them let me speak.\n    \u201cFor they know the Way of the Lord,\n      And the Rule of their God.\u201d\n    Ah, together they have broken the yoke,\n      They have burst the bonds!\n    So a lion from the jungle shall smite them,  6\n      A wolf of the waste destroy,\n    The leopard shall prowl round their towns,\n      All faring forth shall be torn.\n    For many have been their rebellions,\n      Profuse their backslidings.\n    How shall I pardon thee this\u2014  7\n      Thy children have left Me,\n      And swear by no-gods.\n    I gave them their fill and they whored,\n      And trooped to the house of the harlot.\n    Rampant(225) stallions they be,  8\n      Neighing each for the wife of his friend.\n    Shall I not visit on such,  9\n      Rede of the Lord,\n    Nor on a people like this\n      Myself take vengeance?\n\n    Up to her vine-rows, destroy,  10\n      And make(226) a full end,\n    Away with her branches,\n      They are not the Lord\u2019s.\n    For betraying they have betrayed Me  11\n      Judah and Israel both [Rede of the Lord]\n    The Lord they have belied,  12\n      Saying \u201cNot He!\n    Evil shall never come on us,\n      Nor famine nor sword shall we see.\n    \u201cThe prophets! they are nothing but wind  13\n      The Word is not with them!\u201d(227)\n\n    14. Therefore thus hath the Lord of Hosts said, because of their\n    speaking this word\u2014(228)\n\n    Behold I am setting My Word\n      In thy mouth for fire,\n    And this people for wood,\n      And it shall devour them.\n\n\n5. The Fifth Song upon the Scythians, Ch. V. 15-17, besides still leaving\nthem nameless, emphasises their strangeness to Israel\u2019s world. There was a\ncommon language in Western Asia, Aramean, the _lingua franca_ of traders\nfrom Nineveh to Memphis; and Jew, Assyrian and Egyptian conversed in it.\nBut the tongue of these raiders from over the Caucasus was unintelligible.\nYet how they would set their teeth into the land! Mixed with the verses\nwhich thus describe them are others which suit not them but the Chaldeans\nand must have been added by the Prophet in 604. A people so new to the\nJews might hardly have been called by Jeremiah _an ancient nation, from of\nold a nation_, and in fact these phrases are wanting in the Greek version.\n\n\n    Behold, I am bringing upon you  V. 15\n      A nation from far,\n    [O house of Israel, Rede of the Lord\n    An ancient nation it is,\n      From of old a nation.](229)\n    A nation thou knowest not its tongue,  16\n      Nor canst hear what it says,\n    Its quiver an open grave,(230)\n      All of it stalwarts.(231)\n    It shall eat up thy harvest and bread,  17\n      Eat thy sons and thy daughters,\n    It shall eat up thy flocks and thy cattle,\n      Eat thy vines and thy figs.\n    It shall beat down thy fortified towns,\n      Wherein thou dost trust, with the sword.\n\n\nThe last couplet is unsuitable to the Scythians, incapable as they were of\nsieges and avoiding fortified towns\u2014though once they rushed Askalon. It is\nprobably, therefore, another of the additions of 604 referring to the\nChaldeans. The prose which follows is certainly from the Chaldean period,\nfor it was not Scythians but Chaldeans who threatened with exile the\npeoples whom they overran.\n\n\n    V. 18. Yet even in those days\u2014Rede of the Lord\u2014I will not make a\n    full end of you. 19. And it shall be when they say, For what hath\n    the Lord our God done to us all these things?\u2014that thou shalt say\n    to them, Just as ye have left Me and have served foreign gods in\n    your own land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land not yours.\n\n\nThere follows a poem, verses 20-31, that has nothing to do with the\nScythian series; and that with the preceding prose, with which also it has\nno connection, shows us what a conglomeration of Oracles the Book of\nJeremiah is. It seems as though the compiler, searching for a place for\nit, had seen the catch-word _harvest_ in the previous Scythian song and,\nthis one having the same word, he had copied it in here. The Book shows\nsigns elsewhere of the same mechanical method. But like all the Oracles\nthis has for its theme the foolish dulness of Israel to their God and His\nWord, and the truth that it is their crimes which are the cause of all\ntheir afflictions yet now not in history but in Nature. There is no reason\nto doubt that the verses are Jeremiah\u2019s, and nothing against our dating\nthem in the early years of his ministry.\n\n\n    Declare ye this in the House of Jacob,  V. 20\n      Through Judah let it be heard:(232)\n    Hear ye now this, people most foolish,  21\n      And void of sense.(233)\n    [They have eyes but they do not see,\n      Ears but they hear not.]\n    Fear ye not Me, Rede of the Lord,  22\n      Nor tremble before Me?\u2014\n    Who have set the sand a bound for the sea,\n      An eternal decree it cannot transgress;\n    Though (its waters)(234) toss, they shall not prevail,\n    And its rollers boom, they cannot break over.\n    Yet this people heart-hard and rebellious,  23\n      Have swerved and gone off;\n    For not with their hearts do they say,  24\n      \u201cNow fear we the Lord our God,\n    \u201cWho giveth the rain in its season,\n      The early and latter;\n    \u201cAnd the weeks appointed for harvest\n      Secureth for us.\u201d\n    These have your crimes deranged,  25\n      Your sins withholden your luck.\n    For scoundrels are found in My folk,  26\n      Who prowl with the crouch of a fowler(?)(235)\n    And set their traps to destroy,\n      \u2019Tis men they would catch!\n    Like a cage that is full of birds,  27\n      Their houses are filled with deceit,(236)\n    And so they wax wealthy and great\u2014  28\n      They are fat, they are sleek!\u2014\n    Overflowing with things of evil(?),\n      They defend not the right,\n    The right of the orphan to prosper,\n      Nor justice judge for the needy.(237)\n    Shall I not visit on these,  29\n      Rede of the Lord,\n    Nor on a people like this\n      Myself be avenged?(238)\n    Appalling and ghastly it is  30\n      That has come to pass in the land:\n    The prophets prophesy lies,  31\n      The priests bear rule at their hand,\n    And My people\u2014they love so to have it;\n      But what will ye do in the end?\n\n\n6. In the Sixth Song on the Scythians, VI. 1-5, which also is given\nwithout introduction, Jerusalem is threatened\u2014even Jerusalem to which in\nthe previous songs the country-folk had been bidden to fly for shelter\u2014and\nthe foes are described in the attempt to rush her, as they rushed Askalon\naccording to Herodotus. That they are represented as faltering and no\nsuccess is predicted for them, and also that they are called _shepherds_,\nare signs that it is the Scythians, though still nameless, who are meant\nin verses 3-5. The next three verses, separately introduced, point rather\nto a Chaldean invasion by their picture of besiegers throwing up a mound\nagainst the walls, and may therefore be one of the additions to his\nearlier Oracles made by the Prophet, when in 604 the enemy from the North\nwas clearly seen to be Nebuchadrezzar, with the siege-trains familiar to\nus from the Assyrian and Babylonian monuments; upon which are represented\njust such a hewing of timber and heaping of mounds against a city\u2019s walls.\n\n\n    Pack off, O Benjamin\u2019s sons,  VI. 1\n      Out of Jerusalem!\n    Strike up the trump in Tekoa,(239)\n      O\u2019er Beth-hakk\u00e9rem lift up the signal!\n    For evil glowers out of the North,\n      And ruin immense.\n    O the charming (?) the pampered height(240)  2\n      Of the daughter of \u1e62ion!\n    Unto her shepherds are coming,  3\n      With their flocks around,(241)\n    They pitch against her their tents,\n      Each crops at his hand.\n    \u201cHallow(242) the battle against her,\n      Up, let us on by noon.\u201d\n    \u201cWoe unto us! The day is turning,  4\n      The shadows of evening stretch.\u201d\n    \u201cUp then and on by night,  5\n      That we ruin her palaces!\u201d\n    For thus said the Lord of Hosts:  6\n    Hew down her(243) trees and heap\n      Against Jerusalem a mound;\n    Woe to the City of Falsehood,(244)\n      Nought but oppression within her!\n    As a well keeps its waters fresh  7\n      She keeps fresh her evil;\n    Violence and spoil are heard throughout her,\n      Ever before Me sickness and wounds.\n    Jerusalem, be thou corrected,  8\n      Lest from thee My soul doth break,\n    Lest I lay thee a desolate waste,\n      Uninhabited land.\n\n\nHere follows another and separately introduced Oracle:\u2014\n\n\n    Thus hath the Lord(245) said:  9\n    Glean, let them glean as a vine\n      Israel\u2019s remnant;\n    Like the grape-gleaner turn thy hand\n      Again to its(246) tendrils.\n    \u201cTo whom shall I utter myself,  10\n      And witness that they may hear?\n    \u201cLo, uncircumcised is their ear,\n      They cannot give heed.\n    \u201cThe Word of the Lord is their scorn,\n      No pleasure have they therein.\n    \u201cI am full of the rage of the Lord,  11\n      \u201cWeary with holding it back!\n    Pour(247) it out on the child in the street,\n      On the youths where they gather;\n    Both husband and wife shall be taken,\n      The old with the full of days.\n    Their homes shall be turned to others,  12\n      Their fields and wives together,\n    When I stretch forth My Hand\n      On those that dwell in this(248) land.\n      [Rede of the Lord.]\n    Because from the least to the greatest  13\n      All are greedy of gain,\n    Right on from prophet to priest\n      Every one worketh lies.\n    They would heal the breach of My people,  14\n      As though it were trifling,\n    Saying, \u201cIt is well, it is well\u201d\u2014\n      When\u2014where(249) is it well?\n    Were they shamed of their loathsome deeds?  15\n      Nay, not at all ashamed!\n    They know not even to blush!\n      So they with the fallen shall fall,\n    And shall reel in the time that I visit,\n      Rede of the Lord.\n\n\nStill another Oracle which gives no glimpse of the Scythians, but\nthreatens a vague disaster and once more states the moral reasons for\nJudah\u2019s doom. Its allusion to incense and sacrifices is no reason for\ndating it after the discovery of Deuteronomy.(250)\n\n\n    Thus hath the Lord said\u2014  16\n    Halt on the ways and look,\n      And ask for the ancient paths:\n    Where is(251) the way that is good?\n      Go ye in that,\n    And rest shall ye find to your soul,\n      But they\u2014\u201cWe go not!\u201d\n    I raised up sentinels for you\u2014  17\n      Heed the sound of the trump!(252)\n      But they\u2014\u201cWe heed not!\u201d\n    Therefore, O nations, hearken,  18\n      And own My record against them (?)(253)\n    Hear thou, O Earth,  19\n    Lo, evil I bring to this people,\n      The fruit of their own devices,(254)\n    Since they have not heeded My Word,\n      And My Law have despised.\n    To Me what is incense that cometh from Sheba,  20\n      Sweet-cane from a far-off land?\n    Your holocausts are not acceptable,\n      Nor your sacrifice pleasing.\n    Therefore thus hath the Lord said:  21\n    Behold I set for this people\n      Blocks upon which to stumble;\n    Fathers and children together,\n      Neighbour and friend shall perish.\n\n\nNone of the foregoing brief and separate Oracles diverts from the moral\ntheme of all these earlier utterances of the Prophet, that Judah\u2019s\nafflictions, whether from Nature or from invaders, are due to her own\nwickedness. And this record even the foreign peoples are called to\nwitness\u2014another proof that from the first Jeremiah had a sense of a\nmission to _the nations_ as well as to his own countrymen.\n\n7. There follows the Seventh, the last of the Songs which may be referred\nto the Scythian invasion, Ch. VI. 22-26. It repeats the distance from\nwhich, in the fateful North, those hordes have been _stirred_ to their\nwork of judgment, their ruthlessness and terrific tumult, the panic they\nproduce, and bitter mourning. The usual formula introduces the verses.\n\n\n    22. Thus hath the Lord said:\n\n    Lo, a people comes out of the North,\n      A nation(255) astir from the ends of the earth,\n    The bow and the javelin they grasp,  23\n      Cruel and ruthless,\n    The noise of them booms like the sea,\n      On horses they ride\u2014\n    Arrayed as one man for the battle\n      On thee, O Daughter of \u1e62ion!\n    We have heard their fame,  24\n      Limp are our hands;\n      Anguish hath gripped us,\n      Pangs as of travail.\n    Fare not forth to the field,  25\n      Nor walk on the way,\n      For the sword of a foe,\n      Terror all round!\n    Daughter of My people, gird on thee sackcloth  26\n      And wallow in ashes!\n    Mourn as for an only-begotten,\n      Wail of the bitterest!\n    For of a sudden there cometh\n      The spoiler upon us.(256)\n\n\nThis is the last of Jeremiah\u2019s Oracles on the Scythians. There is little\nor no doubt of their date\u2014before 621-20. What knowledge of this new people\nand their warfare the Prophet displays! What conscience of the ethical\npurpose of the Lord of Hosts in threatening Judah with them! Yet some\nstill refuse to credit the story of his Call, that from the first he heard\nhimself appointed as a prophet _to the nations_.(257)\n\nThis section of Jeremiah\u2019s earlier Oracles concludes with one addressed to\nhimself, Ch. VI. 27-30. It describes the task assigned him during the most\nof his time under Josiah, whether before the discovery and promulgation of\nthe Book of the Law in 621-20, or subsequently to this while he watched\nthe nation\u2019s new endeavour to repent and reform. During the years from\n621-20 till 608 when Josiah was defeated and slain at Megiddo, there can\nhave been but little for him to do except to follow, as his searching eyes\nand detached mind alone in Israel could follow, the great venture of Judah\nin obedience to the Book of the Law. For this interval the outside world\nhad ceased to threaten Israel. The Assyrian control of her was relaxed:\nthe people of God were free, and had their first opportunity for over a\ncentury to work out their own salvation.\n\n\n    Assayer among My people I set thee,(258)  27\n      To know and assay their ways,\n    All of them utterly recreant,  28\n      Gadding about to slander.\n    Brass and iron are all of them(?),\n      Wasters they be!\n    Fiercely blow the bellows,  29\n      The lead is consumed of the fire(?)\n    In vain does the smelter smelt,\n      Their dross(259) is not drawn.\n    \u201cRefuse silver\u201d men call them,\n      For the Lord hath refused them.(260)\n\n\nTo take these lines as subsequent to the institution of Deuteronomy and\nexpressive of the judgment of the Prophet upon the failure of the\nreformation under Josiah to reach the depth of a real repentance,(261) is\nunnecessary. The young Jeremiah had already tested his people and in his\nearliest Oracles reached conclusions as hopeless as that here. At least he\nhad already been called to test the people; and in next section we shall\nsee how he continued to fulfil his duty after the discovery of\nDeuteronomy, and onwards through the attempts at reformation which it\ninspired.\n\n\n\n\n3. Jeremiah and Deuteronomy. (Chs. VII, VIII. 8, XI.)\n\n\nWe are not told when or why Jeremiah left Anathoth for Jerusalem. His\nearly poem denouncing the citizens(262) reveals a close observation of\ntheir morals but no trace of the reforms begun by Josiah soon after 621\nB.C. Some therefore hold that he had settled in the City before that\nyear.(263) Anathoth, however, lay so near Jerusalem that even from his\nboyhood Jeremiah must have been familiar with the life and trade of the\ncapital; and as his name is not mentioned in connection with the discovery\nof the Law-Book on which the reforms were based, and neither he nor his\nbiographer speaks of that discovery, it is probable that as yet he had not\nentered upon residence in the Temple-precincts. A natural occasion for the\nmigration of his family and himself would be upon Josiah\u2019s\ndisestablishment of the rural sanctuaries and provision for their priests\nbeside the priests of the Temple.(264) In any case we find Jeremiah\nhenceforth in Jerusalem, delivering his Words in the gateways or courts of\nthe Temple to all classes of the citizens as well as to the country-folk,\nwho under the new laws of worship thronged more than ever the City and her\ngreat Shrine.\n\nThere is general agreement that _the Book of the Law_ discovered by the\nTemple-priests in 621-20 was our Book of Deuteronomy in whole or in\npart\u2014more probably in part, for Deuteronomy has been compiled from at\nleast two editions of the same original, and the compilation may not have\nbeen made till some time later. Many of its laws, including some peculiar\nto itself, have been woven out of more than one form, and there are two\nIntroductions to the Book, each hortatory and historical and each covering\nto some extent the same ground as the other. We cannot tell how much of\nthis compilation was contained in the discovered Book of the Law. But this\nBook included certainly _first_ the laws of worship peculiar to\nDeuteronomy, because the reforms which it inspired carried out these laws,\nand probably _second_ some of the denunciations which precede or follow\nthe laws, for such would explain the consternation of the King when the\nBook was read to him.(265)\n\nDeuteronomy is fairly described as a fresh codification of the ancient\nlaws of Israel in the spirit of the Prophets of the Eighth Century. The\nBook is not only Law but Prophecy, in the proper sense of this word, and a\nprophetic interpretation of Israel\u2019s history. It not only restates old and\nadds new laws but enforces the basal truths of the prophets, and in this\nenforcement breathes the ethical fervour of Amos and Isaiah as well as\nHosea\u2019s tenderness and his zeal for education.\n\nDeuteronomy has three cardinal doctrines: The One God, The One Altar, and\nThe One People.\n\n_First_, The One God. Though slightly tinged with popular conceptions of\nthe existence of other gods,(266) the monotheism of the Book is\nstrenuously moral and warmly spiritual. The God of Israel is to be served\nand loved because He is Love\u2014the One and Only God not more by His\nRighteousness and His Power than by His Grace, manifest as all three have\nbeen throughout His dealings with Israel. The worship of other gods is\nforbidden and so is every attempt to represent Himself in a material form.\nHis ritual is purged of foolish, unclean and cruel elements. Witchcraft\nand necromancy are utterly condemned.\n\n_Second_\u2014and this is original to Deuteronomy\u2014The One Altar, at that time\nan inevitable corollary both to the need for purity in the worship of God\nand to the truth of His Unity. The long license of sacrifices at a\nmultitude of shrines had resulted not only in the debasement of His\nworship, but in the popular confusion of Himself with a number of local\ndeities.(267) The removal of the high-places, the concentration of\nsacrifice upon One Altar had, by the bitter experience of centuries,\nbecome a religious and an ethical necessity.\n\n_Third_, The One People. Save for possible proselytes from the\nneighbouring heathen, Israel is alone legislated for\u2014a free nation owning\nno foreign king as it bows to no foreign deity, but governing itself in\nobedience to the revealed Will of its own God. This Will is applied to\nevery detail of its life in as comprehensive a system of national religion\nas the world has known. And thus next to devotion to the Deity comes pride\nin the nation. Because of their possession of the Divine Law Israel are\n_the_ righteous people and wise above all others. The patriotism of the\nBook must have been one cause of its immediate acceptance by the people,\nwhen Josiah brought it before them and upon it they made Covenant with\ntheir God. Throughout the Book treats the nation as a moral unit. It\nenforces indeed justice as between man and man. It gives woman a higher\nposition than is assumed for her by other Hebrew codes. It cares for the\nindividual poor, stranger, debtor and dependent priest with a humanity all\nits own, and it exhorts to the education of children. Above all it forbids\nbase thoughts as well as base deeds. Yet, while thus enforcing the\nelements of a searching personal morality, Deuteronomy deals with the\nindividual only through his relations to the nation and the national\nworship. The Book has no promise for the individual beyond the grave. Nor\nis there pity nor charity for other peoples nor any sense of a place for\nthem in the Divine Providence. There is no missionary spirit nor hope for\nmankind outside of Israel.\n\nFurther it is due to the almost exclusively national outlook and interest\nof the Book that it has no guidance or comfort to offer for another\nelement of personal experience\u2014question and doubt. While it illustrates\nfrom the nation\u2019s history the purifying discipline of suffering because of\nsin it says nothing of the sufferings of righteous individuals, but by the\nabsoluteness of its doctrines of morality and Providence suggests, if\nindeed it does not inculcate, the dogma that right-doing will always meet\nwith prosperity and wrong-doing with pain and disaster\u2014a dogma which\nprovoked the thoughtful to scepticism, as we shall see with Jeremiah\nhimself.\n\nAgain, the fact that the Book, while superbly insistent upon justice,\nholiness and humanity, lays equal emphasis on a definite ritual, with One\nAltar and an exclusive system of sacrifices, tempted the popular mind to a\nsuperstitious confidence in these institutions. And while it was of\npractical advantage to have the principles of the prophets reduced to a\nwritten system, which could be enforced as public law and taught to the\nyoung\u2014two ends on which the authors of Deuteronomy are earnestly\nbent\u2014there was danger of the people coming thereby to trust rather in the\nletter than in the spirit of the new revelation. Both these dangers were\nsoon realised. As Dr. A. B. Davidson has said, \u201cPharis\u00e6ism and Deuteronomy\ncame into the world on the same day.\u201d\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nSuch was the Book discovered in the Temple in 621-20 and accepted as\nDivine by King and Nation. Modern efforts to connect Jeremiah with its\ndiscovery and introduction to the Monarch, and even with its composition,\nmay be ignored. Had there been a particle of evidence for this, it would\nhave been seized and magnified by the legalists in Israel, not to speak of\nthose apocryphal writers who foist so much else on Jeremiah and\nBaruch.(268) That they have not even attempted this is proof\u2014if proof were\nneeded\u2014that Jeremiah, the youthful son of a rural family, and probably\nstill unknown to the authorities in the Capital, had nothing whatever to\ndo either with the origins, or with the discovery, of the Book of the Law\nor with its presentation to the King by the priests of the Temple.\n\nYet so great a discovery, so full a volume of truth poured forth in a\nstyle so original and compelling, cannot have left unmoved a young prophet\nof the conscience and heart of Jeremiah.(269) That he was in sympathy with\nthe temper and the general truths of Deuteronomy we need not doubt. As for\nits ethics, its authors were of the same school as himself and among their\nteachers they had the same favourite, Hosea. In his earliest Oracles\nJeremiah had expressed the same view as theirs of God\u2019s constant and clear\nguidance of Israel and of the nation\u2019s obstinacy in relapsing from this.\nHis heart, too, must have hailed the Book\u2019s august enforcement of that\nabolition of the high places and their pagan ritual, which he had ventured\nto urge from his obscure position in Anathoth. Nor did he ever throughout\nhis ministry protest against the substitute which the Book prescribed for\nthose\u2014the concentration of the national worship upon a single sanctuary.\nOn the contrary in a later Oracle he looks for the day when that shall be\nobserved by all Israel and the watchmen on Mount Ephraim shall cry,\n\n\n    Rise, let us up to \u1e62ion,\n      To the Lord our God!(270)\n\n\nOn the other hand, the emphasis which Deuteronomy equally lays upon ethics\nand upon ritual, and its absolute doctrines of morality and Providence\nwere bound to provoke questions in a mind so restlessly questioning as\nhis. Then there was the movement of reform which followed upon the appeal\nof the Book to the whole nation. Jeremiah himself had called for a\nnational repentance and here, in the people\u2019s acceptance of the Covenant\nand consent to the reforms it demanded, were the signs of such a\nrepentance. No opposition appears to have been offered to those reforms.\nThe King who led them was sincere; a better monarch Judah never knew, and\nhis reign was signalised by Jeremiah at its close as a reign of justice\nwhen _all was well_. Yet can we doubt that the Prophet, who had already\npreached so rigorous a repentance and had heard himself appointed by God\nas the tester of His people, would use that detached position jealously to\nwatch the progress of the reforms which the nation had so hurriedly\nacclaimed and to test their moral value?\n\nIn modern opinion of Jeremiah\u2019s attitude to the discovered Law-Book there\nare two extremes. One is of those who regard him as a legalist and\nthroughout his career the strenuous advocate of the Book and the system it\nenforced. The other is of those who maintain that he had no sympathy with\nlegal systems or official reforms, and that the passages in the Book of\nJeremiah which allege his assent to, and his proclamation of, the\nDeuteronomic Covenant, or represent him as using the language of\nDeuteronomy, are not worthy of credit.(271) Of these extremes we may say\nat once that if with both we neglect the twofold character of\nDeuteronomy\u2014its emphasis now on ethics and now on ritual\u2014and again, if\nwith both we assume that Jeremiah\u2019s attitude to the Law-Book and to the\nreforms it inspired never changed, then the evidences for that attitude\noffered by the Book of Jeremiah are inconsistent and we may despair of a\nconclusion. But a more reasonable course is open to us. If we keep in mind\nthe two faces of Deuteronomy as well as the doubtful progress for many\nyears of the reforms started by it, and if we also remember that a prophet\nlike all the works of God was subject to growth; if we allow to Jeremiah\nthe same freedom to change his purpose in face of fresh developments of\nhis people\u2019s character as in the Parable of the Potter he imputes to his\nGod; if we recall how in 604 the new events in the history of Western Asia\nled him to adapt his earlier Oracles on the Scythians to the Chaldeans who\nhad succeeded the Scythians as the expected Doom from the North\u2014then our\nway through the evidence becomes tolerably clear, except for the\ndifficulty of dating a number of his undated Oracles. What we must not\nforget is the double, divergent intention and influence of Deuteronomy,\nand the fact that Josiah\u2019s reformation, though divinely inspired, was in\nits progress an experiment upon the people, whose mind and conduct beneath\nit Jeremiah was appointed by God to watch and to test.\n\nThese considerations prepare us _first_ for the story in Ch. XI. 1-8 of\nJeremiah\u2019s fervent assent to the ethical principles of Deuteronomy and of\nthe charge to him to proclaim these throughout Judah; and _then_ for his\nlater attitude to the written Law, to the Temple and to sacrifices.\n\n\n    XI. 1. The Word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: 2.\n    Hear thou(272) the words of this Covenant, and speak them to the\n    men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 3. And thou\n    shalt say to them, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: 4.\n    Cursed be the man who hears not the words of this Covenant, which\n    I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the\n    land of Egypt, out of the iron-furnace, saying, Hearken to My\n    Voice and do(273) according to all that I command you, and ye\n    shall be to Me a people, and I will be God to you; [5] in order to\n    establish the oath which I sware unto your fathers, to give them a\n    land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day. 6. And I\n    answered and said, Amen, O Lord! 7. And the Lord said unto me,\n    Proclaim(274) these words in the cities of Judah and in the\n    streets of Jerusalem, saying, [8] Hear ye the words of this\n    Covenant and do them, but they did them not.(275)\n\n\nThe story has its difficulties. It is undated; it is followed by verses\n9-17, apparently from the reign of Jehoiakim; what the Prophet is called\nto hear and gives his solemn assent to is generally described as _this\nCovenant_; and in verses 7 and 8 there is what may be a mere editorial\naddition since the Greek Version omits it, which has led some to assert\nthe editorial character of the whole. But for the reasons given above,\nthere is no cause to doubt the substantial truthfulness of the story,\nunless with Duhm we were capable of believing that Jeremiah never spoke in\nprose, nor can be conceived as, at any time in his life the advocate of\nwhat was a legal as well as a prophetic book. Of the first of these\nassertions we have already disposed;(276) the second is met by the fact\nthat what Jeremiah was called to assent to was not a legal programme but a\nspiritual covenant, of which ethical obedience alone was stated as the\ncondition. In Josiah\u2019s reign what else could _this Covenant_ mean than the\nCovenant set forth in the recently discovered Book of the Law and solemnly\navouched by the whole people?(277) That its essence was spiritual and\nethical is expressed in the Deuteronomic phrases which follow, and the\nquotation of these is most relevant to the occasion. Nor do the\nrecollections, the command and the promise which they convey go beyond\nwhat Jeremiah had already enforced in his earlier Oracles.(278)\n\nTherefore we may believe that, as recorded, Jeremiah heard in the heart of\nDeuteronomy the call of God, that he uttered his Amen to it; and that,\nfrom his experience of the evils of the high-places, he felt obliged, as\nhe also records, to proclaim _this Covenant_ throughout Judah.(279)\n\nIn the same chapter as the charge to the Prophet concerning _this\nCovenant_ there is mention of a conspiracy against his life by the men of\nAnathoth, XI. 21. Some suppose that these were enraged by his support of\nreforms which abolished rural sanctuaries like their own. But his earlier\ndenunciations of such shrines, delivered independently of Deuteronomy, had\nbeen enough to rouse his fellow-villagers against him as a traitor to\ntheir local interests and pieties.\n\nAnother address, VII. 1-15, said to have been delivered to all Judah,\nrebukes the people for their false confidence in the Temple and their\nabuse of it, and threatens its destruction. Editorial additions may exist\nin both the Hebrew and Greek texts of this address, but it contains\nphrases non-deuteronomic and peculiar to Jeremiah, while its echoes of\nDeuteronomy were natural to the occasion. Except for a formula or two, I\ntake the address to be his own. Nor am I persuaded by the majority of\nmodern critics that it is a mere variant of the Temple address reported in\nCh. XXVI as given _in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim_. Why may\nJeremiah not have spoken more than once on the same theme to the same, or\na similar effect? Moreover, the phrase _We are delivered!_ VII. 10, which\ndoes not recur in XXVI, suits the conditions before, rather than those\nafter, the Battle of Megiddo. For parallel with the increased faith in the\nTemple, due mainly to the people\u2019s consciousness of their obedience to the\nLaw-Book, was their experience of deliverance from the Assyrian yoke. I am\ninclined, therefore, to refer VII. 1-15 to the reign of Josiah, rather\nthan with XXVI to that of Jehoiakim.(280) But, whatever be its date, VII.\n1-15 is relevant to our present discussion.\n\n\n    VII. 2, 3. Hear ye the Word of the Lord, all Judah!(281) Thus\n    saith the Lord, the God of Israel\u2014Better your ways and your doings\n    that I may leave you to dwell in this Place. 4. Put not your trust\n    on lying words,(282) saying to yourselves,(283) \u201cThe Temple of the\n    Lord, The Temple of the Lord, The Temple of the Lord\u2014[5] are\n    those!\u201d(284) But if ye thoroughly  better your ways and your\n    doings, if ye indeed do justice between a man and his fellow, [6]\n    and oppress not the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow, and shed\n    not innocent blood [in this Place], nor go after other gods to\n    your hurt, [7] then I shall leave you to abide in this Place [in\n    the land which I gave to your fathers from of old for ever]. 8.\n    Behold, you put your trust on lying words that cannot profit. 9.\n    What? Steal, murder, fornicate, swear falsely, and burn(285) to\n    Baal, and go after other gods whom ye knew not, [10] yet come and\n    stand before Me in this House upon which My Name has been called\n    and say \u201cWe are delivered\u201d\u2014in order to work all these\n    abominations! 11. Is it a robbers\u2019 den that My(286) House [upon\n    which My Name has been called] has become in your eyes? I also,\n    behold I have seen it\u2014Rede of the Lord. 12. For go now to My Place\n    which was in Shiloh, where at first I caused My Name to dwell, and\n    see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people\n    Israel. 13. And now because of your doing of all these deeds [Rede\n    of the Lord, though I spake unto you rising early and speaking,\n    but ye hearkened not, and I called you, but ye did not\n    answer],(287) [14] I shall do to the House [on which My Name has\n    been called] in which you are trusting, and to the Place which I\n    gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15. And I\n    shall cast you out from before My Face as I cast out(288) your\n    brethren, all the seed of Ephraim.\n\n\nIn this address there is nothing that contradicts Deuteronomy. The\nsacredness with which the Book had invested the One Sanctuary is\nacknowledged. But the people have no moral sense of that sacredness. Their\nconfidence in the Temple is material and superstitious, fostered, we may\nbelieve, by the peace they were enjoying and their relief from a foreign\nsovereignty, as well as by their formal observance of the institutions\nwhich the Book prescribed. What had been founded to rally and to guide a\nspiritual faith they turned into a fetish and even to an \u201cindulgence\u201d for\ntheir wickedness. The House, in which Isaiah had bent beneath the seraphs\u2019\nadoration of the Divine Holiness, and, confessing his own and his people\u2019s\nsin, had received from its altar the sacrament of pardon and of cleansing,\nwas by this generation not only debased to a mere pledge of their\npolitical security but debauched into a shelter for sins as gross as ever\npolluted their worship upon the high places. So ready, as in all other\nages, were formality and vice to conspire with each other! Jeremiah scorns\nthe people\u2019s _trust_ in the Temple as utterly as he had scorned their\n_trust_ (it is the same word) in the Baals or in Egypt and Assyria. The\nchange in the pivot of their false confidence is to be marked. So much at\nleast had Deuteronomy effected\u2014shifting their trust from foreign gods and\nstates to something founded by their own God, yet leaving it material, and\nunable to restrain them from bringing along with it their old obdurate\nvices.\n\nWhether, then, this address was delivered in Josiah\u2019s reign or early in\nJehoiakim\u2019s it affords no reason for our denying it to Jeremiah. As God\u2019s\ntester of the people he has been watching their response to the Revelation\nthey had accepted, and has proved that their obedience was to the letter\nof this and not to its spirit, that while they superstitiously revered its\ninstitutions they shamelessly ignored its ethics. For just such vices as\nthey still practised God Himself must take vengeance. As those had\nderanged the very seasons and were leading to the overthrow of the\nstate,(289) no one could hope that the Temple would escape their\nconsequences. And there was that precedent of the destruction of Israel\u2019s\nfirst sanctuary in Shiloh, the ruins of which, as we have seen, lay not\nfar from Jeremiah\u2019s home at Anathoth.(290)\n\nAnother Oracle, XI. 15, 16, also undated, seems, like the last passage,\nbest explained as delivered by Jeremiah while he watched during the close\nof Josiah\u2019s reign the hardening of the people\u2019s trust in their religious\ninstitutions and felt its futility; or alternatively when that futility\nwas exposed by the defeat at Megiddo. It has, however, been woven by some\nhand or other into a passage reflecting the revival of the Baal-worship\nunder Jehoiakim (verse 17; its connection with the prose sentence\npreceding is also doubtful). Copyists have wrought havoc with the Hebrew\ntext, but as the marginal note of our Revisers indicates, the sense may be\nrestored from the Greek. _My Beloved_ is, of course, Israel.\n\n\n    What has My Beloved to do in My house,  XI. 15\n    Working out mischief?\n    Vows, holy flesh! Can such things turn\n    Calamity from thee;\n    Or by these thou escape?(291)\n    Flourishing olive, fair with fruit,  16\n    God called thy name.\n    To the noise of a mighty roaring\n    He sets her on fire\u2014\n    Blasted her branches!\n\n\nThe first of these verses repeats the charge of VII. 2-11: the people use\nthe Temple for their sins. The word rendered _mischief_ is literally\n_devices_, and the meaning may be intrigues hatched from their false ideas\nof the Temple\u2019s security. But the word is mostly used of _evil devices_\nand here the Greek has _abomination_. As with their Temple so with their\nvows and sacrifices. All are useless because of their wickedness. The\nnation must be punished. The second verse may well have been uttered after\nthe defeat at Megiddo, or may be a prediction on the eve of that disaster\nto _the branches_ of the nation, which the nation as a whole survived.\n\nThis leads to another and more difficult question. Jeremiah has spoken\ndoom on the Temple and the Nation; has he come to doubt the Law-Book\nitself or any part of it? As to that there are two passages one of which\nspeaks of a falsification of the Law by its guardians, while the other\ndenies the Divine origin not only of the deuteronomic but of all\nsacrifices and burnt offerings.\n\nEven before the discovery of the Law-Book the young prophet had said of\n_those who handle the Law_ that _they did not know the Lord_.(292) And now\nin an Oracle, apparently of date after the discovery, he charges the\nscribes with manipulating _the Law_, the _Torah_, so as to turn it to\nfalsehood. The Oracle is addressed to the people of whom he has just said\nthat they do not know _the Rule, the Mishpa\u1e6d, of the Lord_.\n\n\n    How say you, \u201cWe are the Wise,  VIII. 8\n      The Law of the Lord is with us.\u201d\n    But lo, the falsing pen of the scribes\n      Hath wrought it to falsehood.\n\n\n_Torah_, literally _direction_ or _instruction_, is either a single law or\na body of law, revealed by God through priests or prophets, for the\nreligious and moral practice of men. Here it is some traditional or\nofficial form of such law, for which the people have rejected the Word of\nthe Lord\u2014His living Word by the prophets of the time (verse 9).\n\n\n    Put to shame are the wise,  9\n      Dismayed and taken.\n    Lo, they have spurned the Word of the Lord\u2014\n      What wisdom is theirs?\n\n\nWas this _Torah_ oral or written? And if written was it the discovered\nBook of the _Torah_, which in part at least was our Deuteronomy?\n\nSo far as the text goes the original _Torah_ may have been either oral or\nwritten, and the scribes have _falsified_ it, by amplification or\ndistortion,(293) either when reducing it for the first time to writing or\nwhen copying and editing it from an already written form. This leaves open\nthese further questions. If written was the _Torah_ the very _Book of the\nTorah_ discovered in the Temple in 621-20? And if so did the falsification\naffect the whole or only part of the Book? To these questions some answer\nNo, on the ground of Jeremiah\u2019s assent to _this Covenant_, and the command\nto him to proclaim it.(294) Others answer Yes; in their view Jeremiah was\nopposed to the deuteronomic system as a whole, or at least to the detailed\nlaws of ritual added to the prophetic and spiritual principles of the\nBook.(295) Another possibility is that Jeremiah had in view those first\nessays in writing of a purely priestly law-book, which resulted during the\nExile in the so-called Priests\u2019 Code now incorporated in the Pentateuch.\nIn our ignorance both of the original form of Deuteronomy and of the\nextent and character of the activity of the scribes during the reign of\nJosiah we might hesitate to decide among these possibilities were it not\nfor the following address which there is no good reason for denying to\nJeremiah.\n\n\n    VII. 21. Thus saith the Lord,(296) Your burnt offerings add to\n    your sacrifices and eat flesh(297)! 22. For I spake not with your\n    fathers nor charged them, in the day that I brought them forth\n    from the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offering and sacrifice.\n    23. But with this Word I charged them, saying, Hearken to My\n    Voice, and I shall be to you God, and ye shall be to Me a people,\n    and ye shall walk in every way that I charge you, that it may be\n    well with you.\n\n\nWhether from Jeremiah or not, this is one of the most critical texts of\nthe Old Testament because while repeating what the Prophet has already\nfervently accepted,(298) that the terms of the deuteronomic Covenant were\nsimply obedience to the ethical demands of God, it contradicts Deuteronomy\nand even more strongly Leviticus, in their repeated statements that in the\nwilderness God also commanded sacrifices. The issue is so grave that there\nhave been attempts to evade it. None, however, can be regarded as\nsuccessful. That which would weaken the Hebrew phrase, rightly rendered\n_concerning_ by our versions, into _for the sake of_ or _in the interest\nof_ (as if all the speaker intended was that animal sacrifice was not the\nchief end or main interest of the Divine legislation) is doubtful\nphilologically, nor meets the fact that all the Hebrew codes assign an\nindispensable value to sacrifice. Inadmissible also is the suggestion that\nthe phrase means _concerning the details of_, for Deuteronomy and\nespecially Leviticus emphasise the details of burnt-offering and\nsacrifice. Nor is the plausible argument convincing that the Prophet spoke\nrelatively, and meant only what Samuel meant by _Obedience is better than\nsacrifice_, or Hosea by _The Knowledge of God is more than\nburnt-offerings_.(299) Nor are there grounds for thinking that the Prophet\nhad in view only the Ten Commandments; while finally to claim that he\nspoke in hyperbole is a forlorn hope of an argument. In answer to all\nthese evasions it is enough to point out that the question is not merely\nthat of the value of sacrifice, but whether during the Exodus the God of\nIsrael gave any charge concerning sacrifice; as well as the fact that\nothers than Jeremiah had either explicitly questioned this or implicitly\ndenied it. When Amos, in God\u2019s Name repelled the burnt-offerings of his\ngeneration he asked, _Did ye bring unto Me sacrifices and offerings in the\nwilderness forty years, O House of Israel?_ and obviously expected a\nnegative answer. And the following passages only render more general the\ntruth that Israel\u2019s God has no pleasure at any time in the sacrifices\noffered to Him, with the institution of which\u2014the natural inference is\u2014He\ncan have had nothing to do. _Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of\nrams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil. Shall I give my first-born\nfor my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath\ndeclared to thee, O man, what is good: and what doth the Lord require of\nthee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy\nGod._ And these two utterances in the Psalms: _Shall I eat the flesh of\nbulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy\nvows to the Most High_; and _Thou desirest not sacrifice else would I give\nit, Thou delightest not in burnt-offering, The sacrifices of God are a\nbroken spirit_.(300)\n\nFor the accuracy of these assertions or implications by a succession of\nprophets and psalmists there is a remarkable body of historical evidence.\nThe sacrificial system of Israel is in its origins of far earlier date\nthan the days of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt. It has so much, both of\nform and meaning, in common with the systems of kindred nations as to\nprove it to be part of the heritage naturally derived by all of them from\ntheir Semitic forefathers. And the new element brought into the\ntraditional religion of Israel at Sinai was just that on which Jeremiah\nlays stress\u2014the ethical, which in time purified the ritual of sacrifice\nand burnt-offering but had nothing to do with the origins of this.\n\nTherefore it is certain _first_ that Amos and Jeremiah meant literally\nwhat they stated or implicitly led their hearers to infer\u2014God gave no\ncommands at the Exodus concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices\u2014and\n_second_ that historically they were correct. But, of course, their\ninterest in so saying was not historical but spiritual. Their aim was\npractical\u2014to destroy their generation\u2019s materialist belief that animal\nsacrifice was the indispensable part of religion and worship. Still his\nway of putting it involves on the part of Jeremiah a repudiation of the\nstatements of Deuteronomy on the subject. So far, then, Jeremiah opposed\nthe new Book of the Law.(301)\n\nBut with all this do not let us forget something more. While thus\nanticipating by more than six centuries the abolition of animal\nsacrifices, Jeremiah, by his example of service and suffering, was\nillustrating the substitute for them\u2014the _human_ sacrifice, the surrender\nby man himself of will and temper, and if need be of life, for the cause\nof righteousness and the salvation of his fellow-men. The recognition of\nthis in Jeremiah by a later generation in Israel led to the conception of\nthe suffering Servant of the Lord, and of the power of His innocent\nsufferings to atone for sinners and to redeem them.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nThis starts a kindred point\u2014and the last\u2014upon which Jeremiah offers, if\nnot a contradiction, at least a contrast and a supplement to the teaching\nof Deuteronomy. We have noted the absoluteness\u2014or idealism\u2014of that Book\u2019s\ndoctrines of Morality and Providence; they leave no room for certain\nproblems, raised by the facts of life. But Jeremiah had bitter experience\nof those facts, and it moved him to state the problems to God Himself. He\nowns the perfect justice of God; but this only makes his questioning more\nurgent.\n\n\n    Too righteous art Thou O Lord,  XII. 1\n    That with Thee I should argue,\n    Yet cases there are I must speak to Thee of:\n    The way of the wicked\u2014why doth it prosper,\n    And the treacherous all be at ease?\n    Thou hast planted them, yea they take root,  2\n    They get on, yea they make fruit;\n    Near in their mouths art Thou,\n    But far from their hearts.\n\n\nWe shall have to deal with these questions and God\u2019s answer to them, when\nin a later lecture we analyse Jeremiah\u2019s religious experience and\nstruggles. Here we only note the contrast which they present to\nDeuteronomy\u2014a contrast between the Man and the System, between Experience\nand Dogma, between the Actual and the Ideal. And, as we now see, it was\nthe System and the Dogma that were defective and the Man and his\nExperience of life that started, if not for himself yet for a later\ngeneration, pondering his experience, the solution of those problems,\nwhich against the deuteronomic teaching he raised in brave agony to God\u2019s\nown face.\n\nSuch serious differences between Jeremiah and Deuteronomy\u2014upon the Law,\nthe Temple, the Sacrifices, and Doctrines of Providence and\nMorality\u2014suggest an important question with regard to the methods of\nDivine Revelation under the Old Covenant. Do they not prove that among\nthose methods there were others than vision or intuition springing from\nthe direct action of the Spirit of God upon the spirits of individual men?\nAre they not instances of the processes by which to this day in the\nProvidence of God truth is sifted and ultimately beaten out\u2014namely debate\nand controversy between different minds or different schools of thought,\nbetween earnest supporters of various and often hostile opinions in\nneither of which lies the whole of the truth? The evidence for Revelation\nby Argument which the Book of Jeremiah affords is not the least of its\ncontributions to the history and philosophy of religion.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                Lecture V.\n\n\nUNDER JEHOIAKIM. 608-597-8 B.C.\n\n\n\n\n1. From Megiddo to Carchemish, 608-605.\n\n\nJosiah\u2019s faithful reign, and with it all thorough efforts to fulfil the\nNational Covenant,(302) came to a tragic close on the field of Megiddo\u2014the\nFlodden of Judah.\n\nThe year was 608 B.C. Medes and Chaldeans together had either taken, or\nwere still besieging, Nineveh; and Pharaoh N\u0115coh,(303) eager to win for\nEgypt a share of the crumbling Assyrian Empire, had started north with a\ngreat army. Marching by the coast he first took Gaza, and crossing by one\nof the usual passes from Sharon to Esdraelon,(304) found himself opposed\nnear Megiddo by a Jewish force led by its king in person. The Chronicler\ntells us that N\u0115coh sought to turn Josiah from his desperate venture:\n_What have I to do with thee? I am come not against thee but against the\nHouse with which I am at war. God hath spoken to speed me; forbear from\nGod who is with me, lest He destroy thee._(305) But Josiah persisted. The\nissue of so unequal a contest could not be doubtful. The Jewish army was\nrouted and Josiah himself immediately slain.