Jeremiah : Being The Baird Lecture for 1922 Part 18

I have not sent the prophets, 21 Of themselves they run.

I have not spoken to them, They do the prophesying.

If they had stood in My Council, 22 And heard My Words, My people they would have been turning(542) From(543) the wrong of their doings.

I am a G.o.d who is near 23 Not a G.o.d who is far.(544) Can any man hide him in secret 24 And I not see him?

Is it not heaven and earth that I fill?- Rede of the Lord.

I have heard what the prophets say 25 Who preach in My Name, Falsely saying, "I have dreamed, I have dreamed, I have dreamed."(545) Will the heart of the prophets turn,(546) 26 Who prophesy lies?

And in their prophesying ... (?)(547) The deceit of their heart, Who plan that My people forget My Name(548) 27 Through the dreams they tell, Just as their fathers forgot My Name through Baal.

The prophet with whom is a dream 28 Let him tell his(549) dream; But he with whom is My Word, My Word let him speak in truth.

What has the straw with the wheat?(550) -Rede of the Lord- My Word, is it not(551) like fire 29 And the hammer that shatters the rock?

30. Therefore, Behold, I am against the prophets-Rede of the Lord-who steal My Words each from his mate. 31. Behold, I am against the prophets who fling out their tongues and rede a Rede.(552) 32. Behold, I am against the prophets of false dreams who tell them and lead My people astray by their falsehood and extravagance(553)-not I have sent them or charged them, nor of any profit whatsoever are they to this people.(554)

We have now all the material available for judgment upon Jeremiah's life-long controversy with the other prophets. His message and theirs were diametrically opposite. But both he and they spoke in the name of the same G.o.d, the G.o.d of their nation. Both were convinced that they had His Mind.

Both were sure that their respective predictions would be fulfilled. Each repudiated the other's claim to speak in the name of their nation's G.o.d.

With each it was an affair of strong, personal convictions, which we may grant, in the case of some at least of Jeremiah's opponents, to have been as honest as his. At first sight it may seem hopeless to a.n.a.lyse such equal a.s.surances, based apparently on identical grounds, with the view of discovering psychological differences between them; and as if we must leave the issue to the course of events to which both parties confidently appealed. Even here the decision is not wholly in favour of the one as against the others. For Jeremiah's predictions in the Name of the Lord were not always fulfilled as he had shaped them. The northern executioners of the Divine Judgment upon Judah were not the Scythians as he at first expected; and-a smaller matter-Jehoiakim was not _buried with the burial of an a.s.s, dragged and flung out from the gates of Jerusalem_, but _slept with his fathers_.(555) Yet these are only exceptions. Jeremiah's prophesying was in substance vindicated by history, while the predictions of the other prophets were utterly belied. This is part of Jeremiah's meaning when he says, _Of no profit whatsoever are they to this people_.(556)

What were the grounds of the undoubted difference? On penetrating the similar surfaces of Jeremiah's and the prophets' a.s.surances we find two deep distinctions between them-one moral and one intellectual.

We take the moral first for it is the deeper. Both Jeremiah and the prophets based their predictions on convictions of the character of their G.o.d. But while the prophets thought of Him and of His relations to Israel from the level of that tribal system of religion which prevailed throughout their world, and upon that low level concluded that Yahweh of Israel could not for any reason forsake His own people but must avert from them every disaster however imminent; Jeremiah was compelled by his faith in the holiness and absolute justice of G.o.d to proclaim that, however close and dear His age-long relations to Israel had been and however high His designs for them, He was by His Nature bound to break from a generation which had spurned His Love and His Law and proved unworthy of His designs, and to deliver them for the punishment of their sins into the hands of their enemies.(557) _What else can I do?_ Jeremiah hears G.o.d say.

