with the preceding text. They wear a look of self-completeness, which
suggests that here and in many other places Jeremiah has left us, not
whole discourses, written down substantially in the form in which
they were delivered, but rather his more finished fragments; pieces
which being more rhythmical in form, and more striking in thought, had
imprinted themselves more deeply upon his memory.
"Thus hath Iahvah said:
Cursed is the man that trusteth in human kind,
And maketh flesh his arm,
And whose heart swerveth from Iahvah!
And he shall become like a leafless tree in the desert,
And shalt not see when good cometh;
And shall dwell in parched places in the steppe,
A salt land and uninhabited.
"Blessed is the man that trusteth in Iahvah,
And whose trust Iahvah becometh!
And he shall become like a tree planted by water,
That spreadeth its roots by a stream,
And is not afraid when heat cometh,
And its leaf is evergreen;
And in the year of drought it feareth not,
Nor leaveth off from making fruit."
The form of the thought expressed in these two octostichs, the curse
and the blessing, may have been suggested by the curses and blessings
of that Book of the Law of which Jeremiah had been so faithful an
interpreter (Deut. xxvii. 15-xxviii. 20); while both the thought
and the form of the second stanza are imitated by the anonymous
poet of the first psalm. The mention of "the year of drought" in
the penultimate line may be taken, perhaps, as a link of connexion
between this brief section and the whole of what precedes it so far as
chap. xiv., which is headed "Concerning the droughts." If, however,
the group of chapters thus marked out really constitute a single
discourse, as Naegelsbach assumes, one can only say that the style is
episodical rather than continuous; that the prophet has often recorded
detached thoughts, worked up to a certain degree of literary form, but
hanging together as loosely as pearls on a string. Indeed, unless we
suppose that he had kept full notes of his discourses and soliloquies,
or that, like certain professional lecturers of our own day, he had
been in the habit of indefinitely repeating to different audiences the
same carefully elaborated compositions, it is difficult to understand
how he would be able without the aid of a special miracle, to write
down in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the numerous utterances of the
previous three and twenty years. Neither of these suppositions appears
probable. But if the prophet wrote from memory, so long after the
original delivery of many of his utterances, the looseness of internal
connexion, which marks so much of his book, is readily understood.
The internal evidence of the fragment before us, so far as any such
is traceable, appears to point to the same period as what precedes,
the time immediately subsequent to the death of Jehoiakim. The curse
pronounced upon trusting in man may be an allusion to that king's
confidence in the Egyptian alliance, which probably induced him to
revolt from Nebuchadrezzar, and so precipitate the final catastrophe of
his country. He owed his throne to the Pharaoh's appointment (2 Kings
xxiii. 34), and may perhaps have regarded this as an additional reason
for defection from Babylon. But the chastisement of Egypt preceded that
of Judah; and when the day came for the latter, the king of Egypt durst
no longer go to the help of his too trustful allies (2 Kings xxiv. 7).
Jehoiakim had died, but his son and successor was carried captive to
Babylon. In the brief interval between those two events, the prophet may
have penned these two stanzas, contrasting the issues of confidence in
man and confidence in God. On the other hand, they may also be referred
to some time not long before the fourth year of Jehoiakim, when that
king, egged on by Egypt, was meditating rebellion against his suzerain;
an act of which the fatal consequences might easily be foreseen by
any thoughtful observer, who was not blinded by fanatical passion
and prejudice, and which might itself be regarded as an index of the
kindling of Divine wrath against the country.
"Deep is the heart above all things else;
And sore-diseased it is: who can know it?
I, Iahvah, search the heart, I try the reins,
And that, to give to a man according to his own ways,
According to the fruit of his own doings.
"A partridge that gathereth young which are not hers,
Is he that maketh wealth not by right.
In the middle of his days it will leave him,
And in his end he shall prove a fool.
"A throne of glory, a high seat from of old,
Is the place of our sanctuary.
Hope of Israel, Iahvah!
All that leave Thee shall be ashamed;
Mine apostates shall be written in earth;
For they left the Well of Living Waters, even Iahvah.
"Heal Thou me, Iahvah, and I shall be healed,
Save Thou me, and I shall be saved,
For Thou art my praise.
"Lo, _they_ say unto me,
Where is the Word of Iahvah? Prithee, let it come!
Yet I, I hasted not from being a shepherd after Thee,
And woeful day I desired not--_Thou_ knowest;
The issue of my lips, before Thy face it fell.
