a golden time to come are not independent of the attitude of the
people towards Iahvah. They will only be realized, if the nation
shall truly repent of the past, and turn to Him with the whole heart.
The expressions "at that time," "in those days" (vv. 17, 18), are
only conditionally determinate; they mean the happy time of Israel's
repentance, _if such a time should ever come_. From this glimpse of
glorious possibilities, the prophet turns abruptly to the dark page of
Israel's actual history. He has, so to speak, portrayed in characters
of light the development as it might have been; he now depicts the
course it actually followed. He restates Iahvah's original claim upon
Israel's grateful devotion (ii. 2), putting these words into the mouth
of the Divine Speaker: _And I indeed thought, How will I set thee among
the sons_ (of the Divine household), _and give thee a lovely land, a
heritage the fairest among the nations! And methought, thou wouldst call
Me 'My Father,' and wouldst not turn back from following Me._ Iahvah
had at the outset adopted Israel, and called him from the status of a
groaning bondsman to the dignity of a son and heir. When Israel was a
child, He had loved him, and called His son out of Egypt (Hos. xi. 1),
to give him a place and a heritage among nations. It was Iahvah, indeed,
who originally assigned their holdings to all the nations, and separated
the various tribes of mankind, _fixing the territories of peoples,
according to the number of the sons of God_ (Deut. xxxii. 8 Sept.).
If He had brought up Israel from Egypt, He had also brought up the
Philistines from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir (Amos ix. 7). But
He had adopted Israel in a more special sense, which may be expressed in
St. Paul's words, who makes it the chief advantage of Israel above the
nations that _unto them were committed the oracles of God_. (Rom. iii.
2). What nobler distinction could have been conferred upon any race of
men than that they should have been thus chosen, as Israel actually was
chosen, not merely in the aspirations of prophets, but as a matter of
fact in the divinely-directed evolution of human history, to become the
heralds of a higher truth, the hierophants of spiritual knowledge, the
universally recognised interpreters of God? Such a calling might have
been expected to elicit a response of the warmest gratitude, the most
enthusiastic loyalty and unswerving devotion. But Israel as a nation did
not rise to the level of these lofty prophetic views of its vocation;
it knew itself to be the people of Iahvah, but it failed to realize
the moral significance of that privilege, and the moral and spiritual
responsibilities which it involved. It failed to adore Iahvah as the
Father, in the only proper and acceptable sense of that honourable name,
the sense which restricts its application to one sole Being. Heathenism
is blind and irrational as well as profane and sinful; and so it does
not scruple to confer such absolutely individual titles as "God" and
"Father" upon a multitude of imaginary powers.
_Methought thou wouldst call Me 'My Father,' and wouldst not turn
back from following Me. But_ (Zeph. iii. 7) _a woman is false to
her fere; so were ye false to Me, O house of Israel, saith Iahvah._
The Divine intention toward Israel, God's gracious design for her
everlasting good, God's expectation of a return for His favour, and
how that design was thwarted so far as man could thwart it, and
that expectation disappointed hitherto; such is the import of the
last two verses (19, 20). Speaking in the name of God, Jeremiah
represents Israel's past as it appears to God. He now proceeds to
shew dramatically, or as in a picture, how the expectation may yet be
fulfilled, and the design realized. Having exposed the national guilt,
he supposes his remonstrance to have done its work, and he overhears
the penitent people pouring out its heart before God. Then a kind of
dialogue ensues between the Deity and His suppliants. _Hark! upon the
bare hills is heard the weeping of the supplications of the sons of
Israel, that they perverted their way, forgot Iahvah their God._ The
treeless hill-tops had been the scene of heathen orgies miscalled
worship. There the rites of Canaan performed by Israelites had
insulted the God of heaven (vv. 2 and 6). Now the very places which
witnessed the sin, witness the national remorse and confession. The
'high-places' are not condemned even by Jeremiah as places of worship,
but only as places of heathen and illicit worships. The solitude and
quiet and purer air of the hill-tops, their unobstructed view of
heaven and suggestive nearness thereto, have always made them natural
sanctuaries both for public rites and private prayer and meditation:
cf. 2 Sam. xv. 32; and especially St. Luke vi. 12.
