Iahvah the Saviour, not of a nation, but of the world. It perceives
that the disunion and mutual hatred of peoples, as of individuals,
is a breach of Divine law; and it proclaims a general return to God,
and submission to His guidance in all political as well as private
affairs, as the sole cure for the numberless evils that flow from that
hatred and disunion. It is only when men have learnt that God is their
common Father and Lord, that they come to see with the clearness and
force of practical conviction that they themselves are all members of
one family, bound as such to mutual offices of kindness and charity;
it is only when there is a conscious identity of interest with all our
fellows, based upon the recognition that all alike are children of God
and heirs of eternal life, that true freedom and universal brotherhood
become possible for man.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] But perhaps it is rather the prophet's love for his people, which
fervently prays that the oath of blessing may be observed, and Judah
maintained in the goodly land.
[43] Hitzig supposed that the "vows" and "hallowed flesh" were
thank-offerings for the departure of the Scythians. "It is plain that
the people are really present in the temple; they bring, presumably
after the retreat of the Scythians, the offerings vowed at that time."
But, considering the context, the reference appears to be more general.
I have partly followed the LXX. in emending an obviously corrupt verse;
the only one in the chap. which presents any textual difficulty. Read:
יַעְֽבַרוּ קדש ובשר הַנְּדָרִים הַֽמְזִמָּתָהּ עֲשׂוֹתָהּ בביתי לידידי
מה ׃ זִי תַּֽעֲלְֹ אָז רָעָתֵכִי מֵעָלַיְכִי. The article with a noun
with suffix, and the peculiar form of the 2 pers. pron. f., are found
elsewhere in Jer. But I incline to correct further thus: "What avail to
My beloved is her dealing (or sacrificing: עשה 2 Kings xvii. 32) in My
house?" וגו קדש ובשר הָרַבִּים הֲמִזְבְּחוֹת. "Can the many altars (ver.
13) and hallowed flesh cause thine evil to pass away from thee (or pass
thee by)?" This seems very apposite to what precedes. The Hebrew, as it
stands, cannot possibly mean what we read both in the A. V. and R. V.,
nor indeed anything else.
[44] Reading בְּלֵחוֹ, with Hitzig, instead of בְּלַחְמוֹ, which is
meaningless. Deut. xxxiv. 7; Ezek. xxi. 3. Perhaps it would be better
to keep _all_ the letters, and point בְּלֵחָמוֹ, understanding עֵץ as
collective, "the trees."
[45] Not a vocative: xx. 12, xvii. 10.
[46] That "the swelling" or "the pride of Jordan" should rather be
read "the wilds" or "jungles of Jordan," is clear from xlix. 19; Zech.
xi. 3; quoted by Hitzig. גאון means "growth," "overgrowth," among
other things; and the Heb. phrase coincides with the Ἰάρδην δρυμὸς of
Josephus (_Bell. Jud._, vii. 6, 5).
[47] The form of the Heb. verbs implies the _certainty_ of the event.
Hitzig supposes that ver. 6 simply explains the expression "land
of peace" in ver. 5. At Anathoth the prophet was at home; if he
"ran away" (reading בורח "fleest" for בוטח "art confident") there,
what would he do, when he had gone forth as a "sheep among wolves"
(St. Luke x. 3)? But I think it is much better to regard ver. 6 as
explaining the _whole_ of ver. 5 in the manner suggested above.
[48] Or perhaps rather the holy land itself, as Hitzig suggested: Hos.
ix. 15.
[49] Lit. "Is my domain vultures, hyenas, to me?" The dative expresses
the interest of the speaker in the fact (dat. ethic.). The Heb.
term צבוע only occurs here. It is the Arabic _dhabu`_, "hyena" (so
Sept.). St. Jerome renders _avis discolor_. So the Targum: "a strewn"
"sprinkled," or "spotted fowl".
[50] The references to "birds of prey," "beasts of the field," and
"spoilers" (ver. 12), are interpreted by the phrase "mine evil
neighbours" (ver. 14); and this constitutes a link between vv. 7-14
and 14-17.
[51] Such seems to be the best punctuation of the sentence. It
involves the transfer of Athnach to אכלה.
[52] So the LXX. This agrees better with the context than "So be ye
ashamed of _your_ fruits."
[53] As Hitzig has observed, only a people, or a king, or a national
god, could be spoken of as a "neighbour" to the God of Israel.
