described as extremely old and decrepit at fourscore (2 Sam. xix. 33),
proves that life in ancient Palestine did not ordinarily transcend the
limits of seventy to eighty years. Still, after all that may be urged to
the contrary, Jeremiah may have been an exception to his contemporaries
in this, as in most other respects. Indeed, his protracted labours and
sufferings seem almost to imply that he was endowed with constitutional
vigour and powers of endurance above the average of men; and if, as
some suppose, he wrote the book of Job in Egypt, to embody the fruits
of his life's experience and reflexion, as well as arranged and edited
his other writings, it is evident that he must have sojourned among the
exiles in that country for a considerable time.
The tale is told. In meagre and broken outline I have laid before
you the known facts of a life which must always possess permanent
interest, not only for the student of religious development, but for
all men who are stirred by human passion, and stimulated by human
thought. And fully conscious as I am of failure in the attempt to
reanimate the dry bones of history, to give form and colour and
movement to the shadows of the past; I shall not have spent my pains
for nought, if I have awakened in a single heart some spark of living
interest in the heroes of old; some enthusiasm for the martyrs of
faith; some secret yearning to cast in their own lot with those who
have fought the battle of truth and righteousness and to share with
the saints departed in the victory that overcometh the world. And
even if in this also I have fallen short of the mark, these desultory
and imperfect sketches of a good man's life and work will not have
been wholly barren of result, if they lead any one of my readers to
renewed study of that truly sacred text which preserves to all time
the living utterances of this last of the greater prophets.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The same root is used in the Targ. on i. 15 for _setting_ or
fixing thrones, cf. Dan. vii. 9: (רְמִיו)
[2] Clem. Alex., _Strom._, I., § 120.
[3] At least seven times.
[4] Hitzig.
[5] i. 6.
[6] i. 2, xxv. 3.
[7] נער _puer_; (1) Ex. ii. 6, of a three months' babe; (2) of a young
man up to about the twentieth year, Gen. xxxiv. 19, of Shechem ben
Hamor; 1 Kings iii. 7, of Solomon, as here.
[8] Hitzig, _Vorbemerkungen_.
[9] The Cimmerians are the Gomer of Scripture, the Gimirrâ'a of the
cuneiform inscriptions.
[10] Ewald, _Die Psalmen_, 165.
[11] Zeph. ii. 4 _sqq._, תהיה עזובה עזה ... תעקר עקרון
[12] התורה ספר, 2 Kings xxii. 8; הברית ספר, 2 Kings xxiii. 2.
[13] Comparing the Hebrew verb with the Arabic [Arabic: **] _timuit_,
_fastidivit_. LXX., κἀγὼ ἠμέλησα αὐτῶν, Cf. Jer. iii. 14. Gesenius
rendered _fastidivit_, _rejecit_.
[14] So rightly the Syriac, for Jehoiakim.
[15] _i.e._ To scent food afar off, like beasts of prey. There was no
occasion to alter A.V.
I.
_THE CALL AND CONSECRATION._
In the foregoing pages we have considered the principal events in
the life of the prophet Jeremiah, by way of introduction to the more
detailed study of his writings. Preparation of this kind seemed to be
necessary, if we were to enter upon that study with something more
than the vaguest perception of the real personality of the prophet. On
the other hand, I hope we shall not fail to find our mental image of
the man, and our conception of the times in which he lived, and of the
conditions under which he laboured as a servant of God, corrected and
perfected by that closer examination of his works to which I now invite
you. And so we shall be better equipped for the attainment of that
which must be the ultimate object of all such studies; the deepening
and strengthening of the life of faith in ourselves, by which alone we
can hope to follow in the steps of the saints of old, and like them to
realise the great end of our being, the service of the All-Perfect.
I shall consider the various discourses in what appears to be their
natural order, so far as possible, taking those chapters together
which appear to be connected in occasion and subject. Chap. i.
evidently stands apart, as a self-complete and independent whole.
