Part 14 (2/2)

Woe is me for thy(411) ruin, 19 Sore is thy(412) stroke!

But I said, Well, this sickness is mine(413) And I must bear it!

Undone is my tent and perished,(414) 20 Snapped all my cords!

My sons-they went out from me And they are not!

None now to stretch me my tent Or hang up my curtains.

For that the shepherds(415) are brutish 21 Nor seek of the Lord, Therefore prosper they shall not, All scattered their flock.(416) Hark the bruit, X. 22 Behold it comes, And uproar great From land of the North, To lay the cities of Judah waste, A lair of jackals.

As we have seen, Jeremiah in the excitement of alarm falls on short lines, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of two stresses each, sometimes as here with one longer line.(417)

A quatrain follows of longer, equal lines as is usual with Jeremiah when expressing spiritual truths:-

Lord I know! Not to man is his way, 23 Not man's to walk or settle his steps.

Chasten me, Lord, but with judgment, 24 Not in wrath, lest Thou bring me to little!

The last verse of the chapter is of a temper unlike that of Jeremiah elsewhere towards other nations, and so like the temper against them felt by later generations in Israel, that most probably it is not his.

[Pour out Thy rage on the nations, 25 Who do not own Thee, And out on the kingdoms Who call not Thy Name!

For Jacob they devoured and consumed, And wasted his homestead](418)

Another series of Oracles, as reasonably referred to the reign of Jehoiakim as to any other stage of Jeremiah's career, is scattered over Chs. XI-XX. I reserve to a later lecture upon his spiritual conflict and growth those which disclose his debates with his G.o.d, his people and himself-XI. 18-XII. 6, XV. 10-XVI. 9, XVII. 14-18, XVIII. 18-23, XX. 7-18, and I take now only such as deal with the character and the doom of the nation.

Of these the first in the order in which they appear in the Book is XI.

15, 16, with which we have already dealt,(419) and the second is XII.

7-13, generally acknowledged to be Jeremiah's own. It is undated, but of the invasions of this time the one it most clearly reflects is that of the mixed hordes let loose by Nebuchadrezzar on Judah in 602 or in 598.(420) The invasion is more probably described as actual than imagined as imminent. G.o.d Himself is the speaker: His _House_, as the parallel _Heritage_ shows, is not the Temple but the Land, His _Domain_. The sentence p.r.o.nounced upon it is a final sentence, yet delivered by the Divine Judge with pain and with astonishment that He has to deliver it against His _Beloved_; and this pathos Jeremiah's poetic rendering of the sentence finely brings out by putting verse 9_a_ in the form of a question. The Prophet feels the Heart of G.o.d as moved as his own by the doom of the people.

I have forsaken My House, XII. 7 I have left My Heritage, I have given the Beloved of My Soul To the hand of her foes.

My Heritage to Me is become 8 Like a lion in the jungle, She hath given against Me her voice, Therefore I hate her.

Is My Heritage to Me a speckled wild-bird 9 With wild-birds round and against her?

Go, gather all beasts of the field, Bring them on to devour.

Shepherds so many My Vineyard have spoiled 10 Have trampled My Lot- My pleasant Lot they have turned To a desolate desert They make it a waste, it mourns, 11 On Me is the waste!

All the land is made desolate, None lays it to heart!

Over the bare desert heights 12 Come in the destroyers!

[For the sword of the Lord is devouring From the end of the land, And on to the end of the land, No peace to all flesh.(421) Wheat have they sown and reaped thorns, 13 Have travailed for nought, Ashamed of their crop shall they be In the heat of G.o.d's wrath.]

The last eight lines are doubtfully original: the speaker is no longer G.o.d Himself. There follows, in verses 14-17, a paragraph in prose, which is hardly relevant-a later addition, whether from the Prophet or an editor.

The next metrical Oracles are appended to the Parables of the Waist-cloth and of the Jars in Ch. XIII.(422) We have already quoted, in proof of Jeremiah's poetic power, the most solemn warning he gave to his people, XIII. 15, 16.(423) At some time these lines were added to it:-

But if ye will not hear it: XIII. 17 In secret my soul shall weep Because of your pride, And mine eyes run down with tears For the flock of the Lord led captive.(424)

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