CHAPTER XIII REAWAKENING OF PROPHECY IN JOSIAH'S REIGN Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and Nahum (626 to 608 B.C.) PROPHECY was so effectually silenced under Manasseh that it is not until his grandson Josiah has been upon the throne a dozen years that the prophetic voice is again audible. At this time. there occurred a great invasion of southwestern Asia by the barbaric Scythian hordes from the north, vividly described by Herodotus.2 These dread foes swept down over the TigrisEuphrates valley and, while they had no enginery to capture a strong city like Nineveh, they wrought its ultimate ruin hardly less surely by their devastation of all the neighboring country. It does not appear that the invaders came up into the Judean hills, but they occupied the coast plains of Palestine, where their presence must have made an impression of horror upon the inhabitants of the hills. The little book of Zephaniah is generally regarded as showing in its imagery the influence of the Scythian invasion. It threatens destruction to Judah and Nineveh, such as would be wrought by a dreadful foe. I will utterly consume all things from off the face of the ground, saith Jehovah. I will consume man and beast; I will consume the birds of the heavens, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumblingblocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the face of the ground, saith Jehovah for the day of Jehovah is at hand: for Jehovah hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath consecrated his guests. . . . And their wealth shall become a spoil, and their houses a desolation: . . . a day of the trumpet and alarm, against the fortified cities, and against the high battlements . . . and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their 2 I, 103-106. 1 See p. 178. flesh as dung. And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like the wilderness. And herds shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the pelican and the porcupine shall lodge in the capitals thereof; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he hath laid bare the cedar-work. This is the joyous city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none besides me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand.1 Since the book was evidently, on other grounds, written not long before the Deuteronomic reform, it was probably the Scythian invasion that suggested the form in which doom was threatened, if this invasion was not indeed an influential element in the circumstances calling forth the prophecy. The religious and moral conditions pictured by the prophet seem the aftermath of the great heathen reaction of the seventh century. And I will stretch out my hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarim with the priests; and them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship, that swear to Jehovah and swear by Malcam; and them that are turned back from following Jehovah; and those that have not sought Jehovah, nor inquired after him. Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted! to the oppressing city! She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in Jehovah; she drew not near to her God. Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they leave nothing till the morrow. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons; her priests have profaned the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law. Jehovah in the midst of her is righteous; he will not do iniquity; every morning doth he bring his justice to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame.2 Zephaniah's theme is the day of the Lord, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of the trumpet and alarm. It will be recalled that Amos was the first to picture the day of the Lord as darkness and 2 Zephaniah 14, 31-5. 1 Zephaniah 12-3. 7b, 138, 16, 17b, 2 13-15 not light. Zephaniah was familiar with the prophetic writings of the previous century, and applied their teachings to the conditions of his own generation. Not far from the time when Zephaniah gave his brief message, a far greater than he became conscious of the prophet's task as his divinely appointed destiny. The later record of the inner experience forms the first chapter of our book of Jeremiah. It lacks the majestic quality of Isaiah's inaugural vision, in which profound yet typical inner experience was so impressively pictured. Jeremiah's account is given in the simplest form. It begins : Now the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord Jehovah! behold, I know not how to speak; for I am a child. But Jehovah said unto me, Say not, I am a child; for to whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt go, and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak.1 The description becomes more impressive as it goes on. Be not afraid because of them; for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith Jehovah. Then Jehovah put forth his hand, and touched my mouth; and Jehovah said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth: see, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.2 This is followed by the account of two symbolic visions, the first of which is far from impressive to us. Moreover the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond-tree. Then said Jehovah unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I watch over my word to perform it.3 The only significance of the almond-tree rod seems to be that pointed out by the revisers in their notes, which indicate the play upon the word "watching" in "almond tree" - shokedh, shakedh. Again we are reminded that such plays were not the trivial matters with the Hebrews that they are with us. 2 Jeremiah 1 8-10. 1 Jeremiah 1 4-7. 3 Jeremiah 1 11-12. The Puritans practised plays upon names in the most serious connections. "When the Rev. Samuel Stone, the successor of Thomas Hooker The next vision, that of the boiling caldron with its face from the north, has more of inherent significance. And the word of Jehovah came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a boiling caldron; and the face thereof is from the north. Then Jehovah said unto me, Out of the north evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith Jehovah; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jersualem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah. And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, in that they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands.1 As in the case of the opening paragraph, this rises to greater power toward the close, where Jehovah is represented encouraging Jeremiah to the greatness of his mission. Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at them, lest I dismay thee before them. For, behold, I have made thee this day a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee, saith Jehovah, to deliver thee.2 On the whole, Jeremiah's opening vision gives small promise of originality of thought or power of expression, and suggests little of strong or attractive personality. Amos, Micah, and Isaiah are men of strength who must do great work despite their defects; Hosea is from the first a man of fire, capable of the most intense love, but one who must learn patience through the strength of his at Hartford, died in 1663, his colleagues vied with one another in their fervid appreciations of his virtues. He was compared to the stone which Jacob set up and called Eben-ezer, and also the stone with which David slew Goliath; he was termed 'Whetstone, that edgefy'd th' obtusest mind; W. E. Simonds, History of American Literature, p. 33. 2 Jeremiah 1 17-19. 1 Jeremiah 1 13-16. burning love. Jeremiah appears crushed at the thought of responsibility; to be one driven to his work by a relentless sense that it is his work. He will never love the struggle nor greet his fate with a shout; yet under his shrinking exterior, there is resistless conviction that he has been predestined before birth to do a great work. Jeremiah will never do his work in spite of his defects; he is not a man like his great predecessors in whom "the defects of his virtues" are obvious. Rather he is a supreme example of the possibilities of one who possesses the virtues of his defects; it was the very tenacity of his weakness that made Jeremiah an original force in the upward progress of humanity. In the heading of the book, the first date is given as the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign, that is, 626 B.C. We can follow Jeremiah's activities for full forty years after that time, until after the downfall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. It is not impossible that the Scythian invasion may have been the immediate occasion for the opening of his ministry as well as that of Zephaniah. The picture of the boiling caldron may well have been suggested by this. Very probably we are to find the earliest of Jeremiah's recorded sermons in chapter 2. One is here strongly reminded of Hosea; the address opens with his thought of Israel as Jehovah's bride in the wilderness.1 And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith Jehovah, I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals; how thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness unto Jehovah, the first-fruits of his increase: all that devour him shall be held guilty; evil shall come upon them, saith Jehovah.2 Brutish insensibility to the divine care and guidance has been the attitude of the people. Hear ye the word of Jehovah, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel; Thus saith Jehovah, What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? Neither said they, Where is Jehovah that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that none passed through, and 2 Jeremiah 2 1-3. 1 Compare Hosea 2 14-23 |