of a divine Redeemer in the form of a man, by whose life and suffering
and death the world should be saved, the prophet-poet breaks out in
rhapsodies. He cannot contain his exultation. He loses sight of the
judgments he had declared, in his unbounded rejoicings that there was to
be a deliverance; that not only a remnant would return to Jerusalem and
become a renewed power, but that the Messiah should ultimately reign
over all the nations of the earth, should establish a reign of peace,
so that warriors "should beat their swords into ploughshares, and their
spears into pruning-hooks." Heretofore the history of kings had been a
history of wars,--of oppression, of injustice, of cruelty. Miseries
overspread the earth from this scourge more than from all other causes
combined. The world was decimated by war, producing not only wholesale
slaughter, but captivity and slavery, the utter extinction of nations.
Isaiah had himself dwelt upon the woes to be visited on mankind by war
more than any other prophet who had preceded him. All the leading
nations and capitals were to be utterly destroyed or severely punished;
calamity and misery should be nearly universal; only "a remnant should
be saved." Now, however, he takes the most cheerful and joyous views. So
marked is the contrast between the first and latter parts of the Book of
Isaiah, that many great critics suppose that they were written by
different persons and at different times. But whether there were two
persons or one, the most comforting and cheering doctrines to be found
in the Scriptures, before the Sermon on the Mount was preached, are
declared by Isaiah. The breadth and catholicity of them are amazing from
the pen of a Jew. The whole world was to share with him in the promises
of a Saviour; the whole world was to be finally redeemed. As recipients
of divine privileges there was to be no difference between Jew and
Gentile. Paul himself shows no greater mental illumination. "The glory
of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it."
In view of this glorious reign of peace and universal redemption, Isaiah
calls upon the earth to be joyful and all the mountains to break forth
in singing, and Zion to awake, and Jerusalem to put on her beautiful
garments, and all waste places to break forth in joy; for the glory of
the Lord is risen upon the City of David. How rapturously does the
prophet, in the most glowing and lofty flights of poetry, dwell upon the
time when the redeemed of the Lord shall return to Zion with songs and
thanksgivings, no more to be called "forsaken," but a city to be renewed
in beauties and glories, and in which kings shall be nursing fathers to
its sons and daughters, and queens nursing mothers. These are the
tidings which the prophet brings, and which the poet sings in matchless
lyrics. To the Zion of the Holy One of Israel shall the Gentiles come
with their precious offerings. "Violence shall no more be heard in thy
land," saith the poet, "wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but
thou shalt call thy walls Salvation and thy gates Praise.... Thy sun
shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself, for the
Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the day of thy mourning shall
be ended.... Thy people shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the
land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I
may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one
a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in its time."
Salvation, peace, the glory of Zion!--these are the words which Isaiah
reiterates. With these are identified the spiritual kingdom of Christ,
which is to spread over the whole earth. The prophet does not specify
when that time shall come, when peace shall be universal, and when all
the people shall be righteous; that part of the prophecy remains
unfulfilled, as well as the renewed glories of Jerusalem. Yet a thousand
years with the Lord are as one day. No believing Christian doubts that
it will be fulfilled, as certainly as that Babylon should be destroyed,
or that a Messiah should appear among the Jews. The day of deliverance
began to dawn when Christianity was proclaimed among the Gentiles. From
that time a great progress has been seen among the nations. First, wars
began to cease in the Roman world. They were renewed when the empire of
the Caesars fell, but their ferocity and cruelty diminished; conquered
people were not carried away as slaves, nor were women and children put
to death, except in extraordinary cases, which called out universal
grief, compassion, and indignation. With all the progress of truth and
civilization, it is amazing that Christian nations should still be
armed to the teeth, and that wars are still so frequent. We fear that
they will not cease until those who govern shall be conscientious
Christians. But that the time will come when rulers shall be righteous
and nations learn war no more, is a truth which Christians everywhere
accept. When, how,--by the gradual spread of knowledge, or by
supernatural intervention,--who can tell? "Zion shall arise and
shine.... The Gentiles shall come to its light, and kings to the
brightness of its rising.... Violence shall no more be heard in the
land, nor wasting and destruction within its borders.... They shall not
hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.... And it shall
come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to
another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord."
