"_The word that fell to Jeremiah from Iahvah_ (lit. _from with_,
that is, _from the presence of_ the Eternal), _saying_." I think
that expression "saying" covers all that follows, to the end of the
discourse. The prophet's preaching the Law, and the consequences of
that preaching as regarded himself; his experience of the stubbornness
and treachery of the people; the varying moods of his own mind under
that bitter experience; his reflexions upon the condition of Judah,
and the condition of Judah's ill-minded neighbours; his forecasts of
the after-course of events as determined by the unchanging will of a
righteous God; all these things seem to be included in the scope of that
"Word from the presence of Iahvah," which the prophet is about to put
on record. You will see that it is not a single utterance of a precise
and definite message, which he might have delivered in a few moments of
time before a single audience of his countrymen. The Word of the Lord is
progressively revealed; it begins with a thought in the prophet's mind,
but its entire content is unfolded gradually, as he proceeds to act
upon that thought or Divine impulse; it is, as it were, evolved as the
result of collision between the prophet and his hearers; it emerges into
clear light out of the darkness of storm and conflict; a conflict both
internal and external; a conflict within, between his own contending
emotions and impulses and sympathies; and a conflict without, between an
unpopular teacher, and a wayward and corrupt and incorrigible people.
_From with Iahvah._ There may be strife and tumult and the darkness of
ignorance and passion upon earth; but the star of truth shines in the
firmament of heaven, and the eye of the inspired man sees it. This is
his difference from his fellows.
_Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak ye unto the men of
Judah, and upon the dwellers in Jerusalem! And say thou unto them,
Thus saith Iahvah, the God_ _of Israel, Accursed are the men that
hear not the words of this covenant, which I lay on your fathers, in
the day that I brought them forth from the land of Egypt, from the
furnace of iron, saying, Hearken unto My voice, and do these things,
according to all that I shall charge you: that ye may become for Me a
people, and that I Myself may become for you a God. That I may make
good_ (להקים vid. infr.) _the oath which I sware to your forefathers,
that I would give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it now
is_ (or simply, _to-day_). _And I answered and said, Amen, Iahvah!_
(xi. 1-5). "Hear ye ... speak ye unto the men of Judah!" The occasion
referred to is that memorable crisis in the eighteenth year of king
Josiah, when Hilkiah the high priest had "found the book of the law
in the house of the Lord" (2 Kings xxii. 8 _sqq._), and the pious
king had read in the hearing of the assembled people those fervid
exhortations to obedience, those promises fraught with all manner of
blessing, those terrible denunciations of wrath and ruin reserved
for rebellion and apostasy, which we may still read in the closing
chapters of the book of Deuteronomy (Deut. xxvii. _sq._). Jeremiah
is recalling the events of his own ministry, and passes in rapid
review from the time of his preaching upon the Book of the Law, to the
Chaldean invasion in the reign of Jehoiachin (xiii. 18 _sqq._). He
recalls the solemn occasion when king and people bound themselves by
oath to observe the law of their God; when "the king stood upon the
platform, and made the covenant before Iahvah, that he would follow
Iahvah, and keep his commandments, and his laws and his statutes,
with whole heart and with whole soul; to make good (להקים) the words
of this covenant, that were written upon this roll; and all the
people stood to the covenant" (2 Kings xxiii. 3). At or soon after
this great meeting, the prophet gives, in the name of Iahvah, an
emphatic approval to the public undertaking; and bids the leaders
in the movement not to rest contented with this good beginning,
but to impress the obligation more deeply upon the community at
large, by sending a mission of properly qualified persons, including
himself, which should at once enforce the reforms necessitated by
the covenant of strict obedience to the Law, and reconcile the
people both of the capital and of the rural towns and hamlets to
the sudden and sweeping changes demanded of them, by shewing their
entire consonance with the Divine precepts. "Hear _ye_"--princes and
priests--"the words of this covenant; and speak _ye_ unto the men of
Judah!" Then follows, in brief, the prophet's own commission, which
is to reiterate, with all the force of his impassioned rhetoric, the
awful menaces of the Sacred Book: _Cursed be the men that hear not
the words of this covenant!_ Now again, in these last years of their
national existence, the chosen people are to hear an authoritative
proclamation of that Divine Law upon which all their weal depends;
the Law given them at the outset of their history, when the memory
of the great deliverance was yet fresh in their minds; the Law which
