IKBBfl^^^SS

'Y^iLE-^iMir^i^siiinf"

DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

HOUES WITH THE BIBLE;

THE SCRIPTURES IN THB LIGHT OP MODERN KNOWLEDGE,

CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D.

AN ENTIRELY NEW EDITION, REVISED THROUGHOUT
AND LARGELY REWRITTEN.

ILLUBTRATBD.

VOL. V.
FKOM MANASSEH TO ZEDEKIAH,
WITH THE CONTEMPORARY PROPHETS.

NEW YORK:
JAMES POTT & COMPANY.
1897.

Copyright, 1893, bt
JAMBS POTT & CO.

Press of J. J, Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York

I. Judah in Hezekiah's Day . . , . .1-24
II. Manasseh  25- 48
III. The Great Persecution  49- 74
IV. The Later Years of Manasseh .... 75- 92
V. Amon, and the First Years of Josiah . . . 93-111
VI. The Prophets Xahum and Zephaniah . . . 112-129
VII. The Eaely Preaching of Jeremiah . . . 130-145
VIII. Beginning of the Reformation under Joslah . 146-169
IX. Judah under Josiah  170-195
X. The Finding of the Book of the Law . . 196-224
XI. The Passover of Josiah  225-243
XII. The Beginning of the End  244-260
XIII. First Years of Jehoiakim  261-280
XrV. The Prophet Face to Face with his Age . . 281-294
XV. Growing Darkness, Religious and Political . 295-322
XVI. The Prophet Habakkuk  833-342
XVII. Jehoiachin, B.C. 599  343-860
XVTIL Zedekiah, b.c. 599-598  861-393
XIX. First Prophecies of Ezekiel  894-414
XX. The First Years of the Exile .... 415-488
Index  439

HOURS WITH THE BIBLE.

CHAPTEE I.
JUDAH IN hezekiah's DAY.
Hezekiah wae the last king of Judah who closed his
reign amidst undisturbed prosperity. Having ascended the
throne while Hoshea was still king in Samaria^ he had seen
the northern kingdom crushed by Assyria, and its popula
tion led ofE by the conqueror to the banks of the Tigris and
other regions ef the East. Shalmaneser IV., Sargen, and
Sennacherib, had in succession reigned over the great Nine-
vite empire, and Jerusalem had twice been threatened by its
armies ; once in the reign of Sargon — Sennacherib, perhaps,
acting as commander-in-chief — and the second time by that
prince himself, after he succeeded to the throne. The sud
den destruction of his vast host, without human interven
tion, had filled the werld -with awe, and must have invested
Hezekiah with a kind of sacredness as one specially protected
by heaven. The embassy from Merodach Baladan, of Baby
lon, the heroic opponent of the Great King, had attracted
all eyes to Jerusalem and kindled the fury of Assyria ; but
Judah survived all these dangers, and for many years before
Hezekiah's death had been left undisturbed. The Philis
tines in the maritime plains had become independent under
Ahaz, but submitted to his successor. Under the influence
vol. v.-i 1

a judah in hezekiah S DAT.
of prophets like Isaiah aud Micah, Hezekiah had reversed
the religious policy of his father, banishing idolatry, de
stroying the heathen high places, restoring the temple, re
organizing its worship, and observing the ancient national
religious feasts with an enthusiasm unknown since the days
of Jehoshaphat, twe hundred years before. The revival of
the old faith ef Israel, which began under the preaching ef
Joel mere than a hundred and fifty years before Hezekiah's
day, had culminated under that ef the son of Amoz. For
malism had spread with the growing influence of the priests
and the stress laid ou ceremonial worship,' but this had
called forth the vigorous protests of the prophets, who,
while owning the authority of the Mosaic system, insisted
Num. ill. 6, 8, 13 ; xviii. 2, 6.
Lev. iv. 3, 14.
" viii. 14, 15, 10, 24.
" iv. 15, 84.
" " 14, 20.
Num. X. 8, 10.
Lev. vii. 12.
" iii. 16.
Num. XV. 5, 7, 10.
" ix. 10, 11.
Exod. xii. 6, 18.
'- xii. 43, etc.
" xii. 13 ; xlli. 6.
Deut. xxxiii. 10.
Num. li. 23.
I am aware that the revolutionary school of critics depreciate the testimony of
Chronicles, as compiled at a later date than Kings, and lay stress on the fact ihat the
Passover of Hezekiah is passed over in silence in the earlier book. But so broad-
minded a critic as Bertheau reminds ns that this is no gronnd for surprise, as Kings
notices matters concerning the restoration cf public worship or its reforms only
very slig|]tly. Bnt, he adds, since it admits of no doubt that Hezekiah uprooted
idolatry (2 Kings xviii. 32), the great spring feast of Passover and Unleavened Bn ad
must have been celebrated in a way more corresponding to the Law of Moses tlian
hitherto. It is, he continues, probable, that even during the reign of idolatry, festi-
vals were held at the times appointed by the Law for the great Jewish feasts. He,
also, calls attention to the fact that the invitation ot Hezekiah to the Ten Tribes to
attend the Passover was sent while King Hoshea still reigned, and Samaria had not
yet fallen. It was a last attempt to bring them back to their God. Bertheau, Die B.
der Chronik (1873), p. 389.

' 8 Chron.

xxix. n.

"

" 21.

"

' 82.

tl

" 23.

"

" 24.

"

" 23.

i(

" 31.

"

" 35.

(I

xxx. 2.

"

3.

(t

" 18.

"

" 21.

"

" 22.

"

" 27.

judah in hezekiah S DAT. d
that the worth of its services depended on the spirit in
which they were rendered, and demanded a life in accord
ance with the moral as well as external precepts of the Law.
But, for the time, their words fell in great part unheeded.
Deeply corrupted with the vices of neighbouring heathen
ism, the nation resented the puritan earnestness of the
nobler members of the order, and, while ready to worship
Jehovah at the command of the king, ignored Him in
their daily life. The prophets were, in fact, in advance of
their day. Their religious conceptions were tee noble for
their contemporaries. The werld had net as yet seen a faith
iu which rites and ceremonies were not supreme, and could
not realize the outward forms of worship as merely symbols
of a lofty spiritual life. To the average Jew, as to the
heathen, priestly acts and external compliances constituted
the essence of religion. The reformation effected by Heze
kiah was thus, to a great extent, superficial. The mass of
the priests and of the people, and most ef the prophets,
were ready to go back to idolatry when it was introduced by
Manasseh, as here, in England, the bulk of the nation and
of the clergy returned at once to Romanism, when restored
by Mary, after the death of Edward the Sixth.
It is difiicult to realize the state of the petty kingdom of
Hezekiah, in his last years of peace and prosperity. Its very
insignificance is apt te be forgotten. The home of the one
true religion which was to educate the world for God, it was
yet no larger than the small triangle in the north of Eng
land defined by the towns ef Stockton, Whitehaven, and
Berwick-upon-Tweed ; that is, it was rather smaller than
Yorkshire. The re-conquest ef the Philistine country had
given it once more the partial command of the rich slopes of
the Shephelah on the west. But, on the south, its narrow

4 JUDAH IN hezekiah's DAT.
bounds soon reached the parched uplands of the Negeb, and
Judah itself, since the destruction ef its primitive forests,
was only a region of bare gray hills, intersected by a laby
rinth of narrow and mostly stony glens. Still, the climate
was favourable, and what soil there was yielded abundantly.
Careful terracing of the hill-sides, and laborious cultivation
of the valleys and straths, returned a rich harvest of grapes,
olives, grain, and garden produce ; the elements of a simple
but abundant maintenance for town and country, if the
ancient land laws had been still universally in force. The
results of these laws are, indeed, still seen in the traces ef
comparative fertility and a settled population even in the
bare uplands where there is now only desolation. Ruins
exist far south even of Beersheba, in which beams ef weed
are found, indicating the existence of trees in the neighbour
hood at ene time. Long walls to catch and retain, for irri
gation, the waters of storms, are met with running across
what are now scorched and desert valleys. Wells, long
deserted, are numerous. Eor miles, the hill-sides are cov
ered with low stone heaps, still called " grape mounds," and
once used to train vines ever, where now all is barrenness.
The valley of Bshcol, famous fer its grapes, seems to have
been far south ef Beersheba, in what is new arid wildness.
All ever the southern part of the Negeb, moreover, now
utterly waste, there are ruins of many towns, in seme ef
which are stone aqueducts, large reservoirs, and remains of
large public buildings. Ruins of forts, churches, towns, ter
races, grape mounds, and aqueducts are, in fact, numerous
in all directions. One set ef ruins was called by Professor
Palmer " The city of cisterns," a vast connected series ef
cisterns running under the hills on which the -wreck of the
town is found. Here other broader valleys, still rich in

JUDAH IN HEZEKIAH S DAT. 5
verdure during the rainy season, are even new met with.
Some of these remains are, indeed, of much mere recent
date than the time of Hezekiah, but others are very ancient.
The laws respecting the di-vision of the land and its tenure,
dating from the -wilderness sojourn, were based ou the
soundest principles. Passing from the unsettled life ef
tents, the community were to be cultivators of the soil, and
it was therefore divided inalienably among the whole popu
lation. Every peasant was made a landowner, but rather in
trust for his descendants than as a freeholder. Jehovah
Himself remained absolute owner in chief,' the occupants
being enly His stewards,'' holding possession under stringent
conditions. The first fruits, the first born ef all farm stock,
and the tenth of all- produce, must be paid, in the name of
God, to the priests, the Levites, and the poor. Every
seventh year the land must lie fallow, trusting to His bounty
in the preceding harvests.'
These conditions honourably satisfied, the title of the
landowner was indefeasible. No tribe could seize land be
longing to any other.' A king could not rob his meanest
subject of his inheritance ; for even Ahab obtained Xaboth's
vineyard only through the judicial murder of its owner,
under a false charge of blasphemy and treason.' The abso
lute transfer of land was forbidden. At most, it could only
be made over to a lessee till the year of jubilee, a period not
exceeding forty-nine years. Moreover, even when thus for
a time alienated, the nearest of blood^the goel or redeemer
— had at all times the right te buy it back, that it might at
once revert to the family of the original owner.'
' Lev. xxv. 23. ' Lnke xvi. 2, 3. 1 Cor. iv. 2. 1 Pet. iv. 10.
3 Exod. xxiii. 10, ff. Lev. xxv. 3, 4 ; xxvi. 34 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21.
' Num. xxxvi. 9. '1 Kinga xxi 'i Sam. xvi. 4 ; xix. 89.
* Ruth iv. 3. Jer. xxxii. T.

b JUDAH IN HEZEKIAH S DAY.
Such were the land laws of .Judah, or, rather, such had
they been. But the noble ideal of a community in which
all enjoyed practical equality, had long passed away. With
the development of the monarchy and the gradual rise of
courtiers and nobility and rich men, fatal abuses crept in.
Usurers had taken advantage of periods of depression or
temporary misfortune, to oppress their brethren. House
had been added to house and field to field by these land rob
bers, till great estates had largely supplanted a peasant pro
prietary.' Many yeomen had even been driven from their
holdings by violence; others by legal frauds.'' Wholesale
evictions were common." The poor -were devoured from ofl
the land.'' The rural population had to wander te the
towns, or become labourers on ground that had been their
own. Wealth accumulated and men decayed. A proleta
riat had been created by the tyranny of the moneyed class,
aided by bad laws or usage. Discontent prevailed among
large numbers who still clung to their holdings, and it
found its utterance through the j)i'ophets. Men widely
complained that in bad years they had to mortgage their
lands, vineyards, and houses, to buy cern or to pay the
taxes.* Splendour reigned in the mansions ef the few, but
deepening poverty in the cottages and cabins of the many.
Under such circumstances national decline might be ar
rested for a time by a wise and good ruler, but could not
permanently be warded off.
With the increase of population through successive cen
turies, and the consequent clearing of the woodlands, there
must, as has been noticed, have been a gradual diminution
of tbe rainfall, in the time of the later kings, increasing
ilea. V. 8. '¦Mic.ii.2. = jjic. ii. 9. Hab. ii. 9-13. < Prov. xxx. 14.
> Neh. V. 2. The taxes in this case were for a foreign ruler, but it must have been
the same before the captivity.

JUDAH IN HEZEKIAH S DAY. 7
the difficulties of the husbandman and making his gains
more precarious. Yet careful and assiduous industry, as we
have seen, made much even of the barren chalk hills of
Judah ; huge underground cisterns filled during the winter
and spring rains, sufficing usually, with the fertilizing Medi
terranean night mists ef the summer, to water the crops dur
ing the hot and dry months. In Eg^^pt their forefathers had
had te raise water from the sunken level of the Xile, to irri
gate their fields and patches, but ne creaking water wheels,
turued by oxen or by the painful treading of the human
foet, were needed in Palestine.' What water there was, was
led hither and thither over the soil, as in the irrigation of
our own meadows,' as at this day no hedges divided the
fields or gardens of neighbours ; boundary stones, as on the
continent still, shewed each his limits.' The richer land
owners employed slaves aud hired labourers, under an over
seer,' for field work, but were not themselves above taking
part in the labours of their subordinates.' The long fallow
of the seventh or sabbath j'ear, gave the soil periodical rest ;
the burning ef the stubble and chaff ef each harvest, fertil
ized it.' Wheat and barley were the principal crops on the
hill slopes and in the open bottoms ; a fringe of vetches or
' Dent. xi. 10. A man sits before a wheel on which buckets are fixed, and turns
it by drawing to him one set of spokes with his hands and pnshing another away
from him with his feet. Reference is also perhaps made to the rivulets of water
opened and closed with the foot, which are still common in Palestine, where I con
stantly saw thera. ^ Job xxxviii. 25. Prov. xxi. 1 .
3 Deut. xi.t. 14 ; xxvii. IT. Prov. xxii. 23. Job xxiv 2. Hos. v. 10. It is curioui
to find in an inscription from Babylon, dating about UOO years before Christ, heavy
cnrses against any one who removed a landmark. He who injured the land or de
stroyed the boundary stone, or removed it, whoever he be, " may the gods — the lords
of thi.« land— make his name desolate, curse him with an unspeakable curse, desolate
him with utter desolation, gather his posterity together for evil, not for good. Until
the day of his departure from life may he come to ruin : may the gods rend him
asunder, and may his name be trodden down." Comp. Ps. eix.
* Ruth ii. 5. * I Sam. xi. 5. 1 Kings xix. 19.
• Exod. XV. 7. Isa. v. 34. 2 Kings ix. 37. Jer. lx. Si ; xvi. 4, etc.

8 JUDAH IN hezekiah's DAY.
other inferior produce often protecting the edges of the
field. The eye rested on patches of lentiles, beans, millet,
cummin, cucumbers, melons, or flax.' The cotton plant
seems also te have been cultivated en the warm coast plain,
as it still is." The terraced hills were rich with citron and
olive trees, intermingled with the apricot, quince, plum,
mulberry, and fig ; while the date, the pomegranate, the
lime, the almond, and the prickly pear, flourished in appro
priate spots.
The sowing of the winter crops began towards the end of
October, the early rains having then fallen, mostly during
the nights, and at intervals. Rude ploughs, drawn by oxen,
had already opened the soil ; an iron-shod goad theu, as
now, urging on the slew-moving cattle." Land was not
indeed thought ready for grain till it had been ploughed
more than once, the custom being, perhaps, like that of eur
own day, to plough it three or four times before sowing,
during an interval ef a whole year.* The clods having been
broken up by a mattock,' the surface was finally levelled by
a harrow.' November saw the husbandman sowing his.
beans, peas, lentiles, and vetches ; a fortnight later he sowed
his barley, and in another month his wheat, sometimes
broadcast, sometimes in rows ; ' care being taken that the
seed should never be mixed, as in this case it fell to the
' 2 Sam. xxiii. 11. Ezek. iv. 9. 2 Sam. xvii. 28. Isa. xxviii. 25 ; i. 8. Josh. ii. 6.
Hos. ii. 9. Prov. xxxi. 13.
2 1 Chron. iv. 21. "Fine linen" should be" cotton." Pausanias (a.d. 160-180)
speaks of "Hebrew cotton," v. 5, 2.
' 1 Sam. xi. 7. Amos vi. 12. Acts ix. 5.
' Wetstein, in Delitzsch's lesaia, pp. 389, ff. Perhaps this is what Isaiah refers to
wheu he speaks of the Jews as sowing and reaping for the first time, in the third
year after the withdrawal of the Assyrians (Isa. xxxvii. 30).
' Isa. xxviii. 24. s Isa. xxviii. 25.
' Isa. xxviii. 25. The words " principal wheat " should, apparently, be " wheat in
rows." See art. " Sorah," in IVIuhlau und Volck. Strabo says that sowing .in rows
was common among the B.ibyloni-ins. as securing larger crops.

JCDAH IX HEZEKIAH S DAT. 9
share of the temple.' The seed needed, moreover, to be
Levitically clean ; that is, gathered from Jewish soil, by
those who themselves were ceremonially free from defile
ment.' The summer crops were so-wn at the end of January
and in Febraary, in anticipation of the ' ' latter rains " in
March and April, on which their yield depended.
A brief respite from field work followed, but it was only
brief, for the barley harvest in these warm regions began,
round Jericho, in the first weeks of April ; that of the coast
plains, and then of the whole country, falling before the
sickle by the end of the month. Watchers guarded the
unfenced crop as it approached ripeness,' but the wayfarer
was always free to pluck what ears he needed, if he were
hungry.* The reapers, however, who, if like those of to-day,
sat on their haunches when at work, and cut off the straw
very high up, could not begin their task till the first ripe
sheaf, gathered from the valleys near Jerusalem, had been
waved before God in thanksgiving, at the opening of the
Passover rejoicings.' Wheat harvest began round Jericho
in the second half of May, the higher lands, elsewhere,
yellowing for the sickle a month later. The close of June
saw the fields rough -with long stubble over all the land, and
forthwith the cattle were seen treading out the grain on the
round open-air threshing floors en the hill-tops, or in the
long sweeps of the glens. Before Pentecost, or the Feast of
Weeks, fifty days from the Passover, all the grain harvest
was housed, and the 'people free to return thanks at the
second great yearly feast, at which the priest before the
altar waved to all points of the compass loaves of the new
> Lev, -Ht 13. Deut. xxiL 9.
' Michaelis, 3£os. EedU, vol. iv. 1 218, p. 329.
' Jer. iv. jr. « Matt. xU. I.
' Eelop'e Filjrimaje, vol. i, p. 287.

10 JUDAH IK hezekiah's DAT.
corn, and a portion ef the new flour, te express the gratitude
of the nation to Jehovah for the new bread of another
season.' September and October saw the gathering and treading
of the ripe grapes, and the plucking of the ruddy pome
granates ; after which came the stripping of the olive trees,
and the pressing of their berries fer the golden oil. Then,
at last, followed the third great festival ef Tabernacles, the
national harvest heme, amidst seven days' rejoicings. The
old year had closed with September ; October began the
months ef another.
In such a reign as that of Ahaz, the sacred feasts had
doubtless been much neglected ; but under a ruler like
Hezekiah the religious feelings ef the better part of the
nation found joyful expression. The sixty-fifth Psalm,
which bears the name of David, seems to have been used
as a harvest hymn in these later times, alike in the temple
courts and at the household altar ef many a father in Israel.
" LXV. 1. Praise is due to Thee, 0 God, in Zioii,^
To Thee shall the vow be performed !
2. 0 Thou that hearest prayer, to Thee shall all flesh come.
3. Our iniquities are too great for me to think of;
But Thou wilt hide our transgressions from Thine eyes.
4. Happy is the man whom Thou choosest,
And causest to approach unto Thee,
That he may dwell in Thy courts.
He shall be satisiied with the goodness of Thy house.
Even of Thy holy temple.
" 0 satisfy us with the delights of Thy house, Thy holy temple !
5. By terrible deeds, in Thy righteousness. Thou hearest us,
0 God of our salvation :
Who art the hope of all the ends of the earth.
And of those afar ofl, beyond the sea.
' Melon's Pilgnmage, vol. 11. p. 192. ' Ps. ]xT.

JUDAH IX hezekiah's DAT. 11
6. Who by Thy might settest fast the mountains.
Girding Thyself with power !
7. Who stillest the noise of the seas — the noise of their waves,
And the tumult of the nations ;
8. So that the dwellers in the farthest parts
Pear the signs of Thr presence.
' ' East and west ; when moming rises, and when the night comes
forth,
Thou makest to rejoice;
9. Thou visitest the earth ; and waterest it abundantly :
Thou enrichest it greatly (from the floods above) — the river of God —
Which is full of water.
Thou providest men corn, when Thou hast thus prepared the earth
for it ;
10. Thou soakest the furrows ; Thou washest down the clods.
Softening them by Thy showers, and blessing the springing grain.
11. Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness;
The paths (of Thy wheels in the clouds) drop fatness,
12. Yea, the pastures of the wilderness drop with it;
The joj-f ul hills put on robes of beauty ;
13. The meadows are set ofl with flocks ;
The valleys with waving corn :
Men shout, and sing for joy I "
The yield of the soil in good j"ears not enly supplied the
wants of the people, but left a surplus of grain for exporta
tion.' In Solomon's day ever eighty thousand bushels of
wheat were paid yearly to Hiram of Tyre,' and in Isaiah's
time, and later, the Phoenicians imported the grain they re
quired, net only from Egypt, but from various districts ef
Palestine, especially the centre and north, and from east of
the Jordan.'
We have to picture the landscape of .Judah in those years
as dotted with numerous open, flat-reofed -villages, and
small walled towns,' fortified according to the rude ideas
1 Gen. xxvi. 12. Matt. xiii. 8. ' 1 Kings v. 11.
3 Isa. xxiii. 3. Ezek, xxvii. 17. Acts xii. 20. Ezra iii. 7.
4 I>ent. iii. 5. Esth. lx. 19.

12

JUDAH IX HEZEKIAH S DAT.

of the age. These strongholds, however, had mostly been
destroyed by the Assyrians, but they were gradually being
rebuilt ; though the country must still have exhibited maijy
traces of Sennacherib's invasion. The huge gates of the

..p'*r»'V

*4f

'*V,

Siii

1 1
f

i I 1

Modern Oriental Gate— Bab ei. Xasr, Cairo.
(Fiom Lane's Arabian Nights.)
more important of these fortresses, set off by a text of the
law cut in the wall over them,' stood open by day ; but the
massive leaves were closed at twilight, and secured by heavy
iron or brazen bars.'' To strengthen these entrances to the
> This is still seen in the East. ' Josh. il. 5, 7.

JUDAH IX hezekiah's DAT. 13
town, they were generally surmounted by towers,' which
supplied accommodation for the guard, and a look-out, from
which warders, at least in dangerous times, could announce,
by voice or horn-blowing, the approach of danger.' Iu
many eases the archway of the gate was protected by de
fences on the inner side also,' the space between serving as a
place of muster for the guard.'' Open ground stretched out
before the gates ; forming a busy market place in the early
morning, the lounge ef the citizens in the cool ef the day,
the shew ground for royal pageants, the forum ef public
business, and the gathering place in public movements.
Most of the streets -within tho walls were too narrow for
loaded camels to pass each other,' though in a few, carts and
chariots could move freely.' Only these spots, however,
where streets crossed each other offered vacant spaces fer an
audience te a prophet ' or ether public teacher, or for vanity
or religious pretence to parade themselves.' Sanitary pre
cautions were unknown. The streets were often deep with
mire,° or cumbered -with stiU worse impurities, like the side
streets of Jerusalem er Damascus, er, indeed, of any East
ern town, at the present day. All kinds of refuse were
throwTi into them, to be eaten by hungry bands of town
dogs which roamed through the streets by night, as in East
ern cities new, and, if we may judge from the usage of

1 2 Sam. xviii. as.
' a Sam. xviii. 24. 2 Kings ix. 17. Jer. vi. 17. Ezek. xxxiii. 3.
' 2 Sam. xviii. 24. * 2 Kings vii. 10. Xeh. xiii. 19. Jer. xxxvii. 13.
* Jos., BeU. In Cairo many streets are rot above a yard wide.
* 2 Sam. XV. I. 1 Kings i. 5. Jer. xvii. 25.
' Prov. i. 21. Lnke xiii. 26. » Matt. vl. 2, 5.
* Ps. xviii. 42, etc. The word is Tit. It is applied to the deep miid in the bottom
of subterranean cisterns (Jer. xxxviii. 6), or on the banks of the Xile after its over
flow (Job xli, 30 ; Ps. Ixix. 14). The word snchah = sweepings, " filth,-' " dung," is
used in Isa. v. 25. Chomer is used in Isa. x. 6, and is generally translated " clay ; "
sometimes "mortar,"

14 JUDAH IX HEZEKIAH S DAY.
to-day, the sewage of the houses ran into them, and often
coUected into foul peels. Arrangements for the comfort
of foet passengers seem to have been unknown, for, not
withstanding the statement of Josephus that Solomon laid
the great lines ef commerce with black basalt, it is doubt
ful whether there were any paved roads or streets before
the time of Christ.
Herod Agrippa II.
appears, indeed, to
have paved the nar
row lanes of Jerusa
lem for the first
time,' and the earli
est system of city
drainage appears to
f*rw have been introduced
at Csesarea, by Herod
the Great." The vari
ous crafts had their
booths er shops,
mere recesses, in the
A Detached Eastern House, without
Projecting Windows, open front of which,
equivalent to our
window, the dealer sat, and these were in their respective
quarters or bazaars,^ called by their names. Thus, the bak
ers,* the goldsmiths, the merchants,' the wool dealers, the
braziers, the cloth sellers," etc., had their various streets,
I Jos., Ant., XX. ix. 7. = Jos., Ant., XV. ix. 6 ; XVL v. 3.
3 Bazaar, Persian = a market,
* Jer. xxxvii, St, The "tower of the furnaces," or rather " ovens," was probably
near the bakers' street. Here at any rate were the public ovens built of the clay
found in the valley below. It must have been in this part of tho Tyroposon that the
potteries were situated, which gave their name to the gate of the potteries, mlstrans-
latud "east gate " in the A, V, (Jer. xix. 3). ° Neh, iii, 81, " Jos,, Bell.,'Y. viii, 9,

JUDAH IX HEZEKIAHS DAT.

15

each of which, like the others in the city, had its own gate,
which was shut when necessary." The business part of the
towns, moreover, was a distinct district, apart from the
houses.^ These were generally ef more than one story,'
with flat continuous roofs, protected at the edges by a para
pet,* lattices closing the windows facing the street, over
which they eften projected,
BO as almost to meet from the
opposite sides, as in Cairo new.'
When large enough, each
dwelling had an inner court;
the centre of family life.
Words from the Law looked
down from over the outer door
or gateway, and portions of it,
at least in later times, were in
serted into the right post of
the inner doors, or nailed
against them." There was ne
such thing as lighting the
streets, as there is none in Eastem towns, even new,
and honest citizens were careful to be early at home ; or, if

A Mezuzah or Ctxendeb containino
A Portion of the Law, fixed
ON A DooK Post.

• Eccles. xii. 4.
2 Zeph. i. 11. Maktesh = the mortar, was alocelity in Jemsalem.
s 2 Kings i. 2 ; iv. 10. * 2 Sam. xi. 2. Dent. xxii. 8.
6 Jadg. V. 28. Lindsay, p. 27.
* The Rabbis, in later ages, invented what is called the Mezuzah = " door post,"
in fancied compliance with the command in Deut. vi. 9, to write certain words on
door posts and gates. It is a piece of parchment, prepared by Rabbinical rules, and
inscribed with the verses Dent. vi. 4-9, and xi. 13-21. The slip is enclosed in a
cylinder of wood, tin, or lead, a hole cut in which shews the word Shaddai, written
on the outside of the parchment. One of these Scriptnre charms is nailed obliquely
to the door posts of all the rooms of a honse, on the right-hand side, that every one
who enters may remember that the eye of God is ever upon him ; a thought blessed
in the extreme. Unfortunately, in too many cases, it has gunk to a mere supersti
tion ; the Mezuzah being regarded as in itself a charm, to guard the house from evil.
A person going oat or entering touches it wfth his finger, and kisses the finger that

16 JUDAU IX hezekiah's DAT.
necessarily abroad after dark, carried lamps with them.'
Without this precaution ene was exposed to be attacked by
the troops ef half-wild street dogs, or arrested by the watch
men." Hence the town seemed deserted by night, except
when a marriage procession, with lamps and torches, broke
the "outer darkness," ° which, compared with the bright
ness inside the houses, became a proverbial comparison for
misfortune in contrast to happiness." In the time of Nehe
miah, if net earlier, the town gates were closed at sunset on
Priday evenings, and not re-opened till the Sabbath ended,
at twilight, en Saturday.'
Where peace was so uncertain, the size and prosperity of
towns depended on their strength and position, and few of
them were witheut walls. The villages, like those of Europe
in the middle ages, were generally near some strong place,
and were hence spoken of as its daughters." Mest towns
were on the tops of heights, or in the recesses of narrow
valleys, like Shechem and Hebron, and it was to its strong
position that Jerusalem owed its comparative greatness.
Yet even it was, at best, a small place, according to modern
standards; its population not exceeding, perhaps, 50,000; if
we may judge from the fact that its fighting men, carried
has touched it ; believing, not seldom, that while it remains undefiled, it protects the
house from the angel of death, from evil dreams, and from evil spirits. The three
names of an angel — mere fancies of the Rabbis — are sometimes put below the word
Shaddai on the back of the roll, prayer being offered to him for help and protection.
*' Whoever," says the Talmud, " has the phylacteries bound to his head and arm, the
fringes affixed to his Tallith, and the Mezuzah nailed on his door post, is safe from
sin," " In thy name, Kusu Bemochsas Knsu," prays the outgoer, " may I go forth
and prosper ; " or, rising above supplication to an angel : " The Lord guard my going
ont and coming in, for ever." On the Mezuzah, see Buxtorff, Synagoga Judaica,
pp, 381-387, Herzog, Eney., vol, iv. p, 633. Barclay's Talmud, p, 362, ff. Sacred
texts were written over the doors ot ancient Egyptian houses, Wilkinson, vol, ii.
p, 102,
¦ Matt. xxv. 1. -^ Ps. xxii. 16, 20. Cant. v. 7. Isa. xxi, 11, 12,
' Matt, xxv, 6, « Matt. viii. 12,
' Neh, xiii, 19, Isa. Ix, 11, Eev. xxi, 25,
" Num. xxi. 85-33. Josh. xv. 45, etc.

JL'DAH IX hezekiah's DAY. 17
ofE by j^ebuchadnezzar, with Jehoiachin,' numbered 10,000.
Other towns were smaller. Thus, at the time ef the con
quest, Ai had 12,000 inhabitants," and, though Gibeon was
larger than this,' the population of Gibeah, as late as the
days of the Judges, was apparently only about 3,000.*
The busiest time of the day in these ancient communities
was the early morning, when the country people thronged
the open space before the gates to sell their produce," as is
still the custom, and the magistrates and judges, or even the
king, sat in the shadow of the gateway, deciding public or
private disputes.' During the day every one who could
sought shelter from the heat, but, in the cool ef the evening,
the sea-wind blew, from about eight or nine to ten o'clock,'
bringing a delightful coolness, of which the citizens were
glad to take advantage, by leaving their houses and narrow
streets for a pleasant saunter er gossip outside the gates.'
In the deep shadow of the houses the children could play at
all hours, but the old men or women whe watched them
were fain te sit in the cool of their doorways, staff in hand,
till the sun went down.'
The towns, like the villages, were governed by a body of
elders, the humbler counterpart ef the chiefs ef tribes and
clans, who still ruled each generation, as their predecessors
had done from before the days of the Exodus. Jehoshaphat '°
had associated with them in the legal business of their local
ity trained judges chosen from among the priests, as the
1 2 Kings xxiv. 14. Riehm, p. 093. Thenius fancies it had a population of only
about 17,000. " Josh. viii. 25. ' Josh. x. 2.
* Judg. XX. 15; there were 700 fighting men.
' Neh. xiii. 15, 20.
• Prov. xxii. 23 ; xxiv. 7. Deut. xvi. 18. Zech. viii. 16. Ruth iv. 1, ff.
-f Purrer, art. " Winde," in Schenkel.
» Gen. xix. 1; xxxiv. 30. Ps. Ixix. 12. Prov. i. 20, 21; xxxi. 23, 31.
• Zeci. viii. 4, 5, Jer. vi. 11, Matt, xi. 16. '« 2 Chron. xix. 5.
YOL. V.-2

18 judah IX hezekiah's DAT.
educated class — that is, familiar with the Law — those for
ecclesiastical matters being Levites ; ' but the elders were
still the chief recognized magistrates of each locality. In
Jerusalem a High Court had been set up by the same king,
with secular and priestly judges.' For though, in earlier
times, elders of different ranks had been the sole judges,'
this ancient simplicity seen passed away. But from the very
first, under whatever name, the functions ef local govern
ment had been carried en by local magistrates,* and there
were even town halls for their cenveuience. The bazaar
also in each town was under the charge of a special
inspector." A wise precaution, unknown till very recently in our
own country, strictly forbade the burial of the dead within
the limits of any community. The cemeteries, shaded by
numerous trees, lay outside the walls ; the multitude rest
ing in ordinary tombs, hewn out in the sides ef the countless
hills, fer burial was impossible in a country so rocky ; the
rich in costly chambers in the rocks, where the departed were
" gathered to their fathers ; " ° great stone doors or massive
stone coverings — the "Gates of Death"' — shutting in their
dark abodes. Ancient reck tombs of all sizes aud degrees
of finish are hence innumerable in Palestine still. Orchards
and gardens, where the soil permitted, stretched round the
towns and cities.' In nearly every landscape clumps of
1 Dent. xxi. 5. 1 Chron. xxiii. 4 ; xxvi. 23. = Deut. xvii. 9 ; xix. 17.
3 Josh. XX. 4, In Num, xxxv, 12, 24, ff,, the word "congregation" is used where
In the parallel text in Joshua the elders are named. These may very natuially h.'ive
been spoken of as the congregation, from their being its representatives. It is to be
remembered , moreover, that as trials took place in the open air, a crowd of bystanders
always gathered round, associating themselves in the proceedings, as they still do in
the East, as if tbey nlso were judges.
' Jos., Vita., 13, 13, 27, 34, 61, 68 ; Bell., II. xxi. 8 ; V. iv. 3.
' Jos., Ant., XVIII, vi, 2. ' Judg. ii. 10. 2 Kings xxii. 80. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 28.
' Ps. ix, 13. » Deut, xx, 19. Jos., Bell., V. ii. 2,

JLTDAH IX hezekiah's DAT. 19
olives, or single olive trees, with their gray foliage, met
the eye, and yielded the rich oil which was a chief product
of the land.' It was used for the preparation of all kinds
of food, and even for the household lamps, and it was also
in great demand for anointing the person. The supply,
however, exceeded the heme consumption so greatly that a
large quantity was exported to Egypt and Phoenicia.^ The
king himself had ¦•'oil gardens"' on the fertile slopes of the
Shephelah,' and •¦' The Mount of Olives, ' Gethsemane,' and
Bezetha,' shew it.s abundance in the neiglibourhood of Jeru
salem. The stony slopes ef the hills, reverberating the heat,
and the moist -winds of night, favoured the growth of the
vine. Great vineyards are now, however, found only round
Hebron, wine being forbidden to the general population, who
are Mohammedans, so that its use is confined to Christians,
whe alone produce it. But vines still run up the houses and
shade the roofs, all over Palestine, or twist through the
branches ef the fig tree, making a cool arbour in the cottage
gardens. °
In Hezekiah's day the grapes of Engedi, of Hebron, of
Shechem, ef Carmel, and ef Jezreel, were famous.' The
-wine ef Lebanon bore a great name, and the luxuriant
-vines of northern Moab were hardly less renowned.' On
the shores ef Gennesaret grapes might be plucked for ten
months in the year." Bethhaccerem — " The House of the
Vine " — was not far from Bethlehem. The market of Jeru
salem had ripe clusters from Jericho and the coast as early
1 Deut. viii. 8, etc. » Hos. xii. 1. Ezek. xxvii. 17. 1 Kings v. 11. Ezra iii, 7,
> 1 Chron, xxvii. 28. ¦• = Oil press.
» Place of Olives. Riehm, p. 639.
' Mic. iv. 4.
' Cant. i. 14. Xam. xiii. 24. Jndg. ix. 27. 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. 1 Kings xxi. 1.
e Cant. viii. 11. Hos. xiv. 7 Isa. xvi. 8. Jer. xlviii. 32.
• Joe,, BeU., III. x. 8,

20 JUDAH IX hezekiah's DAT.
as the end ef July, though the harvest was net ripe over the
country till the middle of September or the beginning of
October. The literary glory ef the reigns ef David, Solomon, and
Jehoshaphat, marking as it did the prosperity of their times,
naturally shewed itself ence mere under Hezekiah. Not
only were the famous productions of the genius ef the past
• — its Proverbs and Psalms — rescued from oblivion and col
lected into a permanent form ; the contemporary prophecies
ef Isaiah and Micah were engrossed and preserved, and the
sacred poetry of the nation received noble additions from
now unknown writers. The triumph ever Sennacherib had
roused the soul of the nation and was sung by many bards.
Seme of their lyrics have been given iu the last chapter
of the preceding volume, but suoh an event was a fruitful
theme of poetry.' The forty-eighth Psalm celebrates the
humiliation of the Great King no less vividly than those
already given :
" XLVIII. 1. Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised
In the City of our God ; His holy mountain !
2. Beautiful, in its swelling height, is Mount Zion;
The joy of the whole earth.
" Par as the utmost north, in the city of the Great King,'
3. Elohim has made Himself known, in her palaces,
As a sure defence of His people.*
" 4. For, lo, the kings gathered against Zion;
They pressed on together;
5. They saw — they marvelled —
They were troubled — they fled ;
' Ps. xlviii.
= Nineveh.
• Bredenkamp, Qesftz und Prophelen, pp. 144-B.

JUDAH IS hezekiah's DAT. 21
6. Trembling seized them ;
Pain, as of a travailing woman !
7. As the great Tarshish ships are scattered by an eastem storm,
(So were they shattered and destroyed!)
"8. As we have heard (in hymn and song)
In the city of Jehovah of Hosts — the city of our God —
So have we (ourselves) seen!
' God wlU preserve her for ever ! ' '
" 9. "We have thought on Thy loving kindness, 0 God,
In the midst of Thy temple !
10. As Thy name, 0 God, is known to the ends of the earth,
So, now, in Thy praise (as a God who d&fends His people) ;
Thy right hand is full of righteousness!
" 11. Let Mount Zion rejoice; let the daughters of Judah be glad,
Because of Thy judgments !
13. Walk round Zion — make a circuit of her walls —
Count her towers^lS. notice her ramparts —
Number her .(castle-like) palaces —
That ye may tell to the generation to come
14. That the God (who has protected them) is our God,
And will be our champion for ever.'' "
The sixty-sixth Psalm ' has been regarded as another relic
of these great days, when the remembrance of a deliverance
hardly less wonderful than that of the Red Sea, filled all
hearts and kindled the imagination.
"LXVI. 1. Make a loud noise unto Elohim, all lands; '
3. Strike the harp in honour of His name ;
Give Him the glory which is His due praise !
3. Say unto Elohim : ' How terrible are Thy works,
Through the greatness of Thy power must Thine enemies submit to
Thee.
' It is to be noticed that Zion is here, already, in Hezekiah-s time, the " Holy
Mountain " of Jehovah ; tbat is, the religious centre of the nation. It did not, there
fore, become so, first, after the Exile, as the supporters of Wellhausen's theory
maintain. --> Ewald. De Wette. Vim Lengerke. Kay. Hitzig. Moll. Hupfeld. Delitzsch.
3 Ewald thinks it is made up of two Psalms, the first ending at the 13th verse.
• Ps. Ixvi.

23 judah in hezekiah's DAT.
4. All lands will do homage to Thee and praise Thee on the harp t
They will strike the harp to Thy name.'
"5. Come and see the great deeds of Elohim,
Whose might is irresistible by the sons of men
" 6. He turned the sea into dry land.
They went through the flood on foot —
There did we glory in being His !
7. His — who by His might rules for ever —
His eyes keep watch over the nations —
The rebellious— let them nbt raise their heads!
"8. 0 bless our God, ye peoples.
Raise loud the voice of His praise,
9. Who lifted our souls from death to life.
And did not sufler our feet to give way !
" 10. For Thou, Elohim, hast proved us;
Tried us in the furnace, as silver is tried ;
11. Thou broughtest us under the net.
Thou laidst a heavy load on our loins ;
12. Thou lettedst the worthless ride over our head:
We passed through the fire and the flood ;
But Thou hast vouchsafed us a great deliverance !
"13. I will go into Thy house with whole burnt-offerings ;
I will pay Thee my vows ;
14. (Vows) uttered with open lips ;
(Vows) proclaimed by my mouth when I was in trouble.
15. Whole burnt-oflerings of fatted sheep will I bring Thee,
With the smoke of the sacriflce of rams ; '
I will offer to Thee oxen and young goats.
" 16. Come, hear me tell, all ye that fear God,
What He has done for ray soul 1
17. I cried aloud to Him with my moutn,
His high praise was on my tongue.
18. For if, in my heart, I had looked aside to iniquity.
The Lord of all would not have heard me.
1 Rams were the bnrnt-ofEeriiigs of the high priests, the princes, and the people.
The use of the plural shews that the psalmist speaks for the whole worshippers, not
for himself alone.

judah in hezekiah's DAT. 23
" 19. But, verily, Elohim has heard;
He has attended to the. voice of my prayer.
30. Blessed be Elohim,
Who has not tumed away my prayer,
Nor His mercy from me." '
That the only remaining literature of a people should be
so wholly and sublimely religious as odes like this, is a
peculiarity which marks that of the Hebrews alone. The
existence of one Living Ged; our dependence on Him; His
holiness, and the necessity of spiritual religion, to please
Him; sacrifices and offerings having no werth without it ;
are assumed as truths respecting which there is no question.
To obtain His favour, to trace His hand in all human
affairs, national and indi-yidual, to praise His goodness or to
implore His forgiveness, is the single thought of the writer.
The ene subject of the only collection of Hebrew books we
possess is — God.
This striking characteristic must be remembered if we
would correctly estimate the religious enthusiasm under
Hezekiah, or the mortal struggle against heathenism under
his son, ilanasseh. The national party, zealous for the
worship ef Jehovah, the God of their fathers, looked back
te a golden age under David, but, since his day, had seeu
the rise and occasional triumph ef foreign heathenism,
countenanced by a number of their kings, and by the court
and upper classes. Under Athaliah they had maintained
a fierce struggle against the introduction of Phoenician idol
atry ; under Ahaz against the heathenism of the Euphrates.
Headed by prophets, they had crushed the former, in the
reign of Jeheash, and the latter in that ef Hezekiah, dis
daining to substitute for their national faith that of any
I This Psalm appears, from its lauguage, to be the composition of Hezekiah.

24 JUDAH IN hezekiah's DAT.
other kingdom, however great or powerful. The glory of
Tyre or of Nineveh might be an argument te the foreign
party in their midst, for the greatness of the gods by whom
it was claimed te have been secured ; tliey clung to Him who
had opened fer their fathers a way through the sea ; who
had made David victorious from the Mediterranean to the
Euphrates, and who now, in these last years, had smitten,
by an awful miracle, the armies of the Great King, and
made them flee from under the walls of His chosen Zion.
But as in all communities, in every age, it was only a
minority whe cherished, with a full and intelligent con
viction, the great principles which thus for a time were
triumphant. The mass of the people, now, as always,
passively yielded themselves to the spirit of the day ; ready
to follow Hezekiah's reforms, in the excitement of the hour,
but no less so to pass over to the heathen party, should
it again get the ascendency. Twe forces contended for
supremacy ; the national party, or Jehovah worshippers —
under the prophets ; and the patrician party, who sighed
for the glitter of foreign manners and the fancied security
of foreign alliances, and, to secure both, were eager to adopt
the heathenism of the neighbouring monarchies.

CHAPTER IL

manasseh. Judah.

Auth. Version.

Eiehm.

Schenkel.

Bosch.

Winer.

Graetz.

Manasseh,

B.0. 695-642

686-643

687-642

695-640

696-641

695-641

Egypt.

Phcesicia.

TiRHAKAH, OR Ta-

Elulaus,
HAEKA, ... B.C
. 705-687.
Ithobal II. (tributary to Sen
PlANCHI 
687-664
nacherib).
PSAM-METI-CHUS I.
Abdimdlkuth, King of Sidon, de
(uniting the native
posed by Bsarhaddon.
and Ethiopian dy
Baal, King of Tyre. "
nasties by mar
ISKIAKAP, King of
In the time
riage), ....
664-612.
Byblus.
¦ of Sardana-
KULUBAAL, King of
palus.
Assyria.
Arvad.
Sennacherib, . .b.c.
70.5-681.
Babylon was an Assyrian prov
ESAEHADDON, . .
681-668.
ince. Edom, Phoenicia, and all
Assuebanipal (Sae-
Palestine, except Judaea, for a
DANAPALUS?), . .
668-620.
time, subject to Assyria. Egypt
prostrate before Assyria, which
ruled all Western A'
iia besides.
At the opening of Hezekiah's reign of twenty-nine years,
Judah had been weak, distracted, and sinking. An unwise
alliance with Assyria, the most dangerous ef enemies,
against Syria and the Northern Kingdom, had involved
Jerusalem in the political entanglements of Western Asia.
26 MANASSEH.
Faith iu Jehovah had decayed ; Assyrian idolatry, favoured
by Ahaz, to flatter the Great King and secure the favour
of his powerful gods, had been introduced with great splen
dour in Jerusalem — and the immorality of heathenism, as a
necessary result, had poisoned the springs of public, social,
and private life. When the good king lay dead, a genera
tion later, amidst the wail of his people, everything was
changed for the better. Encouraged and guided by Isaiah
and other prophets, he had maintained the throne amidst
the most threatening convulsions. He had restored the
theocratic principle and acted loyally by it ; had banished
idolatry, at least in its public manifestations ; restored the
services of the temple ; reorganized its priesthood, provided
for their support, and re-established the Passover feast as
the great religious festival of the nation. In his early reign
he had seen the fall of Samaria, and the successive deporta
tions of the Ten Tribes to Assyria ; but his own kingdom,
though far weaker, had weathered the storm of those years.
The Philistines had been driven back in the Maritime Plain,
and their territory re-annexed te Judah ; the tribute paid to
Assyria by Ahaz had been discontinued witheut evil con
sequences ; the terrors ef the Assyrian invasion under Sar
gon had been surmounted ; the vast army of Sennacherib
had melted like snow before the glance of Jehovah, and
the ambassadors of his bitter enemy, Merodach Baladan,
of Babylon, had been received at Jerusalem. Fidelity to
Jehovah — meaning, as it did, uprightness, valour, and lofty
convictions — had received its reward in national honour and
prosperity. Unhappily, Hezekiah had no grown-up son to follow him.
His deepest regret in his almost fatal illness, fifteen years
before his death, had been the want of an heir to whom to

han-asseh, 27
transmit his crown. A son had, however, been born te him
three years later, but he was now only a boy of twelve ; left
at the mest impressible age, without a father's counsels, to
the baleful influence of the aristocratic heathen party, whom
Hezekiah had with difiiculty repressed during his reign.
Of these, seme, who had lived in the reign of Ahaz, cher
ished its worst traditions, and as a class they eagerly longed
to revive them. Heathenism was fashionable, in fact, in
high Jerusalem society, -and had only been checked and
kept under while Hezekiah lived. Like the Romanists in
England, under Edward VL, its adherents yielded, even at
best, only a sullen acquiescence te a religious reformation
they detested, and thwarted it when they could.' Every
thing indicated that a terrible reaction, like that of the Ees-
toratien after the puritan strictness of the Commonwealth,
would mark the opening of a new reign.
The name Manasseh, borne by Hezekiah's son only, may
have been given in the hepe that the Northern Kingdom,
now left desolate, might be reunited to Judah under him.
But this hepe was vain. Local Assyrian governors seem to
have taken the place of the kings ef Israel, but the antip
athy of Ephraim te Judah, and the heathenism of what
population was left, proved stronger than the attraction ef
Jerusalem, or the hatred of vassalage to a foreign master.
The queen mother, if we may trust Jewish tradition, was
a daughter of the great prophet Isaiah, but according to the
more trustworthy statement of Josephus had a less illustri
ous citizen or noble of Jerusalem as father." Her name,
whether given at her marriage or earlier, wakes a thought
of old-world tenderness and poetry, fer to Hezekiah, at
1 Isa. i. 29 ; ii. 20; Ixv. 3. 2 Chron. xxiv. 17, 18. Jer. viii. 1, 2.
» Ant., X. iii. 1.

28 manasseh.
least, she was Hephzibah — "my delight is in her." Was
it to the glory of her marriage ceremony that Isaiah refers
Avhen he speaks of " the bridegroom putting en his priestly
crown," and the bride adorning herself with her jewels,""
and was it a feud reminiscence of ene he had loved and
respected, when he tells us in one ef his last chapters, that
Jehovah will make Zion, after her long desolation, ence
more His Hephzibah ? '
Manasseh was the thirteenth king in descent from David,
and, boy as he was at his father's death, seems to have
reigned, at least nominally, witheut a regency, from the
first. His mother may hav3 been the real sovereign for a
time, as often happens in similar cases in the East, but the
friends and counsellors of his father were early removed or
put to death, under the influence of the heathen court
circle ; * for the upper class in Judah had always favoured
foreign alliances and the toleration of foreign worship."
Under their tutelage the reign of Hezekiah was treated as
an odious interruption ef the national life, to be utterly
ignored. Manasseh's rule was to be a continuation of that of
Ahaz, both in religion and public polity. The result might
have been foreseen. Extending through fifty-four years,
and thus the longest in the history of Judah, it formed so
dark a blot en the national annals that it is almost passed
over in silence by the chroniclers of the time. Men re-
1 So, literally, the phrase iu A. V., " decketh himself with omaments." Some
such custom seems alluded to as still prevails in northern Europe, where the bride
wears a crown on her marriage day. The bridegroom in Israel was *' crowned on the
day of his espousals." Cant. iii. 11. The Hebrew phrase is literally " to make
priestly the turban, or head-dress." 2 iga. Ixi. 10.
3 Isa. Ixii. 4. An undesigned coincidence like this is very striking, for the word
Hephzibah occurs only in this passage, except where used, in 2 Kings xxi. 1, of
Manasseh's mother. Does this not seem to speak for the later chapters, as well aa
the earlier, being by Isaiah ?
< Zeph. i. 5-9 ; iii. 3, 4. » 2 Chron. xxiv. 18.

MAXASSEH. 29
garded it as a period which it was desirable to bury as far
as possible in oblivion.
The destruction of the high places by Hezekiah ; the
overthrow of the idolatry so widely spread in the fermer
reign ; and, not least, the long continuance of court fa
vour to the friends ef Jehovah-worship, had infuriated the
heathen party to the uttermost. Their national religion
seemed a barbarous eccentricity, degrading them in the eyes
of the great world, and isolating them from the natienB
around. Idolatry had the prestige of splendid success, for
had not the gods of Assyria raised the Great King to the
most dazzling glory ? In that splendour they too, like
others, would like te bask, by introducing Assyrian man
ners and worship. Nineveh was to Western Asia what the
Paris of Louis Fourteenth was to Europe. Not to imitate
it was to be provincial and vulgar. The prophets had de
nounced this apostasy in the past, and brought about harsh
restrictions on its supporters; they and their followers
would now have te sufier in tum. Ahaz had conceded a
contemptuous toleration to Jehovah-worship ; new, it weuld
be suppressed. The prophets were dangerous to the aris
tocracy, from their held en the people ; they weuld be put
out of the way.
The priests had been accused, even by Isaiah, of being, in
many cases, drunken and profligate.' What value was there
in new moons, and Sabbaths, and periodical feasts, kept by
such men ; or what better were sacrifices offered by them,
than similar rites performed by the priests of other gods?
He had spoken of them contemptuously, as " greedy dogs
which could never have enough," and as looking only for
their own gains." Micah had said that they taught for hire,
1 Isa. xxviii. 7 ; Ivi. 12. » Isa. Ivi. 11.

30 MANASSEH.
and that the prophets divined for money.' The old times
of Ahaz were better !
Even under the despotism of an Eastern king, ho-wever,
no course of public action can be vigorously carried out
unless largely supported by public opimon. Unhappily, the
earnest supporters of the old national faith were only a small
minority. The reforms of the past had been mainly exter
nal. The community at large could still be spoken of as a
"seed of evil doers, laden with iniquity," and Jerusalem
could be compared to Sedem and Gomorrah." All through
Hezekiah's reign, in spite ef outward conformity to Jehovah-
worship, many had continued their heathen practices. Idols
of gold and silver glittered under trees, in gardens sacred to
Baal and Ashtaroth ; sacrifices were offered secretly, on the
house roofs, to the star-gods of Assyria ; incense rose to them
from illegal altars of brick ; men haunted graves and tombs
by night, for dark consultation with the dead, through nec
romancers ; ' swine and other unclean beasts were offered in
sacrifice, as in Egypt, and feasts held on their flesh. Worse
than all, those who thus followed heathenism affected moral
superiority to the worshippers ef Jehovah.'' It needed only
a hint from those in authority to raise the multitude against
the partisans of the old national faith.
The flattering embassy of Merodach Baladan to Hezekiah,
years before, may have tended to encourage this revival ef
Asiatic heathenism. Babylon had, indeed, for the time been
crushed by Sennacherib, but the visit of its representatives
had shewn that Judah was thought, by outside nations, an
ally werth having. In those ages, however, alliance with
any state implied, as a rule, more er less complete recogni-
' Mic. iii. 11. 2 Isa. i. 4, 10.
8 From necros, dead, and m-anteia, a prophesying. 6r.
• Isa. i. 89 ; ii. 20 ; Ixv. 3, 4.

MANASSEH. 31
tion ef its gods,' an idea which, iu part, explains the idol
high places built by Solomon at Jerusalem, and the Baal
temple ef Ahab at Samaria. Nor had the lofty conception
revealed at Sinai," of a Spiritual Being who could have no
similitude, been as yet brought home to the popular mind.
Surrounded by nations worshipping idols, men were not
able, as a rule, to rise above universally prevailing ideas, and
heartily accept a religion witheut images or other symbols
of the Divinity. Nor can we wonder at this, when we find
such helps to devotion still so largely used in the Church of
Rome, and sacred pictures reverenced in the Greek com
munion. The emptiness of the Holy of Holies at Jerusalem,
which, centuries later, excited the wonder of Pompey, was
to become the beast and glory of the Jew, enly after a long
and deadly struggle, in Jerusalem itself, against the heathen
bias of human nature.
How soon the reaction began is not told, but it was terri
ble when it came. The high places, thrown down by Heze
kiah, were rebuilt on the hill-tops and elsewhere, for the
different forms of Baal idolatry, aud lewd Asherahs were
raised beside them. But this was not enough. Ahaz had
introduced, for the first time in the history ef Israel, the
Assyrian worship of " all the host of heaven" — that is, of the
five planets — and it was now restored. The sun aud moon
had hitherto been worshipped as Baal and Astarte — the rep
resentatives of the male aud female principles in uature.
Now, however, a purely, sidereal worship was added. The
stars received adoration as the directing and controlling
powers in human affairs, and, with the sun and moen, the
rulers of the universe. Age.s before, this worship, then
» This did not apply to DaviJ-s relations to Tyre.
t Exod. XX. 3.

32 MANASSEH.
common among the Arabs, had been forbidden,' though as
yet comparatively pure, but the prohibition had hitherto
been unheeded. The small altars which Ahaz had built for
star-worship en the roof of his palace, were set up again,
and others of a larger size, with an eastern aspect," raised
for Baal and Astarte, not only in the men's court in the
temple, but also in that of the priests, which was specially
set apart for the worship of Jehovah. Other altars, besides,
defiled the sacred building, and, above all, a graven image
of Astarte, and a huge Asherah, were set up under the
shade of the trees in the outer courts. The lewd worship
associated with these symbols was also established in the
temple ; the degraded women and mutilated men who took
part in it being lodged in the chambers that lined the outer
court. By night the holy enclosures resounded with the
orgies of the most degraded of all forms of religion ; by day
the women wove hangings for the Asherah, and tent covers
for the obscene uses ef its worship.' To make room for the
image of Astarte and the heathen altars in the temple, the
altar of Jehovah was cast out ef the priests' court, and
the Ark from the Holy of Holies,* though it was not actually
destroyed.' Some of the store chambers in the temple
enclosure, moreover, were appropriated as stables fer sacred
white horses dedicated to the sun, and for the chariots
drawn by them in the great precessions at the festivals of
the god.° All the superstitions connected with Tyrian or
• Deut. iv. 19 ; xvii. 3. These verses have been wrongly held to shew the late
origin of Deuteronomy. But see Winer, Sternkunde; Herzog, Zabier, vol. xviii. p.
343; Chwolsohn, D'te SsaUer, etc., vol. ii. pp. 21, 173, 611.
2 Ezek. viii. 16. 2 Kings xxi. 4 ; xxiii. 12. Jer. vii. 30.
s 2 Kings xxi. 3, 7 ; xxiii. 7. i 2 Chron. xxxiii. 16.
« Jer. iii. 16. 2 Chron. xxxv. 3. Rosenmiiiler, A. und N. Morgenland, vol. iii. p.
?4I. Bnt see, afterward?, under Josiah,
« Most ancient nations thought of the snn as a flaming chariot drawn by the flnest
snd swiftest horses. The ancient Persians spoke of it as drawn by four, nnd hence

MANASSEH.

33

Assyrian worship fiourished apace. Ner were these enough.
The craving for "wisdom," which had continued since
Solomon's day, had taken the morbid direction of a desire to
learn the secrets of noted for
eign religions. Envoys were
therefore sent to distant lands,
to bring back, if possible, new
oracles, and open new avenues
of intercourse with the un
seen.' The simplicity of the
eld national faith had little to
feed diseased curiosity. Star-
worship brought with it a wide
sweep of pretended science
and insight into the future.
Soothsayers and diviners flonr-
ished ; wizards and necroman
cers, affecting te consult the
dead, abounded.' The hide
ous image of Moloch, the god T'"' *^°"orAJL™BE?H.^^''^'^^'
of the Ammonites, once more
rose in the Valley ef Hinnom, and Manasseh himself led
the way in consecrating his own children, not to Jehovah,
consecrated and sacrificed horses to it. Xenophon saw a procession in which were
these animals, to be thns offered. Cyrop., viii. 3-6. Even the barbarous Massagetse
had this custom. Herod., i. 216. The Romans liad a sun chariot drawn by four
horses, of colours chosen to represent the four seasons. Indian mythology has the
same idea. The Eabbis say that Manasseh's sun ch;iriot was driven out each mom
ing, the king himself in it, from the east door of the temple, to the top of Mount
Olivet, to worship the sun at Its rising. See Eosenmuller, A. -und JV. Morgenland,
vol. iii. p. 249.
" BWald, vol. iii. p. 717. Isa. hii. 5-10. Jer. ii. 10-13, 23-28.
2 The lion on which she stands symbolizes the wild power of nature controlled by
her. Over lier head is a circle (the moon ?) enclosing a star (Venns). Horns rise
from the side of the head, perhaps to symbolize those of the moon, or, as Merx
thinks, a relic of the goddess having been originally worshipped as a cow.
' 3 Kings xxi. 3-7. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 8-7.
VOL. V.-3

34 MANASSEH.
but to the grisly idol,' or, as the phrase ran, making them
pass through the fire to the god ; as if the flames, burning
away the impure earthly body, let the freed soul pass
through them, cleansed from all taint of earth," to unite
with the godhead.' Ahaz had done the same, and the peo-
• 2 Chron. xxxiii, 6.
^ Movers, Rei. d. Phon., vol. i. p. .329.
-' A curious illustration of the vitality of all superstitions is given by Maimonides
(A.D. 1135 -1204), who bimself saw Egyptian nurses passing infants over flre, to pre
serve them from misfortune. Very recently, moreover, ihe magistrate of Korth
Arcot addressed a strong appeal to the government of Madras, in favour of prohibiting
the ancient religious rite of " passing through the flre," in consequence of the num
ber of deaths which have been caused by iis observance. He states that, notwith
standing the progress of education, and the diffusion of enlightenment, the practice
is still in vogue. The Governor of Madras, however, does not consider the question
as one in which the interference of the goverument would have a good result, and
points out that the practice complained of is soraewhat similar to that of leaping
through the flrjs of St. John, which existed till onr own days in Bohemia, and
which it took centuries of civilization to eradicate.
Sir John Sinclair, in the statistical account of Scotland, tells us that the wide dif
fusion of the worship of Baal is shewn by customs which have lingered almost to our
own day in Ireland, Wales, and the Highlands of Scotland. Two days iu Ihe year —
the 1st of May and the 31st October — the spring and the autumn equinoxes, were
marked by rites in which fire played a prominent part. In the Highlauds of Scotland,
so lately as the beginning of this century, on the 1st of May, called Beltane day—
which by a popular error was understood to mean "the day of Baars fire "—the boys
of the towns assembled on a moor or open space, and made a round table of the
green sod— the counterpart of an ancient altar — by digging a circular trench, and
forming the earth thus obtained into a flat heap in the centre. A fire was then kin
dled near, and on this a custard was prepared, of eggs and milk, and a'so a cake ctf
oatmeal, which was baked on a stone. After eating the custard, the cake was divided
into equal portions, according to the number of the persons present. One of the
pieces, however, was daubed with charcoal until perfectly black. All were presently
put iuto a bonnet, from which each boy, after being blindfolded, drew one— the last
falling to the share of him wbo held the bonnet. Whoever drew the black piece was
regarded as marked out to be sacrificed to Baal, that the Sun-god might be propitious
in the season just opening, and multiply the fruits of the earth. The devoted lioy
was not put to death , however, but was required to leap three times through the fire.
Baal in Gaelic means a globe; that is, the sun. In Perthshire there is a village lalc d
Tillie-beltane, whicli is associated in the popular mind, thongh withont ground so far
as the name goes, wifh sun-worship, as " {he bill of the fire of Baal." Near it oro
the remains of a Druidical temple, and also a well. On the 1st of May a procession
uSL'd to be formed, the members of which drank water from the well, and tlien
marched nine times round it and the temple— doubtless the traditional equivak'nt ot
the circling dances of Baal worship, round the holy well, the altar, and the temple.
At a late meeting of the Scottish Antiquarian Society in Edinburgh, the Eev. Dr.
Stewart, of Nether Lochabcr, read a paper on fire superstitions, iu which he mon-

MA^TASSEH. 35
pie had largely followed the royal example ; ' nor can we
doubt that Manasseh would find many to imitate him also.
Human sacrifice became common at the '' high places of
Tophet '' ' in the Valley of Hinnom ; the stately central
mound, on which the idol towered aloft, rising '' deep and
large"' in the midst. Night seems to have been the special
time for these awful immolations. The yells of the children
bound to the altars, or rolling into the fire from the brazen
arms of the idol ; the shouts and hymns of the frantic
crowds, and the wild tumult of drums and shrill instru
ments, by which the cries of the victims were sought to be
crowned, rose in awful discordance over the city,* form
ing, with the whole scene, visible from the walls by the
glow of the furnaces and flames, such an ideal of trans-
tioned that a correspondent, while in a remote glen in Wigtonshire, last March, saw a
slight smoke proceeding from a hollow. On advanciug to the bank above, he ^aw five
women passing a sick child throngh a fire. Two of the women, standing opjKisite
each other, held a blazing hoop vertically between them, and two others, standing on
either side of the hoop, were engaged in passing the child backwards and forwards
through the opening of the hoop. The fifth woman, who was the mother of the
child, stood at a Uttle distance, earnestly looking on. After the child had been
eighteen times passed and repassed throngh the fiery circle, it was retumed to its
mother, and the burning hoop was thrown into a pool of water close by. The child
was abont eighteen months, was a weakling, and was supposed to have come under
the baleful influence of the evil eye. The hoop had been twisted round with a straw
rope, iu whfch a few drops of oil were scattered to make it burn all round at the same
time. The child was passed through the hoop eighteen times, once for each month .
of its age. When the baby was taken home a bnnch of bog myrtle was suspended
over its bed.
Oneof the deities partially absorbed by the Sun-god was the ancient god of fire.
Among most primitive peoples tire ia endowed with divine attributes ; it moves and
devours like a living thing ; it purifies and bums up all that is foul ; and it is through
the fire upon the altar, that the savour of the burnt sact'ifice ascends to the gods iri
heaven. But fire is also a messenger from above. It comes to ns from the sky in
the lightning-flash, and we feel it in the rays of the noontide sun. The Fire-god
tended, therefore, to become, on the one side, the raessenger and intermediary be
tween gods and men, and on the other side, the Sun-god himself. Fire was produced
in Babylonia as in other countries of the ancient world, by rubbing two sticks ous
again.«-t the other.
1 2 Kings xvi. 3 ; xvii. 17.
9 Jer. Tii. 31, 32. Ezek. xxiii. 37, 39, 2 Kings xxiii. 10.
3 Isa. xxx. 33. < See vol. iii. p. 400.

3G M.ANASSEH.
cendent horror, that the name of the valley became, and
still continues, in the form ef Gehenna, the nsual werd for
Irell.' It vas an organized attempt to win over the people as a
whole to idolatry, and it succeeded only too well. The
sacred books were so systematically destroyed that men list
ened to the Law, fifty years later, as to a newly discovered
treasure. The name of God was erased wherever it was
found." The Sabbath was disregarded.' To swear by Mo
loch became a common oath.* Fresh altars rose in the gar
dens round Jerusalem and on the flat roofs ef the houses.'
Black-robed priests ef Baal took the place of the white-robed
priests of Jehovah." Star-worship became so popular that, a
hundred years later, it was still followed. In Jeremiah's
time, in the generation after Manasseh, the worship of the
planet Venus, the queen of heaven, was general. The chil
dren gathered wood, the fathers kindled the fire on the
altars, and the women kneaded sacred cakes, to offer in her
honour.' Clouds of incense to a mob ef idols were continu
ally rising from public and private altars. Every religion
was tolerated but that ef Jehovah.
It was only to be anticipated that the mass ef the people,
gross and indifferent on religious matters as the multitude
always is, would readily fellow any new movement, recom
mended at once by the patronage ef the great, and by the
1 Gehinnom was the place in which the refuse of the temple sacrifices and the offal
of tbe city were burned, aud the fire, never extinguished, added to the appropriate
ness of the name as a symbol of the pit. The Burning Ghaut on the Hooghly, near
Calcutta, shews a somewhat similar spectacle in our own day. The bodies of the
dead are often imperfectly burned, and with the constant smouldering fire, the
black smoke, the foul stench, and the crowd of vultures perched around, help ns to
realize Gehinnom,
2 Pa'rick. ' Isa. Ivi. 3 ; iviii. 13. * Zeph. i. 5.
' Isa. Ixv. 3, 11. Jer. viii. 3 ; xix. 1;1 ; xxxii. 29. Zeph. i. 6.
' Ezek. .xliv. 7 ; viii. 16 ; xlviii. 11. Zepl:. i. 4. ' Jer. vii. 17 13.

MANASSEH. 37
escape it offered from the severe morals enforced by the
prophets. But, unfortunately, even those whe might have
been expected te withstand the inroad of corruption, very
generally gave way before it. Among the prophets enly a
few steed faithful to Jehovah ; the majority either held
their peace, or degraded their office for the basest ends. A
terrible picture of their moral lapse has been left by their
brethren who remained true to the old religion. They were
"blind watch-degs, that did not bark, but lay idly sleeping ;
insatiably greedy ; set en gain ; given up te strong drink."
They were "light and treacherous." They affected te be
lieve in idols. God had withdrawn His werd from them.
They had sunk in fact te the level of heathen diviners, and
were mere deceivers of the people." Numbers of the priests
went over to the service ef heathen altars." The grossest
immorality was common to many ef them and of the proph
ets.^ They polluted the sanctuary and openly violated the
Law.' Ner were the laity behind their spiritual guides.
The nobles were "rearing liens;" the judges,' "ravening
wolves." They " set snares fer men as fowlers do for
birds." ° They " hated the good and loved the evil ; " they
"abhorred justice and perverted equity."' They "de
voured men more righteous than themselves." ° Private
virtue and truth seemed to have vanished. Men swore in
differently and with equal insincerity by Jehovah and by
Moloch. ° The godly had perished from the land ; the hon
est from among men. Every one "did evil with beth
hands." Even the friend could not be trusted ; a wife
• Isa. Ivi. 9-12. Zeph. iii. 4. Jer. ii. 26 ; v. 1,3 ; xxvii. 9 ; xxix. 8, 9 ; xxiii. 16, 31.
2 Jer. vi. 13-15 ; viii. 10-12. s jer. xxiii. 9-11, 14.
' Zeph. iii. 4. = Zeph. i. 8.
' Jer. V. 26. ¦ Mic. iii. 2-9.
e Hab. i. 13. ' Zeph. i. 5.

38 MANASSEH.
was ready to betray her husband. The son dishonoured the
father ; the daughter rose against her mother j a man found
his worst enemies in his own household." An absorbing
passion fer gain possessed all classes."
Yet there were not wanting some Abdiels, faithful among
the faithless. Taking their lives in their hands, men like
Isaiah and Micah boldly denounced the conduct of Manas
seh, in re-intreducing idolatry, with all its inherent abomi
nations.' Evil, they cried, which would make men's ears
tingle, was preparing for Jerusalem and Judah, for their
sin. Jehovah would destroy the holy city as He had de
stroyed Samaria, and root out its inhabitants as He had
rooted out the House ef Ahab. He weuld wipe Jerusalem
clean of them as a man wipes out a dish, turning it upside
down as he does se. They should become a spoil and prey
to their enemies.' The great prophetic eration in the
twenty-fourth te the twenty-seventh of Isaiah accords so
well with these denunciations that it may best be referred to
this period.' It runs thus :
" XXIV. 1. Behold,' Jehovah will make the land empty and waste,
and turn it upside down,' and scatter abroad its inhabitants. 3. It
will be the same with the priest as with the people ; with the master as
with the servant; with the mistress as with the maid; with the seller
' Mic. vii. 1-6. ' Zeph. i. 18.
' A very ancient Jewish tradition speaks of Isaiah as still living in the earlier years
of the son of Hezekiah, and the closing date of Micah's activity is so uncertain that,
notwithstanding the opinion of some that, like Hosea, they both died before the close
uf Hezekiah's reign, there is more probability, as I think, that they outlived him.
¦" 2 Kings xxi. 12, 13.
° I am aware that chapters xxiv.-xxvii. are attributed by some to a later prophet,
but since there are many who, on the other hand, ascribe them to Isaiah, the point
must be held as at least unsettled. (Dillmann's KnobeVs lesaia, p. 206.) Some, in
tho same way, translate the different verbs in the first part as in the present tense ;
others, of eqnal authority, as in the future, which seems to me to suit the text
better. » Isa. xxiv, 1-33, ' Sec 3 Kings sxi. 13, 13, as quoted above.

MAXASSEH. 39
as with the buyer; with the borrower as with the lender; with the
debtor as with the creditor. 3. The land will be utterly emptied and
utterly plundered. For Jehovah has spoken this word.
'¦4. The land (thus laid waste) will be sad and wiU fade away (as a
withered plant) ; its whole sweep 1 will fade away ; the great ones of
the land will lament.
"5. For it is become defiled under its inhabitants; because they
have transgressed the laws, violated the commandment; broken the
everlasting covenant. 6. Therefore a curse has devoured the land, and
the people are punished (for their guilt); therefore the inhabitants are
burnt (up by God's judgments), and only a few are left.
"7. The grapes shrivel ; the vine fades ; all the merry-hearted sigh.
8. The glad sound of timbrels is still; the noise of them that rejoice is
hushed; the joy of the lyre is silent. 9. Men shall no longer drink
wine amidst singing; strong drink'' will be bitter to them who take it.
10. The city is a solitude ; " it is broken down ; the wrecked houses are
closed by mounds of ruin, so that no one can enter them! 11. In the
fields, men lament aloud for the desolate vineyards; all gladness has
darkened to night; the mirth of the land is gone. 13. What remains
of the city is desolation ; the town gate is broken down into ruins.
"13. For it shall be in the land, in the midst of the nations, as at
the beating down (of the fruit) of the olive, and as at the grape glean
ing when the vintage is over! (Hardly any will be left.) 14. The
few who escape wiil lift up their voice (rejoicing) and cry aloud — ' Sing
praise from the lands of the western sea to the Majesty of Jehovah (who
has enabled us to reach them): 15. exalt Jehovah in the lands of the
sun, (the east and southern countries:) the name of Jehovah, the God
of Israel, in the isles of the west! ' 16. From (those fugitive?, at) the
opposite ends of the earth, have we heard (these) songs of praise to the
Eighteous One * (these anticipations of victory to His people)." *
The prophet cannot, however, share in their joyful expec
tations ; he sees destruction before his nation.
" But as for me, I can only say, Misery, misery is before me! Woe
is me! The plunderers plunder; the plunderers plunder remorselessly.
1 Literally, " tbe world," tabal, a poetical word. It is here the whole Jemsh
world. It is used of the kingdom of Babylon in Isa. xiii. 11. Comp. orbis Romanus.
2 ShSkar = strong (intoxicating) drink of any kind.
' Same word as in Gen. i. 1 (tohu) = " without form," reduced to chaos.
* Knobol. Dicstcl. » Ewald.

4:0 MAlfASSEH.
17. Terror, and a prison pit, and the snare, are upon thee, 0 inhabi
tant of the land ! 18. And whoso flees from the noise of the terrible
foe shall fail into the pit, and he who escapes from the pit shall be
caught in the snare; for the windows of heaven shall be opened, and
the pillars on which the earth rests shall shake. 19. The kingdom '
heaves, shakes, totters; it is utterly broken up; it is utterly shattered;
it shakes to its centre ; it staggers like a drunken man ; it sways to and
fro like a swinging hammock; for its sin lies heavy upon it; it falls,
and shall rise no more."
The enemies of Israel overthrown, her restoration opens
to the eyes ef the prophet. He sees the destruction of the
enemy by whom Judah has been crushed, and the return ef
her sens from captivity. This is, therefore, a prediction of
the fate of Babylon, which had not as yet even risen to be a
kingdom. "21. In that day Jehovah shall visit (in wrath) the host of the powers
of the air ' (the prompters of men to evil), and also the kings of the
earth (here below). 22. They shall be thrust into the prison-pit, like
captives after battle, and shut up in the dungeon, and set free only
after long years. 23. And then shall the moon grow pale, and the
sun's splendour faint; for Jehovah of Hosts shall again reign in
Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, with overpowering glory; surrounded
by the heads of the nation (and Him — not the sun or moon, or host of
heaven, as now — will the people worship). "
The old theocracy thus set up once mere ; the oppressor
destroyed, and the nation brought back to its own land tri
umphantly ; a song of praise to Ged will rise from Mount
Zion. "XXV. 1. 0 Jehovah, Thou art my God! ' I will exalt Thee; I will
praise Thy name! For Thou hast done wonderful things; Thou hast
' Eichhorn. I have preferred this reading a' the only on« to which the words im
mediately following could be justly applied. Most translators use the word " earth,"
but the earth cannot " fall," etc., except in imaginative application to the terrors of
the last judgment. The whole prophecy is, however, highly flgurative.
a Eph. iii. 10 ; vL 12. s Isa. ixv. 1-12.

MAXASSEH. 41
fulfilled Thine ancient purposes with faithfulness and trath. 2. For
Thou hast tumed (Babylon ' from) a great city into a ruined heap; the
strong city into mounds of wreck; the palace city of the barbarians to
be no city any longer; — it shall never be rebuilt! 3. For this shaU
fierce peoples glorify Thee; the towns of warlike nations shall honour
Thee. 4. Por Thou hast proved Thyself a strong def ence to the weak;
a strong defence to the needy in his distress ; a cover from- the storm ;
a shade from the heat, when the raging of the tendble ones was like
that of a tempest against a wall. 5. Thou hast abated the stormy tri
umphing of the alien, as Thou dost the heat of the waterless desert,
when Thou veilest it with clouds. (As the heat is subdued by the
shadow of clouds,') the exulting triumph-shouts of the terrible ones
have been brought low.
"6. And, now, in this mountain (the hill of Zion) shall Jehovah of
Hosts make to all peoples a feast of fat things; a (covenant) feast on
(peace offerings, with) wine, (left till now) on the lees, till it has be
come strong and bright; a least of fat pieces, full of marrow; of
strong wine, well strained I 7. And He will destroy in this mountain
the veil (of mourning) which has shrouded the faces of aU peoples; the
covering that has been spread over (the heads of) all nations.' 8. He
will destroy death for ever, and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears
from off all faces, and the reproach His people have bome will He
take away from offi the whole earth. Jehovah has spoken it.
"9. And it shall be said in that day, 'See, this is our God; we have
hoped in Him that He would save us; this is Jehovah, for whom we
waited: let us exult and be glad in His salvation.'
"10. Por the hand of Jehovah shall rest on this mountain, to pro
tect His people, and Moab— (so call we our enemies as a whole) — shall
be trampled under foot, even as crushed straw is trodden down in
Madmenah, (in the Moabite land). 11. And Jehovah shall stretch
forth His arms in the midst of 3Iount Zion, as a swimmer stretcheth
them forth to swim, and he will humble their pride, .together with the
plots of their hands.' 12. And the high-towering walls of Kir-Moab
will He throw down, lay low, and level with the dust."
1 This is clearly the reference, though perhaps the prophet did not know the par
ticular enemy by whom God would punish his people. Yet Babylon did not become
Independent, or begin its career of empire, till e.g. 625 ; long after Isaiah's death.
2 Fnrrer, p. 105. Land and Book, p. 537.
3 Primarily the Babylonian tyranny ; but, also, in the end, the spiritual sorrows
of mankind.
* Every one in the East uses "hand over hand" swimming, raising each hand
alternately as high as he can, and bringing it do^vn on the water with sounding force.

42 MANASSEH.
Another song ef triumph, which will be sung in the land
ef Judah on that day, is now heard.
" XXVI. 1. We have a strong city; ' the saving help of our God is
our defence, instead of walls and ditches. 2. Open ye the gates, that
a righteous nation, the nation that keeps the truth (now freed from
its oppressors) may enter in.' 3. (It has well been said,") 'The heart
that is constant, Thou keepest in perfect peace, for on Thee does it
trust!' 4. Trust ye in Jehovah for ever, for in Jehovah Jah ye have
an everlasting Rock. 5. For He has brought low them that dwelt on
high; the lofty city, (Babylon,) He brought it low, cast it down to the
earth, hurled it to the dust. 6. The foot trod it down, the foot of the
poor, the feet of the oppressed. 7. The path in which the righteous
walk is smooth: Thou, Thyself, makest smooth the path of the just!
8. Tea, in the path of Thy judgments have we waited for Thee, 0
Jehovah; the desire of our soul is towards Thy name, and the remem
brance of Thee. 9. With my soul have I longed for Thee in the night;
with my spirit within me I sought Thee earnestly; for when Thy judg
ments smite the earth, its inhabitants learn righteousness. 10. If
grace be shewn to the wicked he does not learn righteousness ; even in
a land where justice and right prevail, he will act unjustly, and has
no eye for the Majesty of Jehovah. 11. Jehovah, when Thine arm
was lifted up, they would not see it ; but they shall see, with shame,
Thy zeal for Thy people ; for flre will devour these, Thine adversaries.
12. Jehovah will secure peace for us ; for it is Thou who hast done all
the work (of our deliverance) for us! 13. 0 Jehovah, our God, other
lords besides Thee — (even the fierce Chaldaean oppressors) — have had
dominion over us, but, through Thy doings, we (are now free, and)
praise Thy name ! "
The prophet next sees in the distant future the sad con
dition ef the exiles when they return. The nation seems
as if it were dead. But Jehovah will raise it, and fill the
land with men.
"14. The dead live no more; the shades rise not again; that it
might be so, Thou hast visited and destroyed them, and made their
Most translators render the phrase, " as crushed straw," by " is trodden down in the
dung pool ; " but there aie no dung pools in the East. Madmenah was a place iu
Moab famed for its harvests. Neil's Palestine, p. 241.
' Isa. xxvi. 1-21. 3 The Jews returning from exile. " Ps. cxii. 7.

MANASSEH. 43
very memory to perish. 15. But Thou hast increased Thy people, 0
Jehovah; Thou hast increased the nation; Thou hast won for Thyself
glory; Thou hast made wide the boundaries of the land. 16. Jehovah,
in their aflliction they sought Thee ; they poured out their prayer when
Thy chastisements were upon them. 17. As a woman with child,
when her delivery is near, is in pain and cries out, so were we before
Thee, O Jehovah. 18. We bore pains great as those of the travailing
woman (in our flight from Babylon, and in our sufferings there).
But (while the woman rejoices in the birth of a living child) all our
anguish has brought us nothing as yet (for our condition is wretched) ;
the Land lies waste; its inhabitants fallen!' 19. 0 that thy dead
could live again (my country) ! O that thy dead bodies could arise !
Awake and sing, ye dwellers in the dust of the grave ! For thy dew —
(the favour of Jehovah) — gives life, and (through its mighty power)
the earth shall bring to life the shades !
"20. Go, my people, into thy chambers, and shut thy door behind
thee. Hide thee for a, short moment, tUl the judgment of wrath has
passed by. 21. For, behold, Jehovah cometh out of His place (in
heaven), to visit the guilt of the inhabitants of the earth upon them ;
the blood of the slain (of our people) shall not be hidden (in the
ground); the earth shall disclose it, (that it may cry for revenge); she
will not hide the slain in her bosom (but send them forth from their
graves, to be accusers before God, demanding wrath on the Chaldaeans,
their murderers) !
"XXVII. 1. In that day''' will Jehovah visit Leviathan — ^the swift
gliding serpent — Leviathan, the coiled-up serpent, and shall slay the
dragon that is in the sea." 2. In that day (when this great world-
' A paraphrase which seems to me to embody the sense. * isa. xxvii. 1-13.
3 Knobel, Diestel, and others, think the epithets in this verse refer only to Baby
lon. Delitzsch and others suppose Assyria, Babylon, aud Egypt meant. Cheyne, and
still others, fancy that all the enemies of God's people are intended. Leviathan is a
Hebrew word, and occurs flve times in the Bible : Job iii. 8, rendered " their mourn
ing ; " xli. 1 (xl. 23) = the crocodile ; Ps. Ixxiv. 14 = the princes of Pharaoh, the
great crocodile, or " dragon that lieth in the midst of the rivers ; " Ezek. xxix. 3 ;
Ps. civ. 26 ; it U some kind of whale, or sea monster. In the text the Chaldee para
phrase refers the two words to Pharaoh and to Sennacherib, respectively. It seems
probable that "Leviathan" is equivalent to our "monster," and may have included
gigantic serpents, snch as the python, which was worshipped by the Egyptians.
The Rabbis say that God created Leviathan male and female on the fifth day, but
presently killed the female, aud having salted it, laid it up, to be feasted on at the
coming of the Messiah. A tabernacle for the righteous is then to be made of its skin,
which will shine from one end of the earth to the other, etc. (Isa. lx. 3). Buxtorll,
Beb. and Ch. Lex., p. 1138. Hershom, Treas. qf Talmud, p. 303.
The word " dragon "—tannin— seems lo mean any great monster, whether of the

44 MANASSEH.
judgment shall have been accomplished), sing ye songs of praise
respecting Zion, the beloved vineyard, thus: 3. 'I, Jehovah, am its
Keeper; moment by moment do I water it; that nothing hurt it, I
watch it night and day. 4. My wrath (against it) has passed away;
should I meet foes, thick and close as thoms and thistles, invading it,
I would march against them in war, and burn thera up together. 5.
But if they sought My protection (and made Me their God), desiring
to be at peace with Me (and My people), then would I allow them to
make such peace with Me.' "
This care ef Jehovah will have glorious results.
"6. In future times shall Jacob take root in the land:' Israel shall
blossom and bud, and flll the whole face of the land with fruit."
The chastisement with which Ged has visited His people,
compared with that inflicted on their enemies, is a proof of
His gracious designs.
" 7. Hath He smitten him (Judah) as He smote his smiter? ' Or has
he been slain as those who slew hira are slain? (^He has been visited
only with disquiet and exile.) 8. With just measure (of penalty) Thou
didst contend with him, when Thou drovest him out of the land, as
with a flerce blast in the day of storm. ^
" 9. But by this (visitation) * shall the g^ilt of Jacob be purged; " for
the fruit of the removal of his sin shall be that he shall break down
sea or the land. It is used fourteen times in the Bible. See Gen. i. 21 ; Job vii. 12.
Isa. xxvii. 1, etc. It appears to refer to a great sea monster, such as a whale, shark,
or the like. In Exod. vii. 9 ; Deut. xxxii. 33 ; Ps. xci. 13, etc., it is a serpent ; and in
Isa. li. 9 ; Ezek. xxix. 3 ; Ps. Ixxiv. 13, a crocodile, as emblem of Egypt.
' Isa. xxvii. 6. 2 iga. xxvii. 7, 8.
' Literally, east wind. The east and south-east winds come from waterless hot
regions, and wither up vegetation. Wanting ozone, they are very enfeebling. The
east wind often blows like a glowing furnace blast, for several days consecutively,
over Palestine, in May and October. It is the sirocco. When it rises to a storm, it
veils the sky in a dusky yellow shrond of sand-clonds, through which the sun shines,
pale and shorn of its beams, like a smoking globe of fire. Its whirlwinds raise pillars
of sand and dust iuto the air, wliich seem at a distance like pillars of smoke. Men
flee before it, and hide wherever they can. Purrer, Bib. Lex., vol. v. p. 697.
* Isa. xxvii. 9.
^ The verb Kaphar, here used, is translated in tbe A.V. "to raake an atonement,"
"to make reconciliation," "to pacify," "to forgive," " to purge away." It means
primarily, "to cover."

MAXASSEH. 45
his (heathen) altars, and shatter all their stones into fragments, small
as pieces of crumbled lime, and Asherahs and sun obelisks shall no
more rise aloft (in his midst).
"10. For Jerusalem, ' the strong city, shall be desolate (in the days of
your exile); a habita,tion lonely and forsaken as the wilderness; there
shall the calf feed and lie down, browsing on the twigs of the wild
bushes (with which the undisturbed soil shall be overgrown)." 11.
The withered twigs (of the winter) shall be broken ofl for fuel ; women
shall come and burn them. For the people have no understanding,
and therefore He that raade them will not have mercy on them, and
He that formed them will shew them no favour.
" 12. But after those days ' (when the time of His pity has come), Je
hovah will (have a rich harvest of mercy, and shall) gather Israel from
the great river Euphrates to the river of Egypt (the Wady el Arish,
as a man beats down and gathers the olives in their season), and ye
shall be gathered one by one, ye children of Israel ! 13. And on that
day shall a great trumpet — (the sign of the return) — be blown, and
those that were lost in the land of Assyria, and the banished ones in
the land of Egypt, shall oome back, and cast themselves down before
Jehovah in the holy mountain in Jerusalem."
To this wonderful prophetic picture, the thirty-fifth chap
ter adds a further vision of the triumphal circumstances of
the retum from Babylon — the whole couched in the noblest
language ef poetry.
"XXXV. 1. The wilderness' and the sun-scorched land shall rejoice
before (the returning exiles) : the desert shall be glad and blossom like
the rose.' 2. It will blossom abundantly and rejoice, breaking out,
(as it were,) into joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be
given it: the leafy splendour of Carmel and Sharon." Men shall see
the glory of Jehovah; the majesty of our God! "
The prophet now addresses the exiles directly.
» Isa. xxvii. 10, 11. ' Fnrrer, p. 105.
= Isa. xxvii. ]2, 13. * Isa. xxxv. 1-10.
' Tristram, Mat. Bist. of Bible, p. 476, thinks the sweet-scented narcissus is
meant. So Houghton. Layard repeatedly speaks of the short-lived splendour of
colour into which the Mesopotamiau desert bursts after the spring rains.
• Land and Book, p. 112.

46 MANASSEH.
"3. Strengthen the hands ' that hang down (discouraged and irres
olute); straighten up the tottering knees! 4. Say to the faint-hearted,
' Be strong! fear not. See, your God comes to avenge you, to give
you a god-like recompense ! He Himself comes to save you ! '
"5. In that day,'' the eyes of the blind shall be opened; the ears of
the deaf unstopped. 6. The lame will leap like a deer; the tongue
of the dumb will sing. For flowing waters shall break out, before
them, in the wilderness, and brooks in the desert. 7. And the deceit
ful mirage will become a real lake," and the thirsty land springs of
water; in the couching place of jackals shall spring up grass, and the
reeds and rushes, (that mark living streams). 8. And a raised and
made way will stretch before them: it will be called " The holy way ;"
it shall be trodden by no unclean person, but shall be only for the
clean. No one who walks on it, however simple he be, shall wander
from it (and lose himself in the wilderness around). 9. No lion shall
be there (to molest); no ravening beast shall set foot on it, or be found
there: the released exiles alone shall walk on it. And the freed ones
of Jehovah shall return, and come to Zion with loud jubilations: ever
lasting joy (like an unfading crown) shall be on their heads. They
shall have joy and gladness, and (the) sorrow and sighing (of exile)
shall flee away ! "
Words such as these, mingling denunciation of jiopular
sins with gloomy predictions ef the overthrow of the state,
and the deportation of tlie citizens and their fellow-country
men, to a distant land, as slaves and exiles, must have
created great excitement iu the small community of Jerusa
lem. Spoken by one like Isaiah, nov/ old and venerable,
and by Micah, the living counterpart of tlic great Elijah —
rough clad, austere, alarming — the heathen party new in
power would feel them as dangerous politically as they were
hateful on other grounds. It must have seemed imperative
' Isa. xxxv. 3, 4. " Isa. xxxv. 5-10.
3 " I once gave chase to a herd of antelopes near Aleppo. The day was intensely
hot, and the antelopes made direct towards a vast mirage, which covered the whole
eastern horizon. They seemed to ba literally leaping tbrough the water, and I could
see their figure below the surface, nnd reversed, with the ntmost distinctness."
Land and Book, p. ."^33. The Arab word for mirage is Serab, and the word in the
text li Sarab. Isaiah, tberefore, doubtless refers to tbis deceitful phenomenon. It
is a mere optical illusion.

MAN'ASSEH. 47
to silence such voices, if the idolatrous reaction were to
succeed. It was attempted, therefore, as the first step in
persecution, to turn thfem to ridicule. The scoffers " opened
wide their mouths " at them, in scorn and mocking, and
even thrust out their tongues at them as they spoke.' Ere
long harsher measures were used. But, amidst all this
social proscription, the faithful among the prophets, and
the small but earnest band who followed them, stood firm.
Despised and insulted daily, they still boldly pleaded for
Jehovah, and denounced the growing abominations and
immorality of idolatry. In the midst ef a hostile popula
tion, they stood forth as confessors of the faith of their
fathers. The disciples of Isaiah,'' who in these evil times
"dwelt before Jehovah,"' delighting above all things to
behold His beauty and te inquire in His temple — the
psalmists who, under Hezekiah, had added to the songs ef
God's people, inspired edes still found in the canon ; the
true-hearted men who had, everywhere, through Judah and
Israel, collected the ancient sacred books ; the " meek ef
the land," who sat at the feet ef the prophets, and made
their instruction the light of their feet and the lamp of their
path ; above all, those whom the glowing eloquence of Isaiah
and his brethren had kindled to a prophetic enthusiasm for
Jehovah, akin to their own — formed a community, small,
perhaps, in numbers, but strong in the depth ef their con
victions and the loftiness of their creed — " the congregation
of the saints " ' — the faithful witnesses fer truth upon the
earth. Between these and their fellow-countrymen, the relations
grew more and more strained, as corruption and idolatry
' Isa. Jvii. 4. ' Isa. viii. 16. " Isa. xxiii. 18.
* Ps. xxvii. 4. ' Ps. Ixxxix. 16.

48 MAKASSEH.
spread. Life was daily mere bitter for the faithful ; social
intercourse more interrupted. Parties became mere nar
rowly defined. Existence seemed a burden to the godly.
The mockery and roughness of the multitude grew mere
intense. Everything foreboded the breaking out ef an
organized persecution, te sweep the last traces of Jehovah-
worship from the land.

CHAPTER III.
THE GEEAT PEESECUTION'.
The intense mutual hatred of the heathen party and the
worshippers of Jehovah had twice before — ^under Ahab in
Israel, and Athaliah in Judah — culminated in open vio
lence, and the friends of the old religion must have felt
that under Manasseh, idolatry weuld, ere long, slake its en
mity in their blood. It had tee many grudges te repay, to
let them hepe for quiet toleration. Nor were their gloomy
fears unrealized. At a very early period in the new reign,
if tradition be correct, the court party, heading the thought
less and degenerate multitude, grew tired ef mere insult
and mockery, aud demanded bleed, and the darkest page
in the annals ef the nation followed. There had been no
such day, since the miseries ef their fathers in Egypt under
the ancient Pharaohs. Even Athaliah had not dared to
close the temple ; but it was new defiled by idols and idol
altars, so that the godly could no longer enter it. The
bleed of the saints was shed on every hand. Braving all
danger, true prophets like Isaiah, Micah, and Hozai,' faith
fully did their duty ; boldly rebuking even the king, in
public, for his apostasy. But their fidelity only reused him
to fiercer excesses. Raging like a destroying lion, to use
the words of Jeremiah,' he put te death the worshippers
' 3 Kings xxi. 10. 2 Chron. xxxiiL 18, 19. The word rendered " the seers " is, in
Hebrew, Hozai, apparently a proper name. Jer. ii. 80.
VOL. v.— 4 4i)

50 THE GEEAT PERSECUTION.
of Jehovah, till it seemed to contemporaries as if Jerusalem
were a bowl filled to the brim with their blood.' If he could
silence the prophets and their adherents no other way, he
would do se by the sword. Some were killed almost daily."
Nobles who took their part were dashed from the rocky cliffs
of the city hills." The days of Alva in Holland, or ef
Charles IX. in France, or ef the Covenanters under Charles
II., in Scotland, were anticipated in the Jewish capital.
The streets were red with blood. Tradition has assigned
Isaiah's death to this period. He was now about eighty-six
years ef age, and, apart from the sanctity of his life and the
splendour ef his genius, might well have been spared as the
honoured friend and counsellor of Hezekiah. But his very
age and dignity were against him, making his fiery words
still weightier ; for he still witnessed openly fer Jehovah,
fearlessly exposing and denouncing the iniquity of beth high
and low. An oration, of which part has come down to us,
may have been the immediate cause of his final prescription
by Manasseh. In this grand indictment, as was natural in
a true prophet, the corrupt members of his order, and the
apostate priests who had gone ever to the service of idols, or
were cravenly silent in those evil days, were first assailed:
" LVI. 9. Come hither * — he cries — all ye (wild) beasts of the field,
and devour (the fiock of Jehovah); come, all ye wild beasts of the
woods! (It is left defenceless to you!) 10. For its watchmen are
blind; they keep no look-out; they are, all of them, dumb dogs; they
cannot bark: they are not kozim — true seers — but hozim, mere ravers
and dreamers; — lying down, they (care only to) sleep. 11. Yet they
are greedy, and can never be satisfied ; they crave (raoney and gifts of
all kinds) continually.^ Shepherds are they that keep no watch over
' 2 Kings xxi. 16. = Jos., Ant., X. iii. 1. Jer. ii. 30. Neh. ix. 36.
s Ewald, quoting Ps. cxii. 6, 7. < Isa. Ivi. 9-13.
s Mic. iii. 5-11. Ezek. xiii. 19 ; xxii. 25.

THE GEEAT PERSECUTION. 51
the sheep, and know not how to do so. They all turn their own way,
each after his own profit,' from the highest of them to the lowest. 12.
' Come,' say they (one to the other), ' let us fetch wine, and let us have
a carouse on strong drink ; and let us do the same to-morrow, and
make the day still more jolly.' "
The thought of what was passing around him at the
moment now rises in the mind of the prophet ; the martyr
doms that were daily taking place.
" LVII. 1. (WhUe faithless men thus not only live, but flourish in
their iniquity,) the righteous man perishes ' (because he is righteous),
and no man takes it to heart; godly men are taken away, and no one
considers that the righteous are thus let die, to keep them from the
evil to come. 2. He passes away into peace : they rest in their quiet
beds (in the dust); all who have walked in the ways of God."
Their sufferings and martyr death recall their worth, and
the indignities they have suffered, while the contrast rises
between them and those by whom they have been hunted to
death. "3. But (as for you),' ye sons of the sorceress, ye brood of the adul
terer and the harlot, draw near, hither! 4. Of whom do ye thus make
sport? At whom do you make mouths, and stick out your tongue?'
(But are ye yourselves not fitter objects of mockery?) Are ye not chil
dren of sin ; the spawn of the faithless? 5. Do ye not bum with unholy
lust under the terebinths, and under every green tree (of your idol
groves)?* Do you not sacrifice children (to Jloloch and Baal) in (the
valley of Hinnom, and in the) dark caves of the rocks, in torrent val
leys?" 6. Arenot your sacred fetish stones ' in these wadys, smooth
' By bribes gii'tsi, etc.. to prophesy falsely. ^ Isa. Ivii. 1, 2.
i iT-a.lvii 3 6.
* Chap. Ixvi. 5 ; xxxvii. 23. Ps. xxii. 7; xxxv. 21.
» Hos. iv. 1.-). Ifra. i. 29. Ezek. vi. 13.
' This awful worship was apparently carried out with secret rites, in lonely places,
as well as at Hinnom.
' In Ihe earliest limes snch stones had been familiar to the Hebrews (Gen. xxviii.
11, 18), bnt they had heen put to heathen uses in later ages, instead of being dedi
cated, as at first, to Jehovah. Knobel thinks the reference here is to idols of any
kind.

53 THE GEEAT PERSECUTION.
with the oil you pour over them, your " portion" ' and delight, (in
stead of Jehovah)? 2 (These, these are your choice!) To them, even to
them, do ye pour out drink-offerings, and present meat-oiferings.
Shall I, says Jehovah, look quietly on at this? 7. On a great and high
hilP thou (leaving thy Husband,* Jehovah) hast set thy bed (to com
mit impurity in idol worship); ^ thither thou goest up to offer sacrifice.
8. The memorial of thy God — (" Jehovah is our God, Jehovah is one"
— written on the posts and doors of thy house)," thou hast removed be
hind these posts and doors (that they may not shame thee in thy un
faithfulness ; ' thou hast uncovered thyself and gono up, and made
broad thy bed for thy sin, and chosen a paramour from among them."
Thou lovest their bed; thou choosest the side of it thou likest for
thyself." " 9. (As a harlot goes forth,) anointed with oil'" and fragrant with
costly perfumes, (to seek new lovers), thou hast gone outside thine own
land, to Baal, the king " (to learn from his foreign temples what thou
couldst copy in thine own. Thou hast even sent thy envoys far off to
distant countries, to the shrines of remote gods, to bring back their
worship). Thou hast, indeed, gone so far as to debase thyself to hon
our the infernal gods — the gods of Sheol (the abyss beneath the
earth). ' =
' Jer. A. 16. Ps. xvl . 5 ; lxxiii. 26 ; cxix. 57 ; cxliii. 5.
¦¦' Jer. X. 16. Deut. iv. 19.
3 Isa. Ixii. 7, 8. ' Isa. i. 2r. Hos. i.-iii. Ezek. xvi. 23.
5 The inherent impurity of heathenism is illustrated by the following extract from
Six Years in India (p. 109), by Mrs. (General) Colin McKenzie : " We passed to-day
a pretty little girl, singing at the top of her voice, and C. told me that tlie words ot
the song were so utterly detestable and vile, that hardly auy man among the worst in
London would sing them, unless he were drunk. Nothing can equal the abomina
tion of tbe Hindu deities and their worship. The verses taught to children at school
are such as cannot be repeated."
' Deut. vi. 9 ; xi. 20. See page 15.
' So Knobel, Diestel, Delitzsch, and others. Cheyne thinks that the view of the
Targum and Jerome, by which " memorial " means idol, or obscene idolatrous syra
bol, is intended.
8 That is, thou choosest out a special idol, and siirrenderest thyself to its lewd
worship, ® Delitzsch and Cheyne, following Hitzig, Ewald, Umbreit and others, trau> late
this phrase : '¦ Thou lookest at the phallus "—the obscene symbol of Baal wor^hip.
But Knobel and Diestel reject this. lo Isa. Ivii. 9, 10.
" Baal was called " King Baal," and " the King of Eternity," etc. Ges., JL'onu-
men. Phcen., pp. 197, 202, COS, 284. Mttver's PhSnizier, vol. i. p. 400.
'^ So Knobel, Diestel, and others ; Delitzsch and Cheyne, on the other hand, think
the refei'ence is to political embassies lo the kings of Assyria, Egypt, etc. But this
does not seem to me to suit the conncctiim.

THE GEEAT PEESECUTION. 53
"10. Thou hast wearied thyself with the length of these journeys ;
yet thou hast not said, 'I will go no further, I will give up.' Thy
zeal and eagerness have always given thee strength (to complete the
long pilgrimage, and) have kept thee from (breaking down or) being
discouraged. " 11. Of whom (says Jehovah) ' hast thou been afraid or alarmed,
that thou shouldst have played the traitor (to Me), and not remem
bered Me, or laid to heart My promise (of being thy protector)? Is it
not beoause I have been long silent (.«ind have let thy sins continue),
that thou no longer fearest me? (Thou thinkest I have forsaken
thee, but thou doest Me great wrong. 12. But, now,) I will make
known thy (fancied) righteousness. Yet, what will it avail ; what will
thy works profit thee (in which it consists)? 13. When thou criest,'
let the herd (of thy gods) save thee! But the wind shall sweep them
all off: a breath shall carry them away. Yet, he who trusts in Me
shall possess this land and inherit My holy mountain ! "
The prophet new sees the people in exile, and hears the
voice of Jehovah summoning to preparations for their
return. ' ' 14. A Voice calls, ' Cast ye up, east ye up - a highway (through
the desert); prepare a way; clear the stones frora the track, out of
the path of My people.' "
Jehovah has, thus, not abandoned Israel, but designs
their restoration hereafter. He now proceeds to tell them
the grounds on which they may hepe for it.
"15. For thus saith the High and Lofty One:^ the etemal King ;
whose name is the Holy One : I dwell in the heavens— the high and
holy place,' but with him also, that is of a contrite' and humble spirit ;
to revive the spirit of the hurable and the heart of the contrite ones.
16. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always angry; fcr
the spirit would faint before me, and the souls which I havo made.
17. For his wandering desires, (forsaking My ways and seeking his
own)— I was angry and smote hira. I hid Myself, and was wroth,
1 Isa. Ivii. 11-13.
' Isa Ivii. 14. Heap up the soil to a raised and level road.
= Isa! Ivli! 15-18. * The heavenly temple. Chap. vl. 1.
5 Crushed and penitent.

54 THE GEEAT PEESECUTION.
beoause he went on, perversely, in the way of his own heart. 18. I
have seen the (thorny) paths he has trodden — (he is -wrong in saying
they were hidden frora Jehovah) ' — and will heal him. I will lead
him (in ways of pleasantness), and give him and his mournful ones
consolation (for all their sorrows).
" 19. Thus saith Jehovah ^ that creates the fruit of the mouth (bring
ing forth songs of joy and thanksgiving): ' Peace, peace, I proclaim,
to the far off and to the near, (to the distant exile and to him who has
remained in the land), and I will heal them.'
"20. But the wicked are like the uptost sea, which never rests, but
casts up mire and mud (continually). 21. There is no peace, saith my
God, to the wicked." '
Such an appeal, mingling with its just denunciation and
keen irony, the tenderest patriotism and the sublimest
faith ; condemning the present, but lighting up the future ;
might have won respect and admiration for the aged
prophet, alike for its fearlessness, its loyalty to his people,
and its lofty poetry. But fanaticism neither reasons nor
feels. Such a witness against the sins of the day could no
longer be endured. If lesser men perished, Isaiah could
net be suffered te live. A very eld mulberry tree, near the
Peel ef Sileam, on the slopes ef Ophel, outside the south
east wall of Jerusalem, is still pointed out as marking the
traditional spot of his martyrdom. There, it is said by the
Eabbis, and in the apocryphal "Ascension of Isaiah," he
was sawn asunder ' by order of Manasseh, for refusing to
bew down to the king's idols. " And while the saw cut
into his flesh," says the tradition, '¦'' Isaiah uttered ne com
plaints and shed ne tears, but he ceased not to commune
' Chap. xl. 27. 2 Isa. Ivii. 19-21.
s This section of Isaiah, at least to the llth verse of the 67th chapter, is assigned
by no less keen a critic thau Ewald to the reign of Manasseh, and treated as
undoubtedly written by Isaiah. That others should refer it to the period of the Exile
only shews how arbitrary are the standards of critical judgment. As to the origin
and date of the later chapters of Isaiah, I shall speak more fully hereafter.
* Heb. xi. 37.

THE GEEAT PEESECUTION. 55
with the Holy Spirit till the saw had cloven him to the
middle ef his body."' If the prophets "hewed the un
godly " with the words ef Jehovah : '' if some of them, in
despair at the national defection from Him, went about,
like Micah, "stripped and naked," "wailing like the drag
ons, and crying out like the ostriches ; " ' the counterpart of
the dervishes of modern Asia ; the king and people could, at
least, take the wild revenge of torture and the sword. But
amidst all their trials of cruel mockings ' and scourgings ; of
bonds and imprisonment ; of stoning ; being sawn asunder,
and of nameless agonies besides, the blood of the martyrs
then, as always, proved the seed of the Church. A Psalm
which Ewald assigns to this period, and whioh in any case
suits it, still survives : '
"CXLI. 1. Jehovah! I cry to Thee: 0 make haste to me !
0 hear my voice when I call upon Thee !
2. Let my prayer rise before Thee as the odour of incense.
The lifting up of my hands like the evening sacrifice !
" 3. Set a watch, 0 Jehovah, to my month ;
Guard the gates of ray lips;
4. Let not my heart be inclined to anything evil —
To do wrong with men set on iniquity;
And may I not taste of their dainties!
" 5. Let the righteous smite me in love and reprove me:
It will be like oil of anointing" which my head will not refuse.'
For I still meet the attacks, even of the wicked, with prayer.
6. When their best men " are hurled down the stony rocks
They will listen to my words as welcome.
7. As the earth is torn up and broken by the plough.
So are our bones scattered at the gates of the grave!
' Ascensio lesaise, v. 11-1-4. ' Hos. vi. 5.
= Mic. i. 8. ¦* Heb. xi. 36. Isa. Ivii. 4.
' Ps. 0x11. Delitzsch calls it an Evening Psalm of the time of Absalom.
• "Anointing oil," at feasts. ' Delitzech.
> Literally, nobles or judges.

56 THE GEEAT PEESECUTION.
" 8. But to Thee, 0 Jehovah my God, are mine eyes;
In Thee is my trust; let not my life be poured out!
9. Keep me from the snares that men spread for me ;
The traps of the workers of iniquity !
10. Let the wicked fall into their own nets ;
While, withal, I make my escape."
But perhaps the seventy-third Psalm,' whether dating
from this period er net, is the best embodiment of the feel
ings ef the godly in these evil days.
" LXXIII. 1. Good, and good only, is Elohim to Israel:
To them — that is — of a pure heart!
2. But I — my feet were almost gone.
My steps had well-nigh slipped.
3. For I was envious at the boastful haughty ones ;
When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4. For they suffer no distress ; *
Their persons are healthy and well fed.
5. They do not share in the troubles of other men,
Nor are they plagued like others.
C. Hence pride sits on their necks like a chain ;
Violence hangs round them like a robe.
7. Their sins burst out from their fat insensate hearts,'
The evil thoughts of their breasts swell over.
" 8. They scoff and talk wickedly of the oppression they design;
They speak haughtily, as if above other men.
9. They set (their mouth in the heavens, talking as proudly as gods).
And their tongue walketh through the earth.*
10. By this, the people who follow them, are drawn in their train.
And drink In, greedily, the (poison) water (of their words), as if from
a full cup.
' Ps. lxxiii. ° Ewald and Delitzsch.
3 This sense is, in effect, adopted by Ewald from the Septuagint, Vulgate, and
many moderns. A change in one letter in one of the Hebrew words makes the
difference. * Luther's translation is striking ;
What they wish, that must be ordered by Heaven.
What they say, that must be done on earth.

THE GEEAT PEESECUTION. 57
" 11. Hence, they say, ' How does God know?
And is there knowledge in the Most High? '
12. Behold, these are the ungodly —
(All their lives heedless of God, they are) yet the most prosperous.
13. It has been of no good that I have cleansed my heart
And washed my hands in innocency;
14. I have been plagued day by day.
My chastisement coraes with each new morning.
" 15. Should I think, 'I will say the sarae as they,'
I should be untrue to myself as one of the race of Thy children.
16. Yet, when I pondered the matter, to solve it,
It was, as I felt, too deep to understand —
17. Till I went into the sanctuary ' of God
And raarked the end of such men.
18. Thou lettest them stand only on slippery ground.
And, at last. Thou castest them down to ruin.
" 19. How are they made desolate in a raoment!
(They are swept away, like dust before the storm) ;
They perish with a terrible destruction.
20. As a dream passes when one awakes,
So, 0 Lord, when Thou rousest Thyself (to note them).
Thou wilt mock at such shadows !
"21. When my heart has been thus embittered.
And my very soul, (as it seemed,) pierced through,
23. I was dull, and without sense;
Like the stupid Behemoth' in Thy sight!
"23. But, as for me, I am continually with Thee;
Thou hast held my right hand ;
34. Thou wilt guide me by Thy counsel,
And, hereafter, receive me to glory.
25. Whom havo I in heaven but Thee?
But if I have Thee, I care nothing for aught else on earth."
26. Let my heart and ray flesh melt away.
God is the strength ¦* of my heart, and my Portion for ever!
> Literally, sanctuaries (Ps. Ixviii. 33). It seems here to refer to the different parti
into which the temple was divided. Miihlau und Volck.
¦> Beliemoth was the Egyptian name for the hippopotanius— the synonym of stupid
ity. s Luther, and virtually Delitzsch. * Literally, rock.

58 THE GEEAT PEESECUTION.
"37. Foi', lo, they that are far from Thee shall perish;
Thou destroyest every one that is faithless to Thee :
28. But, as for me, nearness to God is my joy;
I put my trust in the Lord Jehovah
To set forth and praise all Thy works ! "
A Psalm like this reveals the spiritual trials ef the faithful
in days such as those ef Manasseh. The eld belief, that god
liness brought worldly prosperity, had been rudely shaken,
and the life beyond shene out more clearly as the earth grew
dark. The immortality of the soul was realized more fully
than hitherto. Death no longer wore the gloomy aspect it
had borne even to the good Hezekiah. Men were no more
to cry out in their sickness or troubles, "In death there is
ne remembrance ef Thee ; in the grave who shall give Thee
thanks ?"' "What profit is there in my blood when I go
down to the pit ? Shall the dust praise Thee ? Shall it
declare Thy truth ? " ' Nobler thoughts, such as we find in
some other Psalms, took the place ef dispiriting doubts.
" Theu wilt net leave my soul to Sheol ; neither wilt Thou
suffer Thine Holy One ' to see corruption. Thou wilt make
me know the path of life : in Thy presence is fulness of joy :
in Thy right hand there are pleasures fer evermore."' "As
for me, I shall ' behold Thy face in righteousness : I shall be
satisfied when I awake, with Thy likeness."" "God will
redeem my soul from the power of Sheol ; for He shall
receive me."' Such great scholars as Dillmann, G. Baur,
and Ewald assign the Book of Job, with its bright anticipa
tions of immortality, to the first half of the seventh century
before Christ — that is, to the age ef Manasseh. ° Consoling
' Ps. vi. 5. = Ps. XXX. 9. See also Ps. xxxix. snd Ps. Ixxxviii. 10-I2.
s In Hebrew, " Holy Ones," but a Masoretic note directa that the singular be used.
« Ps. xvi. 10, 11. ' Or, let me. « Ps. xvii. 13. ' Ps. xlix. 15.
8 Delitzsch thinks it was composed in the Solomonio Age. Art " Hiob " in Herzog.
But see Dillmann's Blob, p. S7 ; G. Baur, in Riehm, art. "Hiob ; " Ewald's Ce
echichte, vol. iii. p. 703.