This is the sublime faith of Christendom set forth by the most sublime
of the prophets, from the most gifted and eloquent of the poets. On this
faith rests the consolation of the righteous in view of the prevalence
of iniquity. This prophecy is full of encouragement and joy amid
afflictions and sorrows. It proclaims liberty to captives, and the
opening of the prison to those that are bound; it preaches glad tidings
to the meek, and binds up the broken-hearted; it gives beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit
of heaviness. This prediction has inspired the religious poets of all
nations; on this is based the beauty and glory of the lyrical stanzas we
sing in our churches. The hymns and melodies of the Church, the most
immortal of human writings, are inspired with this cheering
anticipation. The psalmody of the Church is rapturous, like Isaiah, over
the triumphant and peaceful reign of Christ, coming sooner perhaps than
we dream when we see the triumphal career of wicked men. In the temporal
fall of a monstrous despotism, in the decline of wicked cities and
empires, in the light which is penetrating all lands, in the shaking of
Mohammedan thrones, in the opening of the most distant East, in the
arbitration of national difficulties, in the terrible inventions which
make nations fear to go to war, in the wonderful network of
philanthropic enterprises, in the renewed interest in sacred literature,
in the recognition of law and order as the first condition of civilized
society, in that general love of truth which science has stimulated and
rarely mocked, and which casts its searching eye into all creeds and all
hypocrisies and all false philosophy,--we share the exultant spirit of
the prophet, and in the language of one of our great poets we repeat the
promised joy:--
"Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy towering head and lift thine eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn,
See future sons and daughters yet unborn!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,
And heaped with products of Sabaean springs!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts; the Light himself shall shine
Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies to smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fixed His word, His saving power remains:
Thy realm forever lasts; thy own Messiah reigns!"
JEREMIAH.
ABOUT 629-580 B.C.
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM.
Jeremiah is a study to those who would know the history of the latter
days of the Jewish monarchy, before it finally succumbed to the
Babylonian conqueror. He was a sad and isolated man, who uttered his
prophetic warnings to a perverse and scornful generation; persecuted
because he was truthful, yet not entirely neglected or disregarded,
since he was consulted in great national dangers by the monarchs with
whom he was contemporary. So important were his utterances, it is matter
of great satisfaction that they were committed to writing, for the
benefit of future generations,--not of Jews only, but of the
Gentiles,--on account of the fundamental truths contained in them. Next
to Isaiah, Jeremiah was the most prominent of the prophets who were
commissioned to declare the will and judgments of Jehovah on a
degenerate and backsliding people. He was a preacher of righteousness,
as well as a prophet of impending woes. As a reformer he was
unsuccessful, since the Hebrew nation was incorrigibly joined to its
idols. His public career extended over a period of forty years. He was
neither popular with the people, nor a favorite of kings and princes;
the nation was against him and the times were against him. He
exasperated alike the priests, the nobles, and the populace by his
rebukes. As a prophet he had no honor in his native place. He uniformly
opposed the current of popular prejudices, and denounced every form of
selfishness and superstition; but all his protests and rebukes were in
vain. There were very few to encourage him or comfort him. Like Noah, he
was alone amidst universal derision and scorn, so that he was sad beyond
measure, more filled with grief than with indignation.
Jeremiah was not bold and stern, like Elijah, but retiring, plaintive,
mournful, tender. As he surveyed the downward descent of Judah, which
nothing apparently could arrest, he exclaimed: "Oh that my head were
waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and
night for the daughter of my people!" Is it possible for language to
express a deeper despondency, or a more tender grief? Pathos and
unselfishness are blended with his despair. It is not for himself that
he is overwhelmed with gloom, but for the sins of the people. It is
because the people would not hear, would not consider, and would
persist in their folly and wickedness, that grief pierces his soul. He
weeps for them, as Christ wept over Jerusalem. Yet at times he is stung
into bitter imprecations, he becomes fierce and impatient; and then
again he rises over the gloom which envelops him, in the conviction that
there will be a new covenant between God and man, after the punishment
for sin shall have been inflicted. But his prevailing feelings are grief
and despair, since he has no hopes of national reform. So he predicts
woes and calamities at no distant day, which are to be so overwhelming
that his soul is crushed in the anticipation of them. He cannot laugh,
he cannot rejoice, he cannot sing, he cannot eat and drink like other
men. He seeks solitude; he longs for the desert; he abstains from
marriage, he is ascetic in all his ways; he sits alone and keeps
silence, and communes only with his God; and when forced into the
streets and courts of the city, it is only with the faint hope that he
may find an honest man. No persons command his respect save the Arabian
Rechabites, who have the austere habits of the wilderness, like those of
the early Syrian monks. Yet his gloom is different from theirs: they
seek to avert divine wrath for their own sins; he sees this wrath about
to descend for the sins of others, and overwhelm the whole nation in
misery and shame.