It consists of a chronological superscription (vv. 1-3), assigning
the temporal limits of the prophet's activity; and secondly, of an
inaugural discourse, which sets before us his first call, and the
general scope of the mission which he was chosen to fulfil. This
discourse, again, in like manner falls into two sections, of which the
former (vv. 4-10) relates how the prophet was appointed and qualified
by Iahvah to be a spokesman for Him; while the latter (vv. 11-19),
under the form of two visions, expresses the assurance that Iahvah
will accomplish His word, and pictures the mode of fulfilment, closing
with a renewed summons to enter upon the work, and with a promise of
effectual support against all opposition.
It is plain that we have before us the author's introduction to the
whole book; and if we would gain an adequate conception of the meaning
of the prophet's activity both for his own time and for ours, we must
weigh well the force of these prefatory words. The career of a true
prophet, or spokesman for God, undoubtedly implies a special call or
vocation to the office. In this preface to the summarized account
of his life's work, Jeremiah represents that call as a single and
definite event in his life's history. Must we take this in its literal
sense? We are not astonished by such a statement as "the word of the
Lord came unto me;" it may be understood in more senses than one, and
perhaps we are unconsciously prone to understand it in what is called
a natural sense. Perhaps we think of a result of pious reflexion
pondering the moral state of the nation and the needs of the time:
perhaps of that inward voice which is nothing strange to any soul that
has attained to the rudiments of spiritual development. But when we
read such an assertion as that of ver. 9, "Then the Lord put forth
His hand, and touched my mouth," we cannot but pause and ask what it
was that the writer meant to convey by words so strange and startling.
Thoughtful readers cannot avoid the question whether such statements
are consonant with what we otherwise know of the dealings of God
with man; whether an outward and visible act of the kind spoken of
conforms with that whole conception of the Divine Being, which is, so
far as it reflects reality, the outcome of His own contact with our
human spirits. The obvious answer is that such corporeal actions are
incompatible with all our experience and all our reasoned conceptions
of the Divine Essence, which fills all things and controls all things,
precisely because it is not limited by a bodily organism, because its
actions are not dependent upon such imperfect and restricted media
as hands and feet. If, then, we are bound to a literal sense, we can
only understand that the prophet saw a vision, in which a Divine hand
seemed to touch his lips, and a Divine voice to sound in his ears.
But _are_ we bound to a literal sense? It is noteworthy that Jeremiah
does not say that Iahvah Himself appeared to him. In this respect,
he stands in conspicuous contrast with his predecessor Isaiah, who
writes (vi. 1), "In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord
sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up;" and with his successor
Ezekiel, who affirms in his opening verse (i. 1) that on a certain
definite occasion "the heavens opened," and he saw "visions of God."
Nor does Jeremiah use that striking phrase of the younger prophet's,
"The hand of Iahvah was upon me," or "was strong upon me." But when
he says, "Iahvah put forth His hand and touched my mouth," he is
evidently thinking of the seraph that touched Isaiah's mouth with the
live coal from the heavenly altar (vi. 7). The words are identical
(ויגע פי על), and might be regarded as a quotation. It is true that,
supposing Jeremiah to be relating the experience of a trance-like
condition or ecstasy, we need not assume any conscious imitation of
his predecessor. The sights and sounds which affect a man in such a
condition may be partly repetitions of former experience, whether
one's own or that of others; and in part wholly new and strange.
In a dream one might imagine things happening to oneself, which
one had heard or read of in connexion with others. And Jeremiah's
writings generally prove his intimate acquaintance with those of
Isaiah and the older prophets. But as a trance or ecstasy is itself
an involuntary state, so the thoughts and feelings of the subject of
it must be independent of the individual will, and as it were imposed
from without. Is then the prophet describing the experience of such
an abnormal state--a state like that of St. Peter in his momentous
vision on the housetop at Joppa, or like that of St. Paul when he was
"caught up to the third heaven," and saw many wonderful things which
he durst not reveal? The question has been answered in the negative
on two principal grounds. It is said that the vision of vv. 11, 12,
derives its significance not from the visible thing itself, but from
the name of it, which is, of course, not an object of sight at all;
and consequently, the so-called vision is really "a well-devised and
ingenious product of cool reflexion." But is this so? We may translate
the original passage thus: _And there fell a word of Iahvah unto me,
saying, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, A rod of a wake-tree_
(_i.e._ an almond) _is what I see. And Iahvah said unto me, Thou_
_hast well seen; for wakeful am I over My word, to do it_. Doubtless
there is here one of those plays on words which are so well known
a feature of the prophetic style; but to admit this is by no means
tantamount to an admission that the vision derives its force and
meaning from the "invisible name" rather than from the visible thing.
