predecessors could have done otherwise than take for granted the
established modes of public worship, and the traditional holy places.
The prophets do not seek to alter or abolish the externals of religion
as such; they are not so unreasonable as to demand that stated
rites and traditional sanctuaries should be disregarded, and that
men should worship in the spirit only, without the aid of outward
symbolism of any sort, however innocent and appropriate to its object
it might seem. They knew very well that rites and ceremonies were
necessary to public worship; what they protested against was the
fatal tendency of their time to make these the whole of religion, to
suppose that Iahvah's claims could be satisfied by a due performance
of these, without regard to those higher moral requirements of His
law which the ritual worship might fitly have symbolized but could
not rightly supersede. It was not a question with Hosea, Amos, Micah,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, whether or not Iahvah could be better honoured
with or without temples and priests and sacrifices. The question
was whether these traditional institutions actually served as an
outward expression of that devotion to Him and His holy law, of that
righteousness and holiness of life, which is the only true worship, or
whether they were looked upon as in themselves comprising the whole of
necessary religion. Since the people took this latter view, Jeremiah
declares that their system of public worship is futile.
_Hearken unto My voice_: not as giving regulations about the ritual,
but as inculcating moral duty by the prophets, as is explained
immediately (ver. 25), and as is clear also from the statement that
_they walked in the schemes of their own evil heart_ [omit: _in the
stubbornness_, with LXX., and read _mô` açôth_ stat. constr.], _and
fell to the rear and not the front_. As they did not advance in the
knowledge and love of the spiritual God, who was seeking to lead them
by His prophets, from Moses downwards (Deut. xviii. 15), they steadily
retrograded and declined in moral worth, until they had become
hopelessly corrupt and past correction. (Lit. _and they became back
and not face_, which may mean, they turned their backs upon Iahvah
and His instruction.) This steady progress in evil is indicated by
the words, _and they hardened their neck, they did worse than their
fathers_ (ver. 26). It is implied that this was the case with each
successive generation, and the view of Israel's history thus expressed
is in perfect harmony with common experience. Progress, one way or the
other, is the law of character; if we do not advance in goodness, we
go back, or, what is the same thing, we advance in evil.
Finally, the prophet is warned that his mission also must fail, like
that of his predecessors, unless indeed the second clause of ver.
27, which is omitted by the Septuagint, be really an interpolation.
At all events, the failure is implied if not expressed, for he is
to pronounce a sentence of reprobation upon his people. _And thou
shalt speak all these words unto them_ [_and they will not hearken
unto thee, and thou shalt call unto them, and they will not answer
thee_: LXX. omits]. _And thou shalt say unto them, This is the nation
that hearkened not unto the voice of Iahvah its God, and received
not correction: Good faith is perished and cut off from their mouth_
(cf. ix. 3 _sq._). The charge is remarkable. It is one which Jeremiah
reiterates: see ver. 9, vi. 13, viii. 5, ix. 3 _sqq._, xii. 1. His
fellow-countrymen are at once deceivers and deceived. They have no
regard for truth and honour in their mutual dealings; grasping greed
and lies and trickery stamp their everyday intercourse with each
other; and covetousness and fraud equally characterise the behaviour
of their religious leaders. Where truth is not prized for its own
sake, there debased ideas of God and lax conceptions of morality creep
in and spread. Only he who loves truth comes to the light; and only he
who does God's will sees that truth is divine. False belief and false
living in turn beget each other; and as a matter of experience it is
often impossible to say which was antecedent to the other.
In the closing section of this first part of his long address (vv.
29-viii. 3), Jeremiah apostrophizes the country, bidding her bewail
her imminent ruin. _Shear thy tresses_ (coronal of long hair) _and
cast them away, and lift upon the bare hills a lamentation!_--sing
a dirge over thy departed glory and thy slain children, upon those
unhallowed mountain-tops which were the scene of thine apostasies
(iii. 21); _for Iahvah hath rejected and forsaken the generation of
His wrath_. The hopeless tone of this exclamation (cf. also vv. 15,
16, 20) seems to agree better with the times of Jehoiakim, when it had
become evident to the prophet that amendment was beyond hope, than
with the years prior to Josiah's reformation. His own contemporaries
are 'the generation of Iahvah's wrath,' _i.e._ upon which His wrath is
destined to be poured out, for the day of grace is past and gone; and
this, because of the desecration of the temple itself by such kings
as Ahaz and Manasseh, but especially because of the horrors of the
child-sacrifices in the valley of ben Hinnom (2 Kings xvi. 3, xxi.
