Class ___. Book_ ± COPY RIGHT DEPOSIT / / THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL THE MACMILLAN COMPANY MEW YORE • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL FROM THE EIGHTH TO THE FIFTH CENTURY THEIR FAITH AND THEIR MESSAGE BY MOSES BUTTENWIESER, Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL EXEGESIS, HEBREW UNION COLLEGE, CINCINNATI •Dfom fnrk THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914 All rights reserved T&&* $% Copyright, igi4 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1914 M 29 19/4 ©CI.A3623S2 TO MY FRIEND AND COMRADE, "THE WIFE OF MY YOUTH," WHOSE SHARE IN THIS WORK IS GREATER THAN I CAN ACKNOWLEDGE TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Foreword: Origin and Character of Egyptian Prophetic Litera- ture — Rise of Eschatology — Method and Scope xv BOOK I THE FAITH OF THE PROPHETS PART I Chapter I GENERAL SURVEY The Keynote of the Prophetic Preaching — The Importance of Jeremiah 3 Chapter II THE TEMPLE-SERMON AND THE PERSECUTION OF JEREMIAH UNDER JEHOJAKIM i. The Originally Component Parts of the Temple-Sermon; its Genuineness 21 2. Jeremiah's Trial and Conviction, and the Law, Deut. XVIII, 15-22, Applying to the Case 24 3. Jeremiah's Escape — The Reading of his Prophecies by Baruch 37 4. Chap. XXV — Its Origin and Purpose 46 Note on the Date of Jer. XVII, 19-27 49 Chapter III THE PERSECUTION OF JEREMIAH UNDER ZEDEKIAH. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF CHAPS. XXXVH, XXXVEU, XXXIV, XXXH, 3D-5, XXI A. The Actual Facts of the Case 52 B. Critical Analysis of the Prophecies and Biographical Records of the Period 55 vii viii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE i. XXXVII, 17-21 and XXXVIII, 14-27 55 (a) XXXVIII, 14-27— The Legendary Account 56 (b) XXXVII, 17-21— The Authentic Record 62 2. XXXIV, 8-22 and XXXVII, 1-16— XXXIV, 1-7, XXXII, 3-5, XXI, 1-14 and XXXVIII, 1-13 65 (a) The Two Deputations from Zedekiah to Jeremiah, XXXVII, 3, 7a — XXI, 1-3 — Both Accounts Legendary 67 (b) The Original Beginning of the Narrative, XXXVIII, 1-13, and the Prophecy, XXI, 4-14- XXXIV, 1-7— XXXII, 3-5 69 (c) XXXIV, 8-22 and its Original Conclusion, XXXVII, 7D-10 —The Original Place of XXXVII, 4, and 5 76 Chapter IV THE CONFESSIONS OF JEREMIAH i. Their Importance 80 2. The Date of the Confessions 81 (a) The Date of XX, 7-11, 13 S3 (b) The Date of XI, 18-XII, 3a, 5-6 84 (c) The Date of XVIII, 18-20 86 3. The Completeness of the Confessions and of the Prophetic Writings in General from a Literary Point of View 87 4. The Peculiarity of Biblical Style 91 5. Analysis and Interpretation of the Confessions 95 (a) The Confession, XV, 10, 15-21 and its Sequel, XVI, 1-9 95 (b) The Confession, XVII, 5-10, 14-18 and its Originally Com- ponent Parts, IX, 22, 23, X, 23, 24, XVI, 19. Their Original Order 103 (c) The Confession, XI, 18-XII, 3a, 5-6 115 (d) The Confession, XX, 7-11, 13 121 (e) The Confession, XX, 14-18 127 PART II Chapter I INTRODUCTORY Jeremiah Could not Write 133 TABLE OF CONTENTS ix Chapter II PAGE Inspiration as Opposed to Divination or Possession 138 PART III Chapter I How the Prophetic Utterances Became Literature 167 Chapter II The Prophets Believe the Doom Inevitable 176 Chapter III Jeremiah's View of the Doom 179 1. Chap. XIII, 15-27 180 2. Chaps. XIV, 1-13 (19-XV, 4), XV, s-9 184 3. Chap. IV, 3-31 195 4. XXXVI, 3-7. Chaps. XXV and XLV 204 (a) XXXVI, 3, 7 204 (b) Chap. XXV 206 (c) Chap. XLV 207 5. Chap. XVIII, iff 208 Chapter IV AMOS' VIEW OF THE DOOM 1. The Dominant Note of Amos' Preaching — The Certainty of Judgment 211 2. Chap. V, 1-17 (Reconstrued) Corroborates this View 212 3. Identity of the Written with the Spoken Prophecies 221 4. Chap. VII, 1-9. History of Amos' Call — General Plan of his Prophecies 222 5. Amos' Prediction of Doom Applies to the Whole Nation 225 6. Why Amos Delivered his Message at Beth-el 237 Chapter V hosea's view op the doom — essence of hosea's preaching i. The Unity of Chaps. I-III 240 2. The Epilogue XIV, 2-9, Supplementary to the Description of His Future Hope in II, 16-25 244 x TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE 3. Chap. V, 15b- VI, 3 — Another Exposition of his Future Hope 247 4. Note on the Original Order of Hos. I-III and the Original Place of II, 1-3 251 Chapter VI isaiah's view of the doom and his attitude toward the political affairs of the day I. Opinions of Present Day Scholars 254 ~7 2. Isaiah's Earliest Prophecies 255 (a) The Consecration Vision 255 (b) His Future Hope — X, 21-23 258 (c) IX, 7-X, 4+V, 250-30 261 3. The Prophecies of the Following Periods 265 4. The Theories Advanced in Explanation of Isaiah's Alleged Change of View Untenable 268 5. Isaiah's Guiding Principle — Faith 269 6. No Discrepancy in Isaiah's Prophecies 272 (a) X, 20, 24-27-fXIV, 24-27. A Post-Exilic Product 273 (b) X, 27C-34. One or Two Fragments — Irrelevant to the Ques- tion at Issue 275 (c) XIV, 28-32. Another Post-Exilic Product 276 (d) XVII, 12-XVIII, 6. A Number of Fragments which Admit of No Conclusion 278 (e) XXIX, sa-b, 7-8. A Fragment or More Probably an Inter- polation 280 (f) XXXI, 5-9. A Conditional Prediction 282 (g) X, 5-19. God's Ultimate Reckoning With the Assyrian World-Power 285 7. Isaiah's Last Prophecy — Chap. XXII, 1-14 287 Resume 293 Micah's View of the Doom 297 BOOK II THE MESSAGE OF THE PROPHETS PART I Introductory 301 TABLE OF CONTENTS xi AMOS PAGE Justice and Righteousness 302 Spiritual Religion Versus Ritualistic Piety 308 Righteousness the True Foundation of Society 323 Supplementary Note :T 327 Index of Scripture-Passages Discussed or Interpreted 331 Index of Subjects 341 Grammatical and Lexicographical Observations 349 ABBREVIATIONS b. ben Diog. L. Diogenes Laertius Ges. Buhl, Worterbuch Gesenius, Hebraisches und Aramaisches Handworterbuch, bearbeitet von Buhl, 14 und 15. Auflage Holmes & Parson Vetus Testamentum Graecum. Ed. Holmes et Parson, 1 798-1827 K Kethlbh Kautzsch 3 Kautzsch, Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments, 3. Auflage Marti HC Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testa- ment, herausgegeben von K. Marti Nowack HK Handkommentar zum Alten Testament, herausgegeben von W. Nowack Pes. Pesitta SBOT The Sacred Books of the Old Testament, ed. by P. Haupt s. v. sub voce Targ. Targum Vulg. Vulgata ZATW Zeitschrift f iir die Alttestamentliche Wissen- schaft ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft LXX Septuagint LXXK Codex Sinaiticus LXXA Codex Alexandrinus LXXQ Codex Marchalianus e Theodotion FOREWORD There is perhaps, at the present day, no subject of biblical study which possesses more interest for the lay public than Prophecy, a fact which must be most gratifying to writers on this subject, though it carries with it one serious difficulty. For there is also proba- bly no subject of biblical study which engages the attention of the specialists to the extent that Prophecy does; and a presentation which would fill the needs of the one class of readers would hardly meet the require- ments of the other. I cannot claim to have solved this difficulty. I am aware that there are parts of the present volume which the lay reader may prefer to pass over, and that there are other parts which may seem commonplace to the scholar, but I believe that this is almost inevitable in the present stage of