570
J£11EML\.H
JEREMIAH
The words, ' See, I have set thee over the nations,' indicate a change of >-iew from that of the earlier prophets, though Jeremiah waa perhaps not con- scious of the change (28'"). Israel is no more to be a people that dwells aloue (Xu 23'), the stream of its history is to llow into and colour that of the history of the nations. If prophecy now begins to concern itself with the nations, it is because J" concerns Himself with them. The consciousness of one God has created the consciousness of one world and one mankind. Jeremiah's presentiments at this time are expressed in the two symbols 1""": First, the symbol of the almond tree, meaning that J" is 'wakeful' in regard to His word and jiurposes, and will speedily execute them ; and second, the seething caldron with its mouth to- wards the south, indicating that the North ia about to pour its desolating forces over the land. The substance of his prophetic speeches under Josiah is given in chs. 2-0. These chs. reflect chiefly his teaching before the Kefonn, but contain allusions to the peo]de's mind later, and his judg- ment on it(2*> 3'-''4"). The two main thoughts running through the chs. are, first, his verdict on the i)eople's history ; it has been one long course of unfaithfulness to J " (2'-4*) ; and, secondly, his un- changeable conviction that the issue of such a history must be the destruction of the nation (4°-6*'). His thoughts run greatly on the same lines with those of Hoaea. Israel was true to J" in the wilderness, — and with a sorrowful remin- iscence J" recalls the time, ' I remember the kindness of thy youth, thy bridal love, how thou didst follow me in the wilderness' (2-), — but aiiostatized and became unfaithful on entering Canaan ; and this unfaithfulness has continued and become aggravated. Under the name of • whoredom ' Jeremiah includes not only the service of deities nominally diflerent from J", but the debased service of J" at the high places, with images and other Canaanite usages. This judg- ment of Jeremiah has not only ideal or absolute truth, to the efi'ect that the popular worship showed no consciousness of the true being of J", it has historical truth also ; for no doubt the Canaanites absorbed into Israel carried over much of their religious practice as well as their places of worship into the nation. Even the Arabs were conscious that imaLes were a later innovation in their re- ligion. How profound Jeremiah's conception of the true religion of J" was, and how absolute he felt the contrast between it and the popular relijjion to be, appears from the figure in which he describes the one and the other : ' They have forsaken the fountain of living water, to hew out for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water.'
The circumstances ot Jeremiah's ministry at this time are not told, but some things give us a glimpse into them. The people reclaim against his judg- ment on their religion, saying that it is not true, and that, if there was any truth in it, the evil had been amended. That is, they claim that their service is in their intention a service of J", ' How canst thou say, I have not gone after the baals ? ' (2^) ; and that such evils as the ' high places ' had been done away (2 '^ 3*- '). Their claim that they meant to serve J " was no doubt just ; it was their conception of Him that was at fault, and the modes of giving this conception expression. But both the conception and the modes of expressing it had been inherited by them, and they were unable to see that the prophet's charges were just. As to the other point, Josiah's removal of the ' high places ' mvut have seemed good to Jeremiah, and possibly ne uoped something from the Reform at first, but even in Josiah's days he had ceased to cherish any illusions in regard to it. The worship was altered, the Being worshipped remained the same : men
had changed their customs, they were unchanged in their mind. The work was superficial, a casting of seed into the old field rank with thorns ; they must plough deeper — 'Circumcise the foreskins of j-our heart' (4'-*). Jeremiah is not mentioned in connexion with Josiah's reform, nor indeed is ho once named in the Book of Kings, but some scholars interpret Jer 11'"' as meaning that he undertook an itinerant mission round ' the cities of Judah ' to recommend acceptance of the Book of Deuteronomy. The idea is most improbable. The prophet s ' amen ' (v.') expresses acquiescence in the words of J", ' Cursed be the man that heareth not the words of this covenant,' not obedience to a command (vv.*-'; cf. 28'). Jeremiah may have sought to impress on men the general idea of Dt, that of the covenant between J" and Israel, for this was his own idea in another form, but a formal championship of I)t would have been very unlike him. The expression ' cities of Judah and streets of Jerusalem ' is not to be pressed to imply a circuit of the cities any more than of the streets. Wlion Jeremiah spoke anywhere, he spoke in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for his words went out to all the land (20^), just as when he spoke in Talipanhes he addressed the dwellers in Pathros, or Upper Egypt (44" etc.). The phrase ' cities of Judah and streets of Jer- usalem ' means the country and the capital [1^ 11"; cf. 4°). The other feeling prominent in the prophet's mind at this time is the imminent de- struction of the i)eople by a foe from the north (4°-6*'). This ' foe ' might be a creation of his moral presentiment, and assigned to the ' north ' as the cloudy region of mystery where storms gather and descend upon the world of men, but such descriptions as that in S""- seem to imply an actual people known to the time. It is usually thought that tlie Scythians are meant. The pathos and depth of these chs. (2-6) are not sur- passed by anything in Scripture. Two things in them may be referred to — first, the prophet's pro- found sense of the national sin, and his presenti- ment of the desolations which moral evil must work in the earth. In a strange passage (4^"-) he fancies himself to have outlived the judgment, and to be treading on the ashes of the extinct world. He is the last man, alone amidst the silence of death : ' I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void ; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all tne birds of the heavens were fled.' And second, his agitation at the thought of the doom hanging over his people : ' My bowels, my bowels I I am pained at my heart ; my heart is disquieted in me ; I cannot hold my peace, because my soul hath heard the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war' (4""'-). Other passages reveal his compassion for the people, as 4" 6=^"^ lO'""-.