(306)\n\nAt first sight, the courage of Josiah and his small people in facing the\nfull force of Egypt seems to deserve our admiration, as much as did the\ncourage of King Albert and his nation in opposing the faithless invasion\nof Belgium by the Germans aiming at France. There was, however, a\ndifference. N\u0115coh was not invading Judah, but crossing Philistine\nterritory and a Galilee which had long ceased to be Israel\u2019s. Some suppose\nthat since the Assyrian hold upon Palestine relaxed, Josiah had gradually\noccupied all Samaria. If this be so, was he now stirred by a gallant sense\nof duty to assert Israel\u2019s ancient claim to Galilee as well? We cannot\ntell.(307) But what we may confidently assume is that, having fulfilled by\nthirteen years of honest reforms his own part of the terms of the\nCovenant, Josiah believed that he could surely count on the Divine\nfulfilment of the rest, and that some miracle would bring to a righteous\nking and people victory over the heathen, however more powerful the\nheathen might be. He was only thirty-nine years of age.\n\nHis servants carried his body from the field in a chariot to Jerusalem,\nbringing him back, as we may realise, to a people stricken with\nconsternation. Their trust in the Temple was shaken\u2014they were not\n_delivered_!(308) In the circumstances they did their feeble best by\nraising to the vacant throne Josiah\u2019s son, Shallum, as Jehoahaz, _the Lord\nhath taken hold_. But the new name proved no omen of good. In three months\nN\u0115coh had the youth in bonds at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, _that he\nmight not reign in Jerusalem_, and afterwards took him to Egypt. Of this\nfresh sorrow Jeremiah sang as if it had drowned out the sorrow of Megiddo\u2014\n\n\n    Weep not for the dead,  XXII. 10\n      Nor bemoan him,\n    But for him that goeth away weep sore,\n      For he cometh no more,\n    Nor seeth the land of his birth.\n\n\nJehoahaz died in Egypt.\n\nThe next King, Jehoiakim, another of Josiah\u2019s sons, was set on the throne\nby N\u0115coh, who also exacted a heavy tribute. What national disillusion! The\nhopes falsely kindled upon the letter of Deuteronomy lay quenched on\nMegiddo; and the faithful servant of the Covenant had, in spite of its\npromises as men would argue, been defeated and slain in the flower of his\nlife. Judah had been released from the Assyrian yoke, only to fall into\nthe hands of another tyrant, her new king his creature, and her people\nsorely burdened to pay him. The result was religious confusion. In at\nleast a formal obedience to the deuteronomic laws of worship, the people\nof the land continued to resort to the Temple fasts and festivals.(309)\nBut resenting the failure of their God to grant victory numbers relapsed\ninto an idolatry as rank as that under Ahaz or Manasseh;(310) while\nothers, more thoughtful but not less bewildered, conceived doubts of the\nworth of righteousness. And these tempers were embittered by the cruel\nselfishness of the new monarch and his reckless injustice. To the taxes\nrequired for the tribute to Egypt he added other exactions in order to\nmeet his extravagance in enlarging and adorning his palace. The crime,\nwith which Jeremiah charges him in the following lines, is one to which\nsmall kings in the East have often been tempted by their contact with\ncivilisations richer than their own. On Judah Jehoiakim imposed the cruel\ncorv\u00e9e, which in our day Ismail Pasha imposed upon Egypt.\n\n\n    Woe to who builds his house by injustice,  XXII. 13\n      His storeys by wrong,\n    Who forces his fellows to serve for nothing,\n      And pays not their wage.\n    Who saith,(311)  14\n    I will build me an ampler house\n      And airier storeys,\n    Widen my windows, panel with cedar,\n      And paint with vermilion,\n    Wilt thou thus play the king,  15\n      Fussing with cedar?\n    Thy sire, did not he eat and drink,\n      And do justice and right,\n    And judge for the poor and the needy?  16\n      Then was it well!(312)\n    Was not this how to know Me?\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord.\n    But thine eyes and thy heart are on nought  17\n      Save thine own spoil,\n    And on shedding of innocent blood,\n      Doing outrage and murder.\n\n\nJosiah had enjoyed what was enough for him in sober, seemly parallel to\nhis faithful discharge of duty; his son was luxurious, unscrupulous,\nbloody, and withal petty\u2014_fussing with cedar_, and cutting up the\nProphet\u2019s roll piece by piece with a pen-knife! Jeremiah and Baruch\u2019s\nsarcastic notes on Jehoiakim find parallels in Victor Hugo\u2019s \u201cCh\u00e2timents\u201d\nof Napoleon III.: \u201cl\u2019infiniment petit, monstreux et feroce;\u201d \u201cVoici de\nl\u2019or, viens pille et vole ... voici du sang, accours, viens boire, petit,\npetit!\u201d\n\n\n    XXII. 18. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim, son of\n    Josiah, King of Judah.\n\n    Mourn him they shall not, \u201cWoe brother!\u201d\n      \u201cWoe sister!\u201d\n    Nor beweep him, \u201cWoe Lord!\u201d\n      Or \u201cWoe Highness!\u201d\n    With the burial of an ass shall they bury him,  19\n      Dragged and flung out\u2014\n    Out from the gates of Jerusalem.\n\n\nSuch a prophet to such a king must have been intolerable, and through the\nfollowing years Jeremiah was pursued by the royal hatred. There were other\nand more poisonous enemies. We have found him, from the first, steadily\nseeing through, and stoutly denouncing the great religious orders\u2014the\npriests, natural believers in the Temple, with a belief, since Deuteronomy\ncame into their hands, more dogmatic and arrogant than ever; and the\nprofessional prophets with their shallow optimism that all was well for\nJudah, and that her God could never bring upon her the doom which Jeremiah\nthreatened in His Name. _Not He!_ was their answer to him. These two\nclasses were in conspiracy, deluding themselves and the people; in their\ntrust upon the letter of the Law, they had no sense, as he told them, of\n_The Living God_.(313) Roused by his scorn they watched for an occasion to\nconvict and destroy him.(314)\n\nThis he bravely gave by making, in obedience to God\u2019s call, public\nprediction of the ruin of the Temple. It is uncertain whether Jeremiah did\nso only once, as many think who read in Chs. VII and XXVI reports of the\nsame address, or whether, as I am inclined to believe, the former chapter\nreports an address delivered under Josiah, and the latter the repetition\nof its substance in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim.(315) However\nthis be, Ch. XXVI alone relates the consequences of his outspoken courage.\nIt represents the priests and the prophets as quoting his sentence upon\nthe Temple in absolute terms; though both reports, in the form in which\nthey have reached us, render his own delivery of it as conditional upon\nthe nation\u2019s refusal to repent and to better their ways.(316) This, of\ncourse, was ever their way; they were ready distorters.\n\n\n    XXVI. 1. In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, son of\n    Josiah, came this word from the Lord. 2. Thus saith the Lord,\n    Stand in the court of the Lord\u2019s House and speak unto all Judah,\n    all who come in to worship in the Lord\u2019s House, all the words that\n    I have charged thee to speak to them; keep back not a word. 3.\n    Peradventure they will hearken and turn every man from his evil\n    way, and I shall relent of the evil which I am purposing to do to\n    them because of the evil of their doings. 4. And thou shalt say,\n    Thus saith the Lord: If ye will not obey Me to walk in My Law,\n    which I have set before you, [5] to hearken to the words of My\n    servants, the prophets whom I am sending to you, rising early and\n    sending\u2014but ye have not hearkened\u2014[6] then shall I render this\n    House like Shiloh and this City a thing to be cursed of all\n    nations of the earth. 7. And the priests and the prophets and all\n    the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the House of the\n    Lord. 8. And it was, when Jeremiah finished speaking all that the\n    Lord had charged him to speak to all the people, that the priests\n    and the prophets(317) laid hold on him saying, Thou shalt surely\n    die! 9. Because thou hast prophesied in the Name of the Lord\n    saying, As Shiloh this House shall be, and this City shall be laid\n    waste without a dweller. And all the people were gathered to\n    Jeremiah in the House of the Lord. 10. When the princes of Judah\n    heard of these things they came up from the king\u2019s house to the\n    House of the Lord and took their seats in the opening of the New\n    Gate of the Lord\u2019s House.(318) 11. Then said the priests and the\n    prophets to the princes and to all the people\u2014Sentence of death\n    for this man! For he hath prophesied against this City as ye have\n    heard with your ears. 12. And Jeremiah said to the princes and to\n    all the people, The Lord hath sent me to prophesy against this\n    House and against this City all the words which ye have heard. 13.\n    So now better your ways and your doings, and hearken to the Voice\n    of the Lord, that the Lord may relent of the evil which He hath\n    spoken against you. 14. But as for me, here am I in your hand! Do\n    to me as is good and right in your eyes. 15. Only know for sure\n    that if ye put me to death ye will be bringing innocent blood upon\n    yourselves, and upon this City and upon her inhabitants; for in\n    truth the Lord did send me unto you to speak in your ears all\n    these words. 16. And the princes and all the people said to the\n    priests and the prophets, Not for this man be sentence of death,\n    because in the Name of the Lord our God hath he spoken to us. 17.\n    Then arose some of the elders of the land and said to all the\n    assembly of the people. 18. There was Micaiah the Morasthite in\n    the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and he said to all the people\n    of Judah, Thus saith the Lord: \u1e62ion like a field shall be\n    ploughed, And Jerusalem be heaps, And the mount of the House a\n    mound of the jungle. 19. Did Hezekiah and all Judah put him to\n    death? Did they not fear the Lord and soothe the Lord\u2019s face, and\n    the Lord relented of the evil He had uttered against them. Yet we\n    are about to do a great wrong upon our own lives.\n\n\nSeveral of its features lift this story to a place among the most\nimpressive in the Old Testament. The priests and prophets on the one side\nand the princes on the other both use the phrase, that Jeremiah _spoke in\nthe Name of the Lord_. But the former quote it ironically, or in\nindignation at the Prophet\u2019s claim, while the princes are obviously\nimpressed by his sincerity and apparently their impression is shared by\nthe people. There could be no firmer measure of the pitch of personal\npower to which Jeremiah has at last braced himself.\n\nThe promise of his Call is fulfilled. Sceptical, fluid and shrinking as he\nis by nature, he stands for this hour at least, _a strong wall and a\nfortress_, by his clear conscience, his simple courage, and his full\nsurrender to whatever be in store for him. How bravely he refuses to\nconciliate them!\u2014_I am in your hand, do to me as is right in your eyes._\n\nAgain, there is proof of a popular tradition and conscience in Israel more\nsound than those of the religious authorities of the nation. The people\nremembered what their priests and prophets forgot or ignored, and through\ntheir elders gave utterance to it on the side of justice. In agreement\nwith them were the princes, the lay leaders of the nation. To\necclesiastics of every age and race this is a lesson, to give heed to \u201cthe\ncommon sense\u201d and to the public instinct for justice. And on that day in\nJerusalem these were called forth by the ability of the people, commoners\nand nobles alike, to recognise a real Prophet, an authentic\nSpeaker-for-God at once when they heard him.\n\nThe danger that Jeremiah faced and the source from which it sprang are\nrevealed by the fate which befell another denouncer of the land in the\nName of the Lord. Of him, the narrator uses a form of the verb _to\nprophesy_ different from that which he uses of Jeremiah, thus guarding\nhimself from expressing an opinion as to whether the man was a genuine\nprophet. This is a further tribute to the moral effect of Jeremiah\u2019s\nperson and word.\n\n\n    XXVI. 20. There was also a man who took upon him to prophesy in\n    the Name of the Lord, Urijahu, son of Shemajahu, from\n    Kiriath-jearim, and he prophesied(319) against this land,\n    according to all the words of Jeremiah. 21. And king\n    Jehoiakim(320) and all the princes heard of his words and they\n    sought(321) to put him to death; and Urijahu heard and fearing\n    fled and went into Egypt. 22. And the king sent men to Egypt.(322)\n    23. And they took forth Urijah thence and brought him to the king,\n    and slew him with the sword, and cast his corpse into the graves\n    of the sons of the people. 24. But the hand of Ahikam, the son of\n    Shaphan, was with Jeremiah so as not to give him into the hand of\n    the people to put him to death.\n\n\nThe one shall be taken and the other left! We are not told why, after the\nverdict of the princes and the people, Ahikam\u2019s intervention was needed.\nYet the people were always fickle, and the king who is not mentioned in\nconnection with Jeremiah\u2019s case, but as we see from Urijah\u2019s watched\ncruelly from the background, was not the man to be turned by a popular\nverdict from taking vengeance on the Prophet who had attacked him. Ahikam,\nhowever, had influence at court, and proved friendly to Jeremiah on other\noccasions.(323)\n\nAll this was _in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim_. Before we\nfollow Jeremiah himself through the rest of that malignant and disastrous\nreign, during which the steadfastness that his personality had achieved\nwas again to be shaken, we must understand the progress of the great\nevents which directed his own conduct and gradually determined the fate of\nhis people.\n\nIn 625 B.C. the successor of Asshurbanipal upon the tottering throne of\nAssyria had found himself compelled to acknowledge Nabopolassar the\nChaldean as nominally viceroy, but virtually king, of Babylon.(324) The\nable chief of a vigorous race, Nabopolassar bided his time for a vaster\nsovereignty, and steadily this came to him. The Medes, twice baffled in\ntheir attempts on Nineveh,(325) made terms with him for a united assault\non the Assyrian capital and for the division of its empire. To that\nassault Nineveh fell in 612 or 606,(326) and with her fall Assyria\ndisappeared from among the Northern Powers. Whatever part of the derelict\nempire the Medes may have secured, Mesopotamia remained with the Chaldeans\nwho doubtless claimed as well all its provinces south of the Euphrates.\nBut, as we have seen, N\u0115coh of Egypt had already overrun these and battle\nbetween him and the Chaldeans became imminent. Their armies met in 605-4\nat Carchemish on The River. N\u0115coh was defeated by Nebuchadrezzar, son of\nNabopolassar, and driven south to his own land. Egypt had failed; and the\nnorthern caldrons, as Jeremiah from the first predicted, again boiled with\nthe fate of Judah and her neighbours. _The Foe_, though no longer the\nScythian of his early expectations, was still _out of the North_.\n\nBy 602, if not before, Nebuchadrezzar, having succeeded his father as King\nof Babylon, carried his power to the coasts of the Levant and the Egyptian\nborder. Judah was his vassal, and for three years Jehoiakim paid him\ntribute, but then defaulted, probably because of promises from Egypt after\nthe fashion of that restless power. As if not yet ready to invade Judah in\nforce, Nebuchadrezzar let loose upon her, along with some of his own\nChaldeans, troops of Moabites, Ammonites and Arameans. Soon afterwards\nJehoiakim died and was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin, a youth of\neighteen, who appears to have maintained his father\u2019s policy; for in 598,\nif not 597, Nebuchadrezzar came up against Jerusalem, which forthwith\nsurrendered, and the king, his mother and wives, his courtiers and\nstatesmen were carried into exile, with the craftsmen and smiths and all\nwho were _apt for war; none remained save the poorest of the people of the\nland_.(327)\n\nThroughout these convulsions of her world, this crisis in the history of\nJudah herself, Jeremiah remains the one constant, rational, and far-seeing\npower in the national life. But at what terrible cost to himself! His\nexperience is a throng of tragic paradoxes. Faithful to his mission, every\neffort he makes to rouse his people to its meaning is baffled. His word is\nsignally vindicated by the great events of the time, yet each of these but\ntears his heart the more as he feels it bringing nearer the ruin of his\npeople. His word is confirmed, but he is shaken by doubts of himself, his\nutterance of which is in poignant contrast to his steadfast delivery of\nhis messages of judgment. No prophet was at once more sure of his word and\nless sure of himself; none save Christ more sternly denounced his people\nor upon the edge of their doom more closely knit himself to them.\n\nIt is a staggering world, and the one man who has its secret is shaken to\ndespair about himself. Yet the Word with which he is charged not only\nfulfils itself in event after event but holds its distracted prophet fast\nto the end of his abhorred task of proclaiming it.\n\nThe cardinal event was Nebuchadrezzar\u2019s victory over N\u0115coh at Carchemish\nin 605 or 604 with its assurance of Babylonian, not Egyptian, supremacy\nthroughout Western Asia. Such confirmation of the substance of Jeremiah\u2019s\nprophecies of the past twenty-three years was that Divine signal which\nflashed on him to reduce those prophecies to writing and have them recited\nto the people by Baruch. We have already followed the story in Ch. XXXVI\nof how this was done(328) and of the consequences\u2014the communication of the\nRoll to the princes and by them to the king, the king\u2019s burning of the\nRoll piece by piece as he heard it read, his order for the arrest of\nJeremiah and Baruch, their escape into hiding, and their preparation of a\nSecond Roll containing all the words of the First with many others like\nthem. We may now, in addition, note the following.\n\nFirst there is the Divine Peradventure at the beginning of the story.(329)\n_It may be_, God says, that the people will hear and turn from their evil\nways that I may forgive their iniquity\u2014a very significant _perhaps_ when\ntaken with the Parable of the Potter to which we are coming. Again, the\nking at least understands the evil predicted by Jeremiah to be the\ndestruction of his land and people by the King of Babylon.(330) And again,\nthough some of the princes encourage the Prophet\u2019s escape, and urge the\nking not to burn the Roll, none are shocked by the burning.(331) Evidently\nin 605-4 they were not so impressed with the divinity of Jeremiah\u2019s word\nas they had been in 608. Then they did not speak of telling the king; now\nthey say that they _must tell_(332) him. Jehoiakim\u2019s malignant influence\nhas grown, and Jeremiah discovers the inconstancy of the princes, even of\nsome friendly to himself.\n\nTo the same decisive year, 605-4, _the fourth of Jehoiakim_, is referred\nan address by Jeremiah reported in XXV. 1-11 (with perhaps 13_a_). This\nrepeats the Prophet\u2019s charge that his people have refused\u2014now for\nthree-and-twenty years\u2014to listen to his call for repentance and reaffirms\nthe certainty, at last made clear by the Battle of Carchemish, that their\ndeserved doom lies in the hands of a Northern Power, which shall waste\ntheir land and carry them into foreign servitude for seventy years. The\nsuggestion that this address formed the conclusion of the Second Roll\ndictated by Jeremiah to Baruch is suitable to the contents of the address\nand becomes more probable if we take as genuine the words in 13_a_, _Thus\nwill I bring upon that land all My words which I have spoken against her,\nall that is written in this Book_. But a curious question rises from the\nfact that we have two differing reports of the address.(333) Very\nsignificantly the shorter Greek Version contains neither the addition to\nthe date, _that was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon_,\nnor the two statements that his was the Northern Power which would waste\nJudah and which she should serve for seventy years (verses 1, 9, 11, as\nalso the similar reference in verse 12), all of which are inserted in the\nHebrew text but not without a sign of their being later intrusions upon\nit.(334) And indeed it is inconceivable that the Greek translator could\nhave omitted the four references to Nebuchadrezzar (including that in\nverse 12) had he found them in the Hebrew text from which he worked.\nProbably, therefore, Jeremiah did not include them in the first version of\nhis address; and for this he had reason. His purpose in the address was to\ndeclare the fulfilment of the substance of all his previous prophesying,\nand this had been not that the Chaldeans, but that _a northern power_,\nwould prove to be the executioner of God\u2019s judgment upon Judah. The\nreferences to Nebuchadrezzar were added, possibly by Jeremiah himself or\nby Baruch, as the Chaldean doom steadily drew nearer. The interesting\nthing is that the earlier version of the address survived and was used by\nthe Greek translator.(335)\n\nVerses 12-14, indicating the destruction of Babylon in her turn after\nseventy years, are, in whole or in part, generally taken as a post-exilic\naddition.(336) Omitting verse 14, the Greek inserts between 13 and 15 the\nOracles on Foreign Nations, which the Hebrew postpones to Chs. XLVI.\nff.(337) In the uncertain state of the text of 12-14 it is impossible to\ndecide whether this was or was not the original position of those Oracles.\n\nThe rest of the chapter, verses 15-38, is so full of expansions and\nrepetitions, which we may partly see from a comparison of it with the\nGreek, as well as of inconsistencies with some earlier Oracles by\nJeremiah,(338) of traces of the later prophetic style and of echoes of\nother prophets, that many deny any part of the miscellany to be Jeremiah\u2019s\nown. Yet we must remember that his commission was not to Judah alone(339)\nbut to _the nations_ as well, against many of which XXV. 15-38 is\ndirected; and the figure of the Lord handing to the Prophet the cup of the\nwine of His wrath is not one which we have any reason to doubt to be\nJeremiah\u2019s. Sifting, by help of the Greek, the Hebrew list of nations who\nare to drink of the cup, we get Judah and Egypt; Askalon, Gaza, Ekron, and\nthe remnant of Ashdod; Dedan, Tema, Buz, and their _clipt_ neighbours in\nArabia; all of whom were shaken in Jeremiah\u2019s day by the Chaldean terror.\nIndeed the reference to Ashdod suits the condition of that Philistine city\nin the Prophet\u2019s time better than its restored prosperity in the\npost-exilic age. The substance of verses 15-23 may therefore be reasonably\nleft to Jeremiah. Verses 24-38 are more doubtful.(340)\n\n\n\n\n2. Parables. (XIII, XVIII-XX, XXXV.)\n\n\nTo the reign of Jehoiakim are usually referred a number of symbolic\nactions by Jeremiah, the narratives of which carry no dates. So far as\nthey imply that the Prophet was still able to move openly about Jerusalem\nand the country they might be regarded as earlier than 604, when he was\nunder restraint and had to hide himself.(341) But this is not certain. We\nare left to take them in the order in which they occur in the Book.\n\nThe first is that of the waist-cloth, XIII. 1-11. Jeremiah was charged to\nbuy a linen waist-cloth(342) and after wearing it, but keeping it from\ndamp, to bury it in the cleft of a rock, and after many days to dig it up,\nwhen he found it rotting. So had the Lord taken Israel to cleave to Him as\nsuch a cloth _cleaves to the loins of a man_; but separated from Him they\nhad likewise rotted and were good for nothing. Separated by what\u2014God\u2019s\naction or their own? As it stands the interpretation is complicated. God\nspoils Israel because of their pride (verse 9) and Israel spoil themselves\nby disobedience and idolatry (verse 10). The complication may be due to a\nlater addition to the text. But this question is not serious. Neither is\nthat of the place where Jeremiah is said to have buried the cloth.\n_P\u0115rath_, the spelling in the text, is the Hebrew name for the Euphrates\nand so the Greek and our own versions render it. But the name has not its\nusual addition of The River. If the Euphrates be intended the story is\nhardly one of fact, but rather a vivid parable of the saturation of the\nnational life by heathen, corruptive influences from Mesopotamia.(343) Yet\nwithin an hour from Anathoth lies the Wady Farah, a name which corresponds\nto the Hebrew _P\u0115rath_ or (by a slight change) _Parah_; and the Wady,\nfamiliar as it must have been to Jeremiah, suits the picture, having a\nlavish fountain, a broad pool and a stream, all of which soak into the\nsand and fissured rock of the surrounding desert.(344) That the Wady Farah\nwas the scene of the parable is therefore possible, though not\ncertain.(345) But the ambiguity of these details does not interfere with\nthe moral of the whole.\n\nThis parable is immediately followed by the ironic metaphor of the Jars\nFull of Wine, XIII. 12-14, which I have already quoted.(346)\n\nNext comes the Parable of the Potter, Ch. XVIII, that might be from any\npart of the Prophet\u2019s ministry, during which he was free to move in\npublic. This parable is instructive first by disclosing one of the ways\nalong which Revelation reached, and spelt itself out in, the mind of the\nProphet. He felt a Divine impulse to go down to the house of the\nPotter,(347) _and there I will cause thee to hear My Words_, obviously not\nwords spoken to the outward ear. For, as Jeremiah watched the potter at\nwork on _his two stones_,(348) and saw that when the vessel he first\nattempted was marred he would remould the clay into another vessel as\nseemed good to him, a fresh conception of the Divine Method with men broke\nupon Jeremiah and became articulate. A word from the Lord flashed through\nhis eyes upon his mind, just as in his first visions of the almond-blossom\nand the caldron.(349)\n\n\n    XVIII. 5. Then the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, [6] O\n    House of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?(350) Behold,\n    as the clay in the hand of the potter, so are ye in My hand.(351)\n\n\nThus by figure and by word the Divine Sovereignty was proclaimed as\nabsolutely as possible. But the Sovereignty is a real Sovereignty and\ntherefore includes Freedom. It is not fettered by its own previous\ndecrees, as some rigorous doctrines of predestination insist, but is free\nto recall and alter these, should the human characters and wills with\nwhich it works in history themselves change. There is a Divine as well as\na human Free-will. \u201cGod\u2019s dealing with men is moral; He treats them as\ntheir moral conduct permits Him to do.\u201d(352)\n\nThe Predestination of men or nations, which the Prophet sees figured in\nthe work of the potter, is to Service. This is clear from the comparison\nbetween Israel and a vessel designed for a definite use. It recalls\nJeremiah\u2019s similar conception of his own predestination, which was not to\na certain state, of life or death, but to the office of speaker for God to\nthe nations. Yet because the acceptance or rejection by a nation or an\nindividual of the particular service, for which God has destined them,\nnaturally determines their ultimate fate, therefore this wider sense,\nwhich predestination came to have in Christian doctrine, is so far also\ninvolved in the parable.(353)\n\nTo the truths of the Divine Sovereignty and the Divine Freedom the parable\nadds that of the Divine Patience. The potter of Hinnom does not\nimpatiently cast upon the rubbish which abounds there the lump of clay\nthat has proved refractory to his design for it. He gives the lump another\ntrial upon another design. If, as many think, the verses which follow the\nparable, 7-10, are not by Jeremiah himself (though this is far from\nproved, as we shall see) then he does not explicitly draw from the\npotter\u2019s patience with the clay the inference of the Divine patience with\nmen. But the inference is implicit in the parable. Did Jeremiah intend it?\nIf he did, this is proof that in spite of his people\u2019s obstinacy under the\nhand of God, he cherished, though he dared not yet utter, the hope that\nGod would have some fresh purpose for their service beyond the wreck they\nwere making of His former designs for them and the ruin they were thereby\nbringing on themselves\u2014that He would grant them still another chance of\nrising to His will. But if Jeremiah did not intend this inference from his\nparable then we may claim the parable as one more example of that of which\nwe have already had several, the power of this wonderful man\u2019s experience\nand doctrine to start in other minds ideas and beliefs of which he himself\nwas not conscious, or which at least he did not articulate\u2014that power\nwhich after all is his highest distinction as a prophet. I do not think,\nhowever, that we can deny to Jeremiah all consciousness of what his\nparable implies in regard to the Patience of the Divine Potter with the\nperverse human clay in His hands. For we have already seen from another of\nthe Prophet\u2019s metaphors that under the abused and rank surface of a\nnation\u2019s or an individual\u2019s life he was sure of soil which by deeper\nploughing would yet yield fruits meet for repentance.(354)\n\nIn either case the parable is rich in Gospel for ourselves. If we have\nfailed our God upon His first designs for us and for our service do not\nlet us despair. He is patient and ready to give us another trial under His\nhand. And this not only is the lesson of more than one of our Lord\u2019s\nparables, for instance that of the fig-tree found fruitless, but\nnevertheless given the chance of another year,(355) and the motive of His\nhopes for the publicans and harlots, but is implied by all the Gospel of\nHis life and death for sinners. In these He saw still possibilities worth\nHis dying for.\n\nBut as Christ Himself taught, there are, and ethically must be, limits to\nthe Divine Patience with men. Of these the men of Judah and Jerusalem are\nwarned in the verses which follow the parable. While it is true (verse 7\nff.) that if a nation, which God has said He will destroy, turn from its\nevil, He will relent, the converse is equally true of a nation which He\nhas promised to plant and build, that if it do wrong and obey not He will\nsurely repent of the good He had planned for it. For this refractory\npeople of Judah He is already _framing_ or _moulding evil_\u2014the verb used\nis that of which the Hebrew name for _potter_ is the participle. Though\nchosen of God and shaped by His hands for high service Israel\u2019s destiny is\nnot irrevocable; nay, their doom is already being shaped. Yet He makes\nstill another appeal to them to repent and amend their ways. To this they\nanswer: _No use! we will walk after our own devices and carry out every\none the stubbornness __ of his evil heart._ At least that is how Jeremiah\ninterprets their temper; his people had hardened since Megiddo and the\naccession of Jehoiakim.\n\nSome moderns have denied these verses to Jeremiah and taken them as the\naddition of a later hand and without relevance to the parable. With all\nrespect to the authority of those critics,(356) I find myself unable to\nagree with them. They differ as to where the authentic words of the\nProphet cease, some concluding these with verse 4 others with verse 6. In\neither case the parable is left in the air, without such practical\napplication of his truths as Jeremiah usually makes to Judah or other\nnations. Nor can the relevance of the verses be denied, as Cornill, one of\ntheir rejectors, admits. Nor does the language bear traces of a later\ndate. They seem to me to stand as Jeremiah\u2019s own.\n\nThe Prophet\u2019s threat of evil is still so vague, that, with due\nacknowledgment of the uncertainty of such points, we may suppose it, along\nwith the Parable of the Potter, to have been uttered before the Battle of\nCarchemish, when the Babylonian sovereignty over Western Asia became\nassured.(357)\n\nThe next in order of Jeremiah\u2019s symbols, Ch. XIX, the breaking of a\npotter\u2019s jar past restoration, with his repetition of doom upon Judah, led\nto his arrest, Ch. XX, and this at last to his definite statement that the\ndoom would be captivity to the King of Babylon. Some therefore date the\nepisode after Carchemish, but this is uncertain; Jeremiah is still not\nunder restraint nor in hiding.\n\nHe is charged to buy an earthen jar and take with him some of the elders\nof the people and of the priests to the Potsherd Gate in the Valley of\nHinnom.(358) There, after predicting the evils which the Lord shall bring\non the city because of her idolatry and her sacrifice of children in that\nValley down which they were looking from this gate, he broke the jar and\nflung it upon the heaps of shattered earthenware from which the gate\nderived its name;(359) and returning to the Temple repeated the Lord\u2019s\ndoom upon Judah and Jerusalem. He was heard by Pash\u1e25ur of the priestly\nguild of Immer, who appears to have been chief of the Temple police, and\nafter being _smitten_ was put in the stocks, but the next day released,\nprobably rather because his friends among the princes had prevailed in his\nfavour than because the mind of Pash\u1e25ur had meantime changed. For Jeremiah\non his release immediately faced his captor with these words:\u2014\n\n\n    XX. 3. The Lord hath called thy name not Pash\u1e25ur but\n    Magor-Missabib, Terror-all-round. 4. For thus saith the Lord, Lo,\n    I will make thee a terror to thyself and all thy friends, and they\n    shall fall by the sword of their foes, and thine own eyes shall be\n    seeing it; and all Judah shall I give into the hand of the king of\n    Babylon, and he shall carry them to exile and smite them with the\n    sword ... 6. And thou Pash\u1e25ur and all that dwell in thy house\n    shall go into captivity and in Babylon thou shalt die.(360)\n\n\nAt last Jeremiah definitely states what Judah\u2019s doom from the North is to\nbe. We wish that we knew the date of this utterance.\n\nAssigned by its title to _the days of Jehoiakim_ is another action of the\nProphet, which is the exhibition rather of an example than of a symbol,\nCh. XXXV. The story was probably dictated by Jeremiah to Baruch, for while\nthe Hebrew text opens it in the first person (2-5), the Greek version\ncarries the first person throughout and the later change by the Hebrew to\nthe third person (12 and 18) may easily have been due to a copyist\nmistaking the first personal suffix for the initial letter of the name\nJeremiah.(361)\n\nThe Rechabites, a tent-dwelling tribe sojourning within the borders, and\nworshipping the God, of Israel, had taken refuge from the Chaldean\ninvasion within the walls of Jerusalem. Knowing their fidelity to their\nancestral habits Jeremiah invited some of them to one of the Temple\nchambers and offered them wine. They refused, for they said that their\nancestor Jehonadab ben-Rechab(362) had charged them to drink no wine,\nneither to build houses, nor sow seed nor plant vineyards. Whereupon\nJeremiah went forth and held them up as an example to the men of Judah,\nnot because of any of the particular forms of their abstinence, but\nbecause of their constancy. Here were people who remembered, and through\ncenturies had remained loyal to, the precepts of an ancestor; while Israel\nhad fallen from their ancient faithfulness to their God and ignored His\ncommandments. The steadfast loyalty of these simple nomads to the\ninstitutions of a far-away human father, how it put to shame Judah\u2019s\ndelinquency from the commands of her Divine Father! This contrast is in\nline with the others, which we have seen Jeremiah emphasising, between his\npeople\u2019s fickleness towards God and the obdurate adherence of the Gentiles\nto their national gods, or the constancy of the processes of nature: the\nbirds that know the seasons of their coming, the unfailing snows of\nLebanon and the streams of the hills. The whole story is characteristic of\nJeremiah\u2019s teaching.(363)\n\n\n\n\n3. Oracles on the Edge of Doom. (VII. 16-XVIII _passim_, XXII, XLV.)\n\n\nFrom the seventh to the tenth chapters of the Book of Jeremiah there are a\nnumber of undated passages in prose and in verse, which are generally held\nto have been included in the collection of the Prophet\u2019s Oracles written\nout by Baruch in 604-3, and of which some may have been delivered during\nthe reign of Josiah, but the most of them more probably either upon its\ntragic close at Megiddo in 608, or under Jehoiakim. We have already\nconsidered the addresses reported in VII. 1-15, 21-27,(364) as well as the\nmetrical fragments VII. 28, 29, and VIII. 8, 9.(365) There are other prose\npassages describing (1) VII. 16-20, the worship of the Queen, or the Host,\nof Heaven, which had been imposed upon Jerusalem by the Assyrians, and\neither survived the decay of their power from 625 onwards, or if\nsuppressed by Josiah in obedience to Deuteronomy,(366) had been revived\nunder Jehoiakim; (2) VII. 30-34, the high-places in Topheth, upon which\nchildren were sacrificed, also condemned by Deuteronomy and recorded as\ndestroyed by Josiah;(367) (3) VIII. 1-3, the desecration of the graves of\nJerusalem. It is not necessary to reproduce these prose passages, whether\nthey be Jeremiah\u2019s or not; our versions of them, Authorised and Revised,\nare sufficiently clear.\n\nBut there follow, from VIII. 4 onwards, after the usual introduction, a\nseries of metrical Oracles of which the following translation is offered\nin observance of the irregularity of the measures of the original. Note\nhow throughout the Prophet is, as before, testing his false\npeople\u2014_heeding_ and _listening_ are his words\u2014finding no proof of a\ngenuine repentance and bewailing the doom that therefore must fall upon\nthem. Some of his earlier verses are repeated, and there is the reference\nto the Law, VIII. 8 f., which we have discussed.(368) There is also a hint\nof exile\u2014which, however, is still future.\n\nIn Ch. VIII, verses 4-12 (including the repetitions they contain) seem a\nunity; verse 13 stands by itself (unless it goes with the preceding); 14,\n15 echo one of the Scythian songs, but the fear they reflect may be that\neither of an Egyptian invasion after Megiddo or of a Chaldean; 16 and 17\nare certainly of a northern invasion, but whether the same as the\npreceding is doubtful; and doubtful too is the connection of both with the\nincomparable elegy which follows\u2014VIII. 18-IX. 1. For IX. 1 undoubtedly\nbelongs to this, as the different division of the chapters in the Hebrew\ntext properly shows. In Ch. IX. 2-9 the Prophet is in another mood than\nthat of the preceding songs. There the miseries of his people had\noppressed him; here it is their sins. There his heart had been with them\nand he had made their sufferings his own; here he would flee from them to\na lodge in the desert.(369) IX. 10-12, is another separate dirge on the\nland, burned up but whether by invaders or by drought is not clear. Then\n13-16 is a passage of prose. In 17-22 we have still another elegy with\nsome of the most haunting lines Jeremiah has given us, on war or\npestilence, or both. And there follow eight lines, verses 23-24, on a very\ndifferent, a spiritual, theme, and then 25-26 another prose passage, on\nthe futility of physical circumcision if the heart be not circumcised. If\nthese be Jeremiah\u2019s, and there is no sign in them to the contrary, they\nform further evidence of his originality as a prophet.\n\nThe two Chs. VIII and IX are thus a collection both of prose passages and\npoems out of different circumstances and different moods, with little\norder or visible connection. Are we to see in them a number of those _many\nlike words_ which Jeremiah, when he dictated his Second Roll to Baruch,\nadded to his Oracles on the First Roll?(370)\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nThe first verses are in curious parallel to Tchekov\u2019s remarkable plaint\nabout his own people and \u201cthe Russian disease\u201d as he calls their failing:\n\u201cWhy do we tire so soon? And when we fall how is it that we never try to\nrise again?\u201d\n\n\n    And thou shalt say to them,(371) Thus saith the Lord:  VIII. 4\n    \u201cDoes any one fall and not get up,\n      Or turn and not return?\u201d(372)\n    Why then are this people turning  5\n      Persistently turning(373)?\n    They take fast hold of deceit,\n      Refuse to return.\n    I have been heeding, been listening\u2014  6\n      They speak but untruth!\n    Not a man repents of his evil,\n      Saying, \u201cWhat have I done?\u201d\n    All of them swerve in their courses\n      Like a plunging horse in the battle.\n    Even the stork in the heavens  7\n      Knoweth her seasons,\n    And dove and swift and swallow\n      Keep time of their coming\u2014\n    Only my people, they know not\n      The Rule(374) of the Lord.\n    How say ye, \u201cWe are the wise,  8\n      With us is the Law(375) of the Lord.\u201d\n    But, lo, into falsehood hath wrought it(376)\n      False pen of the scribes.\n    Put to shame are the wise,  9\n      Dismayed and taken,\n    The Word of the Lord have they spurned\u2014\n      What wisdom is theirs?\n    So to others I give their wives,  10\n      Their fields to who may take them,\n    For all from the least to the greatest\n      On plunder are bent;\n    From the prophet on to the priest\n      Everyone worketh lies.\n    They would heal the breach of my people  11\n      As though it were trifling,\n    Saying \u201cIt is well, it is well!\u201d\u2014\n      And well it is not!\n    Were they shamed of the foulness they wrought?  12\n      Nay, shamed not at all,\n    Nor knew their dishonour!\n      So shall they fall with the falling,\n    Reel in the time of their reckoning,\n      Sayeth the Lord.(377)\n\n    Would I harvest them?\u2014Rede of the Lord\u2014  13\n      No grapes on the vine,\n    And never a fig on the fig-tree,\n      Withered the leaves.(378)\n\n    For what sit we still?  14\n      Sweep together\n    And into the fortified cities,\n      To perish.\n    For the Lord our own God\n      Hath doomed us to perish,\n    Hath drugged us with waters of bale\u2014\n      To Him(379) have we sinned.\n\n    Hoping for peace?  15\n    \u2019Twas no good,\n    For a season of healing?\n    Lo, panic.(380)\n\n    From Dan the bruit(381) has been heard,  16\n      Hinnying of his horses,\n    With the noise of the neighing of his steeds\n      The land is aquake.\n    He(382) comes,(383) he devours the land and her fulness\n      The city and her dwellers.\n    For behold, I am sending upon you  17\n      Basilisk-serpents,\n    Against whom availeth no charm,\n      But they shall bite you.(384)\n\n    Ah! That my grief is past comfort(385)  18\n      Faints on me my heart,\n    Lo, hark to the cry of my people\n      Wide o\u2019er the land.(386)\n    \u201cIs the Lord not in \u1e62ion,  19\n      Is there no king?(387)\n    [Why have they vexed Me with idols,\n      Foreigners\u2019 fancies?](388)\n    \u201cHarvest is past, summer is ended,  20\n      And we are not saved!\u201d\n    For the breaking of the daughter of my people  21\n      I break, I blacken!\n    Horror hath fastened upon me\n      Pangs as of her that beareth.(389)\n    Is there no balm in Gilead,  22\n      Is there no healer?\n    Why do the wounds never close(390)\n      Of the daughter of my people?\n      Oh that my head were waters,  IX. 1\n      Mine eyes a fountain of tears,\n    That day and night I might weep\n      For the slain of my people!\n\n\nThere follows an Oracle in a very different mood. In the previous one the\nProphet has taken his people to his heart, in spite of their sin and its\nhavoc; in this he repels and would be quit of them.\n\n\n    O that I had in the desert  2\n      A wayfarers\u2019(391) lodge!\n    Then would I leave my people,\n      And get away from them,\n    For adulterers all they be,\n      A bundle(392) of traitors!\n      Their tongue they stretch  3\n      Like a treacherous bow,(?)\n      And never for truth\n      Use their power in the land,\n    But from evil to evil go forth\n      And Me they know not.(393)\n    Be on guard with your friends,  4\n      Trust not your(394) brothers,\n    For brothers are all very Jacobs,\n      And friends gad about to defame.\n    Every one cheateth his neighbour,  5\n      They cannot speak truth.\n    Their tongues they have trained to falsehood,\n      They strain to be naughty\u2014\n    Wrong upon wrong, deceit on deceit(?)  6\n      Refusing to know Me.(395)\n      Therefore thus saith the Lord:(396)  7\n    Lo, I will smelt them, will test them.\n      How else should I do\n    In face of the evil ...(397)(?)\n      Of the Daughter of My people?\n    A deadly(398) shaft is their tongue  8\n      The words of their mouth(399) deceit;\n    If peace any speak to his friend\n      In his heart he lays ambush.\n    Shall I not visit for such\u2014  9\n      Rede of the Lord\u2014\n    Nor on a nation like this\n      Myself take vengeance?\n\n    Raise for the mountains a wail,(400)  10\n      For the meads of the pasture a dirge!\n    They are waste, with never a man(401)\n      Nor hear the lowing of cattle.\n    From the birds of heaven to the beasts\n      They have fled, they are gone.\n    I will make Jerusalem heaps,  11\n      Of jackals the lair,\n    And the townships of Judah lay waste,\n      With never a dweller.\n    Who is the man that is wise  12\n      To lay this to mind,\n    As the mouth of the Lord hath told him,\n      So to declare\u2014\n    The wherefore the country is perished,\n      And waste as the desert,\n      With none to pass over!\n\n    13. And the Lord said unto me,(402) Because they forsook My Law\n    which I set before them, and hearkened not to My Voice,(403) [14]\n    but have walked after the stubbornness of their heart, and after\n    the Baals, as their fathers taught them. 15. Therefore thus saith\n    the Lord(404) the God of Israel, Behold I will give them wormwood\n    to eat and the waters of poison to drink. 16. And I will scatter\n    them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers knew,\n    and send after them the sword till I have consumed them.\n\n      Thus saith the Lord:  17\n    Call the keening women to come,\n      And send for the wise ones,\n    That they come and make haste(405)  18\n      To lift us a dirge,\n    Till with tears our eyes run down,\n      Our eyelids with water.\n    For hark! from \u1e62ion the voice of wailing,  19\n      \u201cHow we are undone!\n    \u201cSore abashed we, land who have left,\n      Our homes overthrown!\u201d(406)\n\n    Hear, O women, the saying of the Lord,  20\n      Your ears take in the word of His mouth,\n    Teach the lament to your daughters\n      Each to her comrade the dirge:\n    \u201cFor Death has come up by our windows  21\n      And into our palaces,\n    Cutting off from the streets the children\n      The youths from the places;(407)\n    And the corpses of men are fallen  22\n      As dung on the field,\n    As sheaves left after the reaper\n      And nobody gathers!\u201d\n\n    Thus saith the Lord:  23\n    Boast not the wise in his wisdom,\n    Boast not the strong in his strength,\n    Boast not the rich in his riches,\n    But he that would boast in this let him boast,  24\n    Insight and knowledge of Me,\n    That I am the Lord, who work troth,\n    Judgment and justice on earth,\n      For in these I delight.\n\n    25. Behold, the days are coming\u2014Rede of the Lord\u2014that I shall\n    visit on everyone circumcised as to the foreskin. 26. Egypt and\n    Judah and Edom, the sons of Ammon and Moab, and all with the\n    corner(408) clipt, who dwell in the desert; for all the nations\n    are uncircumcised in their heart and all the house of Israel.\n\n\nWhich just means that Israel, circumcised in the flesh but not in the\nspirit, are as bad as the heathen who share with them bodily circumcision.\n\nCh. X. 1-16 is a spirited, ironic poem on the follies of idolatry which\nbears both in style and substance marks of the later exile.\n\nOn the other hand X. 17-23 is a small collection of short Oracles in\nmetre, which there is no reason to deny to Jeremiah. The text of the\nfirst, verses 17-18, is uncertain. If with the help of the Greek we render\nit as follows it implies not an actual, but an inevitable and possibly\nimminent, siege of Jerusalem. The couplet in 17 may alone be original and\n18, the text of which is reducible neither to metre nor wholly to sense, a\nprose note upon it.\n\n\n    Sweep in thy wares from beyond,(409)  X. 17\n    In siege that shalt sit!\n\n    18. For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will sling out them that\n    dwell in this land,(410) and will distress them in order that they\n    may find ...(?)\n\n\nSuch is the most to be made of the fragment of which there are many\ninterpretations. The next piece, 19-22, is generally acknowledged to be\nJeremiah\u2019s. It has the ring of his earlier Oracles. The Hebrew and Greek\ntexts differ as to the speaker in 19_a_. Probably the Greek is correct\u2014the\nProphet or the Deity addresses the city or nation and the Prophet replies\nfor the latter identifying himself with her sufferings. It is possible,\nhowever, that the words _But I said_ are misplaced and should begin the\nverse, in which case the Hebrew _my_ is to be preferred to the Greek _thy_\nadopted below. If so the stoicism of 19 is remarkable.\n\n\n    Woe is me for thy(411) ruin,  19\n      Sore is thy(412) stroke!\n    But I said,\n    Well, this sickness is mine(413)\n      And I must bear it!\n    Undone is my tent and perished,(414)  20\n      Snapped all my cords!\n    My sons\u2014they went out from me\n      And they are not!\n    None now to stretch me my tent\n      Or hang up my curtains.\n    For that the shepherds(415) are brutish  21\n      Nor seek of the Lord,\n    Therefore prosper they shall not,\n      All scattered their flock.(416)\n      Hark the bruit,  X. 22\n      Behold it comes,\n      And uproar great\n      From land of the North,\n    To lay the cities of Judah waste,\n      A lair of jackals.\n\n\nAs we have seen, Jeremiah in the excitement of alarm falls on short lines,\nejaculations of two stresses each, sometimes as here with one longer\nline.(417)\n\nA quatrain follows of longer, equal lines as is usual with Jeremiah when\nexpressing spiritual truths:\u2014\n\n\n    Lord I know! Not to man is his way,  23\n    Not man\u2019s to walk or settle his steps.