sent a deputation to the Ammonites, demanding to know on what principle
the latter had taken up arms against them. They answered that it was to
recover the territory which the former had taken from them on their
first coming out of Egypt. Jephthah replied that they had made no
conquests in that quarter but from the Amorites; adding, “If you think
you have a right to all that Chemosh, your god, hath given you, why
should not we possess all that the Lord our God hath conferred on us by
right of conquest?” Jephthah’s reasoning availed nothing with the
Ammonites; and as the latter persisted in waging war, the former
collected his troops together and put himself at their head. The Spirit
of the Lord is said to have now come upon Jephthah; by which we are here
to understand, that the Lord endowed him with a spirit of valour and
fortitude, adequate to the exigence of the situation in which he was
placed, animating him with courage for the battle, and especially
inspired him with unshaken confidence in the God of the armies of
Israel, Judges xi, 17; Heb. xi, 32; 1 Sam. xi, 6; Num. xxiv, 2. Jephthah
at this time made a vow to the Lord that if he delivered the Ammonites
into his hand, whatever came forth out of the doors of his house to meet
him when he returned should be the Lord’s; it is also added in our
English version, “and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering,” Judges
xi, 31. The battle terminated auspiciously for Jephthah; the Ammonites
were defeated, and the Israelites ravaged their country. But on
returning toward his own house, his daughter, an only child, came out to
meet her father with timbrels and dances, accompanied by a chorus of
virgins, to celebrate his victory. On seeing her, Jephthah rent his
clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low;
for I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and cannot go back.” His
daughter intimated her readiness to accede to any vow he might have made
in which she was personally interested; only claiming a respite of two
months, during which she might go up to the mountains and bewail her
virginity with her companions. Jephthah yielded to this request, and at
the end of two months, according to the opinion of many, her father
offered her up in sacrifice, as a burnt-offering to the Lord, Judges xi,
34–39. It is, however, scarcely necessary to mention, that almost from
the days of Jephthah to the present time, it has been a subject of warm
contest among the critics and commentators, whether the judge of Israel
really sacrificed his daughter, or only devoted her to a state of
celibacy. Among those who contend for the former opinion, may be
particularly mentioned the very learned Professor Michaëlis, who insists
most peremptorily that the words, “did with her as he had vowed,” cannot
mean any thing else but that her father put her to death, and burned her
body as a burnt-offering. On this point, however, the remarks of Dr.
Hales are of great weight:--When Jephthah went forth to battle against
the Ammonites “he vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou wilt
surely give the children of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be, that
whatsoever cometh out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return
in peace from the children of Ammon, shall either be the Lord’s, or I
will offer it up [for] a burnt-offering,” Judges xi, 30, 31. According
to this rendering of the two conjunctions, ו, in the last clause,
_either_, _or_, which is justified by the Hebrew idiom, the paucity of
connecting particles in that language making it necessary that this
conjunction should often be understood disjunctively, the vow consisted
of two parts, 1. That what _person_ soever met him should be the Lord’s,
or be dedicated to his service. 2. That what _beast_ soever met him, if
clean, should be offered up for a burnt-offering unto the Lord. This
rendering, and this interpretation, is warranted by the Levitical law
about vows. The נדר, or _vow_ in general, included either persons,
beasts, or things, dedicated to the Lord for pious uses; which, if it
was a simple vow, was redeemable at certain prices, if the person
repented of his vow, and wished to commute it for money, according to
the age and sex of the person, Lev. xxvii, 1–8. This was a wise
regulation to remedy rash vows. But if the vow was accompanied with חרם,
_devotement_, it was irredeemable, as in the following cases:
“Notwithstanding, no devotement which a man shall devote unto the Lord,
[either] of man, or of beast, or of land of his own property, shall be
sold or redeemed. Every thing devoted is most holy unto the Lord,” Lev.