In this closing section of the piece (iii. 19-iv. 2) 'Israel' means
not the entire people, but the northern kingdom only, which is spoken
of separately also in iii. 6-18, with the object of throwing into
higher relief the heinousness of Judah's guilt. Israel--the northern
kingdom--was less guilty than Judah, for she had no warning example,
no beacon-light upon her path, such as her own fall afforded to the
southern kingdom; and therefore the Divine compassion is more likely
to be extended to her, even after a century of ruin and banishment,
than to her callous, impenitent sister. Whether at the time Jeremiah
was in communication with survivors of the northern Exile, who were
faithful to the God of their fathers, and looked wistfully toward
Jerusalem as the centre of the best traditions and the sole hope of
Israelite nationality, cannot now be determined. The thing is not
unlikely, considering the interest which the prophet afterwards took
in the Judean exiles who were taken to Babylon with Jehoiachin (chap.
xxix.) and his active correspondence with their leaders. We may also
remember that "divers of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbled
themselves" and came to keep passover with king Hezekiah at Jerusalem.
It cannot, certainly, be supposed, with any show of reason, that the
Assyrians either carried away the entire population of the northern
kingdom, or exterminated all whom they did not carry away. The words
of the Chronicler who speaks of "a remnant ... escaped out of the
hand of the kings of Assyria," are themselves perfectly agreeable
to reason and the nature of the case, apart from the consideration
that he had special historical sources at his command (2 Chron.
xxx. 6, 11). We know that in the Maccabean and Roman wars the rocky
fastnesses of the country were a refuge to numbers of the people,
and the history of David shews that this had been the case from time
immemorial (cf. Judg. vi. 2). Doubtless in this way not a few survived
the Assyrian invasions and the destruction of Samaria (B.C. 721).
But to return to the text. After the confession of the nation that
they have _perverted their way_ (that is, their mode of worship, by
adoring visible symbols of Iahvah, and associating with Him as His
compeers a multitude of imaginary gods, especially the local Baalim,
ii. 23, and Ashtaroth), the prophet hears another voice, a voice of
Divine invitation and gracious promise, responsive to penitence and
prayer: _Return, ye apostate sons, let Me heal your apostasies!_ or
_If ye return, ye apostate sons, I will heal your apostasies!_ It is
an echo of the tenderness of an older prophet (Hos. xiv. 1, 4). And
the answer of the penitents quickly follows: _Behold us, we are come
unto Thee, for Thou art Iahvah our God_. The voice that now calls us,
we know by its tender tones of entreaty, compassion and love to be
the voice of Iahvah our own God; not the voice of sensual Chemosh,
tempting to guilty pleasures and foul impurities, not the harsh cry of
a cruel Molech, calling for savage rites of pitiless bloodshed. Thou,
Iahvah--not these nor their fellows--art our true and only God.
_Surely, in vain_ (for nought, bootlessly, 1 Sam. xxv. 21; chap. v. 2,
xvi. 19) _on the hills did we raise a din_ (lit. 'hath one raised';
reading בַּגְּבָעוֹת and הֵרִים); _surely, in Iahvah our God is the
safety of Israel!_ The Hebrew cannot be original as it now stands in
the Masoretic text, for it is ungrammatical. The changes I have made
will be seen to be very slight, and the sense obtained is much the
same as Ewald's _Surely in vain from the hills is the noise, from the
mountains_ (where every reader must feel that _from the mountains_ is a
forcible-feeble addition which adds nothing to the sense). We might also
perhaps detach the _mem_ from the term for 'hills,' and connect it with
the preceding word, thus getting the meaning: _Surely, for Lies are the
hills, the uproar of the mountains!_ (הָרִים הֲמֹון ... לִשְׁקָרִים);
that is to say, the high-places are devoted to delusive nonentities,
who can do nothing in return for the wild orgiastic worship bestowed on
them; a thought which contrasts very well with the second half of the
verse: _Surely, in Iahvah our God is the safety of Israel!_
The confession continues: _And as for the Shame_--the shameful idol,
the Baal whose worship involved shameful rites (chap. xi. 13; Hos. ix.