THE GEEAT PEESECUTION. 59
hopes of the future, nnder God's revelation, were becoming
stronger in proportion to the trouble and gloom of the age.
Some other relics ef the sacred poetry of Israel seem to
light up still further these terrible years. The forty-ninth,
the seventy-seventh, and the hundred and fortieth Psalms '
appear, from internal evidence, to be utterances from amidst
the fiery trials of Manasseh's reign.
"XLIX. 1. Hear this, all ye people,*
Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world,
3. Low and high, rich and poor, alike !
8. My mouth shall speak of wisdom,'
The meditation of my heart shall be of true wisdom.
4. I will incline mine ear to the heavenly voice, which speaks to me
darkly,
I will utter, to the strains of the harp, my dim weighty thoughts.
"5. Why should I fear when wickedness rules ;
When the evil plots of liers in wait are round me ;
6. Of men, who trust in their wealth and boast of their great riches?
7. Alas! * no one of them can redeem his own life,
Or pay to God a ransom for it,
8. That he should live on in the earth and not see the grave.
9. For the rederaption price of the soul * is too high for man.
And he raust leave it unpaid for ever !
10. The wise die ; so, also, the fool and the dullard.
And leave to others their wealth !
* The 49th Psalra is of uncertain date, but suits the reign of Manasseh closely.
The 77th is assigned by Delitzsch to tbe time of Manasseh or Josiah. The 140th is
ascribed to Manasseh's reigri by Ewald. Nothing is more arbitrary, however, thau
the dates given to mo-«t of the Psalms by different critics. Thns the 77th is assigned
by Olshansen and Hitzig to the time of the Maccabees ; to the time of the Babylon
ian exile, by H.vald and many others ; and to the destruction of Samaria, by Moll.
The 140th, accordiui to Delitzsch, is a late imitation of David: Hitzig assigns it to
the time of Johannes Ilyrcanus, e c. 1.35-106 ; Ewald, to that of Manasseh ; Rosen
miiiler, to that of the Return from Babylon ; while Moll thinks it may be David's.
Can anything shew moi-e forcibly the arrogance of such dogmatism aa that of the
latest school of Biblical critics as to the date of the different Psalms ? How much
is their confident language worth ?
2 Ps. xlix. ' The great theme since the time of Solomon.
' Hebrew, Ach ; not brother only, but also an exclamation = Ah! Alas!
' =Life.

CO THE GEEAT PEESECUTION.
11. Their graves are their homes for ever; '
Their abodes from generation to generation ;
Though, while alive, men everywhere lauded their names.'
" 13. Such a man abides not in honour.
But is like the beasts that perish. '
" 13. This is the lot of these vain confident fools.
And of those, after them, who follow their teaching.
14. Like a flock of sheep they are folded in Sheol. the underworld.
Death is their shepherd, who leads them forth to his pastures ;
The upright shall have dominion over them ;
Their beauty shall soon fade away,
Sheol, the ixnderworld, shall be their dwelling!
" 15. But Elohim will redeem my soul from the hand of Sheol,
For He shall receive me!'
"16. Be not thou, then, afraid when one grows rich,
When the glory of his house increases.
17. For when he dies he shall carry nothing away;
His glory shall not go down to Sheol with hira.
18. Though in his life-time he boasted of his fortune,
And men praised him — as they always do him who does well to him
self—
19. Yet he will go to the generation of his fathers,
Who shall never raore behold the light of the sun.
" 20. Such a man abides not in honour,
But is like the beasts that perish."
A similar strain runs through the seventy-seventh Psalm,*
if, indeed, the fifteenth verse do not shew it te be a song of
some unknown ene in the I^orthern Kingdom, before its
fall, for Jacob and Joseph are mentioned, but net Judah.
¦ By the change of two letters. So Septuagint, Targum, Pesh., Olshnusen,
Ewald'; and others.
2 Gesenius. Ewald. I think they are right.
3 Literally, the cattle that men slaughter so early, aud suddenly cut ofl.
' Ewald and Lengerke render tliis line : " When it shall have seized me." Muh-
lau nnd Volck, and Delitzsch, have the rendering I have adopted.
» Ps. Ixxvii.

THE GEEAT PERSECUTION. Cl
"LXXVII. 1. I will cry aloud to Elohim; yes, I wid cry to Elohim
aloud.
And He will hear me!
3. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord :
My hand was stretched out in prayer all night, without ceasing;
My soul could not find comfort.
3. If I thought upon God I could but moan ;
If I kept thinking — my spirit was overwhelmed.
"4. Thou didst hold my eyelids from closing;
I was so troubled I could not speak.
" 5. I called to remembrance the days of old.
The years of times gone by;
6. I thought in the night, of my joyful songs in the past;
My spirit pondered anxiously why they were gone !
"7. 'Will the Lord cast me off for ever?
Will He be favourable no more?
8. Is His mercy clean gone for ever?
Will His promise never be fulfilled, from generation to generation ?
9. Has El forgotten to be gracious?
Has He, in anger, shut up His tender mercies?'
" 10. Then thought I, My trouble comes thus;
But the right hand of the Most High still reigns;
11. Therefore I will think of the works of Jehovah,
And recall to my mind all Thy wonders, of old.
13. I will meditate on all Thy works.
And let my thoughts dwell on Thy deeds!
" 13. Elohim, Thy way is in holiness!
Who is so great a God as Elohim ?
14. Thou art that God who doest wonders.
Who hast made known Thy might among the nations.
15. Thou didst redeem with Thine arm Thy people,
The sons of Jacob and Joseph.
" 16. The waters saw Thee, O Elohim,
The waters saw Thee, and whirled back;
The sea trembled in its depths.
17. The clouds poured out water;

62 THE GEEAT PEESECUTION.
The upper skies sent forth their voice ;
Thine arrows, the lightning, flew around ;
18. Thy thunder rolled along in the whirlwind;
Thy lightnings illurainated the world:
The earth trembled and shook.
" 19. But, amidst all, Thy way was through the sea.
Thy path through the great waters;
Though Thy footsteps were not seen.
"30. Thou leddest Thy people, by the hand of Moses and Aaron,
As a shepherd leads his flock ! "
Still another of these most ancient of lyrics — the hundred
and fortieth Psalm — seems to date from the same dark
years. "CXL. 1. Deliver me, 0 Jehovah, from evil raen;
Preserve rae from men full of violence,
2. Who think out evil in their hearts
And stir up strife .continually.
"3. They have tongues sharp pointed as those of serpents.
Adder's poison is under their lips!
" 4. Keep rae, 0 Jehovah, from the hands of the wicked,
Preserve me from men full of violence,
Who design to trip up my steps !
5. The haughty ones have hidden snares and cords to take me;
They have spread a net for me in my path :
They have set traps for me.
" 6. But I say to Jehovah : Thou art my God:
Hear, 0 Jehovah, my loud supplications!
7. Jehovah, the Lord, is the strength of my salvation :
Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle.
8. Grant not, 0 Jehovah, the wishes of the wicked;
Let not his devices succeed.
" 9. When those that hem me about raise their head.
May the evil they have wished for me cover themselves.
10. Let (punishments from Thee, like) burning coals, be hurled down
on them ;

THE GEEAT PEESECUTION. 63
Let them be thrown into the fire ;
Into deep pits in the earth, from which they can never come out!
11. Let not the slanderer be established on the earth;
The violent man — may the wicked hunt him to destruction!
" 12. I know that Jehovah will maintain the cause of the afflicted;
The rights of the poor : '
13. The righteous will, surely, give thanks to Thy name:
The upright shall dwell in Thy presence."
With such enthusiasm for the ancient national faith in
the bosoms of many, it was impossible that any persecution
could extirpate the worship of Jehovah. But it was the age
of the martyrs : the counterpart in the ancient history of
the Church, ef its fiery trials under Antiochus, Decius, and
Diocletian. The pure gold was being refined in the fur
nace, to come out all the brighter in the happier but too
brief days of Josiah. The persecution under Jezebel, in the
Northern Kingdom, had ended in the ruin ef Ahab's House,
but the truth had, in great measure, died ; in Judah the
prophets and people had to yield fer the time, but the truth
was finally triumphant. A purer spiritual light than it had
ever before enjoyed, broke over the land from amidst the
darkness of Manasseh's reign.
The political results ef the heathen policy were, as usual,
disastrous. Jeremiah expressly traces the ruin of the king
dom to Manasseh," and so also does the Book of Kings.'
Philistia, Edom, Moab, and Ammon revolted during his
reign, and were independent at his death. Judah sank into
contempt. Moab and Ammen heaped contemptuous re
proaches and revilings on its people, and made insulting
forays across the border." Henceforth, except fer a short
¦ The " afflicted " and " poor " are the persecuted people of God.
I 2 Jer. XV. 4. . ^2 Kings xxi. 11 ; xxiii. 26 ; xxiv. 3, 4.
* Zeph. ii. 8-10. For "magnified themselves against their border," read, " shewed
their pride by violating." See also Jer. xlvii., xlviii., xlix.

64: THE GEEAT PEESECUTION.
time in the reign ef Josiah, they were ne longer under the
Jewish yoke.
But the heaviest blow came from Assyria, the ancient
enemy of the Palestine nations. Sennacherib had reigned
fourteen years after the accession of Manasseh. The ter
rible catastrophe his armies had suffered in Philistia and
before Jerusalem, under Hezekiah, had effectually kept him,
as we have seen, from again invading Canaan, if indeed the
disturbed condition ef his eastern dominions permitted his
doing so, and at last he had been murdered by two of his
sons. Esarhadden, his favourite sen and destined successor,
seems to have been absent from Nineveh, in B.C. 681, when
his father was killed, but he resolved to avenge him. Col
lecting a numerous army, the parricides were defeated on
the Upper Euphrates, and fled te Armenia, where they were
allowed by the reigning prince to remain, and received a
grant of territory, in which they and their descendants
henceforth permanently settled.
An inscription of Esarhadden,' unfortunately mutilated,
lights up vividly the fierce passions of this long hushed
storm. ". ... I vowed frora my heart,'' says Esarhadden. "My liver"
was inflamed with rage. I immediately wrote letters saying, that
I assumed the sovereignty of my Father's House, and lifted up my
hands to Assur, the Moon, the Sun, Bel, Nebo, Nergal, Ishtar of Nin
eveh and Ishtar of Arbela, and they accepted my prayer. In their
gracious favour they sent me an encouraging oracle — ' Go, fear not !
we march at thy side ; we aid thy expedition ! ' (Being in winter quar-
' Pound on c\ay tablets at Kouyunjik. It is published in Layard's Inscriptions,
plates 54-58 ; or, Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. iii. plates 15 and 16 ;
and in Records of ttie Past, vol. iii. p. 103, fl., where it is translated by H. Pox Talbot.
-' Juvenal, "Quanta jecurardeat ira." The ancients made the liver the seat of
rage or anger.

THE GEEAT PEE.SECUTION. C.5
ters), I could not move for a day or two; the chariot horses remained
tethered ; the regiments in their places ; the tents unstruck. Mean
while every preparation was made for the campaign, with the utmost
haste. A great snowstorm (in the mountain sj, in the month of Janu
ary (B.C. 080;, darkened the sky and stopped the advance, but I did not
give up. Then, as a bird spreads its wings, so I diiplayed my stand
ards, as a signal to my allies, and took the road to Nineveh with much
toil, by forced marches. Getting before my troops in the hill countn-,
their powerful warriors attacked my advance and discharged their
arrows, but the terror of the gods, who are my lords, overwhelmed
them, and they retreated before the valour of my army. Ishtar,
queen of war and battle, stood by my side, and broke their bows, and,
in her rage, destroyed their line of battle — proclaiming herself to the
enemy as an ' unsparing deity.'
"By her high favour I planted my standards (at Nineveh) where I
had intended." '
Esarhadden was a very different man from his father. The
ablest general Assyria ever had, he was no less marked by
his genius a.s a ruler. In him, for the time, subject nations
found a mild and conciliatory bearing from an A.;.=yrian
monarch. During his short reign he extended the empire
to the widest limits it ever reached.
The affairs of Babylonia demanded his immediate atten
tion on his accession. A .son of Merodach Baladan, on the
coast lands of the Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Eu
phrates, formerly ruled by hi.s father, revolted and pro
claimed his independence. Having taken the city of Ur,
in the north, he killed Esarhaddon's prefect, and installed
himiself in his place, refusing to do homage at Nineveh,
or ''even," as Esarhadden says, ''to enquire after the
health of my majesty." An army launched against the
"rebel "was, however, enough to send him in full flight
to the king of Elam, in the mountains ; the hereditary
foe of Assyria. But the Elamite king was anxious at the
' The rest of the column ifl unfortunately broken off.
TOL. V.-5

66 THE GEEAT PEESECUTION.
time to keep on good terms with Esarhaddon, and put to
death the unfortunate suppliant for shelter. On this, an
other sen ef Merodach Baladan, then also in Elam, feeling
no longer safe there, recrossed the frontier, threw himself
at Esarhaddon's feet, and was not only pardoned, but had
his brother's territories restored to him.
The city of Babylon next engaged the attention ef the
Great King. Going thither himself, he commenced its res
toration, for it had remained almost a ruin, since its cap
ture by Sennacherib in b.c 691. The walls were restored ;
the temples, including that ef Bel, rebuilt ; and the gods
which his father had carried off to Nineveh, brought back.
The plunder taken from the different cities ef Babylonia
was, also, as far as possible, returned to their inhabitants,
te propitiate them, while Esarhaddon, at ence for his own
security and glory, and te flatter the proud city, made it his
residence for half of each year. Under such fatherly gov
ernment Babylon soon became once more a great city, the
rival of Nineveh, and was even, hereafter, little as Esarhad
don dreamed it, to be its conqueror. Petty kings and chiefs
on its fermer territory were duly crushed ; one of them be
ing burned alive as an example ; and such terror ef Esar
haddon's arms inspired, that he henceforth reigned in peace
over Babylon, till his death in b.c. 668.'
From the Euphrates, the Great King next marched his
armies te Palestine, whose princes, headed by Abdimulkuth,
king of Sidon, at the instigation ef Tirhakah of Egypt, had
refused te pay tribute. But the resistance was short, for
the rebellious city was at once invested, and soon fell.
" Conqueror of the city of Sidon en the sea," says the
record, "sweeper away ef all its villages, I rooted up aud
' Smith's Babylonia, pp. 130, fl. Smith's Assyria, pp. 139, fl.

THE GEEAT PEESECUTION. 67
destroyed its citadel and palace, and threw them into the
ocean. Having caught its king, who had fled from my arms
like a fish, into the middle of the sea,. I cut off his head, and
that of another chief, and sent them as a trophy to hang up
ever the great gate of Nineveh. His treasure, his goods,
his gold, silver, and precious stones, with skins and teeth of
elephants, costly weeds, purple and yellow cloths of every
description, and his regalia, I carried off. Men and women
without number, countless sheep, oxen, and asses, I swept
off to Assyria." ' Demolishing Sidon, he crowned his tri
umph by building a new town en its site, with the name
of the " City ef Esarhaddon," transferring to it part of the
population of the destroyed city, and placing it under an
Assyrian general. He hoped thus to retain the trade of
Sidon, but it passed te the great Phcenician metropolis. Tyre.
A grand durbar of all the princes of Palestine and Cyprus
was now summoned, to do homage to the conqueror, and, in
terror at his victory, twenty-two of them attended. Among
these came Manasseh, glad ence more to pay tribute, for the
independence achieved by Hezekiah had been of very short
duration. Baal, king ef Tyre ; the kings of Edom, Moab,
Gaza, Askelon, Ekron, Gebal, Arvad, Beth-ammen, and
Ashdod, also presented themselves, with Abibaal, king of
Samaria, the last known bearer ef the title." Chiefs from
Cyprus, moreover, with Greek names and ruling over Greek
settlements — Pythagoras, king of Citium ; the kings of
» Armals of Esarhaddon. Becords of ihe Past, vol. iii. p. ill. Smith's Assyria,
p. 139.
2 TJie Assyrian Eponym Canon, Ext. 37, p. 133, line 17. Sraith adds, that in the
year 645, under Assurbanipal, Esarhaddon's successor, an Assyrian govemor ruled at
Samaria (p. 1^, as above). This would illustrate Isaiah's words (chap. vii. 8 : see
vol. iv. p. 326), " Within sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken as a nation." The
governor very probably was appointed much earlier than C45, as Assurbanipal was
joint king of Nineveh as early aa 669.

68 THE GEEAT PERSECUTION.
Salamis, Paphos, Idalium, and Aphrodisium, with others,
swelled the glory of the Assyrian. ' But they had to pay for
the honour of waiting upon him, and for their past offences.
Esarhaddon was at the time building a new palace in Nine
veh, and contributions of materials for it were exacted from
them." "¦ Great beams and rafters of cedar, cypress, and
other woods, from the mountains of Lebanon and Sirar ; '
statues of the gods ; bas reliefs ; blocks of stone, ef varieus
kinds; slabs of alabaster, they forwarded to Nineveh."
It was now the year B.C. 676,* and after attacking and
taking Arza, on the small stream called the Eiver of Egypt,
at the southern boundary of Palestine — Esarhaddon returned
to Nineveh. His last feat had shewn his feeling towards the
Pharaohs, whom he thus insulted, without, for the time, being
able to injure them more seriously. Captives sent from the
East replaced the populations he had carried off from cen
tral Palestine ; including in all probability not a few from
Judah, and some ef the remnant ef the Ten Tribes hitherto
left in their own land. Their fate in Assyria is recorded by
the Great King himself.
" I caused crowds of them to work in fetters, making
bricks. I pulled down the whole ef the small palace, and
caused much earth to be brought away in baskets from the
fields, and threw it on the site ef my new palace, and com
pleted the mound en which it was te stand, with stones of
great size." ° "With captives, young and old, male and
female, I marched to the gate of Nineveh, and left them to

1 The name of the king of Paphos was Itudagon, " Dagon is with him."
2 Keilinschriften,p. S44. Becords of the Past, irdl. iii. pp. Ill, fl. Menant, An
nales, n. 241.
' Either the range of Antilehanon or Mount Hermon. Wo lag das Parodies, p. 104
< Assyrian Canon, in KeUlnschrifcen, p. 321.
" Annals qf Esarhaddon, col. 5.

THE GEEAT PEESECUTION. 69
stay in front of it for ever, with dogs and other beasts."'
In the place of these unfortunates, motley crowds were
brought to Palestine from the scenes of Esarhaddon's east
ern campaigns ; ' Babylonians and people of Erech, Susiaua,
Elam, and southern Persia ; thus adding largely to the hea
then element formerly sent by Sargon from almost the same
regions," and degrading stUl further the blood of at least a
portion of the future Samaritans.*
The Annals for the next few years record various ex
peditions. The irruption of wandering tribes from be
yond the Caucasus — to become so dangerous hereafter — ^had
already begun, but Esarhadden, crossing the mountains east
of Nineveh, met and drove back their hordes, which then
turned to the west and overran part of Asia Minor — the flrst
wave of the fierce swarms which, from time to time, alarmed
the world for the next eighteen hundred years. Cilicia and
its neighbourhood, in Asia Minor, now felt the scourge of
the Assyrian armies. There, the Great King " trampled on
the heads " of the rough mountaineers, whe had hitherto
been unsubdued; burning twenty-one of their larger and
smaller towns ; slaying multitudes of the inhabitants, and
imposing heavy tribute on the survivors.' The " enemies
and heretics" of Telassur,' south-east of Assyria, in the
mountains — were then assailed and crushed, and part of the
¦wild hiU country of the Medes, till now uninvaded by As
syria, was harried and laid waste. " Chiefs of fortresses and
their men, horses and chariots, oxen and sheep, mules and

1 Annals, col. 2. ^ Ezra iv. 2, 10. = See vol. iv. pp. 288 fl.
' Lenormant, Lettres Assyriologigves, vol. i. p. 64.
' Annals, col. 2.
« 2 Kings xix. 12 ; Isa. xxxvii. 12 ; Telassur = The Hill of Assur. Perhaps m
Babylonia^ But its position is doubtful. XeUimchrif/en,p.am. Delitzsch, Fried.,
Wo lag das Parodies, p. 265.

70 THE GEEAT PEESECUTION.
Bactrian camels, and mighty spoil," were carried off to
Nineveh. The distant Arabian peninsula was the scene of another
campaign. Hitherto the distance, the intervening deserts,
and the parched and burning plains of Arabia itself, had
prevented any serious efforts to subdue it. For nearly two
hundred years the Assyrian territories had bordered those of
outlying Arab tribes, and Tiglath-pileser, Sargon, and Sen
nacherib had ravaged the districts near Edom, but they had
not attempted to march far into Arabia. Hazael, king ef
Edom, now, however, appeared in Nineveh, imploring that
the gods of his nation, taken away by Sennacherib, might be
restored, and offering te pay a heavy tribute for the favour.
In a gracious meed, Esarhaddon readily granted the request,
though net till he had caused an inscription in his own hon
our, and in that of the god Assur, to be engraved on the
idols. He gave a maiden of the palace, moreover, to
Hazael, to be his queen, and sent her and the gods back
to Edom. He did net forget, however, to impose a tribute
ef sixty-five camels, in addition te that which had been paid
to Sennacherib. But still heavier imposts having been
levied on Hazael's son, at his father's death — ten mana (over
twenty-seven pounds weight trey') of geld, 1,000 precious
stones, fifty camels, and other items, in addition to the pre
vious burdens — the oppressed country refused payment, and
a great invasion followed, to enforce it ; the Assyrian troops
marching as far as Hazu and Bazu, perhaps the Uz and Buz
of Scripture, a distance of 700 er even 900 miles from
Nineveh.' "I left behind me," says the king, "Bazu, a land very
' Sayee, in Eecords ofthe Past, vol. i. p. 168.
= lOO or 140 kasbu. See Becords of the Past, vol. iii. p. 116. Smith's Assyria, p.
132. A kasbu was about 7 miles.

THE GEEAT PEESECUTION. 71
remote; exceedingly arid, the very home of famine — 140
kasbu of ground, rocky, broken, strewn with sharp stones,
wild, burning with heat, and full of scorpions, like the des
ert. I marched where no king before me had ever gone."
" Eight sovereigns — two of them reigning queens ' — I put
to death. The' bodies of their soldiers I flung away like so
much clay. Their gods, their wealth, their treasure, and
their people, I carried off to Assyria. I swept away their
followers like a field ef com."'' Submissions, restorations ef
gods, additional slaughters, and ether features of Assyrian
warfare, followed, till Esarhaddon, tired ef Arabian exploits,
sought other regions in which to play the royal beast ef
prey. Egypt had, at intervals, fer centuries disputed with
Assyria the monarchy of the world, and had stirred up con
stant revolts in Palestine, causing ceaseless trouble. Sen
nacherib had weakened Tirhakah in the battle of Eltekeh, in
B.C. 701, but the disaster te his host had afterwards forced
him to an ignominious retreat. But in B.C. 672, Tirhakah
again succeeded in persuading Baal, king ef Tyre, a highly
favoured vassal of Esarhaddon, to threw off the Assyrian
yoke ; hoping, no doubt, to draw most of the princes ef Pal
estine into the movement. Te defeat this combination, the
Great King set forth at once for the sea-coast. Tyre was
now at the height ef its prosperity— in part through the
recent destruction of Sidon — and, having the command of
the Mediterranean by its fleet, felt that it could not be taken
while Egypt was its ally. It therefore boldly defled the
Assyrians, who could only invest it on the land side. Furi
ous at being thus balked, Esarhaddon resolved to invade and
» Like the Queen of Sheba.
» Annals, 1st inscription, col. 2 ; 2d inscription, col. 3.

72 [the GEEAT PEESECUTION.
conquer Egypt itself. Marching along the sea-coast, and
across the desert, amidst the greatest privations fer want of
water, he at last met the eneray, near Askalon, in the Philis
tine country, and overcame him. Pressing on, other defeats
in Egyptian territory forced Tirhakah te flee to his old capi
tal, Napata, in Ethiopia. ' Memphis now fell into the hands
of the conqueror, whe made it his capital, and Tirhakah's
empire was fer a time overthrown. The whole country was
then broken up into twenty districts, each with its own
king — Neche, of Sais, being raised over all, as their chief,
with Memphis for his capital ; an anticipation ef the Mame
luke system, at the close of last century, when twenty-four
beys held the whele kingdom, and met from time to time,
under a president, at Cairo. Assyrian garrisons and pre
fects completed the new scheme ef government." Egypt
had at last been humbled. The affront offered to Nineveh,
centuries before, by the invasions of Thethmes III. and
Amenhetep II. , had been avenged, and the words ef Isaiah,
spoken in the reign of Hezekiah, had had their flrst fulfil
ment." Having thus crushed the one rival of his power," Esarhad-
> Smith, The Assyrian Eponym Canon, Ext. 39, p. 141.
2 Maspero, Bistoire Ancienne des peuples de V Orient, 2d ed. pp. 427-8.
s Isa. xix. See vol. iv. p. 394.
* Necho fought for Assyria against the Egyptian army of Tirhakah. That king is
painted red* on the monuments, not black ; and his queen, at his side, pours out
water to the ram-headed god Amen-Ea, and plays on the sistrum. His sister, like
himself, is not black, but red, on the monuments, as if the Ethiopian dynasty had
been of Egyptian descent. The great rock temple of Bessa seems to have been built
by him. It shews him offering incense to the god Anher, and fruit to the god Amen-
Ea and to Mut. He has ram's horns, like Alexander the Great, and like his prede
cessors, Sabaco and Barneses II. ; a claim to be the son of Amen-Ea— the ram-headed
god. A small oval of terra-cotta, found at Palmyra, has the name of Tirhakah on it.
Did his conquests extend so far? On a monument at Thebes he is represented as
conquering the Assyrians. He grasps the hair of ten Asiatic prisoners, who stand
bearded and holding daggers, while he is about to strike thera with his battle mace.
Dr. Birch, in Trans. Bib. Arch,, vii. 196, ff.

THE GEEAT PEESECUTION.

7.3

don returned to
Nineveh, leaving
behind him on the
rocks of the Dog
Eiver ef Phoenicia,
by the side ef the
triumphal tablets of
Eameses II., an in
scription, recounting
his own victories,and
proclaiming h i m -
self king of Egypt,
Thebes, and Ethio
pia." Satiated with
glory, he hence
forth devoted liim
self to the gentler
ambition of finish
ing his new palace,
which he made even

^ The royal umbrella is
held over his head by a
eunuch. A wild bull, just
shot down, or taken, lies at
his feet. The beardless fig
ures are eunuchs. T le one
in front has a fly flap, to
protect the king from an
noyance. » Oppert, Memoire mr les
Monuments de V Egypt et de
I'Assyrie, pp. 38-43, 80, ff.
E. de Eougg, Etude sur les
Monuments de Tharaka ;
Melanges d'' Archeologie
egyptienne et assyrienne,
Nov,, 1872, p. 16.

74 THE GEEAT PEESECUTION.
more magnificent than that built by his father Sennacherib ;
its vast aggregate of courts and halls covering more than
100 acres. The roofs were supported by beams ef cedar,
resting en columns of cypress, inlaid and strengthened by
bands of sculptured silver and iron ; its gates were guarded
by huge lions and bulls sculptured in stone ; its doers were
of ebony and cypress incrusted with iron, silver, and ivory.
But meanwhile his health gave way. Anxious, therefore,
te propitiate the gods, new that his life was ebbing, he built
throughout the country no fewer thau thirty-six temples
" covered with plates ef geld and silver, and glittering like
the sun." ' On the 12 Tyyar, er April, B.C. 670, he sum
moned round him a great assembly of the dignitaries ef the
empire, at Nineveh, and formally associated with himself,
as co-ruler, his sen Assurbanipal, whom the Greeks knew
as Sardanapalus. But his day was well-nigh over. He had
fallen seriously ill ; in b.c 669 his health gave way, and,
after pining for a time amidst the splendour, he retired to
Babylon," where he died in the next year, B.C. 668.
¦" G. Smith, Zeitschrift, etc., 1868, pp. 94, 95. » Maspero, p. 428.

CHAPTER IV.
THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH.
After Esarhaddon's return from Egypt, he resolved, as
we have seen, to preclude such troubles respecting the succes
sion as had darkened the opening of his own reign, by asso
ciating with himself, in the government, his eldest son,
Assurbanipal, afterwards the greatest of the Assyrian kings.
Like Sapor in after-times, he had been named king before
his birth, and the ceremony of his installation was accom
panied with extraordinary pomp.
Meanwhile bad news arrived from Egypt. Esarhaddon
had scarcely left it before Tirhakah ence more seized Thebes
and Memphis, which fell after a bloody siege ; ' the kings
and governors se lately appointed, fleeing before him to the
desert. The condition of the Nile valley had come to be
exactly that which Isaiah had foretold. The twenty Assy
rian satraps were constantly plotting against their over-lord
at Nineveh, and flghting among themselves. The country
was divided into hostile kingdoms, which fought " every ene
against his brether, and every one against his neighbour, city
against city, and kingdom against kingdom." For about
twenty years the unhappy land was wasted with flre and
sword. Tirhakah on the south, and the rebellious Assyrian
kinglets in the rest of the Nile valley, required the return
of the Assyrians from their Palestine garrisons, ence and
' Oppert, Les Sargonides, p. 57.

76 THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH.
again, to restore order. At last the formal reconquest of the
Nile was necessary, and Assurbanipal at once undertook it.
Twenty-two kings of Palestine and Cyprus, he tells us,
gathered, to pay their tribute to him, when he reached the
Mediterranean ceast, about 667 or 666 ; Manasseh among
them." Under his father, Tyre had been invested en the
land side by an Assyrian army, but its king new submitted
to pay tribute, and operations against him ceased. "The
towers I had raised, I pulled down," says the Great King ;
" on sea and land all his roads that I had taken I opened,
and I received his abundant tribute." " Collecting the con
tingents of the Syrian and Palestine vassals, he new pressed
on, by the coast road, te Egypt, and, having defeated the
army sent to check his advance, forced Tirhakah to evacu
ate, first Memphis, and then Thebes, te which the Assyrians,
reinforced by the contingents of the dispossessed satraps,
ascended in a flotilla ; the passage being accomplished in
forty days. The old arrangements ef Esarhaddon were
forthwith restored ; twenty vassal kings were set ence more
ever as many districts, but heavier tribute than before was
imposed, and stronger garrisons placed in the different
cities, to keep Tirhakah from invading the land again from
the Soudan, te his capital Napata, to which he had been
forced to flee.
Hardly had the Great King returned to Nineveh, how
ever, before a revolt, stirred up by the restless intrigues of
the petty rulers, broke out again on the Nile. The native
kinglets, galled hy the Assyrian yoke, sent emissaries, in
viting Tirhakah to come back, and undertaking to re-estab
lish him on the throne ef the Pharaohs, if he left them
> The title " King of Judah," remains ; the king's name is lost, but it must have
been Manasseh.
' Annals qf Assurbanipal, Records of the Past , vol. lx. p. 40.

THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH. 77
undisturbed in their principalities. Of this league, Necho,
the chief ef the kings first appointed by Esarhaddon, was
the soul. The capture of a messenger sent to Tirhakah,
however, revealed the conspiracy before it was xipe, and
Necho, with some other leaders, was seized and sent iu
chains to Nineveh.
"My generals," says Assurbanipal, "heard of the plot,
and having captured their messengers and despatches, saw
their seditious work. These chiefs they took and bound
their hands and feet in bends and fetters ef iron, and sent
them to Nineveh." The Assyrian generals speedily quelled
the rising, throwing down the walls of the rebellious cities,
and kiUing great numbers of their inhabitants. Assurban
ipal, moreover, tried to check the invader for the future by
an unexpected step. Instead of putting Neche to death, he
restored him to favour, "as the representative ef the old
royal family of Egypt." "Costly garments," he tells us,
" I put ori him, and ornaments of gold ; his royal image I
made for him ; rings of gold I fastened en his feet ; a sword
of steel in a geld sheath I gave him, with more, besides,
than I could write, for the glory ef my name." Thus loaded
with honours, he was sent back to Egypt, in company with
a staff of military men and officials, and under stricter con
ditions ef vassalage than before. Paralyzed by this step,
and, it is said, warned in a dream,' Tirhakah, new eld, gave
up the contest and retumed to the Soudan, where he soon
after died," after a reign of twenty-six years.
But a new and vigorous leader at once took the place ef
the brave Ethiopian ; Eut- Ammen, a son ef Tirhakah's
sister and of Sabake, the So of Scripture. Having retaken
> Herod., iL 139. The name Babako has been substituted for Tirhakah.
s Assurbanipal says, " he went to hia place of night."

78 THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH.
Thebes, he pushed on te Memphis, and took it after a long
siege, in which Neche fell into his hands and was put te
death ; Psammetichus, his sen, ene of the petty kings, only
saving his life by flight te Syria." Egypt was ence mere
delivered from the Assyrian.
Assurbanipal was thus forced te undertake a second
great expedition te the Nile ; but his mere presence was
enough to scare away Eut-Ammen from Memphis, and
make it open its gates once mere to the invader. The
kings, prefects, and governors, set up by Assyria, dissem
bling their late treason, returned and renewed their sub
mission. The tide ef conquest then rolled on towards the
south. The Assyrians once mere ascended the Nile, and
assailed Thebes, which had yielded te the "rebel," and now
bore the full vengeance of the monarch it had betrayed.
Abandoned by Eut-Ammon, as Memphis had been, it could
offer ne resistance, and was ruthlessly plundered.
Thebes, er, in Old Egyptian, Tepe — this being its public,
as "Ne" was its sacred name — ^lay on both sides of the Nile,
which is 1,500 feet bread at the spot. The Libyan and
Arabian hills en the two sides ef the river retire from it
at this place, leaving a plain on which there are now nine
larger and smaller villages, with scattered clumps of d6m
and date palms, and spots of rude culture, near the water's
edge. On the left side ef the river, as you ascend it, lay
the great city ; and opposite it, en the ether shore, stretched
away its city of the dead, running up into the desolate,
blinding white limestone hills, threaded by the "Valley ef
the Tombs ef the Kings," the sides ef which were even then
pierced by vast excavations, wondrously sculptured and
painted, where the Pharaohs ef ancient days lay, each in his
' Maspero, p. 430.

THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH. 79
glory — huge, tunnel-like caverns, descending,' as in the case
of the tomb of Sesostris, hundreds ef feet into the bowels of
the mountain. On the Thebes side of the river, temples
and palaces rose in magnificence unimaginable to those who
have not seen their wonderful ruins, which are scattered
over mUes, from Luxor te Karnak. But the day of visita
tion of the city of the gi'eat god Amon had come. "In
trust on Assur, Sur, and the great gods, my lords,'" says
Assurbanipal, " my troops defeated Eut-Ammon in a great
battle, on a wide plain, and overcame his army. He then fled
alone and betook himself to No, his royal city. My troops
followed him in a march of a month and ten days, over
dreadful roads, and took that city in its whole circuit, and
drove the enemy away like chaff. Gold and silver as the
dust of their land; vessels, of metal; precious stones, the
plunder of the palace, garments of Berem, . . . great
horses, men and women, in countless numbers I led away
to captivity to Nineveh, my capital, bringing them safely
thither, and they kissed my feet. Twe lefty obelisks, cov
ered with carving, 2,500 talents — that is, about seventy tons
— ^in weight, I carried ofl to Nineveh." ' The spoil was im
mense. The city was swept as if by a fiood." Nahum, the
prophet, who wrote a little later, pictures the completeness of
its destraction. Addressing Nineveh, he says : " Art thou
better than No-Amon," that was enthroned amidst the canals
of the Nile, surrounded by waters, whose walls and bulwarks
were bread sea-like streams ? Cush — that is, the Soudan —
and Upper and Lower Egypt, were her exhaustless strength ;
Punt (that is, Somali land)' and Libya were her allies. But
• Annals of Assurbanipal, col. iL ^ Oppert, Memoire, etc.
' Thebes was No-Amon, "the seat or city belonging to the sun-god Amon."
Miihlau und Volck. So also the Septuagint.
* Ebers understands by Punt, " vassal tribes of Arabs." In Eiehm It is spoken of

'80 THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH.
she has gone away captive into exile ; her young children
were dashed in pieces at every corner of her streets ; they cast
lots for her nobles, ivho weuld have them as menial slaves ;
all her great citizens were carried off bound in chains."'
The destruction of Thebes took place about the year B.C.
665, towards the middle of the reign ef Manasseh, and
created an immense excitement over all Western Asia.
"War was now to come even nearer Judah. Tyre had
again been refractory, and was once mere besieged. " Baal,
king ef Tyre," says the record, " had disregarded my royal
will, and weuld not hear the words of my lips. I raised
towers round him on sea aud land, seized his reads, and
forced him to submit te my yoke." The water ef the city
had been cut off, and this compelled a surrender. Its king
had trusted te help from Egypt, but that kingdom was new
powerless. Yahimelek, the heir apparent, Baal's own daugh-
as a race living west of the Libyans, themselves next to the west side of the Egyp
tian Delta. Knobel thinks that it was the modem Turkish pro\ance ot Hejaz, run
ning back from the coast of the Eed Sea, on the north half of its eastern side. The
people of Punt sold themselves largely as mercenaries to Tyre and other powers ;
taking part, for example, under the standard of Egypt, in the battle of Carchemisb,
(Jer. xlvi. 9. Ezek. xxvii. 10; xxx. 5), though at other times fighting against her.
They were also famous as traders in the markets of Tyre, Bending thither the prod
uce of their turquoise mines, which were famous over the world, and exporting large
quantities of incense, for which their country bore a high repute. The inscriptions
and pictures on the monuments represent them as wandering tribes of a deep brown
colour, and strictly distinguish them from the settled Cnshitep, on whose confines
they lived. Indeed, the name Punt, which means " flight," accurately marks their
nomadic habits.
A hundred and ninety photographs, including about three hundred and sixty faces,
have been taken from Egyptian monuments by Mr. Petrie, who says {Bab. and
Orient. Record, ii. 134-137) that the people of Punt (" on both shores of the south part
of the Eed Sea " — in this differing fi-om Knobel, as already quoted) have a strong
reserablance to Egyptians of the higher class. There were two races in ancient
Egypt, one with au aquiline nose and fine expression, the other with a profile retreat
ing from the chin and a "snouty " nose. The aquiline type is identical with the
people of Punt. It seems, indeed, far from impossible that the civilization of Egypt
was due to a Punt race penetrating to Abydos by the Kosseir road, and so originating
the early dynasties of the Nile valley. Sayee says Punt was on the Somali coast.
For Libya the Hebrew has Phut.
' Nah. iii. 8-10.

THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH. 81
ter, and the daughters ef his brothers, with large sums ef
money, were sent eut to the camp ef Assurbanipal, and put
in his hands. The prince he restored ; the princesses he
sent to his harem. Other kings, including, no doubt, Ma
nasseh, now hastened to submit to the conqueror, most of
them seeking, like the king ef Tyre, te propitiate him by
giving one ef their daughters to him as a concubine ; them
selves humbly kissing his feet.
The glory of a king thus uniformly victorious spread
through all lands. The king of Tubal, in Armenia, sent
him one of his daughters, and voluntarily paid a tribute
of horses ; the king of Cilicia, in Asia Minor, also sent a
daughter. Envoys from Gyges, the king ef Lydia, in the
south-west ef Asia Minor, tendered their master's homage ;
but, as it proved, this friendliness was short-lived. Ere
long, Gyges was an ally of Egypt against Assyria.
The pacification of the Nile valley was only momentary.
Psammetichus, the son ef Necho, and now head ef the old
Egyptian royal family, impatient of an inferior position, re
solved to crush the petty chiefs around him, who were now
reduced to twelve in number ; and was able to secure a con
tingent of Greeks — chiefly Carians and lonians, from Gyges
— to aid his native force. The Lydian king had noticed
the constant disturbances in the Assyrian provinces, and
feeling assured that Egypt could not be permanently held,
at such a distance from Nineveh, threw his influence inte
the scale against it. With such assistance, the Assyrian gar
risons were seen expelled, never again te enter the Nile
valley. Psammetichus ascended the throne on the 14th Feb
ruary, B.C. 664,' while Manasseh had still twenty-four years
1 Ebers' Aeg. Ednigstochter, vol. i. p. 211. Brugsch says, b.c. 666. History, vol. ii.
p. 277. VOL. V.-8

82 THE LATER YEAES OF MANASSEH.
to reign. Henceforth Greek mercenaries played a promi
nent part in the history of Egypt. It had lost its foreign
conquests, but Psammetichus energetically strove to put it
into a secure state of defence on all its frontiers. Hence
forth the capital was no longer at Thebes, or up the Nile,
but in the Delta, near the sea. Palestine was apparently left
undisturbed, except by a tedious siege, or rather investment,
carried on against Ashdod or Azotus, for twenty-nine years.
But his long reign marks a renewed vigour, which was after
wards to have great results. Architecture, literature, and
the arts, were nobly encouraged, for even Egypt was begin
ning to feel the influence of foreign nations ; thanks to the
fondness of Psammetichus for the Greeks. The introduc
tion of a new form of handwriting — the demotic or popular
— instead ef the cumbrous hieroglyphics, and of the hieratic,
or sacred "hand," of the past, was enly a sign of the new life
astir in all directions. From this time, however, for nearly
a century, Egypt disappeared from the political horizon of
Jewish history.
It would be of little use to follow in detail the story of
Assurbauipal's later campaigns, after his capture of Tyre.
He might almost have claimed the honour of being the chief
desolator that had hitherto afflicted the nations. His annals
breathe only a ferocious ambition to be the lord of the world,
at any cost to mankind. In Minni, a region bordering on
Armenia, he tells us, he threw down, destroyed, and burnt
towns witheut number ; and carried off people, horses, asses,
oxen, and sheep, as spoil. The country, he laid waste along
fifteen days' march, and te crown all, its king was killed by
his own attendants, as the Assyrians approached, and his
corpse torn in pieces ; his brothers, his relatives, and all his
connections being also murdered.

THE LATEE YEAES OF MAN.VSSEH. 83
The Scythians of Gog,' the name given to a race, living,
it would seem, in the wide region from the north-eastern
steppes of Central Asia to those of Southern Eussia, next
suffered. Kiepert assigns them the tracts north of the
Hindoo Kusch, now part of Turkestan," where they were
known as the Saka ; but Western Asia had te do, mere im
mediately, with those from the vast plains of South-western
Europe. From these wild regions a flood ef barbarians
swept out, even as far as to the plains and mountains of
Elam, east of the Tigris, at its entrance into the Persian
Gulf. The whele land, we are told, was " overwhelmed
with the shock of the terrible storm," the king beheaded,
fighting men without number slain, and the waters of the
Ulai" choked with their corpses. Teumann, the king of
Elam, it appears, had resolved to invade Assyria. But, says
Assurbanipal —
" I prayed to the lofty Istar . . . and she came to save me. I
said, ' Goddess of Arbela, 1 am Assurbanipal, king of Assyria, the
work of thy hands. I delight in thy courts.' Teumann, king of
Elam, hater of the gods, has gathered his army, and prepared for
war. He orders his soldiers to go to Assyria. 0 thou Archer of the
gods, throw him down, and crush him like a weight in the midst of
the battle, tear ..."
" My acceptable prayer Istar heard. ' Fear not,' said she, and
caused my heart to rejoice. ' At the lifting up of thy hand thine eyes
shall be satisfied with my judgments on thine enemies. I will grant
thee favour.'
" Moreover, in the dead of the very night when I thus invoked her,
a seer, while asleep, dreamed, and, behold, Istar spoke to him, and he
repeated it to me. She entered, surrounded with glory, holding a
bow in her hand ; its mighty arrow on the string, and her countenance
set. Then she spoke. ' Carry off the spoil. I will come to the place
1 Ezek. xxxviii. 2. " JUlas Antiguns, Map ii.
' Dan. viii. 3. The EnlSus. It flowed past Susa in Persia, and falls into the united
Tigris and Euphrates. It is now the Karun and was a river of ancient Elam. Muhlau
u. Volck, and Wo lag das Parodies, p. 329. < See Pe. Ixxxiv. 10.

84 THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH.
set before thee. I will go with thee. I will guard thee. I will rest
in my place in the temple of Nebo, eating food, drinking wine, enjoy
ing music, and glorifying my divinity till I go with thee. I will cause
thee to have the desire of thy heart.' ' Do not regard thy life. In
the midst of battle she, of her loving goodness, protects thee, and over
throws all who resist."
The victory that followed was, ef course, attributed to
the favour of the goddess. Leaving the desolated country,
Assurbanipal turned against the king of Gambulu, ene of
the allies of the king ef Elam, en the marshes of the lower
Euphrates,' and swept it " like a hailstorm." Dimann, the
king, his brothers, his wife, sens, daughters, concubines,
singing men and singing women, he toek alive, and sacked
the palace. The head of Teumann was hung round the
neck of Dimann, and the Assyrian army returned to Nine
veh, amidst great rejoicings, " with the conquests ef Elam
and the spoils of Gambulu, musicians making music." The
great men of both countries were then brought before Assur
banipal ; the head of Teumann having meanwhile been fixed
over the great front gate of Nineveh. One of the Elam
ite nobles, happier than the rest, was able to kill himself
with his own sword. The tongues ef Dimann and ef other
chief cajstives were torn out, and they were then skinned,
while yet alive, except Dimann, who was roasted te death
over a furnace. His unfortunate brothers were also put to
death, and, after being quartered, the pieces were sent to
different places. Other prisoners ef name were crushed
to death before the great gate "in the midst of Nineveh,"
by their own attendants, who were forced to perform the
hideous task. Such were the ideas of a triumph then ; but
war and victory are very little better in any age. They are,
at all times, the sum of all villanies !
' Ps. xxxvii, 4. » Wo lag das Paradies, p. 840.

THB LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH. 85
During the years in which the.?e ceaseless campaigns were
drenching wide regions -with blood, Manasseh was reigning
in Judah, and bitter persecution of the worshippers of
Jehovah still continued. He was at last, however, to feel
that the vengeance of God may overtake the sinner, even
in tbis life.
Assurbanipal had appointed his younger brother Saul-
mugina to be king of Babylon,' but only as a subordinate,
required to address his .superior at Nineveh as "the king,
my lord." But such a position did not satisfy the viceroy,
and he aspired to independence. In the wars with Elam
and Gambulu he had supplied soldiers to the enemy, and
he had also sent emissaries te form a league against Assur
banipal among all the nations, from the Euphrates to the
Mediterranean ; as Merodach Baladan had dene in the
reign of Hezekiah. '¦ The people of Akkad, Chaldaea,
Aram," and the sea-coast " on the west, and " from the Eed
Sea to the Persian Gulf " on the south, " tributaries depend
ent on me," says the Great King, " he caused to revolt
against my hand." " The kings of the Goim, of Syria, and
of Ethiopia, he caused to rebel, and they set their faces -n-ith
him." A great crisis had risen. The whole empire was
agitated. Egypt had been already lost hy the triumph of
Psammetichus. The sovereignty of the world now threat
ened to pass to Saulmugina, at Babylon.
But Assurbanipal was equal to the emergency. At the
head of an army he crushed the revolters in one direction,
while different hosts, under his generals, defeated and hum
bled them in others. Arabia was invaded, and " swept bare
^ by a desolating flood." " Tents, pavilions, dweUings,"
» He had, in fact, been appointed by hia father, Esarhaddon, bnt Assurbanipal
confirmed tbe appointment.
' Syria in the widest sense.

86 THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH.
were given to the flames. Oxen, sheep, asses, camels, and
men were carried off in such numbers, that a camel was sold
in front of the gate of Nineveh for half a silver shekel, and
slaves were correspondingly witheut value. The few who
escaped the invaders were reduced to such misery, that they
were forced to eat the flesh of their children. Ammuladin,
king ef Kedar, in Northern Arabia, was defeated by the king
of Moab, a vassal of Nineveh who remained faithful, and sent
to Nineveh with iron chains on his hands and feet.' Sip-
para, Babylon, Borsippa, and other cities, had been fortified
by Saulmugina, and were now besieged and taken by his
royal brother. Elam rose to help the great revolt, but it,
also, was crushed, in a battle which the Great King led in
person. Akkad was made so utter a wilderness that, as in
Arabia, the survivors betook themselves to cannibalism to
preserve life." At last, after a tremendous struggle over
widely separate regions, Saulmugina was taken alive, and
the rebellion collapsed.
The time fer vengeance had now come. Saulmugina him
self was thrown by his brother into a "flerce burning fire."
The tongues of great numbers of men were pulled out, aud
multitudes were thrown alive among the " stone lions and
bulls" in "a pit," or quarry; the fall from a height ap
parently being counted upon te kill them. But, whether
living or dead, their " limbs were cut off," and thrown to
" the dogs, bears, eagles, vultures, birds of heaven, and
fishes ef the deep ; till they grew fat en them." The great
men ef Babylon, Cutha, and Sippara, who had aided the
rebellion, were made slaves.
Among those who had listened te the overtures of Saul-
' Smith's Annals of Assurbanipal, col. viii. lines 43, 4i.
s Smith's .in nals of Assurbanipal, col. iv. lines 100, 101.

THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH.

87

mugina, Manasseh seems te have compromised himself, as
one of the kings ef the " sea-coast." The Assyrian general
in Palestine, therefore, having get him, by some means, inte
his power, sent him, like the other rebel princes, in chains,
to the Euphrates, for judgment. He
seems, indeed, for seme special reason, to
have been treated with exceptional stern
ness. His feet were bound with fetters ;
his hands with manacles, and a ring, to
which a cord was attached, was passed
through his lips er nostril, to lead him
by it, as men led a wild beast." Isaiah
had told Hezekiah that Jehovah would
put His hook in the nose of Sennacherib,
and His bridle in his lips, and turn him
back by the way he had come," and Eze
kiel, hereafter, was te tell the Pharaoh
that he weuld have hooks put in his
jaws, as was done with the huge crocodile of his own
canals ; " and te denounce other princes in the same terms."
This contemptuous torture new fell on ene whe had been as
bitter an enemy to Jehovah, as any of the heathen, and in
this plight he was led off with a multitude of captives to the
East ; his special place of captivity being Babylon,^ which, as
we have seen, had long been the residence ef the Assyrian
kings for the half of each year. That the Egyptian lean-
1 This is the meaning given by Fiirst and by Muhlau and Volck, the latest author
ities, to the word- hoah, translated in our version " among the thorns." 3 Chron.
xxxiii. 11. The hoah was a ring or hook passed throngh the nose of large fishes when
they were put into the water again, to be kept till needed. Joh xli. 2, where "thorn "
(hoah) = ring or hook. The meaning; " thorns," wliich is correct in some passages,
came from their hook-like form and sharpness, as our word "thorn" comes from a
r.iot meaning " that which pierces."
2 2 Kings xix. 28. Isa. xxxvii. 33. ' Ezek. xxix. 4. < Ezek. xxxviii. 4.
5 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11.

A Prisoner manacled
AND FETTERED.

88 THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH.
ings of the Jewish king, shewn so strikingly in the name ef
Amon, given to his son, should have led him to plot against
Assyria, is probable. In the figurative language of the
prophet, he had gene " in the way of Egypt, to drink the
waters ef the Nile." ' The intrigues of Saulmugina, ceming
after the loss ef Egypt te Assyria, by the successful revolt
of Psammetichus, would find the Jewish king, like ether
princes of Syria and the sea-coast, ready to listen to them,
as his father had listened te these of Merodach Baladan, from
the same region.
The rebellion of Saulmugina fixes the year B.C. 648 as the
date of Manasseh's defection ; his deportation to Babylon fol
lowing in the year after." He had now reigned about forty-
seven years and was nearly sixty years old ; with no prospect
before him, as it seemed, but a violent and shameful death.
Hew he was at first treated is unknown, but he must have
been for a time kept in misery and degradation, if we may
judge from his subsequent history. The gods he had trusted
in Jerusalem had been helpless to save him, while Jehovah,
whom he had insulted, had delivered his father from the
hands ef Sennacherib. Humbled to the dust, he realized,
fer the first time, the greatness ef his sins, and " besought
Jehovah, as new his own Ged, and humbled himself greatly
before the God ef his fathers, and prayed unto Him." Nor
Avas the penitence of even so great a sinner rejected. Assur
banipal had, before this, shewn faveur to Necho ef Egypt,
brought to Nineveh under similar circumstances," and was
' Jer. ii. 18. Sihor (black, muddy) = Nile.
' See Keilinschriften, pp. 240, ff., for a vindication of tbe historical character of the
passage in Chronicles respecting Manasseh's captivity. How weighty, tbe fact tbat
a critic so keen as Schrader should defend aji incident which had been long relied
npon by the advanced school, as a striking in^tance of the unhistorical character of
passages in that book! Also, see Dictionary of Bible, art. "Manasseh ; " and
Thenius, Die Biicher der Ednige, on the verses. s gee page 77.

THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH. 89
induced, perhaps from the wish to defend himself, en the
side of Egypt, by one who might henceforth be a useful ally,
to restore Manasseh to his kingdom. " God was intreated "
of the captive, says the sacred chronicler, " and heard his sup
plication, and brought him again to Jerusalem, into his king
dom." " Then," it is added, " Manasseh knew that Jehovah
is God." ' A prayer, said to have been uttered by him in
his trouble, is still extant in Greek, and is included in the
apocryphal books of the German and English Churches.
It may be that this composition, though thus doubtful, is a
transcript of- words understood to have been used by him,
for it is expressly said in Chronicles " that his prayer was both
in the " Book ef the Kings of Israel," and in the collection
ef the words of Hozai, a famous prophet of the day." The
oldest trace of its existence, however, is found in the Apos
tolic Constitutions.* Fritzsche, a great authority, thinks it
dates at least from before the Christian era, when so many
apocryphal writings were comjiosed by Greek-speaking Egyp
tian Jews.' Presenting, as it does, however, a glimpse of
ancient Jewish religious life and thought, it helps us to
realize, in some measure, what must have been in the mind
of the humbled eld man in his lonely exile. Slightly ampli
fied, for the sake of clearness, it runs thus :
"0 Lord Almighty, the God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, and of their righteous seed, who hast made heaven and earth,
and all their wonders; ° who hast chained the sea (within its appointed
limits) by the word of Thy command; who hast set confines to the
' 2 Chron. xxxiii. 12, 13. ' 2 Chron. xxxiii. 18, 19.
3 For "the seers," 2 Chron. xxxiii. 19, read "Hozai."
' Bk. ii. 22. The earlier of the eight boolis of the so-called Apostolic Constitutions
are ascribed, by different authorities, to various dates, from the end of the flrst cent
ury to the end of the third of our era. Apos. Const, in Herzog, vol. i. pp. 449, ff.
• Exeg. Bondbuch zu den Apak., vol. i. p. 153.
• Literally, "economy," laws, order, etc.

90 THE LATEE YEAES OF MANASSEH.
bottomless abyss, and sealed it up by Thine awful and glorious Name;
before whom all things feel a holy fear, trembling before the sight of
Thy power; for the greatness of Thy glory is overwhelming, and Thy
angry threatening against sinners cannot bc endured ; but Thy merci
ful promise is immeasurable and unsearchable ; for Thou art the
Lord Most High, of great compassion, long-suffeiing, very merciful,
and repentest Thee of the evils suffered by man.
' ' Thou, 0 Lord, according to the abundance of Thy goodness, hast
promised repentance and forgiveness to them that have sinned against
Thee, and in the fulness of Thy mercies, hast appointed repentance to
sinners, that they may be saved. Thou, therefore, 0 Lord, the God of
the just, hast not appointed repentance for the just ; for such as
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, who have not sinned against Thee ; '
but Thou hast appointed repentance for me, the sinner; for I have
sinned above the number of the sands of the sea. My transgressions,
0 Lord, are multiplied ; they are multiplied, and I am not worthy to
gaze upon or behold the height of heaven — Thy dwelling-place— for
the multitude of my iniquities. I am bowed down by many chains of
iron so that I cannot lift up my head, and there is no rest for me; for
I have provoked thine anger, and done evil in Thy sight, in not doing
Thy will and not keeping Thy commandments; in having set up
abominations, ' and having multiplied objects of Thine abhor
rence. "Now, therefore, I bow the knee of mine heart, imploring Thy
grace. I have sinned, 0 Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge my
transgressions. Wherefore, I humbly beseech Thee, foi-give me, 0
Lord; forgive me, and destroy me not utterly in my iniquities. Store
not up evil against me for ever, in anger, and condemn rae not to go
down to the depths of Sheol. For Thou art God, the God of the peni
tent, and in me Thou wilt shew forth all Thy goodness, for Thou wilt
save me, unworthy though I be, in the greatness of Thy mercy. And
I will praise Thee continually, all the days of my life; for all the
Powers of the heavens extol Thee, and Thine is the glory, for ever and
ever. Amen."
On his return, the change in Manasseh's feelings shewed
itself strikingly. Persecution was at once stayed. The
' The "perfect justness " of Abraham and those like him, is an idea ot later Juda
ism. See Luke v. 32; xv. 7, etc.
2 Idols.

THE LATEE YEAES OF MANA33EH. 91
foreign idols he had set up in Jerusalem and even in the
temple, and also their altars, were taken away ; the altar of
Jehovah was replaced and sacrifices offered on it, apparently
by himself, while Judah was commanded to serve .Jehovah
alone. The high plac^, through the land, however, were
suffered to remain, though only permitted to be used for sac
rifices to Jehovah.' Bnt the evil he had done had rooted
itself too deeply to be easily counteracted.
Thk change of religious poUcy was accompanied with a
healthier feeUng in political affairs. The neighbouring
lands, which had been more or less dependent since the days
of Uzziah, had thrown off the yoke of Judah, under the
weak rule that had latterly prevailed. Philistia, Edom,
Moab, and Ammon were not only independent, but more
audacious in their bearing than ever before," and henceforth
maintained their freedom, except, as has been said, for a
short time under Josiah. But if they could not be subdued,
their inroads could at least be checked. Garrisons were
therefore placed in all the fortified towns, and an outer waU
built round the City of David," the earlier wall of Hezekiah
having been perhaps broken down, if, indeed, it had ever
been finished ; and the outer ef the two courts designed by
Solomon to enclose the temple, but left unfinished since his
time, was now at last completed.
Nothing, however, could obliterate the memory of the
past. The very name of Manasseh continued to be ab
horred, and was used instead of that of Closes, when a
dishonourable one was sought to shield that of the great
lawgiver.' He is one of the kings whom the Eabbis held
1 2 Chron. Tirriii, 15-17.
' Zeph. li. 4-19. Jer. xlviL 1 ; xlix, 22 ; xxv. 20.
> 2 Chron. xxxiii- 14.
t In Judg. xvii. 30, " Manasseh "' is substitut'jd for " Moses." See vol. ii. p. 520.

92 THE LATEE YEARS OF MANASSEH.
to have no part in the life to come — the others being Jero
boam and Ahab. At his death, moreover, he Avas buried
in the garden ef his own house,' not in the City ef David,
among his ancestors. 1 Septuagint.

CHAPTEE V.
AMON AND THE FIEST YEARS OF JOSIAH.
Judah.

Auth. Version.

Riehm.

Schenkel.

Steiner.

Amon, ....
Josiah, . . .

B.C. 643-641 641-609

(Same)
641-610

643-640 640-609

643-611

Egypt. Assyria.
Psammetichus, . . b.c. 664-612 Assurbanipal, b.c 668-648 ?
(Schrader says, 666-613). The remaining kings of Xineveh
Necho II., .... 613-596 are hardly known. Sayee gives
the following names and dates:
Assur-etil-ilani-yukixni, son of
Assurbanipal,' . . B.C. 608-648
SiN-SARRA-ISKUX, .... 648?
Esarhaddon II. (Sarakos of
the Greeks)  ?
Destruction of Nineveh, . . 606
(But see other authorities, p. 113.)
The long reign of Manasseh, extending over mere than
half a century, had greatly demoralized the kingdom. A
gross and sensual idolatry had sapped ancient morals and
corrupted the whole fabric of society. The enthusiasm of
a vigorous minority had effected an outward reform under
Hezekiah, but this restraint had been gladly thrown off by
the bulk of the people, under his son. Nations as a whole
have, in all ages, refused te sustain fer any length of time
1 Oppert gives the name as Assuredilili, or Sardanapalus II. Schrader supposes
he was the only king afler Assurbanipal.

94 AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH.
a high morality, which curtails their self-indulgence and
imposes strictness of life. Puritanism, in its sincerity, is
always limited to a narrow section, and a reaction against
it, when the opportunity offers, is certain.
Hezekiah seems at his death to have had several sons,' but
we know nothing of any of them except Manasseh, whose
birth, twelve years before the close ef his father's reign,
seems to have been hailed by him as that of the destined
heir to the throne, perhaps from the special love he bore to
his mother. Queen Hephzibah. It is quite possible, however,
that he was not the eldest, and that his brothers, born of
varieus mothers, may have been set aside by the palace in
trigues ef the heathen court party, that they might secure
a child-king, in whose name the abuses they had cherished
under Ahaz could be easily re-introduced.
At Manasseh's death, however, no danger ef any change
of public policy seemed likely. The heathen faction, in
cluding the chiefs of the kingdom, having held power and
consolidated their influence for mere than fifty years, could
control the new king as they pleased. Amon, therefore, the
late king's son, a young man ef twenty-two years of age, as
cended the throne peaceably. His mother, Meshnllemeth,
" the friend (of God)," was the daughter of an unknown
father, Haruz, "the diligent," of Jotbah," the kindly," a vil
lage ef Judah. ° Amon himself seems te have been popular ;'
but, from whatever cause, he reused the enmity of the court
party. It could net be laid to his charge that he refused to
comply with the established heathenism, for it is expressly
said that he walked in his father's steps, and served and
worshipped the idols he had set up, " multiplying his tres-
1 2 Kings XX. 18. Isa. xxxviii. 19.
2 5 Kings xxi. 19-26. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 21-25. Jerome says that Jotbah was in
Judah. 3 a Kings xxi. 24.

AMON AND THE FIKST YEARS OF JOSIAH. 95
passes, and shewing none of the penitent humility ef Man
asseh's late years. It may be, however, that signs ef a serious
thoughtfulness, not as yet carried into outward act, alarmed
the dominant faction, for within two years he was cut off by
a palace conspiracy, like that by which his ancestor. King
Joash, perished.' But the success of his murderers was
short-lived. The common people ^ rose in arms, and, over
powering all opposition, seized and slew the actors in the
plot. Amon was buried with due honours in the tomb
built in the garden of Uzzah, where Manasseh already
rested. A great public assembly ef the nation " was then
convened, at which, in accordance with ancient usage, Jo
siah, the dead king's son, was elected to the throne, though
only eight years of age.
Under the child thus raised to the throne of David,
Judah was destined to enjoy its last brief glimpse of pros
perity before it finally sank into ruin." His mother,
Jedidah, " the beloved of God," the daughter of Adaiah,
" the honoured ef God," of the village ef Boscath, on the
rolling slopes of the Shephelah, near Lachish,' may, perhaps,
have deserved her lofty name, and given her boy the price
less benefit of a godly mother's example and counsels. But
even if, as the Gebirah, er Queen-Mother, she enjoyed the
first place in the court, her position and that of her sen must
have been very difficult. A strong party like that which had
so long controlled Judah, was dangerous te oppose in an
' Kings xii. 20.
¦^ Am-ha-aretzin. In Ezek. vii. 27 this phrase is used to distinguish the common
people from the higher classes. It latterly came to mean strictly the plebeians, the
mass of the people, and was used as a term of contempt, as our " boor " is the
German " baur," a peasant.
' B.C. 6.38. Thenius gives the date as e.o. 641.
< 2 Kings xxii.-xxiv. 3 Chron. xxxiv. -xxxv. Jer. i. -xii. Jos,, Ant., X. iv. 5.
' Josh. XV. 39. The queen-mother's family seems to have been one of no special
distinction.

96 AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH.
age when, as in the case of Amon, assassination inight speed
ily follow any signs of independence. Although, therefore,
Josiah, as we are told, shewed a religious bias even at his
accession, it was probably known only to his mother and
a few faithful adherents of the discredited faith of their
fathers, whe still ventured te gather round her.
Things, in fact, were rapidly growing even worse than
hitherto. The " princes of Judah" — that is, the heads of the
clans — and the royal family in all its wide ramifications, were
devoted to heathenism. New follies, introduced from differ
ent nations, were constantly coming into vogue. High
places to the goat-god of Egypt or to the hairy satyrs thought
to inhabit the deserts, were built at the gates of Jerusalem.'
The Philistine rite of leaping over the threshold ef holy
places was copied from the temple of Dagon,' and the mem
bers of the royal family, the nobles, and many others osten
tatiously dressed in foreign style ; adopting, doubtless, its
idolatrous emblems and ornaments. Violence and license
prevailed. The powerful oppressed the weak, perverted
justice, mocked at innocence, and sought by craft what they
could not attain by force. " Jerusalem," cried Zephaniah,"
"is rebellious, polluted, and oppressing. Her princes and
judges are like roaring lions and evening wolves, who leave
nothing for the morning. Her prophets are self-willed and
treacherous ; her priests have polluted the sanctuary and
done violence to the Law."
However well disposed, therefore, Josiah might be, as a
child, he was helpless for a time, alike from his tender years
and from the hatred around him to any reform. How dark
and prejudiced, moreover, must the mind of a boy of eight —
» 2 Kings xxiii. 8. Geiger and Graetz read " Seirim," satyrs, or goats, for
"Shiarim," gates; apparently on good grounds.
= Zeph. 1. 0. See vol. lii. p. 4-3. = Zeph. lii. 1, 8.

AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH. 97
the grandson of Manasseh, and son of Amen — have been ?
A change, if possible in the end, could be effected only by
patient waiting.
Tet, amidst the gloom, there was already a rift in the
clouds. The fierce persecution of Manasseh's reign had
ceased, and the scattered and hidden band ef the Faithful
once more gathered together, as the forlorn hope of religion.
They might be few, but they had been tried in the fire, and
glowed with earnest conviction. No disappointments could
shake their trust in Jehovah. To fear Him was with them
the beginning of wisdom. Patriots in the grandest sense,
they believed that the salvation ef their country depended
on its return to Him and active obedience te His Law. The
spirit ef the time still shews itself in some contemporary
compositions that have fortunately come down to us. The
tone of a circle which embraced men like the prophets Zeph
aniah, Nahum, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk, must have been
almost ideally lofty. Nor were these the only confessors in
those evil days. The thirty-seventh Psalm, among others,
has been assigned by various critics to this period.' Com
posed in a series of proverb-like sentences, the first word of
every verse beginning with the successive letters of the
Hebrew alphabet, it illustrates in its artificial form a pecu
liarity not uncommon in the later poetry of Scripture, while
its contents take us back to an age when evil appeared to
triumph, though hepe in God guided some, like a star,
through the darkness. It ran thus :
"XXXVII. 1. At evil doers fret not thyself ; '
At the prosperity of the wicked be not thou envious.
2. For like the grass they shall soon be cut down,
* It is ascribed to David in the title it now bears, but neither Delitzsch nor Moll
think this reliable. Hitzig and G. Baur think it was written " before Job "—that Is,
In Manasseh's reign. » Pa. xxxvii.
VOL. V.-7

98 AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH.
Like the herb, now green, they shall wither away.
3. Be trustful in God and di good,
Enjoy the peaceful quiet home in His own land,
Which God bestows on thee, and cherish faithfulness to Him.
4. Delight thyself also in Jehovah :
So shall He give thee the desires of thy heart.
5. Give to Jehovah the care of thy way ; '
Trust also in Him, and He will plan it for thee :
0. He will make thy uprightness clear as the light ;
Thy innocence as the noonday beam.
7. Dumb in thy stillness, rest thou in Jehovah; wait patiently for
Him ;
Pret not thyself about those who prosper in their way ;
At those who use their prosperity only to do evil.
8. Hold in thine anger and leave off thy wrath ;
Pret not thyself ; for that only leads thee to sin.
9. For evil doers shall be cut off ;
Bat they who trust in Jehovah shall inherit the land.
10. Wait but a little while and the wicked shall be no more ;
And if you seek for the place where he has been, he is no longer there.
11. But the meek will inherit the land.
And delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
"12. Should ^ the wicked plot against the godly.
And gnash upon him with his teeth —
13. The Lord shall laugh at him,
Por he sees that his day is coming.
" 14. Have ° the wicked unsheathed the sword and bent theu' bow.
To bring down the poor and helpless ; to slay such as walk up
rightly ?-
15. Home to their own heart shall go their sword ;
Their bows shall be broken !
" 16. Trifling though that may be which the righteous man has.
It is better than the riches of many wicked.
17. Por the arms of the wicked shall be broken.
But the righteous man is upheld by Jehovah.
" 18. Jehovah keeps note of the upright ;
Their inheritance will be theirs for ever.
1 Literally, " Roll thy way on Jehovah." = S for Z. » H for Ch,

ATION AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH. 99
19. They will not be ashamed in the evil time ;
In days of famine they shall be satisfied.
20. Complete destruction shall corae on the wicked ;
The enemies of Jehovah are as the fat sheep of the pastures ;
They shall vanish in smoke — ay, vanish away !
21. Iiet the wicked borrow (as he cannot help doing) — he cannot repay,'
But the upright, though gentle (to debtors), can give away.
22. Por the blessed of God shall inherit the land.
And whom He curses will be rooted out !
23. Meted out by Jehovah are the sure steps of such a man,
And He delighteth in his way.
24. If he stumble, he shall not fall utterly down.
For Jehovah holds him up by the hand.
25. Now old, I have once been young.
But I have never seen the godly forsaken.
Or His children begging bread ;
26. Ever merciful. He gives and lends each day.
And his posterity is blessed.
" 27. See that thou tum from evil and do good ;
So shalt thou dwell in the land for ever.
28. For Jehovah loves the right,
And never forsakes His saints ;
Evermore are they guarded by Him.
But the generation of the wicked shall be rooted ont.
29. The upright will inherit the land.
And dwell in it for ever.
" 30. Pious lips speak ever the true Wisdom ;
The tongue of the godly talketh of the Eight.
31. The law of their God is in their heart ; their steps are sure.
32. To ' slay the righteous is the bad man's work ;
For this he lies in wait and watches.
" 33. But Jehovah gives him not into his hand.
And even if he be condemned by man. He does not pronounce him
guilty.
"34. Cleave " with strong hope to Jehovah: keep His way;
1 He is sinking from depth to depth. Forced to borrow, he does not repay.
2 It should be " Ts," instead of T, but we have no such letter.
» Should be " K," to suit the Hebrew alphabet.

100 AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH.
So will He exalt thee to inherit the land.
And see with gladness the destruction of the wicked.
"35. Bough, wicked men' have I seen, great and terrible.
Spreading themselves like a tree full of sap, in its native soil.
36. Yet they passed away, and, Io, they were no more,
And though I sought them, they could not be found.
"37. Set^ thine eyes on the just man ; raark the upright;
This man of peace has a posterity after him.'
38. But evil doers shall be destroyed together:
The posterity of the wicked shall be cut off !
39. To Jehovah do the righteous owe their salvation from evil.
To Jehovah, their stronghold in the day of trouble !
40. Jehovah stands by them, and delivers them ;
Delivers them from the wicked and helps them.
Because they trust in Him."
The spiritual chaos in Judah, amidst which light was
slowly beginning to assert itself, was in keeping with the
tumult and confusion in the great political world of Asia
and Egypt. Assurbanipal still reigned at Nineveh, but his
vast military efforts, succeeding those ef so many of his
predecessors, had gone far to exhaust his empire, and bring
about its ultimate fall. His conquest of Egypt in the be
ginning of his reign, as we have seen, had scarcely survived
his departure from the banks of the Nile. Psammetichus
I., son of Neche I., had founded a new and victorious
dynasty in the land of the Pharaohs. After his father's
violent death,* Psammetichus, who had been Assyrian vice
roy ef Athribis — -one of the twenty districts into which
Egypt was at that time divided — had fled to Syria, but
Assurbanipal had, meanwhile, succeeded Esarhaddon, and
having restored Assyrian authority on the Nile,' appointed
' It should be in the singular. The plural is used to obtain the letter R.
2 Sbould be " Sh." ' His house is not cut off like that of the wicked.
¦• See page 82. = b.c. 665-665. Maspero, p. 430.

AMON .iND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH. 101
Psammetichus to the dignity his father had held, thougli
with less independent power.
But the new viceroy was not a man to remain willingly
subordinate. His triumph, by the help of Greek merce
naries, ever the mob of petty vassal kings around him, has
already been told. He new toek a step which secured not
enly his supremacy, but the stability of his House. Marry
ing the heiress of the dethroned Ethiopian dynasty, he
united its rival claims and those of the native Egyptian
House, as Henry VII. closed the strife between the Eed
and White Eoses by his marriage with Elizabeth of York.
Henceforth he was the legitimate king ef Upper and Lower
Egypt, and soon felt himself strong enough te rise against
the Assyrian garrisons, which he ere long expelled,' remain
ing master ef the whole country, from the First Cataract to
the Mediterranean, and founding the Saite line of kings —
the last of the great national dynasties ef Egypt. °
Busied with his eastern wars, Assurbanipal had no leis
ure to disturb Psammetichus in his hard-won independence.
Each year saw the Great King engaged in fresh cam
paigns against nations which resented his odious tyranny.
Over these he was able to record a succession of doubtful
triumphs, but they were gained with the very life-blood of
his empire. The crushing of Elam opened the way for the
rise of another power, that of the Medes, before which Nine
veh itself was one day to fall.
Elam — the High Land — was an extensive region en the
east side of the lower Tigris, bordered on the west by the
province ef Babylon, on the north by Assyria and Media,
and on the south by the Persian Gulf. It thus embraced
' B.C. 6-56. Maspero, p. 483.
^ Mispero, p. 4S3. E. de Roug^, Notice de quelgues tfxles hieroglyphiques recem-
ment publics par M. Greene, pp. 36-52.

102 AMON AND THE FIEST YEARS OF JOSIAH.
parts of the present Laristan, Ohusistan, and Arabistan ; a
picturesque, mountainous region : its capital, at least in
later times, being the famous city of Shushan, so often men
tioned in Daniel as a royal residence of the kings of Baby
lon, and in Esther as a favourite with the kings of Persia.
Like the Assyrians, the Elamites were of the Shemitic
stock, while the Medes, whose rise their predominance
had hitherto checked, were ef the Aryan race ; that which
embraces the Teutonic nations, including eur own. The
vast range of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountains, after
skirting the south of Asia Minor, trend south-east, as the
mountains of Kurdistan, and north-east, as those ef Ar
menia. There, the broad valley ef the Kur divides them
from the lefty Caucasus chain, which runs south-east, from
the Black Sea to the Caspian ; its highest summit. Mount
Elberz, rising te the height ef nearly 18,000 feet above the
sea. Another gigantic range, running nearly north and
south, and now forming the boundary between Kurdistan
and Persia, connects, in a rude triangle, the bifurcation of
the Armenian and Kurdish mountains, and after thus en
closing the wild upland region of the great salt lake. Van,
which lies 5,000 feet above the sea, continues in a south
east direction to the shores of the Indian Ocean. Opposite
this rampart of hills, at a distance of about 300 geographi
cal miles, the great range of Elborz — the "watch-towers*"
— stretches along the south of the Caspian Sea, trending
east and south-east till it mingles with the peaks of the
Hindoo Kusch ; Demavend, its loftiest summit, attaining
the awful height ef nearly 30,000 feet.
From the western side of this vast bed ef mountains, in
the long stretch of country once forming Assyria and Elam,
flow a succession of streams, cleaving through profound

AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH. 103
gorges and opening into fertile valleys, to form the tribu
taries of the Tigris. The regions to the east, on the other
hand, enjoy the shelter as of a huge wall, separating them
from the disputes and affairs of Western Asia. Lying under
the shadow of the highlands, at their northern extremity,
the great lake, Urumiyah, is formed by streams which pour
down from a network of lofty hills on all sides, filling a
basin 85 miles in length, and 25 in breadth. More than
4,000 feet above the sea,' and without any outlet, the waters
of this vast mountain lake, owing to evaporation, are so salt
that no fish can "live in them, while the shores sparkle with
salt crystals. The rest of the country, however, to the
south-east, is a vast rolling table-land, watered by a number
of streams, the borders of which are capable ef sustaining
a large population, though at a distance from them the soil
turns te a desert. The mountains produce copper, iron,
lead, rich marbles, and many varieties of precious stones.
Here and there naked, they are more frequently clothed
with thick forests, in which the pine, the oak, and the pop
lar, the oriental plane, the hazel, and the willow, mark the
descending zones of growth. The pear, the apple, the
quince, the cherry, the olive, the peach, and the melon,
seem indigenous, and flourish luxuriantly in some of the
richer valleys ; but trees ef a,ny kind, though abundant on
the mountain slopes, are scarce en the upper table-land,
except near streams or lakes. Wheat and vegetables of ex
cellent quality, with many subtropical plants, can, however,
be raised wherever irrigation is possible. Thus, as a whole,
the country is marked by the charms and defects of a moun-
' Maspero says (p. 452) that Lake Urumiyah is below the sea level, like the Dead
Sea, but he is under a mistake. Brockhaus' Leoeicon (vol. xiv. p. 942) says it ie 1,300
metres above the Mediterranean. Maspero has been misled, apparently, by its salt-
ncss, which has coupled it with the Dead Sea, in his mind, in more ways than one.

104 AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH.
tainous region. Fertile in some places, it is seamed in
others with ridges of bare hills incapable of cultivation, and
fertility everywhere depends en the presence ef water.'
This vast territory, even the valleys of which lie from
4,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea level — a region ef almost
Arctic cold in winter, but delightful in spring, and not op
pressively warm, in the uplands, even in summer, had been
originally inhabited, in common with the whole region of
modern Persia, by a Scythian race, related, distantly, in
language, to the modern Finns and Turks. These, hew-
ever, had been subjugated and driven out iu a remote age
by successive immigrations ef Aryans from regions new
unknown, but very probably from Eastern Eussia ; a race
brave and warlike, but for ages weakened by division into
independent tribes. The vast wall of mountains separating
them from the valley of the Tigris had net prevented As
syrian ambition from coveting their territory. Their early
traditions spoke of ene ef their kings as having been deposed
and crucified by an invader from Nineveh, and from the
time ef Tiglath-pileser I., in the twelfth century before
Christ, their land had been repeatedly desolated, its towns
sacked and burnt, numbers of its population slain, or car
ried off as slaves, and its fields swept of their flocks and
herds, by the armies of successive Assyrian invaders.
A leader was, however, at last found, able to weld the
medley of wild tribes inte a nation, and from that moment
Media took its place as a formidable power. In some clans
the subordinate chiefs had formed an oligarchy controlling
the nominal head ; in ethers, the sub-clans had been leagued
into rude confederate republics ; in still others, a government
very similar to that of the ancient Hebrews had obtained,
' Rawlinson's Great Monarchies, vol. iii. pp. 44- T2. Maspero, pp. 452, fE.

AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH. 105
the householder being responsible for his family ; the white-
beard or sheik for ten householders ; the Jiead of a sub-clan
for every ten er twelve sheiks ; a malik fer a certain number
of these under-chiefs ; a prince elected by these maliks ruling
over all. If we may credit Herodotus,' these various sys
tems were superseded by monarchy, through the influence
of one Deioces, towards the close ef the 8th century before
Christ, and his throne, it is said, passed quietly te his sen
Phraortes, who forthwith began, like the kings around, to
make war en his neighbours. Having first subdued Persia, he
next turned to Armenia, which the kings of Assyria had eften
before invaded, and now claimed as their own. Brought
thus into collision with the rulers of Nineveh, Phraortes was
beaten and killed in a great battle, about the year B.C. 635.''
His authority, however, descended to Cyaxares, his son,
a man ef commanding military genius, fired with hatred of
the Assyrian, and ambitious to found a vast empire. The
rebellion of the brether of Assurbanipal, at Babylon, had
shaken the power ef the Great King to its foundations. His
dominions were, henceforth, in danger on every side.
Psammetichus had torn Egypt from him and was now be
sieging Ashdod. Babylon, under Nabopelassar, an Assyrian
general appointed over the province, as a reward for having
reconquered it after the great rebellion, had himself risen in
revolt, and the Medes, under the dangerous leadership ef
Cyaxares, were descending the western slopes of the moun
tains to invade Assyria from the east. They were sweeping
on to besiege Nineveh itself, when their progress was sud
denly arrested by a strange and terrible phenomenon.^
¦ Herod., i. 102, ff. » Justi, Gesch. des alien Persiens, p. 11. Herod., i. 163.
s Ewald thinks that Nahum, supposed to have been a Jewish exile living at Elkosh
on the Tigris, saw this invasion, and alludes to it. Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 743. The
exact chronology of these events is very uncertain.

106 AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH,
The vast steppes ef Southern Eussia and of Asia, shut off
from the ancient civilization of India, Mesopotamia, Syria,
and Asia Minor, by the great mountain chains of the Him
alaya, the Hindoo-Kusch, Caucasus, and Taurus, had hith
erto been nearly altogether unknown by antiquity. The
wildest fables prevailed respecting the regions beyond this
gigantic barrier. Suddenly, however, the mystery was at
once, in part, intensified, in part, unveiled. A generation
before, the Cimmerians had broken through, but had been
driven back by Esarhaddon ; but now, again, the southern
passes of these awful heights swarmed with the hordes ef a
strange race, mounted en wiry steppe horses ; foul and sordid
in their personal habits ; living mainly on mare's milk and
the cheese made from it, with the occasional addition of
horseflesh or other animal foed, from vast herds which they
brought with them. Their houses — huge tents of felt' —
were carried with them on waggons, drawn by long files of
oxen ; and their wives and children accompanied the host.
A vase found in a tomb ^ represents the men as wearing long
hair and beards, with round or conical bonnets, generally
reaching down the neck, close-fitting tunics with a belt
round the waist, trousers tied round the ankles, and boots ;
their weapons, the bow, the spear, the short sword, and the
battle axe ; with only the shield fer protection. From some
of their words preserved in Herodotus,' they seem to have
belonged te the Aryan family of nations rather than, as
formerly thought, to the Mongolian, and, if se, they formed
one of the earliest waves of the migrations of that race, in
search of a new home. Since then the world has often been
alarmed by similar inroads from the same regions — hordes
' Herod., iv. 46, 73.
' Given in Rawlinson's And. Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 511.
' Herod., iv. 58. So Grimm thinks.

AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH. 107
of Gauls, Goths, Vandals, Parthians, Huns, Turks, and Tar
tars,' spreading dismay and ruin over the fairest regions of
Asia or Europe. But their first sudden irruption on the
civilization ef the ancient world must have had all the in
tensity of an unprecedented calamity. It was believed that
they drank the blood of their enemies slain in battle ; used
their skulls for drinking cups,'' made their skin into a cover
for their quivers, and worshipped no god but a naked sword.'
Nothing is said of them in the meagre record of Kings and
Chronicles, but the imagery of the prophets enables us to
form some conception of the intense dread with which they
were regarded over all Western Asia. The seething caul
dron of the North was to spread smoke and flame ever Pal
estine.' Its wild hosts, riding on horses, and armed with
the bow and javelin, would be cruel and have no mercy.
Their battle-shout would be like the roar of the sea.'' Long
after they had disappeared, the impression they had made
on the general imagination is seen in the language in which
Ezekiel anticipates future invasions from the same regions.
Their coming was to be like that of a storm which swept the
land assailed ; like a cloud, from which were to burst innu
merable horses and horsemen, with bucklers and helmets,
swords and bows, clubs and spears ; horde following horde,
spreading dismay and ruin, which seemed to fill the world,
in all its kingdoms, with terror. The very fish of the sea,
the birds of the air, the creeping things of the earth, and all
men upon it, would tremble at their presence ; the mountains
sink before them ; the cliffs topple down. Their overthrow
' The word Tartar was originally Tatar. It was changed to its present form
through the horror of the populations invaded, to whom such a race seemed the off
spring of Tartarus— fiends from the underworld. Trench's English Past and Pres
ent, p. 184.
= Herod., iv. 64, 65. ' Herod., iv. 68.
• Jer. i. 13. ° Jer. vi. 23.

108 AMOi^ AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH.
seemed te demand the forces not only of man, but nature ;
pestilence and blood, rain floods, hailstones, fire and brim
stone conspiring to destroy them ; till the deep gorges east of
the Dead Sea were filled with their unclean dead, carried
thither from the sacred limits of Israel, to sate the vultures
and wild beasts ef the hills, with the flesh of the mighty, and
the blood of princes, and the carcases ef chiefs and warriors.'
In such language men spoke, in the days of Christ, of the
similar hosts ef the Parthians. St. John, in the Apocalypse,
saw four destroying angels, hitherto bound in the river Eu
phrates, let loose to slay the third part ef men. Twe hun
dred thousand horsemen, in mail ef fiery blue and brimstone,
rode forth through the dried-up river bed, an army of hell,
te destroy mankind.'' Nor did the Eoman historians use
language less striking of these later counterparts of the
" Scythians" of Josiah's day. Their accounts of the endless
rushing swarms of wild cavalry ; their terrible shouts, like
the bellowing of beasts, and the hideous clamour of their
- countless drums, like the noise of thunder ; their breast
plates and helmets of steel, glittering like lightning ; their
horses covered with brass and steel trappings ; the painted
faces of the warriors, and their shaggy hair, gathered in a
mass on their foreheads, in the Scythian fashion,' seem
almost repetitions of the language of the prophets, and en
able us te imagine the alarm of the populations on whom
such a visitation first descended.
Media, comparatively safe in its wild uplands, escaped
with a premise of tribute to the invaders. The cities of
Nineveh and Babylon were too strong for a foe which had
1 Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix.
^ Rev. ix. 14, ff. The dread of a Parthian invasion was then a tradition of a century
before. s Plut., nt(E (Crassus), iii. S3.

AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH.

109

not learned te besiege walled towns. But the open country,
far and near, vas laid waste. Horde after horde, passing
over it, turned even the richest districts te deserts. Neither
sex nor age was spared. Those who did not escape to the
mountains or to some stronghold, were either slain or car
ried off as slaves. The crops were consumed; the herds
killed er swept away ; the villages burnt, and even some
towns taken by sudden assault. The course of devastation

CI.AY Cylinders, bepresenting VARtous Gods.
The second on the left represents the fish goddess Derceto, a local form of Ash
toreth, or Venus ; the fish form being a symbol of productiveness.
passed on from Mesopotamia to Northern Syria and Phoe
nicia, including Damascus and Palestine. At last it reached
the borders of Egypt, but its force was already spent, and
Psammetichus was able te bribe the leaders, by rich gifts, to
turn back. Eetracing their steps, they pillaged the temple
of Derceto, at Ascalon. ' But their power for evil was now
weakened. The losses in so many battles could not be re
paired; success drew after it disputes and divisions, per-
« Herod., i. 103.

110 AMON AND THE FIEST YEARS OF JOSIAH.
haps relaxed their energy. The city of Bethshean in Cen
tral Palestine, known in after ages as Scythopelis,' on the
commercial and military route from Egypt to Nineveh,
was soon the only spot where any number of them lin
gered. Once back again beyond the Tigris, Cyaxares is
said to have invited their leading chiefs te a banquet,
and murdered them while feasting, and te have ultimately
succeeded in driving back the whole host to L^pper Asia,
after a fierce and prolonged war. Their domination had
lasted, at most, seven or eight years, from about B.C. 634 to
627." Such a terrible visitation made a deep impression on the
popular mind in Judah. , Nineveh, though saved for the
time, had shewn its growing weakness. All Western Asia
had bowed the head before the scourge of Ged. The gods
ef the nations had not been able to save them. On their
way across Palestine the barbarians had, perhaps, attempted
te take Jerusalem, fer this is hinted, in Ewald's opinion, in
the fifty -ninth Psalm.' The country population must, at
least, have fiocked to the fancied security of the capital,
from the walls ef which pale crowds may have watched the
flames and smoke of burning villages and towns. Amidst
such universal alarni the faithful among the prophets were
true to their lofty mission. They saw in this awful visita
tion the hand of the Almighty, stretched out te punish the
idolatry and iniquity around, and earnestly called en their
fellow-countrymen to repent. Nor can we doubt that their
words fell, at such a time, with unusual weight en the ears
1 Euseb., Pr<xp. Ev., ix. 39.
2 De Saulcy, Chronologic des empires de Ninive, de BdbyUme et d'Ecbatdne, p. 69.
Rawlinson's Great Monarchies, vol. iii. pp. 178, 187. Lenormant, Lettres assyriolo-
giques, lere serie, vol. i. pp. 74-83. Herod., i. 104, says that the Scythian rule lasted
twenty-eight years, but this is certainly a mistake.
s Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 748.

AMON AND THE FIRST YEARS OF JOSIAH. Ill
of their hearers. The so-called Scythian invasion reused
the nation from its long spiritual sleep, and, with the har
angues ef the prophets, kindled that zeal in king and
people, for the restoration of the worship ef Jehovah, whicb
culminated soon after in a great religious Eeformation.

CHAPTEE VI.
THE PEOPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH.
Nahum, c. b.c. 709 (Keil); c. B.c. 627 (Hitzig and Steiner); c. b.o. 660
(Schrader); c. b.c. 630 (Ewald); c. b.c. 650 (Kleinert); c. b.c. 636
(Eichhorn).
Zephaniah, b.c. 630-619 (Schrader); "under Josiah" (Robertson
Smith).
Tirhakah died in b.o. 664.
Assurbanipal died in b.c. 6'30.
Nineveh fell in from b.c. 609-606 (Schrader); b.c. 605 (Kleinert).
Of the various prophets in the earlier years of Josiah,
the names of only a few have survived. Among these
Nahum, "consolation," chose for his theme, in the brief
writing which bears his name, the doom of Nineveh, the
great oppressor of the nations, which was so clearly totter
ing te its fall. His heme, Elkosh, has been placed by some
in the Christian village of Alkusch, two days' journey from
the site of ancient Nineveh, en the east bank ef the Tigris,
whither, it is supposed, he had been carried off, perhaps at
the same time as Manasseh, and where a spot is still shewn
as his grave.' A Jewish tradition, recorded by Jerome,"
claims, on the other hand, that he was a Galilean, of tho
village of Elkosh, which had been long in ruins when the
Father visited it.' Capernaum, indeed, which may have
been Elkosh, means the village of Nahum. But though it
is not impossible that we may thus have a local memorial
1 So Tuch, Ewald, Kleinert, and others. = Niebuhr, Reisen, vol. ii. p. 352.
' Prolocrue to Comm. on Nahum. NOldeke, Keil and Steiner, think Nahum a
Galilean, living in Galilee. Jerome calls the place Elkese.

THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH. 113
of the prophet, it is apparently enly a pleasing conjecture.
Assyrian words occurring, as Ewald maintains, in the proph
ecy, seem to shew, in contradiction to Jerome's tradition,
that we have in "Nahum" the voice of an esile of the Ten
Tribes, himself a spectator of the march of the Medes under
Cyaxares, against the great city.
In the imminent danger which thus threatened Assyria,
Nahum, with the feelings of an ancient Jew, rightly saw
the judgment of God on the fierce enemy of mankind, and
the centre of heathen wickedness. His words glow with
the hatred of a patriot, at the foe which had carried off his
fellow-countrymen into distant banishment, and desolated
his native land. His abhorrence at the wickedness of the
great city is only equalled by his exultation at its fall, as
the enemy of Jehovah, of Israel, and of the human race.
The lien's den is at last te be invaded. All the world claps
its hands fer joy, when the storm of Divine wrath has finally
swept away the great destroyer ef nations.
This magnificent song of triumph over the fall of the
Assyrian capital is strangely interesting, as, it may be, the
last echo of prophecy heard from an}* survivor of the Ten
Tribes. Nor is it witheut a grand moral fitness that a
lonely exile, one of the innumerable victims of her tyranny,
should be the solitary voice that made known to future ages
her irrevocable doom.
Filled with a sense of the greatness ef God in crushing
the once mighty empire, the prophet, as becomes a Jew,
opens with a recognition of His supreme majesty and power,
as the ruler of the world.
"I. 2. Jehovah ' is a jealous and revenging God; Jehovah revenges,
and pours out His wrath; He will take vengeance on His adversaries,
' irahuin I. 1-9.
VOL. V.-8

Ill THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH.
and keep alive His wrath against His foes. 8. Jehovah, though slow
to anger, is of great power, and will by no means acquit the wicked.
Jehovah has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the
clouds are the dust of His feet.
"4. He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry (with the glow of His
wrath), and dry eth up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither, and
the verdure of Lebanon fades. 5. The mountains tremble' before
Him ; the hills melt (for terror), and the earth springs back from His
presence ; the earth, with all that is on it. 6. Who can stand before His
indignation? Who can abide the fierceness of His anger? His wrath
pours down like (a rain of) fire, and the rocks are rent asunder before
Him!" But the Divine anger passes over those who are faithful
to Him, and burns only against His adversaries. This in
troduces the announcement of His determination to take
vengeance on Nineveh.
"7. Jehovah is good; a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He
knoweth them that trust in Him. 8. But He will utterly sweep away
the very place (of Nineveh) as with an overwhelming flood; He will
chase His enemies into (the) darkness (of Sheol)."
He now addresses Nineveh directly.
"9. What do you propose, by which to withstand Jehovah? (It will
be idle.) He will make an utter end (of Nineveh). Judah need fear
no further trouble from her! '
" 10. (Strong in numbers and in allies,' ye men of Nineveh,) ye may
be joined close and terrible as matted thorns; ye may boast, in your
drink, that no power can harm you — drunkards that you are' — ^yet,
like thoms, the fiery ^vrath of Jehovah will devour you; like stubble
fully dry.' 11. From thee went out he' that imagined evil against
' Ewald and Kleinert have "groan."
2 Ewald renders these words, " There will be no need to repeat the blow on Nine
veh a second time." So, also, iu ver. 13, fl. Steiner and Hitzig agree with Ihis.
= Nahum i. 10-14.
* This passage is thought by Gesenius to mean that they would be cut down wliila
marching in close phalanx, and intoxicated to reeling. Lex., p. 708.
^ On this passage see Gesenius, Lex., p. 708. under the word Saba.
' The various kings of Assyria typified as Nimrod. Mic. v. 6. Noldeke thinks
Sennacherib is referred to. So, Ewald.

THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH. 115
Jehovah, a counsellor of Belial ' (purposing the destruction of my
people)! 13. But thus says Jehovah : ' Be (the armies of ) Assyria and
her allies ever so strong and so many, they will be swept away,' and
he. My enemy, shall perish.' Though I have chastised thee (0 Israel,
through the Assyrians, in the past), thou wilt sufler from them no
more.' 13. Por now I will break his yoke from ofl thee, and will tear
asunder thy bonds.*
" 14. But respecting thee (0 Nineveh), Jehovah has commanded that
' no more shall there be a posterity bearing thy name ! I will destroy
the graven image (of stone) and the molten image (of metal) from the
house of thy god ; and I will defile the site of thy ruined temples with
dead men's bones = (by making these temples thy grave); for thou art
(weighed in the balances and) found wanting.' " '
The vision of the siege of the great city now rises be
fore the prophet, and Inessengers are speeding to the "West,
to announce to Judah the glad news that her oppressor has
fallen. " I. 15. See!' (yonder) on thy mountains (O Judah, are) the feet of
the messenger bringing thee the good tidings, proclaiming ' Peace (for
the oppressor has fallen) ! ' Keep thy feasts (of thanksgiving) ; pay thy
vows! for never raore shall the Man of Wickedness invade thee; he is
utterly destroyed! "
The army ef the enemy new approaches Nineveh, and
the prophet calls eut in irony :
"II. 1. The Hammer of War " — (the Median king) — comes up against
tliee! Man thy defences ! (Let thy warders) watch every approach !
• Belial is the word here used in the Hebrew Bible, bnt it was not used as a
proper name till much later, though I have introduced it as such.
2 Literally, ''mowed down."
3 Tbus De Wette, Kleinert, Noyes, Keil. The Septuagint version of ver. 12 is
strange : "Thus saith Jehovah, wbo rules over many waters. Even thns shall they be
sent away, and the report of thee shall not be heard anywhere,"
* Isa. X. 24-27.
* Lev. xxvi. 30. 2 Kings xxiii. 14. Jer. vii. 3^ : xix. 11. Ezek. vi. 5.
' See Dan. v. 27. On this passage consult BOttcher's Aehrenlese, vol. ii. p. 207.
Gesenius renders it, " Thon art become sraall ; thy power is broken." But this is
clearly a misconception of the force of the words. ' Nahum i. 15 ; ii. 1-2.
' Mace, Maul; comp. the word, " Maccabee," or Charles Martel.

IIG

THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH.

gird (the sword on) thy loins; muster all thy strength! 3. For Jehovah
is about to restore the land of its (old) glory to (Judah)-Jacob, and to
His own chosen Israel,' for the plunderers have spoiled it, (tearing off
its boughs, the tribes) — and destroying its clusters (their fair com
munities)." A description of the Median army prepared for battle,
and a picture ef the final catastrophe of Nineveh, follows.

'3. The shields ot

Assyrian Standabd.
Khoksabad.

the (Median) heroes aro painted (with the war
colour) red." Their valiant warriors are in
scarlet; ' the steel bosses and fittings of their
chariots,* set in battle array, flash like flre,
and their spear shafts of cypress quiver.
4. (Within Nineveh itself) the chariots rush
madly through the streets; they rattle wildly
(hither and thither), through the open spaces;
they gleam (from their steel bosses) ; they flash
swiftly (to this point and that), like the light
ning. 5. The king (in the city) shall bethink
him of his noted warriors (trusting to them),
but their steps totter as they rush on (thus
suddenly summoned to the defence, unpre
pared, as if waked from sleep). They hasten
to the walls, but the testudo " has already
been set up against them. "
But, now, the city is taken.

" 6. The city gates (defended by broad
canals from the Tigris) are burst open, and the palace is broken down
' De Wette. Kleinert. Keil. Ewald thinks .Jacob is = Judah. So Eichhorn.
Now that the Ten Tribes were gone, Judah takes the proud names of "Jacob"
and "Israel."
' ITaliuiii ii. 3-5. Perhaps the copper on the shields— red with reflection — is
meant. Jos., Ant., XIII. xii. 5.
2 Red was the favourite colour of Ihe Medes. So also of the Babylonians. Ezek.
xxiii. 14. Layard's Nineveh, p. 347. The Assyrian colour was blue. Ezek. xxiii.
6 ; xxvii. 24. Blood red was, indeed, the favourite colour for robes of battle, in an
tiquity. Val. Max., ii. 6. Ael. 'Var. Bist., vi. 6.
^ Scythe chariots were first introduced by Cyrus.
- A strong cover, under protection of wliich the besiegers advanced to force a
passage tbrough the gates or to make a breach in the walls. It was either a tower

THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH. 117
(and sinks into ruin).' 7. The queenly city is taken; - her veil torn ofl;
and her maids moan for her with the (sad) voice of doves, as they
beat their breasts. 8. As for Nineveh, her (abundant) waters (hith
erto flowing in their channels) now spread over her like a wide sea,
(the canal banks being cut). Her warriors flee. " Make a stand,
make a stand " (cries their leader), but no one looks (round or turns)
back! " 9. Take, ye (brave Medes), the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold ; "
there is no end of the treasures, or of the costly booty of every kind.
10. There is nothing now but desolation, emptiness, ruin ! The heart
melts for terror ; the knees smite together ; the loins tremble, and the
faces of all grow pale.
" 11. Where is now (Nineveh), the den of lions — the feeding place of
the young lions ; where the lion, the lioness, and their whelps had their
quarters, afraid of none? 12. Where is the lion that tore in pieces for
his whelps, and killed for his lionesses, and filled his dens with prey,
his lairs with ravin ?
'¦ 13. Behold, I am against thee, saith Jehovah of Hosts, and I shall
burn up thy chariots in smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young
lions, and I shall free the earth, henceforth, from thy violence, and the
threats of thy messengers shall be heard no more."
The theme of the prophet has now virtually been ex
hausted, but his emotion will not let him close. In the
third chapter he begins it once more ; as if again a specta
tor of the great catastrophe.
from which the assailants could reach the defenders of the wall, or a strong roof
under wbich a battering ram was plied against the ramparts. Layard, p. 377.
1 Gesenius. Kleinert. Nahum ii. 6-13.
2 The word here used— Hutzab— occurs only in this place. Ewald, Hitzig, Steiner,
and Eichhorn, think it the name of the chief queen. Others translate it as from a
verb Natzab, " It is determined '' by God. Thus Kleinert, and Keil.
3 Gold mines seem formerly to have been worked in the Assyrian territory. Sar
danapalus is said to have had 350 golden beds, and as many golden tables on his
fnneral p-le, as well as vast numbers of gold and silver vases, and purple and many-
coloured garments. The image of gold raised on the plain of Dura by Nebuchadnez
zar was 60 cubits high and 6 broad (Dan. iii. 1). Xerxes carried off a golden image
of Bel, at Babylon, 12 cubits in heig'nt. According to Diodorus the value of the gold
taken from the temple of this god alone was equal to £21,000,000 of our money.
Layard's Nineveh, vol. ii. pp. 416-17. When Ahasuerus feasted all the people in
Shushan, the palace, wine was given them in vessels of gold, each different from the
other. By •' lious. lionesses." etc., is meant the cruel population and soldiery.

118 THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH.
"III. 1. Woe to the city of blood! ' it is full of treachery and via.
lence; it never ceases from harrying the nations!
"3. (Hark!) the cracking of whips! (hark!) the rattling of wheels! the
gallop of horses,' the bounding of chariots! 3. cavalry rushing on with
the flash of swords! (footmen) with glittering spears! heaps of slain!
countless dead! they stumble over mounds of corpses! "
The cause of this appalling judginent is once more re
hearsed. The deceitful friendship and crafty politics by
which the rulers of Nineveh had inveigled nations to their
ruin, as if by witchcraft, are compared to the arts of a
harlot.' Perhaps, also, its seducing idolatry, which had
spread far and near, by trade and otherwise, and had cor
rupted states, so as to make them an easy prey, may be
included.* "4. (This, all, has come,) because of the many whoredoms of the
well-favoured harlot, skilled in (the) witchcraft (of secret intrigues and
of baleful idolatry) ; who has sold (free) nations (into slavery) through
her whoredoms, and kingdoms through her wicked arts.
"5. Behold ! I am against thee, says Jehovah of H osts ; I will throw thy
skirts over thy head, and shew the nations thy nakedness, and the king
doms thy shame. 6. And I ¦will throw abominable filth at thee, and
dishonour thee, and make thee a gazing-stock. 7. And whoso sees thee
will flee from thee and say: 'Nineveh is destroyed!' But who will
bewail her ? Where shall I find sympathizei-s with her (in her sorrow) ? "
Nineveh may think itself strong and able to resist all
attack ; but what had been the fate of Thebes, at its hands,
when Assurbanipal assailed it ?
' Xahumiii. 1-7.
-' Gesenius, " causing his horse to rear." The Assyrian cavalry were armed with
swords and bows, or with swords and long spears. They wore short tunics, their legs
and feet were bare, and they had originally no saddles, but sat with their knees
ahnost on a level with the horse's back. An archer on horseback was attended by a
comrade who rode at hia side, and held his reins while he discharged his arrows.
Layard's Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 357.
¦^ 2 Hitzig. Keil. * Kleinert.

THE PROPHETS XAHUM AXD ZEPHAK^IAH. 119
"III. 8. Art' thou better than No" (the city of Amon— the solar
God) — enthroned on the Nile, amidst broad canals — girdled by waters —
whose rampart round it was sea-like streams, forming its strong wall
of defence? 9, The (valiant) Cush,^ Egypt with its countless hosts,
1 Nahum iii. 8-19.
a Xo = "the great citj' : '' Brugsch, vol. i. p. 247. No-Amon = *'Seat of Araon."
Hia "inheritance," "possession:" Muhlau und Volck. "Dwelling of Amon:"
Keil. s Cush was the old Egyptian name for the region between the cataracts of the Nile
and Abyssinia, and for the peoples, other than negroes, south of Egypt. It is thua
nearly identical with the earlier use of the name Ethiopia by the Greeks. The dark
tribes on both sides of the Arabian Gulf were, however, known as Ethiopians, and
Herodotus even speaks of an Asiatic branch of the race. Indeed, in Homer, thia
name is applied to all the races and lands ofthe then known southem parts of the
world ; and, in the same way, Cnsh was a general term among the ancient Hebrews
for the same countries and races (Gen. ii. 13.); for the peoples named in Genesis
as sprung from Cush include dwellers in Southern Asia as well as in Africa (Gten. s.
7). But these continents, it must not be forgotten, were not as yet sharply discrim
inated, in the earliest times; for even Herodotus reckons Egypt as in Asia, though
he feels the difficulty of such a division. Even as late as about Chrisfs day, geogra
phers spoke of the " Cussites " of the territory of Susiana, beyond the Tigris and
Euphrates, and there was a district called Cash in the Taurus Mountains, the peoples
of which, as shewn by the Telloh pictures, vrere darker than the Semites, approach
ing black. The Accadians, on the contrary, were called " Adamatu,"or red, by the
Assyrians. Nimrod, moreover, a "• son " of Cnsh, is handed down to ns as the first
king of Babel and the district round it. It may be, also, that the Mesopotamian
king, Cnshan Rishathaim, of tie time of the Judges, raarks the survival of a Cushite
kingdom (Judg. iii. 8) in that region, to a comparatively modern date. There is
etill, moreover, a province of Persia, on the mouth of the Euphrates, bearing the sig
nificant name of Khuzistan.
In a narrower sen^e, Cush is nsed in the Bible, much as ir was by Ihe ancient Egyp
tians, for the region south of the cataracts of the Nile (Ezek. xxix. 10), inclnding
Kordofan, along with Abyssinia, the present Nubia, and part of Sennaar; in fact, much
of the Soudan. This great stretch of country was, anciently, far less confused in its
ethnography than it is to-day; for countless changes have produced a variety of mixed
races, of mingled Cushite, Semitic, and negro origin. There are, however, no traces
of this in early antiquity, for there is no mention, in the Old Testament, of Semitic
races in these regions; thongh Herodotus, in the fifth century before Christ, speaks of
Arabs, along with African Ethiopians, in the army of Xerxes (Herod., vii. 69). Nor is
there any hint of the presence ofthe negro race; for even the Egyptian monuments
ehew a marked distinction between the Ethiopians, and the negroes on the west of
their country. The Cushites, in fact, belonged to the Caucasian race. It is true that
the Ethiopic language, in use through later ages, ia essentially Semitic; but this may
be explained from the Ethiopian races having mingled with Semitic ones in Arabia
(Knobel, Toikerta/el, p. 257), and adopted their language; as the Normans adopted
the French, or as Latin became the language of many countries under the Roraans.
Indeed, there are still tribes undoubtedly repre^=enting the old Cushite?, whose lan-
gu.ige is eqnally distinct from the Semitic of Abyssinia on the one hand, and from
the negro languages on the sthcr, and whose physical characteristics clearly distin-

130 THE PROPHETS NAHUM AJJ^D ZEPHANIAH.
Put,' and the Libyans were thy strength, (0 Thebes!) 10. Yet, (in
spite of all this,) she was carried off into exile and slavery; her little
children were dashed in pieces against the walls of each street; they
cast lots for all her nobles, (who should have them for slaves), and her
great men were bound in chains! 11. Thou also (0 Nineveh) wilt
(driak the cup of the wrath of the Almighty, and) be drunken (with it)!
Darkness will come over thine eyes ; ^ thou too wilt seek a refuge from
the enemy! 12. All thy fortresses are like fig trees with early figs:
shake them and the figs fall into the mouth of tho eater ! 13. Behold !
thy men are like women, (for terror) ; they will open the gates of the
land to the foe ; fire will devour thy gate bars.
" 14. Draw water ^ (and store it up in preparation) for the siege ; repair
thy fortresses ; work the clay, and tread the mortar (to make bricks for
them); make ready the brick kilns, (and strengthen thy walls aud
towers !) 15. Yet fire mil devour thee ; the sword wUl destroy thee ; it
will eat thee up as the locust eats the leaves of the field, were ye innumer
able as locusts, and countless as grasshoppers! 16. Thy traders —
countless as the stars — (bringing untold wealth lo thee,) and spreading
themselves out like locusts to spoil, will flee away.* 17. Thy chosen
warriors ' are like locusts ; thy vassals " like grasshoppers, which light
on the hedges when it is cold, but, when the sun rises, flee away, and
there is no sign where they have been.
"18. Thy (princes, the) shepherds (of thy empire) sleep, 0 king of
Assyria; thy nobles slumber: thy people are scattered over the moun
tains, and no one gathers them. 19. Incurable is thy wound! mortal
thy stroke! All who hear of thee clap their hands at tby fall! For
on whom has not thy wickedness gone forth continually?" '
guish them from both. The typical African generally, in fact, is very diffierent from
the negro, whose pecnliarities were apparently first due to local influences and
social degeneracy.
1 See p. 79.
2 Gesenius, Keil, Kleinert, " be covered with darkness, and forgotten." Ewald, as
in the text. '¦' Access to the Tigris might be cut off.
4 Ewald understands this passage to mean, that they will be like the locusts, which
spread themselves ont while yet without wings, but suddenly unfold them and fly away.
5 A.n Assyrian word rendered " Princes " by some; as in the text hy otherg.
Btattcher's Aehrenlese understands the word as meaning " Thy levies of foot-soldiers "
(vol. ii. pp. 208-9).
' An Accndian word, literally, Scribes: Fried. Delitzsch. Lenormant says it is an
Assyrian official title: Steiner leaves it unexplained. I have given the rendering of
BOttcherand Miihlau, Aehrenlese, vol. ii. p. 210.
' The historical notices of the destruction of Nineveh will be given in iheir proper
place.

THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH. 121
While Xahum, far from Jerusalem, was thus chanting his
grand death-song of Xineveh, another prophet — Zephaniah
—was seeking to rouse the Jewish capital from spiritual
sleep, and bring it back to its ancient faith. The awful
lessons of the Scythian invasion, and the warnings of the
prophets, had already produced some effect ; for a begin
ning, at least, had been made of the reforms which Jo
siah, during the next few years, was to carry out so thor
oughly. The young king himself feared Jehovah, but his
nearest relations and courtiers were the strength of the
heathen party. The Law, though known, was systemati
cally neglected or violated.' The worship of Jehovah was
now restored ; but Baal, and Moloch, and the Host of
Heaven, were more esteemed." The idols still boasted their
priests and services;' the prophets were largely apostate.*
The people had almost lost the idea of religion, and indif
ference largely prevailed even where there was not active
idolatry-. The great thought of the community was gain ;
it was no advantage, men urged, to serve Jehovah, and they
therefore thought nothing of Him.
Zephaniah seems to have been the great-grandson of
King Hezekiah,' and as such must have spoken with special
weight." Threatening mingles with appeal, exhortation, and
promise, but the evil of the times makes the threats most
prominent. The great day of judgment from Jehovah for
the sins of Jerusalem is coming upon her, but the nation
' Zeph. iii. 3. ' Zeph. i. 4. Jer. vi. 20 ; vii. 17.
' Zeph. i. 7. • Zeph. iii. 4. Jer. v. 13. ' Zeph. i. 1.
« Zephaniah is stated to have prophesied in the days of Josiah. Schrader thinks
he did so in the period between b.c 630-617. The Diet, of thf, Bible says B.C. 630.
Josiah had reigned twelve years before the cleansing of the land from idolatry com
menced, and it lasted till his 18th year. 2 Chron. xxxiv. \ 8. Zephaniah was thus
strictly a contemporary of Jeremiah, who began to prophesy iu the 13th year of
Josiah. Jer. i. 3.

122 THE PEOPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH.
to be used as His instrument is not named, thougli, as in
all the other prophets since Joel,' it is announced as coming
on the city from the north, its weakest side. We must imag
ine a crowd listening while the prophet thus addresses them.
"I. 3. I will utterly^ sweep away everything from the face of the
land, says Jehovah. 3. I will sweep away man and cattle:' I will
sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, and the
idols' with (their worshippers), the wicked! And I will destroy man
from off the land, says Jehovah ! 4. And I will stretch out my hand
against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I
will destroy from this place (Jerusalem) what yet remains of Baal
worship* and root out the (black-robed) Chemarim (appointed by the
kings of Judah for the service of the high places, and for the cor
rupted worship of Jehovah),' and the (special) idol-priests — (I will root
them out) so that their very name will perish. 5. And (I will root out)
them that bow down to the host of heaven upon the housetops; them
also that bow down to Jehovah and swear by Him, while also swear
ing by Molech, their king (of heaven): 0. the ungodly also who have
drawn back from Jehovah, and do not seek Him, or trouble them
selves respecting Him."
The day of God's visitation approaches.
" 7. Hush ye!' before the Lord Jehovah! for the day of Jehovah is
near: for Jehovah has prepared a sacrifice — (the people of Judah); He
has set apart those called to the feast — (the nations appointed to con
sume her) !
"8. And it shall be in the day of Jehovah's sacrifice, that I (Jeho
vah) will punish the princes and the kings' sons," and all others who
wear costly foreign dress.° 9. In that day, also, I will punish every
' Joel ii. 20. » Zeph. i. 2-6. ' Hos. iv. 3.
* Machshailoth — " what cause a state or a soul to fall " — hence in A.V. '^ stumbling
blocks ;" margin, "idols."
' The reforms of Josiah had begun. « 2 Kings xxiii. 5. Hos. x. 5.
^ Zeph. i. 7-9. * Malcham ' in verae 6 = ' their Melech,' i.e., king (of heaven) —
Moloch, or, rather, Molech.
« The sons of Manasseh or Amon— uncles or brothers of Josiah— their whole
circle is included.
9 Some probably affected Egyptian fashion ; others Assyrian ; always costly,
often idolatrous, in its omaments ; an index, moreover, of hearts alienated from the
national manners, and of the loss of national spirit, political or religious. Egyptian
dress, besides, was expressly forbidden by the Law. Lev. xix. 19.

THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH. 123
one who leaps over the threshold:' and those who fill their master's
house with violence and treachery ! '
" 10. In that day,' there shall rise, says Jehovah, a ory from the
Fish gate (on the north-east of the city), and a loud wail from the
lower town, and an echoing crash from the hills (around, as the enemy
forces his way into and through the city). 11. Howl ! ye inhabitants
of Maktesh — "the hollow"* — (the foreign trader's quarter of Jeru
salem in the Tyropoeon valley, west of the temple) ; for all the Canaan
ites * — (that is, the traffickers of the town) — are silenced in death ; all
that are laden with silver (for buying or selling). 13. And at that
time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps, and punish them
who sit (with their feet drawn up under them, still and untroubled),
like wine left on its lees; who say in their heart, ('There is no use
heeding the prophets) — Jehovah has nothing to do with either (the)
good or (the) evil (one meets; it all happens by chance!)' 13. Their
goods will be plundered; their houses made a desolation; they build
houses, but shall not live in them ; they plant vineyards, but shall not
drink of the wine !
"14. The great day of Jehovah is near : near, and coming very
swiftly, the thunder of the day of Jehovah! Bitterly will even the
mighty man of war cry out then! 15. That day will be a day of
wrath! a day of sore trouble and distress! a day of ruin and desolation!
a day of gloom and darkness! a day of clouds, and black night! 16. n
day of trumpet peals and shrill blasts, against the walled towns and
their high towers! 17. And I will bring distress on men so that they
shall walk as if blind (finding no way out of the danger), because they
have sinned against Jehovah: and their blood shall be poured out as
' The words of this clause are understood by some (Kleinert) to refer to the
Philistine custom of leaping over the threshold of the temple of Dagon (1 Sam. v. 5);
by Hitzig, to superstitious leaping over the threshold of the palace, as sacred — a
Persian usage to this diiy. Others, as Ewald, Eosenmiiller, Keil, and Calvin, sup
pose it refers to a violent, sudden entrance into houses, for purposes of robbery.
See the next clause. On the narrow basis of tijis very doubtful phrase, "scientific
criticism" (Bible in Jewish Church, p. 250) actually builds up the iheory tliat the
temple was guai-ded by a foreign watch during the time of the kings, and that thus
the - pr'nciples of Levitical sanctity were never recognized or anforced under the first
temple ! " It really creates, out ot the few words of the text, a military corps bearing
the " familiar characters of Oriental Janissaries ! "
2 Tiie rich in the East— that is, the gentlemen and courtiers— are largely traders,
and their position, under lawless despotisms, has iu all ages tempted them, too often,
to exactiims aud injustice. The other traders in the community were largely for
eigners (ver. 11).
= Zeph. i. 10-18. ' Or "mortar." * Zech, xiv. 21.

134 THE PEOPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH.
(no more worth than the) dust (of the street); and their corpses
(trodden under foot) like raire. 18. Neither their silver nor their gold
will be able to save them in the day of Jehovah's wrath; the whole
land will be consumed by the fire of God's indignation; for death,
ay, a terrible death, will He mete out to all the dwellers in the
land!" Having thus delivered his awful '¦' burden," the prophet
breaks off into an earnest exhortation to all, to turn to
Jehovah and save themselves. He enforces his counsels by
painting the judgments impending over the heathen king
doms around, naming one in each quarter of the heavens,
west, east, north, and south, to shew how far-reaching and
overwhelming will be the doom of God's enemies.
"II. 1. Bow yourselves in penitence,' bow yourselves,' O people, hith
erto stout-hearted and undismayed (at the threatenings of Jehovah") —
2. before the Divine decree is carried out; the brief delay passes like
chaff (before the wind) ! Before the burning anger of Jehovah comes
upon you, before the day of the wrath of Jehovah breaks over you, 3.
seek ye Jehovah, all ye meek of the land, who have obeyed His law ;
seek righteousness, seek raeekness, that ye may be hidden (frora the
storm) in the day of the wrath of Jehovah !
"4. For Gaza' shall be forsaken, and Ascalon will be blotted out;
the people of Ashdod will be driven out of it in the broad day (when
men rest, and danger is least feared) ; aud Ekeon shall be razed to the
ground. 5. Woe to the inhabitants of the sea-coast, the nation of the
Crethi.' This is the word of Jehovah concerning you, 0 Canaan,' the
land of the Philistines. I will destroy thee till I erapty thee of inhabi
tants, C. and the sea-coast, (now so populous,) shall be rude homes for
1 Zeph. ii. 1-7.
2 Kleinert. Literally, " collect yourselves, your thoughts ; consider, ex.nmine your
selves." The idea is taken from gathering stubble. BOttcher paraphrases it : "put
your thoughts together to repent, and thus save yourselves from the fire of God's
wrath, vvhich threatens to consume you like stubble."
3 Literally, " people whose faces have not grown pale."
^ Philistia was west of Jndali.
' See vol. iii. pp. 113, 255, 434. They were a branch of the Philistines.
' Philistia is here called Canaan, from its being devoted, like Phoenicia, to com
merce, and from its being only a continuation of the Phosnician or Canaanite sea-
plain. See Num. xiii. 29. Wilton, The Negeb, pp. 31, 245.

THE PEOPHETS XAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH. I'io
shepherds, and folds' for flocks. 7. Then wiU the coast become the
portion of the remnant of the House of Judah, and they will pasture
(their flocks and herds) on it, camping in the deserted ruins of Ascalon
by night. For Jehovah their God wiU visit His people, and bring them
back from captivity.'
"8. I have heard' the scornful taunting of Moab,' and the revilings
of the B'xAi Ajimox, who have spoken contemptuously of My people,
and have haughtily invaded its borders.^ 9. Therefore, as I live, says
Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, Moab shall assuredly be like
Sodom, and the Bnai Ammon like Gomorrah — a possession of nettles,
and a place of salt pits,' and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of
My people will plunder them and hold them as slaves.' 10. This will
be their lot for their pride, because they insulted the people of J eho vah
of Hosts, and acted haughtily against them.
" 11. Fearful is Jehovah in His Judgraents upon them ! For He will
destroy all the gods of the earth, and men shall worship Him, every
one from his place, even from the (far-off) coasts and islands of the
heathen! " 12. Even you, ye Cushites, in the far south, the slain of My sword
¦will ye be!
"13. And, (as in the South, so), Jehovah will stretch out His hand
agaiust the !North, and destroy Assyria, and raake Nineveh a desolation
— a parched wilderness! 14. troops of wild beasts of all kinds shall lie
down in the midst of her; the pelican and the bittern' shall lodge on
1 The word is the plural of "gedairah," the same word as " jedar," which is still
the name in Palestine for the dry-stone enclosures nsed for walls of orchards, sheep
folds, etc. The3' are built of stones of all sizes, laid as compactly as possible together,
to the height of from four to six feet, though at times higher ; the bottom broad, to
support the superstructure.
2 To avoid an acknowledgment of a strictly prophetical element in Scripture,
Kuenen translates this, *' restore them to prosperity."
' Zeph. ii. 8-15. ' Moab lay east of Judah.
' Since the deportation of Israel, Moab and Ammon had virtually taken possession
of the territories east of Jordan. Jer. xlviii., xlix. They were always striving, more
over, to encroach on the Hebrews — Amos i. 13 ; Isa. x^'. 4 — and for a length of time
invaded them each year. 2 Kings xiii. 20. Jn fact, since the reign of David, there had
been the fiercest hatred between the two peoples, though they were related by blood.
" The district at the son th of the Dead Sea is a wide bed of rock salt, which rises in
huge masses, and is quariied ont as an object of trade.
' TMs seems the meaning of the phrase, " shall possess them," or "have themfor
an inheritance."
' Kleinert, Ewald, Eichhorn, Keil, Noyes, and De Wette, translate this word as
**hedgehog." Dr, Sachs renders it " frogs." Hitzig suggests "the owl" or "bit
tern." Tristram says, " the hedgeliog or porcupine never resort to marshy places,

12G THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH.
the tops ' of her pillars ; their cry shall sound through the window or
broken wall ; " the threshold (trodden now by so many) will be deso
late; for Jeho-sah has laid bare and torn down the carvings of cedar!'
" 15. This is the joyful city, that dwelt in careless security, that said
in her heart, ' I stand by myself, and have no rival ; ' how has she
become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! Every one that
passes by her shall hiss, and wave his hand for joy 1 " *
The prophet now turns from recounting God's judgments
on the heathen nations, to renew his exhortation to Jerusa
lem to repent, and escape similar judgments.
" III. 1. Woe to thee, 0 stiff-necked,' polluted; 0 city of violence !
3. which listens to no (warning) voice (of its prophets), whioh receives
not admonition; does not trust in Jehovah; does not draw near to
God. 3. Her head raen within her are roaring lions (devouring the
weak and poor) ; her judges are (insatiable as) evening wolves (eager
and flerce after prey in the darkness, and) leaving nothing (of it) till
raorning. 4. Her prophets are vain talkers and deceivers; her priests
profane the temple and violate the Law. 5. Jehovah is just, in the
midst of her. He does no unrighteousness; morning by morning,
continually, He raakes known His irapending judgments, but the
unrighteous (city) knows no shame. 6. (He tells them,) ' I have
destroyed nations who sinned against Me ; laid their strongholds des
olate; made their streets silent, none passing over them; desolated
their cities till they are without a raan, without an inhabitant! 7. I
said in my heart, " Surely thou (Jerusalem) wilt now fear Me and
receive admonition, that thy dwelling (Mount Zion) should not be
destroyed, as I had determined against thee?" But they have only
more eagerly increased their shameful deeds.' "
nor are they characteristic of ruins. The bittern is far more probably the creature
intended by the prophet. It is very abundant in the reedy marshes of the Tigris close
by Nineveh."
1 Their capitals, or chapiters.
2 HallOn is a window or opening for light, but it may well mean here a rent in the
wall. 3 See Miihlau und Volck. See also Hitzig. BOttcher translates this : "Lord Je
hovah will utterly destroy it, or lay it bare," referringthe words to " the threshold."
Layard thinks that the Assyrian palaces were only panelled or wainscoted with
cedar, which was very costly.
4 On the fulfilment ot prophecy in the case of Nineveh, see Layard's Nineveh, vol.
i. p. 71.
' Zeph. iii. 1-9.

THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH. 127
Counsel and warning being thus in vain, Jehovah will
surely execute His threatenings, not on Jerusalem only,
but on other nations also. He will not, however, forget
His faithful ones. His truth will one day triumph over
the world, and those who trust in Him may rejoice in this
anticipation !
" 8. Therefore, wait ye on Me (ye raeek), saith Jehovah, till the day
when I rise up to judgment. For it is My will ' to gather together the
nations, and asserable the kingdoras, and pour on them My indigna
tion—all My flerce anger! Por all the earth shall be devoured with the
flre ot My jealousy !
"9. This over, I shall give to the peoples a pure lip' (removing the
uncleanness of lips hitherto polluted by the names of false gods),
that they may all call on the name of Jehovah, and serve Him with
one consent.' 10. From beyond the rivers of Cush (in the farthest
south) will they bring as an offering to Me, My worshippers, the sons
of My dispersed.* 11. In that day thou shalt no longer (need to)
be ashamed for doings like those in which thou hast sinned against
me (in the past); for I will remove from thy midst all thy proud
boasters, and thou wilt no longer carry thyself haughtily towards Me
on My holy hill. 13. For I will leave in thy midst only a people
hurable and meek,' who trust in the name of Jehovah. 13. This
reranant of Israel will not do wrong or speak lies, and a deceitful
tongue will not be found in their raouth, but (as the flock of Jehovah)"
they will feed and rest, and no one will raake thera afraid.
" 14. Rejoice, 0 daughter of Zion; ' shout for joy, 0 Israel; be glad
and rejoice with all thy heart, 0 daughter of Jerusalem ! 15. Jeho
vah has taken away the judgments (under which thou hast suffered):
He has removed thy enemy far from thee; Jehovah, the king of
Israel, is in the midst of thee ; thou shalt see evil no more I
16. In that day it will be said to Jerusalem, 'Fear not;' and to Zion,
> " Till My time has come." BOttcher, vol. ii. p. 212.
2 See Isa. vi. 5-7. Jer. i. 9. Dan. x. 16. ^ £,iterally, "shoulder."
* Literally, " the daughter of." Ewald translates the verse : "From the banks of
the rivers of Cush will they bring My incense ; the daughter of Put will bring Me My
gift." The word rendered "suppliant" or " worshipper " means also " incense."
The word " dispersed " is " putzai," for which Ewald reads "Put," the country
west of (Libya). " = Godly.
» Mic. iv. 4 ; vii. 14. Luke xii. 32. » Zeph. iii. 10-20.

1-28 THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH.
' Let not thy hands fall down in alarm.' 17. Jehovah, thy God, is in
thy midst, a Mighty One who will save thee ; He will rejoice over thee
with joy; He will give Himself up to the silent fulness of His love; '
He will joy over thee with singing. 18. Those who sigh (in exile, afar
off) for (the joyful assemblage at) the sacred feasts,' I will gather
(from their dispersion) ; for they also are of Israel, and the shame of
slavery still rests upon them.' 19. Behold, I will deal with all thine
oppressors at that time, and I will deliver eveu the helpless lame, and
will gather those that were driven out from this land, aud will make
them be honoured, and give them a name in all the lands where they
have been put to shame. 20. At that tirae I will bring you back again
(hither), and gather you, for I will give you a name and honour araong
all the peoples of the earth, when I bring back your ransomed captives
before your eyes, says Jehovah."
A phenomenon, surely, preaching like this, unexampled
in the history of any people or age ! Imagine an orator at
St. Paul's, not in our own happy days, but in the Sodom
and Gomorrah times of the last Stuarts, or of the Regency,
denouncing the royal family as roaring and devouring
lions; the judges as insatiable wolves ; the clergy as mere
talkers and deceivers, and as polluting the temple and vio
lating the law of God!^ Imagine a preacher, even now,
who feared only God, and spoke accordingly ! Fancy him
declaring that the Divine judgments for the wickedness of
all classes, high and low, would sweep over the land like a
destroying flood, unless all alike repented ! Dean Colet
before the Reformation, and Latimer and John Knox in
its hours of struggle, are perhaps the only parallels in our
1 "Will renew the joy of His early love." Ewald, in effect. The meaning in
the text seems more correct, though the Hebrew is amplified to make the sense
clearer. 2 Especially that of the Tabernacles, the most gladsome of all. Hos. xii. 10.
3 De Wette translates : " Far from thee shall be the shame which is thy burden."
Eichhorn: "And woe to those who would load thee with shame." Ewald; "Thou
land on which they cast reproach." Sachs; "Prom them who mourn for the
place of festal gathering will I take away the reproach borne by thee on their
account, at their being thus far from thee (in ejcile),"
< See Zeph. iii. 3,4.

THE PROPHETS NAHUM AND ZEPHANIAH. 129
history. Enthusiasm is not in favour in oar da}-. To
speak boldly for God is vulgar. Satan, as an established
institution among us, should be treated handsomely.
Bnt this fearless courage, standing up for God in the
face of power, officialism, and vested interests, was not the
only striking characteristic of the preaching of the prophets.
The national outlook was of the blackest ; deportation of
the people at large to a foreign country, after the horrors of
invasion, was accepted as certain. Yet faith in the promises
of God to His chosen race never wavered. It was held cer
tain, on the strength of His word, that He would bring
them back from exile, and restore the throne of David.
Such faith in the imperishableness of the nation, notwith
standing the ruin wliich was to overwhelm the then living
generation ; sueh faith in the future triumph of tme relig
ion, speaks of convictions far higher and nobler than mere
political shrewdness or human sagacity.' Xor is it less
wonderful that the preacher should speak with absolute
confidence in a restoration from captivity, itself a genera
tion distant — a restoration whieh was not effected till fully
a hundred years after the speaker's death. What le^ than
inspiration, in its strictest sense, can account for predictions
so circumstantial, and so exactly verified ?
' Vilmar, E., Der BewOs des Glaubens, p. 38. 1869.

VOL. V.-fl

CHAPTER VII.
THE EARLY PREACHING OE JEREMIAH.
About the same time as Zephaniah appeared, another
prophet, destined to take a foremost place in the illustrious
roll-call of his order, was coming into notice, though still
young. It was Jeremiah." Like Ezekiel, the son of a
priest, he was born at Anathoth," a small village on the
main road,' about three miles north of Jerusalem, in the tribe
of Benjamin.'' It lay on a gentle height overlooking the
upland plains, amidst a landscape which must have kindled
the eye and roused the heart of the future prophet. The
famous hills of Benjamin — N"ob, Gibea of Saul — Mizpeh —
Gibeon, Eamah, and Geba, rose in a half circle, to the west
and north-west, at different points, nearer or farther off.
To the east he could see, from the flat roof of his father's
house, the chasm and plains of the Jordan, with the up
lands high beyond. On the south-east, at the feet of the
purple hills of Moab, lay the blue waters of the sea of Lot,"
1 Jeremiah = Jehovah rejects — Klein. Jehovah establishes — Dietrich. See for
a full notice of the name, Herzog, R. E., vol. vi. p. 478.
2 Jer. i., xxix. 27. Anathoth is from the Assyrian god Ana, " the sky." It became
Anu among the Semites, and as such Baal Samaim—" Lord of heaven "—the whole
expanse Illuminated by the sun. As such it was early worshipped in Palestine.
Thothmes III., in the sixteenth century B.C., mentions a town, Beth-Anath, " the
temple of Anat "-the female counterpart ot Anu. There was another Beth-Anath
in Naphtali (Josh. xix. 38), and Anathoth shews that the Canaanites worshipped their
local goddesses under the name of Anats as well as of Ashteroth and Astarte. It was
a city of priests. Anali or Anat was the Hivite mother-in-law Esau (Gen. xxxvi. 1, 14),
and Zibeon's son Anah or Anu is mentioned in ver. 24. Sayce's Bibbert Lecture, 188.
' Isa. X. 30. « Josh. xxi. 18. 1 Kings ii. 26. 1 Chron. vi. 45. Neh. xi. 33.
» The name for the Dead Sea among the Bedouins of the present day.

THE EAELY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH. 131
while towards the north, close to the village, a green valley
reached away to the lofty northern side of the present Wady
Sulem. The testimony of Jeremiah corroborates the dark picture
given by Zephaniah, of the moral and religious condition of
Judah, when he began his ministrations. For more than
seventy-five years, Assyria had given but little trouble, for
the campaigns of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, against
Phoenicia and Egypt, were only brief episodes in the long
peace, and Manasseh, though for a time treated harshly, had
been restored to his throne. Egjrpt under Psammetichus
I. did not molest the Hebrews, the siege of Ashdod occupy
ing her, as we have seen, for twenty-nine years. Judah was
now rich and prosperous, but heathenism and moral corrup
tion flourished in proportion. Josiah had been thirteen
years on the throne when Jeremiah, in B.C. 637, received
his Divine commission as prophet, but the gods of Judah
were still as numerous as her cities,' and impiety was so
rampant that it seemed vain to look for an upright or honest
man ; " small and great were bent only on making money ;
prophet and priest used deceit. °
Gentle, sensitive, and yielding, Jeremiah seemed ill-fitted
for the ofiice of a true prophet in such times. It offered
only the most uninviting and dangerous prospect. He
might count on bitter mockery and insult.' Though urged
to even the harshest parts of his duty, by the sincerest pa
triotism and love for his fellow-countrymen, he was certain
to meet with such misapprehension and contradiction, that
the loneliest wilderness would seem a relief, in its quiet and
security.' Yearning for peace and love ; averse by nature
' Jer. ii. 28 ; xi. 13. » Jer. v. 1-5. ' Jer. vi. 13.
* Jer. XX. 7. ' Jer. ix. 8.

IS^J THE EARLY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH.
from strife and controversy ; fidelity to his mission would
evidently force him to stand up as the accuser of his neigh
bours as a whole, and make him a second Ishmael — himself
agaiast every one, and every one against him. oSTor could he
fail to see that, like his predecessors, he would appear a
public enemy and traitor to many, by having to denounce
political measures on which they had set their hearts ; such
as the alliance with Egypt, in opposition to Assyria.' But,
with the full consciousness that acceptance of the prophetic
ofiice implied all this and more — the clouding his life by
abiding troubles, the loss of all that most men count
gain, the imminent risk of martyrdom crowning a career of
humiliation and bitterness — his sense of duty impelled him
to brave whatever it might bring, when the voice of his
Heavenly Master summoned him to His service.
Like Isaiah," he has left us an account of his consecration
to his high dignity. It took place, we know not under what
circumstances, or where, in the thirteenth year of Josiah,
while the prophet was still a very young man ; ' its every de
tail stamping itself on his memory with a vividness, fresh as
ever, even in long subsequent years, when his authority to
speak for Jehovah had been vindicated by the fulfilment of
his gloomiest predictions of the fate of Jerusalem, and of the
deportation of his race.' The word of Jehovah, he tells us,
came to him — doubtless in a vision, the result of high mental
excitement and preoccupation with the spiritual interests of
his people — and seemed to say to him, in the silence of his
bosom, as if with articulate words :
"Before I formed thee in the womb' I knew thee, and
before thou camest into the world I consecrated thee, and
^ Hengstenherg's Christology, vol. ii. p. 370. 3 Isa. vi.
= Jer. i. 6. * Jer. i. 3. » Jer. 1, 4-13.

THE EAELY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH. 1.3.3
destined thee for a prophet to the nations." There mnst
have been a spiritual fitnesc in the young man to make snch
an intimation to him possible ; an intense sympathy with the
old religion, and an all-mastering enthusiasm for its revival.
It must, indeed, have become the engrossing thought of his
heart to rouse his country to loyalty to Jehovah, and to
warn them of the terrible danger and wickedness of their
idolatry, and disobedience to the moral law given them from
heaven. But he was still young, and shrank from the open
assumption of an ofiice so weighty as that of a prophet,
though already one in his heart. "Alas, 0 Lord Jehovah,"
said he, " I know not how to speak ; I am too young." But
strength was to be made perfect in weakness. " Say not, 'I
am too young,' " replied the Voice : "for thou shalt go to
all to whom I shall send thee, and thou shalt say all that I
command thee. Be not afraid of them ; for I am with thee,
to deliver thee, says Jehovah."
Then it appeared in the vision as if Jehovah put forth
His hand, and touched his lips,' saying as He did so : " See,
I have put My words in thy mouth. Behold, I this day ap
point thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root
out, and to tear down ; to destroy and to overthrow ; to
build up, and plant."' He might still, however, have hesi
tated, in his humility; assurances, therefore, were added
that he would not be left unsupported by God. A shoot of
an almond tree — known by the Hebrews as "the waker,"
from being the earliest of all trees to wahe from the sleep of
winter — as if it had vmtehed for spring — rose before him.
"So," said Jehovah, "shall I be u-akeful and watchful
over My word, to carry it out." A boiling pot, its steam
' Isa. vi. 7.
= The e\-i\ w-as to be destroyed ; the good, taking its place, to be planted and built
up.

134 THE EARLY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH.
and smoke blowing southwards from the north, then ap™
peared, and forthwith the Divine Voice continued :
"I. 14. Out of the North ' evil will flarae forth' upon all the inhab
itants of this land. 15. Por I ara about to call (hither) all the races
of the northern kingdoras ; and they shall come, aud raise, each, his
throne, at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all her
walls, round about, aud against all the towns of Judah. 16. And then
will 1 deliver my sentence upon them for all their wickedness, because
they have forsaken Me, and burnt incense to foreign gods, and paid
homage to the works of their own hands.
" 17. Now, therefore, gird thy loins (as a man does when he braces
himself to action),' and stand up, and speak to them all that I com
raand thee: be not disraayed before them, lest I make thee so indeed.
18. But I, even I, make thee to-day (strong) as a fortress-town, or as
an iron pillar, or as walls of brass, against the whole land, its kings,
its princes, its priests, and its people. They 19. shall indeed fight
against you, but they will not overcorae you; for I am with you, says
Jehovah, to deliver you."
From this time, through forty years, most of them years
of national misfortune, gradually darkening into utter ruin
and exile, the recollection of this solemn "call" dwelt with
tho. prophet as a constant summons to fidelity in his high
office, and an encouragement and support amidst all its
trials. During that long ministry, carried on chiefly in
Jerusalem, no personal danger, no consideration of personal
interest, comfort, or ease, no shrinking from ridicule, con
tumely, or hatred, could turn him from the task imposed on
him with such awful sanctions, by the lips of the Eternal
Himself. His tender and sensitive nature might for the
moment shrink from the mortifications and perils of his
commission, but the Divine command, as he tells us, glowed
like a burning fire in his heart, and he could not be silent.'
Wherever he could meet his fellows, his voice was lifted up
' Jer. i. 14-19, 2 Septuagint. = Fb. six. 5. * Jer. xx. 9.

THE EAELY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH. 135
for his Master — in the courts of the temple,' at the gates of
the city,' in the king's palace,' in prison,' in private houses,'
in the open country around Jerusalem ; ' anywhere, indeed,
as circumstances demanded, or opportunity offered.
The earliest of his utterances which has come down to us
dates, apparently, from the first year of his commission, B.C.
627 ; the thirteenth year of Josiah. It is an eamest denun
ciation of his feUow-countrymen for their refusal to keep
aloof from Egypt and .Assyria, and follow the prophets alone,
as messengers of Jehovah. Political factions in Jerusalem de
manded alliance with one or other of the great powers of the
day, as they had for generations ; one party seeking a league
with Egypt against Assyria ; another, close relations vrith
-Assyria against Egypt. Jeremiah, on the contrary, foUow
ing the lead of Isaiah, urged that both were wrong ; that
Judah ought to have no such foreign relations ; that, as the
people of God, it should keep itself isolated from heathen
ism. Eeligion and politics were only different names for the
same thing in the eyes of Jeremiah, as indeed they ought to
be to us all. To his fellow-citizens he was the head of a
third party in public life, urging his own views. But to
him, alliance with a heathen nation was equivalent to adopt
ing their idolatry, as, indeed, it had been already proved to
be, only too fully.
Eecalling the happy time when their ancestors were still
faithful to Jehovah, in the youth of the nation, while it was
still in the wilderness, he begins :
"II. 1. The word of Jehovah' has come to me, with tlie command:
2. Go and call out loud in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says
» Jer. vii. 2 ; xxvi. 2. '' Jer. xvii, 19, ^ Jer. xxii. 1 ; xxviL 18,
* Jer, xxxii. 2. * Jer. xviii, 2, * Jer. xix. 2.
' Jer. ii. 1-5. Knoliel tliinks this discourse was delivered in the beginning of
the reign of Jehoiakim. Pi-ophetiemvt, vol. ii. p. SrJ. Graf, tliat it was spoken in

13G THE EARLY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH.
Jehovah, I remember favourably the kindness of thy youth ; the love of
thy time of betrothal, when thou followedst me in the wilderness ; in a
land unsown. 3. Israel (as the bride of Jehovah) was (consecrated,
and) sacred to Hira — His flrst fruits — (in contrast to other nations
it was what the holy sheaf of first fruits, waved before Him at the
solemn feast, and forbidden to be touched by profane lips — is to tho
common growth of the field. ') All who eat these sacred fruits commit
sacrilege, and so did all who touched ' Israel (Jehovah's first fruits of
the nations). Evil befell them ! says Jehovah. "
But though thus betrothed to God, and loved by Him as
His bride, Israel had been unfaithful to Him,
' ' 4. Hear the word of Jehovah, 0 House of J acob, and all the clans
of the House of Israel ! 5. Thus says Jehovah, What wrongdoing did
your fathers find in Me, that they went far frcm Me, and walked after
vanity ' (that is, idolatry) aud became foolish ? 6. Saying no longer,
' Where is Jehovah, who brought us up from the land of Egypt, and
led us in the wilderness ; in a land of barren desert and pit-like rifts
and clefts; a land of waterless plains, and of (gorges dark as) the
shadow of death ; a land through whioh no one passes, and where no
man dwells ? '
"7. Yet (in spite of this)' I brought you to a Carrael-laud (a land
of gardens), and gave you its fruit, aud its richness, to cat. But
wheu ye entered it ye defiled the land, and raade My inheritance (the
land that belongs to Me) an abomination. 8. The priests said not,
' Where is Jehovah ? " and thoso who handled the Law ' knew Me not ;
the fourth year of Jehoiakim, or, at least, written down then. But it clearly suits tho
date assigned it in ihe text, which is adopted by Hitzig, Ewald, Naegelsbach and Keil,
and J. D, Michaelis, among others.
1 The rite of the first fruits thus alluded to is laid down in Exod. xxiii. 16, lil;
xxxiv. 22, 26 ; Lev. xxiii. 10-14 ; Num. xviii. 12; xxviii. 26; Deut. xxvi. 2. The books
of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers must, therefore, have been known to Jeremiah,
for Deuteronomy, even in the opinion of the newer criticism, was not yet discovered
when this prophecy was delivered. These books could not then be a literary forgery
of the time after the Exile, as some venture to assert. 2 Or, devoured.
s Vanity — Hebrew, Hebel = a breath, a tiling empty and worthless; hence, an idol.
¦• Jer. ii. 6-8.
s That is, occ'ipied themselves with it, as a reaper with his sickle ; a boatman with
his oar ; a player wiih his pipe, etc. See the verb Taphas, in the Hebrsw lexicons.
This passage shews that Jeremiah believed that the Law was as old as the early
forefathers of his race. Some critics try to evade f is demonstration by saying that
by the Law or Torah, is meant, " not a book, but an oral decision," though how the
priests could '¦ handle an oral or spoken decision," is not easy to imagine. It is

THE EARLY PEEACHIXG OF JEREMIAH. 137
these, the shepherds (of 'My people), fell away from Me, ancl the
prophets prophesied in the name of Baal, and went after worthless
idols! *'9. Therefore I will still (further) plead (the matter) with you, saith
Jehovah, and with your sons' sons will I plead it. 10. Pass over to
the island of Cyprus,' and to the other coasts of the Greeks (on the
west), and see ; send to Kedar (in Arabia, on the east), and mark well,
and notice, if the like has happened with them (as with you). 11. Has
any people changed gods, though their gods be no gods really?- But
My people have changed (Me,) their glory, for worthless idols!
'* 13. Be dumb with astonishment, 0 heavens,^ at this! shudder with
terror; be ye utterly amazed! says Jehovah. 13. For My people have
committed a double sin; they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of
Living Waters, and have dug out for themselves (poor underground)
cisterns, full of rents, that can hold no water ! *
" 14. Was Israel, (the northem kingdom), a servant (of thine, 0
Jehovah, worshipping thee) — Thy slave — (or, still closer, was he not
a. son of Thy house) r^ Why, then, was he left to be spoiled (by the
granted, indfied, that tho office of the priest is here said to be " to handle the Law.'*
Bidle in Jewish Churck, p. 295. That the word Torah should be gravely said to mean
" oral decisions," except in the same wa}', and with the same limitations, as in the
case of a barrister, or a judge, giving in some special case his idea of the meaning of
the law— is a phenomenon of perverted criticism, for even where such decisions are
giveu, they aesnme the existence of the formal written Inw of which they arc the sup
posed expression. It is alleged in support of this theory, that Micah (iii. 11) *• com
plains that the priests give Torahs, or legal decisions, for hire.'' But the word Torah
i:* not in the verse I It is the hiphil imperf, of yara(h), to throw, to throw out— hence,
to teach, to instrnct. The word Torah comes from it as much as our "¦ law " comes
from "to lay ¦"—"to lay down," with a possible ultimate reference to the Greek
*' lego," " lo arrange," "to say," "to utter" (as an oracle may). But was the Greek
" Law " only an utterance of oracles or decisions, on chance questions of the mo
ment ? The Hebrew priest could explain the law oo a point, but he conld not make
it. It would be as reasonable to say that because the lawyers give decisions "for
hire," snch decisions are all that is meant when we speak of the Law of England.
• Its capital was Citium = Chittim, Herzog, vol. iii. p. 315.
2 A prominent critic quotes this text to prove that Jehovah gave Hiraself ont ouly
as a local god, like the idols themselves. Bible hi Jewish Church, p. 37. But the
matter may be left lo any unprejudiced reader. There is not a hint of any such
thought in the words. 3 Jer. ii. 9-14.
¦* The LTOund in and around the cities of Palestine is honeycombed with huge sub
terranean water pits, or cit-tems. The mouth is narrow ; the sides smooth with
cement ; the shajje like a huge demijohn.
f This is substantially the rendering of this very difficult passage, given by Eich
horn and then by Hitzig. It seems to me the best. The sense adopted by Naegelsbach
and Keil— "Is Israel a slave and not free," etc.— "It would seem as ifhe were

138 THE EARLY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH.
Assyrians)? l.j. The young lions ' roared against him; thoy Iif ted up
their voice; they laid his land waste ; his oities were destroyed," (and left)
without au inhabitant. 10. In the same way (as Assyria did to Israel,
the Egyptians), the sons of Memphis and Tahapanes,^ have broken
thy head (O Judah)!* 17. Hast thou not brought this on thyself^
by thy having forsaken Jehovah, thy God, when He was leading thee
in the right way, (urging thee by His prophets to have no relations

regarded by God as such, else he wonld not be left to such misery "—seems artificial.
Kosenmiiller's rendering (Scholia in Vet. Test. Jerem. Vatic, vol. i. p. 83) is as fol
lows, borrowed from Ben Jarchi : "Who has caused that he whom God formerly
called a son, and whom no one dared touch with impunity, is now a slave —he who,
if treated badly by others, was not thus used by his Lord, who pitied him as a father
pities his children." I don't understand this. "A slave of Jehovah" is a very
comraon phrase iu the Bible for His servant or worshipper ; e.g., 1 Kings viii. 66,
" David His slave," So xi. 13, 32, 3 1, 36-33 ; xiv. 8. In fact, to call one's self the slave
of another was, and still is, in the East, a very usnal form of speech from a lower to
a higher, Barzillai calls himself David's slave, 2 Sam, xix. 37. Zimri is the slave of
Elah, king of Israel, 1 Kings xvi. 9. Obadiah is the slave of Elijah, 1 Kings xviii, 9,
and so on. Moses is constantly called the slave of God, 1 Kings viii. 53-56, etc. The
ordinary idea of service, in fact, was that of a slave ; the Hebrews knowing nothing
else in common life. Slaves were of two kinds : those bought from without or
taken in war; and children born in the household, who were nearer to their masters
than the others, and more jealously protected. I should, by the way, have said that
Graf translates the words above— "'Israel is given up to plunder, as if he were a
slave, or one born in the house," Calvin's rendering is in effect that of Jarchi,
adopted by Eosenmiiller. Eeuss i ranslates it, "Is he a slave who may be sold to his
enemies ? Is he not rather an adopted sou ; or, still more, a loved spouse ? "
^ The lion must have been very common iu Palestine, as there are no fewer than
seven words used for it in the O, T. (1) Ari or Aryeh, denoting the beast in general,
without reference to age or sex. (2) Kepheer — the word in the text— the lion or,
specially, the young lion, Judg. xiv. 5 ; Job iv, 10 ; Ezek, xix. 2, (3) Labi, a grown
lion, or (labiya) lioness. Gen. xlix. 9 ; Num, xxiii. 24 ; xxiv, 9 ; Ezek. xix, 2 ; Nah.
ii, 11, Used to imply the dignity and strength of the animal at its best. (4) Laish,
with the s.ime meaning, Prov. xxx, 30 ; the capital of Northern Dan got its name
from the word, (5) Shahatz, meaning much the same. Job xxviii. 8. (6) Gar, or
Gor, a cub, (7) Shahal, a vigorous lion. Job iv, 10 ; Ps, xci, 13, See vol. iii. pp. 10,
151. 2 So Ewald, Hitzig, Graf. "Burned," Miihlau und Tolck, Keil. *' Broken down,"
Septuagint, 3 The Daphnse of the Greeks. A frontier town in Egypt, 16 miles south of Pelu-
sium ; Brugsch's Map, Pr^ammetichus had a strong garrison in it. Indignant at his
employing Greek mercenaries, tbey at (me time revolted, and marched off with the
lest of tho native Egyptian army, to Syene in the far sonth. Diet, of Geog.
' Psammerichns being so long engaged in the siege of Ashdod, it is quite likely
that raiding attacks from his army thus employed, are referred to. Yet this verse
seems to point to a date after the fall of Josiah, So uncertain is the order of tho
various prophecies. » Jer. ii. 15-19.

THE EARLY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH.

139

with the heathen nations round) ? 18. What, therefore, hast thou to
do, now, in the way to Egypt, to drink the waters of the NOe ? ' Or
what hast thou to do with the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of
the Great River'-' (instead of keeping to Jehovah, the Fountain of Liv
ing Water) ? ' 19. Thine own wickedness will punish thee, and thy de
fections from Me shall chasti.se thee.
Know, therefore, and see how evil
and bitter it is to forsake Jehovah,
thy God, and that My fear is not in
thee, saith the Lord, Jehovah of
hosts.'' Israel has from of old been
unfaithful, and has persisted in
going after idols.
"30, Por from long past times'
thou hast broken thy yoke and burst altars.
thy bonds ° — (the bonds of thy cov
enant with Me, made at Sinai) — and hast said, ' I will not serve Je
hovah,' " and on every high hill and under every green tree thou hast
laid thyself down to play the harlot. 81. Yet I planted thee a noble
vine' of a pure stock; how hast thou turned into degenerate shoots of
a foreign (worthless) vine, to me? 23. Yea, though thou wash thee

' Hebrew, Shihor ; Septuagint, Guon. Shihor = black, referring to the troubled
waters of the Nile, discoloured hy the alluvial mud it brings with it from the far
south. The word Geon, or Gihon, is used by the Septuagint from the belief that the
Nile was the same as Gilion, one of the four rivers of Paradise. See vol. i, p. 93,
2 The Euphrates, This verse refers to political action, taken in Josiah's minority,
to form leagues with Egypt and Assyria, no donbt with the idea of keeping the
secret from each country of any intrignes with the other. The same course had been
followed in the Northem Kingdom before its fall. See vol, iv. p, 279, Hos, xii. 1,
5 The water of the Euphrates needs to stand till it ck-ars, before it can be used,
and it is then strained throngh a cloth, to keep back its hurtful sediment. Rosen-
mailer, vol. iv. p, 267.
' Jer. ii. 20-2S.
' The Septuagint, Vulgate, Hitzig. Graf, and Keil, read " Thou " for " I."
" " Transgress," in the Authorized Version, is undoubtedly a later reading, from
the very slight chauge of a Hebrew "d"for an "r," the two letters being almost
identical in appearance. The Masoretic note reads the word as I have rendered it.
' Soraik, a specially prized vine, supposed to be the same as that which in
Morocco is now called Serki, and iu Persia Kishmlsh, with small round dark berries
aud soft stones. Niebuhr, Discripl. de V Arabic, p. 147,

140 THE EARLY' PREACHING OF JEREMIAH.
¦with natron,' aud take much soap,' thine iniquity remains black' be
fore me, says the Lord Jehovah.
"33. How canst thou say, 'I am not polluted;' I have not gone
after the Baals ' ? See thy doings in the valley (of Hinnom, -where thou
burnest thy children to Moloch) ; ^ take knowledge of what thou hast
doue ; thou light-footed carael-filly, running madly hither and thither
in thy heat ; 24. thou art like a she wild-ass, used to the wilderness,
¦which, in the fierceness of her desire, sniffs up the wind, and can be
tumed back by none, in her season. They that seek the camel-filly
need not weary themselves by running after her. In her month they
¦wiU flnd her (with the hc-camels of the herd — Judah is mad after idols
— you will find her beside them).
"25. ('0 Judah,' says Jehovah,) 'run not (thus insanely after false
gods), till thy feet are bare aud thy throat parched with thirst ! ' " But
thou answerest: 'It is useless speaking. No! I love strange peoples
(and strange gods), and I will go after them.'
"26. As a thief is ashamed when he is caught,' so is the House of
Israel" ashamed — they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and
their prophets — (at being found) 27. saying to a block of wood, ' Thou
art my father,' and to a block of stone, 'Thou hast brought me
forth.' For they have turned their backs and not their faces to Me.
But in the time of their trouble they will say to Me, ' Up, and save
usi'" 1 A mineral alkali gathered from the famous natron lakes in Egypt, sixty miles
¦W.N.W, of Cairo. Natron is an impure form of soda. About 300 persons are still
employed in collecting it from the edges of the pools or lakes. It is used in the East,
ivith oil, as a substitute for soap.
2 "Borith." A tje,9e^aWe alkali obtained from the ashes of alkaline plants which
flourish in the salt marshes of the coasts of Palestine and also on the shores of the
Dead Sea. The varions species of Salicornia and Salsola are mostly used, and an
active trade in the potash made by burning them is still carried on. The manufacture
is very like that of alkali from the burning of kelp, on the coasts of Ireland and Scot
land. A soft soap, made by boiling olive oil with potash, is now used ; oil being
cheaper than tallow. Tristram's Nat. Bist. qf Bible, p. 481 ; Land and Book, p. S82.
3 Literally, "is written." Septuagint, " Still thou art stained by thine iniquities,"
etc. ' Jer. ii. 23-28.
' 2 Kings xxiii. 10. Jer. vii, 31 ; xxxii. 35. Moloch = Baal. Jer. xix. 5 ; xxxii. 35.
Hos. ii, 8,
^ Hitzig understands the bare feet to have reference to the leaping barefoot in the
sacred dances round the altars of Baal, and the parched throat, of the effect of fhe
continuous caUing on the god. 1 Kings xviii. 26,
' Literally, "found,"
" Judah could now take to herself the proud name of " Israel " ; the northem
kingdom, which alone had a right to it, having perished.

THE EARLY PREACHING OF JEEEMIAH. 141
Jehovah -will then, however, refuse to help them.
"38. Where, then, are thy gods that thou hast made for thyself?
Let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble ! For
as many as are thy towns, so many are thy gods, 0 Judah ' (and as
many as the streets of Jerusalem, are the altars to Baal)."*
Since the -whole people have apostatized, and no chastise
ment or -warning from the prophets has had any effect, they
cannot justly complain if God give them up to the sorest
judgments. The apostasy has had no excuse ; it has been a
sin without parallel as without cause.
"29. Why "do ye murmur (at My threatenings), and talk against
Me (for them)? You have all played foul with Me, says Jehovah. 30.
I have smitten your sons in vain ; they have not accepted the correc
tion ; your sword, like a destroying lion, has devoured your prophets.'
31. 0 (evil) generation (that ye are), mark for yourselves the word of
Jehovah! Have I been (unfruitful, like) a wilderness, to Israel: a laud
of thick darkness ' (as they say of the pathless desert, in which men
-wander -without guidance, hopelessly, as if in deep night)? Why,
then, say My people, ' We shall go where we like ; we shall come no
more to thee ? ' 32. Cau a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her
showy sashes?" But My people — (My bride) have forgotten Me for
days without nuraber! "
Yet what had this license and unfaithfulness gained for
them ? They had only learned heathen wickedness, as seen
in the persecution and martyrdom of the prophets and the
followers of Jehovah.
"38. Why speedest thou thy way,' to seek love?' Thou hast thus
* The god of one town had no respect from the people of another, and was re
garded as powerless outside his own narrow sphere. It is still so in Ceylon. Knox's
Ceylon, p. 161,
= Septuagint, ' Jer. ii. 29-32.
• In the martyrdoms of Manasseh's time.
^ Literally, " of tlie darkness of Jehovah.'*
^ Girdles or belts, as omaments.
T " Makest comely thy ways.'*
» Jer. ii. 33-37.

142 THE EARLY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH.
accustomed thyself ' to evil deeds.- 84. The heart's blood of guiltless
sufferers — (the prophets ' aud the godly) — is found on the skirt of thy
robe. Thou didst not catch them breaking in, as thieves, to thy house,
(else killing them would have been innocent).' But through the in
iquity learned by all thy idolatrous ways, has blood been shed. 35. Yet
thou sayest, ' Indeed I am innoceut ; His anger is tumed away from me ;
no evil has fallen upon me (since Manasseh's day).' "
Jehovah, however, protests against this — ¦
"Behold, I will try the matter with thee, because thou sayest, 'I
have not sinned.' 30. AVhy art thou so eager tb change thy policy,'
O Judah ? Thou shalt be brought to shame by thy new alliance with
Egypt, as thou wast (in the past) by thy old alliance with Assyria.'
37. Yea, thou shalt come back frora (this coquetting with) Pharaoh,'
thine hand (clasped) over thy head (in token of trouble and sorrow),'
for Jehovah despises those in whom thou trustest, and thou shalt not
prosper in (thy relations with) them. III. 1. For He says," 'If a
mau divorce his wife, and she go from him and become the wife of
another man, can the first husband take her back (to be his wife)
again?" (Is not that wife hopelessly polluted?) (And when the land
of Judah, the bride of Jehovah, leaves Him and makes alliance with
Egypt and Assyria,) is not that land utterly polluted? But thou
(Judah) committest sin with many lovers, and yet thinkest thou (thus
living in impurity) to return to me?' " "
God has good reason to speak thus, and to refuse to
acknowledge Judah as His bride any longer.
1 Literally, " thy ways,"
¦^ Copying the vices and violence of the heathen, Ewald. Hitzig, Graf. Keil.
» Verse 30,
* So, by the Law. Exod, xxii, 2. Jeremiah must have thus known Exodus. The
text is obscure.
^ Literally, " way,"
^ See 2 Chron, xxviii. 21 ; Isa. vii. 8.
' Nothing is known of overtures to Egypt on the part of Josiah, but it is quite
possible that the heathen party, after Manasseh had been carried off to Babylon, may
have inclined to Egypt for the time, since under Psammetichus it was rising fast
iuto a great power once more.
e 2 Sam. xiii. 19. ' Jer. iii. 1. i» Deut. xxiv, 1-4.
" So, in effect, Ewald, Keil, Streane, Sachs, De Wette, Noyes.

THE EARLY PREACHIlfG OF JEREMIAH. 143
"IIT. 2. Lift up thine eyes' to the treeless hills, aud see where thou
hast not been dishonoured. Thou hast sat by the wayside (like a har
lot, to catch passers by), as the Arab lurks in the desert (to plunder
wayfarers),' and thou hast polluted the land by thy lewdness and thy
wickedness.' 3. For this reason showers have been withheld (from
you), and there has been no latter rain.' But (though I thus sent
drought on thee, to make thee consider and tum from thy evil ways)
thou hast had a harlot's forehead, and hast refused to be ashamed. 4.
Nay, dost thou not even now cry to Me,' 'My Father! Thou art the
spouse of my youth! 5. Will He keep His anger for ever? Will He
bear ill will against me, time -without end ? ' Thou speakest thus, in
deed, but still doest evil, ay, and art set ou doing it ! "
Such a discourse throws striking light on the position
claimed by the Jewish prophets. As the representative of
Jehovah, Jeremiah demands that the State shall follow his
counsels, and not that of any political party, or even of the
king. And as he interferes peremptorily in the foreign
politics of the nation, we shall find him not less active in
all internal questions — the size of estates, the low wages of
the labourer, the rate of interest taken, the morals of priests
and prophets, the violence of the lawless among the nobles,
and whatever else, for the time, was a prominent evil in the
community. Whereas the modern preacher deals almost
wholly with the past or the future, ignoring the present as
too dangerous for his peace or private interests, or, in his
foolishness, too " worldly " for his calling, the prophets had
for their great theme the fearless application of the princi-
' Jer. iii. 2-5.
2 Judah has been eager after idolatry. The allusion here is, apparently, to the
setting up heathen altars at the comers of the streets and at the city gates. 3 Kings
xxiii, 8 ; Ezek, xvi, 25. The desert Arabs have in all ages been the same. See Diod.
Sic., ii. 48. Plin., Bist. Nat., vi. 28.
' In shedding the blood of the prophets and martyrs. Chap. ii. 80, 34.
« See vol, iv. 246.
* Literally, " from now on." Chr, B, Michaelis points with acuteness to this
expression, as shewing the words to have been spoken at the beginning of Josiah's
reformation, which commenced in the twelfth year of that prince's reign.

¦144 THE EARLY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH.
pies of religion to every-day life, public and priVate, leav
ing to all ages a priceless lesson of the true sphere of re
ligious teachers, and their -w'ork in the earth. Rites and
ceremonies they left to the priests, regarding them as
worthless, except as the expressions of lofty and sincere
morality and homage to the unseen. Nor can we hope
that our pulpits or clergy will ever fulfil their mission till
they follow the same course. Like the prophets, they must
be willing to take their life in their hands, if necessary,
and to hold lightly, at all times, by their personal interests
or convenience, giving themselves with a grand devotion to
the denouncing of all abuses in political, public, or private
life, without fear or favour. Were the dignitaries of the
Church, in all its sections, to be tribunes of the people in
the way in which the prophets were, they would vindi
cate and glorify their office as God intended. We need
nothing so much in our day as the manliness and hon
esty of soul of men like Jeremiah, who feared God and
no one else, and sought to make His kingdom a reality on
earth, leaving the affairs of a future life to God, in the firm
belief that to do one's duty here is the best security for
whatever rewards may be reserved for eternity. It is to be
noticed, moreover, that Jeremiah and his order, at large,
cared nothing for politics simply as such ; sought no posi
tion for themselves among the officials of the State, but
treated all questions only in their religious bearing. They
aimed at no more than to root out every form of evil from
the land they loved ; and to bring about a moral reform by
insisting on hearty obedience to the Divine Law, between
man and God, and man and his neighbour. Their voice,
in fact, was that of ideal loyalty to heaven and to their
brethren, and as such was the only true wisdom ; the wis-

THE EARLY PREACHING OF JEREMIAH. 145
dom which no State can venture to forget save at its certain
peril. They foreshadowed the grand ideal held wp to all
ministers of the religion of Jesus Christ, who pledge them
selves, in their ordination vows, to imitate Him as their
great Exemplar.

vot. V.-10

CHAPTEE VIII,
BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH.
Roused by the earnest preaching of Zephaniah and Jere
miah, and, it may be, by secret friends of the ancient faitli
in the palace, Josiah had openly shewn a religious bias, from
the eighth year of his reign, when he was sixteen, the age at
which Hebrew kings attained their majority. Some mem
bers of noble families, like Baruch, and his brother Seraiah,'
who held office at court at a later date, were early won to the
cause of Jehovah ; if, indeed, they had not always been true
to Him. Subsequent notices of them shew that, like Jere
miah, they must have been in their early manhood when
they allied themselves with the prophet, but their sincerity
was proved by a lifelong fidelity to him, when to shew it was
full of danger. Maaseiah, also, the governor of Jerusalem,'^
joined the party of the old religion ; with Hilkiah, the high
priest,' Hanameel, the cousin of the prophet,'' Shallum, the
keeper of the priestly vestments, and his wife^ Huldah, who,
as late as the eighteenth year of Josiah, held the foremost
place in Jerusalem, for her prophetic gifts, though Jeremiah
had then been preaching for five years. Sueh a group
formed the centre of a religious party, powerful in influence,
if not in numbers, and strengthening the hands of the king
in his projects of reform.
> Jos., Ant., X. vi. 2. Baruch i. 1, Jer, xxxvi. 4. 10, 32. a g Chron. xxxiv. 8-
» 2 Kings xxii. 4. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 9. 1 Esdr, i. 8. * Jer. xxxii, 7.
• The Septuagint says she was his mother, 2 Kings xxii. 14.

BEGINNING OF REFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH. 147
These could only, however, be slowly carried out, in the
face of a depraved public opinion, slow to acquiesce in such
changes. Idolatry had been the state-religion for nearly
seventy years, so that the existing generation knew nothing,
or next to nothing, of the faith of their fathers. Even the
existence of the sacred " Book of the Law " seems to have
been well-nigh forgotten, though it had been taught
throughout Judah in the reign of Jehoshaphat, nearly three
hundred years before,' and Jehoiada had laid it on the head
of Jehoash at his coronation," in accordance with the com
mand in Deuteronomy," two hundred and fifty years previ
ously.' Nor was this wonderful, for all copies of it had
doubtless been destroyed, as far as possible, during Manas
seh's reign. The corruption of the priesthood, and of the
great body of the prophets, had deepened the spiritual igno
rance thus entailed, and confirmed the nation in its apostasy.
A return to the religious ideas of the reign of David, which
was the ideal of the godly Hebrew, was hence necessarily
slow. Steps were taken to repair the temple, and its con
nected buildings, the first being to collect the necessary
funds. Nearly two hundred and fifty years before, the
whole fabric had been restored under Jehoash, but since
then it had become sorely dilapidated by time and violence.
Some of the kings had deliberately pulled down portions, to
build their idolatrous high places and altars ; rents shewed
themselves in the walls and roofs ; the timber work was
decayed ; the gold or bronze decorations had been in part
stripped off, and the courts despoiled of their sacred equip
ments.' But it was no longer possible to obtain funds by
the contributions of worshippers alone, as had been done in
1 Jehoshaphat, b.c. 917. = 2 Kings xi. 13.
5 Deut. xvii. 18. This is to be noted as a hint respecting the age of that hook.
* Jehoash, B.C. 877. ' 2 Chron. xxxiv. 11. 2 Kings xxii. 5, fi.

148 BEGIXXIKG OF REFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH.
the days of Jehoiada.' The high officials who had charge of
the temple gates were, therefore, sent through the whole
land to collect contributions, not only in Judah, but over
the old territory of the Ten Tribes, in which many Hebrew
communities still survived. ' The prejudice that had kept
these from joining heartily with Hezekiah in a similar move
ment," two generations before, had disappeared in the cen
tury which had nearly elapsed since his messengers had been
sent out with a general invitation to them, to come to Jeru
salem, to the Passover. The calves of Bethel and Dan had
been long ago carried off by the Assyrians,* but though re
placed by images of Baal, and by Asherahs, the sympathy of
common blood now, at last, disposed the survivors of the
Northern Kingdom to seek religious reunion with Judah, as
the Samaritans did, at a later day. Josiah, moreover, bore
himself as king of the undivided nation, including all its
twelve tribes, having apparently taken advantage of the de
cline of Assyria, to occupy the northern territory as far as
he could. It seems probable, indeed, that in his zeal to
restore the ancient glory of David, he had even attacked the
small nations round — Edom, Moab, and Ammon — who had
been tributary to the Jews. Thus only, perhaps, can their
subsequent inveterate bitterness, when Judah was in trouble,
be explained.
While, however, the king, a young man of twenty-one,
was feeling his way to a restoration of Jehovah-worship,
Jeremiah, who was apparently about the same age, and had
just been " called,'" was far from sharing any great expecta
tions from the changes that might be made. They seemed
to him only outward. The moral condition of the people
• 2 Kings xii. 4, 9. 23 Chron. xxxiv. 9.
' 2 Chron. xxx. 10. ' Hos. i. 5.
' In the thirteenth year of Josiah.

BEGINNING OF REFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH. 149
he regarded as terribly depraved, and he felt that even if
outward conformity to the Law were restored, the heart of
the multitude was still wedded to heathenism.
Such convictions, as was natural, reacted on the char
acter of his utterances. Ha-ving to address audiences whose
religious instincts had become perverted ; mere rites and
outward acts taking the place of the inner spiritual life
demanded by Jehovah ; conscience, moreover, being asleep,
if not dead — -refinements of language were laid aside, and
clear and direct address took their place. Neglecting the
beauties of rhetoric, or the measured rhythm common in the
discourses of his order, he spoke mostly in earnest but sim
ple prose, with only occasionally a higher flight. Some
prophets might feel it most suitable to veil the future in
vivid metaphor, or might speak in general terms of the ap
proach of an a-wful day of Jehovah ; but Jeremiah, like Isa
iah, and even more completely than he, preferred to use the
simplest language ; announcing his predictions, from month
to month and year to year, with wondrous preciseness, and
leaving no room for question respecting their future fulfil
ment. He wished to give no excuse for any one sajdng,
that " the days would pass, and the visions remain unful
filled," or to mock at his words as dealing only with distant
and far-off times.' He spoke, therefore, of the future, as
one who saw its events with perfect distinctness, not like
the scenery of dreams. Living in communion with the
world around him, he used no riddles or parables, but
painted the times to come as if they were present. Sim
plicity and directness were his supreme aims ; if by any
means he might win the popular heart for Jehovah.
From the moment of his receiving the Divine commission,
1 Ezek. xii. 22-25, 27. SS.

150 BEGINNING OF REFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH.
all natural shyness and timidity had left him. His first ora
tion, already given, shews the word of Jehovah, to use his
own language, glowing in him like fire, and beating in his
breast like an iron hammer.' Like a mirror, or a clear pool,
his spirit reflected every detail of the lights and shadows
falling on it from above. He might be naturally gentle and
desponding, but as a prophet he knew no fear. Godly from
his youth, he detested the falsehood, hypocrisy, and corrup
tion around him, and denounced them with a noble sincer
ity, which no thought of self disturbed or weakened. His
priestly relations must have won him social respect, for not
only his father, but his connections were sacerdotal. But
he suffered, as all true-hearted men must ever suffer, when
truth and godliness assail hollow formality, and vested inter
est in wrong. The priests at Anathoth, his native village,
ere long hated him intensely. He was too much in earnest
for them. Like many in our own day, who should know
better, they wished to keep things smooth ; to let abuses
remain undisturbed, and thus avoid trouble ; and to content
themselves with an outward propriety, unruffled by any
breath of zeal or enthusiasm. In their snug benefices, they,
with most of their brethren over the laud, resented change
or reform in Church or State, and wanted no Methodism
such as he preached. He drew his inspiration, therefore,
under God, not from his brethren, but from a nobler source.
Deeply read in the Law and in the old prophets, he had
stored his mind with their thoughts, their style, and even
their words, till he often unconsciously repeated them.
Drinking at such pure fountains, his soul was filled with
lofty thoughts of God, of morality, of the past of Israel, and
of its future destiny, and he had learned to abhor the lies of
' Jer. xxiii. 20.

BEGIXNIXG OF REFORMATION UNDEE JOSIAH. 1-jl
all kinds flourishing around him, alike in sacred and secular
life, and to denounce them with an energy that infuriated
those who throve on them, but gained for him a posthumous
homage from aU succeeding genei-ations of his race.
The second of his discourses preserved to us, must have
been delivered very soon after the first. He had told his
people the sad fate in store for them if they did not amend
their ways, but they wonld not believe it possible that Jeho
vah wonld really cast them off. He reminds them, however,
that their brethren of the Ten Tribes, part of the chosen
people like themselves, had now for over ninety years been in
exile. If they had been punished thus, why not Judah ?
But his heart sighed to think of any portion of his race
being permanently separated from the rest. The troubles
of Assyria, the rise of the Medes, and the breaking down of
Asiatic kingdoms by the Scythians, may have kindled a fond
hope that the Ten Tribes would ere long be brought back ;
knowing, as he did, from Di-dne intimations, that penitence
would restore to them the favour of .Jehovah. All this ex
pressed itself in his next utterance.
'• III. 6. Have ' you seen, he asked (speaking for God), what Israel
(the kingdom of the Ten Tribes), the Rebellious One, did ? She would
go up on every high hill and tinder everv- green tree, and there play the
harlot. 7. And I, (-Jehovah,) thought, ' After she has done aU this.
she will return to Me.' But she did not return. And the Faithles?
One. her sister Judah, saw it — 8. saw that, for that special reason, be
cause Israel, the Rebellious One, had committed adnlterv (that is, had
given herself up to idols), I had put her away, and given her a biU of
divorce ; ' and yet .Judah, her sister, the Faithless One, was not afraid,
but went and played the harlot also. 9. And the result was that.
though by the report of her lewdness. Israel had defiled the land, com
mitting sin with idok of stone and of wood ; 10. yet, for all this,
Judab, her sister, the Faithless One (thongh she has tumed to Me out-
' Jer. iii. 6-10. - Dent, xxiv, 1-4.

152 BEGINNING OF REFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH.
wardly in the reforms now begun by the king), has not turned to me
with her whole heart, but with hollow insincerity, ' says Jehovah.
"11. Moreover, Jehovah has said to me^ — Israel, (the Rebellious,)
has shewn herself to be more righteous than Judah, the Faithless.
12. Go, cry these words towards the northern countries (to which Israel
has been carried off,) and say. Turn back, O Israel, the Rebellious, says
Jehovah. I will not cause My face to fall ' on you ; for I am merciful,
says Jehovah. I will not keep anger for ever. 13. Only acknowledge
your iniquity ; that you have fallen away from Jehovah, your God, and
roamed about after strange gods, under every green tree, and have not
listened to my voice, says Jehovah. 14. Turn back, ye rebellious
sons, says Jehovah, for (though I put you away) I am (stiU) your hus
band, and I wiU take you (again, if you acknowledge your iniquity —
take you) even if there be only one of a city, or two of a clan (thus
penitent), and bring these back to Zion." 15. And I will give you (as
many as thus return) shepherds after My own heart, (like David of
old) ; * princes who will (reign in My fear, and) feed (or rule) you, (their
flock,) wisely and with understanding. IG. And when you have mul
tiplied and grown fruitful in the land, in those days, says Jehovah,
men will no longer speak of the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah, nor
will it even come into their thoughts ; they will neither talk of it nor
miss it, nor will it be restored ; (for I will establish a new covenant
with you, in which the Ark will be superseded by a far grander mani
festation of My glory than it could boast, though I was throned be
tween the cherubim over it.) 17. Por all Jerusalem will then be
called the Throne of God. (I will no more sit, unseen, in the Holy of
Holies, but) all tho heathen nations will stream like a flood to the holy
city,'' to (worship) the name of Jehovah (then reigning gloriously and
openly in it), and they will no longer follow the stubbornness of their
wicked heart." '
' Literally, with a lie. ^ Jer. iii. 11-17. ^ Gen.iv. 5.
4 The presence of members of various tribes of the Northern Kingdom in Palestine
so late as Christ's day, shews the fulfilment of this promise.
5 1 Sam. xiii. 14. Kings may have been called shepherds not only as " feedinir "
but as " defending " their people, for cvt'n now all shepherds in Palestine are
aimed to protect their charge from wild be:itts or marauders. See St. John x. 1-16.
" The good shepherd l;iys down his life for the sheep." •* Jer. xvi, 19,
' In the restored kinsdom of David, God will give Israel good kings, and, being
Himself present, there wiil bi; no further need of the Ark with its mere symbol of
His presence, over the mercy seat, as hitherto. That venerable relic, however, was
still in existence when Jeremiah spoke. See 2 Chron, xxxv. 3. But its l<iss in the
approaching calamities of the city was final. There was no Ark in the Second Tem
ple. 2 Mace. li. 4, ff.

BEGINNING OF REFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH. 153
The bitter rivalry between the Northern Kingdom and
Judah had burned fiercely while they divided the land be
tween them. But the misfortunes of the Ten Tribes had
long ago extinguished ancient grudges and rivalries, and
had roused intense sympathy, and brotherly longing for
the restoration of the exiles, that the whole race might be
once more united. Hosea had yearned for such a consum
mation,' though Samaria was still in its glory in his day.
Isaiah had pictured a time when Ephraim would not vex
Judah, nor Judah Ephraim, but both would live together as
one people.'' Ezekiel, also, in a later day, was to brighten
the vision of the future by similar anticipations,' for patri
otism, next to loyalty to Jehovah, was a passion with the
prophets in each generation. This golden time now rises
before the eyes of Jeremiah.
"III. 18. In those days' (the banished ones of) the House of Judah
will go rhand in hand) with (the exiles of) the House of Israel; they
shall come, together, out of the Land of the Xorth, to the laud that I
gave to your Fathers for an inheritance. 19. As for Me (says Je
hovah), I thought, of old, leading you from Egypt, how I would make
you My sons, and give you a glorious land, n heritage, the noblest
among the nations,* saying thus to myself, I will do so, if thou call!
Me, 'My Father,' and never wander from My steps. 20. But, surely,
as a wife is unfaithful to her husband, you have been faithless to Me,
0 House of Israel, says Jehovah.''
Such tenderness on the part of God, it seems to the
prophet, must rouse the guilty ones to repentance. Filled
¦with this thought, he hears already, in the far distance, the
wail of penitence from Israel.
" Hos. i. 11. " Isa. xi. 13, 14.
3 Ezek. xxxvii. 16-23. < Jer. iii. 18-20.
^ Gesenius. Ewald. Hitzig. Graf. Keil. Eichhorn. Naegelsbach, Eichhorn
translates the former part of the verse : " I thought, on what condition could I give
yon the rights of sons, etc," " And determined thus — I will do it if they say to Me
'My Father,' etc."

154 BEGINNING OF EEFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH.
"21. A voice sounds ' from the treeless hills: - the weeping and sup
plications of the sons of Israel, because they have tumed aside from
the right way, and have forgotten Jehovah, their God. "
But now, in the midst of this weeping, is heard the voice
of God, Himself, moved to pity.
"22. Turn back, ye rebellious children! I -will heal your back
slidings!" Then rises the eager outcry of those thus tenderly
addressed, hastening to profit by the gracious invitation.
"Behold! we come to Thee! Thou art, indeed, Jehovah, our God!
23. Assuredly only mocking disappointment comes from the (high
places on) the hills, or from the tumult (of pilgrim crowds) on the
mountains ! ' Assuredly, in Jehovah our God, alone, is the salvation of
Israel ! 24. (Baal, and the Asherah) — The Shame — have consumed the
substance of our fathers, from the youth of the nation, till now ; their
flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters, have been lost
to us (by the judgments we have suffered for our sin' and by the
human sacrifices we have offered). 25. Let us lie down in our shame ;
let our confusion cover us! For we have sinned against Jehovah, our
God; we, and our fathers, from the earliest times' until now, and
have not hearkened to the voice of Jehovah, our God."
This confession God graciously accepts, and promises His
restored favour, if the penitence expressed be sincere and
permanent. "IV. 1. If thou dost (really) turn back to Me, 0 Israel, saith Je
hovah, then thou wilt return to thy land ; ^ and if thou (really) put
away thy idol abominations ' from My sight " (and runnest not after
1 Jer. iii. 21-iv. 1.
^ The hills were tho special places of prayer. Hos. iv'. 13. Jer. iii. 2, 23 ; vii. 29.
2 Sam. XV. 32. Num. xxiii. 3. Ezek. xvi. 24.
s This rendering, which is that of Hitzig, seems the best. De Wette translates it
" The idolatrous noise of the mountains,'' in allusion to the vociferous cries, etc., of
the worshippers of Baal. 4 Isa. Ixv. 21, 22.
^ Literally, " From onr youth," i.e., as a nation, * De Wette,
' 1 Kings xi, 5-7, 2 Kings xxiii, 13,
8 The Septuagint has " out of thy month," an allusion to their eating meats offered
to idols. See Zech, ix, 7, The Levitical laws were thus in force, according to this
7eading, which is that of Ewald and Hitzig.

BEGINNING OF EEFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH. 155
them, 3. and if thou wilt swear truly, uprightly, and with thy whole
heart, ' By the Ufe of Jehovah,' ' to do all this, then shall the nations
bless themselves in Me, and in Me shall they glory." '^
Judah, in its self-righteousness, was little prepared to
anticipate a fate like that of the Ten Tribes. Had not
reformation begun under Josiah ? But the prophet warns
them, that only sincere repentance can save them from the
same ruin as had overtaken their brethren.
" 3. (Think not, 0 Judah and Jerusalem, that hollow outward amend
ment will avert a like doom.) For thus says Jehovah: Plough up your
fallow ground,' and sow not among thoms; (good resolutions are not
enough, if you still cherish sin in your heart). 4. Circumcise your
hearts— (be truly, not merely outwardly. My people) — ye men of Judah
and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest My indignation burst forth on you
like fire, aud burn, so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of
your doings."
No warnings could have been more solemn or awful than
these ; but they were of no avail. Josiah's Eeformation
proved largely superficial ; no corresponding change shewed
itself in the public and private life of the community. Nor
was any to be anticipated under existing circumstances.
To use one of their own metaphors, the nation must be puri
fied in the furnace of affiction, and Jeremiah was now com
missioned to announce this.
¦¦'The North'' was the quarter from which the past disas
ters of both Israel and Judah had come, and the calamities
of the near future were to burst over the land from the
¦ " As God liveth," or "as the Lord liveth," is the common form ot oath in Pales-
line at this day, in confirming any matter. It is commanded in Dent. x. 20, 21, that
the people " Swear by His, Jehovah's, name." Jer. iv. 2-4.
2 Gen. xii. 3 ; xviii. 18 ; xxii. 18 ; xxvi. 4 ; xlviii. 20. The Hebrew has " Him "
for Me, which is used to prevent a change of person not permitted by our Idioms.
' The words are, "plough up your ploughed land." The ground was ploughed
several times before each sowing. The stubble ploughed in was succeeded hy a croy
of thoms, and these had to be again tumed under. See p. 8.

156 BEGINNING OF REFORMATION UNDEE JOSIAH.
same regions. The nation to be employed as the instru
ment of Divine justice was not, however, distinctly named
in Jeremiah's first utterances, and opinion has been divided
respecting it. Eichhorn first suggested that the great
''Scythian" invasion was intended, and in this he has
been followed by Ewald, Hitzig, Bertheau, Movers, and
Duncker.' But it seems a fatal objection to this theory
that chariots — which tho Scythians certainly did not use
— are mentioned as a special characteristic of the hostile
forces. These savage hordes brought with them vast num
bers of waggons, each drawn by over twenty oxen, and bear
ing a wicker frame covered with black or white felt, thirty
feet in diameter — a great tent, in fact — lifted bodily ofE the
carriage when they encamped for the night. ° But these, as
suredly, could not move "like a whirlwind.'" It seems
safer, therefore, to conclude that the Chaldjeans from Baby
lon are intended, though nothing is said of the deportation
of the population of Judah, but only of their being ruthlessly
slaughtered." Nor is it strange, though the first invasion
by Nebuchadnezzar was still about thirty years distant, that
Babylon should already have been dreaded. Nineveh was
fast sinking, and had, indeed, been saved for a time, only
by the inroad of the northern barbarians. It was destined
to fall within the next fifteen or sixteen years, before the
¦victorious Medes and Babylonians, who had shewn wonder
ful vigour after the death of Assurbanipal, which took place
in B.C. 620. Nabopolassar, formerly Assyrian viceroy of
Babylon, not only won and maintained his independence,
but threatened the very existence of the Assyrian capital.
Such a state of affairs would leave no room for hesitation.
• Gesch. des Alterth., vol. i. p, 751, ff,
' Blakesley's Berod., iv. 69. See pp. 83, 106.
1 Jor. iv. 13. « Jer. iv. 7, 20.

BEGINNING OF EEFORMATION UNDEE JOSIAH. 157
Under these circumstances, Jeremiah, somewhere about
the year B.C. 6'23, when the reformation had been some
years in progress,' startled Jerusalem by a new and awful
announcement, that tho long-suffering forbearance of Je
hovah being at last exhausted. He had determined to let
loose a terrible enemy on Judah, and bring on its capital
the long-predicted day of His vengeance.
"IV. 5. Make it known aloud in Judah, cried he ; proclaim it in
Jerusalem," saying: Blow the trumpet of alarm in the land; cry with
a mighty voice ' — ' Gather yourselves together, (ye people of the open
viUages,) and let us go into the fortified towns.' ' 6. Raise a flag to
point (out the way) to Zion : ' flee thither for refuge ; make no delay.
For I (Jehovah) am about to bring evU out of the north, and a great
destruction. 7. The Lion has come up from his thicket;" the de
stroyer of the nations has struck his tents, ^ and set out on his march,
to make thy land desolate; (0 Judah,) thy cities shaU be laid waste,
without an inhabitant ! ^ 8. Because of this, gird yourselves with sack
cloth, (in token of mourning); beat on your breasts,' and raise the loud
wail; for the burning anger '° of Jehovah is not tumed back from us! "
9. At that day, says Jehovah, the heart of the king and the heart of
the princes wUl faint: '- the (unfaithful priests) be petrified with ten-or;
the (false) prophets be in consternation ! "
' It began apparenUy in b.c, 626. • Jer. iv. 5-9.
' Literall.v, " with full throat."
* So the inhabitants of Attica crowded into Athens on occasion of a Spartan inva
sion. Thuc, ii. 1,-2. So, also, at Jernsalem before the last siege.
» Isa. xi. 10, 12.
« The thickets, or " swelling," or " excellency " of the bed of the Jordan were the
great hanut of lions in Jeremiah's day. Hence " come np." It refers to the animal's
ascent from its lair in the sunken jungle, which stretches at intervals along the
whole course of the Jordan, far below tne level of Anathoth and Jernsalem. See
Jer. xxv. 33 : xlix, 19 ; 1. 44. Also 'Wilton's Mgeb, p. 43, See pp. 23D, 372 of this
vol,, and vol, ii. p. 437,
' Literally, " has pulled up his tent stakes.'*
' See Jer. chap, xliii, ,5-7.
° Literally. '" See verse 4,
»• Their reformation had as yet been only superfical. The sins of the past had not
'oeen heartily forsaken,
12 Keil and Hitzig miderstand this passage: the intellect will be paralyzed — they
will " lose their head,"

158 BEOIKNING OF EEFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH.
These prophets had built great hopes on the restoration
of the temple and the destruction of idols and heathen
altars now going on, and had confidently predicted peace
and prosperity.
"10. Then said I,' Alas, 0 Lord, Jehovah,'' Thou hast surely let this
people, Judah, and (the citizens of) Jerusalem, be greatly deceived by
the (false) prophets, who (thinking the return to Thy worship would
bring prosperity) have told them, 'Te shall have peace.' But the
sword is about to pierce to the very soul! 11. CWhen the enemy is ad
vancing,) it shall be said to this people and to Jerusalem — 'A scorching
east wind blows from the burnt-up ' hUls of the wilderness, towards the
da'jghter of My people ; (a wind) not to winnow or to cleanse (for its
gusts will carry away chaff and grain together) : * 153. a storm frind °
comes from Me upon them,'
" Now, therefore, says Jehovah, shall I give forth My sentence against
them." 13. Behold, the enemy comes (up in dense, huge masses) like
clouds ; ' his chariots rush on like a whirlwind ; his horses are swifter
than eagles. Woe to us, we are destroyed ! "
Salvation from utter ruin is still possible ! But, for this,
real, not merely nominal, reformation, is before all things
needed. " 14. 0 Jerusalem,' wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou may
est be saved ! How long shall thy sinful thoughts " lodge within thee ?
15. (It is surely high time to amend, for) hark, a voice cries from Dan
1 By a slight change in a vowel, Ewald wonld read, "Hence it is said,"— putting
the verse into ihe mouth of the false prophets, who claim that their announcement
of *' peace " was from Jehovah. It would read thu^ : " Hence it is said, "Verily, Thon
hast deceived this people and Jerusalem, O Lord Jehovah, saying, ' You shall have
peace,' whereas, the sword reaches to the soul,"
' Jer. iv. 10-13. s Literally, "bare,"
* Wetstein, in Delitzsch's Biob, p. 320. "In the harvest time the threshed grain
lying on the open-air threshing floors cmnot be winnowed. A moderate and steady
breeze, which comes only from the west and south, is needed. The north wind is
too strong, and the ea^t wind comes in continual gusts, wliich blow away grain and
chaff together." Winnowing is done, as a rule, between four p.m. and a half-hour
before sunrise— i.e., in the evening and during the night, while the west wind from
the sea is blowing. Eiehm, B. W. B., p. 23. « Hitzig. ' De Wette.
' Ezek. xxxviiL 18. ' Jer. iv. 14-18. » Eichhorn, false hopes.

BEGINNING OF EEFOEilATION UNDEE JOSIAH. 159
(in the north), announcing (the approach of the foe, and the) evil news
(is echoed back) from the mountains of Ephraim ! 10. ' Make it known
among the nations ' (shouts the messenger),' ' proclaim it in Jerusalem
— Besiegers come from a far country and lift up their voice against the
towns of Judah.' 17. Like watchers of afield are they round about
Zion,- because she has been rebellious against Me, says Jehovah.
18. Thy way and thy doings have brought this upon thee ! This is
the fruit of thy wickedness, and, indeed, it is bitter, and pierces even
to thy heart ! "
The agony of grief at such a calamity is universal, and is
expressed in touching words, for himself and others, by the
prophet. "19. My breast!' 0, my breast! I tremble for sorrow!* The
walls of my heart will break ! My heart groans within me ; I cannot
keep it still." Por thou, my soul, hearest the trumpet-peals ; hearest
the cries of war! 20. Calamity after calamity is proclaimed, for the
whole land is laid waste : the dwellings ° of My people are suddenly
spoiled ; their tents 'ina moment ! 21 . How long shall I see the ban
ner ' and hear the loud trumpet ? "
Jehovah now speaks :
" 33. (Could it, indeed, be otherwise ?) Por truly My people is fool
ish ; they have not known Me : stupid children, without sense ; wise
to do evil, but without sense to do good."
» This is the sense giveu by most, implying a summons to them to see the judg
ments of God, even on His chosen people. Hitzig translates the phrase, "make it
known respecting the barbarians, that," etc. It would thus be a proclamation of the
approach of the enemy.
* The keepers or watchers of a fit-Id or vineyard cry ont loudly at intervals througli
the night, to let it be known that a strict w itch is being kept. There are no enclosed
fields in Palestine. The watchers, therefore, in reality, are in the open conntrj', and
the tents of the besiegers round Jerusalem are coiup.ired lo their huts. See Lev.
xiv. 7 ; xvii. 5. Luke ii. 8. Job xxvii. IS.
' Jer. iv. 19-22. ' I writhe in pain. » Or, hold ray peace, « Tents,
' " Tent-coverings," The u'se of these words for the dwellings of a settled people
shews how long the tradition of their former nomadic life remained amongst them, as,
^D'ieed, it does, in the Fenpt of Tabernacles, to this day. See, for similar expressions,
a bam. xviii, 17 ; xx. 1. 1 Kings viii. (i6 ; xii. 16,
The Assyrians had standards fixed on their chariots, generally emblems enclosed
in a circle, with streamers ivaving from the long pole which they surmounted.
La/axd'3 Nineneh, vol, ii. p. Z^,

IGO BEGINNING OF EEFORM.ATION UNDER JOSIAH.
The prophet, therefore, passes on to describe the awful
ness of the impending judgments :
" IV. 23. I looked on the earth,' and, behold, it is waste and empty;
on the heavens, and their light is gone. 24. I looked on the moun
tains, and, lo, they trembled ; on the hills, and they swayed to and fro.
25. I looked, and, lo, there were no men, and all the birds of the
heavens were gone. 26. I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was be.
come a desolate wilderness,^ and all its towns were thrown down before
Jehovah; before His glowing anger! 27. For thus saith Jehovah —
The whole land shall be desolate ; though I will not make an utter end
of it. 28. For this shall the earth moum, and the heavens above bo
darkened, because I (Jehovah) have spoken and purposed, and will not
repent nor draw back from it. 29. Every city ^ shall ilee at the noise
of the horsemen and archers;' the population crowd into the (dark)
thickets " (of the woods,) and climb up into the (hoUow) rocks.' Every
city is forsaken ; no man dwells in any of them !
' ' 30. And thou (daughter of Zion), given up to the spoil,' what art thou
doing? (Dost thou hope by thy arts to win over the victors to mercy,
as a woman by her charms prevails on her lovers to shew her favour?
It will be useless.) Though thou clothest thyself in pui'ple, and deekest
thyself with golden ornaments, and makest thine eyes appear larger,
by painting (thine eyelids with antimony,*) in vain dost thou make
thyself fair! The foe thou wouldst win to love thee, ¦will despise thee
and seek thy life! 31. For I hear a cry as of a woman in labour, the
cry as of one that is bearing her first child< it is the voice of the
daughter of Zion, sighing deeply, as she spreads out her hands (in her
sorrow,) and wailing: ' Woe is me, ray soul lies helpless before the
murderers!' ''
But the fate of Jerusalem, tliough thus terrible, was not
undeserved. Its corruption and wickedness were beyond
conception. ' Jer. iv. 23-31. = Hitzig.
= This is clearly the proper reading. See Keil. Sachs. Noyes. The last word
of the verse shews this. Instead of " therein " it should be " in them."
< Literally, " treaders of the bow." They bend it with the help of the foot.
5 The word means a thicket /rom its darkness.
* The etymology shews that caves or hollows are meant, ' Gesenius.
* Lane's Modern Egyptians, vol. i. pp. 45, 46.

BEGIKN"IKG OF REFORMATION" UIIDER JOSIAH. IGl
*' V. 1. Run ye to and fro,' through the streets of Jerusalem, (saith
Jehovah,) and see and learn; seek in its open places, if ye can find a
(single) man; seek if there be one who acts uprightly, who practises
good faith, and I will pardon her. 3. For even when they make oath
*by the life of Jehovah,' they (nevertheless) swear falsely.""
The prophet now speaks.
*' 3. 0 Jehovah, do not Thine eyes look for good faith? Thou smit-
est them, but they feel it not ; Thou destroyest them, but they refuse
to receive the lesson: they make their face harder than rock: they will
not turn back. 4, I thought in myself, 'It must be only the poor
who act thus ; they act foolishly, because they do not know the way of
Jehovah — the law of their God. 5. I will go to the great people, and
speak with them, for they know the way of Jehovah — the law of their
God.' But these, also, one and all, have broken in pieces the yoke (of
God's law), and torn away from its bonds.^
"6. For this cause a lion from the forest^ shall slay them; a wolf of
the evenings * shall destroy them ; a leopard shall keep an eye on * their
* Jer. V. 1-6. ^ Lev. xix. 12. Matt. v. 3i, 35.
3 The figure is from oxen chained to the ploogh.
* The word is y55r. See vol. iv. p. 3fj9.
s Keil, Hitzig. Ewald, Sachs, De Wette, Naegelsbach, Driver, Cheyne, and Fiirst,
translate this word, " of the steppes.'' Bnt Muhlau and Volck, and Geeeniafs, trans
late it as the plural of Ereh =" evening." Canon Tristram, in his iViz^ Sas^. o/'^A^
Bible, p. 154, gives the following incident, which vividly illustrates many texts:
** Their boldness is very remarkable. When camping at desolate Moladah, on the
southern frontier of Simeon, I had one evening wandered alone three or four miles
from the tents. In returning before snnset, I suddenly noticed that I was followed
at an easy distance by a large tawny wolf. The creature kept about 200 yards be
hind me, neither increasing nor diminishing his distance. I tumed upon liim, and he
also turned. In vain I endeavoured to close with him, for he always exactly accom
modated his pace to mine. We continued respectively to advance and retreat with
out coming to close quarters. The wolf's evident inrention was to keep me in sight
vntil evening, when he hoped to steal on me in the darkness, unperceived. He never
uttered asound of any kind, and walked as if unconscious of my presence. When it
was nearly dark I found him rapidly closing upon mc, and, thinking him within
Flint, I halted, when he, too, stood looking at me. I drew my charge, slipped down a
ball, and took dehberate aim, wiihout his moving. The bullet struck a rock be
tween his legs, and then he turned and trotted very quietly away.'' j\^. H. if., p. 154.
The word for " evenings '* is ideniical with the plural of Arabah =" a desert," etc.
—though the singular is Ereb. This plural is used only in this text, Jer. v. 6.
•^ The leopard was formerly common in Palestine. " The mountains of tlie loop,
ards " are mentioned in Cant. iv. 8. The creature is still a pest to the herdsmen in
the mountains of Gilead. The sheik of one vill.igc shewed Canon Tristram four skins
VOL. V.-U

163 BEGINNIKG OF REFOKMATION UNDEE JOSIAH.
towns ; every one who goes out from them will be torn in pieces ; be
cause their transgressions are multiplied, their sins increased.
"7. How, then, can I pardon you?' Thy sons havo forsaken me,
and have sworn by the ' No-gods ! ' '¦^ I bound them by a marriage
oath to Me,' but they broke it and committed adultery, and trooped
into the house of the harlot. 8. Like over-fed stallions, they roam
around : * they neigh each after the other's wife. 9. Shall I not visit
you for such things? says Jehovah. Shall not My soul be avenged on
such a nation as this ? "
In spite, therefore, of the idea of security fostered by
lying prophets, Jehovah will carry out His threats, and lay
the laud and its capital waste, by a cruel and terrible
enemy, now formally commissioned to assail them.
"10. Go up " amongst the planted rows of My vineyard,' and lay it
waste, but do not utterly destroy it. Cut down its bearing shoots, for
they are not Jehovah's! 11. Por (both) the House of Israel and the
House of Judah have been utterly faithless to Me, saith Jehovah. 12.
They have denied Jehovah, and said, ' He is not, and trouble will not
come on us, aftd we will not see either sword or famine. 13. The
(words of the) prophets (who say we shall suffer this) will prove empty
talk; for he who speaks through them is no god' — (they speak of
themselves, or by an evil spirit) ; may their prophecies come on their
own heads! '
of leopards recently killed. Their tracks are frequently seen about the Dead Sea,
and they are also found on Mount Tabor and Mount Carmel. Another animal of the
leopard kind is also found occasionally on tlie hills of Palestine — the cheetah, or hunt
ing leopard of India. It is much less formidable, however, than the leopard. Tris
tram, N. B. B., p. 113. Both are much dreaded, as they lurk about encampments, to
pounce on any stray animal, or even men, who may come out after dark. The allu
sion in the text is to this habit. See Hos, xiii. 7.
* Jer. V. 7-9. ^ A contemptuous name for idols,
8 Keil. De Wette, Hitzig, Naegelsbach. Gesenius, Theonly changereedcd in
the Hebrew is Ihe substitution of "Sh" for"S," which is fonnd in the Masoretic
rotes, Shabah is '• to swear, or. causo to swear ; " Saba U '* to feed to the full." See
llOL'tcher, vol. ii. p. ib-t.
- ¦ issenius, Keil, e jgr. v. 10-13.
¦¦ Caraan is the vineyard of Jehovah. I.=a. iii. H ; v. ], ff. Jer. ii. 21. Tho Jews
were the vine. That this flgure is iutended is shewn by the second half of tho verse,
where '• brauAe? " must De read msteao of " Battlements." Eichhorn— whose trans
lations aro always vigorous— reads tne passage : "Pulldown the trellis work of her
vines." ' Literally, "no one."

BEGIKNI2s'G OF KEFiy.OIATION UKDER JOSIAH. 16.3
"14. Wherefore,' thus says Jehovah of Hosts, because ye speak
thus, behold, I shall make My words in thy mouth, fire (0 Jeremiah),
and this people wood, which the fire will burn up! 15. Lo! I bring
on you a nation from afar, O House of Israel,' says Jehovah; a nation
countless in numbers;' a nation of hoary antiquity;* a nation whoso
language you do not know; whose words you do not understand;'
16. their quiver" is like an open grave; they are all mighty warriors.
17. They shall eat up your harvest and your bread; they shall eat up
your sons and your daughters;' they shall eat up your flocks and your
herds ; they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees ; they will lay in
ruins, at the point of the sword, ° your fortified towns, in which you
trusted. 18. Yet, even in those days, says Jehovah, I will not make
an utter end of you.
" 19. And when ye say, 'Why has Jehovah, our God, done all this to
us? ' you shall answer them : As ye forsook Me and served foreign gods
in your own land, ye shall serve foreigners in a iand that is not yours,''
20. Tell this to the House of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying :
31. Hear this, ye foolish race — without understanding ; who have eyes,
and do not see; ears, and do not hear! '" 22. Will ye not fear Me? says
Jehovah; will ye iiot tremble before Me, who havo placed tho sand
as a bound to the sea — a perpetual barrier, which it cannot pass?
Though it lift itself up it is powerless; though its waves roar, they
cannot cross the bounds I have set for it. 23. But this people (less obe
dient than inanimate nature) has a revolting and rebellious heart; they
turn away (from Me), and go their own way (transgressing the laws I
have given them). 24. Nor do they ever say in their hearts, ' Let us
now fear Jehovah, our God, who gives rain, [both the early and the
latter, in its season; who secures for us the retum of the weeks

' Jer. V. 14-24. ' Judah,
8 Literally, enduring ; exhaustless in its numbers ; not to be got rid of by the
destruction ot a part.
* The chaldees were very ancient, Berosus represents the Chalda3an kingdom as
established at least twenty-three centuries before Christ. Rawlinson's Anct. Mon.,
vol, i, p. 183. Sargon of Accad, as we have seen, reigned b.o. 3750.
' Their appeals for mercv would, thus, be idle. See Deut. xxviii, 49. See also
Wilkins, Phenicla and Israel, p. 7. " See .Jer. lv. «d.
' It seems to have been the belief of the Jews, that the foes from the nortn
devoured children.
^ Or with weapons of war generally, Jer. xxxiii. 4. Ezek. xxvi. 9, " axes."
» This would not apply it the enemy threatened were roving hordes, like thoso jt
the Scythians.
" Jer. lv. S. Hos. vil. 11.

164 BEGINNING OF REFOEMATIOK UNDER JOSIAH.
appointed for tho harvest.' ' 25. Your iniquities have driven away
these from you : your sins have deprived you of this good. 26. For
among My people are found wicked men ; they lie in wait as a bird-
catcher (hides himself from the birds); they set (murderous) snares, and
catch men. 27. Their houses are as full of (riches gained by) deceit as
a cage (of the bird catcher) with birds; through this they have become
great and rich. 28. They have grown fat and shine (with sleekness);
they go beyond bounds in wickedness ; (as judges) they do not uphold
the right ; they betray the cause of the fatherless — to make money out
of them ; they do not uphold the right of the helpless. 29. Shall I not
visit them for such things, says Jehovah — shall not My soul be avenged
on such a people ?
" 30. An appalling and horrible thing is committed in the land; 81.
the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule according to their
word,' and My people like it to be thus.' But what will ye do when
the end of all (this) comes — (the awful judgment of God on the
nation)?" That judgment is no longer doubtful. , A hostile army
will, ere long, march against Jerusalem and besiege it.
"VI. 1. Flee, 0 ye sons of Benjamin,' out of the midst of Jerusa
lem;" let the trumpets sound in Tekoa : display a blazing fire beacon °
at Bethhaccerem,' for overwhelming calamity is imminent from the
1 The seven weeks between the Feast ot the Passover and that of Weeks, On the
day after the Sabbath in the former, the priest waved a sheaf of barley, the first-
fruits of the early harvest, before Jehovah, Lev. xxiii, 10. At the latter, wheat-
bread, the first-fruits of the second harvest. Lev. xxiii, 17, was waved, the one crop
ripening so much later than the other,
2 The deepening corruption of the prophets made the position of Judah increas
ingly hopeless. The priesthood was against Jeremiah ; yet. if the prophets had sup
ported him, he might have felt that all was not lost. But that lying prophets should
oppose and contradict revelation, aud that they should authoritatively interpret the
Law to suit their own airas, and gain the priesthood to carry out this organized per
version of the Diviue will, was indeed appalling and horrible.
3 Amos iv, 5, * Jer, vi. 1 .
= Many Benjamites lived in Jerusalem, 1 Chron, ix. 3, 7. Jeremiah perhnps thinks
of them, first, as his fellow-tribesmen. Jerusalem stood in the territory of Benjamin.
8 The word Masaith refers to the ascending of smoke in burning. A word fonned
from it is used in the Talmud for the fire beacons at the time of the new moon. They
were often kindled on the top of a tower, which the word also means. See Judg. xx.
38. ' Tekoa is a hamlet in the hill country, twelve miles lo the south of Jerusalem,
aud visible from the city. Bethhaccerem lies in the hills nearer Jerusalem. Bleron.

BEGIXXIXG OF REFORilATIOX UXDER JOSIAH. 165
north. 2. Comely and delicate (as she) is, (I will destroy) the daughter
of Zion! ' 3. The shepherds with their flocks (that is, kings with then-
hosts) are coming towards her; they will pitch their tents round about
her; they will cut down, every one, his share of her. 4. (They wiU say,)
let us offer the war sacrifices and lose no time ; let us go up and storm
her at noon (in the heat of the day,* when men rest, and attack will be
least expected! Even this delay, iudeed, will seem too long for them).
'Alas, the day is sinking,' will be the cry; 'the evemng shades are
stretching out. 5. Up ! let us storm her in the night, and destroy her
palaces (without waiting for noon) ! ' '
"6. For thus has Jehovah of Hosts spoken — Hew down her trees,*
and raise a mound against Jerusalem,' whieh is the city to be punished;
she is filled to the full with oppression (of the poor and needy, by fraud,
extortion, and pillage)." 7. As a foimtain sends forth its waters, so
she pours out her wickedness : ' violence and plundering are heard
within her; sufEering and death, from wounds, are continually before
me.' "8. Be warned, 0 Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from thee,'
lest I make thee desolate ; a land not inhabited.
in loc. Tekoa = *' pitching of tent.';,*' or, perhaps, " trumpet clang." Bethhaccerem
= "the house of the vineyard." It seems to liave stood on the prominent conical
hill known now as the Frank Mountain, and would thus be eminently suited for a
fire signal. ' Jerusalem. Jer. vi. 2-8.
= Isa. riii. 2. Jer. Ii. 27, 28. Dent. xx. 2. Ezek. xxi. 21-23,
3 The scientific warfare implied in besieging a fortress was unknown to the " Scy
thians." * Deut. XX, 20.
^ A vast mound of earth, sl.oping on the outer side, was raised close to the walls of
a besieged town; its top as high as that of the walls themselves. Wooden towe^.^
(for which ihe felling of trees was necessary) were then dragged up the inclined plane
of the mound, to drive the defenders from the ramparts. This course was usual «ith
the Assyrians and Babylonians, 2 Kings xix, 32. From them the art probably passed
to the Medes and Persians, Herodotus mentions it in his narrative of the campaign
of Cyrus in Asia Minor, The mound in this case was made after the arrival of Har-
pagus, tke Mede. Herod., i, 162, See note, Blakesley's Berod., i, 119. Rawlinson's
Berod., i. 162,
* Ezek. xxii. 7, 12, Ps, lxxiii, 8, Jer, xxii, 17. Nah. iii, 1.
' Hitzig and Graf render these words, " as a cistern keeps its water cool and fresh;
so she, her wickedness I " They suppose the word nsed, to be derived from a verb
meaning " to be cool," or " fresh " (Karar), but it is generally assumed to be from the
verb Kar, " to dig out " (so that the waters rise in the excavation).
= This seems the most exact sense of the two words used, " Choli " and " Maccah,"
as seen in their renderings elsewhere in the A, V.
* The word nsed is applied to the violent tearing away, or dislocation of a member.
It is most touching to think of Jehovah employing snch a word, to shew the sorrow
with which He would at last withdraw from His people, if they forced Him to do so.

166 BEGINNIIirG OF REFORMATION' UNDER JOSIAH.
"9. Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, The remnant of Israel' shall be
gleaned thoroughly, as men glean ^ the vintage, turning back the hand
again and again, like the gleaner, to the cluster-bearing shoots." "
The prophet is at a loss to whom to announce this awful
message. Those who should .especially hear it, refuse to do
so. He will, therefore, proclaim it aloud in the streets.
"VI. 10. But to whom shall I speak, and give ¦warning, that they
may hear ? Behold ! their ear is uncircumcised (and thus closed up)
so that they cannot hear.' Behold ! the word of Jehovah is a derision
to them; they have no pleasure in it. 11. But I am full of the flerce
anger of Jehovah; I can no longer keep it shut up (in my breast). I
will pour it forth' to the children (playing) in the street; to the com
pany of young men (met) together (for amusement or talk) ; for both
husband and wife will be overtaken (by God's judgments) ; the old man
also, and even he whose days are nearly over.' 12. And their houses
will pass to others ; and so will their fields and their wives together —
for I will stretch out My hand over the inhabitants of the land, says
Jehovah. 13. For, small and great, they are all bent on selfish and
base gain ; from the prophet to the priest, every one cheats. 14. And
both (prophet and priest pretend to) heal the wound of my people, as if
it were slight — (making nothing of it ') — saying, ' All is well, all is
well,' when it is the very reverse! 15. They will have to be ashamed
for the abomination they have committed ; yet they are not (at present)
ashamed in the least, they do not know how to blush. Therefore will
they fall amongst the falling (when the city is taken) ; at the time when
I visit them, they will stumble, says Jehovah! "
1 chap. iv. 87; v. 10, 18, Jer. vi. 9-15.
2 The word to glean is from a root = to drink again and again till one can drink no
more, and implies completeness— the leaving nothing.
s So Fiirst and Hitzig, It is hard to decide where doctors differ, Hitzig asserts
that the word Salsilloth — translated "baskets " in the A. "V. — never means baskets,
but always "tendrils" and the like. Fiirst agrees with him. But Gesenius,
Muhlau and Volck, De Wette, and Sachs think it does mean baskets. Tet, as Eich
horn, Keil, and Ewald agree with Hitzig and Fiirst, and the sense appears better, I
have adopted their rendering. Salsilloth is, indeed, not unlike Zalzallim (Isa. xviii.
5), which certainly means vine shoots.
' Isa. vi. 10. Jer. iv, 4,
s The imperative is used, but the future suits the English sense hetter. The
prophet is speaking to himself. • 1 Chron. xxix, 28. ' Septuagint,

BEGIXXIXG OF BEFORMATIOX UXDER JOSIAH. 167
Without true repentance and a change of heart, judgment
cannot be averted, whatever sacrifices they may offer. Jere
miah is saying nothing new. The course he urges was that
in which the godly among their fathers walked.
"VI. 16. Thus says Jehovah,' ' Take your stand in the ways; look
round you and ask (it you have any doubt) for the old paths;' the
paths which, alone, lead to true good ; and walk in them, and you will
find rest for your souls.' But they said, 'We wiU not walk in them.'
17. I also set watchers (the prophets ') over you, saying, ' Hark, the
sound of the trumpet ! ' But they said. We wUl not hearken.
" 18. Hear, therefore, ye (foreign) nations; leam, 0 assembly (of the
peoples),' that which is coming upon them! 19. Hear, 0 earth! behold,
I will bring e'vil upon this race as the truit ot their devices, because
they had not hearkened to ^y words, and as to My Law,' they have
despised it. 20. (This being so,) what is the incense worth to Me, that
comes from Sheba, and the costly spice-reed from a far country? °
Your whole burnt offerings are not acceptable (to Me), and your sacri
fices do not smell sweet to Me ! '
"21. Therefore, thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will lay stumbling
' Jer. vi. 16-21. ' Dent, xxxii. 7. Jer. xviii. 15 ; xxxii, 39, 40.
8 Ezek, iii. 17 ; xxxiii, 7.
* Ewald renders these words, " O congregation of Israel." Graf thinks the text
cormpt. The Septuagint has, " and they that feed their flocks."
s Torah.
•Incense. Comp, .len., i, 416-17. " And a hnndred altars glow with Sabjeau in
cense." Frankincense, or incense, was a gum obtained from the large timber trees
known as Boswellia. They grow in India, but the genaine incense was obtained
from a species fonnd only in South Arabia and Somali Land, The " sweet cane "
should be "the fine-scented cane," brought either from Arabia or India, perhaps
^uroa?h Egypt, and burnt with the incense for the sake of its rich perfume. The
Septuagint, for "sweet cane," has "cinnamon," '* Weihrauch," Schenkel's Bib.
Lex. TnstramS Nat. Bist. of Bible, pp. 355. '^.
' Bredenkamp, Gesetz und Propheten, p. 103, calls attention to this verse, as shew
ing that in Josiah's day the Jews zealously observed the ceremonial law or sacrifice
and offering. They offered sacrifices, in the thoagbt that these wonld atone for vrick
edness in which tbey still persisted. To explain away this, the new critics venture
an arfaitrary conjecture tbat the Law mentioned in the 19th verse, did not include tbe
ceremonial laws ; that these, in fact, were not known till much later ! The useless
ness of ceremonial, apart from morality, is often urged by the prophets. 1 Sam. xv.
a2, Isa, i. 11, Uos, vi, 6. Amos v. 21, Mic. vi. 6. Ps, 1.8, etc. Bnt its condemna
tion implies its being practised. How then could it lie only an invention of the time
after the Exile, as the new criticisin maintains ?

168 BEGINNING OF REFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH.
blocks before this people,' and the fathers and sons shall together
fall over them ; the neighbour and his friend shall perish. 22. Thus
saith Jehovah, Behold, a people comes frora the North; and a great
nation will rise up from the farthest parts of the earth. 33. They lay
hold of bow and javelin; they are cruel and have no merc|v; their
voice roars like the sea; they ride on horses. Their army is arrayed
for battle, against thee, 0 daughter of Zion ! "
The people of Judah and Jerusalem will be alarmed even
at the report of the approach of such a foe ; but the prophet
can give them no comfort. In that day they will say :
"34. ' We have heard the report (of his approach). Our arms hang
powerless; anguish has seized us; trembling, like that of a woman in
travail ! 35. Go not forth to the open country, and do not walk on the
common road; for the sword of the enemy makes terror on every
side.' 36. 0 daughter of my people, tie a robe of sackcloth round thee;
roll thyself in ashes ; make thee lamentation as for an only son — the
bitterest wailing! For the spoiler will come on us suddenly! "
Jehovah now speaks, reassuring Jeremiah that he will
support him in his Divine commission.
"37. I have set thee ' as an assayer, or tester, among My people,
that thou mayest know and try their way, and (whilst thou doest so, I
will keep thee), as a strong fortress, (from harm).' 38. They are, all,
the worst of revolters ; going hither and thither to slander ; ' copper and
iron are they, (not gold) ; they are all evil doers. 39. (No judgments
sent for their good have reformed tbem. I have laboured with them
as a purifier labours at the furnace, with metal that proves worthless.')
The bellows have been blown till they are scorched ; the lead (added as
a flux, to bring away the slack) is burned (into fumes) ; the refiner
has tried to smelt the metal in vain; (the dross — that is,) the wicked —
cannot be separated (from what little silver there is) ! " 30. Call the
whole prople, therefore, ' reprobate silver, ' for Jehovah has rejected
them. "
1 The invasion ofthe enemy. ¦' Jer. vi. 2S-30.
= See chap. i. 18. < Chap. ix. 4.
^ " A kiili came and formed a little furnace close to the verandah, by lighting a
very small fire of charcoal, making a hole about two feet distant, for the nose of ma
bellows, which were of the skin of a goat, with a slit at the back whicn he alternately
opened and closed, and connecting the bellows and flre by a little underground pas,
sage." Six Years in India, p. 93. ' This i s a paraphrase of a difficult passage.

BE6INNIKG OF REFORMATION UNDER JOSIAH. 169
The brevity of Eastern popular addresses of any kind
forbids the thought that lengthy compositions, such as the
above, were delivered at one time, as a connected whole.
Jeremiah, himself, indeed, tells us, that his prophecies,
spoken in the reign of Josiah and subsequently, were in
scribed on a roll in the fourth year of Jehoiakim,' that is, in
the year B.C. 606,^ when the good king had been dead three
or four years. Nor did the prophet himself write them our.
His friend Baruch, of the noble house of lSJ"eriah, a man
skilled in caligraphy and famous for general culture,''
" ¦wrote from his mouth, ou a roll of a book, all the words
of Jehovah which He had spoken to him," ' and, when this
copy had been destroyed by Jehoiakim, made a second, at
the prophet's dictation, " adding, besides, to them, many
like words."" It is impossible, therefore, to say what por
tion of any long discourse in the Book, as it now stands, was
spoken at a particular time. We can only reproduce them
as they are given, with the general knowledge that they
were uttered on various occasions during Josiah's reign.
> Jer. xxxvi. 1, a, » b,c. 603. Z)i(;<. o/'.Biftfe, art. "Baruch."
' Jos., Ant., X. li, 2. * Jer. xxxvi. 4-18. ' Jer. xxxvi, 32.

CHAPTER IX.
JUDAH UNDER JOSIAH.
The first steps towards the abolition of idolatry, and the
formal re-establishment of Jehovah-worship, had preceded
the "call" of Jeremiah' by about a year. Zephaniah, and
perhaps other prophets whose names have perished, had
quickened the tender conscience of JosUh, and strength
ened the hands of the survivors of the great persecution,
who now zealously strove to restore the ancient faith, amidst
almost overwhelming difficulties. In the East, however,
the personal action of the monarch is decisive in all public
action; the community, as a rule, passively submitting to
the royal will. All change, in fact, must be initiated by
the ruler ; his word is the only law ; obedience alone is the
part of subjects.
In the year B.C. 630, then — five years before Nabopolassar,
father of Nebuchadnezzar, founded the independent mon
archy of Babylon,' so soon to destroy Judah — the work of
reformation had been begun by Josiah, now a young man
of twenty. Jerusalem and Judah were, naturally, the first
field of activity.^ No sentimental tenderness for art or old
associations mitigated the earnestness of the religious revo
lution.* The stately high places were levelled with the
1 E.o, 637. » Smyth's Assyria, p. 149. ' 8 Chron. xxxiv. 1
* I would here enter my eamest protest against the worship of art which now
reigns in the ecclesiastical world. Beauty and taste are becoming, in the Honse and
Service of God ; but the passion for colour and form, in every detail of the church
and its services, has become a national calamity by its excess. The dress of the

JUDAH rXDER JOSIAH. 171
ground ; the Asherahs, the marble and molten images of
the gods, utterly destroyed ; the altars of the various Baals,
with the obelisks, or sun images, beside them, broken down
in the presence of the king.' Tliere are no fewer than
twenty words in Hebrew for idols ; a proof of the number
and variety of these abominations, then worshipped over
the land. Utterly and permanently to defile the idolatrous
holy places, Josiah caused the bones of the dead idol-priests
to be taken from their graves, and burnt on the altars at
which they had ministered ; a violation of the sanctity of
the grave unprecedented in Jewish history, and bitterly
condemned by the prophet Amos when committed by the
heathen king of Moab." Nor was this vigorous action con
fined to Judah or Jerusalem. Assyria, now torn and weak
ened, almost to its fall, by rebellions and wars in the East,
had left the territory of the Ten Tribes unoccupied, and
minister, not the truth he proclaims ; the artistic rendering of the service, not its
solemn words ; the mediievalisra of the sacred building in every particular, not the
holy nse for which it is designed, are most on the tongues of men.
St. Bernard was right iu sa3'ing that " the immense height of the churches, their
immoderate length, superfluous breadth, costly polishing and strange designs, while
they attract the eyes of the worshipper, tilnder the devotioii ot the sonl, and some
how remind me of the old Jewish ritual !
" Eariy Christians, English Puritans, Cistercian mediaeval monks, and modem Re
formers of an earnest type, agree on one point, however mnch tbey may differ on
others, namely, that people who are fllled with practical sincerity, are apt to pass by
Art with indiflLerence, or reject it with anger." Morrison's St. Bernard, p. 149.
" The more I have examined the subject," says John Ruskin, "the more dangerous
Iiave I found it to dogmatize respecting the character of the Art which is likely, nt a
giveu period, to be most useful to the cause of religion. One great fact first meets me.
I never met with a Christian whose heart was thoroughly set upon the world to come,
and, so far as human judgment could pronounce, was perfect and right before God,
¦who cared about Art at alt." Stones of Venice, vol. ii. p. 103.
*' ' May the Devil fly away witb the Fine Arts,' exclaimed, confidentially, once, in
my hearing, one of our most distinguished public men ; a sentiment that often recurs
to me. A public man, intent on any real business, does, I suppose, find the Fine
Arts rather imaginary, feels them to be a pretentious nothingness ; a confused su
perfluity and nnisance, purchased with cost ; what he, in brief langnage, denomi
nates a bore." Carlyle, Latter Day Pamphlets, Jemilism, p. 34.
' 2 Chron. xxxiv. i. ' Amos ii. 1,

172 JUDAH UNDER JOSIAH.
Josiah had virtually resumed possession of it. Bands of
of&cial iconoclasts were therefore sent through the ancient
bounds of Manasseh and Ephraim, the central tribes, and
even as far as Naphtali on the extreme north, and Simeon
on the far south, below Judah. And it is remarkable that
carved figures on rocks have never, as yet, been found south
of Kana, near Tyre, while there are no traces of the dol
mens, cromlechs, and other forms of stone altars, so common
east of the Jordan. Idolatry had everywhere taken root.
The mixed population of the still ruined towns' of the old
Northern Kingdom — a heathen medley brought from dis
tant countries by the Assyrian king, with a remnant of the
Jewish tribes — worshipped a multitude of vile foreign gods.
Nor were even the shepherds of the Negeb, the territory of
the Simeonites, less corrupted. Pure Jewish communities
no doubt remained here and there even in the north, who
clung to the faith of their fathers, but with such local ex
ceptions, the old religion of the nation had well-nigh van
ished from the land. Every idolatrous symbol was now,
however, destroyed, and in appearance, at least, the country
returned to the national faith.
Some particulars of this great revolution are fortunately
preserved. In Jerusalem, the purification of the temple
was intrusted to Hilkiah, the high priest, and his deputy,"
with a body of ordinary priests, and the Levite officials who
had charge of the sacred gates. The sanctuary had been
turned, by Manasseh and Amon, into the headquarters of
Baal worship — a famous image, known as " the Baal," being
set up in it, with an Asherah and symbols of ' " all the host
' 2 Chron. xxxiv. 6. The words, "with their mattocks round abont," should be
read, " in their mins round about." The towns in parts of the land laid waste by
Shalmaneser, had, for the most part, remained in ruins ever since.
^ 3 Kings xxiii. S.

JUDAH UXDER JOSIAH. 173
of heaven," close by.' Everything connected with these
supreme abominations was removed from the temple pre
cincts — their altars, statues, vestments, and holy vessels. All
that was destructible was carried down to the Kedron valley,
outside the walls, and burned ; the ashes being collected for
the special purpose of defiling the high places. A special
order of priests, the Chemarim," clad in black, in contrast
to the white robe of the priests of Jehovah, had burned
incense under Ahaz, Manasseh, and Amon, on the idolatrous
Bamoth, or high places, in the towns of Judah and round
Jerusalem. Others had performed the same office on the
altars of Baal, the sun, the moon, the planets, or perhaps
the signs of the zodiac,' and of all the host of heaven.
These Josiah simply suppressed.* The Asherah set up
again by Amon in the temple, after having been removed
by Manasseh, was dragged outside the walls, as an object
of peculiar detestation, to the deep ravine of the Kedron,
and burned ; any fragments left being stamped to powder
and strewn over the graves in the public cemetery, to dese
crate them by contact with the dead.' It was a repetition
of the intense abhorrence of idolatry shewn in David's burn
ing the gods of the Philistines," and in the treatment of the
golden calf by Moses : ' the command enjoining it occarring
in Deuteronomy.'
Associated with the Asherah in the temple, were numbers
' 2 Kings xxiii. 4. For " the priests of the second order," read as in the text.
2 a Kings xxiii. 4. a Zeph. i. 4. Hos, x. 6.
* Hebrew, Mazzaloih = Arabic, Menazil— the houses of the twelve signs of the
heavens, in which, successively, the sun was supposed to dwell. Gesenius, Thes.,
p. 869 ; Delitzsch, Biob, on xxxviii. 32.
' 2 Kings xxiii. 6. See Wilkins' Israel and Phenida, p. 162. Jer. xxvi. 23.
" 1 Chron. xiv. 12. ' Exod. xxxii. 20.
' Deut. vii. 25. As the " Book of the Law " was cot yet discovered in the tem
ple, the course taken by Josiah must have been, like that of David, determined from
other sources j tbat is, both Dayid and Josiah must liave known this part of the Law.

174 JUDAH UXDER JOSIAH.
of slaves of both sexes,' consecrated to immorality in con
nection with the Asherah ; their gains passing to its priests,
whose slaves they were. The men, it would seem, wandered
at times over the land, in the service of vice ; the women
busied themselves by day in weaving hangings for the
Asherah, and tents for its nightly orgies. Both they and
the Galli" associated with them, lived in the temple and its
precincts ; but the places they had occupied were now
pulled down, and the spot purified from every trace of
their presence.
Numbers of Israelitish priests, during the long reign of
idolatry, had so far apostatized as to burn incense on the
high places, from Geba, near Michmash, to Beersheba, in the
far south of the Negeb. These were brought to Jerusalem,
but not allowed to officiate at the altar of Jehovah. They
were also kept distinct from the members of their order who
had remained true to the old faith, but were permitted to
receive their priestly maintenance from the " holy bread ; "
eating it, however, at home with their families, as defiled
priests," not in the temple with their "clean" brethren.
Perhaps, however, they were allowed to discharge subordi
nate duties in the temple.'
High places with altars had been built at different gates
of Jerusalem, consecrated, perhaps, to the supposed hairy
demons of the wilderness." These, like all others, were
broken down. Tophet, " the spitting," ° or abhorrence, in
the Valley of Hinnom, under the walls cf Jerusalem, was
^ They were the " sacred slaves'' of the Asherah, the Kedaishim (mas.'), and the
Kedaishoth (fem.). See p. 32 and vol. iii. p. 399.
= See p. 38 and vol. iii, p. 309.
^ Lev. xxi. 17-22. How was this law, as to deflled priests, known then, if Leviticus
jiates only from tho Exile ?
J Thenius, on 2 Kings xxiii. 9. « Geiger. Graetz, vol. ii, p, 287, See p, 96,
f Gesenius, Thes., p. 1497, Other et}Tnologics are given, but this seems the best.