Surely it is plain that the significance of the vision depends on the
fact which the name implies; a fact which would be at once suggested
by the sight of the tree. It is the well known characteristic of the
almond tree that it wakes, as it were, from the long sleep of winter
before all other trees, and displays its beautiful garland of blossom,
while its companions remain leafless and apparently lifeless. This
quality of early wakefulness is expressed by the Hebrew name of the
almond tree; for _shāqḗd_ means _waking_ or _wakeful_. If this tree,
in virtue of its remarkable peculiarity, was a proverb of watching and
waking, the sight of it, or of a branch of it, in a prophetic vision
would be sufficient to suggest that idea, independently of the name.
The allusion to the name, therefore, is only a literary device for
expressing with inimitable force and neatness the significance of the
visible symbol of the "rod of the almond tree," as it was intuitively
apprehended by the prophet in his vision.
Another and more radical ground is discovered in the substance of the
Divine communication. It is said that the anticipatory statement of the
contents and purpose of the subsequent prophesyings of the seer (ver.
10), the announcement beforehand of his fortunes (vv. 8, 18, 19), and
the warning addressed to the prophet personally (ver. 17), are only
conceivable as results of a process of abstraction from real experience,
as prophecies conformed to the event (_ex eventu_). "The call of the
prophet," says the writer whose arguments we are examining, "was the
moment when, battling down the doubts and scruples of the natural man
(vv. 7, 8), and full of holy courage, he took the resolution (ver.
17) to proclaim God's word. Certainly he was animated by the hope of
Divine assistance (ver. 18), the promise of which he heard inwardly
in the heart. More than this cannot be affirmed. But in this chapter
(vv. 17, 18), the measure and direction of the Divine help are already
clear to the writer; he is aware that opposition awaits him (ver. 19);
he knows the content of his prophecies (ver. 10). Such knowledge was
only possible for him in the middle or at the end of his career; and
therefore the composition of this opening chapter must be referred to
such a later period. As, however, the final catastrophe, after which
his language would have taken a wholly different complexion, is still
hidden from him here; and as the only edition of his prophecies prepared
by himself, that we know of, belongs to the fourth year of Jehoiakim
(xxxvi. 45); the section is best referred to that very time, when the
posture of affairs promised well for the fulfilment of the threatenings
of many years (cf. xxv. 9 with vv. 15, 10; xxv. 13 with vv. 12-17; xxv.
6 with ver. 16. And ver. 18 is virtually repeated, chap. xv. 20, which
belongs to the same period)."
The first part of this is an obvious inference from the narrative
itself. The prophet's own statement makes it abundantly clear that
his conviction of a call was accompanied by doubts and fears, which
were only silenced by that faith which moves mountains. That lofty
confidence in the purpose and strength of the Unseen, which has
enabled weak and trembling humanity to endure martyrdom, might well be
sufficient to nerve a young man to undertake the task of preaching
unpopular truths, even at the risk of frequent persecution and
occasional peril. But surely we need not suppose that, when Jeremiah
started on his prophetic career, he was as one who takes a leap in the
dark. Surely it is not necessary to suppose him profoundly ignorant
of the subject-matter of prophecy in general, of the kind of success
he might look for, of his own shrinking timidity and desponding
temperament, of "the measure and direction of the Divine help." Had
the son of Hilkiah been the first of the prophets of Israel instead
of one of the latest; had there been no prophets before him; we might
recognise some force in this criticism. As the facts lie, however,
we can hardly avoid an obvious answer. With the experience of many
notable predecessors before his eyes; with the message of a Hosea,
an Amos, a Micah, an Isaiah, graven upon his heart; with his minute
knowledge of their history, their struggles and successes, the fierce
antagonisms they roused, the cruel persecutions they were called upon
to face in the discharge of their Divine commission; with his profound
sense that nothing but the good help of their God had enabled them
to endure the strain of a lifelong battle; it is not in the least
wonderful that Jeremiah should have foreseen the like experience for
himself. The wonder would have been, if, with such speaking examples
before him, he had not anticipated "the measure and direction of the
Divine help"; if he had been ignorant "that opposition awaited him";
if he had not already possessed a general knowledge of the "contents"
of his own as of all prophecies. For there is a substantial unity
underlying all the manifold outpourings of the prophetic spirit.
