Though Zedekiah besmirched his career by perjury, he was nevertheless
so good and just a king that for his sake God relinquished his purpose
of returning the world to its original chaos, as a punishment for the
evil-doing of a wicked generation. (9) In this depraved time, it was
first and foremost Jeremiah to whom was delegated the task of
proclaiming the word of God. He was a descendant of Joshua and Rahab,
and his father was the prophet (10) Hilkiah. He was born while his
father was fleeing (11) from the persecution of Jezebel, the murderess
of prophets. At his very birth he showed signs that he was destined to
play a great part. He was born circumcised, (12) and scarcely had he
left his mother's womb when he broke into wailing, and his voice was
the voice, not of a babe, but of a youth. He cried: "My bowels, my
bowels tremble, the walls of my heart they are disquieted, my limbs
quake, destruction upon destruction I bring upon earth." In this strain
he continued to moan and groan, complaining of the faithlessness of his
mother, and when she expressed her amazement at the unseemly speech of
her new-born son, Jeremiah said: "Not thee do I mean, my mother, not to
thee doth my prophecy refer; I speak of Zion, and against Jerusalem are
my words directed. She adorns her daughters, arrays them in purple, and
puts golden crowns upon their heads. Robbers will come and strip them
of their ornaments."
As a lad he received the call to be a prophet. But he refused to obey,
saying: "O Lord, I cannot go as a prophet to Israel, for when lived
there a prophet whom Israel did not desire to kill? Moses and Aaron
they sought to stone with stones; Elijah the Tishbite they mocked at
because his hair was grown long; and they called after Elisha, 'Go up,
thou bald head' no, I cannot go to Israel, for I am still naught but
a lad." God replied: "I love youth, for it is innocent. When I carried
Israel out of Egypt, I called him a lad, and when I think of Israel
lovingly, I speak of him as a lad. Say not, therefore, thou art only a
lad, but thou shalt go on whatsoever errand I shall send thee. Now,
then," God, continued, "take the 'cup of wrath,' and let the nations
drink of it." Jeremiah put the question which land was to drink first
from the "cup of wrath," and the answer of God was: "First Jerusalem is
to drink, the head of all earthly nations, and then the cities of
Judah." When the prophet heard this, he began to curse the day of his
birth. "I am like the high priest," he said, "who has to administer the
'water of bitterness' to a woman who is held under the suspicion of
adultery, and when he approaches the woman with the cup, lo, he beholds
his own mother. And I, O Mother Zion, thought, when I was called to
prophesy, that I was appointed to proclaim prosperity and salvation to
thee, but now I see that my message forebodes thee evil."
Jeremiah's first appearance in public was during the reign of Josiah,
when he announced to the people in the streets: "If ye will give up
your wicked doings, God will raise you above all nations; if not, He
will deliver His house into the hands of the enemies, and they will
deal with it as seemeth best to them."
The prophets contemporary with Jeremiah in his early years were
Zechariah and Huldah. The province of the latter was among women, while
Zechariah was active in the synagogue. (13) Later, under Jehoiakim,
Jeremiah was supported by the prophets of his relative Uriah of
Kiriathjearim, a friend of the prophet Isaiah. (14) But Uriah was put
to death by the ungodly king, the same who had the first chapter of
Lamentations burnt after obliterating the Name of God wherever it
occurs in the whole book. But Jeremiah added four chapters. (15)
The prophet fell upon evil times under Zedekiah. He had both the people
and the court against him. Nor was that surprising in a day when not
even the high priests in the Temple bore the sign of the covenant upon
their bodies. (16) Jeremiah had called forth general hostility by
condemning the alliance with Egypt against Babylonia, and favoring
peace with Nebuchadnezzar; and this though to all appearances the help
of the Egyptians would prove of good effect for the Jews. The hosts of
Pharaoh Necho had actually set forth from Egypt to join the Jews
against Babylon. But when they were on the high seas, God commanded the
waters to cover themselves with corpses. Astonished, the Egyptians
asked each other, whence the dead bodies. Presently the answer occurred
to them: they were the bodies of their ancestors drowned in the Red Sea
on account of the Jews, who had shaken off Egyptian rule. "What," said
the Egyptians thereupon, "shall we bring help to those who drowned our
fathers?" So they returned to their own country, justifying the warning
of Jeremiah, that no dependence could be put upon Egyptian promises.