JUDAH rXDBR JOSIAH. 175
carefully defiled, to prevent its ever again being used for
human sacrifices. The sacred white horses of the sun,'
given to the Sun-god by Ahaz, Manasseh, and Amon, and
stalled in the cells" on the west of the temple forecourt,
where the street ran up to it from the town " — cells, named
after Nethanmelech, a well-known official,' perhaps their
founder or builder — were taken away, and the chariots they
drew in the festal processions of the Sun-god, were burned."
Altars in honour of the host of heaven ° had been raised by
the late idolatrous kings on the top of the Aliyeh, or roof-
chamber, built by Ahaz, perhaps on the flat roof of the
temple,' and the altars built by Manasseh in both its fore
courts shared the fate of all others, being broken down and
thrown on the water of Kedron, after being reduced to
dust.' But now came a still more decisive blow at the traditions
and corruptions of the past. Solomon had built various
high places round Jerusalem, nearly four hundred years be
fore — partly to please the many heathen princesses of his
' Horses were sacred to the snn among the Armenians, Persians, Ethiopians,
Greeks, and Assyrians, and were sacrificed to the Sun-god.
^ Very likely storehouses for material used in the temple worship. 1 Chron, ix, 26.
Neh, X, 38,
3 The word translated suburbs in A,V,, is Parvarim, sing, Parvar, identical with
Porbar, 1 Chron, xxvi, 18, I have followed Keil's rendering of its meaning. Gese
nius (Thes., p. 1123) thinks it was a portico to a summer-house or open kiosk. But
BOttcht-r fancies it was an open space, like a suburb. The Talmud translates a
related word by "suburbs — places near a city," In their Aehrenlese, vol, ii, p. 113,
Bftttcher and Miihlau render the words before this : " He took away the horses, so
that they should not enter into the Honse of Jehovah,"
< A, v., the chamberlain ; literally " eunuch," thence " a court official," thongh
not a eunuch,
* 2 Kings xxiii, 11, • Ewald, Gesch., vol, iii. pp. 664, 667.
' Thenius. Keil. Zeph. i, 5. Jer. xix. 13 ; xxxii, 29. There were buildings over
some of the gates of the temple, Jer, xxxv. 4,
^ In 2 Kings xvi, 18, the words, "covert for the Sabbath," should, in Geiger's
opinion, lie read, "molten images of the Shame '' — i.e., of Baal. They, too, were
the fruit of tbe r..-ign of Ahaz,

176 JUDAH UNDEE JOSIAH.
harem, but still more, perhaps, as an apparently inevitable
concession to the multitude of foreigners frequenting the
city in his day, many of them being Jewish subjects, and
intercourse with them being doubtless large, for trade and
other purposes. Respect for the great name of the wise king
had hitherto kept them intact ; even Hezekiah, as we have
seen, not feeling strong enough to brave the prejudices of
his people, by destroying them. All, however, now went
down before the wave of religious enthusiasm. The citizens
of Jerusalem no longer saw, on the eouth crest of Mount
Olivet, or the other heights near at hand, the memorials of
Ashtoreth, the goddess of Sidon, or Chemosh, or Milcom, the
national gods of Moab and Ammon.' The Matzaiboth, or
sacred stone pillars round them and their Asherahs, shared
the general destruction : the very sites of each high place
being polluted with human bones from the neighbouring
graves. The destruction and desecration of the great sanc
tuary of the Northern Kingdom, at Bethel, was apparently
the last act in this crusade against idolatry. All the build
ings connected with it were utterly destroyed ; " their very
stones broken in small pieces, and the Asherah burnt," under
the eyes of Josiah himself. Three hundred and fifty years
had passed since Jeroboam had permanently shattered the
religious unity of Israel, by building the rival temple, now
laid in ruins ; but the golden calf he had set up in it, as a
symbol of Jehovah, had been carried off, a hundred years
before Josiah, by the Assyrians, under Shalmaneser, as that
at Dan had been by Tiglath-pileser II. Since then, worship
had been maintained by priests selected without reference to
1 Milcom, the Ammonite deity, was also worshipped in Cypms, as we leam from the
famous Phcenician Cypriote inscription of Idalia, where his name in Cypriote is
spelled Mi-le-ko-ne. i 2 Kings xxiii. 19.
' Wilkins' Phenida and Israel, p. 153.

JUDAH UNDER JOSIAH. 177
their race, with a ritual taught at first by one sent for the
purpose from Assyria ; ' the worship of Jehovah, as the local
God, being associated with that of the idols of Assyria and
of the various foreign heathen communities settled in the
country by the conquerors." As the fountain-head of the
apostasy of their Northern brethren, and the long-detested
rival of the Temple of Jerusalem, this great sanctuary was
the object of special abhorrence to the reformers. The
skeletons of its priests, in ancient rock tombs below the hill,
were dragged from their resting-places, and forthwith burnt
on the altar, to pollute it forever ; an incident, it was no
ticed, wonderfully fulfilling the curse pronounced by the
prophet who had appeared at Bethel, three hundred and fifty
years before, when the sanctuary was inaugurated by Jero
boam. The denunciation had not been forgotten ; and the
tombstone " marking the common grave of the prophet and
that of his brother seer who came to him from Samaria, were
still pointed out in the valley.' Their bones alone were left
undisturbed. It would have been well if violence had been limited to
the buildings and altars connected with idolatry. But the
recollection of the persecution by Jezebel in the north, and
by Manasseh in the south, was still fresh, and had kindled
a natural, but unhappy, thirst for revenge. A counter
persecution was the result. While the priests of the high
places in Judah, in deference to their descent from Aaron,
had been only degraded ; those of the Northern high places,
men of all races, were everywhere ruthlessly slain on the
very altars at which they had officiated ; " a step as impolitic
• 2 Kings xvii. 28. '2 Kings xvii. 33. '
' For " title," 2 Kings xxiii. 17, read " tombstone."
* 1 Kings xiii. 31. 2 Kings xxiii. 17, 18.
' 2 Kings xxiii. 20.
VOL. v.— 13

178 JUDAH UXDER JOSIAH.
as it was cruel, since it infuriated the heathen party in
Judah, and tended to provoke the reaction which set in
after Josiah's death.
It is striking to find no notice of Jeremiah's name during
the years in which this religious revolution was being
carried out. Yet he was busily preaching all the while ;
a lengthy section of his prophecies, extending from the
seventh to the tenth chapter of his Book, containing a
condensed epitome of his addresses at this time.' The
first of these seems to have been delivered at a temple
service, to which multitudes had been attracted from all
parts of Judah ; the prophet seizing an opportunity so
favourable of pressing home his earnest words, once more,
on his fellow-countrymen. The energy of Josiah, the zeal
of the reforming priests, and the exhortations of the proph
ets, had produced a great outward change. The temple,
which had been allowed to fall into partial ruin under
Manasseh, was again the centre of the ancient faith, and
became more than ever the boast and superstitious trust of
the nation. Having no moral basis for their heathen wor
ship, which virtually regarded one god as good as another,
or, at least, as worth a trial, nothing was more natural than
that the multitude should pass readily from the idol altars
to that of Jehovah. Indeed, temporary adoptions of one
god rather than another had necessarily been familiar,
where such a multitude of deities — as numerous, in the
case of Judah, as its towns — offered such rival claims to
devotion. Many forms of worship, ceremonial, and sacri
fice, had been crowded into Jerusalem under Ahaz, Manas-
1 So Hitzig and Keil. Others think these chapters should be referred to Ihe begin
ning of the reign of Jehoiakim ; but, as Knobel well says, tho chronological sequence
of Jeremiah's discourses is, confessedly, very uncertain. Prophe'-smus, vol. il. p
275.

JUDAH UXDER JOSIAH. 179
seh, and Amon ; the priests of each divinity having special
books of their own rites, as was the case at Rome.' As in
all other idolatrous countries, raoreover, and in accordance
with the very genius of heathenism, ritual constituted the
soul and essence of religion. Formula and ceremony were
omnipotent, and were held to compel the gods to accede
to the desires of their votaries, if neither priest nor wor
shipper had vitiated them by error or omission." While,
therefore, even in the darkest times, the worship of Je
hovah, as one of many gods, had never ceased, it would be
a misconception of the fundamental ideas of the time, to
suppose that the prominence assigned to Him in the public
services under Josiah, implied an intelligent appreciation of
His superiority to the gods He had for the time displaced.
Nor is it possible to imagine even a passing enthusiasm for
Jehovah, in that day, without minute and exact forms in
His worship ; for, to repeat what has just been said, the
Jew, like all other peoples in antiquity, considered rites, in
themselves, the beginning and end of religion ; as every
page of the prophets shews. To argue, therefore, that the
Levitical ritual is of a very late origin, because Jehovah was
always worshipped, more or less, by the Hebrews — while
little is said of that ritual till the revulsion of national feel
ing against all idolatry, during the Captivity, brought it
prominently to the front— is in violent contradiction to the
ideas of those ages. It may have been corrupted by foreign
admixtures, but that it existed and was more or less minutely
observed, is implied in the very fact of Jehovah being wor
shipped at all, for each god had his own ritual, without
which, according to the notions of the times, no worship
whatever could be rendered to him.
1 DoUinger's Gentile and Jew, vol. il. p. 15. ' Ibid., vol. ii. p. 16.

180 JUDAH UNDER JOSIAH.
Himself intensely religious in the truest sense, such a
hollow and nominal recognition of the national faith was
intensely abhorrent to Jeremiah. To him, the only proof
of fidelity to God was a life governed by His fear, while to
the community, as to other heathen peoples, religion was one
thing and morality another, quite distinct. Jehovah, they
held, was bound to be their Protector, if they duly and
punctiliously observed the rites of His worship prescribed
by His priests. To Jeremiah, the condition of His favour
was the leading a godly life, in reverent and loving obedi
ence to His moral law ; ritual being important only as an
outward expression of the religious affections. Taking his
stand, therefore, at one of the gates of the temple, ou an
occasion when its courts were thronged by worshippers, he
addressed them as follows, denouncing first their empty
formalism and their dependence on lying prophets :
' ' VII. 3. Hear the word ol Jehovah, ' ye who enter at these
gates from all Judah to pray before Hitn. 3. Thus saith Jehovah
of Hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and doings, and
I will let you continue to dwell in this place ! ^ 4. Put no trust
in the words of the lying prophets, who say, ' These (buildings) are
the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jeho
vah' " (as if the temple in itself, as the shrine of the present God,
were enough to protect you from national danger! It will not keep
you from the exile threatened by God). 5. But, if ye thoroughly amend
your ways and your doings ; if ye honestly do what is right between
man and man ; 6. if ye do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless and
the widow;' if ye shed no innocent blood in this place (Jerusalem),
and do not walk after other gods, to your hurt— 7. then I will let ycu
' Jer. vii. 2-7. ^ Deut. vii. 12-15.
3 Repeated for emphasis : perhaps also in the fanatical excitement which raarks
Eastern religions. It may be compared with the cries of the priests of Baal on Carmel
O Kings xviii. 26), or with the frenzy into which the dervishes of Islam work them
selves, by the repetition of "Allah! Allah! " Stanley's Jewish Church, vol. ii. p. 25#
« Exod. xxii. 21. Deut. xxiv. 17.

JUDAH UNDER JCSIAH. 181
dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever
and ever.
¦ ¦ 8. Behold, ' you put your trust in lying words, which are worse
than worthless. 9. (Whatlj will ye steal, murder, commit adultery,
perjure yourselves; bum incense to Baal, and walk after other gods
whom ye do not know,- 10. and (then) come and enter into My presence,
in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ' we are safe from
all danger; we may without risk practise all these abominations! ' 11.
Is this house, which is called by My name, a den of robbers in your
eyes?' I, even I, have seen this, says Jehovah.
"12. But go ye to My place ' at Shiloh,' 'where I ^t My name at the
first, and see what I did to it, for the wickedness of My people, Israel.
13. And now, because ye have done all these things, says Jehovah —
and I spoke to yo'a. rising up early ° to do so, but ye did not listen ;
calling you, but you did not answer — 14. therefore I wiU do to ihis
hoJfee, wliich is called by My name, and in which you trust, and to this
place — the land which I gave to you and to your fathers — as I did to
Shiloh, 15. and cast ymi out of My sight C3 I cast out all your breth
ren, of Ephraim ; (the people of the Xorthem Kingdom) !
"16. But thon (Jeremiah) do not pray for this people, neither lift
up cry nor supplication for them, and do not entreat Me for them,
for I will not hear thee! 17. Seest thou not what thoy do in the
towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem ? 18. The sons '
gatner wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead
dough to make cakes to (the moon) the queen of heaven,* and
pour out drink offerings to other gods, to cause Me grief. 19. But will
they really cause Me grief ? says Jehovah ; will they not rather bring
shame on their own faces ? 30. Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jeho
vah, Behold ! My anger and My fury shall be poured out on this place
' Jer. 'rii. 8-11.
3 Exod, XX. 2-17, a reference to the Ten Commandments,
3 Matt. xxi. 13. Mark xi. 17. Lnke xix, 46. ' Jer. ¦yil. 13-15.
* See vol, iii, pp. 48, ff. Shiloh was burnt by the Philistines.
• An allusion to the Eastem habit of rising early, while it is vet cool. The early
moming is liie most active time in the East, The people of India rise before
daybreak. Bishop Heber copied them, rising and going out with Mrs, Heber for
a ride, at 4 a.m. By C a.m. the sun was oppressively hot. Journal, vol. L pp. 26,
101. ' Jer. vii. 18-23.
8 These cakes were probably like those offered at Athens, at the full moon of the
month Mnnychion, to the goddess Artemis, They were round, and had lights stuck
in them, Graf, They were apparently of flour mixed with oil — perhaps spiced.
Our hot-cross buns have been traced, by some, to them.

183 JUDAH FNDER JOSIAH.
(Jerusalem); on man and beast, on the trees of the field, and the
fruit of the ground; and it shall burn and not be quenched."
The~ moral law had ahrays taken precedence of the cere
monial, in the sight of God, but this had never been realized
by Israel. He no'W, once more, proclaims the fact in the
strongest language.
"21. Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts,' the God of Israel, Take your
whole burnt offerings (sacred to Me, and therefore to be tasted by none),
and eat them like your ordinary sacrifices (whioh, except the smaU
share for the altar and the priest, you yourselves eat. Use them like
common flesh! You need not burn them on the altar.'' As long as
your life is so unworthy, you may eat them all!) 32. Por I did^not
speak to your fathers, and I did not give them commands, in the day
when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, (simply) that they might
ofl!er burnt offerings'' and sacriflces,' 33. but (before I gave any laws
• Jer. vii. 81-23. ^ Chap, vi, 20.
3 In Deut, iv, 21, the same words translated " concerning," in Jer, vii, 22, are ren
dered, with the prononn, " for your sakes," So in Gen, xx, 11, " for the sake of,"
and repeatedly " because of;" see Gen, xii, 17; xx, IS; xliii. 18; Exod, viii. 12:
etc. Smend, a leader among the new critics, explains the passage thus : "Jeremiak
says that Jehovah had spoken to the Israelites, and given them counsels, less with
the view to their offering sacrifices to Him than that they should obey Him." Moses
apud Prophetas, p. 34. A correct paraphrase of the verse would be : "I did not
give them commands to the end that they should offer sacrifices to Me (though this
also was to be done) ; My supreme object was that they should obey Me," See Bre
denkamp, pp. 108, ff. This verse bas been represented by the new school of critics,
as provingthat sacriflce was unknowu iu the Mosaic age, and that the Levitical books
of the Old Testament could not have existed in Jeremiah's day. But (I) Jeremiali
expressly notices re!.,^ularly instituted sacrifices, chaps, vi. 20 ; vii. 21 ; xiv. 12 ; xvii.
23 ; xxxiii. 18 ; so does Amos v. 22 ; so, Mic. vi. 6, 7. See, besides, Ps, xl, 6 ; 1, 8 ;
li. 19 ; Isa. i. 11.
(2) The constant condemnation of merely formal sacrifice unaccompanied by a fit
ting moral condition on the part of the offerer, implies a long-established practice.
Even Isaiah and the prophets before him, recognize it thus, Joel, whom so extreme
a critic as Reuss {Les Prophetes. — Introd.) accepts as the earliest of the prophets,
speaks of sacrifices and of priests, etc., chap. i. 13, See also Reuss, Gesch. d. Beit.
SchHft. d. A. T., 1881, p. 243.
(3) The fact that Jeremiah constantly appeals to Deuteronomy — supposed by the
new critics to have been written very shortly before its discovery in the eighteenth
year of Josiah — proves that he had no idea of saying that sacrifices did not exist in
Ihe early days of tho nation, for they are alluded to iu Deut. xii. C ; xi. 13 ; xiv. 27;

jrDAH UNDER JOSIAH. 183
respecting these), I commanded them saying, 'Obey My voice,' and I
\yill be your God, and ye shall be My people, and walk in all the way
whioh I haye commanded you, that it may be well with you.' ^ 24.
But they hearkened not,' and did not incline their ear, but walked in
the counsels and stubbornness of their wicked heart, and tumed their
back to Me, not their face. 25. From the day that your fathers
came forth out of the land of Egypt, to this day, I have sent you all
My servants, the prophets; zealously sending them day by day.' 26.
and arc there enforced or noticed by Moses himself, with tas own lips, aa one of his
insti tntions.
(4) The words of Jer. >-ii. 32, are, in fact, ia grtriit measure a quotation fromBeut.
xxix. 12; Exod. vi. 7.
The number of passages already quoted which speak of sacrifices might be largely
increased; see e.g. I.<a. Ixvi. 3 ; 1 Sam. xv. 23 ; Prov. xxi. 27. All thesfi, and the others
given before, have the same idea as the text, Jer. vii. 23, that the whole Levitical
economy, as such, is of no value apart from raorality on the part of the worshipper.
The prophet, and the whole Old Testament, in fact, are at one, in denying any sacra
mental efficacy to a mere rite. They deny that it has any spmtual worth whatever,
Bimply in itself. The act of the priest conferred no benefit on the offerer, e xcept
when it waa the outward sign of Inward spiritoal grace. Bnt that is very different
from, saying that sacrifice had not been instituted.
Keil's remarks arc good: "Obey (hear) My voice, etc.," reminds neat once of Exod.
xix. 5, and Exod. vi. 7 ; Lev. sxvi. 12 ; Beut. xx\'i. 13. The phra£e, " in all the way,
etc.," occurs only once again in Scripture, and that in Deut. v. 33. Jeremiah had
clearly in his mind the promulgation of the Dccalognc from Sinai, andin this, written
by the finger of God, there is no reference to whole burnt offerings or sacrifices. Tho
sense must be, '* God did not, iu making the covenant with Israel, speak respecting
matters of whole burnt offering aud sacrifice — ^but." Commentar uber Jeremia., p.
121 ; Oehler, in Herzog, vol. xii. p. 223. Dr. E. G. A. Eiehm, one of the greatest liv
ing Biblical critics, says in reference to Jer. vii. -J2 : "The basis on which Jehovah
had made a covenant with tiieir fathers, when Ue led them from 'Ejypt, was not the
demand for offerings, but for their obedience. If they rendered that. He would be
their God, and they His people. This agrees with Deuteronomy and with the repre
sentations of the other books of the Pentateuch. They make the covenant he con
eluded before the laws of sacrifice were delivered. It is impossible that Jeremiah dJQ
not know of a sacrificial legislation given by God at Sinai, or that no book abont il
should have existed, for Deuteronomy, which Jeremiah almost exclusively used, pre
supposes the existence of the Levitical Law. As Isaiah, in writing iv. 5, had un
doubtedly hefore his mind Exod. xl. 38, so Jeremiah shews his acquaintance with the.
Levitical Laws. See Jer. ii. 3, compared wiih Lev. xxii. 10 ; xx. 16. Jer. xxxii. 7,
compared with Lev. xxv, 25. Jer. xxxiv, 8, compared with Lev. xxv. 10, 41 His
contemporary, Ezekiel, also, often shews the same acquaintance with the LeWtical
legislation. Ezek. iv. 14 ; xxii. 26, etc. Studien und Kritiken., 1863, pp. 369, ff.
* Exod. xix. 5. Lev. xxvi. 12,
a That is, the moral law preceded the ceremonial, aa the more important, and the
covenant relations between God and Israel were based on their obedience to it, and
not on their exact observance of ceremonies aud forms.
' Jer. vii. 21-26. * L'tcrally, " From tbe early moming, etc."

184 JUDAH UIJDEE JOSIAH.
Tet they hearkened not to Me, nor inclined their ear, but stiffened thei*
neck, refusing to bow to Me, and behaved worse than their fathers.
27. And even now, when thou (Jeremiah) speakest all these words to
them, they will not listen to thee; when thou callest to them they will
not answer thee. 28. Say, therefore, to them: 'This is the people
that does not obey the voice of Jehovah their God, nor accept correc ¦
tion; fldelity to Him is gone; ' it has died on their lips.' ^
For such incurable apostasy and wickedness, Jehovah has
finally cast off His rebellious people, and left them to perish
in shame.
"29. Cut off thy hair (which is thy diadem),' (0 daughter of Zion),
and throw it away, and raise lamentations on the bare hills, for Jeho
vah has rejected and cast ofl! the generation against which He is wroth.
SO. Por the children of Judah have done evil in My sight, says Jeho
vah;* they have set up their abominations in the House which is
called by My name, to pollute it. 31. And they have built the high
altars of the Tophet, in the valley of Benhinnom, to burn their sons
and their daughters in the fire ; which I commanded them not, neither
came it into My heart.
"32. Therefore behold the days come,' says Jehovah, when men will
no more say 'The Tophet,' ' or the 'Valley of Benhinnom," but 'the
Valley of Slaughter; ' for (the scene of their crime will become that of
their punishment, and the dead will be so many that they wUl have to
1 Jer. V. 1.
2 They still pretended fidelity, and gave lip homage — but it was hollow and worth
less. 3 This was a sign of mourning. Job i, 20. Mic. i. 16.
< The idol worship in verse 18 was private ; that in this verse is public and official.
But as Josiah had put down state idolatry iu his twelfth year, B.C. 630, the state of
things under Manasseh, which had never been repented of, mnst be referred to. In
fact, heathenism appears to have broken out wherever possible, even after Josiah's
Eeformation, as seems hinted in verses 17, 18. In verse 18 they burn incense to the
queen of heaven. The idols of Manasseh had been put back, after his death, into the
tempio— 3 Kings xxi. 7 ; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 7 ; and the high places, which had been lev
elled with the ground (3 Kings xxiii.), had been rebuilt (vii. 30, 31) to propitiate the
wrath of Moloch, by offerings of children, as often happened in times of great public
danger (3 Kings iii. 27 ; Mic. vi. 6, 7) ; a worship which repeated aii the sins of the past
(Jer. xxxii. 35). The whole passage seeras to hint at popular turaults and reactions,
under Josiah, to reinstate idolatry.
= Jer. vii. 27-32. • Isa. xxx. 33.
' Hinnom is derived by Jarchi from Nabam, " to groan," but it occurs as early as
Josb. XV, 8.

JUDAH rSDEB JOSIAH. 183
bury (them) even in Tophet (polluted thongh it be), for want of room
elsewhere.' 33. (Ay, more than this! Many will have to be left un
buried, the last and deepest calamity to. a Jew. ) The corpses of this
people will be meat for the birds of heaven, and for the wild beasts of
the earth, and no one vrill scare them away ! 34 And I will cause the
voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice ol the bridegroom
and the voice of the bride, to cease from the towns of Judah, and from
the streets of Jernsalem, for they shaU be made a desolation. Viii. 1.
(When the enemy invades you, moreover), saith Jehovah, they (will
desecrate the graves, in search of the costly omaments and relics buried
with the dead,' and) will take the bones of the kings of .Judah, and the
bones of her princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the
prophets, and the lx)ne3 of the citizens of Jerusalem, from their graves,
2. and they will scatter them (on the earth) before the snn and the
moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they loved and served, and after
whom they walked, and whom they sought and worshipped; they will
not even be collected for burial, but will be like dung on the face of
the earth. 3. And death wiU be chosen rather than life, by aU the
remnant of this evil race, who survive in all the parts to which I have
driven them away, says Jehovah of Hosts." '
The prophet now breaks out afresh in liis lament over the
inveterate udckedness of his people, and the terribleness of
the judgments impending over them.
"4. Thus says Jehovah: If one fall, wiU he not rise again ? ifhe
tum aside, will he never eome back ? 5. Why, then, does this people
of Jemsalem tum away from Me in abiding apostasy, holding fast to
delusion, refusing' fo return? 6. I listened and heard, they speak
what is not right — to no one is his wickedness a trouble, so that
he should say, ' What have 1 done ? ' Every one presses on in
the course he is running,' like the horse rushing to the battle. 7.
Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times (to return
^ The Valley of Benhinnom is rocky on both sides. It bounds Jerusalem on the
west and south, nmning finally into the valley of the Kedron, which extended north
and sonth on fhe east of fhe city. Jer. vii. 33-viii. 7.
= It was tbe habit to bury costly things with the dead, in Egypt Balv. de Saey
quoted by Hitzig, .Jereauj, p. 6S. So, elsewhere.
> See I,eT. xxvi. 36-39. Dent, xxviii. 65-01.
* Literally, ¦' loathing, scorning."
* Lltraally, •"into his running.'*

186 JUDAH UNDEE JOSIAH.
from migration); the turtle dove, and the swift, and the crane,
keep to the time of their reappearing;' but My people know not
the law * of Jehovah. 8. How can ye then say, ' We are the wise,
we have the law' of Jehovah'? Assuredly the false pen of the
scribes ' has acted deceitfully (for theii- written revelations, in opposi
tion to those of the true prophets, are lies). 9. But 'the wise' wili be
ashamed, confounded, and caught ! Lo, they have despised the word
of Jehovah, and whose wisdom have they (if they have not His)? 10.
I will, therefore, give their wives to others, their fields to new heirs ;
for, from the least to the greatest, they all seek after gain ; from the
prophet to the priest, they all deal falsely. 11. And (the false proph
ets) treat the wound of the daughter of My people as if it were slight,
saying, "All is well. All is well,' when all is wrong. 12. (The men
of Judah should be ashamed for having done abomination, yet) they
> All these are migratory birds. The stork is not seen in winter, but abounds
from the end of March to the beginmng of May. It then passes on still further to
the north. The turtle dove is seen only from spring to autumn. The appearance of
the swallow marks the return of spring, as in England. The crane comes in the end
of March or the beginning of April. Jer. viii. 8-12.
•¦i Ordinance. = The Torah.
^ The prophet complains of misstatement and falsification ; not of the writing of
new books of the law, of pretended Mosaic authorship. See Bredenkamp, p. 108.
Keil, quoting Hitzig, thinks the law referred to by Jeremiah was undoubtedly the
written law. But if they tried to falsify the law, no further proof is needed that it
was already in existence, and thatit is not of late date. Hifzig's words are : "The
second half of the verse shews that the written law is meant, and that hy the posses
sion of this they think themselves wise ; that is, tliink they kuow how to propitiate
God and avert all danger. It is, however, the ceremonial law, by which tliey regulate
public worship (see vii. 21) while the living word of Jehovah demands something
else from them, vii. 3." See Isa. x. i. See also Rosenmiiller's Scholia in Jerem,,
vol. i. p. 276. Jeremlah^s constant reference to Deuteronomy, wbich, as will be shewn
hereafter, is, throughout, based on the other legislative books of the Pent.ateuch,
shews clearly that he, at least, did not believe that these were, any of them, fictions.
Ths " scribes," as an order, did not rise till after the return from Babylon. Graetz
says : ".The prophet reproaches the people, or rather the kings, princes, priests, and
false prophets, with having set up an abomination in the Temple, etc. (vii. 301, and
thus acting entirely contrary to the law, while they yet maintained that they were
wise, nnd had God's teaching. The conclusion of verse 9 is, ' they reject God's word,
and what wisdom have they ? ' Therefore the prophet does not accuse them of falsi
fying the law, but attacks the boasting of those who pretend to know tlie law, nnd
act contrary to it. In this sense must verse 8 be explained thus, 'The law has
become vain,' or ' God has made it in vain,' ' a useless peu is the pen of the scribes *
(who copy the law). The prophet therefore speaks ironically, not of the falsification
of the law, but of its being made vain, since it is not practised. The law wae in
existence, scribes copied it and spread it, but it was not followed." Geschichte, vol.
ii. p. 474.

JUDAH UNDER JOSIAH. 187
are not at all ashamed, neither do they blush ; therefore they will lie
amongst the slain ; they will fall in the time of their visitation, saith
Jehovah.' 13. 1 will gather them and sweep them away, saith Je
hovah, for there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and
(he leaf is faded ; (My people yield no fruit to Me,) and 1 will give them
to them who shall invade them." *
The terror created by the judgment soon to break over
Judah, is now depicted.
"14. 'Why do we sit still?' (wUl they say.) ' Assemble yourselves,
and let us enter the fortified towns and there die in the end ' (rather
than fall by the sword at once). Por Jehovah our God has willed that
we perish, and has given us poison-water * to drink, because we have
sinned against Jehovah. 15. We hoped for good, but evil has come;
for a time of healing, and, behold, terror! 16. The snorting of the
enemy's horse is heard from Dan (in the far north) ; the whole land
trembles at the neighing of his cavalry.' They come and consume the
land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell in it. 17.
For, behold, I send among you (an army terrible as) serpents — great
yellow vipers," which cannot be charmed,' and they will bite you,
saith Jehovah.
"18. 0 what can cheer " rae in my sorrow ! My heart in me is sick !
1 De Wette. Jer. viii. 13-18.
2 Literally, "pass over." Ewald renders this clause, " and I gave them what they
have transgressed (the law)." Sachs, " and what I gave them passes away from
them." 3 Hitzig renders it "perish (throngh hunger and pestilence) rather than by the
sword of the enemy." So Ewald, De Wette, Keil, Naegelsbach, Eosenmaller,
Streane. Eichhorn, "lament in silence." Sachs, " be silent." So Noyes.
* Mai rosh, "poppy juice," Gesenius. Jeremiah uses the same words in viii. 14,
and xxiii. 15. Rosh is the name of a poisonous plant. Deut. xxix. 18, margin, "a
poisonful herb;" xxxii. 33, "venom." Job xs. 16, "poison." Hos. x. 4, "hem
lock." In Deut. xxxii. 32, we learn that it had " grapes ; " from Hos. x. 4, that
it was a quick-growing weed of fbe corn-fields. It was evidently a bitter plant,
from being oflen joined with worrawood (Deut. xxix. 1 8 ; Jer. ix. 15, etc.). It
was most probably the poppy. Tristram, N. B. rf Bible, p. 447. It is rendered
"poison-watKr " by Ewald, Sachs, Naegelsbach; "water of hemlock," Noyes;
"bitter water," Eichhorn; "poison," Hitzig. Streane thinks it was the deadly
nightshade. The margin reads "poison."
s "Stallions " in the Hebrew. ' Tristram.
' For a notice of serpent charmers in Palestine, see Land and Book, pp. 154, loo.
A very full account of those in Barbary is giveu in Drummond Hay's Westem Bar'
bary, chap. ix.
« Literally, "brighten." Graf. Ewald.

188

JUDAH UNDER JOSIAH.

19. Lo,' the cry of the daughter of My people sounds aloud from a far
country. 'Is Jehovah not in Zion? Is her King not in her?' (But
Jehovah will answer,) ' Why have they provoked Me to anger with
their graven images, and with foreign idols?' 20. (Then the people
will say,) ' The harvest is past, the fruit-gathering is ended, and we
are not saved.' "
The deepest sorrow oppresses the prophet at the thought
of the ruin of his people.
"21. By the destruction' of the daughter of My people, I myself

«-^^^

Interior op an Eastern Caravanserai.

am destroyed ! I am in sadness : " horror has seized me ! 22. Is there
no balm in Gilead?' No physician there? Why then is uo bandage
applied to the wound of the daughter of My people?
1 Jer. viii. 19-23. ^ Literally, " shattering, breaking in pieces."
5 Literally, "I am black "-!.(-., I go about in the black unwashed robes of n.
mourner. * The balm of Gilead was probably the produce of the opobalsamum, now culti
vated at Mecca. Its native country seems to be the east coast of Africa. It was
formerly grown with great care round Jericho, where Cleopatra bad an iraperial

JUDAH UNDEE JOSIAH. 139
"IX. 1. 0 that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of
tears, that I might weep day and night, for the slain of the daughter
of ray people."
But the ruin of the kingdom is only the inevitable result
of the wickedness of the people : that, above all, calls forth
the deepest laments.
" IX. 2. 0 that I had ' in the wilderness some poor shelter of wander
ers ; ^ I would leave my people and go from them, for they are all
adulterers,^ a band of treacherous men. 3. They bend their tongue as
if it were their bow, (to slioot out) lies, and they do not rule honestly
in the land ; for they go on from wickedness to wickedness, and know
not Me, says Jehovah. 4. Be on your guard, every one, against his
neighbour, and trust not in any brother : for every brother is crafty as
Jacob,'' and every neighbour goes about to slander. 5. Every man
deceives his neighbour, and, as to truth, they never speak it; they
use their tongues to speak lies ; they weary themselves in committing
iniquity. 6. 'Thou dwellest (0 Jeremiah),' says Jehovah, 'in the
midst of faithlessness. Through faithlessness they refuse to know Me.'
"7. Therefore,' thus says Jehovah of Hosts, Behold, I will melt
them (in the furnace), and try them (as metal is tried) ; for how else
gu'ird set over the garden in which her balsara trees grew. Kneucker says it is indig
enous to Sonth Arabia, and that it is a plant of three or four feet high, evergreen,
with fleshy white flowers the size of those of a pea. The balm flows, from punctures
in the twigs, in thick drops, strongly aromatic, reminding one of the smell ot turpen
tine, and of a bitter, astringent taste. At first colourless, it tums a pale yellow and
even red. Bib. Lex., art. " Balsam."
' Jer. ix. 2-6. In the Hebrew the 9th chapter begins with the 8d verse of the
A.V. ' Ps. lv. 6, 7. Small " shelters," of only bare walls and a roof, are found— where
indeed they are most needed — in the dreariest desert. Large " khans " enclose a
square court, and are commonly only one story high, and of stone. Though not
always clean or comfortable, their shelter is precious. The court, on the four sides
of which the khan is built, is for cattle. There is always a well in the centre.
Travellers can put their baggage or goods in the chambers of the building, which are,
however, unfurnished, only the key and a sleeping mat being provided. But the
green shade round the central well, or fountain, gives a soothing repose after the
toils of the way through the desert. I have beeu in many. The word used here is
rendered " inn " in Gen. xiii. 27 ; xliii. 21 ; Exod. iv. 84.
8 In many cases literally so ; in all, guilty of idolatry — i.e., breach of the covenant
between Israel and God, which is compared to that of marriage.
* "Is a thorough Jacob." Speaker''s Comment. The Hebrew words are "Akob
Takob." ' Jer. ix. 7-18.

loo JUDAH UNDER JOSIAH.
can I do with the daughter of My people? 8. Their slanderous tongue
is a deadly arrow' — it speaks treacherously; with his mouth a man
speaks peaceably to his neighbour, but in his heart he is plotting
against him. 9. Shall I not visit them for sueh things? says Jeho
vah. Shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
•' 10. For the mountains will 1 raise a weeping and wailing: for the
wilderness pasture grounds a lamentation, because they are burned up
(with drought), so that no one passes over them, and the voice of the
flocks is no longer heard ; the birds of the air and the wild beasts are
fled and gone! 11. (And Jehovah has said,) I will turn Jerusalem into
heaps of ruins — a dwelling of jackals, and I will make the towns of
Judah desolate, without an inhabitant. 12. Who is the (truly) 'wise
man ' ? - he will understand this. Who is he to whom the mouth of
Jehovah has spoken? he will make it known. Why is the country
doomed to ruin — to be made desolate like the wilderness, so that none
will pass through it? 13. Jehovah has made it known: Because they
have forsaken My Law,' which I laid before them,^ and have not obeyed
My voice, nor walked in the Law,* 14. but have walked after the stub
bornness of their heart, and after the Baals," (whose worsliip) their
fathers taught them ; 15. therefore Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel,
has said. Behold, I will feed them — even this people — on wormwood,
and give them poison-water to drink. 16. I will scatter them among
the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and send
the sword after them, tUl I have destroyed them.
"17. Consider, says Jehovah of Hosts, and call for the (public)
mourning women, that they come; send for the best trained of them,'
18. and make haste to raise a wailing for us, that our eyes may run
down with tears, and our eyelashes drip with weeping." 19. Por a
' Gesenius. '" Not one ot tbose who call themselves so." Chap. viii. 8.
s Torah. 4 Deut. xxx. 11-14.
I* A. V. " ThereiL " The gender ot the Hebrew shews that la-w, not voice, is the
antecedent. ' Used as a general name for their idols. ' Literally, " the wise."
* The custom of hiring mourners is very ancient. Jeremiah alludes to it in chap.
Ix. 17, 18. Every particular in these verses is still observed at funerals. There are
in every city and community, women exceedingly " cunning " in this business.
These are ^Iways sent for, and stay in the house, ready, when a fresh company ot
sympathizers come in, to " make haste " aud take up a wailing, that the newly come
may the more easily unite their tears with those of the mourners. They know the
domestic history of every one, and immediately strike up an impromptu lamentation
in which they introduce the names of those relatives who have recently died touch'
ing some tender chord in every heart, and thus each one weeps for his ovvn dead and
the performance, which wonld otherwise be difficult or impossible, becomes easy and

JUDAH UNDER JOSIAH. 191
loud wailing sounds out of Zion ! ' Oh, how are we laid waste and put
to great shame! We must leave our native land! They have thrown
down our dwelling-places!' 20. Hear, ye women, the word of Jehovah;
let your ear receive the word of His mouth, and teach your daughters
(a song of) wailing, and every one her neighbours (a dirge of) lamentar
tion (for the hired mourning women wfll not suffice); 21. for death is
come iu through our lattice windows;' he comes into our loftiest
houses ; '^ he has already cut off the children in the lanes, and the young
men in the streets.^ 22. And the dead bodies of men shall fall on the
open fleld, and lie there like dung, or like the handful dropped by the
reaper, which uo one picks up."
But now, once more, the prophet repeats his counsels as
- to the true course to be followed.
"23. Thus says Jehovah : ' Let not ' the wise man ' glory in his wisdom,
or the strong in his strength, or the rich in his riches. 24. But rather
let him that glories glory in this — that he understands and knows Me,
that I am Jehovah, who exercise loving kindness, justice, and righteous
ness on the earth; for in these I delight, says Jehovah. 23. Behold,
days come, says Jehovah, that I will punish all the circumcised who
are only outwardly so ° (and not in the heart). 26. Egypt and Judah
and Edom, and the B'nai Ammon, and Moab, and all that have their
hair shaved off at the corners, about the ears and temples," — who live
natural. It is an aim with all to have a grand fnneral for their dead, which implies
the hiring of professional mourners, at an expense often beyond the means of the sur
vivors. I was told in Cairo, however, that this form of ostentatious folly is dying out.
Funeral feasts have been common in most nations, in all ages. The reader may
remember the feast at the deatb of old Ravenswood, in " The Bride of Lammermoor."
1 The doors are kept shut fast in times of mortal sickness, and therefore death,
like a thief, has clambered up and entered through the window.
2 Literally, "palaces."
3 The words " Speak, Thus saith fhe Lord," ver, 23, are omitted by Septuagint,
Ewald, and Graf. If retained, they may be translated "Declare It, saith Jehovah."
¦¦ Jer. ix. 23-26.
« Ewald rightly rendi'rs the words, "tbe nncircumcised circumcised." Keil also
gives the true raeaning, as in the text. Jer. ix. 24-26.
1 Keil, " with hair cut at the corners." The rendering in the text is that of Gese
nius, followed by most. In Lev. xix. 27, it is said, "Te sball not round off (cut in a
circle) the extremity of your beard and hair ; nor shalt thou shave the extremity
(corner) of thy beard." Lev. xxi. 5 says, "Nor shall they shave off the extreme
corner of tlieir beard." The Mohammedans in tbe East trim tbe comers of tbe beard;
tbe Jews do not. The words in the text are literally " clipped as to the locks." This
Is said, apparently in contempt, ot the Arabs of the desert, whom Herodotus describes
(iii. 8) as wearing their hair cut in this way. The tribe referred to, it would seem.

193 JUDAH UNDEll JOSIAH.
in tho wilderness; for all the heathen are uncircumcised, and so,
also, the whole House of Israel' is uncircuracised in heart."
Josiah was doing his utmost to cleanse the land from
every trace of idolatry, but the hearts of the people re
sponded faintly to his efforts. Their fathers and themselves
had yielded to every form of superstition, and it was impos
sible to eradicate these at once. Jeremiah, therefore, again
tries to shew them the folly of the heathen practices they
cherished. "X. 1. Hear the word that Jehovah speaks to you, 0 House of
Israel.' 2. Thus says Jehovah! Do not conform to the way of the
heathen, and be not terrified at the signs of the heavens, because the
heathen (falling on their faces) are terrified at them.^ 3. Por the
ways of the heathen nations are folly. For an idol is (only a block of
wood) cut from a tree in the yaar; ¦* the work of the hands of the wood-
carver, (shaping it) with his axe. 4! It is covered with plates of silver
and gold (to adom it), and then fastened with nails and hammers, to
keep it steady. 5. It stands stiff and immoveable as a scare-crow in a
from chap. xlix. S2, compared with ver, 28, belonged to tbe Kedarenes, who were
descendants of Ishmael. Gen. xxv. 13. In Homer, Iliad, ii. 543, the Abantes are
said to comb back their hair and let it hang behind. It was the custom of these peo
ple to shave the fore part of their head, that their enemies might not be able to seize
them by the hair ; the hinder part they left long, as a valiant race who would never
turn their back. Trollope-'slliad,yo\.\.p.lU. The words of Herodotus in the pas
sage already referred to are, " they wear the'.r hair clipped round about, shaving it all
round the temples." The Septuagint renders the phrase, "that shaves his f-ace round
about." Niebuhr says that some Arab tribes still shave the temples and over
the ears. Descrip. de PArab., p. B9.
' Circuracision was practised by the priests, at least, in Egypt, from very early
times. But the people were not circumcised. The Ishmaelites let the rite fall into
disuse, and were forced to it at a later time, by the Jews. We know nothing of the
Moabites or Ammonites being circumcised. The idea seems to be : The heathen
will be punished as heathen, that is, as failing to recognize even so mnch of God
as natural religion teaches. The Jews, though circuracised outwardly, will be pun
ished because they are not circumcised in heart— that is, because their religion
is only extemal and formal.
'' Jer. X. 1-5. . Judah is called "Israel," now that the Ten Tribes are gone.
' Tbe whole system of astrology and divination by indications and phenomena in
the heavens, is alluded to — such as unusual appearances of the sun, moon, or stars,
tbe appearance of comets, and the position of stars, the look ot the clouds, etc. Sea
Lenormant's Divination, pp. 6.5, 66. See Guy Mannerlng, chaps, iii. and iv.
< See vol. iv. p. 360. LiteraUy, >' For it is wood one cuts from the yaar."

JUDAH UNDER JOSIAH. 193
garden of cucumbers.' Idols do not speak; they must be carried, for
they cannot walk. Be not afraid of them, for they can do you no hurt^
neither is it in them to do you any good ! '
"6. There is no one at all like Thee, 0 Jehovah ; " great art Thou, and
Thy name is great in might! 7. Who shall not fear Thee, Thou King
of the nations, for such fear is but Thy due.' Eor among all the wise
of the nations, in all their kingdoms, there is no one at all like Thee 1
8. But all (the wise) together are brutish, like cattle, and but fools.
The religion of idols is folly ; " it is but wood, like themselves ! 9. Sil
ver plates (to lay on the wooden shapes) are brought from Tarshish (in
Spain, by the Tyrians), and gold from Uphaz," which the artist pre
pares, and the hands of the goldsmith. Their robes are of blue and
red-purple: they are all, only the work of skilled artists. 10. But
Jehovah is God in truth; He is the Living God and the Eternal King:
before His wrath the earth trembles, and the nations cannot abide His
indignation. > In the Epistle of Jeremy, v. 70, the phrase in the Hebrew text is evidently alluded
to, and the rendering given as above. The Hebrew words are only two in number.
Tomer, a palm tree, or the trunk of one, or, apost— and Mikshah, which means either
" turned work," or, as a distinct word (Isa. i. 8), a garden of cucumbers. MOvers,
and Graf, and Naegelsbach, render it as in the text. Keil, Ewald, Eichhorn, Streane,
Sachs, Noyes, and Hitzig translate it, " like a pillar of tumed wood." Hitzig, how
ever, is rather iu favour ofthe other rendering. Jer. x. 6-8.
2 This passage closely resembles expressions of Isaiah in chaps, xlvi. 7 ; xlv. 30 ;
xli. 23 ; xliv. 10. That the writer of these chapters could have borrowed from Jere
raiah is impossible, from the differences of style. Jeremiah most, therefore, have
been the borrower, and iu that case these chapters must have been written before
his day ; and the whole theory ot their later origin is refuted. The idea of the pas
sage having been inserted iu Jeremiah hy a late author is also contradicted by its
appearing in the Septuagint. That version.is indeed even fuller than the Hebrew.
It runs thus: " It is a tree cut ont of the forest; the work of the cai-penters, or a molten
iraage. They are beautified with silver and gold; they iix them witb hammers and
nails ; they will set thera up that they raay not move. It is wrought silver, they will
not walk ; forged silver. From Tarshish is brought gold of Mophaz, and the work of
goldsmiths. They are all the work of craftsmen ; they will be clothed with bine and
purple. They must be carried, for they cannot ride. Fear them not, for they cannot
do any evil, and there is no good in them." Jer. x. 3-5. Verse 9 of tbe Hebrew is
thus transposed in the Greek.
' Jer. X. 6-10.
t " For Thine is all power." Eichhorn. Well.
' The folly and shamefulness ot idolatry is often urged in Scriptnre. Ps. lxxiii. 30.
Jer. xxii. 28. Hos. ix. 10. Jer. xi. 13. 1 Sam. xii. 21. See Wilton's Negeb, p. 383.
^ Kneucker thinks Uphaz was an Indian colony in Temen, South Arabia. Bibel
Lex., vol. V. p. 581. Gesenius fancies it is fhe same as Ophir. The Speaker'' s C&mm.
supposes it was on or near the river Hyphasis (now the Gbarra); the south-east
boundary of the Punjaub. Mdhlau and Volck say that the locality is unknown.
VOL. V.-13

194 JUDAH UNDER JOSIAK.
" 11. Thus shall ye say to them,' May the gods who have not made
heaven and earth vanish from the earth, and from under these heav
ens ! 13. Jehovah made the earth by His power ; He has established the
habitable world by His wisdom, and by His omniscience He has spread
out the heavens. 13. At His thunder-voice, the waters in the heavens
are in tumult ; He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the
earth; He makes the lightnings whioh lead on the rain,'' and brings
forth the wind from its store chambers.' 14. Every man (whatever
his wisdom) stands confounded before this spectacle; every goldsmith
is ashamed of the graven image he has made, for his molten image is a
lie ; it has no breath in it. 15. The idols are vain ; the work of folly ;
in the time of their visitation they perish. 16. But Jehovah, the
Portion of Jacob,' is not like these; He is the Former of all things and
He has chosen Israel as the tribe of His inheritance; His own peculiar
people ! Jehovah of Hosts is His name."
Now, once more, however, the vision of judgment, even
on this favoured race, looms before the eyes of the prophet.
"17. Gather together and carry away out of the land thy goods
(packed up for flight),' 0 thou that sittest on the ground in distress."
18. For thus says Jehovah, Behold, I will, this time, cast forth the
inhabitants of the laud like a stone from a sling, and will hem them
in so that their enemy will flnd them. 19. ' Woe is me ! I am sore
hurt! ' (will you cry, iu that day.) •" My wound' is incurable! This,
this is my trouble,' said I, the daughter of Judah, ' and I must bear it.
20. My tent is spoiled ; its cords that held it up are broken ; my chil-
^ Jer. X. 10-16. Verse 11 is written in Chaldee. Bleek, Hitzig and Keil accept
it as genuine. It was perhaps written in the dialect of the common people as a
proverbial saying, or as the very words they would use, in exile, respecting the gods
of Babylon.
2 Zech. X. 1. Por " bright clouds " read " lightning." Ps. xxix. 10.
3 1 Kings xviii. 45. Job xxxviii. 22.
< Modem criticism quotes this title of Jehovah (Bible in Je-wish Church, p. 272)
to shew that Ho was regarded by tbe Hebrews as ouly their tribal God, as Chemosh
was that of the Moabites. Yet the very next words proclaim Him the Creator of all
things, which no tribal god pretended to be. No idol, moreover, is more than a piece
of wood— a lie ; but Jehovah reigns over heaven and eaith. Is this a description of a
"tribal God"?
' Literally, " thy package ; " the foldid-up bundle of what had been saved, to
carry with them to thi-ir captivity. « Jer. x. 17-23.
' Literally, "for my breach" = breaking up. It is rendered " destraction," cliap.
Jv. 6.

JUDAH UXDEE JOSIAH. 195
dren go forth from me, and are not ; there is no one left to set up my
tent again, or stretch out its coverings."
The cause of such a fate is now repeated by the prophet.
" 21. (All this has happened) because the leaders of the people, its
shepherds, have grown duU of heart, and have not sought Jehovah.
Therefore they have not acted wisely, and aU their flock is scattered.
22. Hark! a rumour! behold, it spreads! Hark! a great sound (of an
army ' advancing) from the north country, to make the cities of Judah
desolate — a dwelling of jackals ! "
In that day Judah will cry :
" 23. I know, 0 Jehovah, that the way of man is not in his own '
hands; it. is not forman, as he walks, to direct his steps. 24. 0 Jeho
vah ! chasten me, but only in measure ; ^ not in Thine anger, lest Thou
bring me to nothing. 25. Pour out Thy fury on the nations that
know Thee not; that call not upon Thy name! For they have de
voured Jacob ; they have devoured and consumed him, and have made
his dwelling desolate." '
1 Isa. ix. 5.
2 The same word occurs in Ps, xxxvii. 23. " The steps of a good man are ordered
by theLord."
s In chap. xlvi. 28, the same word as is used here is translated, " I will correct
thee in mea^ure.-'^ So Eichhorn renders it.
* This verse occurs almost exactly in Ps. Ixxix. 6, 7, whicb was probably written
after the Captivity. The words would apply equally well to the days of Nebuchad
nezzar, or to those of Antiochus Epiphanes. Dean Perowne, Introd. to the Psalms.
Delitzsch, Die Psalmen. These final clauses mnst therefore have been quoted by the
writer of the psalm. That they are a later addition fo the prophet is scarcely con
ceivable when we remember the superstitious care taken of the Sacred Text by tbe
later Jews.

CHAPTER X.
THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW.
While Jeremiah was striving, by every form of earnest
persuasion, to bring about such a moral reformation as,
alone, would make the official changes in religion, effected
by Josiah, of any real worth, an event occurred in the year
B.C. 624, which permanently affected the spiritual history
of Israel.
Eighteen years had passed since the king's accession,
though he was still only a young man of twenty-six. The
whole country had been cleared of its high places and other
heathen or superstitious disfigurements, and the temple was
rapidly being repaired and restored to its ancient uses, un
der a commission, consisting of Hilkiah, the high priest ;
Shaphan, the king's secretary ' or minister of finance ; "
Maaseiah, the Sar,' or governor of Jerusalem; and Joah,
the king's Mazkir, or keeper of the State archives." While
engaged in their duties, Hilkiah oame upon a manuscript
roll, which proved to be a copy of "the Book of the Torah,
or Law, of Jehovah, by the hand of Moses." ° In what part
of the temple it was found is not stated, but the discovery
' Keil. 2 Ewald, Gesch., vol. iii. p. 697.
' Sar is translated elsewhere in the A.V. "prince," " chief captain," " chief ruler,"
" captain." 4 Keil, .ffiniejteng', p. 700. The word means, literally, "the remembrancer," and
the office entailed the duty of bringing belore the king the public business to be
done, and to counsel him respecting it. Thenius, on 1 Kings iv. 3.
6 (Hebrew) 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14. In 8 Kings (xxii. 8) it is called " the Book of the
Torah, or Law."

THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 197
took place when the commissioners were removing the
money gathered to repair the temple,' from the chesti
in which it had been stored ; which may mark either
when the Book was found, or the place where it was dis
covered. In the days of Christ, it was believed that the
king had sent Hilkiah to get what money remained, after
the restoration of the temple, to melt into cups, dishes, etc.,
for the sacred ministrations, and that while he was bringing
it out he lighted upon "the Holy Books of Moses."" The
Rabbinical tradition is, that "the Book" was found beneath
a heap of stones, under which it had been hidden when
Ahaz burned the other copies of the Law. It may be,
however, that it had lain hid in the Ark itself, which
Manasseh had thrown aside into some of the many cells, or
chambers, round the temple, where it might easily have
remained, unnoticed, till the searching eagerness of the
commission discovered it.'
Hitherto the king had acted only from the traditional
knowledge of the old religion, preserved by the godly through
the dark times of ilanasseh and Amon ; but the written Law
was now in his hands. That its earlier existence was well
known, is shewn by its instant recognition as " The Book of
the Law." iN'or is it possible that Josiah himself, and those
round him, should have received it as the ancient sacred
book of the nation, had no such book formerly existed.
ISTot a moment was lost in communicating the great event
to the king. Handing the manuscript to Shaphan, the royal
scribe or secretary, as the proper person to bring it before
1 The money Avas taken from the chest, and duly weighed, then pnt into bags,
which were forthwith sealed. 2 Kings xii. 10 ; xxiv. 4. Septuagint.
' Jos., Ant., X. iv. 2.
s This is the idea of Thenius (Coinm., on 2 Kings, p. 435). Tbe opinion of so calm
aud impartial a scholar rausf , iu any case, command respect.

198 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THB LAAV.
Josiah, Hilkiah awaited the result. Skilled in reading such
manuscripts, as became his ofRce, the secretary, after exam
ining it himself, at once sought an opportunity to read "out
of it " ' to his master. The effect on the king was like that
produced on Luther by his finding an old Latin Bible in the
library of the Augustine convent at Erfurt. ' The Reformer
had never seen the Scriptures, though he was not only a
Christian, but a monk.'' There had been religion enough,
of a kind, round him all his life ; religion professing to be
based on the written word ; but the difference between the
conventional and the true flashed on his soul with lightning
brightness, when the Sacred Book ibself was consulted. It
taught him another lesson than that of fasts and vigils, and
led him to trust to the infinite grace of God rather than to
singing masses. Intensely in earnest, like the German
monk, Josiah was overwhelmed on hearing, for the first
time, the very words of the Divine Law. Much had been
handed down by the godly through the dark times of his
father and grandfather, but much had been neglected.
Rending his clothes, in token of profound grief, at the
thought that all the calamities of his people had come on
them because their "fathers had not kept the word of Jeho
vah, to do after all that was written in this book," he sent
to the prophetess Huldah, the recognized head of the order
of prophets in Jerusalem — for Jeremiah still lived at Ana
thoth, though often in the city — to inquire respecting this
great discovery. Would the nation really have to suffer all
the curses pronounced on apostasy from Jehovah, in the
newly-found Book, or was there still hope ? The answer was
in keeping with the words of the prophets as a whole. Judah
> So in tbe Hebrew. 3 Chron. xxxiv. 18. In 2 Kings xxii. 8, 10, it is said
"he read it." a Carlyle's Bero Worehip, p. UO.

THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 199
had fallen by its determined idolatry, and the Divine wrath
would certainly be poured out on it. But Josiah had lis
tened to the preaching of Jeremiah and his brethren, and
had humbled himself before God, and rent his clothes and
wept. He therefore would be gathered to his fathers before
the final catastrophe of his people. So far as that was con
cemed, he should die in peace. '
The teaching of the prophets, the example of earlier
kings, and the words of the Law itself, indicated the next
step to be taken. The prophets, in all their utterances, had
addressed their fellow-countrymen as standing in special
relations to Jehovah, as His chosen people ; the vineyard He
had planted ; the bride He had espoused. David, Solomon,
Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah, as the heads of the State, had
publicly conducted solemn acts of national consecration to
Him. The words of the newly-discovered Law, moreover,
carried back the history of the race to the covenant of
Jehovah with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to that made
under the shadow of Sinai, with the tribes sprung from
these patriarchs. It was hence natural that Josiah should
seek formally to renew for himself and his people, so august
a relation with the God of their fathers. Summoning the
elders of Judah and Jerusalem, therefore, as representatives
of the whole community, and aU the population, as specta
tors of the solemn act done in their name, he held a great
assembly at the temple in Jerusalem, to bring the newly-
found Law before them. On the day appointed, the wide
space of the temple enclosure was crowded with a vast mul
titude, headed by the prophets, priests, Levites, and great
men of the tribes. A platform had been raised for the
young king, in the court of the temple ; the elders of the
' 2 Kings xxii. S-30. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14-38.

200 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW.
people standing around. Opening the precious roll, he
himself, to deepen the impression, read it aloud to them
throughout, with all its details of the ancient covenant
made with the nation by Jehovah ; the promises if it were
kept, and the curses if it were broken. Then followed a
striking scene. Lifting his voice, Josiah solemnly declared
his resolution to live in obedience to all the requirements
of the Divine word. " Standing on his platform,'' says the
Book of Kings,' "he made the coveuant before Jehovah,
to walk after Jehovah, and to keep His commandments, and
His testimonies, and His statutes, with all his heart ; and
with all his soul to perform the words of the covenant which
are written in this book."" Kindled to enthusiasm by his
example, the elders, in the name of the people, hastened to
give their eager concurrence in the act of the king ; ' the
whole body of the people, apparently, adopting their act, by
a loud Amen. Judah was once more, at least in outward
form, the covenant people of God."
What portion of the Bible was thus brought to light after
long oblivion, has been the subject of warm controversy.
Many scholars believe it was the book known as Deuteron
omy ; ' others, that while including that section of the
Torah, it also embraced a greater or less portion of the other
divisions of the Pentateuch ; ° while Thenius supposes it to
have been a great collection of Mosaic commands and laws,
from which our Pentateuch was afterwards arranged and
' 2 Kings xxiii. 3. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 31. " See Dent. xxvi. 16.
3 Graetz thinks that an ox was slain, and that the king and all the people passed
between the parts ofit. Gesch., vol. ii. p. 318.
* 2 Kings xxiii. 1-3. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 29-32. Deut. xxvii. 15. 1 Chron. xvi. 36.
» So Gesenius, De Wette, Graetz, Eeuss, Schrader, Bleek, Bertheau, Ewald, Dill
mann, and othei'S.
' Hengstenberg, Kennicott, Keil, Dean Perowne, Schultz, Lord Arthur Hervey,
von Lengerke.

THB FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THB LAW. 201
compiled." As, however, it is certain that a Book of the Law,
containing more or less of the present Pentateuch, was in
circulation long before Josiah,^ it seems most reasonable to
believe that Hilkiah recovered not only Deuteronomy, but
the various sacred writings even then comprised in the
Torah, or Law, as a whole. That portion read by Shaphan
and Josiah may, indeed, have been only our present Deuter
onomy, before its final revision ; nor is it strange that it
should be spoken of as in itself the Book of the Law, since
it presents, with a glowing warmth and poetry which are
specially attractive and impressive, the last utterances of the
Founder of tho Israelite nation, summing up and enforcing
his whole previous legislation. Deuteronomy, moreover,
was " the Book of the Law " required to be written out by
each king on his accession, ° and only this portion, as
embodying the spirit of the whole, was read before the peo
ple, every seven years,* at the Feast of Tabernacles. ° The
" Book of the Law " was therefore, clearly, a general expres
sion, sometimes embracing all the sections of the Torah,
but, at others, confined to Deuteronomy — the last. Nor is
it to be overlooked that Deuteronomy alone presents " the
Law " in a form brief enough to be read through in public,
at one time, or that the words in which Josiah and the
people renewed their covenant with Jehovah — pledging
themselves to keep His commandments. His testimonies and
statutes, with all their heart and with all their soul, are
- Thenius, B. d. Eonige, p. 434. -' Ewald, Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 759.
3 Dent. xvii. 18. The words mean, literally, " a repetition of this law," which is
only another name for Deuteronomy. Hence the Septuagint renders the words " of
fhis Deuieronomy."
* It was received as an unquestionable tradition in the time of the second temple,
that this had always been the practice. The words are, " from the beginning of
Deuteronomy." Dean Perowne, Diet, of Bible, vol. ii. p. 773. Delitzsch, On Genesis,
p. 68.
' Deut. xxxi. 9-12.

20'3 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAM'.
peculiar tc that bork.' But this in no way precludes the
existence, along with it, of the other portions of the Law.
Even the most advanced critics admit that parts at least of
Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, already existed, and these
could hardly have been left to perish by the faithful hands
which had preserved the copy of Deuteronomy.
The age of the book thus found has given rise to vigorous
controversy. Was it a portion of the Law handed down
from the time of Moses, or, if not, what was its age ? At
the end of Deuteronomy it . is expressly said " that Moses
wrote "the words of this law in a book until they were
finished," and its existence in a written form is again and
again mentioned in other passages.' The future king, as we
have seen, was to transcribe it. Joshua is commanded to
write " all the words of it" on great stones smoothed with
plaster, as was the custom in Egypt, and to set them up on
Mount Ebal, after he had crossed the Jordan.* Finally, the
complete copy is said to have been handed over to the
priests by Moses, after he had himself written it out ; to be
put " in the side of the Ark of the Covenant," for perma
nent preservation.
Nothing, it might seem, could be clearer than this. Yet
the most extraordinary theories have been advanced in sup
port of the view that Deuteronomy was a production of the
reign of Hezekiah, or even a conscious fraud of well-mean
ing persons in the time of Josiah himself. Von Bohlen
maintains that it was composed by the high priest Hilkiah,
the prophet Jeremiah, the prophetess Huldah, the scribe
1 Deut. iv. 29 ; vi. 5 ; x. 12 ; xi. 13 : xiii. 3 ; xxvi. ig ; xxx. 2. ' Deut. xxxi. 24.
" Dent. xvii. 18, fi.; xxvii. 2, 3, 8 ; xxviii. ij8, 61 ; xxix. 19, ff.; xxx. 10 ; xxxi. 9.
* A summary of the Law must have been intended in this case, or perhaps simply
its bare enactments, in brief, without the interspersed comments. In our own day,
the essence of an Act of Parliament is constantly pnblished iu a condensed form.

THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 303
Shaphan, and his son Ahikam.' Ewald fancied it was
written in Egypt by a prophet who had fled thither, during
the persecution of Manasseh ; for the benefit, primarily, of
Jews sold by that king as slaves to Pharaoh. Thence, it was
accidentally brought to Palestine, and at last found its way
to the place in which Hilkiah discovered it." Gesenius
ascribed it to Jeremiah. ° The De Wette-Schrader "Intro
duction " assumes that it was written by some one closely
connected with that prophet.* Robertson Smith, following
Wellhausen, Dillmann,' Riehm, and others, sets it down as
the creation of prophets, not priests, in the seventh century ¦¦
before Christ. Riehm, like Ewald, ascribes it to the reign
of Manasseh. Knobel and von Lengerke, like Graf, and
some others, think it was written under Josiah. Vaihinger
takes for granted it was composed under Hezekiah.'
That so many should have assumed its late origin seems
to result from the fact that new theories rise, prevail, and
pass away, in Biblical criticism, as in all other branches of
study. Sir Charles Lyell still is a supreme authority in
geological science, but, since his death, his great doctrine of
the uniform action of existing natural causes, and no other,
in all ages of the past, is regarded by not a few, as too sweep
ing in its demands. Not long sinde invalids were sent by
the faculty to the warmth of Madeira ; now, the same class
of patients are recommended to seek the arctic cold of an
alpine winter. In both cases, science gave apparently ample
grounds for its counsels. The fact is, a theory started by
some vigorous thinker, and supported by him with an

1 Von Bohlen, Die Genesis historisch-kritisch erlduterl, p. 164.
= Ewald, Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 735. = Gesch. d. Bebr. Spr., p. 32.
* De Wette-Schrader, Mnleitung, p. 323. ' Bibd Lex., ¦vol. ii. p. 444.
" Bible inJeuiish Church, p. 362.
' Herzog, Beal Encyk., vol. ii. pp. 329, S. Studien und Krifiken, 1873, pp. 165; S.

304

THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW.

imposing array of sound or unsound evidence, is certain to
gain the support of the mass of average minds, till some
original brain starts another, and then the first is quietly
dropped. It has been thus, repeatedly, in Biblical criticism,
and it is so at present.
The new school, however, is far from embracing the
whole scholarship of the day.
Lord Arthur Hervey holds that
Deuteronomy was read by Joshua
at Mount Gerizim. Kleinert
thinks it was composed in the
time of the Judges. Keil be
lieves it was written, at least to
the thirty-first chapter, by Moses,'
and Delitzsch agrees with him."
Dean Perowne has no doubt of
this." Most of these critics, in
deed, admit evidence of revision
and final completion ; they speak
only of the substance of the
book. It is certain, as already said,
that sacred books were in exist
ence among the Hebrews long
before Josiah. In Exodus wo read* of "the Book of the
Covenant," which contained the " words and the judg
ments" of God, so far as they had till then been given.
The defeat of Amalek was written in "the Book,"' appar
ently one already known ; and in Numbers we learn that
Moses wrote the journeyings of the children of Israel, and
' Mnleitung, pp. 93, ff. = Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, pp. 503-509.
2 Diet, of Bible, &Tt. "Pentateuch and Deut."
i Exod. xxiv, 7. ' Exod. xvii. 14.

COVBBINS OF A BOLL OP THB LAW.
The roll is wound round the two
rods, wbich appear below. The
covering is put over it for its pres
ervation.

THB FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THB LAW. 305
their various stations.' The language of Deuteronomy has
already been quoted. Joshua repeatedly mentions " the
Book of the Law of God," and names Moses as having writ
ten it.'' David speaks of a written law of Moses.' At the
coronation of King Joash, the testimony was put in his
hands, or laid on his head, as required by Deuteronomy.* In
Chronicles ° David is said to have directed his preparations
for public worship " according to the law of Jehovah ; " and
in his charge to Solomon he speaks of the "law of Jehovah
thy God, the statutes, and the judgments which Jehovah
charged Moses with, concerning Israel." ' Rehoboam is
said to have "forsaken the law of Jehovah."' Asa com
manded Judah to obey the " Law and the Commandment." '
Azariah the prophet reminds that king, that Israel had long
been " without the true God, and without a teachmg priest
and without laiu." ° Jehoshaphat appointed princes, priests,
and Levites to instruct the people, and, it is added, " they
taught in Judah and had the Book of the Law of Jehovah
with them." '° Amaziah, we are told, spared the children of
his father's murderers in obedience to the directions of "tho
law of the book of Moses." " Hezekiah's regulations in con
nection with the restoration of the national worship, are said
to have been carried out "as it is written in the law of
Jehovah ; " " and Jehovah is introduced by the author of
Chronicles as speaking to David of "the whole Law, and
the statutes and the ordinances by the hand of Moses." "
But not only are written documents thus constantly
> Num. xxxiii. 2. " Josh. i. 7, 8 ; viii. 31, 34 ; xxiii. 6 ; xxiv. 26.
» 1 Kings ii. 3. « 2 Kings xi. 13. 3 Chron. xxiii. 11.
' 1 Chron. xvi. 40. "1 Chron. xvii. 12, 13.
' 2 Chron. xii. s 2 Chron. xiv. 4.
• 3 Chron. xvii. 9. "> 3 Chron. xv. 3.
•> 2 Chron. xxv. 4. 2 Kings xiv. 6. Deut. xxiv. 16.
" 2 Chron. xxxi. 3, 4, 21. '« 3 Chron. xxxiii. 8.

306 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW.
mentioned ; quotations or references to the books of the
Pentateuch are numerous through the prophets. Amos
shews his intimate acquaintance with Deuteronomy. ' Hosea
not only proves in many passages that he knew it well," but
speaks of the whole law ' in these remarkable words : "' I
(Jehovah) have written to him (Israel) the ten thousand
things of my Law." A few of the many allusions to
Deuteronomy in Isaiah are given in the fourth volume of
this book,* and a reference Bible will shew the same feature
in Micah. Thus, not only Jeremiah and the later prophets,
but the whole brotherhood, from its earliest member, silently
witness, not merely to the existence of Deuteronomy as a
recognized part of the Law, but to that of the fuller revela
tions of the Pentateuch.
Among the various tests of the antiquity of any document,
no one is more reliable than the peculiarities of the words it
employs. It would, for example, be impossible that any
writing in which the pronoun "its" occurred could be older
than about a.d. 1600, because "its" was not in use before
that date. It does not once occur in our Authorized Version, s
The use of old English forms, such as "maken," and
" slepen," for "to make," and "' to sleep," ' marks a compo
sition as of a certain date in the history of our language.
But Deuteronomy is characterized, to a striking degree, by
> See Amos i. 11, 14 ; ii. 10, 11 ; iii. 2 ; iv. 4, 5. 9, 10 ; v. 11, 25 ; vii. 3 ; viii. 14 ;
ix. 4, 7 ; iu reference Bibles. See also iv. 11. Comp. with Dent. xxix. 23.
2 Hos. viii. 12.
s See in a reference Bible, Hos. i. 2 ; iii, 3 ; iv. 4 ; v. 10 ; vi. 1 ; vii. 12 ; viii. 12 ;
ix. 4, 12 ; X. 4, 8, 10 ; xi. 3, 8 ; xiii. .5, 10, 12 ; xiv. 3. Compare also Hos. iv. 13, with
Deut. xii. 2 ; Hos. viii. 13, with Deut. xxviii. 68 ; Hos. xi. 3, witb Deut. i. 31 ; Hos.
xiii. 6, witb Deut. viii. 11-14.
< Vol. iv, pp. 304-5.
« Trench's English Past and Present, p. 89. Marsh's English Language, p. 128.
• Thus— " Aud smalg f owlSs maken melodic,
Tbat slepen al the night with open yhe.-~Chaucer.

THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 207
verbal forms which had grown obsolete long before the time
of Josiah. The masculine form of the pronoun, hod, for the
feminine, hee, occurs, ia aU, 195 times in the Pentateuch,
and of these, 36 instances are in Deuteronomy — a usage like
that of old English as seen in our Bibles.' Indeed, the fem
inine, hee, is not found at all in Deuteronomy, thongh it is
met with 11 times in the other books of the Pentateuch.
" Xaar," a youth, is of common gender in the Pentateuch,
standing for a maiden a& well as a boy ; and, in accordance
with this primitive usage, the feminine, "' Xaarah," occurs
only once in Deuteronomy. The names given to the months
of the year, being different in difierent periods, serve also to
shew, to a certain extent, the age of the books in which they
occur. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Zecbariah are later
books, belonging to the period of the Persian rule ; and it is
natural to find them using the Aramaic calendar. But if we
found this calendar used in the Pentateuch, it would be an
argument in favour of its late date. On the contrary, we
find, in both Exodus and Deuteronomy, not only the old
name Abib, but in Kings, the old names used with an expla
nation, as if already archaic terms, requiring elucidation ;
the Book of Kings being later than the Pentateuch. Konig,
in his unanswerable analysis of the book,' gives long lists of
instances in which ancient forms of words are used, and
shews that others are frequent in it which were obsolete at a
later period.' One striking fact is specially curious. The
termination un, in the future, is unknown in the prose writ
ings of the period after the retum from Babylon. It never
> Thus Exod. xxxvii. 17. " Of beaten work made be the candlestick ; his shaft,
and his brancb, his bowls, his knops, and h^ floweiB, were of the same."
s Kbnig's AU. Test. Studien, Heft ii. Berlin, 1839.
> Some of these will be found in Dean Perowne's article on the Pentateuch, I>ic&
^ the Bible, vol. il p. 788.

'308 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THB LAW.
occurs in Esther, Ezra, or Nehemiah, the 1st Book of Chron
icles, the Hebrew of Daniel, Haggai, Ecclesiastes, Lamenta
tions, Canticles, Jonah, or Obadiah. It is met with only 5
times in Jeremiah, and 3 times in Ezekiel. But in the
Pentateuch it is found 105 times, and of these 58 are in
Deuteronomy.' The curious fact that in some instances
Aramaic forms, whioh are habitual in the oldest books of
Scripture, occur also in the latest, is susceptible of a natural
and easy explanation. Abraham, at his arrival in Canaan,
spoke Aramaic, and, though he adopted the closely allied
language of the Canaanites, some of the forms of his own
mother-tongue were still retained ; as forms of old English
still survive in our local dialects.' Gradually, however, these
traces of their Mesopotamian origin died out from the lan
guage of the Hebrews. But the captivity carried them back
again to Aramaic-speaking lands, and there they learned,
once more, to use the tongue laid aside by their forefathers,
more than 1,500 years before.' Intercourse with Damascus,
Assyria, and Babylon, from the time of David to the fall of
the State, must also have tended to reintroduce Aramaic
peculiarities. *
Nor can objection be raised to the remote antiquity of any
portion of the Pentateuch from its voluminousness as a
whole. The long annals of Egyptian and Assyrian kings,
and the abundant literary remains of various kinds, recov.
ered from the mounds of the Tigris and Euphrates, itnd
from the tombs of Egypt, prove that written documents
were common in remote ages. In the Louvre Museum
' KOnig, pp. 165-6.
" Lancashire, " singen " for sing. So, generally, in Provincial English, " afeard "
for " afraid," " ris " for " rose," " axe " for " ask ; " all, singly old English forms.
3 KOnig, Heft ii. passim.
< On the whole subject of Deuteronomy, the introduction to Schultz, Dos Deutero-
tiomium- erkldrt, Berlin, 1859, is very copious.

THE FINDING OF THB BOOK OF THE LAW. 309
there is, indeed, an exquisite statue of an Egyptian scribe
busy with his pen, dating from a period long anterior to
Abraham. The cuneiform, or wedge-shaped, documents
discovered at Tel Amama shew, further, that the Babylo
nian alphabet and characters were in use, long before Joshua,
over all Western Asia, including Phoenicia and Palestine.
Nor can these tablets be the only ones of their kind. They
bear witness to the existence of similar libraries in other
parts of the old civilized world. There must have been
schools in Palestine where the scribes of Canaan learnt the
language and script of Babylonia, as well as libraries in
which the imperishable books of burnt clay were stored up.
Such a library, as has already been pointed out,' must have
existed at Kirjath-Sepher, and for aught we know may still
be lying beneath the ground. And hence, there is no
difB.culty in believing that rolls so voluminous as those of
the Pentateuch could have been written and freely copied
in the days of the wilderness life, or in any subsequent
age. Other grounds on which a late date is assigned to Deu
teronomy and the various books of the Pentateuch can hardly
be regarded as very weighty.
Thus it is made a difficulty, for example, that in the last
chapter of Deuteronomy,' which no one supposes of the
same age as the earlier part of the book, the town of Dan
is thus named, though it was known as Laish till the days
of the Judges.' That such additions have been made here
and there to the historical notices of the earlier books, by
revisers of different periods, is assumed to prove that the
historical portions of tlie first books of the Bible were
written in the land of Canaan, and that, not before the
¦ See vol. i. p. 300. ' Deut. xxxiv. 1. ' Judg. xviii. 27, 29.
VOL. v.— 14

310 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW.
period of the kings ! ' The words, " on this side Jordan,"
in Deut. i. 1, it is said, ought to be translated "across the
Jordan," in which case they would shew that the writer
lived in West Palestine. Etymologically, " aiher," the
word used, means " across," but unfortunately for the new
critics, it was employed arbitrarily, for both east and west,
when Deuteronomy was written, without reference to the
relative position of the Jordan, or other natural boundary ;
leaving its meaning to be gathered from an additional word
of explanation. Thus, in Num. xxxii. 19, we read, "For
we will not inherit with them on yonder side (mai-aib6r) the
Jordan, and forward," or "thence, on;" "because our
inheritance is fallen to us on this side (mai-aib6r) Jordan,
eastward ; " so that in this verse ailer stands for both east
and west of the Jordan. The word, ultimately, after the
conquest of Canaan, was applied to the east side of Jordan ;
as Perea, which means the same, was at a still later period ;
but, when the Pentateuch was written, it was used indiffer
ently of the east and west, in reference to the temporary
position of the Hebrews, who were still on the eastern side.
Its meaning in the first verse of Deuteronomy is, moreover,
at once conclusively proved from the fact that the various
places mentioned as marking the region intended, are all on
the east of the Jordan.
We are further told that the Pentateuch could not be as
old as Moses, from the use of the word yamah — " towards
the sea" — for westward ; and of "Negeb," the name em
ployed for the southern uplands of Judah, for the south.
" At Mount Sinai, it is said, the sea did not lie to the west,
and the Negeb was to the north." "If the writer lived
' Smith, p. 332. The instauce quoted is the list of Edomite kings " before there
reigned a king of the children of Israel "—an expression which must have been added
by a_reviser of Saul's or David's time, at the earliest.

THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 311
in Palestine, however, the expressions would be correct. " '
But it is forgotten that the Hebrews had spoken the lan
guage of Palestine for centuries before the birth of Moses,
and must have adopted and used its ordinary geographical
expressions, in the popular and not the etymological sense.
Our word "south" means "towards the sun," but surely
an Australian is not wrong in calling Melbourne south of
Sydney, though, to him, it is not really south, that is,
towards the sun, but north. Does he say that he goes south
to India, because that country is etymologically south from
Australia ?
An objection is also raised on the ground that the patri
archal sites mentioned in the Pentateuch can still be iden
tified, while we cannot put our finger so readily on those
mentioned in connection with the wilderness wanderings.
As if it could be as easy to follow the halting places over a
pathless wilderness, as the sojourn of an encampment near
the still existing towns and villages of a settled country !
A great deal has been made of the use of the two names,
Elohim and Jehovah, for God, in various passages and parts
of the early books of Scripture. But while it is readily
admitted that writings still older than those of Moses may
have been incorporated into the original narratives, or added,
in some cases, in after times, the extent to which the theory
of "independent sources " is pressed, in connection with the
use of these two sacred words, is arbitrary and fanciful in
the extreme. Ewald, in the face of his own passion for
subdividing, has shewn that the employment of different
names of God is to be explained from their different signifi
cations ; and the other grounds advanced for dissecting each
book — the superscriptions, repetitions, and variations in
1 Smith, p. 323.

313 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW.
accounts of the same event, as well as their abrupt intro
duction—are, according to him, peculiarities of Semitic his
torical composition, but no proof of variety of sources or
compilers, in the separate sections of a narrative.' Since his
day, however, critics have gone to greater lengths. Among
them the Pentateuch is torn into countless shreds ; even sin
gle verses in many cases being cut in two, as the composi
tion of different authors. The theory of various documents
has, indeed, taken every shape, as the cloud of Polonius
seemed by turns a weasel, a camel, and a. whale. Two
documents, or authors, by no means suffice. Every critic has
his own fancy, and assigns the sacred text to what number
of authors, editors, and compositions he thinks fit, each
with an arbitrary name and age. Dillmann supposes a first
Book of Laws, a second, and then a third, followed by the
Deuteronomist.' Ewald recognizes nine documents by nine
different authors. Hupfeld sees the work of four authors
in Genesis alone. Bleek acknowledges only a "Jehovist,"
who filled out an original " Elohist " document, embracing
the whole Pentateuch except Deuteronomy ; which itself is
a production of the interval between Hezekiah and Josiah.
Knobel detects six documents, by six compilers, in the Five
Books. These critics, and many others, range, fancy free,
over centuries, in their estimate of the age of their material,
and cut it, each, to his own pattern. But a new school has
risen. The theory of Graf, that Deuteronomy was older
than Exodus, Leviticus, and Nurabers, had the charm of
novelty, and has gained various disciples. In fact, it is the
fashionable hypothesis of the day, and we now hear of
Levitical, that is, priestly laws, and of the Deuteronomic
' Die Composition d. Genesis kritisch untersucht. Braunschweig, 1823.
» Bib. Lex., vol. ii. p. 444.

THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 313
code, breathing the spirit of the Prophets more than of
Jehovist or Elohist documents. But the new hypothesis of
"Levitical and non-Levi tical, or Deuteronomic portions"
has only introduced fresh complications in the dissection of
the different books of the Pentateuch, with the same de
lightful independence on the part of each critic, in cutting
the sacred text to shreds.
One illustration may suffice. A recent " Introduction," '
of high standing, recognizes three authors only in the
Pentateuch : — an annalist ; a writer who favoured theocratic
or priestly views ; and a third, pervaded by the spirit of the
Prophets, though he has made free use of the ancient docu
ments. Among these compilers the Book of Genesis is
distributed, a passage here, and another there, in a table
extending over a large page and a half, in three parallel
columns, single verses being cut in two in fifteen cases, as
written by different hands. The mutilated fragments of
Exodus cover a similar page ; nine verses being bisected.
Leviticus is assigned almost as a whole to the "Elohim"
documents. Numbers has three-quarters of a page devoted
to a hypothetical table of the contributions of the three
compilers, the two halves of six different verses being re
ferred to two independent authors. In Deuteronomy " the
Annalist" is credited with four and a half verses in one
chapter,' and six in another, including two separate halves ; '
the " Theocratic compiler " is detected as the author of two
verses in one chapter and three in another;' while the
" Prophetic contributor " is assumed to have added one
chapter and part of three others ; all the rest falling to
the share of the " Deuteronomist." Confusion this, rather

1 Be Wette-Schrader's, pp. 374, 276, 380, 281, 289, 834.
2 Deut. xxxiL * Deut. xxxiv. ' Deut. iv. 10.

214 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW,
than simplification ; darkness rather than light ! No won
der Graetz, himself a wild theorist, ingenuously admits that
no two critics agree either in the division of their material,
or in the age they assign to the compositions they thus arbi
trarily define.' Let the unsophisticated reader glance at the
different books of the Pentateuch, and notice how closely the
Divine names of "Lord" and " God," answering to Jeho
vah and Elohim, are associated, in countless instances ;
often, indeed, in the same verse ; and he will be able to
judge how hopeless it is to build any general theory of
authorship on their use. Nor is the attempt less arbitrary
to apportion the sacred text to distinct authors and ages,
from a fancied detection of a different style in the various
sections. The claim expressly made in Deuteronomy of its being
written by Moses,' is strengthened, if we may so speak, by
the whole tone and contents of the book. The magnificent
addresses of the Prophet and the laws he enforces, corre
spond, throughout, to the situation described in the opening
verses, which represent Israel as encamped, at the end of
their wilderness life, on the steppes of Moab, ready to cross
the Jordan. He speaks not only with the vividness of an
eye-witness, but with the enthusiasm and tenderness of a
Leader, who could look back to the time when his people
were in the " slave house " of Egypt. Allusions to Egyp
tian customs and usages, natural in the mouth of one famil
iar with that country, are constant. We have references to
Egyptian regulations in time of war ; ' to the Egyptian bas
tinado,* and to the Egyptian mode of irrigation.' Among
the curses threatened are " the sicknesses of Egypt." ° To
' Geschichte, vol. il. Note, p. 455. ' Deut. xxxi. 24.
= Deut. XX. 5. « Deut. xxv. 2.
» Dcut. xi. 10. « Deut. vii. 15 ; xxviii. 60.

THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 315
be sold again to that country is the ideal of direst calamity.'
As in Leviticus,' the remembrance that they were once slaves
in Egypt is urged, repeatedly, to lead them to obey the laws,'
and references to the abode of Israel there are frequent * even
in the laws themselves, and, above all, in that respecting the
king ; a peculiarity very hard to explain if the book was
written in the reign of Josiah or Manasseh.
Nor is it easy to imagine why a writer in the time of
these kings, should have represented Moses as giving direc
tions respecting their putting down nations which had then,
for centuries, ceased to be objects of public concern. The
Amalekites and Canaanites are to be rooted out ; but the
former had virtually been so since the time of David, four
hundred years back, and the remnant of the Canaanites in
the bounds of Judah had, for ages, been slaves. The pro
hibition of the worship of the host of heaven ' has been
hastily fancied to refer to the idolatry introduced by Ahaz
and Manasseh from Assyria, but may as justly be held to
forbid the ancient Arab idolatry of the same kind.° A pure
spiritual religion such as Deuteronomy presents, allowing no
similitude of Jehovah of any kind, checks every approach
to idolatry, while the demand that worship and obedience
should rest on the affections, guards against formalism. All
the laws given anticipate the possession of Western Pales
tine, and are fitted for the altered state of things this would
introduce. In no case is the passage across Jordan an accom
plished event ; it is always, at most, in the near future.
' Deiit. xxviii. 68. 2 Lev. xix, 34 ; xvii.-xx. ; and throughout very like Deut .
» Deut. f. 15 ; xxiv. 18, 23.
« Deut. vi. 21-23 ; vii. 8, 18 ; xi. 3 ; xvii. 16.
' Deut. iv. 19 ; xvii. 3.
« See De Wette-Schrader, § 206, e.g , on the one side, and Kleinert, Unter
suchungen, pp. 105, ff.; Keil, Die B. der Kiynige, p. 38S ; Delitzsch, Zu Biob, p. 387,
on the other.

216 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THB LAW.
That modifications of the statutes given at Sinai occur in
some instances, is only what was inevitable, in view of the
transition of the community from tent life, to that of a set
tled population. Even these variations, however, are based
on the Sinaitic legislation. In the earlier books, Moses, as
the great prophet, had spoken in the name of Jehovah ; in
Deuteronomy he reminds his nation, now that he is about
to leave them, that he was the intermediary through whom
these Divine communications had been given. Much stress
has been laid on the emphasis with which Deuteronomy
urges the recognition of a central sanctuary by the tribes.
The use of high places by the patriarchs and prophets, to a
late period, is thought to imply that this marks the date of
the book as not earlier than Manasseh or Josiah. It is sug
gested, indeed, that the idea of a single temple was an inven
tion of the priests at Jerusalem, to secure a monopoly of their
office.' But the Tabernacle had already, from the first,
embodied the same principle.' Deuteronomy only assumes
that it will continue to be recognized in the future as in
the past, naming no favoured spot ; leaving that to the cir
cumstances of after ages. Nor does it even preclude a
change from one locality to another, as occasion may de
mand.' Hence, Shiloh was the first great religious centre ;
Jerusalem only rising to take its place under David and Sol
omon. Nor is it strange that in the dissolution of society
after the death of Joshua, when national unity perished for
centuries, local sanctuaries should have everywhere sprung
up, in accordance with ancient custom ; or that when the
' So Reuss and others.
" Wellhausen boldly meets this, by declaring that tbere never was a Tabernacle ;
that the account of it was only an invention of the priests after the Exile— that is,
1,000 years after Moses.
s Deut. xii. 14-26 ; xiv. 25, ff.; xvi. 2, 6, 11, etc.

THE FIXDIXG OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 21?
tribes had l>een raised once more to a nation, under the
kings, the prejudices of generations made it impossible, till
the days of Josiah, to carry out, to its fullest extent, the law
appointing only one central sanctuary. Even so late as the
reign of Hezekiah, as we know, his attempt to centralize
worship was urged on the populace by the Assyrian officials
of Sennacherib, in the expectation that it would rouse them
to revolt.^
The brief cautions,'* that if kings were introduced, they
should avoid relying on horses and chariots, and should
neither indulge in polygamy nor strive to amass yast treas-
1 See vol. iv. p. 457. Stress is laid by Vaihinger (Herzog, toI. ii. p. 325) on the
nse of the word^ ¦• house of Jehovah," Beat, xxiii. IS. as proving the late origin of
DenteroDomy. Bat it occnrs in the original l^^slation, which, all grant to be
Mosaic Exod. xxiii. 19), and it is also nsed of the Tabernacle at Shiloh. 1 Sam, L
7-24 ; ui. 15.
It is maintained by those who have adopted the extreme views of the Wellhansen
school, that the distinction between priests and Levites is not recogmzed in Denter-
onomy, and was only introdaced, after the ExUe, by the priestly invention of the
Middle Books of the Pentateuch. But in Deut. xviii. 1, we raad of " the priests, the
Levites, the whole tribe of Levi '* — that is, not only the priests, but also the Levites,
who, between them, made np the whole tribe of Levi. Both priests and Levites be
longed to the one tribe, aud thus both could justly be called Levites. But in Beut.
xviii. 3, we read of the priest ; in verse 6 of the Levite. When in Bent, xvii, 9-18, we
read of " the priests, the Levites,"' or, in Dent. xxi. 5 ; -mnri 9, of " the priests, the
sons of Levi " — there is no identification of priest with Levites, but only a recogni
tion of the fact that the priests were descendants of the patriarch Levi— as, of
course, the Levites were also. 'See 2 Chron. xxiii. IS ; Ecr\-. 27; xxx. 17. Jer. xxxiii.
18-21.) Priests and Levites are, in fact, considered in Deuteronomy as essentially
one great whole, and priests are spoken of as Levites or sons of Levi, to bring
into prominence their belonging to the sacred tribe, and thus shew their priesthood to
be rightful and authoritative. (Oehler, in Herzo^^. vol. viii. p. 350.) The assenion thai
X>eateronomy speaks of a homeless and wretched priest caste, and of the Le\ite3
as no longer settled in the towns as?igned them in Xum. xxxv., bnt as scattatd
sojourners and strangers in the7 towns at large, is based on various errors. The Le
vites were neces?arii V "¦'¦ within the gates " of the general community, from the fact that
the towns granted them had a general lay population as well. The Levites wer - not
by any means their only inhabitants. (Ewald's Geschichte., vol. ii. p. 4:p3. i Moreover,
it could readily be foreseen ihat the possession of the 43 Le"\itlca] towns wonld be a
work of time ; it "as ^ever, in fact, wholly accomplished, and hence macy Levites had
to seek their home where they could. As to the modifications in Deuteronomy, of
the law for the ^support; of the Levites, they are at once explained as provisiona
against the foreseen neglect of former laws for their maintenance .
2 Deut. xvii. 14.

218 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW.
ures,' like the despots around, speak of wise foresight, which
provides for every contingency. Strange to say, even in this
section, so foreign to the ancient polity of the nation, the
reason assigned for not "multiplying horses'" is such as
would be natural to a lawgiver who had been in Egypt, and
knew what his people had suffered there. They are not to
do it, because it would " cause the people to return to
Egypt," the great breeding place of horses for Palestine.'
They had endured enough at its hands in the past, and its
moral corruptions were too dangerous. It was statesmanlike
to look forward to the introduction of kings as possible ; but
what fitness could there have been in such counsels, if given
for the first time in the reign of Josiah, more than four hun
dred years after monarchy had been established ?
The spirit of Deuteronomy breathes out in the intimation
that Jehovah would raise up to the nation an order of proph
ets,' as His divinely-commissioned spokesmen ; the counter
parts, in fact, in this respect, of Moses himself. It is in
keeping with the spirit of the relations of Jehovah to them
from the time of their leaving Egypt. Eldad and Medad,
and the seventy elders, had prophesied at Sinai, and Moses
had shewn his noble breadth of mind in the wish that not
only they, but all the people of Jehovah, were prophets." It
was, therefore, natural that he should anticipate the rise of
men in after times, moved by the same Divine impulse ; for
' The emperor of Morocco is reported to have a siibteiTanean treasury fall of untold
wealth in coin, jewels, and precious stones. It is, they say, guarded by soldiers, who
never come up to day again, after being set over it.
Speaking of the treasury of Surajah Dowlah, Clive said : " I walked throngh vaults
thrown open to me alone, and piled on hoth sides with gold and jewels." Gleig's Life
of Clive, p. 397.
2 1 Kings X. 28.
s Dent. xiii. 2-6 ; xviii. 15, ff. ; where " an order of prophets," may be read instead
of "a prophet." This latter sense, however, is iaclilded ; see Acts iii. 32.
* Num. xi. 26,27, 39.

THE FINDING OF THB BOOK OF THE LAW. 319
if the ritual service was left to the priest, the moral training
of the nation was the task of the prophetical order.
The Book of Leviticus had commanded ' that the Hebrew
should love his fellow-Hebrew as himself ; " but it was
reserved to Deuteronomy to lift the thoughts of the nation
to a still nobler ideal. It, first, expressly commends the
Eternal to human love, and thus formally exalts religion
into the homage of the soul of God. It discloses Jehovah
as condescending to reveal His love to His people, and
demanding their love in return.^ He proclaims Himself as
the faithful God, who keeps covenant with them that love
Him. Mere outward service is treated as only the husk and
shell of religion, the fervour of the heart as its essence.
Such a principle, at such an age, is a unique phenomenon
in the history of the world ; for everywhere else, till Chris
tianity appeared, religion and morality were distinct ideas.
To perform prescribed rites constituted a man religious,
apart from the practice of virtue. But in Deuteronomy the
germs of the highest conception possible to humanity were
embodied — germs which slowly spread their influence, age
after age, and rightly claim as their fruit, all that was good
and holy in the prophets and righteous men of the ancient
people of God.
As became a religion thus based on love towards Jehovah,
a spirit of tenderness largely pervades the Fifth Book. In
the earlier Law, Moses had said, " Ye shall not afflict any
widow or fatherless child," ' and had cared for the foreigner
that "he should not be vexed."' He had denounced
> Lev. xix. 18.
2 This is what is meant by " neighbour " in its old restriction, as shewn in the
earlier clause of the verse.
3 Deut. vi. 5 ; X. 12 ; xi. 1 ; xiii. 18 ; xix. 9 ; xxx. 6 ; vii. 9, 13 ; x. 15.; xiii. 3 ; xxx.
16, 30 ; iv. 37 ; vii. 7, 8 ; x. 18.
' Exod. xxii. 22. ' Exod. xxii. 21.

220 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW.
usury ; had required that raiment taken in pledge be re
turned before night ; ' and in many other details had vindi
cated the Divine pity and compassion. In Deuteronomy
widows and orphans are protected with equal care," and
so is the foreigner.' The poor come under its guardian
shadow.' Usury, and goods given in pledge are the subject
of special laws. ' As in Exodus, even a beast is commended
to the kindness of all.' The lot of the slave is ameliorated.'
Woman is protected by different enactments.* The power
of fathers over their children is restrained within gentler
bounds than before.* The property of foreigners is se
cured, and provision made for the preservation to families
of their inheritance. "
That a book breathing a spirit of such lofty morality, and
embodying such conceptions of the nature of true religion,
should be the work of forgers of a late age, is inconceivable.
Its claims, in every page, to have been spoken or written
by Moses would, in that case, be the frequent repetition of
a conscious untruth by writers who, in all other respects,
were ideal moralists. But the book speaks for itself. It
expressly states its Mosaic authorship,'' and the internal
evidence of its contents bears out this testimony. Its grand
addresses to the tribes have a living power which witnesses
to their genuineness. Every sentence carries us back to the
wilderness life, or the scenes of the Holy Mount, or the days
of Egyptian slavery. The words glow in eaoh line with the
emotions of a great leader, recounting to his contempora
ries the marvellous story of their common experience. The
• Exod. xxii. 25, 26. > Dent. xiv. 29 ; xvi. 11 ; xxvii. 17 ; xxvi. 12.
3 Dent. xxiv. 14. 4 Deut. xv.
' Dent, xxiii. 19 ; xxiv. 6, 10, etc.
' Deut. xxii. 1, 6, 8 ; xxv. 4. ' Deut. xv. 12 ; xxi. 10 ; xxiii. 16.
» Deut. xxi. 10 ; xxii. 13 ; xxiv. 1, ff.
8 Deut. xxi. 18. " Deut. xxiii. 24 ; xxv. 5, fl. " Dent. xxxi. 24.

THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 221-
enthusiasm they kindle, even to-day, though obscured by
translation, reveals their matchless adaptation to the cir
cumstances under which they were first spoken. Confi
dence for the future is evoked by remembrance of the past.
The same God who had done mighty works for the tribes,
since the Exodus, would cover their head in the day of
battle with the nations of Palestine, soon to be invaded.
Their great Lawgiver stands before us, vigorous in his hoary
age, stern in his abhorrence of evil, earnest in his zeal for
God, but mellowed in all relations to earth by his nearness
to heaven. The commanding wisdom of his enactments,
the dignity of his position as the founder of the nation
and the fijst of prophets, enforce his utterances. But he
touches our deepest emotions by the human tenderness that
breathes in all his words. Standing on the verge of life, he
speaks as a father, giving his parting counsels to those he
loves ; willing to depart and be with the God he has served
so well, but fondly lengthening out his last farewell to the
dear ones of earth. No book can compare with Deuteron
omy in its mingled sublimity and tenderness. " It is," says
Eichhorn, " the final survey of his laws by the Lawgiver
himself, in which he explains what needs explanation, and
improves what needs improvement. We have in it the last
utterance of the father and leader of his people. The heat
and fervour of every line shew that countless emotions op
pressed the soul of the great man as he wrote, and stamp
the book, in every part, as composed at the mouth of the
grave." ' " Deuteronomy," says Moses Stuart, " appears to
my mind, as it did to that of Eichhorn and Herder, as the
earnest outpouring.3 and admonitions of a heart which felt
the deepest interest in the welfare of tho Jewish nation, and
» Eichhorn, Eird., vol. iii. p. 224.

222 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW.
realized that it must soon bid them f-irewell." ' To defend
the theory of its being a forgery, by urging that Ecclesiastes
is attributed to Solomon, though not his composition, is to
cite a case in no way parallel. Reflections on the vanity of
life and its mysteries, put into the mouth of the wise king,
do no wrong to any one, and befit the character of the sup
posed author. But to impose a code of laws on a nation, as
given by Jehovah ; to take heaven and earth to witness that
Moses is the speaker and writer ; to claim, in his name, to
control the whole public and private life of the community,
for all time, by counterfeit statutes aud mock blessings and
curses, would be inconceivable audacity on the part of an
author of easy conscience, and an impossible crime to any
mind capable, by its lofty morality and nearness in spirit to
God, of writing such a book. Nor is it the least difficulty
in the theory of its being a forgery, that ihe nation ac
cepted it, at once, as a book known to their fathers for
eight hundred years, which any one could in a moment
have disproved.
An old Jewish apologue, quoted by Herder, may help us
to realize the feelings with which the Law was received at
first, and the joy at its re-discovery under Josiah. " The
enemy of all good," it tells us, "learned that God had
given earth a law in which all the wisdom of heaven lay
hidden, and destined iu the end to destroy the kingdom
of darkness among men. He therefore hastened swiftly to
this world, and asked it : ' Earth, where is that law which
God has given thee ? ' But the earth answered, ' The Lord
knows the ways of His wisdom ; I know them not.' Then
he went to the sea, and to the depths beneath it, but the
sea and the nether abyss said : ' It is not in me.' Next,
' Stuart's Hist, ofthe O. T. Canon, % 3.

THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 22-3
he went ±o the kingdom of the dead, but the shades an
swered, ' We have heard the report of it from afar.'
" After he had wandered through the world, and through
all the heathen nations which served him, he came to the
desert of Arabia and saw a man whose countenance shone —
Moses. Going to him in the guise of an angel of light, he
sought to flatter him, and offered to be his disciple. ' Man
of God,' said he, ' who possessest the wisdom of Jehovah,
and hast all understanding of Elohim, and hast hidden all
the secrets of the universe in thy law ' - —
" ' Silence,' cried Moses, with a look that changed Satan
at once into his own form — ' silence ! The law is Jeho
vah's, not mine ; -srith Him is wisdom and understanding,
counsel and might ; ' as for man, the fear of Jehovah, that
is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. ' ^
"Ashamed, Satan fell back and went away, and the
angels of God appeared, to minister to the lowly Great
One. They taught him and he taught them. The Prince
of the Law became his guardian spirit, and God Himself
answered from the cloud — ' Keep ye the law of Moses My
servant. Because he was humble, and gave Me the glory,
I have crowned him with glory for ever.' '¦' '
To believe that a Book or Books, round which a vener
ation so touching had gathered centuries before Christ, and
1 Prov. viii. 14. ' Job xxviii. 28.
= Herder, Geiif mm Ebraischen Poesie, vol. ii. p. 63. The preservation of the Law
from the earliest tiines was donbtless much facilitated by the custom, etill prevalent
in the East, of committing sacred books to memoiy. Even at this day persons can
be found in Egypt who, though illiterate, cau repeat the whole Koran by heart ; and
it was the boast of the Rabbis i,i the Middle Ages, that if every copy of the Talmud
were destroyed, their disciples coold reproduce it, without omisslou or error, from
memory. Dr. Grove mentions also, that in the service of the Day of Atonement in
Ihe Samaritan Synagogue, the recitation of the Pentateuch was continued through
the night, withont even the feeble lamp which, on every other night of the year but
this, boms in front of the holy books. The two priests and a few of the people knew
the whole Pentatencb by heart. Yaca^on Tourists, 1861, p. 316.

224 THE FINDING OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW.
the rediscovery of which, in Josiah's day, revolutionized the
history of Israel for all future ages, were mere forgeries of
well-nigh a thousand years after the date they claim, seems
to require much greater credulity than is shewn in frankly
accepting them as what they assert themselves to be.

CHAPTER XI.
THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH.
The recovery of the ancient Book of the Law by Hilkiah
had an immediate influence on the great religious movement
which had already been some years in progress. How far
the purification of the land from idolatry had gone before
the finding of the Law is not told, but it is expressly
said that its result was, that Josiah " put away," ' as far as
possible, " the necromancers," who pretended to raise the
dead and learn the future from them ; ' those professing to
be possessed by an evil spirit, and to work spells and predict
by its means ; ' the teraphim or household gods,* cherished
as the protectors of a house or authors of its good fortune ;
and the idols, called in contempt "blocks of wood," and
" abominations," that were discovered in Judah and Jeru
salem.' But all this was only a preparation for the formal resto
ration of the national religion. Many of its rites had fallen
' 2 Kings xxiii. 24, The verb means, to destroy, to burn, as well as to remove.
2 1 Sam. xxviii. 7,ff. Deut. xviii. 11. Lev. xtx. 31 ; xx. 6, 27. The punishment
of these sorcerers was death by stoning.
' Purst, and Miihlau und Volck. Lev. xix. 31 ; xx. 27. Deut. xviii. 11.
» See vol. i. pp. 403, 412 ; iii. p. 168.
' 2 Kings xxiii. 24 ; see Deut. lv. 25 ; Exod. xx. 4, 23 ; Deut. v. 8 ; vii. 25 (i'lols to
be burned). Exod. xxxii. 20 ; Lev. xxvi. 30 ; Deut. xiii. 10 ; xvii. 5 (Hebrew idola
ters to be stoned). Exod. xxiii. 13, 24 ; Lev. xxvi. 1 ; Dent, xxvii. 15 Th:it Saul (1
Sam. xxviii. .3) should have tried to banish necromancers from the land, shews Ihat
he knew the requirements of the Law. It must, then, have been at least as old as
his day. VOL. v.— 15

226 THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH.
into disuse, or were not carried out with strict adherence
to prescribed form. Hezekiah had kept the Passover with
great solemnity nearly a century before, but it had prob
ably been neglected during the long reign of Manasseh.
It was now possible, however, to celebrate the feast with
hitherto unknown exactness. Full details respecting its
proper observance were to be found in Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy,' and these were ordered to be
studied by all the priests and Levites." A great Passover
was then appointed to be held on the 14th day of Nisan,
nearly our April, the first or " flower month ; " known also
as Abib, "the month of earing;"' in accordance with the
terms of the original commands on the subject.'' Hezekiah
had varied from the law where he thought it right to do so,'
keeping the feast on the second month — lyar, nearly our
May — and permitting the strangers from the remnant of
the Northern tribes, who had the excuse of ignorance, to
join in it, though not legally "clean." No variation was
now required. The enthusiasm of the people was for the
time roused to the utmost by the finding of the Law, and
they were eager to comply with it on every point.' Josiah
was the soul of the revival in this, as in other directions.
He, not the high priest or dignitaries, secured the enroll
ing of the ordinary priests in their respective divisions or
"courses,"' or successive turns of service, and it was he
especially who quickened their zeal by animating words,
' Exod. xii. 3, 43 ; xiii. 5. Lev. xxiii. 4. Num. xxviii. 16 ; ix. 2. Deut. xvi. 1,
¦^ 2 Chron. xxxv. 2.
3 " Coming into ear.^*
• Geikie's Life of Christ, vol. ii. p. 278. Graetz saya tho Passover was held in the
spring of b.c. 621.
^ 2 chron. xxx. 2, 17-20.
« 2 Chron. xxxiv. 32, 33. Deut. vi. 5. Jor. xxii. 15.
' Literally, " their watches." Gesenius translates the worda " conflrmed In their
duties, or offices."

THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH. 227
and saw to their being carefully instructed in the details of
their duties, according to the letter of the law.'
Priests and Levites, the sacred caste," and as such the
official teachers of the Law, were, further, sent through the
country, to instruct the whole people in the preparations it
demanded for the Passover, and in the general knowledge
of its precepts.' Levites, strictly so called, were directed to
bring back the Ark, from the spot where it had been hidden
during the reigns of Manasseh and Amon, to its old place
in the temple, it being their prerogative to carry it on their
shoulders when it had to be moved.* Levites were now to
bear it to the Holy Place,* which they alone could enter ;
priests lifting it, thence, into the Holy of Holies.' It was
the last time they were to have this great honour, which
their forefathers had enjoyed a thousand years before.
Henceforth, the sacred chest was to remain permanently in
I Compare the exhortation of Hezekiah to the priests in similar circumstances, 2
Chron. xxix. 5-11. It is very noteworthy that both priests and Levites (ver. 4) are
called Levites in ver. 5. Ilow utterly this language, in a book so late as 2 Chron.,
dating from the Persian age, explodes the theory of the late origin of the Middle
Books of the Pentateuch, on the ground that they sharply discriminate between
priests and Levites, contrary to the usage in Deuteronomy !
2 Exod. xxviii. 41 ; xl. 15. Num. xviii. 6 ; iii. 10, 12, 45.
s In the Hebrew text the teachers " of all Israel," that is, of Judah, Jerusalem, and
the remnant of the Ten Tribes, are called '* Levites," which in this case also, con
trary to the new critics, must include priests, if they, alone, are not meant. Many
manuscripts read for Levites, the Miblnim, or "instructed," "well-skilled," and
thia is the w ord used for the teachers of the Law, the precursors of "the Scribes,"
in Neh. viii. 7-9, x. 23 ; Ezra viii. 16. See Leyrer and Naegelsbach in Herzog, vols.
iv. p. 170 ; xiii. p. 733. See also Deut. xxiii. 10 ; 2 Chron. xxx. 22 ; Mai. ii. 7.
' Num. iv. 15 ; vii. 9 ; x. 21. ' Thenius, Die D. d. Konige, p. 434.
^ Keil, B. d. Chronik, p. 377. The Rabbis say that Josiah concealed the Ark, to
prevent its being carried off to Babylon. Barclay's Talmud, p. 345. There was no
Ark in the second temple, and 9 Mace. ii. 4, perhaps on the strength of Jer. iii. 16,
attributes this to i's concealment hy Jeremiah, for which there is no ground. Hitzig
thinks that it had fallen to pieces from old age and decay, while hidden, in the time
of Manasseh. But articles of wood, in the dry climate of the East, last for iramense
periods, as may he seen in any Egyptian collections. Neither in Jer. iii. 16, nor else
where, is it said that it was destroyed, or that it perished during the reign of Manas
seh. See Graf, Der P. Jeremia, ou jii. 16.

228 THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH.
the Holy of Holies, and the Levites were to attend exclu
sively to the ritual of the temple and its minor duties,
taking care, above all, that every detail of the legal prescrip
tions was exactly observed by the crowds who came up to
the temple, or to the feasts. The Levitical purity of the
worshippers; the provision of wood, salt, etc., for the altar ;
the inspection of victims for sacrifice, and their being prop
erly slaughtered ; the superintendence of the Passover, and
of the other feasts, constituted from this time their distinc
tive office.'
The task before the Commission deputed to instruct the
people for the approaching Passover would have been easy,
even with only the details of ritual in the Books of the
Law. Besides these, however, they had subordinate helps
of the greatest value, in ancient manuscripts '' of the forms
used by David and Solomon, which supplied precedents and
explanations of the highest authority. That such written
documents should have existed in the seventh century be
fore Christ, and that they should have surrived the stormy
years of the persecution, is a striking proof that other docu
ments, such as the Books of the Law, may also have existed
from early times, though till Josiah's reign we have no in
timation respecting them ; for these Service Books of tho
earliest days of the monarchy are noticed only in this casual
allusion, centuries after their composition.'
' Rabbi Salomon, quoted by Keil, B. d. Chron., p. 3T6.
2 2 Chron. xxxv. 3.
3 The new critics try to escape this difficulty by saying that we should understand
" precepts," or " ordinances," rather than writings. But, as Bertheau well says, wc
should then, as in 2 Chron. xxix. 25, have had, " according to the commandment of
David, etc." Two words are nsed. The first, K' tab, occurs in the Old Testament
twelve times, and each time is translated " writing." The second, Michtab, occurs
Sight times, and is, also, always translated " writing." K'tab is, in fact, a word o!
the later Hebrew, for the earlier, Saipher, a book. See Ezra ii. 62 ; Neh. vii. G4 ;
Dan. i.. 21. It is found iu Syriac (Kotob), in Arabic (Ketibe), and in Ethiopic, with

THE PASSOVEE OF JOSIAH. 229
Minute instructions were further given to the Levites
themselves. They were to minister in the temple, as in the
days of David and his great son ; a section of each Levitical
" House " or sub-clan ' being set apart for the service of
each " House " or sub-clan of the people.' Instructions
were also given them how to kill the Passover lamb
properly, when the feast came, and to "sanctify"' them
selves by washing, before they handed the blood to the
priest ; how, also, to prepare the lambs for the people, in
strict accordance with the Dirine injunctions " by the hand
of Moses," in the written Law just recovered.*
The approach of the great day found multitudes as
sembled in Jerusalem, including many members of the Ten
Tribes, from the North. ^ Vast numbers of persons, how
ever, from poverty or ignorance, or from the difficulty of
obtaining a paschal lamb or kid, had not provided them
selves with them ; for, as yet, no flocks were collected before
hand at Jerusalem for sale at the feast, as in later times.
Thirty thousand lambs and kids, therefore, were distributed
by the king among the poor, and those who from other
causes were unsupplied. Three thousand bullocks from the
crown pastures were added to this royal bounty, to provide
materials for the seven days' feast that followed the Pass-
the same meaning, of a writing or hook. Both verbs are from the word Katab, " to
write." In 2 Chron. xxxiv. 13, we read of "Levite scribes." Their life, given to
copying sacred or other writings, secured the preservation of those of the prophets,
aud was doubtless also, iu large measure, given to transcribing parts or the whole
of the Law.
1 Literally, " House of the Fathers." ' See ver. 12.
' 2 Chron. xxix. 5, 15 ; xxx. 3, 15. Ezra vi. 20.
* 2 Chron. xxxv. 6. The Levites had charge of killing the Passover lamb for every
one who was not "clean," 2 Chron. xxx. 17. To the latest times it was the custom
of each Israelite to slaughter his own lamb or kid, the place being the temple court,
after the sanctuary was built. Pesachim-,y.6-8. But on special occasitms, such as
the Passovers of Hezekiah, Josiah, and Ezra, the slaughter of the lambs was com*
mitted to the Levites. 2 Chron. xxx., xxxv. Ezravi.
' 2 Chron. xxxv. 18.

230 THE PASSOVEE OF JOSIAH.
over.' The chiefs were no less liberal, giving great num
bers of cattle and lambs and goats to the priests and
Levites,' and to the people, for free offerings. Nor were
the dignitaries of the temple' behindhand. The high
priest, Hilkiah, of the line of Eleazar ; Zecbariah, appar
ently his deputy ; and Jehiel, probably the head of the line
of Ithamar,* gave 2,600 lambs and kids, and 300 oxen, to
the priests, their subordinates, while six of the principal
Levites,* officials, apparently, at the head of the working
departments of the temple, its stores, protection, and over
sight, gave their brethren 5,000 lambs and kids, and 500
oxen. Thus, on the eve of the Passover, everything was ready.
The priests, in their white robes, with bare feet and covered
head, stood at their posts at the altar ; " the Levites, in their
successive courses, at their side, according to the king's
command.' As the sun was 'setting, and before the stars
appeared,' the lambs and kids were slaughtered and flayed
by hundreds of Levites, the blood being handed by them in
bowls to the priests, to sprinkle on the altar ; each Levite
having first washed himself in the temple laver. The part
of the victims required for a burnt offering,' was then given
back to each householder, who forthwith bore it to the
1 Keil, p. 378.
3 In Hezekiah's time the nobles gave away 1,000 oxen, and 10,000 sheep.
= The lay " princes " are called Sarim ; those of the temple, " NSgidim." The
words are, literallj', "princes or rulers of the House bf God."
« Tills line still survived after the Exile. See Ezra viii. 2.
fi Levites of the same name as the first three here (verse 9) occur in the record of
Hezekiah's feast. 2 Chron. xx3d. 12-15. But the names of priests were largely
hereditary, or, perhaps, as Bertheau suggests, these were the names of "families " or
"Houses." • 2 Chron. xxx. 16. ' 2 Chron. xxxv. 4.
* Deut. xvi. 6. Exod. xii. 6. Lev. xxiii. 5. Kum. ix. 3-5. Josephus says that the
lambs were slain from the ninih to the eleventh hour, from three to five o'clock.
BeU. Jud., VI. ix. a See Pesachim, v. 3. « Lev. iii. 6-17.

THE PASSOVEE OF JOSIAH. 231
priest, to lay on the altar.' The same was done with the
oxen during the next week, parts of them being sacred to
the altar, while the rest remained the property of the
offerer, to whom it was returned.' The cooking of the flesh
for the people, however, was reserved, on this occasion, to
the Levites, perhaps to guard against ritual errors ivhen
everything was rirtually new. The lambs and young goats
were duly roasted, according to the Law,' but the " holy
fiesh,"' as the slaughtered oxen were called, was baked or
boiled in pots, kettles, and other vessels.* The strain put on
the priests and Levites was almost beyond human endurance,
for they could take neither rest nor refreshment till their
labours were over. Each course of both Lerites and priests
had only snatches of leisure. Not only that night, but each
day of the following week, the whole time from morning
till evening, during the seven days of unleavened bread, was
occupied in preparing and burning the vast multitude of
offerings from so many victims. During all these days the
services of the temple choir were brought into requisition at
intervals — the singers of the famous clan of Asaph chant
ing-, in relays, the psalms for the season, appointed centu
ries before, by David, Asaph, and Jeduthun. Neither they,
indeed, nor the watchers of the gates, could leave the
temple, but had their food brought to them by the Levites."
^ Keil thus explains 2 Chron. xxxv. 12.
2 The fat of the oxen belonged to the altar as a thank-offering. Lev. iii. 3.
= Exod. xii. 7-9. * 2 Chron. xxxv. 13, the " holy."
» 1 Siim. ii. 13, 14. The word is the same for cooking both the lamb and the oxen,
but the addition of " hy fire " marks that the lamb was roasted. The boiling or
baking is prescribed in Lev. ^iii. 31 ; Exod. xxix. 31 ; Lev. vi. 28.
« 2 Chron. xxxv. 15. It is striking and instructive to read in verse 16, that all the
arrangements for this great feast were made accoi'ding to the commandment of King
Josiah, a youn? man of 26 ; not according to that of the high priest. By " burnt
offerings," (verse 16) are to be understood the usual offerings at the Passover and
feast of unleavened bread ; not " burnt offerings " in the strict sense. None of
tbese were burnt at the Passover season except tUc daily sacriflce. Num. xxviii. 4.