\n    Chasten me, Lord, but with judgment,  24\n    Not in wrath, lest Thou bring me to little!\n\n\nThe last verse of the chapter is of a temper unlike that of Jeremiah\nelsewhere towards other nations, and so like the temper against them felt\nby later generations in Israel, that most probably it is not his.\n\n\n    [Pour out Thy rage on the nations,  25\n      Who do not own Thee,\n    And out on the kingdoms\n      Who call not Thy Name!\n    For Jacob they devoured and consumed,\n      And wasted his homestead](418)\n\n\nAnother series of Oracles, as reasonably referred to the reign of\nJehoiakim as to any other stage of Jeremiah\u2019s career, is scattered over\nChs. XI-XX. I reserve to a later lecture upon his spiritual conflict and\ngrowth those which disclose his debates with his God, his people and\nhimself\u2014XI. 18-XII. 6, XV. 10-XVI. 9, XVII. 14-18, XVIII. 18-23, XX. 7-18,\nand I take now only such as deal with the character and the doom of the\nnation.\n\nOf these the first in the order in which they appear in the Book is XI.\n15, 16, with which we have already dealt,(419) and the second is XII.\n7-13, generally acknowledged to be Jeremiah\u2019s own. It is undated, but of\nthe invasions of this time the one it most clearly reflects is that of the\nmixed hordes let loose by Nebuchadrezzar on Judah in 602 or in 598.(420)\nThe invasion is more probably described as actual than imagined as\nimminent. God Himself is the speaker: His _House_, as the parallel\n_Heritage_ shows, is not the Temple but the Land, His _Domain_. The\nsentence pronounced upon it is a final sentence, yet delivered by the\nDivine Judge with pain and with astonishment that He has to deliver it\nagainst His _Beloved_; and this pathos Jeremiah\u2019s poetic rendering of the\nsentence finely brings out by putting verse 9_a_ in the form of a\nquestion. The Prophet feels the Heart of God as moved as his own by the\ndoom of the people.\n\n\n    I have forsaken My House,  XII. 7\n      I have left My Heritage,\n    I have given the Beloved of My Soul\n      To the hand of her foes.\n    My Heritage to Me is become  8\n      Like a lion in the jungle,\n    She hath given against Me her voice,\n      Therefore I hate her.\n    Is My Heritage to Me a speckled wild-bird  9\n      With wild-birds round and against her?\n    Go, gather all beasts of the field,\n      Bring them on to devour.\n    Shepherds so many My Vineyard have spoiled  10\n      Have trampled My Lot\u2014\n    My pleasant Lot they have turned\n      To a desolate desert\n    They make it a waste, it mourns,  11\n      On Me is the waste!\n    All the land is made desolate,\n      None lays it to heart!\n    Over the bare desert heights  12\n      Come in the destroyers!\n    [For the sword of the Lord is devouring\n      From the end of the land,\n    And on to the end of the land,\n      No peace to all flesh.(421)\n    Wheat have they sown and reaped thorns,  13\n      Have travailed for nought,\n    Ashamed of their crop shall they be\n      In the heat of God\u2019s wrath.]\n\n\nThe last eight lines are doubtfully original: the speaker is no longer God\nHimself. There follows, in verses 14-17, a paragraph in prose, which is\nhardly relevant\u2014a later addition, whether from the Prophet or an editor.\n\nThe next metrical Oracles are appended to the Parables of the Waist-cloth\nand of the Jars in Ch. XIII.(422) We have already quoted, in proof of\nJeremiah\u2019s poetic power, the most solemn warning he gave to his people,\nXIII. 15, 16.(423) At some time these lines were added to it:\u2014\n\n\n    But if ye will not hear it:  XIII. 17\n    In secret my soul shall weep\n      Because of your pride,\n    And mine eyes run down with tears\n      For the flock of the Lord led captive.(424)\n\n\nThe next Oracle in metre is an elegy, probably prospective, on the fate of\nJehoiachin and his mother Nehushta.(425)\n\n\n    Say to the King and Her Highness,  18\n      Low be ye seated!\n    For from your heads is come down\n      The crown of your splendour.\n    The towns of the Southland are blocked  19\n      With none to open.\n    All Judah is gone into exile,\n      Exile entire.(426)\n\n\n_The flock of the Lord_, verse 17, comes again into the next poem,\naddressed to Jerusalem as appears from the singular form of the verbs and\npronouns preserved throughout by the Greek (but only in 20_b_ by the\nHebrew) which to the disturbance of the metre adds the name of the\ncity\u2014probably a marginal note that by the hand of some copyist has been\ndrawn into the text. In verse 21 the people, whom Judah has wooed to be\nher ally but who are about to become her tyrant, are, of course, the\nBabylonians.(427)\n\n\n    Lift up thine eyes and look,  XIII. 20\n      They come from the North!\n    Where is the flock that was given thee,\n      Thy beautiful flock?\n    What wilt thou say when they set  21\n      O\u2019er thee as heads,(428)\n    Those whom thyself wast training\n      To be to thee friends?\n    Shall pangs not fasten upon thee,\n      Like a woman\u2019s in travail?\n    And if thou say in thine heart,  22\n      Why fall on me these?\n    For the mass of thy guilt stripped are thy skirts,\n      Ravished thy limbs!\n    Can the Ethiop change his skin,  23\n      Or the leopard his spots?\n    Then also may ye do good\n      Who are wont to do evil.\n    As the passing chaff I strew them  24\n      To the wind of the desert.\n    This is thy lot, the share I mete thee\u2014  25\n      Rede of the Lord\u2014\n    Because Me thou hast wholly forgotten\n      And trusted in fraud.\n    So thy skirts I draw over thy face,  26\n      Thy shame is exposed.\n    Thine adulteries, thy neighings,  27\n      Thy whorish intrigues;\n    On the heights, in the field have I seen\n      Thy detestable deeds.\n    Jerusalem! Woe unto thee!\n      Thou wilt not be clean\u2014\n      After how long yet?(429)\n\n\nCh. XIV. 1-10 is the fine poem on the Drought which was rendered in a\nprevious lecture.(430) It is followed by a passage in prose, 11-16, that\nimplies a wilder \u201csea of troubles,\u201d not drought only but war, famine and\npestilence. Forbidden to pray for the people Jeremiah pleads that they\nhave been misled by the prophets who promised that there would be neither\nfamine nor war; and the Lord condemns the prophets for uttering lies in\nHis Name. Through war and famine prophets and people alike shall perish.\n\n\n    And thou shalt say this word to them:  XIV. 17\n    Let your eyes run down with tears\n      Day and night without ceasing,\n    For broken, broken is the Daughter of my people,\n      With the direst of strokes!\n    Fare I forth to the field,  18\n      Lo the slain of the sword!\n    Or come into the city\n      Lo anguish of famine!\n    Yea, prophet and priest go a-begging\n      In a land they know not.(431)\n\n\nSome see reflected in these lines the situation after Megiddo, when\nEgyptian troops may have worked such evils on Judah; but more probably it\nis the still worse situation after the surrender of Jerusalem to\nNebuchadrezzar. There follows, 19-22, another prayer of the people (akin\nto that following the drought, 7-9) which some take to be later than\nJeremiah. The metre is unusual, if indeed it be metre and not rhythmical\nprose.\n\n\n    [Hast Thou utterly cast off Judah,  19\n      Loathes \u1e62ion Thy soul?\n    Why hast Thou smitten us so\n      That for us is no healing?\n    Hoped we for peace\u2014no good!\n    For a season of healing\u2014lo panic!\n    We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness,  20\n    The guilt of our fathers; to Thee have we sinned.\n    For the sake of Thy Name, do not spurn us,  21\n    Debase not the Throne of Thy Glory,\n    Remember, break not Thy Covenant with us!\n    \u2019Mongst the bubbles of the nations are makers of rain,  22\n    Or do the heavens give the showers?\n    Art Thou not He for whom we must wait?\n    Yea, Thou hast created all these.]\n\n\nAs the Book now runs this prayer receives from God a repulse, XV. 1-4,\nsimilar to that which was received by the people\u2019s prayer after the\ndrought XIV. 10-12, and to that which Hosea heard to the prayer of his\ngeneration.(432) Intercession for such a people is useless, were it made\neven by Moses and Samuel; they are doomed to perish by the sword, famine\nand exile. This passage is in prose and of doubtful origin. But the next\nlines are in Jeremiah\u2019s favourite metre and certainly his own. They either\ndescribe or (less probably) anticipate the disaster of 598. God Himself\nagain is the speaker as in XII. 7-11. His Patience which the Parable of\nthe Potter illustrated has its limits,(433) and these have now been\nreached. It is not God who is to blame, but Jerusalem and Judah who have\nfailed Him.\n\n\n    Jerusalem, who shall pity,  XV. 5\n      Who shall bemoan thee,\n    Who will but turn him to ask\n      After thy welfare?\n    \u2019Tis thou that hast left Me\u2014Rede of the Lord\u2014  6\n      Still going backward.\n    So I stretched my hand(434) and destroyed thee\n      Tired of relenting.\n    With a winnowing fork I winnowed them  7\n      In the gates of the land.\n    I bereaved and destroyed my people\n      Because of their evil.(435)\n    I saw their widows outnumber  8\n      The sand of the seas.\n    I brought on the mother of youths(?)\n      Destruction at noonday,\n    And let fall sudden upon them\n      Anguish and terrors.(436)\n    She that bare seven hath fainted,  9\n      Breathes out her life,\n    Set is her sun in the daytime\n      Shamed and abashed!\n    And their remnant I give to the sword\n      In face of their foes!(437)\n\n\nThrough the rest of Ch. XV and through XVI and XVII are a number of those\npersonal passages, which I have postponed to a subsequent lecture upon\nJeremiah\u2019s spiritual struggles,(438) and also several passages which by\noutlook and phrasing belong to a later age. The impression left by this\nmiscellany is that of a collection of sayings put together by an editor\nout of some Oracles by our Prophet himself and deliverances by other\nprophets on the same or similar themes. In pursuance of the plan I\nproposed I take now only those passages in which Jeremiah deals with the\ncharacter of his people and their deserved doom.\n\n\n    Thus saith the Lord\u2014  XVI. 5\n    Come not to the home of mourning,\n    Nor go about to lament,(439)\n    For my Peace I have swept away\u2014\n    Away from this people.(440)\n    Nor enter the house of feasting,  8\n    To sit with them eating and drinking\n    For thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel;  9\n    Lo, I make to cease from this place,\n    To your eyes, in your days,\n    The voices of joy and rejoicing,\n    The voices of bridegroom and bride.\n\n\nThere follows a passage in prose, 10-13, which in terms familiar to us,\nrecites the nation\u2019s doom, their exile. Verses 14, 15 break the connection\nwith 16 ff., and find their proper place in XXIII. 7-8, where they recur.\nVerses 16-18 predict, under the figures of fishers and hunters, the\narrival of bands of invaders, who shall sweep the country of its\ninhabitants, because of the idolatries with which these have polluted it.\nThere is no reason to deny these verses to Jeremiah. In 19, 20 we come to\nanother metrical piece, singing of the conversion of the heathen from\ntheir idols\u2014the only piece of its kind from Jeremiah\u2014which we may more\nsuitably consider later. Verse 21 seems more in place after 18.\n\n\n    The sin of Judah is writ  XVII. 1\n      With pen of iron,\n    With the point of a diamond graven\n      On the plate of their heart\u2014\n    And eke on the horns of their altars,(441)\n      And each spreading tree,\n    Upon all the lofty heights  2\n      And hills of the wild\n    Thy substance and all thy treasures  3\n      For spoil I give,\n    Because of sin thy high places\n      Throughout thy borders.\n    Thine heritage thou shalt surrender(442)  4\n      Which I have given thee,\n    And thy foes I shall make thee to serve\n      In a land thou knowest not.\n    Ye have kindled a fire in my wrath\n      That for ever shall burn.(443)\n\n\nThese verses, characteristic of Jeremiah, are more so of his earliest\nperiod than of his work in the reign of Jehoiakim, and may have been among\nthose which he added to his Second Roll. They are succeeded by the\nbeautiful reflections on the man who does not trust the Lord and on the\nman who does, verses 5-8, quoted in a previous lecture.(444) The rest of\nthe chapter consists of passages personal to himself, to be considered\nlater, and of an exhortation to keep the Sabbath, verses 19-27, which is\nprobably post-exilic.(445)\n\nIn Ch. XVIII the Parable of the Potter is followed by a metrical Oracle\nwhich has all the marks of Jeremiah\u2019s style and repeats the finality of\nthe doom, to which the nation\u2019s forgetfulness of God and idolatry have\nbrought it. Once more the poet contrasts the constancy of nature with his\npeople\u2019s inconstancy. Neither the metre nor the sense of the text is so\nmutilated as some have supposed.\n\n\n    Therefore thus saith the Lord:  XVIII. 13\n    Ask ye now of the nations,\n      Who heard of the like?\n    The horror she hath grossly wrought,\n      Virgin of Israel.\n    Fails from the mountain rock  14\n      The snow of Leb\u00e1non?\n    Or the streams from the hills dry up,\n      The cold flowing streams?(446)\n    Yet Me have My people forgotten,  15\n      And burned(447) to vanity,\n    Stumbling from off their ways,\n      The tracks of yore,\n    To straggle along the by-paths,\n      An unwrought road;\n    Turning their land to a waste,  16\n      A perpetual hissing.\n    All who pass by are appalled,\n      And shake their heads.\n    With(448) an east wind strew them I shall,  17\n      In face of the foe.\n    My back not my face shall I show them\n      In their day of disaster.\n\n\nPersonal passages follow in verses 18-23, and in XIX-XX. 6, the Symbol of\nthe Earthen Jar and the episode of the Prophet\u2019s arrest with its\nconsequences, which we have already considered,(449) and then other\npersonal passages in XX. 7-18. Ch. XXI. 1-10 is from the reign of\n\u1e62edekiah; 11, 12 are a warning to the royal house of unknown date, and 13,\n14 a sentence upon a certain stronghold, which in this connection ought to\nbe Jerusalem, but cannot be because of the epithets _Inhabitress of the\nVale_ and _Rock of the Plain_, that are quite inappropriate to Jerusalem.\nThis is another proof of how the editors of the Book have swept into it a\nnumber of separate Oracles, whether relevant to each other or not, and\nwhether Jeremiah\u2019s own or from some one else.\n\nFrom Chs. XXII-XXIII. 8, a series of Oracles on the kings of Judah, we\nhave had before us the elegy on Jehoahaz, XXII. 10 (with a prose note on\n11, 12) and the denunciation of Jehoiakim, 13-19.(450) There remain the\nwarning (in prose) to do judgment and justice with the threat on the\nking\u2019s house, XXII. 1-5, and the following Oracles:\u2014\n\n\n    XXII. 6. For thus saith the Lord concerning the house of the king\n    of Judah(451)\u2014\n\n    A Gilead art thou to Me,\n      Or head of Leb\u00e1non,\n    Yet shall I make thee a desert\n      Of tenantless cities.\n    I will hallow against thee destroyers,  7\n      Each with his weapons,\n    They shall cut down the choice of thy cedars\n      And fell them for fuel.\n\n    8. [And(452) nations shall pass by this city and shall say each to\n    his mate, For what hath the Lord done thus to this great city? 9.\n    And they shall answer, Because they forsook the Covenant of the\n    Lord their God, and bowed themselves to other gods and served\n    them.]\n\n\nWhether this piece of prose be from Jeremiah himself or from another is\nuncertain and of no importance. It is a true statement of his own\ninterpretation of the cause of his people\u2019s doom. The next Oracle\naddressed to the nation is upon King Jeconiah, or Koniyahu. I follow\nmainly the Greek.\n\n\n    Up to Leb\u00e1non and cry,  XXII. 20\n      Give forth thy voice in Bash\u00e1n,\n    And cry from Abar\u00eem(453) that broken\n      Be all thy lovers.\n    I spake to thee in thy prosperity,  21\n      Thou saidst, I hear not!\n    This was thy way from thy youth,\n      Not to hark to My Voice.\n    All thy shepherds the wind shall shepherd,  22\n      Thy lovers go captive.\n    Then shamed shalt thou be and confounded\n      For all thine ill-doing.\n    Thou in Leb\u00e1non that dwellest,  23\n      Nested on cedars,\n    How shalt thou groan(454) when come on thee pangs,\n      Anguish as hers that beareth.\n    As I live\u2014\u2019t is the Rede of the Lord\u2014  24\n      Though Konyahu were\n    Upon My right hand the signet,\n      Thence would I tear him.(455)\n\n    25. And I shall give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life\n    and into the hand of them thou dreadest, even into the hand of\n    Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of the\n    Chaldeans; [26] and I will hurl thee out, and thy mother who bare\n    thee, upon another land, where ye were not born, and there shall\n    ye die. 27. And to the land, towards which they shall be lifting\n    their soul,(456) they shall not return.\n\n    Is Konyahu then despised,  28\n      Like a nauseous vessel?\n    Why is he flung and cast out\n      On a land he knows not?\n    Land, Land, Land,  29\n      Hear the Word of the Lord!\n    Write this man down as childless,  30\n      A fellow ...(?)\n    For none of his seed shall flourish\n      Seated on David\u2019s throne,\n      Or ruling still in Judah.(457)\n\n\nWe can reasonably deny to Jeremiah nothing of all this passage, not even\nthe prose by which the metre is interrupted. We have seen how natural it\nwas for the rhapsodists of his race to pass from verse to prose and again\nfrom prose to verse. Nor are the repetitions superfluous, not even that\nfour-fold _into the hand of_ in the prose section, for at each recurrence\nof the phrase we feel the grip of their captor closing more fast upon the\ndoomed king and people. Nor are we required to take the pathetic words,\n_the land to which they shall be lifting up their soul_, as true only of\nthose who have been long banished. For the exiles to Babylon felt this\nhome-sickness from the very first, as Jeremiah well knew.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nIf we are to trust the date given by its title\u2014and no sufficient reason\nexists against our doing so\u2014there is still an Oracle of Jeremiah, which,\nthough now standing far down in our Book, Ch. XLV, belongs to the reign of\nJehoiakim, and is properly a supplement to the story of the writing of the\nRolls by Baruch in 605.(458) The text has suffered, probably more than we\ncan now detect.\n\n\n    XLV. 1. The Word, which Jeremiah the prophet spake to Baruch, the\n    son of Neriah, while he was writing these words in a book at the\n    mouth of Jeremiah,(459) in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, son of\n    Josiah, king of Judah.(460) 2. Thus saith the Lord(461) concerning\n    thee, O Baruch, [3] for thou didst say:\u2014\n\n      Woe is me! Woe is me!(462)\n    How hath the Lord on my pain heaped sorrow!\n      I am worn with my groaning,\n      Rest I find none!\n    [Thus shalt thou say to him(463)] thus sayeth the Lord:  4\n      Lo, what I built I have to destroy,\n    And what I planted I have to root up.(464)\n    Thou, dost thou seek thee great things?  5\n      Seek thou them not,\n    For behold, on all flesh I bring evil\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord\u2014\n    But I give thee thy life as a prey,\n      Wheresoever thou goest.\n\n\nThe younger man, with youth\u2019s high hopes for his people and ambitions for\nhimself in their service\u2014ambitions which he could honestly cherish by\nright both of his station in life(465) and the firmness of his\ncharacter\u2014felt his spirit spent beneath the long-drawn weight of all the\nOracles of Doom, which it was his fate to inscribe as final. Now to Baruch\nin such a mood the older man, the Prophet, might have appealed from his\nown example, for none in that day was more stripped than Jeremiah himself,\nof family, friends, affections, or hopes of positive results from his\nministry; nor was there any whose life had been more often snatched from\nthe jaws of death. But instead of quoting his own case Jeremiah brought to\nhis despairing servant and friend a still higher example. The Lord Himself\nhad been forced to relinquish His designs and to destroy what He had built\nand to uproot what He had planted. In face of such Divine surrender, both\nof purpose and achievement, what was the resignation by a mere man, or\neven by a whole nation, of their hopes or ambitions? Let Baruch be content\nto expect nothing beyond bare life: _thy life shall I give thee for a\nprey_. This stern phrase is found four times in the Oracles of\nJeremiah,(466) and nowhere else. It is not more due to the Prophet than to\nthe conditions of his generation. Jeremiah only put into words what must\nhave been felt by all the men of his time\u2014those terrible years in which,\nthrough the Oracles quoted in this lecture, he has shown us War, Drought,\nFamine and Pestilence fatally passing over his land; when _Death came up\nby the windows_, children were cut off from their playgrounds and youths\nfrom the squares where they gathered, and the corpses of men were\nscattered like dung on the fields. It was indeed a time when each survivor\nmust have felt that his life had been _given_ him _for a prey_.\n\nTo the hearts of us who have lived through the Great War, with its heavy\ntoll on the lives both of the young and of the old, this phrase of\nJeremiah brings the Prophet and his contemporaries very near.\n\nYet more awful than the physical calamities which the prophet unveils\nthroughout these terrible years are his bitter portraits of the character\nof his people, whom no word of their God nor any of His heavy judgments\ncould move to repentance. He paints a hopeless picture of society in\nJerusalem and Judah under Jehoiakim, rotten with dishonesty and vice.\nMembers of the same family are unable to trust each other; all are bent on\ntheir own gain by methods unjust and cruel\u2014from top to bottom so\nhopelessly false as even to be blind to the meaning of the disasters which\nrapidly befal them and to the final doom that steadily draws near. Yet,\nfor all the wrath he pours upon his generation and the Divine vengeance of\nwhich he is sure, how the man still loves and clings to them, and takes\ntheir doom as his own! And, greatest of all, how he reads in the heart\nthat was in him the Heart of God Himself\u2014the same astonishment that the\npeople are so callous, the same horror of their ruin, nay the same sense\nof failure and of suffering under the burden of such a waste\u2014_on Me is the\nwaste!_(467) _What I built I have to destroy!_\n\nExcept that he does not share these secrets of the Heart of God, it is of\nVictor Hugo among moderns that I have been most reminded when working\nthrough Jeremiah\u2019s charges against the king, the priests, the prophets and\nthe whole people of Judah\u2014Victor Hugo in his _Ch\u00e2timents_ of the monarch,\nthe church, the journalists, the courtiers and other creatures of the\nThird French Empire. There is the same mordant frankness and satiric rage\ncombined with the same desire to share the miseries of the critic\u2019s people\nin spite of their faults. I have already quoted Hugo\u2019s lines on Napoleon\nIII as parallel to Jeremiah\u2019s on Jehoiakim.(468)\n\nHere are two other parallels.\n\nTo Jeremiah\u2019s description of his people being persuaded that all was well,\nwhen well it was not, and refusing to own their dishonour, VIII. 11, 12,\ntake Hugo\u2019s \u201con est inf\u00e2me et content\u201d and\n\n\n    Et tu chantais, en proie aux \u00e9clatants mensonges\n              Du succ\u00e8s.\n\n\nAnd to Jeremiah\u2019s acceptance of the miseries of his people as his own and\nrefusal to the end to part from them take these lines to France:\u2014\n\n\n    Je te demanderai ma part de tes mis\u00e8res,\n      Moi ton fils.\n    France, tu verras bien qu\u2019humble t\u00eate \u00e9clips\u00e9e\n      J\u2019avais foi,\n    Et que je n\u2019eus jamais dans l\u2019\u00e2me une pens\u00e9e\n      Que pour toi.\n    France, \u00eatre sur ta claie \u00e0 l\u2019heure o\u00f9 l\u2019on te traine\n      Aux cheveux,\n    O ma m\u00e8re, et porter mon anneau de ta chaine\n      Je le veux!\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Lecture VI.\n\n\nTO THE END AND AFTER. 597-? B.C.\n\n\nThe few remaining years of the Jewish kingdom ran rapidly down and their\nstory is soon told.\n\nWhen Nebuchadrezzar deported King Jehoiachin in 597, he set up in his\nplace his uncle Mattaniah, a son of Josiah by that Hamutal, who was also\nthe mother of the miserable Jehoahaz.(469) The name of the new king\nNebuchadrezzar changed to \u1e62edekiah, _Righteousness_ or _Truth of\nJehovah_,(470) intending thus to bind the Jew by the name of his own God\nto the oath of allegiance which he had exacted from him. When Ezekiel\nafterwards denounced \u1e62edekiah on his revolt it was for _despising the\nLord\u2019s oath and breaking the Lord\u2019s covenant_(471)\u2014a signal instance of\nthe sanctity attached in the ancient world to an oath sworn by one nation\nto another, even though it was to the humiliation of the swearer.(472) So\nfar as we see, \u1e62edekiah was of a temper(473) to have been content with the\npeace, which the observance of his oath would have secured to him. But he\nwas a weak man, master no more of himself than of his throne,(474)\ndistracted between a half-superstitious respect for the one high influence\nleft to him in Jeremiah and the opposite pressure, first from a set of\nupstarts who had succeeded to the estates and the posts about court of\ntheir banished betters, and second, from those prophets whose personal\ninsignificance can have been the only reason of their escape from\ndeportation. It is one of the notable ironies of history that, while\nNebuchadrezzar had planned to render Judah powerless to rebel again, by\nwithdrawing from her all the wisest and most skilful and soldierly of her\npopulation, he should have left to her her fanatics!\n\nThere remained in Jerusalem the elements\u2014sincerely patriotic but rash and\nin politics inexperienced\u2014of a \u201cwar-party,\u201d restless to revolt from\nBabylon and blindly confident of the strength of their walls and of their\nmen to resist the arms of the great Empire. Of their nation they and their\nfellows alone had been spared the judgment of the Lord and prided\nthemselves on being the Remnant to which Isaiah had promised survival and\nsecurity on their own land: for they said to the Exiles, _Get ye far from\nthe Lord, for unto us is this land given in possession._(475) Through the\nearly uneventful years of \u1e62edekiah, this stupid and self-righteous party\nfound time to gather strength, and in his fourth year must have been\nstirred towards action by the arrival in Jerusalem of messengers from the\nkings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and \u1e62idon, all of them states within the\nscope of Egyptian intrigues against Babylon.(476) For the time the\nmovement came to nothing largely because of Jeremiah\u2019s influence, and\n\u1e62edekiah is said to have journeyed to Babylon to protest in person his\ncontinued fidelity.(477) Either then or previously Nebuchadrezzar imposed\non Jerusalem the Babylonian idolatry which Ezekiel describes as invading\neven the Temple.(478)\n\nThe intrigues of Egypt persisted, however, and, in 589 or 588, after the\naccession of Pharaoh Hophra,(479) at last prevailed upon Judah. \u1e62edekiah\nyielded to the party of revolt and Nebuchadrezzar swiftly invested\nJerusalem. Roused to realities _the king and all the people of Jerusalem_\noffered their repentance by a solemn covenant before God to enfranchise,\nin obedience to the Law, those slaves who had reached a seventh year of\nservice. But when on the news of an Egyptian advance the Chaldeans raised\ntheir siege, the Jewish slave-owners broke faith and pressed back their\nliberated slaves into bondage.(480) This proved the last link in the long\nchain of lies and frauds by which the hopelessly dishonest people fastened\nupon them their doom. Egypt again failed her dupes. The Chaldeans, either\nby the terror they inspired or by an actual victory on the field,\ncompelled her army to retire, and resumed the siege of Jerusalem. Though\nJeremiah counselled surrender and though the city was sapped by famine and\npestilence, the fanatics\u2014to whom, however reluctantly, some admiration is\ndue\u2014held out against the forces of Babylon for a year and a half. Then\ncame the end. The walls on the north were breached. \u1e62edekiah fled by a\nsouthern gate, upon an effort to reach the East of Jordan. He was\novertaken on the plains of Jericho, his escort scattered and himself\ncarried to Nebuchadrezzar\u2019s head-quarters at Riblah on the Orontes.\nThence, after his sons were slain before his eyes, and his eyes put out,\nhe was taken in fetters to Babylon. Nebu\u1e63aradan, a high Babylonian\nofficer, was dispatched to Jerusalem to burn the Temple, the Palace and\nthe greater houses, and to transport to Babylon a second multitude of\nJews, leaving only _the poorest of the land to be vine-dressers and\nhusbandmen_.(481) This was in 586.\n\n\n\n\n1. The Release of Hope. (XXIV, XXIX.)\n\n\nFrom these rapidly descending years a number of prophecies by Jeremiah\nhave come to us, as well as narratives of the trials which he endured\nbecause of his faithfulness to the Word of the Lord, and his sane views of\nthe facts of the time. As we read these prophecies and narratives several\nchanges become clear in the position and circumstances of the Prophet, and\nin his temper and outlook. Signally vindicated as his words have been, we\nare not surprised that to his contemporaries he has grown to be a\npersonage of greater impressiveness and authority than before. He has\nstill his enemies but these are not found in exactly the same quarters as\nunder Jehoiakim. Instead of an implacable king, and princes more or less\nrespectful and friendly, in the king he has now a friend, though a timid\nand ineffective one, while the new and inferior princes appear almost\nwholly against him. Formerly both priests and prophets had been his foes,\nbut now only the prophets are mentioned as such, and at least one priest\nis loyal to him.(482) Inwardly again, he has no more of those debates with\nGod and his own soul, which had rent him during the previous years; only\nonce does doubt escape from his lips in prayer.(483) Clearest of all, his\nhope has been released, and in contrast with his prophesying up to the\nsurrender of Jerusalem in 597, but in full agreement with his enduring\nfaith in God\u2019s Freedom and Patience,(484) he utters not a few predictions\nof a future upon their own land for both Israel and Judah. This greatest\nof the changes which appear is due partly to the fact that while the man\u2019s\nreluctant duty has been to pronounce the doom of exile upon his people,\nthat doom has been fulfilled, and his spirit, which never desired it,(485)\nis free to range beyond its shadows. To the clearness into which he rises\nhe is helped, under belief in the Divine Grace, by the truth obvious to\nall but fanatics that peace and order were possible for that shaken world\nonly through submission to Nebuchadrezzar\u2019s firm government, including as\nthis did a policy comparatively lenient to the Jewish exiles. But there\nwas another and stronger reason why Jeremiah should at last turn himself\nto a ministry of hope, however sternly he must continue to denounce the\nJews left in Jerusalem and Judah. The catastrophe of 597 largely separated\nthe better elements of the nation, which were swept into exile, from the\nworse which remained in the land.\n\nIt is this drastic sifting, ethically one of the most momentous events in\nthe history of Israel, with which Jeremiah\u2019s earliest Oracle under\n\u1e62edekiah is concerned, Ch. XXIV. Once more the Word of the Lord starts to\nhim from a vision, this time of two baskets, one of good the other of bad\nfigs, which the Lord, he says, _caused me to see_: a vision which I take\nto be as physical and actual as those of the almond-rod and the caldron\nupon his call, or of the potter at his wheel, though others interpret it\nas imaginative like the visions of Amos.(486) Note how easily again the\nProphet passes from verse to prose. The verse is slightly irregular. The\nstresses of the four couplets are these\u20143 + 3; 4 + 3; 4 + 3; 3 + 3\u2014to\nwhich the following version only approximates.\n\n\n    XXIV. 3. And the Lord said to me, What art thou seeing, Jeremiah?\n    And I said, Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad very bad,\n    which for their(487) badness cannot be eaten. 4. And the Word of\n    the Lord came unto me, [5] saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of\n    Israel\u2014\n\n    Like unto these good figs\n    I look on the exiles of Judah,\n    Whom away from this place I have sent\n    To the Chaldeans\u2019 land for (their) good.\n    For good will I fix Mine eye upon them,  6\n    And bring them back to this land,\n    And build them and not pull them down,\n    And plant them and not pluck up.\n\n    7. And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord,\n    and they shall be for a people unto Me, and I will be to them for\n    God, when they turn to me with all their heart. 8. But like the\n    bad figs which cannot be eaten for their(488) badness\u2014thus saith\n    the Lord\u2014so I give up \u1e62edekiah, king of Judah, and his princes and\n    the remnant of Jerusalem, the left in this land,(489) with them\n    that dwell in the land of Egypt.(490) 9. And I will set them for\n    consternation(491) to all kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a\n    proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I drive them.\n    And I will send among them the sword, the famine and the\n    pestilence, till they be consumed from off the ground which I gave\n    to them.(492)\n\n\nWe cannot overestimate the effect upon Jeremiah himself, and through him\nand Ezekiel upon the subsequent history of Israel\u2019s religion, of this\ndrastic separation in 597 of the exiles of Judah from the remnant left in\nthe land. After suffering for years the hopelessness of converting his\npeople, the Prophet at last saw an Israel of whom hope might be dared. It\nwas not their distance which lent enchantment to his view for he gives\nproof that he can descry the dross still among them, despite the furnace\nthrough which they have passed.(493) But the banished were without doubt\nthe best of the nation, and now they had \u201cdreed their weird,\u201d gone through\nthe fire, been lifted out of the habits and passions of the past, and\nchastened by banishment\u2014pensive and wistful as exile alone can bring men\nto be.\n\nWe also have come out of the Great War with the best of us gone, and feel\nthe contrast between their distant purity, _out of great tribulation_, and\nthe unworthiness of those who are left. But neither to Jeremiah nor to any\nof his time was such inspiration possible as we draw from our brave,\nself-sacrificing dead. No confidence then existed in a life beyond the\ngrave. Jeremiah himself can only _weep for the slain of his people_. His\nlast vision of them is of _corpses strewn on the field like sheaves left\nafter the reaper which nobody gathers_, barren of future harvests; and the\nlast word he has for them is, _they went forth and are not_.(494) But that\nseparated and distant Israel has for the Prophet something at least of\nwhat the cloud of witnesses by which we are encompassed means for us.\nThere was quality in them, quality purified by suffering and sacrifice,\nmore than enough to rally the conscience of the nation from which they had\nbeen torn. For the Prophet himself they released hope, they awoke the\nsense of a future, they revived the faith that God had still a will for\nHis people, and that by His patient Grace a pure Israel might be re-born.\n\nIf the vision of the Figs reveals the ethical grounds of Jeremiah\u2019s new\nhope for Israel, his Letter to the Exiles, XXIX. 1-23, discloses still\nanother ground on which that hope was based\u2014his clear and sane\nappreciation of the politics of his time. And it adds a pronouncement of\nprofound significance for the future of Israel\u2019s religion, that the sense\nof the presence of God, faith in His Providence and Grace, and prayer to\nHim were independent of Land and Temple.\n\nFrom the subsequent fortunes of the exiles we know what liberal treatment\nthey must have received from Nebuchadrezzar. They were settled by\nthemselves; they were not, as in Egypt of old, hindered from multiplying;\nthey were granted freedom to cultivate and to trade, by which many of them\ngradually rose to considerable influence among their captors. All this was\ngiven to Jeremiah to foresee and to impress upon the first exiles. But it\nmeant that their exile would be long.\n\nIt is proof of the change in the Prophet\u2019s position among his people(495)\nthat his Letter was carried to Babylon by two ambassadors from the King of\nJudah to Nebuchadrezzar, and evidently with the consent of \u1e62edekiah\nhimself. The text of the Letter and of its title, originally no doubt from\nBaruch\u2019s memoirs, has been considerably expanded, as is clear not only\nfrom the brevity of the Greek version, but from the superfluous formulas\nand premature insertions which the Hebrew and the Greek have in common.\nFollowing others I have taken verses 5-7 as metre; and if this is right we\nhave a fresh instance of Jeremiah\u2019s passing from metre to prose in the\nsame discourse. The metrical character of 5-7 is not certain. Its couplets\nrun on the following irregular scheme of stresses: 3 + 4, 2 + 3, 3 + 3, 3\n+ 2 (?), 3 + 4, 3 + 4\u2014the last line as so often in a strophe being a long\none.(496)\n\n\n    XXIX. 1. These are the words of the Letter which Jeremiah sent\n    from Jerusalem unto [the remnant of] the elders of the exiles, [3]\n    by the hand of Eleasah, son of Shaphan, and Gemariah, son of\n    Hil\u1e33iah, whom \u1e62edekiah, king of Judah, sent to Babylon unto the\n    king of Babylon saying, [4] Thus saith the Lord, the God of\n    Israel, unto the exiles whom I have exiled from Jerusalem:(497)\n\n    Build houses and settle ye down,  5\n    Plant gardens and eat of their fruit,\n    Take ye wives,  6\n    And beget sons and daughters.\n    Take wives to your sons,\n    Give your daughters to husbands,\n    To beget sons and daughters,(498)\n    And increase(499) and do not diminish.\n    And seek ye the peace of the land,(500)  7\n    To the which I have banished you,\n    And pray for it unto the Lord,\n    For in her peace your peace shall be.\n\n    8. [For thus saith the Lord, Let not the prophets in your midst\n    deceive you, nor your diviners, nor hearken to the dreams they (?)\n    dream. 9. For falsehood are they prophesying unto you in My Name;\n    I have not sent them.](501) 10. For thus saith the Lord, So soon\n    as seventy years be fulfilled for Babylon, I will visit you and\n    establish My Word toward you by bringing you(502) back to this\n    place.\n\n    For I am thinking about you\u2014  11\n      Rede of the Lord\u2014\n    Thoughts not of evil but peace\n      To give you a Future and Hope.\n    Ye shall pray Me, and I will hear you,  12\n      Seek Me and find;  13\n    If ye ask Me with all your heart\n      I shall be found of you.  14\n\n\nBy omitting all of verses 12-14 that is not given by the Greek we get\nthese eight lines in approximately Jeremiah\u2019s favourite Qinah-measure. The\nGreek also lacks verses 16-20, which irrelevantly digress from the exiles\nto the guilt and doom of the Jews in Jerusalem, and which it is difficult\nto think that Jeremiah would have put into a letter to be carried by two\nof these same Jews.(503) Verse 15 goes with 21-23,(504) a separate message\nto the exiles which we shall treat in the following section.\n\n\n\n\n2. Prophets and Prophets. (XXIII. 9-32, XXVII-XXIX, etc.)\n\n\nJeremiah\u2019s Letter to the Exiles had its consequences. _First_, there was\ntheir claim to have prophets of the Lord among themselves, which in our\ntext immediately follows the Letter as if part of it, XXIX. 15, 21-23, but\nwhich is probably of a somewhat later date.\n\n\n    XXIX. 15. Because ye have said, The Lord hath raised us up\n    prophets in Babylon, [21] thus saith the Lord concerning Ahab son\n    of Kolaiah and concerning \u1e62edekiah son of Maaseiah,(505) Behold I\n    am to give them into the hand of the king of Babylon and to your\n    eyes shall he slay them. 22. And of them shall a curse be taken up\n    by all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon saying, \u201cThe Lord\n    set thee like \u1e62edekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon\n    roasted(506) in the fire!\u201d 23. Because they have wrought folly in\n    Israel and committed adultery with their neighbours\u2019 wives, and in\n    My Name have spoken words which I commanded them not. I am He who\n    knoweth and am witness\u2014Rede of the Lord.\n\n\nAnd, _second_, another of the \u201cprophets\u201d among the exiles sent to\nJerusalem a protest against Jeremiah\u2019s Letter, XXIX. 24-29.\n\nThis passage, especially in its concise Greek form, which as usual is\ndevoid of the repetitions of titles and other redundant phrases in the\nHebrew text, bears the stamp of genuineness.\n\n\n    XXIX. 24. And unto Shemaiah the Nehemalite thou shalt say:(507)\n    25_b_. Because thou hast sent in thine own name a letter to\n    \u1e62ephaniah, son of Maaseiah, the priest,(508) saying, [26] The Lord\n    hath appointed thee priest, instead of Jehoiada the priest, to be\n    overseer in the House of the Lord for every man that is raving and\n    takes on himself to be a prophet, that thou shouldest put him in\n    the stocks and in the collar. 27. Now therefore why hast thou not\n    curbed Jeremiah of Anathoth, who takes on himself to prophesy unto\n    you? 28. Hath he not sent to us in Babylon saying, \u201cIt(509) is\n    long! Build ye houses and settle down, and plant gardens and eat\n    their fruit.\u201d 29. And \u1e62ephaniah read this letter in the ears of\n    Jeremiah; [30] and the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying,\n    [31] Send to the exiles saying: Thus saith the Lord concerning\n    Shemaiah the Nehemalite, Because Shemaiah hath prophesied unto\n    you, although I did not send him, and hath led you to trust in a\n    lie; [32] therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold I am about to\n    visit upon Shemaiah and upon his seed; there shall not be a man to\n    them in your midst to see the good which I am going to do\n    you.(510)\n\n\nIn one respect Jeremiah has not changed. His denunciation of individuals\nwho oppose the Word of the Lord by himself is as strong as ever, and still\nmore dramatically than in the case of Shemaiah it appears in his treatment\nof the prophets within Jerusalem, who flouted his counsels of subjection\nto Nebuchadrezzar, Chs. XXVII-XXVIII. In this narrative or narratives (for\nthe whole seems compounded of several, perhaps not all referring to the\nsame occasion) the differences between the Greek and Hebrew texts are even\nmore than usually great. The Greek again attracts our preference by its\nfreedom from superfluous titles, repetitions and redundances, and is\nprobably nearer than the Hebrew to the original of Baruch\u2019s Memoirs of the\nProphet. But it is obviously not complete, missing out clauses, the\npresence of which is implied by subsequent ones.(511) The following is the\nsubstance of what Baruch reports.\n\nIt was the fourth year of \u1e62edekiah, 593, when messengers from the\nneighbouring nations came to Jerusalem to intrigue under Egyptian\ninfluence for revolt against Babylon. Jeremiah was commanded to make a\nyoke of bars and thongs, and having put it on his neck to charge the\nmessengers to tell their masters\u2014\n\n\n    XXVII. 4. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: [5] I\n    have made the Earth by My great power and Mine outstretched arm,\n    and I give it unto whom it seems right to Me. 6. So now I have\n    given all these lands(512) into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar, king\n    of Babylon, to serve him,(513) and even the beasts of the field to\n    serve him. 8. And it shall be that the nation and kingdom, which\n    will not put their neck into the yoke of the king of Babylon, with\n    the sword and with the famine(514) shall I visit them\u2014Rede of the\n    Lord\u2014till they be consumed at his hand (?). 9. But ye, hearken ye\n    not to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your\n    dreamers,(515) nor to your soothsayers, nor to your sorcerers, who\n    say, \u201cYe shall not serve the king of Babylon\u201d; [10] for they\n    prophesy a lie unto you, to the result of removing you far from\n    your own soil. 11. But the nation which brings its neck into the\n    yoke of the king of Babylon and serves him, I will let it rest on\n    its own soil and it shall till this and abide within it.\n\n\nThis is followed by a similar Oracle to \u1e62edekiah himself, 12-15, and by\nanother, 16-22, to the priests concerning a matter of peculiar anxiety to\nthem.\n\n\n    16. Thus saith the Lord, Hearken ye not to the words of the(516)\n    prophets, who prophesy to you saying, Behold, the vessels of the\n    Lord\u2019s House shall be brought back from Babylon; for a lie are\n    they prophesying to you. I have not sent them.(517) 18. But if\n    prophets they be, and if the Word of the Lord is with them, let\n    them now plead with Me [that the vessels left in the House of the\n    Lord come not to Babylon]. 19. Yet thus saith the Lord concerning\n    the residue of the vessels, [20] which the king of Babylon did not\n    take when he carried Jeconiah into exile from Jerusalem, [22] unto\n    Babylon shall they be brought\u2014Rede of the Lord.\n\n\nThe Hebrew text concludes with a prophecy of the restoration of the\nvessels, which had it been in the original the Greek translators could\nhardly have omitted, and which is therefore probably a _post factum_\ninsertion. Not only, then, were the sacred vessels taken away in 597 to\nremain in Babylon, but such as were still left in Jerusalem would also be\ncarried thither. It is possible that this address is now out of place and\nshould follow the next chapter, XXVIII, which deals only with the vessels\ncarried off in 597. Like the Hebrew the Greek text gives XXVIII a separate\nintroduction which dates it in the fifth month of the fourth year of\n\u1e62edekiah, but omits the Hebrew statement that the year was the same as\nthat of the events and words recorded in XXVII. The extent of the\ndifferences between the Hebrew and Greek continues to be at least as great\nas before,(518) as a comparison will show between the Authorised Version\nand the following rendering which adheres to the Greek.\n\nJeremiah was still wearing his symbolic yoke of wood and thongs in the\nTemple, when his prediction that the sacred vessels would not be restored\nwas flatly contradicted and with as much assurance that the contradiction\nwas from the God of Israel, as Jeremiah\u2019s assurance about his own words.\nThe speaker was like himself from the country of Benjamin, from Gibeon\nnear Anathoth, Hananiah son of Azzur, who said\u2014\n\n\n    XXVIII. 2. Thus saith the Lord, I have broken(519) the yoke of the\n    king of Babylon! 3. Within two years I will bring back to this\n    place the vessels of the House of the Lord, [4] and Jeconiah and\n    all the exiles of Judah that went to Babylon; for I will break the\n    yoke of the king of Babylon. 5. Then said Jeremiah to Hananiah,\n    before the priests and all the people(520) standing in the House\n    of the Lord\u2014yes, [6] Jeremiah said,(521) Amen! The Lord do so! The\n    Lord establish the words thou hast prophesied, by bringing back\n    the vessels of the Lord\u2019s House and all the exiles from Babylon to\n    this place! 7. Only hear, I pray thee, the Word of the Lord which\n    I am about to speak in thine ears and in the ears of all the\n    people. 8. The prophets who have been before me and thee from of\n    old, they prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms\n    of war [and of famine (?) and pestilence].(522) 9. The prophet who\n    prophesies of peace (it is only) when the word(523) comes to pass\n    that the prophet is known(524) whom in truth the Lord hath sent.\n    10. Then Hananiah(525) took the bars off the neck of Jeremiah and\n    brake them. 11. And Hananiah spake before all the people saying:\n    Thus saith the Lord, Even so will I break the yoke of the king of\n    Babylon [within two years](526) from off the necks of all the\n    nations. And Jeremiah went his way. 12. Then came the Word of the\n    Lord to Jeremiah, after Hananiah had broken the bars from off his\n    neck, saying, [13] Go tell Hananiah, Thus saith the Lord: Thou\n    hast broken the bars of wood but I will(527) make in their stead\n    bars of iron. 14. For thus saith the Lord, An iron yoke have I put\n    upon the necks of all [these] nations, that they may serve the\n    king of Babylon. 15. And Jeremiah said to Hananiah,(528) The Lord\n    hath not sent thee, but thou leadest this people to trust in a\n    lie. 16. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I am about to\n    dispatch thee from off the face of the ground\u2014this year thou shalt\n    die. 17. And he was dead(529) by the seventh month.\n\n\nAll praise to Baruch for his concise and vivid report, and to the Greek\ntranslator who has reproduced it! The editors of the Hebrew text have\ndiluted its strength.\n\nWith this narrative we are bound to take the section of the Book entitled\n_Of the Prophets_, XXIII. 9-32. The text is in parts uncertain, and\nincludes obvious expansions. These removed, we can fairly distinguish a\ncontinuous metrical form up to 29, with the exception perhaps of 25-27.\nThe metre is sometimes irregular enough to raise the suggestion(530) that\nthe whole is rhetorical prose, between which and metre proper it is often\nhard, as we have seen, to draw the line. But we have also learned how\noften and how naturally irregular, when the subject requires it,\nJeremiah\u2019s metres tend to become. So I have ventured, with the help of the\nGreek, to render the whole as metre, in which form are parts beyond doubt.