xxvii, 28. Here the three _vaus_ in the original should necessarily be
rendered disjunctively, _or_, as the last actually is in our public
translation, because there are three distinct subjects of devotement, to
be applied to distinct uses; the _man_, to be dedicated to the service
of the Lord, as Samuel by his mother, Hannah, 1 Sam. i, 11; the
_cattle_, if clean, such as oxen, sheep, goats, turtle doves, or
pigeons, to be sacrificed; and if unclean, as camels, horses, asses, to
be employed for carrying burdens in the service of the tabernacle or
temple; and the _lands_, to be sacred property. This law, therefore,
expressly applied, in its first branch, to Jephthah’s case, who had
_devoted_ his daughter to the Lord, or opened his mouth unto the Lord,
and therefore could not go back; as he declared in his grief at seeing
his daughter, and his only child, coming to meet him with timbrels and
dances. She was, therefore, necessarily devoted, but with her own
consent, to perpetual virginity, in the service of the tabernacle,
Judges xi, 36, 37. And such service was customary; for in the division
of the spoils taken in the first Midianite war, of the whole number of
captive virgins, “the Lord’s tribute was thirty-two persons,” Num. xxxi,
35–40. This instance appears to be decisive of the nature of her
devotement. Her father’s extreme grief on this occasion, and her
requisition of a respite of two months to bewail her virginity, are both
perfectly natural: having no other issue, he could only look forward to
the extinction of his name or family; and a state of celibacy, which is
reproachful among women every where, was peculiarly so among the
Israelites; and was therefore no ordinary sacrifice on her part, who,
though she generously gave up, could not but regret the loss of becoming
“a mother in Israel.” And he did with her according to his vow which he
had vowed, and she knew no man,” or remained a virgin all her life,
Judges xi, 34–49. There was also another case of devotement which was
irredeemable, and follows the former: “No one devoted, who shall be
devoted of man, shall be redeemed, but shall surely be put to death,”
Levit. xxvii, 29. This case differs materially from the former: 1. It is
confined to persons devoted, omitting beasts and lands. 2. It does not
relate to private property, as in the foregoing. 3. The subject of it
was to be utterly destroyed, instead of being “most holy unto the Lord.”
This law, therefore, related to aliens or public enemies devoted to
destruction, either by God, by the people, or by the magistrate. Of all
these we have instances in the Scriptures: 1. The Amalekites and
Canaanites were devoted by God himself. Saul, therefore, was guilty of a
breach of this law for sparing Agag, the king of the Amalekites, as
Samuel reproached him, 1 Sam. xv, 23: and “Samuel hewed Agag in pieces
before the Lord,” not as a sacrifice, according to Voltaire, but as a
criminal, “whose sword had made many women childless.” By this law the
Midianite women, who had been spared in battle, were slain, Num. xxxi,
14–17. 2. In Mount Hor, when the Israelites were attacked by Arad, king
of the southern Canaanites, who took some of them prisoners, they vowed
a vow unto the Lord, that they would utterly destroy these Canaanites,
and their cities, if the Lord should deliver them into their hand; which
the Lord ratified. Whence the place was called Hhormah, because the vow
was accompanied by _cherem_, or devotement to destruction, Num. xxi,
1–3. And the vow was accomplished, Judges i, 17. 3. In the Philistine
war, Saul adjured the people, and cursed any one that should taste food
until the evening. His own son, Jonathan, inadvertently ate a honey
comb, not knowing of his father’s oath, for which Saul sentenced him to
die. But the people interposed, and rescued him, for his public
services; thus assuming the power of dispensing, in their collective
capacity, with an unreasonable oath, 1 Sam. xiv, 24–45. This latter
case, therefore, is utterly irrelative to Jephthah’s vow, which did not
regard a foreign enemy, or a domestic transgressor, devoted to
destruction, but, on the contrary, was a vow of thanksgiving, and
therefore properly came under the former case. And that Jephthah could
not possibly have sacrificed his daughter, according to the vulgar
opinion, founded on incorrect translation, may appear from the following
considerations: 1. The sacrifice of children to Moloch was an
abomination to the Lord, of which in numberless passages, he expresses
his detestation; and it was prohibited by an express law, under pain of
death, as “a defilement of God’s sanctuary, and a profanation of his
holy name,” Levit. xx, 2, 3. Such a sacrifice, therefore, unto the Lord
himself, must be a still higher abomination. And there is no precedent
of any such under the law, in the Old Testament. 2. The case of Isaac
before the law, is irrelevant; for Isaac was not sacrificed; and it was
only proposed for a trial of Abraham’s faith. 3. No father, merely by
his own authority, could put an offending, much less an innocent, child
to death, upon any account, without the sentence of the magistrates,
Deut. xxi, 18–21, and the consent of the people, as in Jonathan’s case.