Jeremiah was born in the little ecclesiastical town of Anathoth, about
three miles from Jerusalem, and was the son of a priest. We do not know
the exact year of his birth, but he was a very young man when he
received his divine commission as a prophet, about six hundred and
twenty-seven years before Christ. Josiah had then been on the throne of
Judah twelve years. The kingdom was apparently prosperous, and was
unmolested by external enemies. For seventy-five years Assyria had given
but little trouble, and Egypt was occupied with the siege of Ashdod,
which had been going on for twenty-nine years, so strong was that
Philistine city. But in the absence of external dangers corruption,
following wealth, was making fearful strides among the people, and
impiety was nearly universal. Every one was bent on pleasure or gain,
and prophet and priest were worldly and deceitful. From the time when
Jeremiah was first called to the prophetic office until the fall of
Jerusalem there was an unbroken series of national misfortunes,
gradually darkening into utter ruin and exile. He may have shrunk from
the perils and mortifications which attended him for forty years, as his
nature was sensitive and tender; but during this long ministry he was
incessant in his labors, lifting up his voice in the courts of the
Temple, in the palace of the king, in prison, in private houses, in the
country around Jerusalem. The burden of his utterances was a
denunciation of idolatry, and a lamentation over its consequences. "My
people, saith Jehovah, have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,
and hewn out for themselves underground cisterns, full of rents, that
can hold no water.... Behold, O Judah! thou shalt be brought to shame by
thy new alliance with Egypt, as thou wast in the past by thy old
alliance with Assyria."
In this denunciation by the prophet we see that he mingled in political
affairs, and opposed the alliance which Judah made with Egypt, which
ever proved a broken reed. Egypt was a vain support against the new
power that was rising on the Euphrates, carrying all before it, even to
the destruction of Nineveh, and was threatening Damascus and Tyre as
well as Jerusalem. The power which Judah had now to fear was Babylon,
not Assyria. If any alliance was to be formed, it was better to
conciliate Babylon than Egypt.
Roused by the earnest eloquence of Jeremiah, and of those of the group
of earnest followers of Jehovah who stood with him,--Huldah the
prophetess, Shallum her husband, keeper of the royal wardrobe, Hilkiah
the high-priest, and Shaphan the scribe, or secretary,--the youthful
king Josiah, in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he was himself
but twenty-six years old, set about reforms, which the nobles and
priests bitterly opposed. Idolatry had been the fashionable religion for
nearly seventy years, and the Law was nearly forgotten. The corruption
of the priesthood and of the great body of the prophets kept pace with
the degeneracy of the people. The Temple was dilapidated, and its gold
and bronze decorations had been despoiled. The king undertook a thorough
repair of the great Sanctuary, and during its progress a discovery was
made by the high-priest Hilkiah of a copy of the Law, hidden amid the
rubbish of one of the cells or chambers of the Temple. It is generally
supposed to have been the Book of Deuteronomy. When it was lost, and
how, it is not easy to ascertain,--probably during the reign of some one
of the idolatrous kings. It seems to have been entirely forgotten,--a
proof of the general apostasy of the nation. But the discovery of the
book was hailed by Josiah as a very important event; and its effect was
to give a renewed impetus to his reforms, and a renewed study of
patriarchal history. He forthwith assembled the leading men of the
nation,--prophets, priests, Levites, nobles, and heads of tribes. He
read to them the details of the ancient covenant, and solemnly declared
his purpose to keep the commandments and statutes of Jehovah as laid
down in the precious book. The assembled elders and priests gave their
eager concurrence to the act of the king, and Judah once more, outwardly
at least, became the people of God.
