[69] 2 Kings xxiii. 34-xxiv. 7.
[70] iii. 274.
[71] xxii. 30.
[72] R.V., "Ah my brother! or Ah sister!... Ah lord! or Ah his glory!" The text is based on an emendation of Graetz, following the Syriac. (Giesebrecht.)
[73] Chap. xiii.
[74] Jude 9.
[75] Apc. vi. 10.
[76] xxii. 17. The exact meaning of the word translated "violence" (so A.V., R.V.) is very doubtful.
[77] _Hist._, etc., iii. 266.
[78] Rawlinson, _Ancient Egypt_ (Story of the Nations).
[79] Dan. iv. 30.
[80] I have followed R.V., but the text is probably corrupt. Cheyne follows LXX. (A) in reading "because thou viest with Ahab": LXX. (B) has "Ahaz" (so Ewald). Giesebrecht proposes to neglect the accents and translate, "viest in cedar buildings with thy father" (_i.e._ Solomon).
[81] According to Giesebrecht (cf. however the last note) this clause is an objection which the prophet puts into the mouth of the king. "My father enjoyed the good things of life--why should not I?" The prophet rejoins, "Nay, but he did judgment," etc.
[82] Isa. lvii. (English Versions).
[83] Macc. ii. 59, ix. 10.
[84] iii. 269.
xxii. 20-30.
"A despised broken vessel,"--JER. xxii. 28.
"A young lion. And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion and he learned to catch the prey, he devoured men."--EZEK. xix. 5, 6.
"Jehoiachin ... did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his father had done."--2 KINGS xxiv. 8, 9.
We have seen that our book does not furnish a consecutive biography of Jeremiah; we are not even certain as to the chronological order of the incidents narrated. Yet these chapters are clear and full enough to give us an accurate idea of what Jeremiah did and suffered during the eleven years of Jehoiakim's reign. He was forced to stand by while the king lent the weight of his authority to the ancient corruptions of the national religion, and conducted his home and foreign policy without any regard to the will of Jehovah, as expressed by His prophet. His position was analogous to that of a Romanist priest under Elizabeth or a Protestant divine in the reign of James II. According to some critics, Nebuchadnezzar was to Jeremiah what Philip of Spain was to the priest and William of Orange to the Puritan.
During all these long and weary years, the prophet watched the ever multiplying tokens of approaching ruin. He was no passive spectator, but a faithful watchman to the house of Israel; again and again he risked his life in a vain attempt to make his fellow-countrymen aware of their danger.[87] The vision of the coming sword was ever before his eyes, and he blew the trumpet and warned the people; but they would not be warned, and the prophet knew that the sword would come and take them away in their iniquity. He paid the penalty of his faithfulness; at one time or another he was beaten, imprisoned, proscribed, and driven to hide himself; still he persevered in his mission, as time and occasion served. Yet he survived Jehoiakim, partly because he was more anxious to serve Jehovah than to gain the glorious deliverance of martyrdom; partly because his royal enemy feared to proceed to extremities against a prophet of Jehovah, who was befriended by powerful nobles, and might possibly have relations with Nebuchadnezzar himself. Jehoiakim's religion--for like the Athenians he was probably "very religious"--was saturated with superstition, and it was only when deeply moved that he lost the sense of an external sanctity attaching to Jeremiah's person. In Israel prophets were hedged by a more potent divinity than kings.
Meanwhile Jeremiah was growing old in years and older in experience. When Jehoiakim died, it was nearly forty years since the young priest had first been called "to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to overthrow; to build and to plant"; it was more than eleven since his brighter hopes were buried in Josiah's grave. Jehovah had promised that He would make His servant into "an iron pillar and brasen walls."[88] The iron was tempered and hammered into shape during these days of conflict and endurance, like--