3-6), which those kings had been the first to introduce in Judah.
_Therefore behold days are coming, saith Iahvah, and it shall no more
be called the Tophet_ (an obscure term, probably meaning something
like _Pyre_ or _Burningplace_: cf. the Persian _tab-idan_ "to burn,"
and the Greek θάπτω, ταφ-εῖν "to bury," strictly "to burn" a corpse;
also τύφω, "to smoke," Sanskrit _dhûp_: to suppose a reproachful
name like "Spitting" = "Object of loathing," is clearly against the
context: the honourable name is to be exchanged for one of dishonour),
_and the Valley of ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, and people
shall bury in_ [_the_] _Tophet for want of room_ (_elsewhere_)! A
great battle is contemplated, as is evident also from Deut. xxviii.
25, 26, the latter verse being immediately quoted by the prophet
(ver. 33). The Tophet will be defiled for ever by being made a burial
place; but many of the fallen will be left unburied, a prey to the
vulture and the jackal. In that fearful time, all sounds of joyous
life will cease in the cities of Judah and in the capital itself, _for
the land will become a desolation_. And the scornful enemy will not be
satisfied with wreaking his vengeance upon the living; he will insult
the dead, by breaking into the sepulchres of the kings and grandees,
the priests and prophets and people, and haling their corpses forth
to lie rotting in face of the sun, moon and stars, which they had so
sedulously worshipped in their lifetime, but which will be powerless
to protect their dead bodies from this shameful indignity. And as for
the survivors, _death will be preferred to life in the case of all the
remnant that remain of this evil tribe, in all the places whither I
shall have driven them, saith Iahvah Sabaoth_ (omit the second _that
remain_, with LXX. as an accidental repetition from the preceding
line, and as breaking the construction). The prophet has reached
the conviction that Judah will be driven into banishment; but the
details of the destruction which he contemplates are obviously of an
imaginative and rhetorical character. It is, therefore, superfluous
to ask whether a great battle was actually fought afterwards in the
valley of ben Hinnom, and whether the slain apostates of Judah were
buried there in heaps, and whether the conquerors violated the tombs.
Had the Chaldeans or any of their allies done this last, in search of
treasure for instance, we should expect to find some notice of it in
the historical chapters of Jeremiah. But it was probably known well
enough to the surrounding peoples that the Jews were not in the habit
of burying treasure in their tombs. The prophet's threat however,
curiously corresponds to what Josiah is related to have done at Bethel
and elsewhere, by way of irreparably polluting the high places (2
Kings xxiii. 16 _sqq._); and it is probable that his recollection of
that event, which he may himself have witnessed, determined the form
of Jeremiah's language here.[31]
In the second part of this great discourse (viii. 4-23) we have a fine
development of thoughts which have already been advanced in the opening
piece, after the usual manner of Jeremiah. The first half (or strophe)
is mainly concerned with the sins of the nation (vv. 4-13), the second
with a despairing lament over the punishment (14-23 = ix. 1). _And
thou shalt say unto them: Thus said Iahvah, Do men fall and not rise
again? Doth a man turn back, and not return? Why doth Jerusalem make
this people to turn back with an eternal_ (or perfect, utter, absolute)
_turning back? Why clutch they deceit, refuse to return?_ (The LXX.
omits "Jerusalem," which is perhaps only a marginal gloss. We should
then have to read שֹׁובַב _shobab_ for שֹׁובְבָה _shobebah_, as "this
people" is masc. The _He_ has been written twice by inadvertence. The
verb, however, is transitive in l. 19; Isa. xlvii. 10, etc.; and I
find no certain instance of the intrans. form besides Ezek. xxxviii.
8, participle.) _I listened and heard; they speak not aright_ (Ex. x.
29; Isa. xvi. 6); _not a man repenteth over his evil, saying_ (_or
thinking_), _"What have I done?" They all_ (lit. _all of him_, _i.e._
the people) _turn back into their courses_ (plur. Heb. text; sing. Heb.
marg.), _like the rushing horse into the battle_.