was the condition of their peculiar relation to the Universal God. At
Sinai they had solemnly undertaken to observe that Law; and Iahweh
had fulfilled His promise to their "fathers"--to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob--and had given them a goodly land, in which they had now been
established for at least six hundred years. The Divine truth and
righteousness were manifest upon a retrospect of this long period of
eventful history; and Jeremiah could not withhold his inward assent,
in the formula prescribed by the Book of the Law (Deut. xxvii. 15
_sqq._), to the perfect justice of the sentence: "Cursed be the men
that hear not the words of this covenant." _And I answered and said,
Amen, Iahvah!_[42] So to this true Israelite, thus deeply communing
with his own spirit, two things had become clear as day. The one
was the absolute righteousness of God's entire dealing with Israel,
from first to last; the righteousness of disaster and overthrow as
well as of victory and prosperity: the other was his own present
duty to bring this truth home to the hearts and consciences of his
fellow-countrymen. This is how he states the fact: _And Iahvah said
unto me, Proclaim thou all these words in the cities of Judah and in
the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant
and do them. For I earnestly adjured your fathers, when I brought them
up from the land of Egypt_ (_and I have done so continually_) _even
unto this very day, saying, Obey ye My voice! And they obeyed not, nor
inclined their ear; and they walked, each and all, in the hardness
of their wicked heart. So I brought upon them all the threats_ (lit.
_words_) _of this covenant, which I had charged them to keep, and they
kept it not._ (xi. 6-8). God is always self-consistent; man is often
inconsistent with himself; God is eternally true, man is ever giving
fresh proofs of his natural faithlessness. God is not only just in
keeping His promises; He is also merciful, in labouring ever to induce
man to be self-consistent, and true to moral obligations. And Divine
mercy is revealed alike in the pleadings of the Holy Spirit by the
mouth of prophets, by the voice of conscience, and in the retribution
that overtakes persistence in evil. The Divine Law is life and health
to them that keep it; it is death to them that break it. "Thou, Lord,
art merciful; for thou rewardest every man according to his works."
The relation of the One God to this one people was neither accidental
nor arbitrary. It is sometimes spoken of as a thing glaringly unjust to
the other nations of the ancient world, that the Father of all should
have chosen Israel only to be the recipient of His special favours.
Sometimes it is demanded, as an unanswerable dilemma, How _could_ the
Universal God be the God of the Jews, in the restricted sense implied
by the Old Testament histories? But difficulties of this kind rest upon
misunderstanding, due to a slavishly literal interpretation of certain
passages, and inability to take a comprehensive view of the general
drift and tenor of the Old Testament writings as they bear upon this
subject. God's choice of Israel was proof of His love for mankind. He
did not select one people, because He was indifferent or hostile to
all other peoples; but because He wished to bring all the nations of
the earth to the knowledge of Himself, and the observance of His law.
The words of our prophet shew that he was profoundly convinced that
the favour of Iahvah had from the outset depended upon the obedience
of Israel: _Hearken unto My voice, and do these things ... that ye may
become for Me a people, and that I Myself may become for you a God._
How strangely must such words have sounded in the ears of people who
believed, as the masses both in town and country appear for the most
part to have done, that Iahvah as the ancestral god was bound by an
indissoluble tie to Israel, and that He could not suffer the nation
to perish without incurring irreparable loss, if not extinction, for
Himself! It is as if the prophet had said: You call yourselves the
people of God; but it is not so much that you _are_ His people, as
that you may become such by doing His will. You suppose that Iahvah,
the Eternal, the Creator, is to you what Chemosh is to Moah, or Molech
to Ammon, or Baal to Tyre; but that is just what He is not. If you
entertain such ideas of Iahvah, you are worshipping a figment of your
own carnal imaginations; your god is not the Universal God but a gross
unspiritual idol. It is only upon your fulfilment of His conditions,
only upon your yielding an inward assent to His law, a hearty acceptance
to His rule of life, that He Himself--the One only God--can truly
become your God. In accepting His law, you accept Him, and in rejecting
His law, you reject Him; for His law is a reflexion of Himself; a
revelation, so far as such can be made to a creature like man, of His
essential being and character. Therefore think not that you can worship
Him by mere external rites; for the true worship is "righteousness, and
holiness of life."