The opposing prophets reply, _Not He!_ This is the ground of his charge against them, that they plan to make the _people forget the Name_, the revealed Nature and Character, of G.o.d, just as _their fathers forgat Him through Baal_,(558) confusing His Nature with that of the lower, local G.o.d.(559) This ethical difference between Jeremiah and the prophets is clear beyond doubt; it was profound and fundamental. There went with it of course the difference between their respective att.i.tudes to the society of their time-on the one side his acute conscience of the vices that corrupted the people, on the other their careless temper towards those vices. They would _heal the hurt of the daughter of my people lightly_, saying _it is well, it is well when well it is not_, and in their prophesying there was no call to repentance.(560) Moreover, though this may not have been true of all of them, some both in Jerusalem and among the exiles were _partakers of other men's sins_; for Jeremiah charges them with the prevailing immoralities of the day-adultery and untruth. Instead of turning Judah from her sins, they were the promoters of the G.o.dlessness that spread through the land.(561) Though we have only Jeremiah's-or Baruch's-word for this, we know how natural it has ever been for the adherents, and for even some of the leaders, of a school devoid of the fundamental pieties to slide into open vice. Jeremiah's charges are therefore not incredible.

But the grounds of the difference between Jeremiah and the other prophets were also intellectual. Jeremiah had the right eye for events and throughout he was true to it. Just as he tells us how the will of G.o.d was sometimes suggested to him by the sight of certain physical objects-the almond-blossom that broke the winter of Anathoth, the boiling caldron, or the potter at his wheel-so the sight of that in which the physical and spiritual mingled, the disposition and progress of the political forces of his world, made clear to him the particular lines upon which the ethically certain doom of Judah would arrive. He had the open eye for events and allowed neither that horror of his people's ruin, of which he tells us his heart was full, nor any other motive of patriotism, nor temptations to the easier life that had surely been his by flattery and the promise of peace to his contemporaries, to blind him to the clear and just reading of his times, to which G.o.d's Word and his faith in the Divine character had opened his vision. On the contrary the other prophets, to take them at their best, were blinded by their patriotism, blinded by it even after Carchemish and when the grasp of Babylon was sensibly closing upon Judah-even after the first captivity and when the siege of Jerusalem could only end in her downfall and destruction. Nothing proved sufficient to open such eyes to the signs of the times.

Making allowance, then, for the fact that we depend for our knowledge of the controversy upon the record of only one of the parties to it, and imputing to the other prophets the best possible, we are left with these results: that as proved by events the truth was with Jeremiah's word and not with that of his opponents, and that the causes of this were his profoundly deeper ethical conceptions of G.o.d working in concert with his unwarped understanding of the political and military movements of his time.

To this were allied other differences between Jeremiah and the prophets who were against him.

Along with the priests they clung to tradition, to dogma, to things that had been true and vital for past generations but were no longer so for this one, which turned exhausted truths into fetishes. To all these he opposed _the Word of the Living G.o.d_, Who spoke to the times and freely acted according to the character and the needs of the present generation.

Again, the other prophets do not appear to have attached any conditions to their predictions; these they delivered as absolute and final. In contrast, not merely were Jeremiah's prophecies conditional but the conditions were in harmony with their fundamentally moral spirit. His doctrine of Predestination was (as we have seen) subject to faith in the Freedom of the Divine Sovereignty, and therefore up to the hopeless last he repeated his calls to repentance, so that G.o.d might relent of the doom He had decreed, and save His people and His land to each other.

Further, despite his natural outbursts of rage Jeremiah showed patience with his opponents, the patience which is proof of the soundness of a man's own convictions. He believed in "the liberty of prophesying,"

The prophet with whom is a dream Let him tell his dream, And he with whom is My Word, My Word let him speak in truth!

Jeremiah had no fear of the issue being threshed out between them. The wheat would be surely cleared from the straw.(562) That is a confidence which attracts our trust. In the strength of it Jeremiah was enabled to pause and reflect on the apparently equal confidence which he encountered in his opponents, and to give this every opportunity to prove itself to him before he repeated his own convictions. I cannot think, as many do, that his words to Hananiah were sarcastic; and when Hananiah broke the yoke on Jeremiah's shoulders, and it is said, _But Jeremiah went his way_, this was not in contempt but to think out the issue between them.(563) Nor do I feel sarcasm in his wish that his opponents' predictions of the return of the sacred vessels from Babylon might be fulfilled.(564) His brave calm words to the prophets and priests who sought his life in the Temple in 604(565) bear similar testimony. All these are the marks of an honest, patient and reflective mind which weighs opinions opposite to its own.