VIII.
_THE FALL OF PRIDE._
JEREMIAH xiii.
This discourse is a sort of appendix to the preceding; as is indicated
by its abrupt and brief beginning with the words "Thus said Iahvah unto
me," without the addition of any mark of time, or other determining
circumstance. It predicts captivity, in retribution for the pride and
ingratitude of the people; and thus suitably follows the closing section
of the last address, which announces the coming deportation of Judah
and her evil neighbours. The recurrence here (ver. 9) of the peculiar
term rendered "swelling" or "pride" in our English versions (ch. xii.
5), points to the same conclusion. We may subdivide it thus: It presents
us with (i) a symbolical action, or acted parable, with its moral and
application (vv. 1-11); (ii) a parabolic saying and its interpretation,
which leads up to a pathetic appeal for penitence (vv. 12-17); (iii) a
message to the sovereigns (vv. 18, 19); and (iv) a closing apostrophe to
Jerusalem--the gay and guilty capital, so soon to be made desolate for
her abounding sins (vv. 20-27).
In the first of these four sections, we are told how the prophet was
bidden of God to buy a linen girdle, and after wearing it for a time,
to bury it in a cleft of the rock at a place whose very name might
be taken to symbolize the doom awaiting his people. A long while
afterwards he was ordered to go and dig it up again, and found it
altogether spoiled and useless. The significance of these proceedings
is clearly enough explained. The relation between Israel and the God
of Israel had been of the closest kind. Iahvah had chosen this people,
and bound it to Himself by a covenant, as a man might bind a girdle
about his body; and as the girdle is an ornament of dress, so had the
Lord intended Israel to display His glory among men (ver. 11). But now
the girdle is rotten; and like that rotten girdle will He cause the
pride of Judah to rot and perish (vv. 9, 10).
It is natural to ask, whether Jeremiah really did as he relates;
or whether the narrative about the girdle be simply a literary
device intended to carry a lesson home to the dullest apprehension.
If the prophet's activity had been confined to the pen; if he had
not been wont to labour by word and deed for the attainment of his
purposes; the latter alternative might be accepted. For mere readers,
a parabolic narrative might suffice to enforce his meaning. But
Jeremiah, who was all his life a man of action, probably did the
thing he professes to have done, not in thought nor in word only,
but in deed and to the knowledge of certain competent witnesses.
There was nothing novel in this method of attracting attention, and
giving greater force and impressiveness to his prediction. The older
prophets had often done the same kind of things, on the principle
that deeds may be more effective than words. What could have conveyed
a more vivid sense of the Divine intention, than the simple act of
Ahijah the Shilonite, when he suddenly caught away the new mantle of
Solomon's officer, and rent it into twelve pieces, and said to the
astonished courtier, "Take thee ten pieces! for thus said Iahvah, the
God of Israel, Behold I am about to rend the kingdom out of the hand
of Solomon, and will give the ten tribes to thee"? (1 Kings xi. 29
_sqq._) In like manner, when Ahab and Jehoshaphat, dressed in their
robes of state, sat enthroned in the gateway of Samaria, and "all the
prophets were prophesying before them" about the issue of their joint
expedition to Ramoth-gilead, Zedekiah, the son of a Canaanitess--as
the writer is careful to add of this false prophet--"made him horns
of iron and said, Thus said Iahvah, With these shalt thou butt the
Arameans, until thou make an end of them" (1 Kings xxii. 11). Isaiah,
Hosea, and Ezekiel, record similar actions of symbolical import.
Isaiah for a time walked half-clad and barefoot, as a sign that the
Egyptians and Ethiopians, upon whom Judah was inclined to lean,
would be led away captive, in this comfortless guise, by the king
of Assyria (Isa. xx.). Such actions may be regarded as a further
development of those significant gestures, with which men in what is
called a state of nature are wont to give emphasis and precision to
their spoken ideas. They may also be compared with the symbolism of
ancient law. "An ancient conveyance," we are told, "was not written
but acted. Gestures and words took the place of written technical
phraseology, and any formula mispronounced, or symbolical act
omitted, would have vitiated the proceeding as fatally as a material
mistake in stating the uses or setting out the remainders would, two
hundred years ago, have vitiated an English deed." (Maine, _Ancient
Law_, p. 276.) Actions of a purely symbolical nature surprise us,
when we first encounter them in Religion or Law, but that is only
because they are survivals. In the ages when they originated, they
were familiar occurrences in all transactions between man and man.
