_The Seething Caldron._
An old Hebrew proverb says, "Train up a child in the way he should go,
and even when he is old he shall not depart from it." If one should
say that the man who wrote this proverb must have thought of King
Josiah, the statement could not be entirely denied. For the religious
training he received at the hands of Zephaniah and Hilkiah soon showed
itself in the way he began to revolutionize the religious life of
Judah.
When he was only eighteen years old he began to uproot the heathen
worship that had been reintroduced by his grandfather, after the death
of Hezekiah and Isaiah. His aim was to cleanse the land entirely of
the foreign altars and sanctuaries that Manasseh had erected to the
gods of Babylonia and Assyria.
In the twelfth year of his reign, that is, in the year 627, the old
chronicler tells us, Josiah
"brake down the altars of the Baalim in his presence; and the
sun-images that were on high above them he hewed down; and
the Asherim, and the graven images, and the molten images, he
brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strewed it upon
the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them, and purged
Judah, and Jerusalem."
It was at this time that the decline in the fortunes of Assyria set
in. Esarhaddon and his successor, Ashurbanipal, preserved a semblance
of holding the empire together; but it was not for long. Built up by
mercenaries, whose fighting was for pay and not for their country, the
weak rulers who followed Ashurbanipal on the throne in Nineveh hurled
the empire quickly to its fall.
Even in the last days of the cultured and illustrious Ashurbanipal the
outlying provinces of Assyria became independent. The Assyrian
governors were slowly withdrawn from the tributaries along the
Mediterranean Sea, and Judah, always ready to resist a foreign yoke,
began to feel its independence.
Josiah added to his territory most of what had been the kingdom of
Israel and reigned over a country that nearly equalled in size that of
David and Solomon. This good fortune of Judah, perhaps more than
anything else, convinced the king that God was again favoring his
nation, and that, therefore, it was time to remove from his dominions
all those things that were abominations in the sight of God.
Now, it is one thing to cleanse a land of its outward show of
idolatrous worship and abominable practices and another to purge the
hearts and minds of a people that have been sotted with these for more
than two generations. To do the latter never entered into Josiah's
calculations. He didn't even give it a thought. But the uselessness of
outward reforms, without inward chastening, did not escape the
deep-thinking Jeremiah.
It was evident to him that Josiah was only scratching the surface and
he wanted to come to the well-meaning king's help. Notwithstanding his
call and his conviction that his life work as a prophet had been
determined upon even before his birth, Jeremiah was yet too timid to
take up his burden among the people until the word of God came to him
a second time, saying:
"Gird up thy loins and arise,
Speak to them all that I command thee,
Do not be terrified before them, lest I terrify thee in
their presence;
For behold, I myself make thee this day a fortified city,
And a brazen wall against the kings of Judah, its princes, and the
common people.
And they shall fight against thee, but they will not overcome thee,
For I am with thee to deliver thee."
So Jeremiah's course was not to be smooth and easy! He would encounter
opposition from the common people, the princes, the king himself! But
there was no turning back for him now! Though his heart was heavy, it
was determined. Jeremiah went down to Jerusalem to preach.
His first pleadings were in line with Josiah's reforms:
"A voice is heard upon the bare heights, the weeping and the
supplications of the children of Israel; because they have
perverted their way, they have forgotten the Lord their God.
Return ye backsliding children;
I will heal your backsliding."
Jeremiah began his eventful career with the old cry of Amos and Hosea,
against the widespread evil, the seething caldron of idolatry and
wrongdoing that threatened the destruction of the nation. It was far
more serious, however, than in the days of the earlier prophets. Then
the people worshiped idols and seemed to know no better; now the
people employed all the ancient idolatrous practices for worshiping
the idols and the heavenly bodies and God at the same time.
Therefore, Jeremiah heard from the people at the idols' shrines, in
reply to his pleadings, practically the same answer that greeted Amos
at Bethel:
"Behold, we have come unto thee,
For thou art the Lord our God."
