"To spoil the dead of weed Is sacrilege, and doth all sins exceed."
And the destruction of Moab is decreed by the earlier prophet Amos, "because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime," thus violating a law universally recognised as binding upon the conscience of nations (Amos ii. 1). Cf. also Gen. xxiii.
Thus death itself was not to be a sufficient expiation for the inveterate guilt of the nation. Judgment was to pursue them even after death. But the prophet's vision does not penetrate beyond this present scene. With the visible world, so far as he is aware, the punishment terminates. He gives no hint here, nor elsewhere, of any further penalties awaiting individual sinners in the unseen world. The scope of his prophecy indeed is almost purely national, and limited to the present life. It is one of the recognised conditions of Old Testament religious thought.
And the ruin of the people is the retribution reserved for what Manasseh did in Jerusalem. To the prophet, as to the author of the book of Kings, who wrote doubtless under the influence of his words, the guilt contracted by Judah under that wicked king was unpardonable. But it would convey a false impression if we left the matter here; for the whole course of his after-preaching--his exhortations and promises, as well as his threats--prove that Jeremiah did not suppose that the nation could not be saved by genuine repentance and permanent amendment. What he intends rather to affirm is that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon children, who are partakers of their sins. It is the doctrine of St. Matt. xxiii. 29 _sqq._; a doctrine which is not merely a theological opinion, but a matter of historical observation.
_And I will set over them four kinds--It is an oracle of Iahvah--the sword to slay, and the dogs to hale, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy. And I will make them a sport_ _for all the realms of earth; on account of Manasseh ben Hezekiah king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem._
Jerusalem!--the mention of that magical name touches another chord in the prophet's soul; and the fierce tones of his oracle of doom change into a dirge-like strain of pity without hope.
"For who will have compassion on Thee, O Jerusalem? And who will yield thee comfort? And who will turn aside to ask of thy welfare? 'Twas thou that rejectedst Me (it is Iahvah's word); Backward wouldst thou wend: So I stretched forth My hand against thee and destroyed thee; I wearied of relenting. And I winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I bereaved, I undid My people: Yet they returned not from their own ways. His widows outnumbered before Me the sand of seas: I brought them against the Mother of Warriors a harrier at high noon; I threw upon her suddenly anguish and horrors. She that had borne seven sons did pine away; She breathèd out her soul. Her sun did set, while it yet was day; He blushed and paled. But their remnant will I give to the sword Before their foes: (It is Iahvah's word)."
The fate of Jerusalem would strike the nations dumb with horror; it would not inspire pity, for man would recognise that it was absolutely just. Or perhaps the thought rather is, In proving false to Me, thou wert false to thine only friend: Me thou hast estranged by thy faithlessness; and from the envious rivals, who beset thee on every side, thou canst expect nothing but rejoicing at thy downfall (Ps. cxxxvi.; Lam. ii. 15-17; Obad. 10 _sqq._). The peculiar solitariness of Israel among the nations (Num. xxiii. 9) aggravated the anguish of her overthrow.
In what follows, the dreadful past appears as a prophecy of the yet more terrible future. The poet-seer's pathetic monody moralizes the lost battle of Megiddo--that fatal day when the sun of Judah set in what seemed the high day of her prosperity, and all the glory and the promise of good king Josiah vanished like a dream in sudden darkness. Men might think--doubtless Jeremiah thought, in the first moments of despair, when the news of that overwhelming disaster was brought to Jerusalem, with the corpse of the good king, the dead hope of the nation--that this crushing blow was proof that Iahvah had rejected His people, in the exercise of a sovereign caprice, and without reference to their own attitude towards Him. But, says or chants the prophet, in solemn rhythmic utterance,