And this general consideration tends to prove that those expositors
are wrong who maintain that the prophets did not really perform the
symbolical actions of which they speak. Just as it is argued that the
visions which they describe, are merely a literary device; so the
reality of these symbolical actions has needlessly enough been called
in question. The learned Jews Abenezra and Maimonides in the twelfth
century, and David Kimchi in the thirteenth, were the first to affirm
this opinion. Maimonides held that all such actions passed in vision
before the prophets; a view which has found a modern advocate in
Hengstenberg: and Stäudlin, in the last century, affirmed that they
had neither an objective nor a subjective reality, but were simply a
"literary device." This, however, is only true, if true at all, of the
declining period of prophecy, as in the case of the visions. In the
earlier period, while the prophets were still accustomed to an oral
delivery of their discourses, we may be quite sure that they suited
the action to the word in the way that they have themselves recorded;
in order to stir the popular imagination, and to create a more vivid
and lasting impression. The narratives of the historical books leave
no doubt about the matter. But in later times, when spoken addresses
had for the most part become a thing of the past, and when prophets
published their convictions in manuscript, it is possible that they
were content with the description of symbolical doings, as a sort of
parable, without any actual performance of them. Jeremiah's hiding
his girdle in a cleft of the rock at "Euphrates" has been regarded
by some writers as an instance of such purely ideal symbolism. And
certainly it is difficult to suppose that the prophet made the long
and arduous journey from Jerusalem to the Great River for such a
purpose. It is, however, a highly probable conjecture that the place
whither he was directed to repair was much nearer home; the addition
of a single letter to the name rendered "Euphrates" gives the far
preferable reading "Ephrath," that is to say, Bethlehem in Judah
(Gen. xlviii. 7). Jeremiah may very well have buried his girdle at
Bethlehem, a place only five miles or so to the south of Jerusalem; a
place, moreover, where he would have no trouble in finding a "cleft
of the rock," which would hardly be the case upon the alluvial banks
of the Euphrates. If not accidental, the difference may be due to
the intentional employment of an unusual form of the name, by way of
hinting at the source whence the ruin of Judah was to flow. The enemy
"from the north" (ver. 20) is of course the Chaldeans.
The mention of the queen-mother (ver. 18) along with the king appears to
point unmistakably to the reign of Jehoiachin or Jechoniah. The allusion
is compared with the threat of ch. xxii. 26: "I will cast thee out, and
thy mother that bare thee into another country." Like Josiah, this king
was but eight years old when he began to reign (2 Chron. xxxvi. 9, after
which 2 Kings xxiv. 8 must be corrected); and he had enjoyed the name
of king only for the brief period of three months, when the thunderbolt
fell, and Nebuchadrezzar began his first siege of Jerusalem. The
boy-king can hardly have had much to do with the issue of affairs, when
"he and his mother and his servants and his princes and his eunuchs"
surrendered the city, and were deported to Babylon, with ten thousand
of the principal inhabitants (2 Kings xxiv. 12 _sqq._). The date of our
discourse will thus be the beginning of the year B.C. 599, which was the
eighth year of Nebuchadrezzar (2 Kings xxiv. 12).
It is asserted, indeed, that the difficult verse 21 refers to the
revolt from Babylon as an accomplished fact; but this is by no means
clear from the verse itself. _What wilt thou say_, demands the
prophet, _when He shall appoint over thee--albeit, thou thyself hast
instructed them against thyself;--lovers to be thy head?_ The term
"lovers" or "lemans" applies best to the foreign idols, who will one
day repay the foolish attachment of Iahvah's people by enslaving it
(cf. ch. iii. 4, where Iahvah himself is called the "lover" of Judah's
youthful days); and this question might as well have been asked in
the days of Josiah, as at any later period. At various times in the
past Israel and Judah had courted the favour of foreign deities. Ahaz
had introduced Aramean and Assyrian novelties; Manasseh and Amon had
revived and aggravated his apostasy. Even Hezekiah had had friendly
dealings with Babylon, and we must remember that in those times
friendly intercourse with a foreign people implied some recognition of
their gods, which is probably the true account of Solomon's chapels
for Tyrian and other deities.
