JEREMIAH
the
mountain-ridge
and
commanding
an
extensive
view
over
the
hills
of
Ephraim
and
the
Jordan
valley,
towards
which
his
memory
often
turned
(4i5
T'*-
«
12«
31<-'-
"
49").
Jeremiah
had
no
mere
Judseau
outlook;
the
larger
Israel
was
constantly
in
his
thoughts.
His
father
was
'
Hilkiah
[not
the
Hilkiah
of
2
K
22<],
of
the
priests
that
were
in
Anathoth
in
the
land
of
Benjamin'
(!');
but
he
does
not
show,
like
the
contemporary
priest-
prophet
Bzekiel,
the
sacerdotal
mind.
Anathoth
had
been
the
settlement
of
Abiathar,
the
last
high
priest
of
EU's
house,
who
was
banished
thither
by
Solomon
(1
K
2»);
Jeremiah
may
have
been
a
scion
of
this
deposed
Une.
His
mission
brought
him,
probably
at
an
early
period,
into
conflict
with
'the
men
of
Anathoth,'
who
sought
his
life
(ll's-^s).
His
attempt
to
visit
Anathoth
during
the
last
siege
of
Jerusalem,
and
the
transaction
between
himself
and
his
cousin
over
the
field
at
Anathoth
{32''i-37"-"),
go
to
show
that
he
was
not
entirely
cut
o£f
from
friendly
relations
with
his
kindred
and
native
place.
Jeremiah's
call
(ch.
1)
in
B.C.
626
found
him
a
difhdent
and
reluctant
young
man,
—
not
wanting
in
devotion,
but
shrinking
from
pubUcity,
and
with
no
natural
draw-ing
towards
the
prophetic
career;
yet
he
is
'
set
over
the
nations,
to
pluck
up
and
to
break
down,
and
to
build
and
to
plant'!
Already
there
begins
the
struggle
between
the
implanted
word
of
Jehovah
and
the
nature
of
the
man,
on
which
turns
Jeremiah's
inner
history
and
the
development
of
his
heroic
character,
—
all
things
considered,
the
noblest
in
the
OT.
His
ministry
was
to
be
a
long
martyrdom.
He
must
stand
as
'
a
fenced
city
and
an
iron
pillar
and
brazen
walls
against
the
whole
land,'
—
a
soUtary
and
impregnable
fortress
for
Jehovah.
The
maimer
of
his
call
imports
an
intimacy
with
God,
an
identification
of
the
man
with
his
mission,
more
close
and
complete
than
in
the
case
of
any
previous
prophet
(see
vv.*
and
').
No
intermediary
—
not
even
'
the
spirit
of
Jehovah,'
—
no
special
vehicle
or
means
of
prophetical
incitement,
is
ever
Intimated
in
his
case:
simply
'the
word
of
Jehovah
came
to'
him.
He
con-ceives
the
true
prophet
as
'standing
in
Jehovah's
council,
to
perceive
and
hear
his
word'
(23";
cf.
Is
50*).
So
that
he
may
be
in
person,
as
weU
as
in
word,
a
prophet
of
the
coming
tribulation,
marriage
is
forbidden
him
and
all
participation
in
domestic
Ufe
(16>-"),
—
a
sentence
peculiarly
bitter
to
his
tender
and
affectionate
nature.
Jeremiah's
imagination
was
haunted
by
his
lost
home
happiness
(7^
16'
25'»
33").
Endowed
with
the
finest
sensibilities,
in
so
evil
a
time
he
was
bound
to
be
a
man
of
sorrows.
Behind
the
contest
waged
by
Jeremiah
with
kings
and
people
there
lay
an
interior
struggle,
lasting
more
than
twenty
years.
So
long
it
took
this
great
prophet
to
accept
with
full
acquiescence
the
burden
laid
upon
him.
We
may
trace
through
a
number
of
self-revealing
passages,
the
general
drift
of
which
is
plain
notwith-standing
the
obscurity
of
some
sentences
and
the
chrono-logical
uncertainty,
Jeremiah's
progress
from
youthful
consecration
and
ardour,
through
moods
of
doubt
and
passionate
repugnance,
to
a
complete
self-conquest
and
settled
trust
(see,
besides
chs.
1.
H.
16
already
cited,
818-92
1510.
u
and
'^-^
17"-i8
isi'-^a
20.
26
and
30-32).
The
discipline
of
Jeremiah
may
be
divided
into
four
stages,
following
on
his
supernatural
call:
—
(a)
the
youthful
period
of
fierce
denunciation,
B.C.
626-621;
(6)
the
time
ol
disillusion
and
silence,
subsequent
to
Josiah's
reforms,
621-608;
(c)
the
critical
epoch,
608-604,
opened
by
the
faU
of
Josiah
at
Megiddo
and
closing
in
the
fourth
year
of
Jehoiakim
after
the
battle
of
Carchemish
and
the
advent
of
Nebuchadrezzar,
when
the
paroxysm
of
the
prophet's
soul
was
past
and
his
vision
of
the
future
grew
clear;
(d)
the
stage
of
full
illumination,
attained
during
the
calamities
ol
the
last
days
of
Jerusalem.
To
(a)
belongs
the
teaching
recorded
in
chs.
2-6,
subject
to
the
modifications
involved
in
condensing
from
memory
discourses
uttered
20
years
before.
