The Outpouring of Jehovah's Fury.

The Hurt Healed slightly.

is grief and wounds. (8) Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul 1depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.

a ch. 7. 26.

with him that is full of days. (12) And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD. (13) For from the least of them even

as a grape-gatherer into the baskets.

8. 10.

13. 10.

given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. (14) They have healed

the LORD; I am weary with holding in:

I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young

breach.

all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall at the time that I visit them

been rendered, As a cistern "gathers," or keeps in," or "keeps its waters cool," or "lets them flow." The general meaning is probably given by the Authorised Version. Jerusalem was literally "overflowing" with wickedness.

Grief.-Better, sickness. The word and the imagery are the same as in Isa. i. 5.

(8) Be thou instructed.-Better, Be thou corrected, or, chastened. Comp. Ps. ii. 10; Lev. xxvi. 23 (where we have "reformed "); and Prov. xxix. 19.

Lest my soul.-As in chap. iv. 19, the Hebrew formula for emphasised personality. The word for "depart" may be better rendered tear itself away.

(9) Turn back thine hand.-The image of the grape-gatherer carrying on his work to the last grape or tendril was a natural parable of unsparing desolation. The command is addressed to the minister of destruction, Nebuchadnezzar, or, it may be, to the angel of death.

Into the baskets.-The noun is found here only, and probably means, like a kindred word in Isa. xviii. 5, the tendrils of the vine upon which the hand of the gatherer was to be turned.

(10) To whom shall I speak . ?—The prophet, who now speaks in his own name, has heard the message from the Lord of Hosts; but what avails it? who will listen? As elsewhere the lips (Exod. vi. 30) and the heart (Lev. xxvi. 41; Ezek. xliv. 7), so here the ear of Israel was uncircumcised, as though it had never been brought into covenant with Jehovah or consecrated to His service.

A reproach.-i.e., the object of their scorn.

(11) I am full of the fury. .-The prophet feels himself filled, frail vessel as he is, with the righteous wrath of Jehovah. It will not be controlled.

I will pour it out.-Better, as the command coming from the mouth of Jehovah, Pour it out. The words that follow describe the several stages of man's life, upon all of which that torrent of wrath is to flow forth-the children abroad, i.e., playing in the streets (as in Zech. viii. 5); the assembly, or gathering of young men, whether in their natural mirth (chap. xv. 17) or for secret plans (Prov.xv.22); the husband and wife in full maturity; the

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aged," i.e., the elder, still active as well as venerable; lastly, the man "full of days," whose time is nearly over and his sand run out.

(13) Is given to covetousness.-Literally, gained gain. The Hebrew word (as in Gen. xxxvii. 26; Job xxii. 2) does not necessarily involve the idea of dishonest gain, though this (as in Prov. i. 19; Hab. ii. 9) is often implied. What the prophet condemns is the universal desire of gain (rem . . . rem ... quocunque modo rem), sure to lead, as in the second clause, to a gratification of it by fair means or foul.

From the prophet even unto the priest. The two orders that ought to have checked the evil are noted as having been foremost in promoting it. (Comp. Note on chap. v. 31.)

Dealeth falsely.-Literally, worketh a lie, in the sense of " dishonesty."

(14) They have healed . . slightly.—Literally, as a thing of nought, a light matter. The words "of the daughter" are in italics, as indicating that the marginal reading of the Hebrew omits them. They are found, however, in the present text.

Peace, peace.-The word is taken almost in the sense of "health," as in Gen. xliii. 27, 28, and elsewhere. The false prophets were as physicians who told the man suffering from a fatal disease that he was in full health. As the previous words show, the prophet has in his mind the false encouragements given by those who should have been the true guides of the people. Looking at Josiah's reformation as sufficient to win the favour of Jehovah, they met Jeremiah's warnings of coming evil by the assurance that all was well, and that invasion and conquest were far-off dangers. (15) Were they ashamed P-The Hebrew gives an assertion, not a question-They are brought to shame (as in chap. ii. 26), because they have committed abominations. And yet, the prophet adds, "they were not ashamed" (the verb is in à different voice). There was no inward feeling of shame even when they were covered with ignominy and confusion. They had lost the power to blush, and were callous and insensible. This was then, as always, the most hopeless of all states. To "fall among them that fall was its inevitable sequel.

notable than they seem. They impressed themselves on the prophet's mind, and became to him as a watchword. So, in chap. xx. 3, he gives them as a name (Magormissabib) to Pashur, and apparently (as in chap. xx. 10) it was used as a cry of derision against himself.