biblical criticism. The general reader will probably find the first and the last chap- ter most readable, as these were originally lectures delivered before a lay audience, the first as an exposi- tion of the Faith of the Prophets, the second as an exposition of their Message. These lectures, which were delivered in Albany, N. Y. in January, iqio, at the request of my friend and former pupil, Rev. S. H. Goldenson, I was strongly urged to publish at the time. They are here substantially unchanged, though the second has been necessarily somewhat enlarged. In view of the fact that these surveys were based on an interpretation and a line of reasoning which are in many points at variance with those of the many xvi FOREWORD distinguished scholars who have written on the subject of prophecy, it would have been vain to publish them without giving the scientific basis for my presentation. This last I have essayed to do in the present volume, and I am not without the hope that the studies in- corporated herein (which have grown out of my lectures on the subject at the Hebrew Union College during the past fifteen years), may on some points open up new lines of thought, and throw a new light on certain vital questions connected with Israelitish prophecy. The last chapter, which might logically have been reserved for the second volume, has been included here in order that, as far as preexilic prophecy is concerned, the presentation of the subject in this first volume might, in a summary sense at least, be complete. The institution of prophecy, whose origin lies far back in the primitive stages of religious development, was common to all the religions of antiquity. It was indigenous to Israel, even as to the other nations of the Ancient Orient, whether near or remote; but in Israel there arose in the course of time another type, the so-called literary or spiritual prophecy, which from the very outset was a distinct species, in pronounced opposition to the popular, primitive prophecy. It is with the great representatives of this specific Israelitish type of prophecy and with their importance in the history of religious thought that the present work is occupied. Of recent years the uniqueness and originality of this literary phase of prophecy have been questioned by various writers, in view of the discovery of a number of Egyptian texts which have been claimed to show a FOREWORD xvii close kinship to Old Testament Prophecy and which, accordingly, have been regarded as the model and source of the latter. In regard to that text, however, to which the greatest importance has been attached (Papyrus Leiden 344 recto, dating from the XIX Dynasty, that is about 1300 B. C), A. H. Gardiner, by his edition and translation of the complete Papy- rus, 1 has proved that the conclusions drawn from it by Eduard Meyer, "Die Israeliten und ihre Nach- barstamme," (1906) pp. 45 iff., and others are without basis. He has shown that no part of the Papyrus has a prophetic character, and still less a Messianic outlook, not even the part originally published by H. O. Lange, on which those scholars prematurely based their deductions regarding the origin of Israelitish prophecy. Gardiner's conclusions, it may be well to add, have been fully corroborated by another dis- tinguished Egyptologist, A. Wiedemann (in "Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft," XIII, 1910, pp. 349-351). Wiedemann refers also to the second of these texts, which was discovered in a Papyrus in St. Petersburg, and which dates from around 1900 B. C., and very rightly points out (ib.) that the excerpt published of it by Golenischeff, 2 and the duplicate of a part of this text, translated by Ranke in Gressmann, "Altorien- talische Texte und Bilder," I, pp. 205f., are altogether insufficient to permit any positive conclusions. What remains of Egyptian prophetic literature is a third group of texts, which date either from the Hellenistic or the Roman period. These prophecies have been 1 " The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage." From a Hieratic Papyrus in Leiden (Papyrus Leiden 344 recto). Leipzig, 1909. 2 In Recueil de Travaux relatifs d la philologie et d Varcheologie egyptiennes et assyriennes, XV, 1893, pp. 89/. xviii FOREWORD commonly thought to go back to Old-Egyptian origi- nals, to which Wiedemann cautiously remarks (ib.) that, though such older origin is possible, it cannot at present be proved. I would go farther than Wiede- mann and say that such older origin is out of the question. There is nothing to support such a theory except the claim of the authors of these prophecies, and this claim should be judged in the same light as the similar claims met with in apocalyptic literature, and, it may be added, also in the contemporaneous astrological literature. The authors simply thought to lend their predictions greater authority by labeling them as products of hoary antiquity. With this characteristic of these pseudonymous prophecies, as well as with their real time of origin, it accords that they are akin in their character and contents, not to prophetic literature proper, but to apocalyptic litera- ture, the oldest Old Testament products of which date from the close of the Persian and the beginning of the Hellenistic period. The simultaneous occurrence of apocalyptic texts in Egypt and in postexilic Juda- ism is, in all probability, to be accounted for by the fact that the rise and development of apocalyptic literature goes hand in hand with the spread and development proper of astrological literature (see p. 159, n. 1). As a matter of fact, a careful examina- tion of the two reveals the interesting fact that there is in some respects a very close relationship between astrological and apocalyptic literature, a relationship pointing clearly to a certain dependence of the latter on the former. In view of all this, I saw no occasion for referring to the Egyptian texts in the body of the present volume. By the foregoing remarks I have indirectly indicated FOREWORD xix my position also to the view, advanced by a recent school of biblical scholars, that Jewish eschatology existed fully developed in ancient Israel long before the appearance of literary prophecy and that its roots are to be sought in Old-Babylonian eschatological notions. It may suffice here to point out that the claim of the existence of an Old-Babylonian eschato- logical speculation rests on postulation rather than on established facts, and that — not to consider other objections — to argue the existence of an Israelitish eschatology from the preexilic prophetic writings is possible only by reading abstruse meanings and hidden references into descriptions which, in their essence, are purely imaginative and poetic. The fact is, as I hope to show in the second volume, that whatever there is of positive proof points to the rise of Jewish eschatology in the Persian period. Sellin, in his recent book, "Der alttestamentliche Prophetismus " (Leipzig, 1912), which has just come to my notice, differs in his view of the eschatology of Israel from the scholars just referred to in that he holds that eschatology was indigenous to Israel, his explanation being that "the real root of it lies in the act of Revelation from Sinai" (p. 182). I may add that Sellin's view-point through- out his treatise