Indeed, it would seem that it is to the diversity of personal gifts,
to differences of training and temperament, to the rich variety of
character and circumstance, rather than to any essential contrasts
in the substance and purport of prophecy itself, that the absence of
monotony, the impress of individuality and originality is due, which
characterises the utterances of the principal prophets.
Apart from the unsatisfactory nature of the reasons alleged, it is
very probable that this opening chapter was penned by Jeremiah as an
introduction to the first collection of his prophecies, which dates
from the fourth year of Jehoiakim, that is, circ. B.C. 606. In that
case, it must not be forgotten that the prophet is relating events
which, as he tells us himself (chap. xxv. 3), had taken place three
and twenty years ago; and as his description is probably drawn from
memory, something may be allowed for unconscious transformation
of facts in the light of after experience. Still, the peculiar
events that attended so marked a crisis in his life as his first
consciousness of a Divine call must, in any case, have constituted,
cannot but have left a deep and abiding impress upon the prophet's
memory; and there really seems to be no good reason for refusing
to believe that that initial experience took the form of a twofold
vision seen under conditions of trance or ecstasy. At the same time,
bearing in mind the Oriental passion for metaphor and imagery, we are
not perhaps debarred from seeing in the whole chapter a figurative
description, or rather an attempt to describe through the medium of
figurative language, that which must always ultimately transcend
description--the communion of the Divine with the human spirit. Real,
most real of real facts, as that communion was and is, it can never be
directly communicated in words; it can only be hinted and suggested
through the medium of symbolic and metaphorical phraseology. Language
itself, being more than half material, breaks down in the attempt to
express things wholly spiritual.
I shall not stop to discuss the importance of the general
superscription or heading of the book, which is given in the first
three verses. But before passing on, I will ask you to notice that,
whereas the Hebrew text opens with the phrase _Dibrê Yirmeyáhu_
(יִרְמְיָהוּ דִּבְרֵי), "The words of Jeremiah," the oldest
translation we have, viz. the Septuagint, reads: "The word of God
which came to Jeremiah" (τὸ ρῆμα τοῦ Θεοῦ ὃ ἐγένετο ἐπὶ Ἱερεμίαν). It
is possible, therefore, that the old Greek translator had a Hebrew
text different from that which has come down to us, and opening
with the same formula which we find at the beginning of the older
prophets Hosea, Joel, and Micah. In fact, Amos is the only prophet,
besides Jeremiah, whose book begins with the phrase in question (עמוס
דברי--Λόγοι Ἀμώς); and although it is more appropriate there than
here, owing to the continuation "And he said," it looks suspicious
even there, when we compare Isaiah i. 1, and observe how much more
suitable the term "vision" (חֲזוֹן) would be. It is likely that the
LXX. has preserved the original reading of Jeremiah, and that some
editor of the Hebrew text altered it because of the apparent tautology
with the opening of ver. 2: "_To whom the word of the Lord_ (LXX. τοῦ
Θεοῦ) _came_ in the days of Josiah."