\nVerses 18 and 30-32 are in prose, and both, but more probably the former,\nmay be later additions, as are 19, 20, and clauses in 9, 10.\n\nThere is no reason against taking the remainder as Oracles by Jeremiah\nhimself. No dates are given them; they probably come from various stages\nof his ministry, for he early found out the false prophets, and his\nexperience of them and their errors lasted to the end. But probably this\ncollection of the Oracles was made under \u1e62edekiah; that Baruch gathered it\nstill later is not so likely.\n\n\n    Of the prophets:\u2014  XXIII. 9\n    Broken my heart within me,\n      All pithless my bones.\n    I\u2019m become like a drunken man\n      Like a wight overcome with wine.(531)\n    Of adulterers the land is full  10\n    Their course it is evil,(532)\n      Their might not right.\n    For prophet and priest alike  11\n      Are utterly godless.(533)\n    E\u2019en in My House their evil I find\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord.\n    Therefore their way shall they have  12\n      In slippery places,\n    Thrust shall they be into darkness(534)\n      And fall therein,\n    When I bring calamity on them,\n      The year of their visitation.\n    In Samaria\u2019s prophets I saw the unseemly,  13\n      By Baal they prophesied.(535)\n    In Jerusalem\u2019s prophets I see the horrible\u2014  14\n      Adultery, walking in lies.\n    They strengthen the hands of ill-doers,\n      That none from his wickedness turns.\n    To Me they are all like Sodom,\n      Like Gomorra her(536) dwellers!\n    Therefore thus saith the Lord:(537)  15\n    Behold, I will feed them with wormwood,\n      And drug them with poison.(538)\n    For forth from Jerusalem\u2019s prophets\n      Godlessness starts o\u2019er the land.\n    Thus saith the Lord of Hosts  16\n      Hearken not to the words of the prophets\n      They make them bubbles,(539)\n    A vision from their hearts they speak,\n      Not from the mouth of the Lord.\n    Saying to the scorners of His(540) Word  17\n      \u201cPeace shall be yours;\u201d\n    To all who follow their stubborn hearts\n      \u201cNo evil shall reach you!\u201d\n\n    18. [For who hath stood in the council of the Lord and hath seen\n    His Word? Who hath attended and heard?](541)\n\n    I have not sent the prophets,  21\n      Of themselves they run.\n    I have not spoken to them,\n      They do the prophesying.\n    If they had stood in My Council,  22\n      And heard My Words,\n    My people they would have been turning(542)\n      From(543) the wrong of their doings.\n    I am a God who is near  23\n      Not a God who is far.(544)\n    Can any man hide him in secret  24\n      And I not see him?\n    Is it not heaven and earth that I fill?\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord.\n    I have heard what the prophets say  25\n      Who preach in My Name,\n    Falsely saying, \u201cI have dreamed,\n      I have dreamed, I have dreamed.\u201d(545)\n    Will the heart of the prophets turn,(546)  26\n      Who prophesy lies?\n    And in their prophesying ... (?)(547)\n      The deceit of their heart,\n    Who plan that My people forget My Name(548)  27\n      Through the dreams they tell,\n    Just as their fathers forgot\n      My Name through Baal.\n    The prophet with whom is a dream  28\n      Let him tell his(549) dream;\n    But he with whom is My Word,\n      My Word let him speak in truth.\n    What has the straw with the wheat?(550)\n      \u2014Rede of the Lord\u2014\n    My Word, is it not(551) like fire  29\n      And the hammer that shatters the rock?\n\n    30. Therefore, Behold, I am against the prophets\u2014Rede of the\n    Lord\u2014who steal My Words each from his mate. 31. Behold, I am\n    against the prophets who fling out their tongues and rede a\n    Rede.(552) 32. Behold, I am against the prophets of false dreams\n    who tell them and lead My people astray by their falsehood and\n    extravagance(553)\u2014not I have sent them or charged them, nor of any\n    profit whatsoever are they to this people.(554)\n\n\nWe have now all the material available for judgment upon Jeremiah\u2019s\nlife-long controversy with the other prophets. His message and theirs were\ndiametrically opposite. But both he and they spoke in the name of the same\nGod, the God of their nation. Both were convinced that they had His Mind.\nBoth were sure that their respective predictions would be fulfilled. Each\nrepudiated the other\u2019s claim to speak in the name of their nation\u2019s God.\nWith each it was an affair of strong, personal convictions, which we may\ngrant, in the case of some at least of Jeremiah\u2019s opponents, to have been\nas honest as his. At first sight it may seem hopeless to analyse such\nequal assurances, based apparently on identical grounds, with the view of\ndiscovering psychological differences between them; and as if we must\nleave the issue to the course of events to which both parties confidently\nappealed. Even here the decision is not wholly in favour of the one as\nagainst the others. For Jeremiah\u2019s predictions in the Name of the Lord\nwere not always fulfilled as he had shaped them. The northern executioners\nof the Divine Judgment upon Judah were not the Scythians as he at first\nexpected; and\u2014a smaller matter\u2014Jehoiakim was not _buried with the burial\nof an ass, dragged and flung out from the gates of Jerusalem_, but _slept\nwith his fathers_.(555) Yet these are only exceptions. Jeremiah\u2019s\nprophesying was in substance vindicated by history, while the predictions\nof the other prophets were utterly belied. This is part of Jeremiah\u2019s\nmeaning when he says, _Of no profit whatsoever are they to this\npeople_.(556)\n\nWhat were the grounds of the undoubted difference? On penetrating the\nsimilar surfaces of Jeremiah\u2019s and the prophets\u2019 assurances we find two\ndeep distinctions between them\u2014one moral and one intellectual.\n\nWe take the moral first for it is the deeper. Both Jeremiah and the\nprophets based their predictions on convictions of the character of their\nGod. But while the prophets thought of Him and of His relations to Israel\nfrom the level of that tribal system of religion which prevailed\nthroughout their world, and upon that low level concluded that Yahweh of\nIsrael could not for any reason forsake His own people but must avert from\nthem every disaster however imminent; Jeremiah was compelled by his faith\nin the holiness and absolute justice of God to proclaim that, however\nclose and dear His age-long relations to Israel had been and however high\nHis designs for them, He was by His Nature bound to break from a\ngeneration which had spurned His Love and His Law and proved unworthy of\nHis designs, and to deliver them for the punishment of their sins into the\nhands of their enemies.(557) _What else can I do?_ Jeremiah hears God say.\nThe opposing prophets reply, _Not He!_ This is the ground of his charge\nagainst them, that they plan to make the _people forget the Name_, the\nrevealed Nature and Character, of God, just as _their fathers forgat Him\nthrough Baal_,(558) confusing His Nature with that of the lower, local\ngod.(559) This ethical difference between Jeremiah and the prophets is\nclear beyond doubt; it was profound and fundamental. There went with it of\ncourse the difference between their respective attitudes to the society of\ntheir time\u2014on the one side his acute conscience of the vices that\ncorrupted the people, on the other their careless temper towards those\nvices. They would _heal the hurt of the daughter of my people lightly_,\nsaying _it is well, it is well when well it is not_, and in their\nprophesying there was no call to repentance.(560) Moreover, though this\nmay not have been true of all of them, some both in Jerusalem and among\nthe exiles were _partakers of other men\u2019s sins_; for Jeremiah charges them\nwith the prevailing immoralities of the day\u2014adultery and untruth. Instead\nof turning Judah from her sins, they were the promoters of the godlessness\nthat spread through the land.(561) Though we have only Jeremiah\u2019s\u2014or\nBaruch\u2019s\u2014word for this, we know how natural it has ever been for the\nadherents, and for even some of the leaders, of a school devoid of the\nfundamental pieties to slide into open vice. Jeremiah\u2019s charges are\ntherefore not incredible.\n\nBut the grounds of the difference between Jeremiah and the other prophets\nwere also intellectual. Jeremiah had the right eye for events and\nthroughout he was true to it. Just as he tells us how the will of God was\nsometimes suggested to him by the sight of certain physical objects\u2014the\nalmond-blossom that broke the winter of Anathoth, the boiling caldron, or\nthe potter at his wheel\u2014so the sight of that in which the physical and\nspiritual mingled, the disposition and progress of the political forces of\nhis world, made clear to him the particular lines upon which the ethically\ncertain doom of Judah would arrive. He had the open eye for events and\nallowed neither that horror of his people\u2019s ruin, of which he tells us his\nheart was full, nor any other motive of patriotism, nor temptations to the\neasier life that had surely been his by flattery and the promise of peace\nto his contemporaries, to blind him to the clear and just reading of his\ntimes, to which God\u2019s Word and his faith in the Divine character had\nopened his vision. On the contrary the other prophets, to take them at\ntheir best, were blinded by their patriotism, blinded by it even after\nCarchemish and when the grasp of Babylon was sensibly closing upon\nJudah\u2014even after the first captivity and when the siege of Jerusalem could\nonly end in her downfall and destruction. Nothing proved sufficient to\nopen such eyes to the signs of the times.\n\nMaking allowance, then, for the fact that we depend for our knowledge of\nthe controversy upon the record of only one of the parties to it, and\nimputing to the other prophets the best possible, we are left with these\nresults: that as proved by events the truth was with Jeremiah\u2019s word and\nnot with that of his opponents, and that the causes of this were his\nprofoundly deeper ethical conceptions of God working in concert with his\nunwarped understanding of the political and military movements of his\ntime.\n\nTo this were allied other differences between Jeremiah and the prophets\nwho were against him.\n\nAlong with the priests they clung to tradition, to dogma, to things that\nhad been true and vital for past generations but were no longer so for\nthis one, which turned exhausted truths into fetishes. To all these he\nopposed _the Word of the Living God_, Who spoke to the times and freely\nacted according to the character and the needs of the present generation.\n\nAgain, the other prophets do not appear to have attached any conditions to\ntheir predictions; these they delivered as absolute and final. In\ncontrast, not merely were Jeremiah\u2019s prophecies conditional but the\nconditions were in harmony with their fundamentally moral spirit. His\ndoctrine of Predestination was (as we have seen) subject to faith in the\nFreedom of the Divine Sovereignty, and therefore up to the hopeless last\nhe repeated his calls to repentance, so that God might relent of the doom\nHe had decreed, and save His people and His land to each other.\n\nFurther, despite his natural outbursts of rage Jeremiah showed patience\nwith his opponents, the patience which is proof of the soundness of a\nman\u2019s own convictions. He believed in \u201cthe liberty of prophesying,\u201d\n\n\n    The prophet with whom is a dream\n      Let him tell his dream,\n    And he with whom is My Word,\n      My Word let him speak in truth!\n\n\nJeremiah had no fear of the issue being threshed out between them. The\nwheat would be surely cleared from the straw.(562) That is a confidence\nwhich attracts our trust. In the strength of it Jeremiah was enabled to\npause and reflect on the apparently equal confidence which he encountered\nin his opponents, and to give this every opportunity to prove itself to\nhim before he repeated his own convictions. I cannot think, as many do,\nthat his words to Hananiah were sarcastic; and when Hananiah broke the\nyoke on Jeremiah\u2019s shoulders, and it is said, _But Jeremiah went his way_,\nthis was not in contempt but to think out the issue between them.(563) Nor\ndo I feel sarcasm in his wish that his opponents\u2019 predictions of the\nreturn of the sacred vessels from Babylon might be fulfilled.(564) His\nbrave calm words to the prophets and priests who sought his life in the\nTemple in 604(565) bear similar testimony. All these are the marks of an\nhonest, patient and reflective mind which weighs opinions opposite to its\nown.\n\nFurther still, Jeremiah had to his credit that of which his opponents\nappear to have been devoid. As we have seen no prophet was less sure of\nhimself, or more reluctant to discharge the duties of a prophet.\nEverywhere he gives evidence of being impelled by a force not his own and\nagainst his will.(566) But the other prophets show no sign of this\naccrediting reluctance. They eagerly launch forth on their mission; _fling\nabout their tongues, and rede a Rede_ of the Lord.(567) They give no\nimpression of a force behind them. Jeremiah says that _they run of\nthemselves_ and _prophesy of themselves_, they have not been sent.(568) We\nstill keep in mind that we owe the accounts of them to Jeremiah and\nBaruch, their opponents. But our own experience of life enables us to\nrecognise the portraits presented to us, as of characters found in every\nage: pushful men, who have no doubts of their omniscience, but, however\npatriotic or religious or learned, leave upon their contemporaries no\nimpression of their being driven by another force than themselves, and\nwhose opinions either are belied by events, or melt into the air.\n\nOne point remains. In answering Hananiah Jeremiah adduced the example of\nthe acknowledged prophets of the past as being always prophets of doom, so\nthat the presumption was in favour of those who still preached doom; yet\nhe allowed that if any prophet promised peace, and peace came to pass, he\nalso might be known as genuine. That was sound history, and in the\ncircumstances of the day it was also sound sense.\n\n\n\n\n3. The Siege. (XXI, XXXII-XXXIV, XXXVII, XXXVIII.)\n\n\nHistory has no harder test for the character and doctrine of a great\nteacher than the siege of his city. Instances beyond the Bible are those\nof Archimedes in the siege of Syracuse, 212 B.C., Pope Innocent the First\nin that of Rome by Alaric, 417 A.D., and John Knox in that of St. Andrews\nby the French, 1547. A siege brings the prophet\u2019s feet as low as the feet\nof the crowd. He shares the dangers, the duties of defence, the last\ncrusts. His hunger, and, what is still keener, his pity for those who\nsuffer it with him, may break his faith into cowardice and superstition.\nBut if faith stands, and common-sense with it, his opportunities are high.\nHis powers of spiritual vision may prove to be also those of political and\neven of military foresight, and either inspire the besieged to a\nvictorious resistance, or compel himself, alone in a cityful of fanatics,\nto counsel surrender. A siege can turn a prophet or quiet thinker into a\nhero.\n\nThe Old Testament gives us three instances\u2014Elisha\u2019s brave visions during\nthe Syrian blockade of Dothan and siege of Samaria; Isaiah, upon the\nsolitary strength of his faith, carrying Jerusalem inviolate through her\nsiege by the Assyrians; and now a century later Jeremiah, with a more\ncostly courage, counselling her surrender to the Babylonians.\n\nThe records of the Prophet\u2019s activity and sufferings during the siege are\nso curiously scattered through the Book and furnished with such headlines\nas to leave it clear that they were added at different times and possibly\nfrom different sources. Some of them raise the question whether or not\nthey are doublets.\n\nThree, XXI. 1-10, XXXIV. 1-7, XXXVII. 3-10, bear pronouncements by\nJeremiah that the city must surrender or be stormed and burned. Of these\nthe first and third each gives as the occasion of the pronouncement it\nquotes, \u1e62edekiah\u2019s mission of two men to the Prophet. Several critics\nregard these missions as identical. But can we doubt that during that\ncrisis of two years the distracted king would send more than once for a\nDivine word? And for this what moments were so natural as when the\nChaldeans were beginning the siege, XXI. 4, and when they raised it,\nXXXVII. 5? That one of the two messengers is on each occasion the same\naffords an inadequate reason\u2014and no other exists\u2014for arguing that both\npassages are but differently telling the same story.(569) Nor have any\ngrounds been offered for identifying the occasion of either passage with\nthat of XXXIV. 1-7. Thus we have three separate deliverances from Jeremiah\nto the king, each with its own vivid phrases and distinctive edge.\n\nThe first, XXI 1-10, was given as the Chaldeans closed upon Jerusalem but\nthe Jews were not yet driven within the walls.(570) \u1e62edekiah sent Pash\u1e25ur\nand \u1e62ephaniah to inquire if by a miracle the Lord would raise the siege.\nThe grim answer came that the Lord Himself would fight the besieged, till\nthey died of pestilence and the survivors were slaughtered by\nNebuchadrezzar\u2014_I_(_571_)_ shall not spare nor pity them_\u2014which is proof\nthat this Oracle was uttered before the end of the siege, when the\nsurvivors were not slain but deported. The people are advised to desert to\nthe enemy\u2014counsel which we shall consider later.\n\nThe second, XXXIV. 1-7, records a pronouncement unsought by the king but\nevoked from Jeremiah by the progress of the Chaldean arms, which had\noverrun all Judah save the fortresses of Jerusalem, Lachish and Azekah.\nIts vivid genuineness is further certified by its unfulfilled promise of a\npeaceful death for \u1e62edekiah. The following is mainly after the Greek.\n\n\n    XXXIV. 2_b_. Thus saith the Lord: This city shall certainly be\n    given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it\n    and burn it with fire. 3. And thou shalt not escape but surely be\n    taken and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall look into\n    his eyes, and his mouth speak with thy mouth,(572) and to Babylon\n    shalt thou come. 4. Yet hear the Lord\u2019s Word, O \u1e62edekiah, king of\n    Judah! 5. Thus saith the Lord,(573) In peace shalt thou die, and\n    as the burnings(574) for thy fathers who reigned before thee so\n    shall they burn for thee, and with \u201cAh lord!\u201d lament thee. I have\n    spoken the Word\u2014Rede of the Lord.\n\n\nThe miserable king, how much worse was in store for him than even Jeremiah\nwas given to foresee! Duhm (to our surprise, as Cornill remarks) agrees\nthat the passage is from Baruch; but only in order to support the\nprecarious thesis that Baruch knew nothing of \u1e62edekiah\u2019s being afterwards\nblinded and that the reports of this(575) sprang from unfounded rumour.\n\nThe third pronouncement to \u1e62edekiah, XXXVII. 3-10,(576) was made when the\nking sent Jehucal and \u1e62ephaniah to seek the Prophet\u2019s prayers, after the\nChaldeans had raised the siege in order to meet the reported Egyptian\nadvance to the relief of Jerusalem.\n\n\n    XXXVII. 7. Thus saith the Lord: Thus say ye to the king of Judah\n    who sent you to inquire of Me,(577) Behold, Pharaoh\u2019s army, which\n    is coming forth to help you, shall return to the land of Egypt. 8.\n    And the Chaldeans shall come back and fight against this city and\n    take it and burn it with fire. 9. For(578) thus saith the Lord:\n    Deceive not yourselves saying, The Chaldeans shall surely go off\n    from us; they shall not go. 10. Even though ye smote the whole\n    host of the Chaldeans that are fighting with you, and but wounded\n    men were left, yet should these rise, each in his tent,(579) and\n    burn this city with fire.\n\n\nIt is very remarkable how the spiritual powers of the Prophet endowed him\nwith these sound views of the facts of his time, and of their\neventualities whether in the political or in the military sphere. For\nnearly forty years he had foretold judgment on his people out of the\nNorth: for eighteen at least he had been sure that its instrument would be\nNebuchadrezzar and he had foreseen the first deportation of the Jews to\nBabylonia. Now step by step through the siege he is clear as to what must\nhappen\u2014clear that the Chaldeans will invest the city, clear when they\nraise the investment that they will beat off the Egyptian army of relief\nand return, clear that resistance to them is hopeless, and will but add\nthousands of deaths by famine and pestilence before the city is taken and\nburned and its survivors carried into exile\u2014all of which comes to pass.\nBut this political sagacity and military foresight have their source in\nmoral and spiritual convictions\u2014the Prophet\u2019s assurance of the character\nand will of God, his faith in the Divine Government not of a single nation\nbut of all the powers of the world, and his belief that a people is saved\nand will endure for the service of mankind, neither because of past\nprivileges nor by the traditions in which it trusts, nor by adherence to\ndogmas however vital these have been to its fathers, nor even by its\npassionate patriotism and its stubborn gallantry in defence of land and\nhomes, but only by its justice, its purity, and its obedience to God\u2019s\nwill. These are the spiritual convictions which alone keep the Prophet\u2019s\neyes open and his heart steadfast through the fluctuations of policy and\nof military fortune that shake his world, and under the agony of appearing\nto be a traitor to his country and of preaching the doom of a people whom\nhe loves with all his soul.\n\nThe case of John Knox affords a parallel to that of the Hebrew prophet. He\ntold the garrison and citizens of St. Andrews, when besieged by the\nFrench, that \u201ctheir corrupt life could not escape punishment of God and\nthat was his continued advertisement from the time he was called to\npreach\u201d among them. \u201cWhen they triumphed of their victory (the first\ntwenty days they had many prosperous chances) he lamented and ever said\n\u2018They saw not what he saw!\u2019 When they bragged of the force and thickness\nof their walls, he said, \u2018They should be but egg-shells!\u2019 When they\nvaunted \u2018England will rescue us!\u2019 he said, \u2018Ye shall not see them, but ye\nshall be delivered into your enemies\u2019 hands and shall be carried to a\nstrange country!\u2019 \u201d that is France. All of which came to pass, as with\nJeremiah\u2019s main predictions.(580)\n\nThe second of Jeremiah\u2019s pronouncements given above is followed by the\nstory of the besieged\u2019s despicable treatment of their slaves, XXXIV. 8-22;\nbased on a memoir by Baruch, but expanded. Both the Hebrew and the shorter\nGreek offer in parts an uncertain text, and add this problem that their\nstory begins with a covenant to _proclaim a Liberty_(581) for the Hebrew\nslaves in general, while the words which they attribute to Jeremiah limit\nit to the emancipation, in terms of a particular law, of those slaves who\nhad completed six years of service (verse 14).(582) But neither this nor\nthe other and smaller uncertainties touch the substance of the story.(583)\nAs the siege began the king and other masters of slaves in Jerusalem\nentered into solemn covenant to free their Hebrew slaves, obviously in\norder to propitiate their God, and also some would assert (though\nunsupported by the text) in order to increase their fighting ranks; but\nwhen the siege was raised they forced their freedmen back to bondage: \u201ca\ndeathbed repentance with the usual sequel on recovery.\u201d(584) This is the\nbarest exposure among many we have of the character of the people with\nwhom Jeremiah had to deal, and justifies the hardest he has said of their\nshamelessness.\n\n\n    XXXIV. 17. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Ye have not obeyed Me by\n    proclaiming a Liberty each for his countryman. Behold I am about\n    to proclaim for you a Liberty\u2014to the sword, to the famine and to\n    the pestilence, and I will set you a consternation to all kingdoms\n    of the earth.... 21. And \u1e62edekiah, king of Judah, and his princes\n    will I give into the hands of their foes, the king of Babylon\u2019s\n    host that are gone up from you. 22. Behold, I am about to\n    command\u2014Rede of the Lord\u2014and bring them back to this city and they\n    shall storm and take it and burn it with fire, and the townships\n    of Judah will I make desolate and tenantless.\n\n\nAre we not in danger of the guilt of a similar perjury to the men who\nfought for us in the Great War, and for whom we have not yet fulfilled all\nthe promises made to them by our governors?\n\nAbout this time the ill-treatment of Jeremiah, which had ceased on\n\u1e62edekiah\u2019s accession, was resumed. The narrative, or succession of\nnarratives, of this begins at XXXVII. 11, and continues to XXXIX. 14, with\ninterruptions in XXXIX. 1, 2, 4-13. Save for a few expansions, the whole\nmust have been taken from Baruch\u2019s memoirs. Except for the omission of\nXXXIX. 4-13, the differences of the Greek from the Hebrew are unimportant,\nconsisting in the usual absence of repetitions of titles, epithets and\nnames.\n\nThe siege being raised, Jeremiah was going out by the North gate of the\ncity to Anathoth to claim or to manage(585) some property there, when he\nwas arrested by the captain of the watch, and charged with deserting. He\ndenied this, but was taken to the princes, who flogged him and flung him\ninto a vault in the house of Jonathan, the Secretary. After many days he\nwas sent for by the king who asked, _Is there Word from the Lord?_ _There\nis_, he replied, and, as if drumming a lesson into a stupid child\u2019s head,\nrepeated his message, _Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the King\nof Babylon_. He asked what he had done to be treated as he had been, and,\nby contrast, where were the prophets who had said that the Babylonians\nwould not come to Judah\u2014his irony was not yet starved out of him!\u2014and\nbegged not to be sent back to the vault. The king committed him to the\nCourt of the Guard, where at least he was above ground, could receive\nvisitors, and was granted daily a loaf from the Bakers\u2019 Bazaar while bread\nlasted in the city.(586)\n\nYet through his bars he still defied his foes and they were at him again,\nquoting to the king two Oracles which he had uttered before and apparently\nwas repeating to those who resorted to him in the Guard-Court.\n\n\n    XXXVIII. 1. And Shephatiah, Mattan\u2019s son, Gedaliah Pash\u1e25ur\u2019s son,\n    Jucal Shelamiah\u2019s son, and Pash\u1e25ur Malchiah\u2019s son,(587) heard the\n    words Jeremiah was speaking about the people:(588) [2] \u201cThus saith\n    the Lord, He that abides in this city shall die by the sword, the\n    famine or the pestilence, but he that goes forth to the Chaldeans\n    shall live\u2014his life shall be to him for a prey but he shall\n    live.\u201d(589) 3. \u201cThus(590) saith the Lord: This city shall surely\n    be given into the hand of the king of Babylon\u2019s host and they\n    shall take it.\u201d\n\n\nVerse 2 is rejected by Duhm and Cornill partly on the insufficient ground\nthat verses 2 and 3 have separate introductions and therefore could have\nhad originally no connection. But in quoting two utterances of the Prophet\nfor their cumulative effect it was natural to prefix to each his usual\nformula. Duhm\u2019s and Cornill\u2019s real motive, however, is their repugnance to\nadmitting that Jeremiah could have advised desertion from the city. So\nDuhm equally rejects XXI. 9, of which XXXVIII. 2 is but an abbreviation;\nwhile Cornill seeks to save XXI. 9 by reading it as a summons to the\n_whole_ people to surrender and so distinguishes it from XXXVIII. 2,\nadvice _to individuals_ to desert. I fail to follow this distinction. The\nterms used are as individual in the one verse as in the other; if the one\ngoes the other must also. But need either go? Duhm\u2019s view is that both are\nfrom a later period, when there was no longer a native government in\nJudah, reverence for the monarchy was dead, and the common conscience of\nJewry was not civic but ecclesiastical! This is ingenious, but far from\nconvincing. There are no grounds either for denying these verses to\nJeremiah, or for reading his advice _to go forth to the Chaldeans_ as\nmeant otherwise than for the individual citizens.\n\nWas such advice right or wrong? The question is much debated. The two\nGerman scholars just quoted find it so wrong that they cannot think of it\nas Jeremiah\u2019s. But in that situation and under the convictions which held\nhim, the Prophet could not have spoken differently. He knew, and soundly\nknew, not only that the city was doomed and that her rulers who persisted\nin defending her were senseless, if gallant, fanatics, but also that they\nhad forfeited their technical legitimacy. To talk to-day of duty, civil or\nmilitary, to such a perjured Government does not even deserve to be called\nconstitutional pedantry, for it has not a splinter of constitutionalism to\nsupport it. \u1e62edekiah held his vassal throne only by his oath to his\nsuzerain of Babylon and when he broke that oath his legitimacy\ncrumbled.(591) Of right Divine or human there was none in a government so\nforsworn and self-disentitled, besides being so insane, as that of the\nfeeble king and his frantic masters, the princes. For Jeremiah the only\nDivine right was Nebuchadrezzar\u2019s. But to the conviction that \u1e62edekiah and\nthe princes were not the lawful lords of Judah, we must add the pity of\nthe Prophet as he foresaw the men, women and children of his people done\nto useless death by the cruel illusions of their illegitimate governors.\nCalvin is right, when, after a careful reservation of the duties of\nprivate citizens to their government at war, he pronounces that \u201cJeremiah\ncould not have brought better counsel\u201d to the civilians and soldiers of\nJerusalem.(592) And it is no paradox to say that the Prophet\u2019s sincerity\nin giving such advice is sealed by his heroic refusal to accept it for\nhimself and resolution to share to the end what sufferings the obstinacy\nof her lords was to bring on the city. Nor, be it observed, did he bribe\nhis fellow citizens to desert to the enemy by any rich promise. He plainly\ntold them that this would leave a man nothing but bare life\u2014_his life for\na prey_.\n\nIt would, however, be most irrelevant to deduce from so peculiar a\nsituation, and from the Divine counsels applicable to this alone, any\nsanction for \u201cpacificism\u201d in general, or to set up Jeremiah as an example\nof the duty of deserting one\u2019s government when at war, in all\ncircumstances and whatever were the issues at stake. We might as well\naffirm that the example of the man, who rouses his family to flee when he\nfinds their home hopelessly on fire, is valid for him whose house is\nthreatened by burglars. Isaiah inspired resistance to the Assyrian\nbesiegers of Jerusalem in his day with as Divine authority as Jeremiah\ndenounced resistance to the Chaldean besiegers in his. Nor can we doubt\nthat our Prophet would have appreciated the just, the inevitable revolt of\nthe Maccabees against their pagan tyrants, which is divinely praised in\nthe Epistle to the Hebrews as a high example of faith. It is one thing to\ndeny allegiance, as Jeremiah did, to a government that had broken the oath\non which alone its rights were founded, and the keeping of which was the\nsole security for \u201cthe stability of the times.\u201d It is another and very\ndifferent thing to refuse, on alleged grounds of conscience, to follow\none\u2019s government when it lifts the sword against a people who have broken\n_their_ oath, and mobilises its subjects in defence of justice and of the\nfreedom of weaker nations, imperilled by that perjury.\n\nBut the princes seem to have honestly believed that Jeremiah was guilty of\ntreason, and said to the king\u2014\n\n\n    XXXVIII. 4. Let this man, we pray, be put to death forasmuch as he\n    weakens the hands of the men of war left to the city and the hands\n    of all the people by speaking such words to them, for this man is\n    seeking not the welfare of this people but the hurt. 5. And the\n    king said, Behold he is in your hand; for the king was not able to\n    do anything against them.(593) 6. So they took Jeremiah and cast\n    him into the cistern of Malchiah the king\u2019s son, in the Court of\n    the Guard; and they let down Jeremiah with cords. In the cistern\n    there was no water, only mire, and Jeremiah sank in the mire.\n\n\nThe story which follows is one of the fairest in the Old Testament,\nXXXVIII. 7-13.(594) When no others seem to have stirred to rescue the\nProphet\u2014unless Baruch had a hand in what he tells and is\ncharacteristically silent about it\u2014Ebed-melech, a negro eunuch of the\npalace, sought the king where he then was(595) and charged the princes\nwith starving Jeremiah to death.(596) The king at once ordered him to take\nthree(597) men and rescue the Prophet. The thoughtful negro, perhaps\nprompted by the women of the palace, procured some rags and old clouts\nfrom a lumber room, told Jeremiah to put them under his arm-pits to soften\nthe roughness of the ropes, and so drew him gently from the mire and he\nwas restored to the Guard-Court. Ebed-melech had his reward in the Lord\u2019s\npromise to save him from the men whom he had made his foes by his brave\nrescue of their prey.(598)\n\nOnce more, as we might expect, the restless king sent for Jeremiah.(599)\nShaken by his terrible experiences the Prophet, before he would answer,\nasked if the king would put him to death for his answer or act on his\nadvice. The king swore not to hand him over to the princes; so Jeremiah\npromised that if \u1e62edekiah would give himself up to the Chaldeans he and\nhis house would be spared and the city saved. The king\u2014it is another\ncredible trait in this weak character\u2014feared that the Chaldeans would\ndeliver him to the mockery of those Jews who had already deserted to them.\nJeremiah sought to reassure him, again urged him to surrender, and then\nburst out with the vision\u2014an extraordinarily interesting phase of\nprophetic ecstasy\u2014of another mockery which the king would suffer from his\nown women if he did not yield but waited to be taken captive.\n\n\n    XXXVIII. 21. But if thou refuse to go forth this is the thing the\n    Lord has given me to see: 22. Behold all the women, that are left\n    in the king of Judah\u2019s house,(600) brought forth to the princes of\n    the king of Babylon and saying,\n\n    They set thee on and compelled thee,\n      The men of thy peace;\n    Now they have plunged thy feet in the swam\n      They turn back from thee!(601)\n\n\nThe verse is in Jeremiah\u2019s favourite measure, and its figures spring\nimmediately from his experience. The mire can hardly have dried on him,\ninto which he had been dropped, but at least his friends had pulled him\nout of it; the king had been forced into far deeper mire by his own\ncounsellors, and they were leaving him in it!\n\nThe nervous king jibbed from the vision without remark and begged Jeremiah\nnot to tell what had passed between them, but, if asked, to say that he\nhad been supplicating \u1e62edekiah not to send him back to the house of\nJonathan; which answer the Prophet obediently gave to the inquisitive\nprinces and so quieted them: _the matter was not perceived_. He has been\nblamed for prevaricating. On this point Calvin is as usual candid and\nsane. \u201cIt was indeed not a falsehood, but this evasion cannot wholly be\nexcused. The Prophet had an honest fear; he was perplexed and anxious\u2014it\nwould be better to die at once than be thus buried alive in the earth....\nYet it was a kind of falsehood. He confesses that he did as the king\ncharged him and there is no doubt that he had before him the king\u2019s\ntimidity.... He cannot be wholly exempted from blame. In short, we see how\neven the servants of God have spoken evasively when under extreme fear.\u201d\nThe prophets were _men of like passions with ourselves_. By now Jeremiah\nhad aged, and was strained by the flogging, the darkness, the filth and\nthe hunger he had suffered. Can we wonder at or blame him? But with what\nauthenticity does its frankness stamp the whole story!\n\nWith most commentators I have treated Ch. XXXVIII as the account of a\nfresh arrest of Jeremiah and a fresh interview between him and \u1e62edekiah. I\nsee, however, that Dr. Skinner takes the whole chapter to be \u201ca\nduplication.\u201d(602) He considers it a general improbability that two such\ninterviews, as XXXVII. 17-21 and XXXVIII. 14-27 relate, \u201cshould have taken\nplace in similar circumstances within so short a time.\u201d Yet the king was\njust the man to appeal to the Prophet time after time during the siege.\nThe similarities in the two stories are natural because circumstances were\nmore or less similar at the various stages of such a siege; but the\ndifferences are more significant. The vivid details of XXXVIII attest it\nas the account of an event and of sayings subsequent to those related in\nXXXVII. The Prophet\u2019s precaution, before he would answer, in getting a\npledge that he would not be put to death nor handed over to the princes,\nas he had already been, and his consent for \u1e62edekiah\u2019s sake, as well as\nfor his own, to prevaricate to the princes are features not found in the\nother reports of such interviews, but intelligible and natural after the\nterrible treatment he had suffered. Dr. Skinner, too, admits that the two\naccounts may be read as of different experiences of the Prophet, \u201cif we\ncan suppose that the offence with which he is charged in XXXVIII. 1 ff.\ncould have been committed while he was a prisoner in the court of the\nguard;\u201d but this appears to Dr. Skinner as \u201chardly credible.\u201d Yet the\nincidents related in XXXII. 6-15 show not only that it is credible but\nthat it actually happened. In the East such imprisonment does not prevent\na prisoner, though shackled, from communicating with his friends and even\nwith the gaping crowd outside his bars, as I have seen more than once.\n\nIn the Court of the Guard Jeremiah remained till the city was taken.(603)\nHe regained communication with his friends; and it is not surprising to\nhave as from this time several sayings by him, or to discover from them\nthat his heart, no longer confined to reiterating the certain doom of the\ncity, was once more released to the hope of a future for his people, hope\nacross which the shadow of doubt appears to have fallen but once. His\nguard-court prophecies form part of that separate collection, Chs.\nXXX-XXXIII, to which the name The Book of Hope has been fitly given. Of\nthese chapters XXX and XXXI, without date, imply that the city has already\nfallen and the exile of her people is complete. But XXXII and XXXIII are\nassigned to the last year of the siege and to the Prophet\u2019s confinement to\nthe guard-court. There is now general agreement that XXXII. 1-5 (or at\nleast 3-5) are from a later hand, which correctly dates the story it\nintroduces but attributes Jeremiah\u2019s imprisonment to \u1e62edekiah instead of\nto the princes, and even seems to confound \u1e62edekiah with Jehoiachin; and\n_second_ that the story itself, of a transaction between Jeremiah and his\ncousin regarding some family property, is genuine, dictated by the Prophet\nto Baruch before or after the end of the siege. Some reject as later all\nthe rest of the chapter: a long prayer by Jeremiah and the Lord\u2019s answer\nto it, both of which are full of deuteronomic phrases. Yet that an editor\nshould have made so large an addition to the book without genuine material\nto work from is hardly credible; while it is characteristic of Jeremiah to\nhave fallen into the doubt his prayer reveals, and this doubt would\nnaturally be followed by a Divine answer. But such original elements it is\nnot possible to discriminate exactly from the expansions by which they\nhave been overlaid.(604)\n\n\n    XXXII. 6. And Jeremiah said, The Word of the Lord came to me\n    saying, [7] Behold, Hanamel son of Shallum thine uncle is coming\n    to thee to say, Buy thee my field in Anathoth, for thine is the\n    right of redemption to buy it. 8. And Hanamel son of my uncle came\n    to me in the guard-court and said, Buy my field that is Anathoth,\n    for the right of inheritance is thine and thine the redemption;\n    buy it for thyself. Then I knew that it was the Lord\u2019s Word. 9. So\n    I bought the field from Hanamel mine uncle\u2019s son and weighed to\n    him seventeen silver shekels. 10. And I subscribed the deed and\n    sealed it and took witnesses, weighing the money in the balances.\n    11. And I took the deed of sale, both that which was sealed and\n    that which was open,(605) [12] and I gave it to Baruch son of\n    Neriah, son of Ma\u1e25seiah, in the sight of Hanamel mine uncle\u2019s son,\n    and in sight of the Jews sitting in the guard-court. 13. And in\n    their sight I charged Baruch, saying, [14] Thus saith the Lord of\n    Hosts: Take this deed of sale which is sealed, and this deed which\n    is open, and put them in an earthen vessel that they may last many\n    days. 15. For thus saith the Lord, Houses and fields and vineyards\n    shall yet again be bought in this land. 16. Now after I had given\n    the deed of sale to Baruch, Neriah\u2019s son, I prayed to the Lord\n    saying, Ah Lord ... (?) [24] behold the mounts; they are come to\n    the city to take it, and the city shall be given into the hands of\n    the Chaldeans who are fighting against it, because of the sword\n    and the famine and the pestilence; and what Thou hast spoken is\n    come to pass, and, lo, Thou art seeing it. 25. Yet Thou saidst to\n    me, Buy thee the field for money, so I wrote the deed and sealed\n    it and took witnesses\u2014whereas the city is to be given into the\n    hands of the Chaldeans!\n\n\nThe tone of the expostulating Jeremiah is here unmistakable; and (as I\nhave said) a Divine answer to his expostulations must have been given him,\nthough now perhaps irrecoverable from among the expansions which it has\nundergone, verses 26-44. Two things are of interest: the practical\ncarefulness of this great idealist, and the fact that the material basis\nof his hope for his country\u2019s freedom and prosperity was his own right to\na bit of property in land. Let those observe, who deny to such individual\nrights any communal interest or advantage. Jeremiah at least proves how a\nsmall property of his own may help a prophet in his hope for his country\nand people.\n\nAll this is followed in Ch. XXXIII by a series of oracles under the\nheading _The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time while he was\nstill shut up in the guard-court_. Because verses 14-26 are lacking in the\nGreek and could not have been omitted by the translator had they been in\nthe original text, and because they are composed partly of mere echoes of\nJeremiah and partly of promises for the Monarchy and Priesthood not\nconsonant with his views of the institutions of Israel, they are very\ngenerally rejected. So are 2 and 3 because of their doubtful relevance and\ntheir style, that of the great prophet of the end of the Exile. The\noriginality of 1 and 4-13 has also been denied. The question is difficult.\nBut there is no reason to doubt that the editor had good material for the\ndata in 1, or that under the Hebrew text, which as it stands in 4, 5 is\nimpossible(606) and throughout 6-13 has been much expanded, there is\nsomething of Jeremiah\u2019s own. Verses 4 and 5 reflect the siege in progress,\nthough if the date in verse 1 be correct we must take _torn down_ as\nfuture. In 6-13 are promises of the restoration of the ruined city, of\npeace and stability, of the return of the exiles both of Judah and Israel\nand of their forgiveness; Jerusalem shall again be a joy, and the voices\nof joy, of the bridegroom and bride, and of worship in the Temple, shall\nagain be heard; shepherds and their flocks shall be restored throughout\nJudah and the Negeb. It would be daring to deny to the Prophet the whole\nof this prospect. The city was about to be ruined, its houses filled with\ndead; the land had already been ravaged. His office of doom was\ndischarged; it is not unnatural to believe that his great soul broke out\nwith a vision of the hope beyond for which he had taken so practical a\npledge. That is all we can say; some of the details of the prospect can\nhardly be his.(607)\n\nJerusalem fell at last in 586 and Jeremiah\u2019s imprisonment in the\nguard-court was over.(608)\n\n\n\n\n4. And After. (XXX, XXXI, XXXIX-XLIV.)\n\n\nThere are two separated accounts of what befel Jeremiah when the city was\ntaken. Ch. XXXIX. 3, 14 tells us that he was fetched from the guard-court\nby Babylonian officers,(609) and given to Gedaliah, the son of his old\nbefriender Ahikam, _to be taken home_.(610) At last!\u2014but for only a brief\ninterval in the life of this homeless and harried man. When a few months\nlater Nebu\u1e63aradan arrived on his mission to burn the city and deport the\ninhabitants Jeremiah is said by Ch. XL to have been carried off in chains\nwith the rest of the captivity as far as Ramah, where, probably on\nGedaliah\u2019s motion, Nebu\u1e63aradan released him and he joined Gedaliah at\nMi\u1e63pah.(611)\n\nIt is unfortunate that we take our impressions of Nebuchadrezzar from the\nlate Book of Daniel instead of from the contemporary accounts of his\npolicy by Jeremiah, Baruch and Ezekiel. A proof of his wisdom and clemency\nis here. While deporting a second multitude to Babylonia in the interests\nof peace and order, he placed Judah under a native governor and chose for\nthe post a Jew of high family traditions and personal character. All\nhonour to Gedaliah for accepting so difficult and dangerous a task! He\nattracted those Jewish captains and their bands who during the siege had\nmaintained themselves in the country,(612) and advised them to acknowledge\nthe Chaldean power and to cultivate their lands, which that year\nfortunately produced excellent crops. At last there was peace, and the\nlike-minded Governor and Prophet must together have looked forward to\norganising in Judah the nucleus at least of a restored Israel.\n\nTo this quiet interval, brief as it tragically proved, we may reasonably\nassign those Oracles of Hope which it is possible to recognise as\nJeremiah\u2019s among the series attributed to him in Chs. XXX, XXXI. No\nchapters of the book have been more keenly discussed or variously\nestimated.(613) Yet at least there is agreement that their compilation is\ndue to a late editor who has arranged his materials progressively so that\nthe whole is a unity;(614) that many of these materials are obviously from\nthe end of the exile in the style then prevailing; but that among them are\ngenuine Oracles of Jeremiah recognisable by their style. These are\nadmitted as his by the most drastic of critics. It is indeed incredible\nthat after such a crisis as the destruction of the Holy City and the exile\nof her people, and with the new situation and prospect of Israel before\nhim, the Prophet should have had nothing to say. And the most probable\ndate for such utterances of hope as we have now to consider is not that of\nhis imprisonment but the breathing-space given him after 586, when the\nJewish community left in Judah made such a promising start.(615)\n\nFrom its measure and vivid vision the first piece might well be\nJeremiah\u2019s; but it uses Jacob, the later literature\u2019s favourite name for\nIsrael, which Jeremiah does not use, and (in the last two verses) some\nphrases with an outlook reminiscent of the Second Isaiah. The verses\ndescribe a day when the world shall again be shaken, but out of the\nshaking Israel\u2019s deliverance shall come.\n\n\n    [The sound of trembling we hear,  XXX. 5\n      Dread without peace.\n    Enquire now and look ye,  6\n      If men be bearing?\n    Why then do I see every man(616)\n      With his hands on his loins?\n    All faces are changed, and\n      Livid become.(617)\n    For great is that day,  7\n      None is there like it,\n    With a time of trouble for Jacob.\n      Yet out of it saved shall he be.\n    It shall come to pass on that day\u2014  8\n      Rede of the Lord\u2014\n    I will break their(618) yoke from their(619) neck,\n      Their(620) thongs I will burst;\n    And strangers no more shall they serve,(621)\n      But serve the Lord their God,  9\n      And David their king,\n    Whom I will raise up for them.]\n\n\nThe next piece is more probably Jeremiah\u2019s, as even Duhm admits; verses 10\nand 11 which precede it are not given in the Greek.\n\n\n    Healless to me is thy ruin,  12\n      Sick is thy wound,\n    Not for thy sore is remede,  13\n      No closing (of wounds) for thee!\n    Forgot thee have all thy lovers,  14\n      Thee they seek not.\n    With the stroke of a foe I have struck thee,\n      A cruel correction.\n    Why criest thou over thy ruin,  15\n      Thy healless pain?\n    For the mass of thy guilt, thy sins profuse\n      Have I done to thee these.\n\n\nIf these Q\u00eenah quatrains are not Jeremiah\u2019s, some one else could match him\nto the letter and the very breath. They would fall fitly from his lips\nimmediately upon the fulfilment of his people\u2019s doom. Less probably his\nare the verses which follow and abruptly add to his stern rehearsal of\njudgment on Judah the promise of her deliverance, even introducing this\nwith a _therefore_ as if deliverance were the certain corollary of\njudgment\u2014a conclusion not to be grudged by us to the faith of a later\nbeliever; for it is not untrue that the sinner\u2019s extremest need is the\noccasion for God\u2019s salvation.(622) Yet the sudden transition feels\nartificial, and lacks, be it observed, what we should expect from Jeremiah\nhimself, a call to the doomed people to repent. Note, too, the breakdown\nof the metre under a certain redundancy, which is not characteristic of\nJeremiah.\n\n\n    [Therefore thy devourers shall all be devoured,  16\n      And all thine oppressors.\n    All shall go off to captivity;\n      Thy spoilers for spoil shall be\n    And all that upon thee do prey, I give for prey.\n    For new flesh I shall bring up upon thee,  17\n      From thy wounds I shall heal thee;(623)\n    Outcast they called thee, O \u1e62ion,\n      Whom none seeketh after.]\n\n\nThe rest of the chapter is even less capable of being assigned to\nJeremiah.