is in accord with this explanation. My treatment of the prophets, though it departs to a certain extent from the chronological order of presentation, is not in opposition to, but is in full harmony with the historico-critical method of modern research. This method means for that province of knowledge which deals with the politico-social and mental development of the human race, what the analytic-genetic method means for the province of science. Like the latter it insists that every fact or XX FOREWORD phenomenon under consideration be minutely ana- lyzed, that is to say, that its relation to its environment be determined, and its development and growth and, if possible, also its genesis, be traced. For it, also, emphasizes, as the guiding principle of modern re- search, that no real knowledge can be obtained from detached phenomena or isolated facts; in other words, that no fact can be accepted by itself, but must be recognized as a part of a great complex, the inter- relations of the various parts of which must be closely studied before the significance of the special phenom- enon can be ascertained. Up till recently, however, research in the field of literary prophecy can hardly be said to have fully complied with the demands of the analytic-genetic method. It concentrated its attention on the historic side of the problem, that is, on the development of the prophetic ideas and the composition of the prophetic writings, and neglected to a large extent the more vital side of the movement, the spiritual side. It failed to give due attention to the "inward" religion of the prophets, and this, after all, must be the investi- gator's primary concern. For, however important it is to trace the reflections and speculations which ulti- mately entered into the construction and shaped the expression of their views, their personal religion, the nature and quality of their inner experience, of their realization of their relation to God, can be the only basic starting-point. The touchstone of prophetic, as indeed of every, religion is not so much the particular interpretation of life and the universe to which the individual prophets were led, as it is the inner fire which was kindled in them and the active life of service and surrender to which they were inspired. FOREWORD xxi It is from this aspect, the aspect of the prophets' personal faith, that literary prophecy must be con- sidered first of all, in order to comply fully with the analytic-genetic method; and only after the spiritual side has been fully considered can the doctrinal side of the movement, that is the new world of religious ideas to which it gave birth, be appreciated in its true significance. This spiritual side of the prophetic movement, it has seemed to me, can be best studied by starting with it at the point of its highest development. Therefore, in the present volume, which aims, pri- marily, to be an exposition of this side of the subject, a departure from the chronological order of presentation has been made. It must further be noted, in explanation of my treatment of the subject, that not all the prophetic books have an equal value or a like character. Thus, to give only one illustration, the Book of Nahum is an example, among the preexilic prophetic writings, of the national chauvinistic prophecy, the representatives of which the true prophets never tired of denouncing. I have kept in view mainly the six great prophets, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, and Deutero- Isaiah (Is. XL-LV). With these is to be classed, of preexilic prophets, Zephaniah, though by far not so great and original a personality as they, and of postexilic prophets, the author of Is. LVII, 15-LIX. Kinship of spirit with these great prophets must be claimed also for Zachariah (Zach. I-VIII), though marked originality must be denied him. His genius was not of the creative order. As to Ezekiel, though his importance for the subsequent religious develop- ment in Israel must be acknowledged, his place is not among the great prophets. His importance in a xxii FOREWORD study of the prophetic movement is not because of the nature of his personal faith, not because of his own spiritual conception of religion, but because of the practical effects of his teaching on the official religion of his day. In conclusion, just a word on the question on which at present biblical scholars are divided into two camps — the question whether monotheism originated with the literary prophets or was known long before their appearance. In the present volume I refer to this question directly only once, and then of necessity briefly. I hope to include a full discussion of this point in the second volume, and shall only state here that my study of the prophets has confirmed my convic- tion that the position of the Graf -Wellhau sen school on this question cannot be dislodged. However scant the references of the prophets are to the official religion of their times, in Judah as well as in Israel, they leave no doubt that monotheism was unknown in Israel prior to their advent. It may be noted also that the stories of the patriarchs, in the form in which they have come down to us, are thoroughly imbued with the prophetic spirit, and, there is proof, are the product of the final metamorphosis which these ancient stories underwent among the followers of the great prophets. In translating biblical texts, square brackets are employed in all those cases where there is no exact word-equivalent in the Hebrew original, but where the word is implied by the syntactical construction. Moses Buttenwieser. SCHLEUSSIG Southampton, Ontario, July, 19 13. BOOK I THE FAITH OF THE PROPHETS PART I THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL CHAPTER I GENERAL SURVEY THE KEYNOTE OF THE PROPHETIC PREACHING — THE IMPORTANCE OF JEREMIAH If one should attempt to sum up in a single sentence, at once the faith of the prophets and the most striking truth illustrated by the history of Israel, one could not do it more fittingly than by the sublime utterance of the prophet Zachariah: "Not by virtue of material strength and political power shall ye prevail, but by my spirit, saith the Lord." * It is a notable fact that throughout the centuries of its history Israel never really attained political prominence among the nations. In view of the favor- able situation of Palestine, right on the highroad of traffic between the countries farther east and those of the Mediterranean, Israel would seem to have had the opportunity of developing great political power and influence, but beyond the ambition cherished in this direction and the strides made toward this end, during the comparatively brief period of David's and Solomon's rule, this result was far from ensuing. David, by his consolidation of the kingdom and con- sequent multiplication of the nation's strength, laid the basis for commercial development and political 1 Zach. IV, 6. 3 4 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL prosperity, and Solomon, by following up this advan- tage and developing the possibilities which the country offered for world-commerce, succeeded in giving Israel the much-coveted rank and standing among the na- tions. But the progressive policy of the country was short-lived, owing to the disruption of the kingdom which followed on Solomon's death. From this time on, as before its rise under David, Israel, when not actually subservient to other nations, was at least obliged to maintain its independence with a struggle. Political prestige among the nations it had none. As the ancient seer aptly expressed it, " It is a people that stands alone, that does not count among the na- tions." 