The progress of the reforming movement, which was doubtless powerfully
stimulated by the preaching of Jeremiah, is briefly sketched in the
chapter of the book of Kings, to which I have already referred (2
Kings xxiii.). That summary of the good deeds of king Josiah records
apparently a very complete extirpation of the various forms of
idolatry, and even a slaughter of the idol-priests upon their own
altars. Heathenism, it would seem, could hardly have been practised
again, at least openly, during the twelve remaining years of Josiah.
But although a zealous king might enforce outward conformity to the
Law, and although the earnest preaching of prophets like Zephaniah and
Jeremiah might have considerable effect with the better part of the
people, the fact remained that those whose hearts were really open to
the word of the Lord were still, as always, a small minority; and the
tendency to apostasy, though checked, was far from being rooted up.
Here and there the forbidden rites were secretly observed; and the
harsh measures which had accompanied their public suppression may very
probably have intensified the attachment of many to the local forms
of worship. Sincere conversions are not effected by violence; and the
martyrdom of devotees may give new life even to degraded and utterly
immoral superstitions. The transient nature of Josiah's reformation,
radical as it may have appeared at the time to the principal agents
engaged in it, is evident from the testimony of Jeremiah himself. _And
Iahvah said unto me, There exists a conspiracy among the men of Judah,
and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have returned to the old
sins of their fathers, who refused to hear My words; and they too have
gone away after other gods, to serve them: the house of Israel and
the house of Judah have broken My covenant, which I made with their
forefathers. Therefore thus saith Iahvah, Behold I am about to bring
unto them an evil from which they cannot get forth; and they will cry
unto Me, and I will not listen unto them. And the cities of Judah and
the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry unto the gods to whom
they burn incense_ (i.e., now; ptcp.); _and they will yield them no
help at all in the time of their evil. For many as thy cities are thy
gods become, O Judah! and many as the streets of Jerusalem have ye
appointed altars to the_ _Shame, altars for burning incense to the
Baal. And as for thee, intercede thou not for this people, nor lift up
for them outcry_ (i.e., mourning) _and intercession; for I intend not
to hearken, in the time when they call unto Me, in the time of their
evil_ (so read: cf. vers. 12, בעת instead of בעד) (vv. 9-14). All this
appears to indicate the course of the prophet's reflexion, after it
had become clear to him that the reformation was illusory, and that
his own labours had failed of their purpose. He calls the relapse of
the people a plot or conspiracy; thereby suggesting, perhaps, the
secrecy with which the prohibited worships were at first revived, and
the intrigues of the unfaithful nobles and priests and prophets, in
order to bring about a reversal of the policy of reform, and a return
to the old system; and certainly suggesting that the heart of the
nation, as a whole, was disloyal to its Heavenly King, and that its
renewed apostasy was a wicked disavowal of lawful allegiance, and an
act of unpardonable treason against God.
But the word further signifies that a BOND has been entered into, a
bond which is the exact antithesis of the covenant with Iahvah; and it
implies that this bond has about it a fatal strength and permanence,
involving as its necessary consequence the ruin of the nation.
Breaking covenant with Iahvah meant making a covenant with other gods;
it was impossible to do the one thing without the other. And that is
as true now, under totally different conditions, as it was in the land
of Judah, twenty-four centuries ago. If you have broken faith with
God in Christ, it is because you have entered into an agreement with
another; it is because you have foolishly taken the tempter at his
word, and accepted his conditions, and surrendered to his proposals,
and preferred his promises to the promises of God. It is because,
against all reason, against conscience, against the Holy Spirit,
against the witness of God's Word, against the witness of His Saints
and Confessors in all ages, you have believed that a Being less than
the Eternal God could ensure your weal and make you happy. And now
your heart is no longer at unity in itself, and your allegiance is no
longer single and undivided. _Many as thy cities are thy gods become,
O Judah!_ The soul that is not unified and harmonized by the fear of
the One God, is torn and distracted by a thousand contending passions:
and vainly seeks peace and deliverance by worship at a thousand unholy
shrines. But Mammon and Belial and Ashtaroth and the whole rout of
unclean spirits, whose seductions have lured you astray, will fail you
at last; and in the hour of bitter need, you will learn too late that
there is no god but God, and no peace nor safety nor joy but in Him.