10), and who put his worshippers to shame, by disappointing them of
help in the hour of their need (ii. 8, 26, 27)--_as for the Shame_--in
contrast with Iahvah, the Safety of Israel, who gives all, and
requires little or nothing of this kind in return--_it devoured the
labour of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters_. The allusion is to the insatiable
greed of the idol-priests, and the lavish expense of perpetually
recurring feasts and sacrifices, which constituted a serious drain
upon the resources of a pastoral and agricultural community; and to
the bloody rites which, not content with animal offerings, demanded
human victims for the altars of an appalling superstition. _Let us
lie down in our shame, and let our infamy cover us! for toward Iahvah
our God we trespassed, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto
this day, and obeyed not the voice of Iahvah our God._ A more complete
acknowledgment of sin could hardly be conceived; no palliating
circumstances are alleged, no excuses devised, of the kind with
which men usually seek to soothe a disturbed conscience. The strong
seductions of Canaanite worship, the temptation to join in the joyful
merriment of idol-festivals, the invitation of friends and neighbours,
the contagion of example,--all these extenuating facts must have been
at least as well known to the prophet as to modern critics, but he is
expressively silent on the point of mitigating circumstances in the
case of a nation to whom such light and guidance had come, as came to
Israel. No, he could discern no ground of hope for his people except
in a full and unreserved admission of guilt, an agony of shame and
contrition before God, a heartfelt recognition of the truth that from
the outset of their national existence to the passing day they had
continually sinned against Iahvah their God and resisted His holy Will.
Finally, to this cry of penitents humbled in the dust, and owning
that they have no refuge from the consequences of their sin but in
the Divine Mercy, comes the firm yet loving answer: _If thou wilt
return, O Israel, saith Iahvah, unto Me wilt return, and if thou
wilt put away thine Abominations_ [_out of thy mouth and_, LXX.]
_out of My Presence, and sway not to and fro_ (1 Kings xiv. 15),
_but wilt swear 'By the Life of Iahvah!' in good faith, justice, and
righteousness; then shall the nations bless themselves by Him, and
in Him shall they glory_ (iv. 1, 2). Such is the close of this ideal
dialogue between God and man. It is promised that if the nation's
repentance be sincere--not half-hearted like that of Judah (iii. 10;
2 Chron. xxxiv. 33)--and if the fact be demonstrated by a resolute
and unwavering rejection of idol-worship, evinced by the disuse of
their names in oaths, and the expulsion of their symbols _from the
Presence_, that is, out of the sanctuaries and domain of Iahvah, and
by adhering to the Name of the God of Israel in oaths and compacts of
all kinds, and by a scrupulous loyalty to such engagements (Ps. xv. 4;
Deut. x. 20; Isa. xlviii. 1); then the ancient oracle of blessing will
be fulfilled, and Israel will become a proverb of felicity, the pride
and boast of mankind, the glorious ideal of perfect virtue and perfect
happiness (Gen. xii. 3; Isa. lxv. 16). Then, _all the nations will
gather together unto Jerusalem for the Name of Iahvah_ (iii. 17); they
will recognise in the religion of Iahvah the answer to their highest
longings and spiritual necessities, and will take Israel for what
Iahvah intended him to be, their example and priest and prophet.
Jeremiah could hardly have chosen a more extreme instance for pointing
the lesson he had to teach than the long-since ruined and depopulated
kingdom of the Ten Tribes. Hopeless as their actual condition must
have seemed at the time, he assures his own countrymen in Judah
and Jerusalem that even yet, if only the moral requirements of the
case were fulfilled, and the heart of the poor remnant and of the
survivors in banishment aroused to a genuine and permanent repentance,
the Divine promises would be accomplished in a people whose sun had
apparently set in darkness for ever. And so he passes on to address
his own people directly in tones of warning, reproof, and menace of
approaching wrath (iv. 3-vi. 30.)
FOOTNOTES:
[21] _She_ saw: Pesh. This may be right. And the Traitress, her sister
Judah, _saw it: yea, saw that even because the Turncoat Israel had
committed adultery, I put her away.... And yet the Traitress Judah,
her sister, was not afraid, etc._
[22] 1 Kings ii. 4, בֶּאֱמֶת = בּכָל־לְבָבָם
[23] As if "Turn back, back-turning Israel!" _i.e._ Thou that turnedst
thy back upon Iahvah, and, therefore, upon His pleasant land.
[24] Cf. also the Arabic [Arabic: **] _pravus_, [Arabic: **]
_pravitas_, with the Hebrew term.
IV.
_THE SCYTHIANS AS THE SCOURGE OF GOD._
JEREMIAH iv. 3-vi. 30.