1 Not only politically, however, was Israel's standing insignificant. Along the lines of material and intel- lectual 2 progress its achievement was just as slight. In all matters of general culture Israel was distinctly receptive rather than productive. After conquering Canaan it did not create a civilization of its own, but adopted that of the native Canaanites, and later, that of the great Kultur-centres of the ancient world with which it came in contact. Neither in the useful nor fine arts, neither in science nor commerce were its achievements as a nation noteworthy. We read, e. g., of Solomon's sending to Phoenicia for skilled masons and artificers when building the Temple, and again, of his employing Phoenician sailors for the conduct of his fleet. Israel's originality lies, with the bulk of its achieve- ments, in another sphere, in a sphere of infinitely deeper concern for man's welfare than political great- 1 Num. XXIII, 9. 2 "Intellectual" is used here in the narrower sense of the word. GENERAL SURVEY 5 ness or material advance. It became men's pathfinder in their search after the truth, after the knowledge of God; and it is in this sphere, the sphere of the spirit- ual, that Israel attained imperishable fame. Here its genius soared to heights never reached before, nor surpassed since; and, from this standpoint, it may be said without exaggeration that in the whole history of human progress no other nation has made such a mighty contribution to, or exercised such a lasting in- fluence on the thought of the world. This great realization was the fruit of the movement known as literary prophecy — that wonderful move- ment which was inaugurated by Amos, the shepherd of Tekoa, about the middle of the eighth century B. C, and which was continued after him by an unbroken line of prophets through upwards of three centuries, before, during, and after the exile. A unique and imposing spectacle is this procession of prophets, appearing as they did under untoward circumstances, transcending material conditions, tow- ering over their contemporaries, preaching by divine compulsion a doctrine which for their age had neither material basis nor historical warrant, bearing testi- mony in their words and in their lives to the truth expressed by Zachariah, "Not by virtue of material strength and political power shall ye prevail, but by my spirit, saith the Lord." For mark, not at the flood-tide of Israel's power did these prophets appear, but at a time when the national life was at its lowest ebb, even threatened with extinction; and, what is equally significant, although they came apparently to predict doom, they were essentially the apostles of faith and hope. Here, indeed, we have the very heart of the matter. 6 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL The prophets were convinced that the nation must perish; they were haunted by the knowledge of their people's sinfulness and of the impending judgment. So possessed were they by this thought, that they were unable to consider other problems or conditions, except as subsidiary to it. But while brooding over the coming ruin of their people, they were saved from despair by the deeper spiritual insight which came to them, by the larger vista that opened up before their soul. They caught a glimpse, as it were, of God's larger purpose; and in this light realized that Israel was but part of the general plan, and that the present was but a step to the future. They had a vision — a wondrous one for their age — of the ultimate regenera- tion of mankind and the universal dominion of God ; and it was this vision and this faith that inspired them, and gave them courage to go forth and proclaim to a doomed people the message of hope they had received from God, the gospel of final deliverance from sin and error. To this glorious faith the writings of every one of the prophets bear evidence. It is the keynote of the whole prophetic movement. It dignifies even the least important of the prophetic books. Let us con- sider, e. g., the book of the postexilic prophet Zach- ariah, from which we have already quoted. Taken as a whole, the writings of Zachariah, when judged according to their literary merits, do not rank high; yet there is a ring of idealism in his prophecies which lends them both significance and charm, a towering trust by which one cannot but be impressed. The lofty vision of Zachariah's predecessor, Deutero- Isaiah, 1 had not been realized. The great prophet 1 Is. XL-LV. GENERAL SURVEY 7 of the exile had dreamed of Israel's restoration to glory and the subsequent regeneration of mankind, but such a fulfilment seemed now farther off than ever. The situation of the newly-returned exiles was most pitiable. They found themselves assailed by diffi- culties on all sides, even by discord within their own ranks. Worst of all, they were disheartened by the gloomy view which they perforce took of their own situation. Unable to rise above the sordid reality of the present, they failed to realize that confidence is as certainly a condition of victory as it is a result of it. In short, they lacked faith. 1 Not so, however, the prophet Zachariah. Where others saw but failure and disappointment, he had visions of a glorious transformation of things; he saw the promise of a triumphant future. When his contemporaries asked in wonder, how in the face of their most depressing ex- periences, he could still cherish such dreams, could have such faith, could still hope for the ultimate triumph of the good, the prophet in reply gave utter- ance to that great word with which I opened this chapter: "Not by virtue of material strength and political power shall ye prevail, but by my spirit, saith the Lord." 2 Whence springs this ardent faith of the prophets? They themselves give us the answer. Their conscious- ness of divine inspiration and of immediate com- 1 This state of affairs is reflected throughout the prophecies of both Zachariah (Zach. I- VIII) and his contemporary Haggai; cf. Zach. I, 12; III, 2; IV, 7a, 10a; VIII, 10, 13; Hag. I, 2-11; II, 3-5, 11-14. 2 Cf. Zach. IV, 6-10; VI, 15; VIII, 3-9, 13, 19, also II, 13, 15; see also my article, " Remarks on the Importance of Zachariah as a Prophet " in " Studies in Jewish Literature," issued in honor of Pres. K. Kohler (Berlin, 1913), pp. 71-73. 8 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL munion with God is their fountain-light, the main- spring of their faith. Let us take the famous passage from Amos: "When the lion roars who can but fear; when the Lord God speaks who can but prophesy?" r Amos implies by this parallel that as the roaring of the lion irresistibly inspires fear, so does God's revelation to a man as inevitably impel him to prophesy. Still more explicit is Amos on this point in his declaration to Amaziah, the priest of Beth-El. Ama- ziah at the order of the king, had forbidden speech to Amos, telling him, "Flee for thy life to Judah" — i. e. } to the prophet's native country — "there thou mayest earn a livelihood by prophesying, but at Beth-El thou shalt not again dare to prophesy." 