To this false idea that God-worship and idol-worship are the same thing,
Jeremiah gave answer patiently and kindly, as if reasoning with children,
recalling what God had accomplished for Israel in the past and the duty
of obedience to His voice by Israel's descendants in the present:
"Truly in vain is the help that is looked for from the hills,
the tumult of the mountains; truly the Lord our God is the
salvation of Israel. But the shameful thing (idolatry) hath
devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth, their
flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. Let
us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us;
for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our
fathers, from our youth even unto this day; and we have not
obeyed the voice of the Lord our God."
Then Jeremiah delivered a message of hope, of God's promise to the
people, in case they should return from their backsliding:
"If thou wilt return, O Israel," saith the Lord, "if thou
wilt return to me and if thou wilt put away thine
abominations out of my sight; then shalt thou not be
removed; and thou shalt swear, 'As the Lord liveth,' in
truth, in justice, and in righteousness; and the nations
shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory."
Jeremiah aimed at first merely to arouse the people to a knowledge of
their false point of view toward God; but he soon discovered that he
was on the wrong track. Pleading, persuasion, promises and prophecies
of hope had no more effect upon the daily life of the people than did
Josiah's destruction of the shrines and sanctuaries upon their
religious practices.
It was at this time that evil days came upon the Empire of Assyria. It
was crumbling to pieces. From north of the Black Sea and from east of
the Carpathian Mountains savage hordes of Scythians were swarming over
Assyria. Nomads, without any settled country whatever, they were
sweeping eastward and southward, down across the shores of the
Mediterranean, creating devastation everywhere. They were not only
eager for the far-famed riches of Assyria, but looked toward the
south, even as far as Egypt.
And the little kingdom of Judah lay directly in their path, as it did
during former attempted conquests of Egypt.
Jeremiah once more recalled the vision of the seething caldron, with
the strong wind from the north, threatening to pour out the hot
contents over the land.
Poor Judah! The country was seething with destructive idolatry within,
and the seething hordes of Scythians were endangering its life from
without.
Poor Jeremiah! What was there for him to do now? A double calamity was
hanging over his people and his beloved country. Even if he stood alone
he must try to save them both.
So he began a campaign, the burden of which was two-fold. He undertook
to warn the people against the danger which even King Josiah had
recognized and of the new danger that was threatening from the north.
He felt sure, as had the other prophets before him, that unless the
people turned from their backsliding they would lack the moral courage
to withstand the foreign foe and could never gain God's help and
protection in fighting their enemies.
Once more he returned to his early methods of pleading with the
people. He appealed to them to restore the relationship of children
and father that had existed between them and God from the earliest
days. He recounted their history from the slavery of Egypt to his own
day. He pointed to the wonderful things that God had performed for
them, but it all seemed of no avail.
Then he turned to the people with the threats of the danger from the
north. He tried to impress them with the idea that God was sending the
Scythians as an instrument with which to punish the idolatrous and
immoral Judeans.
"Behold a people is coming from the northland,
And a great nation is arousing itself from the uttermost parts
of the earth.
They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel and merciless.
Their din is like the roaring of the sea, and they ride upon horses.
Everyone is arrayed as a man for battle against thee, O daughter
of Zion.
"We have heard the report of it, our hands become feeble;
Anguish taketh hold upon us;
Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the highway,
For there is the sword of the enemy, terror on every side.
O, my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and sprinkle thyself
with ashes;
Take up mourning as for an only son, bitter lamentation;
For the destroyer shall suddenly come upon us."
From Dan and Mount Ephraim in the north the evil tidings announcing
the approach of the Scythians had already been brought to Jerusalem.
These savages were approaching Judea like a destructive hot wind and a
whirlwind from the wilderness, like a lion gone up from his lair "to
lay waste the earth."
"Announce in Jerusalem, 'There they are!'
Robber bands are coming from a far distant land;
Yea, they are raising their cry against the cities of Judah,
Lying in wait in the field over against her on every side,
Because she hath rebelled against me, saith the Lord."
The farmers were deserting their lands and the villagers in the
outlying parts of the country their homes, rushing south to the
protecting walls of Jerusalem. The roads were filled with frightened
men, women and children. They were not the happy pilgrims who went
down to Jerusalem for the great holidays. In their fear they jostled
each other and even fought to get ahead of each other. They cared
nothing for their fellows. Everyone aimed to reach the capital first.