Such changes were freely made by the scribes in the days before
the settlement of the O. T. canon; changes which may occasion much
perplexity to those, if any there be, who hold by the unintelligent
and obsolete theory of verbal and even literal inspiration, but none
at all to such as recognise a Divine hand in the facts of history,[16]
and are content to believe that in holy books, as in holy men, there
is a Divine treasure in earthen vessels. The textual difference in
question may serve to call our attention to the peculiar way in which
the prophets identified their work with the Divine will, and their
words with the Divine thoughts; so that the words of an Amos or a
Jeremiah were in all good faith held and believed to be self-attesting
utterances of the Unseen God. The conviction which wrought in them
was, in fact, identical with that which in after times moved St. Paul
to affirm the high calling and inalienable dignity of the Christian
ministry in those impressive words, "Let a man so account of us as of
the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God."
Vv. 5-10, which relate how the prophet became aware that he was in
future to receive revelations from above, constitute in themselves an
important revelation. Under Divine influence he becomes aware of a
special mission. _Ere I began to form_ (mould, fashion, יצר, as the
potter moulds the clay) _thee in the belly, I knew thee; and ere thou
begannest to come forth from the womb,[17] I had dedicated thee, not
"regarded_ thee as holy," Isa. viii. 13; nor perhaps "_declared_ thee
holy," as Ges.; but "_hallowed_ thee," _i.e._ dedicated thee to God,
Judg. xvii. 3; 1 Kings ix. 3; especially Lev. xxvii. 14; of money and
houses. The pi. of _consecrating_ priests, Ex. xxviii. 41; altar,
Ex. xxix. 36, temple, mountain, etc.; perhaps also, "_consecrated_
thee" for the discharge of a sacred office. Even soldiers are called
_consecrated_ (מקֻדּשים Isa. xiii. 3), as ministers of the Lord of
Hosts, and probably as having been formally devoted to His service
at the outset of a campaign by special solemnities of lustration and
sacrifice; while guests bidden to a sacrificial feast had to undergo a
preliminary form of _consecration_ (1 Sam. xvi. 5; Zeph. i. 7), to fit
them for communion with Deity.
With the certainty of his own Divine calling, it became clear to
the prophet that the choice was not an arbitrary caprice; it was
the execution of a Divine purpose, conceived long, long before its
realisation in time and space. The God whose foreknowledge and will
directs the whole course of human history--whose control of events
and direction of human energies is most signally evident in precisely
those instances where men and nations are most regardless of Him, and
imagine the vain thought that they are independent of Him (Isa. xxii.
11, xxxvii. 26)--this sovereign Being, in the development of whose
eternal purposes he himself, and every son of man was necessarily
a factor, had from the first "known him,"--known the individual
character and capacities which would constitute his fitness for
the special work of his life;--and "sanctified" him; devoted and
consecrated him to the doing of it when the time of his earthly
manifestation should arrive. Like others who have played a notable
part in the affairs of men, Jeremiah saw with clearest vision that
he was himself the embodiment in flesh and blood of a Divine idea;
he knew himself to be a deliberately planned and chosen instrument
of the Divine activity. It was this seeing himself as God saw him,
which constituted his difference from his fellows, who only knew their
individual appetites, pleasures and interests, and were blinded, by
their absorption in these, to the perception of any higher reality.
It was the coming to this knowledge of _himself_, of the meaning and
purpose of HIS individual unity of powers and aspirations in the great
universe of being, of his true relation to God and to man, which
constituted the first revelation to Jeremiah, and which was the secret
of his personal greatness.
This knowledge, however, might have come to him in vain. Moments
of illumination are not always accompanied by noble resolves and
corresponding actions. It does not follow that, because a man sees
his calling, he will at once renounce _all_, and pursue it. Jeremiah
would not have been human, had he not hesitated a while, when, after
the inward light, came the voice, _A spokesman_, or Divine interpreter
(נביא), _to the nations appoint I thee_. To have passing flashes of
spiritual insight and heavenly inspiration is one thing; to undertake
_now_, in the actual present, the course of conduct which they
unquestionably indicate and involve, is quite another. And so, when
the hour of spiritual illumination has passed, the darkness may and
often does become deeper than before.