Nor can it be questioned that the renewed study of the Law, as brought
about by Josiah, produced a great influence on the future of the Hebrew
nation, especially in the renunciation of idolatry. Yet this reform,
great as it was, did not prevent the fall of Jerusalem and the exile of
the leading people among the Hebrews to the land of the Chaldeans,
whence Abraham their great progenitor had emigrated.
Josiah, who was thoroughly aroused by "the words of the book," and its
denunciations of the wrath of Jehovah upon the people if they should
forsake his ways, in spite of the secret opposition of the nobles and
priests, zealously pursued the work of reform. The "high places," on
which were heathen altars, were levelled with the ground; the images of
the gods were overthrown; the Temple was purified, and the abominations
which had disgraced it were removed. His reforms extended even to the
scattered population of Samaria whom the Assyrians had spared, and all
the buildings connected with the worship of Baal and Astaroth at Bethel
were destroyed. Their very stones were broken in pieces, under the eyes
of Josiah himself. The skeletons of the pagan priests were dragged from
their burial places and burned.
An elaborate celebration of the feast of the Passover followed soon
after the discovery of the copy of the Law, whether confined to
Deuteronomy or including other additional writings ascribed to Moses, we
know not. This great Passover was the leading internal event of the
reign of Josiah. Having "taken away all the abominations out of all the
countries that belonged to the children of Israel," even as the earlier
keepers of the Law cleansed their premises, especially of all remains of
leaven,--the symbol of corruption,--the king commanded a celebration of
the feast of deliverance. Priests and Levites were sent throughout the
country to instruct the people in the preparations demanded for the
Passover. The sacred ark, hidden during the reigns of Manasseh and Amon,
was restored to its old place in the Temple, where it remained until the
Temple was destroyed. On the approach of the festival, which was to be
held with unusual solemnities, great multitudes from all parts of
Palestine assembled at Jerusalem, and three thousand bullocks and thirty
thousand lambs were provided by the king for the seven days' feast which
followed the Passover. The princes also added eight hundred oxen and
seven thousand six hundred small cattle as a gift to priests and people.
After the priests in their white robes, with bare feet and uncovered
heads, and the Levites at their side according to the king's
commandment, had "killed the passover" and "sprinkled the blood from
their hands," each Levite having first washed himself in the Temple
laver, the part of the animal required for the burnt-offering was laid
on the altar flames, and the remainder was cooked by the Levites for the
people, either baked, roasted, or boiled. And this continued for seven
days; during all the while the services of the Temple choir were
conducted by the singers, chanting the psalms of David and of Asaph.
Such a Passover had not been held since the days of Samuel. No king, not
even David or Solomon, had celebrated the festival on so grand a scale.
The minutest details of the requirements of the Law were attended to.
The festival proclaimed the full restoration of the worship of Jehovah,
and kindled enthusiasm for his service. So great was this event that
Ezekiel dates the opening of his prophecies from it. "It seems probable
that we have in the eighty-fifth psalm a relic of this great
solemnity.... Its tone is sad amidst all the great public rejoicings; it
bewails the stubborn ungodliness of the people as a whole."
After the great Passover, which took place in the year 622, when Josiah
was twenty-six years of age, little is said of the pious king, who
reigned twelve years after this memorable event. One of the best, though
not one of the wisest, kings of Judah, he did his best to eradicate
every trace of idolatry; but the hearts of the people responded faintly
to his efforts. Reform was only outward and superficial,--an
illustration of the inability even of an absolute monarch to remove
evils to which the people cling in their hearts. To the eyes of
Jeremiah, there was no hope while the hearts of the people were
unchanged. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his
spots?" he mournfully exclaims. "Much less can those who are accustomed
to do evil learn to do well." He had no illusions; he saw the true state
of affairs, and was not misled by mere outward and enforced reforms,
which partook of the nature of religious persecution, and irritated the
people rather than led to a true religious life among them. There was
nothing left to him but to declare woes and approaching calamities, to
which the people were insensible. They mocked and reviled him. His lofty
position secured him a hearing, but he preached to stones. The people
believed nothing but lies; many were indifferent and some were secretly
hostile, and he must have been pained and disappointed in view of the
incompleteness of his work through the secret opposition of the
popular leaders.
