The

IV. Text and Authenticity.-Over and above the variations in order, the LXX. presents some noticeable variations and omissions, which have led some critics to reject some portions of the present Hebrew text as being probably interpolations. Other passages have been questioned on grounds more or less subjective as prophecies after the event, or for other reasons. limits of this Introduction will not admit of a full description of each portion, but a statement of the objections will, in the one case, direct attention to some striking variations, and in the other, in some instances at least, to parallelisms of some interest. To the present writer, who holds (1) that there are antecedent probabilities in favour of the Hebrew text as compared with the Greek, and (2) that the inspiration of the prophet implies, at least the possibility of a prediction before the event, neither ground of objection seems conclusive.

(a) Questioned, as omitted in the LXX.
(1) chap. x. 6, 7, 8, 10.

(2)

(3)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

"""""

The Aramaic of verse 11 is urged in favour

of this view.

xxvii. 14.

xxvii. 7.

as having the character
of prophecies after the
event.

xxxiii. 14-26.
xxxix. 1, 2, 4—13.
xxvii.—xxix.—As showing, in the shortened
form of the name (Jeremiah instead of
Jeremiahu), and in the epithet "the pro-
phet," the work of a later writer.
xxx.—xxxiii.—As showing the influence of
the Deutero-Isaiah.

xlviii., for the same reason as (7).

1. li.-As being a prophecy after the event, foreign in style and thought to Jeremiah's writings.

lii.-As an historical summary compiled from 2 Kings xxv. and other sources by the editor of the collection.

In the notes that follow I have been mainly indebted to Ewald, Hitzig, Keil, and to the notes on Jeremiah by the present Dean of Canterbury (Dr. Payne Smith), in the Speaker's Commentary, and those by Nägelsbach in Lange's Commentary, edited by Dr. Philip Schaff. The Introduction is mainly based upon an article on Jeremiah which I contributed to Dr. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, and on the very able dissertation by Nägelsbach in the Commentary just named.

(1-3) The first three verses contain the title prefixed to the collection of prophecies by some later editor. This title would seem, from its unusual fulness, to have received one or more additions-verse 1 giving the general title, verse 2 the commencement of Jeremiah's prophetic work, verse 3 the period of his chief activity and its conclusion. Strictly speaking, indeed, we see from the book itself that his work continued after the beginning of the captivity.

The words of Jeremiah.-The more usual title of prophetic books is "the word of the Lord by the prophet," but the title of Amos (i. 1) is in the same form as this. The Hebrew for "words" has a somewhat wider connotation than the English, and is translated "acts" in 1 Kings xi. 41; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 18.

Hilkiah. Possibly the high priest of that name (2 Kings xxii. 4, xxiii. 4). See Introduction.

Anathoth.-In the tribe of Benjamin, one of the cities assigned to the priests, apparently to the house of Ithamar, to which Abiathar belonged (1 Kings ii. 26; Josh. xxi. 18; 1 Chron. vi. 60).

That were in Anathoth.-There is no verb in the Hebrew, and the description belongs to Jeremiah individually, not to the priests.

(2) In the thirteenth year of his reign.-If we take the data of 2 Kings xxii., Josiah was at that time in his twentieth or twenty-first year, having grown up under the training of Hilkiah. His active work of reformation began five years later. The images of Baal and Asherah (the groves) were thrown down, and the high places desecrated. The near coincidence of the commencement of Jeremiah's work as prophet with that of the king must not be forgotten. As Josiah reigned for thirty-one years, we have to place eighteen years of the prophet's ministry as under his rule.

(3) It came also -The short reigns of Jehoahaz (three months) and Jehoiachin or Jeconiah (three months also) are passed over, and mention made of the more conspicuous reigns of Jehoiakim (eleven years) and Zedekiah (also eleven). Assuming Jeremiah to have been about twenty when the prophetic call came to him, he was sixty or sixty-one at the time of the captivity.

the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.

(4) Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, (5) Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I 'sanctified thee, and I 1or

(4) The word of the Lord came unto me.The words imply obviously a revelation, the introduction of a new element into the human consciousness. In many cases such a revelation implied also the spiritual tension of an ecstatic or trance-like state, a dream, or an open vision. It almost presupposed a previous training, outward or inward, a mind vexed by hot thoughts and mourning over the sins of the people. Here there is no mention of dream or vision, and we must assume, therefore, a distinct consciousness that the voice which he heard in his inmost soul was from Jehovah. For the thought of pre-natal calling, see Isa. xlix. 1.

(5) I knew thee.-With the force which the word often has in Hebrew, as implying, not foreknowledge only, but choice and approval (Ps. i. 6, xxxvii. 18; Amos iii. 2).

I sanctified thee.-i.e., consecrated thee, set thee apart as hallowed for this special use.