(17)
A little while after this occurrence, when Jeremiah wanted to leave
Jerusalem to go to Anathoth and partake of his priestly portion there,
the watchman at the gate accused him of desiring to desert to the
enemy. He was delivered to his adversaries at court, and they confined
him in prison. The watchman knew full well that it was a trumped up
charge he was bringing against Jeremiah, and the intention attributed
to him was as far as possible from the mind of the prophet, but he took
this opportunity to vent an old family grudge. For this gateman was a
grandson of the false prophet Hananiah, the enemy of Jeremiah, the one
who had prophesied complete victory over Nebuchadnezzar within two
years. It were proper to say, he calculated the victory rather than
prophesied it. He reasoned: "If unto Elam, which is a mere ally of the
Babylonians against the Jews, destruction has been appointed by God
through Jeremiah, so much the more will the extreme penalty fall upon
the Babylonians themselves, who have inflicted vast evil upon the
Jews." (18) Jeremiah's prophecy had been the reverse: so far from
holding forth any hope that a victory would be won over Nebuchadnezzar,
the Jewish state, he said, would suffer annihilation. Hananiah demanded
a sign betokening the truth of Jeremiah's prophecy. But Jeremiah
contended there could be no sign for such a prophecy as his, since the
Divine determination to do evil can be annulled. On the other hand, it
was the duty of Hananiah to give a sign, for he was prophesying
pleasant things, and the Divine resolution for good is executed
without. (19) Finally, Jeremiah advanced the clinching argument: "I, a
priest, may be well content with the prophecy; it is to my interest
that the Temple should continue to stand. As for thee, thou art a
Gibeonite, thou wilt have to do a slave's service in it so long as
there is a Temple. But instead of troubling thy mind with the future in
store for others, thou shouldst rather have thought of thine own
future, for this very year thou wilt die." Hananiah, in very truth,
died on the last day of the year set as his term of life, but before
his death he ordered that it should be kept secret for two days, so to
give the lie to Jeremiah's prophecy. With his last words, addressed to
his son Shelemiah, he charged him to seek every possible way of taking
revenge upon Jeremiah, to whose curse his death was to be ascribed.
Shelemiah had no opportunity of fulfilling his father's last behest,
but it did not pass from his mind, and when he, in turn, lay upon his
death-bed, he impressed the duty of revenge upon his son Jeriah. It was
the grandson of Hananiah who, when he saw Jeremiah leaving the city,
hastened to take the opportunity of accusing the prophet of treason.
His purpose prospered. The aristocratic enemies of Jeremiah, enraged
against him, welcomed the chance to put him behind prison bars, and
gave him in charge of a jailer, Jonathan, who had been a friend of the
false prophet Hananiah. Jonathan pleased himself by mocking at his
prisoner: "See," he would say, "see what honor thy friend does thee, to
put thee in so fine a prison as this; verily, it is a royal palace."
Despite his suffering, Jeremiah did not hold back the truth. When the
king inquired of him, whether he had a revelation from God, he replied:
"Yes, the king of Babylonia will carry thee off into exile." To avoid
irritating the king, he went into no further detail. He only prayed the
king to liberate him from prison, saying: "Even wicked men like
Hananiah and his descendants at least cast about for a pretext when
they desire to take revenge, and their example ought not to be lost
upon thee who art called Zedekiah, 'just man.'" The king granted his
petition, but Jeremiah did not enjoy liberty for long. Hardly out of
prison, he again advised the people to surrender, and the nobility
seized him and cast him into a lime pit filled with water, where they
hoped he would drown. But a miracle happened. The water sank to the
bottom, and the mud rose to the surface, and supported the prophet
above the water. Help came to him from Ebed-melech, a "white raven,"
the only pious man at court. Ebed-melech hastened to the king and
spoke: "Know, if Jeremiah perishes in the lime pit, Jerusalem will
surely be captured." With the permission of the king, Ebed-melech went
to the pit, and cried out aloud several times, "O my lord Jeremiah,"
but no answer came. Jeremiah feared the words were spoken by his former
jailer Jonathan, who had not given up his practice of mocking at the
prophet. He would come to the edge of the pit and call down jeeringly:
"Do not rest thy head on the mud, and take a little sleep, Jeremiah."
To such sneers Jeremiah made no reply, and hence it was that
Ebed-melech was left unanswered. Thinking the prophet dead, he began to
lament and tear his clothes. Then Jeremiah, realizing that it was a
friend, and not Jonathan, asked: "Who is it that is calling my name and
weeps therewith?" and he received the assurance that Ebed-melech had
come to rescue him from his perilous position. (20)