Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

in Sept., and by the somewhat unexpected date given at xlix. 34. Now the date, " in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah," in the heading of the prophecy against Elam, xlix. 34, found not only in the Masoretic text, but also in the Alexandr. version (where, however, it occurs as a postscript at the end of the prophecy in xxvi. 1), creates a difficulty only if the prophecy be wrongly taken to refer to a conquest of Elam by Nebuchadnezzar. The other two arguments, founded on the ra Al\dfi of xxv. 13, and the omission of the heading at xxvii. 1 (Heb.) in the LXX., stand and fall with the assumption that the Greek translator adhered closely to the Hebrew text and rendered it with literal accuracy, the very reverse of which is betrayed from one end of the translation to the other. The heading at xxvii. 1, u In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiuk'nn the son of Josiah king of Judah, came this word to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying," coincides word for word with the heading of xxvi. 1, save that in the latter the words u to Jeremiah" do not occur; and this former heading the Greek translator has simply omitted, — holding it to be incorrect, since the prophecy belongs to the time of Zedekiah, and is addressed to him. On the other hand, he has appended ra AtXcifi to the last clause of xxv. 13, " which Jeremiah prophesied against the nations," taking this clause to be the heading of Jeremiah's prophecies against the nations; this appears from the ra AlXdfi, manifestly imitated from the eVt ra eduTj. His purpose was to make out the following oracle as against Elam; but he omitted from its place the full title of the prophecy against Elam, because it seemed to him unsuitable to have it come immediately after the (in his view) general heading, a eirpo ^revere 'Iepe/itav eVt ra edvTj, while, however, he introduced it at the end of the prophecy. It is wholly wrong to suppose that the heading at xxvii. 1 of the Hebrew text, omitted in the LXX., is nothing but the postscript to the prophecy against Elam (xxvi. 1 in the LXX. and xlix. 34 in the Heb.); for this postscript runs thus: iv apxv @aai\evomos SeBe/ciov fiacrLXecos iyeveTo, /c.t.X., and is a literal translation of the heading at xlix. 34 of the Heb. It is from this, and not from xxvii. 1 of the Heb., that the translator has manifestly taken his postscript to the prophecy against

Flam; and if BO, the postscript is, of course, no kind of proof that in the original text used by the Greek translator the prophecies against the nations stood before chap, xxvii. The notion we are combating is vitiated, finally, by the fact that it does not in the least explain why these prophecies are in the LXX. placed after xxv. 13, but rather suggests for them a wholly unsuitable position between xxvi. and xxvii., where they certainly never stood, nor by any possibility ever could have stood. From what has been said it will be seen that we can seek the cause for the transposition of the prophecies against the nations only in the Alexandrian translator's arbitrary mode of handling the Hebrew text.

[ERS. 1-3 contain the heading to the whole book of the prophecies of Jeremiah. The heading runs thus: " Sayings of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests at Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin, to whom befell the word of Jahveh in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign, and in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, until the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month." The period mentioned in these verses includes the time of Jeremiah's principal labours, while no reference is here made to the work he at a later time wrought amidst the ruins of Judah and in Egypt; this being held to be of but subordinate importance for the theocracy. Similarly, when the names of the kings under whom he laboured are given, the brief reigns of Jehoahaz and of Jehoiachin are omitted, neither reign having lasted over three months. His prophecies are called D1"!^*?, words or speeches, as in xxxvi. 10; so with the prophecies of Amos, Am. i. 1. More complete information as to the person of the prophet is given by the mention made of his father and of his extraction. The name ^PT> "Jahveh throws," was in very common use, and is found as the name of many persons; cf. 1 Chron. v. 24, xii. 4, 10, 13, 2 Kings xxiii. 31, Jer. xxxv. 3, Neh. x. 3, xii. 1. Hence wTe are hardly entitled to explain the name with Hengstb. by Ex. xv. 1, to the effect that whoever bore it was consecrated to the God who with almighty hand dashes to the ground all His foes, so that in his name the nature of our prophet's mission would be held to be set forth. His father Hilkiah is taken by Clem. Alex., Jerome, and some Rabbins, for the high priest of that name who is mentioned in 2 Cliron. xxii. 4; but without sufficient grounds. For Hilkiah, too, is a name that often occurs; and the high priest is sure to have had his home not in Anathoth, but in Jerusalem. But Jeremiah and his father belonged to the priests who lived in Anathoth, now called Andta, a town of the priests, lying 14 hours north of Jerusalem (see on Josh. xxi. 18), in the land, Le. the tribal territory, of Benjamin. In ver. 2 PjW belongs to 1IPK: u to whom befell (to whom came) the word of Jahveh in the days of Josiah,... in the thirteenth year of his reign." This same year is named by Jeremiah in chap. xxv. ',) as the beginning of his prophetic labours. Vtt in ver 3 is the continuation of njn in ver. 2, and its subject is mJT 13*1: and then (further) it came (to him) in the days of Jehoiakim,... to the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, etc. In the fifth month of the year named, the eleventh of the reign of Zedekiah, Jerusalem was reduced to ashes by Nebuzar-adan, and its inhabitants carried away to Babylon; cf. Hi. 12 H.^ 2 Kings wv. Shortly I. King Zedekiah, captured when in flight from the Chaldeans during the siege of Jerusalem, had been deprii ight at Riblah and carried to

Babylon in chains. And thus his kingship was at an end, though the eleventh year of his reign might not be yet quite completed.

TO BE a PfiOPHETOF rHELiOBD. — The investiture of Jeremiah with the prophetic office follows in four acts: the call on the part of the Lord, vers. 4-8; Jeremiah's consecration for his calling in vers. 9-10; and in two signs, by means of which the Lord assures him of certain success in his work and of powerful support in the exercise of his office (vers. 11-19). The call was given by a word of the Lord which came to him in this form: Ver. 5. " Before I formed thee in the womb I have known thee, and before thou wentest forth from the belly have I consecrated.thee, to be prophet to the nations have I set thee. Ver. 6. Then said I, Ah, Lord Jahveh! behold, I know not how to speak; for T am too young. Ver. 7. Then said Jahveh to me, Say not. 1 am too young; but to all to whom I send thee shalt thou go, and all that I command thee shalt thou speak. Ver. 8. Fear not before them: for I am with thee, to save thee, saith.1 ahveh." This word came to Jeremiah by means of inspiration, and is neither the product of a reflective musing as to what his calling was to be, nor the outcome of an irresistible impulse, felt within him, to come forward as a prophet. It was a supernatural divine revelation vouchsafed to him, which raised his spiritual life to a state of ecstasy, so that he both recognised the voice of God and felt his lips touched by the hand of God (ver. 9). Further, he saw in spirit, one after another, two visions which God interpreted to him as confirmatory tokens of his divine commission (vers. 11-19). Jeremiah's appointment to be a prophet for the nations follows upon a decree of God's, fixed before he was conceived or born. God in His counsel has not only foreordained our life and being, but has predetermined before our birth what is to be our calling upon this earth; and He has accordingly so influenced our origin and our growth in the womb, as to prepare us for what we are to become, and for what we are to accomplish on behalf of His kingdom. This is true of all men, but very especially of those who have been chosen by God to be the extraordinary instruments of His grace, whom He has appointed to be instruments for the carrying out of the redemptive schemes of His kingdom; cf. Jer. xliv. 2, 24, xlix. 5, Gal. i. 15. Thus Samson was appointed to be a Nazarite from the womb, this having been revealed to his mother before he was conceived, Judges xiii. 3 ff. To other men of God such divine predestination was made known for the first time wThen they were called to that office to which God had chosen them. So was it with our prophet Jeremiah. In such a case a reminder by God of the divine counsel of grace, of old time ordained and provided with means for its accomplishment, should be accepted as an encouragement willingly to take upon one the allotted calling. For the man God has chosen before his birth to a special office in His kingdom He equips with the gifts and graces needed for the exercise of his functions. The three clauses of ver. 5 give the three moments whereof the choosing consists: God has chosen him, has consecrated him, and has installed him as prophet. The reference of the words " I have known thee," Calvin limited to the office, quasi diceret, priusquam te formarem in utero, destinavi te in hunc usum, nempe ut subires docendi mimus in populo meo. Divine knowing is at the same time a singlinc: out: and of this, choosing is the immediate consequence. But the choosing takes place by means of B^pn, sanctifying, i.e. setting apart and consecrating for a special calling, and is completed by institution to the office. " To be prophet for the nations have I set thee" (I??, ponere, not only appoint, but install). The sense has been briefly put by Calv. thus: (Jer.) fuisse hac lepe creatum hominem, ut suo tempore manifestaretur propheta, DW, to the nations = for the nations; not for Jutlah alone, but for the heathen peoples too; cf. vers. 10, xxv. 9, xlvi. ff. The Chethibh *pWK should apparently be read TT^'X, from W, equivalent to "TCJ; the root-form ytt being warranted by Ex. xxxii. 4, 1 Kings vii. 15, and being often found in Aramaic. It is, however, possible that the Chet. may be only scriplio plena of "fifN, a radice W, since the seriptio pi. is found elsewhere, llos. viii. 12, Jer. xliv. 17, Ezek. xxi. 28, etc. — Ver. (5. The divine call throws Jeremiah into terror. Knowing well his too great weakness for such an office, he exclaims: Ah, Lord Jahveh! I know not how to speak; for I am 1^3, i.e. young and inexperienced; cf. 1 Kings iii. 7. This excuse shows that "^l "?P_; & means something else than D*KW B*K &6, by which Moses sought to repel God's summons. Moses was not ready of speech, he lacked the gift of utterance; Jeremiah, on the other hand, only thinks himself not yet equal to the task by reason of his youth and want of experience. — Ver. 7. This execuse God holds of no account. As prophet to the nations, Jeremiah was not to make known his own thoughts or human wisdom, but the will and counsel of God which were to be revealed to him. This is signified by the clauses: for to all to whom I send thee, etc. The?V belonging to 'rfpn stands for <>X, and does not indicate a hostile advance against any one. b'3 after?V is not neuter, but refers to persons, or rather peoples; since to the relative "1B>K in this connection, DnvV is quite a natural completion; cf. Isa. viii. 12, and Ew. § 331, c. Only to those men or peoples is he to go to whom God sends him; and to them he is to declare only what God commands him. And bo he needs be in no anxiety on this head, that, as a youth,' he has no experience in the matter of speaking.— Ver. 8. Just as little needs youthful bashfulness or shy unwillingness to speak before high and mighty personages stand as a hindrance in the way of his accepting God's call. The Lord will be with him, so that he needs have no fear for any man. The suffix in DJV3BO refers to all to whom God sends him (ver. 7). These, enraged by the threatenings of punishment which he must proclaim to them, will seek to persecute him and put him to death (cf. ver. 19); but God promises to rescue him from every distress and danger which the fulfilment of his duties can bring upon him. Yet. God does not let the matter cease with this pledge; but, further, He consecrates him to his calling.