(26) Wallow thyself in ashes.-So in chap. xxv. 34; Ezek. xxvii. 30. The ordinary sign of mourning was to sprinkle dust or ashes on the head (2 Sam. i. 2, xiii. 19; Josh. vii. 6). This, as in chap. xxv. 34; Micah i. 10; Job. ii. 8, indicated more utter wretchedness and prostration. The English verb belongs to the class of those which were once used reflexively, and have now come to be intransitive. 'Endeavour" supplies another example.

(27) I have set thee . . .-The verse is difficult, as containing words in the Hebrew which are not found elsewhere, and have therefore to be guessed at. The following rendering is given on the authority of the most recent commentators, and has the merit of being in harmony with the metallurgic imagery of the following verses. As a prover of ore I have set thee among my people, and thou shalt know and try their way. The words are spoken by Jehovah to the prophet, and describe his work. By others, the first part of the sentence is rendered as follows: As a prover of ore I have set thee like a fortress, as if with a reference to chap. i. 18, where the same word is used. (28) Grievous revolters . .-Literally, rebels of rebels, as a Hebraism for the worst type of rebellion. Walking with slanders.-The phrase was a common one (Lev. xix. 16; Prov. xi. 13, xx. 19), and pointed to the restless eagerness of the tale-bearer to spread his falsehoods. (Comp. 1 Tim. v. 13, “wandering about . . . idle tattlers.")

Brass and iron.-Base metals serving for vile uses, no gold or silver in them. The imagery, which carries on the thought of the previous verse, had been made familiar by Isaiah (i. 22, 25), and was reproduced afterwards by Ezekiel (xxii. 18-22) and Malachi (iii. 3). Corrupters.-Better, workers of destruction.

(29) The bellows are burned.-Better, burn, or glow. In the interpretation of the parable the "bellows" answer to the life of the prophet as filled with the breath or spirit of Jehovah. He is, as it were, consumed with that fiery blast, and yet his work is faulty.

The lead is consumed. .-Better, from their fire is lead only. A different punctuation gives, The

The Prophet's Sermon in the Temple.

away. (30) d1Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them.

CHAPTER VII.-(1) The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, (2) Stand in the gate of the LORD'S house, and proclaim there this word, and say,

Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD. (3) Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel,

e

Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. (4) Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD,

bellows burn with fire; yet lead is the only outcome. The point lies in the fact that lead was used as a flux in smelting silver ore. The founder in the case supposed went on with his work till the lead was melted, but he found no silver after all.

Plucked away.-Better, separated or purified, as in keeping with the metaphor.

(30) Reprobate silver.-Better, as in the margin, refuse silver; the dross and not the metal; so worthless that even Jehovah, as the great refiner, rejects it utterly, as yielding nothing. The adjective and the verb have in the Hebrew the emphasis of being formed from the same root, Refuse silver. . . because Jehovah had refused them.

VII.

(1) This chapter and the three that follow form again another great prophetic sermon, delivered to the crowds that flocked to the Temple. There is nothing in the discourse which absolutely fixes its date, but the description of idolatry, as prevalent, and, possibly, the reference to the presence of the Chaldæan invader in chaps. viii. 16, x. 22, fit in rather with the reign of Jehoiakim than with that of Josiah; and from the special reference to Shiloh in chap. xxvi. 6, 9, as occurring in a prophecy delivered at the beginning of that reign, it was probably this discourse, or one like it, and delivered about the same time, that drew down that king's displeasure (see verse 14).

(2) The gate of the Lord's house. As a priest, Jeremiah would have access to all parts of the Temple. On some day when the courts were thronged with worshippers (verse 10), probably a fast-day specially appointed, he stands at the inner gate of one of the courts, possibly, as in chap. xvii. 19, that by which the king entered in ceremonial state, and looking about on the multitudes that thronged it, speaks to them "the word of the Lord," the message which he had been specially commissioned to deliver.

(3) Your ways and your doings.-" Ways," as in Zech. i. 6, of general habits, "doings" of separate acts. I will cause you to dwell.-The English suggests the thoughts of something new, but what Jeremiah promises is simply the continuance of the blessings they had hitherto enjoyed. I will let you dwell.

(4) Trust ye not in lying words . . .-The emphatic threefold repetition of the words thus condemned,

The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these. (5) For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; (6) if ye oppress not the stranger, the a Isa. 56, 7. fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: (7) then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

(8) Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. (9) Will ye steal,

18

The Temple a Den of Robbers.

