THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ditional surrender to the Chaldeans. Temporary retirement of the Chaldeans rilled the people with joy, which Jeremiah foretold would be short-lived, as events proved (xxxiv.). Meanwhile, as Jeremiah was going out of the city to visit Anathoth, he was arrested and thrown into prison, but removed by the king to another place of detention and by him supported there (xxxvii.). His opponents, who rightly feared his influence, besought the king to have him put to death, and to that end had him thrown into a foul cistern to die, whence he was again rescued by the king's order and placed in detention near the king (xxxviii.). At the capture of the city Jeremiah was taken prisoner, but was released by a Babylonian commander and given his choice between going to Babylonia and remaining in Judea, accepting the latter alternative. He gave his support to Gedaliah, the governor appointed by the Chaldeans. Gedaliah was soon after murdered, and the leaders of the people, in fear of the consequences, and following the advice of a prophet who opposed Jeremiah, fled with a number of the population to Egypt, taking with them both Jeremiah and Baruch. There the hostile relations between prophet and people continued because of his denunciations of their heathen proclivities and his prediction that Egypt should fall into the power of Nebuchadrezzar (xxxix.-xliv.). This closes the authentic record of the prophet's life. The Old Testament does not tell of his death. Tradition has it that he was stoned to death in Egypt (Tertullian, Scorpiaee, viii. ; ANF, iii. 640; II Mace. ii. gives a report of his hiding certain sacred utensils in a cave, on which is founded the Paralipomena of Jeremiah and the apocryphal Baruch literature with its sequellae (see Apocrypha, A, IV., 5; Pseudepigrapha, Old Testament, II., 10-11, 35; and cf. Schurer, Geschichte, iii. 223 sqq., 285-286, Eng. transl. II., iii. 83-93; II Mace. xv. 11 sqq.; Matt, xvi. 14).
It is reported in II Chron. xxxv. 25 that Jeremiah wrote a dirge on the death of Josiah, called Lamentations; this is probably the first trace 3. Litera- 0f tjje tradition which ascribes to him
.y8 , ^" the book of that name, which is, howcribed to , , , -
Jeremiah ever> opposed by the contents of the book. A manuscript of the Septuagint ascribes Ps. lxv. and exxxvii. to him, and there is an apocryphal Epistle of Jeremiah (see Apocrypha, A., IV., 6). A passage in the Book of Jeremiah is luminous for the history of that production (xxxvi. 2 sqq.). According to this, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim Jeremiah dictated to Baruch the prophecies which he had uttered in the twenty-three years of his prophetic activity. This being burned by the king, he had Baruch rewrite it with many additions (xxxvi. 32). This new book is not identical with the present book, since the latter contains prophecies of a later time; but that it formed the basis of our book may be confidently assumed, and it may be reconstructed by putting together the pieces which are older than Jehoiakim's fifth year. II. The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah. — i. The Contents: Chap. i. states that the prophet is informed in the thirteenth year of Josiah before his birth that he had been called to predict the com-
ing of powers from the north against his people,
whose hate he was to incur. But the indication
in the chapter itself of the lapse of
1. Chapters twenty years proves tnat tne narra.
'" ' tive depends upon the memory of the prophet and is not exactly contemporary with the utterance itself. It is clear that Jeremiah narrates the story of his earlier experiences in the light his later life had given him, and sharp distinction between later and earlier utterances is not possible. In ii.-vi. the parts are closely related to each other and belong to the same conditions in the reign of Josiah. These chapters bewail the people's sins, their idolatry, their fondness for covenants with foreign powers, and foretell coming judgment. Yet in this section passages suggest the time of Jehoiakim (v. 1, ii. 18, 36). Who the northern foe in these chapters is raises a difficult question. They are an ancient people, whose speech is unknown to Israel, carrying bow and spear and possessing chariots. Some of these marks appear when the prophet's utterances concern the Chaldeans in the time of Jehoiakim. Some scholars refer them to the Scythians, in which case Jeremiah must later have modified them, since their present form hardly fits references to that people. It is questionable therefore whether Jeremiah's earlier prophecies were not general; when the Chaldeans appeared on the scene he may have identified them with the foe foretold. While v. 18 and the related v. 10 are not un- Jeremianic, they do not fit their present place; similarly iii. 6-iv. 2 is hardly intelligible unless iii. 14-18 is taken out. It is probable that these passages are genuine, but transferred hither by an editor. Chapters vii.-x. contain a discourse delivered in the court of the temple, upon which structure the people put their trust. If they continue in their sins, the temple will be no help, but will perish as did the sanctuary at Shiloh. Its sacrifices are worthless, the people who bring them are untrue and have filled it with heathen symbols which represent their own unethical nature. Chaps, ix. 22-x. give the impression of fragmentariness, and, as the Septuagint shows, have been expanded, and suggest a deutero-Jeremiah. The little pieces ix. 22-23 and 24-25 have no connection with the previous context, while x. 17 sqq. appear to be genuine and the original continuation of ix. 21. Genuineness is apparent in vii. 1-ix. 21, but, contrary to Hitzig, Havernick, and others, the passage appears to belong rather with xxvi. and to connect not with the time of Josiah, but with the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, especially in the matter of heathen practises.
In xi. 1-17 Jeremiah warns the people to regard " the words of this covenant." In spite of the punishment of their fathers, the present 2. Chapters generation continues its service of other xi.-xvii. gods and renders divine punishment imminent. That the " covenant " is the law book found under Josiah is generally recognized; the passage can not, however, in its present form have been uttered then, but in the time of Jehoiakim, and so furnishes a good example of the way in which in the reduction of his words to writing Jeremiah mingled past and present. In xi.