Vers. 9 and 10. The Consecration. — Ver. 9. " And Jahveh stretched forth His hand, and touched my mouth, and Jahveh said to me, Behold, I put my words into thy mouth. Ver. 10. Behold, I set thee this day over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root up and to ruin, to destroy and to demolish, to build and to plant." In order to assure him by overt act of His support, the Lord gives him a palpable pledge. He stretches out His hand and causes it to touch his mouth (cf. Isa. vi. 7); while, as explanation of this symbolical act, He adds: I have put my words in thy mouth. The hand is the instrument of making and doing; the touching of Jeremiah's mouth by the hand of God is consequently an emblematical token that God frames in his mouth wdiat he is to speak. It is a tangible pledge of efiirvevaiS) inspiration embodiment of that influence exercised on the human spirit, by means of which the holy men of God speak, being moved by the Holy Ghost, 2 Pet. i. 21 (Nagelsb.). The act is a real occurrence, taking place not indeed in the earthly, corporeal sphere, but experienced in spirit, and of the nature of ecstasy. By means of it God has consecrated him to be His prophet, and endowed him for the discharge of his duties; He may now entrust him with His commission to the peoples and kingdoms, and set him over them as His prophet who proclaims to them His word. The contents of this proclaiming are indicated in the following infinitive clauses. With the words of the Lord he is to destroy and to build up peoples and kingdoms. The word of God is a power that carries out His will, and accomplishes that whereto He sends it, Isa. lv. 10 ff. Against this power nothing earthly can stand; it is a hammer that breaks rocks in pieces, xxiii. 29. What is here said of the word of Jahveh to be preached by Jeremiah is said of Jahveh Himself in xxxi. 28. Its power is to show itself in two wrays, in destroying and in building up. The destroying is not set down as a mere preliminary, but is expressed by means of four different words, whereas the building is given only in two words, and these standing after the four; in order, doubtless, to indicate that the labours of Jeremiah should consist, in the first place and for the most part, in proclaiming judgment upon the nations. The assonant verbs CTIJ and |TU are joined to heighten the sense; for the same reason DhfW is added to T2Nn?, and in the antithesis $£)? is joined with ni}^.1

Vers. 11-lf). The Confirmatory Tokens. — The first is given in vers. 11 and 12: " And there came to me the word of Jahveh, saying, What seest thou, Jeremiah! Ami I said, I see an almond rod. Then Jahveh said to me, Thou hast seen aright: for I will keep watch over my word to fulfil it." With the consecration of the prophet to his office are associated two visions, to give him a surety of the divine promise regarding the discharge of the duties imposed on him. First, Jeremiah sees in spirit a rod or twig of an almond tree. God calls his attention to this vision, and interprets it to him as a symbol of the swift fulfilment of His word. The choice of this symbol for the purpose given is suggested by the Hebrew name for the almond tree, IgB^, the wakeful, the vigilant; because this tree begins to blossom and expand its leaves in January^ when the other trees are still in their winter's sleep (Jlorat omnium prima mense Januario, Martio vero poma maturat. Plin. h. n. xvi. 42, and Von Schubert, Reise iii. S. 14), and so of all trees awakes earliest to new life. Without any sufficient reason Graf has combated this meaning for Ip.^, proposing to change "ip^ into

1 The LXX. Lave omitted Di"t!"l?, and hence Hitz. infers the spuriousness of this word. But in the parallel passage, xxxi. 28, the LXX. have rendered all the four words by the one x,et6oupth; and Hitz. does not then pronounce the other three spurious.

V-, and, with A.piil., Sym., and Jerome, to translate W>$0 watchful twig, virga vigilans, i.e. a twig whose eyes are open, whoso buds have opened, burst; but he has not even attempted to give any authority for the use of the verb V?" for the bursting of buds, much less justified it. In the explanation of this symbol between the words, thou hast seen aright, and the grounding clause, for I will keep watch, there is omitted the intermediate thought: it is indeed a 1\>f! The twig thou hast seen is an emblem of what I shall do; fori will keep watch over my word, will be watchful to fulfil it. This interpretation of the symbol shows besides that i>j3D is not here to be taken, as by Kimchi, Vatabl., Seb. Schmidt, N Sjelsb., and others, for a stick to beat with, or as a threatening rod of correction. The reasons alleged by Nagelsb. for this view are utterly inconclusive. For his assertion, that f>p& always means a stick, and never a fresh, leafy branch, is proved to be false by Gen. xxx. 37; and the supposed climax found by ancient expositors in the two symbols: rod — boiling caldron, put thus by Jerome: qui noluerint percutiente virga emendari, mitientur in ollam ameam atque succensam, is forced into the text by a false interpretation of the figure of the seething pot. The figure of the almond rod was meant only to afford to the prophet surety for the speedy and certain fulfilment of the word of God proclaimed by him. It is the second emblem alone that has anything to do with the contents of his preaching.

Vers. 13-16. The Seething Pot. — Ver. 13. "And there came to me the word of Jahveh for the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said: I see a seething-pot; and it looketh hither from the north. Ver. 14. Then said Jahveh to me: From the north will trouble break forth upon all inhabitants of the land. Ver. 15. For, behold, I call to all families of the kingdoms towards the north, saith Jahveh; that they come and set each his throne before the gates of Jerusalem, and against all' her walls round about, and against all cities of Judah. Ver. 16. And I will pronounce judgment against them for all their wickedness, in that they have forsaken me, and have offered odours to other gods, and worshipped the work of their hands." TD is a large pot or caldron in which can be cooked vegetables or meat for many persons at once;

cf. 2 Kings iv. 38 ff., Ezek. xxiv. 3 ff. maj, fanned, blown upon, used of fire, Ezek. xxi. 36, xxii. 20 f.; then by transference, seething, steaming, since the caldron under which fire is fanned steams, its contents boil; cf. Job xli. 12. The CMB of the pot is the side turned to the spectator (the prophet), the side towards the front. This is turned from the north this way, i.e. set so that its contents will run thence this way. ittlBtf properly: towards the north; then, that which lies towards the north, or the northerly direction. In the interpretation of this symbol in ver. 14, nnssn, assonant to rnsj, is introduced, just as in Amos viii. 2 P.i? is explained by YP.; so that there was no occasion for the conjecture of Houbig. and Graf: nen, it is fanned up; and against this we have Hitzig's objection that the Hophal of nsj never occurs. Equally uncalled for is Hitzig's own conjecture, rnsn, it will steam, fume, be kindled; while against this we have the fact, that as to nsj no evidence can be given for the meaning be kindled, and that we have no cases of such a mode of speaking as: the trouble is fuming, steaming up. The Arabian poetical saying: their pot steams or boils, i.e. a war is being prepared by them, is not sufficient to justify such a figure. We hold then nnsfl for the correct reading, and decline to be led astray by the paraphrastic iKKavOijaeraL of the LXX., since nnsn gives a suitable sense. It is true, indeed, that nrjB usually means open; but an opening of the caldron by the removal of the lid is not (with Graf) to be thought of. But, again, nns> has the derived sig. let loose, let off (cf. nJVa nns, Isa. xiv. 17), from which there can be no difficulty in inferring for the Niph. the sig. be let loose, and in the case of trouble, calamity: break forth. That which is in the pot runs over as the heat increases, and pours itself on the hearth or ground. If the seething contents of the pot represent disaster, their running over will point to its being let loose, its breaking out. H?? UK* are the inhabitants of the land of Judah, as the interpretation in ver. 15 shows. In ver. 15 reference to the figure is given up, and the further meaning is given in direct statement. The Lord will call to all families of the kingdoms of the north, and they will come ( = that they are to come). The kingdoms of the north are not merely the kingdoms of Syria, but in general those of Upper Asia; since all armies marching from the Euphrates towards Palestine entered the land from the north, rrinsw, families, are the separate races of nations, hence often used in parallelism with tna; cf. x. 25, Nahum iii. 4. We must not conclude from this explanation of the vision seen that the seething pot symbolizes the Chaldeans themselves or the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar; such a figure would be too unnatural. The seething pot, whose contents boil over, symbolizes the disaster and ruin which the families of the kingdoms of the north will pour out on Judah.— Ver. 15 is not the precise interpretation of the picture seen, but a direct statement of the afflictions about to fall on the inhabitants of Judah. " They will set each his throne." The representatives of the kingdoms are meant, the kings and generals. To set one's throne flnj or nw; cf. xliii. 10, xlix. 38) is a figure for the establishing of sovereignty. KD3, seat or throne, is not the seat of judgment, but the throne of the sovereign; cf. the expression: set the throne upon these stones, xliii. 10; where a passing of judgment on the stones being out of the question, the only idea is the setting up of dominion, as is put beyond doubt by the parallel clause: to spread out his state carpet upon the stones. " Before the gates of Jerusalem: " not merely in order to besiege the city and occupy the outlets from it (Jerome and others), but to lord it over the city and its inhabitants. If we take the figurative expression in this sense, the further statement fits well into it, and we have no need to take refuge in Hitzig's unnatural view that these clauses are not dependent on 'til UJT3 but on ttO*« For the words: they set up their dominion against the walls of Jerusalem, and against all cities of Judah, give the suitable sense, that they will use violence against the walls and cities. — Ver. 16. God holds judgment upon the inhabitants of Judah in this very way, viz. by bringing these nations and permitting them to set up their lordship before the gates of Jerusalem, and against all cities of Judah. The suffix in DrriK refers to pNH VM5% ver. 14, and DniK stands by later usage for 0m9 as frequently in Jer.; cf. Ew. § 264, b. 'trm D'OB^b W, speak judgment, properly, have a lawsuit with one, an expression peculiar to Jeremiah, — cf. iv. 12, xii. 1, xxxix. 5, lii. \\ and 2 Kings xxv. 6, — is in substance equivalent to riK D&03, plead with one, cf. xii. 1 with ii. 35, Ezek. xx. 35 ff., aud signifies not onlv remonstrating against wrong doing, but also the passing of condemnation, and so comprehends trial and sentencing; cf. xxxix. 5, Hi. 9. " All their wickedness " is more exactly defined in the following relative clauses; it consists in their apostasy from God, and their worship of heathen gods and idols made by themselves; cf. xix. 4, 1 Kings xi. 33, 2 Kings xxii. 17. "Nftp, offer odours, cause to rise in smoke, used not of the burning of incense alone, but of all offerings upon the altar, bloody offerings and meat-offerings; hence frequently in parallelism with fl3J; cf. Hos. iv. 13, xi. 2, etc. In the Pentateuch the Hiphil is used for this sense. Instead of the plural *fcTO, many M88. give the singular nfe^jo as the ordinary expression for the productions of the hand, handiwork; cf. xxv. (>, 7, 14, xxxii. 30, - Kings xxii. 17, etc.; but the plural too is found in xliv. 8, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 25, and is approved by thi The sense is no way affected by this variation.