Further still, Jeremiah had to his credit that of which his opponents appear to have been devoid. As we have seen no prophet was less sure of himself, or more reluctant to discharge the duties of a prophet.

Everywhere he gives evidence of being impelled by a force not his own and against his will.(566) But the other prophets show no sign of this accrediting reluctance. They eagerly launch forth on their mission; _fling about their tongues, and rede a Rede_ of the Lord.(567) They give no impression of a force behind them. Jeremiah says that _they run of themselves_ and _prophesy of themselves_, they have not been sent.(568) We still keep in mind that we owe the accounts of them to Jeremiah and Baruch, their opponents. But our own experience of life enables us to recognise the portraits presented to us, as of characters found in every age: pushful men, who have no doubts of their omniscience, but, however patriotic or religious or learned, leave upon their contemporaries no impression of their being driven by another force than themselves, and whose opinions either are belied by events, or melt into the air.

One point remains. In answering Hananiah Jeremiah adduced the example of the acknowledged prophets of the past as being always prophets of doom, so that the presumption was in favour of those who still preached doom; yet he allowed that if any prophet promised peace, and peace came to pa.s.s, he also might be known as genuine. That was sound history, and in the circ.u.mstances of the day it was also sound sense.

3. The Siege. (XXI, x.x.xII-x.x.xIV, x.x.xVII, x.x.xVIII.)

History has no harder test for the character and doctrine of a great teacher than the siege of his city. Instances beyond the Bible are those of Archimedes in the siege of Syracuse, 212 B.C., Pope Innocent the First in that of Rome by Alaric, 417 A.D., and John Knox in that of St. Andrews by the French, 1547. A siege brings the prophet's feet as low as the feet of the crowd. He shares the dangers, the duties of defence, the last crusts. His hunger, and, what is still keener, his pity for those who suffer it with him, may break his faith into cowardice and superst.i.tion.

But if faith stands, and common-sense with it, his opportunities are high.

His powers of spiritual vision may prove to be also those of political and even of military foresight, and either inspire the besieged to a victorious resistance, or compel himself, alone in a cityful of fanatics, to counsel surrender. A siege can turn a prophet or quiet thinker into a hero.

The Old Testament gives us three instances-Elisha's brave visions during the Syrian blockade of Dothan and siege of Samaria; Isaiah, upon the solitary strength of his faith, carrying Jerusalem inviolate through her siege by the a.s.syrians; and now a century later Jeremiah, with a more costly courage, counselling her surrender to the Babylonians.

The records of the Prophet's activity and sufferings during the siege are so curiously scattered through the Book and furnished with such headlines as to leave it clear that they were added at different times and possibly from different sources. Some of them raise the question whether or not they are doublets.

Three, XXI. 1-10, x.x.xIV. 1-7, x.x.xVII. 3-10, bear p.r.o.nouncements by Jeremiah that the city must surrender or be stormed and burned. Of these the first and third each gives as the occasion of the p.r.o.nouncement it quotes, ?edekiah's mission of two men to the Prophet. Several critics regard these missions as identical. But can we doubt that during that crisis of two years the distracted king would send more than once for a Divine word? And for this what moments were so natural as when the Chaldeans were beginning the siege, XXI. 4, and when they raised it, x.x.xVII. 5? That one of the two messengers is on each occasion the same affords an inadequate reason-and no other exists-for arguing that both pa.s.sages are but differently telling the same story.(569) Nor have any grounds been offered for identifying the occasion of either pa.s.sage with that of x.x.xIV. 1-7. Thus we have three separate deliverances from Jeremiah to the king, each with its own vivid phrases and distinctive edge.

