3. Jorcmiah's warnings became more and more definite. He foresaw, at any rate in its main outlines, the course which events wo11lcl shortly after- wards take, and refers expressly to the dishonoured burial of Jehoiakim, and the captivity of the youthful Jehoiachin. 1 In the presence of such misfortunes he becomes tender-hearted, and gives vent to his sympathetic emotion precisely as our Lord does in similar circumstances. How touch- fog are the words !- " Weep not over one that is dead, neither lament for him; Weep (rather) for one that is gone away; For he will return no more, Nor see bis natlve country.'' (Ch. xxii. 10.) And in another passage ( eh. xxiv.) he speaks both kindly and hopefully -of those who have been carried away into exile, while those who are left .at home are described, most expressively, a9 "bad figs, very bad, that cannot be eaten." "All that we hear of the later history helps us," Mr. Maurice remarks, "to understand the force and truth of this sign. The reign of Zedekiah presents us with the most vivid picture of a king and people sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss, ever and anon making wild -and frantic efforts to rise out of it, imputing their evil to every one but themselves,-their struggles for a nominal freedom always proving them to be both slaves and tyrants at heart." 9 The evil, however, was perhaps by nothing so much intensified as by the hearing which the people, and especially the rulers, accorded to the :flat- tering prophets who announced a too speedy termination to the clearly impending captivity. One of these, named Hananiah, declared that in two years the yoke of the King of Babylon should be broken, and the Jewish . exi~ be restored, together with the vessels of the sanctuary ( eh. xxviii. ). "Not in two but in seventy years," was virtually Jeremiah's reply. If the Jews who remained did not submit quietly, they would be utterly destroyed. If, on the other hand, they were obedient, and " brought their necks under the yoke of the King of Babylon," they would be left undisturbed in their own land. 'l'his seems to be the place to answer a question which has more than once been asked-Was Jeremiah a true patriot in so continually expressing his conviction of the futility of resistance to Babylon? It must be remem- bered, first of all, that the religious idea with which Jeremiah was inspired is higher and broader than the idea of patriotism. Israel had a divinely appropriated work; if it fell below its mission, what further right had it of existence? Perhaps it mny be allowable to admit that such conduct as Jeremiah's would not in our day be regarded as patriotic. If the Govern- ' There is nothing inconceivable in this, even if we should graut that the prophecy, eh. xxi. 1-xxiii. 40, was modified in expression-in a word, edited-in the reign of Zedekia.h, the uncle and successor of J ehoiRchin. ' l\fourice, ' Prophets un<l l{ ings,' p. 420. X INTRODUC'l'lON '1'0
ment had fully committed itself to a definito and irrevocable polioy, it is probable that all parties would agree to enforce at any rate silent acqui- escence. One eminent man may, however, be appealed to in favour of Jeremiah's patriotism. Niebuhr, quoted by Sir Edward Strachey, writes thus at the period of Germany's dee1)est humiliation under Napoleon: "I told you, as I told every one, how indignant I felt at the senseless prating of those who talked of desperate resolves as of a tragedy . . . . To bear our fate with dignity and wisdom, that tho yoke might be lightened, was my doctrine, and I supported it with the advice of the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke and acted very wisely, living as he did under King Zedekiah, in tl10 times of Nebuchadnezzar, though he would have given different counsel had he lived under J uclas Maccabreus, in the times of Antiochus Epiphanes." 1 This time, too, Jeremiah's warning voice was in vain. Zedekiah was mad enough to court an alliance with Pharaoh-Hophra (the Egyptians called, him Uah-ab-ra, the Greeks Apries), who, by a naval victory, had" revived the prestige of the Egyptian arms which had received so severe a shock under Necho II." 9 The Babylonians would not pardon this insubordination and a second siege of Jerusalem was the consequence. Undaunted by th; hostility of the popular magnates ("princes"), Jeremiah urgently counsels immediate surrender. (At this point, it is expedient to be brief; Jeremiah himself is his best biographer. There is, perhaps, nothing in all litera- tare which rivals the narrative chapters in his book for dispassionate truthfulness.) He is rewarded by close imprisonment, but his policy is justified by the event. Famine raged among the besieged inhabitants (eh. Iii. 6; Lam. i. 19, 20, etc.), till at length a breach was effected in the walls; a vain attempt at flight was made by the king, who was captured~ and with most of his people carried to Babylon, B.c. 588. Thus fell Jerusalem, nineteen years after the battle of Carchemish, and, with Jeru- salem, the last bold opponent of Babylonian power in Syria. A few poor· inhabitants, indeed, were left, but only to prevent the land from becoming utterly desolate (2 Kings xxv. 12). Their only consolation was that, they were allowed a native go,ernor, Gedaliah, who was also a hereditary friend of Jeremiah. But it was a short-lived consolation I Gedaliah fell by an assassin's hand, and the principal Jews, fearing the vengeance of their new lords, took refuge in Egypt, dragging the prophet with them ( eh. xlii. 7-22; xliii. 7; xliv. 1 ). But Jeremiah had not come to the end of his message of woe. Did the Jews, he asked, expect to be secure from the Babylonians in Egpyt? Soon would their foes be after them ; Egypt would be chastised .. and the Jews would suffer for their treason. And now the unhappy con- 8equences of the misreading of the Deuteronomic Scripture became fully visible. It was from their infidelity, not to Jehovah, but to the queen of heaven, that their calamities proceeded, said the Jewish exiles in Egypt 1 Strachey, 'Jewiah History and Politics in the Times of Sargon and Sennacherib,"
p. 222, note. • Dr. Birch, 'Egypt,' p, 180. THE BOOK OF 'l'HE I'ltOPllE'l' ,JEI:EMIAII. XI