"Become not a terror to me!
Thou art my refuge in the day of evil.
Let my pursuers be ashamed, and let not me be ashamed!
Let _them_ be dismayed, and let not me be dismayed;
Let Thou come upon them a day of evil,
And doubly with breaking break Thou them!"
In the first of these stanzas, the word "heart" is the connecting
link with the previous reflexions. The curse and the blessing had
there been pronounced not upon any outward and visible distinctions,
but upon a certain inward bent and spirit. He is called accursed,
whose confidence is placed in changeable, perishable man, and "whose
_heart_ swerveth from Iahvah." And he is blessed, who pins his faith
to nothing visible; who looks for help and stay not to the seen, which
is temporal, but to the Unseen, which is eternal.
The thought now occurs that this matter of inward trust, being a
matter of the heart, and not merely of the outward bearing, is a
hidden matter, a secret which baffles all ordinary judgment. Who
shall take upon him to say whether this or that man, this or that
prince confided or not confided in Iahvah? The human heart is a sea,
whose depths are beyond human search; or it is a shifty Proteus,
transforming itself from moment to moment under the pressure of
changing circumstances, at the magic touch of impulse, under the spell
of new perceptions and new phases of its world. And besides, its very
life is tainted with a subtle disease, whose hereditary influence
is ever interfering with the will and affections, ever tampering
with the conscience and the judgment, and making difficult a clear
perception, much more a wise decision. Nay, where so many motives
press, so many plausible suggestions of good, so many palliations of
evil, present themselves upon the eve of action; when the colours of
good and evil mingle and gleam together in such rich profusion before
the dazzled sight, that the mind is bewildered by the confused medley
of appearances, and wholly at a loss to discern and disentangle them
one from another; is it wonderful, if in such a case the heart should
take refuge in the comfortable illusion of self-deceit, and seek, with
too great success, to persuade itself into contentment with something
which it calls not positive evil but merely a less sublime good?
It is not for man, who cannot see the heart, to pronounce upon
the degree of his fellow's guilt. All sins, all crimes, are in
this respect relative to the intensity of passion, the force of
circumstances, the nature of surroundings, the comparative stress of
temptation. Murder and adultery are absolute crimes in the eye of
human law, and subject as such to fixed penalties; but the Unseen
Judge takes cognizance of a thousand considerations, which though
they abolish not the exceeding sinfulness of these hideous results of
a depraved nature, yet modify to a vast extent the degree of guilt
evinced in particular cases by the same outward acts. In the sight of
God, a life socially correct may be stained with a deeper dye than
that of profligacy or bloodshed; and nothing so glaringly shows the
folly of inquiring what is the unpardonable sin, as the reflexion that
any sin whatever may become such in an individual case.
Before God, human justice is often the liveliest injustice. And
how many flagrant wrongs, how many monstrous acts of cruelty and
oppression, how many wicked frauds and perjuries, how many of those
vile deeds of seduction and corruption, which are, in truth, the
murder of immortal souls; how many of those fearful sins, which make a
sorrow-laden hell beneath the smiling surface of this pleasure-wooing
world, are left unheeded, unavenged by any earthly tribunal! But all
these things are noted in the eternal record of Him who searches the
heart, and penetrates man's inmost being, not from a motive of mere
curiosity, but with fixed intent to award a righteous recompense for
all choice and all conduct.
The calamities which marked the last years of Jehoiakim, and his
ignominious end, were a signal instance of Divine retribution. Here
that king's lawless avarice is branded as not only wicked but foolish.
He is compared to the partridge, which gathers and hatches the eggs of
other birds, only to be deserted at once by her stolen brood.[72] "In
the middle of his days, it shall leave him" (or "it may leave him,"
for in Hebrew one form has to do duty for both shades of meaning). The
uncertainty of possession, the certainty of absolute surrender within
a few short years, this is the point which demonstrates the unreason
of making riches the chief end of one's earthly activity. "Truly man
walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain: he heapeth
up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them." It is the point
which is put with such terrible force in the parable of the Rich Fool.
"Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for thyself for many years; take
thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." "And the Lord said unto him,
Thou fool! this night shall thy soul be required of thee."