13:

17

6.

"The temple of the Lord," points to its having been the burden of the discourses of the false prophets, possibly to the solemn iteration of the words in the litanies of the supplicants. With no thought of the Divine Presence of which it was the symbol, they were ever harping on its greatness, identifying themselves and the people with that greatness, and predicting its perpetuity. So in Matt. xxiv. 1 the disciples of our Lord point, as with a national pride, to the buildings of the later Temple. The plural "these" is used rather than the singular, as representing the whole complete fabric of courts and porticoes. The higher truth that the " gregation" of Israel was the living Temple (1 Cor. iii. 16; 1 Pet. ii. 5), was not likely to be in the thoughts of those whom Jeremiah rebuked.

con

(5) A man and his neighbour.-The Jewish idiom for the English "one man and another."

(6) The stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.-Grouped together, as in Deut. xiv. 29, xxiv. 19-21, as the three great representatives of the poor and helpless, standing most in need therefore of man's justice and of the divine protection.

(7) For ever and ever.-Literally, from eternity to eternity, or, perhaps, from age to age. The English punctuation connects these words with "I will cause you to dwell," but the accentuation of the Hebrew with "I gave to your fathers;" the gift was to have been in perpetuity (Gen. xvii. 8), but the guilt of the people had brought about its forfeiture.

(8) Lying words. With special reference to those already cited in verse 4.

(9) Will ye steal.-The English obscures the emphasis of the Hebrew idiom which gives the verbs as a series of infinitives, What! to steal, to murder, to burn incense to Baal . . . and then have ye come before me .!

(10) And come and stand.-Better, and then have ye come, and stood before me.

We are delivered.-Taking the word as it stands (a different punctuation adopted by some commentators and versions gives Deliver us, as though reproducing, with indignant scorn, the very prayer of the people), the sense seems to be this. The people tried to combine the worship of Baal and Jehovah, and passed from the one temple to the other. They went away from the fast or feast in the house of the Lord with the feeling that they were "saved," or delivered." They had gone through their religious duties, and might claim their reward. The prophet seems to repeat their words in a tone of irony, They were delivered," not from their abominations, but as if set free to do them.

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(11) A den of robbers.-The words had a special force in a country like Palestine, where the limestone rocks presented many caves, which, like that of Adullam (1 Sam. xxii. 1, 2), were the refuge of outlaws and robbers. Those who now flocked to the courts of the Temple, including even priests and prophets, were as such robbers, finding shelter there, and soothing their consciences by their worship, as the brigands of Italy do by their devotions at the shrine of some favourite Madonna. It had for them no higher sanctity than "a den of robbers." The word for "robber" implies the more violent form of lawless plunder. The words are memorable, as having re-appeared in our Lord's rebuke of the money-changers and traffickers in the Temple (Matt. xxi. 13; Mark xi. 17; Luke xix. 46); and, taken together with the reference at the last Supper to the New Covenant of chap. xxxi. 31, suggest the thought that our Lord was leading His disciples to see in the prophet's work a foreshadowing of His own relation to the evils of His time, and more than a foreshadowing of the great remedy which He was to work out for them.

(12) My place which was in Shiloh.-The history of the past showed that a Temple dedicated to Jehovah could not be desecrated with impunity. Shiloh had been chosen for the centre of the worship of Israel after the conquest of Canaan (Josh. xviii. 1), and was reverenced as such through the whole period of the Judges. It had not, however, been a centre of light and purity. It had been defiled by wild dances of a half-idolatrous character; by deeds of shameless violence (Judges xxi. 19—21), and by the sins of the sons of Eli (1 Sam. ii. 22). And so the judgment came. It lost the presence of the ark (1 Sam. iv. 17; Ps. lxxviii. 58-64); its people were slaughtered by the Philistines; it fell into decay. It is possible, as the words "temple (1 Sam. i. 9, iji. 3) and "house" (1 Sam. iii. 15; Judges xviii. 31) applied to it suggest, that substantial buildings may have gathered round the original tabernacle, and that those wasted ruins may have given a special force to Jeremiah's allusion. It will be seen from chap. xxvi. 6, 9, 11, that it was this reference that more than anything else provoked the wrath of priest and people. They thought with a half-concealed exultation of the fate of the earlier sanctuary in Ephraim, which had given way to that of Judah. They forgot that like sins bring about like punishments, and were startled when they heard that as terrible a doom was impending over the Temple of which they boasted. It would appear from chap. xli. 5 that the ruin was not total, perhaps that it was still visited by pilgrims. Jerome describes

The Worship of the Queen

a

Israel. (13) And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not; (14) therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to 'Shiloh. (15) And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed. of Ephraim.