There is something unnatural in this obstinate persistence in evil. If
a man happens to fall he does not remain on the ground, but quickly
rises to his feet again; and if he turn back on his way for some
reason or other, he will usually return to that way again. There
is a play on the word 'turn back' or 'return,' like that in iii.
12, 14. The term is first used in the sense of turning back or away
from Iahvah, and then in that of returning to Him, according to its
metaphorical meaning "to repent." Thus the import of the question is:
Is it natural to apostatize and never to repent of it? (Perhaps we
should rather read, after the analogy of iii. 1, "Doth a man _go away_
(הֲיֵלֵךְ) on a journey, and not return?")
Others interpret: _Doth a man return, and not return?_ That is, if
he return, he does it, and does not stop midway; whereas Judah only
pretends to repent, and does not really do so. This, however, does not
agree with the parallel member, nor with the following similar questions.
It is very noticeable how thoroughly the prophets, who, after all,
were the greatest of practical moralists, identify religion with
right aims and right conduct. The beginning of evil courses is
turning away from Iahvah; the beginning of reform is turning back
to Iahvah. For Iahvah's character as revealed to the prophets is
the ideal and standard of ethical perfection; He does and delights
in love, justice and equity (ix. 23). If a man look away from that
ideal, if he be content with a lower standard than the Will and Law
of the All-Perfect, then and thereby he inevitably sinks in the scale
of morality. The prophets are not troubled by the idle question
of medieval schoolmen and sceptical moderns. It never occurred to
them to ask the question whether God is good because God wills it,
or whether God wills good because it is good. The dilemma is, in
truth, no better than a verbal puzzle, if we allow the existence of
a personal Deity. For the idea of God is the idea of a Being who is
absolutely good, the _only_ Being who is such; perfect goodness is
understood to be realized nowhere else but in God. It is part of His
essence and conception; it is the aspect under which the human mind
apprehends Him. To suppose goodness existing apart from Him, as an
independent object which He may choose or refuse, is to deal in empty
abstractions. We might as well ask whether convex can exist apart
from concave in nature, or motion apart from a certain rate of speed.
The human spirit can apprehend God in His moral perfections, because
it is, at however vast a distance, akin to Him--a _divinæ particula
auræ_; and it can strive towards those perfections by help of the
same grace which reveals them. The prophets know of no other origin
or measure of moral endeavour than that which Iahvah makes known to
them. In the present instance, the charge which Jeremiah makes against
his contemporaries is a radical falsehood, insincerity, faithlessness:
_they clutch_ or _cling to deceit, they speak what is not right_ or
_honest, straightforward_ (Gen. xlii. 11, 19). Their treason to God
and their treachery to their fellows are opposite sides of the same
fact. Had they been true to Iahvah, that is, to His teachings through
the higher prophets and their own consciences, they would have been
true to one another. The forbearing love of God, His tender solicitude
to hear and save, are illustrated by the words: _I listened_ _and
heard ... not a man repented over his evil, saying, What have I done?_
(The feeling of the stricken conscience could hardly be more aptly
expressed than by this brief question.) But in vain does the Heavenly
Father wait for the accents of penitence and contrition: _they all
return_--go back again and again (Ps. xxiii. 6)--_into their own race
or courses, like a horse rushing_ (lit. _pouring forth_: of rushing
waters, Ps. lxxviii. 20) _into the battle_. The eagerness with which
they follow their own wicked desires, the recklessness with which they
"give their sensual race the rein," in set defiance of God, and wilful
oblivion of consequences, is finely expressed by the simile of the
warhorse rushing in headlong eagerness into the fray (Job xxxix. 25).