\n\nMore of Jeremiah\u2019s own Oracles are readily recognised in Ch. XXXI. I leave\nto a later lecture the question of the authenticity of that on The New\nCovenant and of the immediately preceding verses;(624) while the verses\nwhich close the chapter are certainly not the Prophet\u2019s. But I take now\nthe rest of the chapter, verses 1-28. The first of these may be editorial,\nthe link by which the compiler has connected Chs. XXX and XXXI; yet there\nis nothing to prevent us from hearing in it Jeremiah himself.\n\n\n    XXXI. 1. At that time\u2014Rede of the Lord\u2014I shall be God to all the\n    families(625) of Israel, and they shall be a people to Me.\n\n\nA poem follows which metrically and in substance bears every mark of being\nJeremiah\u2019s. The measure is his favourite Q\u00eenah, and the memory of the\nLord\u2019s ancient love for Israel, which had stirred the youth of the\nProphet,(626) revives in his old age and is the motive of his assurance\nthat Israel will be restored. It is of Ephraim as well as of Judah that he\nthinks, indeed of Ephraim especially. We have seen how the heart of this\nson of Anathoth-in-Benjamin was early drawn to the exiles from that\nprovince on which the northward windows of his village looked out.(627)\nNow once more he was in Benjamin\u2019s territory, at Ramah and at Mi\u1e63pah, with\nthe same northward prospect. Naturally his heart went out again to Ephraim\nand its banished folk. Of the priestly tribe as Jeremiah\u2019s family were,\ntheir long residence in the land of Benjamin must have infected them with\nBenjamin\u2019s sense of a closer kinship to Ephraim, the son of Joseph, the\nson of Rachel, than to Judah, the son of Leah. And there was, in addition,\nthe influence of neighbourhood. If blood be thicker than water it is\nequally true that watered blood is warmed to affection by nearness of\nlocality and closeness of association.(628)\n\nIt is questionable whether the opening couplet quotes the deliverance of\nIsrael from Egypt as a precedent for the future return of the northern\ntribes from captivity, described in the lines that follow; or whether this\nreturn is at once predicted by the couplet, with the usual prophetic\nassurance as though it had already happened. If we take _the desert_ as\nthis is taken in Hosea II. 14, we may decide for the latter alternative.\n\n\n    Grace have they found in the desert,  XXXI. 2\n      The people escaped from the sword;\n    While Israel makes for his rest from afar\n      The Lord appears to him(629):  3\n    \u201cWith a love from of old I have loved thee,\n      So in troth I (now) draw thee.(630)\n    \u201cI will rebuild thee, and built shalt thou be,  4\n      Maiden of Israel!\n    \u201cAgain thou shalt take(631) thee thy timbrels\n      And forth to the merrymen\u2019s dances.\n    \u201cAgain shall vineyards be planted(632)  5\n      On the hills of Samaria,\n    \u201cPlanters shall surely plant them(?)\n      And forthwith enjoy(633) (their fruit).\n    \u201cFor comes the day when watchmen are calling  6\n      On Ephraim\u2019s mountains:\n    \u201cRise, let us go up to \u1e62ion,\n      To the Lord our God.\u201d\n\n\nThe everyday happiness promised is striking. Here speaks again the man,\nwho, while ruin ran over the land, redeemed his ancestral acres in pledge\nof the resettlement of all his people upon their own farms and fields. He\nis back in the country, upon the landscapes of his youth, and in this\nfresh prospect of the restoration of Israel he puts first the common joys\nand fruitful labours of rural life, and only after these the national\nworship centred in Jerusalem. Cornill denies this last verse to Jeremiah,\nfeeling it inconsistent with the Prophet\u2019s condemnation of the Temple and\nthe Sacrifices.(634) But that condemnation had been uttered by Jeremiah\nbecause of his contemporaries\u2019 sinful use of the House of God, whereas now\nhe is looking into a new dispensation. How could he more signally clinch\nthe promise of that reunion of Israel and Judah, for which all his life he\nhad longed, than by this call to them to worship together?\n\nThe next verses are not so recognisable as Jeremiah\u2019s, unless it be in\ntheir last couplet. The rest rather reflect the Return from Exile as on\nthe point of coming to pass, which happened long after Jeremiah\u2019s time;\nand they call the nation _Jacob_, the name favoured by prophets of the end\nof the Exile.\n\n\n    [Ring out with joy for Jacob,  7\n      Shout for (?) the head of the nations,(635)\n    Publish ye, praise ye and say,\n      The Lord hath saved His(636) people,\n      The Remnant of Israel!\n    Behold from the North I bring them,  8\n      And gather from ends of the earth;\n    Their blind and their lame together,\n      The mother-to-be and her who hath borne.\n      In concourse great back they come hither.\n    With weeping forth did they go,(637)  9\n      With consolations(638) I bring them,\n    I lead them by(639) streams of water,\n      On an even way,\n      They stumble not on it](640)\n\n    For a father I am become to Israel,\n      And my first-born is Ephraim!\n\n\nThis couplet may well be Jeremiah\u2019s; but whether it should immediately\nfollow verse 6 is doubtful. The next lines are hardly his, bearing the\nsame marks of the late exile as we have seen in verses 7-9_a_.\n\n\n    [Hear, O nations, the Word of the Lord,  10\n      And declare on the far-away isles(641):\n    Who hath scattered Israel will gather,\n      And guard as a shepherd his flock.\n    For the Lord hath ransomed Jacob  11\n      And redeemed from the hand of the stronger than he.\n    They are come and ring out on Mount \u1e62ion,  12\n      Radiant(642) all with the wealth of the Lord,\n    With the corn, the new wine, the fresh oil,\n      The young of the flock and the herd;\n    Till their soul becomes as a garden well-watered,\n      Nor again any more shall they pine.\n    Then rejoice in the dance shall the maidens,  13\n      The youths and the old make merry.(643)\n    When their mourning I turn to mirth(644)\n      And give them joy from their sorrow.\n    When I richly water the soul of the priests,(645)  14\n      And My folk with My bounty are filled\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord.]\n\n\nThe next poems no one denies to Jeremiah; they are among the finest we\nhave from him. And how natural that he should conceive and utter them in\nthose quiet days when he was at, or near, Ramah, the grave of the mother\nof the people.(646) He hears her century-long travail of mourning for the\nloss of the tribes that were sprung from her Joseph, aggravated now by the\nbanishment of her Benjamin; but hears too the promise that her travail\nshall be rewarded by their return. The childless old man has the soul of\nmother and father both\u2014now weeping with the comfortless Rachel and now, in\nhuman touches unmatched outside the Parable of the Prodigal, reading into\nthe heart of God the same instinctive affections, to which, in spite of\nhimself, every earthly father is stirred by the mere mention of the name\nof a rebellious and wandered son. The most vivid details are these: _after\nI had been brought to know_, which might also be translated _after I had\nbeen made to know myself_ and so anticipate _when he came to himself_ of\nour Lord\u2019s Parable; _I smote on my thigh_, the gesture of despair; and in\n20_a_ the very human attribution to the Deity of surprise that the mere\nname of Ephraim should move Him to affection, which recalls both in form\nand substance the similar question attributed to the Lord in XII. 9.\n\nThere is no reason to try, as some do, to correct in the poems their\nbroken measures, for these both suit and add to the poignancy and\ntenderness which throb through the whole.(647)\n\n\n    Hark, in Ramah is heard lamentation  15\n      And bitterest weeping,\n    Rachel beweeping her children,\n      And will not be comforted,(648)\n      For they are not.\n    Thus saith the Lord:  16\n    Refrain thy voice from weeping,\n      And from tears thine eyes,\n    For reward there is for thy travail\u2014\n      They are back from the land of the foe!\n    [And hope there is for thy future,  17\n      Thy sons come back to their border.](649)\n\n    I have heard, I have heard  18\n      Ephraim bemoaning,\n    \u201cThou hast chastened me, chastened I am,\n      Like a calf untrained.\n    \u201cTurn me Thyself, and return I will,\n      For Thou art my God.\n    \u201cFor after I had turned away (?)(650)  19\n      I repented ... (?)\n    \u201cAnd after I was brought to know,(651)\n      I smote on my thigh.\n    \u201cI am sham\u00e9d, yea and confounded,\n      As I bear the reproach of my youth.\u201d(652)\n\n    Is Ephraim My dearest son,(653)  20\n      A child of delights?\n    That as oft as against him I speak\n      I must think of him still.\n    My bowels for him are yearning,\n      Pity him I must!\u2014Rede of the Lord.\n\n    Set thee up way-marks,  21\n      Plant thyself guide-posts!\n    Put to the highway thy heart,\n      The way that thou wentest.\n    Come back, O maiden of Israel,  22\n      Back to thy towns here.\n    How long to drift hither and thither,\n      Thou turn-about daughter!\n    [For the Lord hath created a new thing on earth,\n      A female shall compass a man.](654)\n\n\nThe next small poem, when we take from it certain marks of a later date is\npossibly Jeremiah\u2019s, though this is not certain; to the previous Oracles\non Ephraim it naturally adds one upon Judah.\n\n\n      Thus saith the Lord:(655)  23\n    Once more shall they speak this word.\n      In Judah\u2019s land and her towns,\n    When I turn again their captivity:\n    \u201cThe Lord thee bless, homestead of justice!\u201d(656)\n    In Judah and all her towns shall be dwelling  24\n      Tillers and they that roam with flocks,\n    For I have refreshed the(657) weary soul,  25\n      And cheered every soul that was pining.\n    [On this I awoke and beheld,  26\n    And sweet unto me was my sleep.](658)\n\n    Behold, are coming the days\u2014  27\n      Rede of the Lord\u2014\n    When Israel and Judah(659) I sow\n      With the seed of man and of beast;\n    And it shall be, as I was wakeful upon them  28\n      To tear down and do evil,(660)\n    So wakeful on them will I be,\n      To build and to plant\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord.\n\n\nThese prophecies of the physical restoration of Israel and Judah are fitly\nfollowed by two, in what is rather rhythmical prose than verse, which\ndefine the moral and spiritual aspects of the new dispensation; both\nlaying stress on individual responsibility, the one in ethics, 29, 30, the\nother in religion, 31 ff., the proclamation of The New Covenant. They are\nno doubt Jeremiah\u2019s: we shall take them up in the last lecture.\n\nThe time of relief and fair promise, out of which we have supposed that\nthe Prophet conceived and uttered the preceding Oracles, came to a sudden\nand tragic close with the assassination of the good governor Gedaliah by\nthe fanatic Ishmael. Had this not happened we can see from those Oracles\non what favourable lines the restoration of Judah might have proceeded\nunder the co-operation of Gedaliah and Jeremiah, and how after so long and\nheart-breaking a mission of doom to his people the Prophet might at last\nhave achieved before his eyes some positive part in their social and\npolitical reconstruction; for certainly he had already proved his\npractical ability as well his power of far vision. But even such sunset\nsuccess was denied him, and once more his people crumbled under his hand.\nGod provided some better thing for him in the spiritual future of Israel,\nto which he must now pass through still deeper sacrifice and\nhumiliation.(661)\n\nIshmael, against whom the noble Gedaliah would take no warning, was one of\nthose fanatics with whom the Jewish nation have been cursed at all crises\nin their history.(662) The motive for his crime was the same as had\ninspired the fatal defence of Jerusalem, a blind passion against the\nChaldean rule. Having slain Gedaliah he attempted to remove the little\nremnant at Mi\u1e63pah to the other side of Jordan but was overtaken by a force\nunder Gedaliah\u2019s lieutenant, Johanan-ben-Kareah, and his captives were\nrecovered. Fearing the wrath of the Chaldeans for the murder of their\ndeputy, the little flock did not return to Mi\u1e63pah but moved south to\nGidroth(663)-Chimham near Bethlehem, broken, trembling, and uncertain\nwhether to remain in their land or to flee from it.(664)\n\nThe Prophet was the one hope left to them, and like \u1e62edekiah they turned\nto him in their perplexity for a word of guidance from the Lord. With his\nusual deliberation he took ten days to answer, laying the matter before\nthe Lord in prayer; studying, we may be sure, the actual facts of the\nsituation (including what he already knew to be the people\u2019s hope of\nfinding security in Egypt) and carefully sifting out his own thoughts and\nimpulses from the convictions which his prayers brought him from God. The\nresult was clear: the people must abide in their land and not fear the\nChaldeans, who under God\u2019s hand would let them be; but if they set their\nfaces for Egypt, the sword which they feared would overtake them. This was\nGod\u2019s Word; if they broke their promise to obey it, they would surely\ndie.(665)\n\nWith shame we read the rest of the story. Jeremiah had well discerned(666)\nthat those of his countrymen, who had been deported in 597, were the good\nfigs of his vision and those who remained the bad. The latter were of the\nbreed that had turned Temple and Sacrifice into fetishes, for as such they\nnow treated the Prophet, the greatest whom God ever sent to Israel.\nCovetous of having him with them they eagerly asked him for a Word of the\nLord, promising to obey it, in the expectation of their kind that it would\nbe according to their own ignorant wishes; but when it declared against\nthese, they scolded Jeremiah as disappointed barbarians do their idols,\nand presuming on his age as a weakness, complained that he had been set\nagainst them by Baruch, a philo-Chaldean who would have them all carried\noff to Babylon! So Baruch also\u2014all praise to him\u2014held the same sane views\nof the situation as his Prophet and as that wise governor Gedaliah. In\nspite of their promise they refused to obey the Word of the Lord, fled for\nEgypt carrying with them Jeremiah and Baruch, and reached the frontier\ntown of Tahpanhes. How it must have broken the Prophet\u2019s heart!(667)\n\nBut not his honesty or his courage! At Tahpanhes he set before the\nfugitives one of those symbols which had been characteristic of his\nprophesying. He laid great stones in the entry of the house of the Pharaoh\nand declared that Nebuchadrezzar would plant his throne and spread his\ntapestries upon them, when he came to smite Egypt, assuming that land as\neasily as a shepherd dons his garment; and after breaking the obelisks of\nits gods and burning their temples he would safely depart from it.(668)\n\nSo far the narrative runs clearly, but in Ch. XLIV, the last that is\nwritten of Jeremiah, the expander has been specially busy.(669) The\nchapter opens, verses 1-14, with what purports to be an Oracle by Jeremiah\nconcerning, not the little band which had brought him down with them, but\n_all the Jews which were dwelling in the land of Egypt, at Migdol and\nTahpanhes_,(670) on the northern frontier, _and in the land of Pathros_,\nor Upper Egypt. It is not said that these came to Tahpanhes to receive the\nOracle. Yet the arrival of a company fresh from Judah and her recent awful\nexperiences must have stirred the Jewish communities already in Egypt and\ndrawn at least representatives of them to Tahpanhes to see and to hear the\nnewcomers. If so, it would be natural for Jeremiah to expound the\nhappenings in Judah, and the Divine reasons for them. No date is given for\nthe Prophet\u2019s Oracle. This need not have been uttered for some time after\nhe reached Egypt, when he was able to acquaint himself with the conditions\nand character of his countrymen in their pagan environment, and learn in\nparticular how they had fallen away like their fathers to the worship of\nother gods. Such indeed is the double theme of the words attributed to\nhim. He is made to say that Jerusalem and Judah are now desolate because\nof their people\u2019s wickedness, and especially their idolatry, in stubborn\ndisobedience to the repeated Word of their God by His prophets; surely a\nsimilar punishment must befall the Jews in Egypt, for they also have given\nthemselves to idols. But so awkwardly and diffusely is the Oracle reported\nto us that we cannot doubt that, whatever its original form was, this has\nbeen considerably expanded. At least we may be sure that Jeremiah uttered\nsome Oracle against the idolatry of the Jews in Egypt, for in what follows\nthey give their answer.\n\nFrom verse 15 the story and the words it reports become\u2014with the help of\nthe briefer Greek version and the elision of manifest additions in both\nthe Hebrew and the Greek texts(671)\u2014more definite. Either _both_ the men\nwhom Jeremiah addressed _and_ their women, or, as is textually more\nprobable, the women alone answered him in the following remarkable terms.\nThese run in rhythmical prose, that almost throughout falls into metrical\nlines, which the English reader may easily discriminate for himself.\n\n\n    XLIV. 16. The word which thou hast spoken to us in the Name of the\n    Lord!\u2014we will not hearken to thee! 17. But we shall surely perform\n    every word, which has gone forth from our mouth:(672) to burn to\n    the Queen of Heaven and pour her libations, as we and our fathers\n    did, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and streets\n    of Jerusalem, and had fulness of bread, and were well and saw no\n    evil. 18. But since we left off to burn to the Queen of Heaven,\n    and to pour her libations, we have lacked everything and been by\n    the sword and the famine consumed. 19. And(673) while we were\n    burning to the Queen of Heaven and poured her libations, did we\n    make her cakes(674) and pour her libations without our husbands?\n\n\nThis was a straight challenge to the prophet, returning to him the form of\nhis own argument. As he had traced the calamities of Judah to her\ndisobedience of Yahweh, they traced those which hit themselves hardest as\nwomen to their having ceased to worship Ashtoreth. What could Jeremiah\nanswer to logic formally so identical with his own? The first of the\nanswers attributed to him, verses 20-23, asserts that among their other\nsins it was their worship of the Queen of Heaven, and not, as they said,\ntheir desisting from it, which had worked their doom. But this answer is\ntoo full of deuteronomic phrasing for the whole of it to be the Prophet\u2019s;\nif any of it is genuine this can only be part of the obviously expanded\nopening, 21, 22_a_.\n\nThe real, the characteristic answers of Jeremiah are the others: to the\nwomen reported in verses 24, 25, and to all the Jews in Egypt 26-28; in\nwhich respectively he treats the claim of the women ironically, and leaves\nthe issue between his word and that of his opponents to be decided by the\nevent. These answers also have been expanded, but we may reasonably take\nthe following to be original.(675) Note how they connect in verse 24 with\nverse 19. I again follow the Greek.\n\n\n    XLIV. 24. And Jeremiah said [to the people and] to the women, [25]\n    Hear the Word of the Lord, Thus saith the Lord, Israel\u2019s God:\n\n    Ye women(676) have said with your mouths\n      And fulfilled with your hands,\n    \u201cWe must indeed perform our vows,\n      Which we have vowed,\n    \u201cTo burn to the Queen of Heaven,\n      And to pour her libations!\u201d\n    Indeed then establish your words(677)\n      And perform your vows!\n\n\nJeremiah \u201cadds this by way of irony.\u201d(678) Having thus finished with the\nwomen, he adds an Oracle to the Jews in general.\n\n\n    26. Therefore hear the Word of the Lord all Judah, who are settled\n    in the land of Egypt:\n\n    By My great Name I swear,\n      Sayeth the Lord,\n    That My Name shall no more be called\n      By the mouth of a man of Judah\u2014\n    Saying, \u201cAs liveth the Lord!\u201d\u2014\n      In all the land of Egypt.\n    Lo, I am wakeful upon you  27\n      For evil and not for good.(679)\n    And the remnant of Judah shall know,  28_b_\n      Whose is the word that shall stand.(680)\n\n\nThese are the last words we have from him, and up to these last he is\nstill himself\u2014broken-hearted indeed and disappointed in the ultimate\nremnant of his people\u2014but still himself in his honesty, his steadfastness\nto the truth and his courage; still himself in his irony, his\ndeliberateness and his confident appeal to the future for the vindication\nof his word.\n\nSo he disappears from our sight. How pathetic that even after his death he\nis not spared from spoiling but that the last clear streams of his\nprophesying must run out, as we have seen, in the sands of those\nexpanders!\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Lecture VII.\n\n\nTHE STORY OF HIS SOUL.\n\n\nIn this Lecture I propose to gather up the story of the soul of the man,\nwhose service, and the fortunes it met with, we have followed over the\nmore than forty years of their range. The interest of many great lives\nlies in their natural and fair development: the growth of gift towards\noccasion, the beckoning of occasion when gift is ripe, the sympathy\nbetween a man and his times, the coincidence of public need with personal\npowers or ambition\u2014the zest of the race and the thrill of the goal. With\nJeremiah it was altogether otherwise.\n\n\n\n\n1. Protest and Agony. (I, IV. 10, 19, VI. 11, XI. 18-XII. 6, XV. 10-XVI.\n9, XVII. 14-18, XVIII. 18-23, XX. 7-18.)\n\n\nIf, as is possible, the name Jeremiah means _Yahweh hurls_ or _shoots\nforth_, it fitly describes the Prophet\u2019s temper, struggles and fate. For\nhe was a projectile, fired upon a hostile world with a force not his own,\nand on a mission from which, from the first, his gifts and affections\nrecoiled and against which he continued to protest. On his passage through\nthe turbulence of his time he reminds us of one of those fatal shells\nwhich rend the air as they shoot, distinct even through the roar of battle\nby their swift, shrill anguish and effecting their end by their explosion.\n\nJeremiah has been called The Weeping Prophet, but that is mainly because\nof the attribution to him of The Book of Lamentations, which does not\nprofess to be his and is certainly later than his day. Not weeping, though\nhe had to weep, so much as groaning or even screaming is the particular\npitch of the tone of this Prophet. As he says himself,\n\n\n    For as oft as I speak I must shriek,\n      And cry \u201cViolence and Spoil!\u201d(681)\n\n\nHis first word is one of shrinking, _I cannot speak, I am too young_.(682)\nThe voice of pain and protest is in most of his Oracles. He curses the day\nof his birth and cries woe to his mother that she bare him. He makes us\nfeel that he has been charged against his will and he hurtles on his\ncareer like one slung at a target who knows that in fulfilling his\ncommission he shall be broken\u2014as indeed he was.\n\n\n    Lord, Thou beguiled\u2019st me, and beguiled I let myself be,\n    Thou wast too strong for me, Thou hast prevailed.(683)\n\n\nPower was pain to him; he carried God\u2019s Word as _a burning fire in his\nheart_.(684) If the strength and the joy in which others rise on their\ngifts ever came to him they quickly fled. Isaiah, the only other prophet\ncomparable, accepts his mission and springs to it with freedom. But\nJeremiah, always coerced, shrinks, protests, craves leave to retire. So\nthat while Isaiah\u2019s answer to the call of God is _Here am I, send me_,\nJeremiah\u2019s might have been \u201cI would be anywhere else than here, let me\ngo.\u201d He spent much of himself in complaint and in debate both with God and\nwith his fellow-men:\n\n\n    Mother! Ah me!\n      As whom hast thou borne me?\n    A man of quarrel and of strife\n      To the whole of the land\u2014\n      All of them curse me.(685)\n\n\nNor did he live to see any solid results from his work. His call was\n\n\n    To root up, pull down and destroy,\n      To build and to plant.(686)\n\n\nIf this represents the Prophet\u2019s earliest impression of his charge, the\nproportion between the destructive and constructive parts of it is\nominous; if it sums up his experience it is less than the truth. Though he\nsowed the most fruitful seeds in the fields of Israel\u2019s religion, none\nsprang in his lifetime. For his own generation he built nothing.\nSympathetic with the aims and the start of the greatest reform in Israel\u2019s\nhistory, he grew sceptical of its progress and had to denounce the dogmas\ninto which the spirit of it hardened. A king sought his counsel and\nrefused to follow it; the professional prophets challenged him to speak in\nthe Name of the Lord and then denied His Word; the priests were ever\nagainst him, and the overseer of the Temple put him in the stocks. Though\nthe people came to his side at one crisis, they rejected him at others and\nfell back on their formalist teachers, and the prophets of a careless\noptimism. Though he loved his people with passion, and pled with them all\nhis life, he failed to convince or move them to repentance\u2014and more than\nonce was forbidden even to pray for them. He was charged not to marry nor\nfound a family nor share in either the griefs or the joys of society. His\nbrethren and his father\u2019s house betrayed him, and he was stoned out of\nAnathoth by his fellow-villagers. Though he could count on a friend or two\nat court, he had to flee into hiding. King \u1e62edekiah, who felt a slavish\nreverence for his word, was unable to save him from imprisonment in a miry\npit, and he owed his deliverance, neither to friend nor countryman, but to\na negro eunuch of the palace. Even after the fall of Jerusalem, when his\nprophecies were vindicated almost to the letter, he failed to keep a\nremnant of the nation in Judah; and his word had no influence with the\nlittle band which clung to him as a fetish and hurried him to Egypt.\nThere, with his back to the brief ministry of hope that had been allowed\nhim, he must take up again the task of denunciation which he abhorred; and\nthis is the last we hear of him.\n\nIt was the same with individuals as with the people as a whole. We may say\nthat with few exceptions, whomever he touched he singed, whomever he\nstruck he broke\u2014_a man of quarrel and strife to the whole land, all of\nthem curse me_. And he cursed them back. When Pashhur put him in the\nstocks Jeremiah called him _Magor Missabib_, Terror-all-round, _for lo, I\nwill make thee a terror to thyself and to all thy friends, they shall fall\nby the sword and thou behold it_.(687) Nothing satisfied his contempt for\nJehoiakim, but that dying the king should be buried with the burial of an\nass.(688) Even for \u1e62edekiah, to whom he showed some tenderness, his last\nutterance was of a vision of the weak monarch being mocked by his own\nwomen.(689) His irony, keen to the end, proves his detachment from all\naround him. His scorn for the bulk of the other prophets is scorching, and\nhis words for some of them fatal. Of Shemaiah, who wrote of the captives\nin Babylon letters of a tenor opposite to his own, he said _he shall not\nhave a man to dwell among this people_.(690) When the prophet Hananiah\ncontradicted him, he foretold, after carefully deliberating between his\nrival\u2019s words and his own, that Hananiah would die, and Hananiah was dead\nwithin a few months.(691) He had no promise for those whom he counselled\nto desert to the enemy save of bare life; nor anything better even for the\nbest of his friends: _Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them\nnot! Only thy life will I give thee for a prey in all places whither thou\ngoest._(692)\n\nThe following are the full texts from which the foregoing summary has been\ndrawn and most of which I have reserved for this Lecture.\n\n\n    IV. 10. Then said I, Ah Lord Yahweh, Verily Thou hast deceived\n    this people and Jerusalem, saying There shall be peace!\u2014whereas\n    the sword striketh to the life!\n\n    O my bowels! My bowels, I writhe!  19\n      O the walls of my heart!\n    My heart is in storm upon me,\n      I cannot keep silence!\n\n    I am filled with the rage of the Lord,  VI. 11\n      Worn with holding it in!\n    Pour it out on the child in the street,\n      Where the youths draw together.\n\n\nThe following refers to the conspiracy of his fellow-villagers against\nhim.\n\n\n    The Lord let me know and I knew it,  XI. 18\n      Then I saw through(693) their doings;\n    But I like a tame lamb had been,  19\n      Unwittingly(694) led to the slaughter.\n    On me they had framed their devices\n      \u201cLet\u2019s destroy the tree in its sap.(695)\n    Cut him off from the land of the living,\n      That his name be remembered no more.\u201d\n    O Lord, Thou Who righteously judgest,  20\n      Who triest the reins and the heart,\n    Let me see Thy vengeance upon them,\n      For to Thee I have opened(696) my cause.\n\n    21. Therefore thus saith the Lord of the men of Anathoth, who are\n    seeking my(697) life, saying, Thou shalt not prophesy in the Name\n    of the Lord, that thou die not by our hands:(698)\n\n    Lo, I am to visit upon them!  22\n      Their(699) youths shall die by the sword,\n    Their sons and their daughters by famine,\n      Till no remnant be left them.  23\n    For evil I bring on the men of Anathoth,\n      The year of their visitation.\n\n    Mother! Ah me!  XV. 10\n      As whom(700) hast thou borne me?\n    A man of strife and of quarrel\n      To the whole of the land.\n    I have not lent upon usury, nor any to me,\n      Yet all of them curse me.\n    Amen,(701) O Lord! If I be to blame(?),  11\n      If I never besought Thee,\n    In the time of their trouble and straits,\n      For the good of my foes.\n    Is the arm on my shoulder iron  12\n      Or brass my brow?(702)\n    Thou hast known it,(703) O Lord.  15\n      Think on and visit me!\n    Avenge me on them that pursue me,\n      Halt not Thy wrath.\n    Know that for Thee I have borne reproach\n      From them who despise(704) Thy words.  16\n    [End them!(705) Thy word\u2019s my delight\n      And the joy of my heart\n    For Thy Name has been call\u00e9d upon me,\n      Lord of Hosts!]\n    I have not sat in their company  17\n      Jesting and merry.(706)\n    Because of Thy hand alone I sit,\n      For with rage Thou hast filled me.\n    Why is my pain perpetual,  18\n      My wound past healing?\n    Art Thou to be a false stream to me,\n      As waters that fail?\n\n\nThis to Him on Whom he had called as The Fountain of Living Water!\n\n\n    Therefore thus saith the Lord:  19\n    If thou wilt turn, then shall I turn thee,\n      That before Me thou stand;\n    And if thou bring forth the dear from the vile,\n      As My Mouth thou shalt be.\n    [Then may those turn to thee,\n      But not thou to them.]\n    For to this people I set thee  20\n      An impassable wall.(707)\n    When they fight thee they shall not prevail,\n      With thee am I to deliver,(708)\n    And deliver thee I shall from the power of the wicked,  21\n      From the hand of the cruel redeem thee.\n\n    Thou(709) shalt not take a wife\u2014  XVI. 2\n      Rede of the Lord\u2014\n    Nor shall sons nor daughters be thine\n      Within this place.\n    For thus hath the Lord said:  3\n      As for the sons and the daughters\n      Born in this place,\n    [As for their mothers who bore them\n    And their fathers who gat them\n      Throughout this land.]\n    Painfullest deaths shall they die  4\n      Unmourned, unburied,\n    [Be for dung on the face of the ground,\n      Consumed by famine and sword.]\n    And their corpses shall be for food\n      To the birds of the heaven and beasts of the earth.(710)\n    Thus saith the Lord:  5\n    Come not to the house of mourning,\n      Nor go about to lament,(711)\n    Because My Peace I have swept\n      Away from this people.(712)\n    For them shall none lament,  6_b_\n      Nor gash nor make themselves bald;\n    Neither break bread(713) to the mourner,(714)  7\n      For the dead to console him,\n    Nor pour him(715) the cup of condolement\n      For his father or mother.\n    Come thou not to the house of feasting,  8\n      To sit with them eating and drinking.\n    For thus saith the Lord of Hosts,(716)  9\n      The God of Israel:\n    Lo, I shall stay from this place,\n      In your days, to your eyes,\n    The voices of joy and of gladness,\n      The voices of bridegroom and bride.\n\n\nFollows, in 10-13, the moral reason of all this\u2014the people\u2019s leaving of\ntheir God\u2014and the doom of exile.\n\n\n    Heal me O Lord, and I shall be healed,  XVII. 14\n      Save me and saved shall I be.(717)\n    Lo, there be those, who keep saying to me.  15\n      \u201cWhere is the Word of the Lord?\n      Pray let it come!\u201d\n    But I have not pressed ... (?)  16\n      Nor for evil(718) kept at Thee,\n    Nor longed for the woeful day,\n      Thyself dost know.\n    Whatever came forth from my lips\n      To Thy face it was.\n    Be not a (cause of) dismay to me,  17\n      My Refuge in evil days.\n    Shamed be my hunters, but shamed not I,  18\n      Dismayed, but dismayed not I.\n    Bring Thou upon them the day of disaster\n      And break them twice over!\n\n    XVIII. 18. And they said, Come and let us devise against Jeremiah\n    devices, for the Law(719) shall not perish from the priest, nor\n    Counsel from the wise, nor the Word from the prophet. Come let us\n    smite him with the tongue and pay no heed to any of his words.\n\n    O Lord, unto me give Thou heed,  19\n      And hark to the voice of my plea!(720)\n    Shall evil be rendered for good,  20\n      That they dig a pit for my life?(721)\n    O remember my standing before Thee,\n      To bespeak their good\u2014\n    To turn Thy fury from off them.\n    Give therefore their sons to famine,  21\n      And spill them out to the sword.\n    Let their wives be widows and childless\n      And their men be slain of death\u2014\n    And smitten their youths by the sword in battle.\n    May crying be heard from their homes,  22\n      As a troop comes sudden upon them!\n    For a pit have they dug to catch me,\n      And hidden snares for my feet.\n    But Thou, O Lord, hast known  23\n      Their counsels for death against me.\n    Pardon Thou not their iniquities,(722)\n      Nor blot from Thy Presence their sins;(723)\n    But let them be tumbled before Thee\n      Deal with them in time of Thy wrath.\n\n\nVerses 21-23 are rejected by Duhm and Cornill, along with XI. 22_b_, 23,\nXII. 3_b_, XVII. 18 for no textual or metrical reasons, but only because\nthese scholars shrink from attributing to Jeremiah such outbursts of\npassion: just as we have seen them for similarly sheer reasons of\nsentiment refuse to consider as his the advice to desert to the\nenemy.(724) Yet they admit inconsistently the genuineness of VI. 11, XI.\n20, XV. 15.(725)\n\n\n    Lord, Thou beguiledst me, and beguiled I let myself be,  XX. 7\n      Too strong for me, Thou hast conquered,\n    A jest I have been all the day,\n      Every one mocks me.\n    As oft as I speak I must shriek,  8\n      Crying \u201cViolence and spoil.\u201d\n    Yea, the Word of the Lord is become my reproach\n      All day a derision.\n    If I said, I\u2019ll not mind Him(726)  9\n      Nor speak in His name,(727)\n    Then in my heart \u2019tis a burning fire,\n      Shut up in my bones.\n    I am worn away with refraining,\n      I cannot hold on.(728)\n    For I hear the whispering of many,  10\n      Terror all round!\n    \u201cDenounce, and let us denounce him,\u201d\n      \u2014And these my familiars!\u2014\n    Keep ye watch for him tripping,\n      Perchance he\u2019ll be fooled,\n    \u201cAnd we be more than enough for him,\n      And get our revenge.\u201d\n    Yet the Lord He is with me,  11\n      Mighty and Terrible!\n    So they that hunt me shall stumble\n      And shall not prevail.\n    Put to dire shame shall they be\n      When they fail to succeed.\n    Be their confusion eternal,\n      Nor ever forgotten!\n    O Lord,(729) Who triest the righteous,  12\n      Who lookest to the reins and the heart,\n    Let me see Thy vengeance upon them,\n      For to Thee I have opened my cause.(730)\n\n    Cursed be the day,  XX. 14\n      Whereon I was born!\n    The day that my mother did bare me,\n      Be it unblessed!\n    Cursed be the man who carried the news,  15\n      Telling my father,\n    \u201cA man child is born to thee!\u201d\n      Making him glad.\n    Be that man as the cities the Lord overthrew,  16\n      And did not relent,\n    Let him hear a shriek in the morning,\n      And at noon-tide alarms;\n    That he slew me not in(731) the womb,  17\n      So my mother had been my grave,\n      And great for ever her womb!\n    For what came I forth from the womb?  18\n      Labour and sorrow to see,\n    That my days in shame should consume.\n\n\nConsidering the passion of these lines, it is not surprising that they are\nso irregular.(732)\n\nSome have attributed the aggravations, at least, of this rage to some\nfault in the man himself. They are probably right. The prophets were\nneither vegetables nor machines but men of like passions with ourselves.\nJeremiah may have been by temper raw and hasty, with a natural capacity\nfor provoking his fellows. That he felt this himself we may suspect from\nhis cry to his mother, that he had been born to quarrel. His impatience,\nhonest though it be, needs stern rebuke from the Lord.(733) Even with God\nHimself he is hasty.(734) There are signs throughout, na\u00efvely betrayed by\nhis own words, of a fluid and quick temper, both for love and for hate.\nFor so original a poet he was at first remarkably dependent on his\npredecessors. The cast of his verse is lyric and subjective; and for all\nits wistfulness and plaint is sometimes shrill with the shrillness of a\nsoul raw and too sensitive about herself. His strength as a poet may have\nbeen his weakness as a man\u2014may have made him, from a human point of view,\nan unlikely instrument for the work he had to do and the force with which\nhe must drive\u2014painfully swerving at times from his task, and at others\nrushing in passion before the power he hated but could not withstand.\n\nSo probable an opinion becomes a certainty when we turn to God\u2019s words to\nhim. _Be not dismayed lest I make thee dismayed_ and _I set thee this day\na fenced city and wall of bronze_.(735) For these last imply that in\nhimself Jeremiah was something different. God does not speak thus to a man\nunless He sees that he needs it. It was to his most impetuous and unstable\ndisciple that Christ said, _Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I\nbuild_.\n\nYet while his own temper thus aggravated his solitude and his pain we must\nalso keep in mind that neither among the priests, the prophets and the\nprinces of his time, nor in the kings after Josiah, did Jeremiah find any\nof that firm material which under the hands of Isaiah rose into bulwarks\nagainst Assyria. The nation crumbling from within was suffering from\nwithout harder blows than even Assyria dealt it. These did not weld but\nbroke a people already decadent and with nothing to resist them save the\nformalities of religion and a fanatic gallantry. The people lost heart and\ncare. He makes them use more than once a phrase about themselves in answer\nto his call to repent: _No\u2019ash, No use! All is up!_ Probably this reflects\nhis own feelings about them. He was a man perpetually baffled by what he\nhad to work with.\n\nPoet as he was he had the poet\u2019s heart for the beauties of nature and of\ndomestic life: for birds and trees and streams, for the home-candle and\nthe sound of the house-mill, for children and the happiness of the bride,\nand the love of husband and wife; and he was forbidden to marry or have\nchildren of his own or to take part in any social merriment\u2014in this last\nrespect so different from our Lord. Was it unnatural that his heart broke\nout now and then in wild gusts of passion against it all?\n\nThere is another thing which we must not forget in judging Jeremiah\u2019s\nexcessive rage. We cannot find that he had any hope of another life.\nAbsolutely no breath of this breaks either from his own Oracles or from\nthose attributed to him. Here and now was his only chance of service, here\nand now must the visions given him by God be fulfilled or not at all. In\nthe whole book of Jeremiah we see no hope of the resurrection, no glory to\ncome, no gleam even of the martyr\u2019s crown. I have often thought that what\nseem to us the excess of impatience, the rashness to argue with\nProvidence, the unholy wrath and indignation of prophets and psalmists\nunder the Old Covenant, are largely to be explained by this, that as yet\nthere had come to them no sense of another life or of judgment beyond this\nearth. When we are tempted to wonder at Jeremiah\u2019s passion and cursing,\nlet us try to realise how we would have felt had we, like him, found our\n_one_ service baffled, and the _single_ possible fulfilment of our ideals\nrendered vain. All of which shows the difference that Christ has made.\n\n\n\n\n2. Predestination. (I, XVIII, etc.)\n\n\nYet though such a man in such an age Jeremiah is sped through it with a\nforce, which in spite of him never fails and which indeed carries his\ninfluence to the end of his nation\u2019s history.\n\nWhat was the powder which launched this grim projectile through his times?\nPart at least was his faith in his predestination, the bare sense that God\nAlmighty meant him from before his beginning for the work, and was\ngripping him to it till the close. This alone prevailed over his reluctant\nnature, his protesting affections, and his adverse circumstance.\n\n\n    Before in the body I built thee, I knew thee,\n    Before thou wast forth from the womb, I had put thee apart,\n      I have set thee a prophet to the nations.\n\n\nFrom the first and all through it was God\u2019s choice of him, the knowledge\nof himself as a thought of the Deity and a consecrated instrument of the\nDivine Will, which grasped this unbraced and sensitive creature, this\nalternately discouraged and impulsive man, and turned him, as we have\nseen, into the opposite of himself.\n\nThe writers of the Old Testament give full expression to the idea of\npredestination, but what they understand by it is not what much of Jewish\nand Christian theology has understood. In the Old Testament predestination\nis not to character or fate, to salvation or its opposite, to eternal life\nor eternal punishment, but to service, or some particular form of service,\nfor God and man. The Great Evangelist of the Exile so defines it for\nIsrael as a whole: Israel an eternal purpose of God for the enlightenment\nand blessing of mankind. And this faith is enforced on the nation, not for\ntheir pride nor to foster the confidence that God will never break from\nthem, but to rouse their conscience, and give them courage when they are\nfeeble or indolent or hopeless of their service. So with Jeremiah in\nregard both to his own predestination and that of his people. In his\nParable of the Potter (as we have seen) it is for service as vessels that\nthe clay is moulded; God is revealed not as predestining character or\nquality, but as shaping characters for ends for which under His hand they\nyield suitable qualities. The parable illustrates not arbitrariness of\nelection nor irresistible sovereignty but a double freedom\u2014freedom in God\nto change His decrees for moral reasons, freedom on man\u2019s part to thwart\nGod\u2019s designs for him. In further illustration of this remember again the\nwonderful words, _Be thou not dismayed before them, lest I make thee\ndismayed; if thou wilt turn, then shall I turn thee_. To work upon man God\nneeds man\u2019s own will.\n\nFrom imagining the Deity as sheer absolute will, to which the experience\nof the resistless force behind his own soul must sometimes have tempted\nhim, Jeremiah was further guarded by his visions of the Divine working in\nNature. He is never more clear or musical than when singing of the\nregularity, faithfulness and reasonableness of this. With such a Creator,\nsuch a Providence, there could be neither arbitrariness nor caprice.\n\nHaving this experience of God\u2019s ways with man it was not possible for\nJeremiah to succumb to those influences of a strong unqualified faith in\npredestination which have often overwhelmed the personalities of its\ndevotees. Someone has talked of \u201cthe wine of predestination,\u201d and history\nboth in the East and in the West furnishes cases of men so drugged by it\nas to lose their powers of will, reason and heart, and become either\napathetic unquestioning slaves of fate, or violent and equally\nunquestioning dogmatists and tyrants\u2014the soul-less instruments of a\npitiless force. God overpowers them: He is all and they are nothing. It\nwas far otherwise with Jeremiah, who realised and preserved his\nindividuality not only as against the rest of his people but as against\nGod Himself. His earlier career appears from the glimpses we get of it to\nhave been, if not a constant, yet a frequent struggle with the Deity. He\nargues against the Divine calls to him. And even when he yields he\nexpresses his submission in terms which almost proudly define his own will\nas over against that of God:\n\n\n    Lord thou beguiledst me, and I let myself be beguiled,\n    Thou wast stronger than I and hast conquered.\n\n\nThe man would not be mastered, but if mastered is not crushed. He\nquestions each moment of his own sufferings, each moment of his people\u2019s\noncoming doom. He debates with God on matters of justice. He wrestles\nthings out with God and emerges from each wrestle not halt and limping\nlike Jacob of old, but firm and calm, more clear in his mind and more sure\nof himself\u2014as we see him at last when the full will of God breaks upon his\nsoul with the Battle of Carchemish and he calmly surrenders to his own and\nhis people\u2019s fate. That is how this prophet, by nature so fluid, and so\nshrinking stands out henceforth _a fenced city and a wall of bronze over\nagainst the whole people of the land_: the one unbreakable figure in the\nbreaking-up of the state and the nation. We perceive the method in God\u2019s\ndiscipline of such a soul. He sees his servant\u2019s weakness and grants him\nthe needful athletic for it, by wrestling with him Himself.\n\nWe may here take in full the remarkable passage, part of which we have\nalready studied.(736)\n\n\n    Too Righteous art Thou, O Lord,  XII. 1\n    That with Thee I should argue.\n    Yet cases there are I must speak with Thee of:\u2014\n    The way of the wicked\u2014why doth it prosper,\n    And the treacherous all be at ease?\n    Thou did\u2019st plant them, yea they take root,  2\n    They get on, yea they make fruit;\n    Near in their mouths art Thou,\n    But far from their reins.\n    But me, O Lord, Thou hast known,(737)  3\n    And tested my heart with Thee;\n    Drag them out like sheep for the shambles,\n    To the day of slaughter devote them.\n\n    Thou hast run with the foot and they wore thee\u2014  5\n    How wilt thou vie with the horse?\n    If in peaceful country thou can\u2019st not trust,\n    How wilt thou do in the rankness of Jordan?\n    For even thy brothers, the house of thy father,  6\n    Even they have betrayed thee.\n    Even they have called after thee loudly,\n    Trust them not, though they speak thee fair.(738)\n\n\n_The rankness_ or _luxuriance of Jordan_ is the jungle on both sides of\nthe river, in which the lions lie. This then is all the answer that the\nwearied and perplexed servant gets from his Lord. The troubles of which he\ncomplains are but the training for still sorer. The only meaning of the\nchecks and sorrows of life is to brace us for worse. It is the strain that\never brings the strength. Life is explained as a graded and progressively\nstrenuous discipline, the result of it a stronger and more finely tempered\nsoul. But this surely suggests the questions: Is that the whole result? Is\nthe soul thus to be trained, braced and refined, only at last to be broken\nand vanish? These are natural questions to the Lord\u2019s answer, but Jeremiah\ndoes not put them. Unlike Job he makes no start, even with this stimulus,\nto break through to another life.\n\n\n\n\n3. Sacrifice.\n\n\nBut in thus achieving his individuality over against both his nation and\nhis God, Jeremiah accomplished only half of the work he did for Israel and\nmankind. It is proof of how great a prophet we have in him that he who was\nthe first in Israel to realise the independence of the single self in\nreligion should also become the supreme example under the Old Covenant of\nthe sacrifice of that self for others, that he should break from one type\nof religious solidarity only to illustrate another and a nobler, that the\nprophet of individuality should be also the symbol if not the conscious\npreacher of vicariousness. This further stage in Jeremiah\u2019s experience is\nof equally dramatic interest, though we cannot always trace the order of\nhis utterances which bear witness to it.\n\nThere must often have come to him the temptation to break loose from a\npeople who deserved nothing of him, but cruelly entreated him, and who\nthemselves were so manifestly doomed. Once at least he confesses this.\n\n\n    O that I had in the wilderness  IX. 2\n      A wayfarers\u2019 lodge!\n    Then would I leave my people,\n      And get away from them;\n    For adulterers all of them be,\n      A bundle of traitors.\n      They stretch their tongues  3\n      Like a falsing bow,\n      And never for truth\n      Use their power in the land.\n    But from evil to evil go forth\n      And Me they know not!(739)\n\n\nWell might the Prophet wish to escape from such a people\u2014worn out with\ntheir falsehood, their impurity, and their senseless optimism. Yet it is\nnot solitude for which he prays but some inn or caravanserai where he\nwould have been less lonely than in his unshared house in Jerusalem,\n_sitting alone because of the wrath of the Lord_. His desire is to be set\nwhere a man may see all the interest of passing life without any\nresponsibility for it, where men are wayfarers only and come and go like a\nriver on whose bank you lie, and help you to muse and perhaps to sing but\nnever touch the heart or the conscience of you. It is the prayer of a poet\nsick of being a prophet and a tester. Jeremiah was weary of having to look\nbelow the surface of life, to know people long enough to judge them with a\nkeener conscience than their own and to love them with a hopeless and\nbreaking heart that never got an answer to its love or to its calls for\nrepentance\u2014wearied with watching habit slowly grow from ill to ill, old\ntruths become lies or at the best mere formalities, prophets who only\nflattered, priests to bless them, and the people loving to have it\nso.