Part 6 (2/2)

See I have thee set this day A fenced city and walls of bronze To the kings and princes of Judah, Her priests and the folk of the land; They shall fight but master thee never, For with thee am I to deliver- Rede of the Lord.(135)

Jeremiah was silenced and went forth to his ministry-the Word upon his lips and the Lord by his side.

Two further observations are natural.

_First_, note the contrast between the two Visions-the blossoming twig and the boiling caldron brewing tempests from the North. Unrelated as these seem, they symbolise together Jeremiah's prophesying throughout. For in fact this was all blossom and storm, beauty and terror, tender yearning and thunders of doom-up to the very end. Or to state the same more deeply: while the caldron of the North never ceased boiling out over his world-consuming the peoples, his own among them, and finally sweeping him into exile and night-he never, for himself or for Israel, lost the clear note of his first Vision, that all was watched and controlled. There is his value to ourselves. Jeremiah was no prophet of hope, but he was the prophet of that without which hope is impossible-faith in Control-that be the times dark and confused as they may, and the world's movements ruthless, ruinous and inevitable, G.o.d yet watches and rules all to the fulfilment of His Will-though how we see not, nor can any prophet tell us.

_Second_, note how the story leaves the issue, not with one will only, but with two-G.o.d's and the Man's, whom G.o.d has called. His family has been discounted, his people and their authorities, political and religious, are to be against him. _He_ is to stand up and speak, _He_ is not to let himself be dismayed before them, lest G.o.d make him dismayed. Under G.o.d, then, the Individual becomes everything. Here, at the start of his ministry, Jeremiah has pressed upon him, the separateness, the awful responsibility, the power, of the Single Soul. We shall see how the significance of this developed not for himself only, but for the whole religion of Israel.

Lecture IV.

THE PROPHET IN THE REIGN OF JOSIAH. 627-26-608 B.C.

This period of the Prophet's career may be taken in three divisions:-

_First_, His Earliest Oracles, which reflect the lavish distribution of the high-places in Judah and Benjamin, and may therefore be dated before the suppression of these by King Josiah, in obedience to the Law-Book discovered in the Temple in 621-20 B.C.

_Second_, His Oracles on the Scythians, whose invasions also preceded that year; with additions.

_Third_, Oracles which imply that the enforcement of the Law-Book had already begun, and reveal Jeremiah's att.i.tude to it and to the course of the reforms which it inspired.

We must keep in mind that the Prophet did not dictate his early Oracles till the year 604-03, and that he added to them on the Second Roll _many like words_.(136) We shall thus be prepared for the appearance among them of references to the changed conditions of this later date, when the Scythians had long come and gone, the a.s.syrian Empire had collapsed, its rival Egypt had been defeated at the Battle of Carchemish, and Nebuchadrezzar and his Chaldeans were masters of Western Asia.

1. His Earliest Oracles. (II. 2-IV. 4.)

These bear few marks of the later date at which they were dictated by Jeremiah-in fact only a probable reference to Egypt's invasion of Palestine in 608, Ch. II. 16, and part, if not all, of Ch. III. 6-18. The general theme is a historical retrospect-Israel's early loyalty to her G.o.d, and her subsequent declension to the wors.h.i.+p of other G.o.ds, figured as adultery; along with a profession of penitence by the people, to which G.o.d responds by a stern call to a deeper repentance and thorough reform; failing this, her doom, though vaguely described as yet, is inevitable.

The nation is addressed as a whole at first in the second person singular feminine, but soon also in the plural, and the plural prevails towards the end. The nation answers as a whole, sometimes as _I_ but sometimes also as _We_.

Before expounding the truths conveyed by these early Oracles it is well to translate them in full, for though not originally uttered at the same time, they run now in a continuous stream of verse-save for one of those ”portages” of prose which I have described.(137) There is no reason for denying the whole of this pa.s.sage to Jeremiah, whether because it is in prose or because it treats of Northern Israel as well as Judah.(138) But on parts of it the colours are distinctly of a period later than that of the Prophet. All the rest of the Oracles may be taken to be from himself.

Duhm after much hesitation has come to doubt the genuineness of Ch. II.

5-13, but his suspicions of deuteronomic influence seem groundless, and even if they were sound they would be insufficient for denying the verses to Jeremiah.(139)

II. 1, 2, And he said, Thus sayeth the Lord:(140)

I remember the troth of thy youth, Thy love as a bride, Thy following Me through the desert, The land unsown.

Holy to the Lord was Israel, 3 First-fruit of His income; All that would eat it stood guilty, Evil came on them.

Rede of the Lord- Hear the Lord's Word, House of Jacob, 4 All clans of Israel's race!

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