Vers, 17 19. The interpretation of the symbols is followed hy a charge t<» Jeremiah to address himself stoutly to his duties, and to discharge them fearlessly, together with still further and fuller assurance of powerful divine assistance. — Ver. 17. "But thou, gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak to them all that I command thee: be not dismayed before them, lest I dismay thee before them. Ver. 18. And 1, behold I make thee this day a strong city, an iron pillar, a brazen wall against the whole laud, the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. Ver. 19. They shall strive against thee, but not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith Jahveh, to save thee." To gird up the loins, i.e. to fasten or tuck up with the girdle the long wide garment, in order to make oneself fit and ready for labour, for a journey, or a race (Ex. xii. 11:1 Kings xviii. 46; 2 Kings iv. 29, ix. 1), or for battle (Job xxxviii. 3, xl. 7). Meaning: equip thyself and arise to preach my words to the inhabitants of the land. In 'd nnJTTN and '? l^nN there is a play on words. The Niph. sig. broken in spirit by terror and anxiety; the Hiph. to throw into terror and anguish. If Jer. appears before his adversaries in terror, then he will have cause to be terrified for them; only if by unshaken confidence in the power of the word he preaches in the name of the Lord, will he be able to accomplish anything.

Such confidence lie has reason to cherish, for God will furnish him with the strength necessary for making a stand, will make him strong and not to be vanquished. This is the meaning of the pictorial statement in ver. 18. A strong city resists °the assaults of the foes; the storm cannot shatter an iron pillar; and walls of brass defy the enemy's missiles. Instead of the plural nich, the parallel passage xv. 20 has the sing, npin, the plural being used as frequently as the singular to indicate the wall encircling the city; cf. 2 Kings xxv. 10 with 1 Kings iii. 1, Neh. ii. 13, iv. 1 with i. 3, and ii. 17, iv. 10. With such invincible power will God equip His prophet " against the whole land," i.e. so that he will be able to hold his own against the whole land. The mention of the component parts of "all the land," i.e. the several classes of the population, is introduced by h27b>, so that " the kings," etc., is to be taken as an apposition to "against all the land." Kings in the plural are mentioned, because the prophet's labours are to extend over several reigns. Dnb> are the chiefs of the people, the heads of families and clans, and officers, civil and military. " The people of the land" is the rest of the population not included in these three classes, elsewhere called men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, xvii. 25, xxxii. 32, and frequently. t!?K for *|v?; so in xv. 20, and often. With the promise in ver. 196, cf. ver. 8.

If we compare the six longer discourses in these chapters with the sayings and prophecies gathered together in the other portions of the book, we observe between them this distinction in form and matter, that the former are more general in their character than the latter. Considered as to their form, these last prophecies have, with few exceptions, headings in which we are told both the date of tlfeir composition and the circumstances under which they were uttered; while in the headings of these six discourses, if we except the somewhat indefinite notice, "in the days of Josiah" (iii. 6), we find nowhere mentioned either their date or the circumstances which led to their composition. Again, both the shorter sayings and the lengthier prophecies between chap. xxi. and the end of the book are unmistakeably to be looked upon as prophetic addresses, separately rounded off; but the discourses of our first part give us throughout the impression that they are not discourses delivered before the people, but treatises compiled in writing from the oral addresses of the prophet. As to their matter, too, we cannot fail to notice the difference that, whereas from chap, xxi. onwards the king of Babylon is named as the executor of judgment upon Judah and the nations, in the discourses of chap, ii.-xx. the enemies who are to execute judgment are nowhere defined, but are only generally described as a powerful and terrible nation coming from the north. And so, in rebuking the idolatry and the prevailing sins of the people, no reference is made to special contemporary events; but there are introduced to a great extent lengthy general animadversions on their moral degeneracy, and reflections on the vanity of idolatry and the nature of true wisdom. From these facts we infer the probable conclusion that these discourses are but comprehensive summaries of the prophet's labours in the days of Josiah. The probability becomes certainty when we perceive that the matters treated in these discourses are arranged according to their subjects. The first discourse (chap. ii. 1-iii. 5) gives, so to speak, the programme of the subjects of all the following discourses: that disloyal defection to idolatry, witli which Israel has from of old requited the Lord for His love and faithfulness, brings with it sore chastening judgments. In the second discourse (chap. iii. 6-vi. 30) faithless Judah is shown, in the fall of the ten tribes, what awaits itself in case of stiff-necked persistence in idolatry. In the third (chap, vii.-x.) is torn from it the support of a vain confidence in the possession of the temple and in the offering of the sacrifices commanded by the law. In the fourth (chap, xi.-xiii.) its sins are characterized as a breach of the covenant; and rejection by the Lord is declared to be its punishment. In the fifth (chap, xiv.-xvii.) the hope is destroyed that the threatened chastisement can be turned aside by intercession. Finally, in the sixth (chap, xviii.-xx.) the judgment of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the kingdom of Judah is exhibited in symbolical acts. In this arrangement and distribution of what the prophet had to announce to the people in his endeavours to save them if |.in destruction, we ran recognise a progression from general admonitions and threatenings to more and more definite announcement of coming judgments; and when, on the other hand, we * • growing g and bitterer the prophet's complaints against the hatreds and persecutions he has to endure (cf. xii. L-6, xv. lo, 11, L5-21, xvii. 14-18, xviii. 18-2;), xx.), we can gather that the expectation of the people's beino-.saved from impending destruction was growing less and less, that their obduracy was increasing, and that judgment must inevitably come upon them. These complaints of the prophet cease with chap, xx., though later he had much fiercer hatred to endure.

None of these discourses contains any allusions to events that occurred after Josiah's death, or stand in any relation to such events. Hence we believe we are safe in taking them for a digest of the quintessence of Jeremiah's oral preaching in the days of Josiah, and this arranged with reference to the subjectmatter. It was by this preaching that Jeremiah sought to give a firm footing to the king's reformatory efforts to restore and inspire new life into the public worship, and to develope the external return to the legal temple worship into an inward conversion to the living God. And it was thus he sought, while the destruction of the kingdom was impending, to save all that would let themselves be saved; knowing as he did that God, in virtue of His unchangeable covenant faithfulness, would sharply chastise His faithless people for its obstinate apostasy from Him, but had not determined tor make an utter end of it.

The Lord has loved Israel sincerely (ii. 2, 3), but Israel has fallen from the Lord its God and followed after imaginary gods (vers. 4-8); therefore He will yet further punish it for this unparalleled sin (vers. 9-19). From of old Israel has been renegade, and has by its idolatry contracted fearful guilt, being led not even by afflictions to return to the Lord (vers. 20-30); therefore must the Lord chastise (vers. 31-37), because they will not repent (iii. 1-5). This discourse is of a quite general character; it only sketches the main thoughts which are extended in the following discourses and prophecies concerning Judah. So that by most critics it is held to be the discourse by which Jeremiah inaugurated his ministry; for, as Hitzig puts it, " in its finished completeness it gives the impression of a first-uttered outpouring of the heart, in which are set forth, without restraint, Jahveh' s list of grievances against Israel, which has long been running up." It unquestionably contains the chief of the thoughts uttered by the prophet at the beguiling of his ministry.

Vers. 1-3. "Ami then came to me the word of Jahveh, Baying: Go and publish in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: I have remembered to thy account the love of thy youth, the lovingneSfl of thy courtship time, thy going after me in the wilderness, in a land unsown. Holy was Israel to the Lord, his first-fruits of the produce: ail who would have devoured him brought guilt upon themselves: evil came upon him, is the saying of Jahveh." The vers. 2 and 3 are not " in a certain sense the text of the following reproof " (Graf), but contain u the main idea which shows the cause of the [following] rebuke" (Ilitz.): The Lord has rewarded the people of Israel with blessings for its love to Him. "©? with? pers. and accus. means: to remember to one's account that it mav stand him in good stead afterwards, — cf. Neh. v. 19, xiii. 22, 31, Ps. xcviii..">. cvi. 4">, etc., — that it may be repaid with evil, Neh. vi. 14, xiii. i".'. Ps. Ixxix. 8, etc. The perfect WJ3I is to be noted, and not inverted into the present. It is a thing completed that is spoken of; what the Lord has done, not what He is going on with. lie remembered to the people Israel the love of its youth, "ten, ordinarily, condescending love, graciousness and favour; here, the self-devoting, nestling love of Israel to its God. The youth of Israel is the time of the sojourn in Egypt and of the exodus thence (Hos. ii. 17, xi. 1); here the latter, as is shown by the following: lovingness of the courtship. The courtship comprises the time from the exodus out of Egypt till the concluding of the covenant at Sinai (Ex. xix.

When the Lord redeemed Israel with a strong hand out of tlu' power of Egypt, Hechose it to be His spouse, whom He bare on eagles1 wings and brought unto Himself, Ex. xix. 4. The love of the bride to her Lord and Husband, Israel proved by its following Him as He went before in the wilderness, the land where it is not sown, i.e. followed Him gladly into the parched, barren wilderness. " Thy going after me" is decisive for the question so much debated by commentators, whether Ipn and naSW stand for the love of Israel to its God, or God's love to Israel. The latter view we find so early as Chrysostom, and still in Rosenm. and Graf; but it is entirely overthrown by the *^HK SJTOPj which Chrysost*. transforms into 7roLrjaa<; egcucoXovOijaai fiov, while Graf takes no notice of it. The reasons, too, which Graf, after the example of Rosenm. and Dathe, brings in support of this and against the only feasible exposition, are altogether valueless. The assertion that the facts forbid us to understand the words of the love of Israel to the Lord, because history represents the Israelites, when vivdum Aegypto egressos, as refractarios et ad aliorum deorum cultum protws, cannot be supported by a reference to Deut. ix. 6, 24, I>a. xlviii. 8, Amos v. 25 f., Ps. cvi. 7. History knows of no apostasy of Israel from its God and no idolatry of the people during the time from the exodus out of Egypt till the arrival at Sinai, and of this time alone Jeremiah speaks. All the rebellions of Israel against its God fall within the time after the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, and during the march from Sinai to Canaan. On the way from Egypt to Sinai the people murmured repeatedly, indeed, against Moses; at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh was pursuing with chariots and horsemen (Ex. xiv. 11 ff.); at Marah, where they were not able to drink the water for bitterness (xv. 24); in the wilderness of Sin, for lack of bread and meat (xvi. 2 ff.); and at Massah, for want of water (xvii. 2 ff.). But in all these cases the murmuring was no apostasy from the Lord, no rebellion against God, but an outburst of timorousness and want of proper trust in God, as is abundantly clear from the fact that in all these cases of distress and trouble God straightway brings help, with the view of strengthening the confident the timorous people in the omnipotence of His helping grace.