It is futile to pray for those who have deliberately cast off the
covenant of Iahvah, and made a covenant with His adversary. _Intercede
not for this people, nor lift up outcry and intercession for them!_
Prayer cannot save, nothing can save, the impenitent; and there is a
state of mind, in which one's own prayer is turned into sin; the state
of mind in which a man prays, merely to appease God, and escape the
fire, but without a thought of forsaking sin, without the faintest
aspiration after holiness. There is a degree of guilt upon which
sentence is already passed, which is "unto death," and for which
intercession is interdicted alike by the Apostle of the New as to the
prophet of the Old Covenant.
_What availeth it My beloved, that she fulfilleth her_ _intent in
Mine house? Can vows and hallowed flesh make thine evil to pass from
thee? Then mightest thou indeed rejoice_[43] (ver. 15). Such appears
to be the true sense of this verse, the only difficult one in the
chapter. The prophet had evidently the same thought in his mind as in
ver. 11: _I will bring unto them an evil, from which they cannot get
forth; and they will cry unto Me, and I will not hearken unto them._
The words also recall those of Isaiah (Isa. i. 11 _sqq._): "For what
to Me are your many sacrifices, saith Iahvah? When ye enter in to see
My face, who hath sought this at your hand, to trample My courts?
Bring no more a vain oblation; loathly incense it is to Me!" The term
which I have rendered "intent," usually denotes an evil intention; so
that, like Isaiah, our prophet implies that the popular worship is not
only futile but sinful. So true it is that "He that turneth away his
ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination" (Prov.
xxviii. 9); or, as the Psalmist puts the same truth, "If I incline
unto wickedness with my heart, the Lord will not hear me."
_"A flourishing olive, fair with shapely fruit, did Iahvah call thy
name. To the sound of a great uproar will He set her on fire; and his
hanging boughs will crackle_ (_in the flames_). _And Iahvah Sabaoth,
that planted thee, Himself hath pronounced evil upon thee; because
of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, which
they have done to themselves_ (iv. 18, vii. 19) _in provoking Me, in
burning incense to the Baal"_ (vers. 16-17). The figure of the olive
seems a very natural one (cf. Rom. xi. 17), when we remember the
beauty and the utility for which that tree is famous in Eastern lands.
_Iahvah called thy name_; that is, called thee into determinate being;
endowed thee at thine origin with certain characteristic qualities.
Thine original constitution, as thou didst leave thy Maker's hand, was
fair and good. Israel among the nations was as beautiful to the eye
as the olive among trees; and his "fruit," his doings, were a glory
to God and a blessing to men, like that precious oil, for "which God
and man honour" the olive (Judg. ix. 9). (Zech. iv. 3; Hos. xiv. 7;
Ps. lii. 10.) But now the noble stock had degenerated; the "green
olive tree," planted in the very court of Iahvah's house, had become
no better than a barren wilding, fit only for the fire. The thought is
essentially similar to that of an earlier discourse: "I planted thee
a noble vine, wholly a right seed; how then hast thou turned into the
degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me?" (ii. 21). Here, there is
an abrupt transition, which forcibly expresses the _suddenness_ of the
destruction that must devour this degenerate people: _To the sound of
a great uproar_--the din of invading armies--_he will set her_ (the
beloved, symbolized by the tree) _on fire; and his_ (the olive's)
_hanging boughs will crackle in the flames._ And this fierce work of
a barbarous soldiery is no chance calamity; it is the execution of a
Divine judgment: _Iahvah Sabaoth ... Himself hath pronounced evil upon
thee._ And yet further, it is the nation's own doing; the two houses
of Israel have persistently laboured for their own ruin; they have
brought it upon themselves. Man is himself the author of his own weal
and woe; and they who are not "working out their own salvation," are
working out their own destruction.
_And it was Iahvah that gave Me knowledge, so that I well knew; at
that time, Thou didst shew me their doings. But, for myself, like a
favourite_ (lit. tame, friendly, gentle: iii. 4) _lamb that is led
to the slaughter, I wist not that against me they had laid a plot.