(740) O to have no other task in life than to watch the street from the\nbalcony!\n\nBut our prayers often outrun themselves in the utterance and Jeremiah\u2019s\ntoo carried with it its denial. _My people\u2014that I might leave my\npeople_\u2014this, it is clear from all that we have heard from him, his heart\nwould never suffer him to do. And so gradually we find him turning with\ndeeper devotion to the forlorn hope of his ministry, his fate to feel his\njudgment of his people grow ever more despairing, but his love for them\ndeeper and more yearning.\n\nFrom the year of Carchemish onward he appears not again to have tried or\nprayed to escape. Through the rest of the reign of Jehoiakim they\npersecuted him to the edge of death. Prophets and priests called for his\nexecution. He was stoned, beaten and thrust into the stocks. The king\nscornfully cut up the roll of his prophecies; and the people following\ntheir formalist leaders rejected his word. With the first captivity under\nJehoiakim all the better classes left Jerusalem, but he elected to remain\nwith the refuse. When in the reign of \u1e62edekiah the Chaldeans came down on\nthe city and Jeremiah counselled its surrender he was again beaten and was\nflung into a pit to starve to death. When he was freed and the besiegers\ngave him the opportunity, he would not go over to them. Even when the city\nhad fallen and her captors hearing of his counsel offered him security and\na position in Babylonia, he chose instead to share the fortunes of the\nlittle remnant left in their ruined land. When they broke up it was the\nworst of them who took possession of his person and disregarding his\nappeals hurried him down to Egypt. There, on alien soil and among\ncountrymen who had given themselves to an alien religion, the one great\npersonality of his time, who had served the highest interests of his\nnation for forty years, reluctant but unfaltering, and whose scorned\nwords, every one, had been vindicated by events, is with the dregs of his\npeople swept from our sight. _He had given his back to the smiters and his\ncheeks to them who plucked out the hair; he had not hidden his face from\nthe shame and the spitting. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with\ngrief. He was taken from prison and from judgment and cut off from the\nland of the living; and they made his grave with the wicked, though he had\ndone no violence neither was deceit in his mouth._ It is the second\ngreatest sacrifice that Israel has offered for mankind.\n\nIf Jeremiah thus of his own will suffered _with_ his people, and to the\nbitter end with the worst of them, was he also conscious of suffering\n_for_ them? After his death, when the full tragedy of his life came home\nto his people\u2019s heart, the sense of the few suffering for the many, the\nrighteous for the sinners, began to be articulate in Israel\u2014remarkably\nenough, let us remember, in the very period when owing to the break-up of\nthe nation the single soul came to its own and belief in the\nresponsibility of every man for his own sins also emerged and prevailed.\nOf the influence of the example of Jeremiah\u2019s spiritual loneliness,\ncombined with his devotion to his sinful people, in developing these\ndoctrines of individualism and self-sacrifice for others there can be no\ndoubt. The stamp of his sufferings is on every passage in that exilic work\n\u201cIsaiah\u201d XL-LXVI, which presents the Suffering Servant of the Lord and\ndeclares the atoning virtues of His Agonies and Death.\n\nBut it is not clear that Jeremiah ever felt anything of this about\nhimself; if he did so he has refrained from uttering it. Yet he must have\nbeen very near so high a consciousness. His love and his pity for his\nsinful people were full. He can hardly have failed to descry that his own\nspiritual agonies which brought him into so close a personal communion\nwith God would show to every other man the way for his approach also to\nthe Most High and Holy and his reconciliation with his God. Again he was\nweighed down with his people\u2019s sins; he bore on his heart the full burden\nof them. He confessed them. The shame which the people did not feel for\nthem, he felt; and he painted the curse upon them in words which prove how\ndeeply the iron had entered his own soul. He had a profound sense of the\nengrained quality of evil,(741) the deep saturation of sin, the enormity\nof the guilt of those who sinned against the light and love of God.(742) A\nfallacy of his day was that God could easily and would readily forgive\nsin, that the standard ritual might at once atone for it and comfortable\npreaching bring the assurance of its removal. He denied this, and affirmed\nthat such things do not change character; that no wash of words can\ncleanse from sin, no sacraments, however ancient, can absolve from\nguilt.(743) That way only strict and painful repentance can work;\nrepentance following the deep searching of the heart by the Word and the\nJudgments of God and the agony of learning and doing His Will.(744) To its\nlast dregs he drank the cup of the Lord\u2019s wrath upon His false and wilful\nnation; he suffered with them every pang of the slow death their sins had\nbrought upon them. And yet he was most conscious of his own innocence when\nmost certain of his fate. The more he loyally gave himself to his mission\nthe more he suffered and the nearer was he brought to death. The tragedy\nperplexed him,\n\n\n    Why is my pain perpetual,\n      My wound past healing?(745)\n\n\nThe only reply he heard from heaven was the order to stand fast, for God\nwas with him to deliver\u2014but that more troubles awaited him. And beyond\nthis what is there to answer the staggering Prophet save that if a man\nhave the Divine gifts of a keener conscience and a more loving heart than\nhis fellows, there inevitably comes with such gifts the obligation of\nsuffering for them. Every degree in which love stands above her brethren\nmeans pain and shame to love though as yet she bear no thorn or nail in\nher flesh. This spiritual distress Jeremiah felt for the people long\nbefore he shared with them the physical penalties of their sins. Just\nthere\u2014in his keener conscience, in his hot shame for sins not his as if\nthey were his, in his agony for his people\u2019s estrangement from God and in\nhis own constantly wounded love\u2014lay his real substitution, his vicarious\noffering for his people.\n\nDid Jeremiah ever conceive the far-off fulness of the travail thus laid\nupon his soul, the truth that this vicarious agony of a righteous man for\nthe sins of others is borne by God Himself? To that question we have only\nfragments of an answer. In his discourses, both earlier and later, when he\ntalks directly in the Name of the Deity\u2014when the Deity speaks in the first\nperson\u2014the words breathe as much effort and passion as when Jeremiah\nspeaks in his own person. The Prophet is very sure that his God is Love,\nand he hears that love utter itself in tones of yearning for the love of\nmen, and even of agony for their sin and misery. There is, too, a singular\nprayer of his which is tense with the instinct, that God would surely be\nto Israel what Jeremiah had resolved and striven to be\u2014not a far-off God\nwho occasionally visited or passed through His people, but One in their\nmidst sharing their pain; not indifferent, as he fears in another\nplace,(746) to the shame that is upon them, but bearing even this. The\nprayer which I mean is the one in XIV. 8, 9, which recalls not only the\nterms but the essence of Jeremiah\u2019s longing to escape from his people, and\nlodge afar with wayfaring men, aloof and irresponsible.\n\n\n    O Hope of Israel, His Saviour\n      In time of trouble.\n    Why be like a passenger through the land,\n      Or the wayfaring guest of a night?\n    Yet Lord Thou art in our midst,\n      Do not forsake us.(747)\n\n\nI may be going too far in interpreting the longing and faith that lie\nbehind these words. But they come out very fully in later prophets who\nexplicitly assert that the Divine Nature does dwell with men, shares their\nethical warfare and bears the shame of their sins. And the truth of it all\nwas manifested past doubt in the Incarnation, the Passion and the Cross of\nthe Son of God.\n\nBut whether Jeremiah had instinct of it, as I have ventured to think from\nhis prayer, or had not, he foreshadowed, as far as mere man can, the\nsufferings of Jesus Christ for men\u2014and this is his greatest glory as a\nprophet.\n\n\n\n\n\n                              Lecture VIII.\n\n\nGOD, MAN AND THE NEW COVENANT.\n\n\nWe have followed the career of Jeremiah from his call onwards to the end,\nand we have traced his religious experience with its doubts, struggles,\ncrises, and settlement at last upon the things that are sure: his debates\nwith God and strifes with men, which while they roused him to outbursts of\npassion also braced his will, and stilled the wilder storms of his heart.\nThere remains the duty of gathering the results of this broken and gusty,\nyet growing and fruitful experience: the truths which came forth of its\ntravail, about God and Man and their relations. And in particular we have\nstill to study the ideal form which Jeremiah, or (as some questionably\nargue) one of his disciples, gave to these relations: the New Covenant,\nnew in contrast to God\u2019s ancient Covenant with Israel as recorded and\nenforced in the Book of Deuteronomy.\n\n\n\n\n1. God.\n\n\nAmong the surprises which Jeremiah\u2019s own Oracles have for the student is\nthe discovery of how little they dwell upon the transcendent and infinite\naspects of the Divine Nature. On these Jeremiah adds almost nothing to\nwhat his predecessors or contemporaries revealed. Return to his original\nvisions and contrast them with those, for example, of Isaiah and Ezekiel.\n\nIsaiah\u2019s vision was of the Lord upon a Throne, high and lifted up,\nsurrounded by Seraphim crying to one another, _Holy, Holy, Holy is the\nLord of Hosts! the whole earth is full of His Glory!_ And their voices\nrocked the Temple and filled it with smoke. Here are a Presence, Awful\nMajesty, Infinite Holiness and Glory, blinding the seer and crushing his\nheart contrite. Or take the inaugural vision of Ezekiel\u2014the storm-wind out\nof the North, the vast cloud, the fire infolding itself, the brightness\nround about and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber; the rush\nand whirl of life that followed, wheels and wings and rings full of eyes;\nand over this the likeness of a firmament of the colour of the terrible\nice and the sound of wings like the noise of many waters, as the Voice of\nthe Almighty and above the firmament a Throne and on the Throne the\nAppearance of a Man, the Appearance of the likeness of the Glory of the\nLord. _And I, when I saw it, fell upon my face._\n\nIn the inaugural visions of Jeremiah there is none of this Awfulness\u2014only\n_What art thou seeing Jeremiah? the branch of an almond tree ... a caldron\nboiling._ That was characteristic of his encounters and intercourse with\nthe Deity throughout. They were constant and close, but in them all we are\naware only of a Voice and an Argument. There is no Throne, no Appearance,\nno Majesty, no overwhelming sense of Holiness and Glory, no rush of wings\nnor floods of colour or of song.(748) Jeremiah takes for granted what\nother prophets have said of God. But the Deity whose Power and Glory they\nrevealed is his Familiar. The Lord talks with Jeremiah as a man with his\nfellow.\n\nFor this there were several reasons, and first the particular quality of\nthe Prophet\u2019s imagination. His native powers of vision were not such as\nsoar, or at any rate easily soar, to the sublime. He was a lyric poet and\nhis revelations of God are subjective and given to us by glimpses in\nscattered verses, which, however intimate and exquisite, have not the\nadoring wonder of his prophetic peers.\n\nAgain there were the startled recoil of his nature from the terrible\noffice of a prophet in such times, and those born gifts of questioning and\nsearching which fitted him for his allotted duty as Tester of his\npeople,(749) but which he also turned upon the Providence and Judgments of\nthe Lord Himself.(750) His religious experience, as we have seen, was\nlargely a struggle with the Divine Will, and it left him not adoring but\namazed and perplexed. Such wrestling man\u2019s spirit has to encounter like\nJacob of old in the dark, and if like the Patriarch it craves the Name,\nwhich is the Nature, of That with which it struggles, all the answer it\nmay get is another question, _Wherefore askest thou after My Name?_\nMorning may break, as it broke on Jacob by Jabbok with the assurance of\nblessing or as on Jeremiah with a firmer impression of the Will not his\nown; but no strength is left to glory in the Nature behind the Will. There\nis a horrified breathlessness about his lines\u2014\n\n\n    Thou wast stronger than I and hast conquered,\n    The Lord is with me as a Mighty and Terrible.(751)\n\n\nFrom his struggles he indeed issues more sure of God and finally more\ntrustful in Him, as is testified by his fair song on the beauty and\nfruitfulness of faith, beginning\n\n\n    Blessed the wight that trusts in the Lord,\n    And the Lord is his trust.(752)\n\n\nBut even here is none of the awe and high wonder which fall upon Israel\nthrough other prophets. Lyrist as he is and subjective, Jeremiah dwells\nnot so much upon the attributes of God on which faith rests as upon the\neffects of faith in man.\n\nAgain by the desperate character of the times he was starved of hope, the\nhope by which the Apostle says _we are saved_, which not only braces the\nwill but clears the inner eyes of men and liberates the imagination. As\nthe years went on he was ever more closely bound to the prediction of his\npeople\u2019s ruin, and, when this came, to the sober counsel to accept their\nfate and settle down to a long exile in patience for the Lord\u2019s time of\ndeliverance. As we have seen, his intervals of release from so grim a\nministry were brief, and his Oracles of a bright future but few. Even in\nthese he does not rise, like the Evangelist of the Exile whom he inspired,\nto exultation in the Almighty Power of God or to visions of vast spaces of\nthe Divine Providence, or of Israel\u2019s service wide as the world. His happy\npeasant-heart is content to foresee his restored people tending their\nvineyards again, enjoying their village dances and festivals, and sharing\nwith their long divided tribes the common national worship upon \u1e62ion.(753)\n\nLike those of all the prophets Jeremiah\u2019s most immediate convictions of\nGod are that He has done, and is always doing or about to do, things.(754)\nFrom the first Yahweh of Israel had been to the faith of his people a God\nof Deeds. He delivered them from Egypt, led them through the desert, ever\nready to avenge them on any who molested them, and He had brought them to\na land of delight.(755) By his creative and guiding Word, always clear and\npotential,(756) He had planted them and built them up to be a nation.\nThese were the proofs of Him\u2014ever operative, effective and victorious both\nover their foes and over every natural obstacle which their life\nencountered. And being _the Living God_ He still works and is ready to\nwork, would His people only seek where!(757) He is awake, watching over\nHis Word _to perform it_ and controlling the nations.(758) It is He who\nhas made the earth and gives it to whom He will,(759) who prepares the\ndestroyers of His people, who calls for the kingdoms of the North, even\nfor the far Scythians beyond the edge of the world, to execute His\npurposes.(760) He brings the King of Babylon against Jerusalem, and\nrecalls the Chaldeans to their interrupted siege of the city, gives it\ninto their hands and Himself banishes its people.(761) He moulds the\nnations for his own ends, and if they fail Him, decrees their\ndestruction.(762) His Word builds and plants but also pulls up and tears\ndown.(763) He is always near to guide or to argue with nations and\nindividuals, and to give directions and suggestions of practical detail to\nHis servants for the interpretation and fulfilment of His purposes.(764)\n\nIt was all this activity and effectiveness, with their sure results in\nhistory, which distinguished Him from other gods, the gods of the nations,\nwho were ineffective, or as Jeremiah puts it _unprofitable\u2014no-gods,\nnothings_ and _do-nothings, the work of men\u2019s hands, lies_ or _frauds_,\nand mere _bubbles_.(765) On this line Jeremiah\u2019s monotheism marks a\nnotable advance; for alongside of faith in the Divine Unity and\nSovereignty there had lingered even in Deuteronomy a belief in the\nexistence of other gods.(766) With Jeremiah every vestige of this\nsuperstition is gone, and other gods consigned to limbo once and for all.\n\nYet Jeremiah\u2019s monotheism, like that of all the Hebrew prophets, is even\nmore due to convictions of the character of the God of Israel. We have\nseen how he dwells on the Divine Love, faithful and yearning for love in\nreturn, pleading and patient even with its delinquent sons and\ndaughters;(767) but equal to this is his emphasis on the righteousness of\nthe Most High, by all His deeds _working troth, justice, and judgment on\nthe earth_, which are His delight and the knowledge of which is man\u2019s only\nglory.(768) He demands from His people not sacrifices, which He never\ncommanded to their fathers, nor vows but a better life, justice between\nman and man, and care for the weak and the innocent.(769) To know Him is\nto do justice and right.(770) Because the present generation have fallen\naway from these, and practise and love falsehood, slander, impurity,\ntreacherous and greedy violence, therefore God, being justice and truth,\nmust judge and condemn them: _What else can I do?_(771) The ethical\nnecessity of the doom of the people is clear to the Prophet from a very\nearly stage of his ministry,(772) and throughout, though his heart\nstruggles against it. But, if possible, even more abhorrent to God than\nthese sins against domestic and civic piety in themselves, is the fact\nthat they are committed in the very face of His Love and despite all its\npleading. With Jeremiah as with Hosea the sin against love is the most\nhopeless and unpardonable, and this people have sinned it to the utmost.\n\n\n    As a woman is false to her fere,\n      Have ye been false to me.(773)\n\n\nHence most deeply springs the Wrath of the Lord, a Wrath on which Jeremiah\nbroods and explodes more frequently and fiercely than any other prophet:\n_I am full of the rage of the Lord; the glow of His wrath; take the cup of\nthe wine of this fury at My hand and give all nations to whom I send thee\nto drink of it; the fierce anger of the Lord shall not turn until He have\nexecuted it._(774) And He does execute it. God\u2019s Wrath breaks out in His\n_spurning_ of His nation, in the hot names He calls it, _adulteress_ and\n_harlot_, and in _hating_ it.(775) He will not relent nor pardon it, nor\nlisten to prayer for it.(776) He says, _I must myself take vengeance upon\nthem. I shall not spare nor pity them._(777) They will reel in the day of\ntheir visitation. He will feed them with wormwood and drug them with\npoison; He will suddenly let fall on them anguish and terrors; He will\ntake His fan and winnow them out in the gates of the land and as the\npassing chaff strew them on the wind of the desert; the garden-land\nwithers to wilderness and its cities break down at His presence and before\nHis fierce anger; He will make Jerusalem heaps and cast out the people\nbefore His face. He will give them to be tossed among the nations for a\nconsternation, a reproach and a proverb, for a taunt and a curse, in all\nplaces whither He drives them: and will send after them the sword, the\nfamine, and the pestilence till they be consumed.(778)\n\nThe modern mind deems arbitrary such immediate linking of physical and\npolitical disasters with the Wrath of God against sin. But we have to\nponder the following. The Prophet was convinced of the ethical necessity\nof that Wrath and of its judgments on Judah\u2014he was convinced before they\ncame to pass and he predicted them accurately, from close observation of\nthe political conditions of his world and the character of his people.\nGranted these and God\u2019s essential and operative justice, the connection\nwas natural: _What else can I do?_ It was clear that Judah both deserved\nand needed punishment and equally clear that the boiling North held the\npotentialities of this, which were gradually shaping and irresistibly\napproaching. Moreover, as Jeremiah insists, and as the history both of\nnations and individuals has frequently illustrated, there is a natural\nsequence of disaster upon wrong-doing. _Be thy scourge thine own sin! Thy\nways and thy deeds have done to thee __ these things. Is it Me they\nprovoke, saith the Lord, Is it not themselves to the confusion of their\nfaces? Wherefore have these things come upon thee?\u2014for the mass of thy\nwickedness._(779) As St. Paul says _the wages of sin_, not the judge\u2019s\npenalty on sin but the thing it naturally earns, _is death_. Now one of\nJeremiah\u2019s most acute and convincing experiences as the _Tester_ of his\npeople,(780) is his observation of how all this worked out upon his own\ngeneration. Not only were the war, the pestilence, and the captivity,\nwhich were about to fall upon Jerusalem, directly and obviously due to the\nperjury and stupid pride of her rulers; but, as he more subtly saw, the\nimmorality of the whole people had been disabling them, for years before,\nfrom meeting these or any disasters except as sheer punishment without\nplace for repentance. Their previous troubles had failed to sober or\nhumble them or rouse them. _They would not accept correction_, he says of\nthem more than once.(781) To the Prophet\u2019s warnings that God will judge\nthem, they answer carelessly or defiantly _Not He!_ Instead of yielding to\nthe power which lies in all adversity to cleanse the heart and brace the\nwill they became incapable of shame, indifferent to consequences, and so\npast praying for.(782) And in this they were fortified by the specious\ndreams and lies of their false prophets, continued to sin, and so fell to\ntheir doom, abashed at last but unassoilable.(783) If at any time they\nwere startled by disaster, this found them too enfeebled even for\nrepentance by their habitual insincerity or self-indulgence; which made\nthem incapable of truth even under pain, and of a real conversion to\nGod.(784) All this is discovered to us by the eyes and the mouth of\nJeremiah. What in it is arbitrary? The record is awful, nothing like it in\nliterature. Yet every step is real. We follow a master of observation.\n\nBut perhaps the chief glory of our Prophet is that while thus delivering,\nas no other prophet so fully or so ethically does, the just wrath of God\nupon sin, he reveals at the same time that His people\u2019s sin costs God more\npain than anger. This no doubt Jeremiah learned through his own heart. As\nwe have seen, with his whole heart he loved the people whom he was called\nto test and expose, and that heart was wracked and torn by thoughts of the\nDoom which he had to pronounce upon them. So also, he was given to feel,\nwas the heart of their God. In the following questions there is poignant\nsurprise; an insulted, a wounded love beats through them.\n\n\n    What wrong found your fathers in Me,\n      That so far they broke from Me?\n    Have I been a desert to Israel,\n      Or land of thick darkness?\n    Why say my folk, \u201cWe are off,\n      No more to meet Thee!\u201d\n    Can a maiden forget her adorning\n      Or her girdle the bride?\n    Yet Me have My people forgotten\n      Days without number.(785)\n\n\nSo, too, when the deserved doom threatens, and in hate He has cast off His\nheritage, His love still wonders how that can be\u2014\n\n\n    Is My heritage to Me a speckled wild-bird\n      With the wild-birds round and against her?\n    Is Israel a slave,\n      Or house-born serf?\n      Why he for a prey?(786)\n\n\nAll the desolation of Judah is on Him alone: _no man lays it to heart,\nupon Me is the waste_.(787) And what we have seen to be the most human\ntouch of all, the surprise of an outraged father at feeling, beneath His\nwrath against a prodigal son, the instincts of the ancient love which no\nwrath can quench,\n\n\n    Is Ephraim My dearest son,\n      The child of delights?\n    That as oft as against him I speak\n      I must think of him still!(788)\n\n\nThat these instincts are so scattered rather increases their cumulative\neffect.\n\nThus whether upon the Wrath or upon the Love of God Jeremiah speaks home\nto the heart of his own, and of our own and of every generation which\nloves lies and lets itself be lulled by them. Sin, he says, is no fiction\nnor a thing to be lightly taken.(789) Time for repentance is short; doom\ncomes quickly. Habits of evil are not carelessly parted with, but have\ntheir long and necessary consequences moral and physical. No wash of words\nnor worship nor sacrament can cleanse the heart or redeem from guilt. It\nis not the flagrant sinner whom he chiefly warns, but those who harden\nthemselves softly. And\u2014very firmly this\u2014forgiveness is not easily granted\nby God nor cheaply gained by men; God has not only set our sins before His\nface but carries them on His heart. And therefore, in view both of the\nJust Wrath of the Most High and of His suffering Love, only repentance can\navail, the repentance which is not the facile mood offered by many in\natonement for their sins, but arduous, rigorous and deeply sincere in its\nanguish. All of which carries our prophet, six centuries before Christ\ncame, very far _into the fellowship of His sufferings_.\n\nI have already spoken sufficiently of Jeremiah\u2019s other original\ncontributions to theology, on the Freedom and the Patience of the\nProvidence of God, and his hope that God would be to Israel what the\nprophet had bravely tried to be\u2014no transient guest but a dweller in their\nmidst.(790) The titles for God which we may assume to have first come from\nhimself are few, perhaps only three: _The Fountain of Living Waters, the\nHope of Israel and the Saviour thereof in time of trouble_, and _Hasidh,\nor Loyal-in-Love_,(791) a term elsewhere applied only to men. Sometimes,\nbut not nearly so often as the copyists of our Hebrew text have made him\ndo, he uses the title _Yahweh of Hosts_, doubtless in the other prophets\u2019\nsense of _the forces of history and of the Universe_ (the original meaning\nhaving been _the armies of Israel_), sometimes he borrows the deuteronomic\n_Yahweh thy God_, or a similar form. But most often (as the Greek\nfaithfully shows us) it is simply the personal name _Yahweh_ (Jehovah) by\nwhich he addresses or describes the Deity: significant of the long\nstruggle between them as individuals.\n\nPassing now from the world of nations to the world of nature we observe\nhow little the genuine Oracles of Jeremiah have to tell us of the Divine\nPower over this; yet the little is proclaimed with as firm assurance as of\nGod\u2019s control of the history of mankind. Both worlds are His: the\nhappenings in the one are the sacraments, the signs and seals, of His\npurposes and tempers towards the other: the winter blossom of the almond,\nof His wakefulness in a world where all seems asleep; the sun by day and\nthe moon and stars by night, of His everlasting faithfulness to His\nown.(792) All things in nature obey His rule though His own people do not;\nit is He who rules the stormy sea and can alone bring rain.\n\n\n    Even the stork in the heavens\n      Knoweth her seasons,\n    And dove, swift and swallow\n      Keep time of their coming.\n    But My people\u2014they know not\n      The Rule of the Lord.\n\n    I have set the sand as a bound for the sea,\n    An eternal decree that cannot be crossed.\n    Are there makers of rain \u2019mong the bubbles of the heathen?\n    Art Thou not He? ... all these Thou hast made.(793)\n\n\nAfter all neither Nature nor the courses of the Nations but the single\nhuman heart is the field which Jeremiah most originally explores for\nvisions of the Divine Working and from which he has brought his most\ndistinctive contributions to our knowledge of God. But that leads us up to\nthe second part of this lecture, his teaching about man. Before beginning\nthat, however, we must include under his teaching about God, two elements\nof this to which his insight into the human heart directly led him.\n\nFirst this great utterance of the Divine Omnipresence:\n\n\n    I am a God who is near,\n      Not a God who is far.\n    Can any man hide him in secret,\n      And I not see him?\n    Do I not fill heaven and earth?\u2014\n      Rede of the Lord.(794)\n\n\nThese verses have been claimed as the earliest expression in Israel of the\nDivine Omnipresence.(795) Amos, however, had given utterance to the same\ntruth though on a different plane of life.(796)\n\nSecond, and partly in logical sequence from the preceding, but also\nstimulated by thoughts of the best of Judah(797) banished to a long exile,\nJeremiah was the first in Israel to assure his people that the sense of\nGod\u2019s presence, faith in His Providence, His Grace, and Prayer to Him were\nnow free both of Temple and Land\u2014as possible on distant and alien soil,\nwithout Ark or Altar, as they had been with these in Jerusalem. See his\nLetter to the Exiles, and recall all that lay behind it in his predictions\nof the ruin of the Temple, and abolition of the Ark, and in his rejection\nof sacrifices.(798) To Deuteronomy exile was the people\u2019s punishment; to\nJeremiah it is a fresh opportunity of grace.\n\n\n\n\n2. Man and the New Covenant.\n\n\nIn the earliest Oracles of Jeremiah nations are the human units in\nreligion, Israel as a whole the object of the Divine affection and\nprovidence. To his age worship was the business of the nation: public\nreverence for symbols and institutions, and rites in which the\nindividual\u2019s share was largely performed for him by official\nrepresentatives. The prophets, and Jeremiah himself at first, dealt with\nthe people as a moral unity from the earliest times to their own. The Lord\nhad loved and sought, redeemed and tended them as a nation. As a nation\nthey fell away from Him and now they were wholly false to Him. When\nJeremiah first urges them to return, it is of a public and general\nrepentance that he speaks, as Deuteronomy had done; and when his urgency\nfails it is their political disappearance which he pronounces for doom.\n\nBut when the rotten surface of the national life thus broke under the\nProphet he fell upon the deeper levels of the individual heart, and not\nonly found the native sinfulness of this to be the explanation of the\npublic and social corruption but discovered also soil for the seed-bed of\nnew truths and new hopes. Among these there is none more potent than that\nof the immediate relation of the individual to God. Jeremiah never lost\nhope of the ultimate restoration of Israel. Nevertheless the individual\naspects of religion increase in his prophesying, and though it is\nimpossible to trace their growth with any accuracy because of the want of\ndates to many of his Oracles, we may be certain that as he watched under\nJosiah the failure of the national movements for reform, inspired by\nDeuteronomy, and under Jehoiakim and \u1e62edekiah the gradual breaking up of\nthe nation, and still more as his own personal relations with the Deity\ngrew closer, Jeremiah thought and spoke less of the nation and more of the\nindividual as the object of the Divine call and purposes.\n\nOne has travelled by night through a wooded country, by night and on into\nthe dawn. How solid and indivisible the dark masses appear and how\ndifficult to realise as composed of innumerable single growths, each with\nits own roots, each by itself soaring towards heaven. But as the dawn\ncomes up one begins to see all this. The mass breaks; first the larger,\nmore lonely trees stand out and soon every one of the common crowd is\napparent in its separate strength and beauty.\n\nIt seems to me as I travel through the Book of Jeremiah that here also is\na breaking of dawn\u2014but they are men whom it reveals. There is a stir of\nthis even in the earliest Oracles; for the form of address to the nation\nwhich has begun with the singular _Thou_ changes gradually to _You_, and\nnot _Israel_ but _ye men of Israel_ are called to turn to their God.(799)\nAs the Prophet\u2019s indictments proceed his burden ceases to be the national\nharlotry. He arraigns separate classes or groups,(800) and then, in\nincreasing numbers, individuals: brother deceiving brother and friend\nfriend; adulterers each after the wife of his neighbour; the official\nbully Pashhur, Jehoiakim the atrocious and petty in contrast to his sire\nthe simple and just Josiah, the helpless and ridiculous \u1e62edekiah, the\nbustling and self-confident Hananiah(801)\u2014with the fit word and in sharp\nirony Jeremiah etches them separately, in the same vividness as the\ntypical figures of the harlot watching for her prey like the Arab robber\nin the desert, the fowler crouching to fling his net, the shepherds\nfailing to keep their scattered flocks, the prophets who _fling about\ntheir tongues and rede a rede of the Lord_.(802) Jeremiah has answered the\ncall to him to search for the _man_, the men beneath the nation.(803)\n\nThen there are his readings of the heart of man into which he more deeply\nthought than any other prophet of Israel: his revelation of the working of\nGod in the soul of man, its Searcher, its only Guide and Strength; his\nstress upon individual responsibility and guilt, and on the one glory of\nman being his knowledge of God and the duty of every man to know God for\nhimself and not through others; and his song of the beauty of the personal\nlife rooted in faith, evergreen and yielding its fruit even in seasons of\ndrought. Such passages increase in the Oracles of Jeremiah. Not ceasing to\nbe the patriot, the civic conscience of his people, he busies himself more\nwith the hearts, the habits, the sins and the duties towards God of its\nindividuals. Like Christ he takes the deaf apart from the multitude and\ntalks to him of himself.\n\n\n    O Lord, Who triest the righteous,\n      Who seest the reins and the heart.(804)\n\n    False above all is the heart,\n      Sick to despair,\n      Who is to know it?\n    I, the Lord, searching the heart\n      And trying the reins,\n    To give to each man as his ways,\n      As the fruit of his doings.(805)\n\n    Can any man hide him in secret\n      And I not see him?(806)\n\n    In those days they shall say no more: The fathers have eaten sour\n    grapes and the teeth of the children are set on edge. But every\n    one shall die for his own iniquity, every man that eateth sour\n    grapes his teeth shall be set on edge.(807)\n\n    Speak to all Judah all the words I have charged thee....\n    Peradventure they will hearken and turn _every man from his evil\n    way_.(808)\n\n    He that would boast in this let him boast,\n      Insight and knowledge of Me.(809)\n\n    Lord, I know\u2014not to man is his way,\n    Not man\u2019s to walk or settle his steps.(810)\n\n    Blessed the man that trusts in the Lord\n    And the Lord is his trust!\n    He like a tree shall be planted by water,\n    That stretches its roots to the stream;\n    Unafraid at the coming of heat,\n    His leaf shall be green;\n    _Sans_ care in the season of drought\n    He fails not in yielding his fruit.(811)\n\n\nThe individual soul rooted in faith and drawing life from the Fountain of\nLiving Water, independent of all disaster to the nation and famine on\nearth\u2014could not be more beautifully drawn.\n\nNow all this advance by Jeremiah from the idea of the nation as the human\nunit in religion\u2014Deuteronomy\u2019s ideal and at first his own\u2014to the\nindividual as the direct object of the Divine Grace and Discipline was\npromoted, we have seen, by the dire happenings of the time, the unworthy\nconduct of the people, their abandonment by God, the ruin of the State and\nof the national worship\u2014which cut off individuals from all political and\nreligious associations, leaving to each (in Jeremiah\u2019s repeated phrase)\nonly _his life_, or _his soul, for a prey_.(812) But all these could have\nfurthered the advance but little unless Jeremiah had felt by bitter\nexperience his own soul searched and re-searched by God\u2014\n\n\n    But Thou, Lord, hast known me,\n      Thou seest and triest my heart towards Thee\u2014(813)\n\n\nunless through doubt and struggle he himself had won into the confidence\nof an immediate and intimate knowledge of God. At his call he had learned\nhow a man could be God\u2019s before he was his mother\u2019s or his nation\u2019s\u2014God\u2019s\nown and to the end answerable only to Him. He had proved his solitary\nconscience under persecution. He had known how personal convictions can\noverbear the traditions of the past and the habits of one\u2019s own\ngeneration\u2014how God can hold a single man alone to His Will against his\nnation and all its powers, and vindicate him at last to their faces. In\nall this lay much of the vicarious service which Jeremiah achieved for his\nown generation; what he had won for himself was possible for each of them.\nAnd sure it is that the personal piety which henceforth flourished in\nIsrael as it had never flourished before, weaving its delicate tendrils\nabout the ruins of the state, the city and the altar, and (as the Psalms\nshow) blooming behind the shelter of the Law like a garden of lilies\nwithin a fence of thorns, sprang from seeds in Jeremiah\u2019s heart, and was\nwatered by his tears and the sweat of his spiritual agonies.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nWe are now come to a confluence of the streams we have been tracing\u2014the\nprophecy of the New Covenant. This occupies no incongruous place,\nfollowing hard as it does upon that of the eating of sour\ngrapes\u2014individual inspiration upon individual responsibility. But we\ncannot off-hand accept it as Jeremiah\u2019s own; the critical questions which\nhave been with us from the beginning embarrass us still.\n\nThe collection of Oracles to which that of the New Covenant belongs, Chs.\nXXX, XXXI, was not made till long after Jeremiah\u2019s time; it includes, as\nwe have seen, several of exilic or post-exilic origin.(814) But so do\nother chapters of the Book, in which nevertheless genuine prophecies of\nJeremiah are recognised by virtually all modern critics. The context\ntherefore offers no prejudice against the authenticity of the prophecy of\nthe New Covenant, XXXI. 31-34. But the form and the substance of this have\nraised doubts, so honest and reluctant as to deserve our consideration.\nDuhm starts his usual objection that the passage is in prose and a style\ncharacteristic of the late expanders of the Book. We may let that go, as\nwe have done before, as by itself inconclusive;(815) the prophecy may not\nhave come directly from Jeremiah\u2019s mouth but through the memory of a\nreporter of the Prophet, Baruch or another. More deserving of\nconsideration is the criticism which Duhm, with great unwillingness, makes\nof the terms and substance of the prophecy. He objects to the term\n_covenant_: a _covenant_ is a legal contract and could hardly have been\nchosen for the frame of his ideal by so pronounced an anti-legalist as\nJeremiah. The passage \u201cpromises a new Covenant\u2014not a new Torah but only a\nmore inward assimilation of the Torah by the people, and emphasises the\ngood results which this will have for them but betrays no demand for a\nhigher kind of religion. If one does not let himself be dazzled by the\nphrases _new covenant_ and _write it on the heart_ then the passage tells\nus of the relation of the individual no more than Deuteronomy has already\nregarded as possible, XXX. 11 ff., and desirable, VI. 6-8: namely, that\nevery man should be at home in the Law and honestly follow it.\u201d He\ncontinues: \u201cit is impossible for me to hold any longer to the Jeremian\norigin of the passage. I find in it only the effusion of one learned in\nthe Scriptures who regards as the highest ideal, that every one of the\nJewish people should know the Law by heart.\u201d\n\nBut in his resolve \u201cnot to let himself be dazzled\u201d has not Duhm gone to\nthe opposite extreme and seriously under-read the whole spirit of the\npassage\u2014besides showing as usual undue apprehensiveness of the presence in\nthe text of a legalist at work?(816) The choice of the term _covenant_ for\nthe frame of his ideal was not unnatural to Jeremiah nor irrelevant to his\nexperience and teaching. Formally the term may mean a legal contract; but\nit is open to a prophet or a poet to use any metaphor for his ideals and\ntransform its mere letter by the spirit he puts into it; and after all\n_covenant_ is only a metaphor for a relation which was beyond the compass\nof any figure to express. Yet it was a term classical in Israel and most\nintelligible to the generation whom Jeremiah was addressing. Its\nassociations, especially as he had recalled them,(817) had been those not\nof the Law but of Love. It was not a contract or bargain but an approach\nby God to His people, an offer of His Grace, a statement of His Will and\naccompanied by manifestations of His Power to redeem them. One might as\nwell charge Jesus with legalism in adopting a term sanctioned by God\nHimself, and so historical, sacred and endeared to the national memory.\nNor need Torah, or Law, be taken as Duhm takes it in its sense of the\nlegal codes of Israel, but in its wider meaning of the Divine\n_instruction_ or _revelation_. Further the epithet _New_ applied to\nCovenant was most relevant to the Prophet\u2019s and his people\u2019s recent sense\nof the failure of the ancient covenant, as restated and enforced in\nDeuteronomy. In spite of the excitement caused by the discovery of the\nBook in which it was written, and the recital of its words throughout the\nland, the Old Covenant had failed to capture the heart of the people or to\nsecure from them more than the formal and superstitious observance of the\nletter of its Torah. Was it not a natural antithesis to predict that His\nTorah would be set by God _in their inward parts and written on their\nhearts_? How else (will Duhm tell us?) than by such phrases could the\nProphet have described an inward and purely spiritual process? To say as\nDuhm does that the phrases only mean that common men would learn the Law\nof God \u201cby heart\u201d (auswendig), is, whoever their author may have been, to\ntravesty his meaning. Finally, all the phrasing of the New Covenant is in\nharmony with the rest of the Prophet\u2019s teaching. He had spoken of God\u2019s\nwill to give His people a new heart to know Him;(818) he had taught\nreligion as the individual\u2019s direct knowledge of God;(819) he had won this\nhimself from God directly without help from his parentage, his\nfellow-prophets or priests or any others; he had most bitterly known also\nhow weak the word of one man is to teach his countrymen this knowledge and\nthat it can only come by the inward operation of God Himself upon their\nspirits; and he had made as clear as ever prophet did that God\u2019s pardon\nfor sin was the first, the necessary preliminary to His other gifts. Nor\nis the fact that the New Covenant is to be a national one alien to his\nteaching: Jeremiah never lost hope of his nation\u2019s survival and\nrestoration.\n\nThus the passage on the New Covenant brings together all the strands of\nJeremiah\u2019s experience and doctrine and hopes, shaken free from the\npolitical debris of the times, into one fair web under a pattern familiar\nand dear to the people. The weaving, it is true, is none of the deftest,\nbut whether this is due to the aged Jeremiah\u2019s failing fingers or to the\nawkwardness of a disciple, the stuff and its dyes are all his own.\n\n\n    Lo, days are coming\u2014Rede of the Lord\u2014when I will make with the\n    House of Israel and with the House of Judah a New Covenant, not\n    like the Covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that\n    I took them by their hand to bring them forth from the land of\n    Egypt, which My Covenant they brake and I rejected them(820)\u2014Rede\n    of the Lord. But this is My(821) Covenant which I will make with\n    the sons(822) of Israel after those days\u2014Rede of the Lord\u2014I will\n    set My Law in their inward part and on their heart will I write\n    it, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people.\n    And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man\n    his brother saying, Know thou(823) the Lord! For they shall all\n    know Me from the least even to the greatest;(824) for I will\n    forgive their guilt and their sin will I remember no more.\n\n\nThis is, as has been said, a prophecy of Christianity which has hardly its\nequal in the Old Testament.(825) It is the Covenant which Jesus Christ the\nSon of God accepted for Himself and all men and sealed with His own blood.\n\nAnd yet not even in this prophecy of Jeremiah, in which the individual\nsoul is made to feel that God created it not for its family nor its state\nnor its church but only for Himself, is there any breath of a promise for\nit after death. The Prophet\u2019s eyes are still sealed to that future. The\nsoul must be content that her strength and peace and hope are with God.\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Appendix I.\n\n\nMEDES AND SCYTHIANS (PP. 73, 110).\n\n\nIt is very difficult, if not impossible, to give a correct account of the\nnational and racial movements which, along with the moral conditions in\nJudah, called forth Jeremiah\u2019s Oracles of judgment in the years\nimmediately following his call in 627-626 B.C. But the following facts are\nwell founded. In or about 625 the Medes were defeated in an attack upon\nAssyria and their king Phraortes was killed, but at the same time\nAsshurbanipal died, and his weaker successor was compelled to recognize\nthe virtual independence of Nabopolassar, the Chaldean in Babylon.\nCyaxares (624-585), the son of Phraortes, soon after his succession to his\nfather\u2014say between 624 and 620\u2014led a second Median assault upon Assyria\nand besieged Nineveh, but had to retire because of the onset from the\nnorth of the Scythians, the Ashguzai of the Assyrian monuments, probably\nthe Ashkenaz or Ashkunza (?) of the Old Testament. And then it was not for\nsome years that Cyaxares felt himself strong enough by his alliance with\nNabopolassar for a third Median invasion of Assyria which culminated in\nthe capture and destruction of Nineveh.\n\nThe Assyrians appear to have been in touch with the Ashguzai for over a\ncentury and for a shorter time probably in alliance with them; which\nalliance was the cause of the Scythian advance to the relief of Nineveh\nfrom its siege by the Medes _circa_ 724-720 (see Winckler _Die\nKeilinschriften v. das alte Testament_, 3rd ed., pp. 100 ff.). About the\nsame time must be dated the Scythian advance through Western Asia to the\nborders of Egypt, which Herodotus (I. 103-104, IV. 1) reports. Professor\nN. Schmidt (_Enc. Bibl._, art. \u201cScythians\u201d) supposes that this advance was\ndue to the same Scythian-Assyrian alliance, in order to preserve the\nAssyrian territories from the arms of Psamtik of Egypt, who had since 639\nbeen besieging Ashdod; and he holds that this hypothesis explains the\nabsence of any record of violence by the Scythians on their southern\ncampaign, except at Ashkelon. This precarious hypothesis apart, we have\nthe facts that no Biblical chronicler records any invasion of Judah and\nBenjamin by the Scythians, and yet that the early Oracles of Jeremiah,\ngenerally attributed to the alarms which the advance of such barbarian\nhordes would excite in Judah, do closely fit the Scythians (with a few\nexceptions that may be due to the prophet\u2019s adaptation in 604 of his\nearlier Oracles to the new _enemy_ out of the north, the Chaldeans).\n\nThere, are, however, modern writers who claim that the Oracles in question\nwere originally composed not in view of the Scythian, but of the Chaldean\ninvasion of Palestine. So George Douglas (_The Book of Jeremiah_, London,\nHodder & Stoughton, 1903), who, while assigning Jeremiah\u2019s call to 627,\nrelegates the two visions and all the Oracles in the first part of the\nbook to the years following Jehoiakim\u2019s accession to the Jewish throne in\n608; cp. Winckler, _Geschichte Israels_, I. pp. 112 f. and F. Wilke\n(_Alttestamentliche studien R. Kittel zum 60 Geburtstag dargebracht_,\n1913), quoted by John Skinner, _Prophecy and Religion_, pp. 42 f. n. 2.\nThis would be an easy solution but for the insuperable objections to it\nthat the Oracles in question far more closely fit the Scythian, than the\nChaldean, invasion; and that Jer. I. 2, as distinctly covers prophecies of\nJeremiah in the days of Josiah as v. 3 does his prophesying under\nJehoiakim.\n\nPOSTSCRIPT.\n\nThe date of Nineveh\u2019s fall has hitherto been accepted as 607-606 B.C. But\nin July of this year (1923) Mr. C. J. Gadd described to the British\nAcademy a Babylonian tablet, which dates the fall in the fourteenth year\nof Nabopolassar\u2019s reign in Babylon. This year was 612 B.C., if it be right\nto reckon the reign from 626-25 B.C.; but as remarked above, p. 175,\nNabopolassar became in that year officially not king but only viceroy.\nDependent as I was on a newspaper summary of Mr. Gadd\u2019s lecture I could\ntherefore do no more than offer for the fall of Nineveh the alternative\ndates, 612 and 606; see above p. 175 and compare p. 162.\n\n\n\n\n\n                               Appendix II.\n\n\nNECOH\u2019S CAMPAIGN (PP. 162, 163).\n\n\nIn addition to the accounts in the Books of Kings and Chronicles of\nPharaoh N\u0115coh\u2019s advance into Asia in pursuance of his claim for a share of\nthe crumbling Assyrian Empire there are two independent records: (1)\nJeremiah XLVII. 1\u2014_and Pharaoh smote Gaza_\u2014a headline (with other\nparticulars) wrongly prefixed by the Hebrew text, but not by the Greek, to\nan Oracle upon an invasion of Philistia not from the south but from the\nnorth (see above, pp. 13, 61); (2) by Herodotus, II. 159, who says that\n\u201cN\u0115coh (Nek\u00f4s) making war by land on the Syrians defeated them at Magdolos\nand after the battle took Kad\u016dtis, a great city of Syria.