Part 19 (2/2)

Jerusalem fell at last in 586 and Jeremiah's imprisonment in the guard-court was over.(608)

4. And After. (x.x.x, x.x.xI, x.x.xIX-XLIV.)

There are two separated accounts of what befel Jeremiah when the city was taken. Ch. x.x.xIX. 3, 14 tells us that he was fetched from the guard-court by Babylonian officers,(609) and given to Gedaliah, the son of his old befriender Ahikam, _to be taken home_.(610) At last!-but for only a brief interval in the life of this homeless and harried man. When a few months later Nebu?aradan arrived on his mission to burn the city and deport the inhabitants Jeremiah is said by Ch. XL to have been carried off in chains with the rest of the captivity as far as Ramah, where, probably on Gedaliah's motion, Nebu?aradan released him and he joined Gedaliah at Mi?pah.(611)

It is unfortunate that we take our impressions of Nebuchadrezzar from the late Book of Daniel instead of from the contemporary accounts of his policy by Jeremiah, Baruch and Ezekiel. A proof of his wisdom and clemency is here. While deporting a second mult.i.tude to Babylonia in the interests of peace and order, he placed Judah under a native governor and chose for the post a Jew of high family traditions and personal character. All honour to Gedaliah for accepting so difficult and dangerous a task! He attracted those Jewish captains and their bands who during the siege had maintained themselves in the country,(612) and advised them to acknowledge the Chaldean power and to cultivate their lands, which that year fortunately produced excellent crops. At last there was peace, and the like-minded Governor and Prophet must together have looked forward to organising in Judah the nucleus at least of a restored Israel.

To this quiet interval, brief as it tragically proved, we may reasonably a.s.sign those Oracles of Hope which it is possible to recognise as Jeremiah's among the series attributed to him in Chs. x.x.x, x.x.xI. No chapters of the book have been more keenly discussed or variously estimated.(613) Yet at least there is agreement that their compilation is due to a late editor who has arranged his materials progressively so that the whole is a unity;(614) that many of these materials are obviously from the end of the exile in the style then prevailing; but that among them are genuine Oracles of Jeremiah recognisable by their style. These are admitted as his by the most drastic of critics. It is indeed incredible that after such a crisis as the destruction of the Holy City and the exile of her people, and with the new situation and prospect of Israel before him, the Prophet should have had nothing to say. And the most probable date for such utterances of hope as we have now to consider is not that of his imprisonment but the breathing-s.p.a.ce given him after 586, when the Jewish community left in Judah made such a promising start.(615)

From its measure and vivid vision the first piece might well be Jeremiah's; but it uses Jacob, the later literature's favourite name for Israel, which Jeremiah does not use, and (in the last two verses) some phrases with an outlook reminiscent of the Second Isaiah. The verses describe a day when the world shall again be shaken, but out of the shaking Israel's deliverance shall come.

[The sound of trembling we hear, x.x.x. 5 Dread without peace.

Enquire now and look ye, 6 If men be bearing?

Why then do I see every man(616) With his hands on his loins?

All faces are changed, and Livid become.(617) For great is that day, 7 None is there like it, With a time of trouble for Jacob.

Yet out of it saved shall he be.

It shall come to pa.s.s on that day- 8 Rede of the Lord- I will break their(618) yoke from their(619) neck, Their(620) thongs I will burst; And strangers no more shall they serve,(621) But serve the Lord their G.o.d, 9 And David their king, Whom I will raise up for them.]

The next piece is more probably Jeremiah's, as even Duhm admits; verses 10 and 11 which precede it are not given in the Greek.

Healless to me is thy ruin, 12 Sick is thy wound, Not for thy sore is remede, 13 No closing (of wounds) for thee!

Forgot thee have all thy lovers, 14 Thee they seek not.

With the stroke of a foe I have struck thee, A cruel correction.

Why criest thou over thy ruin, 15 Thy healless pain?

For the ma.s.s of thy guilt, thy sins profuse Have I done to thee these.

If these Qinah quatrains are not Jeremiah's, some one else could match him to the letter and the very breath. They would fall fitly from his lips immediately upon the fulfilment of his people's doom. Less probably his are the verses which follow and abruptly add to his stern rehearsal of judgment on Judah the promise of her deliverance, even introducing this with a _therefore_ as if deliverance were the certain corollary of judgment-a conclusion not to be grudged by us to the faith of a later believer; for it is not untrue that the sinner's extremest need is the occasion for G.o.d's salvation.(622) Yet the sudden transition feels artificial, and lacks, be it observed, what we should expect from Jeremiah himself, a call to the doomed people to repent. Note, too, the breakdown of the metre under a certain redundancy, which is not characteristic of Jeremiah.

[Therefore thy devourers shall all be devoured, 16 And all thine oppressors.

All shall go off to captivity; Thy spoilers for spoil shall be And all that upon thee do prey, I give for prey.

For new flesh I shall bring up upon thee, 17 From thy wounds I shall heal thee;(623) Outcast they called thee, O ?ion, Whom none seeketh after.]

The rest of the chapter is even less capable of being a.s.signed to Jeremiah.

More of Jeremiah's own Oracles are readily recognised in Ch. x.x.xI. I leave to a later lecture the question of the authenticity of that on The New Covenant and of the immediately preceding verses;(624) while the verses which close the chapter are certainly not the Prophet's. But I take now the rest of the chapter, verses 1-28. The first of these may be editorial, the link by which the compiler has connected Chs. x.x.x and x.x.xI; yet there is nothing to prevent us from hearing in it Jeremiah himself.

x.x.xI. 1. At that time-Rede of the Lord-I shall be G.o.d to all the families(625) of Israel, and they shall be a people to Me.

<script>