Their backsliding from the Lord into heathenism begins with the worship of the golden calf, after the covenant had been entered into at Sinai (Ex. xxxii.), and is continued in the revolts on the way from Sinai to the borders of Canaan, at Taberah, at Kibroth-hattaavah (Num. xi.), in the desert of Paran at Kadesh (Num. xiii., xx.); and each time it was severely punished by the Lord. Neither are we to conclude, with.J. I). Mich., that (iod interprets the journey through the desert in meliorcm partem, and makes no mention of their offences and revolts; nor with Graf, that Jeremiah looks steadily away from all that history tells of the inarch of the [sraelites through the desert, of their discontent and refractori-, of the golden calf and of Baal Peor, and, idealizing the past as contrasted with the much darker present, keeps in view onlv the brighter side of the old times. Idealizing of this sort is found neither elsewhere in Jeremiah nor in any other prophet; nor is there anything of the kind in our verse, if we take up rightly the E of it and the thread of the thought. It irs' sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness to be the espousal time, and make the marriage union begin not With the covenanting at Sinai, hut with the entrance of Israel into Canaan. Yet more entirely without foundation is the other assertion, that the words rightly given as the sense is, "stand in no connection with the following, since then the point in hand is the people's forgetfulness of the divine benelits, its thanklessness and apostasy, not at all the deliverances wrought by Jahveh in consideration of its former devotedness." For in ver. 3 it is plainly enough told how God remembered to the people its love. Israel was so shielded by Him, as His sanctuary, that whoever touched it must pay the penalty, fthp are all gifts consecrated to Jahveh. The Lord has made Israel a holy offering consecrated to Him in this, that He has separated it to Himself for a np?P, for a precious possession, and has chosen it to be a holy people: Ex. xix. 5 f.; Deut. vii. 6, xiv. 2. Wre can explain from the Torah of offering the further designation of Israel: his first-fruits; the first of the produce of the soil or yield of the land belonged, as BHp, to the Lord: Ex. xxiii. 19; Num. viii. 8, etc. Israel, as the chosen people of God, was such a consecrated firstling. Inasmuch as Jahveh is Creator and Lord of the whole world, all the peoples are His don, the han est of His creation. But amongst the peoples of the earth II*' has chosen Israel to Himself for a firstlingpeople (ttfen rrirxi, Amos vi. 1), and so pronounced it His sanctuary, not to be profaned by touch. Just as each laic who ate of a firstling consecrated to God incurred guilt, so all who meddled with Israel brought guilt upon their heads. The choice of the verb r»N is also to be explained from the figure of firstling-offerings. The eating of firstling-fruit is appropriation of it to one's own use. Accordingly, by the eatino- 0f the holy people of Jahveh, not merely the killing and destroying of it is to be understood, but all laying of violent hands on it, to make it a prey, and so all injury or oppression of Israel by the heathen nations. The practical meaning of ttDPfcP is given by the next clause: mischief came upon them. The verbs vrj'^ and OJ are not futures; for we have here to do not with the future, but with what did take place so long as Israel showed the love of the espousal time to Jahveh. Hence rightly Ilitz.: " he that would devour it must pay the penalty." An historical proof of this is furnished by the attack of the Amalekites on Israel and its result, Ex. xvii. 8-15.

Vers. 4-8. But Israel did not remain true to its first love; it has forgotten the benefits and blessings of its God, and has fallen away from Him in rebellion. — Ver. 4. u Hear the word of Jahveh, house of Jacob, and all families of the house of Israel. Ver. 5. Thus saith Jahveh, What have your fathers found in me of wrongfulness, that they are gone far from me, and have gone after vanity, and are become vain? Ver. 6. And they said not, Where is Jahveh that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us in the wilderness, in the land of steppes and of pits, in the land of drought and of the shadow of death, in a land that no one passes through and where no man dwells? Ver. 7. And I brought you into aland of fruitful fields, to eat its fruit and its goodness: and ye came and defiled my land, and my heritage ye have made an abomination. Ver. 8. The priests said not, Where is Jahveh? and they that handled the law knew me not: the shepherds fell away from me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and after them that profit not are they gone." The rebuke for ungrateful, faithless apostasy is directed against the whole people. The " house of Jacob" is the people of the twelve tribes, and the parallel member, u all families of the house of Israel," is an elucidative apposition. The " fathers " in ver. 5 are the ancestors of the now living race onwards from the days of the Judges, when the generation arising after the death of Joshua and his contemporaries forsook the Lord and served the Baals (Judg. ii. 10 ff.). <W, perversity, wrongfulness, used also of a single wicked deed in Ps. vii. 4, the opposite to acting in truth and good faith. Jahveh is a God of faithfulness (rniDN); in Him is no iniquity (?$ fK), Deut. xxxii. 4. The question, what have they found...? is answered in the negative by ver. 6. To remove far from me and follow after vanity, is tantamount to forsaking Jahveh and serving the false gods (Baals), Judg. ii. 11.?3Hj lit. breath, thenec emptiness, vanity, is applied so early as the song of Moses, Deut. xxxii. 21, to the false gods, as being nonentities. Here, however, the word means not the gods, but the worship of them, as being groundless and vain; bringing no return to him who devotes himself to it, but making him foolish and useless in thought and deed. By the apostle in Rom. i. 21 v^ir is expressed by iixarauoOrjcrav. Cf. 2 Kings xvii. 15, where the second hemistich of our verse is applied to the ten tribes. — Ver. 6. They said not, Where is Jahveh? i.e. they have no longer taken any thought of Jahveh; have not recalled His benefits, though they owed to Him all they had become and all they possessed. He has brought them out of Egypt, freed them from the house of bondage (Mic. vi. 4), and saved them from the oppression of the Pharaohs, meant to extirpate them (Ex. iii. 7 ff.). He has led them through pathless and inhospitable deserts, miraculously furnished them with bread and water, and protected them from all dangers (Deut. viii. 15). To show the greatness of His benefits, the wilderness is described as parched unfruitful land, as a land of deadly terrors and dangers. ^iny H*?, land of steppes or heaths, corresponds to the land unsown of ver. 2. " And of pits," i.e. full of dangerous pits and chasms into which one may stumble unawares. Land of drought, where one may have to pine through thirst. And of the shadow of death: so Sheol is named in Job x. 21 as being a place of deep darkness; here, the wilderness, as a land of the terrors of death, which surround the traveller with darkness as of death: Isa. viii. 22, ix. 1; Job xvi. 16. A land through which no one passes, etc., i.e. which offers the traveller neither path nor shelter. Through this frightful desert God has brought His people in safety. — Ver 7. And He has done yet more. He has brought them into a fruitful and wrell-cultivated land. '£")?, fruitful fields, the opposite of wilderness, chap. iv. 26; Isa. xxix. 17. To eat up its fruit and its good; cf. the enumeration of the fruits and useful products of the land of Canaan, Deut. viii. 7-9. And this rich and splendid land the ungrateful people have defiled by their sins and vices (cf. Lev. xviii. 24), and idolatry (cf. Ezek. xxxvi. 18); and the heritage of Jahveh they have thus made an abomination, an object of horror. The land of Canaan is called " my heritage," the especial domain of Jahveh, inasmuch as, being the Lord of the earth, He is the possessor of the land and has given it to the Israelites for a possession, yet dwells in the midst of it as its real lord, Num. xxv. 34. — In ver. 8 the complaint briefly given in ver. 6 is expanded by an account of the conduct of the higher classes, those who gave its tone to the spirit of the people. The priests, wdiom God had chosen to be the ministers of His sanctuary, asked not after Him, i.e. sought neither Him nor His sanctuary. They who occupy themselves with the law, who administer the law: these too are the priests as teachers of the law (Mic. iii. 11), who should instruct the people as to the Lord's claims on them and commandments (Lev. x. 11; Deut. xxxiii. 10). They knew not.Jahveh, i.«. they took no note of Him, did not seek to discover what His will 'and just claims were, so as to instruct the people therein, and press them to keep the law. The shepherds are the civil authorities, princes and kings (cf. xxiii. 1 ff.): those who by their lives set the example to the people, fell away from the Lord; and the prophets, who should have preached God'a word, prophesied ^Vr.3? by Baal, i.e. inspired by Baal. Baal ia here a generic name for all false gods; cf. xxiii. 13. vfv N^< those who profit not, are the Baals as unreal gods; cf. Isa. xliv. 9, 1 Sam. xii. 21. The utterances as to the various ranks form a climax, as Hitz. rightly remarks. The ministers of public worship manifested no desire towards me; those learned in the law took no knowledge of me, of my will, of the contents of the book of the law; the civil powers went the length of rising up against my law; and the prophets fairly fell away to false gods, took inspiration from Baal, the incarnation of the king spirit.

\ ers. 9-1.°). Such backsliding from God is unexampled and appalling. Ver. 9. ki Therefore will I further contend with you, and with your children's children will I contend. Ver. 10. For go over to the islands of the Chittim, and.see; and Bend to Kedar, and observe Well, and see if such things have been: \ er. 11. whether a nation hath chanced its sods, which indeed are no gods I but my people hath changed its glory for that which profits not. Ver. L2. Be horrifi as, at this, and shudder, and be BOW dismayed, saith Jahveh. Ver. 13.

:• double evil hath my people done; me have thev forsaken, the fountain of living v. ont for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water/' In the preceding vei the father 1 with the backsliding from the Lord; in ver. 9 punishment is threatened against the now-living people of Israel, and on their children's children after them. For the people in its boo -t future generations constitutes a unity, and in this unity a moral personality. Since the sins of the fathers transmit themselves to the children and remoter descendants, sons and grandsons must pay the penalty of the fathers' guilt, that is, SO long as they share the disposition of their ancestors. The coi, i of this moral unity it the foundation of the threatening. That the present race persists in the fathers' backsliding from the Lord is clearly ex] in ver. 1 7 IT. In;* I will further chide or strive," is intimated implicit* that God had chidden already up till now or even earlier with the fathers. 3*1, contend, when said of God, is actual striving or chastening with all kinds of punishment. This must God do as the righteous and holy one; for the sin of the people is an unheard of sin, seen in no other people. " The islands of the Chittim " are the isles and coast lands of the far west, as in Ezek. xxvii. 6; D*ri3 having originally been the name for Cyprus and the city of Cition, see in Gen. x. 4. In contrast with these distant western lands, Kedar is mentioned aa representative of the races of the east. The Kedarenes lived as a pastoral people in the eastern part of the ween Arabia Petrgeaand Babylonia; see in Gen. xxv. 13 and Ezek. xxvii, 21. Peoples in the two opposite regions of the world arc individualizingly mentioned instead of all peoples. 0313^ give good heed, serves to heighten the expression. jn = cs introduces the indirect question; cf. Ew. § 324, c. The unheard of, that which has happened amongst no people, is put interrogatively for rhetorical effect. Has any heathen nation changed its gods, which indeed are not truly gods? No; no heathen nation has done this; but the people of Jahveh, Israel, has exchanged its glory, i.e. the God who made Himself known to it in His glory, for false gods that are of no profit. 1U3 is the glory in which the invisible God manifested His majesty in the world and amidst His people. Cf. the analogous title given to God,.syj'* pK3j Amos viii. 7, IIos. v. 5. The exact antithesis to V"ri33 would be H'J'Sj cf. iii. 24, xi. 13; but Jeremiah chose ^VV N^ to represent the exchange as not advantageous. God showed His glory to the Israelites in the glorious deeds of His omnipotence and grace, like those mentioned in vers. 5 and 6. The Baals, on the other hand, are not D^K, butD^K, nothings, phantoms without a being, that bring no help or profit to their worshippers. Before the sin of Israel is more fully set forth, the prophet calls on heaven to be appalled at it. The heavens are addressed as that part of the creation where the glory of God is most brightly reflected. The rhetorical aim is seen in the piling up of words. 3in, lit. to be parched up, to be deprived of the life-marrow. Israel has committed two crimes: a. It has forsaken Jahveh, the fountain of living water. &p D*>n, living water, i.e. water that originates and nourishes life, is a significant figure for God, with whom is the fountain of life (Ps" xxxvi. 10), i.e. from whose Spirit all life comes. Fountain of living water (here and xvii. 13) is synonymous with well of life in Prov. x. 11, xiii. 14, xiv. 27, Sir. xxi. 13. b. The other sin is this, that they hew or dig out wells, broken, rent, full of crevices, that hold no water. The delineation keeps to the same figure. The dead gods have no life and can dispense no life, just as wells with rents or fissures hold no water. The two sins, the forsaking of the living God and the seeking out of dead gods, cannot really be separated. Man. created by God and for God, cannot live without God. If he forsakes the living God, he passes in spite of himself into the service of dead, unreal gods. Forsaking the living God is eo ipso exchanging Him for an imaginary god. The prophet sets the two moments of the apostasy from God side by side, so as to depict to the people with greater fulness of light the enormity of their crime. The fact in ver. 11 that no heathen nation changes its gods for others, has its foundation in this, that the gods of the heathen are the creations of men, and that the worship of them is moulded by the carnal-mindedm sinful man; so that there ia less inducement to change, the gods of the different nations being in nature alike. But the true God claims to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and do-s not permit the nature and manner of His worship to depend on the fancies of His worshippers; II*' makes demands upon men that run counter to carnal nature, insisting upon the renunciation of sensual lusts ami cravings and the crucifixion of the flesh, and against this corrupt carnal nature rebels. Upon this reason for the fact adduced. Jeremiah does not dwell, hut lavs stress on the fact itself. This he does with the view of bringing out'the distinction, wide as heav.n, between the true God and the false gods, to the shaming of the idolatrous people: and in order, at the Bame time, to scourge the follv of idolatry bv eivins pro- minenee to the contrast between the glory of God and the nothingness of the idols.