\u201d Magdolos is\nprobably Megiddo, unless it stands for Megdel, which, as well as Rumman (=\nHadad-rimmon, the scene of the mourning for Josiah, Zech. XII. 11) lies\nnear Megiddo. If, as is usually held, Kad\u016dtis be Gaza, Herodotus has\nreversed the proper order of N\u0115coh\u2019s two actions; but Kad\u016dtis also\nsuggests _hak-K\u00f4d\u0113sh_, _the holy_, an epithet of Jerusalem (_Jerusalem_,\nI. 270) which would suit Herodotus\u2019 order, for it was after Megiddo that\nN\u0115coh became master of Jerusalem and Judah. The suggestion, though worth\nmentioning, is doubtful; the epithet is late, exilic and post-exilic; and\nHerodotus\u2019 phrase _took Kad\u016dtis_ is hardly equivalent to _became\nparamount_ there as N\u0115coh became paramount in Jerusalem.\n\n\n\n\n\nINDEX OF TEXTS.\n\n\nGenesis\u2014\n  xlix. 27; 69\n\nExodus\u2014\n  xxi. 1-6; 235\n\nLeviticus\u2014\n  vi. 5; 152\n  xix. 27; 206\n  xxvi. 34 f.; 8\n\nNumbers\u2014\n  xxx. 2, 12; 313\n\nDeuteronomy\u2014\n  iv. 19; 136, 195\n  xvii. 3; 195\n  xviii. 6; 135\n  xxxii. 13; 222\n\nJudges\u2014\n  i. 16; 193\n  iv. 17; 194\n  v. 4; 222\n    24; 194\n  xi. 36; 313\n\nI. Samuel\u2014\n  x. 2; 302\n  xv. 6; 193\n    22; 156\n\nI. Kings\u2014\n  ii. 26 f.; 67\n\nII. Kings\u2014\n  x. 15, 23; 193\n  xxii. 12 ff.; 174\n    20; 259\n  xxiii. 5, 13; 195\n    8 ff.; 135\n    10; 196\n    28-30; 163\n    31; 66, 232\n  xxiv. 1-16; 176\n    6; 259\n    8, 15; 213\n    17; 232\n    18; 66\n  xxv. 7; 270\n    18; 246\n    21; 236\n\nI. Chronicles\u2014\n  ii. 55; 193\n\nII. Chronicles\u2014\n  xxxv. 20; 162\n  xxxvi. 21-23; 8\n\nEzra\u2014\n  i. 1 f.; 8\n\nNehemiah\u2014\n  xiii; 20\n    15-22; 221\n\nPsalms\u2014\n  v. 9; 122\n  xv; 232\n  xxiii; 9\n  xxvi-xxviii; 9\n  l. 13, 14; 158\n  li. 16, 17; 158\n\nIsaiah\u2014\n  vi; 351\n  x. 28-32; 70\n  xv. f.; 20\n  xl. ff.; 8, 20\n  xliv. 28; 8\n  lii, liii; 7\n  lvi. 2-7; 221\n  lviii; 20\n    13 f.; 221\n  lx. 5; 302\n\nJeremiah\u2014\n  i.; 9, 28, 30, 42, 50, *78-88*\n    1-3; 9\n    5; 67\n    6; 82, 318\n    9 f.; 355\n    10; 14, 83, 319\n    11 f.; 351, 365\n    12 f.; 355\n    13-15; 62\n    17 f.; 14, 333\n  ii, iii; 355, 357\n  ii-xxv; 10\n  ii. 1-37; *91-98*\n    1-3; 44\n    2; 104\n    5; 106, 356, 362\n    5-8; 49\n    8; 355\n    9; 356 f.\n    11-13; 346, 356\n    13; 364\n    14 f.; 39, 40, 362\n    14-17; 47\n    17; 14, 105\n    18; 81\n    19; 12, 14, 360\n    21 f.; 107, 346\n    23 f.; 68\n    25; 346, 360\n    26; 18\n    28; 76\n    29; 12\n    30; 360\n    31; 47, 106, 346, 355, 362\n    32 ff.; 45\n    35; 346, 357, 363\n    37; 358\n  iii; 18\n    1-25; *98-103*\n    1-6; 52, 358\n    2; 77, 370\n    3; 358, 365\n    5; 40\n    6-18; 18\n    6 ff.; 358\n    20; 358\n    21-25; 361\n    22; 107\n    25; 107\n  iv. 1-4; *103*\n    3 f.; 43, 70, *108*, 346, 361\n    5-8; *112*\n    6; 355\n    8; 358\n    9 f.; *113*, 332\n    11-22; *114*, *115*\n    11-14; 60, 68, 69\n    15-18; 60, 72\n    18; 360\n    23-28; 61, *116*\n    28; 358\n    29-31; 45 f., *117*, *118*\n  v. 1-9; *119*, *120*, 134\n    1-6; 48, 357, 369\n    1; 370\n    3; 360\n    4; 12\n    6; 69\n    7-9; 357, 358, 369\n    10-14; *120*, *121*\n    13; 18\n    14; 84\n    15-17; *122*, 355\n    18 f.; *122*, *123*\n    20-31; *123-125*, 357\n    22; 365\n    24; 365\n    26; 370\n    29; 358\n    31; 343, 346, 360\n  vi. 1-8; *125-127*\n    9-15; *127-129*\n    11; 319, 330, 358\n    13-15; 200\n    15; 359\n    16-21; *129*, *130*\n    22-26; *130*, *131*\n    26; 359\n    27-29; *132-134*, 352\n    27-30; 360\n  vii-x; 17\n  vii. 1-15; *147-151*, 346\n    1-28; 18\n    3 ff.; 346, 357\n    12-15; 72\n    14; 367\n    15; 359\n    16-20; *195*\n    16; 358\n    19; 360\n    21-23; *155-159*, 346, 367\n    28 ff.; 50\n    30 ff.; 165, *195*\n  viii.; 50\n    1-3; *196*\n    4-12; 196, *198-200*\n    5; 13\n    7; 69\n    8 f.; *153*, *154*, 155, 369\n    10-12; 13, 261, 359, 360\n    13; *200*\n    14-ix. 1; 63 f., *200-202*\n    16; 12\n    19; 356\n    21; 12\n    22; 69\n  ix.; 50\n    1; *202*\n    2-9; *202-204*\n    2 f.; *341*, *342*\n    3, 7; 230\n    4 f.; 369\n    9; 358\n    10-12; 204\n    11; 359\n    13-16; 204, 208\n    15; 359\n    17 ff.; 58, 205\n    20-22; 58, *205*, *206*, 241\n    22 f.; 49\n    23-26; 18, *206*, *207*\n    24; 357, 371\n  x. 1-16; 18, 20, 207, 352\n    6-8; 13\n    11; 18\n    17 f.; *207*\n    19-22; *207-209*, 241, 370\n    23 f.; 49, *209*, 372\n    25; *209*, *210*\n  xi.; 30, 42\n    1-5; 18\n    1-8; 28, *143-145*, 155, 377\n    6-8; 13, 17, 18\n    13; 76\n    14; 358, 360\n    15, 16; *151-153*, 210, 346\n    18 ff.; 28\n    18-23; *323* f.\n    20; 330, 371\n    21; 146\n    22 f.; 329\n  xii. 1-6, 28; *339*, *340*, 351\n    1-2; *160*, *161*, 356\n    3; 14, 329, 373\n    5; 332\n    7-9; 362\n    7-13; *210-212*\n    8; 385\n    9; 230\n    11; 230, 362\n  xiii. 1-17; 28\n    1-11; *183-185*\n    1; 356\n    12-14; 55, 185, 358\n    15, 16; *59*\n    17; *212*\n    18, 19; *213*\n    20-27; *213-215*\n    22; 360\n    23; 108, 346\n    24; 359\n    25; 361\n  xiv; 50\n    1 ff.; *56** f.*\n    8 f.; 57, *348*, 364\n    11-16; *50** f.*, 360\n    12; 346\n    17-18; 51, *215*\n    19-22; *216*, *217*\n    21; 348\n    22; 356, 365\n  xv. 1-9; 52, 358\n    1-4; *217*\n    5-9; *217*, *218*\n    7 f.; 359\n    10; 319\n    10-21; *324-326*\n    13, 14; 13\n    15; 330\n    18 f.; 332, 347\n  xvi. 2-9; *326*, *327*\n    5-9; *219*\n    10-13; 219, 327\n    12; 346\n    14, 15; 18, 219\n    16-18; 219\n    19, 20; 220, 356\n  xvii. 1-4; 13, *220*, 346\n    5 ff.; *53** f.*, 353\n    7 f.; 372\n    9, 10; *108*, *109*, 371\n    13; 364\n    14-18; *328*\n    16; 237\n    18; 329\n    19-27; 20\n  xviii; 82\n  xviii. 1-12; 28, *185-190*, 355, 360\n    1; 356\n    7-10; 84\n    13-17; *221*, *222*\n    11 f.; 361\n    15; 356\n    17; 359\n    18-23; *328** f.*\n    20 f.; 332\n  xix; *191*\n  xix-xx. 6; 223\n    1; 356\n  xx. 1-6; *191*, *192*\n    2; 321\n    3 f.; 369\n    7; 82, 318, 353\n    7-18; 223\n    7-12; *330*, *331*\n    8; 318\n    9; 319\n    11; 353\n    12; 371\n    14-18; *331*, *332*\n  xxi. 1-10; 223, 267, *268*\n    7; 358\n    9; 229, *277-280*\n    11, 12; 223\n    13, 14; 223\n  xxii-xxiii. 8; 16\n  xxii. 1-5; 223\n    6 f.; *223*, *224*\n    8 f.; 224\n    10; *164*\n    11 f.; 223\n    13-17; *166*, *167*, 223, 369\n    15 f.; 75, 357\n    18 f.; *167*, *168*, 259, 321\n    20-30; *224-226*\n    25 f.; 355\n    26; 213\n  xxiii. 1-8; 20\n    7, 8; 18, 219\n    9-32; *253-258*\n    9-40; 16\n    14, 17, 22; 261\n    14-17; 361\n    15; 359\n    19, 20; 18, 358\n    21; 265\n    23 f.; 366, 371\n    27; 260\n    28; 264\n    31; 265, 370\n    32; 259\n  xxiv; 28\n    1; 356\n    1-9; *238-241*, 309\n    7; 378\n    8 ff.; 355\n    9 f.; 359\n  xxv; 22\n    1-11, 13; *179-181*\n    9; 355\n    12-14; 20, 181\n    13-15; 14, *181*, 358\n    15-38; *182*\n    26; 20\n  xxvi; 10, 147, *168-174*\n    1-9; 18\n    2; 165, 371\n    6; 72\n    13; 357\n    14, 15; 264\n  xxvii-xxxv; 10\n  xxvii, xxviii; 247\n  xxvii; 234, *248-250*\n    1; 13\n    2; 356\n    5, 6; 355\n    7; 13\n    9; 361\n    12-14; 13\n    17-22; 13\n    18; 264\n  xxviii; 10, 28\n    2-17; *251-253*\n    6; 264\n  xxviii. 11; 264\n    15; 361, 369\n    17; 322\n  xxix; 40\n    1-23; *241-245*\n    4-13; 367\n    14; 13\n    15; *245*\n    16-20; 13\n    21-23; *245*, 261\n    24-32; *246-247*, 322\n    29; 237\n  xxx-xxxiii; 286\n  xxx, xxxi; 293, 374 f.\n  xxx. 2; 293\n    5-9; *294**, **295*\n    10, 11; 13, 295\n    12-15; *295*\n    15; 13\n    16-17; *296*\n    22; 13\n    23, 24; 18, 358\n  xxxi; 30, 42, 286\n    1-6; *297-300*\n    6; 141\n    7-14; 20\n    7-9; *300**, **301*\n    10-14; *301**, **302*\n    15; 47, 70\n    15-17; *303**, **304*\n    18-22; *304**, **305*\n    20; 363\n    23-28; *305**, **306*\n    29, 30; 307, *371*\n    31-34; 307, *375-380*\n    35 f.; 365\n  xxxii; 10, 28, 286\n    1-5; *286*, 355\n    6-15; 285, 356\n    6-25; *287-289*\n    12; 12\n    16-25; 237\n    26-44; *289*\n    30; 356\n  xxxiii; *289-291*\n    1; 290\n    4-13; 290\n    14-26; 13, 289\n  xxxiv. 1-7; 267, *268-270*\n    2; 355\n    8-22; 235, *273-275*\n    22; 355\n  xxxv; *193**, **194*\n    2; 356\n  xxxvi-xlv; 10\n  xxxvi; 17, *22** ff.*, 26, *178**, **179*\n    2; 82, 356\n    9; 165\n    28; 356\n    32; 89, 110\n  xxxvii. 3-10; 267, *270**, **271*\n    5, 7; 234\n    11; 234\n    11-21; *275**, **276*\n    17-21; *284*\n  xxxviii. 1-3; *276-280*\n    2; 229, 277\n    4-6; *280**, **281*\n    7-13; *281*\n    14-28; *282-285*\n    19 ff.; 321\n    22; 369\n    28; 285, 291\n  xxxix. 3, 14; *291*, 292\n    4-13; 13, 291\n    7; 270\n    14; 174\n    15-18; *281**, **282*\n    18; 229\n  xl-xliv; 17, 18\n  xl. 1-6; *291**, **292*\n    5, 6; 174\n  xli, xlii; *307-309*\n  xliii. 1-7; *310*\n    8-13; *310*\n  xliv. 1-14; *311**, **312*\n    15-28; *312-316*\n    30; 234\n  xlv; 17, *226-229*\n    5; 27, 322\n  xlvi-li; 10, 14, 20, 181\n  xlvi. 26; 13\n    27 f.; 13\n  xlvii. 1; 13, 384\n    2, 3; *61*\n  xlviii. 40-47; 13, 20\n  xlix. 7-22; 20\n    34-39; 20\n  l. 1-58; 20\n  li. 59; 234\n    60; 20\n  lii; 10, 20\n    28-30; 13\n\nLamentations; 31, 318\n\nEzekiel\u2014\n  i; 351\n  viii; 234\n  xi. 15; 234\n  xvi. 59; 232\n  xvii. 11-21; 232\n  xix. 14; 233\n  xxiii. 22; 213\n  xxix. 3; 234\n\nDaniel; 292\n\nHosea\u2014\n  vi. 1-4; 217\n\nJoel\u2014\n  ii. 1; 112\n\nAmos\u2014\n  iii. 2; 260\n    6; 112\n  v. 25; 158\n  ix. 2 ff.; 366\n\nObadiah; 20\n\nMicah\u2014\n  vi. 6-8; 75, 158\n\nZephaniah\u2014\n  iii. 4; 258\n\nHabakkuk\u2014\n  iii. 7; 72\n\nMatthew\u2014\n  xviii. 23 f.; 189\n  xxvii. 7; 185\n\nLuke\u2014\n  i. 76; 79\n  vii. 39 ff.; 189\n  xiii. 6 ff.; 189\n  xix; 189\n\n1 Corinthians\u2014\n  i. 17; 157\n\n\n\n\n\nINDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS.\n\n\nAhikam, 157, 174, 291.\n\nAmos, 3, 22, 112, 158, 260.\n\nAnathoth, 66, 67, 287, etc.\n\nApocrypha, the, 8.\n\n\u201cArabian Nights,\u201d 36.\n\nArk, the, 101.\n\nAssyria, 66, 77, 175.\n\nAtonement, 7.\n\nBaal\u00eem, 76, etc.\n\nBabylonian idolatry, 234.\n\nBall, C. J., his \u201cThe Prophecies of Jeremiah,\u201d 9, 93, 184, 203, 210.\n\nBaruch, 4, 8, 23, 26, 82, 178, 227.\n\nBudde, Professor, 38.\n\nCalvin, 278, 283, 315.\n\nCarchemish, battle of, 175.\n\nChaldeans, the, 110, 121, 122, etc.\n\nCornill, 7, 38, 82, 166, 184, 190, 222, 268, 269, 276, 287, 298, 299, 301,\n            312, 329, 375, etc.\n\nCorv\u00e9e, the, 166.\n\nCovenant, the new, 374 ff.\n\nDalman: \u201cPal\u00e4stinischer Diwan,\u201d 36.\n\nDavidson, Dr. A. B., 3, 5, 15, 26, 139, 186, 268, 354.\n\nDeuteronomy, Book of, 135;\n  its cardinal doctrines, 136;\n  alleged connection of Jeremiah with its composition, 139.\n\nDirge on the drought, 56.\n\nDouglas, G., 15, 145, 382.\n\nDriver: \u201cThe Book of the Prophet Jeremiah,\u201d 111, 133, 147, 181, 239, 296,\n            312.\n\nDuhm, Professor, 8, 15, 37, 38, 40, 82, 83, 91, 98, 115, 166, 194, 222,\n            227, 243, 244, 257, 268, 269, 276, 287, 295, 300, 312, 329,\n            375, etc.\n\nEbed-Melech, 281.\n\nEdghill, 159.\n\nEgypt, 77, 105, 234, 310.\n\nEphraim, 72, 297, 299, 304.\n\nErbt, 38, 48, 133, 190, 227, 256, 268, 314.\n\nEuphrates, 184.\n\nEwald, 184, 222, 268.\n\nFarah, Wady, 184.\n\nFreedom, the Divine, 186, 237.\n\nFuture Life, no hope of, 138, 240, 334, 340, 380.\n\nGedaliah, 276, 291, 292;\n  assassination, 307.\n\nGidroth-Chimham, 308.\n\nGiesebrecht, 38, 48, 147, 155, 181, 227, 257, 268, 287, 312, 380.\n\nGilead, 68, 69, 201, 224.\n\nGillies, Rev. J. R., 111, 146, 147, 181, 190, 222, 268, 287, 294, 312,\n            324, 375.\n\nGod, man, and the new covenant, 350.\n\nGrotius, 7.\n\nHananiah, 251.\n\nHebrew poetry, 33.\n\nHeine, 36, 40.\n\nHerder, 34.\n\nHerodotus, 73, 206, 382.\n\nHil\u1e33iah, 66.\n\nHinnom, 185, 191, 195 (Topheth).\n\nHosea, 4, 44, etc.\n\nHugo, Victor, 167, 230.\n\nIsaiah, 4, 85, 266, 279, 319, 351.\n\nIshmael (the fanatic), 307.\n\nJeconiah (Konyahu), 224.\n\nJehoahaz, 164.\n\nJehoiachin, 176 (_see_ Jeconiah).\n\nJehoiakim, 144, 165, 195.\n\nJeremiah, personality, 4;\n  biography, 26;\n  as poet, 31;\n  as prose writer, 40;\n  his youth and his call, 66;\n  range of his mission, 79;\n  prophet to the nations, 79;\n  carrier of the Word of the Lord, 83;\n  charge in visions, 84;\n  in the reign of Josiah, 89;\n  his Oracles, 89;\n  alleged pessimism, 108;\n  Oracles on the Scythians, 110;\n  settlement in Jerusalem, 134;\n  alleged connection with the composition of Deuteronomy, 139;\n  attitude to its ethics and to the written law, and to sacrifices, 143;\n  difficulties as to \u201cthe Covenant,\u201d 144;\n  conspiracy against, 146;\n  address rebuking the people, 147;\n  contrasts to the teaching of Deuteronomy, 153;\n  enmity of the priests, 168;\n  prediction of the ruin of the Temple, 168;\n  the Rolls, 178;\n  address prophesying judgment upon Judah, 179;\n  parables, 183;\n  arrest, 191;\n  Oracles on the Edge of Doom, 195;\n  hopeful prophecies, 236;\n  vision of the good and bad figs, 238;\n  Letter to the Exiles, 241;\n  treatment of the \u2019prophets\u2019 in Jerusalem, 245;\n  removal and restoration of the sacred vessels, 250;\n  controversy with other prophets, 258;\n  his prophesying vindicated by history, 259;\n  arrested and flogged, 275;\n  controversy as to suggested surrender, 276;\n  charged with treason and cast into cistern, 280;\n  rescue by Ebed-melech, 281;\n  appeal by the King, 282;\n  \u201cThe Book of Hope,\u201d 286;\n  what befel Jeremiah when the city was taken, 291;\n  carried off in chains to Ramah and there released, 292;\n  prophecies of the physical restoration of Israel and Judah, 302;\n  carried off to Egypt, 310;\n  Oracle concerning the Jews in Egypt, 311;\n  the story of his soul, 317;\n  \u201cthe Weeping Prophet,\u201d 318;\n  voice of pain and protest, 318;\n  his irony and scorn, 321;\n  fluid and quick temper, 332;\n  poet\u2019s heart for the beauties of nature and domestic life, 334;\n  no hope of another life, 334;\n  faith in his predestination, 335;\n  sacrifice of self, 341;\n  foreshadowing the sufferings of Christ for men, 349;\n  revelations of God subjective, 352;\n  a God of deeds, 354;\n  Jeremiah\u2019s monotheism, 356;\n  brooding on the wrath of the Lord, 358;\n  the love of God, 361;\n  the Divine power in nature, 365;\n  man and the new covenant, 367;\n  readings of the heart of man, 370;\n  the individual as the direct object of the Divine grace and discipline,\n              372;\n  the prophecy of the new covenant, 374.\n\nJeremiah (Book of), 9;\n  questions of authorship, 19;\n  the Rolls, 23;\n  Exilic and Post-Exilic additions, 29;\n  poetical passages, 31;\n  critical text, 156;\n  evidence for revelation by argument, 161.\n\nJerusalem, 113, 125;\n  invested by Nebuchadrezzar, 234;\n  Temple and Palace burned, 235;\n  Jeremiah\u2019s activity and sufferings during the siege, 267;\n  his pronouncements of surrender, 267.\n\nJob, Book of, 49.\n\nJohanan-ben-Kareah, 308.\n\nJosiah, 75, 162, etc.\n\nKnox, John, 266, 272.\n\nK\u00f6nig, 145.\n\n\u201cKurzer Hand-Commentar,\u201d 38.\n\nLees, Dr. John: \u201cThe German Lyric,\u201d 33, 42.\n\nLove, the Divine, 106, 348, 356, etc.\n\nLowth, Bishop: \u201cDe Sacra Poesi Hebr\u00e6orum,\u201d 33.\n\nMagor-Missabib, 192.\n\nMan and the new covenant, 367.\n\nMarti, 155, 184.\n\nMcCurdy, 111.\n\nMcFadyen, J. E., 184, 222.\n\nMegiddo, battle of, 163.\n\nMetrical Questions, vii, 32-53 and _passim_.\n\nMispah, 292, 308.\n\nMisraim (Egypt), 94, etc.\n\nNabopolassar, 175.\n\nNebuchadrezzar, 110, 126, 175, 292, etc.\n\nNebusaradan, 235, 291, 292.\n\nN\u0115coh, 163, 175, 384.\n\nNineveh, Fall of, 162, 163, 175, 383.\n\nNineveh, 175.\n\nNoph (Memphis), 94, 311.\n\nOmnipresence, the Divine, 256, 366.\n\nOracles on the Edge of Doom, 60, 195.\n\nParable of the Potter, 82, 185.\n\nParables, 183.\n\nPashhur, 191.\n\nPathros, 311.\n\nPatience, the Divine, 187-189, 217, 237.\n\nPeake, Prof., 146, 147, 184, 222, 268, 273, 274, 279, 287, 293, 312, 375.\n\nPredestination, 78, 186, 335.\n\nProphets. Personality of the, 3; _see also_ 245-266.\n\nQ\u00eenah (metre), 37, 39, 44, 244, 283, 295, 297, etc.\n\nQueen, or Host, of Heaven, 195, 234, 313, 314.\n\nRamah, 70, 292, 297, 303.\n\nRechabites, the, 193.\n\nRenan, 308.\n\nRothstein, 222, 294, 312.\n\nSacrifice, 130, 152, 155-159, 299, 341.\n\nSaintsbury, George: \u201cHistory of English Prosody,\u201d 36.\n\nSchmidt, Professor, 24, 25, 111, 382.\n\nSchweich Lectures, 34.\n\nScythians, the, 73, 82, 110, 381.\n\n\u1e62edekiah, 232, and _passim_ to 282.\n\nShakespeare, 36, 47.\n\nShiloh, 72, 149, 170.\n\nSkinner, Rev. John, D.D.: his \u201cProphecy and Religion, Studies in the Life\n            of Jeremiah,\u201d 7, 103, 111, 129, 133, 145, 146, 166, 169, 181,\n            190, 222, 227, 237, 268, 279, 284, 292, 307, 375, 383.\n\nSlavery, 235;\n  proposed emancipation, 273.\n\nSmith, H. P., 147.\n\nSmith, W. Robertson, 15, 159.\n\nSnouck Hurgronje: \u201cMekka,\u201d 37.\n\nStade, B., 267.\n\nTahpanhes (Daphne), 94, 310, 311.\n\nTchekov, 198.\n\nThackeray, St. John: his \u201cThe Septuagint and Jewish Worship,\u201d 14.\n\nThomson, Rev. W. R., 111, 140, 146, 268.\n\nTorah, the, 153, etc.\n\nUrijahu, 173.\n\nWady Farah, 184.\n\nWellhausen, 5, 146.\n\nWinckler: \u201cA.T. Untersuchungen,\u201d 142, 176, 382, 383.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n    1 A. B. Davidson.\n\n    2 A. B. Davidson. \u201cWithout Jeremiah,\u201d says Wellhausen, \u201cthe Psalms\n      could not have been composed.\u201d\n\n    3 Cp. e.g. Jer. xi. 19, with Is. liii. 7; and see Grotius, \u201cAnnotata\n      ad Vetus Testamentum,\u201d on Is. lii-liii; Cornill, \u201cDas Buch Jeremia\n      erkl\u00e4rt,\u201d pp. 11-12; John Skinner, \u201cProphecy and Religion,\u201d p. 351.\n\n    4 II. Chron. xxxvi. 21 (with a reference to Lev. xxvi. 34, 35) and 22,\n      23, the latter repeated in Ezra i. 1-2. Duhm, indeed, but on\n      insufficient grounds, thinks the former citation, because of its\n      reference to Leviticus, cannot be from our Book of Jeremiah but is\n      from a Midrash unknown to us; yet the chronicler\u2019s was the very\n      spirit to associate a Levitical provision with Jer. xxix. 10; cp.\n      xxv. 9-12. The other quotation Duhm refers to some part of Is. xl.\n      ff. (xliv. 28?) as though this had at one time been attributed to\n      Jeremiah.\n\n    5 In the Apocrypha proper, (1) \u201cBaruch\u201d to which is attached (2) \u201cThe\n      Epistle of Jeremy\u201d warning the Jews of Babylon in general and\n      conventional terms against idolatry. Apocalyptic writings, (3)\n      \u201cApocalypse of Baruch,\u201d (4) (5) and (6) three other \u201cApocalypses of\n      Baruch,\u201d (7) \u201cThe Rest of the Words of Baruch,\u201d or \u201cParalipomena\n      Jeremi\u00e6,\u201d (8) \u201cProphecy of Jeremiah.\u201d For particulars of these see\n      \u201cEncyclop\u00e6dia Biblica,\u201d arts. \u201cApocalyptic Literature\u201d (R. H.\n      Charles), and \u201cApocrypha\u201d (M. R. James).\n\n    6 Following Hitzig, C. J. Ball (\u201cThe Prophecies of Jeremiah\u201d in \u201cThe\n      Expositor\u2019s Bible,\u201d 1890, pp. 10 ff.) refers Pss. xxiii, xxvi-xxviii\n      to Jeremiah, and it is possible that in particular the personal\n      experiences in Ps. xxvii are reflections of those of the prophet.\n      But such experiences were so common in the history of the prophets\n      and saints of Israel as to render the reference precarious.\n\n    7 It has been calculated that the Greek has 2700 words fewer than the\n      Hebrew, i.e. about 120 verses or from four to five average chapters.\n\n    8 E.g. ii. 19, 29; iii. 1; v. 4_a_; viii. 16, 21; xxxii. 12, etc.\n\n_    9 n\u0115\u2019um Yahweh: utterance_ or _oracle_ of _Jehovah_.\n\n   10 E.g. the words _at his mouth_, xxxvi. 17; xxxviii. 16.\n\n   11 E.g. _Jerusalem_ in viii. 5, and in xxxvi. 22 _the ninth month_.\n\n   12 E.g. ii. 1-2; xxv. 1_b_; xxvii. 1; xlvii. 1; l. 1.\n\n   13 E.g. viii. 10_ab_-12; x. 6-8; xi. 7, 8; xvii. 1-4 (perhaps omitted\n      by the Greek, because partly given already in xv. 13, 14); xxv. 18\n      _and a curse as at this day_; xxvii. 1, 7, 12_b_, 13, 14_a_, 17,\n      18_b_, clauses in 19, 20, the whole of 21, and 22_b_; xxix. 14,\n      16-20; xxx. 10, 11 (= xlvi. 27 f.), 15_a_, 22; xxxiii. 14-26; xxxix.\n      4-13; xvi. 26; xlvii. 1 (except _to the Philistines_); xlviii.\n      45-47; lii. 28-30.\n\n   14 E.g. i. 10, 17, 18; ii. 17, 19; vii. 28_b_; xii. 3; xiv. 4, etc.\n\n   15 Verse 14 is not found in the Greek.\n\n   16 In his Schweich Lectures on \u201cThe Septuagint and Jewish Worship\u201d (for\n      the British Academy, 1921) Mr. St. John Thackeray presents clear\n      evidence from the different vocabularies in the Greek Version that\n      this Version was the work of two translators, the division between\n      whom is at Ch. xxix. verse 7. The dividing line cuts across the\n      Greek arrangement of the chapters, which sets the Oracles on Foreign\n      Nations in the centre of the Book. This shows that it was not the\n      translators who placed them there, but that the translators found\n      the arrangement in the Hebrew MS. from which they translated.\n      Further, he thinks that the division of the Book into two parts was\n      not made by the translators, but already existed in their Hebrew\n      exemplar. For this the Hebrew text gives two evidences: (1) the\n      titles of the Oracles, (2) the colophons appended to two of them.\n      The titles are some long, some short. In the Hebrew order the\n      Oracles with long titles are mixed up with those with short, but in\n      the Greek order the six with long titles come together first and are\n      followed by the five with short. There are two colophons\u2014one to the\n      Moab Oracle, the other to the Babylon Oracle; but the Moab Oracle\n      stands last in the Greek order and the Babylon Oracle last in the\n      Hebrew order.\n\n      From all this two conclusions are drawn: (1) when the titles were\n      inserted the chapters were arranged as in the Greek, which,\n      therefore, was the original arrangement; (2) they afford Hebrew\n      evidence for a break or interruption in the middle of the\n      Oracles\u2014the longer titles cease about the end of Part I of the Greek\n      Version, which therefore follows a division of the Book into two\n      parts that already existed in the Hebrew original from which it was\n      made. The Hebrew editor who amplified the titles had apparently only\n      Part I before him.\n\n   17 E.g. Graf (\u201cDer Prophet J. erkl\u00e4rt,\u201d 1862), George Douglas (\u201cThe\n      Book of Jeremiah,\u201d 1903) for the Hebrew; and Workman (\u201cThe Text of\n      Jeremiah,\u201d 1888) for the Greek. For a judicial comparison of the two\n      editions, resulting much in favour of the Greek, see W. R. Smith,\n      \u201cThe O.T. in the Jewish Church,\u201d Lectures IV and V.\n\n   18 \u201cThe Hebrew is qualitatively superior to the Greek, but\n      quantitatively the Greek is nearer the original. This judgment is\n      general, admitting many exceptions, and each passage has to be\n      considered by itself.\u201d\u2014A. B. Davidson. Cp. Duhm, \u201cDas Buch Jer.,\u201d p.\n      xxii.\n\n   19 Oracles on the King, xxii. 1-xxiii. 8 and on the Prophets, xxiii.\n      9-40.\n\n   20 The Oracles under Jehoiakim, chs. vii-x, before those on the\n      enforcement of Deuteronomy under Josiah xi. 6-8.\n\n   21 The Oracle for Baruch, dated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, 604\n      B.C., is not given till ch. xlv, a long way off from ch. xxxvi to\n      which it belongs by date and subject, and only after chs. xl-xliv,\n      the story of Jeremiah\u2019s life after the fall of Jerusalem.\n\n   22 So far as it is common to the Hebrew and the Greek.\n\n_   23 The end of_ is wanting in the Greek.\n\n   24 Chs. xl-xliv. And between them the title and its supplement ignore\n      the Oracles which Jeremiah uttered under Josiah after the thirteenth\n      year of the King, perhaps iii. 6-18, and certainly xi. 1-5, 6-8.\n\n   25 Ch. lii.\n\n   26 E.g. iii. 6-18; ix. 23-26 with x. 1-16; xxi. 11-12 with (probably)\n      13-14.\n\n   27 E.g. ii. 26; v. 13; x. 11, the last written in Aramaic.\n\n   28 Cp. xxiii. 7, 8 with xvi. 14, 15, and xxx. 23, 24 with xxiii. 19,\n      20.\n\n   29 x. 1-16; xvii. 19-27 (on the Sabbath\u2014unlike Jeremiah, who did not\n      lay stress on single laws but very like post-exilic teaching, e.g.\n      Neh. xiii and Is. lviii), possibly xxiii. 1-8; xxv. 12-14 (the\n      obviously late _as at this day_ in verse 18 and verse 26_b_ are\n      omitted by the Greek).\n\n   30 Parts of xxx and xxxi, especially xxxi. 7-14, the spirit of which is\n      so much that of the Eve of the Return from Exile and the style so\n      akin to that of the Great Prophet of that Eve that some take it as\n      dependent on his prophecies.\n\n   31 xlvi-li, especially on Moab, xlviii. 40-47, which is based on the\n      earlier prophecy, Is. xv-xvi; on Edom, xlix. 7-22, based on Obadiah;\n      Elam, xlix. 34-39; and the long prophecy on Babylon, l. 1-58, which\n      reflects like Is. xl. ff. the historical situation just before the\n      Medes overthrew Babylon, and expresses an attitude towards the\n      latter very different from Jeremiah\u2019s own fifty years earlier. The\n      compiler, or an editor of the Book, has (li. 60) erred in\n      attributing this long prophecy to Jeremiah. In all these there may\n      be genuine nuclei.\n\n   32 Ch. lii.\n\n   33 So Greek, Hebrew has _Israel_.\n\n   34 N. Schmidt in the \u201cEncyclop\u00e6dia Biblica.\u201d\n\n   35 Professor Schmidt, in the article already quoted, takes this to mean\n      only that Jeremiah \u201cretouched under fresh provocation\u201d the contents\n      of the first Roll. This interpretation would imply that _words_\n      means nouns, verbs, adjectives and so forth, whereas _words_ can\n      only carry the same sense as it carries in the rest of the Book,\n      viz. _whole_ Oracles or Discourses. Note the phrase _words like\n      them_, viz. like _the words_ or Oracles on the first Roll.\n\n   36 Cp. A. B. Davidson, \u201cJeremiah,\u201d in Hastings, \u201cB.D.,\u201d ii. 522.\n\n   37 Schmidt, _op. cit._\n\n   38 xlv. 5.\n\n   39 Chs. i., xi., 1-8, 18-xii. 6; xiii. 1-17; xviii. 1-12.\n\n   40 Chs. xxiv, xxviii, xxxii (except for the introductory verses 1-5).\n\n   41 \u201cDe Sacra P\u0153si Hebr\u00e6orum,\u201d 1753.\n\n   42 Writing of the early German lyric, Dr. John Lees says in his volume\n      on \u201cThe German Lyric\u201d (London, Dent & Sons, 1914): \u201cIn regard to the\n      length of the lines, their number, and the arrangement of the\n      rhymes, the poet has absolute freedom in all three classes;\u201d and\n      again of the Volkslied \u201cthere is no mechanical counting of\n      syllables; the variation in the number of accented and unaccented\n      syllables is the secret of the verse.\u201d And he quotes from Herder on\n      the Volkslieder: \u201csongs of the people ... songs which often do not\n      scan and are badly rhymed.\u201d\n\n   43 Dalman, \u201cPal\u00e4stinischer Diwan.\u201d\n\n   44 Saintsbury, \u201cHistory of English Prosody,\u201d vol. ii. 53, 54.\n\n   45 Snouck Hurgronje, \u201cMekka,\u201d vol. ii. 62.\n\n   46 \u201cKurzer Hand-Commentar,\u201d 1901; and \u201cDas Buch Jeremia,\u201d a\n      translation, 1903.\n\n   47 \u201cDas Buch Jeremia,\u201d 1905, p. xlvi.\n\n   48 E.g. Sievers, \u201cMetrische Studien,\u201d in the \u201cTransactions of Saxon\n      Society of the Sciences,\u201d vol. xxi (which relies too much on the\n      Massoretic or Canonical text); Erbt, \u201cJeremia u. seine Zeit,\u201d p.\n      298; Giesebrecht, \u201cJeremia\u2019s Metrik,\u201d iii. ff.; Karl Budde\u2019s\n      relevant pages in his \u201cGeschichte der althebr\u00e4ischen Litteratur,\u201d\n      1906 reached me after I had expressed the views I have given above.\n      They agree in the main with these views.\n\n   49 Certainly the evidence of both the Hebrew text and the Versions are\n      against it, and the sense supports the text. More than once when\n      sharp questions or challenges are thrown out, we have very\n      appropriately two parallel lines of _two_ accents each instead of\n      the usual Q\u00eenah couplet of _three_ and _two_: e.g. ii. 14 and iii.\n      5. See below, pp. 46 ff. Compare the variety of metres, which\n      Schiller employs to such good effect in his \u201cSong of the Bell\u201d\u2014a\n      variety in beautiful harmony with that of the different aspects of\n      life on which he touches; and see above, p. 36, on the irregularity\n      of metre in Heine\u2019s _Nordseebilder_.\n\n   50 Ch. xxix.\n\n_   51 Op. cit._, p. xii.\n\n   52 Chs. i, xi and xxxi.\n\n   53 \u201cIt is an understatement of the case to say that the folk-song has\n      been a source of inspiration. In the very greatest lyricists we\n      simply find the folk-song in a new shape: it has become more\n      polished and artistic, and it has been made the instrument of\n      personal lyrical utterance.\u201d\u2014John Lees, M.A., D.Litt., \u201cThe German\n      Lyric\u201d (London, etc., Dent & Sons, 1914).\n\n   54 And in particular sins against the fundamental principle of\n      parallelism, e.g. in iv. 3, where even with the help of part of an\n      obvious title to the Oracle he gets only three lines and supposes\n      the fourth to be lost; and though the sense-parallelism is generally\n      within a couplet he divides it between the last line of his first\n      couplet and the first of his second. Again, if we keep in mind what\n      is said above (p. 35) of the recurrence in Hebrew poems of longer,\n      heavier lines at intervals\u2014especially at the end of a strophe or a\n      poem, we must feel a number of Duhm\u2019s emendations to be not only\n      unnecessary but harmful to the effectiveness of the verse.\n\n   55 Pointing \u05d0\u05ea with Patah-Sheva for Tsere.\n\n   56 Pointing \u05dc\u05dd\u05d3\u05ea\u05d9 with Chireq-Patah-Sheva-Sheva.\n\n   57 Hebrew adds _poor_.\n\n   58 So Duhm after the Greek; see p. 97, n. 3.\n\n   59 After the Greek.\n\n   60 By differently arranging the Hebrew consonants, see p. 117. Other\n      arrangements are possible. Greek omits _destined to ruin_.\n\n   61 Hebrew and Greek have this couplet in the reverse order.\n\n   62 ii. 14-17.\n\n   63 xxxi. 15.\n\n   64 While Duhm and Giesebrecht reduce the text to the exact Q\u00eenah form,\n      Erbt correctly reads it as varied by lines of four accents.\n\n   65 After Duhm who reads \u05dc\u05db\u05df = \u05dc\u05d0\u05db\u05df (cp. viii. 6) and transfers it to\n      the following line.\n\n   66 See below, p. 92.\n\n   67 So Greek.\n\n   68 So Greek; Hebrew adds _their God_.\n\n   69 Hebrew adds _and is cut off_.\n\n   70 The Hebrew _mak\u00f4m_ must here as elsewhere be given as equivalent to\n      the Arabic _mak\u00e2m_ (literally like the Hebrew _standing-place_ but)\n      generally _sacred site_.\n\n   71 After Duhm.\n\n   72 Hebrew adds _the Lord our God_; not in the Greek.\n\n   73 So Greek and Vulg.; Hebrew has _he shall not see_.\n\n   74 xiii. 12-14. The above rendering follows the Greek version.\n\n   75 A Hebrew idiom, literally _don\u2019t, knowing, we know_?\n\n   76 This couplet is wanting in the Greek.\n\n   77 So rightly Duhm after the Greek.\n\n   78 Hebrew uselessly adds _in the land_.\n\n   79 So Duhm, reading _g\u0101r_ for _g\u0113r_.\n\n   80 Hebrew adds, _and will make visitation on their sins_, which the\n      Greek omits.\n\n   81 ix. 17 f., 21 f.; see also pp. 205, 206.\n\n   82 xiii. 15-16.\n\n   83 So the Greek.\n\n   84 iv. 11-13, 15-17. The text and so the metre of 16, 17 are uncertain.\n      For _besiegers_ Duhm proposes by the change of one letter to read\n      _panthers_, to which in v. 6 Jeremiah likens the same foes. Skinner,\n      _leopards_. See below, p. 114.\n\n   85 Lit. _Because of the feebleness of their hands_.\n\n   86 xv. 5-9.\n\n   87 Greek; in both cases Hebrew adds _the Lord_.\n\n   88 See previous note.\n\n   89 This verse is uncertain; for Hebrew \u05d1\u05e2\u05ea\u05d4 read with the Greek \u05d1\u05d4\u05dc\u05d4.\n      For another arrangement see above, p. 51.\n\n   90 So Greek; Hebrew omits _sound_.\n\n   91 This line is uncertain.\n\n   92 Greek.\n\n   93 So Greek; Hebrew omits this line.\n\n   94 (1) Jeremiah of Libnah, father of Hamutal, II. Kings xxiii. 31;\n      xxiv. 18; (2) Jeremiah, father of Jaazaniah, the Rechabite, Jer.\n      xxxv. 3; (3) Jeremiah the prophet, son of Hil\u1e33iah.\n\n   95 Not to be confounded with the temple-priest, Hil\u1e33iah, who was\n      concerned with the finding of the Law.\n\n   96 I. Kings ii. 26 f.\n\n   97 Duhm, p. 3.\n\n   98 Jer. i. 5.\n\n   99 ii. 23, 24; iv. 11; v. 6; viii. 7, 22.\n\n  100 Gen. xlix. 27.\n\n  101 iv. 3.\n\n  102 Is. x. 28-32.\n\n  103 xxxi. 15.\n\n  104 Hab. iii. 7.\n\n  105 See below on ch. iii.\n\n  106 vii. 12-15; xxvi. 6.\n\n  107 iv. 15.\n\n  108 i. 103-107 (after Hecat\u00e6us).\n\n  109 See Appendix I\u2014Medes and Scythians.\n\n  110 \u201cJerusalem,\u201d ii. 263, 264.\n\n  111 Micah vi. 8.\n\n  112 xxii. 15, 16.\n\n  113 \u201cJerusalem,\u201d ii.\n\n  114 Though not in every case, for Anathoth itself is but the plural of\n      the Syrian goddess Anath, as Ashtaroth is the plural of Astart or\n      Astarte.\n\n  115 ii. 28; xi. 13.\n\n  116 iii. 2.\n\n  117 i. 5.\n\n  118 Luke i. 76.\n\n  119 See Lecture vii.\n\n  120 ii. 18.\n\n  121 See his seven Scythian songs below, pp. 110 ff.\n\n  122 xviii.\n\n  123 xxxvi. 2, a clause which Duhm merely on the grounds of his theory is\n      obliged to regard as a later intrusion, though it bears no marks of\n      being such.\n\n  124 So Cornill after the Greek.\n\n  125 xx. 7.\n\n  126 Hebrew adds the redundant _to pull down_; Greek omits.\n\n  127 Duhm; see above, p. 40.\n\n  128 This is clear from other passages, v. 14; xviii. 7-10, etc.\n\n  129 Ball happily translates _wake-tree_.\n\n  130 The text reads, _its face is from the face of northwards_, which\n      some would emend to _its face is turned northwards_, i.e. the side\n      on which it is blown upon and made to boil. _Boiling_ or _bubbling_,\n      lit. _blown upon, fanned_.\n\n  131 After the Greek; Hebrew has _be opened_.\n\n  132 Hebrew has _races and kingdoms_ and adds _Rede of the Lord_.\n\n  133 Read \u05d0\u05ea\u05dd with points Chireq and Qamets.\n\n  134 Hebrew adds _to them_; Greek omits.\n\n  135 The last three couplets are uncertain. In v. 18 Hebrew adds _a\n      basalt pillar_ and, after _bronze, against all the land_.\n\n  136 xxxvi. 32; see pp. 22 ff.\n\n  137 P. 37.\n\n  138 See pp. 40 f., 72.\n\n  139 See p. 41.\n\n  140 So simply the Greek; the Hebrew, _And the word of the Lord came unto\n      me saying, Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem saying_, not\n      only betrays an editorial redundancy, but what follows is addressed\n      not to Jerusalem but to all Israel. Here if anywhere the Greek has\n      the original. Jeremiah begins thus to dictate to Baruch.\n\n  141 Hebrew _kebel_ = _breath_.\n\n  142 Egypt.\n\n  143 So Greek.\n\n  144 Lit. _shepherds_.\n\n  145 Hebrew adds _Rede of the Lord_.\n\n  146 Some Hebrew MSS. and Vulgate.\n\n  147 Cyprus = Kittim and Ked\u00e1r, an Arab tribe, are the extremes of the\n      world then known to the Jews.\n\n  148 So Greek.\n\n  149 Hebrew marg. _my_.\n\n  150 Or _heave_ (Ball), lit. _be aghast_ but the Hebrew is alliterative,\n      _shomm\u00fb shama\u00eem_.\n\n  151 This couplet is after the Greek, Hebrew has _browsed on thy skull_\n      for _forced_. Noph = Memphis, Egypt\u2019s capital; Ta\u1e25pan\u1e25es = Daphne on\n      the Egyptian road to Palestine. Either 14-19 or more probably 16\n      alone is one of Jeremiah\u2019s additions to his earlier Oracles after\n      Egypt\u2019s invasion of Palestine in 608.\n\n  152 So Greek; Hebrew adds, _when he led thee by the way_.\n\n  153 Mi\u1e63raim = Egypt.\n\n  154 These last four lines follow the Greek.\n\n  155 So Duhm by a better division of words.\n\n  156 So the Greek.\n\n  157 The Hebrew _\u1e33al_ seems to combine here its two meanings of _swift_\n      and _trifling_.\n\n  158 Hebrew _no\u2019 ash_; with Greek delete the second _no_.\n\n  159 So Greek.\n\n  160 The insertion (by a copyist?) of this formula rather weakens the\n      connection.\n\n  161 So some Versions.\n\n  162 Greek adds _and as the number of streets in Jerusalem they burn to\n      Baal_; cp. xi. 13.\n\n  163 So Greek.\n\n  164 Greek.\n\n  165 Greek.\n\n  166 Greek _the_.\n\n  167 Prose, probably a later insertion when the prophet dictated his\n      Oracles. See pp. 47 f.\n\n  168 The text of this quatrain is corrupt, the rendering above makes use\n      of the versions.\n\n  169 The text of this verse too is uncertain. For _skirts_ Greek has\n      _hands_; to _innocent_ Hebrew adds _needy_. Some read the second\n      couplet [_though_] _thou did\u2019st not catch them breaking in, but\n      because of all these_, i.e. thy sins against Me, thou did\u2019st murder\n      them.\n\n  170 Or _balked_.\n\n  171 Greek.\n\n  172 Greek; Hebrew _land_.\n\n  173 So Duhm after the Greek. Hebrew is impossible.\n\n  174 The two Hebrew verbs in this couplet, _na\u1e6dar_ and _shamar_ mean _to\n      keep_ (or _maintain_) and _to watch_; they are usually transitive\n      and (in the sense here intended) are followed by a noun, _anger_ or\n      _wrath_, which English versions supply here. But its absence from\n      _both_ the Hebrew and Greek texts leads us to take the verbs as\n      intransitive, as is the case with _na\u1e6dar_ in New-Hebrew.\n\n  175 Verses 6-18, in prose break the connection both of style and meaning\n      between 5 and 19 and cannot in whole be Jeremiah\u2019s or from his\n      period. This is especially true of 16-18 which assume the\n      destruction of the Ark and the Exile of Judah as well as of Israel\n      as already actual. But the passage probably contains genuine\n      fragments from Jeremiah.\n\n  176 So Greek.\n\n  177 So one Hebrew MS. and Syriac.\n\n  178 Hebrew adds _her sister_.\n\n  179 Hebrew adds _Rede of the Lord_.\n\n  180 So Greek.\n\n  181 Lit. _make not My face to fall_.\n\n  182 Greek; Hebrew _ye have_.\n\n  183 That is _Lord_ and _Husband_.\n\n  184 So Greek.\n\n  185 Hebrew adds _to the Name of the Lord to Jerusalem_.\n\n  186 So Greek; Hebrew _your_; after _North_ Greek has _and from all\n      lands_.\n\n  187 In antithesis to verse 5 of which it is the immediate sequel both in\n      sense and metre.\n\n  188 Feminine, i.e. Judah was a daughter, and a son\u2019s portion was\n      designed for her.\n\n  189 So finely Ball.\n\n  190 The riotous festivals on the high-places.\n\n  191 Hebrew adds _the Lord_.\n\n  192 This couplet after the Greek.\n\n  193 I agree with Cornill and Skinner that these two verses are a later\n      addition. The answer to the people\u2019s confession comes in verses 3\n      and 4.\n\n  194 So some Hebrew MSS. and versions.\n\n  195 Hebrew _nir\u00fb lake\u1e3f n\u00eer_; also in English the noun and verb are the\n      same\u2014_to fallow_ or _fallow up_ = _to break_ or _plough up_.\n\n  196 So Greek and other versions.\n\n  197 iii. 22_b_, 25; Hos. v. 15-vi. 3.\n\n  198 So Greek.\n\n  199 iv. 3, 4.\n\n  200 xiii. 23.\n\n  201 xvii. 9, 10.\n\n  202 See further, Lecture viii.\n\n  203 See above, p. 73.\n\n  204 xxxvi. 32.\n\n  205 On the subject of this paragraph see the appendix on \u201cThe Medes and\n      Scythians.\u201d The following may be consulted: N. Schmidt in \u201cEnc.\n      Bibl.\u201d on \u201cJeremiah\u201d and \u201cScythians;\u201d Driver, \u201cThe Book of the\n      Prophet Jeremiah,\u201d p. 21; J. R. Gillies, \u201cJeremiah, the Man and His\n      Message,\u201d pp. 63 ff., who thinks that the Scythians did invade\n      Judah, and W. R. Thomson, \u201cThe Burden of the Lord,\u201d pp. 46 ff., who\n      thinks they did not. A thorough study of the question will be found\n      in Skinner\u2019s \u201cProphecy and Religion, Studies in the Life of\n      Jeremiah,\u201d ch. iii. The case against the Scythians being the enemy\n      from the North that Jeremiah describes is best presented by J. F.\n      McCurdy in \u201cHistory, Prophecy, and the Monuments,\u201d vol. ii. pp. 395\n      ff.\n\n  206 Amos iii. 6; Joel ii. 1.\n\n  207 Greek _the earth_.\n\n  208 The text adds _from evil_, one wonders if _Jerusalem_ was added in\n      604; without it the line is regular.\n\n  209 After the Greek.\n\n  210 So Syr., transferred from previous couplet.\n\n  211 Metre and meaning of 16 and 17 uncertain. For beleaguerers (?) Duhm\n      reads _panthers_ or _leopards_; cp. v. 6.\n\n  212 Duhm after Greek renders, My soul is in storm, my heart throbs.\n\n  213 Greek; Hebrew _know_.\n\n  214 Greek; Hebrew adds _lo!_\n\n  215 Probably a later addition.\n\n  216 The order of verbs in this couplet is that of the Greek.\n\n  217 So Greek; Hebrew _city_, a change possibly made after the fall of\n      Jerusalem.\n\n  218 So Greek.\n\n  219 Text uncertain; this reading is derived by differently dividing the\n      consonants\u2014_bah no\u2019 ash for bahen \u2019\u00eesh_.\n\n  220 P. 134.\n\n  221 Greek; Hebrew _her_. The clause seems an addition.\n\n  222 Hebrew adds _therefore_.\n\n  223 So Duhm after the Greek; p. 48, n. 2.\n\n  224 So Greek.\n\n  225 The text is uncertain, the Hebrew margin and versions pointing to an\n      untranslatable original.\n\n  226 The text has _make not_, but this is inconsistent with the context,\n      and _not_ seems a later addition.\n\n  227 Hebrew adds, _thus be it done them_; Greek omits.\n\n  228 Hebrew has _God_ after _Lord_ and _your_ for _their_.\n\n  229 This couplet the Greek lacks.\n\n  230 Eloquent of death: Ps. v. 9.\n\n  231 For these four lines the Greek has only _A nation thou hearest not\n      its tongue, all of them mighty_.\n\n  232 Hebrew adds _saying_.\n\n  233 Lit. _with no heart_, the seat not only of feeling, but of the\n      practical intelligence.\n\n  234 Something like this has obviously slipped from the text.\n\n  235 Text uncertain.\n\n  236 Either with the spoils or with the victims thereof.\n\n  237 The text of the whole verse is uncertain. Greek omits _things of\n      evil_ and _to prosper_.\n\n  238 Or _take vengeance Myself_.\n\n  239 Hebrew bit\u0115k\u00f4\u2019a ti\u1e33\u0115\u2019\u00fb; a play upon words.\n\n  240 After the Greek; the Hebrew text is corrupt.\n\n  241 Transferred from the next line to suit the metre.\n\n  242 The Hebrew idiom for starting a campaign or a siege, which was\n      formally sanctioned by a religious rite.\n\n  243 So some MSS.\n\n  244 So Greek: Hebrew, _She is a city to be visited_.\n\n  245 Hebrew adds _of Hosts_.\n\n  246 So Greek.\n\n  247 It is difficult to discriminate in these lines between the Lord and\n      the Prophet as speakers. If the Greek _I will pour_ is correct, the\n      Prophet still speaks, otherwise the Lord who began in verse 9 and\n      was followed by the Prophet in 10 and 11_a_, resumes in 11_b_.\n\n  248 So Greek.\n\n_  249 Ibid._\n\n  250 Hans Schmidt, quoted by Dr. Skinner, does so, and takes it as the\n      earliest evidence of Jeremiah\u2019s opposition to Deuteronomy, and Dr.\n      Skinner in his Chapter \u201cIn the Wake of the Reform,\u201d says it is\n      almost certainly post-deuteronomic. I am not convinced. See below,\n      p. 133.\n\n  251 Greek _mark ye_.\n\n  252 See above, p. 112.\n\n  253 Text both of Greek and Hebrew uncertain; the above is adapted from\n      the Greek.\n\n  254 Greek has _backslidings_.\n\n  255 Hebrew adds _great_, which Greek omits.\n\n  256 Greek _you_.\n\n  257 See above, pp. 79 ff.\n\n  258 Hebrew adds, _a fortress_, obviously borrowed by some scribe from\n      other appointments by God of Jeremiah, e.g. i. 18. For _ways_ in\n      next line Duhm by change of a letter reads _value_.\n\n  259 Greek and Targ. read _their evil_ for _the evil ones_ of the Hebrew.\n\n  260 The general meaning is clear, the details obscure for the text is\n      uncertain. Driver\u2019s note is the most instructive. In refining, the\n      silver was mixed with lead and the mass, fused in the furnace, had a\n      current of air turned upon it; the lead oxidising acted as a flux,\n      carrying off the alloy or dross. But in Israel\u2019s case the dross is\n      too closely mixed with the silver, so that though the bellows blow\n      and the lead is oxidised, the dross is not drawn and the silver\n      remains impure.\n\n  261 As Erbt (\u201cJeremia u. seine Zeit\u201d) and Skinner (p. 160) do.\n\n  262 v. 1-8, see p. 119.\n\n  263 So Duhm.\n\n  264 Deut. xviii. 6, II Kings xxiii. 8, 9.\n\n  265 On this and the following paragraphs see the writer\u2019s \u201cDeuteronomy\u201d\n      in the Cambridge Bible for Schools.\n\n  266 Deut. iv. 19.\n\n  267 See above, pp. 76, 104 ff.\n\n  268 See p. 8.\n\n  269 Cp. Thomson, _op. cit._, p. 61.\n\n  270 xxxi. 6.\n\n  271 These two extremes are represented by Winckler and Duhm\n      respectively.\n\n  272 Sing. as partly in Greek and wholly in Syriac.\n\n  273 With Greek omit _them_ of the Hebrew text.\n\n  274 Hebrew adds _all_.\n\n  275 As above, Greek omits all of the Hebrew verses 7, 8 except the last\n      clause which follows naturally on verse 6.\n\n  276 See above, pp. 40 ff.\n\n  277 This consideration seems to dispose of K\u00f6nig\u2019s claim that Jeremiah\n      here maintains the Sinai-Covenant (with the Decalogue) in opposition\n      to the Moab-Covenant set forth in Deuteronomy. How could the former\n      be defined in the time of Josiah as _this Covenant_ or described in\n      Deuteronomic phrases? See also G. Douglas, \u201cBook of Jeremiah,\u201d p.\n      156.\n\n  278 Dr. Skinner (_op. cit._, p. 100) thinks that \u201cthe accumulation of\n      distinctively Deuteronomic phrases and ideas in verses 4, 5 implies\n      a dependence on that book which savours strongly of editorial\n      workmanship.\u201d But if _this Covenant_ be the Deuteronomic, as he\n      admits, what more natural than to state it in Deuteronomic terms,\n      expressive as these are only of its spiritual essence? I would also\n      refer to what I have said on p. 41 as to the effect on the Prophet\n      of the new and haunting style of Deuteronomy.\n\n  279 Dr. Skinner\u2019s authoritative support to the substance of the thesis\n      maintained above is very welcome, strengthened as it is by the point\n      which he makes in the first of the following sentences: \u201cThe\n      deliberate invention of an incident, which had no point of contact\n      in the authentic record of his life, is a procedure of which no\n      assured parallel is found in the book. We must at least believe that\n      a trustworthy tradition lies behind the passage in ch. xi; and the\n      conclusion to which it naturally points is that Jeremiah was at\n      first strongly in favour of the law of Deuteronomy, and lent his\n      moral support to the reformation of Josiah\u201d (pp. 102-3). Wellhausen,\n      \u201cIsr. u. J\u00fcdische Gesch.\u201d (1894, p. 97): \u201cAn der Einf\u00fchrung des\n      Deuteronomiums hatte er mitgewirkt, zeitlebens eiferte er gegen die\n      illegitimen Alt\u00e4re in den St\u00e4dten Judas.... Aber mit den Wirkungen\n      der Reformation war er keineswegs zufrieden.\u201d So too J. R. Gillies,\n      \u201cJeremiah,\u201d p. 113, and W. R. Thomson, \u201cThe Burden of the Lord,\u201d p.\n      66; and virtually so, Peake, i. 11-14.\n\n  280 So, too, H. P. Smith, \u201cO.T. History,\u201d p. 278, n. 2; while Duhm,\n      Giesebrecht, Davidson, Driver, Gillies, Peake and Skinner all take\n      vii. 1-15 and xxvi. to refer to the same occasion early in\n      Jehoiakim\u2019s reign. Duhm and Skinner remark on an apparently\n      incoherent association of Place ( = Holy Place) and Land in vii.\n      3-7. The clause about the Land may be a later addition. Yet in\n      verses 13-15 (the substance of which Skinner admits to be genuine)\n      the destruction of the Holy Place and ejection of the people from\n      the Land are _both_ threatened.\n\n  281 So simply the Greek; the longer Hebrew title, verses 1, 2 may be an\n      expansion by an editor, who took vii. 1-15 as reporting the same\n      speech as xxvi. 1 ff. In verse 3 Hebrew reads _Lord of Hosts_.\n\n  282 Greek adds _for they will be absolutely of no avail to you_.\n\n  283 So Syriac.\n\n  284 Or _there they are!_\u2014plural because of the complex of buildings.\n\n  285 It is doubtful whether this verb, meaning in earlier Hebrew _to make\n      any burnt offering_ was already confined to its later meaning, _to\n      burn incense_.\n\n  286 So Greek.\n\n  287 Much within these brackets is lacking in the Greek.\n\n  288 Hebrew _all_.\n\n  289 Verses 9, 25, 29, etc.\n\n  290 See above, p. 72.\n\n_  291 Vows_, so Greek, but Lucian _fat pieces_ (Lev. vi. 5); _by these\n      thou escape_, so Greek, Hebrew _then mightest thou rejoice_.\n\n  292 ii. 8, see above, p. 92.\n\n  293 Cp. the similar charge of Christ against the scribes.\n\n  294 xi. 1 ff.; so Giesebrecht on viii. 8.\n\n  295 Marti, _Gesch. der Isr. Religion_, 154, 166; Duhm, and especially\n      Cornill, _in loco_.\n\n  296 Hebrew adds _of Hosts, the God of Israel_.\n\n  297 The former were not, the latter were in part, eaten by the\n      worshipper; but it does not matter if now he eats them all alike!\n\n  298 xi. 1 ff.: above, pp. 143 ff.\n\n  299 Sam. xv. 22, Hos. vi. 6. Those who take the passage relatively also\n      quote Paul\u2019s words that Christ sent him not to baptize but to preach\n      the gospel, 1 Cor. i. 17.\n\n  300 Amos v. 25; Micah vi. 6-8; Ps. l. 13, 14; li. 16, 17.\n\n  301 See Robertson Smith, \u201cThe O.T. in the Jewish Church,\u201d 2nd ed., 203,\n      295 (1892), and Edghill, \u201cThe Evidential Value of Prophecy\u201d (1904),\n      274, one of the best works on the O.T. in our time.\n\n  302 II. Chron. xxxv. 20, _when he had set the Temple again in order_.\n\n  303 Or Nechoh or Neco as in our own versions: Heb. \u05e0\u05db\u05d5\u05d4 or \u05e0\u05db\u05d5.\n\n  304 \u201cH. G. H. L.,\u201d p. 151.\n\n  305 II. Chron. xxxv. 21. This may be only the reflection of later Jewish\n      piety on so perplexing a disaster; but it rings like fact.\n\n  306 II. King xxiii. 29, _as soon as he saw him_. For other records of\n      N\u0115coh\u2019s northward march see Appendix II.\n\n  307 The idea that Josiah fought N\u0115coh, as an Assyrian vassal (Benzinger\n      on II. Kings xxiii. 28-30) is, of course, quite improbable, even if\n      Nineveh did not fall till 606. But if the latest datum is correct\n      that Nineveh fell in 612 (see Appendix I) it is utterly groundless.