2 To this Amos replied: "I am not a prophet nor the disciple of a prophet — I am a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores — but God took me from my flocks, bidding me go, prophesy against my people Israel!" 3 By this seemingly contradictory assertion Amos meant to emphasize that he was not a prophet by profession, nor yet by his own choice — by profession he was a shepherd and a grower of sycamores — but that he had been compelled by the voice of God to leave his herds and to come to Beth-El to prophesy his people's doom. And so little did he heed the pro- hibition that he followed up his declaration just quoted with a new prophecy addressed particularly to Amaziah, 4 by which act of defiance he implied that the priest and the king could no more suppress his message than they could stay God's purpose. It was reserved for Jeremiah, however, almost 1 Am. Ill, 8. 3 lb. 14, IS- *Ib. VII, 12, 13. *Ib. 16,17. GENERAL SURVEY 9 two centuries later, 1 to portray the elemental force with which God's revelation took possession of him: "Thou, God, hast enthralled me, and I am en- thralled; thou hast seized and overpowered me!" 2 Then he goes on to tell how his prophetic gift has brought shame and discredit on him, but still he must obey the divine force within him: "I have become a constant target for laughter; every one mocketh me. For as often as I speak I have to cry out, have to complain of violence and abuse, for the word of God but serveth to bring upon me insult and derision without end. And I thought I will not heed Him, I will not speak any more in His name; but it was within me as a raging fire shut up in my bosom; I strove to withstand it, but I could not." 3 Just as this description of the force of divine in- spiration has no equal in prophetic literature, so no other prophet was possessed to such a marked de- gree as Jeremiah by the conviction of his divine call and by the consciousness of intimate communion with God. Other prophets showed equal fervor and singleness of purpose; some even, as the Isaiahs, excelled Jeremiah in the loftiness of their conception of God and of the universe, as in logical precision and clearness of thought, and in poetic beauty and aptitude of language — in fact, in all those qualities which per- tain distinctly to the intellectual side of the prophetic 1 The date of the confession referred to here is 587 B. C, see Chap. IV, § 2, a. 2 Jer. XX, 7. — I use "enthrall" not with the meaning "enslave," but with the meaning "to cast a spell over," to "hold or bring under an overmastering influence." 3 lb. 7 b-o. io THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL movement; but as an exponent of the purely spiritual side of this movement Jeremiah stands without a peer. In support of this, one need only point to his writings, where with his prophecies proper he has interwoven his confession of faith and the record of his religious experience. Any discussion of the faith of the prophets must centre finally in this fervid record of Jeremiah's. Throughout the book of Jeremiah there is a strong personal note. At times, in the so-called confessions, e. g., the prophet's innermost soul is revealed to us. We see the man, his struggles and his sufferings, and we see the very pulse of the man — his unvarying reliance on God's presence with him. In the opening chapter, known as the consecration- vision, the prophet relates how God, in that hour when He revealed Himself to him, spoke the following words of assurance: "Be not afraid of them for I am with thee to deliver thee. . . . But do thou gird thy loins and rise and speak to them whatsoever I bid thee. Be not dis- mayed by them lest I suffer thee to be dismayed by them. Behold, I make thee this day as a fortified city, and as an iron pillar, and as a wall of brass against the whole land, the kings of Judah, her princes, her priests, and the people of the land; they shall wage war against thee but not conquer thee, for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee." 1 These words with which, the prophet states, God sent him forth on his mission are not mere phrases calculated to produce effect. Every word reflects the bitter struggle Jeremiah had to endure in the pursuance of his prophetic mission. One needs only *Jer.I,8, 17-19. GENERAL SURVEY n to recall the storm of opposition and persecution which his famous Temple-sermon 1 called down on his head. In this sermon Jeremiah denounces the people's belief in the inviolable sanctity of the Temple at Jerusalem, and declares that God will destroy the Temple and disperse the nation in order to show that He does not care for sacrifices and offerings, but solely for an obedient heart and a moral life : "Thus saith the Lord Sabaoth, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your doings that I may let you dwell in this place. Put not your trust in delu- sions like this, the Temple of God, the Temple of God, the Temple of God are these structures. 2 Nay, only if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if ye scrupulously practice justice toward one an- other, oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, shed not innocent blood in this place, nor worship other gods to your hurt, only then will I let you dwell in this place, in the land which I gave to your fathers, forever. Verily, ye put your trust in delusions that are of no avail. [Think of it!] to commit theft, murder, adultery, and perjury, to sacrifice to Baal and worship other gods that ye know not, and then to come and stand before me in this house dedicated to my name and say, we are safe — 1 VII, 1-15, 21-26; cf. Chap. II, § 1, "The Originally Component Parts of the Temple-sermon." 2 Like most temples of antiquity, the Temple at Jerusalem con- sisted at that time as in New Testament times {cf. Math. XXIV, 1 and Mark XIII, if.) of a number of buildings. As he spoke the words, "The Temple of God, the Temple of God, the Temple of God are these structures," Jeremiah no doubt pointed with a gesture to the Temple and its adjoining buildings. 12 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL [safe] in doing * all these shameful things! Is this house, dedicated to my name, a den of robbers in your eyes? Verily, / do look upon it as such, 2 saith the Lord (vv. 3-1 1). "Thus saith the Lord Sabaoth, the God of Israel, add your holocausts to your common sacrifices, and eat the meat! For on the day I brought your fathers out of Egypt, I did not give them any command, nor did I say aught unto them, concerning holocausts or sacri- fices. But only this did I command them : Hearken unto my voice; have me for your God and be ye my people, and walk in the way that I ever enjoin upon you" — • i. e., by the divine voice within 3 — "so that it may be well with you" (vv. 21-23). 1 l e ma'an has here, as quite frequently in such ironical comments, the force "so that," i. e., "to the effect that," or "with the result that." 2 The preceding sentence, h a m e 'arath parislm haja habbajith hazztz, is to be construed as object of ra'ithi, a by no means infrequent con- struction; hinne serves the purpose of emphasizing 'anokhi, and gam, as need hardly be pointed out, receives its point from b ei enekhaem. 