where no man dwelt? And I brought you into a plentiful land, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.1 The priests, rulers, and prophets have been faithless. The priests said not, Where is Jehovah? and they that handle the law knew me not: the rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit." The husband's pleading is tender though searching, with its appeal to the common conduct of the nations which do not change their gods, though they be no gods at all. Wherefore I will yet contend with you, saith Jehovah, and with your children's children will I contend. For pass over to the isles of Kittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently; and see if there hath been such a thing. Hath a nation changed its gods, which yet are no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.3 4 Suddenly the figurative representation of God as the husband who cares bountifully for his bride is changed to that of a fountain of living waters contrasted to broken cisterns that cannot hold even their stale, stored-up waters. Again, Israel is a beast of burden, whose yoke has been broken, a choice vine planted that has degenerated into an alien vine, a young camel galloping aimlessly, a wild ass of the wilderness, a detected thief. Isaiah himself could scarcely heap figure upon figure in more rapid succession; yet, as is usually the case with Isaiah, the total effect is not confusing. If the reader is alert, he finds each changing figure flashing its ray of light upon Israel's character and conduct. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith Jehovah. For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. Is Israel a servant? is he a home-born slave? why is he become a prey? The young lions have roared upon him, and yelled; and they have made his land waste: his cities are burned up, without inhabitant. 3 Jeremiah 2 -11. • Literally, twisting herself, entangling her ways. 1 Jeremiah 2 4-7. 2 Jeremiah 28. The children also of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of thy head. Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken Jehovah thy God, when he led thee by the way? And now what hast thou to do in the way to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor? or what hast thou to do in the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River? Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and a bitter, that thou hast forsaken Jehovah thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts. For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bonds; and thou saidst, I will not serve; for upon every high hill and under every green tree thou didst bow thyself, playing the harlot. Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine unto me? For though thou wash thee with lye, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord Jehovah. How canst thou say, I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done; thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways; a wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind in her desire; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her. Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst. But thou saidst, It is in vain; no, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go. As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets; who say to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us. But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.1 The literary promise of the opening chapter was not great, but the address of chapter 2 tells us that another poet-prophet has arisen in Israel. The thought of God's tender care and of Israel's wanton insensibility to his love, so effectively expanded in Isaiah's great arraignment (chapter 1), is again presented in an original and effective form. The four chapters following are most naturally assigned to the earlier years of Jeremiah's preaching, before 621, when the prophet 1 Jeremiah 2 12-28. must still have been a comparatively young man. In these early addresses one discovers that the young man, like Zephaniah, had been a diligent student of the earlier prophets, but finds, as yet, no great, new contributions to the prophetic interpretation of life. Clearly, Jeremiah's spirit is most closely akin to that of Hosea. He does not merely adopt and repeatedly use Hosea's characteristic figure; he has genuinely entered into Hosea's interpretation of life. He, too, sees that it is insensibility to the goodness of God that is the root troub e with Israel - nothing purely external. They do not know God; this is the fundamental lack. He cries out in God's name: For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. Hosea first learned the lesson through the death he died when he found that the one to whom he had given his unbounded love was incapable of understanding or caring. Jeremiah's tender, sensitive heart made him able, even in the years of his immaturity, before he had come to his own life, to understand the significance of Hosea's truth. He, too, saw God desiring soul union and communion with his people as a true husband or father, and saw his people absolutely unresponsive to this yearning love. As we read Jeremiah's early sermons and feel the voice and heart of Hosea on every page, we may note also the message of Amos and Isaiah, spoken once again with hardly less of strength and poetic power than in its original form. Injustice to the weak in the law court; riches gained through oppression and dishonesty ;1 the divine judgment threatened through a nation from afar;2 yet a remnant to be spared; sacrifices hateful to God; glossing over of evil, crying peace, peace when there is no peace in all these and many other notes that we catch in Jeremiah's earlier discourses, we may recognize the influence of the masters over whose recorded messages he must have pored and pondered, listening to the voices of the past, in the barren years of his youth, when no prophet spoke publicly. Yet throughout these early 1 5 26-29. 25 15,6 22. 35 18 46 20. 56 13-14. sermons, Jeremiah's voice is no mere echo, even though his own distinctive message has not yet shaped itself. An individual note which we catch in these chapters, and which we shall come to recognize as a distinctive mark of Jeremiah's personality, is the inner compulsion to give his message of plucking up and breaking down. For thus hath Jehovah of hosts said: Hew down trees and cast up a mound against Jerusalem. This is the faithless city; there is only oppression in her midst. As a fountain keepeth fresh its waters, so she keepeth fresh her wicked ness; Acts of violence and oppression are heard in her ; Before me continually are wounds and blows. Receive instruction, O Jerusalem, lest I be alienated from thee; Lest I make thee a desolation, an uninhabited land. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Glean thoroughly, as a vine, the remnant of Israel, Put forth again your hand as a grape gatherer toward the young vines. To whom shall I speak and testify that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised and they cannot hearken; Behold, the word of Jehovah has become to them a reproach, they have no pleasure in it. Therefore I am full of the wrath of Jehovah; I am weary of restraining myself. I must pour it out upon the children in the street and upon the assembly of young men, For both the husband and the wife shall be taken, the aged and him that is advanced in years. And their houses shall be turned over to others, their fields to robbers; For from the least even to the greatest of them, each greedily robs, And from the prophet even to the priest each deals deceitfully.1 This is akin to the relentless conviction noted in connection with the inaugural vision. We imagine Amos almost exulting in his message of doom, his sense of justice is so dominant; Isaiah's doom and hope sweep on in majestic current, splendid, but cold at times, or else again, a 1 Jeremiah 66-13. Translation of C. F. Kent, in Sermons, Epistles, and Apocalypses of Israel's Prophets, p. 184. consuming fire; never restrained by tender sympathy; Jeremiah would not utter words that separate him from the understanding and companionship of everyday men, but a burning fire within compels him to be a prophet against his will. Understanding, as Jeremiah does, that the transformation of society is inwardly conditioned, its purification seems hopeless even to the young man. They are all grievous revolters, going about with slanders; In vain do they go on refining; for the wicked are not plucked away. The preaching of Jeremiah and Zephaniah must have helped prepare the way for the reform of Josiah, undertaken five years after the beginning of Jeremiah's ministry. What part, if any, these prophets may have taken in the actual reform movement is a question that we cannot solve. In the history of Josiah's reign, as given in Kings, no mention is made of either prophet, and no internal evidence leads to the dating of any of their extant messages in the period of the Deuteronomic reform, except the passage of Jeremiah 11 1-8. The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and say thou unto them, Thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel: Cursed be the man that heareth not the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God; that I may establish the oath which I sware unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day. Then answered I, and said, Amen, O Jehovah. And Jehovah said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them. For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they obeyed 1 Jeremiah 6 28-30. |