'Let us fell the tree in its prime,[44] and let us cut him off out of
the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.' 'Yea,
but Iahvah[45] Sabaoth judgeth righteously, trieth reins and heart.
I shall see Thy vengeance on them; for unto Thee have I laid bare my
cause.' Therefore thus said Iahvah; Upon the men of Anathoth that
were seeking thy life, saying, Thou shalt not prophesy in the name of
Iahvah, that thou die not by our hand:--therefore thus said Iahvah
Sabaoth, Behold I am about to visit it upon them: the young men will
die by the sword; their sons and their daughters will die by the
famine. And a remnant they shall not have: for I will bring an evil
unto the men of Anathoth, the year of their visitation_ (vv. 18-23).
The prophet, it would seem, had made the round of the country places,
and come to Anathoth, on his return journey to Jerusalem. Here, in
his native town, he proclaimed to his own people that same solemn
message which he had delivered to the country at large. It is very
probable that the preceding verses (9-17) contain the substance of his
address to his kinsfolk and acquaintance; an address which stirred
them, not to repentance towards God but to murderous wrath against His
prophet. A plot was laid for Jeremiah's life by his own neighbours
and even his own family (xii. 6); and he owed his escape to some
providential circumstance, some "lucky accident," as men might say,
which revealed to him their unsuspected perfidy. What the event was
which thus suddenly disclosed the hidden danger, is not recorded;
and the whole episode is rather alluded to than described. But it is
clear that the prophet knew nothing about the plot, until it was ripe
for execution. He was as wholly unconscious of the death prepared for
him, as a petted lamb on the way to the altar. "Then"--when his fate
seemed sure--then it was that something happened by which "Iahvah
gave him knowledge," and "shewed him their doings." The thought or
saying attributed to his enemies, "Let us fell the tree(s) in the
prime thereof!" may contain a sarcastic allusion really made to the
prophet's own warning (ver. 16): "A flourishing olive, fair with
shapely fruit, did Iahvah call thy name: to the noise of a great
uproar will He set it on fire, and the branches thereof shall crackle
in the flames." The words that follow (ver. 20), "yea, but (or, and
yet) Iahvah Sabaoth judgeth righteously; trieth reins and heart"
(cf. xx. 12), is the prophet's reply, in the form of an unexpressed
thought, or a hurried ejaculation upon discovering their deadly
malice. The timely warning which he had received, was fresh proof to
him of the truth that human designs are, after all that their authors
can do, dependent on the will of an Unseen Arbiter of events; and the
Divine justice, thus manifested towards himself, inspired a conviction
that those hardened and bloodthirsty sinners would, sooner or later,
experience in their own destruction that display of the same Divine
attribute which was necessary to its complete manifestation. It was
this conviction, rather than personal resentment, however excusable
under the circumstances that feeling would have been, which led
Jeremiah to exclaim: "I shall see Thy vengeance on them, for unto Thee
have I laid bare my cause."
He had appealed to the Judge of all the earth, that doeth right; and
he knew the innocency of his own heart in the quarrel. He was certain,
therefore, that his cause would one day be vindicated, when that ruin
overtook his enemies, of which he had warned them in vain. Looked
at in this light, his words are a confident assertion of the Divine
justice, not a cry for vengeance. They reveal what we may perhaps
call the _human_ basis of the formal prophecy which follows; they
shew by what steps the prophet's mind was led on to the utterance of
a sentence of destruction upon the men of Anathoth. That Jeremiah's
invectives and threatenings of wrath and ruin should provoke hatred
and opposition was perhaps not wonderful. Men in general are slow
to recognise their own moral shortcomings, to believe evil of
themselves; and they are apt to prefer advisers, whose optimism,
though ill-founded and misleading, is pleasant and reassuring and
confirmatory of their own prejudices. But it does seem strange that
it should have been reserved for the men of his own birthplace, his
own "brethren and his father's house," to carry opposition to the
point of meditated murder. Once more Jeremiah stands before us, a
visible type of Him whose Divine wisdom declared that a prophet finds
no honour in his own country, and whose life was attempted on that
Sabbath day at Nazareth (St. Luke iv. 24 _sqq._).