3 ,a sazvzv(B is imperfect of reiterated action. That "I ever enjoin upon you" has the import here stated, follows directly from the whole tenor of the sermon as well as from the connotation which the terms "the revelation (Torah) of God" and "the word of God," invariably have in the prophetic writings. By his emphatic declaration in the preceding v. 22 Jeremiah implicitly denies the divine origin of the Deuteronomic Code or of any similar sacred lore, while throughout the sermon he insists on the divine and absolute authority of the moral law. Is it not clearly a postulate of this reasoning that it is through the moral consciousness that God communicates with man? The same reasoning underlies Amos' challenge to invite the occu- pants of the palaces of Ashdod and Egypt to Samaria to witness the lawlessness prevailing there and to testify against the house of Jacob (Am. Ill, 9 f., 13). Nowack, in explanation of this challenge, rightly remarks that Amos here proceeds from the premise, not of a written law known only to Israel, but of a universal law which asserts itself GENERAL SURVEY 13 Are not these utterances the very quintessence of religion, even as we conceive of it to-day? — Not forms and ceremonies, but God in man's heart and in his daily life. To Jeremiah's contemporaries, however, as even to much later generations, such utterances seemed rank blasphemy, and as a result the whole nation united against him. He was condemned to death and only with difficulty escaped into hiding, from which he dared not emerge for over ten years, until the death in the conscience of every individual and every nation — an idea brought out very pointedly by Amos in Chap. I. (See "Die Kleinen Propheten" in Nowack's HK. ad loc). So too, the fact that "the word of God" and "the revelation (Torah) of God" to which the prophets peremptorily demand obedience invariably connote "the living prophetic word," points to the same postulate. The use of these phrases to introduce messages like Jeremiah's Temple-sermon is particularly instructive in this regard, cf. e. g., Is. I, 10. No less significant are vv. 4-5 of the resume of the Temple-sermon, given in Jer. XXVT, inasmuch as these verses correspond to VTI, 24-26, the immediate continuation of v. 23. These verses read: "Thus speaks the Lord, if ye do not hearken unto me by walking according to my Torah, which I have laid before you, that is, by hearkening unto the words of my servants, the prophets, whom I have zealously sent unto you though ye did not hearken unto them" — or as the LXX both here and VII, 26 pointedly read — "unto me." Note that walking according to God's Torah is expressly defined as hearkening to the words of the prophets, and that obedience to the prophets is in turn defined — in the text read by the LXX — as hearkening unto God. As a final link in this chain of evidence may be mentioned Jeremiah's sublime conviction that in the ideal future there will be no written code of law, but that God's law will be indelibly inscribed in the heart of each individual (XXXI, 31-34). As W. Robertson Smith expresses it, "God's Word, not in a book but in the heart and mouth of His servants, is the ultimate ideal as well as the first postulate of prophetic theology" (see "The Old Testament in the Jewish Church," p. 300). Cf. also infra Part II, Chap. II, "Inspiration as opposed to Divination or Possession," pp. 145s., 150, 156. 14 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL of Jehojakim made it safe for him again to appear in public. 1 How intense was the hatred of the people toward him and to what abuse he was subjected be- cause of the Temple-sermon may be seen from the confession, XV, 10, 15-21, which dates from this period, in which the prophet exclaims: "Woe unto me, my mother, that thou didst bear me, a man of strife and enmity for the whole land; I have not lent to them nor have they lent to me, yet everyone curseth me." 2 This persecution which began with the Temple- sermon continued, except for a comparatively brief intermission, until the very close of Jeremiah's career ; it became even more violent toward the end. From the confessions of this final period we know that even his nearest relatives and most intimate friends joined the ranks of his persecutors and conspired against him : "Yea, even thy brothers, and the house of thy father, even they have become treacherous against thee, even they talk without reserve 3 behind thy back; do not trust them if they speak kindly to thee" (XII, 6). And again: "Yea, I hear the whispering of many, attack on all sides: inform on him or let us play the informer; every one of my bosom-friends is watching to contrive my downfall : 4 perhaps he will let himself be entrapped, so that we may get him into our power and take revenge on him" (XX, 10). 1 See Chap. II, § 2, "Jeremiah's Trial and Conviction." 2 Read kidldm qilHunl. 3 male is elliptical for pe male (adverbial accusative) or b e phe male both of which phrases occur in Arabic mil'a fi, bimiVi ft; see Gold- ziher, " AH b. Mejmun al-Magribl and sein Sittenspiegel des ostlichen Islams" in ZDMG, XXVIII (1874), 310, n. 1. « saeW means "downfall," just as in Ps. XXXV, 15, XXXVIII, 18, Job XVin, 12; cf. Barth, "Wurzeluntersuchungen," p. 40 and Ges. Buhl, " Worterbuch " ^ s. v. GENERAL SURVEY 15 No amount of persecution, however, could shake Jeremiah. Four years after the Temple-sermon a great fast was ordained throughout the country, probably on account of the peril threatening the nation because of Nebuchadrezzar's victory over Pharao Necho at Karkemish in the year 604; and Jeremiah evidently thought the occasion propitious for making an impression upon the minds of the people and rousing them from their indifference. — Had he not all these years been predicting the very disaster of which they now stood in dread? As the death-sentence was still hanging over him, he dared not leave his hiding-place to deliver his prophecies in person, 1 so he had Baruch b. Nerijah write down all the prophecies he had delivered up to that time — he him- self did not know how to write 2 — and read them before the people, assembled from all quarters of the country, in the Temple at Jerusalem. 3 The result of this was that his sermons were burned by the King, and his life exposed to greater danger than ever ; 4 but, un- daunted, he caused his sermons to be rewritten, 5 and this time took occasion to add a characteristic confession of his faith in God and in the power of things spiritual: 6 — "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, nor the mighty one of his strength, nor the rich man of his wealth, but if one must 7 boast let him boast of this, that he understandeth and knoweth 1 See Chap. II, § 3, "Jeremiah's Escape." 2 See Part II, Chap. I, "Jeremiah could not Write." 3 See Jer. XXXVI, iff. 4 See#>., w. 11-26. 5 Seeib., w. 27-32. 6 See Chap. IV, § 5, b, "The Confession, XVII, 51!. and its origi- nally Component Parts." 