If we would understand what is written here and elsewhere in the pages
of prophecy, two things would seem to be requisite. We must prepare
ourselves with some knowledge of the circumstances of the time, and we
must form some general conception of the ideas and aims of the inspired
writer, both in themselves, and in their relation to passing events. Of
the former, a partial and fragmentary knowledge may suffice, provided
it be true so far as it goes; minuteness of detail is not necessary to
general accuracy. Of the latter, a very full and complete conception may
be gathered from a careful study of the prophetic discourses.
The chapters before us were obviously composed in the presence of a
grave national danger; and what that danger was is not left uncertain,
as the discourse proceeds. An invasion of the country appeared to be
imminent; the rumour of approaching war had already made itself heard
in the capital; and all classes were terror-stricken at the tidings.
As usual in such times of peril, the country people were already
abandoning the uncalled towns and villages, to seek refuge in the
strong places of the land, and, above all, in Jerusalem, which was at
once the capital and the principal fortress of the kingdom. The evil
news had spread far and near; the trumpet-signal of alarm was heard
everywhere; the cry was, _Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the
fenced cities!_ (iv. 5).
The ground of this universal terror is thus declared: _The lion is
gone up from his thicket, and the destroyer of nations is on his way,
is gone forth from his place; to make thy land a desolation, that thy
cities be laid waste, without inhabitant_ (ver. 7). _A hot blast over
the bare hills in the wilderness, on the road to the daughter of my
people, not for winnowing, nor for cleansing; a full blast from those
hills cometh at My beck_ (ver. 11). _Lo, like clouds he cometh up,
and, like the whirlwind, his chariots; swifter than vultures are his
horses. Woe unto us! We are verily destroyed_ (ver. 13). _Besiegers_
(lit. _watchmen_, Isa. i. 8) _are coming from the remotest land, and
they utter their cry against the cities of Judah. Like keepers of
a field become they against her on every side_ (vv. 16-17). At the
same time, the invasion is still only a matter of report; the blow
has not yet fallen upon the trembling people. _Behold, I am about to
bring upon you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, saith Iahvah; an
inexhaustible nation it is, a nation of old time it is, a nation whose
tongue thou knowest not, nor understandest_ (lit. _hearest_) _what it
speaketh. Its quiver is like an opened grave; they all are heroes.
And it will eat up thine harvest and thy bread, which thy sons and
thy daughters should eat; it will eat up thy flock and thine herd; it
will eat up thy vine and thy figtree; it will shatter thine embattled
cities, wherein thou art trusting, with the sword_ (v. 15-17). _Thus
hath Iahvah said: Lo, a people cometh from a northern land, and a
great nation is awaking from the uttermost parts of_ _earth. Bow and
lance they hold; savage it is, and pitiless; the sound of them is
like the sea, when it roareth; and on horses they ride; he is arrayed
as a man for battle, against thee, O daughter of Zion. We have heard
the report of him; our hands droop; anguish hath taken hold of us,
throes, like hers that travaileth_ (vi. 22 _sq._). With the graphic
force of a keen observer, who is also a poet, the priest of Anathoth
has thus depicted for all time the collapse of terror which befel his
contemporaries, on the rumoured approach of the Scythians in the reign
of Josiah. And his lyric fervour carries him beyond this; it enables
him to see with the utmost distinctness the havoc wrought by these
hordes of savages; the surprise of cities, the looting of houses,
the flight of citizens to the woods and the hills at the approach of
the enemy; the desertion of the country towns, the devastation of
fields and vineyards, confusion and desolation everywhere, as though
primeval chaos had returned; and he tells it all with the passion and
intensity of one who is relating an actual personal experience. _In
my vitals, my vitals, I quake, in the walls of my heart! My heart is
murmuring to me; I cannot hold my peace; for my soul is listening to
the trumpet-blast, the alarm of war! Ruin on ruin is cried, for all
the land is ravaged; suddenly are my tents ravaged, my pavilions in
a moment! How long must I see the standards, must I listen to the
trumpet-blast?_ (iv. 19-21). _I look at the earth, and lo, 'tis chaos:
at the heavens, and their light is no more. I look at the mountains,
and lo, they rock, and all the hills sway to and fro. I look, and lo,
man is no more, and the birds of the air are gone, I look, and lo, the
fruitful soil is wilderness, and all the cities of it are overthrown_
(iv. 23-26). _At the noise of horseman and_ _archer all the city is
in flight! They are gone into the thickets, and up the rocks they
have clomb: all the city is deserted_ (ver. 29). His eye follows the
course of devastation until it reaches Jerusalem: Jerusalem, the
proud, luxurious capital, now isolated on her hills, bereft of all
her daughter cities, abandoned, even betrayed, by her foreign allies.
