There comes a time when we may apply to the aged saint the words of Browning's _Death in the Desert_:--
"So is myself withdrawn into my depths, The soul retreated from the perished brain Whence it was wont to feel and use the world Through these dull members, done with long ago."
And the poet's comparison of this soul to
"A stick once fire from end to end; Now, ashes save the tip that holds a spark."
Love craves to watch to the last, because the spark may
"Run back, spread itself A little where the fire was.... And we would not lose The last of what might happen on his face."
Such privileges may be granted to a few chosen disciples, probably they were in this case granted to Baruch; but they are mostly withheld from the world, lest blind irreverence should see in the aged saint nothing but
"Second childishness, and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
[173] Combined from verses 16, 17, and 25.
[174] xv. 4.
[175] As to the fulfilment of this prophecy see Chap. XVII.
[176] MELEKHETH HASHSHAMAYIM. The Masoretic pointing seems to indicate a rendering "service" or work of heaven, probably in the sense of "host of heaven," _i.e._ the stars, מְלֶכֶת being written defectively for מְלֶאכֶת, but this translation is now pretty generally abandoned. Cf. C. J. Ball, Giesebrecht, Orelli, Cheyne, etc., on vii. 18, and especially Kuenen's treatise on the Queen of Heaven--in the _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, translated by Budde--to which this section is largely indebted.
[177] Ezek. viii.
[178] The worship of Tammuz and of "creeping things and abominable beasts" etc.
[179] Kuenen, 208.
[180] Schrader (Whitehouse's translation), ii. 207.
[181] Kuenen, 206.
[182] Sayce, _Higher Criticism_, etc., 80.
[183] So Giesebrecht on vii. 18. Kuenen argues for the identification of the Queen of Heaven with the planet Venus.
[184] Kuenen, 211.