Here
JEREMIAH
Jeremiah
is
on
the
same
ground
as
Zephaniah.
He
strongly
recalls
Hosea,
whose
love
for
'Ephraim'
he
shares,
and
whose
similitude
of
the
marriage-union
between
Jehovah
and
Israel
suppUes
the
basis
of
his
appeals.
Judah,
he
insists,
has
proved
a
more
faith-less
bride
than
her
northern
sister;
a
divorce
is
inevi-table.
Ch.
5
reflects
the
shocking
impression
made
by
Jeremiah's
first
acquaintance
with
Jerusalem;
in
ch.
6
Jehovah's
scourge
—
^in
the
first
instance
the
Scythians
—
is
held
over
the
city.
With
rebukes
mingle
calls
to
repentance
and,
more
rarely,
hopes
of
a
relenting
on
the
people's
part
(S^'-^S;
in
other
hopeful
passages
critics
detect
interpolation).
Jeremiah's
powerful
and
pathetic
preaching
helped
to
prepare
the
reformation
of
621.
But
as
the
danger
from
the
northern
hordes
passed
and
Josiah's
rule
brought
new
prosperity,
the
prophet's
vaticinations
were
discounted;
his
pessimism
became
an
object
of
ridicule.
(6)
Jeremiah's
attitude
towards
Josiah's
reformation
is
the
enigma
of
his
history.
The
collection
of
his
prophecies
made
in
604
(see
chs.
1-12),
apart
from
the
doubtful
allusion
in
II1-8,
ignores
the
subject;
Josiah's
name
is
but
once
mentioned,
by
way
of
contrast
to
Jehoiakim,
in
22"-".
From
this
silence
we
must
not
infer
condemnation;
and
such
passages
as
7^-
^
and
8'
do
not
signify
that
Jeremiah
was
radically
opposed
to
the
sacrificial
system
and
to
the
use
of
a
written
law.
We
may
fairly
gather
from
ll'-s,
it
not
from
17"-"
(the
authenticity
of
which
is
contested),
that
Jeremiah
commended
the
Deuteronoraic
code.
His
writings
in
many
passages
show
a
Deuteronomic
stamp.
But,
from
this
point
of
view,
the
reformation
soon
showed
itself
a
failure.
It
came
from
the
will
of
the
king,
not
from
the
conscience
of
the
people.
It
effected
no
'circumcision
of
the
heart,'
no
inward
turning
to
Jehovah,
no
such
'breaking
up
of
the
fallow
ground'
as
Jeremiah
had
called
for;
the
good
seed
of
the
Deuter-onomic
teaching
was
'sown
among
thorns'
(4'-'),
which
sprang
up
and
choked
it.
The
cant
of
religion
was
in
the
mouths
of
ungodly
men;
apostasy
had
given
place,
in
the
popular
temper,
to
hypocrisy.
Convinced
of
this,
Jeremiah
appears
to
have
early
withdrawn,
and
stood
aloof
for
the
rest
of
Josiah's
reign.
Hence
the
years
621-608
are
a
blank
in
the
record
of
his
ministry.
For
the
time
the
prophet
was
nonplussed;
the
evil
he
had
foretold
had
not
come;
the
good
which
had
come
was
a
doubtful
good
in
his
eyes.
He
could
not
support,
he
would
not
oppose,
the
work
of
the
earnest
and
sanguine
king.
Those
twelve
years
demon-strated
the
emptiness
of
a
poUtical
reUgion.
They
burnt
into
the
prophet's
soul
the
lesson
of
the
worttiiessness
of
everything
vnthout
the
law
vyritten
on
the
heart.
(fi)
Josiah's
death
at
Megiddo
pricked
the
bubble
ol
the
national
religiousness;
this
calamity
recalled
Jeremiah
to
his
work.
Soon
afterwards
he
delivered
the
great
discourse
of
7'-8',
which
nearly
cost
him
his
Ufe
(see
ch.
26).
He
denounces
the
false
reliance
on
the
Temple
that
replaced
the
idolatrous
superstitions
of
20
years
before,
thereby
making
'the
priests
and
the
prophets,'
to
whose
ears
the
threat
of
Shiloh's
fate
for
Zion
was
rank
treason,
from
this
time
his
implacable
enemies.
The
post-reformation
conflict
now
opening
was
more
deadly
than
the
pre-reformation
conflict
shared
with
Zephaniah.
A
false
Jehovism
had
entrenched
itself
within
the
forms
of
the
Covenant,
armed
with
the
weaimns
of
fanatical
self-righteousness.
To
this
phase
of
the
struggle
belong
chs.
7-10
(subtracting
the
great
inter-polation
of
923-1018,
of
which
10'-"
is
surely
post-Jeremianic);
so,
probably,
most
of
the
matter
ol
chs.
14-20,
identified
with
the
'many
like
words'
that
were
added
to
the
volume
ol
Jeremiah
burnt
by
Jehoiakim
in
the
winter
of
604
(36"
-=2).
The
i)ersonal
passages
of
chs.
15.
17.
18.
20
belong
to
this
decisive
epoch
(608-605,
between
Megiddo
and
Carchemish).
The
climax
of
Jeremiah's
inward
agony
was
brought
about
by
the
outrage
inflicted
on
him
by