The queen of ver. 18 might conceivably be Jedidah, the mother of
Josiah, for that king was only eight at his accession, and only
thirty-nine at his death (2 Kings xxii. 1). And the message to the
sovereigns (ver. 18) is not couched in terms of disrespect nor of
reproach: it simply declares the imminence of overwhelming disaster,
and bids them lay aside their royal pomp, and behave as mourners
for the coming woe. Such words might perhaps have been addressed to
Josiah and his mother, by way of deepening the impression produced
by the Book of the Law, and the rumoured invasion of the Scythians.
But the threat against "the kings that sit on David's throne" (ver.
13) is hardly suitable on this supposition; and the ruthless tone of
this part of the address-_-I will dash them in pieces, one against
another, both the fathers and the sons together: I will not pity,
nor spare, nor relent from destroying them_--considered along with
the emphatic prediction of an utter and entire captivity (ver. 19),
seems to indicate a later period of the prophet's ministry, when the
obduracy of the people had revealed more fully the hopelessness of his
enterprise for their salvation. The mention of the enemy "from the
north" will then be a reference to present circumstances of peril, as
triumphantly vindicating the prophet's former menaces of destruction
from that quarter. The carnage of conquest and the certainty of
exile are here threatened in the plainest and most direct style; but
nothing is said by way of heightening the popular terror of the coming
destroyer. The prophet seems to take it for granted that the nature of
the evil which hangs over their heads, is well known to the people,
and does not need to be dwelt upon or amplified with the lyric fervour
of former utterances (see ch. iv., v. 15 _sqq._, vi. 22 _sqq._).
This appears quite natural, if we suppose that the first invasion of
the Chaldeans was now a thing of the past; and that the nation was
awaiting in trembling uncertainty the consequences of Jehoiakim's
breach of faith with his Babylonian suzerain (2 Kings xxiv. i. 10).
The prophecy may therefore be assigned with some confidence to the
short reign of Jehoiachin, to which perhaps the short section, ch.
x. 17-25, also belongs; a date which harmonizes better than any other
with the play on the name Euphrates in the opening of the chapter. It
agrees, too, with the emphatic _Iahvah hath spoken!_ (ver. 15), which
seems to be more than a mere assertion of the speaker's veracity, and
to point rather to the fact that the course of events had reached a
crisis; that something had occurred in the political world, which
suggested imminent danger; that a black cloud was looming up on the
national horizon, and signalling unmistakably to the prophet's eye
the intention of Iahvah. What other view so well explains the solemn
tone of warning, the vivid apprehension of danger, the beseeching
tenderness, that give so peculiar a stamp to the three verses in which
the address passes from narrative and parable, to direct appeal?
_Hear ye and give ear: be not proud: for Iahvah hath spoken! Give
glory to Iahvah your God_--the glory of confession, of avowing your
own guilt and His perfect righteousness (Josh. vii. 19; St. John ix.
24); of recognising the due reward of your deeds in the destruction
that threatens you; the glory involved in the cry, "God be merciful
to me a sinner!"--_Give glory to Iahvah your God, before the darkness
fall, and before your feet stumble upon the twilight mountains; and
ye wait for dawn, and He make it deepest gloom, He turn it to utter
darkness._ The day was declining; the evening shadows were descending
and deepening; soon the hapless people would be wandering bewildered
in the twilight, and lost in the darkness, unless, ere it had become
too late, they would yield their pride, and throw themselves upon the
pity of Him who "maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the
deepest gloom into the morning" (Amos v. 8).
The verbal allusiveness of the opening section does not, according to
Oriental taste, diminish the solemnity of the speaker; on the contrary,
it tends to deepen the impression produced by his words. And perhaps
there is a psychological reason for the fact, beyond the peculiar
partiality of Oriental peoples for such displays of ingenuity. It is,
at all events, remarkable that the greatest of all masters of human
feeling has not hesitated to make a dying prince express his bitter and
desponding thoughts in what may seem an artificial toying and trifling
with the suggestiveness of his own familiar name; and when the king
asks: "Can sick men play so nicely with their names?" the answer is:
"No, misery makes sport to mock itself." (Rich. II., Act 2, Sc. i., 72
_sqq._) The Greek tragedian, too, in the earnestness of bitter sport,
can find a prophecy in a name. "_Who_ was for naming her thus, with
truth so entire? (Was it One whom we see not, wielding tongue happily
with full foresight of what was to be?) the Bride of Battles, fiercely
contested _Helen_: seeing that, in full accord with her name, _haler_ of
ships, _haler_ of men, _haler_ of cities, forth of the soft and precious
tapestries away she sailed, under the gale of the giant West" (Æsch.,
_Ag._, 681 _sqq._). And so, to Jeremiah's ear, Ephrath is prophetic
of Euphrates, upon whose distant banks the glory of his people is to
languish and decay. "I to Ephrath, and you to Phrath!" is his melancholy
cry. Their doom is as certain as if it were the mere fulfilment of an
old-world prophecy, crystallized long ages ago in a familiar name; a
word of destiny fixed in this strange form, and bearing its solemn
witness from the outset of their history until now concerning the
inevitable goal.