(16) Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee. (17) Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? (18) The children gather wood, and the

of Heaven in Jerusalem

d ch. 44. 19.

(19) Do

they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces ? it (20) Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

it as a heap of ruins. It has been identified by modern travellers with the village of Seilun.

(13) Rising up early and speaking.-A characteristic phrase of Jeremiah's, and used by him only (verse 25, chap. xxv. 4, xxvi. 5, xxix. 19). In its bold anthropomorphism it takes the highest form of human activity, waking from sleep and beginning at the dawn of day, to represent the like activity in God.

I called you, but ye answered not.-An echo of earlier complaints from prophets and wise men (Prov. i. 24; Isa. lxv. 12, lxvi. 4), destined itself to be used again by One greater than the prophets (Matt. xxiii. 37).

(15) The whole seed of Ephraim.-The fate of the tribes of the Northern kingdom, among which Ephraim had always held the leading position, was already familiar to the people. They were dwelling far off by Habor or Gozan, and the cities of the Medes (2 Kings xv. 29, xvii. 6, xviii. 11). A like exile was, they were now told, to be their own portion.

(16) Pray not thou.-The words imply that a prayer of intercession, like that which Moses had offered of old (Exod. xxxii. 10), was rising up in the heart of the prophet. He is told that he must check it. Judgment must have its way. The discipline must be left to do its work. A like impulse met by a like repression is found in chaps. xi. 14, and xiv. 11. It is obvious that the utterance of the conflict between his human affections and the Divine will made the sentence which he pronounced more terrible than ever.

(17) Seest thou not . . . ?-We enter on one of the darker regions of Jewish idolatry, such as Ezekiel (chap. viii.) saw in vision. A foreign worship of the basest kind was practised, not only in secret, but in the open places.

(18) The queen of heaven.-The goddess thus described was a kind of Assyrian Artemis, identified with the moon, and connected with the symbolic worship of the reproductive powers of Nature. Its ritual probably resembled that of the Babylonian Aphrodite, Mylitta, the mother-goddess, in its impurities (Herod. i. 199; Baruch vi. 43), and thus provoked the burning indignation of the prophet here and in chap. xliv. 19, 25. The word rendered "cakes," and found only in

(21) Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. (22) For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I

connection with this worship, was clearly a technical term, and probably of foreign origin. Cakes of a like kind, made of flour and honey, round like the full moon, and known, therefore, as selence or "moons," were offered, like the Minchah or meat-offerings in the Mosaic ritual, the Neideh in the Egyptian worship of the goddess Neith, at Athens to Artemis, and in Sicily to Hecate (Theocr., Idylls, ii. 33). The worship of Ashtoreth (Milton speaks of her as Astarte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horn"), though of kindred nature, was not identical with that of the Queen of Heaven, that name signifying a star, and being identified with the planet Venus. A various reading gives, as in the margin, "the frame of heaven." (19) Do they not provoke themselves...?— The interpolated words, though they complete the sense, mar the abrupt force of the Hebrew. Is it not themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?

(20) Shall be poured out.-The word is used in Exod. ix. 33 of the plague of rain; here, of the great shower of the fire of the wrath of Jehovah (comp. Nah. i. 6). It is significant that it had been used by Josiah on hearing of the judgments denounced in the new-found copy of the Law (2 Chron. xxxiv. 21).

(21) Put your burnt offerings.-i.e., "Add one kind of sacrifice to another. Offer the victim, and then partake of the sacrificial feast. All is fruitless, unless there be the true conditions of acceptance, repentance, and holiness." (22) I spake not concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.-"Concerning" is, literally, for, or with a view to, the matter of sacrifices. The words seem at first hard to reconcile with the multiplied rules as to sacrifices both in Exodus and Leviticus. They are, however, rightly understood, strictly in harmony with the facts. They were not the end contemplated. The first promulgation of the Law, the basis of the covenant with Israel, contemplated a spiritual, ethical religion, of which the basis was found in the ten great Words, or commandments, of Exod. xx. The ritual in connection with sacrifice was prescribed partly as a concession to the feeling which showed itself, in its evil form, in the worship of the golden calf, partly as an education. The book of Deuteronomy, representing the