\n\n  308 See above, p. 149.\n\n  309 xxvi. 2, xxxvi. 9.\n\n  310 Whether the sacrifices of children in Hinnom had been resumed, vii.\n      31 ff., is uncertain; yet this passage may well belong to\n      Jehoiakim\u2019s reign.\n\n  311 Greek omits and renders the following _I_ and _my_ by _thou_ and\n      _his_.\n\n  312 Using the Greek, Duhm, Cornill and Skinner render this quatrain\n      thus:\u2014\n\n      Did not thy father eat and drink,\n      And do himself well?\n      Yet he practised justice and right,\n      Judged the cause of the needy and poor.\n\n  313 ii. 8, 31, v. 30, 31, vi. 13, 14, 19, etc.; see pp. 106, 154, etc.\n\n  314 xx. 10.\n\n  315 See above, pp. 147 ff.\n\n  316 Many take the conditional clauses in vii and xxvi to be later\n      insertions (e.g. Skinner, 169 f.). But it was natural to the malice\n      of his foes to distort Jeremiah\u2019s conditional, into an absolute,\n      threat, and in xxvi. 13 he corrects them. My translation follows the\n      Greek version, and omits the Hebrew additions which are found in our\n      English versions.\n\n  317 Both text and versions add here _and all the people_; but this may\n      be the careless insertion of a copyist, for in what follows the\n      people are with Jeremiah.\n\n  318 So 34 MSS., and Syr. Vulg. and Targ.\n\n  319 Hebrew adds _against this city and_.\n\n  320 Hebrew adds _and all his mighty men_.\n\n  321 So Greek; Hebrew _the king sought_.\n\n  322 Hebrew adds a name (_El-nathan, son of Ackbor_) and repeats.\n\n  323 II. Kings xxii. 12 ff.; Jer. xxxix. 14, xl. 5, 6.\n\n  324 The designations of the title differ; what is stated above was\n      probably the fact.\n\n  325 See Appendix I.\n\n  326 As vividly described, or predicted, by Nahum; see the writer\u2019s\n      \u201cTwelve Prophets,\u201d vol. ii.; on the date see Appendix I.\n\n  327 II. Kings xxiv. 1-16. The chronology of the end of Jehoiakim\u2019s reign\n      is uncertain. Most have held that the three years of his tribute\n      were his last years, 600-598. But Winckler (\u201cA.T. Untersuchungen,\u201d\n      81 ff.) gives good reasons for preferring 605-3.\n\n  328 See above, pp. 22 ff. Our versions render the Hebrew correctly, but\n      the following emendations may be made from the Greek: Verse 1, for\n      _this word ... from the Lord_ read _the word of the Lord came unto\n      me_; 2, for _Israel_ read _Jerusalem_; 22, omit _in the ninth\n      month_, unnecessary after 9; 31, omit _their iniquity_, for _upon\n      them_ read _upon him_, and for _men_ read _land, of Judah_; 32, for\n      _Jeremiah took_ read _Baruch took_ and omit _and gave it to Baruch\n      the scribe the son of Neriah_, and also the words _king of Judah_\n      and _in the fire_.\n\n  329 xxxvi. 3.\n\n  330 xxxvi. 29; cp. xxv. 9 f.\n\n  331 xxxvi. 19, 24.\n\n  332 Such is the force of the Hebrew idiom in the last clause of xxxvi.\n      16; for the different attitude of the princes in 608 see pp. 170 ff.\n\n  333 The Hebrew text is accurately rendered by our English Versions; the\n      following are the principal points on which the Greek differs from\n      it: Verse 1, both Greek and Latin lack _that was the first year of\n      Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon_; in verse 2 Greek lacks _Jeremiah\n      the prophet_ and _all_, and in verse 3 _the word of the Lord hath\n      come to me_ and _but ye have not hearkened_. In verse 6 for  _I will\n      do you no hurt_ Greek reads _to your hurt_. Again, Greek lacks in 7\n      _saith the Lord_, in 8 _of Hosts_, in 9 _saith the Lord and to\n      Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon My servant_, and for _all the\n      families_ it reads _a family_; and in 11 lacks _this, a desolation,\n      these_ and _the king of Babylon_, substituting for the last two\n      _shall serve among the nations_.\n\n  334 E.g. the preposition _to_ before _Nebuchadrezzar_ in verse 9 which\n      does not construe.\n\n  335 xxv. 1-14 has been denied to Jeremiah by Schwally (\u201cZ.A.T.W.,\u201d viii.\n      177 ff.) and Duhm, but their arguments are answered by Giesebrecht\n      and Cornill _in loco_; see, too, Gillies, 195-8, 202, and Skinner,\n      240 f.\n\n  336 See Davidson in Hastings\u2019 \u201cD.B.,\u201d ii. 574, Driver and Gillies _in\n      loco_.\n\n  337 See above, p. 14.\n\n  338 E.g. cp. 26 with 9 and both with i. 15.\n\n  339 As Duhm asserts; see above, pp. 79 ff.\n\n  340 The above paragraph on xxv. 15-38 is based on Giesebrecht\u2019s careful\n      analysis of the passage.\n\n  341 xxxvi. 5, 19, 26.\n\n  342 Worn next the skin; not _girdle_ which came over the other garments.\n      See \u201cEnc. Bibl.,\u201d article \u201cGirdle.\u201d\n\n  343 So virtually Cornill, who, indifferent as to whether the story is\n      one of fact or of imagination, emphasises the choice of the\n      Euphrates as its essential point, compares ii. 18, _to drink of the\n      waters of the River_, and dates the story in the earliest years of\n      Jeremiah\u2019s ministry. On the other hand Erbt, who also reads\n      _Euphrates_, interprets the story as one of actual journeys thither\n      by Jeremiah.\n\n  344 I visited it in 1901 and 1904, a most surprising oasis!\n\n  345 P\u0115rath or Parah = Farah was first suggested by Ewald (\u201cProphets of\n      the O. T.,\u201d Eng. trans, iii. 152), quoting Schick (\u201cAusland,\u201d 1867,\n      572-4), by Birch (\u201cP.E.F.Q.,\u201d 1880, 235), and by Marti (\u201cZ.D.P.V.,\u201d\n      1880, 11), and has been accepted by many\u2014Cheyne, Ball, McFadyen,\n      Peake, etc.\n\n  346 See above, p. 55.\n\n  347 In the valley of Hinnom, where were potteries and above them a\n      city-gate _Harsith_ = (probably) _Potsherds_; in the upper valley\n      broken pottery is still crushed for cement; lower down traces of\n      ancient potteries appear, and there is the traditional site of the\n      Potter\u2019s Field, Matt. xxvii. 7.\n\n  348 So literally the term rendered _wheel_, A.V. It was of two discs,\n      originally of stone, but later of wood, of which in earlier times\n      the upper alone revolved and the lower and larger was stationary,\n      but later both revolved by the potter\u2019s foot. See \u201cEnc. Bibl.,\u201d\n      article \u201cPottery.\u201d\n\n  349 See above, pp. 84 f.\n\n  350 Hebrew adds _Rede of the Lord_.\n\n  351 Hebrew adds _House of Israel_.\n\n  352 A. B. Davidson.\n\n  353 To this we return in dealing with Jeremiah\u2019s religious experience.\n      See below, Lecture vii.\n\n  354 See above, p. 109 on iv. 3.\n\n  355 Luke xiii. 6 ff. Other parables or actual incidents illustrating\n      either the possibilities of characters commonly deemed hopeless or\n      the fresh chances given them by God\u2019s grace, are found in Matt.\n      xviii. 23 f., Luke vii. 39 f. (the woman who was a sinner) and xix.\n      (Zacch\u00e6us).\n\n  356 Cornill _in loco_, Skinner, pp. 162 f., both of them in fine\n      passages on the teaching of the parable, the former exposing the\n      superficiality of Duhm\u2019s impulsive judgment upon it. Cornill finds\n      that the genuine words of Jeremiah close with verse 4; Skinner, Erbt\n      and Gillies (p. 158) continue them to 6.\n\n  357 But see next page.\n\n  358 xix. 1 ff. The Greek connects this incident with the preceding by\n      reading _then_ for the Hebrew _thus_, and with many Hebrew MSS. adds\n      to _saith the Lord_ the phrase _to me_, making Jeremiah himself the\n      narrator. In xix. 4 read with Greek _whom neither they nor their\n      fathers knew, and the kings of Judah have filled_, etc. Throughout\n      Greek lacks phrases which are probably later additions to Hebrew;\n      but these are not important.\n\n  359 See p. 185, n. 2.\n\n  360 The above is mainly from the Greek. The following is a significant\n      instance of how the knowledge of the Bible still holds among some at\n      least of the Scottish peasantry. A woman in a rural parish calling\n      on her minister to complain about the harshness of the factor of the\n      landlord said that he was a very Magor-Missabib. And it is no less\n      significant that the minister had to consult his concordance to the\n      Bible to know what she meant!\n\n  361 In xxxv the differences between Greek and Hebrew continue to be\n      those generally found in the Book, i.e. Greek omits the expansive\n      formulas, including the Divine titles, redundant words (like _all_)\n      and phrases, and corrects the wrong preposition _to_ by the right\n      _upon_ (17). Further, it spells differently some of the proper\n      names, reads _house_ for _chamber_ (4 _bis_), _a bowl_ for _bowls_\n      (5), _to me_ for _to Jeremiah_ (12), and in 18 does not address the\n      promise to the Rechabites, but utters it of them in the third\n      person, also omitting the name of Jeremiah, and in 19 for _for\n      ever_, lit. _all the days_, reads _all the days of the land_.\n\n  362 The ally of Jehu, II. Kings x. 15, 23. The tribe was Kenite, I.\n      Chron. ii. 55. The Kenites, according to Jud. i. 16, I. Sam. xv. 6,\n      settled in the South of Judah, but Jonadab is found in North Israel\n      and apparently his descendants, as fugitives before an invasion from\n      the North, came from the same quarter. Heber the Kenite also dwelt\n      on Esdraelon, Jud. iv. 17, v. 24.\n\n  363 Duhm\u2019s criticisms of it, and rejection of some of its parts are,\n      even for him, unusually arbitrary, especially his objection to the\n      words in verse 13, _Go and say to the men of Judah and the\n      inhabitants of Jerusalem_, for obviously these people were not\n      gathered in, nor could be addressed from, the Temple chamber. It was\n      the people as a whole, whose fickleness from age to age he was about\n      to condemn; on this verse Duhm\u2019s remarks are, besides being\n      arbitrary, inconsistent.\n\n  364 Above, pp. 147 ff.\n\n  365 Above, pp. 50, 153 f.\n\n  366 Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3; II. Kings xxiii. 5, 13. See the present\n      writer\u2019s \u201cJerusalem,\u201d ii., pp. 186 ff., 260, 263.\n\n  367 Deut. xii. 31, II. Kings xxiii. 10. See \u201cJerusalem,\u201d ii., pp. 263 f.\n\n  368 Pp. 153 f.\n\n  369 The only apparent reason for the compiler putting the two songs\n      together is that the last verse of the one and the first verse of\n      the other open in the same way, _O that I had_ (Hebrew _O who would\n      give me_).\n\n  370 xxxvi. 32.\n\n  371 Greek omits this clause.\n\n  372 Apparently a common proverb.\n\n  373 Hebrew adds _Jerusalem_ with no sense and a disturbance to the\n      metre.\n\n_  374 Mishpa\u1e6d = rule, order, ordinance._\n\n_  375 Torah = law_, see p. 154.\n\n  376 Reading \u05e6\u05e9\u05d4 with Dagesh in last letter.\n\n  377 With 10-12, cp. vi. 13-15; 11, 12 are wanting in Greek.\n\n  378 Hebrew adds a line of corrupt text.\n\n  379 Hebrew, _the Lord_.\n\n  380 So Greek. The verse is another instance of the\n      two-stresses-to-a-line metre; see p. 46.\n\n  381 So Greek.\n\n  382 So Greek.\n\n  383 So Greek.\n\n  384 Hebrew adds _Rede of the Lord_.\n\n  385 After the Greek, Hebrew is hopeless.\n\n  386 Lit., _from a land of distances_, usually taken as meaning exile.\n      But exile is not yet. Duhm as above.\n\n  387 So Greek.\n\n_  388 Bubbles_, ii. 5. The couplet seems an intrusion breaking between\n      the two parts of the people\u2019s cry.\n\n  389 So Greek.\n\n  390 Lit., _why cometh not up the fresh skin on_.\n\n  391 Greek, _an uttermost_.\n\n  392 The Hebrew word seems to me to be taken here rather in its primitive\n      sense of _bundle_ than in the later, official meaning of _assembly_.\n\n  393 Hebrew adds _Rede of the Lord_ for till now the Prophet has spoken.\n      Verse 3 is difficult. Duhm omits most, Cornill all, as breaking the\n      metrical schemes which they think Jeremiah invariably used. But the\n      form of the Hebrew text\u2014short lines of two beats each, with one\n      longer line\u2014is one into which Jeremiah sometimes falls (see pp. 46\n      f.). _Like a bow_ so Greek; Hebrew, _their bow_. Cp. our _draw a\n      long bow_ (Ball).\n\n  394 So Syriac.\n\n  395 Again Hebrew adds _Rede of the Lord_. The text is uncertain. Hebrew,\n      _thy dwelling is in the midst of deceit, they refuse to know Me_.\n\n  396 Hebrew adds _of Hosts_.\n\n  397 So Greek, Hebrew omits; more seems to have dropped out.\n\n  398 So Hebrew text; Hebrew margin and Greek _polished_.\n\n  399 So Greek.\n\n  400 So Greek. Hebrew, _I will raise_ and adds _lamentation_.\n\n  401 Hebrew adds _passing over_, probably a mistaken transference from\n      verse 12. Greek and Latin omit.\n\n  402 So Greek.\n\n  403 Hebrew uselessly adds _nor walked therein_.\n\n  404 Hebrew adds _of hosts_; and _this people_ for _them_.\n\n  405 Hebrew adds _of Hosts_ and _consider ye_ which Greek omits as well\n      as _hasten_ in 18; the text of the four lines is uncertain. For _us_\n      and _our_ Greek has _you_ and _your_.\n\n  406 So Vulgate.\n\n  407 Hebrew has the obvious intrusion, _Speak thus, Rede of the Lord_,\n      which Greek lacks.\n\n  408 I.e. of their hair; see xxv. 23, xlix. 32. Herodotus says (iii. 8)\n      that some Arabs shaved the hair above their temples; forbidden to\n      Jews, Lev. xix. 27.\n\n  409 So Greek; Hebrew, _the land_. The Hebrew part. _sitting_ may like\n      that in v. 18 be future.\n\n  410 So Greek; Hebrew, _in the land at this time_.\n\n  411 So Greek, Hebrew _my_.\n\n  412 So Greek, Hebrew _my_.\n\n  413 So some Greek and Latin versions, Syriac and Targ.\n\n  414 Greek; Hebrew omits.\n\n  415 I.e. Rulers.\n\n  416 Hebrew, _pastures_.\n\n  417 See above, pp. 46 f., 93.\n\n  418 So, following some Greek MSS., Targ., and the parallel Ps. lxxix. 6,\n      7.\n\n  419 Above, pp. 152 ff.\n\n  420 P. 176. Practically all agree to this. Admitting its possibility,\n      Duhm prefers to assign the lines to the Scythian invasion, against\n      which see the reasons offered by Cornill _in loco_, who further\n      suggests a connection between xi. 15, 16 and xii. 7-13. Ball, after\n      Naegelsbach, argues for a date before Carchemish.\n\n  421 The text of these four lines is hardly metrical.\n\n  422 Above, pp. 183-185.\n\n  423 p. 59.\n\n  424 In this quatrain Greek reads _your soul_, and Hebrew _my eye_ and\n      precedes this line by _shall weep indeed_ which Greek omits. The\n      last line is one of those longer ones with which verses or strophes\n      often conclude (see p. 35).\n\n  425 II. Kings xxiv. 8, 15; Jer. xxii. 26.\n\n  426 So Greek.\n\n  427 See ii. 36, iv. 30; Ezek. xxiii. 22.\n\n_  428 As heads_ obviously belongs to this second line of the quatrain,\n      from which some copyist has removed it to the fourth.\n\n  429 So Hebrew literally.\n\n  430 Pp. 56 f. The date is quite uncertain.\n\n  431 The text of the first four lines is uncertain. I have mainly\n      followed the Greek. _Begging_, if we borrow the sense of the verb in\n      Syriac, otherwise _huckstering_, _peddling_.\n\n  432 Hos. vi. 1-4.\n\n  433 P. 189.\n\n  434 Hebrew and some Greek MSS. add _against thee_.\n\n  435 Hebrew, _they turned not from their ways_.\n\n  436 The text of verse 8 is uncertain. I have mainly followed the Greek.\n\n  437 Hebrew adds _Rede of the Lord_.\n\n  438 Lecture vii.\n\n  439 Hebrew adds _nor bemoan them_, an expansion.\n\n  440 Hebrew adds _Rede of the Lord, even kindness and compassion_; verses\n      6 and 7 are expansion.\n\n  441 Hebrew adds _when their children remember their altars and Asherim_\n      rightly taken by Duhm and Cornill as a gloss.\n\n  442 Hebrew adds _in thee_ for which some read _thy hand_.\n\n  443 These four verses along with the phrase _Thus saith the Lord_ which\n      follows them are lacking in Greek. This is clearly due to the\n      oversight of a copyist, his eye passing inadvertently from _the\n      Lord_ of xvi. 21 to _the Lord_ of xvii. 5.\n\n  444 See pp. 53, 54.\n\n  445 Cp. \u201cIsaiah,\u201d lvi. 2-7, lviii. 13, 14; Neh. xiii. 15-22.\n\n  446 A much manipulated verse! _Mountain_, taking _sadai_ in its archaic\n      sense as in Assyrian and some Hebrew poems, Jud. v. 4, Deut. xxxii.\n      13 (see the writer\u2019s \u201cDeut.\u201d in the \u201cCamb. Bible for Schools\u201d) where\n      it is parallel to _highlands_, _rock_ and _flinty rock_. The\n      following emendations of the text are therefore unnecessary, and are\n      more or less forced. _Sirion_ (Duhm, Cornill, Peake, McFadyen,\n      Skinner); _missur\u00eem = from the rocks_ (Rothstein). The Greek takes\n      _sadai_ as _breasts_ and nominative to the verb: _Do the breasts of\n      the rock give out?_\u2014not a bad figure. _Hill-streams_ reading _m\u00eam\u00ea\n      har\u00eem_ (Rothstein) for the Hebrew _ma\u00eem zar\u00eem = strange_ (? far off)\n      _streams_. Ewald takes _zar\u00eem_ from _zarar = to rush, press_. Duhm\n      reads _m\u0115zar\u00eem = Northstar_. Cornill turns the couplet to _Or do dry\n      up from the western sea the flowing waters?_ Gillies, _the wet winds\n      from the sea_, etc., for which there is a suggestion in the Greek \u03b1\n      \u03bc\u1ff3.\n\n  447 See p. 149, n. 1\n\n  448 So some MSS.; the text has _like_.\n\n  449 Pp. 191 ff.\n\n  450 Pp. 164-167.\n\n  451 Duhm\u2019s objection to this title as a mistake by an editor is\n      groundless; for though the following lines are addressed to the land\n      or people as a whole, their climax is upon the fate of the royal\n      house, _the choice of thy cedars_.\n\n  452 Hebrew adds _many_.\n\n  453 Greek _from over the sea_.\n\n  454 Greek, Syriac, Vulgate.\n\n  455 Hebrew _thee_.\n\n  456 Hebrew adds _to return thither_; Greek lacks.\n\n  457 In 28-30 the Greek, mainly followed above in accordance with the\n      metre, is far shorter than the Hebrew text.\n\n  458 The reasons given by Giesebrecht and Duhm _in loco_, by Skinner, p.\n      346, and (more fancifully) by Erbt, p. 86, for impugning the date\n      given in xlv. 1, and relegating the Oracle to the close of\n      Jeremiah\u2019s life in exile as his last words to Baruch, have been\n      answered in great detail, and to my mind conclusively, by Cornill,\n      who points out how much more suited the Oracle is to conditions in\n      605 than to those of Baruch and Jeremiah after 586.\n\n  459 Cornill: _the words of Jeremiah in a book_.\n\n  460 Hebrew adds _saying_.\n\n  461 Hebrew adds _the God of Israel_.\n\n  462 So Greek.\n\n  463 Superfluous after, not to say inconsistent with, verse 2; probably\n      editorial.\n\n_  464 I have to_ or _am about to_. The Hebrew addition to this couplet,\n      _and that is the whole earth_, is probably a gloss; it is not found\n      in all Greek versions.\n\n  465 His brother Seraiah was a high officer of the king, ch. li. 59; see\n      also Josephus X. \u201cAntt.,\u201d ix. 1.\n\n  466 Here and xxi. 9, xxxviii. 2, xxxix. 18.\n\n  467 ix. 3, 7 (_How else can I do?_), xii. 9, 11, see p. 211.\n\n  468 See p. 167.\n\n  469 2 Kings xxiii. 31, xxiv. 17; see above, p. 164.\n\n  470 The exact transliteration of the Hebrew is _\u1e62id\u1e33iyahu_.\n\n  471 Ezek. xvi. 59, xvii. 11-21; especially 15-19.\n\n  472 Ps. xv., _who sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not_.\n\n  473 Josephus imputes to him \u03c7\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7, X. \u201cAntt.\u201d vii. 5.\n\n_  474 No strong rod, no sceptre to rule_, Ezek. xix. 14.\n\n  475 Or _ye are far_, etc., Ezek. xi. 15.\n\n  476 Jer. xxvii.; in verse 1 for _Jehoiakim_ read _\u1e62edekiah_.\n\n  477 Jer. li. 59; though some doubt this.\n\n  478 Ezek. viii; Jer. xliv. 17-19 and his other references to the worship\n      of the _Queen_ or _Host of Heaven_ may also refer to this.\n\n  479 Jer. xliv. 30, _Pharaoh_ of xxxvii. 5, 7, 11, Ezek. xxix. 3;\n      _Apries_, Herodotus ii. 161.\n\n  480 Jer. xxxiv. 8-22; cp. Exod. xxi. 1-6, Deut. xv. 12-18.\n\n  481 2 Kings xxv. 21.\n\n  482 xxix. 29; Skinner, p. 253, doubts this.\n\n  483 xxxii. 16-25.\n\n  484 See above, pp. 186-188.\n\n  485 xvii. 16.\n\n  486 So Driver; Amos vii. 1, 4, 7, viii. 1.\n\n  487 So Greek.\n\n  488 So Greek and other versions.\n\n  489 Greek _city_.\n\n  490 Jews who may have stirred up Egypt against Babylon.\n\n  491 So Greek; Hebrew adds _for an evil_, \u201ca corrupt repetition of the\n      preceding word\u201d (Driver).\n\n  492 Hebrew adds _and to their fathers_.\n\n  493 xxix. 20, 15, 21-32, see pp. 245-247.\n\n  494 ix. 22; x. 20.\n\n  495 See above, p. 236.\n\n  496 See above, p. 35.\n\n  497 This title has been much expanded, as the briefer Greek shows, and\n      indeed much more than it shows. In 1 the addition of _priests and\n      prophets_ is in view of 8 and 15 evidently wrong. The Hebrew\n      _remnant of_ (before _the elders_) which Greek lacks is difficult.\n      It seems a later addition to the text when many of the elders had\n      died. Duhm\u2019s suggestion of a revolt of the early exiles and the\n      execution of many of the elders by Nebuchadrezzar is imaginary. In\n      verse 2 we have such a needless gloss or expansion as later scribes\n      were fond of making.\n\n  498 Greek omits this line.\n\n  499 Hebrew adds _there_.\n\n  500 Greek; Hebrew _city_.\n\n  501 8 and 9 strike one as a premature reference to the prophets.\n\n  502 Greek perhaps better _your people_, for in seventy years the elders\n      addressed must have died out.\n\n  503 Duhm.\n\n  504 As even Lucian\u2019s version shows in spite of its retaining 16-20.\n\n  505 Greek lacks the names of both the fathers, and also the last clause\n      of Hebrew, 21, _which prophesy a lie to you in My Name_.\n\n  506 This verb is a play on the name of Ahab\u2019s father.\n\n  507 In Hebrew follows in 25_a_ a useless editorial addition.\n\n  508 Hebrew precedes this with _to all the people which are in Jerusalem\n      and_, and follows it with _and to all the priests_, additions very\n      doubtful in view of verse 29. In II. Kings xxv. 18 \u1e62ephaniah is\n      _second priest_.\n\n  509 The time of the captivity.\n\n  510 Greek lacks the unnecessary remainder.\n\n  511 The following are some details as to xxvii. The Hebrew verse 1 is\n      not given by Greek; _Jehoiakim_ is of course a copyist\u2019s error for\n      _\u1e62edekiah_, as 3, 12, 20 and xxviii. 1 show. Greek lacks the second\n      clause of verse 5, all 7, several clauses of 8, one of 10, from\n      _under_ onwards in 12, all 13, the first of 14, _now shortly_ in 16\n      (but adds _I have not sent them_), all 17, the last half of 18, most\n      of 19, much of 20, all 21, and two clauses of 22.\n\n  512 Greek _the earth_.\n\n  513 Hebrew _my servant_.\n\n  514 Hebrew adds _pestilence_.\n\n  515 Greek; Hebrew _dreams_.\n\n  516 Greek; Hebrew _your_.\n\n  517 So adds Greek.\n\n  518 The general differences in xxviii are: after _the Lord_ Hebrew adds\n      _of Hosts the God of Israel_ verses 2, 14; in 11 and 14 the name\n      _Nebuchadnezzar_ as in xxvii; in 3, 4, 14, 16, 17 unnecessary\n      explanatory clauses or expansions; and throughout the title _the\n      prophet_ to the names _Jeremiah_ and _Hananiah_ respectively. Of all\n      these the Greek is devoid; other differences are marked in the notes\n      to the translation.\n\n  519 The prophetic perfect = _I will break_, verse 4.\n\n  520 As in xxvii. 16 Greek puts the priests after the people.\n\n  521 Baruch is not well accustomed to long sentences, therefore repeats\n      this clause (Duhm).\n\n  522 Greek lacks the bracketed words; _famine_ by changing one letter of\n      the Hebrew for _evil_.\n\n  523 Hebrew adds _of the prophet_.\n\n_  524 Recognised_ or _acknowledged_.\n\n  525 Greek adds _In the sight of all the people_; also gives the plural\n      _bars_.\n\n  526 Greek lacks these words.\n\n  527 So Greek; Hebrew _thou shalt_.\n\n  528 Hebrew adds _Hear now Hananiah_.\n\n  529 Hebrew adds _that year_.\n\n  530 By Giesebrecht.\n\n  531 Hebrew adds _Before the Lord, yea before His holy words_ (Greek\n      _before His glorious majesty_). Both break the connection and are\n      unmetrical.\n\n  532 The couplet here given by Hebrew and Greek is too long for the\n      verse, breaks the connection, and is apparently a copyist\u2019s\n      dittography expanded by quotation from ix. 2 (Duhm). But a single\n      line is needed. Helped by Greek, we might read _and because of these\n      mourns_.\n\n  533 After Duhm.\n\n  534 So Syriac, alone yielding a sound division of the lines.\n\n  535 Hebrew and Greek add a line breaking metre and parallel.\n\n  536 Jerusalem\u2019s (?).\n\n  537 Greek adds _of Hosts concerning the prophets_.\n\n  538 Cornill rejects this couplet, I think needlessly.\n\n  539 So Greek, cp. ii. 5, p. 92.\n\n  540 Or _My_, Erbt and Cornill.\n\n  541 So Greek. Hebrew _feared and heard His word_. These clauses are not\n      metrical and may be a later intrusion; which 19, 20 certainly are,\n      for they find their proper place in xxx. 23, 24.\n\n  542 So Greek.\n\n  543 Hebrew expands, _from their evil way and_.\n\n  544 So Greek affirmatively. Hebrew, by putting the couplet as a\n      question, confuses the meaning. To _near_ it adds _Rede of the\n      Lord_.\n\n  545 So Duhm happily takes a third repetition (for other cases of this\n      kind, see vii. 4; xxii. 29) instead of the senseless _how long_ at\n      the beginning of the next verse.\n\n  546 Giesebrecht\u2019s happy emendation.\n\n  547 So Greek.\n\n  548 Greek _Law_.\n\n  549 So Greek.\n\n  550 Greek adds _so My words_.\n\n  551 Hebrew adds _thus_.\n\n  552 So lit. or _call it a Rede_; _fling out_ so two Greek versions,\n      Hebrew _take_.\n\n  553 Zeph. iii. 4.\n\n  554 In 31 and 32 Hebrew repeats _Rede of the Lord_. The section which\n      follows can hardly be Jeremiah\u2019s.\n\n  555 xxii. 19; II. Kings xxiv. 6; just as conversely Huldah\u2019s prophecy\n      that Josiah would _be gathered to his fathers in peace_, II. Kings\n      xxii. 20, was belied at Megiddo.\n\n  556 xxiii. 32, repeating what he has frequently said already.\n\n  557 As Amos had more strongly put it, _You only have I known of all the\n      families of the earth, therefore I will visit upon you all your\n      iniquities_, iii. 2.\n\n  558 xxiii. 27.\n\n  559 As we have seen; above, pp. 76, 104 f., 137.\n\n  560 viii. 11; xxiii. 14, 17, 22, etc., etc.\n\n  561 xxix. 23, xxiii. 14.\n\n  562 xxiii. 28, above, p. 257; cp. xxvii. 18.\n\n  563 xxviii. 11, cp. xlii. 1-7.\n\n  564 xxviii. 6; above, p. 251.\n\n  565 xxvi. 14, 15.\n\n  566 See further, Lecture vii.\n\n  567 xxiii. 31, p. 258.\n\n  568 xxiii. 21.\n\n  569 Stade\u2019s combination (_ZATW_ 1892, 277 ff.) of xxi. 1, 2; xxxvii.\n      4-10; xxi. 3-10; xxxvii. 11 ff. yields a contradiction\u2014a prayer for\n      the raising of the siege (xxi. 1, 2) already raised (xxxvii. 5).\n      Erbt avoids this by combining only xxi. 1, 2_a_; xxxvii. 6-10;\n      similarly Gillies (p. 309). But, as Cornill says, one cannot explain\n      how from this form the two accounts have risen. Older critics\n      (except Ewald) and Davidson, Giesebrecht, Peake, Thomson, (196, 198)\n      and Cornill refer the passages to different occasions. Skinner\n      leaves the question in suspense (259 n.). Duhm disposes of xxxvii.\n      3-10 as a Midrash legend and xxi. 1-10 as \u201ca free composition\u201d upon\n      it by another hand!\n\n  570 Probably the original tenor of verse 4, but the text is confused by\n      additions.\n\n  571 Greek; Hebrew _he_.\n\n  572 Greek omits this clause inadvertently. The proposed reversal to _thy\n      mouth speak with his mouth_ (Giesebrecht, etc.) misses the point;\n      surely the captor would speak first.\n\n  573 Hebrew adds _concerning thee, thou shalt not die by the sword_.\n\n  574 Of spices. Some Greek versions read _mournings_, and _so shall they\n      mourn for thee_.\n\n  575 xxxix. 7; II. Kings xxv. 7.\n\n  576 Verses 1, 2 either belonged originally to this section, and mark it\n      as from another source than, or different edition of, Baruch\u2019s\n      memoirs, or more probably were added by an editor as necessary after\n      the preceding sections (xxxv, xxxvi) from Jehoiakim\u2019s reign.\n\n  577 Greek reads _say thou_ and _thee_ for _me_, and omits _you_.\n\n  578 So Greek.\n\n  579 Greek _place_.\n\n  580 Knox\u2019s \u201cHistory of the Reformation in Scotland,\u201d Bk. i.\n\n  581 Cp. \u201cdeclare a Liberty of Tender Consciences,\u201d Declaration of Breda\n      by Charles II.\n\n  582 A possible solution is \u201cthat the emancipation was undertaken in\n      obedience to the neglected law, and that to make their action even\n      more effective ... they decided to emancipate all their slaves\n      without waiting till the legal term had expired\u201d (Peake). Yet it is\n      also possible that the reference in verses 13, 14 to the law, Deut.\n      xv. 12, is due to an editor.\n\n  583 The chief differences between Hebrew and Greek are: 8, Greek lacks\n      _all_ and the senseless _unto them_; 9, Greek reads _so that no Jew\n      should be a slave_; 10, 11, for Hebrew _heard_ (R.V. _obeyed_),\n      Greek reads _turned_, omits the last two clauses of 10, all of 11\n      save the last and in 12, 13 _from the Lord_ and _God of Israel_; 14\n      reads _six_ for Hebrew _seven_ and 15 _they_ for _ye_ (twice); 16\n      omits _and brought them into subjection_, 17, _to his brother and\n      every man_, 18 all reference to the calf and its parts, 20, 21 _and\n      into the hand of them that seek their life_ (twice).\n\n  584 Peake.\n\n  585 xxxvii. 12; the phrase is obscure.\n\n  586 xxxvii. 11-21.\n\n  587 Greek omits this last named.\n\n  588 So Greek: Hebrew _unto all the people_.\n\n  589 Greek lacks _to him_ and Syriac the last clause.\n\n  590 Greek _For thus_.\n\n  591 See above, p. 232.\n\n  592 Calvin\u2019s discriminating remarks on xxxviii. 2, in No. cxlvii of his\n      prelections on the Book of Jeremiah, are well worth reading. See,\n      too, Peake (p. 24) and Skinner (261 ff.).\n\n  593 So Greek. Hebrew takes this clause as part of \u1e62edekiah\u2019s reply: _the\n      king is not able to do anything against you_.\n\n  594 Greek again is devoid of the repetitions, etc., that overload the\n      Hebrew.\n\n  595 Hebrew adds _sitting_, an obvious intrusion (not in Greek), for in\n      the siege the king would hardly hold council in the Benjamin-Gate.\n\n  596 Greek reads that he charged not _the princes_ but _the king_. The\n      text of 9 is uncertain. Duhm thinks the original meant that the\n      princes wished Jeremiah\u2019s death so as to save bread.\n\n  597 Hebrew and versions _thirty_, differing little from the Hebrew for\n      _three_, which is now generally read.\n\n  598 xxxix. 15-18.\n\n  599 xxxviii. 14-28; Greek agrees with Hebrew save for its usual\n      omissions as well as _secretly_, 16. Both read _the third entry of\n      the Lord\u2019s House_, which some, by adding a letter, would change to\n      _entry of the Shalishim_ or _guards_; unnecessarily, as Haupt shows.\n\n  600 After the deportation of 597.\n\n  601 So Greek; Hebrew reads _thy feet are plunged_, and omits _from\n      thee_; 23 is a late expansion.\n\n  602 Pp. 258-9 n., thus exceeding Steuernagel\u2019s and Buttenwieser\u2019s\n      readings of parts of it as a variant of xxxvii.\n\n  603 xxxviii. 28.\n\n  604 Duhm and Cornill take as original only 6-15; Giesebrecht reasonably\n      adds 16, _Ah Lord Yahweh_ in 17, 24, 25, and in the main 26-44, from\n      which probably more deductions should be made than he makes. Gillies\n      (270 ff.) takes 16-25 as later reflections on a prayer by Jeremiah,\n      24-41 as editorial, 42-44 as bringing us back to the actual\n      situation. This is safer than Peake\u2019s distinction of 16, 24-26,\n      36-44 as genuine (slightly qualified by his notes). Hebrew and Greek\n      throughout are the same, save for the usual Greek omissions, and\n      these are more in the narrative 1-15 (especially 5_b_, 11_b_, 14\n      _these deeds_ with _it_ for _them_ and _they_, while in 8 for Hebrew\n      _the redemption is thine_ it has _thou art the elder_) than in the\n      prayer and the divine answer (30_b_, 36 _captivity_ for\n      _pestilence_, 41 _visit_ for _rejoice over_). In 6 for Hebrew _me_\n      Greek has _Jeremiah_, but confirms the 1st person in 8, 9-13, 16,\n      25, and in 26 has _me_ for Hebrew _Jeremiah_. Greek, too, has some\n      of its unusual surplus: 8 _Shallum_, 12 _son of_, 19 \u1f41 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f41 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2\n      \u1f41 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03c1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03bb\u03ce\u03bd\u03c5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u039a\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2, 25 _and I wrote the deed and\n      sealed it_, 33_b_ _still_, 43 _again_.\n\n  605 The custom was to have one copy open for reference, and one sealed\n      for confirmation if the open one should be disputed. To _sealed_\n      Hebrew adds _the injunction and conditions_.\n\n  606 The numerous emendations are purely conjectural; the least\n      unsatisfactory being Cornill\u2019s: _The houses ... shall be torn down\n      against which the Chaldeans are coming to fight with mounds and\n      sword and to fill with the corpses of men whom I have smitten in my\n      wrath_, etc.\n\n  607 One may eliminate the few words not found in Greek, and naturally\n      suspect the liturgical clause in 11. Some take 13 as a late\n      expansion of 12.\n\n  608 xxxviii. 28.\n\n  609 Verse 14 follows directly on verse 3. The statement that Nebu\u1e63aradan\n      was one of them is in verse 13 which belongs to the very late\n      section, 4-13, lacking in the Greek.\n\n  610 Hebrew: lit. _to the house_; Greek omits.\n\n  611 Either Neby Samw\u00eel or Tell-en-Na\u1e63b, both a few miles north of\n      Jerusalem. The above exposition takes xxxix. 3, 14 and xl. 1-6 as\n      supplementary. But some read them as variants of the same episode,\n      debating which is the more reliable. For a full discussion see\n      Skinner, pp. 272 ff.\n\n  612 Hebrew, _the forces_ (Greek, _the force_) _in the field_.\n\n  613 The oscillations of this controversy have been recently so fully\n      recounted (by Cornill and Peake) that it is unnecessary to repeat\n      them here.\n\n  614 Whether the datum xxx. 2, that Jeremiah was commanded by the Lord to\n      write the words spoken to him in a book, is historical, is\n      uncertain. It is not impossible that as he had been moved to write\n      down his Oracles of doom (xxxvi) he should now be similarly advised\n      about these later Oracles of hope. The rejection of xxx. 2, by most\n      critics, seems to me rash.\n\n  615 This in answer to Rothstein (Kautzsch\u2019s \u201cHeilige Schrift des A. T.,\u201d\n      754), whose upper date for them _after_ 597 is too early, and to\n      Gillies (p. 238) who refers them to the Prophet\u2019s imprisonment.\n\n  616 Hebrew adds the gloss _like a bearing woman_.\n\n  617 So Greek, reading \u05d4\u05d9\u05d5 for \u05d4\u05d5\u05d9.\n\n  618 So Greek, Hebrew _thy_.\n\n  619 So Greek, Hebrew _thy_.\n\n  620 So Greek, Hebrew _thy_.\n\n  621 After the Greek.\n\n  622 Driver.\n\n  623 Hebrew adds _Rede of the Lord_.\n\n  624 Lecture viii.\n\n  625 Greek, _family_.\n\n  626 iii. 6 f.\n\n  627 See p. 72.\n\n  628 Cornill dates the poem, \u201csurely,\u201d from the earliest stage of\n      Jeremiah\u2019s prophetic career; but both its late place in the Book and\n      the reasons given above argue strongly for a date at Mi\u1e63pah under\n      Gedaliah.\n\n  629 So Greek.\n\n  630 Or _continue troth to thee_.\n\n  631 So Greek; Hebrew _deck thee with_.\n\n  632 So Greek.\n\n  633 Lit _make common_, i.e. not be obliged to wait over the first four\n      crops as required by the law, Lev. xix. 23-25, before having the\n      fruit released for their own use. Greek reads the similar Hebrew\n      verb _praise_.\n\n  634 Above, pp. 149 f., 152, 155 ff.\n\n  635 Duhm emends to _on the top of the hills_.\n\n  636 So Greek and Targ.\n\n  637 So Greek.\n\n_  638 Ibid._\n\n  639 So Greek.\n\n  640 It is singular how each of these three verses contains not four but\n      five lines. Cornill, by using the introduction _Thus saith the\n      Lord_, omitting _the remnant of Israel_, combining two pairs of\n      lines and including the following couplet, effects the arrangement\n      of octastichs to which he has throughout the book arbitrarily\n      committed himself. Duhm has another metrical arrangement.\n\n  641 Or _coasts_.\n\n  642 Lit. _they stream upon_, A.V. _flow together_; but the verb is to be\n      taken in the same sense as in Ps. xxxiv. 5 _were lightened_ and in\n      Is. lx. 5, R.V. It is the liquid rippling light, thrown up on the\n      face from water.\n\n  643 So Greek.\n\n  644 Hebrew adds _and will comfort them_.\n\n_  645 Richly_ lit. _with fat_, which Greek omits but to _priests_ adds\n      _the sons of Levi_, an instance of how ready later hands have been\n      to add prose glosses to the poetry.\n\n  646 1 Sam. x. 2.\n\n  647 See above pp. 46 f.\n\n  648 Hebrew and some versions add _for her children_.\n\n  649 Greek has not the first line of this couplet, and reads differently\n      the second. The whole seems a needless variant or paraphrase of 16.\n\n  650 Or _turned to_ (?). Greek reads _after my captivity_.\n\n  651 Some would read _was chastised_.\n\n  652 Still have that on my conscience; there is no need to doubt this\n      line in whole or part as some do.\n\n  653 After all that has passed!\n\n_  654 Compass_ or _change to_ (?) This couplet has been the despair of\n      commentators. Its exilic terms, _created_ and _female_, relieve us\n      of it.\n\n  655 Hebrew adds _of hosts, God of Israel_.\n\n  656 Hebrew and Greek add _holy mount_, a late term and here irrelevant,\n      for it is _all_ Judah that is described.\n\n  657 Greek _each_.\n\n  658 Doubtful. Jeremiah had nothing to do with dreams as means of\n      prophecy.\n\n  659 Hebrew adds to each _the house of_.\n\n  660 Hebrew adds from i. 10 (_q.v._), _pluck up, break down and destroy_.\n\n  661 As Dr. Skinner says, \u201cit was only by way of the eternal world that\n      Jeremiah could enter on the fruition of his hopes.\u201d\n\n  662 \u201cThat atrocious brigand\u201d (Renan).\n\n_  663 The folds of_, as Aquila shows that we should read Hebrew _Geruth_.\n\n  664 For the above see ch. xli, continuing from xl what is no doubt\n      Baruch\u2019s account.\n\n  665 So ch. xlii. This and xli are substantially the same in Hebrew and\n      Greek, the Greek as usual omitting the repetitions of the Divine\n      Titles and of the names of the fathers of the actors, and a few\n      other expansions; and suggesting, as Syriac and Vulg. also do, some\n      minor corrections.\n\n  666 xxiv. 1 ff.\n\n  667 xliii. 1-7. Hebrew and Greek still agree in essentials, Greek as\n      usual omitting Divine Titles (which the Hebrew copyists delight in\n      repeating), the needless father-names and also the term _proud_ (or\n      _presumptuous_) in 2, where it reads _the others_ for the senseless\n      Hebrew participle _saying_. In 6 it reads _remainder_ for\n      _children_, and _household_ for _daughters\u2014of the king_.\n\n  668 xliii. 8-13. In 9 for the obscure Hebrew phrase, R.V. _in mortar in\n      the brickwork_, Greek reads \u1f72\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b8\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2; in 10 lacks _My servant_,\n      for _I_ and _I have_ reads _he_ and _thou hast_; and in 12 _he\n      shall_ for _I will_. Also in 12 for _he shall array himself with the\n      land of Egypt as a shepherd putteth on his garment_, Greek has _he\n      shall clear out the land as a shepherd clears his garment from\n      lice_. Suitable and vivid as this figure is and adopted by many\n      moderns, one hesitates to use it for lack of confirmation from other\n      sources. The other one is sufficient.\n\n  669 Besides its usual _minus_ Greek omits in 1 _and at Noph_, in 3 _and\n      to serve_ and _neither ... fathers_, in 9 _and your own wickedness_,\n      in 10 _neither have they feared, in my law nor, before you and_, in\n      11 _against you ... all Judah_, at least half of 12, in 15 _unto\n      other gods_ and _that stood by_, in 18 _and to pour out ... unto\n      her_, in 19 _to portray her_, in 22, _without inhabitant_, in 23 _as\n      it is this day_, in 28 _mine or theirs_. Also Greek begins 19, _And\n      all the women answered and said_, and in 25 for _ye and your wives_\n      reads properly _ye women_.\n\n  670 Hebrew adds _and at Noph_ (Memphis).\n\n  671 Duhm, Rothstein, Cornill, Gillies, etc., eliminate from 15 as a\n      later addition _all the men who knew that their wives burned to\n      other gods_ on the ground that 19 shows the women alone to be the\n      speakers; Duhm, precariously changing besides _a great assembly_ (by\n      the alteration of one letter) to _with a great_ (loud) _voice_. And\n      these critics and Driver, Giesebrecht and Peake rightly take _even\n      all the people ... in Pathros_ as a late gloss founded on verse 1.\n\n  672 That is _solemnly sworn_; Judg. xi. 36; Numb. xxx. 2, 12.\n\n  673 Some Greek MSS. and Syriac have _and all the women answered_, an\n      addition felt to be necessary after the mention of _both_ men and\n      women in 15.\n\n  674 Hebrew adds _to portray her_, that is on the cakes.\n\n  675 Erbt first made clear the metrical form of these verses, though I\n      think too grudgingly, and has ignored the fact that they are not one\n      but two Oracles.\n\n  676 So Greek.\n\n  677 Generally accepted instead of Hebrew _vows_.\n\n  678 Calvin.\n\n  679 The rest of 27 and 28_a_, the destruction of all the Jews in Egypt,\n      is a prose expansion.\n\n  680 Hebrew adds, but Greek lacks, _from me or from them_.\n\n  681 xx. 8.\n\n  682 i. 6.\n\n  683 xx. 7.\n\n  684 vi. 11, xx. 9.\n\n  685 xv. 10; cp. xii. 1.\n\n  686 i. 10, p. 83.\n\n  687 xx. 2 ff.; see p. 192.\n\n  688 xxii. 18 f.; see p. 167.\n\n  689 xxxviii. 19 ff.; pp. 282 f.\n\n  690 xxix. 24-32.\n\n  691 xxviii. 17.\n\n  692 xlv. 5; p. 228.\n\n  693 So Greek; Hebrew _thou lettest me see_.\n\n  694 Greek; Hebrew takes this with the next line.\n\n  695 So generally read since Hitzig; Hebrew has _bread_, i.e. _fruit_.\n\n  696 Others: _on Thee I have rolled_; cp. xx. 12.\n\n  697 Greek; Hebrew _thy_.\n\n  698 Hebrew copyists senselessly repeat, _Thus saith the Lord of Hosts_;\n      Greek omits.\n\n  699 So Greek.\n\n  700 Greek.\n\n  701 Greek, meaning, Thy sanction to their curses.\n\n  702 The text of the last six lines is corrupt; the above is Duhm\u2019s\n      reading after the Greek. See too J. R. Gillies. Verses 13, 14 are\n      out of place here, see xvii. 3, 4.\n\n  703 Greek omits.\n\n  704 So Greek; Hebrew (with same consonants, but the first two\n      transposed) _Found were Thy words_.\n\n  705 So Greek; Hebrew _I did eat them_. But all this bracketed quatrain\n      breaks the connection between what precedes and verse 17.\n\n  706 Cornill after Greek.\n\n  707 Omit _of bronze_ for the metre\u2019s sake; it is a copyist\u2019s echo of i.\n      18. Cornill omits _impassable_ instead.\n\n  708 Hebrew adds _Rede of the Lord_.\n\n  709 Hebrew precedes this with And the Word of _the Lord came unto me_,\n      which Greek is without, thus closely connecting xvi. 2 ff. with xv.\n      21.\n\n  710 In 3, 4 the bracketed lines are probably expansions of the original.\n\n  711 Hebrew, etc., add _nor bemoan them_\u2014expansion.\n\n  712 5_b_, 6_a_ are not in Greek.\n\n  713 So Greek.\n\n  714 By a change of vowels.\n\n  715 So Greek.\n\n  716 Greek lacks _of Hosts_.\n\n  717 Perhaps 14 connects with 9, 10. The line _For Thou art my praise_ is\n      a late addition.\n\n  718 So Aq. Symm. Syr., reading _ra\u2019ah, evil_ for _ro\u2019eh, shepherd_.\n\n_  719 Torah_, see p. 154.\n\n  720 So Greek; Hebrew _of mine accusers_.\n\n  721 To this line Greek adds _have privily laid a stumbling block_. Most\n      regard both lines as an expansion from 22.\n\n  722 Pl.; So Greek.\n\n  723 Pl.; So Greek.\n\n  724 Above, pp. 276 ff.\n\n  725 In contrast with its boldness in textual criticism a curious\n      timidity of sentiment has set through recent O.T. scholarship in\n      Germany from which the older German scholars were free.\n\n  726 Greek _the name of the Lord_.\n\n  727 Greek; Hebrew adds _any more_.\n\n  728 So Greek.\n\n  729 Hebrew adds _of Hosts_.\n\n  730 Verse 13, a doxology, is probably a later addition.\n\n  731 So Greek.\n\n  732 Cp. xviii. 20 f. p. 329.\n\n  733 xii. 5; cp. xv. 19.\n\n  734 iv. 10; p. 322; xv. 18.\n\n  735 i. 17 f.; cp. xv. 19.\n\n  736 See above, p. 160.\n\n  737 Hebrew adds, _Thou seest me_.\n\n  738 See also p. 160. Verse 4 is clearly out of place here, referring to\n      a hardly relevant subject. Verse 6 is less improbable an\n      illustration of the harder troubles in store for the prophet. There\n      is no reason to doubt the genuineness of the rest: _Thou can\u2019st not\n      trust_, so Greek; Hebrew _thou art trusting_. Hitzig, etc., by\n      changing one consonant read _thou art fleeing_. _Rankness_ lit.\n      _pride_ or _extravagance_. If verse 6 is original, the date of the\n      whole is early.\n\n  739 See above, p. 202.\n\n  740 v. 31; p. 125.\n\n  741 ii. 22 f.; xiii. 23; xvi. 12; xvii. 1; etc.\n\n  742 ii. 11-13, 22, 25, 31 f.\n\n  743 ii. 35; v. 31; vii. 4-11, 21 ff.; xi. 15; xiv. 12.\n\n  744 iv. 3, 4; vii. 3 ff. etc.\n\n  745 xv. 18.\n\n_  746 Debase not the throne of Thy Glory_, xiv. 21.\n\n  747 xiv. 8, 9; see p. 57.\n\n  748 x. 1-16 is a later writer\u2019s; see p. 207.\n\n  749 vi. 27; see pp. 132, 133.\n\n  750 xii. 1 ff., etc.\n\n  751 xx. 7, 11.\n\n  752 xvii. 7 f.; p. 54.\n\n  753 See above, p. 299.\n\n  754 Shortly before his death, Professor A. B. Davidson said to me,\n      \u201cThese prophets were terribly one-idea\u2019d men\u201d\u2014their one idea being\n      that the Lord was about to do something.\n\n  755 ii., iii. _passim_.\n\n  756 ii. 31.\n\n  757 ii. 8; _Where is the Lord?_\n\n  758 i. 12 ff.\n\n  759 xxvii. 5.\n\n  760 xxii. 7; i. 15; iv. 6; v. 15, etc.\n\n  761 xxii. 25 f.; xxiv. 8 ff.; xxv. 9; xxvii. 6; xxxii. 3; xxxiv. 2, 22.\n\n  762 xviii. 1-11.\n\n  763 i. 9 f.; etc.\n\n  764 ii. 9; xii. 1 ff.; xiii. 1; xviii. 1; xix. 1, xxiv. 1 f.; xxvii. 2;\n      xxxii. 6; xxxv. 2; xxxvi. 2, 28.\n\n  765 ii. 5, 11; viii. 19 (?); xiv. 22; xvi. 19, 20; xviii. 15; xxxii. 30\n      (?), etc. _Bubble_, Hebrew _hebel_, lit. _breath_, usually rendered\n      _vanity_ by our versions.\n\n  766 Deut. iv. 19 reconciles the two by saying that Yahweh had assigned\n      the gods to their respective nations.\n\n  767 Above, pp. 187 ff.; ii. 9, 31 f.; iii. 12, 19; etc.\n\n  768 ix. 24; cp. v. 1 ff., etc.\n\n  769 vii. 3 ff.; xxvi. 13. See above, pp. 155 ff.\n\n  770 xxii. 15 f.\n\n  771 ix. 7; cp. ii. 9, 35; v. 7-9, 25.\n\n  772 Not from the very earliest; ii. and iii. utter pleadings rather than\n      condemnations.\n\n  773 iii. 1 ff., 20.\n\n  774 vi. 11; iv. 8, 26; xxv. 15; xxx. 24 (also, but out of place in\n      xxiii. 20); cp. xiii. 12-14.\n\n  775 ii. 20; iii. 3, 6 ff., 20; xii. 8.\n\n  776 iv. 28; v. 7; vii. 16; xi. 14; xv. 1 ff.\n\n  777 v. 9, 29; ix. 9; xxi. 7.\n\n  778 vi. 15; viii. 12; ix. 15 (xxiii. 15); xv. 7, 8; xiii. 24; xviii. 17;\n      vi. 26; ix. 11; vii. 15; xxiv. 9, 10.\n\n  779 ii. 19; iv. 18; vii. 19; xiii. 22.\n\n  780 vi. 27-30; pp. 132 ff.\n\n  781 ii. 30, v. 3.\n\n  782 ii. 25; xviii. 12; vi. 15; viii. 12; xi. 14; xiv. 11.\n\n  783 v. 31; xiii. 25; xviii. 11 ff.; xxiii. 14-17; xxvii. 9; xxviii. 15.\n\n  784 iii. 21-25, a vain confession of sin by the people which meets only\n      with a sterner call from God (iv. 3-4; see pp. 102 f., 107 f.) and\n      was, as the subsequent years proved, ineffective; cp. xviii. 15.\n\n  785 ii. 5, 31, 32.\n\n  786 xii. 7-9; ii. 14.\n\n  787 xii. 11; cp. Gen. xlviii. 7.\n\n  788 xxxi. 20.\n\n  789 I shall judge thee for saying \u201cI am guiltless\u201d: ii. 35.\n\n  790 Above, pp. 186 ff., 348.\n\n  791 ii. 13; xiv. 8; xvii. 13; iii. 12.\n\n  792 i. 11 f.; xxxi. 35 f.\n\n  793 viii. 7; v. 22 (xxxi. 35); xiv. 22 (after the Greek); cp. iii. 3; v.\n      24.\n\n  794 xxiii. 23 f.; above, p. 256.\n\n  795 By Smend.\n\n  796 Amos ix. 2 ff.\n\n  797 See above, pp. 238-241.\n\n  798 xxix. 4-13; cp. vii. 14, 21 ff.; iii. 16; and see above, pp.\n      143-159.\n\n  799 See above, pp. 90 ff.\n\n  800 v. 1-5; viii. 8, scribes and wise; and prophets and priests\n      continually.\n\n  801 ix. 4 f.; v. 7 f.; xx. 3 f.; xxii. 13-18; xxxviii. 22; xxviii. 15 f.\n\n  802 iii. 2; v. 26; x. 21; xxiii. 31.\n\n  803 v. 1.\n\n  804 xi. 20; xx. 12.\n\n  805 xvii. 9 f.\n\n  806 xxiii. 24.\n\n  807 xxxi. 29 f.\n\n  808 xxvi. 2 f.\n\n  809 ix. 24.\n\n  810 x. 23.\n\n  811 xvii. 7 f.; above, p. 54.\n\n  812 See above, pp. 227-229.\n\n  813 xii. 3.\n\n  814 Above, pp. 293 ff. This was rightly perceived by earlier critics of\n      last century, Movers, De Wette, Hitzig, etc., who mostly assigned as\n      a date the end of the exile and read the influence of the Second\n      Isaiah upon any Jeremian material that the chapters may contain. In\n      spite of objections by Graf their thesis was reaffirmed and expanded\n      by Stade (_Gesch. Isr._ i. 643) and by Smend (_Lehrbuch der A.T.\n      Religionsgeschichte_, 1893), who denied that any part of xxx, xxxi\n      was from Jeremiah, on grounds both of alleged inconsistencies with\n      Jeremiah\u2019s teaching, and of the representations of Judah with her\n      people restored and her cultivation resumed. But since Smend\n      criticism has been more discriminating; admitting post-exilic\n      elements and consequently a late age for the whole collection but\n      reserving for our Prophet various passages: Giesebrecht, xxxi. 2-6,\n      15-20, 27-34; Duhm, xxx. 12-15, xxxi. 2-6, 15-22_a_; Erbt, xxxi.\n      2-6, 15-17, 18-20; Cornill, xxxi. 2-5, 9_b_, 15-22_b_, 31-34; J. R.\n      Gillies, xxxi. 2-6, 15-20, 29 f., 31_b_, 33_b_, 34; Peake, xxxi.\n      2-6, 15-22, 31-34; Skinner, xxxi. 2-6, 15 f., 18-20, 21 f., 29 f.,\n      31-34.\n\n  815 Above, pp. 36 f., 40-42, 49-52, 91.\n\n  816 Above, pp. 40, 91, 142, 145.\n\n  817 xi. 1 ff., etc.\n\n  818 xxiv. 7.\n\n  819 ix. 24; cp. viii. 7_b_, etc.\n\n  820 So Greek, Latin and Syriac; Hebrew _though I was an husband to\n      them_.\n\n  821 So one Greek version.\n\n  822 So some MSS.\n\n  823 So Greek and Latin.\n\n  824 Hebrew adds, _Rede of the Lord_.\n\n  825 Giesebrecht.","title":"Jeremiah : Being The Baird Lecture for 1922","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":90453}