Ordained.-Better, I have appointed, without the conjunction, this verb referring to the manifestation in time of the eternal purpose.

Unto the nations.-i.e., to the outlying Gentile nations. This was the distinguishing characteristic of Jeremiah's work. Other prophets were sent to Israel and Judah, with occasional parentheses of prophecies that affected the Gentiles. The horizon of Jeremiah was to extend more widely. In part his work was to make them drink of the cup of the Lord's fury (chap. xxv. 15-17); but in part also he was a witness to them of a brighter future (chap. xlviii. 47, xlix. 39). as though he had drunk in the Spirit of Isaiah, and thought of the true prophet as one who was to be a light of the Gentiles (Isa. xlix. 6).

It is

In this way, seemingly abrupt, yet probably following on a long process of divine education, was the youthful Jeremiah taught that he was to act a part specially appointed for him in the drama of his nation's history. He could not see a chance in the guidance that had led him thus far. The call that now came to him so clearly was not the echo of his own thoughts. All his life from infancy had been as that of one consecrated to a special work. Could he stop there? Must he not, like St. Paul, think of the divine pur

dained thee a prophet unto the nations. (6) Then said I, Ah, "Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. (7) But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. (8) Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD. (9) Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have 'put my words in thy mouth. (10) See,

pose as prior to the very germ of his existence? i. 15.)

d Isa. 6. 7.

e ch. 5. 14.

Vision of the Almond Tree.

10. 4, 5.

(Gal.

(6) Ah, Lord God!-Better, Alas, O Lord Jehovah! as answering to the Hebrew Adonai Jehovah.

I cannot speak. In the same sense as the "I am not eloquent" of Moses (Exod. iv. 10), literally, "a man of words,” i.e., have no gifts of utterance.

I am a child.-Later Jewish writers fix the age of fourteen as that up to which the term rendered "child" might be used. With Jeremiah it was probably more indefinite, and in the intense consciousness of his own weakness he would naturally use a word below the actual standard of his age; and there is accordingly nothing against assuming any age within the third hebdomad of life. In Gen. xxxiv. 19 it is used of a young man old enough for marriage. The words are memorable as striking a note common to the lives of many prophets; common, also, we may add, to most men as they feel themselves called to any great work. So Moses draws back: "I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue" (Exod. iv. 10). So Isaiah cries, "Woe is me! for... I am a man of unclean lips" (Isa. vi. 5); and Peter, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Luke v. 8). Something of the same shrinking is implied in St. Paul's command to Timothy (1 Tim. iv. 12). In tracing the whole course of Jeremiah's work, we must never forget the divine constraint by which he entered on them. A necessity was laid upon him, as afterwards on St. Paul (1 Cor. ix. 16).

(7) The Lord said unto me.-The misgiving, which was not reluctance, is met by words of encouragement. God gave the work; He would also give the power.

.-The

(8) Be not afraid.-The words imply, as in those spoken to Ezekiel (ii. 6), to St. Peter (Luke v. 10), and St. Paul (Acts xviii. 9), the fear that sprang from the sense of personal weakness and unfitness to cope with the dangers to which his work exposed him. The "faces " of his adversaries would be a source of terror to him. The consciousness that Jehovah was with him was to raise him from that timidity. (9) The Lord put forth his hand . symbolic act seems to imply something like a waking vision, like that of Isaiah (vi. 6), and the act itself reminds us of the "live coal" laid upon the prophet's mouth, as there recorded. The "hand of the Lord," as in Ezek. iii. 14, viii. 1., and elsewhere, was the received symbol of the special influence of the Spirit of the Lord; and here, as in the case of Isaiah, the act implied the gift of new powers of thought and utterance. The words which a prophet speaks, like

(10) I have this day set thee

66

-With

the gift, and therefore the consciousness, of a new power, there comes what would at first have been too much for the mortal vessel of the truth to bear-a prospective view of the greatness of the work before him. He is at once set (literally, made the "deputy," or representative, of God, as in Judges ix. 28 and 2 Chron. xxiv. 11, the officer," or in chap. xx. 1, chief governor ") over the nations, i.e., as before, the nations external to Israel, and the "kingdoms" including it. The work at first seems one simply of destruction -to root out and ruin (so we may represent the alliterative assonance of the Hebrew), to destroy and rend asunder. But beyond that there is the hope of a work of construction. He is to "build up" the fallen ruins of Israel, to "plant" in the land that had been made desolate. The whole sequel of the book is a comment on these words. It passes through terror and darkness to the glory and the blessing of the New Covenant (chap. xxxi. 31).

(11) The word of the Lord . . .-As before, we have the element of ecstasy and vision, symbols not selected by the prophet, and yet, we may believe, adapted to his previous training, and to the bent and, as it were, genius of his character.