_And thou, that art doomed to destruction, what canst thou do? Though
thou clothe thee in scarlet, though thou deck thee with decking of
gold, though thou broaden thine eyes with henna, in vain dost thou
make thyself fair; the lovers have scorned thee, thy life are they
seeking._[25] The "lovers"--the false foreigners--have turned against
her in the time of her need; and the strange gods, with whom she
dallied in the days of prosperity, can bring her no help. And now,
while she witnesses, but cannot avert, the slaughter of her children,
her shrieks ring in the prophet's ear: _A cry, as of one in travail,
do I hear; pangs as of her that beareth her firstborn; the cry of the
daughter of Zion, that panteth, that spreadeth out her hands: Woe's
me! my soul swooneth for the slayers!_ (vv. 30, 31).
Even the strong walls of Jerusalem are no sure defence; there is
no safety but in flight. _Remove your goods, ye sons of Benjamin,
from within Jerusalem! And in Tekoah_ (as if Blaston or Blowick or
Trumpington) _blow a trumpet-blast, and upon Beth-hakkérem raise
a signal_ (or _beacon_)! _for evil hath looked forth_ _from the
north, and mighty ruin_ (vi. 1, 2). The two towns mark the route
of the fugitives, making for the wilderness of the south; and the
trumpet-call, and the beacon-light, muster the scattered companies
at these rallying points or haltingplaces. _The beautiful and the
pampered one will I destroy--the daughter of Sion._ (Perhaps: _The
beautiful and the pampered woman art thou like, O daughter of Sion!_
3rd fem. sing. in -_i_.) _To her come the shepherds and their flocks;
they pitch the tents upon her round about; they graze each at his own
side_ (_i.e._ on the ground nearest him). The figure changes, with
lyric abruptness, from the fair woman, enervated by luxury (ver. 2)
to the fair pasture-land, on which the nomad shepherds encamp, whose
flocks soon eat the herbage down, and leave the soil stripped bare
(ver. 3); and then, again, to an army beleaguering the fated city,
whose cries of mutual cheer, and of impatience at all delay, the
poet-prophet hears and rehearses. _Hallow ye war against her! Arise
ye, let us go up_ (to the assault) _at noontide! Unhappy we! the day
hath turned; the shadows of eventide begin to lengthen! Arise ye, and
let us go up in the night, to destroy her palaces!_ (vv. 4, 5).
As a fine example of poetical expression, the discourse obviously
has its own intrinsic value. The author's power to sketch with a few
bold strokes the magical effect of a disquieting rumour; the vivid
force with which he realizes the possibilities of ravage and ruin
which are wrapped up in those vague, uncertain tidings; the pathos and
passion of his lament over his stricken country, stricken as yet to
his perception only; the tenderness of feeling; the subtle sweetness
of language; the variety of metaphor; the light of imagination
illuminating the whole with its indefinable charm; all these
characteristics indicate the presence and power of a master-singer.
But with Jeremiah, as with his predecessors, the poetic expression of
feeling is far from being an end in itself. He writes with a purpose
to which all the endowments of his gifted nature are freely and
resolutely subordinated. He values his powers as a poet and orator
solely as instruments which conduce to an efficient utterance of the
will of Iahvah. He is hardly conscious of these gifts as such. He
exists to "declare in the house of Jacob and to publish in Judah" the
word of the Lord.
It is in this capacity that he now comes forward, and addresses his
terrified countrymen, in terms not calculated to allay their fears with
soothing suggestions of comfort and reassurance, but rather deliberately
chosen with a view to heightening those fears, and deepening them to a
sense of approaching judgment. For, after all, it is not the rumoured
coming of the Scythian hordes that impels him to break silence. It is
his consuming sense of the moral degeneracy, the spiritual degradation
of his countrymen, which flames forth into burning utterance. _Whom
shall I address and adjure, that they may hear? Lo, their ear is
uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken; lo, the word of Iahvah hath
become to them a reproach; they delight not therein. And of the fury of
Iahvah I am full; I am weary of holding it in._ Then the other voice in
his heart answers: _Pour thou it forth upon the child in the street,
and upon the company of young men together!_ (vi. 10, 11). It is the
righteous indignation of an offended God that wells up from his heart,
and overflows at his lips, and cries woe, irremediable woe, upon the
land he loves better than his own life.