There is nothing so very surprising, as Ewald seems to have thought,
in the suggestion that the _Perath_ of the Hebrew text may be the
same as Ephrath. But perhaps the valley and spring now called _Furāh_
(or _Furāt_) which lies at about the same distance N.E. of Jerusalem,
is the place intended by the prophet. The name, which means _fresh_
or _sweet water_ is identical with the Arabic name of the Euphrates
(_Furāt_, [Arabic: **]), which again is philologically identical
with the Hebrew Perath. It is obvious that this place would suit
the requirements of the text quite as well as the other, while the
coincidence of name enables us to dispense with the supposition of
an unusual form or even a corruption of the original; but _Furāt_
or _Forāh_ is not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament. The old
versions send the prophet to the river Euphrates, which Jeremiah calls
simply "The River" in one place (ii. 18), and "_The river_ of Perath"
in three others (xlvi. 2, 6, 10); while the rare "Perath," without any
addition, is only found in the second account of the Creation (Gen.
ii. 14), in 2 Chron. xxxv. 20, and in a passage of this book which
does not belong, nor profess to belong, to Jeremiah (li. 63). We may,
therefore, conclude that "Perath" in the present passage means not the
great river of that name, but a place near Jerusalem, although that
place was probably chosen with the intention, as above explained, of
alluding to the Euphrates.
I cannot assent to the opinion which regards this narrative of the
spoiled girdle as founded upon some accidental experience of the
prophet's life, in which he afterwards recognised a Divine lesson. The
precision of statement, and the nice adaptation of the details of the
story to the moral which the prophet wished to convey, rather indicate a
symbolical course of action, or what may be called an acted parable. The
whole proceeding appears to have been carefully thought out beforehand.
The intimate connexion between Iahvah and Israel is well symbolized by a
girdle--that part of an Eastern dress which "cleaves to the loins of a
man," that is, fits closest to the body, and is most securely attached
thereto. And if the nations be represented by the rest of the apparel,
as the girdle secures and keeps that in its place, we may see an
implication that Israel was intended to be the chain that bound mankind
to God. The girdle was of _linen_, the material of the priestly dress,
not only because Jeremiah was a priest, but because Israel was called to
be "a kingdom of priests," or the Priest among nations (Ex. xix. 6). The
significance of the command to wear the girdle, but not to put it into
water, seems to be clear enough. The unwashed garment which the prophet
continues to wear for a time represents the foulness of Israel; just as
the order to bury it at Perath indicates what Iahvah is about to do with
His polluted people.
The exposition begins with the words, _Thus will I mar the great pride
of Judah and of Jerusalem_! The spiritual uncleanness of the nation
consisted in the proud self-will which turned a deaf ear to the warnings
of Iahvah's prophets, and obstinately persisted in idolatry (ver. 10).
It continues: _For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so made
I the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cleave unto
Me, saith Iahvah; that they might become to Me for a people, and for a
name, and for a praise, and for an ornament_ (Ex. xxviii. 2). Then their
becoming morally unclean, through the defilements of sin, is briefly
implied in the words, _And they obeyed not_ (ver. 11).
It is not the pride of the tyrant king Jehoiakim that is here
threatened with destruction. It is the _national_ pride which had all
along evinced itself in rebellion against its heavenly King--_the
great pride of Judah and Jerusalem_; and this pride, inasmuch as it
"trusted in man and made flesh its arm" (xvii. 5), and boasted in a
carnal wisdom, and material strength and riches (ix. 23, xxi. 13), was
to be brought low by the complete extinction of the national autonomy,
and the reduction of a high-spirited and haughty race to the status of
humble dependents upon a heathen power.