Jeremiah saw all this, and knew exactly what the result would be when
the robber bands came to besiege the city. Already the farthest
outlying sections had been ravaged, towns destroyed, fields laid
waste, and the inhabitants driven in all directions.
No wonder that Jeremiah was filled with woe. He tried very hard to
restrain himself, not to pronounce the doom of his people. But a great
force within him urged him to speak:
"My anguish, my anguish! I am pained to the depths of my heart.
My heart is in a tumult within me, I cannot keep silent,
For I have heard the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war!
Destruction succeeds destruction, for the whole land is laid waste.
How long must I see the signal, hear the sound of the trumpet!
For my people are senseless, they know me not,
They are foolish children, and they have no understanding;
They are skilled! in doing evil, but they know not how to do right!"
In Jerusalem there were many who believed that they were innocent of
any wrong-doing because they were worshiping God the only way they
knew; but what they knew was the same old heathen way. There were
many, indeed, who continued their wicked practices secretly even in
places where, by King Josiah's orders, the idolatrous shrines and
sanctuaries had been destroyed.
What brought pain and sorrow to Jeremiah more than anything else was
the fact that the people insisted that they were not sinning, that
they were living in accordance with the laws of God.
To them Jeremiah answered:
"Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and see and know,
And seek in its open spaces, if ye can find a man,
If there is any who does right and seeks after the truth!
And though they say, 'As the Lord liveth,' surely they swear to
a falsehood.
O Lord, do not thine eyes look upon truth?"
Always wanting to be fair and honest in his condemnation of the
people, Jeremiah bethought himself that perhaps only the common people
who "know not the way of the Lord and the law of their God" were at
fault. Therefore he turned himself to the nobles, to the princes of
the realm, to the wealthy and exalted, saying to himself, they "know
the way of the Lord and the law of their God." But to his great dismay
he found that these, too, "have all broken the yoke and burst the
bonds" that made them the beloved of God in the ways of their
righteousness.
"Therefore I am full of the wrath of the Lord; I am weary of
restraining myself.
I must pour it out upon the children in the street and upon the
assembly of young men,
For both the husband and the wife shall be taken, the aged and him
that is advanced in years.
And their houses shall be turned over to others, their fields
to robbers.
For from the least even to the greatest of them, each greedily robs,
And from the prophet even to the priest, each deals deceitfully.
They heal the hurt of my people as though it were slight,
Saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace."
This condition was reason enough for Jeremiah to point out, regretfully,
"Thy conduct and thy acts have procured these things for thee!
This is the cause of thy calamity; verily it is bitter, for it
toucheth thy heart."
Yet hopefully he pleaded,
"Cleanse thy heart, O Jerusalem, from wickedness, that thou mayest
be delivered.
How long shall thy evil thoughts stay within thee?"
This preaching, pleading, threatening, in which Jeremiah was assisted
greatly by Zephaniah, King Josiah's teacher, and the little crowd of
men, "the remnant" of Isaiah's days, whom Hilkiah had gathered about
him, now known as the Prophetic Party was not a matter of days or
months, but of years.
Josiah, standing practically single-handed among the nobles and the
Court Party, the legacy fron his grandfather Manasseh, continued his
reforms to the best of his ability.
At last the work was having its effect. The constant hammering away
began to tell. Great progress was actually being made in the religious
and moral awakening of the people.
And now came the joyous news that Psammetich I., Pharaoh of Egypt, had
sent an embassy to meet the invading Scythians in the north, before
they approached Egyptian territory; that he bought the savages off by
means of gifts and large sums of money; that the danger of an invasion
of Egypt, and therefore of Judah, was past.
The Prophetic Party pointed to the sparing of Judah from the ravages
of the Scythian scourge as God's way of showing his approval, not
alone of the king's outward reforms, but of the people's inner
awakening to lives of righteousness.
And soon after, the most important event in the whole history of
Israel up to that time, an event that had a lasting influence, not
alone upon the Jews but upon the whole world, occurred in the temple
in Jerusalem.