Vers. 14-19. V>y this double sin Israel has dra\Vn on its own head all the evil that has befallen it. Nevertheless it will not cease its intriguing with the heathen nations. Ver. 14. "Is id a servant? is he a home-born slave? why is lie become a booty I \ er. 15. Against him roared the youne lions, let their voice be heard, and made his land a waste; his cities were burnt up void of inhabitants. Ver. 16. Also the sons of Noph and Tahpanes feed on the crown of thy head. Ver. 17. Does not this bring it upon thee, thy forsaking Jahveh thy God, at the time when He led thee on the way? Ver. 18. And now what hast thou to do with the way to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Nile? and what with the way to Assur, to drink the waters of the river? Ver. 19. Thy wickedness chastise* thee, and tliy backslidings punish thee; then know and see that it is evil and bitter to forsake Jahveh thy God, and to have no fear of me, saith the Lord Jahveh of hosts/

The thought from vers. 11 1,; i.s this: Israel was plundered and abused by the nations like a slave. To characterize such a fate as in direct contradiction to its destiny is the aim of the question: [s [srael a servant! i.e. a slave or a house-born serf. '-'.' is he who has in any way fallen into slavery, fV3 T^ a slave born in the house of his master. The distinction between these two classes of slaves does not consist in the superior value of the servant born in the house by reason of his attachment to the house. This peculiarity is not here thought of, but only the circumstance that the son of a slave, born in the house, remained a slave without any prospect of being set free; while the man who has been forced into slavery by one of the vicissitudes of life might hope again to acquire his freedom by some favourable turn of circumstances. Another failure is the attempt of Hitz. to interpret TO as servant of Jahveh, worshipper of the true God; for this interpretation, even if we take no account of all the other arguments that make against i. is rendered impossible by JT2 T?». That expression never means the son of the house, but bv unfailing usao;e the slave born in the house of his master. Now the people of Israel had not been born as serf in the land of Jahveh, but had become *i-V,.<. slave, in Egypt (Deut. v. 15); but Jahveh has redeemed it from this bondage and made it His people. The questions suppose a state of affairs that did not exist. This is shown by the next question, one expressing wonder: Why then is he [it] become a prey? Slaves are treated as a prey, but Israel was no slave; why then has such treatment fallen to his lot? 1'ioplteta per admirationem quasi de re nova et absurda sciscitatur. An scrvus est Israel? atqui erat liber pro? cunctis gentibus, erat enim jilius primogenitus Dei; necesse est igitur queer ere aliam causam, cur adeo miser sit (Calv.). Cf. the similar turn of the thought in ver. 31. How Israel became a prey is shown in vers. 15 and 16. These verses do not treat of future events, but of what has already happened, and, accordin rr to vers. 18 and 19, will still continue. The imperff. UNB* and WT alternate consequently with the perff. «nj and nnaw, and are governed by lA n\n. so tliat they are utterances regarding events of the past, which have been and are still repeated. Lions are a figure that frequently stands for enemies thirsting for plunder, who burst in upon a people or land; cf. Mic. v. 7, Isa. v. 2\\ etc. Roared FTP, against him, not, over him: the lion roars when he is about to rush upon his prey, Amos iii. 4, 8; Ps. civ. 21; Judg.-xiv. 5; when he has pounced upon it he growls or grumbles over it; cf. Isa. xxxi. 4. — In ver. 156 the figurative manner passes into plain statement. They made his land a waste; cf. iv. 7, xviii. 11), etc., where instead of H*B> we have the more ordinary CVJ'. The Cheth. nnan from ^\ not from the Ethiop. raj (Graf, Ilitz.), is to retained: the Keri here, as in xxii. 6, is an unnecessary correction: <t\ Ew. § 317, «. In this delineation Jeremiah has in his eye chiefly the land of the ten tribes, which had been ravaged and depopulated by the Assyrians, although

Judah had often Buffered partial devastations by enemies; cf. 1 Kings xiv. 25. — Ver. 16. Israel has had to submit to spoliation at the hands of the Egyptians too. The present reference to tin* Egyptians is explained by the circumstances of the prophet's times, — from the fact, namely, that just as Israel and Judah had sought the help of Egypt against the Assyrians (cf. Hos. vii. 11, mi King- xvii. 1. and Isa. XXX. 1-5, xxx. 1) in the time of Hezekiah, so now in Jeremiah's times.Judah was expecting and seeking help from the same quarter against the advancing power of the Chaldeans; cf. xxxvii. 7. Noph and Tahpanes are two former capitals of Egypt, here put as representing the kingdom of the Pharaohs, f]':, in Hos. ix. G tjQ contracted from *jbp, }fan<j>!i or Menoph, is Memphis, the old metropolis of Lower Egypt, made by Psammetichns the capital of the whole kingdom. Its ruins lie on the western bank of the Nile, to the south of Old Cairo, close by the present village of Mitralicnnij, which is built amongst the ruins; cf. Brugsch Reiseberichte uus Egypten, § GO ff., and the remarks on Hos. ix. G and Isa. xix. 13. c:£~n, elsewhere spelt as here in the Keri C":^-ri, — cf. xliii. 7 ff., xliv. 1, xlvi. 14, Ez. xxx. 18, — was a strong border citv on the Pelusiac arm of the xsile, called by the Greeks Adfyvai (Herod, ii. 20), by the LXX. Taeniae; see in Ezek. xxx. 18. A part of the Jews who had remained in the land fled hither after the destruction of Jerusalem, xliii. 7 IT. Tpy ipjn^ feed upon thy crown (lit. feed on thee in respect of thy crown), is a trope for ignominious devastation; for to shave one bald is a token of disgrace and sorrow, cf. xlvii. 5, xlviii. 37, Isa. iii. 17; and with this Israel is threatened in Isa. vii. 20. njn, to eat up by grazing, as in Job xx. 26 and xxiv. 21; in the latter passage in the sense of depopulari. We must then reject the conjectures of.1. D. Mich., Hitz., and others, suggesting the sense: crush thy head for thee; a sense not at all suitable, since crushing the head would signify the utter destruction of Israel. — The laud of Israel is personified as a woman, as is shown by the fern, suffix in SpJTV. Like a land closely cropped by herds, so is Israel by the Egyptians. In vi. 3 also the enemies are represented as shepherds coming with their flocks against Jerusalem, and pitching their tents round about the city, while each Hock crops its portion of ground. In xii. 10 shepherds lay the vineyard waste.

In ver. 17 the question as to the cause of the evil is answered. J1NT is the above-mentioned evil, that Israel had become a prey to the foe. This thy forsaking of Jahveh makes or prepares for thee. H&W is neuter; the infin. ^}V is the subject of the clause, and it is construed as a neuter, as in 1 Sam. xviii. 23. The fact that thou hast forsaken Jahveh thy God has brought this evil on thee. At the time when He led thee on the way. The participle Tr^0 is subordinated to rty in the stat. constr. as a par tic. standing for the prceterit. durans; cf. Ew. § 337, c. SpH3 is understood by Ros. and Hitz. of the right way (Ps. xxv. 8); but in this they forget that this acceptation is incompatible with the rUB, which circumscribes the leading within a definite time. God will lead His people on the right way at all times. The way on which He led them at the particular time is the way through the Arabian desert, cf. ver. 6, and SJTj? *s to ^e understood as in Deut. i. 33, Ex. xviii. 8, xxiii. 20, etc. Even thus early their fathers forsook the Lord: at Sinai, by the worship of the golden calf; then when the people rose against Moses and Aaron in the desert of Paran, called a rejecting (K«?) of Jahveh in Num. xiv. 11; and at Shittim, where Israel joined himself to Baal Peor, Num. xxv. 1-3. The forsaking of

Jahveh is not to be limited to direct idolatry, but comprehends also the seeking of help from the heathen; this is shown by the following 18th verse, in which the reproaches are extended to the present hearing of the people. 'W "H"1"^ slf"^?, lit. what is to thee in reference to the way of Egypt (for the expression,

IIos. xiv. 9), i.<. what hast thou to do with the way of Egypt \ Why dost thou arise to go into Egypt, to drink the water of the Nile \ ~"~V\ the black, turbid stream, is a name for the Nile, taken from its dark-grey or black mud. The Nile is the life-giving artery of Egypt, on whose fertilizing waters the fruit fulness and the prosperity of the country depend. To drink the waters of the Nile is as much as to say to procure for oneself the sources. I JVpt's life, to make the power of I ypt useful to oneself. Analogous to this is the drinking the waters of the river, i.e, the Euphrates. What is meant is seeking help from Egyptians and Assyrians. The water of the

• and of the Euphrates was to he made to furnish them with that which the fountain of living water, i.e..Jahveh (ver. 14), supplied to them. This i- an old sin, and with it Israel of the ten tribes is upbraided by Eiosea (vii. ll.xii. 2). From this we are not to inter '-that hrre we have nothing to do with the pr< sent, since the existing [srael, Judah, was surely no longer a suitor tor th. already grown powerh

(Ilitz.). The limitation of the reproach solely to the past is irreconcilable with the terms of the verse and with the context (ver. 19).: cannot grammatically be translated:

What hadst thou to do with the way; just as little can we make T)®!1? hath ch thee, since the following: know and

. i< then utterly unsuitable to it. """-!? and ^n'2in are not futures, hut imperfect. expressing what is wont to happen over again in each similar case: and so to be expressed in English by the present: thy wickedness, i.e. thy wicked work, chastises thee. The wickedness was shown in forsaking Jahveh, in the n <—"-. backslidings, the repeated defection from the living God; cf. iii. 22, v. 6, xiv. 7. As to the fact, we have no historical evidence that under Josiah political alliance with Egypt or Assyria was compassed; but even if no formal negotiations took place, the country was certainly even then not without a ['arty to build its hopes on one or other of the great powers between which Judah lay, whenever a conflict amsc with either oi them.— ^1, with the Vav of consecution (see Ew. § 347, o): Know then, and at last comprehend, that forsaking the Lord thy God is evil and bitter, i.e. bears evil and bitter fruit, prepares bitter misery for thee. " To have no fear of me" corresponds - to forsake," lit. thy forsaking, as second subject; lit.: and the no fear of me in thee, i.e. the fact that thou hast no awe of me. VnriB, a\ve of me, like Tina in Deut ii. 25.