The poetry of the symbols is of exquisite beauty. In contrast to the words of terror, in harmony with the words of hope, he sees the almond-bough, with its bright pink blossoms and its pale green leaves, the token of an early spring rising out of the dreariness of winter. The name of the almond-tree (here the poetical, not the common, name) made the symbol yet more expressive. It was the watcher, the tree that “hastens to awake" (shaked) out of its wintry sleep, and thus expresses the divine haste which would not without cause delay the fulfilment of its gracious promise, but would, as it were, make it bud and blossom, and bear fruit.

(12) I will hasten.-The Hebrew, by using a participle formed from the same root (shoked), presents a play upon the name of the "almond," as the watcher, which it is impossible to reproduce; literally, I, too, am watching over my word to perform it.

(13) A seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.-More correctly, from the north. The next symbol was one that set forth the darker side of the prophet's work: a large cauldron (probably of

Vision of the Seething Pot.

The Promise of Protection.

b

opened.

them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I 3 confound thee before them. (18) For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen

thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah. (16) And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands. (17) Thou therefore gird up

& 10. 22

metal) placed (as in Ezekiel's vision, xxiv. 3-11) on a great pile of burning wood, boiling and steaming, with its face turned from the north, and so on the point of emptying out its scalding contents towards the south. This was as strong a contrast as possible to the vernal beauty of the almond-bough, and told too plainly the terrors which were to be expected from the regions that lay to the north of the land of Israel, Assyria and Chaldæa. The flood of water at the boiling point went beyond the "waters of the great river" of Israel's symbolism (Isa. viii. 7).

(14) Out of the north an evil.-Literally, the evil, long foretold, as in Micah iii. 12, and elsewhere, and long expected.

(15) I will call.-Literally, I am calling. The evil is not merely future, but is actually begun.

All the families of the kingdoms of the north. -In the Hebrew the words are in apposition, all the families, even the kingdoms of the north. The words point chiefly to the Chaldæans and other inhabitants of Babylonia, but may probably include also the Scythians, who about this time spread like a deluge over Asia Minor and Syria, and penetrated as far as Ascalon (Herod. i. 105).

They shall set every one his throne.-i.e., shall usurp the administration of justice, and set up their thrones of judgment in the space near the gates in which kings usually sat to hear complaints and decide causes (2 Sam. xv. 2; Ps. cxxvii. 5). In chap. xxxix. 3 we have a literal fulfilment of the prediction.

Against all the walls.-As the previous words speak of a formal usurpation of power, so do these of invasion and attack, the storming of the lesser cities of Judah, while Jerusalem became the centre of the foreign government.

(16) I will utter my judgments against them. -Here, again, we get a literal correspondence in the words of chap. xxxix. 5, "he gave [or uttered] judgment upon him," of Nebuchadnezzar's sentence on Zedekiah. And yet the invaders in their sentence are to be but the ministers of a higher judgment than their own. In the words " my judgments He recognises

their work.

Who have forsaken.-The remainder of the verse gives, as it were, the formal enumeration of the crimes for which Judah was condemned: (1) Apostacy from the true God; (2) the transfer of adoration to other Gods, such as Baal, Ashtaroth, and the Queen of

the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and (19) And

they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee.

CHAPTER II.- (1) Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Heaven; sins against the First Commandment; (3) the worship of graven images; a sin against the Second. The sins were of long standing, but the words point specially to the proportions they had assumed in the reign of Manasse (2 Chron. xxxiii. 1—7).

(17) Gird up thy loins.-Be as the messenger who prepares to be swift on his errand, and to go whithersoever he is sent (1 Kings xviii. 46; 2 Kings iv. 29, ix. 1). The vivid image of intense activity re-appears in the New Testament (Luke xii. 35; 1 Pet. i. 13), and has become proverbial in the speech of Christendom.

Be not dismayed.-The repeated calls to courage appear to indicate-like St. Paul's exhortations to Timothy (1 Tim. iv. 12, vi. 13; 2 Tim. ii. 3)—a constitutional timidity. We must remember, as some excuse for this, that the reign of Manasseh had shown that the work of the prophet might easily lead to the fate of the martyr (2 Kings xxi. 16). Even Ezekiel, among the remnant of exiles on the banks of Chebar, needed a like encouragement (Ezek. ii. 6).

Lest I confound thee.-The Hebrew emphasises the command by repeating the same words: Be not dismayed, lest I dismay thee.

(18) I have made thee ...a defenced city. -Images of strength are heaped one upon another. The prophet is represented as attacked by kings, princes, priests, and people, as the cities of Judah are by the invading armies. But the issue is different. They fall he will hold out. The iron pillar is that which, rising in the centre of an Eastern house or temple (as, e.g., in Judges xvi. 25; 1 Kings vii. 21), supports the flat roof, and enables it to be used as a terrace or platform on which men may meet. "brasen walls " probably refer to the practice of fastening plates of copper over the brick or stonework of a fortification.