The covetousness, oppression, and bloodthirstiness of Jehoiakim are
condemned in a striking prophecy (xxii. 13-19), which we shall have to
consider hereafter. A vivid light is thrown upon the words, "In the
middle of his days it shall leave him," by the fact recorded in Kings
(2 Kings xxiii. 36), that he died in the thirty-sixth year of his
age; when, that is, he had fulfilled but half of the threescore years
and ten allotted to the ordinary life of man. We are reminded of that
other psalm which declares that "bloody and deceitful men shall not
live out half their days" (lv. 23).
Apart indeed from all consideration of the future, and apart from
all reference to that loyalty to the Unseen Ruler which is man's
inevitable duty, a life devoted to Mammon is essentially irrational.
The man is most truly a "fool"--that is, one who fails to understand
his own nature, one who has not attained to even a tolerable working
hypothesis as to the needs of life, and the way to win a due share of
happiness;--who has not discovered that
"riches have their proper stint
In the contented mind, not mint;"
and that
"those who have the itch
Of craving more, are never rich;"
and who has missed all apprehension of the grand secret that
"Wealth cannot make a _life_, but love."
From the vanity of earthly thrones, whether of Egypt or of Judah,
thrones whose glory is transitory, and whose power to help and succour
is so ill-assured, the prophet lifts his eyes to the one throne whose
glory is everlasting, and whose power and permanence are an eternal
refuge.
"Thou Throne of Glory, High Seat from of old,
Place of our Sanctuary, Hope of Israel, Iahvah!
All who leave Thee blush for shame;
Mine apostates are written in earth;
For they have forsaken the Well of Living Water, even Iahvah!"
It is his concluding reflexion upon the unblest, unhonoured end of the
apostate Jehoiakim. If Isaiah could speak of Shebna as a "throne of
glory,"[73] _i.e._, the honoured support and mainstay of his family,
there seems no reason why Iahvah might not be so addressed, as the
supporting power and sovereign of the world.
The terms "Throne of Glory" ... "Place of our Sanctuary" seem to be used
much as we use the expressions, "the Crown," "the Court," "the Throne,"
when we mean the actual ruler with whom these things are associated. And
when the prophet declares "Mine[74] apostates are written in earth," he
asserts that oblivion is the portion of those of his people, high or
low, who forsake Iahvah for another god. Their names are not written in
the Book of Life (Ex. xxxii. 32; Ps. lxix. 28), but in the sand whence
they are soon effaced. The prophets do not attempt to expose
"The sweet strange mystery
Of what beyond these things may lie."
They do not in express terms promise eternal life to the individual
believer.
But how often do their words imply that comfortable doctrine! They
who forsake Iahvah must perish, for there is neither permanence nor
stay apart from IAHVAH, whose very Name denotes _He who Is_, the
sole Principle of Being and Fountain of Life. If they--nations and
persons--who revolt from Him must die, the implication, the truth
necessary to complete this affirmation, is that they who trust in Him,
and make Him their arm, will live; for union with Him is eternal life.
In this Fountain of Living Water Jeremiah now seeks healing for
himself. The malady that afflicts him is the apparent failure of
his oracles. He suffers as a prophet whose word seems idle to the
multitude. He is hurt with their scorn, and wounded to the heart with
their scoffing. On all sides men press the mocking question, "Where
is the word of Iahvah? Prithee, let it come to pass!" His threats of
national overthrow had not been speedily realized; and men made a mock
of the delays of Divine mercy. Conscious of his own integrity, and
keenly sensitive to the ridicule of his triumphant adversaries, and
scarcely able to endure longer his intolerable position, he pours out
a prayer for healing and help. _Heal me_, he cries, _and I shall be
healed, Save me and I shall be saved_--really and truly saved, as the
form of the Hebrew term implies; _for Thou art my praise_, my boast
and my glory, as the Book of the Law affirms (Deut. x. 21). I have not
trusted in man, but in God; and if this my sole glory be taken away,
if events prove me a false prophet, as my friends allege, applying
the very test of the sacred Law (Deut. xviii. 21 _sq._), then shall
I be of all men most forsaken and forlorn. The bitterness of his woe
is intensified by the consciousness that he has not thrust himself
without call into the prophetic office, like the false prophets whose
aim was to traffic in sacred things (xiv. 14, 15); for then the
consciousness of guilt might have made the punishment more tolerable,
and the facts would have justified the jeers of his persecutors. But
the case was far otherwise. He had been most unwilling to assume the
function of prophet; and it was only in obedience to the stress of
repeated calls that he had yielded. "But as for me," he protests, "I
hasted not from being a shepherd to follow Thee." It would seem, if
this be the correct, as it certainly is the simplest rendering of
his words, that, at the time when he first became aware of his true
vocation, the young prophet was engaged in tending the flocks that
grazed in the priestly pasture-grounds of Anathoth. In that case, we
are reminded of David, who was summoned from the sheepfold to camp
and court, and of Amos the prophet-herdsman of Tekoa. But the Hebrew
term translated "from being a shepherd" is probably a disguise of some
other original expression; and it would involve no very violent change
to read "I made no haste to follow after Thee fully" or "entirely"[75]
(Deut. i. 36); a reading which is partially supported by the oldest
version. Or it may be even better, as involving a mere change in the
punctuation,[76] to amend the text thus: "But as for me, I made no
haste, in following thee," more literally, "in accompanying thee"
(Judg. xiv. 20). This, however, is a point of textual criticism, which
leaves the general sense the same in any case.
