Vers. 17-23.-.An argument from history. A prophet, a king, and a people belonging to a past generation are brought forward to justify the conclusion to which the princes and the people here had come. Here, then, is an eminent instance of what a practical study history may become. One must be so acquainted with the past as to seize just that completed event which will cast light on the duties and necessities of the present. I. AN INSTANCE OF A PROPHET'S UNPALATABLE l\lEBSAGE. No word could have been more provocative of resentment than this. It threatened those to whom it was spoken iu the closest possible way. It meant that they were to be subjected to tbeir enemies, driven from their homes, and deprived of their most substantial possessions. 'fhe messacre being such, what comfort Jeremiah might obtain from recollecting that his prede~ssors treadincr his thorny path before him were now remembered in such an honourable way I Micah had been faithful to his God, his message, and his audience; and the impression of his faithfulness is still deep when something like a century has elapsed.. These people now listening to Jeremiah were thus made responsible for Micah's words as well as Jeremiah's. What harmony there is in true prophecy I False pro- phets, from their very position, cannot be got to agree; but here Jeremiah's words at once recall to mind Micah's similar words, and help to drive them with a deeper impression into some at least of this subsequent generation. 'l'hus also, reciprocally, Micah's words help Jeremiah's. And not only was there harmony between the pro- phecies • there was harmony between the characters of the prophets as well. All the prophet~ would have understood one another perfectly if they• had been gathered together in one assembly. II. .AN INSTANCE OF HOW A PBOPITET SITOULD EVER DE RECEIVED. Jeremiah is able to look back on a man of like spirit with himself in the prophet Micah, but the present leaders of Israel have their thoughts turned to a very different king from Jehoiakim. We can guess bow Hezekiah behaved toward Micah from the way in which he behaved toward Isaiah. The narrative here concerning the fate of Urijah seems to be intro- duced to show that, though Jeremiah escaped from peril at the hands of these priests and prophets, their nature and the nature of Jehoiakim remained the same. When Hezekiah heard the truth, bitter as it was, he bumbled himself and averted doom. Dut Jeboiakim and bis profligate and rapacious circle hated every one who spoke the on. xxvn. 1-22.) 'l'HE IlOOK 01'' THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. 573
truth. Hence it was not enough for them that Urijah fled; they followed him and brought him back to suITer their vengeance. Thus it is made evident how Jehoiakim was a man of very different spirit from Hezekiah.-Y.
Ver. 24.-.Afriend in need. I. THE EVIDENT PERIL OF JEREMIAH. A large body of the people had been somehow influenced to take his side, but how long their favourable mood of mind might continue, who could tell? There was no Hezekiah on the throne to encourage such a feeling and make it rermanent. Moreover, there is an ebullition of fury which is fatal to one who, as far as the record enables us to judge, occupied a far less prominent position than Jeremiah. If Urijah was slain, how could Jeremiah hope to escape? We must try to get a distinct impression of all the peril in which Jeremiah was in order to appreciate the services rendered to him by Ahika.m. II. THE TIMELY HELP OF AHIKAM. Nothing is told us save the bare fact of pro- tection. We must not assume that Ahikam was fully in sympathy with Jeremiah. We have no means of judging as to his character and his motives, as to the risks that he ran, and the ultimate results to him. The one clear thing is that at this time he was a man of power, and was for some reason disposed to shield the prophet. It may be that, if we could lay bare and analyze his motives, they would be found very mixed as to their kind. But, whatever the motives, the practical service was the same. Jehovah could, of course, have protected his servant by supernatural means, but it is his principle of working not to employ the supernatural when the natural would serve the purpose. Hezekiah could do more than Ahikam, seeing that he turned to God and kept back the dreadful visitations. But Ahikam did all that was necessary for the present occasion. Compare the position of Ahikam here with that of the Duke of Lancaster towards Wickliffe and the Lollards.-Y.
EXPOSITION. bassadors from the neighbouring nations, ORAPTER XXVII. wbo had come to organize II common move- This and the two following chapters are ment against the common enemy. Jeremiah closely connected. They all relate to the believed that he could not give more forcible early part of the reign of Zcdekillh, and con- expression to the Divine warnings of which tain warnings arising out of the deepening he was the bearer than by a symbolic act gloom of the political horizon. It must, akin to that related of Isaiah in Isa. x.x:. however, be noted that there is evidently 2. He appeared in some public place, some mistake in the first verse of eh. xxvii., where the ambassadors would be sure to and also that the contents of oh. xxi.x:. point pass, with a yoke upon his neck, and in to e. somewhat earlier timo than eh. x.x:vii., this strange guise delivered an impressive xxviii. (viz. the first or second year of King exhortation to the foreign visitors. It would Zedekiah). To underste.nd the ciroum- appear as if Jeremiah's exertions on thir stanees of oh. xxvii., we must remember occasion were successful, so far es Judah that Zedekiah had accepted the throne as was concerned ; for we are informed (eh. Ii. the vas30l of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings xxiv. 59) that, in the fourth yenr of his reign, 17). The self-righteousness and formalism Zedekiah took a journey to Babylon, doubt- of the people, however, would not allow less to renew his oath of fidelity to tho King them to remain quiet under suoh a humi- of Babylon. liation. Deuteronomy, it seemed to them, It is instructive to compare this chnplcr had promised success and prosperity to o.n as given in the Hebrew Bible with the form obedient performanoe of the Law, and the in which it appears in the Septuagint. We priests and the prophets assured them that must not too ho.stily assume that the Gre()k these conditions had been complied with. is incorrect, but examine in each case which In the fourth year of Zedekiah (comp. eh. form gives most forco and expressiveness to xxviii. 1) the popular discontent was still the prophecy. further stimulated by the prcs!lnce of am- Ver. l.-Tn the beginning of th.1i reigia 574 THE llOOK OF THE l'ROPIIE1.' JEllEMIAlI. [en. xxvn. 1-22,