Josiah was the most virtuous monarch of Judah. It was a great public
misfortune that his life was cut short prematurely at the age of
thirty-eight, and in consequence of his own imprudence. He undertook to
oppose the encroachments of Necho II, king of Egypt, an able, warlike,
and enterprising monarch, distinguished for his naval expeditions, whose
ships doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and returned to Egypt in safety,
after a three years' voyage. Necho was not so successful in digging a
canal across the Isthmus of Suez, in which enterprise one hundred and
twenty thousand men perished from hunger, fatigue, and disease. But his
great aim was to extend his empire to the limits reached by Rameses II.,
the Sesostris of the Greeks. The great Assyrian empire was then breaking
up, and Nineveh was about to fall before the Babylonians; so he seized
the opportunity to invade Syria, a province of the Assyrian empire. He
must of course pass through Palestine, the great highway between Egypt
and the East. Josiah opposed his enterprise, fearing that if the
Egyptian king conquered Syria, he himself would become the vassal of
Egypt. Jeremiah earnestly endeavored to dissuade his sovereign from
embarking in so doubtful a war; even Necho tried to convince him through
his envoys that he made war on Nineveh, not on Jerusalem, invoking--as
most intensely earnest men did in those days of tremendous impulse--the
sacred name of Deity as his authentication. Said he: "What have I to do
with thee, thou King of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but
against the house wherewith I have war; for God commanded me to make
haste. Forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he
destroy thee not." But nothing could induce Josiah to give up his
warlike enterprise. He had the piety of Saint Louis, and also his
patriotic and chivalric heroism. He marched his forces to the plain of
Esdraelon, the great battle field where Rameses II. had triumphed over
the Hittites centuries before. The battle was fought at Megiddo.
Although Josiah took the precaution to disguise himself, he was mortally
wounded by the Egyptian archers, and was driven back in his splendid
chariot toward Jerusalem, which he did not live to reach.
The lamentations for this brave and pious monarch remind us of the
universal grief of the Hebrew nation on the death of Samuel. He was
buried in a tomb which he had prepared for himself, amid universal
mourning. A funeral oration was composed by Jeremiah, or rather an
elegy, afterward sung by the nation on the anniversary of the battle.
Nor did the nation ever forget a king so virtuous in his life and so
zealous for the Law. Long after the return from captivity the singers of
Israel sang his praises, and popular veneration for him increased with
the lapse of time; for in virtues and piety, and uninterrupted zeal for
Jehovah, Josiah never had an equal among the kings of Judah.
The services of this good king were long remembered. To him may be
traced the unyielding devotion of the Jews, after the Captivity, for the
rites and forms and ceremonies which are found in the books of the Law.
The legalisms of the Scribes may be traced to him. He reigned but twelve
years after his great reformation,--not long enough to root out the
heathenism which had prevailed unchecked for nearly seventy years. With
him perished the hopes of the kingdom.
After his death the decline was rapid. A great reaction set in, and
faction was accompanied with violence. The heathen party triumphed over
the orthodox party. The passions which had been suppressed since the
death of Manasseh burst out with all the frenzy and savage hatred which
have ever marked the Jews in their religious contentions, and these were
unrestrained by the four kings who succeeded Josiah. The people were
devoured by religious animosities, and split up into hostile factions.
Had the nation been united, it is possible that later it might have
successfully resisted the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah gave vent
to his despairing sentiments, and held out no hope. When Elijah had
appealed to the people to choose between Jehovah and Baal, he was
successful, because they were then undecided and wavering in their
belief, and it required only an evidence of superior power to bring
them back to their allegiance. But when Jeremiah appeared, idolatry was
the popular religion. It had become so firmly established by a
succession of wicked kings, added to the universal degeneracy, that even
Josiah could work but a temporary reform.