7 See infra, pp. io8f. 1 6 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL me — that I am the Lord who doth work love, justice, and righteousness in the world, that it is in these things that I take delight, saith the Lord" (IX, 22). These words reveal the essential spirituality of Jeremiah's teaching. Yet this man who preached love, justice, and righteousness was flogged, 1 imprisoned, thrown into a dungeon, treated with every sort of contumely. Physical suffering, however, seems to have been but a small part of what Jeremiah had to endure. In his confessions he speaks of suffering far more terrible than any persecution or bodily privation, viz., the joyless life of isolation which must be his because of his prophetic foresight. 2 This agony of soul which Jeremiah suffered because of the knowledge of the doom awaiting his people is reflected throughout his book. We see the prophet constantly beset by visions of the approaching catastrophe. The joys of life have become a mockery to him, his heart can never more be light. Whithersoever he turns, hideous shadows thrust themselves across his path and drive him out from the circle of life's joyous ones, yea, make it impossible for him to share the society of his fellow-men at all. He longs to flee from the haunts of men, where his forebodings have made him an object of derision and a laughing-stock for the crowd, to hide his grief in the solitude of the desert, and to bear his hopeless burden alone. What a heavy price the seer pays for 1 Jeremiah was flogged on two occasions, when he provoked the ire of the Temple-overseer Pashhur (XX, 1-3) by his prediction that Jerusalem and the nation were doomed — an occurrence the date of which cannot be ascertained; and again later when he was thrown into the dungeon on the pretext that he intended to desert to the Chal- daeans (XXXVII, n-16). 2 See XV, 17L; cf. Chap. IV, § 5, a, pp. 99E GENERAL SURVEY 17 his gift! — the bitterest isolation, the renunciation of all domestic happiness, the inability even to share in the common joys and sorrows of his fellow-men, be- cause his soul is filled with pictures of the desolation and misery about to overtake his people. 1 Yet through this constant anguish of spirit, as through the persecution he had to suffer from his fellow-men, Jeremiah was upheld by his belief that God was with him. Indeed, all his trials and suffering served but to strengthen his reliance on God and his consciousness of God's presence with him. Herein lies the secret of his power. No matter how often Jeremiah cries out that he is weary of life, since in God's service he has to bear the hatred of the whole world, he always ends by declaring that God is present with him, and that it is the joy of his soul to carry out His will, so that, as he himself puts it, he verily devours every message from Him. 2 The bitter complaint, cited above, that his enemies beset him on every hand, and that even his bosom-friends are ready to betray him, is followed up by the joyful exclamation, "But since God is with me, I triumph like a hero." 3 Even more explicit, if possible, is another passage, in which, referring to the unceasing persecution he has to endure, Jeremiah reflects that those who are un- compromisingly righteous in their lives are beset with hardships and trials, while the unscrupulous wicked enjoy a life of ease and prosperity: 4 "Absolutely 1 Cf. especially IV, 19-21, VIII, 16, 18, IX, 1, XIV, 18, XV, i7f., XVI, 1-9; see also Part III, Chaps. II, f. "The Prophets Believe the Doom Inevitable." 2 See XV, 16. 3 XX, n; cf. Chap. IV, § 5, d, "The Confession, XX, 7-11, 13." 4 XII, i-2a. 1 8 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL righteous art Thou, God," he calls out, "even though I venture to dispute with Thee, — yet of a ques- tion of justice I desire to speak unto Thee: Why is the way of the wicked prosperous, why are all faithless people at ease? Thou hast planted them, hence they take root, thrive, even yield fruit." For a moment this reversed order of things seems to him hardly reconcilable with the justice of God — but only for a moment. Then the truth comes to him: * "Near art Thou to their mouth" — i. e., the mouth of the wicked — "but far from their heart; but Thou, O God, Thou knowest me, Thou seest me ever, 2 Thou hast tried my heart which is at one with Thee." 3 He says in effect that in spite of the material prosperity of the wicked, he knows that no relation exists between them and God, whereas he feels that he has entered with God into such an intimate relation that nothing further can be desired; in this at-oneness with God he possesses the supreme good. In other words, he recognizes that not material prosperity constitutes man's happiness, but that peace and strength of soul which is enjoyed only by him who lives a life of right- eousness and feels himself at one with God. In this consciousness of union with God Jeremiah recognized the mainspring of all his endeavor, and 1 lb. 2b, 3a. 2 tir'eni is imperfect of reiterated action. 3 Httakh is generally misunderstood; W. Erbt, " Jeremia und seine Zeit," p. 173, and Rothstein (in Kautzsch, "Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments," 3 Auflage, ad loc.) omitted it altogether. The text is, however, perfect from the point of view of both thought and grammar, 'ittakh is not the objective of libbl but its qualificative. The qualificative consisting of a prepositional phrase is used in the Semitic languages to an extent altogether unknown in modern languages; it is often to be rendered by a relative or temporal clause. GENERAL SURVEY 19 from it he derived his conviction of victory notwith- standing apparent failure. This explains why the prophet of the deepest gloom and most extreme personal privation is at the same time the prophet of the most ardent hope. For as Jeremiah is, throughout, the one of all the prophets most swayed by God's revelation, most possessed by the consciousness of his divine call, so, more fervently than any other prophet, does he bear testimony to his conviction that he was called to pave the way for God's future dominion — that it was his mission but to sow the seed, that the harvest would be reaped in some fu- ture age. Is not the very acme of zealous faith dis- closed by his account of how, in the face of the siege of the city by the Chaldaeans, he bought property at the behest of God from his cousin Hanameel, and of how he carefully arranged for the preservation of the deed for future ages — in token of his conviction that the cities would be reinhabited and the land cultivated again. 1 Jeremiah's hope, however, did not end with the future material welfare of his people; his hope was for the spiritual regeneration of all mankind. Char- acteristic evidence of this is that confession which he had added to the second collection of his prophecies after the first had been burned by the King, that con- fession in which he reveals the faith and the hope that illumined his whole inner life and sustained him through all his persecution, — the faith that God, who was his power and his strength, would be his refuge in the hour of need, even on the day of the downfall of the nation; 2 the hope that through this downfall his people would ultimately be led to God. 1 XXXII, 1-15. 2 XVI, 19, XVII, 14-18. 