232 THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH.
Such a Passover had never been held since the days oi
Samuel ; for the requirements of the Law had never before
been so minutely observed.' Nor was the rejoicing of the
following week less remarkable.
The influence of such a celebration of the great national
feast was felt in all directions. It proclaimed the full res
toration of the worship of Jehovah, and kindled an enthu
siasm for His service in many. Hebrews from all parts of
the land had been present, and carried back to Shechem,
Shiloh, Samaria, and elsewhere, a loyalty to the temple at
Jerusalem, which continued till the destruction of the city
by Nebuchadnezzar, and even after the Eeturn.' So great
an event, indeed, was it thought, that Ezekiel dates the
opening of his prophecies from it.'
It seems probable that we have in the eighty-first Psalm
a relic of this great solemnity.* If so, we may picture to
ourselves all the Levites " that could skill of instruments of
music," ° and "the singers, the sons of Asaph,"" chanting
and playing in mingled harmony, words still familiar to
ourselves ; the multitudes in the courts beneath kneeling in
worship as the music rolled out its sounds.
" LXXXI. 1. Sing aloud' unto God, our Strength;
Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob ;
2. Lift up the psalm ; sound the timbrel (ye choirs of Levites) ;
The pleasant lyre and the harp!
3. Blow the trumpet on the new moon (of the month Nisan, ye
priests) !
On the full-moon; the day of our Passover feast!
4. For the feast is a law for Israel; an ordinance of the God of Jacob;
' So, rightly, Keil. Clericus. ' Jer. xli. 5. Ezra iv. 2.
sin Ezek. i. ] , the date used is the thirtieth year from Josiah's Reformation and
Passover ; that is, iu the fifth year of King Jehoiakim's captivity. Graetz, vol. ii.
p. 321. « Delitzsch. Moll. Graetz.
5 2 Chron. xxxiv. 12. • 2 Chron. xxxv. 15.
'' Fs. Ixxxi.

THE PASSOVEE OF JOSIAH. 233
5. He ordained it in Joseph,' when He went forth to judge' the land
of Egypt.'
" In that day I heard the voice of One, whom as yet I knew not, say
ing:—
6. ' I have lifted the slave burden from Israel's shoulders,
I have set his hands free from the basket (in which he carried the earth). '
7. Thou ealledst (on Me) in trouble, and I delivered thee from it ;
I answered thee through the veil of tbe thunder cloud,
I put thee to the test at the waters of Meribah! *
8. Hear, 0 My people, and I will give thee counsel;
0 Israel, would'st thou but hearken to Me! '
"9. (This is what I said to thee!) 'There shall be no god of a foreign
people in thee;
Thou Shalt not worship any god of a foreign land.
10. I, I am Jehovah, thy God, who led thee up out of Egypt;
Open wide thy mouth, and I will fill it ! '
" 11. But My people would not hearken to My voice;
Israel was not willing to obey Me,
12. So I gave them over to the hardness of their own hearts;
They walked in their own counsels !
'•13. 0 that My people would hearken to Me ;
O that Israel would walk in My ways !
14. How soon ' would I humble their foes,
And tum My hand against their oppressors! '
15. The haters of Jehovah would submit themselves to Him,
And the prosperity of Israel would endure for ever !
16. I would feed them ' with the fat of wheat; "
With honey from (the combs, in the clefts of) the rock, would I satisfy
thee (0 Israel)!"
1 A pathetic name for the Hebrews collectively.
2 Literally, " against." ^ Exod. xi. 4 ; xii. 27.
* On the Nile labourers always carry the rubbish or earth of excavations, etc., iu
small baskets, on their heads. I bave seen crowds of both sexes doing so, at Thebes
and elsewhere.
' Bzod. xvii. 7. The word " Selah," here, means that at this point the crowd
bent the head, while the music played an interlude, giving time for solemn thought.
Hitzig, and Delitzsch.
' Literally, " as in a moment." ' From the verb, "to distress, harass, vex."
» Delitzsch continnes the flrst person here. This Psalm was sung in the second
tempio on the fifth day of the week, Barclay's Talmud, p. 354. ' Deut. xxxii. 14.

334 THE PASSOVEE OF JOSIAH.
Yet, amidst all the enthusiasm, which found expression
in a festival so strictly observed and so numerously at
tended, there were many who remained indifferent and
secretly hostile. The reformation had been imposed on the
nation by the will of the king, and had not the depth of a
spontaneous movement. The tone of the Psalm just given
is sad, amidst its call to rejoicing ; it bewails the stubborn
ungodliness of the community as a whole, and pleads for a
better frame of mind. The same characteristics shew them
selves in the language of Jeremiah in an address delivered
about this time. He hints at deadly opposition to himself
for his plain speaking, and even at conspiracy against Josiah
for his religious innovations. First addressing his brethren
the prophets, he urges them to diligence ; impressing on
the people of Judah and Jerusalem, the nature, obligations,
and penal sanctions, of the covenant into which they had
entered with Jehovah, through their representatives, the
elders. The Book of the Law in which it was embodied
had been unknown for generations, and it was therefore im
perative that the population, as a whole, should be made
familiar with it, as the only hope of such an intelligent
obedience as would secure its promises and avert its curses.
Hence the prophet began :
"XI. 2. Hear ye,' (0 ray brother prophets,) the words of this
covenant,' speak thus to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem; 8. Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Cursed is the
' Jer. xi. 1-5.
= The word " covenant," as the name for the " Book of the Law," fonnd by Hil
kiah, or for its most distinguishing feature, is of constant recurrence in the different
Books of the Pentateuch ; e.g., Exod. ii. 24 ; vi. 4, 5 ; xix. 5 ; xxiv. 7, etc. Lev. ii. 13 ;
xxvi. 9. Num. x. 33 ; xiv. 44 ; xxv. 13. Deut. iv. 13, 23, 31 ; v. 2, 3 ; vii. 2, 9, 12 ;
viii. 18 ; lx. 9, 11, 15 ; xxix. 1, 9, etc. See, also, 2 Kings xxii. 8 ; xxiii. 2. 2 Chron.
xxxiv. 30. There can be no doubt that the prophet refers to the covenant made for
the nation, by Josiah and the elders, and based on the "Book of the Law " recently
discovered.

THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH. 335
man who obeys not the words of this covenant,' 4. which I commanded
your fathers in the day when I led them from the land of Egypt,'
a fiery furnace (to them) — terrible as the furnace in which iron is
smelted ' — and said, ' Obey My voice, and do My will, according to
all that I command you ; so shall ye be My people, and I will be your
God.' ^ 5. That I may fulfil the oath' which I swore to your fathers;
to give them a land flowing with milk and honey,' as is the case this
day. " Then answered I (Jeremiah, when God spoke thus to me), Amen,
0 Jehovah!" A Divine commission to make known all the words of the
new-found Law, throughout the kingdom, was at the same
time given to the prophet.
" 6. Then Jehovah said to me,' Read aloud all these words in the
cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying : ' Hear ye
the words of this covenant, and do them ! 7. Por I have earnestly ex
horted your fathers ever since the day when I brought them up out of
the land of Egypt, to this present time, from early moming on, urging
them, continually, saying, "Obey My voice!" 8. But they did not
listen, or incline their ear, but walked, each, in the stubbornness of
his evil heart, and therefore have I brought upon them all the words
of this covenant whioh I commanded them to do, but which they have
not done.' "
How long Jeremiah was occupied in this mission through
the land, making known the details of the newly discovered
« Deut. xxvii 26.
' It is clear from these words that Jeremiah either honestly believed that the
" Book of the Law," just found, was the genuine ancient record of God's words to
Israel at Sinai, or that he pretended to believe it was, and palmed it off on his fellow-
prophets and the people as such. Tlie new critics may think it a light marter to
charge the prophet with wilful fraud, but most people will hold their doing so as a
very grave immorality.
' Dent. iv. 20. Job vi. 12. Isa. xlviii. 10. 1 Kings viii. 51. Jer. xi. 4.
* This is a|reference to Lev. xxvi. 3, 12, and Exod. vi. 7 ; xxix. 45. Deut. xxvii.
15-26. How conld they then have been composed after the Captivity ?
^ Gen. XV. 18 ; xxii. 16 ; xxiv. 7 ; xxvi. 3 ; 1. 21. Exod. xiii. 5, 11 ; xxxiii. 1.
Num. xiv. 16, 30 ; xxxii. 11. Deut. i. 8, 35 ; vi. 10, aud eleven times more.
• Exod. iii. 8-17 ; xiii. 5 ; xxxiii. 3. Lev. xx. 24. Num. xiii. 27 ; xiv. 8 ; xvi. 13,
14. Deut. vi. 3 ; xi. 9 ; xxvi. 15 ; xxvii. 3 ; xxxi. 20. ' Jer. xi. 6-8.

236 THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH.
Law, is not said. But, however successful with individuals,
he had to lament the persistent obduracy of vast numbers.
It would even seem, as already said, that the heathen party
plotted secretly against Josiah, for his reforms ; accom
panied, as they had been, by the slaughter of the idol
priests, in accordance with the injunctions of the Law.'
Por, with all the gentleness and love of the Pentateuch, in
many utterances, a spirit of fierce sternness towards idolatry
marked it as only a temporary code, to be one day super
seded by the sacred charity of Jesus Ohrist. Blood had,
indeed, been shed by Manasseh, but Josiah also had shed
it, and that on the very altars. The one persecution had
brought a reaction in favour of the worship of Jehovah ;
the other was now preparing a revulsion in favour of
heathenism. " 9. And Jehovah further said to me,' There is a conspiracy among
the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 10. They have
returned to the iniquities of their early ' forefathers, who refused to
hear My words ; and they, (in this day,) have gone after other gods, to
serve them. The House of Israel and the House of Judah have broken
My Covenant, which I made with their fathers. 11. Therefore, thus
says Jehovah : Behold, T bring evil on them, which they shall not be
able to escape ; when they cry to Me, I will not listen to them. 12.
The towns of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry
to the gods to whom they burn incense, but they will give them no
help in the time of trouble. 13. Por thy gods, 0 Judah, are become
as many as thy cities, and ye have set up in Jerusalem as many altars
to The Shame as there are streets ; altars to burn incense to Baal I *
" 14. But, (as for thee,) Jeremiah, do not pray for this people, nor
lift up a cry or supplication for them, for I will not listen when they
ory to Me in the time of trouble !
> Lev. xxvii. 28. Num. xxxiii. 52. Deut. vii. 2 ; xx. 16, 17. ' Jer. xi. 9-17.
3 Literally, "first." Jeremiah thus knew the history of the nation from the first
— that is, he Itnew the Pentateuch.
< This and the previous verse are almost the same as chap. li. 27, 28. Streets =
open places. Sec chap. vii. 17.

THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH. 337
" 15. What has Judah, (once) My beloved,' to do in My House? She
who only practises deceit?' Can vows, and the hallowed flesh (of offer
ings) ward from thee the calamity that threatens? ' Then mayest thou
indeed rejoice ! IG. Jehovah called thee a green olive tree, fair, with
goodly fruit,'' but araidst the uproar of a mighty storm He has laid
fire to it, and its branches are broken off (by the tempest.) ' 17. For
Jehovah of Hosts, who planted thee, has decreed evil against thee, for
the wickedness of the House of Israel and of the House of Judah,
which they have chosen to do — to provoke Mo to anger by offering
incense to Baal."
A still more bitter proof of the malignity of public feel
ing towards the friends of the old religion was now, how
ever, to horrify the prophet. Living amongst his neighbours
at Anathoth, with no suspicion of danger, a plot against his
life was suddenly revealed to him. He was to realize the
abiding truth, that a prophet has no honour in his native
place." His plain speaking had infuriated the worldly-
minded priests of his village, till now, apparently, his head
quarters, though his mission often took him to Jerusalem,
and had even of late required him to make preaching cir
cuits over the whole country, in connection with the new
religious covenant.
" 18. Jehovah ' made it known to me, and then only I knew it, when
Thou shewedst me their doings. 19. I was like a house lamb " that is
led (without dreaming of it) to the slaughter ; I did not know that
they had plotted evil against me, saying, ' Let us destroy tho tree
' See Jer. xii. 7.
2 To act as she does— to do wickedness 1 Bredenkamp, p. Ill, and others. >
3 The received text is untranslatable. The version given is that of the Septuagint,
Keil, Hitzig, Eichhorn, Ewald, De Wette (who has "iniquity"), Graf, Breden
kamp, Gesetz u. Propheten, p. 111. ^ The individuals are so called.
6 The figure seems to be that of a mighty wind, which has at once fanned and
spread the fire and also broken off the branches. It refers to the ruin caused by
Assyria and to be caused by Babylon, and includes the fall of the Ten Tribes. The
storm is the wild confusion of war.
• St. Luke iv. 28. ' Jer. xi. 18-23.
^ A pet lamb brought up in a household (2 Sam. xii. 3) is still common in the tents
of Arabs, and was no less so among the Jews.

238 THE PASSOVEE OF JOSIAH.
with its fruit, ' and cut him off from the land of the living, that his
name may be no longer remembered.' 20. But, 0 Jehovah of hosts,
that judgest righteously, and tryest the reins and the heart,'' let me see
Thy vengeance on them ; for to Thee have I committed my cause.' 21.
Therefore, Jehovah speaks thus against the men of Anathoth, who
sought my life, saying (to me), ' Prophesy not * (thus), in the name
of Jehovah, or you will die at our hands.' 22. Por this cause Jehovah
of hosts has said, ' Behold, I will punish them. The young men (fit
for arms) shall die by the sword ; their (young) sons and their daugh
ters shall die by the famine (of a siege), 23. and no remnant of them
will be left ; for I will bring evil on the men of Anathoth in the year
of their visitation." '
The old belief in temporal rewards and punishments had
long been shaken. Asaph, in the seventy-third Psalm, had
expressed the perplexity of thoughtful minds on the subject,
and now Jeremiah was no less troubled at the prosperity of
the men of Anathoth, who sought to murder him for speak
ing the words put into his lips by God.
"XII. 1. Thou art too righteous,' 0 Jehovah, for me to contend
with Thee : yet, let me state my case to Thee, (to learn Thy will).
Why is the way of the wicked prosperous ? Why does it go well with
all who act so treacherously ? 2. Thou hast planted them and t.hey
have struck root: they grow vigorously and bear fruit: yet (they are
hypocrites; for) though Thou art near their mouths. Thou art far from
their hearts." 3. But Thou, Jehovah, knowest me, (that I am Thy
true servant); Thou seest me, and triest my heart, (how it stands)
towards Thee. Drag them away like sheep to the shambles, and give
them up ' to a day of slaughter ! 4. How long shall the land mourn
(as it now does, in a sore drought) and the green of the whole eountry
wither ? Through the wickedness of its inhabitants its cattle and birds
are gone; and yet (my enemies) say, ('God does not trouble Himself
about our future:) we shall go on to the end unpunished ! '""
» Literally, "bread." In this case his hateful prophecies.
2 To Thee the most secret thoughts are known.
s Literally, "on Thee do I roll my cause." « Amos ii. 12.
' Jer. xii. 1-4.
» They honour Thee with their lips, but their heart is far from Thee.
' Literally, "consecrate, devote them."
8 This seems tho sense of the text.

THE PASSOVEE OF JOSIAH. 239
God, however, answers that all the past is light compared
with what awaits the prophet. His fellow-viUagers have
conspired to murder him ; but, hereafter, even his own
blood relations will turn against him. Jehovah now speaks:
"5. 'If when thon thus runnest ' with the footmen,' they weary
thee, how canst thon hope to contend with horses ': If (up to this
time) thou hast felt (in a measnie) secure, as in a land of peace, what
wilt thou do when thon art (as it were) in the tangled thickets of
Jordan, (fnU of lions and beasts of preyiy' 6. For even thy brethren
and thy fathers honse ; * even ttvey have beeu faithless to thee : even
they call after thee with loud voice, to seize thee, or strike thee
down : ' "
Yet his question does not remain unanswered. Anathoth
and Judah will not always escape. The Divine judgment
is approaching.
" 7. I have forsaken My House,' says Jehovah : I have cast off My
Heritage ! I have given (.Judah) the dearlybelovedof My soul into the
hand of her enemies ! 8. My Heritage has been (fierce) against Me,
as a lion in the yaar : ' it roared against 3Ie ; therefore I have (with
drawn 3Iy love from it, and given it up to its enemies, as if I) hated
it. 9. Is 31y Heritage a speckled valtnre to Me, that vultures are
gathered round abont her,' to faU on her ? Up, cause all the
» Jer. xii. 5-7.
» Footmen = miming conrier.=. Sec voL L p. 4-il. Pa~~ing through tbe bazaar, one
of tbe Pacha's beys rode pa^t mounted on an Arab horse. A man in white cotton
ran before bim at full speed, clearing the way witb voice and arms. Many runners
bare their dress set off witb bright colours, and run very fast and locg, bnt ii kills
tbem in a few years.
' Tbe "Fweliing of Jordan^* shouldbe "the pride;'* in aUosion to the luxuriant
tbickets of tamarisks, poplars, reed^, etc., the special lair of al! beasts of prey, espe
cially of tbe lion. 2 Kings vi. 1-7. Jer. xlix. 19. Zeeb. xi. 3. See p. 157. Vol. iiL
p. 4-i7.
* They were priests ; tbe family were priestly.
* By " bouse " the nation is meant.
" See vol. lv. p. 36D. Jer. xii. 8-14.
' Tbe zoological references are not clear in tbis passage. J if. the first word, is
rendered hy Miihlau und "Volck, and by Furst, a vnlture = the screamer. Gesenius
makes it mean also, "a beast of prey." Tsaboa. the second word, i:^ the participle
of a verfo, and means to be coloured or striped. Hence Mfihlan und Volck render it
both thns, and also as tbe word for a hysna. Tristram thinks tbe bjsna meant.

340 THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH.
beasts of the fleld to assemble, bring them hither to devour ! 10.
Many shepherds' (the leaders of invading hosts) have destroyed
My vineyard; trodden My portion under foot; and turned it, once so
beautiful, into a desolate wilderness. 11. It has been made a waste;
it mourns aloud round Me, in its desolation ; the whole land is made
a, desert., because no man has laid My warnings to heart. 12. The
plunderers have come up to all the bare heights of the wilderness (pas
tures); for the sword of Jehovah devours from one end of the land to
the other : no flesh has any peace. 13. They have sown wheat and
reaped thorns : ' they have tired themselves out and profited nothing.
They will reap only shame at their harvest, because of the fierce anger
of Jehovah ! "
Yet the enemies of Israel will not escape unpunished.
" 14. Thus saith Jehovah, against all my evil neighbours that touch
the (land I have given as an) inheritance of My people Israel: — Behold
I will pluck them up ' from their (own) land, and I will pluck out the
House of Judah from among them. 15. And after I have thus plucked
them out, I will again have compassion on them, and bring them back,
each to his own heritage, and to his own land. 16. And if they then
learn the ways of My people— to swear by My name ' As truly as Je
hovah lives,' as they taught My people to swear by Baal, they shall be
received' into the midst of my people. 17. But if they will not obey,
I will root out and utterly detroy such a nation, says Jehovah."
It may be that in the fiftieth Psalm we have another relic
of these days, when Judah, under Josiah, had pledged
itself anew in covenant with Jehovah.* In any case it is at
least as old as Josiah's reign ; possibly much older, and it is
N. B. B., p. 108. Arnold'(Herzog, vol. ii. p. 2H) translates it liysena. But nearly ail
the critics prefer " vulture.''
1 Jer. vi. 3. The idea which suggested this use of the word " shepherd " ia prob
ably the terror felt by the settled fellahin ot Judah at the wandering Arab " shep
herds," whose life was plunder. Gen. xlvi. 34.
2 Kotzim, a word which includes all prickly or thorny plants. Tristram, p. 428.
3 As a plant.
¦* Literally " built." The return ot the Moabites is mentioned in chap, xlviii, 47.
TJiat of the Ammonites in cbap. xlix. 6. Jer. xii. 15-17.
« ^eePs.1.3. Ewald assigns itto this time. Delitzsch and Moll merely give it as
a Psalm of Asaph. Bredenkamp shews forcibly that it cannot be a Psalm of the
Exile or after it, but comes to us from an earlier age. Gesels una Propheten, p. 63.

THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH. 241
of special interest, since it presents with unique clearness
the prophetic teaching with respect to sacrifice, echoing the
words of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. Its one great
theme is, that the gross material idea of an offering or
sacrifice, in itself securing peace with God, is worse than
misleading ; and that the thought of its being a service to
the Almighty to make such gifts to Him, is baseless folly.
Sacrifice is represented as the divinely appointed and sanc
tioned ratification of Jehovah's covenant v.'ith His people,
but only when followed by a godly life, and presented by a
sincere and humble penitent. The relation of the ritual
law to the moral — a lesson of infinite value for all time — is
proclaimed. " It is well," says the Psalmist in effect, " that
the smoke of offerings should rise from the altar, but un
less the incense of the heart rise with it, it profits nothing."
" L. 1. Jehovah, the God of gods, speaks,'
Calling the earth, from the rising of the sun to its going down.
S. Elohim shines forth out of Zion — the perfection of beauty!
3. Our God comes, and will not keep sUence ;
Fire devours before Him, and a great tempest is round about Him I
4. He calls to the heavens above, and to the earth,
That He is about to judge His people !
5. ' Gather my saints ^ together to Me :
Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice,'
6. And let the heavens proclaim His righteousuess.
For God Himself is judge ! Selah.
" 7. 'Hear, My people, and I vvill speak;
0 Israel, and I will bear witness against thee !
» Psalm 50.
8 Literally, "Hasidim ; " rendered elsewhere in A. V., the "merciful," "godly,"
" boly." After the Return, this was the name assumed hy the Hebrew Puritans, or
given to them. They were known as tbe Aniyim, or humble, or afflicted ; the Ebid-
nim, or poor ; and the Hasidim, or godly — names taken from the prophetical writings,
or Psalms. Men like Mattathias, the father of the Maccabees, were chiefs of the
Hasidim. See Herzog's Encyk., vols. i. p. 386 ; ii. pp. 637, ff. ; v. p. 578 ; xi. p. 501 ;
xiii. pp. 733, 11. ; xvii. p. 284.
VOL. v.— 16.

243 THE PASSOVER OF JOSIAH.
I am Elohim, thy Qod! "
8. I do not reprove ^ Thee for (failure in offering) thy (ordinary) sacri
flces ;
And as to thy whole-burnt-offerings, they are continually before Me.
9. (But what value are they to Me, or what pleasure?)
I need not take " any bullock out of thy house.
Or he-goats out of thy folds ;
10. For every beast of the forest * is Mine,
And the cattle upon a thousand hills.'
.11. I know all tho fowls of the mountains,
And whatever moves on the field is before Me.
12. If I were hungry I would not tell thee ;
Por the world is Mine, and the fulness thereofi
"13. ' Do I eat the flesh of oxen?
Do I drink the blood of he-goats?
14. Offer (as sacrifice) to Elohim (the prayer of) thanksgiving.
And pay thy vows to the Most High,
15. And then call upon Me in the day of trouble;
So, shall I deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Mel ' "
But to the wicked, Elohim says :
" IG. ' How darest thou recount My statutes.
Or take My covenant into thy lips,
17. Whilst thou yet hatest instruction,
And castest My words behind thy back?
18. When thou seest a thief thou runnest with him.
And thou art a partaker with adulterers.
19. Thou lettest thy mouth loose to evil.
And thy tongue plots deceit.
1 Quoted from Exod. xx. 2. It is curious to notice in this Psalm the use of both
Jehovah and Elohim as names for God. Jehovah occurs in verse 1, and yet through
the rest of the Psalm He is called Elohim. The idea of deciding as to the ago, etc.,
of documents, from theuse of one sacred name or the other, is pressed altoi^ctber
too far. Amongst ourselves one suppliant might address the Deity as " 0 Lord ; "
another as " O God ; " but surely that says nothing. The " Elohim theory " has, ]n
lact, b2en reduced by its advocates to the ridiculous. Leamed and clever men, as
we all know, are apt to get astride hobbies, and to ride them very wildly.
2 Tbe word also means " to punish."
s De Wette. Bredenkamp. Delitzsch. ^ The yaar.
^ A thousand beasts are ou my hills. Bredenkamp. Ewald says " great beasts,"
for cattle.

THE PASSOVEE OF JOSIAH. 243
20. As thou sittest, thou speakest against thy brother ;
Thou layest a stumbling block for thine own mother's son.
21. Such things hast thou done, and, because I kept silence,
Thinkest thou I am altogether such an one as thyself ?
But I wiU punish thee, and set the truth before thy eyes ! '
"22. 0 mark ye this, ye that forget God,
Lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver !
23. He who offers (as his sacrifice) the prayer of thanksgiving.
Honours me aright ; to him who takes heed to his walk.
Will I give to enjoy the salvation of God." '
Thus were tho deep problems of life being pondered
among the faithful worshippers of Jehovah in these years of
revived hope and energy. Outward forms and ceremonies
were being appraised at their true worth, and clearer insight
gained as to the essentials of religion. In all ages, indeed,
sincere spirits had felt that " bodily exercise profiteth lit
tle," but in an age of rites and symbols, when men were
contented to have their religion performed for them by a
professional caste, it was of supreme moment that Psalms
such as this should strike the keynote of a higher and truer
ideal. Still nobler realizations were close at hand. A few
years more, and the prophet Habakkuk would anticipate the
cardinal truth of Christianity, that the just shall live by his
faith, not by works alone ; an utterance repeated in the
Epistles to the Romans, the Galatians, and the Hebrews as
the exact expression of Christian doctrine.^
^ For parallel passages see, among others, Hos. vi. 6 ; Mic. vi. 6-8 ; Isa. i. 11-15.
' Eom. i. 17. Gal. iii. 11. Heb. x. 38.

CHAPTER XII.
THE BEGINNING OF THB END.
Jehoahaz, 609 (three Kino or Egypt : Fall of Nineveh, 609-.
months). Necho II., 612-596. 606.=
Jehoiakim, 609-599. Kinos op Babylon : Battle op Carciiemish.
Nabopolassak, died 005.
604.1 King op Media :
Nebuchadkezzae, 604- Ctaxakes.
562.
The great Passover had been celebrated in the year B.C.
633, when Josiah was twenty-six years of age, and twelve
years of his reign were yet to come. Respecting the events
of these, however, we know virtually nothing, though they
were, doubtless, stirring and momentous enough ; exhibiting
a steady growth of the internal strength of the nation, and
the development of its resources. The thorough organiza
tion of the army, and the eager military spirit, which made
possible the final catastrophe at Megiddo, imply a vast activ
ity in every department of public life. Josiah had, in fact,
shewn a precocious maturity in many directions. Marrying
at the age of thirteen,' he had openly entered upon his great
religious revolution when he was twenty, and before his
famous Passover, had extended his sway, as already noticed,
over the lands of the Ten Tribes, now inviting occupation
through the decline of Assyria. The irruption of the so-
called Scythian hordes in the earlier part of his reign must
have necessitated thorough military organization, and this,
' Schrader, Riehm. 2 Schrader.
= 2 Kings xxii. 1, compared with xxiii, 31.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 245
perhaps, gave a colour, in one respect, to his general policy.
It is not known how far his conquests extended, but they
apparently embraced some of the neighbouring territories
besides that of Israel. It is possible indeed that he may have
dreamed, as Ewald fancies, of restoring the ancient glory of
the kingdom of David," but, if so, the result was in the end
disastrous. Earnest, able, and upright in his home government, and
brilliant in his external relations, the life of the young king
must, nevertheless, have been far from happy. Himself
sincerely godly, he had fallen on evil times. His vigorous
measures of religious reform, though supported by the fickle
populace, were, as has been said, only outwardly successful.
They had the fatal defect of being compulsory ; mere acts
of the ruling power unsupported by the good-will of the
people ; and hence they resulted in a revival of only the
forms of religion, without an accompaniment of its spirit.
JFot that this lessens the admiration due to the fervent
and noble zeal that inspired them. In the sacred record
of iUustrious Jewish kings, Josiah is worthily ranked with
Hezekiah, who " wrought good and right and truth before
Jehovah, his God."" He stands first, moreover, in the
inspired page, among all the kings of the line of David, for
his unswerving loyalty to the commands of Jehovah through
life.' "Like him," says the Book of Kings, " there was no
king before him, that turned to Jehovah with all his heart,
and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to
all the Law of Moses ; neither after him arose there any like
him." * Hezekiah may, in some points,^ have shewn a more
perfect apprehension of the will of God ; but Josiah was the
' Oesch., vol. V. p. 707. = 2 Chron. xxxi. 20.
3 2 Chron. xxxiv. 3. < 2 Kings xxiii. 25. '2 Kings xviii. 5.

246 THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
supreme hero of absolute obedience to the letter of the Law ;
the most perfect type of a theocratic king, carrying out the
requirements of the ancient Sacred Books to absolute fulfil
ment, alike in the outward extirpation of idolatry and super
stition, and the legal execution of their votaries. " The
remembrance of Josias," says the Son of Sirach, " is like the
fragrant perfume of mingled incense, that is made by the art
of the apothecary. It is sweet as honey in all mouths, and
as music at a banquet of wine. He laboured with the hap
piest results in the conversion of his people, and rooted out
the abominations of idolatry. He directed his heart unto
the Lord, and held fast to godliness in the days of im
piety."' As of Nerva, it might be said of him : "In evil
times he dared to be good." ' But his life must have been
embittered by the dull inertness of the multitude, and the
unscrupulous opposition of their leaders, who stooped to
every art to raise popular feeling against his reforms.' The
"remnant of Baal," moreover, standing aloof from him
throughout, and powerful enough to overturn his whole
work after his death,* were able, during his life, to prevent
him carrying out his wishes even in his own house. ^ To the
world he may have appeared alike prosperous and happy,
but he must, in private, have been consumed with care and
annoyance. His reign might be a triumph to the world : to
himself it was a tragedy.
The years after Josiah's Passover were momentous in their
events in the great world. In the year 630, Assurbanipal,
the last great monarch of Mneveh, died, leaving a heritage
1 Ecclus. xlix. 1-3. Lib. Apoc, Fritzsche. Jesus Sirach, Augusti. Exeg. B.
Buch. zu d. Apoc. des A. T., Fritzsche.
a " Temporibusque malis ausus est esse bonus." This fine sentence is based on
the words of Dion Cassius, Bk. 68, 'VU. Nervce.
' Jer. viii. 8. * Jer. vii., fE. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 8. <¦ Zeph. i. 8.

THE BEGINNING OF THB END. 247
of trouble to his successor ; for the wars and revolts of so
many years had brought the empire to the verge of disso
lution. He was the first, if not the only, Assyrian king,
who really cared for literature and learning, and was a gen
uine lover of books. When Babylonia had been crushed
after its rebellion, the spoil most acceptable to him was the
venerable contents of its great libraries. The main bulk of
the tablets we possess came from the great library of Nine
veh, which occupied one of the upper rooms in his palace at
Kouyunjik. It stood within the grounds of the Temple of
Nebo, and its walls were lined with shelves, on which were
laid the clay books of Assyria, or the rolls of papyrus which
have long since perished. The library consisted chiefly of
copies of older works, brought from Babylonia, and dili
gently copied by numerous scribes, like the "proverbs of
Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, King of Judah, copied
out." Sennacherib had founded the library, by transferring
to Nineveh the tablet books of Calah, but Assurbanipal really
made it a great collection. The literary age of Assyria was,
however, short-lived ; before the century closed, Nineveh was
taken by its enemies, and its palaces sacked and destroyed,
the library sharing in the common overthrow. While As
syria was hopelessly sinking, and its utter extinction was
evidently near. Media and Babylon were fast rising to take
its place as the rulers of Western Asia. Cyaxares and Nabo
polassar, their respective kings, were leagued together, to
wrest as much as possible from the feeble monarch who sat
on the throne of Nineveh. The Medes even penetrated to
Asia Minor, and attacked the Lydians, as subjects of As
syria ; but an eclipse of the sun, during a battle fought on
the 30th September, B.C. 610, inclined both sides to peace.
The gods seemed against a longer struggle. The comba-

248 THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
tants also were perhaps exhausted, for the war had lasted
five years.* A marriage confirmed the cessation of strife.
Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, obtained as wife the daughter
of Alyattes, the Lydian king. The Medes and Babylonians,
moreover, rejoiced in a union of their two dynasties by
the marriage of a daughter of Cyaxares to Nabopolassar^'s
son — soon to become famous as the Nebuchadnezzar of the
Bible. Meanwhile, Psammetichus I. of Egypt, the founder of the
great twenty-sixth dynasty — the Saite — ^had died, after a
long reign of fifty-four years,''' and was succeeded by his son,
Necho II. , the grandson, on the father's side, of Necho I.,
who had been a vassal of the Assyrians at the close of the
twenty-fifth dynasty. The new king was at once enterpris
ing, warlike, and able. To promote trade and increase his
power in war, he caused a fleet of triremes to be built, on
the Grecian model, in the harbours on the south of the
isthmus of Suez, where his dockyards were still to be seen
in the time of Herodotus.' Another fleet, on the Mediterra
nean coast, defended the north ; but the two were hope
lessly kept apart by the isthmus. Seti I., however, the
father of Rameses II., had cut a canal across it eight hun
dred years before,'' and Necho determined to imitate him.
Porced labour was put in requisition to an immense extent
to carry out the scheme ; though, as has been always the
rule in Egypt, the army of toilers was so badly cared for,
that 130,000 of them are said to have died of hunger' or
fatigue. It was an anticipation on a vast scale of one of the
awful crimes of our own century, when no fewer than 10,000
men perished under Mehemet Ali, while digging the Mah-
' Herod., i. 74. a e.c. 666-612. ' Herod., ii. 159.
4 Ebers, in Kiehm, p. 1370. s Herod., ii. 158.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 249
moudieh canal. ' But Necho's undertaking was not destined
to be finished ; an oracle having told him he was working
for the Barbarians. The priests no doubt had in their
minds the Phcenicians, for whose Indian trade a Suez canal
would have been as great an advantage as, in our own day,
it is for that of England — the Phoenicia of the nineteenth
century. It was to have been broad enough to let two tri
remes row abreast, but the honour of finishing it was left to
Darius, the Persian," in a future age.
Yet, if Necho's canal was a failure, the crews of Phoeni
cians whom he had attracted to his fleets, enabled him to
plan a great naval expedition which speaks for his bright
intelligence. Herodotus informs us,' that he ordered some
of his vessels, manned by Phoenicians, to sail from the Red
Sea round Africa, returning by the Straits of Gibraltar ;
thinking they had only to circumnavigate Libya. But they
were equal to the great task. Coasting the continent to the
south, they ultimately reached and doubled the Cape of
Good Hope, and got back to Egypt in safety, after a voyage
of three years. Like his father Psammetichus, Necho had
no foolish Egyptian prejudice against foreigners, and eagerly
enlisted regiments of Greek mercenaries in his army ; a fact
which may in great part account for the ruinous defeat he
inflicted on Josiah.'
In the general breaking up of the Assyrian empire, Necho
fancied he had a fair opportunity of extending his empire,
and of regaining part at least of the wide limits it had
' To some rulers, whom the world calls "great," the lives of men have been of little
moment. More than 100,000 men perished in laying the foundations of St. Peters
burg in 1714 and the following years, and the first Napoleon asked Metternich,
" What were the lives of a million of men compared with the carryicg out the
schemes of a man like hiin,' " Metteruich's Memoirs, vol. i. ch. 8.
= Herod., ii. 158. s Herod., iv. 43.
* Brugsch, Histoire d'Egypte, vol. i. p. 352.

250 THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
reached in ancient times, nnder Thothmes III. and Eameses
II. Egypt was now strong, for Psammetichus had married
the heiress of the Ethiopian royal House, and thus closed
the rivalry between the native and foreign dynasties that
had long torn the country in pieces, as Henry VII. ended
the civil wars of England by uniting the Houses of Lan
caster and York.'
Nineveh had not yet fallen, but it was within two or
three years of its doom.^ Nabopolassar and Cyaxares were
busy in the East; and, while they were thus occupied, a
bold dash might win Syria, perhaps as far as the Eu
phrates, for Egypt. Necho, in the year B.O. 610, resolved
on the attempt ; strong in his Tyrian sailors and Greek
soldiers. Unfortunately for himself and for his country,
Josiah, whose territories were not in the line of the Egyp
tian march, thought it his duty to oppose it. Necho's army
seems to have landed, in part, from his triremes, at Acre ;
the rest marching by the coast route, and perhaps storming
Gaza on the way,' for both Gaza and Ashdod were taken by
him at this time, or very soon after. His course lay across
the Plain of Esdraelon, but some time necessarily elapsed
before the troops could advance. Meanwhile, all was bustle
and preparation in Judah. Josiah was at present indepen
dent ; but if Egypt conquered Syria, his position was lost.
Tradition says that he adhered to his resolution to fight, in
spite of the earnest entreaties of Jeremiah. Even Necho
himself, indeed, tried to restrain him, but he rushed on his
fate. Hearing of his advance, the Pharaoh sent envoys to
> Ibid., vol. ii. p. 278.
2 It wasnot known till within the last few j'ears that Assyria had not fallen in
610-9 B.C. But the Bible, with minute accuracy, had written ages ago that " Necho
went up against the king of Assyria.^" 2 Kings xxiii. 29.
3 Jer. xlvii.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END. g51
assure him that the war was directed solely against his own
hereditary enemy, Nineveh. " It was the will of Heaven,"
he added, "that he should hasten on to Assyria,' and that
Josiah should not interfere with him, lest he should be
destroyed." ' Nothing, however, could dissuade the Jewish
king, now a man of thirty-nine. " He encouraged himself
to fight against him," ' in the belief that he could conquer,
and marched his forces to Esdraelon. There, where Thoth
mes III. and Rameses II. had triumphed over the Hittites
many centuries before, the issue was soon decided." The
battle was fought near Megiddo — apparently a town or vil
lage at the base of a spur of Carmel, halfway down the
southern edge of the plain, and near the future Roman
town of Legio, the present Ledjun,° although Conder, in
duced by the mention of " the passage of Megiddo " at " the
fords of the Jordan," in the narrative of an Egyptian official
which has come down to us from remote ages," fancies that
Megiddo was so often a battle-field, from its being the spot
where the passage of the Jordan was to be resisted or at
tained. Hence he regards a mound of large size, now called
Mujedd'a — a well-watered spot at the foot of Mount Gilboa,
where the valley of Jezreel opens into the Jordan plain,
southwest of Bethshean, as the true site of Megiddo. Mor
tally wounded by the Egyptian archers, so well known from
the monuments, Josiah was removed from his war chariot,
the splendour of which had drawn on him the notice of the
> This is the meaning of " the house wherewith I have war." 2 Chron. xxxv. 21.
2 Keil's explanation of 2 Chron. xxxv. 21. Pharaoh uses tiic general word for
God, without the article to refer it to tlie God of Judah, and expresses only his con
viction that his enterprise is favoured by Heaven, which is on bis side— a belief any
healhen might entertain.
' Septuagint. Instead of "disguised himself " (2 Chron, xxxv. 33). Keil thinks
"disguised himself" means, did contrary to his usual course— that of acting only
according to the ascertained wiil of God.
« Vol. ii. p. 93. ' Kiepert's Map. ' Vol. ii. p. 544.

253 THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
enemy, and having been laid on another kept in reserve,
was driven off, dying, towards Jerusalem. But he got no
farther than Rummane — then Hadadrimmon — an ancient
sanctuary of two Syrian gods, a few miles south of Megiddo.
There he died, amidst such a wailing as was never forgotten
in all future time. Similar outbursts of grief attended
the sad procession which bore the slain hero to the capital,
where the sight of his corpse threw the citizens into despair.
Their hopes as a nation had perished with him. Never
before had there been such a deep or universal lamentation.
He was buried in a tomb he had prepared for himself,
beside those of his fathers, with, every manifestation of
grief. Far and near the population joined in the loud
demonstrations of sorrow usually restricted to professional
mourners, piteous cries rising alike in town ' and country of
" 0 my Lord ! " "0 the glory of Israel ! " His elegy was
composed by Jeremiah, the sweetest singer of the Jewish
Church after David, and was henceforth sung by the nation
on the anniversary of the battle. Its tenor may perhaps be
judged by the strain in which the calamities of Zedekiah
are sung in the Book of Lamentations : " The anointed of
Jehovah was taken in their pits : Of whom we said, ' Under
his shadow we shall live among the heathen.'" ' At a later
time the prophet Zecbariah could find no image for the un
utterable lament over the death of the Messiah, but that for
Josiah — " The mourning at Hadadrimmon, in the valley of
Megiddon ; " ' and the " battle of the great day of God
1 See an allusion to this in Jer. xxii. 18. ^ Lam. iv. 20.
' Zeeb. xii. 11. Kimmon is the Assyrian Ramman, the god or the air, who was
the same as the Syrian deity Hadad, whose name is part of those of Benhadad and
Hadadezer. Hadad-Rimmon was, iu fact, the chief god of Damascus, being regiirdcd
there, not as the god of the air — an inferior divinity — but, as among the Assyrians^
Baal, the Sun-god, himself. Hence, the mourning of which Zecbariah speaks, is th«
yearly festival, when the ivomen mourued for the death of the Sun-god, slain, as it

THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 253
Almighty" in the Apocalypse, so transcendent in its issues,
has its scene at Armageddon, or the hill of Megiddo.' Nor
did the mass of the people forget the hero. Long after the
return from Captivity, we are told that " all the singing
men and singing women spake of Josiah in their lamenta
tions to this day, and made them an abiding institution in
Israel ; and behold they are written in the Lamentations. " "
As in Persia a yearly time of lamentation for Hossain, the
grandson of !Mo hammed — dead now for a thousand years —
is still held, all amusements being laid aside, mourning as
sumed, the grave visited, and orations or poems on his
virtues and death delivered to numerous assemblages ; ' so,
it would appear, was it for ages among the Hebrews in the
case of Josiah.
Such popular veneration, growing with years, deepened
the influence of the good king's life. He was remembered
above all for his zeal for the Law ; " his deeds, becoming
one of the Hasidim," " or zealots for the exact observance of
the ancient sacred books of Moses. In this respect, as we
have seen, he had no rival either before or after him among
the kings of Judah. Nor was the immense service he
rendered to the theocracy confined to his lifetime. No
sooner liad the kingdom and the temple perished than its
profound results appeared. The down-trodden Jew, now
made intensely earnest by his misfortunes, cherished the
was imagined, by the winter. In Phoenicia this god was kuown as Adonis, " the
Lord," or under the old Babylonian name, Tammuz, for whom Ezekiel saw womeu
Bitting weeping, withiu the precincts of the temple itself, at Jerusalem. Ezek. "^iii.
14. The whole festival and lamentation are described iu the essay on the Syrian god
dess, ascribed to Lucian. See this vol., p. 428. ' Eev. xvi. 16.
' 2 Chron. xxxv. 25. The " Lamentations" in the Canon cannot be meant, as the
death of Josiah is not spoken of in them.
3 fiosenmtlller's A. und N. Morgerd-and, vol. iii. p. 27?.
* The word translated " goodness " in 2 Ciiron. xxxv. 26, was very early restricted
to zealous dcvotio:i to the law. Sec '¦ Chassidim," In Herzog, B. Ency.

354 THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
recollection of such an ideal theocratic king as Josiah had
been, carrying out literally, with all his authority, every
minute requirement of the Law. His zeal dwelt in the
heart of the nation as the pattern they should seek to real
ize, as soon as opportunity offered. Hope to rebuild the
state on the model set by him, cheered and animated them
during the Exile. His glorification of the Law gave a
colour to the whole future history of the race. The un
bending and intense devotion of Judaism to the rites and
forms of the Pentateuch, after the Return, and the legalism
which became supreme under Ezra and the Scribes, are to
be traced to the influence of Josiah's example ; not as the
new critics would have it, to any contrivance of priests,
either in Babylon or at a later date. Ezekiel's devotion
to the Levitical system was a tribute to the universal rev
erence of the example of the king whom all so deeply
lamented.' Judaism was thus, in the strictest sense, the
homage of the nation to his memory, shewn in the highest
form, that of imitation.
Josiah had reigned only thirteen years after the triumph
of his great reformation ; a period too short to root out
the deep-seated evils of the time, or to turn the life of a
whole people into a better course. His death was the ruin
of the kingdom. Had the nation continued to carry out
his work in his spirit, it might have revived, and, in any
case, its fall would have been delayed. But the violence
which had marked the religious revolution, was fatal to its
permanence. The heathen party, maddened by sufEering
for a time the persecution they had so eagerly inflicted,
under Manasseh, on the adherents of the old faith, strove to
bring about a reaction in their own favour, when Josiah,
1 See on Ihis subject, Noldeke, Bib. Lex., vol. iii. p. 338.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 355
the defender of the new state of things, was gone. Violence
had, indeed, been characteristic of religious changes in
Israel in all its past history, and it had. at last rent the
nation into embittered factions, filled with inextinguish
able hatred towards each other. Reconciliation was no
longer possible, even in the immediate prospect of common
ruin. The blood shed on both sides raised a wild frenzy
of feud and division. The Hasidim, or orthodox party,
demanded the violent suppression of their opponents, as
proscribed by the Law. The heathen faction, on the other
hand, wliile retaining the worship of Jehovah, joined with
it that of a host of foreign gods. The one party sought to
carry out literally the commands of Deuteronomy,' putting
to death all idolaters, or at least having no relations what
ever with them ; the other sanctioned a depraved morality,
which the Law and even healthy natural instincts con
demned. The issue was, that the heathen party triumphed, and
controlled each of the four kings yet to reign, different
though they were in age, spirit, and temper. The re
ligious settlement of Josiah was not overthrown, because
things were too equaUy balanced to make this possible, with
out an uncertain struggle ; but a moral chaos was intro
duced, which corrupted pubUc life in every direction. Re
ligion, in the tme sense, appeared to be lost. Jeremiah's
life was spent in bewailing the almost universal faithlessness
to Jehovah. With Ezekiel, the community is no longer
" the House of Israel," but " the House of Disobedience." ^
But neither appeal nor reproaches eould now reform them.
A virtuf.l anarchy reigned in the land,' like that which had
1 Deut. Xlli. 9 ; xviu 5 ; xx. 15. See also Exod. xxiii. 31 ; xxxiv. 12. Num. xxi.
2 ; xxxiii. 52.
i Ezek. iii. 7 ; comp. Isa. xxz. 9. > Ezek. xxii. 85-29,

¦250 THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
preceded the fall of Samaria.' The kings were powerless to
restrain the carnival of violence."
In the past crisis of the nation the order of prophets
played a foremost part as its faithful and wise guides and
counsellors. But even this cource of strength had dis
appeared. Its members still, indeed, formed a class high
in respect and position,' but to a large extent it retained its
standing only from the traditions of the past. Most of the
order had become keen men of the world, degrading their
office into a means of support. No longer preachers of
righteousness, they used their privilege of addressing the
people to "speak smooth things and prophesy deceits."*
The favour and patronage of the rich and powerful were
sought, by excusing their sins, and by fawning servility ; and
to gain power over the multitude they even stooped to adopt
the frauds of heathen magic and superstition.' In the sink
ing kingdom they were compared, by Ezekiel, to foxes in a
half-ruined wall ; undermining it still more and hastening
its utter destruction.'
A few prophets, however, still fought valiantly for the
truth. No taint of violence weakened their appeals. They
had learned to trust only to spiritual influences, and lost no
opportunity of proclaiming anew the eternal laws of right
eousness, and exhorting their fellow-citizens to return to
Jehovah. But their words fell on deaf ears and dull hearts.
They were not now the great power in the State they had
been. In the past, they had guided its policy in the most
critical times, and had often saved it.' Now, however, their
' Hos. vi. 9 ; vii. 4. a Jer. xxxviii. 5, 14-27.
s 2 Kings xxiii. 2. 3 Chron. xxxiv. 22.
< Isa. xxx. 10. Jer. viii. 11 ; xiv. 13 ; xxiii. 17. Ezek. xlil. 10, 16.
6 Ezek. xiii, 17-23. • Ezek. xiii. 5.
' E.g., in the case of Isaiah during the Assyrian invasion.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 257
most earnest words were received with indifference. Israel
was no longer such a kingdom as Moses had intended,
listening reverently to its prophets as his ordained suc
cessors.' The few who still merited that name were disre
garded. The loss to the nation was greater than the fall of
the monarchy itself. It meant the fall of the State, for it
was the repudiation of moral guidance or control. The
priesthood could not supply the want ; it was too corrupt.
Literary culture was firmly rooted in the community, and
concerned itself mainly with the sacred writings ; but it
was subdued to the colour of the times, and spent itself on
rites and ceremonies, rather than on the great truths under
lying them. At best, it was zealous for the letter, not the
spirit of the law, and, as in every system where external
observance is dignified with the name of religion, it fostered
a hypocritical insincerity, fatal to spiritual life.
No better mirror of the times could be had than the story
of Jeremiah — their greatest prophet. Pure and noble in
every utterance, he spoke and counselled, warned and threat
ened, in vain. Never weary in the work of Jehovah, and
braving all contradictions and trials to advance it, he at
times sinks into despair at the wickedness around him, and
the gloomy foreboding it gave of the near ruin of his country.
Faithful to his great commission for half a century, and not
only maintaining in his person the dignity of his order, but
even increasing it, he had to feel that his influence declined
as the years rolled on, while the indignities offered him
deepened continually.'
The rout of Josiah's army had been so complete that
Necho did not turn from his onward march to follow it up.
» Dent, xviii. 15. For " prophet " read "order of prophete."
5 See Ewald, Gesch., vol. iii. pp. 763-772.
VOL. V.-17J

358 THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
His great aim was to strike a blow at the Syrian provinces
of Assyria, while Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, with whom he
had an understanding, attacked Nineveh itself. Striking
northward, therefore, by way of Damascus, which he at
once overpowered, he pressed up the broad valley between
the two chains of Lebanon, and made himself master of the
Assyrian province of North Syria ; fixing his camp, for a
time, within three months of the death of Josiah,' at
Riblah,'' on the direct road to the Euphrates, not far from
Hamath on the Orontes.
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Jerusalem had taken the
first step towards self -protection, by electing a king. Josiah
had left three sons, the children of two wives — Eliakim, the
eldest, whose mother's name was Zebudah, of Rumah ; '
and Shallum and Mattaniah, the sons of Hamutal, the
daughter of one Jeremiah, of Libnah.' He may have
left the succession to the sons of the second and best
beloved wife,* or, it may be, the choice of one of these held
out the best hopes for the country ; in any case, Eliakim
was passed by in favour of Shallum, who was two years
younger. Honoured by popular election, he assumed the
crown under the name of Jehoahaz" — " He whom Jehovah
1 2 Kings xxiii. 31, 33.
2 Eiblah, the present EiblE, lay 10 to 13 hours S.S.W. of Hams (Emessa), on the
river Orontes, in a great fruitful plain of the northern part of the Bekaa. It was the
camping place of Nebuciiadnezzar as well as of Necho (2 Kings xxv. 6, 20, 21 ; Jer.
xxxix. 5 ; lii. 10), tbe fertility of the district supplying ample food aud fodder for an
army. The great caravan road from Palestine to Thapsacus and Carchemish, on the
Euphrates, ran through it. Eobinson, New Bib. Researches, pp. 708, 710, 831.
= The position of Ibis place is very doubtful. It is thought to have been either the
present Eameh, a village north of Nazareth, or el Ormah (Arumah, Judg. ix. 41), near
Shechem. In either case it was a strange place to flnd a queen, when the Ten Tribes
had so long been carried ofl. i Unknown, but apparently in the lowland of Judah.
s Graetz. If he had, he would have acted contrary to Deut. xxi. 15, which provides
that the elder son be not supplanted by the son of a wife more loved.
« Called Shallura in Jer. xxii. 11 ; in reference, Bertheau thinks, to his brief reign,
like that of Shallum of Samaria.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 259
sustains ; " having first been anointed, to give greater
authority to his title.' Nothing is known of his character
or policy beyond the hint that he did not imitate his father
in reference to rehgion,' and the glance at his high spirit — if
not rather at his lawlessn^s and violence — in the comparison
of him by Ezekiel to "a young Uon that had leamed to
catch his prey, to devour men. " ' But, as the prophet adds,
'¦ the heathen heard of him, and he was snared in their pit,
and they led him off with a ring in his lips, to the land of
Egypt."' A report of the action of the capital having
reached Necho, at Riblah, in the north, snch a shew of
independent action sealed the fate of the new king. A suf
ficient force was sent to Jerusalem,' which at once yielded,
and Jehoahaz was carried off to the Egyptian camp ; Elia
kim, his elder brother, being appointed king in his stead.
It^was, in some respects, a repetition of the fate of Hoshea,
the last king of Samaria. ° Passing on in the conqueror's
train towards the Euphrates, or ignominiously sent to the
NUe at once, Egypt was henceforth his place of permanent
exUe. How long he lived is not known, but he was a cap
tive tUl his death. Snch a fate was regarded as worse than
that of his father at Megiddo. He was the first king of
Judah that died in exile. '¦' TVeep not for the dead,"" said
Jeremiah, "' neither bewaU him ; but weep sore for him that
goeth away ; for he shall return no more, nor see his native
country."' The new king ascended the throne under the
* After David's time,. anointing was only practised in exceptional cases, to prevent
a contest for the throne. Oehler, Theol. d. A. T., vol. ii. p. 26.
2 2 Kings xxiii. 32. ^ Ezek. xix. 3.
* The word " cliains " in Ezek. xix. 4, is the same as in Isa. xxxvii, 29, and means
the ring in the nose by which wild beasts were led,
* Herodotus (ii. 1.59, iii. 5) speaks of Necho having taken Kadytis, the greatest city
of Palestine, and the identification of this place with Jerusalem, by BOttcher,
Aehrenlese, vol. ii. p. 113. seems complete.
« Vol. iv. p. 280. ' Jer. xxii. 10.

260 THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
name of Jehoiakim — " He whom Jehovah has set up ; "
having gladly consented to pay tribute to Necho, and
become his pliant vassal. Marching on to the east, the
Pharaoh successfully overran Syria, to the banks of the
Euphrates, and Nineveh was thus stripped of all its ter
ritory between that river and Egypt. Nabopolassar, of
Babylon, and Cyaxares, the Mede, were meanwhile pressing
it to the uttermost, and left the Egyptian conqueror,
for the time, in quiet possession of his new dominions.
The siege of the great city was already at hand. Little
more than two years remained till its fall. The prophe
cies of its doom were hastening to their fulfilment.

CHAPTER XIII.
FIEST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM.
jEHOiAKiii, a young man of twenty-five when his reign
commenced, shewed himself an unworthy son of his great
father. Necho had laid a heavy yearly tribute on the little
kingdom — 100 talents of silver, and one talent of gold ' —
equal, nominaUy, to from £80,000 to £90,000,' but of
vastly greater value in those early times than that sum
would be now. Harsh and unfeeling, the new king took
care to secure his throne by extorting this from his sub
jects ; his milita/y force being apparently used to wring pay
ment of the taxes imposed to raise it, and a huge revenue
besides.' No pity touched his heart ; absorbing self-indul
gence, pride, and despotic violence were his characteristics.
Aspiring to be a great king, he lavished expense not only on
royal state, but on costly buildings ; adorning Jerusalem, as
it afterwards seemed, before its impending ruin, as sacri
fices were garlanded when about to be led to the altar. A
great palace was built by forced labour,' with spacious halls
roofed with cedar from Lebanon, lighted by many windows,
and set off with vermilion. ° Other notable buildings, also,
rose in the city ; nor is it without ground that he is thought
1 The Septuagint has 100 talents of gold, bnt this is evidently au error.
' Thenius says £77,000 ; Keil, £90,000.
3 So Thenius and Graetz. * Jer. xxii. 13.
' Jer. xxii. H, 14 ; perhaps also Hab. ii. 9-14.

263 FIRST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM.
to have finished the stronghold on Ophel, begun by Manas
seh,' and known as "his house, in the garden of Uzzah,"
adjoining the fortress.' He affected, in truth, to imitate
the greatest of his forefathers. But, unlike them, he used
not only the forced toil of Canaanites ; free citizens and
peasants were enslaved, and worked to the death to carry
out his win. " He built his city with blood, and his citadel
with iniquity." Defiant in his ungodliness, to the length of
contemptuously burning a sacred prophetic roll,' he shrank
from no crime to silence the prophets. Had he not been
controUed, he would have put Jeremiah to death, and one
prophet at least, Urijah, of the ancient town of Kirjath-
jearim, " the town in the woods," he actually slew. The
martyr had fled to Egypt, but the king's father-in-law was
sent off with an armed band, to bring him back, and having
succeeded, he was forthwith beheaded, and his body refused
burial in the tombs of the prophets; being "cast into the
graves of the common people " as a last indignity.'
Things were every way dark for Judah. The reign of
Josiah had raised hopes of a prosperous future, and the
Book of the Law, so strangely recovered, had seemed to the
multitude a charm to secure Divine favour. But Josiah
had fallen in battle. The flower of the army had perished
with him. His youngest son pined in chains in a foreign
dungeon. The covenant they had made with Jehovah had
brought no such magic blessing as had been superstitiously
dreamed. It was easy for the powerful heathen party to
represent that the nation would have fared better had it not
cast away the gods of Manasseh's time.' "We shaU burn
incense," said the people, " and pour out drink offerings to
• 2 Kings xxi. 18. a Thenius. s Jer. xxxvi. 23.
* Jer. xxvi. 23. = Jer. xliv. 17, 18.

FIEST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM. 263
the queen of heaven,' as we have done, we, and our fathers,
our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in
the streets of Jerusalem ; for then we had plenty of victuals,
and were well, and saw no evU." '
A reaction in favour of heathenism began, therefore, at
once. Altars were btdlt once more on every hill, and under
every green tree. There were, again, as many gods in
Judah as there were towns." An Asherah was raised at the
north gate of the temple enclosure — " the gate of the altar."
In the dark chambers of the substmctures of the temple
area the sacred animals of Egypt were worshipped, amidst
clouds of incense, and at the north gate of the temple there
was a wailing place, where women sat crying aloud for the
loss of the Phcenician god Tammuz, or Adonis.' Nor was
even this the worst. In the most sacred spot of the temple
itself,^ in the inner court, between the porch of the Holy
Place and the great altar standing before it, the spot where
in Joel's day the priests in black robes, during the great
fast, had implored with loud cries that Jehovah would spare
His people, Ezekiel saw a group of men who must, from the
place, have been priests, standing with their backs to the
temple," and their faces to the east, worshipping the rising
sun.' Idols of gold and silver, wood and stone, were again
set up in private houses ; even the obscene symbols of Phoe-
1 Graetz thinks that Nelth, the Egyptian goddess, is meant by tbe queen of
heaven. She wa.s doubtless called so— Brugsch, Geog. Insch-rift. Altdgyp. Denk-
maler, vol. i, p. 245 ; but it was certainly the Assyrian queen of heaven that was
worshipped in Judah, The worship of Neith was specially seated at Sais, in the
Delta, 2 Jer. xliv. 17. » Jer. xi. 1-3.
¦> Ezek. viii. 3, 10, 11, 14,
<• Joel ii, n.
* 2 Chron. xxix. 6,
¦' Ezek. viii. 16. Sunrise was sacred to the sun-worshippers. Herod,, iii. 85, The
Essenes in later times wonld not speak a word about ordinary matters before sunrise,
but recited prayers, Jos,, BeU. Jud., II. viii. 5.

264 FIEST TEAKS OF JEHOIAKIM.
nician idolatry among others.' The Valley of Hinnom
again resounded with the wails, and savage drum-beating,
and dissonant trumpet blasts, of Moloch worship, and
parents once more sought to propitiate the grisly idol by
offering to it their eldest, often their only son.'
The dissolution of morals kept pace with the religious de
clension. Impurity ; adultery ; oppression of foreigners, of
widows, and of orphans ; venality in the judges ; falsehood,
dishonesty, usury ; remorselessness towards helpless debtors ;
robbery, and murder, in all classes alike, hastened the ruin
of the country.' Even the ties of relationship were disre
garded. " Every man had to take heed of his neighbour,
and suspect his brother." ' The priesthood were largely
tainted by the spirit of the time. There was no longer need
to bring in foreign priests to serve the idols, and the prophets
were, as a class, equally degenerate.
But while raoral as well as political night was thus set
tling over the community at large, the sacred light of relig
ion still lingered in a small circle — the forlorn hope of the
old faith of Israel. Some of those who had done good ser
vioe in the reign of Josiah had passed away, but their children
had taken their places. In this band Jeremiah, who was
related to its principal members, was the central figure.
The nephew of Shallum — ^husband of the prophetess Huldah
— and cousin of Hanameel, Shallum's son, he found in both
the truest friendship. Baruch, his inseparable companion,
was the grandson of Maaseiah ; and Ahikam and Gedaliah —
whose protection alone saved his life — were the son and
grandson of Shaphan, the secretary of King Josiah.
> Ezek. xvi. 17, " images of men " — literally, " of a male."
" Jer. vii. 31 ; xix. 5. See Isa. Ivii. 5.
^ Jer. V. 7, 8 ; vi. 9 ; ix. 1-7. Ezek. xvi. 8, S. ; xxii. 35.
* Ezek. xxii. 7. Jer. ix. 4 ; xii. 6.

FIKST TEAKS OF JEHOIAKIM. 265
Other prophets, such as Habakkuk and Urijah, with
Ezekiel, a few years later, nobly vindicated their office amidst
the hatred and persecution it brought in such times. But
no one, so far as we know, bore so dauntless and persistent
a testimony against the sins of his countrymen as Jeremiah.
The relapse into heathenism under Jehoiakim roused him
to the utmost. Timid, shrinking, and sensitive by nature ;
love of his country, and enthusiasm for Jehovah, gave him
a courage and constancy which no dangers appalled. He
might in his bosom feel the humility of a child, and think
himself unable to speak in public ; ' he might wish that his
head were waters, and his eyes a fountain of tears, that he
might weep day and night for the Daughter of his People.'
He might sigh for a "lodge in the wilderness," to escape
from the sin around him ; ' but all this passed away when he
appeared before his fellow-citizens. In the presence of king,
or prince, or priest, or populace, he was, as God had pre
dicted,' defiant as a fortified town, and immovable as a pillar
of iron, or walls of brass. Fearless and undismayed, he
"girt up his loins, and arose and spoke "^ to all classes and
ranks, from day to day, whenever opportunity offered, ° warn
ing and rebuking with noble directness and plainness. Such
fidelity, amidst a generation so fallen, bore its natural fruit
in the hatred of those whose sins were assailed. The nobles
were furious at his exposure of their lawless violence, and
cold self-indulgence. The people at large resented indig
nantly his warnings that their superstitious trust in the tem
ple as an inviolable safeguard from public danger, was mere
self-deception ; ' that their sacrifices were not accepted by
> Jer. i. 6. ^ Jer. ix. 1. Jerusalem is raeant. ' Jer. ix, 2,
¦• Jer, i. 18. ' Jer. i. 17, 18 ; xiii. 13. « Jer. xxv, 3 ; xxxv, 15,
¦' At Chunar, near Benares, ia India, a stone is shewn on which it is believed " the
Almighty is seatel, personally, though invisibly, for nine hours everyday. On this

266 FIKST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM.
God ; that their glory as the chosen people would not save
them ; that they, the circumcised, would share the same fate
for their sins, as the uncircumcised heathen ; that the temple
itself would be destroyed, as that of ShUoh had been ; and
that Jerusalem would be reduced to ruins, and they them
selves led away as slaves to a foreign land. But he was
hated, most of all, by the priests and prophets, as one who,
while belonging to both orders, spoke ill of the members of
each. Class feeling, than which nothing is more bitter, was
roused, in both, to the deadliest intensity against him.' Ab
solute loneliness amidst his fellows ; misappreciation of his
motives ; fierce accusation of sentiments which he abhorred ;
the consciousness that, while his heart was breaking for love
of his country, he was denounced as a traitor by those who
were themselves betraying the nation, darkened his life.
Sad at soul, he had no desire for any of the pleasures of
other men. Unlike priests or prophets as a rule, he re
mained unmarried,' and withheld himself from meetings of
his fellows, whether for mourning or feasting.' The hand
of God seemed against him all the day. He felt as if he
were a mark for His arrows. He had been led into darkness,
and was like one that lived in the gloomy tombs of the long
eead.' At times it appeared as if God had deceived him,'
and in his desolation of soul, he lamented that he had ever
been born.' His life seemed an utter faUure. His words
came back to him like an empty sound. No man regarded
them.
account tbe Sepoys think that Chuuar can never be taken by an enemy, during these
hours," Heber's .TourncU, vol, i. p, 409. This seems the exact counterpart of the
notion cherished by the ancient Jews, frora Jehovah dwelling in their midst, between
tbe cherubim. The teraple could not, they supposed, be taken, with such a
guardian. > Jer. xi. 19-21. s Jer. xvi. S. » Jer. xvi. 8.
* Lam. iii. 2, 6, 12. • Jer. xx. 7. « Jer. xx. 14-18.

FIEST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM. 267
But though for the time, and indeed to the close of his
life, "he was in derision all the day long, and mocked by
every one," he had his reward in the veneration of later gen
erations, and the profound influence of his word through
all ages. To his contemporaries he seemed only to de
nounce and condemn all they most cherished, but he was,
in reality, under Divine guidance, leading the way to a
higher spirituality and a nobler development of religion.
If he predicted that the day would come when the loss of
the Ark would no longer be regretted ; if he treated even
the temple as a temporary glory soon to perish ; ' if he
trusted so little to the official Reformation of Josiah, as to
pass it over in silence ; it was because he realized that the
heart alone is the seat of tme religion, and that the most
sacred objects are only sources of evil, if they arrest the
devotion that should centre on God. He was emphatically
a preacher of righteousness. The newly discovered Law,
in its moral precepts, was urged in all his discourses, as the
Divine standard. Even before his day, lofty and spiritual
conceptions of God and of human duty had been pro
claimed by prophets and psalmists. It had been impressed
on the nation that rites and offerings were subordinate in
the eyes of God to a holy life and the incense of the heart.
Joel had told his contemporaries to rend their hearts, and
not their garments.' Hosea had declared that " God de
sired mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of
Himself more than burnt offerings." ' Micah had loudly
insisted that what Jehovah required of man, was not thou
sands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil, but to do
justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God.'
• Jer. iii. 16 ; vii. 4. ' Joel ii. 13.
' Hos. vi 6. * Mic. vi. 6.

268 FIEST TEAKS OF JEHOIAKIM.
" Circumcise your heart," cried Jeremiah ; ' " amend you?
ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your
God." ' In all this, there was only the echo of the teaching
of Deuteronomy and of the Law at large — for there also
" circumcision of the heart " was demanded, and its supreme
love claimed for Jehovah.' But it was reserved for Jere
miah to foresee a day in which the Ceremonial Law would
finally pass awayj and a new spiritual covenant take the
place of that of Moses. Under the Messiah, "Jehovah our
Righteousness,"' "the Righteous Branch," "the King"
who should " reign and prosper, and execute judgment and
justice on the earth," another covenant than that of Sinai
would be introduced. " God would put His law in their
inward parts, and write it, not on stone, but in their
hearts, and would be their God, and they should be His
people." ' With such a vision of the ultimate triumph of
righteousness, Jeremiah, amidst all his sorrows, had the
abiding consolation, that, little as men thought it, he was
the divinely appointed herald of the true Kingdom of God
among men.
The incidents recorded of Jehoiakim's reign are few,
but the increased prophetic activity of Jeremiah during its
course brings the people and the time very closely before us.
The first of his discourses after the death of Josiah seems
to be that which opens with the fourteenth chapter, and
though in its present form it may comprise addresses origi
nally independent, the prophet himself having put them
together at a later period," nothing could more vividly illus
trate the state of things in these darkening years.
Misfortunes, it is said, never come singly. Josiah's death
» Jer. iv. 4 ; gee the significance iu vil. 5 ; ix. 24.
' Jer- xxvi. 13. 3 Deut. x. 12-16 ; xxx. 6 ; iv. 15 ; x. 12.
» Jer. xxiii. 6 ; xxxiii. 15, 16. s Jer. xxxi. 33. « Jer. xxx.

FIKST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM. 269
had been followed by a succession of dry seasons,' till the
land was parched, and the sufferings of the population
had become intense. The faUure of the entreaties of the
prophet for them, was the occasion of the present address.
" XIV. 2. Judah mourns (beoause of the droughts)," says he;' "the
people of her towns " are sore troubled ; they lie in black on the earth,
(in their grief) ; the wailing cry of Jerusalem rises (to heaven) ! 3. Her
chief men send their little ones for water; they come to the cisterns
and flnd none. They return ashamed and confounded, with their
vessels empty; their head covered (in deepest sorrow).' 4. Because
there has been no rain on the earth, and it is, as it were, dismayed ;
the field workers are ashamed; they cover their heads. 5. For the
very hind (so tender in her care for her offspring °) calves in the
field, and forsakes her fawn, beoause there is no grass, 6. and the wild
asses stand on the tops of the bare hills, gasping for air with dis
tended nostrils, like dragons " (for even on the height there is no
breath of air, so fierce is the heat !) their (keen) eyesight fails (them)
through want of any green thing (for food) ! "
Moved by such wide suffering, the prophet entreats God
on behalf of the nation, but his prayers are not heard.
" 7. Though our iniquities witness against us, 0 Jehovah, yet help
us for Thy name's sake (for thou art ' Jehovah, merciful and gra
cious ; ' ' and for thine honour before the heathen — for we are thy
1 In Jer. xiv, 1, "dearth" shouldbe "dearths," Drought was one of the punish
ments threatened by the Law, for national sin. Lev, xxvi, 19, Dent. xi. 17 ; xxviii.
23. It had often beeu threatened by the prophets. Jer. iii. 3 ; xii. 4 ; xxiii. 10.
Hag, i. 10, B.
2 Jer. xiv. 1-8.
' Literally, " gates; " the place of public assembly is put for those who gather
in it.
< 2 Sam. XV. 30 ; xix. 4, 5. The head covered as if there was no longer a desire to
see or to be seen.
s The care of hinds for their young is often noticed by ancient writers, Aristotle
tells how they bring them to a safe retreat which has only one approach ; Pliny, how
they teach them to flee at the appearance of danger ; and Soliuus, how they care
fully hide thcMi. Bochart, Part I. bk. iii. chap, 17.
* Hitzig thinks crocodiles, whales, or dolphins are intended by " dragons ; "
Ewald, any hard-breathing, panting animals, with widely opened mouths. Keil and
Naegelsbach, jackals— open-mouthed.
' Josh. vii. 7-9. Ps. Ixxix, 9 ; cvi. 8. laa. xlviii. 9.

•270 FIEST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM.
people), though our transgressions are many ; we have sinned against
Thee. 8. Thon Hope of Israel ; his Saviour in the time of trouble,
why shouldst Thou be like a stranger in the land (passing through it,
as a land not his own), and like a wayfarer who pitches ' his tent to
tarry for the night (and has no interest in it) ? 9. Why shouldst Thon
be like a man confounded (and at a loss what to do) ; like a mighty
man who can do nothing to help; and yet Thou, 0 Lord, art in our
midst, and we are called by Thy name; 0 leave us not!"
But God answers :
" 10. Thus says Jehovah to this people.' They have indeed loved
to wander; they have not kept back their feet; and therefore Jehovah
does not accept them: = He will remember their iniquity and visit their
sins. 11. And Jehovah said to me, Pray not for this people for their
good. 12. Though they fast, I will not hear their ory ; though they
ofEer up burnt sacrifices and the Minchah,' I will not accept them, but
will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence." '
Jeremiah then makes a fresh appeal, and receives a second
reply, which discloses the terrible fact that even among the
prophets, there were very few worthy of the name.
" 13. Then said I, Alas, Lord Jehovah, behold the (false) prophets
say to my people (in Thy name)^' Ye shall not see the sword, ye willi
have no famine, but I (Jehovah) shall surely give you peace in this
place.' " 14. Then Jehovah said to me, ' The (false) prophets prophesy lies
in My name; Ihave neither sent them, nor commissioned them, nor
spoken to them at all. They prophesy to you a pretended vision and
lying divination, and the deceit of their own heart!' 15. Therefore
thus say I, Jehovah, respecting the prophets that prophesy in My
name, though I have not sent them, and say to you, ' Sword and
famine will not be in this land ' — these very prophets shall die by the
1 Literally, " stretches." a jgr. xiv. 9-15.
5 A quotation, to end of the verse, from Hos. viii. 13. " Accepts them not,"
literally, " has no pleasure in them."
. ¦" An offering consisting of flour, meal, or cakes, with oil and frankincense. It was
burned on the altar, either alone, or with the bloody sacriflce. Lev. ii. 1^ ; v. 6.
' See Lev. xxvi. 25, 26.

FIEST TEAKS OF JEHOIAKIM. 271
BWord and famine. 16. And the ' corpses of the people to whom they
prophesy will be thrown out on the streets of Jerusalem, through
famine and the sword, and no one will bury either thera, their wives,
their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour out (the pumshment) of
their wickedness upon them. 17. Say all this unto them ! "
Such a reply from God fills the soul of Jeremiah with the
profoundest sorrow.
" Mine eyes flow down with tears, night and day, without ceasing!
Por the virgin daughter '' of my people has received a terrible blow ;
she is grievously hurt. 18. If I go out to the open country, there lie
men slain with the sword ; if I come into the city, behold there is the
pestilence that comes after famine! And even the prophet and the
priest wander round (begging), and know not whither to go! 19.
Hast Thou, then, utterly rejected Judah? Is Thy soul tired of Zion?
Why hast Thou smitten us, so that there is no healing for us? We
look for good and no good comes to us ; for a time of healing, and,
behold there is only terror! 20. We acknowledge, 0 Jehovah, our
wickedness — the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against
Thee; 21. Yet, cast us not off, for Thy name's sake; do not dishonour
(this city Jerusalem), the Throne of Thy glory, ^ Call to remem
brance, break not Thy covenant with us! 33. Is there among the
idols ' of the nations any one that can bring (the) rain (we so much
need)? Or can the skies (of themselves) give showers? Is it not
Thou, our God, 0 Jehovah (who alone canst do this), and on whom
only, therefore, we should wait; for Thou hast ordered all these
things." But, once again, Jehovah utterly rejects all entreaty on
behalf of Judah.
"XV. 1. But Jehovah answered and said:' If (both) Moses and Sam
uel ° (the greatest men of the Church) stood (pleading) before Me, My
' Jer. xiv. 16-33. ^ Jemsalem.
8 Through having the temple.
* Literally, "vanities," primarily "breaths," then "emptinesses," " things of no
worth." ' Jer. XV. 1-8.
• See Exod. xvii. 11 ; xxxii. 11-14. Nam, xiv. 13-20. 1 Sam. vii. 9 ; xii. 33. Ps.
xcix. 6.

273 FIEST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM.
soul could not be toward this people. Send them away from before My
face (with their offerings and prayers), and let them leave My temple
(where they have gathered to supplicate My favour).' 2. And when
they say to you, 'Where shall we go?' say to them — Thus has Je
hovah told me to say to you. Let him who is to die, go forth to his
death ! him who is to fall by the sword, to the sword ! him who is to
fall by famine, to famine ! and him who is to die in captivity, to cap
tivity! 3. I appoint four destroyers,* says Jehovah: The sword to
slay, the dogs to tear (and fight over the corpse) ; '" the birds of the air,
and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy. 4. And I give
them up to be ill treated' among all the kingdoms of the earth, be
cause of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for what he
did in Jerusalem. 5. For who will have pity on thee, 0 Jerusalem;
who will shew sympathy for thee; who will move a foot to ask how it
fares with thee? 6. Thou hast rejected Me, says Jehovah, turning
thy back to Me; and therefore I will stretch out My hand against
thee, and destroy thee: I am weary of relenting. 7. I will scatter
them in the gates of all the towns of the land as with a (broad)
winnowing shovel (as men scatter the chaff on the open-air thresh
ing floors) ; I will bereave thee of thy children ; I will destroy ' My
people; they have not turned back from their evil ways! 8. Their
widows will be more in number before Me (when I destroy their hus
bands) than the sands of the seas ; I wiU bring on them, against the
mothers ' of the young warriors,' a spoiler, at noon (when they least
expect him) ; I will cause anguish and mortal terror to fall on them
suddenly. 9. She that has borne seven sons will droop, and breathe "
out her soul (for her sons have fallen and she has no one to protect
her); her sun will go dovra while it is yet day; she will be put to
shame and confusion. As to the remnant of the people left, I will
give them to the sword before their enemies, saith Jehovah."
Such an awful answer from God overpowers the prophet.
To announce it will make all men his enemies. He wishes
his mother had never borne him !
' Jer. xiv. 12. 2 Literally, " kinds." ' Literally, " to drag around."
< "I will make them a horror or shuddering," Hitzig, Graf, Sachs, Naegelsbach,
Fflrst, Eichhorn; "a sport of the wind," Ewald; "an object of derision," De
Wette. As in the text, Keil, Gesenius, Knobel, Mflhlau and Volck. See Deut.
xxviii. 25, where this threat is made in the same words.
' The verbs are all in the perfect, expressing God's purpose.
" Literally, "mother." ' Literally, "the young man." • Jer. xv. 9-14.

FIKST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM. 273
" 10. Woe is me, my mother,' that thou hast borne me, to be a man
of strife and contention with all the land (by having to deliver such a
terrible message)! I havo neither lent money nor borrowed it,* yet all
curse me."
But now comes the comforting reply of Jehovah.
"11. (Yet) verily, thy trouble, says Jehovah, will turn to thy good; '
verily I will cause thy enemies ¦* to come as suppliants to thee in the
time of evil and of need.' 13. Can one break northern iron and
bronze ? 13. (As little canst thou hope that the power of the Chal-
daean kingdom, the northern conqueror, will be broken.) Thy sub
stance and thy treasures, 0 Judah, will I freely ° give to it for booty,
in all thy borders, on account of thy sins. 14. And I will make thee
serve thine enemy in a land which thou knowest not; for a flre is kin
dled in my anger,' which shall burn against thee! "
The prophet, however, is oppressed by the thought of the
persecution he suffers, and turns on his enemies, appealing
to God for their punishment.
"15. O Jehovah, Thou knowest! Remember me and look upon
me,' and revenge me on my persecutors. In Thy longstiffering (towards
them) take me not away (let them not destroy me). Consider that
it is for Thy sake I suffer reproach. 16. Thy words came to me,° and
I, as it were, devoured them. Thy words were the joy and rejoicing of
my heart, for I bear Thy name, 0 Jehovah of Hosts. 17. I did not sit
in the assembly of the rejoicing, nor make glad with them: I sat alone
(far from all pleasure), because Thy hand was upon me. Por Thou hast
filled me with Thy wrath. 18. Why is my suffering continual ? why
is my wound incurable ? why will it not heal ? Wilt Thou be indeed
like a deceitful stream to me, like waters that pass away and leave
their bed dry?"
' Jer. XV. 10-18. = Deut. xxiii, 19, Ps, xv, 5.
3 This is Hitzig's rendering, Gesenius has, "I will atdict theefor thy good." So
Naegelsbach, Others, "I have strengthened thee for good," Still others, "Thy
losing is for good "—a slightly different reading in the Hebrew causing these varia
tions. The sense evidently is, " In the troublous times.to come thou shalt surely be
delivered." ¦• Literally, " the enemy." « Fulfilled, chap. xxi. 1, 2 ; xxxvii. 3 ; xiii. 2.
^ " Without price." t Quoted from Deut. xxxii. 22.
* Literally, " visit me." " Literally, " were found."
VOL. V._18

274 FIEST TEAKS OF JEHOIAKIM.
Jehovah answers, rebuking the prophet's impatience.
"19. Then answered Jehovah thus:' If thou returnest to Me (and
givest up these doubts and reproaches), I will take ^ thee back (as My
servant), to stand before Me, and if thou bringest forth (in thy heart)
good, instead of unworthy, thoughts (of Me), thou shalt be My mouth,"
and thy enemies will turn to thee (asking thy prayers) ; not thou go to
them (seeking help in thy need). 20. And I will make thee a strong
brazen wall to this people, so that though they fight against thee they
shall not prevail. Por I shall be with thee, to save thee and to deliver
thee, says Jehovah. 31. And I will save thee from the hand of the
wicked and deliver thee from the fist of the violent."
SimUar communications were made by God to the prophet
at different times. One opens by directing him how to act
in his personal relations, in view of the approaching ruin
of his country. He is not to marry, for the children and
parents of Jerusalem are doomed to a wretched death ; he is
not to mourn, for God will presently punish without shew
ing mercy ; and he is not to rejoice with his friends, for all
joy will soon be taken away from the land.
" XVI. 1. The word of Jehovah came to me (another time), saying,
3. Thou shalt not take a wife, or have either sons or daughters in this
place." 3. Por thus says Jehovah respecting the sons and the daugh
ters who shall be born here, and respecting their mothers who bear
them, and respecting their fathers that begat them in this land. 4.
They shall die grievous deaths; ° there will be no smiting of the breast
or wailing for them," nor shall they even be buried, but they shall be-
' Jer. XV. 19-xvi. 4. ^ Literally, "hring." ' Exod. iv. 16.
* He must have been living in Jerusalem at tdis time.
' Literally, " deaths of diseases."
s " Fifteen to twenty wqmen, clad in black, with a dark-coloured cloth over their
heads, assemble before the door of the dead person. A hand-drum is beaten by one
of them, and the others move round in a circle to the time of the beating, singing
aloud the praises of the dead raan or woman, and striking their hands together twenty
or thirty times a minute, before their face, letting their arms forthwith fall to their
full length. One or other, moreover, each moment shrieks aloud with a shrill, pierc
ing ery. The lamentations last seven days, during which the nearest female relatives
of the dead visit Ihe grave, attended by some of the mourning women, who utter

FIEST TEAKS OF JEHOIAKIM. 275
come as dung on the face of the land. They shall be consumed by the
sword and by hunger, and their corpses shall be food to the birds of
the air, and the beasts of the earth.
" 5. Jehovah says, further: ' Enter not a house where they are lifting
up the wail, or holding a funeral feast ;^ join not in the lament, nor
shew sympathy ; for I have taken away My blessing from this people,
says Jehovah, My grace and My pity. 0. Both great and small ^ shall
die in this land, and remain unburied, and no one will raise the wail
for them,* or cut themselves (for them), or shave their heads for them,'
7. nor will they break bread to any one while he mourns, to comfort
him (in his sorrow) for tho dead, nor reach him the cup of consolation,
even for his own father or mother.^ 8. And do not go into the house
of feasting, to sit (with the company), eating and drinking. 9. Por
thus has Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, spoken : Be
hold, I will silence, in this place, before your eyes, and in your lifetime,
the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bride
groom and the voice of the bride." '
The cause of this terrible judgment is repeated.
"10. And when thou tellest people all these words, and they say to
thee : Why has Jehovah spoken all this great evil against us ? and what
is our sin, or our iniquity that we have committed against our God ?
11. Say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken Me, and gone
after other gods, and served and worshipped them, and have forsaken
these piercing shrieks from time to time, as they go through the streets to tbe place
of burial." Kosenmiiller's A. und N. Morgenland, vol. iv. p. 374,
' Jer. xvi. 5-11.
2 The word for " mourning" is translated " banquet," in Amos vi, 7.
3 Old and young,
* No one dared to lament those who died uuder the wrath of au earthly king ; so,
now, witb those who die through the wrath of God,
^ Two signs of mourning common among ancient nations, but prohibited to Israel,
Lev, xix, 28. Deut. xiv. 1.
* Breaking bread and drinking the cup of consolation, refers to the practice of
sending bread and wine to the relations of a dead persou, to comfort them in their
sorrow. ' " On the occasion of a marriage the women go in a procession from the house of the
bridegroom to fetch the bride, who is brought amidst the joyfu] cries of the women,
and in tbe company of her mother and other female relations. Tbe procession is
always by day, and generally ahout three iu the aftemoon. Verses suited to the
occasion are sung as an epitha'amium, by women hired for the purpose, or by female
slaves ; all the women raising" a piercing cry of joy at the end of each verse, as a
chorus. A hired band also plays before the procession, and such of the women in It
as bave good voices join loudly in the songs." EusseU's Aleppo, vol. i. p. 406.

276 FIEST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM.
Me, and have not kept My law,' 12. and you have done worse than your
fathers; for, behold, ye walk, every one after the stubbornness of your
evil heart, and will not give heed to Me: 13. For this, I will hurl you
out of this land, unto the land which you do not know, and your fathers
knew not ; there, ye may serve other gods, day and night, for I will
shew you no favour ! "
But if the punishment is to be terrible, the Divine mercy,
still unexhausted, will ultimately vouchsafe a wondrous
deliverance. " 14. Yet, behold, a time will come, says Jehovah, when they will no
longer swear 'By the life of Jehovah who brought up the sons of
Israel from the land of Egypt,' 15. but ' By the life of Jehovah who
brought the sons of Israel from the land of the North, and from all
the lands to which He had driven them.' For I will bring them back
to the land which I gave to their fathers."
But though the Divine grace will be shewn in the end,
the nation must, meanwhile, be carried away in successive
deportations, to foreign lands.
" 16. Behold, I will send for many fishers, says Jehovah, and they
will fish ^ them out, and, afterwards, I will send for many hunters,
and they will hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill,
and from the clefts of the rocks.^ 17. For My eyes are upon all their
ways : they are not hid from Me, and their iniquity is not hid from
My eyes. 18. And I will thus requite their two-fold sin ' with a two
fold punishment (the horrors of war and the pains of captivity, before
I restore them to their land). Because they defiled My land with their
mock gods, foul as dead carcases,^ and filled My inheritance with their
loathsome idols."
The prophet breaks out into an expression of his con
viction that the justice of God, thus shewn, will increase
the Divine glory.
1 Jeremiah takes for granted that their lathers had the law. Jer. xvi. 12-18.
2 See Amos iv. 2. 3 Isa. vii. 19. i See Jer. ii. 13.
' " Carcasss " may mean the sacriflces, clean or unclean, offered to idols, or the
idols themselves, which, alike, polluted any one who touched them, as a dead body
did. But it seems belter to think of the idols as mere dead forms, in opposition to
the living God.

FIEST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM. 277
"19. 0 Jehovah, my strength, and my fortress,' and my refuge in
the day of adversity, to Thee wiU the nations come from the ends of
the earth, and say, ' Our fathers inherited only false and worthless
gods, in whom no help is to be found. 30. ShaU man make to him
self gods, which are yet no gods ? ' "
Jehovah answers :
"21. Because of this, behold, I will this time (by My awful judg
ments) cause men to acknowledge Me ; to acknowledge My hand
and My inight, and that My name is Jehovah. XVII. 1. The sin of
Judah is graved with an iron tool,' and cut with a diamond point'
(which alone are hard enough), on the (flinty) tablet of their heart,
and on the horns of their altars. 2. Their children wiU remember
(with horror) the altars of their fathers, and their Asherahs, under the
green trees, on the high hills.* 3. O Thou (Judah), My mountain in
(the richly bedewed) field,* thy substance and thy treasures will I give
to the spoil, thy heights (around thee) in all thy borders, beoause of thy
sin.' 4. And thou, even thou, by thine own fault, wilt be torn away
from thine heritage that I gave thee, and I will cause thee to serve
thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not. For ye have
kindled the fire of My wrath and it will burn for ever."
The verses that follow seem to have been a separate dis
course, occasioned by the public and private wickedness
' Jer. xvi. 19-xvii. 4. ' Job xix. 24,
3 The ancients were well acquainted with the cutting powers of the diamond, and set
it in iron, as isnowdonef or the use of glaziers. Sp. Comm., quoting Pliny, Bist. Nat.,
xxxvii. 15. The Hebrew word for diamond means, primarily, a thom, or a flnger-nail.
See art. " Edelsteine," Bib. Lex. It seems, however, as if Assyria threw light on this
passage. The word for " tablet " is tliat which is nsed for the clay tablets of
Nineveh, and fhe pen, of course, would thus be the metal style employed for impress
ing characters on them. "The poiut of a diamond" is very frequently an expres-
siou suggested by the fact that the poor made marks with their nails ou these
tablets, in place of signing them : the word meaning, as stated above, both nail aud
diamond. The tablets of Tel Amarna shew us that eveu before tbe time of Joshua
clay tablets stamped with cuneiform writing were in use over all Western Asia.
4 This diJicult passage may be variouslj' rendered. Perhaps it means, that
their altar.-i remind men of child sacrifices ; the trees on the hills, of Asherahs ; or,
that they love their altars and their groves as passionately as they love their children ,
fi Eichhorn. See Jer. xviii. 14 ; xxi. 13.
^ Hitzig thinks the hill district round Jerusalem is to be given up as a sin-qffering,
to be utterly destroyed by the enemy.

278

FIEST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM.

around him; the harsh treatment he himself received weigh
ing heavily on his mind.
" 5. Thus says Jehovah,' Cursed is the man who trusts in man and
makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Jehovah. 6.
He shall be like the stunted juniper '^ in the barren desert. He will
not see good when it comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the

-HtM--

:-'-*f*S«'^.*'.

?fc

.'-¦+'.

A "Watered Garden."
wilderness ; a salt and uninhabited land. 7. But blessed is the raan
who trusts in Jehovah, aud whose confldence Jehovah is. 8. He shall
bo as a tree planted by the waters ; ' that stretches out its roots to the
' Jer. xvii. 5-8.
= iSTot " heath," as in A.V. There is uo true heath in Palestine south ot tho lower
Lebanon. The mistake has risen from the Arabic word 'Azar, the dwarf juniper,
being similar in sound to that used in our text. Chap, xlviii, fi, where "heath"
again occurs, is to be translated as above. The word means '• stripped," " naked ;''
he^ce, "homeless," "lost," "destitute.'
" The rivulets of irrigation iu Eaetern gardens.

FIEST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM. 379
stream, and does not fear when the heat comes ; but its leaves will be
still green ; and in the year of drought it will not be troubled, or
cease to bear fruit.'
"9. The heart is deceitful above all things.' It is wofully sick.'
Who can know it ?
" 10. I, Jehovah, search the heart and try the reins, to give every
man according to his way; according to the fruit of his deeds.
" 11. As the partridge (is said to) sit* on eggs (which she has not
laid), and to hatch tbcm, (only to see the young ere long leave her,') so
is he who gets riches and not by right. He wiil leave them in the
midst of his days," and at his end will be a fool."
These reflections sustain the prophet in his personal
troubles, and turning his thoughts to Jehovah, his strength
and refuge, he addresses the temple as His dwelling.
" 13. Thou Throne of Glory, exalted from of old ; thou place of Our
Sanctuary! 13. Jehovah, Thou hope of Israel, all that forsake Thee
shall be put to shame! They that turn from Thee shall be written in
the dust ' (not in the rock) ; beoause they have forsaken Jehovah, the
fountain of living waters.'
"14. Heal me ! Jehovah, and I shall be healed ; help me, and I shall
be helped, for Thou art my praise! 13. Behold, they say to me,
' Where is the word of Jehovah ? Is it still to be fulfiUed ? ' 16.1 have
never drawn back from being a leader," foUowing Thee, nor have I
wished for the coming of the woful day (I had to predict) ; Thou know
est. That which came ont of my lips lay always open before Thee.
17. Be not a terror to me; Thou art my refuge in the day of evil.
' The same image as in Ps. i.
» Jer. xvii. 9-18.
3 The word is translated in chap. xv. 18 ; xxx. 12, " incurable."
* Or, heaps up (nnder ir),
' This popular fancy of Jeremiah's day is illustrated by Eichhorn from a hen
halching ducks' eggs. The ducklings follow their own nature and very soon leave
the foster mother. Another translation is : " Gathereth young which he has not
brought forth, so is be . he shall," but it seems inferior to that which I
have given, from Eichhorn aud others.
« Eichhorn reads, " They will leave him," etc. So the Septuagint.
-' In India, children at school are often made to write on a smooth surface of sand
etrewn on the ground for the purpose, the writing being aftenvards effaced to renew
the smoothness,
e Jer. il. 13 ; ix. 1. • Literally, " shepherd."

280 FIEST TEAES OF JEHOIAKIM.
18. Let my persecutors be put to shame, but let not me be put to
shame. Let them be made afraid, but let not me be made afraid.
Bring upon them the day of evil, and smite them with an utter
destruction." '
Such were some of the utterances of Jeremiah in the
dark months after Josiah's death. God was invisible then
as now ; secondary causes as numerous and active. The
mass of men had as little faith in the unseen as they have
to-day ; accounting for all things as glibly, without refer
ence to a higher power, as any modern philosopher. Yet
here stands a man to whom God is the one great reality in
Whom all things, literally, live and have their being, the
true King of the world and of each man in it. His law is
the one rule of life, transgression of which must be de
nounced, and obedience to which, by a nation or individual,
is imperative, under the most terrible penalties ! How
comes it that such ancient faith has so wholly faded from
among Christian mankind ? "Where shall we to-day look for
a preacher, fearless, plain-spoken, earnest, sincere, like Jere
miah ? If he were among us, would he fare much better
than the prophet ?
> Literally, " double." See Jer. xvi. 18.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE PEOPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE.
Excepting the few verses in the historical books of Scrip
ture, the prophecies of Jeremiah are the only source of our
knowledge of the reign of Jehoiakim. Fortunately, how
ever, the discourses of the prophet throw light incidentally
on many characteristics of the times, while episodes of per
sonal and public history are introduced, which bring the
great preacher and his contemporaries for the moment
vividly before us.
One of the first marks of growing religious laxity, after
the death of Josiah, had been seen in the neglect of the Sab
bath, contrary to the express command of the Law, which
the nation had so recently pledged itself to observe. Alike
in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy,' the honouring of
that day by a total cessation from work, is commanded as a
fundamental duty ; to mark the wide difference between
Israel and other nations, to foster religious reverence, and to
give a religious tone to public and private life. Such a pos
itive requirement supplied a simple and ready test of the
spiritual condition of the community ; for the bias towards
obedience or disobedience to the Divine will was decisively
marked by its observance or neglect. In his earlier dis
courses the prophet had exposed the sins of classes and indi
viduals unsparingly, and announced the threatenings of the
1 Exod. XX. 8-11 ; xxxi, 13, 14. Lev. xix. 3, 30 ; xxvi. 3, Dcut, v. 12-15.

382 THE PEOPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE.
Divine indignation. Could this mode of address be to
blame for the miscarriage of his ministry ? Had he re
pelled rather than encouraged ? He would at least try what
effect it would have, simply to exhort to a right course ; to
remind his fellow-citizens of the eternal distinction between
right and wrong ; withholding, meanwhile, all threatenings.
But the experiment met with no success. Instead of win
ning over his hearers, he had to bear a fresh series of perse
cutions ' so bitter, that endurance once more gave way, and
his human weakness broke out in imprecations against his
enemies ; '' foes alike of God and of His prophet.
Yet, however imperilled, he eould not be silent. Perhaps
another variation in his mode of address might arrest atten
tion and do good. He would shew by a simple emblematic
act how the fate of the nation was in the hands of God,° and
leave the lesson to quiet reflection. But this course also, as
we shall see, was a failure. His fellow-citizens "hardened
their necks, that they might not hear his voice," ¦" and noth
ing, therefore, was left but to utter once more the terrible
judgments impending over such inveterate stubbornness.
The short discourse respecting the Sabbath, though re
peated at the town gates, ° was first delivered, apparently, at
the great central entrance to the outer court of the temple,
used by all classes except the priests and Levites, who appear
to have had doors at the sides for themselves. The Sabbath
in its strict legal conception had already ceased to be kept.
Instead of a day of rest, it was one of the busiest days of
the week. Ordinary work being suspended, the population
occupied itself with marketing, and disturbed the sacred
house by the clamour and bustle of a fair. If we may judge
• Jer. xviii. 18, 20. » Jer. xviii. 21, 22. » Jer. xviii.
* Jer. xviii. 15. * Jer. xvii, 19.

THE PEOPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HI.S AGE. 283
from the state of things at a later time, under Xehemiah,
Jerusalem had almost less quiet on the seventh day than
on any other. The country people brought ¦'• wares and
victuals," ' '¦' wine, grapes, figs," and aU kinds of produce,
into the city, for sale. A local colony of Phoenician traders,
having, as heathens, no scruple about the day, added to the
disorder and unseemliness, by exposing for "sale dried fish
from the sea, and from the Lake of (5alUee, while the towns
men, generaUy, spread out aU kinds of wares ^ in their
booths, for the peasantry and the citizens. Xor was this
desecration of the Sabbath limited to Jerusalem. It pre
vaUed over the country at large. The wine -presses were
trodden on the sacred day, the sheaves of the harvest carried
on asses and camels to the threshing floors, and, doubtless,
aU other rural occupations pursued as through the week.
Against such a clamant violation of the Law wliich the
nation had so recently pledged itself before God to honour,
Jeremiah remonstrated earnestly.
" XV 11. 21, Thus says Jehovah,* cried he. Take heed in yonr hearts,'
and neither bear any bnrden on the sabbath day, nor bring one in
through the gates of Jerusalem, "22. nor carry one out of yonr houses
on the sabbath day, nor do any work, but haUow the sabbath day, as
I commanded your fathers." 23. But they did not obey, but stiffened
their neck (in haughty deflance) and would not hearken or receive in
struction. 24. Tet, if ye honestly listen to Me, says Jehovah, to
bring no burden througli the gates of the city on the sabbath day, but
hallow it, by doing no work on it, 25. kings and piinc-es, sitting on
the throne of David, riding in chariots or on horses, with their great
men, the men of Judah, and the citizens of Jerusalem, shall enter
through the gates of this city, and it wiQ remain for ever. 26. And
people will come from the cities of Judah and the neighbourhood of
1 ;N'eb. X. 31, * Literally, "burdens," Xeh. xiii, 15, 16,
'Jer. xvlLS, * Jer. xvii. 21-26. ' Literally, "eouls,"
• If, as the new critics say. Jeremiah leamed the Sabbath Law from Deoteronomy,
he believed itto be an ancient book, known to their fathers.

284 THE PEOPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE.
Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjarain, and from the slopes of the
Shephelah ' (on the west), and from the mountains (to the east), and
from the Negeb ^ (on the south), bringing whole burnt offerings, and or.
dinary sacrifices, and flour and oil offerings, and incense and thanks
givings ' to the House of Jehovah.
" 27. But if ye will not hearken to Me,' to hallow the sabbath day,
and not to bear a burden as ye enter through the gates of Jerusalem
on the sabbath day, I will kindle a flre in its gates,' and it shall con
sume the palaces of Jemsalem, and shall not be quenched."
This kindly warning, however, was as fruitless as the
other appeals of the prophet. Another form of address
still remained. He would try what effect a striking sym
bolical act on his part would have ; one specially fitted to
disarm hostility, by its shewing the possibility of the judg
ment of God being even yet averted by a timely repentance.
" XVIII. 1. The word of Jehovah, he began,' oame to me, saying :
2. Rise, and go down to the pottery (in the valley nnder the town), and
I will there make a communication to you. 3. And I went down to
the pottery, and behold, the potter was at work on his two wheels." 4.
But when the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in his hand,
^ Vol. ill. p. 5.
2 Vol. ii. 362. This passage shews the country still held by Judah : " the land ot
Benjamin" to the north ; the Shephelah— or slopes of the western hills—the moan-
tains reaching from the Shephelah to the Dead Sea ; and the Negeb, or uplands of
the south.
3 Todah. This is the word rendered "sacrifice of praise" in our version. Itis
frequently translated simply as " giving thanks," Neh. xii. 37, 31, 38, 40. "Thanks
giving," Ps. xxvi. 7 ; 1. 14 ; Ixix. 30. " Praise," xiii. 4 : 1. 23 ; Ivi. 13.
* Jer. xvii. 27-xviii. 4.
^ I will let loose an enemy on it, who shall do so.
^ On the potter's wheel, etc., see Eriiiken und Studien, 1834, pp. 81, fE. ; 626, ff. ;
641, fl. At a village on the Dardanelles I saw a potter at work. He sat on a raised
bench behind his frame, aud turned his " wheels " with his foot, by a footboard. A
pan of water aud a heap of prepared clay were on the frame before him. Taking a
lump of the clay and laying it on the wheel, which revolved horizontally, he rounded
it into a low cone, dipping his haud in the water as he did so. to'moisten its outside.
Then thrusting his thumb into the top of the cone, the wheel all the time going round,
he made a hole which increased with every revolution. Meanwhile his wet hands
pressed against the exterior, shaped the vessel as he thought fit. Of the " two wheels "
in the text, one was simply to communicate motion, from the treadle, to the other
placed above it.

THE PllOPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE. 285
he made another vessel of it, such as he thought fit. 5. And (as I was
looking,) ' the word of Jehovah came to me, saying : 0. Cannot I do
with you, O House of Israel, as this potter (does with the clay) ? says
Jehovah. Behold, as the clay is in the hand of the potter (to do what
he pleases with it), so you are in My hand, 0 House of Israel ! 7. At
one time I speak respeoting a nation or kingdom, to. pluck it up, to
pull it down and to destroy it. 8. But if that nation against which
I have spoken, turn from its wickedness, I repent of the evil I had
purposed to do to it. 9. At another time I speak respecting a nation
or kingdom, to build it up and to plant it. 10. But if it do evil in
My sight, not listening to My voice, then I repent of the good I had
promised to shew it.
"11. Speak, now, to the men of Judah and to the citizens of
Jerusalem, and say : Thus says Jehovah : Behold, I am framing evil
against you, and meditating a design against you. Return ye, every
one, from his evil course, and reform your ways and your deeds."
The prophet, however, hesitates to speak to the people any
more ; they will only turn a deaf ear to him once more.
" 13. But 'they keep on saying, ' It is all useless your speaking ;
we will follow our own thoughts, and will each carry out the stubborn
ness of his evil heart.' "
God therefore replies —
"13. Thus says Jehovah : Ask even the heathen! "Who has heard
suoh things? The Virgin of Israel has done a deed that makes one
shudder! 14. Does tho snow of Lebanon^ fail from the rocks of the
mountains?' Or do the cold flowing waters, that come from distant
and (unknown) sources, dry up? 15. (ISTature is constant,) yet My
people have forgotten Me. They burn incense to their no-gods, but they
have made them stumble in their ways — the (firm and smooth) paths
of old times — and have led them into (rough) tracks, not cast np or
made. 16. Thus my people will make their land an astonishment,
a perpetual scof&ng, every one that passes through it will be aston
ished, and will shake his head (in amazement)! 17. I will scatter
them for this before their enemy, as with a (fierce) storm * from the
' J'er. xviii. 5-17.
2 Lebanon = "the white," from the limestone rock, or from the snow.
' Literally, " of the field " = open country.
* Jer. xiii, 24. The burning sii'occo, or east wind, is meant.

386 THE PROPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE.
east. I wiU turn My back to them, not My face, in the day of their
calamity." But this address only increased the fury of the prophet's
enemies. "18. 'Come,"- said they to the crowd, 'let us lay a plot against
Jeremiah ; for knowledge of the Law ' shall not be lost from the priest,
nor counsel from the wise, nor revelation of God's word frora the
prophet, (although Jeremiah perish). Come, let us smite him with the
tongue, (by reporting his words to the king, and bearing false witness
against him,) and let us pay no attention to any of his words.' "
Suoh determined malignity roused the indignation of the
prophet, and for the moment overpowered his gentler na
ture. A son of the Old Testament, not of the New, he met
their hatred with the fierce imprecations familiar to Orien
tals in all ages, and yet to be read in some of the Psalms.
"19. Give heed to me, O Jehovah, and hearken to the voice of my
adversaries ! 20. Shall evil be repaid (me) for (the) good (I have
sought them),' that they dig a pit for my life ? Think how I stood
before Thee to seek good for them; to turn away Thy wrath from
them. 21. Therefore, give Thou their sons to hunger;' deliver them
to the sword ! Let their wives be made childless and widows ! Let
their strong men be given over to death, their young men be smitten
' Jer. xviii. 18-21.
2 The multitude claim for the priests the knowledge of tbe Law, strictly so
called, which was committed to their keeping and study, though, as in other Cliurches
besides Ihe Jewish, they were far enough, at some periods, from being worthy of
their office. ' Jer. xiv, 7, 21,
4 Orientals have in all ages been giveu to imprecation. The following is part (>f
the curses prononnced against Russian Jews who venture in the smallest particular
to disobey the commands of their Rabbis. It is quoted from a recent number ot the
Century Magazine : " May the Lord's calamity hasten to overtake him ; God the
Creator break him, bend him ! May fiends encounter him 1 May be be accursed
wherever he stands ! May lbe Lord visit him with consumption, brain fever, inflam-
maliou, insanity, ulcers, and jaundice I May he be as chaff which the wind drives
before it, and may the Angel of God pursue bim I May he encounter direst despair,
and may he fall into the net spread for his feet by God ! He shall be clothed with
curses as with a garment. And God shall give no forgiveness to this man, but pour
Hia wrath and His vengeance upon him ; and all the curses shall enter into hiin that
arc written in the Law."

THE PROPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE. 287
in battle by the sword! 22. Let a cry come from their houses,' when
Thou bringest on them a band of fighting men .suddenly ; for they
have dug a pit to take me, and have laid snares for my feet. 23. But
Thou, Jehovah, knowest all their deadly plot against me! Do not
forgive their iniquity, or blot out their sin from Thy sight ! Let them
be overthrown before Thee ! In the time of Thine anger deal Thou
with them ! "
The obduracy and malignity of Judah had been borne
with till now, but the cup of its sin was at last full. The
irrevocable sentence of doom could no longer be delayed.
A Divine intimation, conveyed to Jeremiah we know not
how, directed him, therefore, to buy one of the ordinary
small, narrow-mouthed bottles, of common coarse red earth
enware, still used by the peasants to hold their drinking
water. He was then to summon the elders of the people
and of the priests, as leading men of the community, and go
with them to the Potsherd Gate, at the south-west corner of
the city, over the Valley of Hinnom ; a spot still marked by
a vast accumulation of fragments of ancient earthenware.
There he was to repeat a message God had charged him to
deliver to them, and, as he did so, he was to throw down the
bottle at their feet, and shiver it to pieces, as a signiflcant
enforcement of his words. Jerusalem was finally given over
to destruction. It would be destroyed as utterly as the jar,
shattered to fragments in their sight. Nor was this the
only lesson. To break a bottle or jar beside any one, is still
the familiar expression, in Palestine, of strong detestation of
the person thus marked, and, as it were, an imprecation on
him and his of utter and final destruction. The burden
which the prophet was commissioned to utter was as follows :
" XIX. 3. Hear the words of Jehovah, ye kings of Ju,dah and inhab
itants of Jerusalem ! Thus says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel :
1 Jer. xviii. 22-zix. 8.

288 THE PROPHET FACE TO F.VCE WITH HIS AGE.
Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which will make the ears of
every one who hears of it tingle ! 4. Because they have forsaken Me,
and treated this place as if it were profane ground,' and have burned
incense in it to other gods, which neither they, nor their fathers, nor
the kings of Judah have known : (because of this,) and (also because
they) have filled this place with the blood of innocent children, 5, and
built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the flre as offerings
to Baal ; which I neither commanded, nor have spoken of, and which
never even came into !My mind : 6, therefore, behold the days come,
says Jehovah, that this place shall no longer be called the Tophet, or
the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.' 7. And I
will empty out (on the dust) the counsels of Judah and Jerusalem in
this place (as this water is now poured from this vessel)."
Here, the prophet probably enforced his words, by empty
ing the water-bottle on the ground as he uttered them.
"And I wiU cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies,
and by the hands of those that seek their lives, and I will give their
corpses for meat to the birds of tho heavens, and the beasts of the
earth ; 8. and I will make this city au astonishment and a soofBng ;
every one that passes through it will be astonished and hiss at its mis
fortunes.^ 9. And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and of
their daughters ; ' every one, indeed, will eat the flesh of his friend, in
the siege and straitness with which their enemies, and those that seek
their lives, will hem them in. 10. Then thou shalt break the bottle,
in the sight of the men that go with thee,''
At this point the prophet, as directed, suddenly dashed
to the ground the water-bottle in his hand, and, as it flew
into a thousand pieces, went on —
"11. Even so, says Jehovah of hosts, will I shatter this people and this
city, as this bottle, which cannot be made whole again, has been shat
tered. And they will bury their dead (even) in (a polluted spot like)
Tophet, because no room is left elsewhere. 12. Thus will I do to this
place, says Jehovah, and to its inhabitants, and make this place like
(the foul) Tophet (close to us here in this valley). 13. And the houses of
1 Literally, " foreign, or strange," Jer. xix. 4-13.
" These verses are a repetition of chap, vii, 31, 32.
' Literally, "its blows."
* Deut. xxviii. 53-57. Lev. xxvi. 29, Lam. iv, 10.

THE PROPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE. 289
Jerusalem and of the kings of Judah will be like the place of the
unclean Tophet — (the abhorrence) — yea, all the houses will be polluted
on whose roofs they have burnt incense to the Host of Heaven, and
poured out drink offerings to other gods."
If a dervish were to tell a crowd at Mecca that, as a
punishment for the wickedness of the inhabitants, the city
would be taken by the infidel, and the Great Mosque, the
centre of the Mohammedan world — too holy for any Jew or
Christian even to approach — the El Haram, the Inviolable,
the Sacred — ^be turned into a slaughter-house for pigs, the
execration of the Mussulman faith — it would be something
similar to Jeremiah's declaration that Jerusalem and its
Temple, the object of a superstitious reverence, would be
trampled under foot by the Chaldaean, and turned into a
Tophet, the scene of human sacrifice — a spot fit only to be
spat upon and abhorred, the very name of which was used
as an equivalent for all that was vilest and most despised.'
Popular indignation would inevitably be roused in the
bigoted population of the centre of Islam in the one
case, and was set ablaze in that of the Holy City in the
other. Truths so unpalatable would have been hard to bear under
any circumstances ; but Jeremiah was not contented with
uttering them only to his first small audience. Moving
from the Potsherd Gate and the neighbourhood of Tophet,
he made his way to the forecourt of the temple,'' in which
the people at the moment were gathered ; perhaps especially
to invoke the protection and favour of Jehovah. Taking his
stand among them, it may be on the steps leading up to the
' In Job xxx, 10, the second clause should be read ; " And I am become as one in
whose face men spit" — literally, "a Tophet." Our translators have used the word
" Tophet " as equivalent to a drum, the Hebrew for which i.s very like it.
2 Jer. xix. 14 ; xx. 1.
VOL. v.— 19

290 THE PKOPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE.
inner court, he startled the worshippers by proclaiming in
the name of Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, amidst a
storm of loud taunts and mockeries,' that He was about to
bring on Jerusalem, and every town of the kingdom,' all the
evil He had spoken against it, because they had hardened
their necks," that they might not hear the Divine words.
In his address at the Potsherd Gate he had denounced only
Jerusalem. Now, the whole country was included in the
approaching doom. Only a sentence of this second address
is given, but it was evidently even fuller and more explicit
than that just delivered at the city gate. To invade the
very temple itself, thus, with a proclamation of its speedy
ruin and profanation, seemed a defiance of its authorities,
and an intolerable outrage on public feeling. Such a daring
speaker, so regardless of all propriety, so unabashed in his
bearing towards constituted dignities, so free in his charges
against every one, could no longer be endured. He had only
spoken the words put in his mouth by God ; but then, as now,
with very rare exceptions, to be a popular preacher meant to
avoid offending the hearers and keep one's self-interest well
in mind. For sermons immeasurably less severe than the
addresses of Jeremiah, Latimer, the prophet-preacher of the
Eeformation, is still denounced by the parasites of Eome,
three centuries after his martyrdom, as vulgar and personal.
Human nature has been always the same. A man so offen
sive as to speak the truth, must be taught manners. Instead
of muffling the drum ecclesiastic to spare polite ears, he had
beaten it as if he meant that all should hear. Instead of
confining himself to generalities, he had brought the truth
home. He had used his oflice seriously, not as a shrewd
* See verses 7, 8.
' Literally, " her towns ; " that is, towns subject to Jerusalem.
• — Shewn their stubbornness and obstinacy.