4. The Mischna, or traditional law of the Jews, is pointedly against it:
“If a Jew should devote his son or daughter, his man or maid servant,
who are Hebrews, the devotement would be void; because no man can devote
what is not his own, or of whose life he has not the absolute disposal.”
These arguments appear to be decisive against the sacrifice; and that
Jephthah could not even have devoted his daughter to celibacy against
her will, is evident from the history, and from the high estimation in
which she was always held by the daughters of Israel, for her filial
duty, and her hapless fate, which they celebrated by a regular
anniversary commemoration four days in the year, Judges xi, 40. We may,
however, remark, that, if it could be more clearly established that
Jephthah actually immolated his daughter, there is not the least
evidence that his conduct was sanctioned by God. Jephthah was manifestly
a superstitious and ill-instructed man, and, like Samson, an instrument
of God’s power, rather than an example of his grace.
JEREMIAH. The Prophet Jeremiah was of the sacerdotal race, being, as he
records himself, one of the priests that dwelt at Anathoth, in the land
of Benjamin, a city appropriated out of that tribe to the use of the
priests, the sons of Aaron, Joshua xxi, 18, and situate, as we learn
from St. Jerom, about three miles north of Jerusalem. Some have supposed
his father to have been that Hilkah, the high priest, by whom the book
of the law was found in the temple in the reign of Josiah: but for this
there is no better ground than his having borne the same name, which was
no uncommon one among the Jews; whereas, had he been in reality the high
priest, he would doubtless have been mentioned by that distinguishing
title, and not put upon a level with priests of an ordinary and inferior
class. Jeremiah appears to have been very young when he was called to
the exercise of the prophetical office, from which he modestly
endeavoured to excuse himself by pleading his youth and incapacity; but
being overruled by the divine authority, he set himself to discharge the
duties of his function with unremitted diligence and fidelity during a
period of at least forty-two years, reckoned from the thirteenth year of
Josiah’s reign. In the course of his ministry he met with great
difficulties and opposition from his countrymen of all degrees, whose
persecution and ill usage sometimes wrought so far upon his mind, as to
draw from him expressions, in the bitterness of his soul, which many
have thought hard to reconcile with his religious principles; but which,
when duly considered, may be found to demand our pity for his unremitted
sufferings, rather than our censure for any want of piety and reverence
toward God. He was, in truth, a man of unblemished piety and
conscientious integrity; a warm lover of his country, whose misery he
pathetically deplores; and so affectionately attached to his countrymen,
notwithstanding their injurious treatment of him, that he chose rather
to abide with them, and undergo all hardships in their company, than
separately to enjoy a state of ease and plenty, which the favour of the
king of Babylon would have secured to him. At length, after the
destruction of Jerusalem, being carried with the remnant of the Jews
into Egypt, whither they had resolved to retire, though contrary to his
advice, upon the murder of Gedaliah, whom the Chaldeans had left
governor in Judea, he there continued warmly to remonstrate against
their idolatrous practices, foretelling the consequences that would
inevitably follow. But his freedom and zeal are said to have cost him
his life; for the Jews at Tahpanhes, according to tradition, took such
offence at him that they stoned him to death. This account of the manner
of his end, though not absolutely certain, is at least very probable,
considering the temper and disposition of the parties concerned. Their
wickedness, however, did not long pass without its reward; for, in a few
years after, they were miserably destroyed by the Babylonian armies
which invaded Egypt according to the prophet’s prediction, Jer. xliv,
27, 28.