_Also_ (or _even_) _the stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed
times, and turtledove, swift and crane observe the season of their
coming; but My people know not the ordinance of Iahvah_--what He
has willed and declared to be right for man (His Law; _jus divinum,
relligio divina_). The dullest of wits can hardly fail to appreciate
the force of this beautiful contrast between the regularity of
instinct and the aberrations of reason. All living creatures are
subject to laws upon obedience to which their well-being depends. The
life of man is no exception; it too is subject to a law--a law which
is as much higher than that which regulates mere animal existence,
as reason and conscience and spiritual aspiration are higher than
instinct and sexual impulse. But whereas the lower forms of life are
obedient to the laws of their being, man rebels against them, and
dares to disobey what he knows to be for his good; nay, he suffers
himself to be so blinded by lust and passion and pride and self-will
that at last he does not even recognise the Law--the ordinance of the
Eternal--for what it really is, the organic law of his true being, the
condition at once of his excellence and his happiness.
The prophet next meets an objection. He has just alleged a profound
moral ignorance--a culpable ignorance--against the people. He supposes
them to deny the accusation, as doubtless they often did in answer to
his remonstrances (cf. xvii. 15, xx. 7 _sq._) _How can ye say, "We
are wise"_--morally wise--"_and the teaching of Iahvah is with us!_"
[_but behold_: LXX. omits: either term would be sufficient by itself]
_for the Lie hath the lying pen of the scribes made it!_ The reference
clearly is to what Jeremiah's opponents call "the teaching (or _law:
torah_) of Iahvah"; and it is also clear that the prophet charges the
"scribes" of the opposite party with falsifying or tampering with
the teaching of Iahvah in some way or other. Is it meant that they
misrepresented the terms of a written document, such as the Book of
the Covenant, or Deuteronomy? But they could hardly do this without
detection, in the case of a work which was not in their exclusive
possession. Or does Jeremiah accuse them of misinterpreting the sacred
law, by putting false glosses upon its precepts, as might be done
in a legal document wherever there seemed room for a difference of
opinion, or wherever conflicting traditional interpretations existed
side by side? (Cf. my remarks on vii. 31.) The Hebrew may indicate
this, for we may translate: _But lo, into the lie the lying pen of
the scribes hath made it!_ which recalls St. Paul's description of
the heathen as changing the truth of God into a lie (Rom. i. 26).
The construction is the same as in Gen. xii. 2; Isa. xliv. 17. Or,
finally, does he boldly charge these abettors of the false prophets
with forging supposititious law-books, in the interest of their own
faction, and in support of the claims and doctrines of the worldly
priests and prophets? This last view is quite admissible, so far as
the Hebrew goes, which, however, is not free from ambiguity. It might
be rendered, _But behold, in vain_, or _bootlessly_ (iii. 23) _hath
the lying pen of the scribes laboured_; taking the verb in an absolute
sense, which is not a common use (Ruth ii. 19). Or we might transpose
the terms for "pen" and "lying," and render, _But behold, in vain
hath the pen of the scribes fabricated falsehood_. In any case, the
general sense is the same: Jeremiah charges not only the speakers, but
the writers, of the popular party with uttering their own inventions
in the name of Iahvah. These scribes were the spiritual ancestors
of those of our Saviour's time, who "made the word of God of none
effect for the sake of their traditions" (Matt. xv. 6). _For the Lie_
means, to maintain the popular misbelief. (It might also be rendered,
_for falsehood_, _falsely_, as in the phrase _to swear falsely_,
_i.e._, for deceit; Lev. v. 24.) It thus appears that conflicting
and competing versions of the law were current in that age. Has the
Pentateuch preserved elements of both kinds, or is it homogeneous
throughout? Of the scribes of the period we, alas! know little beyond
what this passage tells us. But Ezra must have had predecessors, and
we may remember that Baruch, the friend and amanuensis of Jeremiah,
was also a scribe (xxxvi. 26).
_The "wise" will blush, they will be dismayed and caught! Lo, the word
of Iahvah they rejected, and wisdom of what sort have they?_ (vi. 10).
The whole body of Jeremiah's opponents, the populace as well as the
priests and prophets, are intended by _the wise_, that is, the wise
in their own conceits (ver. 8); there is an ironical reference to
their own assumption of the title. These self-styled wise ones, who
preferred their own wisdom to the guidance of the prophet, will be
punished by the mortification of discovering their folly when it is
too late. Their folly will be the instrument of their ruin, for "He
taketh the wise in their own craftiness" as in a snare (Prov. v. 22).