THE PROPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE. 391
man of the world.' Among his audience had been Pashur,
the commandant" of the temple — a priest by birth,' and
also a nominal member of the order of prophets — a position
he used to "prophesy lies."' He, at least, would no longer
tolerate this hitherto privileged railer at priests, temple,
prophets, king, nobles, and people. Ordering the temple
police to seize Jeremiah, the prophet was forthwith igno
miniously thrown down and bastinadoed,* and then hurried,
bruised and bleeding, to the stocks, which stood in the tem
ple market at the Benjamin Gate, between the upper and
lower courts, on the north side.' Into these his head, hands,
and feet were thrust, and he was left thus bent together,' to
spend the night as best he could, exposed to the jeers of the
crowd, till the temple closed, and to the cold dews of later
hours. But Pashur soon had cause to regret his violence. Ear
nest conviction is not to be silenced by force. Jeremiali had
urged what every man's conscience, on reflection, felt was
right. He had only denounced what must bring the ruin he
1 In an American piper I find an admirable satire on the conventional serraon of
our day. A negi-o preacher tells his temporary substitute, that he must " see that the
people get religion, lay hold on salvation, an' all dat sort of t'ing ; but, mind, don't
you tell dem not to steal de turkeys I My congregation won't stand dat kind o'
talk I "
2 In the A. V. " chief governor." " Commandant, or chief overseer, or inspector,''
Muhlau and Volck, Hitzig, Ewald, Ke 1, De Wette, Sachs, Eichhorn.
3 Immer, his father — probably the same as Amaziah (Neh. x. 3 ; xii. 2) — was the
head of the 16th course of priests, 1 Chron, xxiv. 14, He was, in fact, a dignitary of
tbe Chnrch ; something like an English dean, for position.
* Jer, XX, 6,
' Jer. XX, 3. The Egyptian paintings shew that the victim was thrown on his face
and held by the head and feet, while being beaten,
• Keil.
' The word lor stocks, Baphach, to bend. There was a " house of the stocks " (2
Chron. xvi. 10), "prison-house " in A. V., ".iail." Perhaps there was a prison in the
temple, with a room in it for the stocks, like the torture-room of old dungeons. The
word used here occurs in 2 Chron. xvi, 10 ; Jer. xx. 2, 3 ; xxix. 26. Another word,
" Sad,'''' means stocks into which the legs alone were inserted. It occurs in Job
xiii. 27; xxxiii. 11.

292 THE PROPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE.
predicted. He had truth on his side, and he was faithful
to it, and therefore invincible. If he had spoken out, the
times needed his doing so. To proclaim truth, however un
pleasant, was his sacred duty as a prophet. A night's sleep
brought Pashur to a calmer mood, and Jeremiah was set
free in the morning ; his enemies perhaps thinking he had
learned a lesson to keep his tongue in order.
Never were men more in error. Making his way straight
to the high ofiicial himself,' his victim terrified him by an
nouncing that Jehovah had changed his name from Pashur
to " Terror on every side."
"XX. 4. For thus saith Jehovah [continued the prophet], I, Jehovah,
will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. And they will
fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes wUl see it. And I will
give all Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shaE carry
them captive to Babylon, and slay them with the sword. 5. Still more,
I will deliver all the riches " of this city, and all its property, and all its
glory, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah, into the hand of
their enemies, who shall plunder them, and seize them, and carry them
off to Babylon."
Then, addressing Pashur directly, before his astonished
attendants and the people round, he added —
"6. And you, Pashur, and aU that dwell in your house will be
dragged ofl into captivity, and you will come to Babylon, and yon will
die and be buried there, you and all yoar partisans,' to whom you have
prophesied lies."*
The second offence was worse than the first ; but Pashur
dared not arrest him again, and allowed him quietly to with-
1 Jer. xx. 3-6. ' Literally, "stores." ' Literally, "friends."
* Pushur was to be carried to Babylon aud to die there, but not by violence. In
fact, his house was one of the most numerous at the close of the Captivity. Ezra ii.
37, 38, Tet he must have suffered an agony of remorse, at the min his policy had
brougbt on bis country. He had nrged an alliance with Egypt, in opaosition to the
advice of Jeremiah, and had even gone the length of acting the prophet to support
his counsels.

THE PROPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE. 393
draw. The excitement was no sooner past, however, than
there came a reaction on the sufferer. The sensitive nature
that had been so roused, now for a time yielded to the deep
est dejection, and in this frame he gave way to an uncon
trollable outburst of passionate grief.
"XX. 14. Cursed be the day,"' cries he, when he had reached the
privacy of his lonely chamber — ' cursed be the day on which I was
born! Let not the day when my mother bore me be blessed! 15.
Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, 'A
man child is bom to thee,' making him very glad! ' 16. Let that man
be like the cities which Jehovah overthrew without pity! Let him
hear the cry (of the attacked) in early morning, and the shouting (of
attackers) at noontide, 17. because he did not kill me when I was
bom, so that my mother might have been my grave, and I had never
seen life. 18. Why did I come forth from the womb that my days
might be spent in shame ? "
But this gloom presently passes away, and he betakes
himself, as was his wont, to Jehovah, his stronghold in the
time of trouble.'
" 7. 0 Jehovah* [he breaks forth], Thou didst lead rae to speak, and
I have spoken. Thou (hast taken hold of me, and) hast " overpowered
me, and made me speak. (But because I do so,) 1 am daily a derision;
every one mocks me." 8. For every time I (speak I have to utter loud
» Jer. XX. 14^18.
2 The servant who announces the birth of a son to his master is richly rewarded,
but every one hesitates to tell the birth of a daughter.
3 I have, with Ewald, transferred verses 14-18, as they appear to come in most
appropriately at this place. * Jer. xx. 7-8.
' This verse shews that the prophetic impulse was irresistible ; thit the prophet
could not keep back from speaking, whatever might be the result to himself. See
Amos iii, 8. " The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesj--." See also Jer.
XX, 9.
* Compare the words of that great prophet and preacher of the loth century,
Savonarola, "Thy sins, O Florence, are the cause of these stripes (the public mis
fortunes of the state). And now, repent, give alms, offer prayers, become united.
O people, I have heen a father to thee. I h:ive wearied myself all the days of my
life, to make known to thee the truths of ihe faith and of holy living, and Ihave had
nothing but tribulations, derision, and reproach." Clark's Savonarola, p. 169, So
fares it with the trae prophet in all ages. A bad sign tor us clergy of to-day 1

294 THE PEOPHET FACE TO FACE WITH HIS AGE.
complaints,' and) cry out against violence and robbery. The word of
Jehovah has only brought down on me reproach and derision the
whole day long. 9. (-So deeply have I felt this, that) I said (to myself), ^^
' I will no longer make mention of Him, or speak in His name.' But
I felt as if there were a burning fire in me, shut up in my bones, and I
was worn out with holding back, and could refrain no longer. 10.
For 1 heard the slanderous talk of many: ' Terror,' said they, ' presses
him on every side." Report him to the authorities.' ' We will report
him.' My very acquaintances,* my familiar companions,' say, 'Per
haps we can draw him out (and turn his words against him), so that
we may get the better of him, and take our revenge on him.'
" 11. But Jehovah stands by me as a mighty champion, and there
fore my persecutors StiU stumble and cannot overcome me; they will
be put to utter shame and everlasting reproach which shall not be for
gotten. 13. But, 0 Jehovah of hosts, who tryest the righteous, and
lookest into the reins and heart, let me see Thy vengeance on them,
for I have committed my cause to Thee. 13. Sing to Jehovah, praise
ye Jehovah, for He delivers the soul of the helpless ° from the hand of
evil-doers." ^ The lond cry of one iu paiu is primarily meant. ^ Jer. xx. 9-l£.
3 These words are those given as a name to Pashur, " Magor Missabib," as if they
had told the prophet that " terror was ronnd himself, not round Pashur."
' Literally, "men of my peace," who greet me with the ordinary salutation,
" Peace be with you 1 "
^ Literally, " the keepers of my side," who do not leave my side.
6 The word in the Hebrew is Ebion, which comes from a root meaning to want, to
desire. Hence it primarily means the poor or needy ; then, distressed, wretched,
afflicted. It refers specially to one who, while he suffers wrong, has a true religious
humility, and in this sense is used along with the " righteous,'" Amos ii. 8. The
Ebionites used it as the name of their sect, clairaing to be the "poor in spirit, of
whom is the kingdom of heaven," Matt. v. 3. It ia twenty-three times translated
poor in the Old Testament, thirty-three times needy, and once, 1 Sam, ii, 8, beggar.
In the great majority of cases there is the accessory idea of godliness. So truly havo
the poor, iu all ages, had the honour of giving a name to the people of God.

CHAPTEE XV.
GROWING DARKISTESS, RELIGIOUS AISTD POLITICAL.
The opening years of Jehoiakim's reign were the most
active of Jeremiah's public life. Affected intensely by the
collapse of Josiah's religious policy, and the headlong rash
ness with which the heathen party were dragging the king
and the nation to their ruin, he took every opportunity of
seeking to bring his fellow-countrymen to reason, and, if
possible, of persuading them to a worthier course.
Hitherto all his efforts had been in vain ; but he could
not quietly let his nation perish, whatever might be their
hostility to his message. It was growing constantly clearer,
however, that nothing could save them. The commandant
of the temple had already put him in the stocks, after hav
ing bastinadoed him, but no personal indignity or suffering
could keep him back from still another attempt to arrest
public attention. He once more took his place in the spa
cious eastern forecourt or precinct ' of the temple, before a
vast multitude, from Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah,"
gathered, perhaps, at the time of one of the great feasts,
and in the presence of a body of priests and prophets,' who
had, it may be, assembled specially to hear him. He had
received a command from God not to keep back a single
word of His Divine message, in case they might possibly
listen and turn from their evil ways, so that Jehovah might
' Hitzig, ' Jer. xxvi. S, 8. ' Jer. xx. 8.

296 darkness, religious AXD POLITICAL.
¦¦' repent of the evU He had purposed to do them." A brief
summary of his appeal is given in the twenty-sixth chapter ;
but, if we may judge from the full record of a very simUar
address delivered at another time,' his present one embodied
the essence of all his teaching, delivered in alternate strains
of fierce accusation, biting irony, overpowering grief, and
passionate lamentation." Nothing would save them but
sincere moral reform. Their continuance in the land de
pended on their amending their ways and their doings. It
was no use for them to trust to any fancied relations to
Jehovah, as His people, or to the sacred rites and institu
tions of their religion. If they would not perish, they must
live pure and godly lives, banishing wrong and violence
from their midst, and illustrating sincere devotion to Je
hovah by habitual obedience to His holy law. Otherwise,
neither the Mosaic ritual, nor their being the chosen people,
nor even the presence of the temple of Solomon in their
midst, would prevent their ruin. Eound this sacred fabric
their fondest and proudest superstitions gathered. They
took for granted that no evil could befall them whUe it
stood, and that it would stand for ever. To hint at its
possible destruction was to wound them in their tenderest
sensibilities. As in the days of Christ and the Apostles,' to
say a word against it was akin to blasphemy ; for was it not
the house of Jehovah, and would He not defend His own
dwelling place ? To speak of its fall was a sin that de
manded death. Ifothing daunted, however, .Jeremiah went
on to repeat what he had said already, at an earlier time.
" XXVI. 4. Thus saith the Lord,* [cried he, winding up his address],
If ye will not hearken to Me, to walk in my Law, whioh I have set
> Jer. vii.-x. = Stanley's Jewish Church, vol. ii. p. 449.
3 Matt. xxvi. 61. Acts vi. 14. * Jer. xxvi. 4.

darkness, religious and political. 297
before you, 5. and to listen to the words of My servants,' the prophets,
whom I send to you, earnestly and unceasingly, though you have not
listened to them (in the past), 6. then, I will make this house like
Shiloh, and this city a curse, ^ among all the nations of the earth ! "
Shiloh lay about thirty miles straight north of Jerusalem ;
and though once the national sanctuary, famous from the
memories of Eli and of the great prophet Samuel, had been
in ruins for five hundred years.' To predict a similar fate
for the venerated building in whose courts they stood, was
more than the priests and prophets, or the crowd, could
endure. Closing, with a great uproar, round the preacher,
as their descendants did round Paul, on nearly the same
spot, six hundred years later,* they seized him, amidst loud
cries that he should die, for having predicted, in the name
of Jehovah, the destruction of their temple and city.
Fortunately for Jeremiah, news of the tumult was carried
at once ° to the palace ; if, indeed, the sound did not itself
spread the alarm. In any case, it reached the ears of some
"princes" or ''' nobles " who were, at the moment, assem
bled in the royal building, or perhaps, in these oligarch
ical times, had their residence there. As deputies of the
king, they were the high judges ° on all causes, and, as such,
instantly hurried over to the temple, and took their seats
as a court, in the inner division of the temple space — the
portion set apart for the men — before a gate built by King
Jotham, the son of Uzziah, a hundred and fifty years before,
and known as "the higher gate," or the "gate of Jehovah."
Their arrival was providential, for, as has often happened
since, the calm impartiality of the civil power was needed
' Jer. xxvi. 5-6.
" It would be pointed out as the object of a Divine curse. Deut. xxviii. 37.
-" Vol. iii. p. 39-48. * Acts xxi. 30. ' Jer. xxvi. 10-15.
« The judges were chosen from the highest ranks. Keil's Archdol., p. 704.

298 darkness, religious and political.
to check the fury of religious violence and deliver its in
tended victim.
The priests and prophets, having formally made their
accusation, demanded a sentence of death ; appealing to
the crowd to support their charge. But Jewish law per
mitted a prisoner to defend himself, and Jeremiah at
once took advantage of the privilege. Addressing, alike,
the judges and the crowd, he boldly told them that it was
Jehovah, not he, who had spoken.
"XXVI. 12. Jehovah,"' said he, "sent me to prophesy against
this house and against this city all the words ye have heard. (It is not
therefore against me, but against God, you are contending !) 13.
Amend your ways, then, and your doings, and obey the voice of
Jehovah, your (Jod ; and He will not execute the judgments He has
uttered against you. 14. But as for me, I am in your hand ; do with
me as seems to you good and meet. 15. Be assured, however, that, if
you kill me, you bring innocent blood on yourselves, on your city, and
on its citizens, for it is the very truth, that I have been sent by Jeho
vah, to speak in your ears every word I have uttered."
The defence was triumphant, and it was, as it ought to
have been, successful. "This man," said the judges, "is
not worthy to die, for he has only spoken to us in the name
of Jehovah, our God." Amidst all their worldliness and
venality, they for once recognized what was just. The fear
less words of the prophet, moreover, may have awed them
for the moment, as those of Paul did Festus." ISTor had he
been without friends, for Ahikam, one of the court, stood
by him throughout.' He found support, also, where he
might not have expected it. A number of the elders of the
towns and villages of Judah came out from the crowd, and
addressed the bench in his favour.'
' Jer. xxvi. lS-14. ' Acts xxiv. 6.
' Jer. xxvi. 31. i jer. xxvi. 16.

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL, 299
" 18. The prophet Micah of Moresheth," said they, " who prophesied
in the days of Hezekiah, said to all the people of Judah — Thus saith Jeho
vah, ' Zion shall be ploughed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become
heaps, and the mountain of the Lord's house be turned into a wooded
height.'" 19. Did Hezekiah the king, and all Judah, put him to death ?
Did he not (rather) fear Jehovah, and pray to Him, so that He repented
of the evil He had spoken against them? (If we kill Jeremiah,) we are
committing (what will bring) great evil against our souls! "
After such a defence, nothing remained but to dismiss
the prophet at once, as innocent of all blame. But the
danger he escaped had been real,' for Urijah, his contem
porary, a prophet, had already, as we have seen, been
brought back, by Jehoiakim, from Egypt, and beheaded,
for language very similar.
Meanwhile, great events were transpiring on the Tigris.
The united armies of Babylon and Media, after a long
siege, had taken Nineveh. Its last king, variously known
as Assuredilili, Saracus, Esarhaddon II., or Sardanapalus
VII.,' has left few traces of his reign, beyond an inscription
on some bricks in a small palace which he had built.
He still, however, called himself "king of nations and of
the earth."* But the end of his glory was at hand. A
host of enemies had gathered round his capital in the very
year of Jehoiakim's accession, B.C. 609. The Medes and
Babylonians were the chief assailants, but they had numer
ous contingents from widely separate regions ; for the whole
earth seemed to have risen up at last against its destroyer.
With the Medes, under Cyaxares, marched bands of wild
1 Vol. iv. p. 869. Mic. iii, 12. Jer. xxvi. 18, 19. = Jer. xxvi. 20-24.
3 Sayce, Becords of the Past, vol, xi. p. 79. Vigouroux, vol. iv. p, 281. Nothing
certain is known of the last kings of Nineveh. G, Smith thinks there were two
after Assurbanipal ; Oppert recognizes two, Assuredilili and Sardanapalus VIL
Schrader fancies Assuredilili was the last king. Saracus seems a corruption of this
name, as Sardanapalus is of Assurbanipal.
< Western Asiatic Inscriptions, vol. 1. pi. 8. u. 3.

300 DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
Cimmerians, from beyond the Caucasus; the warriors of
Van, from the mountains of Armenia ; the tribe of Seph-
arad from the shores of the Black Sea ; ' and a force of
Persians.' Nabopolassar, the king of Babylon, once the
trusted general of Assyria, had with him troops of Arabs from
the distant south, and doubtless many other auxUiaries. As
syria, however, died hard. If we may trust the Greek author
ities, for there are no others, the assailants were three times
defeated ; but a fresh force having joined them from the
east, a' battle was fought outside the gates, in which a brother
of the king of Nineveh was killed, and the Assyrian army,
armed in its various battalions with bows and arrows, lances,
javelins, clubs, swords, daggers, coats of mail, and shields,
after doing its best, was routed. Assuredilili, driven at last
to make a final stand in his capital, closed its gates, before
which the enemy presently sat down, determined to capture
the great stronghold. The siege is said to have lasted over
two years, for the walls are still, in many places, 50 feet
high, while their original height and thickness may be
judged, apart from the questionable statements of ancient
authors, by the fact that the mound formed by the moulder
ing mud-brick of which they were built is from 100 to 200 feet
broad.' Some fragments of tablets, the bad writing of which
seems to shew that they were only the first rough text, sur
vive from these days of mortal struggle. The king had
proclaimed a solemn assembly, to invoke the gods, and gain
their help to raise the blockade and avert the attack. But
it is a question if it was ever held, for the capture of Nine
veh and the destruction of the empire seem to have pre
vented a fair copy of the proclamation having been made.
» Records ofthe Past, vol. xl. p. 79. > Smith's Assyria, p. 190.
^ Nineve, Herzog, 2d chap.

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL 301
Some lines of the second fragment are complete. They run
thus :
" 0 Sun- jod,' great Lord, I have prayed to thee. 0 god
of fixed destiny, remove our sin. Let the general proclaim
among the ranks sacred rites and festivals for 100 days and
100 nights, from the third of this month lyar," to the
fifteenth of Ab.' We learn that the soldiers of Cyaxares,
and those of the Cimmerians, the men of Van, and other
enemies, are multitudinous, and inundate the country
round." A great assault had been delivered by " the rebels " on
the seventh day of the feast, and they had then marched ofl,
with a train of battering engines and other machines of war,
against various Assyrian towns and cities, a number of which
fell into their hands. A momentary glimpse into the long
dead ages, and then the darkness of three thousand years
falls, once more, on besieged and besieger ! A great rise of
the Tigris, in the third spring, or perhaps the filtrations from
the huge moats,' flooded as a means of defence, brought
about the fall of the city, undermining part of the wall.
Euin was inevitable after such a catastrophe, but the king
determined not to fall alive into the hands of his enemies.
Gathering his wives and treasures into one part of the pal
ace, he set the building on fire, and perished in the flames,
with those round him. It was, apparently, the year B.C.
606,' the third after the death of Josiah. Entering the city
by a breach caused apparently by the softening of the foun
dations of the wall, whieh were only of earth, by the water
of the moat, let in, as I have said, for defence — undermined
• Becords ofthe Past, vol. xi, p. 82. ^ April. ' July.
* ''Nineveh," Herzog, 2te Anf.
' B.C. 608 in Clinton's Fasti Betlen., vol. i. p. 869. Schrader gives the date of th«
siege as from 609-603.

302, DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
thus, the rampart opened with a wild crash, and sank in a
great cleft before the eyes of the Medes and " Chaldseans " '
— the besiegers laid waste its palaces and temples, and car
ried ofl its inhabitants into captivity. Built only of dried
mud, the houses soon crumbled into low mounds of dust.
Nor did Nineveh ever rise again. There is no mention of it
in the records of the great Persian dynasty of Darius- and
Herodotus, who passed very near its site, if not actually over
it, in the middle of the fifth century B.C., speaks of the
Tigris as "the river on which Nineveh formerly stood."'
Fifty years later,' its very name had been forgotten, for
Xenophon, who encamped on its site, or very near it, speaks
only of a "great deserted city there, called Larissa, inhabited
in old times by the Medes, and of another, 24 miles off,*
called Mespila, the wall of whioh alone remained."' So
utterly had the "Bloody City" perished. "The gates of
her rivers (that is, canals) had been opened ; her palaces
dissolved." ° The words of Nahum and Zephaniah had been
literally fulfilled. Nothing is left of private architecture, or
even of its graves, for sepulchral architecture did not exist
in Assyria, and hence it has yielded to explorers only a
few jars filled with bones. Corpses were generally carried
away to Lower Chaldaea, which continued to be for long
ages a vast cemetery, at the service of all the inhabitants
of all Mesopotamia. After having ruled for more than 600
years, with hideous tyranny and violence, from the Caucasus
and the Caspian to the Persian Gulf, and from beyond the
Tigris to Asia Minor and Egypt, it had vanished like a
' Babelons Manual, p. 6.
^ Herod., i. 193. Herodotus returned from his travels before B.C. 434. Supposing
he passed the site of Nineveh in B.o. 456, there wonld have been an interval of only
160 years from the taking of the city. Yet its site was all that remained of it.
' B.C. 401, * Six parasangfl,
» Xen., Anab., ill. 4, 7, 10. " Nah. il. 6-11,

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.

303

dream ; its very site doubtful for nearly twenty-four cen
turies ! The cup of its iniquity, full, at last, to the brim,
had been held to its lips ! Such a catastrophe was well-nigh
without parallel in the history of empires. To the farthest
verge of civilization it filled, for the time, the minds of all
men.

NiNBVEH.
CProm Rich.)
"XXXI. 3. Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar of LsJoanon [wrote
Ezekiel],' fair in its leafage; a thicket for shadow; mighty for height;
' £zek. xxxi. 3. Ewald translates the word Assbur as meaning the highest
cedar, but Hitzig sbews tbat this is a mistake, and tliat the prophet speaks of Assyria.
Smend applies the passage to Egypt, bnt the grounds he advances for doing so are of
little weight. The city of Assur bad nothing to do with the god. The name seems
to be a corruption of the Akkadian A-usar, " water-bank," changed by its Semitia

304 DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
its top rose into the clouds. 4. The waters had made him great ; ' the
flood had nourished hira ; its streams flowing round the place where
he grew, and sending out its canals to all the trees of the field. 5.
Through this, his height was exalted above all the trees of the field ;
his branches grew great; his boughs stretched themselves out, through
the many waters the flood supplied. G. All the fowls of the heavens
made their nest in them, and all the wild beasts ofthe fleld brought
forth their young under his branches, and all the great nations sat
under his shadow. 7. Thus fair was he in his size and in the length of
his branches ; for his root was by many waters. 8. The cedars in the
garden of G-od were not tall enough to hide him ; the cypresses could
not equal his branches, nor the plane trees his boughs ; no tree in the
garden of God was like him for beauty. 9. I had made him fair (says
Jehovah), through the multitude of his branches, and all the trees of
Eden, in the garden of God, envied him !
"10. Therefore, thus says the Lord Jehovah: Because he was great
in height, and shot up his boughs among the clouds, and his heart was
lifted up by this greatness — 11. I have delivered him into the hands
of a mighty leader of the nations ; he will surely deal with him ; for
his wickedness I have driven him out.'' 13. Strange and terrible
peoples cut him down, and left him lying on the mountains ; his
branches fell into all the valleys ; his boughs lay broken in pieces in
all the hollows of the earth, and all the nations went from under his
shadow, and left him. 13. On his fallen trunk all the birds of the
heaven alight, and all the wild beasts of the fleld trample on his
branches. 14. (All this is done) that no trees by the waters boast
themselves of their height, nor lift up their crown among the clouds ;
that none of all the trees that drink up the waters vaunt themselves in
their tallness ; " for they are all delivered over to death, to the under
world, with the sons of men who have sunk into the grave.
Inhahitauts, first, into Assijr, and 1 hen into Asur, with a possible reference to the word
"esurra," the bed (of a river). The confusion betweea Ass6r, the god, and Assur
tl:e city, bad ihe effect of identifying the god with his city, until the city itself
beeame a god. Assur was Uke the Jahveh of Israel, the national god of a race. He is
" king of all gods " iu a sense in which none of the other deities of Babylonia were ;
fcrpoking no rival, and allowing neither wife nor son to share in the honours which ho
el.^ims for himself alone. He ii essentially a jealous god, and is mightier than tbe
P^bylonian Baalim ; mpre awe-inspiring, and more powerful. We can, in fact, trace
in him all the )iiiean)eqts, ijpoT} which, under otber conditions, there might bave been
)j()ilf UR .as pure (), f^ifh as fhat of the-God of Israel. i Ezek. xxxi. 4-14.
? ^(1^ pfonpups yary iq person in the Hebrew. I have used the second throughout
fpf pje^fpjseg, English ^qf. permitting the eame usage.
S ^w^j^, ¦! f}iat pq ^^tjjfrdpinker contend in its pride with its God."

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL. 305
" 15. Thus says the Lord Jehovah,' In the day when he went down to
Sheol I caused a lamentation (to be made) ; I covered up the flood in
the earth, on his account (that it should no more stream forth), and
held back its streams, and its many waters were stayed ; I robed Leb
anon in black for him, and all the trees of the fleld drooped because of
him^ 16. I made tho nations tremble at the crash of his fall, when I
cast him down to Sheol, to those that are sunk in tho Pit ; and all the
trees of Eden in the underworld ^ — the best and fairest of Lebanon, all
water-drinkers '¦ — comforted themselves, 17. for they, too, went down
with him to Sheol, to them that have fallen by the sword — they, who
were his strength, who sat under his shadow in the midst of the
nations." While the siege of Nineveh was in progress, Necho had
pressed on to the Euphrates, immediately after having
installed Jehoiakim king at Jerusalem, and had taken the
great city of Carchemish,'' the ancient capital of the Hittite
empire, and still, in his day, a place of high commercial
importance. The Medes and Babylonians, with their allies
— too much occupied in besieging the capital on the Tigris,
and subduing the territories east of the Euphrates — were in
no condition to trouble him, for the time, in his new acqui
sitions. Egypt could now boast of having restored the
ancient glories of Eameses II. or Thothmes III.' From
Carchemish, southwards, all Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine,
with Idumsea, and the nations east of the Jordan, were
under his sway." The Assyrian dominions east of the
Euphrates were divided between them, after the fall of
Nineveh, by the two chief powers ; Media getting the lion's
share ; Babylon obtaining, in the meantime, only Babylonia '
and the regions south of it, with the expectation, however,
of wresting Necho's conquests from him, and only waiting
an opportunity to do so.
• iEzek. xxxi. 15-17. ^ The great mlers of men.
s Planted by the waters, and therefore vigorous. * Jer. xlvi. 9.
» Vol. ii. pp. 55-9. 'Babylonia, Smith and Sayce, p. 152. ' Herod., i. 106.
VOL. V.-20

300 DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
Jerablus, the ancient Carchemish, lay on the right or
western bank of the Upper Euphrates, half way between
the villages of Sadjur and Biredjik, about 320 mUes almost
exactly north of Jerusalem by the compass ; about 80 miles
due east of the uppermost corner of the Levant ; and about
40 miles south-west of Urfa. To the late George Smith
belongs the honour of identifying its site, during his last
fatal journey. His note-books, now in the British Museum,
inform us ' that two days after leaving Aleppo, he reached
Meskeneh, in " the vast bed of the Euphrates," and found
"' large mounds, brick buildings, (the ruins of) a consider
able place." Five hours from this, the river valley opened
out on a plain, on which were " traces of a great city."
Next day other " immense ruins " were met, but they were
mostly Saracenic. The following morning he rode alorg
the banks of the Euphrates to Jerablus," and found there
" a grand site, vast walls and palace mounds, 8,000 feet
round ; many monoliths with inscriptions." It was " the
site of Carchemish." The heaps of earth which mark the
former walls of this great capital, measure hardly two miles
in circumference, but a vast population seems, from many
indications, to have lived along the banks of the Euphrates,
outside the fortifications. Situated in the midst of a rich
country, at a safe distance from the barbarians of the north,
and the wild tribes of the south, Carchemish became at a
very early period the centre of the great caravan trade to
and from Western Asia,' and rose to still greater importance
as a mercantile city after its conquest by Assyria.* Its
' Quoted by Fried. Delitzsch, in Wo lag das Paradies? p. 266.
2 Written hy Smith, Taraboloos.
' Sayce had identifled Carchemish with Circesinm, Becords of the Past, vol. iii. p.
88. Maspero fancied he had found its site at Bambyce or Mabog, a few miles from
the Euphrates, east of Aleppo, Bistoire .ineienne, etc., p. 186. De Carchemis Oppidi
situ. 1873. * By Sargon, B.c. 717.

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL. 307
"maneh," a coin weighing the sixtieth part of a talent, was
one of the chief standards of commerce, far and near. ' Its
sculptures, bas-reliefs, and inscriptions in the Hittite lan
guage, attest a very advanced civilization, and, indeed, it
was probably through its agency that the culture of Asia
passed to Greece, by way of the Hittite kingdoms of Asia
Minor. Necho and the Egyptians had been in Carchemish for
nearly three years, when the fall of Nineveh left Nabopo
lassar free to turn his forces against them. So long as they
held that city, his advance was barred to the west and
south ; the only regions left open to him by the treaty with
Cyaxares. Far from their base in Egypt, however, and
composed largely of mercenaries, the army of Necho, though
certain to offer a brave resistance, was hardly equal to a con
flict with the veteran troops of Nabopolassar. Great efforts
were made to bring strong reinforcements from the Nile,
the march of which has been vividly painted by Jeremiah,
who may have seen these, or the troops of a later campaign,
hurrying forward. It was a time of intense excitement in
Judah. Jehoiakim was a vassal of Necho, and would only
exchange his yoke for that of Babylon, if Carchemish fell.
But the prophet foresaw the result. "The word of the
Lord " left no doubt of it. The Ohaldasan was to be victori
ous. It was in B.C. 606, the fourth year of Jehoiakim —
shortly after the fall of Nineveh — -that matters came to a
crisis. Speaking, as it were, to the Egyptian king and his
army, Jeremiah begins :
" Sayce, Becords of the Past,'vol.m. p. 88. The "Maneh," or Mina, was equal to 50
sacred shekels. See Septuagint, Ezek. xlv. 18. In 1 Kings x. Yi, another shekel is
mentioned of half the value (weight) ; 100 going to the Mina. It was the common
shekel, worth about Is. id.; the sacred shekel being worth about 2s. Sd. Miihlau
und Volck, art. " Maneh." Madden, Money and Weights of the Bible, art. " Shekel."

308 DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
"XLVI. 3. Prepare ye the round target' (for the light armed
troops), and the shield (that covers the whole body, lor your heavy
infantry), and press forward to the battle ! 4. Harness the (chariot)
horses (ye chariot flghters) ; mount the chargers, ye cavalry ; = array
yourselves in helmets, (ye footmen); brighten your spears; put on your
coats of mail ! " ^
But the prophet sees the well-appointed host defeated.
' ' 5. Why do I see them dismayed ? They turn back ; their chief war
riors are struck down; they flee at their swiftest, and do not look back.
Terror is on every side, says Jehovah! G. The quickest runner will
not get ofl, nor the warrior save himself. Thoy shall stumble and fall
in the north, by the river Euphrates.
" 7. Who is this that comes like the Nile (in flood, when it is over
flowed)? Whose waters toss themselves (like the waves of the Nile
branches in the Delta)? 8. It is Egypt. It rises up like the Nile; its
waters move in waves like the Nile arms. ' I will rise and cover the
earth,' says he: 'I will destroy cities, and those that dwell in them.'
9. Rear up, ye horse ; rush on, ye chariots ; go forth, ye mighty men of
Cush and of Libya,* who carry the shield; ye Lydians,' who hold and
bend the bow!
"10. But that day is (not theirs but) the Lord's — Jehovah of hosts;
a day of vengeance ; to avenge Himself on His adversaries. The sword
will devour tUl it glut itself with slaughter; it will drink up their
blood. Eor the Lord Jehovah of Hosts will offer up a sacriflce (to His
righteous indignation) in the north, by the river Euphrates.
"11. Go up (from thy land) to Gilead, and fetch balm, O virgin
daughter of Egypt! But in vain heapest thou up cures; " there is no
healing' for thee! 12. The nations have heard of thy shame, and the
cry (of mocking against thee) has fllled the earth. Por warrior ran
against warrior (in their eager flight), and both fell together ! "
The defeat of Necho, in spite of his trusted Greek merce-
naries,' took place in the year B.C. 006, and seems to have
' Jer. xlvi. 3-13. ' Rosenmiiiler.
8 Or, corselets. « They were the heavy armed soldiers.
' Men of Lud, not of Lydia In Asia Minor. The Ludim were an African people,
Gen. X. 23 ; they were the light armed troops.
° Literally, " medicines." ' Literally, " plasters."
' Lenormant, Bist. Andenne., vol. ii. p. 393.

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL. 309
resulted in his hasty retreat to Egypt. Nabopolassar was
now old, and success had transformed him from a rebel,
whom all men were expected to denounce, to a great king,
whom all should honour. Fortunately for his new empire,
his eldest son, Nebuchadnezzar, ''' Nebo protect the crown," '
was admirably fitted to maintain and extend it. Hereafter
he was to be pre-eminently the king of Babylon, for the
reign of his father from B.C. 635 to B.C. 604 only laid the
foundation of the Chaldaean supremacy, and it fell under
the attack of Cyrus within twenty-four years, at the most,
after Nebuchadnezzar's death in B.C. 562," when he had
reigned forty-two or forty-four years. The able son of an
able father, he threw himself into the struggle with Egypt
with all the vigour of early manhood, and soon gaiued so
great a renown that, in after ages, even the Greeks had
heard of him as almost like their own Hercules, in his valour
and great deeds.' To Jeremiah he seemed like a lion com
ing up from the thickets of Jordan,' breaking the bones of
his prey," or like an eagle swooping down on it." Ezekiel
compares him to a great eagle, with vast wings of mighty
1 The name is variously spelt, but it seems better to retain the orthography of the
A. V.
2 Schrader. In the art. " Nebocadnezar," in Riehm, Schrader makes the reio^ of
that prince forty-two years. In his art. " Chaldsea," in the same Encyc, he makes it
forty-four years, putting his death-year in the one case as B.C. 5fi2, in the other as e.g.
560. The incorporation of the name of the god Nebo in that of the famous king shews
the honour in which that deify was held. Nebo was the god of letters, and wherever the
liturary class went, Nebo their patron went with them. In Assyria he was as much
honoured as in Babylonia itself, and his name and worship passed to the Semitic races
of the West. Moses died on the peak of Mount Nebo, and cities bearing the same
name stood within the borders of the tribes of Reuben and Judah. Moreover, when
the Israelites entered on their literary era, Ihe old name " Roeh "or " Seer " was
exchanged for the more literary one of '• Nebi " or " Prophet."
s strabo, XV. i. 6. Jos., Ant., X. xi. 1, quotes Megastheues as using this com
parison. * Jer. xlix. 19 ; xxv. 38.
' .Ter. 1. 17.
' Jer. xlviii. 40; xlix. 22.

310

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.

Neeuohaiinezzae.
From a black cameo
preserved in the Berlin
Museum. The likeness

sweep, full of feathers of many colours — the various nations
under his banners, and the splendour of his great captains
—tearing the branches from the cedars
of Lebanon, and breaking ofE their twigs."
Such terror of his fierce warriors filled all
lands, that even a few of their wounded
men were said to be more feared than
an army of other soldiers.* Sweeping
on resistlessly, they made Babylon ''the
hammer of the whole earth ; " " a dragon
swallowing up the nations.*
To reach Carchemish, Nebuchadnezzar
had to march 500 miles to the north-west,
is surrounded by au in- ^long the Valley of the Euphrates. There
scription in cuneiform ° -' -i » -n
characters, as follows : the forces of Nccho, composed of Egyp-
" To Merodach, his mas- ^^ Libyans, Greeks, and auxiliaries
ter, Nebuchadnezzar, y j ^ ^
king of Babylon, for the from tributary provinceSj "vvere ignomin-
preservation of his life ¦ i , i j.i i ^ ii.
(by the god), has caused ^^usly swopt away ; only the wreck of the
this to be made." The army reaching Egypt, closely pursued as
German Assyrioiogists to they fled aloug the coast of Palestine, to
represent the Nebncbad- ^j^e Nile. All Syria and Palestine was,
nezzarof the Bible. thus, lost,' and passed into the hands of
Babylon, now the heir of Assyria. Among others, Jehoia
kim had furnished a contingent to Necho, and from this,
and the fighting men supplied by other petty kings, numer
ous prisoners were made. But Jehoiakim and the rest
of Necho's vassals were themselves to escape for the time.
The death of Nabopolassar, at Babylon, abruptly checked
the triumphant course of the Chaldeans, so that they had to
content themselves with retiring, for the moment, with their

* £zes. xvii. 3, 4, 7.
< Jer. li. 34.

^ Jer. xxxvii. 10.
• Jos., Ant., X. vi. 1.

< Jer. 1. as.

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL. 311
prisoners and booty ; the captives led away from Judah form
ing the earliest of their countrymen taken to Babylon — the
advanced guard, as it proved, of the whole of their nation,
hereafter to settle with them as exiles on the banks of the
Euphrates. An invasion of Egypt itself had been intended, but news
of his father's death having reached Nebuchadnezzar before
he had crossed its frontier, he hurried back to Babylon to
secure the crown, taking the short route across the desert,
attended by only a light escort, to save time, and thus reach
ing his capital with unexpected speed.' The generals,
meanwhile, brought back more leisurely the train of Jew
ish, Phoenician, Syrian, and Egyptian prisoners, and the
vast accumulation of spoil, by the longer northern route. °
On arriving at Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar found every
thing quiet. The priests had kept the throne safely for him,
as the legitimate heir. He had only to appear, and assume
the crown. His reign of over forty years from this date '
comprised more than half the duration, and all the glory,
of the Babylonian empire ; but, unfortunately, no inscrip
tions remain to describe his conquests to us, though from
other sources we know how widely he spread the terror of
his arms.
The hereditary ambition of the Assyrian kings to become
masters of Egypt, passed to Nebuchadnezzar and made him
a constant terror to the Pharaohg. They had, in former
times, tried to shelter themselves behind the Syrian states ;
but after the fa;ll of Damascus and Samaria, their greatest
hope had been to play the part of conquerors in Asia,
during the weakness of Nineveh, and thus protect them-
> Berosus, see Jos.. Ant., X. xi. 1.
» Berosus, quoted by Eusebius in his Chronicles.
» B.C. 605-562 (43 years). Keil.

312 DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
selves at home by advancing the frontier of their empire.
The defeat at Carchemish, however, had overthrown this
dream. But, fortunately for Necho, this disaster had
happened on the Euphrates, and thus left him time to
recover. He belonged to a brave race, who had fought for
a hundred years to gain the crown of Egypt, and he would
not resign it without a hard struggle. Befitting his fleet
and reorganizing his army, he waited an opportunity to try
his fortune once more, counting on his skill in stirring up
the Jews and Phoenicians to support him.
Since the miseries they had endured from Assyria, the
Phoenicians had cherished a profound hatred of rulers from
the East, and this was largely shared by the various neigh
bouring states — Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Judah. Jehoi
akim had reigned three years, and was beginning his fourth
year at the time of the Egyptian defeat,' and near its end
at the accession of Nebuchadnezzar." The war, suspended
by Nabopolassar's death, was renewed with the opening of
the next military season ; for only part of the year was
then thought available for campaigns.^ Having secured the
throne, Nebuchadnezzar again set out for Palestine, at the
close of the fourth year of Jehoiakim ; his approach throw
ing Judah and all the neighbouring countries into the
utmost consternation, for Necho had skilfully played upon
their hatred of the foreigner, and kept them from doing
him homage. Jeremiah, however, still foresaw that the
Chaldasan power was irresistible, and strove to bring his
countrymen to a willing submission, as the only means of
preserving the State. Even human sagacity might have
> The date of the defeat at Carchemish is one of the points on which all seem to
agree. Bertheau, Keil, Ebers, and Schrader alike, give the close of B.C. 606 orbegin-
.ling of B.C. 605.
2 Jer. xxv. 1 ; xlvi. 2. a 2 Sam. xi. 1.

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL. 313
taught them, indeed, that resistance would lead to deporta
tion ; but it was further revealed to Jeremiah, that the
captivity to follow would last seventy years, or two genera
tions of men. Now, for the first time, he names the Chal
daeans as the enemy destined to destroy Judah ; the defeat
of Egypt in the battle of Carchemish, lately fought, shew
ing clearly that Babylon, and not the Nile, was to be the
great power of the immediate future. Till now, he had
only spoken of the foe coming from the North, as if it
might have been the Scythian hordes, once more appearing,
as they had done recently, in the days of Josiah. Now,
however, the horizon had cleared. Knowing this, his efforts
to influence his fellow-countrymen for their own good were
unceasing. One appeal to them followed another. In the
first of these, he thus speaks :
" XXV. 3. From the thirteenth year of Josiah,' the son of Araon,
king of Judah, to this day, these three and twenty years, the word
of Jehovah has come to me, and I have spoken it to you — all ye
people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem — early and late, but ye
have not hearkened. 4. Jehovah has also sent to you all his servants,
the prophets, earnestly and continually. But ye have not hearkened
or bent your ear, to hear their message, which was this : 5. ' Turn ye,
every one from his evil way and from the wickedness of your doings,
and then ye shall dwell for ever and ever in the land which Jehovah
gave to you and to your fathers. 6. And go not after other gods, to
servo and worship them, so that ye may not provoke Me to anger
through the works of your hands, and cause Me to do you harm.' 7.
But ye have not hearkened to Me, says Jehovah ; as if ye wished to
provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands, to your own hurt.
" 8. Therefore, thus says Jehovah of hosts : Beoause ye have not
heard My words, 9. behold ! I will send for and fetch all the races of
the north, says Jehovah, and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king
of Babylon, My servant, and wiU bring them (all) against this land
and its inhabitants, and against all the nations that are round about it,
' Jer. xxv. 3-9,

314 DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
and give them up to utter destruction,' and make them an astonish
ment and a hissing, and a perpetual desert. 10. And I will take from
them the voice of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and
the voice of the bride ; the sound of the mill, and the light of the
lamp." 11. And the whole land will become a desolation and an
astonishment. And these nations shall serve the king of Babylon
SEVENTY YEARS."'
Babylon, itself, the instrument of God's wrath, will not,
however, escape.
"13. But when seventy years are full I will punish (the king of
Babylon and) that nation, saith Jehovah, for their iniquity (and the
land of the Chaldaeans), and will make it a perpetual desert. 13. ' And
I will bring on that land all My words that I have pronounced against
it; all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied
against all the nations.' 14. For many nations and great kings will
make them their servants, and I will punish them, according to their
doings and the work of their hands." ^
The solemnity of the judgment impending on Judah is
intensified by the recital of those about to fall on other
1 Literally, will " ban them," i.e., devote them to destruction. Jer. xxv. 10-
14. " See vol. iv. p. 133. Burton's Inner Life of Syria, vol. i. p. 804.
' Fromthe fourth year of Jehoiakim, b.c. 606, to the flrst year of the separate
reign uf Cyrus, e.g. 536, was 70 years. It is computed thus : Nehuchadnezzar
reigned 43 years ; his son , Evil Merodach, S years ; Neriglissar, 4 years ; Labrosoarch ad,
9 months ; Nabonad, 17 years = 66 years and 9 monihs. Add to this a year from
Nebuchadnezzar's first invasion of Palestine to the death of his father and his own
accession, and the two years' reign of Darius the Mede (Cyaxares) over Babylon, and
we have 69^ years. Keil.
* Hitzig, Graf, Naegelsbach, Ewald, and Dr. Payne Smith omit the words, verse
12, " the king of Babylon," and "the land of the Chaldeans," to the end of the 15th
verse. They think it inconceivable that Jeremiah should at thia period have openly
named Babylon as doomed, since it would at once have infuriated Nebuchadnezzar
and weakened the force of the prophet's appeals to his own people. But Keil, De
Wette, Sachs, and Eichhorn, amongst others, retain them. The edition of the Sep
tuagint published hy the Christian Knowledge Society omits the passage, but Stier
and Theile's edition retains it both in the Greek and in the Vulgate.
^ The Vatican text puts the closing words of the thirteenth verse in uncial letters,
as a title to what follows, thus : "The (words) wstcir Jekemiah prophesied
A&AiNST THE NATIONS— El AM." The Vatican text, the Codex C. (of less value), and
the Alexandrine Codex (not the Alexandnue text) omit ver. 14. Elam comes flrst.
in the Septuagint, among the nations denounced.

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL. 315
nations, for the prophet foresees that all the countries he is
about to name will be absorbed, as well as Judah, into the
growing Chaldsean Empire.
"15. For thus says the Lord Jehovah of Israel to me,' Take this
cup of the wine of My wrath out of My hand, and give it to all the
nations to whom I send thee, to drink. 16. That they may drink it,
and reel, and become demented, before the sword 1 am about to send
on them.
"17. And I took the cup from Jehovah's hand, and let all the
nations drink it to whom Jehovah sent me,' 18. Jerusalem and the
cities of Judah, and her kings and princes — to make them a desola
tion and an astonishment, and a hissing and a curse, forthwith. ' 19.
Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, his servants, his princes, and all his
people, 20. and all the nations tributary to him,' and all the kings of
the land of Uz, and of the land of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Graza,
Ekron, and the remnant left in Ashdod;' 21. Edom, Moab, and the
B'nai Ammon ; 23. and all the kings of Tyre, and of Sidon, and of the
coasts" beyond the Sea; 33. Dedan and Tema' and Buz," and all with
the corners of their hair shorn away.' 24. And all the kings of
(Northern) Arabia and of the tribes of various races that dwell in the
desert. 25. And all the kings of Zimri, '" all the kings of Elam, " aud all
the kings of the Medes, 23. and all the kings of the North, far and
near, one and all, and all the kingdoms of the world, on the face of

1 Jer. xxv. 15-26.
s The prophet must, necessarily, be recounting the details of a vision .
3 Ewald. The Alexandrine Codex. The Vatican text and the Codex C. omit " as
itis this day."
* A. V. " mingled people," here, and in ver. 24. It seems to mean the tribes of
different race from the Egyptian, but under its sway. Cheyne and Driver translate
it ¦' mercenaries." Ewald renders it substantially as iu the text. He is supported
by Keil.
^ Ashdod had been besieged for twenty-nine years hy Psammetichus, father of
Necho— there would, therefore, be only a remnant of its people left. Gath is omitted
from the list of Philistine cities, perhaps as no louger independent.
^ Or islands.
' An Arab tribe in North Arabia. Job vi. 19. If a. xxi. 14. Taima, in Arabic,
meauG " desert." Kneucker.
' An Arab tribe, in the desert, east of Edom. Kneucker.
" Jer. ix. 36 ; xlix. 28, 33. See p. 191.
'" Seemingly an Arab people between Arabia and Elam.
" Elam was now becoming Persia.

316 DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
the earth.' Last of all, the king of Sheshach will drink the oup of
God's wrath.''
" 27. Say therefore to them," thus says Jehovah of hosts, the God ol
Israel : Drink and be drunken, and vomit, and fall, and rise no more,
before the sword which I will send among you. 28. And if they refuse
to take the cup from your hand, say to them. Thus says Jehovah ot
hosts. Drink it you shall 1 29. Por, lo, I will begin with the city
called by My name, in this outpouring of evil, and will you be left un
punished ? Te shall not ! for I shall summon the sword to do its work
on all the inhabitants ot the earth, says Jehovah of hosts !
"30. Theretore, speak all these words to them, and say : Jehovah
will roar (like a lion) from (heaven) on high, and utter His voice ' from
His holy habitation. He will roar with a mighty voice against His
own land : ' He shall shout" like him that treads the wine-press, against
all the inhabitants of the earth. 31. The (mighty) sound will roll (like
a storm), even to the ends of the earth ; for Jehovah has a controversy
with the nations ; He wUl reckon as a judge with all flesh ; the god
less will He give to the sword ! So says Jehovah !
" 83. Thus says Jehovah of hosts. Behold, trouble will pass on from
nation to nation ; a mighty storm (of wrath) will pour down from the
farthest ends of the earth. 33. And those slain by Jehovah will lie,
on that day, from one end of the earth to the other ; they will not be
lamented, nor gathered up, nor buried ; they will be left like dung on
the face of the earth ! 34. Howl, ye sheplierds ! ' Cry aloud ! Ye
lordliest of the flock, strew yourselves with ashes ! For your days for
1 This is only a general expression, and not to be taken literally. See Dan. ii. 38 ;
iv. 22. It means a vast empire, not an absolutely universal one.
2 In Jer. li. 41, Sheshach is used for Babylon. Jerome notices this, perhaps
throngh a hiut frora his Jewish teacher, as to the old tradition. According to this,
the word i-3 a cipher formed after the rale called by the Jews Athbasch, by vvhich the
letters of the alphabet are used backwards, the last standing for the flrst, and so,
throughout. See Bnxtorff, Lex., art. "Athbasch." A similar example is found in Jer.
li. 1, wliere Casdim is expressed by the words Laib Kamai. Keil repudiates the idea
that it is used to prevent the name of Babel appearing, and thinks its ohject is to
obtain a striking meaning. This, he makes, " a sinking "—to indicate that Babylon
wili fall and not rise again. For various renderings see Gesenius, Tfies., p. 1486. The
consonants Sh Sh Ch, on the principle of Arhbascli, stand tor BBL, the consonants
of Babel. On the same principle. L B K M Y ftand for C(«l S D I M=ChaldEeans.
The origin of this secret system is of unknown antiquity among the Jews. See
Leyrer, in Herzog's Ency., vol. xiv. pp. 1-30.
" Jer. xxv. 27-34. '"Thunder." Ewald.
¦' From the verb for "to sit," "to rest," = peace, habitation, dwelling. Here,
Judah. ' The cry of one rushing on to war. ' Kings.

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL. 317
being slaughtered are fulfiUed ; I wiU dash you to pieces like a, costly
vessel. 35. And there shall be no flight for the shepherds ; ' no escape
for the lordliest of the flocks ! 36. Hark ! the ery of the shepherds,
the waU of the lordliest of the flock ; for Jehovah has laid waste
their pasture, 37. and the peaceful meadows are destroyed before the
burning wrath of Jehovah ! 33. Like a lion. He has forsaken his
covert ; yea, their land has become a desert, before the fierceness of
the Destroyer ; before the fierceness of His wrath ! "
The advance of Nebuchadnezzar, with a great army of
Chaldaeans and Syrians,' spread terror, as has been said, on
all sides. The population of the villages and country towns
flocked to Jerusalem ; " even friendly shepherd tribes from
the wilderness pastures hurrying to the protection of its walls.
Among others, came the B'nai Eechab, a half Arab sect of Jew
ish Puritans, who had risen in the days of Elijah, as an indi
rect result of his life and influence. ' Descended from a branch
of the tribe of Kenites,' who came into Palestine with the
Israelites, and had zealously adopted the Hebrew faith, they
had retained their nomadic habits, wandering over the open
spaces in the land, especiaUy those of the northem districts."
One of their chiefs, Jonadab, the colleague of Jehu in his
violent suppression of idolatry,, under the dynasty of Ahab,
had modelled his clan after the Nazarite ideal,' to insure its
more thorough separation from the wickedness of the times;
taking the idea, apparently, from the example of Elijah
and that of the prophets. Following his recommendations,
they henceforth abjured wine, and made a vow neither to
build houses, nor till the ground, nor plant vineyards ; re-
' Jer. xxv. 35-38. ' Jer. xxxv. 11. » Jer. xxxvi. 9.
< See vol. ii. p. 134 ; vol. iv. pp. 66, 155. = 1 Chron. ii. 55.
« The " shearing-house," 2 Kings x. 14, was probably a spot connected with the
flocks of the wandering Kenites. Cue branch of the tribe roamed over the uplands
of the Negeb in the south. 1 Sam. xv. 6 ; xxvii. 10 ; xxx. 29. Another branch had
their tents near Kadesh in Naphtali, in the north. Judg. iv. 11, 17 ; v. 34.
7 Amos ii. 11.

-318 DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
pudiating all that was associated with a settled life, as tend
ing to luxury and moral degeneracy, and withdrawing per
manently to their tents on the lonely pastures, far from the
haunts of men. The social corruption of the Northern
Kingdom had grown terrible under the House of Ahab.
PhcEnician idolatry, luxury, and vice, had spread through
the land. Jonadab resolved at once to save his people from
contamination, and make their collective life a protest
against the special sins of the day.
Streaming down from the North at the threatened
advance of Nebuchadnezzar, an encampment of these zeal
ous Puritans of Judaism now sought shelter in Jerusalem;
pitching their tents in some open space in the city, and liv
ing apart from the general population,' under their sheik
Jaazaniah— '' he whom Jehovah hears." ''
The fidelity of such rough sons of the desert to the
ancient faith of Israel, marked them out amidst the com
mon crowd, and made thern objects of general interest.
They must especially have excited the sympathy of those,
like themselves, still true to the old religion ; cheering them
by a living proof that amidst the wide decay of morals,
some remained faithful to the God of their fathers. Fidelity
so striking was, indeed, fitted to read a lesson to the com
munity at large, and it was used for this purpose by Jere
miah. Acting on a prophetic impulse, he brought their
sheik and all the encampment, to a chamber within the
temple precincts — that of the sons or disciples of Hanan, an
unknown prophet — over the quarters of Maaseiah, the over
seer of the guards of the temple gates, and next the room
in which the chief men were wont to assemble for public
* Jer. xxxv. 2.
' The other names given of members of the tribe, are Jeremiah, " he whom
Jehovah establishes ; " and Habaziniah, perhaps, " the lamp of Jehovah."

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL. 319
business. Here, he caused large bowls of wine to be set
bef-ore them, such as were placed before guests at a feast,
and invited them to fill their cups from them, and drink.
The proposal, made in mock earnest, must have been seen in
that light, for otherwise nothing could have been in worse
taste. Of course all, at once, and without hesitation, de
clined. They had vowed, they said, to obey the commands
of their forefather Jonadab, and would be true to their
pledge.' They could not think of touching wine.
Jeremiah had known that this would be their answer,
and forthwith took advantage of it to point an address to
the citizens. Turning to the crowd around, in the temple
courts, he announced '^ that he had been sent by Jehovah to
them and to the men of Judah to say :
" XXXV. 13. Will ye receive no instruction to hear My words ?
says Jehovah. 14. The words of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, which
he commanded his sons, ' that they should drink no wine,' are obeyed;
they drink none to this day, but still obey the command of their father
(given two hundred and fifty years ago). But I (Jehovah), your God,
have spoken to you continually (with earnest zeal), till now, but you
have not listened to Me ! 15. I have sent to you all My servants the
prophets, unceasingly saying by them, ' Turn ye now every man from
his evil way, and amend your doings, and walk no longer after other
gods, to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which I have given
to you and to your fathers.' Bnt ye have not inclined your ear or
obeyed Me. 16. The sons of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, have obeyed
the command of their father, but this people have not obeyed Me !
"17. Therefore, thus says Jehovah, the God of hosts, the God of
Israel: Behold, I bring on Judah and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
aU the evil I have spoken against them, because I have spoken to them
but they have not heard; I have called to them, but they have not
answered ! "
Then turning to the Rechahites, standing by, the prophet
continued :
' Jer. xxxv. 1-11. » Jer. xxxv. lS-17.

320 DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
"18. Thus says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel:' Because ye
have obeyed the command of your father Jonadab, and have kept all
his precepts, and done all that he enjoined on you — 19. therefore, thus
says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel : Jonadab, the son of Rechab,
shall not, for ever, want a man to stand before Me."
Counterparts of this singular community, thus honoured
by God, have occurred at different times, illustrating the
tendency to similar asceticism in the East. The ancient
Nabathseans neither sowed seed, nor planted fruit-trees, nor
built houses,'' and enforced these usages by death for their
transgression. The Wahabees, who rose in the second half
of last century, in Arabia, used neither wine, opium, nor
tobacco, and proscribed luxury and self-indulgence of every
kind. They were the zealots of Islamism, and their success
was amazing. An army of 100,000 men was soon formed,
ready to spread" their opinions by the sword, and it was sub
dued, in the first quarter of this century,' only after desper
ate efforts, by Mahomed Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha.
The assurance that the Eechabites would never want a
man " to stand before God," has been strangely fulfilled.
The phrase seemingly points to the adoption of members of
the tribe into the priestly offiee, to " stand before God," like
the sons of Levi.' Their strictness as Nazarites facilitated
this advancement, for even so late as St. James the Just,
Nazarites, by a singular exception, were permitted to enter
the most sacred parts of the temple." In keeping with this,
the heading of the seventy-first Psalm, in the Septuagint,
speaks of the sons of Jonadab as the first who were carried
off to Babylon, and intimates that this Psalm had been com-
' Jer. xxxv. 18-19. » Diod. Sic, xix. 94.
' Brockhaus, Lexicon, vol. xv. pp. 270, fE.
' Deut. X. 8 ; xviii. 5, 7, Judg. xx. 28. Ps. cxxxiv. 1. Jer. xv. la
» Eusebius, Bist. Ecc, Bk. il. ch. 23.

DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL. 321
monly sung by them in the temple service.' A "sonof
Rechab" is named among the restorers of Jerusalem, after
the Return," and in the genealogies of the Chronicles,' which
were drawn up at a very late period, a community of
Rechahites, living at Jabez, are spoken of as scribes, that
is, as occupied with the writing and study of the Law —
an occupation in earlier times almost wholly engrossed
by Levites." Centuries later, Eusebius brings their name
before us in a striking connection. While the mob were
stoning James the Just, he tells us, " one of the priests, of
the sons of Rechab, a son of the Rechahites spoken of by
Jeremiah the prophet, cried out, ' Stop — what are you
doing ? He is praying for you,' " " so that, even in that day,
a priestly order of Rechahites still survived.
But still later, notices of this people remain, to startle us
by the echo their history gives of the words of Jeremiah.
Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled in the East in the
twelfth century, speaks of a community of Jews whom he
met, who called themselves Rechahites. They tilled the
ground, and kept flocks and herds, but abstained from wine
and flesh, and gave tithes to the Rabbis, who studied the
Law and led the public wailings for Jerusalem. They num
bered 100,000, and lived under a prince of their own, who
traced his descent from David." Even in our own day,
moreover. Dr. Wolff, the missionary traveller, met a tribe
> This is implied. Thewordsare: "By David; a /"satoi .«un^ hy the sons of Jona
dab : even the first that weie taken captive."
2 Neh. iii. 14. » 1 Chron. ii. 55.
^ 4 The other classes named iu 1 Chron. ii. 55, have been translated by the Vulgate as
"singers," " trumpet blowers," and " dwellers in tents." But later lexicographers
do not support this rendering. Wellhausen translates Tirathites as " trumpeters,"
" blowers of the sacred trumpets ; " Shimeathites, as " men of the tradition; " and
Siichathites, as "dwellers in tents."
^ Eusebius, Bist. Ecc, Bk. ii. ch. 23. He is quoting from Hegesippus, who was
alive in the early part of the second ceutury of our era.
" Benjamin of Tudela. Asher's edit., pp. 112-114.
YOL. V.-21

322 DARKNESS, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL.
near Senaa, in Arabia, who claim to be the Rechahites. In
answer to a question as to their origin, one of them replied
by reading from an Arabic Bible the words of Jeremiah,
describing the Rechahites of his day,' and added that they
numbered 60,000.° Still more recently, Signor Pierotti,
near the southeast end of the Dead Sea, met a tribe who
called themselves Rechahites, had a Hebrew Bible, prayed
at the tomb of a Jewish Rabbi, and spoke of themselves
exactly as the Rechahites in Arabia had spoken to Wolff a
generation before.'
» Jer. xxxv. 5-11. ' Wolff's Journal, 1829, vol. ii. p. 334.
5 Transactions of the British Assodoiion, 1862.

CHAPTER XVL
THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
While Jeremiah was contending with the evil around
him, other prophets were not silent. If Judah were to
fall, its ruin would come in spite of efforts to save it,
unique in the history of the world. We look in vain in the
history of Greece or Rome, or any people of the ancient or
modern world, for such a phenomenon as the preachers
who, under the name of prophets, rose during the decay of
the two Hebrew kingdoms. Amidst the growing darkness
their voices are heard unceasingly calling men back to the
light ; rebuking sin with a fearless courage ; presenting the
mighty truths of righteousness and judgment to their
countrymen with a force and variety of language which
makes their words for ever weighty; realizing the existence
and living interest of God in all the concerns of nations and
individuals as it never has been done by any other religious
order, and anticipating with sublime trust the final victory
of truth, and the ultimate emergence of a deathless king
dom of righteousness and peace.
Among these the prophet Habakkuk took a foremost
place, though only a brief illustration of his teaching sur
vives. His name, as Luther well puts it, speaks of one
" who took his nation to his heart,' comforted it and held
it up, as one embraces and presses to his bosom a poor
» It means " embracing," or " the embracer."

324 THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
weeping child, calming and consoling it with good hope —
if God so will." He seems to have been a Levite, and to
have taken part, at the temple service, in the chanting of
psalms written by himself.' Like Jeremiah and Ezekiel,
he thus united the priestly and prophetic offices, at least in
a measure. The prophecies bearing his name seem to have
been uttered about the year B.C. 604,' when Necho had
been defeated at Carchemish, and the advance of Nebuchad
nezzar on Palestine, to drive the Egyptians finally out of
Asia, was imminent. He dwells with profound alarm on
the terrors of his approach, realizing the miseries he would
inflict on the land, but is too absorbed by higher thoughts
to do more than allude in general terms to the historical
facts of the hour. His soul is engrossed with the weighty
reflections suggested by things around, more than with
outward affairs. The deepening wickedness of the age, its
contrast of prosperous guilt and suffering worth, had raised
doubts and perplexities in his soul, as in the minds of
others, as to the ways of God with man. To solve the
problem for his fellow-countrymen still faithful to Jeho
vah, is the great aim of his book. The old doctrine of
rewards and punishments in this life he finds untenable,
and, first of all the sacred writers, realizes the great truth
of New Testament doctrine, that the just shall live by his
faith — that is, by his loving trust in God — and not hy
merely formal works.' In style and genius he ranks
among the highest of the Hebrew poets, though his strains
are no longer those of the sacred lyrics of earlier days, bnt
swell, as it were, to a trumpet blast, under the mightier
impulse of stormy times.
1 Hab. iii. 1-19. Inscription to Bel and the Dragon. ' Schrader, Bib, Lex.
s Hab. ii. 4, quoted in Eom. 1. 17 ; G.il. iii. 11 ; Heb. x. 38.

THE PROPHET HABAKKUK. 325
The book opens with a troubled but confiding cry to
Jehovah for light, as to His ways with men. How is it
that violence and wickedness prosper, while the innocent
poor and the godly were wronged and oppressed ?
"I. 3. How long, O Jehovah,' shall I ory and Thou wilt not hear ?
How long shall I cry to Thee for (the) violence (of men), and Thou
wilt not help ? 3. "Why lettest Thou me see iniquity ? Why dost
Thou Thyself look upon undeserved sorrow ? Violence and wrong
are before me ; strife is around ; contention lifts itself up. 4. Through
all this the Law ' has lost its power,' and justice never prevails.* Por
the wicked hem round the upright (and keep them back from their
due), and only perverted justice is decreed." '
The answer, solving the prophet's difficulties, is given
by Jehovah. The wicked may have flourished for a time,
but their day is coming ! The Chaldaeans will execute the
Divine judgments on them.
" 5. Look among the nations, and take notice, and wonder with
great astonishment ! For a work is being wrought in your days,
which ye would not credit if it were told you !
' ' 6. For lo, I raise up the Chaldssans, the fierce and impetuous na
tion, who push to far countries of the earth, to seize lands that are not
theirs ! 7. They are dreadful and terrible ; their ruler acts as it pleases
himself; he follows his own counsel alone." 8. Their horses are
swifter than leopards,' fiercer than evening wolves;' their cavalry^
bound onwards, coming frora afar; they fly like the eagle,'" hastening
' Hab. i. 2-8. ' The Torah.
3 Literally, is " benumbed," "grown cold." It should be the life of the individual
and the nation, butit is paralyzed.
' Literally, " comes forward " (to the front).
* Literally, " goes forth " — is promulgated by the judges.
** Slightly paraphrased to give the sense.
" The Hebrew word is namair ,- the Assyrian word for leopard is niimrv, and the
local name in Mesopotamia is niTner. Houghton, Trans. Bib. Arch. Soc, vol. v. p.
326. ' See page 161.
® In contrast to their chariot horses. For a description of the war horses of the
Assyrian sculptures, see Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, vol.ii. p. 360.
1" In Riehm, p, 37, it is suggested that an eagle-like vulture is meant.

326 THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
to devour. 9. They come, all of them, only as fierce oppressors ; the
striving of their faces is forwards ; ' they gather captives like the sand
(for number) ; 10. they scoff at kings and hold princes in scorn ; they
laugh at all strongholds, and cast up mounds of earth (against them)
and take them ! 11. Their king rushes by them like a storm, and
passes on resistless, aud it becomes a sin ; for this, his great might, is
made by him, his god. " ^
The thought that even the Chaldaeans are powerless
before Jehovah, calms the mind of the prophet, as the
miseries they will inflict on his people rise before him.
They, too, will be judged. God cannot permit their vio
lence to go unvisited. They are only the instruments of
Providence, unconsciously fulfilling its purpose. That
accomplished, they will feel the hand of the Almighty,
Judah will not utterly perish.
" 13. Art Thou not from everlasting, 0 Jehovah, my God, my Holy
One ! We shall not die ! ' 0 Jehovah, Thou hast appointed them
(the Chaldseans) to execute Thy judgments. 0 Rock* of Israel,
Thou hast ordained them to chastise (Thy people) !
" 13. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look
on wrong. Why, then, lookest Thou calmly on these robber • (Chal
daeans) ? Why art Thou silent when the Wicked One swallows up men
more righteous than he ? 14. Why makest Thou men as the (helpless)
fish of the sea, or as the creeping things that have no ruler ? 15.
These (plunderers) pull out all men with the hook, draw them in with
their casting-net, and gather them with their draw-net," and rejoice
and are glad of it. 16. Therefore they make offerings to their cast-
1 The word translated "ea^t wind," is, literally, "towards the east," but "the
east '' meant, originally, " the side before one," and seems to have that sense here.
Hab. i. 9-16.
^ Ewald : '¦ His mind is lifted up and passes due bo'inds, and he becomes guilty.''
The reading in the text is that of Steiner, Keil, Klein, Delitzsch, and Pusey.
s Steiner. Keil. Eichhorn. Ewald and some others adopt the reading, " Thou
shalt not die,'' from the Masoretic notes, which speak of "We shall not die," as " a
correction of the Scribes." There are eighteen of these, but they are only suggested
in the Hebrew notes, not introduced into the text, and represent only so mauy Jewit^h
traditions. ' Deut. xxxi. 4, 15, 18, 37. Keil. Steiner. Ewald. Hebrew text.
» Steiner. « Drake, art. " Fish," Did. of tlie Bible.

THE PROPHET HABAKKUK. 337
ing-net, and bum incense to their draw-net, for through them their
catch is rich and their food dainty.' 17. Shall they, then, empty out
their net, and for ever slaughter the nations (without pity) ? "
This, assuredly, cannot be, since Jehovah reigns I The
prophet feels that he must rise above such doubts and half-
despairings, and trust to receive a sufficient answer to his
perplexities. Lonely heights seemed then, as now, fitter
than the haunts of men for communion with God ; the
heavens, the dwelling of the Eternal, opening from their
silent tops, and the ear catching the voice of God, without
distraction, amidst the stillness. Habakkuk, therefore, in
thought, ascends some such watch-tower of the soul, and
waits there amidst the quiet, till God deigns to reveal
Himself and shed light on his darkness.
" II. 1. I will take my stand upon my place of watch, and set my
self on the tower, and fix my thoughts to hear what Jehovah will say
to me ; what answer I shall receive to my appeal ! "
"2. Then Jehovah answered me (by a vision) and said: ' Write out
the vision, and make it plain on the tablets, that man may read it
quickly.' 3. For it has respect to a set time, still future, and hastens
towards the end, and wiU not deceive. Though it tarry, wait for it,
for oome it wiU, and will not miss its time.' "
The oracle itself now begins.
"4. Behold ! the soul (of the Chaldeean king) is lifted up; it is not
humble * in him. But the righteous shall live by his faith." .5. Still
more ; the proud man (the Chaldsan king), drunk with ambition, is
fierce, like one drunk with wine, and rests not in his own land, but
opens his jaws like hell, and is like death, and is not satisfied, but
gathers to himself all the nations, and draws to him all the peoples.
' Literally, "fat." Hab. i. 17-11.5. ^ Steiner.
' Literally, "that he that readeth it may run over it quickly."
* Does not flow evenly. Steiner.
6 The word here translated "faith,"' is rendered elsewhere "truth," "faitlif ul
ness." See Deut. xxxii. 4, a God of truth: so Ps. xxxiii. 4; Jer. v. 1,3: 1 Sam. xxvi.
23. B.ia fait/ifttlness ; so Ps. xxxvi. 5; xl. 10; Lam. iii, 23. For the full meaning of
the word see Kom. i. IT; Gal. iii. 11; Heb. x. 83.

328 THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
" 6. Will ' not all these nations and peoples take up the song against
him, the song of reproach and derision, and say :.
" Woe to him that heaps up what is not his ! How long wiU he
go unpunished ? Woe to him that loads himself (like a usurer) with
(the goods of many lands — goods taken in pledge) — thick clay (call
them, that must be restored).^ 7. Shall not (thy creditors) suddenly rise
to sting thee ; ' thy tormentors roughly wake thee up, and make thee
their prey V 8. Because thou hast plundered many nations, all that
remain of them will plunder thee, for the blood of men thou hast shed,
and for thy violence to land and city and all their inhabitants !
" 9. Woe to him (the Chaldaean) who gathers unjust gain for his
house, to set his nest on high, to save himself from the stroke of fate.*
10. Thou hast devised only shame to thy House; thou hast destroyed
many nations, and sinned away thine own life ! * 11. For the stone
shall cry against thee, out of the wall, and the cross-beam out of the
timber-work will answer it ! °
" 12. Woe to him that builds up his city with (the) blood (of men,
his slaves and captives from many lands), and founds his stronghold
in iniquity ! 13. Behold ! Jehovah of hosts has decreed that these
nations (of forced workers) shall labour only for what is to perish with
fire (through His judgments), and weary themselves for what will
come to nothing ! ' 14. For widely as the waters cover (the basin of)
the sea, shall the earth be filled with the knowledge of the majesty of
Jehovah (in His destruction of Babylon) !
" 15. Woe to him (the Chaldiean) who causes his neighbour to
drink, pouring out his (glowing) cup to him* and makes him drur.k —
to look on his shame ! 10. Thou, thyself, v/ilt be filled with shame, in
place of thy (present) glory. ' Drink thou, also ' (it will be said to
thee), ' and shew thy nakedness ! ' For tho cup in the right hand of
' Hab. ii. 6-16.
2 The figure is taken from a heartless extortioner, who carries off the goods of his
debtors in pledge. The word for pledges is Ablit, and this, di\'ided in two, means
thick clay, or masses, clods of clay. No doubt a verbal play was intended.
3 The figure is from the bite or sting of a serpent.
* Literally, "grasp of evil."
* Brought on thine own fature destruction.
" This paragraph is applied by Steiner and Ewald to Jehoiakim, but their reasons
are unsatisfactory, and the interruption to the prophecy against Chaldsa is improba
ble. . ' Eichhorn. De Wette. Noyes. Ewald.
* Literally, " thy wrath, or heat." It may mean the glow of the wine, as healing
or intoxicating, or the secret enmity with which the Chaldsean, under fair pretences,
brought nations to drunken slavery, by ruinous alliance, etc. ; or it may refer simply
to the notorious drunkenness and revelling of Babylon.

THE PROPHET HABAKKUK. 329
Jehovah will turn itself to thee, and foul vomit shall cover thy glory ! '
17. For violence (like that) done to Lebanon (in ruthlessly hewing
down its woods) shall cover thine own land,^ and the slaughter of its
beasts (like that which thou wroughtest in Israel) shall make thee
afraid.' (Thy land shall be desolate,) for the blood of men thou hast
shed, and for the violence thou hast shewn to town and country, and
all their inhabitants. " *
The trust of the Chaldseans in their idols is vain.
" 18. What profit is the graven image, when its maker has carved
it ? Or the molten image, which teaches but lies — that the maker of
such dumb idols should trust in them ?
" 19. Woe to him that says to the piece of wood, ' Wake up ! ' and
to the dead ' stone, ' Rouse thyself ! ' Can it teach ? Behold, it is
plated over with gold and silver, and there is no breath in its midst !
" 20. But Jehovah dwells in His holy temple" (in the heavens): let
all the earth be silent before Him ! "
The prophet has now ended his predictions, and closes
by a sublime prayer to God to preserve Judah, during the
trials before her at the hands of the Chaldeeans, and restore
her when the term of her captivity is ended. He throws
his supplication into the form of a psalm, to be sung in
the temple to dithyrambic music ; that is, to strains of the
highest emotion.' Since God will assuredly visit His peo
ple in wrath, let Him still remember His mercy. He
delivered them of old from Egypt ; He can now deliver
thejn from Babylon, when the seventy years of their cap
tivity are ended.
' Or, " shame and disgrace will take the place of thy glory." Ewald. Hab. ii.
17-20. 2 Literally, " cover thee."
3 Septuagint. Ewald, virtually. Cook. Targum. Pesh. Jerome.
4 Eichhorn.
* Literally, "dumb."
" Literally, "palace."
' Shigionoth, pi. of Shiggion, comes from the verb Shagah, " to reel abont through
drink." It occurs only one other time, in Ps. vii., title.

hsO THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
"IIT. 3. 0 Jehovah, I have heard Thy words (against Judah and
Babylon), and tremble ! 0 Jehovah, revive ' Thy work (of mercy to
Thy people), as the years roll their course ; as the jears pass make it
known to us ; in Thy (just) wrath remember mercy ! "
That He will do so is sure, from the remembrance of
His former deeds to His people. Hereafter He will come
from Sinai, His ancient resting-place, as He did of old.
"3. Eloah comes from Teman,' and the Holy One from the raoun
tains of Paran." His brightness (as of the sun) covers the heavens,
and the earth is fllled with His glory." 4. Splendour, like the sun,
appears ; beams of light stream forth around Him,' the. veil of His
almighty power ! 5. Before Him goes the Pestilence ; the burning
Plague follows in His steps ' (for He comes to judge His enemies). 6.
He stands, and the earth shakes beneath Him ; He looks around, and
the nations tremble. The everlasting mountains burst asunder ; the
world-old hills sink down.' He comes along His ancient paths" (the
paths in whioh he marched from Sinai, of old) ! "
The prophet sees Jehovah coming at the head of His
people, from Egypt ; His anger roused against the rivers
and the sea which hinder their escape. He advances like
a warrior, with His chariots and bow, against them, and
they yield and open, to make a pathway for Israel.
1 Literally, "let it come to life." Hab. iii. 2-6.
- In southern Iduraea. It stands for Edom as a whole.
3 Paran, the hills forming the eastern half of the upland wilderness of Et Tih.
They are divided from Teman only by the low plain of the Arabah. The word
"Selah" is thought by Hitzig to mean that the people bowed down at this point.
Keil supposes it is equivalent to Fm-te, and introduced an outburst of trumpets, etc.
Teman and Paran lay between Judah and Sinai, from which God is supposed to come,
as of old. See Judg. v. 4, and Deut. xxxiii. 3, from which the verse is in effect bor
rowed. Sinai, to the Jew, was the ancient seat of lbe eartlily majesty of God, as seen
at the giving of the Law.
¦* Literally, " praise." » At His side.
' This seems a more strict parallel than "lightnings fly forth at His feet." De
Wette. Ewald renders the words " burning Plague " by "flames of death."
' Judg. V. 5.
• He came of old from Sinai ; so now.

THB PROPHET HABAKKUK. 331
"7. I see the tents of Cushan' troubled ; the tent coverings of the
land of Midian tremble I 8. Does Thy wrath burn against the streams,
O Jehovah ? or against the swelling waves of the sea — that Thou
ridest on with Thy horses, Thy chariots of victory ? ^ 9. Thy bow is
made bare and levelled ; ' Thine arrows are satiated — victory is won ! '
The streams of water (fleeing back before Theo) tear open the earth.
10. The mountains see Thee aud tremble ; the storm of waters pours
on ; the deep utters its voice (in supplication to Thee), and lifts up its
hands (to implore Thy grace) ! 11. The sun and the moon draw back
into their habitation, at the light of Thy flashing arrows ; at the shin
ing of Thy glittering spear ! "
The prophet now describes the judgment of God on the
nations, to bring about the deliverance of His people.
"12. Thou marchest through the earth in wrath ; thou tramplest
the nations under foot (like grain on the threshing fioor ') in Thine
anger. 13. Thou goest forth for the deliverance of Thy people ; the
deliverance of Thine anointed ! Thou dashest in pieces Pharaoh, the
head of the house of the wicked, laying bare the foundations of the
deep," to destroy him. 14. Thou hast pierced through with their own
spears the head of their princes,' who rushed on like a whirlwind to
scatter us, and rejoiced (at the thought of) devouring the helpless, (as
robbers bursting on their prey) from their lurking place. 15. Thou
hast marched through the sea with Thine horses — through the heaped
up (walls of) great waters."
This appearance of God, of old, to lead forth His people
and judge their enemies, was the earnest of His return to
deliver them from the impending captivity. Pear and
trembling seized the prophet at the thought of the misery
1 Ethiopia, which extended over Arabia and the Soudan. Hab. iii. 7-15.
2 Literally, "deliverance." The streams and the sea lay between Israel and lib
erty. = De Wette.
* There are more than a hundred explanations of this very corrupt clause. I adopt
the conjecture of De Wette.
' The verb refers to the threshing of grain by trampling it under the feet ot cattle.
* A. V. " unto the neck " — a periphrasis, to mark the depth of the waters,
'Ewald. Leaders, De Wette. Hordes, Keil. Warriors, Steiner.

333 THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
before his countrymen, but this passes into a peaceful joy
in the sure anticipation of their ultimate deliverance.
" 16. When I heard (that God would appear to punish the sins of my
nation), my body shuddered ; my lips quivered at (the sound of) the
(Divine) voice ; terror ' struck through my bones, my limbs trembled
beneath me, lest I should not have strength to await the day of trou
ble, when the foe comes up against my people. 17. For the fig-tree
will not blossom, and there will be no fruit in the vines ; the harvest of
the olive will fail, and the flelds yield no food ; the flock wiU be gone
from the fold, and there will be no beast in the stalls.^ 18. Yet, as for
me, I will rejoice in Jehovah ; I will be glad in the God of my salva
tion ! 19. For Jehovah, the Lord, is my strength, and makes my feet
like the feet of the (bounding) hinds, and He makes me walk on my
high places.' (He lifts me up above fear, and fills me with joyful
confidence !) " *
Jeremiah had enjoyed liberty of speech during the flrst
years of Jehoiakim, though amidst much scorn and oppo
sition. He was now, however, to find himself not only
precluded, for a lengthened period, from appearing in pub
lic, but forced to seek personal safety in concealment. He
had exercised his prophetical office for nearly a quarter of a
century, and must thus have been about forty-five years of
age, having entered on his commission when a very young
man. Difficulties had accumulated in his way in the last
months. He still bore the marks of the bastinado, and he
had been cramped in the five-holed stocks through an entire
night. The people had even clamoured for his death. A
change in his relations to them was necessary. He had to
prepare for the worst.
1 Literally, " rottenness." Hab. iii. 16-19.
^ The verba are in the present, throughout, but this in the sense of a prophetic
vision of what will be in the time of the invasion.
^ 2 Sam. ii. 18 ; xxii. 34. Ps. xviii. 33.
' * The book closes with the note, " To the chief singer ; to be sung to the accompa
niment of my stringed instruments." The prophet was not only a Levite, hut also
one of the temple musicians.

THE PROPHET HABAKKUK. 333
The defeat of Egypt, at Carchemish, left Jehoiakim, for
the moment, virtually free. Babylon was far off, Pharaoh
was crippled, and the smaller states might be successfully
resisted. It seemed as if Judah might once more aspire to
independence. But this dream was short-lived. The army
of Ifebuchadnezzar was advancing. The neighing of its
war-horses might almost be heard from Dan, at the foot of
Hermon ; the noise of its camp seemed already to make
the land tremble.' The summons of the conqueror to de
liver up Jerusalem, on pain of its destruction, might be
expected daily. Egypt, indeed, was profuse in its exhorta
tions to resist, but was it able to help ? In the approach
ing struggle between it and Nebuchadnezzar, Palestine was
certain to be the battle-ground, as it had been under Heze
kiah. Jehoiakim ancl his people were alike irresolute what
course to take.
Jeremiah, and those around him, alone were clear and
firm in their views. The doom pronounced on the land by
God would inevitably visit it, unless warded off by earnest
and general repentance. Nothing else would prevent the
deportation of Judah to Babylon ; and, in any case, sub
jection to Nebuchadnezzar was at hand. All this had been
urged again and again, but the people had turned a deaf
ear to it. The prophet felt that, at any moment, they
might turn against him and put him to death, or he might
be slain, like the prophet Urijah, by royal order,' and, if
BO, his words would perish. He therefore determined to
write out such of his addresses, from the opening of his
ministry, as seemed specially to demand preservation." In
this purpose he could count on the help of Baruch, " the
Blessed," a faithful friend, who clung to him in all his
» Jer. Till. 16. 2 Jer. xxvL 23. » Jer, xixvi. 1, ff.

334 THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
troubles, like Elisha to Elijah, or Timothy to St. Paul.
He was a man of noble family — brother of Seraiah, who
afterwards held high office under King Zedekiah ' — and
was specially skilled in the laborious art of manuscript
writing, then, undoubtedly, a comparatively rare accom
plishment. A roll, in all probability of prepared skin,''
having therefore been procured, the prophet dictated to
this trusty friend "all the words of Jehovah, which He
had spoken to him," and he took them down, column
by column, as uttered, till the whole had been written
out. The difficulty now was to have them read aloud, if, per
chance, at last, his countrymen might prove more teacha
ble than in the past. Jeremiah himself could not venture
to go into the temple,^ but there was no such animosity
felt towards Baruch. The excitement and danger of the
last few months, however, had unnerved even one so faith
ful. When asked to take the roll to the temple court, and
read it before the crowd, he shrank from the peril. " Woe
is me now," cried he, " for Jehovah has added fresh grief
to the sorrow I have already. I am weary with sighing
and find no rest ! " To take so prominent a part would
ruin his worldly prospects, and might endanger his life.
But Jeremiah would not hear of a refusal. Jehovah, he
said, had spoken thus to him :
1 Jer. li. 59. Bar. i. 1. Jos., Ant., X. ix. 1.
2 The manuscripts of the Hebrews seem to have been written on the skins of sheep
or goats. Writing could be washed out from the material (Num. v. 23), and it could
not be torn as papyrus, from Egypt, might have been, but had to be cut. Jer. xxxvi.
23. Parchment in the strict sense was of later invention thau Jeremiah's time. The
ancient lonians used the skins of goats and sheep for their writings, and these were
still the common material in many countries in the time of Herodotus (Bk. v. § 58).
Herodotus lived B.C. 484-c. 400.
s Jer. xxxvi. 5. The words rendered " shut up " cannot here mean imprisoned-
See ver. 19.

THE PKOPHET HABAKKUK. 335
" XLV. 4. Behold,' what I built up I destroy, and what I planted I
pluck up, and that is, the whole land ! 5. Thou seekest what is great
for thyself; seek it not. For, lo, I bring evil on all flesh, saith Jeho
vah, but I give thee thy life for thy share, in all the places whither
thou mayest go."
Consoled with this assurance, he at last consented to
undertake the perilous duty.
An opportunity ere long offered itself for this last at
tempt to save the people in their own despite. The agony
of fear pervading the land had led to a special fast being
called Mn the month of December, B.C. 604.° All the
people were summoned to appear in Jerusalem, and im
plore God to avert the threatened calamity. Popular
superstition still trusted in the temple as a Divine pro
tection against any foe.' But this was not enough for
their alarm. Priest and people, alike veiled in black
haircloth mantles, their heads covered with ashes, threw
themselves prostrate on the earth ; " and hoped, by tears
and loud cries of sorrow, and numerous sacrifices, to pro
pitiate their offended God.' Multitudes crowded to the
temple, in wild excitement, and terror for the future.
Taking his place where the throng was greatest, in the
open hall of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, the scribe, in
the east forecourt, Baruch bravely read aloud the whole
ominous contents of the prophetic roll. Its long alterna
tion of threats and promises had probably been heard
' Jer. xlv. 4, 5.
2 The only fast day prescribed iu the Law waa that of the Day of Atonement, in
the 7th month (October).
3 In the 9ih month. Kislew = December, Jer. xxxvi. 9.
< Jer. vii. 4.
^ See the parallel case in Joel ii. 17.
• In Jer. xxxvi. 7, the word translated "present/' includes the attitude as that of
prostration belore God. It is part of the verb " to fall down," " to prostrate one'n
self."

330 THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
before, by some present, but they had then paid no atten
tion to them. Now, however, when Nebuchadnezzar's
army was hurrying on to the city, they made a deep im
pression. Jeremiah had foretold, years before, that the
Chaldaean would come, and he was uow actually approach
ing ; might not the rest of his prophecies also be fulfilled
in due time ? He had predicted that the king of Babylon
would surely destroy them as a nation, if they did not
repent. The whole assembly was startled and alarmed.
A young man, Micaiah, the son of Barueh's host Gemariah,
awed by what he had heard, hastened to the chief secre
tary's hall in the palace, on Mount Zion, where the princes
were at the time gathered, and told them, with eager ex
citement, what had been read from the roll of the prophet.
The recital now, at last, alarmed them also. 'Men's minds
were in such a tension that indifference to the warnings of
the prophet was no longer possible. Among those present
were Elishama, the chief secretary,' in whose hall the
princes were assembled ; Gemariah, the father of Micaiah ;
and Elnathan, the son of Achbor, who, by Jehoiakim's
orders, had brought back the prophet Urijah from Egypt
to Jerusalem, to be put to death. Fear, however, had, for
the time, induced moderate counsels, and an order was
therefore sent by an attendant, Jehudi, " the Jew," " to
Baruch, to come forthwith, bringing with him the prophet's
roll. Instantly obeying, he was invited to sit down, for
Eastern teachers sit as they speak, and read it once more,
aloud. But the words only confirmed Micaiah's report,
¦ Graetz calls him the adjutant general of the army; that is, the officer in charge of
the rolls of the forces. Geschichte, vol. ii. p. 351.
2 In Jer. xxxvi. 14, Jehudi's great-grandfather's name is given as " Cushi " = the
Ethiopian. Hence, probably, the distinctive name " Jehudi," the Jew, to mark de
sire of full identiflcation with Israel.

THE PROPHET HABAKKUK. 337
and intensifled the previous excitement, till a visible shud
der ran through tlie hearers.' Por the moment even the
most stubborn among them were awed into alarm. The
roll must clearly be brought before the king, and read to
him also. Possibly he, too, might at last be aroused,
and induced to follow the advice of Jeremiah, by peace
ably yielding to Nebuchadnezzar. He might, even, turn
penitently to God, and institute religious reforms, as
Josiah had done when he heard the Book of the Law.
But they knew his cruel, despotic nature, and warned
Baruch to go, forthwith, to Jeremiah, and witli him flee
into safe hiding for the time. This done, they went to
the king's private apartments in the warmly built winter
chambers, in the inner court of the palace, leaving the
roll behind them in the chief secretary's rooms. The
weather was chilly, and a brazier, in the centre of the floor,
as is still the custom of the East, sent up a welcome glow,
in the pleasant warmth of which the king was reclining.
A verbal statement of the contents of the roll sufficed
to banish any hope of its affecting Jehoiakim favourably.
It must be brought and read to him. He would hear the
very words Jeremiah had dared to say against him and
his rule. Jehudi therefore brought it, and proceeded
forthwith to read it, for a third time, aloud. But a few
columns were enough to rouse the lawless and stormy
temper of the king. Snatching the book from the hands
of the reader, and demanding from Elishama'' his scribe's
knife, he deliberately proceeded to cut the huge roll into
slips, which he threw, successively, on the burning char-

> So in the Hi-brew. Jer. xxxvi. 16.
= The knife was a scribe's knife. I have assumed it was that of the chief Beribe or
secretary, who was present. Scribes used knives for erasures.
VOL. V.-28

338 THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
coal, till the whole was consumed. In vain Delaiah and
Gemariah, and even Elnathan, the accomplice in the king's
murder of Urijah, implored him not to burn it. Instead
of penitence, there was only defiance. In contrast to
Josiah, he shewed no sign and uttered no word of sor
row. The few who had heard the roll in Elishama's
rooms might be overwhelmed by its contents, but neither
the king nor the circle of attendants ' round him shewed
any alarm, or rent their garments, in token of grief at the
awful threatenings. Instead of this, orders were instantly
given to arrest both Baruch and Jeremiah, but " Jehovah
hid them," and the search was unsuccessful."
Little did Jehoiakim think what he had done. He had
rejected the last opportunity of saving his dynasty and his
country. The final offer of mercy had been treated with
scorn. But his impotent ungodliness had itself fore
shadowed the result. The fragments of the roll, as they
crackled in the flames, were a forecast of the destruction
of his House, his city, and his country. Jeremiah re
ceived the news of the sacrilege, in his hiding place, only
to reiterate with greater fulness the contents of his prophe
cies. Taking another roll, he once more dictated to Ba
ruch, not only all the contents of the former one, but also
large additions. The fire had consumed the written letter,
but it had risen from the ashes in more awful completeness.
Nor did Jehoiakim escape a personal message from the
secret retreat of the prophet. In the recesses of his palace
he learned, we know not how, that Jehovah had instructed
Jeremiah to say to him :
^ Hebrew, servants.
2 The persons ordered to arrest the prophet and Baruch, were Jerahmeel, " a Bon
of the king," that is, a royal prince; Seraiah (certainly not Seraiah the brother of
Baruch), and Shelemiah— not he of that name mentiomed in chap, xxxvii. 13.

THE PEOPHET HABAKKUK. 339
" XXXVI. 29. Thns says Jehovah,' Thou hast (indeed) burned this
roll, saying, ' Why have you written in it, that the king of Babylon
will certainly come and destroy this land, and destroy man and beast
from it?' 30. Therefore, thus says Jehovah, of thee, Jehoiakim, king
of Judah: He shall have no son to sit on the throne of David, and his
dead body will be cast out (to lie, unburied) in the heat by day, and
the frost by night. 31. And I will punish him, his seed, and his ser
vants for their iniquity, and bring on them, and on the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah, aU the evil I have spoken agauist
them ; to which they would not give ear."
Nor did he confine himself to this general denunciation.
The character and life of the king were held up to popu
lar condemnation. The tyranny and harshness shewn in
the building of his great palace, were fiercely attacked.
" XXII. 13. Woe (cried the prophet), to him (that is, Jehoiakim)
who builds his house by unrighteousness,' and his halls by wrong;
who makes his neighbour work for nothing, giving him no wages for
his labour; 14. who says, 'I will build me a great house with wide
halls,' and cuts out many windows in them, and wainscots it with
cedar, and paints it with vermilion ! 15. Do you think you will reign
Gong) because you vie with Ahab ' as to your cedar work ? Did not
your father enjoy his life,' and yet he practised justice and upright
ness ? Then, it went well with him. 16. He gave justice to the poor
and needy, and he prospered. Is that not what I mean, by ' knowing
Jle,' says Jehovah ? 17. But your eyes and heart are tumed to nothing
but your covetousness, and to shed innocent blood, and to oppression
and violence. 18. Therefore, says Jehovah, of Jehoiakim, son of Jo
siah, king of 3 udah : Xo one will raise the lament for him (when he
dies), ' Ah, my brother ! ' or ' Ah, sister ! ' There will be no lamentation
for him, ' Ah, my lord 1 ' or, ' Ah, his glory ! ' 19. He shall he buried
with the burial of an ass; drawn out from Jerusalem, and cast down
far from its gates ! "
With such feelings to the king, and after such utter
ances respecting him, it is little wonder that we hear no
more of Jeremiah tUl the next reign begins.
" Jer. jExxvl. 29-31. ' Jer. xxii. 13-19.
" Septuagint. Ewald. * Literally, "eat and drink."

340 THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
The incidents of the great fast day had excited intense
feeling, which the audacious impiety of Jehoiakim must
have deepened. A division of opinion had been creatpd.
even in the royal council ; some, henceforth, urging sub
mission to Nebuchadnezzar, in obedience to Jeremiah's
warnings. The king could not, in such a state of affairs,
carry out his mad purpose of defying Babylon, and was
forced to make submission, and become its vassal, pledging
himself, we may take for granted, to furnish a contingent
to the Babylonian army, and discharge all other duties
of a dependent. On these conditions he retained his
throne. The prophet could once more appear in pubhc ;
but henceforth, till after Jehoiakim's death, he seems to
have refrained from addressing the people. His written
prophecies might be left to do their work. Judah had
rejected him, and its day of mercy was now past. The
princes, whom his words had impressed, stood between
him and the fury of the crown, and it is quite possible
that even at this time the Babylonians had learned how
zealously he had counselled submission to them, and had
taken him under their protection.
But Jehoiakim was not a man to make the best of the
inevitable. The Chaldaean vassalage pressed so heavily on
him, that that of Egypt seemed lighter in comparison.
Incitements to rebel were, moreover, constantly urged by
the agents of Necho. At last, after three years of forced
humiliation,' he ventured to raise the standard of revolt,
but only to bring down swift ruin on himself and his
country. The struggle of Babylon with Egypt was still
raging, so that Chaldsean armies were within easy dis
tance, to crush the rebellion at once. Jerusalem was
' 2 Kings xxiv. 1.

THE PROPHET HABAKKUK. 341
forced to open its gates to Nebuchadnezzar, and Jehoia
kim, after he had been put in chains, saved himself from
being carried oflf to Babylon by renewed abject submis
sion.' Heavier terms than before were exacted, and Ju
dah had to bear the supreme indignity of seeing the
richest of the sacred vessels carried off from the temple,
to adorn the house of the conqueror's god, at Babylon.^
The Sbven^ty Years of Judah's bondage had begun.
The remainder of Jehoiakim's reign was increasingly
calamitous. Restless and stubborn, he struggled against
a position which he could not hope to change for the
better, and in his turbulence, brought disaster on the
land. Too much engaged to crush him at once, Nebu
chadnezzar employed the nations round, who, for the
most part, had submitted to the Chaldseans, to assist
their detachments on the spot, in harassing Judah, till
he himself could come against it. Raids of Syrians,
Moabites, and of the B'nai Ammon, therefore, swept up
every glen.' Hereditary fends, thus easily gratified, left
the country no peace. It seemed like a speckled bird,
assailed by all the birds around.* Desolation and ruin
marked many a hitherto smiling valley.
At last, in B.C. 598, the Great King was once more free
to undertake the conquest of Egypt,* and marched to it
through Palestine, with strong contingents from Moab,
Ammon, and Edom — the bitter enemies of Judah. Jeru
salem was ere long besieged,' but, meanwhile, Jehoiakim
died, and thus escaped the rage of his master. A mys
tery hangs over his death, befitting the gloom and con-
' 2 Chroh. xxxvi. 6. ^ Dan. i. 2 ; v. 2. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7.
' 2 Kings xxiv. 2. •¦ Jer. xii. 7-17.
fi Lenormant says B.C. 597. ' Lenormant, vol. ii. p. 308. Maspero, p. 499.

342 THE PROPHET HABAKKUK.
fusion of the times ; one account speaking of him as
having fallen in a skirmish with a band of raiders, or in
a battle with Nebuchadnezzar, and being left unburied ;
another as having been murdered in Jerusalem, and cast
out on the streets ; a third, as having been enticed to
Nebuchadnezzar's camp, and there put to death, and
left without burial. But, whatever the mode of his death,
so bitterly was he hated that no funeral dirge was raised
for him,' though he was the son of Josiah, and his corpse
was left thrown out, like that of a dead ass, on the waste
land outside the gates of Jerusalem, in the sun by day, and
the frost by night. Ultimately, indeed, if we may trust
the Septuagint, his dishonoured body was rescued from
this last shame, and interred alongside Josiah and Manas
seh, in their tomb in the garden of Uzzah, which was con
nected, apparently, with the royal stronghold on Ophel."
But men whispered that on the dried skin of the corpse,
as it lay naked before all, the name of the demon, Codo-
nazer, to whom he had sold himself, appeared stamped in
clear Hebrew letters. '
' Jer. xxii. 18, 19; xxxvi. 30. ' BOttcher, Aehrenlese.
* Thenius, on 2 Kings xxiv. H. He traces it to the words in 3 Chron. xxxvi. 8,
"that which was found in hira," andto Hab. ii. 9, where the words " power," or
"grasp of evil," occur.

CHAPTER XVII.
JEHOIACHIIS^, B.C. 599.'
Ok the death of Jehoiakim, his Son Jehoiachin inherited
the shadowy dignity of the throne of David. A lad of
eighteen, he had learned only too well to imitate his father,
and followed the lead of the heathen party implicitly. He
was a grandson, moreover, of Elnathan of Jerusalem, who
had been base enough to bring the prophet Urijah back
from Egypt, to be put to death. "With such antecedents
little could be expected from the new reign. The queen
mother, Nehushta — ¦" brass " " — daughter of Elnathan, is
specially mentioned, as if she had taken a more than usu
ally prominent part in affairs ; though such a relation to
the throne always implies a foremost place under Oriental
monarchies. But if she did, it mattered little, for her
son's power lasted, at most, only a hundred days,' and dur
ing a large part even of these, Jerusalem was beleaguered
by a Chaldsean army.
The intrigues of Egypt and the strain of the Babylonian
domination, had kindled a fresh revolt against Nebuchad
nezzar, throughout Palestine, Perea, and Phcsnicia, and it
was imperative that it should be checked, for Pharaoh
struggled hard to retain his hold on Asia, and could not be
driven out of it while the kings and states of the sea-coast
' Lenormant gives the date at B.c. 597. So also Eiehm. Schrader and others say
E.C. 598.
" Perhaps from her radiant brightness. ¦ 2 Chron. xxxvi. 9.

344 jEHOiACHiiir.
were on his side. But the power of Babylon was over
whelming. All resistance was swept away before it, and
Necho had now, at last, to retire behind the torrent El
-Arish,' the ancient boundary of Egypt, at the south of the
Negeb. Meanwhile, Nebuchadnezzar, engaged else w.h ere,
could not himself attack Jerusalem, but sent a strong force
to invest it. That it did not at once open its gates, rose,
in all probability, from its consciousness of having offended
too deeply to hope for pardon. South and north it was cut
oflf from help. The towns of the Negeb were blockaded,'
and the enemy held the land on the north. Its fall was
only a question of time.
The three months of Jehoiachin's reign are memorable
for the reappearance of Jeremiah, now freed from the per
secutions of Jehoiakim. Fearless as ever, he proclaimed
afresh, at every opportunity, that the decay of morality
and religion was the true cause of the calamities gathering
so darkly over the na.tioii ; making no secret of the hope
lessness of deliverance from them, but holding out a pros
pect of forgiveness and restoration to his people in the
future, if they heartily repented and sought the God of their
fathers. He had been forced, by the violence of Jehoia
kim, to keep at a distance from Jerusalem as long as that
monarch lived, but the interval had apparently been util
ized by two journeys to Babylon, to see for himself the
country and people with which the destiny of his nation
was soou to be so closely associated. Yet, while thus
wandering far from his beloved Judah, his heart was still
with her, and her impending fate engrossed his thoughts.
Even when constrained to silence, he remained a prophet.
A Divine impulse, he tells us, had led him, while yet in
« 2 Kings xxiv. r. ' Jer. xiii. 19.

JEHOIACHIN-. 345
Jerusalem, to buy and put on a white linen girdle, the
type, in its purity, of all moral worth. He was com
manded, however, to wear it continuously, without wash
ing it, even when soiled,' a thing abhorrent to Orientals,
and doubtless attracting wide attention, especially in one
whose acts were so often symbolical. He did so, therefore,
till his townsmen universally noticed it ; but when it had
thus become a subject of general remark, he was ordered
to make a journey to the far-distant river Euphrates," and
hide it there in a cleft of the rocks, bordering the stream
in parts of its course. Anxious, perhaps, to see Chaldsea,
he had fulfilled the Divine injunction at once, strange as it
may have seemed to him, and, after staying a time in the
country, returned to Palestine. Ere long, however, a sec
ond monition came, requiring him to retrace his steps to
the Euphrates and dig out the girdle he had thus secreted,
and this also he did ; only, however, to find it, as might
have been expected, rotten and useless.
There could not have been a more vivid emblem of the
fate in store for his nation, and, bringing it back with him
as such, he now reappeared in Jerusalem. As the girdle is
bound round a man, Jehovah had bound Israel to Him by
special covenant and adoption, but its long unfaithfulness
had made it foul and offensive. Burial for seventy years,
in captivity, on the far-distant Euphrates was decreed ; it
1 Jer. xiii. 1-7.
2 Graetz and Hitzig think (hat instead of Ph'rath, the Euphrates, we should read
Ephrath=Bethleheir.. .leremiah might have gone twice to the Euphrates during the
long period of his forced retirement from public activity under Jehoiakim, but Graetz
urges that the force of the symbol would be greater if the whole act waa carried out
under the eyes of the people. Yet the Euphrates was to be the place of banishment,
and the lessons might well he specially eonnected with the fact. The central parts of
the great river were ahout 500 miles from Judati. From the mention of a long lapse
of time between the burial of the girdle and its exhumation, it is moreover likely that
the Euphrates is really intended. Travelling seems to have been perfectly safe.

346 JEHOIACHIK.
was to be carried off and hidden from the world, and
destroyed as a state. As such it would perish, like the
linen girdle.
"XIII. 9. After this manner, — said he,' holding up the onee white
but now worthless sash, before his fellow-citizens, and speaking in the
name of God, — ^will 1 (J ehovah) destroy the pride of Judah, and the great
pride of Jerusalem ! 10. This evil people, who refuse to hear My words,
who walk in the stubbornness of their own heart, and follow other gods,
to serve and worship them, shall become like this girdle, which is good
for nothing ! 11. For as, when in use, a girdle cleaves to a man's loins,
so I (as it were) bound to Me the whole House of Israel and the whole
House of Judah (and made them like a girdle to Me), says Jehovah,
that they might be a people, and a name, and a praise, and a glory to
Me. But they would not hear !
"18. Speak, therefore, this word to them : Thus says Jehovah the
God of Israel, 'Every wine-skin is wont to be filled with wine.' And
when they say to thee, ' Do we not know that every wine-skin is wont
to be filled with wine ? (what do you mean ? )' 13. Then thou shalt
answer them : Thus says Jehovah, I will fill all the inhabitants of this
land — the kings that sit on the throne of David, the priests, the proph
ets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with (the) drunkenness (of
despair) ! 14. And I will dash them one against the other, even the
(very) father and sons, says Jehovah ; I will not pity, or spare, or have
mercy, but will destroy them ! "
Having delivered this message from God, he speaks in
his own name.
"15. Hear, and mark ye! Be not haughty, for Jehovah has
spoken ! 16. Give glory to Jehovah, your God (by confessing your
sins),'* before He cause darkness; before your feet stumble on the dark
mountains ; ' before He deepens the gloom into the blackness of death ;
yea, makes the darkness utter while you in vain wait for light ! 17.
But if ye will not hear this, my soul shall weep in secret at your pride,
and my eye run down with a flood of tears, because Jehovah's flock is
carried away captive."
» Jer. xiii. 9-17.
» Josh. vii. 19. Mai. ii. 2. St. John lx. 24. " Give God the praise "—" admit tliat
you are deceiving us." s Literally, "the mountains ol twilight."

JEHOIACHISr. 347.
But the voice of God again intervenes,' bidding him
deliver another message.
"18. Say to the king, Jehoiachin, and to the queen mother, 'Hum
ble yourselves and sit-down (in the dust, ^ in lamentation); for the
crown of your glory sinks (from your heads).' 19. The cities of the
Negeb (the south country) are shut up, and no one can relieve"
them. All Judah is carried ofE captive ; it is carried off wholly ! 20.
Lift up your eyes (O Zion), and see the enemy that comes from the
North ! Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock
(of towns and villages ! Lost to the foe !) 21. But what wilt thou say
when Jehovah shall set those over thee as captains and as rulers, to
gain whose favour thou hast turned aside from Me ? * Shall not sor
rows take thee, as a woman in travail ?
"33. And if thou (Zion) say in thine heart, 'Why has this lot
befallen me ? ' It is because thy guilt is so great that thy skirts are to
be out short ^ (like a slave's), and thy feet made sore " (with the rough
ness of the way, as thou art led ofi: captive) ! 33. Can the Ethiopian
change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? Only (by as great a mira
cle) couldst thou do right; accustomed as thou art to do wrong !
"34. I will, therefore, scatter them, like the broken straw' of the
threshing floor, that flies before the wind of the desert. 35. This is
thy lot; the portion thrown into thy lap "from Me, says Jehovah!
Beoause thou hast forgotten Me and hast trusted in lies ! 36. For
this cause I will (give thee to slavery) ; cutting short thy skirts before
thy face — that thy shame may be seen. 37. I have seen thy adulter
ies; thy lewd stallion-like neighings; the hatefulness of thy impurity;
' Jer. xiii. 18-27.
3 Literally, " make low, sit down " ~ sit down iu the lowest place.
s Literally, " open."
' * Literally, " those to whom thou hast nsed thyself as thy trusted ones." The
allusion is to the kings of Egypt and Babylon. There is a covert reference to the
spiritual adultery of Judah with heathen rulers.
6 Literally, " uncovered." A slave was bare-legged ; ' free men wore flowing
robes. « Literally, "treated with violence."
' Hebrew, Kash. It includes also the chaff.
8 Literally, " into thy mad " or outer garment. The loose fulness of the Eastern
blouse, or tunic, as we raay call it, above the girdle, makes a capacious pocket iu
which men cany grain St. (Luke vi. 88 ; St. Matt. vii. 2 ; St. Mark iv. 24), and women
their children ; and which both sexes use iu mauy other ways, as the apron is used
among Western nations.

348 JEHOIACHIN.
thy (heathen) abominations on the hills,' in the country round. Woe
to thee, 0 Jerusalem ! How long will it yet be before thou become
pure ! "
The prophet had lamented Josiah, in strains repeated
through the land, on each anniversary of the battle in
which that hero fell. He had sighed over Jehoahaz, a
captive in Egypt, doomed never to return to Judah, but
to die, a prisoner, among strangers.' He had denounced
the crimes and tyranny of Jehoiakim, and predicted his
shameful end. He now announced the calamity impend
ing over still another ill-fated king. A fragment of a
longer address remains, in which he once more warns his
countrymen of the doom awaiting them, and then passes
to that pronounced by God on Jehoiachin.
"XXII. 30. Ascend the heights of Lebanon ^ (0 daughter of Zion),
and shriek aloud (in thy sorrow) ! Lift up thy voice from (the peaks
of) Bashan ! Shriek aloud from the mountains of Abarim I * Por all
thy lovers (the peoples who united with thee against the Chaldseans)
are destroyed ! 31. I spoke to thee in thy prosperity,^ but thou saidst,
'I will not hear.' This has (indeed) been thy course from thy youth;
that thou hast not listened to My voice ! 33. (But now,) the east wind
(that scorches bare the pastures ') shall sweep away thy shepherds —
(that is, thy leaders); and thy lovers — (the peoples allied with thee
against Chaldsea) — shall go into captivity. Then shalt 'thou, assuredly,
> Literally, "hills in the fleld." ' Jer. xxii. 11, 12.
' Jer. xxii. SO-22.
* Abarim was a chain of hills in Moab. Nebo was among them.
6 Plural in Hebrew.
« The east wind, in the hot months, becomes the sirocco when it blows from the
south-east. When at its worst it dries the mucous membrane of the air passages, pro
ducing catarrh and sore throat ; induces great lassitude in those who walk or work
in it ; headache, as if a cord were bound round the temples ; oppression of the chest;
burning of the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, quickened pulse, thirst, and
even fever. It dries and cracks furniture, loosening the joints of tables and chairs,
curling the covers of hooka aud of framed pictures, and parches vegetation, someti-mes
withering -whole flelds of young corn. Va\. Fund Bep., 1883, p. 16. The enemy ia
here compared to a sirocco.

JEHOI.ACHIIS'. 349
be ashamed and confounded, for all thy wickedness I 33. 0 inhab
itant ' of Lebanon, who makest thy nest among the cedars, how wilt
thou sigh when pangs come upon thee, as of a woman in travail ! "
Passing on to the coming fate of Jehoiachin, the prophet
continues. "34. As I live, saith Jehovah, though thou, Coniah (called, now,
Jehoiachin),'' the son of .Tehoiakim king of Judah, were the royal signet-
ring on My right hand, even thence will I pluck thee, 35. and give
thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of
those whose face thou dreadest — the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon, and the hand of the Chaldseans. 36. And I will hurl thee,
and thy mother that bare thee, (as a slinger hurls a stone,) into
another country, where ye were not born, and there will ye die ! 37.
But to the land to which they will lift up their soul to return, they
never shall come back !
"28. Is, then, this man Coniah — sighs the prophet at a later time,
in deep sympathy with the unfortunate youth — a despised earthen ves
sel (to be shattered and cast out) ? Or is he a precious vase, in which,
nevertheless, one takes no pleasure ? Why then are they hurled away,
he, and his seed," and cast into a land which they do not know ? 39. 0
land ! land ! land ! hear the word of Jehovah. 30. Thus says Jeho
vah, Write this raan desolate and forlorn; a father who has no pros-
' Jer. xxii. 23-30.
2 Keil notices that Jeremiah omits the "Je" before Coniah, changing the sense
from "Jehovah will strengthen," to "Jehovah strengthens," as if denying him hope
for the future.
3 That '¦ his seed " should be carried into captivity with him shews that Jehoiachin
was not childless. The word used refers only to the having no one who would perpet
uate his honours after him. He was childless so far as his royalty was concemed.
In 1 Chron. iii. 17, sons of his are mentioned.' See also St.Matt. i. 12. He was succeeded
by his uncle Mati aniah — that is, Zedekiah. The word rendered " childless " in the A .V.
means, strictly, desolate— forlorn — as one bereaved — hence, it at times means " child
less," Gen. XV. 2. Bertheau thinks that seven sons of Jehoiakim are menrioned in 1
Chron. iii. 17, 18. We have no further notice of six of these (if they were his sons),
but the seventh, Shealtiel, was the grandfather of Zerubbabel, the prince of the first
Jews who returned from exile about B.C. 538. Die B. der Chronik., p. 29. Keil says,
Jehoiakim had only two sons — Zedekiah and Assir — of whom the first died childless*
and the second had only a daughter. Asair, it may be said, is constantly taken lo
mean "the captive," as referring to Jehoiachin. I quote this to shew the opposite
view.-' held by scholars on this as on many other minute points of biblical criticism.
Jehoiachin was eighteen when carried off, but marriages are made very early in the
East, nnd polygamy prevailed in the royal family.

350 JEHOIACHIlSr.
perity in his days. Por no man of his race will prosper ! no one of
them will sit on the throne of David, or rule, hereafter, in Judah."
It seems wonderful that a preacher who spoke thus
of the ruling king, in a small community like Jerusalem,
should have been left at liberty; wonderful, indeed, that an
almost absolute ruler should not have put him at once
to death. It may be, that the friends of the prophet
were powerful enough to screen liim ; but if Jehoiachin
had not had some good qualities, it would assuredly have
fared ill with so bold a spirit. What would have been the
fate of a preacher wlio had denounced any of our own
kings in even very much milder terms ?
The fierce energy of the Chaldasans in the siege, speedily
shewed that the only hope for the citizens lay in the king's
unconditional surrender of his person to the enemy, and on
this Jehoiachin nobly resolved. Going out in sad proces
sion, through a gate which henceforth bore his name,' but
was afterwards built up, that no one might pass through
the arch that had seen so great a humiliation ; he and the
queen mother, with their attendants, and the nobles and
court officials, presented themselves before the enemy, sit
ting down," like mourners, on the ground, clad no doubt
in black, their faces covered with their mantles,' to await
their doom. The incident was never forgotten. "Writing
after the last fall of Jerusalem, Josephus tells us that as
long as the city stood, the anniversary of an event so touch
ing was commemorated in the services of the temple, as a
signal instance of self-sacrifice for the public good. Jehoi
achin had gone, with his family, men said, into voluntary
• Ewald, Gesch., vol. iii. p. 791. ! Jer. xiii. 18. 2 Kings xxv. 12.
s This follows from their assuming the character of mourners by sitting on the
earth.