The idolatrous apostasy, and other criminal enormities of the people of
Judah, and the severe judgments which God was prepared to inflict upon
them, but not without a distant prospect of future restoration and
deliverance, are the principal subject matters of the prophecies of
Jeremiah; excepting only the forty-fifth chapter, which relates
personally to Baruch, and the six succeeding chapters, which respect the
fortunes of some particular Heathen nations. It is observable, however,
that though many of these prophecies have their particular dates annexed
to them, and other dates may be tolerably well conjectured from certain
internal marks and circumstances, there appears much disorder in the
arrangement, not easy to be accounted for on any principle of regular
design, but probably the result of some accident or other, which has
disturbed the original order. The best arrangement of the chapters
appears to be according to the list which will be subjoined; the
different reigns in which the prophecies were delivered were most
probably as follows: The first twelve chapters seem to contain all the
prophecies delivered in the reign of the good King Josiah. During the
short reign of Shallum, or Jehoahaz, his second son, who succeeded him,
Jeremiah does not appear to have had any revelation. Jehoiakim, the
eldest son of Josiah, succeeded. The prophecies of this reign are
continued on from the thirteenth to the twentieth chapter inclusively;
to which we must add the twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fifth,
twenty-sixth, thirty-fifth, and thirty-sixth chapters, together with the
forty-fifth, forty-sixth, forty-seventh, and most probably the
forty-eighth, and as far as the thirty-fourth verse of the forty-ninth
chapter. Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, succeeded. We read of no
prophecy that Jeremiah actually delivered in this king’s reign; but the
fate of Jeconiah, his being carried into captivity, and continuing an
exile till the time of his death, were foretold early in his father’s
reign, as may be particularly seen in the twenty-second chapter. The
last king of Judah was Zedekiah, the youngest son of Josiah. The
prophecies delivered in his reign are contained in the twenty-first and
twenty-fourth chapters, the twenty-seventh to the thirty-fourth, and the
thirty-seventh to the thirty-ninth inclusively, together with the last
six verses of the forty-ninth chapter, and the fiftieth and fifty-first
chapters concerning the fall of Babylon. The siege of Jerusalem, in the
reign of Zedekiah, and the capture of the city, are circumstantially
related in the fifty-second chapter; and a particular account of the
subsequent transactions is given in the fortieth to the forty-fourth
inclusively. The arrangement of the chapters, alluded to above, is here
subjoined: i-xx, xxii, xxiii, xxv, xxvi, xxxv, xxxvi, xlv, xxiv,
xxix-xxxi, xxvii, xxviii, xxi, xxxiv, xxxvii, xxxii, xxxiii, xxxviii,
xxxix, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth verse, xxxix, from the first
to the fourteenth verse, xl-xliv, xlvi, and so on.
The prophecies of Jeremiah, of which the circumstantial accomplishment
is often specified in the Old and New Testament, are of a very
distinguished and illustrious character. He foretold the fate of
Zedekiah, Jer. xxxiv, 2–5; 2 Chron. xxxvi, 11–21; 2 Kings xxv, 5; Jer.
lii, 11; the Babylonish captivity, the precise time of its duration, and
the return of the Jews. He describes the destruction of Babylon, and the
downfall of many nations, Jer. xxv, 12; ix, 26; xxv, 19–25; xlii, 10–18;
xlvi, and the following chapters, in predictions, of which the gradual
and successive completion kept up the confidence of the Jews for the
accomplishment of those prophecies, which he delivered relative to the
Messiah and his period, Jer. xxiii, 5, 6; xxx, 9; xxxi, 15; xxxii,
14–18; xxxiii, 9–26. He foreshowed the miraculous conception of Christ,
Jer. xxxi, 22, the virtue of his atonement, the spiritual character of
his covenant, and the inward efficacy of his laws, Jer. xxxi, 31–36;
xxxiii, 8. Jeremiah, contemplating those calamities which impended over
his country, represented, in the most descriptive terms, and under the
most impressive images, the destruction that the invading enemy should
produce. He bewailed, in pathetic expostulation, the shameless
adulteries which had provoked the Almighty, after long forbearance, to
threaten Judah with inevitable punishment, at the time that false
prophets deluded the nation with the promises of “assured peace,” and
when the people, in impious contempt of “the Lord’s word,” defied its
accomplishment. Jeremiah intermingles with his prophecies some
historical relations relative to his own conduct, and to the completion
of those predictions which he had delivered. The reputation of Jeremiah
had spread among foreign nations, and his prophecies were deservedly
celebrated in other countries. Many Heathen writers also have
undesignedly borne testimony to the truth and accuracy of his prophetic
and historical descriptions.