Vers. 20-25. All along Israel lias been refractory; it cannot and will not cease from idolatry. Ver. 20. For 'of old time thou hast broken thy yoke, torn off thy bands; and hast said: 1 will not serve; but upon every high hill, and under every green tree, thou stretchedst thyself as a harlot. Ver. 21. Anil 1 have planted thee a noble vine, all of genuine stock: and how hast thou changed thyself to me into the bastards of a strange vine! Ver. 22. Even though thou washedst thee with natron and tookest much soap, filthy remains thy guilt before me, saith the Lord Jahveh. Ver. 2o. How canst thou say, I have not defiled me, after the Baals have I not gone? See thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done— thou lightfooted camel filly, entangling her ways. Ver. 24. A wild she-ass used to the wilderness, that in her lust panteth for air; her heat, who shall restrain it I all that seek her run themselves weary; in her month they will find her. Ver. 25. Keep thy foot from going barefoot, and thy throat from thirst; but thou sayest, It is useless ■ no; for I have loved strangers, and after them I go. ' Ver. 20. DTijJD, fr0m eternity, i.e. from immemorial antiquity, has Israel broken the yoke of the divine law laid on it, and torn asunder the bands of decency and order which the commands of God, the ordinances of the Torah, put on, to nurture it to be a holy people of the Lord; torn them as an untamed bullock (xxxi. 18) or a stubborn cow, Hos. iv. lfi. nnoiDj bands, are not the bands or cords of love with which God drew Israel, Hos. xi. 4 (Graf), but the commands of God whose part it was to keep life within the bounds of purity, and to hold the people back from running riot in idolatry. On this head see v. 5; and for the expression, Ps. ii. 3. The Masoretes have taken True* and vipro for the 1st person, pointing accordingly, and for "fa^t, as unsuitable to this, they have substituted "tog*. Ewald has decided in favour of these readings; but lie is thus compelled to tear the verse to pieces and to hold the text to be defective, since the words from *7pwn onwards are not in keeping with what precedes. Even if we translate: I offend [transgress] not, the thought does not adapt itself well to the preceding; I have of old time broken thy yoke, etc.; nor can we easily reconcile with it the grounding clause; for on every high hill,... thou layest a whoring where Ew. is compelled to force on *3 the adversative si<». Most commentators, following the example of the LXX. and Vulg., have taken the two verbs for 2d person; and thus is maintained the simple and natural thought that Israel has broken the yoke laid on it by God, renounced allegiance to Him, and practised idolatry on every hand. The spelling WW, %r-r:, /.,.. the formation of the 2d pen. perf. with \ is frequently found in Jer.; ef. v.;;:;, iii. 1, iv. 19? xiii. 21, etc. It is really the fuller original spelling *n which has been preserved in Aramaic, though seldom found in Hebrew; in Jen it must be accounted an Aramaism: cf. Ew. § 190 c;

is a vivid description of idolatry. ty£ bend oneself, lie down ad cuitum, like KaraKXivcaOai, incluuiri. — Ver. 21. In this whoring with the false gods, Israel shows its utter corruption. I have planted thee a noble vine; not, with noble vines, as we translate in Jsa. v. 2, where Israel is compared to a vineyard. Here Israel is compared to the vine itself, a vine which Jahveh has planted; cf. Ps. lxxx. 9, Hos. x. 1. This vine was all (rt?9, in its entirety, referred to JTrtfc, as collect.) genuine seed; a proper shoot which could bear good grapes (cf. Ezek. xvii. 5); children of Abraham, as they are described in Gen. xviii. 19. But how has this Israel changed itself to me (v, dativ. incommodi) into bastards! H*D is accus., dependent on FOBTU. for tnjs constr# cf# l6V jjiL 25, Ps. cxiv. 8. D^D sig. not shoots or twigs, but degenerate sprouts or suckers. The article in |23n is generic: wild shoots of the species of the wild vine; but this is not the first determining word; cf. for n of the article xiii. -1, 2 Sam. sii. 30, etc., Ew. §290, a8); and for the omission of the article with nni, cf.'. § 293, a. Thus are removed the grammatical difficulties that led Hit/., to take U1 n« quite unnaturally as vocative, and Grai to alter the text. "A strange vine" is an interloping vine, not of the true, genuine stock planted by Jahveh (ver. 10)' and which bears puis,, nous berries of gall, Deut. xxxii. 32.— Ver. 22. Though thou adoptedst the most powerful means of purification, yet couldst thou not purify thyself from the defilement of thy sins. "in:, natron, is mineral, and rrft vegetable alkali, zr.2; introduces the apodosis; and by the participle a lasting condition is expressed. This word, occurring only here in the O. T.. sig. in Aram, to be stained, filthy, a sense here very suitable. •«&, before me, i.e. before my eyes, the defilement of thy sins cannot be wiped out. On this head see Isa. i. 13, Ps. li. 4, 9.— Ver. 23. And yet Judali professes to be pure and upright before God. This plea Jeremiah meets by pointing to the open practising of idolatrous worship. The people of, Judali personified as a woman — n:ir in ver. 20 is addressed. SpK is a question expressing astonishment. ViKB'M of defilement by idolatry, as is shown by the next explanatory clause: the Baals 1 have not followed. D^ya is used genetically for strange gods, i. 16. The public worship of Baal had been practised in the kingdom of Judah under Joram, Ahaziah, ami Athaliah only, and had been extirpated by Jehu, 2 Kings x. 18 ff. Idolatry became again rampant under Ahaz (by his instigation), Manasseh, and Anion, and in the first year of Josiah's reign. Josiah began to restore the worship of Jahveh in the twelfth year of his reign; but it was not till the eighteenth that he was able to complete the reformation of the public services. There is then no difficulty in the way of our assuming that there was yet public worship of idols in Judah during the first five years of Jeremiah's labours. We must not, however, refer the prophet's words to this alone. The following of Baal by the people was not put an end to when the altars and images were demolished; for this was sufficient neither to banish from the hearts of the people the proneness to idolatry, nor utterly to suppress the secret practising of it. The answer to the protestation of the people, blinded in self-righteousness, shows, further, that the grosser publicly practised forms had not vet disappeared. l' See thy way in the valley." Way, i.e. doing and practising. N^3 with the article must be some valley known for superstitions cultivated there; most commentators suggest rightly the valley of Ben or Bne-Hinnom to the south of Jerusalem, where children were offered to Moloch; see on vii. 31. The next words, u and know what thon hast done," do not, taken by themselves, imply that this form of idol-worship was yet to be met with, but only that the people had not yet purified themselves from it. U, however, we take them in connection with what follows, they certainly do imply the continued existence of practices of that sort. The prophet remonstrates with the people for its passionate devotion to idolatry by comparing it to irrational animals, which in their season of heat yield themselves to their instinct. The comparison gains in pointedness by his addressing the people as a camel-filly and a wild sheass. '? rr-~ is vocative, co-ordinate with the subject of address, and means the young filly of the camel. n?i?, running lightly, nimbly, swiftly, '"n ":":•:, intertwining. i,e. crossing her ways: rushing right and left on the paths during the season of heat. Thus Israel ran now after oik4 god, now after another, deviating to the right and to the left from the path prescribed by the law, Deut. xxviii. 11. To delineate yet more sharply the unruly passionateness with which the people rioted in idolatry, there is added the figure of a wild ass running herself weary in her "heat, llitz. holds the comparison to be so managed that the figure of the she-camel is adhered to, and that this creature is compared to a wild BSS only in respect of its panting for air. But this view could be well founded only if the Keri WSH were the original reading. Then we might read the words thus: (like) a wild ass used to the wilderness she (the she-camel) pants in the heat of her soul for air. But this is incompatible with the Chetk. te*M, since the suffix points back to ""-, and requires 15^03 r;sz to be joined with '? ivis, so that fiBMP must be spoken of the latter. Besides, taken on its own account, it is a very unnatural hypothesis that the behaviour of the she-camel should be itself compared to the gasping of the wild ass for breath; for the camel is only a figure of the people, and ver. 24 is meant to exhibit the unbridled ardour, not of the camel, but of the people. So that with the rest of the comm. we lake the wild ass to be a second figure for the people, rns differs only orthographically from *"-< the usual form of the word, and which many codd. have here. This is the wood ass, or rather wild ass, since the creature lives on steppes, not in woods. It is of a yellowish colour, with a white belly, and forms a kind of link between the deer Bpecies and the ass; by reason of its arrow-like speed not easily caught, and untameable. Thus it is used as an emblem of boundless love of freedom, Gen. xvi. 12, and of unbridled licentiousness, see on Job xxiv. 5 and xxxix. 5. rns as nom. epiccen. has the adj. next it, 1$, in the masc, and so too in the apposition iBta mK3; the fem. appears first in the statement as to its behaviour, nBKP: she pants for air to cool the glow of heat within. njKn sig. neither copulation, from njK, approach (Dietr.), nor cestus libidinosus (Schroed., Eos.)/' The sig. approach, meet, attributed to njK, Dietr. grounds upon the Ags. gelimpan, to be convenient, opportune; and the sig. glow is derived from the fact that Jl is used of the boiling of water. The root meaning of njK, ^j\y is, according to Fleischer, tempestuous fuit, and the root indicates generally any effort after the attainment of the aim of a thing, or impulse; from which come all the meanings ascribed to the word, and for ruxn in the text before us the sig. heat, i.e. the animal instinct impelling to the satisfaction of sexual cravings.