The first, XXI 1-10, was given as the Chaldeans closed upon Jerusalem but the Jews were not yet driven within the walls.(570) ?edekiah sent Pash?ur and ?ephaniah to inquire if by a miracle the Lord would raise the siege.

The grim answer came that the Lord Himself would fight the besieged, till they died of pestilence and the survivors were slaughtered by Nebuchadrezzar-_I_(_571_)_ shall not spare nor pity them_-which is proof that this Oracle was uttered before the end of the siege, when the survivors were not slain but deported. The people are advised to desert to the enemy-counsel which we shall consider later.

The second, x.x.xIV. 1-7, records a p.r.o.nouncement unsought by the king but evoked from Jeremiah by the progress of the Chaldean arms, which had overrun all Judah save the fortresses of Jerusalem, Lachish and Azekah.

Its vivid genuineness is further certified by its unfulfilled promise of a peaceful death for ?edekiah. The following is mainly after the Greek.

x.x.xIV. 2_b_. Thus saith the Lord: This city shall certainly be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it and burn it with fire. 3. And thou shalt not escape but surely be taken and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall look into his eyes, and his mouth speak with thy mouth,(572) and to Babylon shalt thou come. 4. Yet hear the Lord's Word, O ?edekiah, king of Judah! 5. Thus saith the Lord,(573) In peace shalt thou die, and as the burnings(574) for thy fathers who reigned before thee so shall they burn for thee, and with "Ah lord!" lament thee. I have spoken the Word-Rede of the Lord.

The miserable king, how much worse was in store for him than even Jeremiah was given to foresee! Duhm (to our surprise, as Cornill remarks) agrees that the pa.s.sage is from Baruch; but only in order to support the precarious thesis that Baruch knew nothing of ?edekiah's being afterwards blinded and that the reports of this(575) sprang from unfounded rumour.

The third p.r.o.nouncement to ?edekiah, x.x.xVII. 3-10,(576) was made when the king sent Jehucal and ?ephaniah to seek the Prophet's prayers, after the Chaldeans had raised the siege in order to meet the reported Egyptian advance to the relief of Jerusalem.

x.x.xVII. 7. Thus saith the Lord: Thus say ye to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of Me,(577) Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is coming forth to help you, shall return to the land of Egypt. 8.

And the Chaldeans shall come back and fight against this city and take it and burn it with fire. 9. For(578) thus saith the Lord: Deceive not yourselves saying, The Chaldeans shall surely go off from us; they shall not go. 10. Even though ye smote the whole host of the Chaldeans that are fighting with you, and but wounded men were left, yet should these rise, each in his tent,(579) and burn this city with fire.

It is very remarkable how the spiritual powers of the Prophet endowed him with these sound views of the facts of his time, and of their eventualities whether in the political or in the military sphere. For nearly forty years he had foretold judgment on his people out of the North: for eighteen at least he had been sure that its instrument would be Nebuchadrezzar and he had foreseen the first deportation of the Jews to Babylonia. Now step by step through the siege he is clear as to what must happen-clear that the Chaldeans will invest the city, clear when they raise the investment that they will beat off the Egyptian army of relief and return, clear that resistance to them is hopeless, and will but add thousands of deaths by famine and pestilence before the city is taken and burned and its survivors carried into exile-all of which comes to pa.s.s.

But this political sagacity and military foresight have their source in moral and spiritual convictions-the Prophet's a.s.surance of the character and will of G.o.d, his faith in the Divine Government not of a single nation but of all the powers of the world, and his belief that a people is saved and will endure for the service of mankind, neither because of past privileges nor by the traditions in which it trusts, nor by adherence to dogmas however vital these have been to its fathers, nor even by its pa.s.sionate patriotism and its stubborn gallantry in defence of land and homes, but only by its justice, its purity, and its obedience to G.o.d's will. These are the spiritual convictions which alone keep the Prophet's eyes open and his heart steadfast through the fluctuations of policy and of military fortune that shake his world, and under the agony of appearing to be a traitor to his country and of preaching the doom of a people whom he loves with all his soul.