20 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL This was the hope which inspired Jeremiah to look beyond the tragedy of his people's doom; this his hope for his people, that though they must first be de- stroyed, they would flourish again at some future day when the nations would come from the ends of the earth to confess to God, " Verily our fathers inherited but falsehoods, empty beliefs which are of no avail." * 1 XVI, 19. CHAPTER II THE TEMPLE-SERMON AND THE PERSECU- TION OF JEREMIAH UNDER JEHOJAKIM In the foregoing chapter the statement was made that any discussion of the faith of the prophets must centre in the fervid record which Jeremiah has left of his inner life. Inasmuch, however, as this record dis- closes itself as the immediate product of the persecu- tion which he had to suffer from his fellow-men, it behooves us, first, to fix our attention on the circum- stances and nature of this persecution, the more so as the prevailing views of Jeremiah's persecution and prophetic activity are in certain vital points open to question. And since the first real persecution on the part of the nation at large was called forth by the Temple- sermon, which in this sense may be said to mark the first crisis in Jeremiah's prophetic career, a discussion of this sermon and of its results for Jeremiah will occupy the present chapter. I. THE ORIGINALLY COMPONENT PARTS OF THE TEMPLE- SERMON; ITS GENUINENESS The Temple-sermon did not originally include the whole of VII, i-VIII, 3, but must have consisted of VII, 2-15, 21-26. There are various reasons why VII, 27-VIII, 3 are to be considered a separate sermon or a fragment of one, and VII, 16-20 as originally having formed a part of the same. (1.) Verse 27b, as 21 22 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL is generally conceded, does not seem to be original text; the LXX did not read it, and instead of "And thou shalt speak all these words unto them" (27a) and the opening phrase, "And thou shalt say unto them," of 28, they simply read w e, amarta ,a lehaem y aeth haddabhar hazzce, "And thou shalt say this word unto them." This, however, like the "And thou shalt say unto them" of VIII, 4, sounds like the concluding phrase of the headings which preface a number of Jeremiah's sermons. These headings give the date of the sermon, the circumstances that inspired it, and the place where it was delivered, and conclude with the stereotyped phrase, "And thou shalt say unto them" (or "And thou shalt say this word unto them," or "And thou shalt proclaim these words," as the case may be.) 1 (2.) VII, 1-15, 21-26 are a denunciation of the people's mistaken belief in the inviolable sanctity of the Temple at Jerusalem and in the divine authority of the sacrificial cult; while vv. 16-20, 28-VIII, 3 refer to the sacrificing of children and the worshipping of I star and the other gods of the Assyrian-Babylonian Pantheon. (3.) VII, 2 iff. have no connection with vv. 16-20, but are the logical continuation of 3-15; while w. 16-20, which, as Duhm points out, 2 break the sequence of thought, are clearly not in their proper context. 3 (4.) Additional proof that vv. 16-20, 28-VIII, 3 did not originally belong here with VII, 1-15, 21-26 is furnished by Chap. XXVI, which, be- 1 Cf. VII, 1 (note also XXVI, 1, 2), XIX, 1, 2, 3a, XXII, 1, XXXIV, 1, 2. 2 "Das Buch Jeremia," pp. 74 and 78. 3 Giesebrecht ("Das Buch Jeremia," 2 , prefatory remarks to Chap. VII) also notices that vv. 16-20 break the sequence of thought, but fails to draw the proper conclusion from this fact. THE TEMPLE-SERMON 23 sides relating in detail the date and place of the ser- mon and the disastrous consequences it had for Jere- miah, gives a brief resume of it. This resume applies perfectly to VII, 2-15, 21-26; it gives unmistakably the gist of these two parts, but has no application, no reference whatever to the intervening w. 16-20 or to the following piece, 2 8- VIII, 3. Duhm's view that w. 2-16, 21-26 are the work of later compilers, based on Baruch's report of the Temple-sermon, 1 is obviously not compatible with methodical criticism. The sermon bears all the earmarks of Jeremiah's authorship. It is the most passionate denunciation of the sacrificial cult that has come down to us in prophetic, or for that matter, in any literature; w. 25-26 excepted, every utterance falls like the blow of a sledge-hammer. The prophet declares that only the moral law is binding and of divine authority, that to the Israelites in the wilder- ness God commanded no laws whatever concerning sacrifices, and this, it must be remembered, he declares in the face of the recently promulgated Deuteronomic law claiming divine origin for the sacrificial cult. Thus to stamp the nation's holiest beliefs as mockery and delusion required the penetration, the uncom- promising character, and the boldness of a Jeremiah. Indeed, the sermon is in every respect consistent with Jeremiah's ideals and beliefs. The sweeping rejection of a purely ritualistic religion, on the one hand, and the positive view, on the other, that the moral law implanted in the human heart is alone authoritative, proceed from Jeremiah's experience of the power of the divine within himself, and accord with his ideal of the future consummation as expressed in Chap. 1 Op. cit., pp. 7sff., 8off. 24 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL XXXI, 3 1-34. 1 Such a vital message could not pos- sibly be the product of compilers. 2. jeremiah's trial and conviction The authentic record of the consequences which the Temple-sermon had for Jeremiah is found in Chap. XXVI, one of the fortunately frequent bio- graphic chapters of the Book of Jeremiah. This chap- ter relates that Jeremiah's prediction that the Temple would be destroyed and the nation dispersed caused an uproar among the priests, prophets, and assembled people, and that no sooner had Jeremiah finished his sermon than he was seized and declared to have in- curred the death-penalty. When news of this reached the Sarim, i. e., the high officials of the state, they at once went from the King's palace to the Temple and opened the trial. The court, it is important to note, was composed of the Sarim and the people. That this was the practice in ancient Israel in cases of capital punishment we know from other sources; and that it was followed in this particular case we know from the fact that the verdict was pronounced by the Sarim and the people together (see v. 16), and from the fur- ther fact that the prosecuting priests and prophets in addressing the court mentioned expressly both the Sarim and the people (v. 1 1) . Moreover, as the words, "as you have heard with your own ears," spoken on this occasion by the priests and prophets in addressing the court, could properly apply to the people only — the Sarim not having been present when Jeremiah delivered his prophecy — it stands beyond doubt that the people had a voice in the matter and were not simply bystanders. 1 See Book H, Part I, pp. 3i8f, 322L THE TEMPLE-SERMON 25 After the priests and prophets had demanded that he be sentenced to death, Jeremiah, speaking in his own defence, declared that he had been sent by God to prophesy against the Temple and the city everything that they had heard ; and he admonished them accord- ingly to heed God's word and not to incur additional guilt by killing an innocent man. In conclusion he reaffirmed his claim that he had been sent by God. Verse 16 continues: "Then the Sarim and the people spoke to the priests and the prophets, this man does not deserve the death-penalty, for he hath spoken unto us in the name of Yhwh our God" (Jen Wis hazzce mispat mawaeth ki b e semjahw