In ver. 2-ib B^n? is variously interpreted. Thus much is beyond all doubt, that the words are still a part of the figure, i.e. of the comparison between the idolatrous people and the wild ass. The use of the 3d person stands in the way of the direct reference of the words to Israel, since in what precedes and in what follows Israel is addressed (in 2d pers.). BHh can thus mean neither the new moon as a feast (L. de Dieu, Chr. B. Mich.), still less tempus menstruum (Jerome, etc.), but month; and the suffix in BKHri is to be referred, not with Hitz. to ~n:N\n, but to rra.* The suffixes in W"i?3» and ™W& absolutely demand this. "Her month" is the month appointed for the gratification of the wild ass's natural impulse, i.e., as Bochart rightly explains it (Hievoz. ii. p. 230, ed. llos.), mensis quo solent sylcestres asince maris appetitu fervere. The meaning of the comparison is this: the false gods do not need anxiously to court the favour of the people; in its unbridled desires it gives itself up to them; cf. iii. 2, IIos. ii. 7, 15. With this is suitably coupled the warning of ver. 25: hold back, i.e, keep thy foot from getting hare (ri~) is subst. not adjective, which would have had to be fern., since /T| is fern.), and thy throat from thirst, viz. by reason of the fever of running after the idols. This admonition God addresses by the prophet to the people. It is not to wear the sandals off its feet by running after amours, nor so to heat its throat as to become thirsty. Hitz. proposes unsuitably, b cause in the face of the context, to connect tin4 going barefoot with the visiting of the sanctuary, and the thirsting <.t' the throat (1 Kings xviii. 2G) with incessant calling on the gods. The answer of the people to this admonition shows clearly that it has been receiving an advice against running after the e;ods. The Chet, ~:~\,% evidently a copyist's error lor 5J3VW. The people rep.! '-' ^'-. ■ \;■■ I'dtlim (est), /.,-. hopele-s; thv ad\'ice is made clearer by S,s: no; lor I love the aliens, etc. D^t are not merely strange gods, but also strange peopl. Although idolatry is the matter chiefly in hand, yet it was so bound up with intriguing for the favour of the heathen nations that we cannot exclude from the words some reference to this also.

Vers. 26-28. And yet idolatry brings to the people only disgrace, giving no help in the time of need. Ver. 26. " As a thief is shamed when he is taken, so is the house of Israel put to shame: they, their kings their princes, their priests, and their prophets. \ er. iii. Because they say to the wood, Thou art my father: and to the stone, Thou hast borne me: for they have turned to me the back and not the face; but in the time of their trouble they say, Arise, and help us. Ver. 28. Where then are thv gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can help thee in the time of thy trouble; for as many as are thy cities, so many are thy gods, Judah." The thought in vers. 2b" and 27a is this, Israel reaps from its idolatry but shame, as the thief from stealing when he is caught in the act. The comparison in ver. 26 contains a universal truth of force at all times. The perf. uWifl is the timeless ex- idolatry brings but shame and confusion by the frustration of the hopes placed in the false gods. The "house of Israel" is all Israel collectively, and not merely the kingdom of the ten tril To give the greater emphasis to the reproaches, the leading ranks arc mentioned one by one. B*!»fc, not: who say but because (since) they say to the wood, etc., i.e. because tliev hold imagt s of wood and stone for the gods to whom they owe life and being; wh i Jahveh alone is their Creator or Father and Genitor, Deut. xxxii. 6, 18; Isa. lxiv. 7; Mai. ii. 10. }2N is fern., and thus is put for mother. The Keri MJjn^ is suo— \y by the preceding D'HBN, while the diet, is correct, and is to be read ':«. inasmuch as each one severally speaks thus. — With " for they have turned" follows the reason of the statement that Israel will reap only shame from its idolatry. To the living God who has power to help them they turn their back: but w lien distress conies upon them they cry to Him for help <*:•-•-' Htfip as in Ps. hi. 8). But then God will send the people to their gods (idols); then will it discover they will not help, for all so great as their number is. The last clause of ver. 28 runs literally: the number of thy cities are thy gods become, i.e. so great is the number of thy gods; cf. xi. 13. Judah is here directly addressed, so that the people of Judah may not take for granted that what has been said is of force for the ten tribes only. On the contrary, Judah will experience the same as Israel of the ten tribes did when disaster broke over it.

Vers. 29-37. Judah lias refused to let itself be turned from idolatry either by judgments or by the warnings of the prophets; nevertheless it holds itself guiltless, and believes itself able to turn aside judgment by means of its intrigues with Egypt. Ver. 29. " Wherefore contend ye against me? ye are all fallen away from me, saith Jahveh. Ver. 30. In vain have I smitten your sons; correction have they not taken: your sword hath devoured your prophets, like a devouring lion. Ver. 31. O race that ye are, mark the word of Jahveh. Was I a wilderness to Israel, or a land of dread darkness? Why saith my people, We wander about, come no more to thee? Ver. 32.

Does a maiden forget her ornament4;, a bride her girdle? but mv people hath forgotten me days without number. Ver. 33. How finely thou trimmest thy ways to seek love! therefore to misdeeds thou accustomest thy ways. Ver. 34. Even in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent poor ones; not at housebreaking hast thou caught them, but by reason of all this. Ver. 35. And thou sayest, I am innocent, yea His wrath hath turned from me: behold, I will plead at law with thee for that thou hast said, I have not sinned. Ver. 3(). Why run nest thou so hard to change thy way? for Egypt too thou shalt come to shame, as thou wast put to shame for Asshur. Ver. 37. From this also shalt thou come forth, beating thy hands upon thy head; for Jahveh rejecteth those in whom thou trustest, and thou shalt not prosper with them." The tion in ver. 29, Wherefore contend ye against me? implies that the people contended with God as to His visitations, murmured at the divine chastisements they had met with; not as to the reproaches addressed to them on account of their idolatry (Hit/.., Graf). -'"! with Ln*. contend, dispute against, is used of murmuring of men against divine visitations, xii. 1, Job xxxiii. L3. Judah has no ground for discontent with the Lord; for they have all fallen away from Him, and (ver. 31) let themselves be turned to repentance neither by afflictions, nor by warnings, nor by God's goodness to them. ^'V''?> to vanity, i.e. without effect, or in vain. Ilitz. and Graf wish to refer "your ■ to the able-bodied youth who had at different times been slain by Jahveh in war. The LXX.-seem to have taken it thus, expi g *np? by eSt'fao-#e; for the third pers.

of the verb will not agree with this acceptation of "your sons," since the reproach of not having taken correction could not apply to such as had fallen in war, but only to those who had escaped. This view is unquestionably incorrect, because, as Ilitz. admits, the subject, those addressed in -irii?y, must be the people. Hence it follows of necessity that in KWa too the people is meant. The expression is similar to 1^>V *33, Lev. xix. 18, and is used for the members of the nation, those who constitute the people; or rather it is like HTTCT *33j Joel iv. 6, where Judah is looked on by the prophet as a unity., where sons are the members of the people. fBflj too, is not to be limited to those smitten or slain in war. It is used of all the judgments with which God visits His people, of sword, pestilence famine, failnreof crops drought, and of all kinds of diseases • cL Lev. xxvi. 24 ft*., Pout, xxviii. 22, 27 ff. "IDID is instruction by word and by warning, as well as correction by chastisement. Most comm, take the not receiving of correction to refer to divine punitive visitations, and to mean refusal to amend after such warning; Ros., on the other hand, holds the reference to be to the warnings and reproofs of the prophets ("1D1D hie instructionem valet, ut Prov. v. 12,23 cet.). But both these references are one-sided. If we refer "correction have they not taken" to divine chastisement by means of judgments, there will be no connection between this and the following clause: your sword devoured vour prophets; and we are hindered from restraining the reference wholly to the admonitions and rebukes of the prophets by the close connection of the words with the first part of the verse, a connection indicated by the omission of all particles of transition. We must combine the two references, and understand "HMD both of the rebukes or warnings of the prophets and of the chastisements of God, holding at the same time that it was the correction of the people by the prophets that Jer. here chiefly kept in view. In administering this correction the prophets not only applied to the hearts of the people as judgments from God all the ills that fell upon them, but declared to the stiff-necked sinners the punishments of God, and by their words showed those punishments to be impending: e.g. Elijah, 1.Kings xvii. and xviii., 2 Kings i. 9 ff.; Elisha, 2 Kings ii. 23; the prophet at Bethel, 1 Kings xiii. 4. Thus this portion of the verse acquires a meaning for itself, which simplifies the transition from the first to the third clause, and we gain the following thought: I visited you with punishments, and made you to be instructed and reproved by prophets, but ye have slain the prophets who were sent to you. Nehemiah puts it so in ix. 26; but Jeremiah uses a much stronger expression, Your sword devoured your prophets like a lion which destroys, in order to set full before the sinners' eyes the savage hatred of the idolatrous people against the prophets of God. Historical examples of this are furnished by 1 Kings xviii. 4, 13, xix. 10, 2 Chron. xxiv. 21 ff., 2 Kings xxi. 16,

Jer. xxvi. 23. The prophet's indignation grows hotter as lie brings into view God's treatment of the apostate race, and sots before it, to its shame, the divine long-suffering and love, "fan cr.x, () [feneration ye! English: () generation that ye are! (cf. Ew. §327, a), is the cry of indignation; cf. Dent, xxxii. 5, where M<>ses calls the people a perverse foolish generation. *fcp: see, observe, give herd to the word of the Lord. This verb is often used of perceptions by any sense,;i^ expressive of that sense by which men apprehend most of the things belonging to the outward world. Have I been for Israel a wilderness, ue. an unfruitful soil, offering neither means of support nor shelt This question contains a li1 tnd is as much as to say: have not I richly blessed [srael with earthly goods? Or a land of dread darkness I il^BKO, lit. a darkness sent by Jail veil; cf. the analogous form "i>rz~""_". ( 'ant. viii. 6.1 The desert is so called not merely because it is pathless (.lob iii. 23), but as a land in which the traveller is on all sides surrounded by deadly danger.-; cf. vcr. 6 and Ps. lv. 5. Why then will His people insist on being quil of Him I We roam about unfettered (as to 1V1, on bios. \ii. 1), /... we will no longer bear the yoke of His law: cf. ver. 20. By a comparison breathing love and longing sadness, the prophet seeks to bring bom" to the heart of the people a feeling of the unnaturalness of their behaviour towards the Lord their God. Does a bride, then, forget her ornaments I etc. ^~*-""), found besides in [sa. iii. 20, is the ornamental girdle with which the bride adorns herself on the wedding-day; cf. [sa. iii. 20 with xlix. is. God is His people's best adornment: to Him it owes all the precious possessions it has. It should keep fast hold of Hun as its most priceless treasure, should prize Him more highly than the virgin her jewels, than the bride her girdle. Uut instead of this it has forgotten its (iod, and that not for a brief time, but throughout

1 Ewald, Gram. $ l'7o. <•, proposes to read with the I. XX. n-T^N^. because (he says) it is nowhere possible, at least not in the language of the prophets, for the name Jah (God) to express in But this is not to the point. Although a darkness sent by Jah he a ^rreat darkness, it by no means follows that the name Jah is used merely to express greatness. But by rrtfT riDTin, l Sam. xxvi. 12, it is put beyond a doubt that darkness of Jah means a darkness sent or spread out by Jah.

countless.lavs. DW ia accus. of duration of time. Jeremiah uses this figure besides, as Oalv. observed, to pave the way for what comes next. Volebat enim Judosos conferre mulieribus adulteris, qua dam feruntur effreni sua libidine, rapiuntur post 8U08 vagos arm i