The case of John Knox affords a parallel to that of the Hebrew prophet. He told the garrison and citizens of St. Andrews, when besieged by the French, that "their corrupt life could not escape punishment of G.o.d and that was his continued advertis.e.m.e.nt from the time he was called to preach" among them. "When they triumphed of their victory (the first twenty days they had many prosperous chances) he lamented and ever said 'They saw not what he saw!' When they bragged of the force and thickness of their walls, he said, 'They should be but egg-sh.e.l.ls!' When they vaunted 'England will rescue us!' he said, 'Ye shall not see them, but ye shall be delivered into your enemies' hands and shall be carried to a strange country!' " that is France. All of which came to pa.s.s, as with Jeremiah's main predictions.(580)

The second of Jeremiah's p.r.o.nouncements given above is followed by the story of the besieged's despicable treatment of their slaves, x.x.xIV. 8-22; based on a memoir by Baruch, but expanded. Both the Hebrew and the shorter Greek offer in parts an uncertain text, and add this problem that their story begins with a covenant to _proclaim a Liberty_(581) for the Hebrew slaves in general, while the words which they attribute to Jeremiah limit it to the emanc.i.p.ation, in terms of a particular law, of those slaves who had completed six years of service (verse 14).(582) But neither this nor the other and smaller uncertainties touch the substance of the story.(583) As the siege began the king and other masters of slaves in Jerusalem entered into solemn covenant to free their Hebrew slaves, obviously in order to propitiate their G.o.d, and also some would a.s.sert (though unsupported by the text) in order to increase their fighting ranks; but when the siege was raised they forced their freedmen back to bondage: "a deathbed repentance with the usual sequel on recovery."(584) This is the barest exposure among many we have of the character of the people with whom Jeremiah had to deal, and justifies the hardest he has said of their shamelessness.

x.x.xIV. 17. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Ye have not obeyed Me by proclaiming a Liberty each for his countryman. Behold I am about to proclaim for you a Liberty-to the sword, to the famine and to the pestilence, and I will set you a consternation to all kingdoms of the earth.... 21. And ?edekiah, king of Judah, and his princes will I give into the hands of their foes, the king of Babylon's host that are gone up from you. 22. Behold, I am about to command-Rede of the Lord-and bring them back to this city and they shall storm and take it and burn it with fire, and the townships of Judah will I make desolate and tenantless.

Are we not in danger of the guilt of a similar perjury to the men who fought for us in the Great War, and for whom we have not yet fulfilled all the promises made to them by our governors?

About this time the ill-treatment of Jeremiah, which had ceased on ?edekiah's accession, was resumed. The narrative, or succession of narratives, of this begins at x.x.xVII. 11, and continues to x.x.xIX. 14, with interruptions in x.x.xIX. 1, 2, 4-13. Save for a few expansions, the whole must have been taken from Baruch's memoirs. Except for the omission of x.x.xIX. 4-13, the differences of the Greek from the Hebrew are unimportant, consisting in the usual absence of repet.i.tions of t.i.tles, epithets and names.

The siege being raised, Jeremiah was going out by the North gate of the city to Anathoth to claim or to manage(585) some property there, when he was arrested by the captain of the watch, and charged with deserting. He denied this, but was taken to the princes, who flogged him and flung him into a vault in the house of Jonathan, the Secretary. After many days he was sent for by the king who asked, _Is there Word from the Lord?_ _There is_, he replied, and, as if drumming a lesson into a stupid child's head, repeated his message, _Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the King of Babylon_. He asked what he had done to be treated as he had been, and, by contrast, where were the prophets who had said that the Babylonians would not come to Judah-his irony was not yet starved out of him!-and begged not to be sent back to the vault. The king committed him to the Court of the Guard, where at least he was above ground, could receive visitors, and was granted daily a loaf from the Bakers' Bazaar while bread lasted in the city.(586)

Yet through his bars he still defied his foes and they were at him again, quoting to the king two Oracles which he had uttered before and apparently was repeating to those who resorted to him in the Guard-Court.