As to the style of Jeremiah, says Bishop Lowth, this prophet is by no
means wanting either in elegance or sublimity, although, generally
speaking, inferior to Isaiah in both. His thoughts, indeed, are somewhat
less elevated, and he is commonly more large and diffuse in his
sentences; but the reason of this may be, that he is mostly taken up
with the gentler passions of grief and pity, for the expression of which
he has a peculiar talent. This is most evident in the Lamentations,
where those passions altogether predominate; but it is often visible
also in his prophecies, in the former part of the book more especially,
which is principally poetical; the middle parts are chiefly historical;
but the last part, consisting of six chapters, is entirely poetical, and
contains several oracles distinctly marked, in which this prophet falls
very little short of the lofty style of Isaiah. But of the whole book of
Jeremiah it is hardly the one half which I look upon as poetical.
Jeremiah survived to behold the sad accomplishment of all his darkest
predictions. He witnessed all the horrors of the famine, and, when that
had done its work, the triumph of the enemy. He saw the strong holds of
the city cast down, the palace of Solomon, the temple of God, with all
its courts, its roofs of cedar and of gold, levelled to the earth, or
committed to the flames; the sacred vessels, the ark of the covenant
itself, with the cherubim, pillaged by profane hands. What were the
feelings of a patriotic and religious Jew at this tremendous crisis, he
has left on record in his unrivalled elegies. Never did city suffer a
more miserable fate, never was ruined city lamented in language so
exquisitely pathetic. Jerusalem is, as it were, personified, and
bewailed with the passionate sorrow of private and domestic attachment;
while the more general pictures of the famine, the common misery of
every rank, and age, and sex, all the desolation, the carnage, the
violation, the dragging away into captivity, the remembrance of former
glories, of the gorgeous ceremonies and the glad festivals, the awful
sense of the divine wrath heightening the present calamities, are
successively drawn with all the life and reality of an eye-witness. They
combine the truth of history with the deepest pathos of poetry.
JERICHO was a city of Benjamin, about seven leagues from Jerusalem, and
two from the Jordan, Joshua xviii, 21. Moses calls it the city of palm
trees, Deut. xxxiv, 3, because of palm trees growing in the plain of
Jericho. Josephus says, that in the territory of this city were not only
many palm trees, but also the balsam tree. The valley of Jericho was
watered by a rivulet which had been formerly salt and bitter, but was
sweetened by the Prophet Elisha, 2 Kings ii, 19. Jericho was the first
city in Canaan taken by Joshua, ii, 1, 2, &c. He sent thither spies, who
were received by Rahab, lodged in her house, and preserved from the king
of Jericho. Joshua received orders to besiege Jericho, soon after his
passage over Jordan, Joshua vi, 1–3, &c. God commanded the Hebrews to
march round the city once a day for seven days together. The soldiers
marched first, probably out of the reach of the enemies’ arrows, and
after them the priests, the ark, &c. On the seventh day, they marched
seven times round the city; and at the seventh, while the trumpets were
sounding, and all the people shouting, the walls fell down. The rabbins
say, that the first day was our Sunday, and the seventh the Sabbath day.
During the first six days, the people continued in profound silence; but
on the seventh Joshua commanded them to shout. Accordingly they all
exerted their voices, and the walls being overthrown, they entered the
city, every man in the place opposite to him. Jericho being devoted by
God, they set fire to the city, and consecrated all the gold, silver,
and brass. Then Joshua said, “Cursed be the man before the Lord who
shall rebuild Jericho.” About five hundred and thirty years after this,
Hiel, of Bethel, undertook to rebuild it; but he lost his eldest son,
Abiram, at laying the foundations, and his youngest son, Segub, when he
hung up the gates. However, we are not to imagine that there was no city
of Jericho till the time of Hiel. There was a city of palm trees,
probably the same as Jericho, under the Judges, Judges iii, 13. David’s
ambassadors, who had been insulted by the Ammonites, resided at Jericho
till their beards were grown, 2 Sam. x, 4. There was, therefore, a city
of Jericho which stood in the neighbourhood of the original Jericho.