In ver. 33 the style of address is ironical. How good thou makest thy way! Le. how well thou knowest to choose out and follow the right way to seek love. SJT; y&n sig. usually: strive after a good walk and conversation; cf. vii. 3, 5, xviii. 11 etc.; here, on the other hand, to take the right way for gaining the end in view. " Love" here is seen from the context to be love to the idols, intrigues with the heathen and their gods. Seek love — strive to gain the love of the false gods. To attain this end thou hast taught thy ways misdeeds, i.e. accustomed thy ways to misdeeds, forsaken- the commandments of thy God which demand righteousness and the purifying of one's life, and accommodated thyself to the immoral practices of the heathen. Hijnn, with the article as in iii. 5, the evil deeds which are undisguisedly visible; not: the evils, the misfortunes which follow thee closely, as Ilitz. interprets in the face of the context. For in ver. 34 we have indisputable evidence that the matter in hand is not evils and misfortunes, but evil deeds or misdemeanours; since there the cleaving of the blood of innocent souls to the hems of the garments is mentioned as one of the basest " evils," and as such is introduced by the E3 of gradation. The " blood of souls " is the blood of innocent murdered men, which clings to the skirts of the murderers' clothes. D?3J3 are the skirts of the flowing garment, Ezek. v. 3; 1 Sam. xv. 27; Zech. viii. 23. The plural WV1M before tn is explained by the fact that rrittJSJ is the principal idea. D^X are not merely those who live in straitened circumstances, but pious oppressed ones as contrasted with powerful transgressors and oppressors; cf. Ps. xl. 18, lxxii. 13 f., Ixxxvi. 1, 2, etc. By the next clause greater prominence is given to the fact that they were slain being innocent. The words: not nnnnt33, at housebreaking, thou tookest them, contain an allusion to the law in Ex. xxii. 1 and onwards; according to which the killing of a thief caught in the act of breaking in was not a cause oi blood-guiltiness. The thought runs thus: The poor ones thou

Jiast slain were no thieves or robbers whom thou hadst a right to slay, but Guiltless pious men: and the killing of them is a crime worthv of death. Ex. xxi. 12. The last words n?s-?3?y '3 are obscure, and have been very variously interpreted. Changes upon the text are not to the purpose. For we get no help from the reading of the LXX., of the Syr. and Arab., which seem to have read HpK as i"^x, and which have translated hpvt oak or terebinth; since " upon every oak" gives no rational meaning. Nor from the connecting of the words with the next verse (Venem., Sclinur.. U«>s., and others): yet with all this, or in spite of all this, thou saidst; since neither docs *3 mean yety nor can the 1 before v")ENn, Ml this connection, introduce the sequel thought. The words manifestly belong to what goes before, and contain a contrast: not in breaking in by night thou tookest them, but upon, or on account of all this. sV in the sig. upon gives a suitable sense only if, with Abarb., Ew\, Nag., we refer ~SN* to t,'z:zz and take lTSi": as 1st pen.: I found it (the blood of the slain souls) not on the place where the murder took place, but upon all these, 9C. lappets of the clothes, borne openly for display. But even without dwelling on the fact that rnniTO does not mean the scene of a murder or breaking in, this explanation is wrecked on the nnmistakeably manifest allusion to the law, 2::n VMf rrr^iz DK, Ex. xxi. 1, which is ignored, or at least obscured, by that view. The allusion to this ] of the law shows that D'HX'fr is not 1st but 2d pers., and that the suffix refers to the innocent poor who were slain. Therefore, with Ilitz. and Graf, we take "/SI?V n?X in the sig. " on account of all this," and refer the " all this" to the idolatry before mentioned. Consequently the words bear this meaning: Not for a crime thou killedst the poor, but because of thine apostasy from God and thy fornication with the idols, their blood cleaves to thy raiment. The words seem, as Calv. surmised, to point to the persecution and slaying of the prophets spoken of in ver. 30, namely, to the innocent blood with which the godless king Manasseh filled Jerusalem, 2 Kings xxi. 16, xxiv. 4; seeking as he did to crush out all opposition to the abominations of idolatry, and finding in his way the prophets and the godly of the land, who by their words and their lives lifted up their common testimony against the Idolaters and their abandoned practices. — Ver. 35. Yet withal the people holds itself to be guiltless, and deludes itself with the belief that God's wrath has turned away from it, because it has for long enjoyed peace, and because the judgment of devastation of the land by enemies, threatened by the earlier prophets, had not immediately received its fulfilment. For this self-righteous confidence in its innocence, God will contend with His people nniX for Tjns as in i. 16). — Ver. 36 f. Yet in spite of its proud security Judah seeks to assure itself against hostile attacks by the eager negotiation of alliances. This thought is the link between ver. 35 and the reproach of ver. 36. Why runnest thou to change thy way? vffl for vTXn, from >?K, go, with *JNp, go impetuously or with strength, i.e. go in haste, run; cf. 1 Sam. xx. 19. To change, shift (nirj') one's way, is to take another way than that on which one has hitherto gone. The prophet's meaning is clear from the second half of the verse: " for Egypt, too, wilt thou come to shame, as for Assyria thou hast come to shame." Changing the wav, is ceasing to seek help from Assyria in order to form close relations with Egypt. The verbs ^3PI and JjiBa show that the intrigues for the favour of Assyria belong to the past, for the favour of Egypt to the present. Judah was put to shame in regard to Assyria under Ahaz, 2 Chron. xxviii. 21; and after the experience of Assyria it had had under Hezekiah and Manasseh, there could be little more thought of looking for help thence. But what could have made Judah under Josiah, in the earlier days of Jeremiah, to seek an alliance with Egypt, considering that Assyria was at that time already nearing its dissolution? Graf is therefore of opinion that the prophet is here keeping in view the political relations in the days of Jehoiakim, in which and for which time he wrote his book, rather than those of Josiah's times, when the alliance with Asshur was still in force; and that he has thus in passing cast a stray glance into a time influenced by later events. But the opinion that in Josiah's time the alliance with Asshur was still existing cannot be historically proved. Josiah's invitation to the passover of all those who remained in what had been the kingdom of the ten tribes, does not prove that he exercised a kind of sovereignty over the provinces that had formerly be- longed to the kingdom of Israel, a thing ho could have done only as vassal of Assyria; see against this view the remarks on 2 Kings xxiii. 15 ff. As little does his setting himself against the now mighty Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo show clearly that he remained faithful to the alliance with Asshur in spite of the disruption of the Assj nan empire; see against this the remarks (mi 2 Kmgs xxiii. 29 f. Historically only thus much is certain, that Jehoiakim was raised to the throne by Pharaoh Necho, and that he was a vassal of Egypt During the period of this subjection the formation of alliances with Egypt was for Judah out of the question. Such a case could happen only when Jehoiakim had become subject to the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar, and was cherishing the plan of throwing off the Chaldean yoke. But the reference of the words to this design is devoid of the faintest probability, vers. 35 and 36; and the discourse throughout is far from giving tin- impression that Judah had already lost its political independence; they rather imply that the kingdom was under the sway neither i E A Syrians nor Egyptians, hut was still politically independent. We may ry plausibly refer to Josiah's time the resolution to give up all trust in the assistance of Assyria ami to court the favour of Egypt We need not seek tor the outward inducement to this in the recognition of the beginning decline of the Assyrian power; it might equally well lie in the growth of the Egyptian state. That the power of Egypt had made considerable progress in the reign of Josiah, is made clear by Pharaoh Xecho's enterprise against Assyria in the last year of Josiah, from Xecho's march towards the Euphrates. Josiah's setting himself in opposition to the advance of the Egyptians, which cost him his life at Megiddo, neither proves that Judah was then allied with Assyria nor excludes the possibility of intrigues for Egypt's favour having already taken place. It is perfectly possiblv that the taking of Manasseh a captive to Babylon by Assyrian generals may have shaken the confidence in Assyria of the idolatrous people of Judah, and that, their thoughts turning to Egypt, steps may have been taken for paving the way towards an alliance with this great power, even although the godly king.Josiah took no part in these proceedings. The prophet's warning against confidence in Egypt and against courting its alliance, is given in terms so general that it is impossible to draw any c< rtain conclusions either with regard to the principles of Josiah's government or with regard to the circumstances of the time which Jeremiah was keeping in view. — Ver. 37. Also from this, /.. E ypt, shalt thou go away (come back), thy hands upon thy bead, i.e. beating them on thy head in grief and dismay (cf. for this gesture 2 Sam. xiii. 1CJ). nj refers to Egypt, thought of as a people as in xlvi. 8, [sa. xix. 16, 25; and thus is removed Hitz.'s objection, that in that case we must have DNT. D^nrpap, obj ^cts of confidence. The expression refers equallv to Egypt and to Assyria. As God has broken the power of Assyria, so will He also overthrow Egypt's might, thus making all trust in it a shame. cnS jn reference to them.

Chap. iii. 1—5. As a divorced woman who has become another man's wife cannot return to her first husband, so Judah, after it has turned awav to other cods, will not be received ajjain by Jahveh; especially since, in spite of all chastisements, it adheres to its evil ways. Ver. 1. "Hesaith, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, can lie return to her again? would not such a land be polluted? and thou hast whored with many partners; and wouldst thou return to me? saith Jahveh. Ver. 2. Lift up thine eyes unto the bare-topped hills and look, wdiere hast thou not been lien with; on the ways thou sattest for them, like an Arab in the desert, and pollutedst the land by thy whoredoms and by thy wickedness. Ver. 3. And the showers were withheld, and the latter rain came not; but thou hadst the forehead of an harlot woman, wouldst not be ashamed. Ver. 4. Ay, and from this time forward thou criest to me, My father, the friend of my youth art thou. Ver. 5. Will he alway bear a grudge and keep it up for ever? Behold, thou speakest thus and dost wickedness and earnest it out." This section is a continuation of the preceding discourse in chap, ii., and forms the conclusion of it. That this is so may be seen from the fact that a new discourse, introduced by a heading of its own, begins with ver. G. The substance of the fifth verse is further evidence in the same direction; for the rejection of Judah by God declared in that verse furnishes the suitable conclusion to the discourse in chap, ii., and briefly shows how the Lord will plead with the people that holds itself blameless (ii. 35).1 But it is somewhat singular to find the connection made by means of "ibtO, which is not translated by the LXX. or Syr., and is expressed by Jerome by vuhjo (Oritur. Kos. would make it, after Rashi, possem dicere, Raski's opinion being that it stands for IDv ^ B*. In this shape the assumption can hardly be justified. It might be more readily supposed that the infinitive stood in the sense: it is to be said, one may say, it must be affirmed; but there is against this the objection that this use of the infinitive is never found at the beginning of a now train of thought. The only alternative is with Maur. and Ilitz. to join "i-Ns with what precedes, and to make it dependent on the verb OHO in ii. 37:.lahveh hath rejected those in whom thou trust that thon shalt not prosper with them; for Ik' says: As a wife, after the has been put away from her husband and has been joined to another, cannot be taken hark again by her first husband, so art thou thrust away for thy whoredom.

The rejection of Judah by (i< 1 is not, indeed, declared expressis V( rbis in vers. l-.rn but is clearly enough contained there in Bubstance. B. "the rejection of the people's sureties (ii.;>7)