They who reject Iahvah's word, in whatever form it comes to them, have
no other light to walk by; they must needs walk in darkness, and stumble
at noonday. For Iahvah's word is the only true wisdom, the only true
guide of man's footsteps. And this is the kind of wisdom which the
Holy Scriptures offer us; not a merely speculative wisdom, not what is
commonly understood by the terms science and art, but the priceless
knowledge of God and of His will concerning us; a kind of knowledge
which is beyond all comparison the most important for our well-being
here and hereafter. If this Divine wisdom, which relates to the proper
conduct of life and the right education of the highest faculties of
our being, seem a small matter to any man, the fact argues spiritual
blindness on his part; it cannot diminish the glory of heavenly wisdom.
Some well-meaning but mistaken people are fond of maintaining what
they call "the scientific accuracy of the Bible," meaning thereby an
essential harmony with the latest discoveries, or even the newest
hypotheses, of physical science. But even to raise such a preposterous
question, whether as advocate or as assailant, is to be guilty of a
crude anachronism, and to betray an incredible ignorance of the real
value of the Scriptures. That value I believe to be inestimable. But
to discuss "the scientific accuracy of the Bible" appears to me to
be as irrelevant to any profitable issue, as it would be to discuss
the meteorological precision of the Mahabharata, or the marvellous
chemistry of the Zendavesta, or the physiological revelations of the
Koran, or the enlightened anthropology of the Nibelungenlied.
A man may reject the word of Iahvah, he may reject Christ's word,
because he supposes that it is not sufficiently attested. He may urge
that the proof that it is of GOD breaks down, and he may flatter
himself that he is a person of superior discernment, because he
perceives a fact to which the multitude of believers are apparently
blind. But what kind of proof would he have? Does he demand more than
the case admits of? Some portent in earth or sky or sea, which in
reality would be quite foreign to the matter in hand, and could have
none but an accidental connexion with it, and would, in fact, be no
proof at all, but itself a mystery requiring to be explained by the
ordinary laws of physical causation? To demand a kind of proof which
is irrelevant to the subject is a mark not of superior caution and
judgment, but of ignorance and confusion of thought. The plain truth
is, and the fact is abundantly illustrated by the teachings of the
prophets and, above all, of our Divine Lord, that moral and spiritual
truths are self-attesting to minds able to realize them; and they no
more need supplementary corroboration than does the ultimate testimony
of the senses of a sane person.
Now the Bible as a whole is an unique repertory of such truths; this is
the secret of its age-long influence in the world. If a man does not
care for the Bible, if he has not learned to appreciate this aspect of
it, if he does not _love_ it precisely on this account, I, in turn, care
very little for his opinion about the Bible. There may be much in the
Bible which is otherwise valuable, which is precious as history, as
tradition, as bearing upon questions of interest to the ethnologist, the
antiquarian, the man of letters. But these things are the shell, _that_
is the kernel; these are the accidents, _that_ is the substance; these
are the bodily vesture, _that_ is the immortal spirit. A man who has not
felt this, has yet to learn what the Bible is.
In his text as we now have it, Jeremiah proceeds to denounce
punishment on the priests and prophets, whose fraudulent oracles
and false interpretations of the Law ministered to their own greedy
covetousness, and who smoothed over the alarming state of things
by false assurances that all was well (vv. 10-12). The Septuagint,
however, omits the whole passage after the words, _Therefore I will
give their wives to others, their fields to conquerors!_ and as these
words are obviously an abridgment of the threat, vi. 12 (cf. Deut.
xxviii. 30), while the rest of the passage agrees verbatim with vi.
13-15, it may be supposed that a later editor inserted it in the
margin here, as generally apposite (cf. vi. 10 with ver. 9), whence
it has crept into the text. It is true that Jeremiah himself is
fond of repetition, but not so as to interrupt the context, as the
"therefore" of ver. 10 seems to do. Besides, the "wise" of ver. 8 are
the self-confident people; but if this passage be in place here, "the
wise" of ver. 9 will have to be understood of their false guides, the
prophets and priests. Whereas, if the passage be omitted, there is
manifest continuity between the ninth verse and the thirteenth: _"I
will sweep, sweep them away," saith Iahvah; no grapes on the vine, and
no figs on the fig tree, and the foliage is withered, and I have given
them destruction_ (or _blasting_).