Part 20 (1/2)
A poem follows which metrically and in substance bears every mark of being Jeremiah's. The measure is his favourite Qinah, and the memory of the Lord's ancient love for Israel, which had stirred the youth of the Prophet,(626) revives in his old age and is the motive of his a.s.surance that Israel will be restored. It is of Ephraim as well as of Judah that he thinks, indeed of Ephraim especially. We have seen how the heart of this son of Anathoth-in-Benjamin was early drawn to the exiles from that province on which the northward windows of his village looked out.(627) Now once more he was in Benjamin's territory, at Ramah and at Mi?pah, with the same northward prospect. Naturally his heart went out again to Ephraim and its banished folk. Of the priestly tribe as Jeremiah's family were, their long residence in the land of Benjamin must have infected them with Benjamin's sense of a closer kins.h.i.+p to Ephraim, the son of Joseph, the son of Rachel, than to Judah, the son of Leah. And there was, in addition, the influence of neighbourhood. If blood be thicker than water it is equally true that watered blood is warmed to affection by nearness of locality and closeness of a.s.sociation.(628)
It is questionable whether the opening couplet quotes the deliverance of Israel from Egypt as a precedent for the future return of the northern tribes from captivity, described in the lines that follow; or whether this return is at once predicted by the couplet, with the usual prophetic a.s.surance as though it had already happened. If we take _the desert_ as this is taken in Hosea II. 14, we may decide for the latter alternative.
Grace have they found in the desert, x.x.xI. 2 The people escaped from the sword; While Israel makes for his rest from afar The Lord appears to him(629): 3 ”With a love from of old I have loved thee, So in troth I (now) draw thee.(630) ”I will rebuild thee, and built shalt thou be, 4 Maiden of Israel!
”Again thou shalt take(631) thee thy timbrels And forth to the merrymen's dances.
”Again shall vineyards be planted(632) 5 On the hills of Samaria, ”Planters shall surely plant them(?) And forthwith enjoy(633) (their fruit).
”For comes the day when watchmen are calling 6 On Ephraim's mountains: ”Rise, let us go up to ?ion, To the Lord our G.o.d.”
The everyday happiness promised is striking. Here speaks again the man, who, while ruin ran over the land, redeemed his ancestral acres in pledge of the resettlement of all his people upon their own farms and fields. He is back in the country, upon the landscapes of his youth, and in this fresh prospect of the restoration of Israel he puts first the common joys and fruitful labours of rural life, and only after these the national wors.h.i.+p centred in Jerusalem. Cornill denies this last verse to Jeremiah, feeling it inconsistent with the Prophet's condemnation of the Temple and the Sacrifices.(634) But that condemnation had been uttered by Jeremiah because of his contemporaries' sinful use of the House of G.o.d, whereas now he is looking into a new dispensation. How could he more signally clinch the promise of that reunion of Israel and Judah, for which all his life he had longed, than by this call to them to wors.h.i.+p together?
The next verses are not so recognisable as Jeremiah's, unless it be in their last couplet. The rest rather reflect the Return from Exile as on the point of coming to pa.s.s, which happened long after Jeremiah's time; and they call the nation _Jacob_, the name favoured by prophets of the end of the Exile.
[Ring out with joy for Jacob, 7 Shout for (?) the head of the nations,(635) Publish ye, praise ye and say, The Lord hath saved His(636) people, The Remnant of Israel!
Behold from the North I bring them, 8 And gather from ends of the earth; Their blind and their lame together, The mother-to-be and her who hath borne.
In concourse great back they come hither.
With weeping forth did they go,(637) 9 With consolations(638) I bring them, I lead them by(639) streams of water, On an even way, They stumble not on it](640)
For a father I am become to Israel, And my first-born is Ephraim!
This couplet may well be Jeremiah's; but whether it should immediately follow verse 6 is doubtful. The next lines are hardly his, bearing the same marks of the late exile as we have seen in verses 7-9_a_.
[Hear, O nations, the Word of the Lord, 10 And declare on the far-away isles(641): Who hath scattered Israel will gather, And guard as a shepherd his flock.
For the Lord hath ransomed Jacob 11 And redeemed from the hand of the stronger than he.
They are come and ring out on Mount ?ion, 12 Radiant(642) all with the wealth of the Lord, With the corn, the new wine, the fresh oil, The young of the flock and the herd; Till their soul becomes as a garden well-watered, Nor again any more shall they pine.
Then rejoice in the dance shall the maidens, 13 The youths and the old make merry.(643) When their mourning I turn to mirth(644) And give them joy from their sorrow.
When I richly water the soul of the priests,(645) 14 And My folk with My bounty are filled- Rede of the Lord.]
The next poems no one denies to Jeremiah; they are among the finest we have from him. And how natural that he should conceive and utter them in those quiet days when he was at, or near, Ramah, the grave of the mother of the people.(646) He hears her century-long travail of mourning for the loss of the tribes that were sprung from her Joseph, aggravated now by the banishment of her Benjamin; but hears too the promise that her travail shall be rewarded by their return. The childless old man has the soul of mother and father both-now weeping with the comfortless Rachel and now, in human touches unmatched outside the Parable of the Prodigal, reading into the heart of G.o.d the same instinctive affections, to which, in spite of himself, every earthly father is stirred by the mere mention of the name of a rebellious and wandered son. The most vivid details are these: _after I had been brought to know_, which might also be translated _after I had been made to know myself_ and so antic.i.p.ate _when he came to himself_ of our Lord's Parable; _I smote on my thigh_, the gesture of despair; and in 20_a_ the very human attribution to the Deity of surprise that the mere name of Ephraim should move Him to affection, which recalls both in form and substance the similar question attributed to the Lord in XII. 9.
There is no reason to try, as some do, to correct in the poems their broken measures, for these both suit and add to the poignancy and tenderness which throb through the whole.(647)
Hark, in Ramah is heard lamentation 15 And bitterest weeping, Rachel beweeping her children, And will not be comforted,(648) For they are not.
Thus saith the Lord: 16 Refrain thy voice from weeping, And from tears thine eyes, For reward there is for thy travail- They are back from the land of the foe!
[And hope there is for thy future, 17 Thy sons come back to their border.](649)
I have heard, I have heard 18 Ephraim bemoaning, ”Thou hast chastened me, chastened I am, Like a calf untrained.
”Turn me Thyself, and return I will, For Thou art my G.o.d.
”For after I had turned away (?)(650) 19 I repented ... (?) ”And after I was brought to know,(651) I smote on my thigh.
”I am shamed, yea and confounded, As I bear the reproach of my youth.”(652)
Is Ephraim My dearest son,(653) 20 A child of delights?