Ver. 20.-Yet hea.r; rather,for hear. (Ps. lxxxv. 10, oorrected version), and as Ver. 21.-Death is oome up, eto. "Death," here (comp. Ps. v. 7, 8; xxxvi. 5, 6), "mcroy equivalent to "pestilence" (as eh. xv. 2), and righteousness." Israel is weak nnd the most dreaded foe of a besieged popul:i- erring, and needs meroies of all sorts, which tion. (For the figure, comp. Joel ii. 9.) Jehovah, in his "loving-kindness," vouoh- The children from without. The ideal of safes. Next, judgment, or justice. J ehovo.h Zechariah is that " the streets of the city is n King, helps the poor o.ud weak to their should be full of boys and girls playing right, and punfahes the wrong-doer (comp. in tl10 streets thereof" (viii. 5). But the eh. xxi.12). Then, righteousness-a similar pitiless reaper, Death, shall cut off even but wider term. This is the quo.lity "the playful child from the street" (so we which leads its subject to adhere to a fixed might render more lilcrnlly). Streets, in rule of conduct. God's rule is his covenant; the parallel clause, me.ms the "broad henoe "righteousness" shows itself in all places" where men eongr.:,gate to tell the such acts as tend to the full realizing of the news. covenant with Israel, including the "plan Ver. 22.-Speak, Thus saith the Lord. of sal va.tion." It is by no means to be oon- These words are in three important respects flned to exo.cting penalties and conferring contrary to the style of Jeremiah: (1) such rewards. a prefix as "speak" is unique; (2) such a Yera. 25, 26.-A further enforcement of phrase as " D~l ;i:i is also unique in Jere- the doctrine that no outward privileges, if miah; (3) when our prophet does use the dissocio.ted from inward moral vitality, will formula" □~ it is not at the beginning of a avail. -verse. They are omitted by the Septuagint Ver. 25.-All them which are ciroumoised tra,islator, who presumably did not find them with the unoiroumcised ; ro.ther, all the cir- in his copy of the Hebrew, and the text gains cumcised in uncircumcision, or, as Ewe.id greatly by their removal. The following turns it, " all the uncircmmcised-circum- words are mistranslated in the Authorized cised." But what does this enigmatical Version, and should rnn, not even, but and, expressiun signify? Hitzig, Gro.f, and the carca.ses of men.shall fall, etc. It is most apparently Dr. Payne Smith, think that improbable, however, that a fresh Divine it has a twofold meaning: that, as applied revelation should begin with "and." With to the Jews, it means circumcised in the ot!1cr points, tlie word rendered "speak" flesh, but not in heart, and, as applied to would mean "pestilence." Possibly tl10 the heathen, simply uncircumcised (the one- word fell out of ver. 21, where it would find h11lf of the phrase neutralizing the other, an excellent place in the second clause (as like "a knifo without the blade," "nngela an explanatory parallel to "death," ns in with horns nnd hoofs," etc.). The latter Ps. lxxvili. 50), which would thus obtain meaning, however, is surely very impro- greater roundness and symmetry. As the bable, and it would only become necessary handful; i.e. as thickly as one heap of corn if it we1·e. proved that circumcision was succeeds another under the deft hand of the practised by none of the nations mentioned reaper. but the Jews. This is not the case. There Vera. 23, 24.-These two verses were is no doubt that the Egyptians were oir- hardly composed for their present position, cumcised in very early times (see the though a connection may, of course, be drawing of o. bas-relief in the Temple of thought out for them. Perhaps e. com- Chunsu at Karne.k, given by Dr. Ebers in parison of Ho.b. iii. 17, 18, may help us. his 'Egypten und die Biicher Mosis '). There the prophet looks forward to e. com- The assertion that only the priests under- plete desolation resulting from the Chaldean went the operation hns no older evidence invasion, and yet declares that he can even than that of Origen (edit. Lommatzsch, exult in hi8 God. So here. All subjects of iv. 138), "in whose time it is quite possible boasting have been proved untrustworthy; that the Egyptians, like the later Jews, but one remains-not wisdom, not valour, sought to evade a peculiarity which exposed not riches, but the knowledge of the re• them to ridicule and contempt." As to vealed God. the Ammonites and l\Ionbitos, we hflve, un- Ver. 24.-The knowledge of God relates fortunately, no information. With regard to three leading attributes, the combination to the Edomites, it is true that, accordiug of which is very instructive. First, loving- to Josephus(' Antiq.,' xiii. 9, 1), they were kindness. This is not to be understood in compelled to accept circumcision hy John a vague and general sense of the love of Hyrcanus. But it is still quite possible God to e.11 mankind; the term has a special that, at an eo.rlier period, the rite was counotution with regard to the Israelitish practised, just as it was 11.mo~g th.e an<>ient people. God shows loving-kindness to those Arabs, the evidence for wh1oh 1e beyond with whom he is in cc,venant; hence the oom- question (see the writer's e.rtiole, "Circum- Lin:.tion" luvin g-kiudness and faithfulne1111" cision," in 'Encyoloprodia, Brit1mnic11.,' 9th cu. IX. 1-26.J THE IlOOK OF THE PROPlll<:T JEREMIAH. 243
edit.), (On the eto.temeut tho.t "ell these oh. llXV. 23; xlix. 32. A prohibition is [the] nations are uncircumcised," see below.) directed against them in the Lovitica.l Law Ver. 26.-All that are in the utmost (Lev. xix. 27; xxi. 5). For all these nationa corner■; rather, all that are corner-clipped ; are unoircumcised; rather, aU the nations, i.e. that have the hair cut off about the etc. Another obscure cxprcesion. Docs it ea.re und temples. Herodotus tells ns, mean (takon together with the following speaking of the Arabs, "Their pro.ctice is clause)," The Gentile peoples are uncircum- to cut tl10 hair in a ring, a.way from the cised in the flesh, and the people of Israel temples" (iii. 8); and among the representa- is equally eo in heart"? But this doea not tives· of vo.rious nations, coloured figures of agree with facts (eee above, on ver. 2.'i). It whom are given iu the tomb of Rameses III., is safer, therefore, to assume that "uncir- we find some with a aqua.re place ehaved cumcised" is equivalent to "circumcised in just above the temples. The hair below uncircumcision" (ver. 25). The next clause this shaven place wns allowed to grow long, will then simply give the most conspicuous 11.nd then plaited into a lock. It is to such instance of this nnspiritua.l obeclienco to a. customs that Jeremiah alludes here and in mere form.