These two places are distinguished by Josephus. After Hiel of Bethel had
rebuilt old Jericho, no one scrupled to dwell there. Our Saviour wrought
miracles at Jericho.
According to Pococke, the mountains to which the absurd name of
Quarantania has been arbitrarily given, are the highest in all Judea;
and he is probably correct; they form part of a chain extending from
Scythopolis into Idumea. The fountain of Elisha he states to be a soft
water, rather warm; he found in it some small shell fish of the
turbinated kind. Close by the ruined aqueduct are the remains of a fine
paved way, with a fallen column, supposed to be a Roman milestone. The
hills nearest to Jerusalem consist, according to Hasselquist, of a very
hard limestone; and different sorts of plants are found on them, in
particular the myrtle, the carob tree, and the turpentine tree; but
farther toward Jericho they are bare and barren, the hard limestone
giving way to a looser kind, sometimes white and sometimes grayish, with
interjacent layers of a reddish micaceous stone, _saxum purum micaceum_.
The vales, though now bare and uncultivated, and full of pebbles,
contain good red mould, which would amply reward the husbandman’s toil.
Nothing can be more savage than the present aspect of these wild and
gloomy solitudes, through which runs the very road where is laid the
scene of that exquisite parable, the good Samaritan, and from that time
to the present, it has been the haunt of the most desperate bandits,
being one of the most dangerous in Palestine. Sometimes the track leads
along the edges of cliffs and precipices, which threaten destruction on
the slightest false step; at other times it winds through craggy passes,
overshadowed by projecting or perpendicular rocks. At one place the road
has been cut through the very apex of a hill, the rocks overhanging it
on either side. Here, in 1820, an English traveller, Sir Frederick
Henniker, was attacked by the Arabs with fire-arms, who stripped him
naked, and left him severely wounded: “It was past mid-day, and burning
hot,” says Sir Frederick; “I bled profusely; and two vultures, whose
business it is to consume corpses, were hovering over me. I should
scarcely have had strength to resist, had they chosen to attack me.”
The modern village of Jericho is described by Mr. Buckingham as a
settlement of about fifty dwellings, all very mean in their appearance,
and fenced in front with thorny bushes, while a barrier of the same
kind, the most effectual that could be raised against mounted Arabs,
encircles the town. A fine brook flows by it, which empties itself into
the Jordan; the nearest point of that river is about three miles
distant. The grounds in the immediate vicinity of the village, being
fertilized by this stream, bear crops of dourra, Indian corn, rice, and
onions. The population is entirely Mohammedan, and is governed by a
sheikh: their habits are those of Bedouins, and robbery and plunder form
their chief and most gainful occupation. The whole of the road from
Jerusalem to the Jordan, is held to be the most dangerous in Palestine;
and indeed, in this portion of it, the very aspect of the scenery is
sufficient, on the one hand, to tempt to robbery and murder, and, on the
other, to occasion a dread of it in those who pass that way. One must be
amid these wild and gloomy solitudes, surrounded by an armed band, and
feel the impatience of the traveller who rushes on to catch a new view
at every pass and turn; one must be alarmed at the very tramp of the
horses’ hoofs rebounding through the caverned rocks, and at the savage
shouts of the footmen, scarcely less loud than the echoing thunder
produced by the discharge of their pieces in the valleys; one must
witness all this upon the spot, before the full force and beauty of the
admirable story of the good Samaritan can be perceived. Here, pillage,
wounds, and death would be accompanied with double terror, from the
frightful aspect of every thing around. Here, the unfeeling act of
passing by a fellow creature in distress, as the priest and Levite are
said to have done, strikes one with horror, as an act almost more than
inhuman. And here, too, the compassion of the good Samaritan is doubly
virtuous, from the purity of the motive which must have led to it, in a
spot where no eyes were fixed on him to draw forth the performance of
any duty, and from the bravery which was necessary to admit of a man’s
exposing himself, by such delay, to the risk of a similar fate to that
from which he was endeavouring to rescue his fellow creature.