JEHOIACHIlf. 351
captivity, to save the temple from being destroyed," and
we may, also, readily believe, to save the city and its
inhabitants. But his hope of clemency was doomed to disappoint
ment. With all his genius, Xebuchadnezzar was a true
Eastern sultan, hard and stern to conquered rebels. Xo
pity was shewn the suppliants. Led at once into the pres
ence of the Great King, who had now arrived before Jeru
salem, they were sent as captives to Babylon. But even
the banishment of the king and court, with the flower of
the nobility, did not seem guarantee enough for the future
obedience of a petty state so turbulent as Judah. The royal
harem, all the leading men found in Jerusalem, including
many priests and prophets,'' all the princes, 7,000 fighting
men, and a crowd of workers in metal, wood, and stone,
and of armourers,' were swept away, at once to weaken and
humble the city, and to transfer skilled labour to the royal
service at Babylon.' Ten thousand men, in all, were carried
off from Jerusalem,' and over 3,000 from the country round. °
The prompt capitulation had saved the city from utter de
struction, and the population from being, in great part,
put to the sword. But the conqueror did not content him
self with the mere deportation of captives. The treasures
in the palace were seized, and the temple rifled of most of
its precious contents ; even the gold still left on its walls
' Jos., Bell. Jud., VI. ii. 1, » Jer. xxix. 1.
3 The word means " one who closes," and is usxially applied to locksmiths and the
like. Bnt the closing the joints of armour, of whatever kind, seems in this case more
natural. * Layard thinks that some of fhe objects of art found in the ruins of Babylon may
have been the work of Phoenician or other Syrian captives. Nineveh, p. 119. Bal/y-
lon, p. 192. Tet Babylon and Assyria were skilled in metal working, for, among the
ruins of Sargon's palace, objects of iron and bronze, such as hooks, rings, chains,
pick-axes, hammers, ploughshares, weapons, fragments of chariots, and tools of all
sorts, were found. ' 2 Kings xxiv. 14. • Jer. lii. 28.

353 JEHOIACHIN.
and gates being rudely hacked ofl and carried to Baby
lon.' The shock of such a calamity was terrible. Nearly a
hundred and fifty years had passed since the glades beyond
the Jordan had resounded with the lamentations of the
captives of Gilead, dragged away to Assyria by Tiglath
Pileser, and it was over a hundred and twenty years since
Sargon had marched back to Xineveh, leading thousands
of the people of the western half of the Xorthern Kingdom
into exile. Assyria had fallen within the last few years,
and now, itself, lay in ruins as desolate as those of the
Hebrew cities it had turned into solitudes. But another
power had risen, as fierce and ruthless, and Judah, the
last hope of the chosen people, saw its king and its leading
citizens swept off in chains to the Euphrates. We live
again amidst the agony of the moment, in the outburst of
Jeremiah's grief, already quoted. Could it be that the
young king was to be cast away like a worthless potsherd ;'
he who seemed to his people under the special care of Jeho
vah, their covenant God, as if he had heen tlie royal signet
ring on the finger of the Almighty ! ' The wild cry of
agony seemed to Jeremiah to rise from the top of Lebanon,
the hills of Bashan, and the mountains of Moab, as the
pale spirit of the land looked down, like a mother robbed
of her children, on the long train of her noblest sons — •
among whom were Ezekiel, and Kisli, the great-grandfather
of Mordecai' — wending away into distant captivity. ° It
may be that in the forty-second and forty-third Psalms
we have the lament of one of the exiles, as he took a
last look from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermons,
} Thenius, and Hebrew. ' Jer. xxii. 2S. ' Jer. xxii. 24.
» Ezek. 1. 1; iii. IS. Esth. ii. 5. ' Jer. xxii. 20.

JEHOIACHIX. 353
and the hill Mizar, on the scenes he was leaving for
ever.' "XLII. 1. As the hart pants (under the sultry sky) for brooks of
water,'
So pants my sonl after Thee, 0 God !
2. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God —
When shall I come (back; and appear before God ?
3. My tears have been my meat day and night,
WhUe they continually say to me, ' Where is thy God ? '
4. My soul overflows with sorrow when I remember it.
" How I used to go up with the multitude (to Jerusalem)!
How I went with bands, in procession, to the House of God !
With the multitude that kept the joyful feast,'
Amidst the voice of praise and loud rejoicing !
"5. Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul, and why art thou disquieted'
within me ?
Hope ' thou in God, for I wUl still praise Him !
He is the health of my countenance, and my God.
"6. 0 my God, my soul is cast down within me !
Therefore will I remember Thee from the land of .Jordan, and from
the Hermons, from the hill Mizar.°
' It is a striking proof of the need for modest diffidence in fixing the dates of the
Psalms, to see those which have been assigned by different scholars to the 42d
Psalm. Delitzsch thinks it of the time of David. Vaihinger ascribes it to a Levite
driven away hy Athaliah. Hitzig, to a prie.=t carried off to Syria in the Syrian wars.
Oishausen, to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Ewald, to Jehoiachin while he
rested hy night at Hermon, on the way to Babylon. The 42d and 4.3d Psalms are
regarded, by nearly all critics, as having originally been parts of one whole now acci
dentally divided.
" Fe. xlii. 1-6. The word translated "brooks" (Apliikim) means any strong
body of water, snch as the torrents which msh down tbe wadys after heavy rains.
Pas.«ing away in a few hours, the only traces of them left are pools here and there.
The hart is represented as standing over the dry bed of the torrent, panting for some
shady spot where water may still be found.
^ Among the multitude adorned (for the feast). Septuagint. Bredenkamp, p. 143.
< Or, meanest thon. * Or, wait on.
• "The Hermons" are the eastern chain of Lebanon, from the foot of a spur of
which the largest of the three sources of Jordan bursts out, at Banias ; the two other
sources, also, rising from the melting of the Hermon snows. These mountains are a
magnificent spectacle. I crossed them on the way to Damascus. Hermon was called
VOL. v.— 23

354 JEHOIACHIN.
7. The deep above calls to the deep beneath,' at the voice of Thy
water-floods ;
All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me.
8. But (yet) Jehovah will send forth " his loving-kindness to me day by
day.
And by night the song to Him will be with me, and my prayer to the
God of my life !
9. I will say to God, my Rock, ' Why hast thou forgotten me ?
Why go 1 mourning because of the oppression of the enemy ? '
10. As with a crushing of my bones, my enemies reproach me;
Daily saying to me, ' Where is thy God ? '
"11. Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul, why art thou disquieted
within me ?
Hope Thou in God, for I shall still praise Him !
He is the health of my countenance, and my God.
" XLIII. 1. Judge me, 0 God, and plead my cause against an
ungodly nation ;
0 deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man !
3. Por thou art God, my fortress ; why hast Thou cast me off ?
Why go I mourning, because of the oppression of the enemy ?
Sirion by the Sidonians, the word being probably a Turanian name, meaning "white
or snowy." The old Amorite name was Shenir, ttie meauing of which is uncertain.
The top is more or less covered with snow, for several months in the year. I crossed
underneath the highest peak, in the raonth of March, and found great patches of
snow, in many parts so close together, that, from the lower districts, far away, the
sheet of white had appeared unbroken and glorious. There was snow, also, on th3
level expanse ofthe old crater just under the highest ridge, wMch stretches away in
awful sublimity to the north. I ate my lunch on the floor of the crater, beside a
patch of snow, but the air was deliciously mild. The highest point of this grand
mountain must have been sacred from the most remote ages, for there is, on it. an
oval of cut stones carefully laid, with ashes inside, as if traces of a beacon or of a
sacrificial fire. There is, moreover, a cave close by, hewn in the rock, with a toek
pillar bearing up the roof. Mizar = literally, " smallness." Position unknown.
^ Perhaps the ocean overhead and the ocean around, or, possibly, the sounding
waterfalls of the hills have their tumult answered back from their channels beneath.
The word translated " deep," means the sea, the abyss from which rivers flow up, or
any mass of raging waters. It may be the poet refers to the bursting of a heavy ram-
cloud. A tropical rain is amazing in its vehemence. The word for " water-floods "
means a rush of waters. In 2 Sam. v. 8, the only other text in which it occnrs, it
seems to mean a conduit. Ps. xlii. 7-xlIi. 2.
2 Literally, " command."

JEHOIACHIN. 355
"3. Send forth Thy light and Thy truth ! let them lead me,
Let them bring me to Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles,'
4. That so I may come to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy !
And praise Thee on the harp, O God, my God !
"5. Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul; and why art thou disquieted
within me ?
Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him,
The health of my countenance, and my God ! "
Babylonia, however, was not altogether a strange land
to the captives. Numbers of their fellow-countrymen had
already been carried thither after the battle of Carchemish,
and on the second invasion of Palestine by ISTebuchadnez-
zar, and had been settled at Tel Abib, which may be trans
lated " Cornhill," on the banks of a great canal, the
Chebar,'' connected with the Euphrates, somewhere in
Lower Mesopotamia. That men like Daniel and his three
companions were among these first bands of exiles, must
have softened the regrets of banishment ; the fresh pris
oners being settled among their brethren carried off before
them. Jehoiachin himself was bitterly humbled. Clad
in coarse prison garments, he had to bear the miseries
and degradation of an Eastern jail — tempered, however,
by the company of his wife ' — till the death of Nebu
chadnezzar, thirty-six years later. Not till then was pity
shewn him. The new king of that day. Evil Merodach,
having no such personal feeling against him as had swayed
his father, strove to atone for the long sufferings of the
1 Or, dwelling-places. Ps. xliii. 3-5.
2 Ezek. i. 3 ; iii. 15. See Fried. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? p. 47. Schrader,
art. " Ezekiel," in Bib. Lex. There were at least thirty-flve broad canals, each with a
distinctive name. Delitzsch, p. 193. The Diet, of the Bible names a ppecial canal,
" The Royal," as probably the Chebar. Riehm only speaks of it as some now lost
stream or canal of Babylonia.
s This follows from his cbildren having been bom in Babylon.

356 JEHOIACHIN.
unfortunate exile, by setting him free, and entertaining
him thenceforward at the royal table, in suitable splen
dour.' Legend has brightened the story of his last days ;
describing him as living on the Euphrates, in a sumptuous
house, surrounded by a spacious paradise, and married to
the fairest womaa of his day, the chaste Susannah ; ' the
companion of the king of Babylon, and the chief person
age, and high judge among the captives. It is added,
moreover, that amidst all, he was still mindful of his
native land, listening, with his brethren, to Baruch, as
he read the prophecies before them, and amidst weeping,
fasting, and prayer, sending off help to the remnant of
his people in Jerusalem. ° But this touching picture is
only a creation of national pride, to adorn with a ficti
tious prosperity the closing years of the last direct heir
to the Jewish crown.
After the deportation of so many of its leading men and
its best mechanics, Judah was feeble in the extreme. Yet
population enough remained to form the beginning of a
state that might ultimately have been prosperous, if it had
remained peacefully dependent on Babylon. Nebuchad
nezzar evidently iutended this, for he left the walls of
Jerusalem, and of other strong places like Lachish and
Azekah, untouched. The leaders of the troublesome
Egyptian party had been carried off, or were thought to
have been so, but enough members of the upper classes,
favourable to Babylon, had been left, to supply the king
with of&cials and to support the dignity of the throne. It

' Jer. lii. 31-34.
' Susannah i. 4. The Joiakim of this passage was identified in the early Church
with Jehoiachin. Africanus (E^t. ad Orig., Routh's.Brf. Sac., vol. ii. p. 113), quoted
by Lord Arthur Hen-ey, Did. ofthe Bible, vol. i. p. 943.
3 Baruch i. 3. fE.

JEHOIACHIN. 357
rested with Judah itself whether it should continue a
nation, by submitting to Nebuchadnezzar, or perish by
vain resistance.
Small as it was, tlie land had a wonderful povver of
recovering itself after the heaviest blows. The temple,
the palaces, and the mansions of the rich, still made
Jerusalem proud of its beauty, and it was the centre of
a trade that brought great gain to its citizens. The
country round, though naturally only bare gray hills,
was exceedingly fertile when carefully terraced, and some
spots yielded not only olives and fruit, but also grain,
as, for example, the valley sloping up towards Bethle
hem. The Phoenicians, as has been noticed, year by year
exported wheat, date syrup, oil, and balsam,' from the
richer parts of the small territory of Judah, on the west
of Jerusalem, especially, in exchange for their own manu
factures, and their imports from every part of the world.
Jerusalem as a central post for business, supplied the
demands of the various peoples east and south ; ^ Phoeni
cian exchangers, settled in it, facilitating commercial
transactions. Various trades and arts, moreover, flourished. There
was a guild of masons,' to whom the plummet, the meas
uring line, the compasses, and the square, were as familiar
as to us. ¦* Sculpture had taken root in Judah, since its
contact with Assyria, and metal workers shewed at once
their skill and moral laxity by casting idols of all sizes,
while gold and silver workers found only too much trade
in moulding costly vessels for the luxurious aristocracy,
* An export called Pan-nag is also mentioned, Ezek. xxvii. 17, which is rendered
"comBts" by Ewald, and " millet " in the Peshito.
' Graetz. vol. ii. p. 362. ^ Masger.
' 2 Kings xxiv. 14. Amos vil. 7. Isa. xliv. 13.

358 JEHOIACHIN.
and covering the wooden figures of idols with plates of the
precious metals,' brought through Tyre, from the mines of
Spain and India." The mansions of the rich were wains
coted with cedar ; their floors adorned with mosaics,' and
the roofs and walls set off with bright colours.'' Yet the
bulk of such skilled artiflcers were now removed to Baby
lonia. Nor was high culture wanting. The writings of the
prophets and psalmists imply an equal activity in various
directions. Like other Orientals, the Hebrews delighted
in proverbs, and they had a literature of songs and elegies. °
Nor was their social declension without some mitigations.
The praise of the virtuous wife, in the Book of Proverbs,
shews that, if the king and a few of his nobles practised
polygamy, the community, as a rule, were free from it.
No picture of a happy home could be more perfect than
the ideal painted as that of these long past times. A
house-mother in whom the heart of her husband can
safely trust, so that he never wants; who does him good
and not harm all the days of her life ; whose life is cease
lessly busy with every womanly work and art ; whose
household are clothed in scarlet ; whose husband is hon
oured among his neighbours on her account ; whose chil
dren arise and call her blessed,'' speaks of domestic life of
the noblest type as still familiar in some of the homes of
Judah. A people among whom such a conception of woman ex
isted, must, indeed, have had much good in it even in the
worst times, for mothers form the characters of their sons.
Home is the cradle of the spirit as well as of the body. It
1 Hos. xlii. 2. Jer. xliv. 19 ; x. 4. a Jer. x. 9.
' Maskhit. Graetz, vol. ii. p. 362. • Jer. xxii. 14.
' 2 Chron. xxxv. 25. • Prov. xxxi. 10-31.

JEHOIACHIN. 359
is natural, therefore, to read that the stony hills and val
leys of Judah were often merry with the song and dance.
At marriages, and the vintage, and the yearly feasts, flutes,
tambourines, and harps made music to the chorus of happy
voices. (James were keenly followed by the youth, one
especially being noticed by Zecbariah ' — a trial of strength
by lifting great weights. Contests of wit were a familiar
amusement, as in the days of Samson ; the members of a
company striving to puzzle each other by riddles, or to
shew their smartness in joke or repartee.
Then, however, as now, there was a sharp contrast be
tween the town and the country. The quiet life of the
field or garden gave little opportunity for sharpening the
faculties, compared with the capital ; and the same half-
contemptuous sense of this, which has, in our own lan
guage, changed the old English name for peasant" into
the modern '•' boor," pictured the Jewish Am-ha-aretz, or
countryman, as the equivalent of a rude clown.' In Jeru
salem, moreover, public speaking seems to have been as
carefully studied by the upper classes as it was among the
Gr reeks ; the popular liberty always cherished amoug the
Hebrews making the arts of persuasion necessary to those
who would gain power or public influence.'' Agitators and
schemers could flatter with their tongues, and only too
often realized that they could gain their end by dexterous
speech more easily than by force.'
Since the death of Josiah, the government of Judah had
^ Zech. xii. 3. Jerome, on the verse, says, of his own day, "The old custom ia
still preserved in the towns of Palestine and throngh Jndiea, to have in the villages,
towns, and towers, round stones of great weight, with which the young men are wont
to try their strength, some lifting them to their knees, some to their breasts, some to
their shoulders and heads." " " Baner," still the German word.
3 The word " clown" itself is " colonus," a cultivator of the soil, a ploughman.
< Ps. xii. 4. ' Ps. lv. 21.

360 JEHOIACHIN.
been virtually an oligarchy. The kings could do little,
and, in their fear of a conflict with a powerful aristocracy,
gave themselves up to the effeminacy of a life in their
harem or to busy idling. Only the nearest relatives, and a
few favourites, had the right of entry to the presence.'
Surrounded by black eunuchs, the successors of David were
only nominal kings." Even the kingly prerogative of
supreme judge seems to have passed, before the fall of the
city, into the hands of the court and the princes ; ' men,
who, in not a few cases, had sunk so low as to devote their
principal care to the preservation of their personal beauty.'
It would have needed a strong and vigorous ruler to save
the nation from utter ruin, and unfortunately such a man
did not fill the throne after Jehoiachin's fall.
* 2 Kings xxv. 19. Jer. lii. 25. In the one passage the number of these favourites
is five, in the other seven.
' 2 Kings xxiv. 15. Jer. xxxviii. 22. 2 Kings xxiii. 11. Jer. xxxiv. 19; xli. 16;
xxxviii. 7, etc.
3 Jer. xxi. 12 ; xxii. 3 ; xxvi. 10.
* Lam. iv. 7. 'Where "Nazarites" refers, from the parallel in the next verse, to
the princes.

CHAPTER XVIII.
ZEDEKIAH, B.o. 599-588."
king of babylon. kings of egypt.
Nebuchadnezzar, b.o. 604-563. Pharaoh Necho, b.c 613-596.
Psammetichus II., 596-591.'
Pharaoh Hophba, 591-572.
It might have been thought that, after the bitter results
of the revolt against Babylon, under Jehoiachin, the ruler
who succeeded him would have learned a lesson of quiet
submission. But the Chaldaeans themselves had done much
to stir up future trouble. The flower of the various influ
ential classes had been carried off, though some who es
caped the enemy, or were thought friendly to Babylonian
vassalage, still remained. The land, however, must have
been greatly weakened, since only 4,600 men were thought
worth banishing, after the final insurrection.' Many of
the boldest and most restless spirits had fled to Egypt,*
in their detestation of Babylon ; the ancient and familiar
civilization of the Nile valley seeming preferable to the
harsh and barbarous rule of the newly risen Chaldaean
kingdom. The leaning of the people, generally, was
towards dependence on Pharaoh rather than on Nebuchad
nezzar, and this boded no good for the future.
Still, the necessities of the position appeared to guaran
tee peace. The land was exhausted, its towns stripped
• 599, Schrader. 598, Riehm. 537, Lenoimant and Maspero.
» 589, Maspero. ' Jer. lii. 28-30. * Jer. xxiv. 8.

362 ZEDEKIAH.
of their fighting population, its resources wasted, its
affairs thrown into confusion. Society had to be largely
reconstructed, for the poorer classes were now a large
majority, and most of the capitalists, statesmen, and
substantial citizens were exiles. The framework of the
whole community, however, had been left. There were
materials for a court ; the city and country towns were
intact ; the soil remained free, and there was population
enough to make the kingdom ere long prosperous and
happy, if it were contented to he dependent. Nebuchad
nezzar's aim in sparing Jerusalem had evidently been to
maintain a weak tributary state between himself and
Egypt, as an outpost of his empire, and a check on inva
sion of Asia from the Nile.
After the banishment of Jehoiachin the choice of a suc
cessor, hy the conqueror, fell on his uncle Mattaniah, " the
gift of Jehovah," the third son of Josiah. He was a boy
of ten 'years old when his father fell at Megiddo, and was
now in his twenty-first year.' His half-brother, Jehoiakim,
had been the son of a second wife of his father ; but he
and Jehoahaz, now an exile in Egypt, were full brothers,
the sons of Hamutal, of Libnah, in the western lowlands."
Unfortunately, for more than a generation, all the kings
had been very young at their accession : Josiah, a child of
8 ; Jehoahaz, 23 ; Jehoiakim, 25 ; Jehoiachin, the nephew
of Mattaniah, 18. Instead of such inexperienced rulers,
at so perilous a crisis, the helm of state demanded a strong
hand and a firm will. Mattaniah, unfortunately, had
neither. Eather weak than bad ; wanting in foresight,
• 2 Kings xxiv. 18. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 11.
2 2 Kings xxiii. 31 ; xxiv. 18. The aflrection of full brothers was proverbial.
They fancied they were closer relations to each other than a son is to a father ol
mother.

ZEDEKIAH. 3G3
irresolute, without force of will to take and keep his
right position as head of the country ; anxious to follow
the counsels of the prophets, but without the courage to
do so ; he became the mere sport of factions, and at last
was brought by them into ruinous conflict with Babylon,
against his own better judgment and convictions. A
Charles I. or Louis XVL, when the country needed a
Longshanks or Cromwell ; he might have ruled well in
quieter times, but was unfit for those on which he fell.
But the succession was quite regular, for Jehoiachin was
as yet childless ; his sons being born after he was carried
to Babylon.'
Counting perhaps on his gentleness of disposition and
aversion from war, Nebuchadnezzar, instead of setting
up a Chaldaean governor or resident in Jerusalem, ap
pointed Mattaniah to the throne. He took care, however,
to require from him a solemn oath by Elohim,' that he
would be a faithful vassal to Babylon, making no innova
tions, and forming no league or alliance with Egypt. He
was thus bound by every consideration of interest, honour,
religion, and gratitude, to be true to the Chaldsean ruler.
His two predecessors had been in a very different position.
For him, disloyalty must bring ruin.
On taking the throne, Mattaniah changed his name to
Zedekiah, "the righteousness of Jehovah," as if his first
impulse had been to rule in the fear of God, like his
illustrious father. The hopes of the jirophets seem to
have been for the moment revived, for the great name,
• 1 Chron. iii. 17. Assir = the captive.
» 2 Chron. xxxvi. 13. Ezek. xvii. 13. Jos., Ant., X.vii. 1. 1 Esdras i. 48. Elohim
was a general expression for the Divine Being. Nebuchadnezzar did not recognize
the power of Jehovah, since he seemed to have prevailed against Him by subduing
His people.

364 ZEDEKIAH.
Jehovah Tsidkenu— " the Lord our Kighteousness " '— by
which Jeremiah in after years looked forward to the
Messiah, appears as if it had been at least suggested by
that of a king whose adopted name was so nearly iden
tical." But the gleam of sunshine soon passed away.
To a race like the Jews, proud beyond all others, in
the belief that Jehovah, the God of the whole earth, had
chosen them as His peculiar people,' subjection to a
foreign ruler was intolerable. Was not the temple, the
"House" of the mighty God, in their midst? Could
He allow it to fall into the hands of the worshippers of
other gods, and thus let those gods be thought superior
to Himself ? Would He not, assuredly, make bare His
holy arm in their defence, as of old, if they Avere attacked,
and give them the victory over their enemies ? Fanati
cism had largely taken the place of genuine religion,
and the disasters of the past had not destroyed a belief
in the invincibility of Judah, which had its roots in
national pride. At the opening of Zedekiah's reign,
moreover, there seemed hope for Judffia and the nations
around. All sighed for their old independence. Nebu
chadnezzar was not as yet, in the public imagination, the
irresistible conqueror he became in the thirty-six years of
his reign which still remained. Common misery had for
the time obliterated old feuds in Jerusalem. The iron of
slavery had entered into the soul of the people ; there was
but one thought among them — to regain their freedom.
Desperation overpowered prudence.
Nor was this agitation confined to Judah. Far away
on the Euphrates, the banished magnates of Jerusalem
• Jer. xxiii. IS-?. Leyrer, in Herzog, vol. xxi. p. 642.
= Zedekiah, in Hebrew, is Tsidkiyyahu, or Tsidld-yyah.
' Deut. xiv. 2 ; xxvi. 18. Ps. cxxxv. 4. Exod. xix. 5.

ZEDEKIAH. 365
dreamed, as all exiles dream, of a speedy return to their
own country, and plotted incessantly to bring it about.
Even in Jerusalem it was fondly believed that Jehoiachin
would soon come back to his own again.' Unworthy
prophets zealously favoured this delusion, to please the
people, and men like Jeremiah vvere powerless to convince
their fellow-citizens, against their will, of the folly of these
expectations. Pharaoh Necho, however, had died in the
second year of Zedekiah's reign," and his son Psammeti
chus II. was too busy with schemes of conquest in Ethiopia
to interfere in the affairs of Palestine. Eeligious troubles
in the countries south of Egypt supplied a pretext for war
with them, while he, further, claimed their sovereignty
through his aunt, an Ethiopian j)rincess, whom he had
married. A new sect in these territories, led by some
priests, asserted the right to eat the flesh of sacrifices
raw, dispensing with the hitherto indispensable cooking ;
an outrage on all Egyptian ideas, to be suppressed by the
sword. An expedition was therefore undertaken to crush
the heretics ; Carians and Phoenicians, among others, form
ing mercenary corps iu the Egyptian force ; as inscrip
tions, left by some of them on the limbs of one of the
colossal statues before the rock temple of Ipsamboul, still
curiously shew.' But Psammetichus returned to Egypt
only to die. During his reign, Palestine, quiet outwardly,
had seethed with political excitement. Moab, Ammon,
E^om, Tyre and Sidon, most of whom had shortly before
fought against Judah as allies of Nebuchadnezzar, were
1 Jer. xxviii. 4. ^ e.g. 596.
' Some of these areas follows : "When King Peammelichus came to Elephantiua,
this was written by the companions of Psammetichus, tho son of Theocles." "I
have been written by Acchon," etc. " Telaphos of Talyson (iu the island of Ehodes)
wrote me," etc.

366 ZEDEKIAH.
anxious to induce Zedekiah to join in a general revolt.
The weak Hebrew community was in danger of drifting
into a war with the greatest power of the day.
Anxious to quiet the mind of Nebuchadnezzar, and shew
his own loyalty, Zedekiah, under these circumstances, de
termined to make a journey to Babylon, to do homage for
investiture in his kingdom, and to present the gifts cus
tomary in the East on such occasions.' He had delayed
discharging this duty till the fourth year of his reign," and
it was now imperative that he should try to clear himself
from suspicion of collusion with the restlessness of his sub
jects, or of the communities round him.
This incident is memorable from the light it throws on the
supernatural prevision of the Hebrew prophets. Jeremiah,
ever loyal to his countrymen, resolved to take advantage
of it, by sending a communication to the exiles, cheering
them by revealing the doom in store for Babylon, not
withstanding its pride and strength. The oppressor would,
in God's time, be humbled as deeply as the captives now
banished from Zion. Having written the prediction on a
roll, he committed it to tbe care of Seraiah, the officer in
charge of the royal gifts,' with the command that on his
reaching Babylon in the train of Zedekiah, he should read
it to the exiles, no doubt in secret, and afterwards tie a
stone to the roll, and sink it in the Euphrates, repeating
as he did so a short form of prayer and concluding com
ment ; thus — " 0 Jehovah, Thou hast spoken against this
place, to cut it off, so that none shall remain in it, neither
* Gifts are, still, always presented in the East by an inferior in approaching a
superior for the flrst time. Bishop Heber relates, that his servants, even to the
jioorest, brought presents to him on their entering his employment, when he first
went to India. Heber's Journal, vol. i. p. 25.
" Jer. li. 59.
> The words, " a quiet prince " (Jer. li. 59) should be thus translated.

ZEDEKIAH. 367
man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever ; " add
ing, as the book sank out of sight in the waters : " Thus
shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I,
Jehovah, bring upon her ; for the Babylonians will, in
their turn, wax faint and perish." '
The prophecy thus strangely published in the very terri
tory whose doom it proclaimed, has been preserved, from
the original left by Jeremiah, of which the roll sent to
Babylon must have been a copy. That it was written
nearly seventy years before the close of the Chaldaean em
pire, when no sign of its fall could possibly have been visi
ble — when, indeed, it was at the height of its glory as the
greatest monarchy of the world — is a startling indication
of its Divine source. Inspiration, in its strictest sense,
could alone have dreamed of it.
"L. 3. Declare ye," among the nations — began the roll — publish it,
and lift up a signal,' conceal it not : say, Babylon is taken. Bel' is
brought to shame; Merodach* is in dismay; the idols of Babylon are
put to shame; her doU-gods are broken in pieces ! 3. For a nation
comes up against her out of the north ; ' it makes her land desolate,
1 Literally, " be exhausted, or wearied out." Jer. li. 59-64.
^ Jer. 1. 1-8- ' Hebrew, banner, ensign.
* Bel, or Baal, was the chief god of the city of Babylon, bnt not the national god
of Babylonia. His name stands first in two lists of gods, deciphered by Schrader.
Studien u. Eritiken, 1874, pp. ass, ff.
^ Merodach, or Mardiik, was identical with the Babylonian Bel, and became prince
of the gods only when a sultan like Nebuchadnezzar had become undisputed mas
ter of Babylonia, and liad adopted him as his patron divinity. Thus specially hon
oured, he was, henceforth, one of the chief Babylonian gods, and corresponded to the
Jupiter of the Romans (Riehm, lOSj, being, in fact, the planet of that name (Riehm,
982). Bel and Merodach were often used as a combined name of the tntelar god of
Babylon. "The whele Babylonian dynasty," says Oppert, "put Merodach at the
head of the gods, and the inscription of Borsippa calls him king of heaven and earth."
(Exp^l. en Mesopot., vol. ii. p. 272.) Bel was, indeed, only one Baal among many
Baalim, supreme when his worshippers were so, bnt, at other times, whether called
Merodach or Bel, only the god of the single city of Babylon and its inhabitants.
Sayce, Hibbert Lectures. 96.
° In verse 9 the enemy of Babylon is spoken of as an alliance of nations. Their
names are given in chap. li. 27, 28.

308 ZEDEKIAH.
SO that no one dwells in it; both man and beast are fled from it and
gone 1
"4. In those days,' and at that time, says Jehovah, the sons of Israel
and the sons of Judah will return (to Palestine) together, weeping all
the way as they go, and will seek Jehovah, their God. 5. They will
ask the way to Zion, with their faces hitherward.^ And those in Judah
will say, 'Come, let us join ourselves to Jehovah, in a perpetual cove
nant that shall not be forgotten.' 6. My people have been (like) lost
sheep. Their shepherds led them to mountains on whieh they went
astray; ' they went from mountain to hill ; they forgot their (true) rest
ing place.* 7. All who met them devoured them, and their oppress
ors said, ' We are guilty of nothing, for they have sinned against Je
hovah, the Habitation of Bighteousness ; against Jehovah, the Hope
of their fathers.' 8. Flee out of Babylon ; go forth from the land of
the Chaldaeans, and be as the he-goats before the flock." *
The fall of Babylon is again foretold.
"9. Por, lo, I will raise and lead against Babylon an assembly of
great nations from the north. They will array themselves against her.
Prom the north will she be taken. Their arrows will be like those of a
skilled warrior, who does not return empty." 10. And Chaldtea shall
be a spoil; all who plunder it will be satisfied with booty, saith Jeho
vah. 11. For though ye are glad now; though ye rejoice, 0 ye plun
derers of My heritage; though ye leap like a heifer on the threshing
floor; though ye neigh like stallions, 13. yet (Babylon) your mother
shall be put to shame ; she that bore you will blush red. (Por men
will say:) '(Babylon is become) the least of the nations, a waste des
ert, a barren steppe ! ' 13. Because of the wrath of Jehovah it will
not be inhabited, but will be wholly desolate ; every one who passes
by it will be astonished, and hiss at all the punishments she has
received." The enemy is now directly addressed.
> Jer. 1. 4-13.
» Jeremiah writes from Jerusalem. Mark this undesigned evidence of the genu
ineness of the prophecy.
3 The idol high places iu the hills. ' Under the shadow of Jehovah.
» " The soldiers were obliged to buy a large he-goat, to walk at the head ofthe flock;
for, until they did so, the sheep ran hither and thitlier, and could not be driven com
fortably." Six Years in India, p. 114. '3 Sam. i. 22.

ZEDEKIAH. 369
" 14. .^rray yourselves against Babylon,' round about, all ye that
bend the bow; shoot at her; spare no arrow; for she has sinned
against Jehovah ! 15. Raise the battle shout round her; she has sur
rendered;'' her bastions are fallen; her walls are overthrown;^ for it
is the vengeance of Jehovah '. Take ye vengeance on her ! As she has
done, do ye to her ! Kj. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him
who handles the sickle in the time of harvest ! Before the destroying
sword every one (of the captives in Babylon) wiU turn to his own peo
ple, and flee to his own land. 17. Israel is a sheep driven away from
its pasture ; the lions have driven it away. First, the Mng of Assvria
devoured it, and now, at the last, this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Baby
lon, has craunched up its bones. 18. Therefore, Jehovah of hosts, the
God of Israel, speaks thus : Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon
and his land, as I punished the king of Assj-ria."
Israel, however, has a glorious future before it.
' ' 19. And I will lead Israel back again to his pasture, and he shall
feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied on Mount
Ephraim and in Gilead. 20. In those days and at that time, saith Jeho
vah, the iniquity of Israel mil be sought, but it will be gone ; and the
sins of Judah, but they will not be found; for I will pardon those that
I leave remaining."
Babylon, the defiant enemy of Jehovah, will be brought
low as a punishment for her offence against His temple at
Jerusalem. "21. Go up against (Babylon) the land of Double Eebellion (rebel
lion by pride and its idolatry, and by its enmity to Jehovah) ; against
it — the City of Punishment * (worthy of wrath, and soon to feel it).
(Let them that) attack it, slay and utterly destroy behind them, and
do all that I have commanded thee (saith Jehovah) !
' Jer. 1. 14-21. ' Literally, " given her hand."
* Cyrus only made breaches in the walls, but Darius, in his later siege, destroyed
part of them, and threw down all the gates. Blakesley thinksthat Cyrus stormed the
palace fortress on the bank of the river, by cutting the dam which retained the water
in its moats, and then digging through the walls ; a scheme never anticipated.
Berod., i. 142.
* "Pekod," in A.V., was the name of a place in Babylon, so that "Merathaim"
(A. v., ver. 21) may also have been some place, now atikoowii.
VOL. v.— 24

370 ZEDEKIAH.
"22. A sound" of battle is in the land, and of great destruction !
23. How is the Hammer '' of the whole earth cut asunder and broken.
How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations ! 24. I laid
nets for thee, and thou wast taken, 0 Babylon, when thou didst not
expect it.= Thou wast found and caught (like a wild beast), because
thou hast striven 'against Jehovah. 25. Jehovah has opened His
armoury, and brought out the weapons of His wrath ; for Jehovah,
the Lord of Hosts, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldaeans.
26. Come ye up against her, ye nations, from the first of you to the
last '; open her granaries ; throw up her (treasures) in heaps, and burn
them utterly ; ¦¦ let nothing be spared ! 27. Slay all her (people, like)
bullocks ; let them sink in the slaughter ! Woe to them, for their day
has come ; the time of their visitation ! 28. Hark ! (the exiled of
Israel) are fleeing and escaping out of the land of Babylon, to declare
in Zion the vengeance of Jehovah our God (against the guilty city) ;
His vengeance (against it) for (destroying) His temple !
"29. Call together the archers against Babylon ; all ye that bend
the bow, invest it round about. Let none escape from her ; recom
pense her according to her work ; do to her as she has done ; for she
has been haughty against Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel ! 30.
Therefore will her young men fall in the streets, and all her fighting
men be destroyed in that day, saith Jehovah. 31. Behold ! I come
against you, 0 thou who art Pride itself, saith the Lord, Jehovah of
hosts ; for thy day has corae ; the time when I will punish thee ! 83.
And the Haughty one" will stumble and fall, and no one will raise
him up; and I will kindle fire in his cities that will devour all round
about him.
" 33. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts : The sons of Israel, and the sons
of Judah are oppressed together, and all their tyrants have held them
fast, and have refused to let them go. 34. But their Avenger is
' Jer. 1. 82-34.
2 This name, here given to Babylon, was bome by Judas Maccabseus, if the deri
vation of the latter word be from Makk^bh. Charles Martel is equivalent to Charles
the Hammer. He was the grandfather of Charlemagne, and won a great victory over
the Saracens at Tours in a.d. 732. On the tomb of Edward I., moreover, are the
words Scotorum Malleus, the Hammer of the Scots. The tomb is in Westminster
Abbfey. 3 Herodotus ppeaks of the astonishment of the inhabitants of Babylon at its cap
ture, 1. 191; iii. 15S.
4 Literally, " put them under the ban, or destroy them." See Josh. xi. 12, 13. All
the wealth of Bab,vlon is in reality meant. What could not be carried off was to be
burnt with the city. ^ Literally, " Pride."

ZEDEKIAH.

371

strong; Jehovah of hosts is His name; He will carry through their
cause ; to giye rest to the earth, and to make the inhabitants of Baby
lon tremble.
"35. A sword is against the Chaldaeans, saith Jehovah,' and against
the inhabitants of Babylon, and against her princes, and against her
' Wise men ! ' 36. A sword is against her boasters, and they will

The Site of Bahtlon duking the Inundation of the EuniRATEs.
From a drawing by J. B. Fraser, Esq.
bs^come fools ! A sword is against her braves, and they will be
disraayed 1 37. A sword is against their horses, and against their
chariots, and against all the mercenary soldiers in the midst of her,
and they shall becorae like women ! A sword is against her treasures,
and they shall be plundered ! 38. A drought '^ is upon her streams,
and they shall dry up ! Por it is a land of graven images, and they
let themselves be befooled by these frightful gods !
¦ Jer. 1. 35-38. " Sword. Ewald.

373 ZEDEKIAH.
" 39. Therefore,' the wild beasts of the desert shall dwell there with
jackals; ostriches will dwell iu it, and it will be inhabited no more for
ever, nor be peopled from generation to generation ! 40. As God
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and the towns near them, saith
Jehovah, no one will abide in Babylon, nor any one dwell in it.
"41. Behold! a people comes from the north, and a great nation
and raany kings rise up frora the farthest parts of the earth. 42.
They hold the bow and the lance; they are cruel and without pity;
their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, equipped like a
warrior for the fight, against thee, 0 Babylon ! 43. The king of
Babylon has heard the ruraour of them and his hands are powerless;
anguish has seized him; fear like that of a woman in travail.
"44. Behold ! the eneray comes up (against Babylon) as a lion (as
cends) from the thickets' of Jordan to the hill pastures,' and I, Jeho
vah, will make the flock run, forthwith (in terror, from Babylon, their
pasture), and will appoint over it him who is chosen * by Me. Por
who is My equal, and who may challenge what I do ? And who is the
shepherd (of a people) that can stand before Me (if I be against him) ?
45. Therefore, hear the counsel of Jehovah that He has taken against
Babylon, and His purposes that he has determined against the land of
the Chaldseans. Surely the eneray shall drag the people of Babylon
along into captivity, as lions drag away the weak ones of the flock.
Surely Babylon (their pasture) will be confounded at their fate 1
46. At the shout, 'Babylon is taken,' the earth will trerable and a cry
of joy will ring through the nations !
"LI. 1. Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I will raise up against Baby
lon, and in Laib Kamai (the heart of My enemy, the Chaldiean °), a de
stroying wind," 2. and I will send against Babylon winnowers,' who
1 Jer. 1. 39-11. 2.
2 Literally, " pride." The thickets on the edges of the bed of the Jordan are
meant. See pp. 167, 23D. This passage (44r46) is nearly the same aa ch. xlix. 19-21.
I ' Wilton's Negeb. p. 43. * Ewald. Graf.
s The words Laib Kamai are equivalent to the word Casdim, the Chaldseans, in the
cipher or secret writing known by the name of Atba-ch. See chap. xxv. 2ii, and p.
316. This secret cipher writing raay have been adopted to enforce the fact of Chaldaea
being the stronghold of the idolatry that corrupted Israel and the world. It could
serve no purpose of mere concealment, as the name of Babylon itself had already been
repeatedly used openly.
* This may be read, " the spirit of a destroyer ; " or, " the spirit of destruction,"
but the second reading suits best what follows.
' In the Hebrew text, as it stands, the word is " strangers," " barbarians," and is
thus translated by Keil and others ; but a very slight change makes it as rendered
above, and this is more in harmony with the figure of the prophet.

ZEDEKIAH, 373
shall throw her up against the wind (with tlieir shovels '), and erapty
her land (for she is but chaff which the wind carries away). For they
shall gather round her in the day of her trouble. 3. Let the archer ^
bend his bow against him that bends his (from the walls), and (against
him) that stands up in his arraour (for battle),' and spare not her young
men ; destroy her whole host, 4. so that the slain fall in the land of
the Chaldseans, and those thrust through, in her streets.
" 5. Por Israel is not left widowed, nor Judah, by her God, by
Jehovah of hosts ; but their land (the land of the Chaldaeans, is wid
owed, which) is full of sin against the Holy One of Israel. 6. Plee out
of Babylon, and save, every one, his life; perish not through her
iniquity ! For it is a time of the vengeance of Jehovah. He will
repay her (according to her works) ! 7. Babylon was a golden cup in
the hand of Jehovah, making drunk the whole earth. The nations
drank of her wine, and grew madly besotted. 8. Babylon has fallen
suddenly and is shattered to pieces. Raise the loud shriek (of mourn
ing) for her (ye captives of all nations in her midst); take balm for her
hurt, if so she may be healed ! 9. (But they answer:) ' We would have
healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Let us leave her, and let us,
every one, go to his own land, for her punishment reaches to heaven
and rises even to the clouds. 10. Jehovah has brought to light the
justice of our cause.' Come, let us tell in Zion the great deeds of
Jehovah our God ! ' "
The attack on Babylon is once more described.
"11. Polish the arrows; put on the shields;" Jehovah has roused
the hearts ' of the kings of the Medes,' for His purpose stands firm
- In the A. V. the words fanner and fan are used. They come from the Latin
vannus, a broad basket into whicb the com and chaff were put after threshing, to be
thrown up against the wind, and thus separated. The Jews used a shovel instead of
the vannus, which is related to ventus. the wind, 2 jer. li. 3-11.
^ The word in the A. V. is brigandine, a kin:l of scale armour of many jointed
plates, very pliant and easy for the body. It got its name from being used by the
light-armed foot soldiers known as brigands, and came to us from the French. The
mercenaries of the Middle Acres, when disbanded, often took to robbery, and hence
the modern sense of brigands. Thus, also, a pirate's ship became a brigantine, of
which brig is only an abbreviation. Venables, in Bib. Educator.
¦• Literally, " righteousness."
' Literally, "flll," i.e., with the arm. The Septuagint and Vulgateread " quivers,"
and are followed by Ewald. ' Literally, " spirits."
' The chiefs of the different tribes or districts, uuder whom the Medes lived till
they revolted from Assyria m b.o. 714 and put tliemselves under one head. The

374 ZEDEKIAH.
against Babylon, to destroy it ; yea, its utter destruction is the ven.
geance on it of Jehovah; the vengeance for (the destruction of) His
teraple. 13. Set up a standard towards the walls of Babylon ; '
strengthen the picquets; post the sentinels; get ready the spies,' for
Jehovah has both purposed and carried out what He spoke against the
inhabitants of Babylon. 1:1 0 thou that dwellest by many waters,'
rich in treasures, thine end is corae ; the measure of thy gains (is past).
14. Jehovah of hosts has swoi-n by His life — ' Though I have filled
thee with men like grasshoppers (for number), yet shall the shout (of
the treading of the vintage) be raised against thee ! ' " '
The omnipotence of Jehovah the Creator will triumph
over the idols of Babylon, and break in pieces its mighty
power. "15. He who created the earth by His raight, ^ and founded the
world by His wisdora, and stretched out the heavens by His under
standing ; 16. when He thunders there is a noise of waters in the skies,
and He causeth clouds to rise from the end of the earth: He raakes the
lightnings bring rain, and brings forth the wind from its storehouses.
17. The knowledge of this makes every man seem without understand
ing ; it makes every idol-founder ashamed of his graven image, for his
molten work is a lie; there is no breath in it. IS. They are nothing;
they are worthy only of raockery ; ' in the time of their visitation they
shall perish.
"19. Jehovah, the Portion of Jacob, is not like these. He is the
Former of the Universe, and of Israel, His own people.' Jehovah of
hosts is His name."
Medes, moreover, are used for all the Aryan races who joined against Babylon, they
being the chief Aryan nation. S. Spiegel, Erdn, 1863, pp. 308, fl. In Isa. xxi. 2, Elam
is named along with Media, as the assailant of Babylon, which finally fell before Da
rius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian; Elam being called Persia from the beginning of
his reign. Persians are first expressly named by Ezekiel and Daniel. See pp. 101, ff.
1 = "To encamp before." Jer. 11. 12-19.
2 This seems better thau " ambushes," which could only be of use in a siege if a
eally were enticed. It is nsed by Ewald.
3 The many canals of Babylonia, led off from the Euphrates.
« The cry of the stormers will be like the song of the treaders of the vintage, red
with the blood of the grapes.
5 These verses, 15-19, are almost identical with chap. a.. 12-16.
e Jerome.
-' The word is Shaibet, which means a rod growing from the root of a tree ; then,
the stafl of office of the sheik ol a tribe ; then, a tribe. The Hebrew text reads, lit-

ZEDEKIAH. 3'j;5
The awful power of Babylon, the Hammer of the earth,
used by God to carry out His judgments on the nations, is
described. "20. Thou art' My Hammer -,'' My weapons of war; with thee I
smite in pieces the nations, and destroy kingdoms. 21. With thee I
smite down the horse and his rider; with thee I smite in pieces the
chariot, and smite down the charioteer. 22. With thee I smite down
men and women; with thee I smite down old and young; with thee I
smite down the youth and the maiden. 23. With thee I smite down
the shepherd and his flock ; with thee I sraite down the husbandman
and his span of oxen; with thee I smite down rulers of provinces and
governors ^ of countries."
But Babylon is itself to be destroyed, for its cruelty to
the nations, especially to Israel.
" 24. But I will requite Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldaea,
for all the wickedness they have wrought on Zion, before your eyes,
saith Jehovah ! 25. Behold, I come against thee, 0 mountain of de
struction, saith Jehovah; who hast destroyed the whole earth. I
stretch my hand out against thee, and roll thee down from the rocks,
and make thee a burnt mountain,' 26. so that they will not take frora
thee even a stone for the corner of a house, nor for a foundation stone,
but thou shalt be a perpetual desolation, says Jehovah."
The assailants of Babylon are now summoned to attack
her.
eraily, " the tribe of His inheritance, or possessiou," that is,'His own peculiar people.
For the full significance ot Shaibet, see Keil's Josua, p. 18.
> Jer. U. 20-26.
"¦' A mace, club, or maul. The Middle Age "rooming star," a club filled, at its
head, with sharp points stuck on a round ball, is perhaps nearest the idea. There is
one in the trophy on the silver tomb of St. Alex. Newsky at St. Petersburg.
3 The two words are Pekhnh and Sagan. They both occur again in ver. 28 ; the
second also in ver. 57. Tlie first is applied to Tatnai, satrap of tbe province west of
the Euphrates (Ezra v. 6), to Nehemiah (Neh. v. 14), and to Zerubbabel (Hag. i. 1),
the governors of the small province of Judah, after the Return. The Assyrians used
the word Pahat of the mlers of provinces. (Schrader, Eeilinschr., p. 83.) Sagan
means strictly, deputy of the prince, or viceroy. Its Assyrian equivalent is Saknu = a
king's deputy, a ruler. (Schrader, p. 27ii.)
< The figure of a mighty fortress on a mountaiu is here used of Babylon, though it
was on a plain,

376 ZEDEKIAH.
" 27. Set ye up a standard ' on the earth, ye peoples; blow the trum
pet among the nations ; consecrate the nations for war against her (by
war sacrifices); ' sumraon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni,
and Ashohenaz.^ Appoint a scribe (to enrol the hosts).* Let horses
rush on countless as the rough locusts ' (the terror of mankind). 28.
Consecrate against her (by sacrifices) the nations, the kings of the
Medes, the rulers of their provinces -and all the governors of their
countries, and all the lands of her empire ! 29. The earth trerables
and is convulsed with fear, for the purposes of Jehovah against Baby
lon are being accoraplished, to make the land of Babylon a desert, with
out an inhabitant ! 30. The braves of Babylon have ceased to fight;
they sit in their strongholds ; their strength is worn out ; they are be
come like women ; the enemy has burned the houses (of Babylon) ; the
bars (of her city gates) are broken through ! 31. One foot-runner
meets another (rushing in from elsewhere), and messenger meets mes
senger, corae to bring the king of Babylon (in his palace) tidings that
'his city is taken frora end to end,' 32. the ferries occupied;' the
buildings over the water reservoirs burnt' with fire, and the fighting
men panic stricken !
"33. For thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel; the
daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when the
grain is trampled out (by the oxen) ; a little while, and the time of her
harvest comes to her ! 34. (The inhabitants of Zion will say), ' Nebu
chadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured us; he has craunched
1 Jer. li. 27-34.
2 Literally, " consecrate the nations against her."
3 These three kingdoms were different regions of Armenia. The Minni lived round
Lake Van. Ashchenaz seems to mean " the horse-milkers," and, if so, may point to a
race of nomades like the moderu Tartars, or the ancient Scythians ; roaming the
steppes of upper western Asia, in the neighbourhood of the Cimmerians, and allied to
them in blood. It may be that we have traces of it in the river Asconius in Asia
Minor, and in the names Scandia and Scandinavia, but this is doubtful.
¦* The Hebrew word is Tephar = Assyr. dupsar = writer on tablets. Fried. Delitzsch,
Wo lag das Paradies? p. 142.
s Locusts iu their third stage, when their wings are still enveloped in rough, horny
cases, which stick up upou their backs. It is in this stage that they are so destruct
ive (Speaker^s Commentary). I have added the words, however, " the teiTor of man
kind," hecause the word " rough " = terrible, causing shuddering, may refer only to
the alarm they excited aud tho destruction they wrought.
8 There was only one bridge in Babylon, The word meaning literally "cross
ings." ' Any one who has seen the huge underground reservoirs at Constantinople, their
tops broken in, their bottom filled with rubbish, since 1453, when the barbarian Turk
took the city, will understand this passage.

ZEDEKIAH. 377
US in pieces; he has pushed us aside as an empty vessel; he has swal
lowed us up as might a dragon ; he has filled himself with our dainties;
he has driven us out (of our land).' 35. "My wrong and suffering'
come on Babylon ! ' will the inhabitress of Zion say, and Jerusalem
will add, ' my blood come on the inhabitants of Chaldjea ! '
"36. Therefore, thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I will take up thy
cause, and take vengeance for thee. I will dry up her sea (the great
lake in her midst),' and I will dry up her (network of) canals.' 37.
And Babylon shall become heaps of ruin, a dwelling of jackals, an as
tonishment, and a mockery, without an inhabitant."
The citizens will perish, and also their city and its gods.
"38. (The inhabitants of Babylon) raay roar like lions; they may
growl like young lions, 39. (yet) while they glow (with lust), I will pre
pare their drinking feasts, and will make them drunk,* that they may
rejoice, and then sink into a perpetual sleep, never awaking, saith Je
hovah ! 40. I will drive them down like lambs to the slaughter-house ;
like rams and he goats ! 41. How is Sheshach ^ (that is, Babylon)
taken ! How is the city that was the Wonder of the whole Earth raade
a prize \° How is Babylon becorae an astonishraent among the
nations !
"42. The sea-(like army of her foes) has come up against Babylon ;
she is covered with the noise of its waves ! 43. Her cities are a deso
lation, a land of drought, a barren steppe; a land in which no man
dwells, and through which no man passes. 44. For I will punish Bel,
in Babylon, and bring forth out of his mouth what he has swallowed
down ; and the nations will no longer stream to him ; the (very) wall of
Babylon shall fall!"
The Jewish captives in Babylon are now addressed.
"45. Go out of her. My people ! Save, every man, his life from
the flerce anger of Jehovah. 46. And beware lest your heart faint, and
be not dismayed at the rumour you hear in the land, when one report
' Literally,'^ flesh." Jer. 11. 35^6.
" This lake or reservoir was made by Queen Nitocris, and was 423 furlongs=52J
milesin circumference. Herod., i. 185.
= Literally, " her spring "—the source of her canal supply.
< Thie was wonderfully fulfilled at the taking of Babylon.
» Jer. xxv. S6. See pp. 316, 372. • Literally, " seized."

378, ZEDEKIAH.
coraes this year and still another the next, and tliere is violence in the
land— ruler against ruler. 47. (Let this tell you that,)' behold, the days
come (says Jehovah), when I wUl execute judgraent on the graven
images of Babylon, and when her whole land will be made desolate.
and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.' 48. Then will heaven
and earth, and all that is therein, rejoice over (the fall of) Babylon ; for
they that will lay it waste corae from the north, says Jehovah. 49.
Babylon raust fall, 0 ye slain of Israel, for through her have fallen the
slain of the whole earth 1
"50. Ye (exiles of Judah) that have escaped the sword, begone from
the midst of her ; tarry not ! Reraeraber Jehovah when far (from
Zion), and let Jerusalem corae to your mind ! 51. (In that day ye will
say), ' We were put to shame when we heard tho reproach (that had
befallen our people) ; shame covered our faces; for aliens had entered
the holy places of the House of Jehovah.'
" 52. Wherefore, behold, days come, saith Jehovah, that I will bring
punishment on the graven images of Babylon, and wounded men shall
groan throughout all her land. 53. Were Babylon to build its walls
np to heaven, and to make its lofty defences (seemingly) impregnable,
frora Me shall come those that shall lay her waste, says Jehovah.
"54. Hark! a cry frora Babylon, and great destruction frora the
land of the Chaldseans. 55. For Jehovah lays Babylon waste, and
hushes " the loud sound of her raultitudes. For the waves (of the con
quering hosts assailing her) roar like the voice of raany waters; the
claraour of their awful tumult sounds abroad. 50. For the destroyer
is come up against her, against Babylon, and her braves are taken
prisoners, and their bows broken (by the foe) ; for the Lord Jehovah is
an avenging God ; He will repay her wickedness (upon her). 57. I will
make drunk her princes, her Wise Men, her satraps, and governors, and
fighting men ; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, from which they
shall not wake, saith The King, whose narae is Jehovah of hosts. 58.
Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon' shall be
levelled to the ground, and her lofty gates ' burnt with fire, so that the
(captive) peoples who have built them shall have laboured for nothing,
and the nations shall have only worn themselves out iu creating what
will be food for flre."°
' Jer. li. 47-S8. ' See ver. 43.
2 Literally, "destroys." < See vol. vi. p. 262.
^ In the circuit of the wall were a hundred gates, all of brass with brazen lintels
and side posts. Herod., i. 179.
' A quotation from Hab. ii. 13..

ZEDEKIAH. 379
Thus wonderfully was the fate of Babylon foretold, two

''fe:

4 M«yiNOS. _^#»-Tp »
ka wiT« aRO»-"

Plan of thb Ruins of Babylon.
generations before its fall ; when, indeed, it was at the
flood-tide of its glory ! '
1 Chapters 1. and li., containing so amazing a prediction, have, of course, been set
down, by some, as the work ot a later writer than Jeremiah. But they are expressly

380 ZEDEKIAH.
The visit of Zedekiah to the Great City was paid not
a moment too soon, for the agitation among the exiles on
the Chebar was known to the Chaldsean authorities, who
had determined to suppress it by the sternest measures.
It was found that the Jewish colony firmly believed that
!N"ebuchadnezzar would soon be overthrown, and that Je
hoiachin, thus set free, would return to Palestine at the
head of his victorious people. Plots, to which tlie mag
nates of Jerusalem were privy, were discovered. False
prophets, both there and in Babylon, were stirring up the
people, by raising false hopes of a speedy deliverance from
Chaldsean bondage or vassalage. Some of these on the
Chebar were, therefore, seized as ring-leaders of the pop
ular disaffection, and two of them, at least, to spread ter
ror among the exiles, seem to have suffered the fearful
death of being roasted alive,' while it is probable that it
was to this restlessness among his brethren that Jehoiachin
owed the exceptional severity of his treatment. Not long
after the return of Zedekiah from Babylon, an incident
happened, ominous for his future relations to Nebuchad
nezzar. The seething restlessness of the neighbouring
assigned to him in chap. li. 59. One objection made to their being his is the hostiUty
he shews to the Chaldseans, but iu chap. xxv. 12, 26, the same hostility is already ex
pressed. Nor does it contradict this, that he speaks of the Chaldaeans elsewhere as
the instruments of Divine vengeance, to whom the Jews must yield. As to Ihe st3'le,
no composition could more exactly resemble Jeremiah's. Nor would a writer daring
the Exile have written as in chap. 1. 5, "With their faces hith.erword,''' thatis,
towards Jerusalem. Any one writing in Babylon wonld have said ^Az^Aerwarrf. An
undesigned touch like this is most signiflcant. It is said that the knowledge ot
Babylon shewn by these chaptersimplies their composition by one familiar with that
country. But iu chap. xiii. it is expressly said that Jeremiah paid two visits to it—
perhaps of long duration. Words are quoted as occurring of later date than Zede
kiah's time ; but this can bc shewn demonstrably to be an error in each instance.
The use of ciphers or secret names, for the great city — " Laib Kamai " and " She
shach " — which tiie Jews only would understand, speaks, also, for a concealment of
the design of the prophecy, though this must not be thought of much weight, as Baby
lon, after all, is frequently named.
' Jer. xxix. 33.

ZEDEKIAH. 381
states, under the Chaldaean yoke, had at last led to then-
sending a joint embassy from Edom, Moab, the Ammon
ites, and the kings of Tyre and Sidon,' to Jerusalem, in
the hope of inducing Zedekiah' to enter into a league
with them against the common enemy. What success
they had is not recorded, though it is unlikely that the
Jewish king committed himself, so early in his reign,
by an act of open hostility to his master, especially iu
alliance with states which had for ages been the bitter
foes of his race. The Egyptian party, no doubt, wished
him to join them; but the voice of Jeremiah rose, to warn
him from a step so fatal. Enforcing his words by a strik
ing symbolical act, he procured a number of common ox
yokes, and having put one on his own neck, to wear hence
forth, apparently, while the embassy was in the city, he
sent another to each of the envoys, desiring them to take
¦them back with them to their respective countries, with
the following message to their masters, from Jehovah :
"XXVII. 4. Thus says Jehovah of hosts, Hhe God of Israel: Thus
shall ye speak to your masters. 5. 1 have made the earth, and raan,
and the beasts on the face of the earth, by My great power and My
outstretched arm, and I give it to whom I see fit. G. And, now, I
have given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the king
of Babylon, my servant, and the beasts of the fleld, also, have I given
him, to serve him. 7. And all nations shall serve hira, his son, and
his son's son, till the tirae of his own land coraes, and, then, many
nations and great kings shall make him their servant. 8. And the
nation and people that will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar, the king
of Babylon, and that does not give its neck to his yoke, that nation I
will punish with sword, famine, and pestilence, till I have consumed
them by his hand. 9. Do not listen, therefore, to your prophets,* or
^ Jer. xxvii. 1-3.
¦^ In verse 1, Jehoiakim is au error of some ancient copyist for Zedekiah.
° Jer. xxvii. 4-9. For Jehoiakim in v. 1, read " Zedekiah." See v. 3.
* The heathen nations around had, thus, their own prophets; the order was not

383 ZEDEKIAH.
diviners, or explainers of dreams, or dabblers in the black arts, or sor
cerers, who say to you — •' Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon ! '
10. They prophesy a lie to you, to make Me remove you far from your
land, and drive you out, so that ye perish. 11. But the people that
gives its neck to the yoke of the king of Babylon and serves him, I
will leave in their own land, says Jehovah, and they shall till it, and
dwell in it."
About the same time the prophet addressed Zedekiah
and the court in the same strain.
"13. Bring your necks,' said he, into the yoke of the king of Baby
lon, and serve him and his people, and you shall live. 13. Why should
you and your people die by the sword, famine, and pestilence, as Jeho
vah has said of the people that will not serve the king of Babylon? 14.
Do not listen to the words of the prophets who say to you — ' Ye shall
mo< serve the kingof Babylon.' They prophesy a lie to you ! 15. For
I have not sent them, says Jehovah, but they prophesy falsely in My
name, to make Me drive you out, and that you should perish, you, and
the prophets who prophesy such words to you."
The priests and all the people were no less faithfully
warned. Jeremiah told them :
"16. Thus says Jehovah: Listen not to the words of the prophets
who prophesy to you, saying: 'Behold, the vessels of the house of
Jehovah which Nebuchadnezzar carried ofl will now be soon brought
back from Babylon.''' For they prophesy a lie to you. 17. Listen
not to thera. Serve the king of Babylon and live. Why should this
city be laid waste ? 18. If they he (true) prophets, and if the word of
Jehovah be (really) in them, let them plead with Jehovah of hosts, that
the vessels still left in the house of Jehovah, and in the palace of the
king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, do not also go to Babylon ! 19. For
thus says Jehovah of hosts, the Grod of Israel, respecting the pillars,
and the brazen sea, and the brazen stands (for the ten lavers of the
temple),' and the other vessels that remain in the city, 20. whieh
confined to the Jews. Balaam, of Pethor, on the Euphrates, was an instance of this,
and so were the "prophets of Baal " at Samaria.
1 Jer. xxvii. 10-20. ' 2 Kings xxiv. 13.
s The brazen frames on which were placed the lavers used for washing the sacri
flces. 1 Kings vii. 37-37. 2 Chron. iv. 6.

ZEDEKIAH. 383
Nebuchadnezzar did not take when he carried ofl Jeconiah, the son of
Jehoiakim, kingof Judah, to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and
Jerusalem; 31. yea, thus says Jehovah of hosts,' the God of Israel,
respecting the vessels that remain in the house of Jehovah, and in the
palace of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem : 23. They shall be car
ried to Babylon, and there shall they remain till the day that I go
after them, says Jehovah, and fetch them out, to bring them back to
this place."*
The degenerate prophets thus vigorously exposed, were
naturally roused to violent opposition to Jeremiah.^ One
of their number indeed, Hananiah of Gibeon, a priest
town, now the village of El Jib, north of Jerusalem, ven
tured some time in August, B.C. 594,* to contradict him in
public before the priests and all the people. Such pre
tenders to revelation were among the hardest trials of their
still faithful brethren,' and, in this case, when the fate of
the nation trembled in the balance, the pain caused by
their treacherous course was specially distressing. Using
the very style of Jeremiah, his rival began :
"XXVIII. 3. Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, has spoken thus:
' I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon ! 3. Within two
years' tirae I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the house
of Jehovah, that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took away from
this place and carried to Babylon. 4. And I will bring back to this
place, Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, and all the
captives of Judah that went to Babylon; for I will break the yoke of
the king of Babylon.' "
' Jer. xxvii. Sl-xxviii. 4.
' They were not carried to Babylon intact, bnt were broken up, for easier trans
port, Jer. lii. 17. Bnt the brass or copper of which they were made, stored away in
the treasure house of the king of Babylon, might well be among the vast gifts of the
old sacred vessels, etc., taken by Nebuchadnezzar, and restored to the returning cap
tives by Cyrus, Ezra i. 11. As to transport across the desert, and their removal to
Babylon, it is enough to say, that Assurbanipal records his carrying two lofty obelisks
from Thebes in Upper Egypt, to Nineveh. What an obelisk weighs is easily imag
ined I See Becords of Ihe Post, vol. i. p. 67.
3 Jer. xxviii. 1. ' 5th month of 4th year, Jer. xjcviii. 1.
•> Jet. xxiii. 9 ; xxix. 8, 9 ; xxxi. 32. Ezek. xiii.

384 ZEDEKIAH.
Jeremiah himself was among the crowd, and stepping
out as soon as Hananiah had ended speaking,' addressed
him aloud.
" 6. Amen ! Jehovah do so ! ' Jehovah establish your words which
you prophesy about the bringing back again the vessels of the House
of Jehovah, and all the captives, from Babylon to this place ! 7.
Only — hear this word that I speak in your ears, and in the ears of all
the people ! 8. Not I alone, but the prophets who have been before
me, and before you, have prophesied (long ago) war, calamity,' pesti
lence, against raany countries and great kingdoms. 9. You, who
prophesy peace, shall be known to be a prophet truly sent by Jehovah,
when your word coraes to pass."
But Hananiah was not to be silenced. Snatching from
the neck of Jeremiah the ox yoke he had put on when the
embassy from Moab and other neighbouring kingdoms first
came to Jerusalem, and still wore, he broke it across, and
cried out as he held up the pieces :
"11. Thus says Jehovah: Even so wiU I break the yoke of Nebu
chadnezzar, king of Babylon, from the neck of all nations, within two
years' time."
Disdaining further dispute before the crowd, Jeremiah
now walked away. But he had no intention of letting
Hananiah escape. Going to him privately, he told him,
in the name of Jehovah, that he had broken a wooden
yoke, only to prepare an iron one for the people, in its
place. Por Jehovah had said :
" 14. I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that
they serve Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. And they shall serve
himj and I have given him even the beasts of the fleld."
Then, addressing the pretended seer more directly, he
added :
> Jer. xxviii. 5. » Jer. xxviii. 6-14. ' " Famine," Ewald.

ZEDEKIAH. 38,5
" 15. Hear now, Hananiah,' Jehovah has not sent you, but you raake
this people trust in a lie ! 16. Therefore Jehovah speaks thus: Be
hold, I will send you forth from off the face of the earth (that is my
prophecy in your case) I This year you shall die, because you have
spoken rebeUion against Jehovah I "
Two months later the impostor was dead.'
The prediction of Hananiah is a plain indication that
secret negotiations, perhaps unknown to Zedekiah, or
beyond his control, were already afoot between the Egyp
tian party in Judah and the court of Psammetichus. It
is also clear that a strong feeling in favour of a league
with the surrounding nations, against Chaldsea, prevailed.
The flattering assurance of the lying prophet had been
based on his sanguine confidence in the success of all
this diplomacy. He had spoken simply from unreliable
political calculations, but his words none the less para
lyzed the wise and patriotic efforts of Jeremiah. His
sudden death, liowever, so soon after the prophet's de
nunciation, was not without effect. It appears to have
decided Zedekiah, for the time, to resist the Egyptian
party, and remain true to Nebuchadnezzar, to whom he
had so recently done homage at Babylon. Terrified lest
the report of the embassy from the neighbouring states
to Jerusalem should prejudice his master against him,
he resolved to send an embassy to his capital,^ to explain
the matter, and vindicate himself from any suspicion of
disloyalty or treason. Awed by the judgment on Hana
niah, he seems, moreover, to have sought to win the favour
of Jehovah by a special gift to the temple of a set of silver
vessels, to replace the golden ones that had been carried ofl
by the Chaldsans."
1 Jer. xxviii. 15-16. ' Jer. xxviii. 1, comp. xxviii. 17.
s Jer. xxix. 3. * Bar. i. 8.
VOL. V.-25

386 ZEDEKIAH.
Ever eager to serve the true interests of his nation,
Jeremiah gladly seized the opportunity of the embassy to
Babylon, to warn the exiles of the folly and hopelessness
of their schemes. This he did in a letter addressed to the
elders, priests, and prophets among them, whicli ran thus :
" XXIX. 4. Thus says Jehovah of hosts,' the God of Israel, to all the
captives whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to
Babylon. 5. Build houses for yourselves, and live in thera, and plant
gardens and eat their produce. (Act as perraanent inhabitants of the
land, not as if soon to leave it.) G. Take wives and beget sons and
daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to
husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters ; that ye raay in
crease there and not grow fewer. 7. And seek the prosperity of the
city to which I have caused you to be carried off, and pray to Jehovah
for it, for in its prosperity you will flnd your own.
"8. For thus says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel : Let not the
prophets who are araong you, and your diviners, '¦^ deceive you, and do
not listen to your drearas, for which you so earnestly strive. ' 9. For
they prophesy falsely to you in My narae. I have not sent them, says
Jehovah. 10. Por thus says Jehovah : I will visit you, flrst, (only)
after seventy years for Babylon are ended, and (will only then) per
forra My good word toward you, to bring you back to this place. 11.
For I know the thoughts that I think respecting you, says Jehovah ;
thoughts of good and not of evil ; to give you a future and a hope. 13.
Theu (when the sufferings of your exile have taught you the knowl
edge of your sins) you will call upon Me, and go (to your house of
prayer) and pray to Me, and I will hearken to you. 13. And ye will
seek and find Me, when ye seek Me with all your heart. 14. And I will
(let My.self) be found of you, says Jehovah, and I will bring the cap
tives back again, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from
all the places to which I have driven you, says Jehovah; and 1 will
' Jer. xxix. 4-14.
2 The word is used, in 1 Sam. xxviii. S, of necromancer, but it meaus men who
foretell in any heathen mode, by arrows, entrails, teraphim, or lots.
5 The most Intense efforts were made, hy sleeping in holy places, fasting, and
keeping the mind flxed on special wishes, lo induce dreams of the kind desired. See
the case of King Assurbanipal. Lenormant's Magie, p. 135. Impostors also pre
tended to dream such dreams as tbeir clients wished. This is perhaps alluded to in
the text.

ZEDEKIAH. 387
bring you back again to the place from which I caused you to be
carried away captive.
" 15. As to your saying,' 'Jehovah has raised up prophets to us in
Babylon — (I know that they build great hopes on the continuance of
the kingdom under Zedekiah), 10. (but) verily, thus says Jehovah of that
king, who now sits on the throne of David, and of all the people that
dwell in this city (Jerusalera), your brethren, who have not gone with
you into captivity, — 17. thus says Jehovah of hosts : Behold, I will
send among them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and raake
thera like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so bad. 18. And I
will chase after thera with the sword, the famine, and the pestilence,
and give thera over to ill-treatment^ in all the kingdoms of the earth ;
and to be a curse, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a scorn,
among all the nations whither I have driven them. 19. Because they
hearkened not to My words, says Jehovah, whioh I sent to them by My
servants the prophets, rising up early and sending. But they would
not hear, says Jehovah.
I- "20. Nevertheless, hear (now) the word of Jehovah, all ye of the cap
tivity, whom I have banished from Jerusalem to Babylon. 21. Thus
says Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, respecting Ahab the son of
Kolaiah, and Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who prophesy a lie to you
in My name : Behold, I will give thera into the hand of Nebuchad
nezzar, king of Babylon, and he will slay them before your eyes. 33.
And all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will adopt a (new form
of) curse from their fate, saying, ' Jehovah make thee like Zedekiah
and Ahab, whora the king of Babylon roasted in the fire.' 23. Because
they have committed lewdness in Israel, and have committed adultery
with their neighbours' wives, and have spoken lies in My name, which
I did not command them to speak. But I know it, and am a witness,
says Jehovah ! "
This letter created the greatest excitement among the
mock prophets in Babylon. It was an attack on the
sacred order I It discredited its members in the public
estimation, and threatened to be fatal to the plot from
which a speedy return of the exiles to their native land
> Jer. xxix. 15-23.
" "Make them a plaything of the wind," Ewald. "Make them a shuddering."
The word comes from a verb, "shake," "to agitate," "to tremble." Cheyne, "to
disquiet, to maltreat."

388 ZEDEKIAH.
was hoped. Shemaiah, one of these prophets, was espe
cially indignant at Jeremiah's advice to build houses and
live in them, and plant gardens and eat their produce ;
waiting patiently till the seventy years of their banishment
had passed away. Unable to reach him otherwise, he
vented his indignation in a fierce letter to Zephaniah, now
the priestly commandant or chief officer of the temple,"
copies of it being at the same time forwarded to the people
of Jerusalem and to some of the ordinary priests.
"XXIX. 30. 'Jehovah,' said this missive,' 'has raade you priest
instead of the priest Jehoiada, to be overseer in the House of Jehovah,
charged, with respect to every raadman who gives hiraself out as a
prophet, to punish him by putting him in the flve-holed stocks,' or by
making hira wear the heavy wooden collar.' 27. Why, then, have you
not in this way rebuked the presumption of Jeremiah of Anathoth,
who makes himself out to you to be a prophet ? ' "
His special offence to the writer, that he had counselled
the exiles to settle down contentedly in Babylon, was then
detailed, and with this the letter closed.
Shemaiah had good reason to believe that this attack on
the prophet would be successful, for Zephaniah, like him
self, belonged to the anti-Chaldsean party ; his disloyalty
to Nebuchadnezzar costing him his life, at Eiblah, a few
years later.' But in this case he acted honourably. Sum-
1 Jer. xxi. 1. Pashur had held the office some time previously, Jehoiada had suc
ceeded him, and now this Zephaniah held the post, whicb may have been tenable
for only a year. ^ Jer. xxix. 86, S7.
" Jer. XX. 1.
* The word is Tsiuok, aud seems to have been a heavy wooden collar which the
sufferer had to carry ahout with him, as among the Arabs still. It makes escape
impossible, from its weight and size. Burckhardt, The Bedouins, p. 420. Eutschi
thinks Ihe Mahpecheth, which is by some supposed to have been a five-holed
" stocks " in which the body was bent nearly double, was a contrivance in which
the arms and legs were inserted crosswise, the name meaning "twisting." The
Sad, Job xiii. 27, he believes to have been a pair ol stocks in which both hands
and feet, or even the neck also, were inserted. Herzog, vol. iv. p. 703. See note,
p. 291. » Jer. lii. 24, 27. 2 Kings xxv. 18-21.

ZEDEKIAH. 389
moning Jeremiah before him, he read the letter to him,
but took no action on it. Such an attempt to injure a true
prophet was not, however, to be overlooked by the seer
himself, and Shemaiah, to his horror, found, before long,
that a counter letter, in reply to his fierce denunciation,
had been sent back to the exiles, which marked him out as
the object of Divine displeasure, and pronounced, in the
name of Jehovah, a terrible punishment for his auda
city. "XXIX. 31. 'Thus says Jehovah,' wrote Jeremiah,' respecting hira,
' Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you (exiles), and I did not send
hira, and he caused you to trust in a lie ; 32. therefore, thus says Jeho
vah : Behold, I will punish him and his posterity. He shall have no
raan to dwell among this people, nor will he see the good that I shall
do for My people, says Jehovah, because he has spoken treacherously
respeoting Jehovah ! ' "
Equally vigorous resistance to the Egyptian, or war
party, shewed itself in the far-distant settlement of the
exiles on the Chebar. Jeremiah had sent his letter to
them in the middle of the fourth year of Zedekiah." A
year later, about July, B.C. 593,° a new prophet — Ezekiel,
''whom God strengthens" — was divinely commissioned at
Tel Abib, on the Euphrates, to urge on his countrymen
there, the same counsels. Like Jeremiah, the new seer was
the son of a priest. He had been carried off, as we have
seen, at the deposition of Jehoiachin, and was now living
Avith his wife, among the exile community, in a house of
his own.* Of his life or work we know little. The few de
tails left us shew, however, that he found the career of a
faithful prophet as painful on the Chebar as it had always
' Jer. xxix. 31, 32. ' Jer. xxviii. 1.
= Ezek. i. 1, 2. Schrader says 591. * Ezek, iii. 24 ; viii. 1 ; xxiv. 18.

390 ZEDEKIAH.
been at Jerusalem, for the bitter hostility he had to en
dure from his race is significantly compared to walking
through briers and thorns, or living among scorpions."
To add to all this, his wife, to whom he was devotedly
attached, died early,° under peculiarly distressing circum
stances. It may have been from this relentless opposition, and per
haps, also, from the circumspection needed under a gov
ernment like that of Babylonia, that Ezekiel introduced a
new practice — of collecting an audience round him in his
own house, to hear his communications, instead of going
to places of public concourse to harangue the multitude.
The "elders," or chief men, gathered round him, from
time to time, in his dwelling at Tel Abib, to hear his
words, but the mass of the people seemed to have paid lit
tle attention to him. When they did come to his small
assemblies, he tells us, they appeared too often to have no
motive but idle curiosity ; '' listening to him for the sweet
ness of his voice, as one might listen to music, but paying
no further heed to him." With the changed times, the
prophet was laying aside his public character, and passing
gradually into the sacred writer, speaking to the world
only indirectly.
Trained as a priest, Ezekiel shews his early associations
at once in the character of his visions, and in the culture
of his style. Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah had
taken a lively interest in the every-day affairs and passing
moods of their fellow-countrymen. Their prophecies, or
discourses, had been intensely practical ; touching, each
moment, every relation of public, social, and private life.
' Ezek. ii. 6. 2 Ezek. xxiv. 16-18.
s Ezek. xxxiii. 30. ' Ezek. xxxiii. 32.

ZEDEKIAH. 391
Ezekiel, on the other hand, speaks and writes in a way of
his own, which is in striking contrast to that of his prede
cessors. Retiring, and indisposed to the part of an orator,
he was more at home as the spokesman of a private group,
than in the market place or the town gate. Eond of study,
he shrank from noise and excitement. No other prophet
shews so full an acquaintance with the older Hebrew liter
ature, especially the Pentateuch ; references to which per
vade his whole Book. The language of Genesis respecting
the creation of man is, in effect, repeated by him ; ' the
garden of Eden is often mentioned ; ' the list of nations
described in his account of Tyre is borrowed from the
Table of Nations in the first book of the Bible ; ' the
names of precious stones, which occur so often, are taken
from the Pentateuch. The bounds of the Holy Land,
which he gives in his great prophetic vision, are almost
identical with those of the Book of Numbers." A whole
series of legal prescriptions, noticed in his prophecies, are
quoted directly from the Pentateuch, as may be seen in
any reference Bible. He shews his acquaintance with the
prophecies of Hosea and Isaiah, but especially with those
of his elder contemporary, Jeremiah,' freely using their
turns of thought and phrases, as he does those of the
Books of Moses. While, therefore, his genius shews itself
in frequent passages of lofty sublimity or vigorous strength
of expression, there is, on the whole, less originality and

' Gen. i. 28. Ezek. xxxvi. 11.

2 Ezek. xxviii.

13 ; xxxi. 8 ; x

8 Gen. X. Ezek. xxvii.

* Ezek. xlvii. 13, fE. Num. xxxiv.

' Ezek. xxxvii. 22. Hos. i. 11.
Ezek. V. 15.
Jer. xxiv. 9.
" xxix. 6. Isa. xxxvi. 6.
" vi. 11, ff.
" viii. 12. " xxix. 15.
" xxix. 17, ff.
- " xxiv. 7.
" vii. 18. Jer. xlviii. 37.
" XI. 19, ff.
And
soon.
392 ZEDEKIAH.
freedom of thought, than in the more illustrious of his
prophetic brethren. Thus, even his great inaugural vision,
grand as it is, recalls details of the temple with which as a
priest he was familiar, and also of the vision of Isaiah,'
while his picture of the future temple reminds us of tlie
descriptiou of the building of the tabernacle, in Exodus.'
The influences of his priestly training are, iudeed, every
where apparent, in contrast to the characteristics of Jere
miah, who, though also a priest, has no such professional
colouring in his prophecies.
The explanation seems to lie in the different position of
the two, in relation to the sacred institutions of their com
mon religion. Far from the temple and its stated offer
ings ; banished from the ecclesiastical atmosphere of Jeru
salem ; Ezekiel could not, like Jeremiah, move and speak
freely, with the consciousness that the symbols of the visi
ble kingdom of God witnessed for themselves amidst the
community. He could only betake himself to the regions
of fancy and memory, and call up a vision of the temple,
and its services he loved so well ; now lost to him for ever.
Nor did a general picture before his imagination content
liim. With a passionate devotion to exactness in ritual
that marks the cliaracter of his mind, he almost antici
pates Ezra in the importance he attaches to the minutest
ecclesiastical details.
How long Ezekiel continued his labours is not clear,
nor is it kuown when he died. Twenty-seven years after
leaving Jerusalem, he was still busily engaged in liis mis
sion as prophet," but thougli this is the latest date in his
Book, he may have lived and worked much longer. Tra
dition speaks of him as having been murdered by a Jewish
' Isa. vi. 3 Exod. XXV., fi. » Ezek. ixix. 17.

ZEDEKIAH. 393
noble whom he had offended, and a tomb said to be his,
noted for a lamp kept continually burning, and for a copy
of the prophecies said to be in his autograph, was seen by
Benjamin of Tudela in the twelfth century.'
¦ Layard visited this tomb, and found it only a plain building, without the orna
ments or manuscripts it once contained. He quotes at length the descriptiou given
by Benjamin of Tudela. Nineveh and Babylon, vol. i. p. 501.

CHAPTER XIX.
FIEST PEOPHECIES OF EZEKIEL.
Ezekiel had lived five years amongst his brethren at Tel
Abib, his mind full, no doubt, of the concerns of Judah
and Jerusalem, whose utter ruin seemed close at hand,
through their restless plotting against Nebuchadnezzar.
Around him the same violent political excitement was
everywhere visible. Prophets, claiming to speak for God,
openly predicted that Babylon would fall within the next
two years, leaving the exiled Jews free to return in triumph
to their own land. " The authorities had, indeed, executed
some of these agitators, with fearful tortures, but their
flattering promises were not the less eagerly cherished by
the Hebrew community. Jeremiah's letter from Jeru
salem, counselling contentment in Babylonia, as their
home for the next seventy years, had failed to quiet the
ferment of the general mind. Meanwhile the priest Eze
kiel, far from the temple and its priestly employments,
was engrossed by the religious interests of his people,
recognizing to the full, that their past calamities were due
to their guilty faithlessness towards Jehovah. To lead
them back to Him, and thus restore their glory as a nation
by regaining His favour, was the thought of his life.
His heart cried out for God. The sanctuary on Zion
being lost to them, he would fain bring back Jehovah to
' Jer. xxviii. 3.

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL. 395
their midst by making their hearts His living temple.
Communion with Him in His ancient oracles rounded the
days and nights of His servant. The awful revelations
of Sinai ; the wonders wrought for Israel in Egypt, the
wilderness, and the chosen land ; His self-disclosures in
the temple on Mount Moriah, and His gracious commu
nications through a long succession of prophets, were his
absorbing meditation. Others might busy themselves with
wild dreams of political changes, and a speedy return to
Palestine ; he lived in a higher sphere — in the spiritual
presence of Jehovah and amidst the realities of eternity.
Religious enthusiasm filled his soul as tho flame fills the
shining crystal of the lamp. To be near God himself, and
to bring his people near Him, was his one overmastering
passion. Thus unconsciously prepared for Divine communica
tions, he was quietly resting, perhaps in his house, pos
sibly under his vine and fig-tree,' on some day in July,.''
a fiercely hot month in Babylonia — his mind filled to
intensity with the high matters always engaging it — when
suddenly the heavens seemed to open towards the dark
and mysterious north, the region of tempests ; ominous, to
a few especially, as the region from which the judgments
of God ' on Israel had for centuries come. The sky grew
black with clouds" driven before a mighty wind,* and, in
' Ezek. i. 1-18. The year is spoken ot as the 30th. But from what f Some
say from the last jubilee ; others, from the 18th year of Josiah's reign, when the Law
was found and the Passover held. Others think it means the 30th year ot the
prophet's age.
2 In the " 4th month," Tammuz.
3 The north was the land of darkness and mystery to the ancients, and, as such,
fittingly tlie regioi from which this mysterious vision appeared.
' The word translated cloud in A. V. is from a verb " to cover "—and is collective
in the sense of clouds covering the sky.
' The word comes from a verb " to rush " or " be tossed," as a tempest.

396 FIRST PEOPHECIES OF EZEKIEL.
the midst of the darkness, lightnings quivered hither and
thither, illuminating the storm with awful splendours, and
casting a far-spreading brightness around. Amidst the
central glory, moreover, shone out an overpowering ra
diance as of mingled silver and gold,' and in this, as the
tempest cloud came near, borne on the wings of the storm,
four living creatures appeared, upright, and in outline like
a man, but each with four faces — of a man, a lion, an ox,
and an eagle ; and four wings, with human hands beneath
them, and feet like those of an ox, and, like the feet of
that creature, moving only straight forward, but shining
like polished brass. Two wings of these mysterious forms
were outstretched above ; the two others covered their
bodies beneath. Each form, never turning aside, advanced
in a straight line, with a swiftness like that of the light
nings round them. All, moreover, moved together, as
by a common will ; their appearance in keeping with the
surrounding splendour, for they shone like glowing coals
or blazing torches, bright fire flashing between them, and
lightnings darting from it.
Forthwith a new sight revealed itself. Pour vast wheels,
of awful height, appeared by the side of the four living
creatures, bright, throughout, as the then famous precious
stone of Tarshish — the topaz or chrysolite — tlieir rims full,
everywhere, of eyes. They, too, went straight forward,
simultaneously, repeating each movement of the four liv
ing forms, as if by the same impulse. At times on the
earth, at others, they rose into the air ; now they stood,
and then, again, they flashed on, like light.
But now a third wonder shewed itself. A firmament of
awful, glittering brightness, bent itself over the heads of
1 Electron ; a mixtarc of gold and silver, famous among Ihe ancients.

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL. 397
the living creatures and over the wheels ; the wings of the
cherubim, underneath, sounding like the noise of many
waters, or the voice of the Almighty itself, or the loud mur
mur of an army of men, as the vision swept on. Then, as
in a moment, the whole stood still, and the wings of the
cherubim were folded, at the command of a Voice from
the firmament above them.
Presently, as if resting on these upper depths, a throne
of sapphire stone was seen — the throne of the Eternal —
and on it a form of a man, clothed to His loins with daz
zling brightness, and thence, to His feet, with flaming
fire ; a mighty rainbow encircling the throne, above. It
was "the appearance of the glory of Jehovah." Over
whelmed by a spectacle so transcendent in all its parts,
Ezekiel seemed, in the vision, to fall on his face, but while
thus prostrate, was roused by a command from the Eter
nal : ' " Son of man, stand on thy feet, and I will speak to
thee." With tho words came power to obey them ; his
BOul and body, which had well-nigh fainted, receiving
strength to stand before the Almighty and listen to His
communications, so that he found himself set once more
erect. Other words, meanwhile, fell on his ears, from Him
who sat on the throne.
" II. 3. Son of man, I send thee to the sons of Israel; to the rebell
ious nation who have revolted from Me ; who, like their fathers, have
sinned against Me to this very day ! 4. They are sons hard of fore
head and hard of heart. I send you to them, and you shall say to
them, ' Thus says the Lord Jehovah ! ' 5. and thus, whether they hear
or refuse to do so — for they are (no longer the House of Israel, but) the
House of Disobedience — they shall know that a prophet has been araong
them !
" 6. But, as to yourself, 0 son of man ! have no fear of them or of
> Bzek. ii. 1-6.

398 FIRST PEOPHECIES OF EZEKIEL.
their words ; though they be thorns and briers round you, and though
(living araongst them) you live among scorpions ! Have no fear of
their words, and be not dismayed at their looks ; for they are a House
of Disobedience ! 7. And speak My word to them,' whether they
hear or refuse to do so: for they are raost rebellious. 8. But thou,
son of man, hear what I say to thee, and be not thou rebellious like
that House of Disobedience ! Open thy mouth and eat what I give
you ! "
A hand now appeared, in the vision, stretched out to the
prophet, holding the roll of a book, which, on being spread
before him, seemed covered, on both sides, with lamenta
tion, and mourning, and woe. Required to eat this,° he
found it like honey in his mouth, for sweetness. The act
was the symbol of his consecration as prophet. But, now,
the Voice spoke once more.
"III. 4. Son of raan ! go, get you to the House of Israel, and
speak My words to them. 5. You are not sent to a people of dark
speech and hard language, but to the House of Israel; 6. nor to
many peoples of dark speech and hard language, whose words you
could not understand. I have sent you, on the contrary, to these, thy
countrymen, who can understand you.^ 7. But the House of Israel
will not listen to you, because they will not listen to Me. For the
•whole House of Israel are hard of forehead and hard of heart !
" 8. (But I will make you able to meet their deflance with defiance !)
Behold, I make your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as
hard as their foreheads. 9. I make your forehead like adamant, which
is harder than flint stones. Have no fear of thera, and bo not dis
mayed at their looks, for they be a House of Disobedience."
A pause followed, and then the Voice resumed.
» Ezek. ii. 7, 8 ; iii. 4-9.
2 "To eat "is a common Eastern phrase for receiving, accepting, and the like.
The Hindoos still speak of " eating blows, grief, wounds, and so on." Six Years in
India, pp. 107, 180, 131, 193. Nothing is more common, says Lightfoot, in the schools
of the Jews, than the phrase of eating and drinking, in a metaphorical sense. Bores
Heb., vol. iii. p. 387. See Eev. x. 9. Jeremiah (xv. 16) speaks of eating the Divine
words. 3 This ia the rendering of this dificult lext, by the best critics.

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL. 399
"10. Son of raan ! take into your heart,' and hear with your ears,
all the words that I say to you, 11. and go, get you to the Captivity, the
children of your people, and say to thera, ' Thus says the Lord Jeho
vah ' — whether they hear or refuse to listen."
The wondrous vision was now about to close. Ezekiel
had received his Divine commission. But its close was
sublime. The Spirit, he tells us,'' seemed to come on him
again, and bear him from the imaginary scene, to the
midst of his fellow-captives at Tel Abib, the voices of the
living creatures breaking forth like the sound of rolling
thunder, in high worship of God, as the vision faded in
the distance, his ear catching, from their hymn of adora
tion, the words, "Exalted be the majesty of Jehovah!"
The sound of their wings, as they disappeared, and of the
living wheels at their side, like the noise of many waters,
presently died away, and the prophet woke, to find himself
once more in his home at Tel Abib. But the strain on his
whole nature had its effect. A reaction followed. The
words in which the wickedness of his people had been
rebuked, filled him with mingled grief and indignation,
while the awful splendours of the Divine manifestation
left him so weak and prostrate, that a week elapsed before
he in a measure came to himself.
This vision stands alone for mysterious sublimity.
Clear in its great lessons of the omniscience, omnipo
tence, and majesty of Jehovah, it is confessedly beyond
any satisfactory explanation in its details. The difficulty
of adequately comprehending it' — a feature marking other
portions of Ezekiel — has always been felt, and early led
the Jews to place the book among those "treasures"'
¦ Ezek. iii. 10-14.
" Keil has " wind " for " spirit ; " the word means both.
' Genazim. They included also the first chapters of Genesis, and the Canticles.

'400

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL.

not to be read by any below the age of thirty.' Much,
however, may be learned, even from a vision so mysterious,
as to the relations between the natural and divine in inspi
ration. The source of many of its most striking features

The Assteian God AnBAmMiiLECH.
Adar-Malik ' = Adar is king. From one of the Palace^Gates, Nineveh. Known
also aa Annamelech, or Kewan, the planet Saturn. It is called in the inscriptions,
" the Possessor of Power," " the Warrior," " the Qod of Battles," " the Bearer of the
Bow," " the Lord of Fire." The people of Sepharvaim offered their children to il,
burning them alive.
can be easily traced. Jehovah had descended on Sinai
amidst thunders, and lightnings, and tempest, as He now
' Jer., Ep. ad E-ustochium.
-^ Adar or Ninip played a conspicuous part in Babylonian and Assyrian theology.
He was the warrior and the champion of the gods, and, aa fiuch, the favourite object
of worship of a nation of warriors, like the Assyrians, in Babylonia, however, Adar
was by no means the favourite. The less warlike Merodach took his place. Origi
nally, Adar had been a solar deity, but, whereas Merodach was the sun, conceived of
as rising from the ocean stream, Adar waa the sun as he issues forth from the shades
of night.

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL. 401
approached from the ISTorth. The fiery cloud had its pro
totype in that which hung over the tabernacle ; winged
creatures overshadowed the shrine in some Egyptian tem
ples ; ' and in Solomon's temple two cherubim bent over
the mercy seat, while two others, of gigantic size, stood at
the sides of the Holy of Holies. In Babylon, moreover,
the notice of the prophet must have been arrested by the
constant recurrence of huge forms of winged beings, unit
ing the most opposite features. Winged bulls, lions, and
eagles, on every side, guarded the entrances to the palaces
and temples of Babylon. Seen for the first time by the
exiles, on their arrival at Babylonia, they must have struck
with special awe men coming from a land where all sculp
ture was prohibited, and where even the idols introduced
in violation of their sacred law were human in shape, with
the exception, perhaps, of the ox-headed Moloch. Forms
in all respects similar to the cherubim of the vision would
not meet the eye of the prophet, but he would have before
him gigantic creations, with the face of a man, the wings
of an eagle, and the body of a lion or a bull. That these
should have associated themselves in his mind with a vision
of the majesty of Jehovah, was in keeping with a law of
revelation and of our intellectual nature. We can only
conceive of the unknown from the known. We may
enlarge or combine the elements we have, but we have
no power of creating imaginations out of nothing. Hence
the inspired writers in all ages availed themselves of facts
and imagery with which they were familiar. The usages
and symbols of Egypt mark the earlier books of the Penta
teuch. In Palestine, the figures and metaphors of the
sacred writers are derived from things round them ; and,
1 I have seen them in many Egyptian temples.
VOL. V.-26

403 FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL.
in the same way, in Babylonia, they used their Chaldseau
experiences. Indeed, the very word cherub is only the
Assyrian Kirui.
The symbolism of Ezekiel, as contrasted with that of the
earlier Scriptures, is nevertheless significant. At Sinai,
his forefathers " saw no similitude " of God. But, living,
as he did, amidst gigantic human figures of gods, shining
in golden splendour, we have, for the first time, in his
vision, a form assigned to Jehovah, as if, by gathering
round Him a splendour compared with which that of the
idols grew pale, he would lift the thoughts of his country
men to His infinitely transcendent glory, and yet utilize the
impressions made on their minds by the religion of the
locality. It will be remembered that in this he was fol
lowed by Daniel,' writing amidst the same influences. He
also uses imaginary beings, as symbols, in his visions.'
It need hardly be said, that the scenery of a vision or
waking dream can be only a picture of the brain. No one
has ever fancied that any class of the blessed spirits before
God have really such forms as Ezekiel describes. He
simply adopted the materials which he found employed
around him by degrading superstition, and through them,
transferred the same ideas of guardianship to the throne of
heaven, purifying these, as he did so, from the taint of all
lower associations. That they are only symbols, is shewn,
indeed, very strikingly by the fact that whereas, in one
passage, the face of one of the four living creatures is said
to have been that of an ox, in another it is described as
that of a cherub.' It is singular and noteworthy, more
over, that a picture on an Assyrian cylinder, now in the
British Museum,' presents a strange analogy to the details
• Dan. X. 9. 2 Dan. vii. 3, fi. » Ezek. i. 10 ; x. 14.
< Figured ruTomkina's Life and Times of Abraham, Plate III., flgure k.

FIEST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL. 403
of the cherubic vision of Ezekiel. A mysterious vessel
floats on waves expressed by undulating lines. It ends, at
its prow and poop, in a human form, extending downwards
to the waist. On the vessel itself two Kerubim, or winged
bulls, stand back to back, and turn human faces to the,
spectator, their position involving the presence of two
others behind them, to bear up the four corners of a flat
surface which rests on their shoulders, and possibly corre
sponds to Ezekiel's firmament. Prom this rises a throne
on which is seated a bearded god, clothed with a long and
gorgeous robe, his head surmounted by a Babylonian tiara,
and his extended hand holding a sceptre and a large circle
or ring; which is without ornament. A smaller human
figure, clothed with a long robe, stands before the god, to
receive his commands — his angel, or malach, to use the
Hebrew word ; his schickhal, in the phrase of Assyria. He
is the intermediary through whom mortals must approach
the divinity.' Overhead, at the sides, are two crescents,
as if indications of heavenly bodies, and above these there
still remain portions of an arch, which may have been the-
counterpart of Ezekiel's rainbow.
The human-headed bulls of Assyria and Babylon were
set up, as has been said, at the gates of palaces and tem
ples, as guardian genii, to watch over the buildings within,
and keep back all forbidden persons. They were regarded
as alive ; a spirit being supposed to dwell in the huge stone
forms. Similar existences, in living bodies, not prisoned
in stone, were believed to guard the gates of the heavenly
palaces of the gods, and those of the lower regions ; these
latter subterrestrial beings bearing up the earth on their
1 Fried. Delitzsch compares this flgure to the man clothed with linen, with a
writer's inkhorn at his side, who carried out Jehovah's commands. Ezek. ix. 3.
Wo lag das Parodies? p. 151.

404

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL.

backs, and guarding the entrance to the kingdom of the
dead ; as keepers of which, they were the objects of prayer.'
For seven days after the vision, Ezekiel tells us, he could
do nothing, but sat among his people at Tel Abib, ih
lonely and desolate grief, like
one mourning; his mind over-
helmed, for the time, alike
y the awful vision he had
jen and the greatness of the
3sponsibility laid on him by
jjis Divine commission as a
prophet. Only at the end of
a full week — the usutil dura
tion of excessive mourning" —
was his silence disturbed,
and then by the voice of God
speaking in the stillness of
his spirit. He had been set
apart as the public servant
of Jehovah, but he might
not have fully realized what
his ofiice implied. Before

WiNOBD Genius, feom the Tomb
OF Cyrus, at Murgae, the Ancient
PASARGADiE. It lias the head-dress
and the ram's horns of the Egyptian he Went forth tO his brcth-
god, Kneph, or Amon. Over it is the
inscription, "I am Cyrus, the king,
the Achsemeuian." It is a portrait of feel its awf ul SaCrcdneSS.
Cyrus, deifled. The inscription is in the
three forms of cuneiform writing.—

ren, Jehovah would have him Ap-
pointed to the ministry of His
Justi, Geschichte des Alien Persiens, -word among men, the interests
of the souls of his hearers were
intrusted to him. Let him ponder what is implied I
' On the whole subject of Ihe cherubim, see Lenormant, Les Origines de I' Bistoire,
pp. 113-127. Dillmann, art. " Cheiab," in Bib. Lex. Fried. Delitzsch, IFo Zag' (fas
Parodies? pp. 150-155, Kurtz, art. " Cherubim," in Herzog. Engel, in Herzog, Ste
auf . ' Joh il. 13.

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZZKIZL. 405
Would that all who have the cure of souls in our own dav
took to themselves the warnings, uttered more than 2,000
years ago on the banks of the Chebar !
" m. 17. Son of man ! ' (spoke the Voice), I have appointed thee a
watchman to the House of Israel: hear, then, the word from My month,
and wam them from Me. 18. When I say to the wicked, ' Thou shalt
surely die ! ' and you do not wam him (that I have done so), or speak
to wam the wicked from his wickexl way, so that he may save his life,
that wicked man shall die for his sin; but I will demand his blood
from you.'' 19. But if yon have warned a wicked man, and he does
not tum from his wickedness and his evil way, he wiU surely die for
his sin ; but you have saved your souL 20. And, if a righteous man
faU from his righteousn^s, and commits iniquity, and I cast a stum
bUng block before him, and he die ; if you have not warned him, he,
indeed, wUl die for his sin, and his righteous deeds wiU be forgotten ;
but I win demand his blood from you ! 21. But it you have warned a
righteous man to keep from sin, as becomes a righteous man, and he
does keep from it, he sliall assuredly live because he has been warned,
and you will have saved your own soul ! "
Thus cautioned, Ezekiel seems to have gone forth
among the Hebrew community, as his order had always
done, to urge on them the necessity of repentance and a
better life, and to disenchant them of the idle dream that
they would soon return to Judah, and find Jerusalem as
they had left it. That they would remain in Babylonia
seventy years, and that the Holy City would assuredly be
destroyed for its sins, was, we may be assured, the bnrden
of his addresses. But he spoke to men who bitterly
resented predictions opposed to their cherished desires.
The bitterness and glowing indignation of his soul' at
their ungodliness, which doubtless shewed itself in his
words and tone, instead of subduing them, only raised
fierce opposition, before which he was powerless. It was
impossible for him to get a hearing. So far as public ap-
I Ezek. iii. 17-81. ' Literally, " from, or at your hand." = Ezek. iii. 11.

406 FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIBL.
pearances were concerned, he could do nothing. Utterly
discouraged, and at a loss how to fulfil his duty hereafter,
he could only wait directions from God. Nor were those
long withheld. While his soul still glowed with overpow
ering excitement at all the incidents of the recent past, a
command came from Jehovah ' — how recognized as such is
not said — that he should go out from among the dwellings
of men, to a valley at hand, and await Divine instructions.
In this lonely spot the glory of Jehovah once more suddenly
shone before him, resplendent as it had been on the banks
of the Chebar, and, as then, he fell on his face to worship.
Presently, however, he was raised and set on his feet by the
same Divine power as in the former vision, and received
orders to desist, henceforth, from any attempt to speak
in public, except when specially directed to do so. From
this time he was to stay quietly in his house. His brethren
would not hear him, but by their resolute opposition would,
as it were, lay chains on him, and bind him to the seclusion
of his home. He was therefore to be silent, and cease frora
reproving them, because they were a House of Disobe
dience ! Yet, when Jehovah opened his mouth, he was to
go boldly among them, and tell them, "Thus says the
.Lord Jehovah," and he that lieard might hear, and he that
refused might refuse. From this time, therefore, till
nearly the close of his prophecies,' we hear of no public
activity on the part of the prophet, though he is often
spoken of as announcing the word of God to those who
came to him to hear it.'
The symbolical acts, parables, proverbs, poems, allegories,
and direct prophecies, which constitute the remainder of
' Ezek. iii. 2S-27. ' Ezek. xxxiii. 23 ; comp. xxiv. 27.
» Ezek. viii.-xi. 13 ; xiv. 17 ; xviii. 20 ; xxi. 5, 12 ; xxiv. 18, fl.

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL. iOI
his Book, must hence be conceived, for the most part, as
communicated at first, only to tbe small groups who, from
time to time, gathered in the house of the prophet. His
life, in fact, was spent in j)rivate. Abroad, among meu,
he was but a citizen ; only in the privacy of his dwelling
was he a preacher.
The earliest instance left us of this quiet but effective
activity shews that Ezekiel was in intense sympathy with
Jei-emiah, and offered unbending opposition to the ideas of
his brethren in Babylon, as to their speedy return to Pales
tine. Symbolical actions, as we have seen, were not un
common among the prophets, but with none were they so
frequent as with Ezekiel. To impress on his neighbours
the certain destruction of Jerusalem, in the face of all the
predictions of the false prophets, he was directed ' to repre
sent the siege of Jerusalem, and all its miseries, by a series
of emblematic actions. He was to take one of the common
sun-dried bricks, of which nearly all the buildings around
him were made, and draw on it the picture of Jerusalem,
with all the circumstances of a siege ; to raise works
around the walls; to picture the usual wooden towers over
looking them ; the huge mounds of earth enclosing the
ramparts, from which the besiegers could assail the defend
ers ; the encampments and attacking hosts ; and the bat
tering rams, to make breaches in the fortifications. This
done, he was to set before the brick, the iron baking-plate
of the household, to represent a wall of iron encircling
the city and making escape hopeless, while he, himself, as
the prophet and representative of Jehovah, was to press the
siege. Seen by those who came to his house, it would,
through them, be a sign to the Hebrew community at large.
• Ezek. iv. 1-3.

408 FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIBL.
To this strange illustration of acted prophecy another
was soon added.' To represent the wretched condition of
the city, thus shut up, and the sufferings which Israel as a
whole, in all its tribes, must bear, for their sins, he was
directed to lie on his bed, like one chained to it by sickness
or force ; keeping himself for 390 days on his left side, to
indicate, by a day for a year, the duration of the punish
ment of the Ten Tribes ; and then 40 days on his right
side, to symbolize as many years of visitation on the House
of Judah ; '• setting his face," meanwhile, toward the pict
ured siege of Jerusalem, and baring his arm to indicate
unimpeded action. In each case the iniquity of his breth
ren was to be assumed as metaphorically laid upon him.
Such directions must not, however, be understood as re
quired to be literally carried out by the prophet, for he
could not have been called upon to endure the torture of
never turning from one side for thirteen months together,
an infliction inevitably fatal to any one. The whole must
rather be taken as a parable, enacted from time to time,
before the companies met at his house, and explained as
the Divine intimation had directed." To attempt to solve
the full meaning of the symbolism is, however, a task, iu
which scholars have never agreed. The numbers given
may have been clear to contemporaries, but to later ages
they have only enforced Jerome's comparison of the proph
et's writings to a "hopeless maze," "a labyrinth of the
mysteries of God," or to the inextricable windings of the
catacombs under Eome. Even the Jews, indeed, early de-
' Ezek. iv. 4-8.
' Cornelius a Lapide says : " The prophet cannot be understood to havo Iain in bed
for 390 days, but lay down awake, as if besieging, or rather looking at the siege of, the
city." Pairbairn says : " Pew wil! be disposed to doubt that the successive actions
took place only in vision." Ezekiel, moreover, is represented as sitting in his house
before the days of his lying in bed could have been completed. Chap. viii. 1,

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL. 409
spaired so utterly of solving such dark questions, that they
were inclined to exclude Ezekiel from the canon, had not
Eabbi Chananiah, as the legend says, finally reconciled all
discrepancies, and illuminated all difficulties, though at the
cost of studies so protracted as to have required for his
midnight lamp no fewer than 300 skin-bottles of oil.'
One reference, however, of the 390 and 40 days — about 14
months " — seems clear, for they are expressly named " the
days of the siege " of Jerusalem, which, in fact, lasted
^ Shabbath, fol. 13, col. 2. The skiu-hottle was the entire skin of a sheep or goat
sewed together and made into a bottle or hanging jar.
' As it may interest readers to have some of the countless explanations given of the
390 and 40 years, I append the following :
(1.) Theodoret follows the reading-of the Septuagint, which gives 150 days instead
of 390, but retains the 40, making altogether 190. The 40 years he takes to be 40, yet
wanting, of the 70 of the captivity of Judah ; 30 years of it, in hia opinion, having
already passed. He reckons the period from the first prophesying of Ezekiel to the
reign of Cyrus as 40 years I The 150 are obtained by running on to the tvf cntieth
year of Artaxerxes, in which Theodoret tells us Jerusalem was fully rebuilt.
(2.) Taking the numbers in the Hebrew Text— 390 aud 41 = 430— the following solu
tions among others have been ofi'ered. Some, says Jerome, thought the 430 years
mean the period from the baptism cf Christ to the end of the world. Others, espe
cially Jews, he tells us, reckoned frora the second year of Vespasian, wheu the temple
was destroyed, supposing that 430 years of misery and captivity must be fulfilled by
Israel, from that date, and thought that then the chosen people would be restored, as
they of old were 430 years in Egypt (Exod. xil. 40).
(3.) Ephraem Syrus reckons the 430 years from the first year of Solomon to the
eleventh of Zedekiah, when the temple was burnt ; a period, he says, of 433 yeara
and 6 months.
(4.) Jerome reckons from the twentieth year of Pekah, in which he tells us Tiglath
Pileser carried off the first captives from the Northern Kingdom. From this to the
burning of tho temple under Zedekiah he counts 164 years. Add 70 years for the
Captivity, and we have 234 years. From this to the last year of Ahasuerus he counts
155 years and 4 months, and these added to the -234 years, make 3S9 years and 4 months.
The 40 years he obtains " easily." From the reign of Jehoiachin to that ot Cyrus is,
as he calculates, just that period !
(5.) The later Rabbis reckon the 390 years from the entry of the Israelites into
Canaan, giving 151 years to the Judges and 241 to the Kings of Israel, from Jeroboam
to Hosea. 151 -|- 241 = 392. But they deduct the last year of Hosea, hecause lie had
been carried off from Samarm. The 391 left are reproduced by the round nnmber 390.
The 40 years are obtained by con ting the flrst 16 years of Manasseh, during which
idolatry was rampant, and then adding 24 as embracing the period from King Amou
to the burnhig oi che temple, the good reign ot Josiah being passed over.
C6.) Others calculate the period from Jeroboam to the destruction ot the temple as

410 FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIBL.
nearly 18 months, including the time during which the
Chaldseans interrupted it, to march against the Egyptian
army." A third symbolical act of the prophet set forth the ex
tremities to which Jerusalem would be reduced in the siege,"
and the bitterness of the years of exile. He was to take
grain and leguminous food of all kinds, from the best to
the poorest — wheat, barley, beans, lentiles, millet, and
vetches, and mixing them all, make bread of them for the
390 days of the typical siege. Such food Avas in itself un
clean, by the mixture of which it was made ; a very serious
matter to a strict priest like Ezekiel." Of this he was to eat
only the weight of twenty shekels, or 12- ounces troy, a day,
while the water he was to drink daily was to be only the sixth
of a hin, or a pint and a half ; * terribly little in so warm a
climate. The utter want of all firing in Jerusalem during
the siege, was to be indicated by the most revolting mate
rials being used to bake the bread of each day. In treeless
regions like the deserts of Africa or Arabia, or the steppes

390 years, and the 40 years from the thirteenth year of Josiah, in which Jeremiah
began to preach, to the burning of the teraple.
(7.) Onr ordinary chronology gives aperiod of 390 years from Rehoboam to the burn
ing of the temple, e.c. 977-587.
The 40 years in the wilderness are thought hy not a few to have been in the mind of
Ezekiel in speaking of Judah, but I do not myself see the connection. 390 added to
40 make 430, the length of the sojourn in Egypt. Exod. xii. 40, 41. Gal. iii. 17.
Rosenmiiiler (Scholia in Ezek., pp. 107-117), gives extracts from the Fathers from
which I have condensed these memoranda. His own explanation is ingenious. He
flnds the 390 years in the period from Rehoboam to the burning of the temple under
Zedekiah ; the 3G0 days, as follows : From the 4th of the Oth month, in vvhich the
siege began (2 Kings xxv. 1 ; Jer. xxxix. 1 ; lii. 4), to the 4th of the 9th month of the
eleventh year of Zedekiah, on which it ended (2 Kinsrs xxv. 3 ; Jer. xxxix. 2 ; lii. 6),
are 630 days of a lunar year. From this he deducts lOO days, as the time during
which the Chaldseans intermitted the siege, when marching against the Egyptian
army, and thus gets 430, which includes the 390 of Israel, and the 40 of Judah. Thia
430, he notices, was the time assigned to the stay of the Hebrews in Egypt.
» Joa., Ant, X. viii. 1. » Ezek. iv. 9-17.
8 Lev. xix. 19. « Conder's Handbook, p. 81.

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL. 411
of Asia, the dried dung of sheep, goats, camels, or oxen, is
the ordinary fuel,' supplemented, as far as possible, by any
stalks or weeds obtainable. Camel's dung is regularly used
for fuel by the Arabs, and one sees, everywhere, in Egypt
and Palestine, round cakes of cow dung, kneaded by the
women and girls, laid out to dry in the sun, or piled up for
use. The round, flat " bannocks '' of bread common in the
.East, are very generally baked by putting them into the
embers of such a fire, which is quite as good for the pur
pose, in every way, as any other fuel, and in no degree
affects the purity or taste of the bread." But a fire even of
such squalid materials was to be represented as beyond the
means of the besieged, and Ezekiel was to prepare his pit
tance, by laying it in the ashes of a much more offensive
fire. Thus would the Hebrews, he was told, " eat defiled
and abominable bread, among the heathen nations to whom
they would be driven," as had been foretold already by
Amos and Hosea." But the very thought of Levitically
polluting himself, even by a symbolical act, was intolerable
to the priestly feelings of the prophet. It would not defile
him to eat bread baked with the dried dung of oxen or
other animals, for the ashes of such fuel in no way affect
what is baked in them by it, but bread made as proposed
would be "unclean." "Ah Lord Jehovah," cried he,
therefore, in distress, " behold, my soul has not hitherto
been defiled by my eating anything ceremonially unclean ;
for, from my youth up, I have never eaten the flesh of that
which died of itself, or had been torn in pieces by wild
beasts; nor has any unclean flesh come into my mouth."'
' Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, p. 288.
» 1 Kings xvii. 12. Isa. xliv. 15. Jer. vii. 18.
' Amos vii. 17. Hos. ix. 3.
* To speak thus, Ezekiel must have beeu well acquainted with the Levitical legisla-

413 FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL.
Fuel of COW dung, such as was common, was, in conse
quence, substituted, and the solemn words added, that
Jehovah would break the staff of bread in Jerusalem ;
bread, like the staff in a man's hand, being that on which
the citizen leaned for support. Their bread would be eaten
by weight, and their water measured out to them, and
drunk in terror, to let them pine away for their iniquity.
Still another sign, however, was to be given,' that by one
or other, the dark prospect before both the exiles and
Judah, might be realized. Ezekiel was to take a barber's
knife, and shave off his hair and his beard. Himself repre
senting the city, his hair was to stand for its inhabitants,
and its being cut off, the shame and ruin before Jerusalem."
The hair, moreover, was to be destroyed in various ways, to
shew the different modes in which the Divine judgments
were to strike the guilty people. A third part was to be
burnt with flre, in the midst of his picture of the city,
when the days marking the duration of the siege were over ;
a third was to be cut to pieces ; and the last third to be
scattered in the wind. A few hairs only, and these counted,
so few their number, were to be bound up in his skirts, but
even of them, he was afterwards to burn some. Then came
the solemn words :
"V. 5. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: This is (the fate of) Jerusa
lem. I have set her in the centre of the nations, and of their lands
round about it.* 6. But she has rebelled against My laws more than
tion, contrary to the new criticism, which supposes it was not invented till after his
day. See Lev. xvii. 15. Exod. xxii. 31. Deut. xiv. 21. Lev. v. 2 ; vii. 24 ; xxii. 8 ;
xi. 39, ff ; vii. 18 ; xix. 7 ; xxvi. 28, 39. These laws must, moreover, have been rigidly
observed by strict Jews. So much for the late origin of the Pentateuch.
'Ezek. V. 1-6. 2 2Sam. X. 4. Isa. vii. 20.
3 The Jews believed from this verse that Jerusalem was the centre of the world
(BuxtorfE, Lex. Chai., p. 854), as the Greeks supposed of Delphi, the seat of Apollo.
Cie, De Divinat., ii. 56. Ovid., Mefam., j.. lt)7. Theodoret dwells on this imaging

FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL. 413
the heathen,' and against My statutes more than the lands round
about her; for her people have despised My laws, and as to My
statutes, they have not walked in them !
" 7. Therefore thus says the Lord Jehovah: - Because you have been
much worse in your rebelliousness than the heathen nations round
about you ; ' because yo'a have not walked in My statutes, nor kept My
laws, but have done according to the laws of the heathen nations round
you — 8. therefore, thus says the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I, even I, am
against thee, and vvill execute judgments in the midst of thee, before
the eyes of the nations. 9. I will do in thee what I have never done,
and the like of which I will never again do, because of all thy abomina
tions! 10. Fathers will eat their children in the midst of thee, and
children will oat their fathers, and I will execute judgments on thee,
and scatter ' all that remain of thy people to the four winds ! ^
"11. As 1 live, saith the Lord Jehovah — because thou (Jerusalem)
hast polluted my sanctuary with all thy detestable idols, and all thy
abominations (of heathenism), 1 will, assuredly, shear thee away (as My
prophet's hair has been shorn off);" My eye wiU not spare, nor will I
have any pity! 13. A third part of thee will die of the plague, and be
consumed by famine, in the midst of thee; a third part will fall by
the sword (that shall be) round about thee; and the last third will I
scatter to all the winds, and unsheathe a sword behind them. 13.
Thus will I exhaust My indignation upon her, and then (first), when
My fury has fallen on Ihem,' will I feel satisfied," for they will then
know that I, Jehovah, spoke in earnest," when I have spent My fury on
them !
"14. Thus (0 Jerusalem) will I make thee a waste, and a mockery
among the nations round about thee, before the eyes of all that pass
fact in his commentary on the text. See also, Reland's Palestine, Bk. I. chap, x., and
Jarchi on this place. A spot fancied to be the centre of the world is still shewn in
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. The Arabs ihink Mecca the centre
of the world, and the Pars! fancies the sacred mount Albir£ch has the honour of
heing so. See Gesenius, Jesaia, vol. i. p. 179.
1 She has wickedly exchanged My laws for those of the nations. Ewald.
« Ezek. V. 7-14.
5 Becanse ye have reckoned yourselves as among the nations. Ewald, Trom
Peshito. 4 As men throw ahro.id the chaff with a winnowing shovel, on the threshing floor
on the top of windy hills.
' Literally, " to all the winds."
= The verb means primarily, "to scrape ofl," " to shave ofl."
' Or, cooled itself on ihem. » Literally, " be comforted."
' Literally, " in zeal."