When the prophet adds: "and the ill day I desired not," some think
that he means the day when he surrendered to the Divine calling,
and accepted his mission. But it seems to suit the context better,
if we understand by the "ill day" the day of wrath whose coming was
the burden of his preaching; the day referred to in the taunts of
his enemies, when they asked "Where is the word of Iahvah?" adding
with biting sarcasm: "Prithee, let it come to pass." They sneered at
Jeremiah as one who seized every occasion to predict evil, as one who
longed to witness the ruin of his country. The utter injustice of
the charge, in view of the frequent cries of anguish which interrupt
his melancholy forecasts, is no proof that it was not made. In all
ages, God's representatives have been called upon to endure false
accusations. Hence the prophet appeals from man's unrighteous judgment
to God the Searcher of hearts. "_Thou_ knowest; the utterance of my
lips (Deut. xxiii. 24) before Thy face it fell": as if to say, No word
of mine, spoken in Thy name, was a figment of my own fancy, uttered
for my own purposes, without regard of Thee. I have always spoken as
in Thy presence, or rather, in Thy presence. Thou, who hearest all,
didst hear each utterance of mine; and therefore knowest that all I
said was truthful and honest and in perfect accord with my commission.
If only we who, like Jeremiah, are called upon to speak for God, could
always remember that every word we say is uttered in that Presence,
what a sense of responsibility would lie upon us; with what labour and
prayers should we not make our preparation! Too often alas! it is to be
feared that our perception of the presence of man banishes all sense of
any higher presence; and the anticipation of a fallible and frivolous
criticism makes us forget for the time the judgment of God. And yet "by
our words we shall be justified, and by our words we shall be condemned."
In continuing his prayer, Jeremiah adds the remarkable petition,
"Become not Thou to me a cause of dismay!" He prays to be delivered
from that overwhelming perplexity, which threatens to swallow him
up, unless God should verify by events that which His own Spirit
has prompted him to utter. He prays that Iahvah, his only "refuge
in the day of evil," will not bemock him with vain expectations;
will not falsify His own guidance; will not suffer His messenger to
be "ashamed," disappointed and put to the blush by the failure of
his predictions. And then once again, in the spirit of his time, he
implores vengeance upon his unbelieving and cruel persecutors: "Let
them be ashamed," disappointed in their expectation of immunity, "let
_them_ be dismayed," crushed in spirit and utterly overcome by the
fulfilment of his dark presages of evil. "Let Thou come upon them a
day of evil, And doubly with breaking break Thou them!" This indeed
asks no more than that what has been spoken before in the way of
prophecy--"I will repay the double of their guilt and their trespass"
(xvi. 18)--may be forthwith accomplished. And the provocation was,
beyond all question, immense. The hatred that burned in the taunt
"Where is the word of Iahvah? Prithee, let it come to pass!" was
doubtless of like kind with that which at a later stage of Jewish
history expressed itself in the words "He trusted in God, let Him
deliver Him!" "If He be the Son of God, let Him now come down from the
cross, and we will believe on Him!"
