(4.) Some portions of Kings and of Jeremiah are al- most identical, particularly 2 Kings xxiv, 18-xxv, and Jer. lii. The two passages are so much alike, though diifering in some respects, as to appear like two narra- tions of the same event by the same person, in each of which some points arc related with more fulness than in the other, for some particular purpose. Parts of this narrative are also contained in nearly the same words in Jer. xxxix, 1-10 ; xl, 7-xli, 10.
(5.) The impression produced on the reader is that the writer of Kings was not taken away into captivity either in the days of Jehoiachin or of Zedekiah, as the writer of Chronicles appears to have been ; and this cir- cumstance agrees with the supposition that Jeremiah was the writer. We know tliat, after being carried away as far as Ramah with the captives from Jerusa- lem, he was set free, and permitted to retiu-n to liis own land with Gedaliah. He was afterwards taken away to Tahpanhes, in Egypt, where we obtain the last certain view of liim. Besides this, many other points of agree- ment, more or less striking, present themselves to the careful reader — the book of Jeremiah serving more than any other part of Scriptura to illustrate and explain the contemporaneous portions of the Kings, and the events recorded in Kings serving as a key to many portions of the prophet. In this way a number of undesigned co- incidences appear between the supposed and the ac- knowledged writings of Jeremiah, as the following : 2 Kings xxv, 1-3, comp. with Jer. xxxviii, 1-9. ? Kings xxv, 11, 12, lS-21, " Jer. xxxix, 10-14 ; xl, 1-5. 2 Kings xxiv, 13, " Jer. xxvii, lS-20 ; xxviii, 3-6.
2 Kings xxiv, 14, " Jer. xxiv, 1.
2 Kings xxi, xxii, xxiii, " Jer. vii, 15 ; xv, 4 ; xix, 3.
(6.) The absence of all mention of Jeremiah in the history, although he was so prominently active in the iour or five last reigns, both in the court and among the people, is only explicable on the supposition that Jeremiah was himself the writer. Had it been the work t)f another, he must, as in Chronicles, have had very distinct mention.
(7.) The events singled out for mention in the con- cise narrative are precisely those of which Jeremiah hail personal knowledge, and in which he took special interest. The famine in 2 Kings xxv, 3 was one which had nearly cost Jeremiah his life (Jer. xxxviii, 9). The capture of the city, the flight and capture of Zedekiah, the Judgment and punishnielit of Zedekiah and his sons at i;il)lali, are related in 2 Kings xxv, 1-7, in almost the identical words which we read in Jer. xxxix, 1-7. So are the breaking down and burning of the Temple, the king's palace, and tlie houses of the great men, the deportation to Babylon of the fugitives and the surviv- ing inhabitants of Jerusalem aniUIuda-a. The intimate knowledge of what Xebuzar-adan did, both in respect tt) those selected for capital inniishment and tliose car- ried away captive, and those po'or whom he "left in the land, displayed by the writer of 2 Kings xxv, 11, 12, 18-21, is fully explained l)y Jer. xxxix," 10-14, xl, 1-5. ■where we read that Jeremiah was actually one of the
captives who followed Nebuzar-adan as far as Kamah, and was very kindly treated by him. The careful enu- meration of the pillars and of the sacred vessels of the Temple which were plundered by the ChahUeans tallies exactly with the prediction of Jeremiah concerning them (xxvii, 19-22). The paragraph concerning the ap- pointment of Gedaliah as governor of the remnant, and his murder by Ishmael, and the flight of the Jews into Egypt, is merely an abridged account of what Jeremiah tells us more fully (xl-xliii, 7), and are events in which personally he was deeply concerned. The writer in Kings has nothing more to tell us concerning the Jews or Chaldees in the land of Judah, which exactly agrees with the hypothesis that he is Jeremiah, who we know was carried down to Egypt with the fugitives. In fact, the date of the writing and the position of the writer seem as clearly marked by the termination of the narra- tive at V, 2G, as in the case of the Acts of the Apostles. It may be added, though the argument is of less weight, that the annexation of this chapter to the writings of Jeremiah so as to form Jer. lii (with the additional clause contained in vs. 28-30) ic an evidence of a very ancient, if not a contemporary belief, that Jeremiah was the author of it. Again, the special mention of Scraiah the high-priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, as slain by Nebuzar-adan (v, 18), together with three other priests, is very significant when taken in connec- tion with Jer. xxi, 1, xxix, 25-29, passages which show that Zephaniah belonged to the faction which o]iposed the prophet, a faction which was headed by priests and false prophets (Jer. xxvi, 7, 8, 11, IG). Going back to the xxivth chapter, we find in verse 14 an enumeration of the captives taken with Jehoiachin identical with that in Jer. xxiv, 1 ; in verse 13 a reference to the ves- sels of the Temple precisely similar to that in Jer. xxvii, 18-20, xxviii, 3, G, and in verse 3, 4, a reference to the idolatries and bloodshed of Manasseh very similar to those in Jer. ii, 34, xix, 4-8, etc., a reference which also connects chap, xxiv with xxi, 6, 13-1 G. In verse 2 the enumeration of the hostile nations, and the reference to the prophets of God, point directly to Jer. xxv, 9, 90, 21, and the reference to Pharaoh-necho in verse 7 points to verse 19, and to xlvi, 1-12. Brief as the narrative is, it brmgs out all the chief points in the political events of the time which we know were much in Jeremiah's mind ; and yet, -which is exceedingl}^ remarkable, Jere- miah is never once named (as he is in 2 Chron. xxxvi, 12, 21), although the manner of the writer is frequently to connect the sufferings of Judah with their sins and their neglect of the Word of God (2 Kings xvii, 13 sq.; xxiv, 2, 3, etc.). This leads to another striking coin- cidence between that portion of the history wliich be- longs to Jeremiah's times and the writings of Jeremiah himself. De AVctte speaks of the superficial character of the historj' of Jeremiah's times as hostile to the the- ory of Jeremiah's authorship. Now^, considering the nature of these annals, and their conciseness, this criti- cism seems very imfounded as regards the reigns of Jo- siah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. It must, ho\vever, be acknowledged that, as regards Jchoiakim's reign, and especially the latter part of it, and the way in which he came by his death, the narrative is much more meagre than one would have expected from a con- temporary writer living on the spot. But exactly the same paucity of information is found in those otherwise copious notices of contemporary events with which Jer- emiah's prophecies are interspersed. Let any one open, e. g. Townsend's Arrangement or Geneste's F'orallel Histories, and he will see at a glance how remarkably little light Jeremiah's narrative or jirophecies throw upon the latter part of Jchoiakim's reign. The cause of this silence may be ditlicult to assign, but, whatever it was, whether absence from Jerusalem, possibly on the mission described in Jer. xiii, or imprisonment, or any other impediment, it operated equally on Jcremiali and on the writer of 2 Kings xxiv. When it is borne in mind that the writer of 2 Ivings was a contemporary