Part 15 (1/2)

The next Oracle in metre is an elegy, probably prospective, on the fate of Jehoiachin and his mother Nehushta.(425)

Say to the King and Her Highness, 18 Low be ye seated!

For from your heads is come down The crown of your splendour.

The towns of the Southland are blocked 19 With none to open.

All Judah is gone into exile, Exile entire.(426)

_The flock of the Lord_, verse 17, comes again into the next poem, addressed to Jerusalem as appears from the singular form of the verbs and p.r.o.nouns preserved throughout by the Greek (but only in 20_b_ by the Hebrew) which to the disturbance of the metre adds the name of the city-probably a marginal note that by the hand of some copyist has been drawn into the text. In verse 21 the people, whom Judah has wooed to be her ally but who are about to become her tyrant, are, of course, the Babylonians.(427)

Lift up thine eyes and look, XIII. 20 They come from the North!

Where is the flock that was given thee, Thy beautiful flock?

What wilt thou say when they set 21 O'er thee as heads,(428) Those whom thyself wast training To be to thee friends?

Shall pangs not fasten upon thee, Like a woman's in travail?

And if thou say in thine heart, 22 Why fall on me these?

For the ma.s.s of thy guilt stripped are thy skirts, Ravished thy limbs!

Can the Ethiop change his skin, 23 Or the leopard his spots?

Then also may ye do good Who are wont to do evil.

As the pa.s.sing chaff I strew them 24 To the wind of the desert.

This is thy lot, the share I mete thee- 25 Rede of the Lord- Because Me thou hast wholly forgotten And trusted in fraud.

So thy skirts I draw over thy face, 26 Thy shame is exposed.

Thine adulteries, thy neighings, 27 Thy whorish intrigues; On the heights, in the field have I seen Thy detestable deeds.

Jerusalem! Woe unto thee!

Thou wilt not be clean- After how long yet?(429)

Ch. XIV. 1-10 is the fine poem on the Drought which was rendered in a previous lecture.(430) It is followed by a pa.s.sage in prose, 11-16, that implies a wilder ”sea of troubles,” not drought only but war, famine and pestilence. Forbidden to pray for the people Jeremiah pleads that they have been misled by the prophets who promised that there would be neither famine nor war; and the Lord condemns the prophets for uttering lies in His Name. Through war and famine prophets and people alike shall perish.

And thou shalt say this word to them: XIV. 17 Let your eyes run down with tears Day and night without ceasing, For broken, broken is the Daughter of my people, With the direst of strokes!

Fare I forth to the field, 18 Lo the slain of the sword!

Or come into the city Lo anguish of famine!

Yea, prophet and priest go a-begging In a land they know not.(431)

Some see reflected in these lines the situation after Megiddo, when Egyptian troops may have worked such evils on Judah; but more probably it is the still worse situation after the surrender of Jerusalem to Nebuchadrezzar. There follows, 19-22, another prayer of the people (akin to that following the drought, 7-9) which some take to be later than Jeremiah. The metre is unusual, if indeed it be metre and not rhythmical prose.

[Hast Thou utterly cast off Judah, 19 Loathes ?ion Thy soul?

Why hast Thou smitten us so That for us is no healing?

Hoped we for peace-no good!

For a season of healing-lo panic!

We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, 20 The guilt of our fathers; to Thee have we sinned.

For the sake of Thy Name, do not spurn us, 21 Debase not the Throne of Thy Glory, Remember, break not Thy Covenant with us!

'Mongst the bubbles of the nations are makers of rain, 22 Or do the heavens give the showers?