414 FIRST PROPHECIES OF EZEKIEL.
by. 15. And thou shalt be a, contempt and a reviling,' an example,
and an astonishment, to the nations round about thee, when I execute
Judgments on thee, in anger and in wrath, and in ths chastisements of
My fury. I, Jehovah, say it! 16. Yes! I will send the deadly arrows
of famine among them, which will destroy them, for I send them for
that purpose ; famine on famine will I bring on you, and break your
staS of bread! 17. Famine and wild beasts will I send among you, to
raake you childless! pestilence and blood will assail you, and I will
bring the sword on you! I, Jehovah, have said it! "
¦ Ezek. V. 15-17.

CHAPTER XX.
THE FIRST TEARS OF THE EXILE.
The first twenty-four chapters of Ezekiel throw much
light on the state of things among the exiles in Babylonia,
in the years preceding the siege of Jerusalem. A close
connection was kept up between them and the capital.
Constant communications passed and repassed,' and the
tenderest sympathy bound together the widely separated
communities. On the banks of the Chebar, the banished
Hebrews seemed to think, or speak, only of the hills and
valleys of Judah, the flnal and utter desolation of which
they could not bring themselves to believe. Jehovah
would surely appear to save Israel, His first-born," from
the oppressor !
It was given to Ezekiel, as the mouthpiece of God, to
dispel this illusion, tirne after time, by earnest assurances
that they were deceiving themselves with false hopes, and
that, instead of triumph, the most terrible doom hung
over the community in Palestine. That of Jerusalem he
had already proclaimed in a succession of prophetic acts,
which brought it before their own eyes, as it were, by the
1 Travelling seems to have been quite safe under the Chaldseans. See p. 315. It
had been the same under the Assyrians. Thus, in the reign of Assurbanipal, a man
appeared in Nineveh in strange dress, speaking a language no one understood, and
it was only found out after some days that he was an ambassador trom the distant
kingdom of Lydia, in Asia Minor. Smith's Assyria, p. 147.
¦ Exod. iv. 22.

41G THE FIRST YEARS OF THE EXILE.
most vivid symbols ; but Judah, as a whole, had hitherto
escaped. Soon, however, it, also, had to be bewailed, as
destined to a fate equally sad. To Ezekiel it must have
been distressing in tho extreme to utter such dismal pre
dictions of ruin ; but, like Jeremiah, he had no choice,
when the commission to do so came from above. The fol
lowing is the first prophecy in which the Jewish State was
set before the exiles of Chebar, as under sentence of final
destruction. " VI. 3. Son of man,' set thy face against the mountains of Israel
and preach against them,^ 3. and say — Ye mountains of Israel, hear
the word of the Lord Jehovah ! Thus says the Lord Jehovah to the
mountains, and to the hills, to the torrent beds, and to the valleys,
• — Behold, I will bring war against you, and will destroy your ' high
places.'^ 4. And your altars shall be laid desolate; your sun-pillars
shall be broken ; and I will cast down your slain men before your dis
gusting gods,' 5. lay the carcasses of the sons of Israel before them,'
and scatter their bones round your altars ! 6. Wherever you live,
your towns shall be laid waste, and the high places made desolate,
that your altars may be left without drink offerings ° and forlorn, and
your disgusting idols be broken and cease, and your sun-pillars cut
down, and the images, the work of your hands, destroyed I 7. And
tho slain wiU fall in your midst, and ye shall know that I Jehovah
(have spoken).' 8. Yet I shall leave a remnant who have escaped
the sword and live among the nations, when' ye are scattered through
the countries, 9. and your fugitives shall think of Me among the
heathen, whither they have been carried captive ; when their unfaith
ful hearts, which have departed from Me, shall feel broken, and their
' Ezek. vi. 1-9.
2 " Thou hast appointed prophets to preach of thee, etc." Neh. vi. 7.
3 They had raised them again since they had heen destroyed by Josiah, See Deut.
xii. 2. Lev. xxvi. 30.
4 Literally, " dung gods." Mflhlau und Volck. For " disgusting gods," the reader
may substitute " dung gods," throughout.
» Smend. Henderson. « Literally, " dry."
' Eichhorn, Ewald, and Smend, join the first word of ver. 8 to the end of ver. 7,
and make it read "have spoken." It seems a judicious emendation, involving only
a very slight change of the letters.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE EXILE. 417
eyes which lusted after their disgusting gods; when they shall loathe
themselves' for the wickedness which they have committed in all their
abominable rites — 10. then they will know that I, Jehovah,'' have not
spoken vainly, when I threatened to do evil to them !
"11. Thus says the Lord Jehovah: Smite (your thigh) with your
hand, and stamp with your foot (to shew your indignation ! ') and say:
• Alas for all the abominations of the House of Israel ! ' For they
shall fall by the sword, the famine, and the pestilence. 13. He that
is far off will die by the pestilence ; he that is near, by the sword ; and
he that is left, and he that is besieged, shall die by the famine ; and
I will exhaust My fury on them, 13. that they may know that I am
Jehovah! When your slain lie among your disgusting gods, round
about your altars, on every high hill, on the top of the mountains,
and under every green tree and every thick leaved oak — where they
offered fragrant incense to all these disgusting gods — 14. when I
stretch out My hand upon them and make the land waste and deso
late, from the wilderness (in the south) to Eiblah (on the north ') —
then shall they know that I am Jehovah ! "
That preaching like this, though only heard at first by
the small audiences in the prophet's own dwelling, should
have remained without result, when spread by report
through the community, shews how completely the sanc
tions of the ancient national faith had lost their hold on
the people at large. The prophet of God was utterly dis
credited. Faith in Jehovah was practically extinct. To
rekindle it would be possible only by the bitter experi
ence of a long captivity. But, if without influence at the
moment, the time would come when the return of bet
tor feeling would make such warnings and reproaches of
supreme value, in recalling the deep sinfulness of the past.
Although, therefore, he spoke, for tho time, as if to the
' Literally, "their own faces." '^ Ezek. vi. 10-14. = Jerome, ira toe.
' It ia Diblah in the Hebrew text. Bnt no place called Diblab is known, and
Diblathaim in Moab does not suit the connection. Riblah is in four MSS., and was
adopted by Jerome among ancients, as well ns by Gesenius, MOhlau, Hitzig, Ewald,
aud Smend among moderns.
VOL. V.-27

418 THE FIEST YEARS OF THE EXILE.
idle air, the prophet constantly returns to the subject, that
his own conscience, at least, might be clear, when tbe
catastrophe arrived. He knew, perhaps, that his words
were carried back to Palestine, and that he thus spoke to
those immediately in danger, as well as to his brethren
in Babylonia. One of these additional warnings ran thus.
The word of Jehovah, he told his hearers, had come to
him, saying : '
"VII. 2. Thou son of man, thus saith the Lord Jehovali to the
land of Israel : The end comes ; it comes upon the four corners of the
land! 3. It is now upon thee ! I will send out My anger against
thee, and will Judge thee according to thy ways, and lay upon thee the
punishment of all thy abominations. 4. My eyes shall have no compas
sion on thee, neither shall I pity thee, but I will lay the punishment of
thy ways upon thee, and that of thy abominations shall come into thy
midst — that ye may know that I am Jehovah !
"5. Thus says the Lord Jehovah : A calamity, a great calamity, see,
it comes! 6. An end, the (predicted) end, comes ! (It has slumbered
long, but now) it awakes against thee! See, it comes! 7. Thy fate''
steals upon thee, 0 thou dweller in the land (of Judah) ! The time is
at hand! The day of tumult on the mountains, not of rejoicings, is
near! 8. Now will I presently pour out My fury upon thee, and let
loose My anger on thee, to Judge thee according to thy ways, and lay
on thee the punishment of all thy abominations ! 9. And My eye shall
have no compassion on thee, neither will I have pity. I will render to
thee according to thy ways and thy abominations in the midst of thee
— that ye may know that I, Jehovah, smite !
" 10. Behold the day! See, it comes! Fate quickens into life (like
the bud of spring) ; the rod of vengeance buds ; (the) haughtiness (of
Chaldffia) blossoms; 11. their fierceness has shot up into a rod to pun
ish (the) wickedness (of the people of Judah) ! Nothing shall remain
of them, nor of their multitude, nor of their substance, neither shall
there be any (funeral) wailing for them! 13. The time is come! The
day draws near! The buyer need not rejoice, northe seller grieve, for
» Ezek. vii. 1-12.
^ So Theodoret, De Wette, Winer, Ewald, Keil, Gesenius, Hitzig, Hengstenberg.
The word is Tsephirah, which means a circle or cycle. It is thus=thy turn or time
has come.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE EXILE. 419
fury descends on the whole people ! ' 13. For he who has been forced
(by his exUe) to sell (all he had), will not return to (buy back) what he
sold, though he stUl live; for the vision (of calamity) includes the whole
population (of Judah) ; '' no one (of the exiles) will return, and no ono
(in Jerusalem), with all his unrighteous gain (from the forced sales of
the property of his banished brethren), will be able to keep to himself ^
even his life.
" 14. They blow the trumpet (in Jerusalem), and make all ready for
war ; (but their courage fails :) no one marches out to the battle ; for My
wrath is on all the multitude in the city. 15. The sword is outside,
pestilence and famine within ! He that is in the field will die by \ ho
sword; he that is in the city, him will famine and pestilence devour.
16. And any that escape will be on the mountains like (the moaning)
doves of the cliffs, sighing, every one, for his sin! 17. All hands will
hang down powerless, all knees be like water (that flows trembling
away). 18. They will gird themselves with (the) sackcloth (of mourn
ing) ; trembling will seize their whole frame ; ' despair will be on all
faces, and baldness on all heads.' 19. They will throw their silver into
the streets, and their gold will become an abhorrence, for neither
silver nor gold will be able to save them in the day of the wrath of
Jehovah, for it will neither satisfy their souls, nor fill their (hungry)
bodies; (they will hate their wealth for deceiving the trust put in it: )
through it, they fell into sin.' 30. The costly ornaments used for
pomp, and the images of their abominable and hateful idols, made
(from their wealth), I will turn to be their abhorrence, 31. and I will
give the city to the barbarians for booty, and to the wicked of the
earth for spoil, and they shall pollute it.
"33. I will also turn away My face from them, and the heathen wOl
pollute (even the temple — My unapproachable seat ') ; the robber will
press into it, and defile it. 33. Forge the chains (to lead ofE My people
captive) ! For the land is full of deeds of blood, and the city is full of
violence. 34. For this I will bring the worst of the heathen, that
1 Literally, " her crowd or multitude," i.e., the multitude in the land.
2 Smend. The exiles had been forced to sell their property in Jerusalem for next
to nothing. But they will never retum to claim the Jewish right of redemption of
family land. Ezak. vii. 13-24.
s Literally, "strengthen." * Literally, "covers them."
<- To shave the head was a sign of the deepest mourning, and had become a long
established custom, in spite of the prohibitions in Lev. xix. 28 ; Deut. xiv. 1, etc.
See Mic. i. 16.
« Paraphrased slightly.
' Primarily, "concealed ; " then, " not tobe approached."

420 THE FIRST YEARS OF THE EXILE.
they may take their houses in possession ; and I will cause their insolent
pride to cease, and their holy places shall be defiled ! 3S. Destruc
tion ' comes ! They seek safety, but in vain ! 36. Calamity will follow
calamity, and evil tidings press after evU tidings. Then (at last) will
they seek heavenly guidance '' from the prophet, for counsel will no
longer be obtainable from the priest, or sound advice from the experi
enced old.' 37. The king will shew himself in sackcloth, and the
chief men be clothed with speechless terror, and the hands of the com
mon people sink down powerless. For I will deal with them accord
ing to their ways, and Judge them according to their deserts,* that
they may know that I am Jehovah I "
The eighth chapter of Ezekiel throws interesting light
on the mental phenomena of Hebrew prophecy. In the
sixth year of his exile from Jerusalem — that is, in B.o. 592
— somewhere about September — the fifth day of the sixth
month, Elul — the prophet was sitting in his house speak
ing with the exiled elders of Judah, who sat before him.
The relations between him and the community had im
proved so far that, if he could not venture to speak in
public, he was, now, at least, sought out in private by
their chief meu. The crushing of open conspiracy among
the captives by the vigorous action of the Babylonian
government, had resulted in their being slighted by their
brethren still left in Judah, who affected to sneer at what
they chose to think their cowardice, in quietly submitting
to the Chaldsean, after all their boasting. Proud in the
possession of their city and temple, the men of Jerusalem
despised the exiles,' who, in their turn, had envied the lot
of their brethren at home as apparently happier than
their own. But the predictions of the fall of the capital
1 From the verb " to roll together," like a weaver's web. Ezek. vii. 25-27.
» Literally, "a vision," or "revelation."
3 The priests will have no " Torah " for such circumstances ; and even the old,
" the bearers of wisdom," will be at their wits' end. The " Torah " wiil perish from
the oue, and counsel from the other.
* Literally, "judgments." ' Ezek. xi. 15.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE EXILE. 421
seemed less intolerable since its bearing to them was
changed. The prospects of return were growing fainter.
Personal interest in the welfare of a place which might
never be seen again was insensibly weakened. Such a
mood was favourable to the prophet, with wliom tho Cap
tivity was the divinely-appointed means for the religious
revival of his people, and he therefore eagerly hailed any
advances on their side.
Things were passing from bad to worse in Jerusalem.
Idolatry was growing more gross and varied. The sins of
the inhabitants were rapidly wearing out tho Divine long-
suffering. If anything could shock the exiles, and lead
them to better thoughts, it would be to have the moral
decay of the mother city brought vividly before them.
Their national pride would surely revolt at the thought
of Israel casting off the mighty Jehovah, and sinking to
the level of the heathen whom they formerly despised.
It is almost impossible to realize what may, perhaps,
without offence be called the mental and spiritual exalta
tion which made visions like those seen by Ezekiel possible.
They remind us of Balaam's " hearing the words of God,
and seeing the vision of the Almighty," "falling down, but
having his eyes open ;" ' or of St. Paul's ecstasy, in which
— "whether in the body or out of the body," he could not
tell — he saw "visions and revelations," " in which he ap
peared to be caught up to the third heaven, to Paradise,
and heard unspeakable words ; or of the wondrous vision
of Sfc. Peter, when, being "very hungry," he "fell into a
trance," or ecstasy,' — the state of being out 0/ one's usual
mind, or the stretching out of the ordinary faculties— a
standing out of one's self— and saw the heavens opened.
' Num. xxiv. 4. " 3 Cor. xii. 1, 3. = This is the Greek word.

422 THE FIRST YEARS OF THE EXILE.
But whatever physical or mental conditions were involved,
the whole nature of the prophet must have been kindled to
a spiritual fervour and concentration, such as we read of
only in the history of a few great saints, while they were
under intense religious excitement.'
Suddenly, then, while conversing with the elders, "the
hand of the Lord Jehovah fell," or descended, " on him,""
and forthwith the vision of the Almighty appeared, seated
above the cherubim," as he had seen it before. There was
the same likeness of a man ' clothed with fiery brightness
from his waist downward, and shining from thence upward,
with the yellow radiance of gold and silver." A hand now
1 For example, the trance of Mr. Grimshaw, Perpetual Curate of Haworth, 1743-
1763. " On Sunday, September 2, 1744, his maid-servant was called up at five o'clock
in tlie morning, but found that her master had risen before her, and was retired into
a private room for prayer. After remaining there some time, he went to a honse in
Haworth, where he was engaged a while in religious exercises with some of his peo
ple. He then returned home, and retired for prayer again, and from thence went to
church. She believes he had not eaten anything that morning. While reading the
second lesson, he fell down, but was soon helped and led out of church. He con
tinued to talk to the people as he went, and desired them not to disperse, as he hoped
he should return to them soon, and he had something extraordinary to say to them.
They led him to the clerk's house, where he lay seemingly insensible. She, with
others, were employed in rubbing his limbs (which were exceedingly cold) with warm
cloths. After some time, he came to himself, and seemed to be in great rapture.
The first words he spoke were — ' I have had a glorious vision from the Third Heaven . '
But she does not remember that he made any mention of what he had seen. Iu the
afternoon he performed service at the church, which began at two o'clock, and spoke
so long to the people that it was seven o'clock in the evening before he returned
home." Newton's Life of Grimshaw, p. 36. Similar cases are recorded of Col.
Gardner, and of Mr. Tennant of Georgia, among others, in recent times. Handel
used to say that he did not know whether he was in the body or ont of the body dur
ing the composition of the Hallelujah Chorus in the " Messiah," and Michael Angelo
held that John of Fiesola could never have given the super-earthly look to the Virgin
in his picture of the Annunciation, had he not been raised above the sphere of the
seen and earthly, at the moment of its conception. The heavens are nearer us than
we think, and may open to pious souls in moments of transcendent spiritual exalta
tion, more frequently than we imagine. ^ Ezek. viii. 1-4. ' Ezek. ix. 3.
4 For fire (ver, 2) read "man." Septuagint. The word "fire" is ash; the word
for " man.'' aish. Same long sound of " a " in hoth as in " ate."
' See p. 396. The Abbe Vigouroux thinks the Hebrew word (Easmal) refers to the
coloured enamel on the bricks of Babylon and Nineveh, which would flash resplend-
ently in the light. La BiUe et les Dlcouveries Modernes, vol. iv. p. 361.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE EXILE. 423
seemed to be put forth and take hold of a lock of the
prophet's hair, by which the Spirit appeared to lift him up,
aud bear him between earth and heaven ; carrying him to
Jerusalem, "in the visions of God," that is, as happens in
a dream. There he was set down at the southern side of
the gate of the priest's court of the temple, — within the
inner sacred court, close to the spot where, on the other
side of the gate, in the outer court, facing the north,
Manasseh had raised a " hewn image of an Asherah," '
known since among the priests as "the image of jeal
ousy ;" its position beside the great altar, directly in front
of the Holy Place, seeming a wilful defiance of Jehovah,
"the Jealous God." ^ The same awful glory of the God of
Israel, with the attendant cherubim and wheels, which the
prophet had seen in the valley at Chebar, seemed to have
passed before him to Jerusalem, and shone around him
once more in the temple. Directed to look to the north,'
he did so, and saw the " image of jealousy " standing close
to the gate, on its outer or north side, the chief object
before all the people, for it had been erected again since
the death of Josiah. "Do you see," said the Vision,
" what My people do — the gross abominations committed
here by the House of Israel, in worshipping this Asherah
in My very House, as if to drive Me far off from My
sanctuary ? But turn once more, and you will see still
greater abominations." The prophet was then brought to
the north side of the archway of the gate at which he had
been standing. A large chamber lay next this passage on
the east side, the archway forming its western wall, which,
' 2 Kings xxi. 7. The word "graven image" in our version (peset) means an
image cut in wood, or of metal, or of stone. In this case it was of wood.
2 Exod. XX. 5 ; xxxiv. 14. Deut. iv. 24, 25 ; vi. 15. Isa. xlii. 8.
'¦' Ezek. viii. 6-12.

424 THE FIRST YEARS OF THE EXILE.
as he came near, shewed an opening in it, at one spot
"Dig through this," said the Voice, and Ezekiel did so.
It proved to be an ancient doorway that had been closed
up, perhaps, in the time of Josiah's Eeformation, and led
into a chamber large enough to let at least seventy men
move in it freely. Here the sight was still more distress
ing than that of the Asherah. The chamber was dark,'
but artificial light shewed that its walls were covered, like
those of the similarly dark chambers of Egyptian temples
and tombs, with paintings of beast-gods of every form,
from creeping things upwards. "These pictures, round
about," said the Voice, " are all the idols of the House of
Israel." " The strong Egyptian faction in Jerusalem, in
their degrading imitation of foreign manners, had intro
duced the animal worship of the Nile Valley, and had even
turned a large room in the temple into a chapel for its ser
vices.' But still worse, he saw in vision, in this chamber,
seventy of the elders of Judah, the leaders of the people,
the very men who should have discountenanced idolatry,
standing before the hideous brute gods on the walls, each
man wilh a censer in his hand, offering incense to them.
Laymen as they'were, they had taken possession of a cham
ber in the court of the priests, and had appropriated the
1 Ezek. viii. 12.
2 One would have thought there could have been no question of the meaning of
the words of this phrase as given in the A. V. lEzek. viii. 12)—" all the idols of the
House of Israel." The new criticism speaks of these as " totems." A totem is the
god of rude tribes in America, Australia, the islands of the South Pacific, aud in Cen
tral Asia. It may be an animal, vegetable, or dead object ; but whatever it is, Ihe
tribe is called after it, as oue tribe among Ihe North American Indians is called " the
Wolf," another "the Bear," and soon. Will any human being tell what possible
support snch an astounding assertion has from the simple words of Ezekiel ? The
word for idols in the text means " shapeless blocks of wood," "logs."
' Egyptian worship was held in many cases in dark chambers, the walls of which
were covered with -hieroglyphics and paintings of animal gods of all forme. See
Diod. Sic, vol. i. p. 59, ed. Wess. Amm. Marcell., B. xxii. See vol. ii. p. 36.

THE FIRST YEARS OF THE EXILE. 425
priestly censers for this vile use. Nor was this the only
spot in the temple thus desecrated ; each of these wor
shippers had a chamber of imagery for himself, among
the now otherwise unused halls and cells of the sanctuary.'
To add to his pain, Ezekiel saw among these apostates
a son of Shaphan — to whom Hilkiah had brought the
Book of the Law, in the eighteenth year of Josiah— and a
brother of Ahikam, the friend and protector of Jeremiah,
and father of the godly but unfortunate Gedaliah.^ So
deeply had the canker of idolatry penetrated society.
Here, in the dark of their idol chapel, the apostates
fancied themselves unseen by Jehovah. "He had for
saken the land," they said, "and did not see them."
The next scene in the vision is curiously illustrated by
archseological relics from the Euphrates. A seal has been
found which, curiously, bears the name of Amotz, the
scribe, the same name as that of the father of Isaiah. It
belonged, apparently, to a Jewish exile, of the time of
Sennacherib or Esarhaddon, and shews that its owner
had conformed to the prevailing sun worship. The winged
solar disk is above an altar on it, and a priest, with a
flounced dress, stands on one side, while the owner of
the seal stands on the other. Various Jewish seals, of the
same age and locality, shew a similar turning of their
owners to idolatry.
Thus not only were the foul Asherah of the Phcenicians,
and the beast-gods of Egypt, worshipped in the temple —
even the sun worship of the East had also found a footing
in its courts, as the Vision was now to shew. Guided by
it,' the prophet proceeded to the outer north gate of the
people's court, and there saw women, sitting in the black
¦ Ezek. viii. 13. ' Jer. xxxix. 14 ; xxvi. 34. ' Ezek. viii. 13-16.

426 THE FIRST TEAKS OF THE EXILE.
weeds of mourning, making loud laments for the deatii of
the Syrian sun-god Tammuz or Adonis, whose festival they
were thus keeping ; ' the wailing for his death being only
• A mytliological poera bequeathed to us by ancient Babylonia, recounts the de
scent of the goddess Istar, into Hades, in search of healing waters, which should
restore life to her bridegroom, Tammuz, the young and beautiful sun-god ; slain by
the cruel hand of night and winter. On the one hand, we thus see who was that
Tamranz, in whose honour Ezekiel saw the women of Jerusalem weeping, at the gate
of the temple (Ezek. viii. 14). On the other, it is clear that the Tammuz and Istar of
the Babylonian legend, are the Adonis and Aphrodite of the Greeks. All over West
ern Asia the women bewailed the death of Adonis ; a name equivalent to the Phoeni
cian Adoni, " my lord ; " the cry with which the worshippers of the stricken sun-god
lamented his descent into the lower world. It waa only too familiar in Pal
estine. They "mourned for Hadad-Kimmon," each year in the valley of Megiddo,
by the plain of Jezreel (Zech; xii. 11), while Amos heard the men of Israel mourning
for the "only son" (Amos viii. 10), and Jereraiah the prophet, in Judah, gives the very
words of the refrain : "¦ Ah me, my brother, and ah me, my sister ! Ah me, Adonis,
and ah me, his lady " (Jer. xxii. 18). After the revolt of Egypt from the Assyrian king,
and the rise of the 26th dynasty, the cult of Adonis entered on a new phase. His
story was identified with that of the Egyptian Osiris. As the sun-god Osiris had been
slain, and had risen again from the dead, so, too, had the Phoenician Adonis de
scended into Hades, and been rescued again frora its grasp. And so it came about
that a new feature was added to the festival of Adonis ; the days of mourning were
followed by days of rejoicing ; the death of Adonis was followed by the announce
ment of his resurrection. Ezekiel saw the women weeping for Tammuz in "the
sixth month." In Babylonia, Tammuz was the sun-god of spring ; his foe was the
summer heat ; his death waa mourned in June. Istar is the goddess with whom
Tammuz is associated. But at Hierapolis, this goddess seems to have bome the narae
of Semiramis, and as that of Istar travelled to the west, away from its old association
with Chaldsaa, it was transformed into the Ashtoreth of the Old Testament, and of
Phoenician monuments, and into the Astarte of the Greeks. She thus ceased to be
the pure goddess of the evening star, and became the feminine development of the
life-giving sun-god, and the patroness of love, in whose honour and that of her con
sort, Baal, abominations, denounced by the prophets, were committed within The ea-
cred precincts of the temple itself. Jerome tells us that the rites of Tammuz were
celebrated at Bethlehem in his own time. The sacred cave there, for ages regarded
as the birthplace of Christ, has been degraded by a recent fanciful writer into the
*' chapel,'* or sacred cave, " of Moloch," or of Tammuz ; such a cave playing an im
portant part in sun worship, and Jerome's remark about Tammuz worship requiring
it I There is, however, always a sacred cave connected with the traces of sun tem
ples in Syria, as if the ancient idea had been, that the sun issued from a cave, at its
return fromthe darkness of winter. The Akkadian name for the month of the winter
solstice, indeed, is, " the Cavern of the Dawn." Temples of Ashtoreth and Chemosh
stood on Mount Olivet, in Solomon's time, and a cave or vault, below a small sanc
tuary yet remaining on its top, may be a last trace of them. At Bethel, there is a
curious circle of stones, immediately north of the village, reminding one of the rude
stone temples of our own country. Traces of a similar circle were found also, south
east of Jenin, with a rude stone monuraent which has every appearance of being an

THE FIEST TEARS OF THE EXILE. 437
a prelude to the obscene rejoicings which greeted his return
as the Sun of Spring. But great as was this abomination,
ancient altar. The tomb of Joseph is flanked by two pillar-like altars, on which sacri
fices are still oflered by fire. Even the Jews sacriflce articles by flre at the tomb of
Ben Jochai, on Jebel Jermuk, the highest mountain of Central Galilee. A mde crom
lech in that district, is known as the " Stone of blood." Many sacred stones, iudeed,
occur through the whole country. On Hermon, the great centre of son worship,
remains of numerous sun temples have been found ; all facing the rising sun. On an
isolated hillock at Tyre, there is a sacred building, stUl called the " The Beloved of
women ; " from Adorns or Melkarth. The inhabitants of Northem Lebanon worship
the sun, moon, and elements, even now, and Conder thinks it not too much to say,
that every isolated round or conical hill top in Palestine was once the seat of sun
worship. The wailing devotees of the lost Tammuz, in the late pagan times, at Harran, were
wont to eat only dried fruits, and to abstain from corn-meal. In the absence of the
god, they would not partake of his special gift. The myth of Tammuz seems still
preserved at Neby Mashuk, where, in the middle of July,*the Tyrians celebrate the
feast of Sheik Mashuk, whose tomb lies near that of his wife, on the hillock. In this
connection, the translation of a verse of Proverbs, by St. Jerome, throws light on a
cnrious feature of the heathenism still existing, in his day, at Bethlehem. In Prov
erbs xxvi. 8, the words, " Like him who throws a stone on the back of Mercury," are
substituted for " As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, so is he that giveth honour to
a fool." The worship of a deity by throwing stones at hira seems very senseless, but
it is often alluded to in the Talmud.
The sacred stones, in monoliths, cromlechs, dolmens, or circles, connected with suu
worship, are very rare west of the Jordan, perhaps from the Jews having destroyed
memorials so closely associated with the idolatry of the ancient races. In Galilee,
however, where Jewish influence was, probably, never predominant, until a late
period, a few still exist, but in Moab and the Jordan valley they are wonderfully nu
merous. Among these, we flnd structures, which probably resemble the early altars
aud pillars, mentioned in Scripture, still existing at places, which, ou entirely inde
pendent grounds, may be identifled as the Mizpeh of Jacob, and the holy mountains,
Nebo and Baal-Peor. It is curious to notice, moreover, that all ancient religious
monuments or structures, whether rude or elaborate, are always favourite places of
burial. Stone monuments and tombs, or temples and tombs, are as constantly asso
ciated as cathedrals and tombs.
A special interest attaches to the incident mentioned of Josiah, when overthrow
ing the idolatrous altars and emblems at Bethel, having his attention arrested by the
monumental pillar, over the grave of the prophet. It shews that there was a connec
tion between pillars used for idolatrous worship, such as the Israelites threw down,
and similar pillars, used as head-stones at graves. The occurrence of cup-shaped
hollows, suited for libations, in some stones of this kind, and on rock altars, as, for
example, on the Sakrah at Jemsalem and the stones at Monnt Gerizim, is a strange
memento of long past ages. Blood was, at times, poured out on these stones and
altars, thus hollowed on the top, and it has heen thought that their Arabic name
" Mareighat," " smeared," may refer to this practice, unless, indeed, the word refers
to smearing with oil : reminding us of Jacob's stone at Bethel, of the ambrosial stones
of Tj-re, and other stones of many countries, wont to be similarly anointed.

428 THE FIKST TEAES OF THE EXILE.
a still greater remained. Prom the outer court, Ezekiel
was brought into the inmost, beside the great brazen altar.
There, at the very door of the temple building, between
the projecting porch of the Holy Place and the altar which
stood immediately in front of it, the crowning desecration
presented itself. In this, the very holiest spot of the sanc
tuary," about twenty-five men, presumably representatives
of the high priest and of the heads of the twenty-four
courses" — for already in Uzziah's time laymen could not
enter this sacred space' — stood with their backs to the
temple — the open sign of apostasy * — and worshipped the
rising sun, their faces turned to the east.
" Son of man," said the Voice,' "hast thou seen this ?
Is it too small a thing to the House of Judah to commit
the abominations they do here ? Must they also fill the
land with violence, as they have done, and constantly pro
voke Me to anger ; and see, now, like the Eastern heathen,
they hold the twig to their nose as they worship the sun."
I will, therefore, deal with them in fury ; My eye shall not
pity, nor will I spare them, and even if they cry in My ears
with a loud voice, imploring mercy, I will not hear them ! ¦"
Having disclosed the profound corruption of the people
of Judah and Jerusalem, the vision now, by a vivid image,
foreshadowed the terrible penalty to be exacted. The Di
vine Voice was heard commanding aloud,' " Draw near, ye
that are to punish" the city; every man with the weapon
¦ Joel ii. 17. ' 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14. ' 2 Chron. xxvi. 18.
* 2 Chion. xxix. 6. Isa. i. 4. Jer. vii. 24. = Ezek. viii. 17, 18.
• The Persians, while they prayed to the sun, Jield twigs of date, granate, and
tamarisk, in their left hand, aud the priests wore a veil, that their breath might not
pollute the Holy One. Spiegel, Erdn. Alter., vol. iii. p. 5ri. The Ssabeans did the
same. Chwolson, Die Ssabier, vol. ii. pp. 384, 393, 199, ff. Lenormant's Lo Divina
tion, p. 24.
' £zek. ix. 1-7. ^ Literally, " yc punishments of."

THE FIEST TEARS OF THE EXILE. 439
of death in his hand ! " Forthwith, six men appeared to
come through the gate of the upper, or priests' court, which
faced the north, every one with a sword in his hand, a
seventh' following, clothed in white linen, like a priest'
or an angel,' with a scribe's inkhorn at his side ; the whole
passing into the priests' court, and standing beside the
brazen altar. The glory of the God of Israel seemed then
to rise from off the cherubim on which it had rested, and
hang over the threshold of the temple, whicli it once more,
for a moment, revisited. From its midst the Divine Voice
now cried to the man clothed in white linen, with the ink
horn at his side : " Go through the midst of the city — the
midst of Jerusalem — and sign a cross * on the foreheads of
the people who are moaning and sobbing for sorrow, on ac
count of all the abominations done in its midst ! " Turn
ing next to the six others, the Voice commanded them to
follow their companion through the city, and slay ! "Let
not your eye spare," it said, " nor have any pity ; old and
young, maidens and little children and women — slay them
all, to the last ! but come near no one on whom is the
cross, and begin from My sanctuary ! " The elders before
the temple, so lately busy with idol worship, were the first
to fall i^ the Voice calling aloud to the six slayers to "De
file the temple and fill its courts with the slain." This
done, swift as lightning — another command followed : "Go
ye forth, now, into the city." And they went forth to slay
the city population.
1 Six to destroy ; one, to save I ' Lev. vi. 10 ; xvi. 4.
' Dan. i. 5 ; xii. 6, 7. The Jewish belief in seven archangels seems to have sprung
from this verse.
« Gesenius. Ewald. The word is Tav, and means a sign or mark, especially in the
form of a cross. In Arabic " Tiv," means a cross burned in on the necks or thighs
of horses and camels. Hence the letter Tau has the form of a cross in the Phcenician
alphabet, and on the coins of Ihe Maccabees. ' Ezek. viii. 16.

430' THE FIRST TEAES OF THE EXILE.
Moved by such fierce destruction, which carried with it
the utter ruin of Israel, the prophet seemed, in the vision,
to fall on his face,' and cry out, "Ah, Lord Jehovah!
Wilt Thou destroy all the remnant of Israel, in this out
pouring of Thy fury on Jerusalem!" But the hour of
mercy was passed. " The iniquity of the House of Israel
and Judah," replied the Voice, "is very, very great; the
land is full of blood and the city with the perversion of
right, for they say, ' Jehovah has forsaken the land,' and
'Jehovah does not see.' Therefore My eye shall not spare,
nor will I have pity ; I will let the punishment of their
way rest on their heads!" But now the man clothed in
white reappeared, to announce that the Divine command,
to slay the multitude of the citizens, sparing only the godly,
had been carried out.
A new phase of the vision then opened. Jehovah once
more " sat on .His sapphire throne, above the firmament
borne by the four cherubim, and commanded the man or
angel, in white, to go between the wheels, under the cheru
bim, and fill his hand with burning coals from the midst
of these awful forms, and scatter them over the city ! ' As
he hastened to obey, the cherubim stood on the right or
south side of the temple, and the cloud of the Divine glory
filled the inner court. But now, again, the glory rose from
over them, and rested above the threshold of the sanctuary,'
filling it with a blinding splendour which shone over all
the court ; the wings ofthe cherubim sounding amidst the
brightness, "like the voice of El Shaddai when He thun
ders." Putting forth his hand, one of the cherubim took
fire from between the wheels, and gave it to the man
' Ezek. ix. 8-11. = Ezek. x. 1-SS.
3 It was to perish like Sodom, " Coals " = brands.

THE FIEST TEAES OF THE EXILE. 431
clothed in white, who took it and went out. The glory of
Jehovah then rose from over the temple threshold, and
rested again above the cherubim, who forthwith spread
their wings and mounted up from the earth ; the mysteri
ous wheels, quickened to hurricane speed ' by a command
from the Voice, accompanying their every motion. God
was about finally to forsake His fallen city, now filled with
slain, but He paused for a moment at the east gate of the
temple, whither the Spirit also transported the prophet.
At this spot, the east gate of the outer court, twenty-five
men seemed to be assembled, two of whom, at least, the
prophet recognized — Jaazaniah, the son of Azur, and Pela
tiah, the son of Benaiah, both members of the aristocratic
party, and heads of the people, as indeed were all the
others.'' " Son of man," said the Divine Voice, as they
appeared, " these are the men who guide the city ; plan
ning wickedness and giving evil counsel. Mocking the
words of Jeremiah, thoy say, 'The time is not near to
build houses for the returning exiles. So far from that,
the prophet has told us that the city is the pot and we the
flesh, to be stewed in flames of war !" Therefore proph
esy, prophesy against them, son of man ! " '
On this the Spirit of Jehovah appeared in the vision, to
descend again, on the seer, and to command him to say —
^ Ezek. X. 13. The words " O wheel," are in Hebrew only one — Galgal — which
means a whirlwind as well as a wheel, the idea of rolling being common to both.
= Ezek. xi. 1-4.
3 Jerome, in. loc, renders this passage : " 'Although lately,' say they, 'after the
flrst captivity, houses which had been destroyed were rebuilt, yet it is not the time
now to build. For this city is the pot, and we are the flesh to be cooked in it.' "
Smend has virtually adopted Jerome's explanation, and so has Eosenmuller. Smend
says, "It is not the time to build houses (rough times are before us);— the town is
the pot and we the flesh (and we will be cooked by the flre ot war)." Conscious of
thiir false position and the danger ahead, they try to put on a light air and laugh the
matter off, living recklessly while they can.
* Havernick. Hitzig. Keil.

433 THE FIEST TEARS OF THE EXILE.
" XI. 5. Thus says Jehovah : ' Ye have indeed spoken in this -way,
0 House of Israel, and I know (well, besides) what rises in your mind,
(however ye raay seek to hide it frora Me) ! 6. The number of victims
you have slain in this city (by violence and perverted justice) is very
great ; ye have filled her streets with' thera ! 7. Therefore, thus says
the Lord Jehovah : your victims, whom ye have heaped up in the midst
of her, are the flesh, and she is the pot ! (They alone lie safe in your
midst!) But I will lead forth you, yourselves, their murderers, (into
captivity). 8. Ye havo feared the sword, and the sword will I bring
on you, says the Lord Jehovah. 9. I will lead you out of the city (as
captives), and give you into-the hand of aliens, and execute judgment
on you. 10. Ye shall fall by the sword. I will judge you (at a place)
on the borders of Israel,^ that ye may know that I am Jehovah ! 11.
Jerusalera shall not be your pot, nor shall ye be the flesh in it. I will
judge you on the borders of Israel, 12. and ye shall know that I am
Jehovah, in whose commands ye did not walk, and whose laws ye did
not obey ; for ye acted according to the practices" of the heathen round
about you ! "
At this moment, while Ezekiel was apparently delivering
this terrible doom, an awful incident occurred in the vis
ion. His words had fallen with fatal effect ou the ears of
Pelatiah, one of the men now addressed. The terrors be
fore him, as one of the guiltiest amongst those accused,
had brought on a sudden fit, in which he forthwith died.
At the sight, the prophet was overpowered. It seemed as
if all Israel were to perish, and, falling on his face, he once
more cried with aloud voice, "Ah, Lord Jehovah! Wilt
Thou make an utter end of the remnant of Israel ?" But
the Divine Voice replied with words of comfort. The peo
ple of Jerusalem had turned against their brethren of the
Captivity, and had boasted that the Holy City was for ever
the inheritance of those that were left. The exiles, how-

> Ezek. zi. 5-12.
2 At Riblah. How literally fulfllled I 8 Bangs xxv. 6. Jer. lii. 9, 10.
3 Literally, '* laws.'*

THE FIRST TE.4.RS OF THE EXILE. 433
ever, would supply a remnant to Israel, and would one day
come back and possess the land of their fathers.
"XI. 15. Son of man!' Thy brethren, even thy brethren, the
men of thy captivity,' and the whole House of Israel together, are
they to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem said — ' Get you gone, far
from Jehovah ! The land is given to us for an inheritance ! ' IG.
Therefore say. Thus says the Lord Jehovah: Because I have cast them
far off among the heathen, and scattered them through the lands, and
have been but little of a sanctuary, (or defence) to them, in the coun
tries whither they have come; 17. therefore say. Thus saith the Lord
Jehovah, I will gather you from among the heathen, and bring you
back from the lands where ye havo been scattered, and I will give
you the land of Israel! 18. And (the exiles, when) they thus (return
and) come hither, will put away (from the soil of Israel) all its detest
able idols, and all its (heathen) abominations. 19. And I will give
them one heart, and will put a new spirit within them ; and I will take
away the stony heart out of their flesh, and give thera a. heart of flesh ;
20. that they may walk in My statutes and keep My laws and do them,
and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. 21. But as to
those (here, in Judah and Jerusalem,) whose heart walks after their
detestable idols and their (heathen) aborainations, I will bring down
the punishment of their way on their own heads, saith the Lord
Jehovah!" The vision now ended. The cherubim spread their
wings,' and the wheels moved at their side, the glory of
the God of Israel resting over them, as the prophet fol
lowed the awful sight till it passed over the Mount of
Olives, towards the east, and was hidden from him. But
at that moment he awoke, and found himself in his own
chamber — the ecstasy gone — and his mind so composed
that he could repeat to the elders, who were still around
' Ezek. xi. 15-21.
2 As the word stands in the Hebrew text. Literally, " those who have the right
of redemption for thee." But Ewald and Smend amend the word slightly, and
make it— of thy " exile," or " captivity." This I have adopted, as it gives a much
better sense.
' Ezek. xi. 22-25. VOL. v.— 28

434 THE FIRST TEAES OF THE EXILE.
him, the amazing sights and words he had seen and heard.
It had all been, in effect, a dream, and we know that in
dreams a few moments suffice to bring before the mind
the details and communications of apparently lengthened
events. It might have been hoped that the blending of terror
and gentle pity, which had marked this striking message,
would have moved the exiles to better thoughts towards
the God of their fathers. But, in the prophet's words,
"though they had eyes, they saw not; and though they
had ears, they would not hear." It was impossible, how
ever, for an earnest soul like that of Ezekiel to be silent,
even if his efforts to benefit his brethren were vain. The
true state of things in Jerusalem, and the best inter
ests of his fellow-captives, demanded his speaking often
and earnestly. The fact that, as yet, all was outwardly
calm, and that no thought of a campaign against Jerusa
lem had been mooted in Babylon, made it hard to induce
belief in the ruin predicted as so near.
Very different accounts of the state of feeling in the
mother city were evidently abroad. On the one hand, as
we see from Jeremiah, the agitation against the Chaldsean
vassalage was increasing, and threatened to lead to the
most perilous results ; the majority of influential public
men in Jerusalem supporting it, and urging King Zede
kiah to form a league with Egypt, which would, itself,
be a declaration of war against Babylon. They were, un
happily, able, indeed, ere long, to force him into it.* A
league with Pharaoh secured, the city, they fancied,
would enjoy a long future of victory and peace.
There were others, however, who had no such illusory
- Ezek. xvii. 7 ; xix. 1.

THE FIEST TEARS OF THE EXILE. 435
anticipations, though they failed, in the heightening con
fusion, to realize the true solution and hope. They were,
hence, overwhelmed with despondency ; even the truths of
their ancient faith, and the words of the prophets, giving
birth, in their despairing hearts, only to mocking jests
which spread far and wide."
The exiles around Ezekiel echoed these opposite feelings.
Many shewed plainly the incredulity with which they re
ceived his words,^ but vain hope and distracting excitement
were the prevalent mood. False prophets among them
sought still, at least in secret, to promote the views of the
anti-Chald£ean party in Jerusalem, and even the elders who
came to Ezekiel, let it be seen only too plainly, that, while
willing to hear his counsels and consolations, they would
fain win from him some utterance favourable to their cher
ished hope of a speedy return to Palestine. They still,
moreover, as the prophet discovered,' hankered after idola
try, and thus precluded his repeating even the comfort he
had hitherto given them.*
Under such circumstances, Ezekiel threw himself into
the duties of his oQice with intense zeal, for a few years
only remained in which even to mitigate the calamities he
so clearly foresaw. His next attempt, therefore, was to
combat, once more, the idle hope of the deliverance of
Jerusalem from vassalage to the Chaldseans. For this
end words were not enough. Above all other prophets
he taught by vivid "signs," or acted presentations of the
truths he sought to enforce ; Jehovah, in this, as in other
cases, adapting the mode of His revelations to the mental
characteristics of His servants.
> Ezek. xii. 2i ; xviii. 2. '' Ezek. xii. 27.
s Ezek. xiv. 3 ; xx. 30. » Ezek. xi. 17-20.

43C

THE FIRST TEAES OF THE EXILE.

That Jerusalem would very soon be besieged so fiercely
that its princes would seek escape by a hasty flight, was,
hence, set before the minds of the exiles afresh, in dra
matic action, peculiar to the prophetic order. In obedi
ence to a Divine impulse, Ezekiel packed up ' a bundle of
personal necessaries, snch as one would carry with him on
a hasty journe}', and prepared, by day, to set off ;' laying
the bundle before his door, that it might be seen by all.
He himself, however, was
to set out by night, like
a captive, digging a hole
throughthe soft sun-dried
bricks of his house, which
he could easily do, and
going out, before all the
people, by the gap. His
bundle, which had pre
viously been carried back,
inside the house, was then,
in the darkness, taken out
through the opening ; the
prophet lifting it On his
shoulder, and acting as if
he were setting off with
it ; his face covered with his mantle, so that he could not
see the ground over which he was passing. The whole was
to be a "sign" of what awaited King Zedekiah, and
vividly foreshadowed his last disastrous attempt to escape.'
In anticipation of the notice such an act on the part of
a recognized prophet would attract, words were put into

A FOOK BBDOUtH ON A JoUBNET.

' Ezek. xii. 1-8.

s The actual setting out was to be by night.

" Jer. xxxix. 4 ; lii. 7. 2 Kings xxv. 4.

THE FIEST TEAKS OF THE EXILE. 437
the mouth of Ezekiel, to reply to any question.' Ezekiel
was to tell the " House of Disobedience," for thus Jehovah
would call His people till they repented —
"XII. 10. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: This burden-bearing
refers to the Prince (Zedekiah) in Jerusalera, and to all the House of
Israel in that city. 11. Say (to your brethren, the exiles, 0 Ezekiel),
I am your ' Sign.' As I have done (this last night), so will it be done
to the people of Jerusalem. They will go into exile and into captiv
ity. 12. And the prince that is among thera ' will bear a burden on
his shoulder, in the darkness, and shall go forth ; they will (as it were)
dig through the wall to get ont — (for the Chaldseans will watch at the
gates) — and the prince will cover his face (to conceal it), so that he will
not see the ground as he goes. 13. But I will spread My net over him,
and he will be taken in My snare, caught like a wild creature by the
hunter, and I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldseans;
yet he will not see it,^ though he will die there ! 14. And I will scatter
to all the winds his guard that is round him, and all his forces, and
unsheathe the sword behind them. 15. And they shall know that I
am Jehovah, when I scatter them among the heathen, and disperse
them among the lands! 16. But I will leave a few of their number (to
escape) from the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, that they may
make known all their abominable deeds among the nations whither
they come. And they shall know that I am Jehovah."
Another acted sermon followed soon after." The
prophet was directed to shew the terror and despair that
would come on Judah when it was invaded, by eating his
bread and drinking his water before his neighbours, trem
bling, and shaking, and overborne with sorrow, and to tell
them that the meaning of his doing so was, that Jehovah
had said, respecting the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the
land of Israel, that they would eat their bread in sorrow,
and drink their Avater in despairing terror, because the
' Ezek. xii. 9-16.
2 Jehoiachin was the legitimate king. Ezekiel, therefore, speaks of Zedekiah not
as the Melek, but as the Nasr— " the exalted one."
3 His eyes were put out at Riblah. ' Ezek. xii. 17-20.

438 THE FIRST TEARS OF THE EXILE.
land would be laid desolate, emptied of its fulness of life
and activity, through the wickedness of its people as a
whole. The inhabited towns would be laid waste and the
land made a desert, and they would know that He was
Jehovah !
Things were hurrying on to the inevitable !

INDEX,

Abdiel, 38.
Adaiah, 95.
Adrammelech, 400.
Africa, circumnavigation of, 249.
Ahab, 93.
Ahaz, religious struggle under, 23.
Ai, population of, 17.
Ailer, 210.
Almond tree, 133.
Altars, street, 143 n.
Amalek, 204, 215.
Amenhotep II. , 73.
Am-ha-aretzin, 95 n.
Ammon, 63.
Araraoiiites, 240.
Ararauladin, 86.
Araon, king, 93, 94-95.
Anathoth, priests of, 150 ; Jere
miah at, 237.
Ani-yim, 241.
Anointing, royal, 259.
Aphikim, 353 n.
Apocryphal writings, 89.
Apostolic Constitutions, 89.
Arabah, Kil n.
Arabia, invasion of, 70-71, 85.
Arabs, desert, 143.
Aramaic words in Hebrew lan
guage, 207.
Archers, 160.
Ark, the, 33, 152, 197, 327.
Arraageddon, 253.
Asaph, clan of, 231-2.
Ascalon, 134.
Ashdod, 83, 105, 124, 131, 138 n.
Asherah, slaves of, 174.
Assurbanipal, 75-82, ff. ; date of,
93 ; learning of, 347 ; death of,
246.

Assyria, 25, 29, 64, 251 ; kings of,
date of, 93 ; last kings of, 399.
Assyrian, colonies in Palestine,
67-9 ; annals, 69, 308 ; power,
Ezekiel's description of, 303-4.
Astarte, worship of, 33.
Astrology, 192 n.
Astyages, 348.
Athaliah, idolatry under, 23.
Axes, battle, 163 n.
Baal, 52 ; priests of, 173 ; cries of
worshippers of, 140, 154 n., 180
n. ; king of Tyre, 80.
Baalim, the Baals, 140, 190.
Babylon, fall of, foretold, 40, 314,
367; rebuilding of, 66; besieged
by Assurbanipal, 86 ; revolt of
under Nabopolassar, 105 ; sub
sequent rise of, 156 ; and Media,
league between, 247; fall of, 369;
one bridge only at, 376 n. ; great
lake in, 377; walls of, 378; size
of, 379 ; letter of Jeremiah to,
386.
Babylonian empire, rise and fall
of, 309.
Baking, Eastern, 411.
Balm, 188.
Bamoth, 173.
Barley harvest, date of, 9.
Baruch, 146, 169.
Bastinado, the, 291 ; Egyptian,
214.
Bazaar, a Persian word, 14 ; in
spectors of, 18.
Beacons, fire, 164.
Beards, Eastern, 191 n.
Behemoth, 57.

440

INDEX.

Bel, or Baal, 367.
Belial, 115.
Bellows, 168.
Benhinnom, valley of, 184.
Benjamites, 164.
Bethel and Dan, calves of, 148.
Bethel, sanctuary at, destroyed,
176.
Bethhaccerem, meaning of, 19, 164.
Bezetha, meaning of, 19.
Birds, migratory, 186 n.
Bittern, 125.
Blue, Assyrian war colour, 116 n.
Bones, dead men's, 115.
Books, heathen sacred, 179 ; sacred
Jewish, 304.
Borsippa, siege of, 86.
Bosom, the, of the Oriental tunic,
used as a pocket, 347.
Breaking of a bottle, symbolical in
the East, 287.
Bride, attire of, 141.
"Bride, The voice of the " — mean
ing of allusion, 375 ?i.-
Bridegrooras, crowning of, 28 n.
Brides, jewels of Eastern, 28.
Brigandine, derivation of, 373 n.
Brothers, affection between full,
363.
Buns, hot cross, 181 n.
Burning alive, a punishment, 66;
of false prophets, 387.
Burnt offerings, 231.
Buz, 70.
Cakes, sacred, 181.
Canaan and Philistia, 124.
Canaanites, remnant of, 215.
Canal, ancient, at Suez, 248.
Canals, Egyptian, 248.
Cannibalism, from war, 86.
Capernaum, meaning of, 112.
Captives taken to Babylon from
Jerusalem, 351.
Captivity, return from, foretold,
39 ; sadness of returned exiles,
42 ; flrst, frora Judah, 311.
Carchemish, taken by Necho, 305 ;
site of, identified by Smith, 306 ;
battle of, 244, 309, 310, 312, 313,
334.

Cavalry, Assyrian, 118.
Cave refugees, 160.
Cedar panels, 126.
Cemeteries, 18.
Centre of the world, Jerusalem
supposed to be, 412 ; fancies of
other nations respecting, 413.
Ceremonial worship, Jewish esti
mate of, 2-3.
ChaldaBa, antiquity of, 163 n.
Chaldsean, descent on Judsea, 163;
array, Habakkuk's descriptioa
of, 325.
Chaldseans, not Scythians, to at
tack Jerusalem, 156, 163, 165 ;
drunkenness of, 338.
Chananiah, Rabbi, 409.
Chariots, scythe, 116.
Chebar, the, 355.
Chemarim, 173.
Chemosh, 176.
Cherethites, 124.
Cherubim, counterparts of, in
heathenism, 401.
Children, dashing to pieces of, 180.
Choir, the teraple, 331.
Chronicles, date of Book of, 2 n.,
237 n. ; proofs of accuracy of,
87-88.
Chunar, stone at, on which God is
said to sit daily, 365-6 n.
Cilicia, Assyrians in, 69.
Cimmerians, irruption pf the, 106.
Circumcision, 191.
Cisterns, 137 m., 165 w.
Cisterns, underground, 7, 137 ;
"The city of," 4.
Commandments, Jeremiah refers
to the ten, 181.
"Contrite, the," 53.
Corn, ears of, might be plucked by
wayfarers, 9; exportation of, 11.
Cotton plant, cultivation of, 8.
Covenant, Book of the, 304, 334.
Crane, 186.
Cretans. 124.
Crocodile, emblem of Egypt, 43 n. ;
hooks for, 87.
Crops, date of sowing winter, 8.
Cross, used as a mark in Ezekiel's
vision, 429.

INDEX.

441

Crown, priestly, 28.
Crucifying, in Nineveh, 104.
Cush, 79, 119, 125, 127.
Cyaxares, 105.
Cyprus, 137.
Dagon, 68 n., 123 n.
Dan, calf at, carried oflf, 176.
Dances, sacred, 140 n.
Darius, canal of, in Egypt, 248.
Darkness, outer, 15-16.
Daughters, king's, 81.
Dead, consultations with the, 30,
33 ; defileraent by contact with,
17], 173, 176 ; gifts buried with,
185.
Dead Sea, 130 n.
"Death, gates of," literal raeaning
of, 18.
Death, customs at, 375.
Deioces, 105.
Demavend, 103.
Demons, altars to, 174.
Derceto, temple of, 109.
Deserts, blossoming, 45.
Despotism, Eastern, 170.
Deuteronoray, date of, 33 n., 147,
183-3, 204, 313, 316; public read
ing, 200; called " the Law," 201 ;
theories respecting date of, 302-
3; known to Amos, 206; Hosea
knew, 206 ; Isaiah's frequent al
lusions to, 206 ; Micah refers to,
306; dates of words used in, 207;
date of last chapter of, 309 ; tone
and contents prove authorship,
214; high teaching of , 219 ; sub
limity of, 330-1.
" Diamond point," meaning of the
expression, 277 n.
Dimann of Gambula, 84.
Diviners, 386 n.
Dockyards, ancient Egyptian, 348.
Dog River, inscriptions at, 73.
Dogs in Eastern cities, 13, 16.
Door-post charras, 15, and note.
Doors, texts written over Egyptian,
15.
Dragon, 43-4 n.
Drainage, earliest, in Palestine,
18-14.

Dreams, 77, 83, 408.
Dress, Egyptian, 123.
Drink offerings, 181.
Drought threatened for sin, 269 ;
described, 369.
Drunkenness, 51.
Dung pools, 43.
East wind, or sirocco, 44 n. , 348.
"Eating a book," metaphor of,
398.
Ebionites, the, 394 n.
Ebimiim, 341 n.
Ecclesiastes, 323.
Edom, revolt of, 63 ; Sennacherib
invades, 64 : attacked by Josiah,
148.
Effeminacy in Judah, 303.
Egypt, invasion of, 71 ; Assyrian
rule in, 72 ; revolt of, from As
syrian rule, 75-6 ; Greek influ
ence in, 82 ; shakes off Assyrian
yoke, 81 ; Josiah makes over
tures to, 142 ; circumcision in,
191 ; fleets of, 348-9.
Egyptian, written annals, 208 ;
prejudice against foreigners,
349 ; troops described by Jere
miah, 308 ; teraples. darkened
chambers of, 425 ; idols in Jew
ish temple, 425 ; party under
Zedekiah, 434.
Ekron, 124.
Elam, king of, 65.
Elborz, Mount, 103.
Elborz, range of, 103.
Elohim and Jehovah, 211, 241-2.
Embassies, religious, 83, 52.
Ephraira, destruction of, 67.
Esarhaddon, 64, 65, 67, 75.
Esheol, the valley of, i.
Essenes, the, 263 n.
Eulaus, the, 88 n.
Eunuch, court oflftcial, 175 n.
Eunuchs, negro, eraployed by kings
of Judah, 360.
Euphrates, water of the, 139.
Evictions in Judah by usurers, 6.
Exile, return from foretold, 128-9;
of Jehoiachin, national grief a,t,
352.

442

INDEX.

Exiles, restoration of, 53 ; agita
tion among, at Zedekiah's acces
sion, 365 ; religious condition of,
435.
Exodus, Leviticus, Nurabers, not
forgeries, 217 n.
Eyelids, painting the, 160.
Ezekiel, call of, 389, 395 ; mode of
addressing the exiles, 390; char
acteristics of prophecies of, 391 ;
reputed tomb of, 398 ; religious
enthusiasm of, 394 ; Divine
charge to, 405 ; obscurity of,
408-9.
"Fanner" (in husbandry), deriva
tion of, 373 n.
Fashions, foreign, in Judah, 123 n.
Fast, great, under Jehoiakim, 336.
"Blathers, gathered to their,"
meaning of, 18.
Feet, kissing royal, 81.
Festivals, the yearly religious, 3,
and note.
Fields in Palestine, 159.
Fighting-men, number of, in Jeru
salem, 16-17.
First fruits, sheaf of, 136, 164 n.
Flocks at Jerusalem, for sacrifice,
329.
Flocks led by a goat, 368 n.
Flower month, the, 326.
Footmen, couriers, 239 n.
Foreign alliances and idolatry in
Judasa, 24, 28.
Foreigners, Egyptian prejudice
against, 249.
Fortresses, gates of, 11-13.
Fruits, most common, 8.
Fuel, Eastern, 410.
Furnaces, 168.
Galli, 174.
Gates, street, 14-15.
Gatewavs, texts cut over, 15.
Gaza, ]'24.
Geba, 174.
Gehenna, 35-36.
Genesis, compilers of, 213.
Gethsemane, meaning of, 19 7i.
Ghaut, the iJurning, 86 n.

Gibeah, population of, 17.
Gifts offered to superiors, 366.
Gihon, 139 w.
Gilead, balm of, 188.
Gleaning, 166.
Goat worship, 96.
God, not a local god, 137 n.
Gods, local sway of. 141.
Goel, rights of the, 5.
Gold, spoils of, 117; Assyrian,
117 m.
Grapes, abundance'of, in Palestine,
Graves, violation of, 171.
Greek soldiers, names of, at Ele
phantiua, 365.
Greeks in Egypt, 81.
Grimshaw, Rev. Mr., of Haworth,
vision of, 422 n.
Gyges of Lydia, 81.
Habakkuk, 365; prophecy of, 323-
32.
Hair, different modes of cutting,
191.
Hallelujah Chorus, Handel on,
422 ra.
HalliJn, 126 n.
"Hammer, the," use of, as a narae,
370.
Hanameel, 146.
Hananiah, the false prophet, 383.
Handwriting, demotic, 82.
Harvest, harley and wheat, 164 n.
Hasidim, 241 n., 253, 255.
Hasmal, 433.
Hazael, king of Arabia, 70.
Heat in Palestine, 17.
Heath, the plant, 378 n.
Heathenism, impurity of, 53 n. ;
under Jehoiakim, 363.
Heating, Hebrew plan of, houses,
837.
Heaven, host of, worship of, 215.
Hebrew symbolism, origin of, 401.
Hedges, none in Judah, 7.
Hephzibah, meaning of, 38.
Hermons, the, 353 n.
Hezekiah, Judah under, 1 ; relig
ious condition of Judah under,
1, fl. ; reformation under, super-

INDEX.

443

' ficial, 3; poverty in reign of, 6;
condition of Judah under, 25 ;
length of reign of, 25 ; discon
tinues Assyrian tribute, 36; ill
ness of, 36; wall of, 91.
Hieroglyphics, 83.
High places, 173-175,
Highway, the desert, 53.
Hilkiah, 146.
Hills, places of prayer, 154 n.
Hind, care of, for its young, 369 n.
Hindu worship, impurity of, 53 n.
Hinnom, valley of, 174 ; meaning
of name, 184 n.
Hoah, 87 n.
"Holy One," see corruption, 58.
Hook through nose, 87.
Horses, sacrificed, 32-33 n. ; breed
ing of, in Egypt, 218.
Hossain, lamentations for, 253.
"Host of heaven," worship of, 31.
" House," nation, 339.
Houses in Palestine. 15.
Hozai, "the seer," 49, 50, 89.
Huldah, the prophetess, 146, 198.
Human-headed bulls, oflH.ce of, 403.
Huraan sacrifices at Jerusalem , 388.
Hunting, Assyrian king, 73.
Hymn, harvest, 10.
Idols, raeat offered to, 154; destruc
tion of, under Josiah, 171; He
brew words for, 171.
Images, raolten, 175 n.
Imprecations, Oriental, 386 ».
Incense, 167 n.
Inns, Eastern, 189 n.
Irrigation, 7.
Isaiah, and Micah, prophecies
preserved, 30 ; authenticity of
later chapters of, 38 n. ; chap
ters xxiv. -xxvii., writer of, 38,
and note; proscribed, 47; death
of, 50, 54 ; "Ascension of," 55 ;
date of chap. Ivii., 54 n. ; proph
ecy of, fulfilled, 73.
Israel, Assyrian governors of, 37 ;
and Judah under Manasseh, 37;
survivors of kingdom of, seek re
union with Judah, 148.
Istar, the goddess, 83.

Ithamar, line of, 330.
Its, the pronoun, date of, 306.
lyar, the month, 326.
Janissaries at temple, 133 ra.
Jedidah, 95.
Jehoahaz, 344, 259.
Jehoash, 147.
Jehoiachin, 343; children of, 349ra. ;
fate of, predicted, 349 ; submis
sion of, to Chaldseans, 350 ; car
ried off to Babylon, 851, 355,
437.
Jehoiakim, 169, 344, 259-61, 837-
8 ; condition of Judah under,
361 ; policy of, after Carchemish,
333 ; death of, 841 ; legend re
specting, 343.
Jehovah, not a tribal God, 194 ;
house of, 317 n. ; Tsidkenu, 364;
similarity of this name to Zede
kiah, in Hebrew, 364.
Jereraiah, early horae of, 130; con
secration of, 133 ; character of,
131; call of, 138, 149, 170; flrst
discourse of, 135 ; the preaching
of, 143, 149-50, 395-6, 333-4 ;
proclaims doom of Jerusalera,
151, ff. ; prophecies of, written
by Baruch, 169; order of proph
ecies of, 178 ; date of book
of, 193 n. ; deadly opposition
to, 334 ; raission of, through
the land, 235 ; position of,
334^6 ; put in the stocks, 291 ;
arrested. 397; speech of, in his
own defence, 298; his acquittal,
399 ; plot against, 337 ; family of,
289; relations of, to his age, 357;
unmarried, 274; faith of, in God,
280 ; his fearlessness, 288-9 ;
depression of, 293 ; in hiding,
337 ; temporary retireraent from
public life, 340 ; visits Babylon,
344 ; uses fate of his girdle as
text of discourse against Jeru
salem, 845 ; sends a prophecy to
Babylon, 866 ; writes to exiles,
386.
Jeroboam, 93.
Jerusalem, secure site of, 16 ; size

444

INDEX.

and population of, 16 ; as a re
ligious centre, 20 n. -. overthrow
of, foretold by Isaiah, 88-9 ;
Scythian attempt to take, 110 ;
the traders' quarter, 128; taken
by Necho, 259 ; invested, 344 ;
vision of judgments on, 429-30,
487-8.
Jezebel, persecutions under, 63.
Jezreel, valley of, 251.
Joash, ceremony at coronation of,
205.
Job, date of Book of, 58-9.
Joel, religious revival under, 2.
"Jordan, across the," explained,
310; thickets of, 239, 372.
" Joseph "="Israel," 233.
Joshua, copy of "law" made by,
203.
Josiah, 93, 95; condition of Judah
at accession of, 96 ; uncles of,
123 ra. ; reforraation under, 143 ;
difficulties of reformation of,
147 ; reforraation under, super-
flcial, 155, 178-9 ; cereraonial
worship in days of, 167 ra. ; per
secution in reign of, 177; State
idolatry suppressed, 183 ; tumults
and plots to reinstate idolatry
under, 184 n., 336; oflBcials at
court of, 196; effect of reading
of Law on, 199 ; acts as head of
the Church, 236-233; desire of,
to fulfil Law, 226 ; conspiracy
against, 234-6 ; marriage of, 244 ;
military organization under, 244-
5; and Hezekiah, 245; godliness
of, 345 ; attacks Necho, 350 ;
death of, 352 ; character of, 253 ;
children of, 258.
Jotbah, 94.
Judaea, agricultural industry in,
4-0 ; the crops of, 7.
Judah, size of kingdom of, 3-4 ;
in Hezekiah's day, 11-13; life in,
17; kings of, 25, 76, 77; leagues
with Egypt and Assyria, 139,
143; sympathy between it and
Northern Kingdom, 158; called
Israel, 192 ; after death of Josiah,
254; bounds of, under Jehoia

kim, 284 n. ; resources of, 856 ;
trades and arts in, 857; literature
of, 358; woman in, 358; games
in, 359; after Jehoiachin's ban
ishment, 356, 361; oligarchy in,
359-60; agitation in, at Zede
kiah's accession, 864; ruin of,
foretold, 417-18.
Judaism, ti'aceable to Josiah's in
fluence, 254.
Judges, ecclesiastical, 17-18; un
just, 37; in Judah, 359-60.
Judgment given in the town gate
ways, 17, 18.
"Justness, perfect," 90 n.
Kadytis, 259 ra.
Kaphar, 44 ra.
Kasbu, 70 ra.
Kedar, 137.
Kedron, valley of, 185 n.
Khans, Eastern, 189 ra.
Kings, Book of, date of, 175; tha
law respecting, 217-18.
Kotzim, 240 ra.
Kozim, 50.
K'tab, 228 ra.
Laib Kamai, 316 n., 372 ra.
Lambs, Passover, 229; slaying of,
230; pet, 237 ra.
Laraps, oil for, 19.
Land laws in Judeea, 4, ff.
Landraarks, Babylonian curse on
removing, 7 ra.
Lanterns in Palestine. 15-16.
Laymen, priestly privileges of, 263.
Law, date of the, 136 ra., 150 n.,
167 ra , 186 n., 198, 204, 205 ;
copies of, destroyed, 147; the
Book of the, 147; known to
Josiah, 178 n. ; moral and cere
monial, 183 ra. ; finding of the
Book of the, 196, 201 ; historical
notices of, in Scripture, 205 ;
books of, revised, 210; date of,
213, 313, 336, 338, 334, 341; dis
covery of, 221-3, 235-6; beauti
ful Jewish apologue respecting
the flnding of the, 323-3.
Leopard, the, 325.

INDEX.

445

Leopards in Palestine, 161 n.
Leviathan, 43-4.
Levite scribes, 229.
Levites,distinctive office of, 237-8.
Levitical ritual, date of, 179 ;
towns, 317 ra.; "houses," 339.
Leviticus, date of, 174, 176, 183
ra. ; reference to Egypt in, 315.
Library of Nineveh, 347 ; founded
by Sennacherib, 347 ; destruction
of, 347.
Libya, 79.
Linen, fine, really cotton, 8 ra.
Lion, haunts of the, 138, 157, 339 ra.
Literature under David, Solomon,
and Hezekiah, Jewish sublimity
of, 33.
Liver, the seat of rage, 64 ra.
Locusts, 130, 376.
Luther at Erfurt, 198.
Maaseiah, 146.
Maccabee, 115 ra.
Mace, battle, 875 ra.
Madmenah, harvests in, 43 ra.
Mahmoudieh canal, 348-9.
Majority, a king's, 146.
Maktesh, 133.
Mamelukes, the, 73.
Manasseh, struggle against hea
thenism under, 33; age of, at
accession, 27; court of, 37; the
raother of, 37-8; and Ahaz, 28;
length of reign of, 38; idolatry
under, 33-6, 36; sacriflces to Mo
loch, 33-4: persecutions under,
47, ff. ; Psalms of reign of, 59 ;
spiritual growth under, 63; per
secutes luce Diocletian, 63, 85;
ruin of kingdoms under, 63 ;
pays tribute to Assyria, 76 ; sub-
raits to Assurbanipal, 81 ; taken
captive, 87-8; at Babylon, 88;
conversion of, 88-9; return of,
to Jerusalem, 89; prayer of, 89;
burial of, 93; forts built by, 91;
martyrdoms of, 141.
Manuring in Judsea, 7.
Manuscripts, saCred ancient, 338.
Market places, 13.
Martyrs under Manasseh, 50-1.

Mattaniah, or Zedekiah, 863.
Mattathias, 341 ra.
Mattock, 8.
Medes, the, 348, 373.
Media, 69, 101-4, 108, 347.
Megiddo, 351.
"Memorial," meaning of, 53 n.
Meraory, sacred books coraraitted
to, 233 ra.
Mera phis, 72, 76, 78.
Merodach Baladan, embassy from,
1, 36, 30; sons of, 64-6; the god,
367.
Meshnllemeth, 94.
Mezuzah, the, 15.
Mibinim, the, 337 ra.
Micah, appearance of, 46, 55.
Mikshah, 193 ra.
Milcom, 176.
Minchah, 370.
Minni, 83.
Mirages, 46, and note.
Mire, Hebrew words translated, 13
ra.
Mists, heavy Mediterranean, 7. ^^
Moab, independence of, 63 ; and
Ammon, invasions by, 135; at
tacked by Josiah, 148.
Moabites, return of, 341.
Moloch worship, 33, 36, 37, 51, 140,
184 ra.
Monarchy, abuses under the, 6.
Morals under Jehoiakim, 364.
Morocco, treasure of emperor of,
318 ra.
Moses, books of, no forgery, 320-3 ;
writings of, 204.
Mounds of besiegers, 165 ra.
Mourners, robes of, 188 n. ; hired,
190 ra. ; Eastern, 374 ra.
Mourning, signs of, 184.
Nabopolassar, rise of Babylon un
der, 156, 170, 344, 347.
Nahum, 79, 105. 113, 113, 114r-5.
Nations, prophecies against vari
ous, 314-5.
Napata, 73.
Nebo, temple of, 64, 84.
Nebuchadnezzar, 170, 244, 309, 310-
312, 344, 361.

446

INDEX.

Necho, of Sais, 72, 77-8.
Necho II., 93, 344, 248; great
naval expedition of, 349; en
campraent of, at Riblah, 358 ;
conquers Syria, 360.
Necromancers, 80, 225-6.
Nfigiddim, 330 ra.
"Neighbour," raeaning of, 219.
Neith, the goddess, 263 ra.
Nergal, the god, 64.
Nerva, saying respecting, 346.
New cities, 393.
"New Covenant" announced by
Jeremiah, 267-8.
Nile, the Gihon, 139 ra.
Nile valley, condition ot the, suoh
as Isaiah had foretold, 75.
Nimrod, 114 ra.
Nineveh, the city of "the Great
King," 30; like Paris in the
reign of Louis XIV., 39; palace
at, 68, 73-4; gradual weakening
of, 101 ; destruction of, foretold,
113, 135; siege of, 115, ff. ; fall
of, 114, 156, 244; fulfilment of
prophecy about, 135-6 ; great
library of, 247; final attack on,
300; inscriptions written during
siege of, 300-1 ; ruins of, 302.
Nisan, the month, 226.
Nitre, or natron, 140, and note.
No-Amraon, Thebes, 78.
Nobles, character of, 27.
"No-gods," idols, 163.
North, the, a mysterious region to
the ancients, 395 ra.
Nose-ring for prisoners, 359, and
note.
Numbers, Ezekiel's, explanations
of, 409.
Oath, common in Palestine, 155 ra.,
161, 340.
Obelisks, carried from Egypt to
Assyria, 383.
Oil gardens, 19.
Olive harvest, 10.
Olive oil, in Palestine, 19, 45.
Oracles, Egyptian, 249.
Palestine, invasion of, by Nebu

chadnezzar, 344; envoys from
states of, meet at Jerusalem, 381.
Paphos, king of, 68.
Paran, 330.
Parchment, 334.
Parthians, description of, by St.
John, 108.
Partridge, popular fancy respect
ing the, 279 ra.
Parvarim, 175.
Pashur, curse on, 291-3.
Passover, ten tribes invited to at
tend, 2 ra. ; keeping of, 164, 254;
date of Josiah's, 344.
Paved roads before Christ, 14.
Peasantry of Judah, decay of, 359.
Pekah, 375 ra.
Pekod. 369 n.
Pelatiah, 431 ; death of, 433.
Pentateuch, date of, 183, 306, 308,
210, 836 ra. ; references to proph
ets, 205, 306; various authors
assigned to the, 211-12; whole
committed to memory, 223 ra.
Pentecost, date of, 9.
Persia, subjugation of, by Medes,
105.
Persian customs, 133-3 n.
Pharaoh Hophra, date of reign of,
361.
Philistia, revolt of, 68.
Philistines, country of, re-con
quered, 3.
Phoenicia, kings of, 25.
Phraortes, king of Media, 105.
Pillars, sacred, 176.
Ploughing in Palestine, 155.
Ploughs and ploughing, 8.
Poetry, Jewish, 30.
Poison-water, 187, 190.
Pompey at Jerusalem, 31.
" Poor " and " afflicted," 63 ra.
" Poor," tlie, in Scripture, 894 n.
Potsherd Gate, the, 387.
Potter's wheel, 384.
Preaching, brevity of Eastern, 169 ;
honest, always unpopular, 390-1.
Priesthood, corruption of the, 147.
Priests, character of, 39, 37, 50;
wicked, 181; indifference of, 150;
corruption of the, 164; apostate,

INDEX.

447

174; and Levites, 317 ra. ; called
Levites, 337; "courses" of, 326;
names of, hereditary, 330; idol,
slaughter of, 836.
Prophecies, false, 51.
Prophecy, striking fulfilment of,
432.
Prophetic impulse, 293.
Prophets, in advance of their day,
2-^; influence of, 29; character
of, 37; faithful, 88, 49, 110;
wicked, 181, 157, 162, 164, 180,
186; position claimed by, 143;
and order of, foretold, 218 ; de
generacy of, 256 ; decay of influ
ence of, 256-7; Jewish, a unique
phenomenon, 323; in heathen
nations, 381.
Psalms, composition of Ixvi., 33 ra. ;
and Proverbs collected and ar
ranged, 20; date of cxli., 55;
lxxiii., Luther's translation, 56;
dates of various, 59 ra. ; xxxvii.,
date of, 97; alphabetical, 97-9.
Psararaetichus, 78, 81, 85, 98, 100,
105, 143 n., 348, 249.
Psararaetichus IL, date of reign of,
361, 365.
Put, 79, 80, 137 ra.
Queen-mother, 95.
Rain-fall in Judsea, 4, 7.
Rains, latter, 9.
Reaping, 9 ; how done, 9.
Rechahites, the, 317; fldelity of, to
their vows, 318 ; used as a lesson
by Jereraiah, 319; promises to,
for, 830 ; later history of the elan,
331-3.
Red, ancient war color, 116.
Religion and morality distinct,
178-80, 319.
Religion under Jehoiakim, 264.
Religious parties, 34, 30.
" Reprove," to, meanings of, 843 ra.
Return, triumph song of the, 45.
Riblah, 358.
Rising early, Eastem, 181.
Kites, heathen idea respecting per
formance of, 178-80.

Ritual, Assyrian, used in Judah,
176-7.
Ritualism, effects of, 179, 180.
" River of God," 11.
Roll of Jeremiah, read at public
fast, 337.
Rose, the, 45.
Rosh, 187 ra.
Rumah, 358.
Rut-Ammon, 77, 78.

Sabbath, year, the, 7; town gates
closed during the, 16; desecra
tion of, after Josiah, 381-2; dis
course of Jereraiah on, 283.
Sacrifice, unclean, 30; prophetic
teaching respecting, 840-3 ; "of
praise," 284 n.
Sacrifices, huraan, 174^-5 ; prophet's
notices of, 183.
Sagan, 375 ra.
Saite dynasty, 101, 348.
Saka, the, 83.
Salt pits, 135.
Saraaria, Assyrians at, 67-8; last
king of, 67.
" Sanctuaries," 57, 316.
Sanctuary, one central, 317.
Sanitary precautions unknown, 13.
Sapor, 75.
Sarab, 46 n.
Sarakos, 93.
Sardanapalus, 75.
Sargon, 853.
Sarim = princes, 830 ra.
Satyrs, altars to, 96.
Saulmugina, revolt of, 85, 88.
Savonarola, 393 ra.
Schools in the East, 379 n.
Scribes, rise of the, 186 ra. ; the
precursors of the, 337.
Scripture, extrerae accuracy of,
87-8.
Scythian, rule, 110; invasion, 156.
Scythians, etc., first irruption of,
69; of Gog, 83; irruption of,
106, ff. ; Ezekiel on, 107; Roraan
opinion of, 108 ; wagons of the,
156.
Scythopelis, UO.

'448

INDEX.

Secret writing, use of, by Jereraiah,
316 ra., 373 n.
Seed, Levitically clean, 9 ; raingled,
not sown, 8.
Seers 49 89
" Selah,"' 833; the word, 380 n.
Sennacherib, traces of invasion of,
13; ode on the defeat of, 80;
reign of, 64, fi. ; murder of, 64 ;
founded library at Nineveh, 847.
Seraiah, 146.
Serpent charmers, 187 ra.
Serpents, worship of, 43 ra.
Seti I., canal of, 848.
"Seventy years," the, 314, 341.
Shabah and Saba, 168 ra.
Shakar, 39 ra.
Shallum, 153.
"Shearing-house," the, 817 ra.
Sheba, queen of, 71.
Sheepfolds, 135 ra.
Shemaiah, of Babylon, 388.
"Sheol," 58, 60.
Shepherds, Eastern, 57-8 ; Arab,
840.
"Sheshach," meaning of word,
316 ra.
Shiarim, 96 ra.
Shihor, 146 re.
Shiloh, burning of, 181 n., 316,
397.
Sidon, destruction of, 66-7.
Siege of Jerusalem, symbolical
representation of, 407.
Sinai, 330.
Sippara, siege of, 86.
Sirar, 68.
Sirocco, 44 n.
Skin-bottles, 409.
"Slave," equivalent to " servant,"
138 11.
Slaves, field, 7 ; nobles raade, 80 ;
doraestic, 138 n. ; sacred, 174,
and note.
Soap, "Borith," 140 ra.
Soul, immortality of, 58.
Sowing in rows and broadcast, 8.
Standards, Assyrian, 159 n.
Star-gods, 30-1, 33, 36.
Star worshippers, 133.
Stocks, the, 391, 388 n.

Stone, writing on, 303.
Stones, sacred, 51.
Stork, the, 186 ra.
Streets of Jewish towns, the, 13 ;
narrowness of, 13 ; not lighted,
15, 16 ; altars in, 336.
" Strength of my heart," 57.
Stumbling blocks, 133 ra.
Sun, eclipse of the, 347.
Sun-god, horses of the, 175.
Sun-worship, 31-3, 178, 363, 486.
Superstitions, vitality of, 34 ra.
Surajah Dowlah, treasure of, 318 ra.
"Sweet cane " perfume, 16'?' ra.
Swimming, Eastern, 41 n.
Syria, extent of, 85.
"Tsbal,"39ra.
Tabernacle, Mosaic, modern theory
of, 316.
Tabernacles, Feast of, 10, 159 «.,
301.
Tahapanes, 138.
Tammuz, worship of, in Jewish
temple, 485-6.
Tarshish, 193.
Tartar, derivation of name, 107 ra.
Taxation, pressure of, 6.
Tekoa 164.
Tel Abib = Cornhill, 355.
Telassur, 69.
Teman, 380 ra.
Temple, Josiah's restoration of,
147 ; collections for repair of,
148 ; dilapidation of, 147 ; idol
atry in, 178 ; purification of, 173 ;
Asherah in, 173; storehouses,175;
rooms on roof of, 175 ; buildings
over gates of, 175 ; superstitious
veneration of, by Jews, 396 ;
plunder of the, 351.
Ten tribes, fate of, 68 ; fall of,
predicted, 887.
Tent coverings, 159 ra.
Tents, Scythian, 106.
Teraphim, 335.
Teumann, of Elam, 83, 84.
Thebes, 73, 75-78, 118.
Theocracy, reinstating of, foretold,
40.
" Thorns, among the," 87 ra,

INDEX.

449

Thothmes III., 73.
Threshing floors, 9.
Tiglath-Pileserl., 104.
Tiglath Pileser, 358.
Tirhakah, 73, 75, 76 ; or Sabako,
77; death of, 77.
Tohu, 39 ra.
Tophet, 35, 184, 388 ; defiling of,
174-5.
"Torah," the, 186 ra., 385.
Totems, worship of, 434 n.
Town, a, of Judah descnbed, 13.
Town halls in Jewish towns, 18.
Towns, position of Jewish, 16; size
of principal, in Judsea, 16-17 ;
governraent of Jewish, 17.
Trade, separate streets for each,
14-15.
Traders, Eastern, 133 ra.
Travelling, safety of, in Assyria
and Babylonia, 415 ra.
Trees, destruction of, in Judah,
4, 6.
Trial, Jewish mode of, 17-18.
Tribute in kind, to Assyria, 67-8.
Tubal, of Armenia, 81.
Turtle dove, 186.
" Twig held to the nose," meaning
of custom, 438.
Tyranny, Eastern, 248-9.
Tyre, David's alliance with, 31 ;
siege of, 71, 76, 80.
Tyropoeon valley, 123.
Uphaz, 193.
Ur, 65.
Urijah, the prophet, 865.
Urumiyah Lake, 108.
Usurers, oppression by, 6.
Uz, 70.
Vanity, 136.
Vassals, 130.
Venus, worship of the planet, 36.
Villages in Judah, 16.
VOL. V.-29

"Vine," a frequent flgure, 163.
"Vine and fig-tree," raeaning of,
"Vine, noble," 139, and note.
Vine shoots, 166.
Vines, Palestine, 19, 80.
Vintage, 10, 19-80.
Vision of Ezekiel, 896 ; Babylonian
counterpart of, 403.
Vision of idolatry at Jerusalera,
seen by Ezekiel, 432.
Vision, phenomena of prophetic,
421.
Visions, 133.
Walled towns, 11-18, 16.
War, barbarities of, 84-87.
Watchers in flelds, etc., 9, 159.
Water reservoirs at Constanti
nople, 377.
Water wheels, 7.
Weeks, Feast of, 9, 164 ra.
Wheat and barley crops, 7.
Wheat harvest, 9.
Wheat sent to Hiram of Tyre, 11.
Wine on the lees, 41.
Wines, famous, of Palestine, 19.
Winnowing in Palestine, 158 ra.
Wisdom, 33, 59.
Wolves in Palestine, 161 ra.
Woman in Judah, 858.
" Wonders," 89-90.
Wooden collar, 388 ra.
"Yamah," 310.
Yahimelek, 80.
Zedekiah, date of reign of, 361 ;
character of, 363 ; appointed
king by Nebuchadnezzar, 363 ;
journev to Babylon, 364 ; fiight
of, foretold by Ezekiel, 436.
Zephaniah, on Jerusalem, 96, 131 ;
prophecies against heathen na
tions, 138, ff. ; manly preaching
of, 128, 146.

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

(The texts printed in blacker type are translations.)

Genesis. PioE
i. 21  44
28, 89  391
iv. 5  152
X  391
22  308
xii. 3  155
17  182
XV. 2  349
18  235
xviii. 18  155
xix. 1  17
XX. 11  182
18  188
xxii. 16  335
18  155
xxiv. 7  235
xxv. 13  192
xxvi. 3  235
4  155
13  11
xxviii. 11, 18  51
xxxiv. 20  17
xlii. 27  189
xliii. 18  188
81  189
xlvi. 34  340
xlviii. 20  155
xlix. 9  138
Exodus.
ii. 24  234
iii. 8-17  385
iv. 16  374
84  189

PAQB
vi. 4, 5  384
7  835
vii. 9  44
viii. 18  188
xi. 4  833
xii. 3, 43  836
6, 18 . . . .8, 17, 330
7-9  831
15  8
37  333
40, 41  410
43, etc  3
xiii. 5  330,235
5, 11  335
6  2
XV. 7  7
xvii. 7  233
11  371
14  304
xix. 5. . . .183, 284, 364
XX. 2-17  181
3  31
4, 23  335
5  433
8-11  381
xxii. 81  180, 219
23.  219
25, 26.  220
xxiii. 10, ff  5
13,24  325
16, 19  136
31 255
xxiv. 7, etc".'.'. 304,' 334
XXV., fl  393
xxviii. 41  337

PAGE
xxix. 31  331
45  335
xxxi. 13, 14  281
xxvii. 11-14  371
80  173, 825
xxxiii. 1  835
3  335
xxxiv. 13  355
14  433
83, 86  186
xxxvii. 17  807
xl. 15  337
88  183
Leviticus.
ii. 1-4  370
13  334
iii. 3  331
6-17  330
16  2
iv. 3, 14  2
14,20  3
15,34  2
V. 6  370
vi. 10  439
88  331
vii. 13  3
viii. 14, 15, 19, 34. . 3
31  331
xiv. 7  159
xvi. 4  439
xvii.-xx  815
xvii. 5  159
xix. 3, 30  381

452

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

PAGK
xix.l3  161
18  319
19  9,133,410
87  191
38  300,419
31  225
34  215
XX. 9, 87  335
16  183
34  335
37  335
xxi. 5  191
17-28  174
xxii. 10  183
xxiii. 4  226
5  230
10  164
10-14  136
17  164
xxv. 3, 4  5
10, 40  183
23  5
25  183
xxvi. 1  235
3  381
8, 13  335
9  334
13  183
19  369
25,26  270
29  288
30...115,3-:5,41634  5
36-39  185
xxvii. 38,  386
Numbers.
iii. 6, 8, 13  3
10-13,45  337
iv. 15  227
V. 23  834
vi. 23  2
vii. 9  237
ix. 3  226
3-5  230
10,11  3
X. 8, 10  3
21  337
83  234

PAGE
xi. 26, 27, 39  218
xiii. 24  19
27  235
29  124
xiv. 8  235
13-20  871
16, 30  235
44  234
XV. 5, 7.10  2
xvi. 18,14  235
xviii. 3, 6  8
6  337
12  136
xxi. 2  255
25-32  16
xxiii. 3  154
24  138
xxiv. 4  421
9  188
xxv. 13  234
xxviii. 16...  336
36  136
xxxii. 11  335
xxxiii. 3  305
53  255
xxxiv  391
xxxv  21 7
12, 24  18
xxxvi. 9  5
Deuteronomy.
i. 8, 35  .•  235
31  .•  206
iii. 5  11
iv. 10......  313
13,33,31  234
15  368
19  33,53, 815
30  335
81  183
34, 35  423
35  8>5
29  203
37  219
V. 2,3  234
8  225
12-15  881
15  815
vi. 3  835

¦.PAGE
vi. 4-9  lo
5  203,219
9  15, 53
10  335
15  423
21-23  215
vii. 2  236
2, 9, 18  234
7,8  319
8, 18  315
9, 13  319
13-15  180
15  814
'.5  835
viii. 8  19
11-14  206
18  234
ix. 9, 11, 15  234
X. 8  820
12  303, 319, 368
12-16  268
15  819
18  319
20, 31  155
xi. 1  219
8  215
9  235
10  214
13, 21  15, 803
17  869
80  53
xii. 3  200
14-26  316
xiii. 3-6  318
3  303, 219
9  355
10  '225
18  319
xiv. 1  375,419
8  864
35, fl  216
89  2->0
XV  820
13  220
xvi. 1  326
3, 6, 11, etc.. 216
6  230
11  320
18  17
xvii. 3  33,815

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

453

PAGE
xvii. 5  335,255
9  18
9-18  317
16  815
18  301, 302
24  217
xviii. 1  217
3  217
5, 7  320
11  335
15  318,357
xix. 9  219
14  7
17  18
XX. 3  165
5  314
16  355
16, 17  336
19  18
20  165
xxi. 5  18,217
10  230
15  358
18  330
xxii. 1,6,9  330
8  15
9  9
13  330
xxiii. 10  337
16  330
18  817
19  330, 873
84  330
xxiv. l,ff  330
1^. ...143, 151
6, 10, etc... 330
14  320
17  180
18, 23  315
xxv. 8  314
4  380
5,ff  220
xxvi. 2  136
12  230
15  335
16  300
18  183, 364
19  303
xxvii. 3. 3, 8  202
3,  385

PAGE
xxvii. 15  300, 335
15-36  235
17  7, 220
36  335
xxviii. 83  369
35  272
37  297
49  163
58,61  203
60  214
65-67  185
68  206, 215
xxix. 1,9  234
12  188
18  187
19, ff  202
33  306
xxx. 3  302
6  319,368
10  303
11-14  190
16, 30  319
xxxi. 4,15, 18, 37.. 336
9  303,317
9-13  301
30  385
24..203, 314, 330
xxxii  213
4  327
7  167
14  383
33  373
83  187
33  44,187
xxxiii. 3  330
10  3
xxxiv  218
1  309
xxxviii. 58-57  388
60  314
68  315
Joshua.
i. 7, 8  305
ii. 5-7  13
6  8
vii. 7-9  369
19  346
viii. 35  17
31,34  305

PAGE
X. 3  17
XV. 8  184
39  95
45.  16
XX. 4  18
xxi. 18  130
xxiii. 6  305
xxiv. 36  205
Judges.
ii. 10  18
iv. 11, 17  317
V. 4  330
5  330
34  317
38  15
ix. 37  19
xiv.5  138
xvii. 30  91
xviii. 37-29  309
XX. 15  17
38  330
38  164
EuTH.
ii. 5  7
iv. 1, ff  17
3  5
1 Samuel.
i. 7-24  217
ii. 8  294
18, 14  331
ui. 15  217
V. 5  123
vii. 9  271
xi. 5  7
7  8
xii. 21  193
23  371
xiii. 14  152
XV. 6  317
22  167
xxvi. 23  327
xxvii. 10  817
xxviii. 7, ff  225
xxx. 29  317

454

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

2 Samuel. page
i. 22  368
ii. 18  332
X. 4  412
xi. 1  812
2  15
xii. 3  237
xiii. 19   143
XV. 1  13
30  269
32  154
xvi. 4  5
xvii. 28  8
xviii. 17  159
34  13
88  13
xix. 4,5  269
39  5
37  138
XX. 1  159
xxiii. 11  8
1 Kings.
i. 5  13
ii. 36  180
iv. 8  196
v. 11  11, 19
vii. 87-87  383
viii. 51  335
58-56  138
66  138, 159
X. 17  807
36  318
xi. 5-7  154
18,33,34,36-88.. 138
xii. 16  159
xiii. 31  177
xiv. 8  138
xvi. 9  138
xvii. 13  411
xviii. 9  138
36  140, 180
45  194
xix. 19  7
xxi  5
1  19
8 Kings.
iii. 87  184
vi. 1-7  339

PAGE
vii. 10  18
ix. 17  13
37  7
X. 14  317
xi. 13  147, 305
xii. 4,9  148
10  197
30  95
xiii. 30  125
xiv. 6  205
xvi. 3  34, 35
18  175
xvii. 17  35
38  177
33  177
xviii. 5  345
33  3
xix. 13  69
38  87
33  165
XX. 18  94
xxi. 1  38
3,7  33, 83
4  32
7  184, 433
10  49
11  63
13, 13  38
16  50
18  263
19-36  94
34  94
xxii. -xxiv  95
xxii. 1  344
4  146
5,6  147
8  196,384
8, 10  198
8-30  199
14  146
30  18
xxiii.  184
1-3  300
3  384
3  200
4  173
5  133, 173
6  173
17  32
8'. '.',". '.'.'.'96, '143

PAGE
xxiii. 9  174
10  35, 140
11  175, 360
13  154
14  115
17  177
17,18  177
19  176
20  177
24  235
25  245
29  350
31  844,363
31,33  258
33  259
xxiv  95
1  840
2  341
3, 4  63
4  197
6  342
7  344
14  351, 857
15  360
18  362
xxv. 4  436
6  432
6, 20, 21  258
12  350
18-21  388
19  360
1 Chronicles.
ii. 55  317, 321
iii. 17  349, 363
17,18  349
iv. 31  8
vi. 45  130
ix. 8, 7  164
36  175
xiv. 13  173
xvi. 40  305
xvii. 13,18  305
xxiii. 4  18
xxiv. 14  291
xxvi. 18  175
39  18
xxvii. 38  19
xxix. 88  :....166

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

465

2 Cheonicles. page
iv. 6  883
xii  305
xiv. 4  305
XV. 8  305
xvi. 10  391
xvii. 9  805
xix. 5  17
xxiii. 11.  305
18  317
xxiv. 17, 18  37
18  38
xxv. 4  305
xxvi. 10  19
18  488
xxviii. 31  143
xxix. 4  337
5  837
5-11  387
5, 15  339
0  363, 438
11  3
31-34  3
35  228
26  2
31  2
35  2
xxx  229
3, 3  3
3,17-30  336
3,15  339
16  330
17  217, 229
18  2
31  3
32  2,237
37 2
xxxi. '3,'4,"2l'!!.'!205
12-15  330
30  345
xxxiii  184
8-7  33
6  34
11  87
13, 13  89
14  91
15-17  91
16  32
18, 19  49, 89
19  89
21-25  94

xxxiv.-xxxv  95
xxxiv. 3  245
3  170
3, 8  121
4  171
6  173
8  146
9  146, 148
11  147
18  232
13  239
14  196
14r-28  199
18  198
22  256
39-33  300
31  300
32, 33  326
xxxv  95,229
2  326
3... 33, 153, 338
4  330
6  889
13  331
13  881
15  331,333
16  331
18  329
31  351
38  351
35  853
36  353
37  817
xxxvi. 6  841
7  841
8  346,843
9  343
11  863
14  438
81...  5
Ezra.
i. 11  883
ii. 37, 38  293
62  238
iii. 7  11, 19
iv. 3  333
3, 10  69
V. 6  375

VI 

829

30 

329

viii. 3 
16 
Nehemiah.
iii. 14 

.253
..237
. 321

31 

. . 14

V. 3 

.. 6

14 

. .375

vi. 7 

..416

vii. 64 

..228

viii. 7-9 
ix. 36 

..237
. 50

X. 3 

..291

29 

..227

31 

..288

88 

175

xi. 32 

..130

xii. 8 

p.fli

37,31, 38, 40.. 884
xiii. 15,20  17
15,16  288
19  13,16
Esther.
ii. 5  i^.'iP.

ix. 19 

. 11

Job.
i. 20 

. 184

iii. 8 

. 43

iv. 10 
vi. 12 

.138
.285

19 

315

vii. 12 

. 44

xiii. 27 
xix. 24 
XX. 16 

.291.277.187

xxiv. 3 
xxvii. 18 
xxviii. 8 
38 
xxx. 10 
xxxiii. 11 
xxxviii. 33 
35 
xl. 35 

. 7
.159
.138 .233
.389.391 .194
. 7
. 43

456

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

PAGE
xli. 1  43
3  87
30  13
Psalms.
i  279
vi. 5  58
vii  329
ix. 13  18
xii. 4  359
XV. 5  273
xvi. 5  52
10, 11  58
xvii. 15  58
xviii. 33  332
43  13
xix. 5  134
xxii. 7  51
16, 20  16
xxvi. 7  384
xxvii. 4  47
xxix. 10  194
xxx. 9  58
xxxiii. 4  837
xxxv. 21,  51
xxxvi. 5  337
xxxvii  97
4  84
xxxix  58
xl. 6  '183
10  337
xlii. 1-6  353
4  384
xlul. 1-5  354
xlviii  30
xlix  59
15  58
1  341
8  167, 183
14  384
23  384
li. 19  183
lv. 6, 7  189
31  359
Ivi. 13  384
Ixv  10
Ixvi  31
Ixviii. 35  57
Ixix. 13  17
30  384

PAGE
lxxiii  56
8  165
30  193
36  58
Ixxiv. 18  44
14  48
Ixxvii  59
Ixxvii  61
Ixxix. 6, 7  195
9  869
Ixxxi  333
Ixxxiv. 10  88
Ixxxviii. 10-30  68
Ixxxix. 16  47
xci. 13  44, 138
xcix. 6  371
civ. 86  43
cvi. 8  869
eix  7
cxii. 7  43
cxix. 57  52
cxxxiv. 1  330
cxxxv. 4  364
cxl  62
oxli  55
6,7  50
cxliii. 5  52
Proverbs.
i. 20, 31  17
31  13
viii. 14  323
xxi. 1  7
27  188
xxii. 22  17
28  7
xxiv. 7  17
xxvi. 8  437
xxx. 14  6
80  138
xxxi. 13  8
10-31  858
28, 31  17
Canticles.
i. 14  19
iii. 11  28
iv. 8  161

PAGE
V. 7  16
viii. 11  19
Ecclesiastes.
xii. 4  15
Isaiah.
i. 4  428
4, 10  30
8  8, 193
11  167, 183
11-15  S48
31  53
39  87, 30, 51
ii. 20  27, 30
iii. 14  163
iv. 5  183
V. 1, ff  163
8  6
84  7
25  13
vi  132, 393
1  53
5-7  127
7  133
10  166
vii. 8  67, 142
19  276
20  412
viii. 16  47
ix. 5  195
X. 1  186
6  13
24-27  115
30  130
xi. 10, 12  157
13, 14  153
xiii. 3  165
11  39
XV. 4  185
xvi. 8  19
xviii. 5  166
xix  73
xxi. 3  874
11, 13  16
14  315
xxiii. 3  11
18  47
xxiv.-xxvii  38

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

457

PAGE
xxiv. 1-23  38
xxv. 1-12  40
xxvi. 1-21  43
xxvii. 1-13  43
6  44
7, 8  44
9  44
10, 11  45
12, 13  45
xxviii. 7   29
34  8
35  8
xxix. 15  891
17  393
xxx. 9  355
10  856
33  35, 184
xxxv. 1-10  45
xxxvi. 6  391
xxxvii. 13  69
33  51
29  87, 259
30  8
xxxviii. 19  94
xl. 27  54
xli. 83  193
xlii. 8  433
xliv. 10  193
13  357
15  411
xlv. 30  193
xlvi. 7  193
xlviii. 9  869
10  835
li. 9  44
Ivi. 9-13  37
9-12  50
11  89
18  39
Ivii. 1-6  51
4  47, 57
5  264
5-10  33
7-9  52
10-17  53
18-21  54
lviii. 13  36
lx. a  43
11  16
Ixi. 10  28

PAGE
Ixii. 4  28
Ixv. 3  37
3, 4  30
31, 23  154
Ixvi. 3  36
3  188
5  51
Jeremiah.
i.-xii  95
i  136
8  131
3  133
4-13  133
6  132, 365
13  107
14^19  134
17, 18  865
18  168,865
u. 1, 2  135
3  183
3-8  136
9-14  187
10-13, 88-38 .... 33
13  376, 379
15-19  138
20-22  139
21  168
23-28  140
36  37
87, 38  336
29-32  141
30  143
30, 34  143
34-37  143
iii. 1  143
2-5  143
3-33  154
3  369
6-10  151
11-17  158
16  33, 837, 367
18-20  153
21-25  154
iv.l  154
2-4  155
4  166, 368
5-9  157
7,30  156

PAGE
iv. 10-13  158
13  156
14-18  158
17  9
19-22  159
38  159, 163
23-31  160
37  166
39  163
V. 1  184
1,3  337
1-5  137
1-6  161
4  157
5-9  157
7, 8  264
7-13  168
10, 18  166
13  37, 131
14^24  163
25-31  164
36  37
vi. 1  164
2-8  165-
3  840
9  364
9-15  166
11  17
13  131
13-15  37
16-21  167
30  131, 188
22-30  168
33  107
vii.-x  396
vii., ff  346
3  135
2-7  180
3  186
4  367, 335
5  368
8-20  181
17  131, 836
17, 18  36, 184
18..  184, 411
31  188, 186
21-23  183
33  183, 183
24  488
25-32  183, 184

458

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

PAGE
Vii. 30  186
31  140
31, 33  35, 388
33  115
viii. 1-7  185
1,3  87
8  36
8  190, 346
8-12  186
9  186
10-13  37
11  856
13-18  ..187
16  333
19-22  188
ix. 1  879
1-7  189, 864
3  131, 365
4  168,264
8-19  190
15  187
17,18  190
20-25  191
24  268
26  815
33  7
X  335
1-5  193
3-5  193
4  358
6-10  193
9  358
11-20  194
13-16  374
16  53
21-25  195
xi.2, 3  334
4-8  385
9-14  336
13  181, 193, 263
15-19  287
19-21  266
20-23  238
xii  95
1-4  338
4  369
5-9  389
6  864
7-17  341
10-17  840

PAGE
xiii. 1-7  345
9-17  346
13  365
18  350
18-27  847
19  344
34  885
xiv. 1  369
2-7  369
7, 81  386
8-15  370
13  183
13  356
16-22  371
XV. 1  871
2-9  373
4  63
10-18  873
16  398
18  379
19  330
19-21  374
xvi. 1-4  374
3  366
4, etc  7
5-11  375
8  266
12-18  276
18  280
19  152
19-21  377
xvu. 1-4  277
5-8  278
9-18  279
19  135, 283
21-26  283
33  383
35  13
36  183
27  384
xviii  883
1-4  384
8  135
5-17  385
14  377
15  167, 383
18, 30  383
18-21  886
81, 33  883
22,23  887

PAGE
xix. 1, 8  387
2  135
3  287
4-13  288
5  140, 264
11  115
13  175
14  289
XX. 1  289, 388
2  391
3, 3  391
4-6  393
6  891
7  131, 266
7,8  390
7,8  393
8  895
9  134, 293
9-13  294
14r-18  866
14-18  893
xxi. 1  388
1, 3  373
13  360
13  377
xxii. 1  135
3  360
10  359
11  858
11, 13  348
13  861
13-19  339
14  358
17  165
18  353
30  853
20-22  348
23-30  349
24  353
28  193, 353
xxiii. 5-7  364
6  268
9  383
9-11, 14  37
10  269
15  187
16, 31  37
17  256
29  150
xxiv.8  361

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

459

PAGE
XXV. 1  312
3  265
3-9  313
10-14  314
12-19  319
14  314
15-26  815
20  91
34  815
86  377
27-34  316
35-38  317
38  157, 309
xxvi. 3  135
4  396
5,6  397
10  360
12-14  398
13  368
18, 19  399
30-84  399
88  863,833
84  435
xxvii. 1-3  381
4r-9  881
9 37
10-20. ..... ".383
18  185
xxviii. 1.. 383, 385, 389
2-4  883
3  394
4  365
5  384
6-9  384
11, 14  384
15, 16.<...385
xxix. 1  851
3  385
4-14  386
8, 9  37, 388
15-23  887
33  380
36  391
26,27  888
37  130
xxx  268
12  279
xxxi. 83  383
33  868
xxxii. 2  135

PAGE
xxxii. 7.... 5, 146, 183
29  175
85  184
39, 40  167
xxxiii. 4  163
15, 16  268
18  182
18-31  317
xxxiv. 8  183
19  360
xxxv. 1-11  819
8  318
4  175
5-11  333
11  317
13-16,27 ...319
15  .¦365
xxxvi. 1, ff  388
1,3  169
4-18  169
4,10,33. ..146
5  334
7  885
9  335
14  836
16  837
19  334
38  363, 334
29-31  339
30  843
83  169
xxxvii. 3  378
10  310
13  18
31  14
xxxviii. 6  13
7  360
33.  360
xxxix. 4  436
5  3o8
14  435
xli. 5  333
16  360
xlii. 3  873
xliii. 5-7  157
xliv. 19  358
xlv. 1-5  334
4, 5  335
xlvi. 3,ff  313,383
3-12  308

PAGE
xlvi. 88  195
xlvii  63, 350
1  91
xlviii  63, 185
83  19
37  391
40  309
47  840
xlix  63, 135
6  340
19.... 157, 239, 809
22  91,809
33  198
1. 2, 3  867
4-13  368
8  367
14^21  369
17  309
22-34  370
33  310
35-38  371
39-46  373-
44  157
li  316
1,2  378
3-11  373
11-19  374
20-26  375
37, 38  165, 367
27-34  376
34  310
35-46  377
41  316
47-58  378
59  366
59-64  367
lii.7  436
9,10  433
10  858
17  383
34, 87  388
25  360
38  351
38-30  361
31-34  356
Lamentations.
iii. 3, 6, 13  866
83  327

460

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

PAGE
iv. 7  360
10  388
30  853
Ezekiel.
i. 1  383, 885
1, 3  389
3  355
10  403
ii. 1-4  397
3-6  397
6  390
7-8  398
iii. 4-7  898
7  355
13-14  399
14  405
15  353,355
17  167
17-21  405
88-37  406
iv. 1-3  407
4-8  408
9  8
9-17  410
14  183
33  415
V. 1-4  413
5,6  413
7-14  413
15  391
15-17  414
vi. 2-9  416
5  115
10-14  417
11, fl  891
18  51
vu.2-12  418
13-24  419
18  391
25-27  430
87  95
viii.-xi. 12  406
viii.l  408
1-4  433
3, 10, 11, 14.. 263
5-12  461
12. . . 391, 424, 435
13-16  435
16  863,489

PAGE
viii. 17-18  488
ix. 1-7  438
3  403, 438
8-11  430
X. 1-38  430
13  431
14  403
xi. 1-4  431
5-12  438
15  430
15-21  483
17-80  435
19, ff  391
38-35  433
xii. 1-8  436
10-16  437
17-30  437
83  435
82-25, 37, 28... 149
27  435
xiii  383
5  356
10,16  256
17,83  856
19  50
xiv. 3  435
17  406
xvi. 8, fl  364
17  864
83  52
25  143
xvii. 3,4, 7  310
7  434
13  363
xviii. 3  435
30  406, 486
xix. 1  434
2  138
3  259
XX. 30  435
xxi. 5,18  406
31-23  165
xxii. 7  264
7, 12  165
25  50, 364
25-29  855
26, etc  183
xxiii. 6  116
14  116
37,39  85

PAGE
xxiv. 16-18  390
18, ff  406
87  406
xxvi. 9  163
xxvii  391
17  11
24  116
xxviii, 13  391
xxix. 3  43, 44
4  87
6  391
17  891, 398
xxxi. 3  303
4-14  304
8  391
15-17  805
xxxiii. 8  13
7  167
28  406
30  890
38  890
xxxvi. 11  891
35  391
xxxvii. 16-82  153
33  391
xxxviii  108
2  83
4  87
16  158
xxxix  108
xlv. 18  807
xlvii. 13, fl  391
Daniel.
i. 8  341
ii. 38  316
iii. 1  117
iv. 33  816
V. 2  341
87  115
vii. 3, fl  408
viii. 3  83
X. 5  439
9  403
16  187
31  338
xii. 6, 7  489
Hosea.
i.-iii  53

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

461

PAGE
i. 3..  206
11  153, 391
ii. 8  140
9  8
iii. 8  206
iv. 8  122
4  306
13  154, 306
15  51
V. 10  7, 306
vi. 1  306
5 . 55
6.'!!!!i67,"34'8','8679  356
vii. 4  356
11  163
12  2G6
viii. 13  806
13  306,370
ix. 3  411
4, 13  806
10  193
X. 4  187
4,8,10  306
5... .133, 148, 178
xi. 3, 8  206
xii. 1  19, 139
10  128
xiii. 2  358
5, 10, 13  206
6  306
7.,.  162
xiv. 3  206
7  19
Joel.
ii. 13  267
17. ...263, 335, 488
20  133
Amos.
i. 11,14  806
18  135
ii.l  171
6  394
10,11  306
11  317
13  238
iu. 3  206

PAGE
iii. 8  293
iv. 2  276
4, 5, 9, 10  206
5  164
11  206
V. 11,25  306
31  167
33  183
vi. 7  875
12  8
vii. 3  306
7  357
17  411
viii. 14  806
ix. 4, 7  306
Micah.
i. 8  55
16  184, 419
ii.8  6
9  6
iii. 3-9  37
5-11  50
11  30, 137
13  399
iv. 4  19, 137
V. 6  114
vi. 6, 7  184
6  167,367
vii. 1-6  38
14  137
Nahum.
i. 2  113
3-11  114
12-16  115
ii. 1  115
2-6  116
7-13  117
11  138
iii. 1-7  118
1  165
8,9  119
8-10  80
10-19  130
Habakkuk.
i. 2-8  835
9-16  836

PAGE
i.l3  37
17  337
ii. 1-5  387
4  334
6-16  338
9  348
9-12  6
9-14  261
13  378
17-20  839
iii. 1-19  324
2-6  830
7-15  831
16-18  333
Zephaniah.
i. 1  131
2-9  183
4  36, 131,173
5  36,37,175
5-9  28
7  131
8  37, 346
9  96
10-17  133
11  133
18  38
18  184
u. 1-6  184
4^19  91
7-14  185
8-10  63
15  136
iii. 1,3  96
1-7  136
3  131
3,4  38,128
4  37, 131
8-16  187
17-20  128
Haggai.
i. 10, ff  269
Zechariah.
viii. 4.5  17
16  17
ix.7  154
X. :  194

462

TEXTS ILLUSTRATED.

page
xii. 3  859
11  ;...353
xiv. 21  128
Malachi.
ii. 2  346
7...  227
1 Esdras.
i. 8  146
48  863
Baruch.
i. 1  146, 334
3, ff  356
8  385
Susanna.
i. 4  356
The Prayer op
Manasses  89
3 Maccabees.
ii. 4, ff  153, 887
St. Matthew.
i. 13  349
V. 3  394
34,85  161
vi. 3, 5  13

viii. 13  16
xi. 16  17
xii. 1  9
xiii. 8  11
xxi. 13  181
xxv. 1  16
6  16
xxvi. 61  396

St. Mark.

xi. 17

.181

St. Luke.
ii. 8  159
iv. 38  837
V 33  90
xii. 31  187
xiii. 86  13
XV. 7, etc  90
xvi. 3, 3  5
xix. 46  181
St. John.
X. 1-lG  152
Acts.
iii. 33  318
vi. 14  396
ix. 5  8
xii. 30  11
xxi. 30  397
xxiv. 5  398

Romans . page
1.17  867, 834, 337
1 Corinthians.
iv. 8  5
3 Corinthians.
xii. 1, 8  431
Galatians.
iii. 11.... 348, 824, 327
Ephesians.
iii. 10  40
vi. 13  40
Hebrews.
X. 38.... 348, 384, 327
xi. 36  55
37  54
1 St. Peter.
iv. 10  5
Revelation.
ix. 14, fl  108
X. 9  398
xvi. 16  253
xxi. 35  16