general, the ideas of bitterness and of Jehovah, pointing out that their suffer- poisonousness being taken as interchange- ings were but au exact retribution for their able. The Authorized Version may there- infidelity ( comp. ell. v. 19), fore stand. Ver. 20.-The harvest is past, eto. For Ver. 15.-B:ea.lth; rathcr,healing. Another "summ~r," rend j,·uit-gathering (the vintage rendering is tranquillity (same sense as in began m September). The people o.gain Eooles. x. 4). Trouble; rather, ter.-or. becomes the speaker. 'l'he form of the Ver. 16.-The invader is introduced with speech remind~ one of a provel'b. When the ee.me mysterious indefinileness as in eh. the harvest was over and the fruit-gathering iv. 13. From De.n; i.e. from the northern ended, the llusbandmen lookecl for a quiet frontier (see on eh iv. 15). Trembled; time of refreshment. Judah had had its rather, quaked (so eh. ,;.lix. 21). His strong "harvest-time" e.nd then its "fruit-ge.tber- oues. The phrase "strong ones" generally ing;" its needs had been gre.due.lly in- denotes oxen, but here (es in eh. xlvii. 3; creasing, and, on the analogy of previous l. 11) horses. deliverances (comp. lsr,. xviii. 4; xxxiii. Ver. 17.-A new ime.ge to intensify the 10), it might llave been expected that God impression of dreadfulness. Serpents, would have interposed, his help being only cookatrioes; rather, serpent3 ( e11en) basilisks. delayed in order to be the more signally The second noun is in apposition to the supernatural. But we e.re not saved (or more general "serpents." "Basilisks" rather, delivered). (Serpentu regulm) are the renderings of Ver. 21.-For the hurt, etc.; literally, Aquila e.nd the Vulgate. Some species of because of the breaking, etc., 1 am broken; highly venomous serpent is clearly intended; comp. eh. xxiii. 9, e.nd the phre.se "b1·oken in more the.n this we cannot say. The root heart" (Isa. lxi. 1, etc.). The prophet feels probably means "to hiss." Canon Tristram crushed by the sense of the utter ruin of thinks of" a very beautifully marked yellow his people. I am blaok; rather, I go ir, serpent, e.nd the largest of the vipers found mourning (so Ps. xxxviii. 6; xiii. 9). The in the Holy Land,'' called the Daboia root mee.ns re.ther " foulness " or "squalor" =ntheina. He a<lds that it is one of the than "blackness" (comp. Job vi. 16, where most dangerous (' Nat. Hist. of Palestine,' "blackish," e.n epitllet of streams, should p. 275), rather be " turbid"). Ver. 18-ch. iL 1.-The captivity of Ver. 22.-No hope or remedy is left; Jndah and the deep sorrow of Jeremiah. age.in a proverbial expression. No be.Im in Ver. 18.-When I would oomfort myself, Gilead. Gilead appea1·s to have been etc. The text is here extremely difficult, celebrated in early times for its balsam, and if there is corruption anywhere it is in which woe exported by Isllmaelites to ilie opening of this verse. Ewald and Graf Egypt (Gen. xxxvii. 25) and by Jewish suppose an ellipsis, and render, "(Oll for) merchants to Tyre (Ezek. x.xvii. 17). It my enlivening [i.e. an enlivening for me] was one of the most costly products of in trouble I" Hitzig more naturally renders Palestine (Gen. xliii. 11), e.nd was prized in the vocative, "My eulivener in trouble," for its medicine.I properties in ce.ses of which he supposes to be in apposition to wounds (comp. eh. xlvi. 11; Ji. 8), Josephus my heart. De Dien (1648) wavers between mentions this balsam several times, but this and the view that it is an address to states that it only grew at Jericho(' Ant!Cl.,' his wife, "Qum marito solatio est." (See, xv. 4, 2). Tristram searched for balsam in its however, eh. xvi. 2.) ancient haunts, but in vain; he thinks Jere- Ver. 19.-Becanse of them the.t dwell in, miah means the Balaamodendron gUeadense etc. The Hebrew simply has "from them," or opobalsamum, which in Arabia is used as etc. Tlle prophet is transported in imagi- a medicine both internally and externally. nation to the time of the fulfilment of his But if l'liny (' Hist. Nat.,' xxiv. "22) may prophecies. He hears the lamentation of bo followe<l in llis wide use of the term his countrymen, who are languishing in "balsam" so as to include the exudations captivity. Is not the Lord in Zion, etc.? is of the " lentiscus" or mastick tree, tllon the burden of their sad complai □ ts; "king" "balm of Gilead" is still to bo fouud; for is a familiar synonym for "God" (comp. the mastick tree "gl'ows commonly all ovor Isa. viii. 21; xxxiii. 22; but not Ps. lxxxix. tl,c country, excepting in tlle plains o.nd the 18, wllich is certainly mistranslated in Jordan valley" (' Nut. Hist. of Dible,' p. Antllorized Version). :Uut why" in Zion"? 336). le there no physician there 1 We "Zion" was properly the name of tho east- hear but little of physicians in the Old ward hill e.t Jerusalem, where lay the 'l'cstamcnt. They are only 1oentioncd again oldest pnrt of the city (ca!le<l "iho city of in Gen. I. 2 (but with reference to Egypt, Davi<l "), an<l tlle lli 6 hest portion of whicll where me<licine was mucll oultivated), aD<l was crowne<l by il,o temple. Why have in 2 Chron. xvi. 12; Joh xiii. 4. From tho they provoked me to anger, etc.? is the reply two latter passages we may, po1·hups, infer OB. ~w. 1-22.] '1'1IE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 217
tho.t physicie.ns were re.rely successful; and on Mark v. 26). The physicians or Gilead, this is certainly the impreeeion produced by however, probably confined themselves to Ecolus. xxxviii. 15, "He that sinneth before their one fa.moue simple, the balsam 15 his Maker, let him fa.II into the hand of the not the health . . . recovered 1 Geseni UB physician." The remedies employed in the renders, less probably, "bath no bandage Talmudic period quite beo.r out this strong been applied to the daughterofmypeople?" saying (see Lightfoot, • Horie Hebraicie,'