The

(19) I am with thee.-That thought was in itself enough. The presence, and therefore the protection, of the All-wise and the Almighty was the one condition of safety. Even in its lower sense, "Immanuel," God with us (Isa. vii. 14), was the watchword of every true combatant in God's great army.

II.

(1) The first chapter had given the narrative of the call which had impressed itself indelibly on the prophet's mind. The next five run on as one continuous whole, and, looking to the fact that the

with Israel.

38.

original record of his prophetic work during the reign of Josiah had been destroyed by Jehoiakim (chap. xxxvi. 23), and was afterwards re-written from memory, it is probable that we have a kind of précis of what was then destroyed, with some additions (chap. xxxvi. 32), and possibly some omissions. In chap. iii. 6 we have the name of Josiah definitely mentioned.

(2) Go and cry -The scene of the call, was, we may believe, in his home at Anathoth. Now the prophet is sent to begin his work in Jerusalem.

I remember thee.-Literally, I have remembered for thee.

The love of thine espousals.-The imagery was one derived, as we find so often in Jeremiah's writings, from the older prophets. It was implied in the "jealous God" of Exod. xx. 5, illustrated by an actual history, which was also a parable, in Hosea i.—iii., and after its use by Jeremiah, expanded more fully by Ezekiel (chap. xvi.). The "espousals" are thought of as coinciding with the great covenant of Exod. xxiv. 8, when the people solemnly entered into the relation to which God called them. Then the bride was ready to follow her lord and husband even in an "unsown land"-the "waste howling wilderness" of Deut. xxxii. 10. The faithfulness of the past is contrasted with the unfaithfulness of the present.

When thou wentest after me.-Literally, thy going after me.

(3) Holiness unto the Lord.-The thought was that expressed in the inscription on the gold plate worn on the high priest's forehead (Exod. xxviii. 36), and in the term "holy thing" (Lev. xxii. 10; Matt. vii. 6), applied to the consecrated gifts which were the portion of the priests. The prophet was taught that Israel, as a nation, had a priestly character, and was consecrated to the Lord as the "firstfruits" of the great harvest of the world. Compare the use of the same figure in James i. 18; Rom. xi. 16.

All that devour him shall offend.--The imagery of the firstfruits is continued. The Hebrew for the word offend" is used for transgressions against the ceremonial law in Lev. v. 5, 19; Num. v. 7. Here, however, it is probably better rendered, shall be condemned, or shall be made to suffer, as in Ps. xxxiv. 21, 22, where the Authorised version has "shall be desolate." Those who devour Israel-the enemies and invaders, the tyrants and oppressors-are guilty as of a sacrilege that will not remain unpunished.

(5) Vanity. In the special sense, as a synonym for idol-worship (Deut. xxxii. 21; 1 Kings xvi. 13). As in the character of a husband wronged by his wife's desertion Jehovah pleads with His people, and asks whether He has failed in anything.

(6) Neither said they.-In somewhat of the same tone as in Deut. viii. 15, xxxii. 10, the horrors of the wilderness are painted in vivid colours, to heighten the contrast with the land into which they had been brought. The picture was true of part, but not of the whole, of the region of the wanderings. But the people had forgotten this. There was no seeking for the Lord who had then been so gracious. The question, Where is He? never crossed their thoughts.

(7) A plentiful country.-Literally, a land of Carmel, that word, as meaning a vine-clad hill, having become a type of plenty. So "the forest of his Carmel," in Isa. xxxvii. 24; elsewhere, as in Isa. x. 18, xxxii. 15, "fruitful." The LXX. treats the word as a proper name, "I brought you unto Carmel.”

When ye entered.-The words point to the rapid degeneracy of Israel after the settlement in Canaan, as seen in the false worship and foul crimes of Judges xvii.-xxi. So in Ps. Ixxviii. 56-58. Instead of being the pattern nation, the firstfruits of mankind, they sank to the level, or below the level, of the heathen.

(8) The priests said not. . .-As throughout the work of Jeremiah and most of the prophets of the Old Testament, that which weighed most heavily on their souls was that those who were called to be guides of the people were themselves the chief agents in the evil. The salt had lost its savour. The light had become darkness. The rebuke, we must remember, came from the lips of one who was himself a priest.

The priests said not, Where is the Lord ?— The same failure to seek as that condemned in verse 6. To them, too, all was a routine. Jehovah was absent from their thoughts even in the very act of worship.

They that handle the law. These, probably, were also of the priestly order, to whom this function was assigned in Deut. xxxiii. 10. The order of nonpriestly scribes, in the sense of interpreters of the law, does not appear till after the captivity. Their sin was that they "dealt with the law as interpreters and judges, and forgot Jehovah who had given it.

The pastors. Better, shepherds, the English pastors having gained a too definitely religious connotation. The Hebrew word was general in its