And how much fierce hostility that one term "my pursuers" may cover,
it is easy to infer from the narratives of the prophet's evil
experience in chaps. xx., xxvi. and xxxviii. But allowing for all
this, we can at best only affirm that the prophet's imprecations
on his foes are natural and human; we cannot pretend that they are
evangelical and Christ-like.[77] Besides, the latter would be a
gratuitous anachronism, which no intelligent interpreter of Scripture
is called upon to perpetrate. It is neither necessary to the proper
vindication of the prophet's writings as truly inspired of God, nor
helpful to a right conception of the method of revelation.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] HITZIG: (1) xiv. 1-9, 19-22: "Lament and Prayer on occasion of
a Drought." (2) xiv. 10-18. "Oracle against the false Prophets and
the misguided People" (Hitzig mistakes the import of the phrase לנוע
אהבו כן, "_Thus_ have they loved to wander," ver. 10; supposing that
the "thus" refers to xiii. 27, and that xiv. 1-9 is misplaced). (3)
xv. 1-9. "The incorrigible People will be punished mercilessly."
Hitzig thinks C. B. Michaelis wrong in asserting close connexion with
the end of the preceding chapter, because the intercession, vv. 2-9,
does not agree with the prohibition, xiv. 11; and because xiv. 19-22,
merely prays for cessation of the Drought; while the rejection of "the
hypothetical intercession," xv. 1, delivers the people over to all
the horrors which follow in the train of war. xv. 1-9 may originally
have followed xiv. 18. But this is far from cogent reasoning. There
is nothing surprising in the renewal of the prophet's intercession,
except on a theory of strictly verbal inspiration; and xv. 1 _sqq._
in refusing deliverance from the Drought, or rather in answer to the
prayer imploring it, announces further and worse evils to follow.
(4) "Complaint of the Seer against Iahvah, and Soothing of his
Dejection," xv. 10-21. Hitzig thinks internal evidence here points to
the fourth year of Jehoiakim; and that xvii. 1-4 originally preceded
this section, especially as ch. xvi. connects closely with xv. 9. (5)
xvi. 1-20. "Prediction of an imminent general Judgment by Plague and
Captivity." Written immediately after xv. 1-9, and falls with that in
the short reign of Jehoiachin. (6) xvii. 1-4. "Judah's unforgotten
Guilt will be punished by Captivity." Wanting in LXX. (as early as
Jerome), but contains original of xv. 13, 14, and must therefore be
genuine. Belongs 602 B.C., year of Jehoiakim's revolt. (7) xvii. 5-18.
"The Vindication of Trust in God on Despisers and Believers. Prayer
for its Vindication." Date immediately after death of Jehoiakim. (8)
19-27. "Warning to keep the Sabbath." Time of Jehoiachin.
[58] The Heb. verb חַתָּה "is broken" may probably have this meaning.
"Dismayed" is not nearly so suitable, though it is the usual meaning
of the term. Cf. Isa. vii. 8.
[59] Cf. viii. 9. "And no wisdom is in them."
[60] So Dathe, Naegelsbach.
[61] Lit. "all these things," _i.e._, this visible world. There is no
Heb. special term for the "universe" or "world." "The all" or "heaven
and earth," or the phrase in the text, are used in this sense.
[62] The reference to an eclipse of the sun in the words
"Her sun went down, while it yet was day;
He blushed and paled."
appears fairly certain. Such an event is said to have occurred in that
part of the world, Sept. 30, B.C. 610.
[63] 13. Read במתיך "Thine high places" for במחיר לא "without price";
and transpose בחטאת (xvii. 3).
[64] 14. Read והעברתיך "and I will make thee serve" (xvii. 4) for
והעברתי "and I will make to pass through...."
The third member is a quotation from Deut. xxxii. 22. In the fourth,
read על־עולם "for ever" (xvii. 4) instead of עליכם "upon you."
[65] The tone of all this indicates that the prophet was no novice in
his office. It does not suit the time of Josiah; but agrees very well
with the time of confusion and popular dismay which followed his death.
That event must have brought great discredit upon Jeremiah and upon all
who had been instrumental in the religious changes of his reign.
[66] Practices forbidden, Lev. xxi. 5; Deut. xiv. 1. Jeremiah mentions
them as ordinary signs of mourning, and doubtless they were general in
his time. An ancient usage, having its root in natural feeling, is not
easily extirpated.
[67] Naegelsbach.
[68] The figure recalls the Persian custom of sweeping off the whole
population of an island, by forming a line and marching over it, a
process of extermination called by the Greek writers σαγηνεύειν,
"fishing with a seine or drag-net" (Herod. iii. 149, iv. 9, vi. 31).
[69] For the construction, cf. Gen. i. 22; Jer. li. 11. Or "With their
abominations they filled, etc.," a double accusative.