Jeremiah : Being The Baird Lecture for 1922 Part 14

Why do the wounds never close(390) Of the daughter of my people?

Oh that my head were waters, IX. 1 Mine eyes a fountain of tears, That day and night I might weep For the slain of my people!

There follows an Oracle in a very different mood. In the previous one the Prophet has taken his people to his heart, in spite of their sin and its havoc; in this he repels and would be quit of them.

O that I had in the desert 2 A wayfarers'(391) lodge!

Then would I leave my people, And get away from them, For adulterers all they be, A bundle(392) of traitors!

Their tongue they stretch 3 Like a treacherous bow,(?) And never for truth Use their power in the land, But from evil to evil go forth And Me they know not.(393) Be on guard with your friends, 4 Trust not your(394) brothers, For brothers are all very Jacobs, And friends gad about to defame.

Every one cheateth his neighbour, 5 They cannot speak truth.

Their tongues they have trained to falsehood, They strain to be naughty- Wrong upon wrong, deceit on deceit(?) 6 Refusing to know Me.(395) Therefore thus saith the Lord:(396) 7 Lo, I will smelt them, will test them.

How else should I do In face of the evil ...(397)(?) Of the Daughter of My people?

A deadly(398) shaft is their tongue 8 The words of their mouth(399) deceit; If peace any speak to his friend In his heart he lays ambush.

Shall I not visit for such- 9 Rede of the Lord- Nor on a nation like this Myself take vengeance?

Raise for the mountains a wail,(400) 10 For the meads of the pasture a dirge!

They are waste, with never a man(401) Nor hear the lowing of cattle.

From the birds of heaven to the beasts They have fled, they are gone.

I will make Jerusalem heaps, 11 Of jackals the lair, And the towns.h.i.+ps of Judah lay waste, With never a dweller.

Who is the man that is wise 12 To lay this to mind, As the mouth of the Lord hath told him, So to declare- The wherefore the country is perished, And waste as the desert, With none to pa.s.s over!

13. And the Lord said unto me,(402) Because they forsook My Law which I set before them, and hearkened not to My Voice,(403) [14]

but have walked after the stubbornness of their heart, and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them. 15. Therefore thus saith the Lord(404) the G.o.d of Israel, Behold I will give them wormwood to eat and the waters of poison to drink. 16. And I will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers knew, and send after them the sword till I have consumed them.

Thus saith the Lord: 17 Call the keening women to come, And send for the wise ones, That they come and make haste(405) 18 To lift us a dirge, Till with tears our eyes run down, Our eyelids with water.

For hark! from ?ion the voice of wailing, 19 "How we are undone!

"Sore abashed we, land who have left, Our homes overthrown!"(406)

Hear, O women, the saying of the Lord, 20 Your ears take in the word of His mouth, Teach the lament to your daughters Each to her comrade the dirge: "For Death has come up by our windows 21 And into our palaces, Cutting off from the streets the children The youths from the places;(407) And the corpses of men are fallen 22 As dung on the field, As sheaves left after the reaper And n.o.body gathers!"

Thus saith the Lord: 23 Boast not the wise in his wisdom, Boast not the strong in his strength, Boast not the rich in his riches, But he that would boast in this let him boast, 24 Insight and knowledge of Me, That I am the Lord, who work troth, Judgment and justice on earth, For in these I delight.

25. Behold, the days are coming-Rede of the Lord-that I shall visit on everyone circ.u.mcised as to the foreskin. 26. Egypt and Judah and Edom, the sons of Ammon and Moab, and all with the corner(408) clipt, who dwell in the desert; for all the nations are uncirc.u.mcised in their heart and all the house of Israel.

Which just means that Israel, circ.u.mcised in the flesh but not in the spirit, are as bad as the heathen who share with them bodily circ.u.mcision.

Ch. X. 1-16 is a spirited, ironic poem on the follies of idolatry which bears both in style and substance marks of the later exile.

On the other hand X. 17-23 is a small collection of short Oracles in metre, which there is no reason to deny to Jeremiah. The text of the first, verses 17-18, is uncertain. If with the help of the Greek we render it as follows it implies not an actual, but an inevitable and possibly imminent, siege of Jerusalem. The couplet in 17 may alone be original and 18, the text of which is reducible neither to metre nor wholly to sense, a prose note upon it.

Sweep in thy wares from beyond,(409) X. 17 In siege that shalt sit!

18. For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will sling out them that dwell in this land,(410) and will distress them in order that they may find ...(?)

Such is the most to be made of the fragment of which there are many interpretations. The next piece, 19-22, is generally acknowledged to be Jeremiah's. It has the ring of his earlier Oracles. The Hebrew and Greek texts differ as to the speaker in 19_a_. Probably the Greek is correct-the Prophet or the Deity addresses the city or nation and the Prophet replies for the latter identifying himself with her sufferings. It is possible, however, that the words _But I said_ are misplaced and should begin the verse, in which case the Hebrew _my_ is to be preferred to the Greek _thy_ adopted below. If so the stoicism of 19 is remarkable.

Woe is me for thy(411) ruin, 19 Sore is thy(412) stroke!

But I said, Well, this sickness is mine(413) And I must bear it!

Undone is my tent and perished,(414) 20 Snapped all my cords!

My sons-they went out from me And they are not!

None now to stretch me my tent Or hang up my curtains.

For that the shepherds(415) are brutish 21 Nor seek of the Lord, Therefore prosper they shall not, All scattered their flock.(416) Hark the bruit, X. 22 Behold it comes, And uproar great From land of the North, To lay the cities of Judah waste, A lair of jackals.

As we have seen, Jeremiah in the excitement of alarm falls on short lines, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of two stresses each, sometimes as here with one longer line.(417)

A quatrain follows of longer, equal lines as is usual with Jeremiah when expressing spiritual truths:-

Lord I know! Not to man is his way, 23 Not man's to walk or settle his steps.

Chasten me, Lord, but with judgment, 24 Not in wrath, lest Thou bring me to little!

The last verse of the chapter is of a temper unlike that of Jeremiah elsewhere towards other nations, and so like the temper against them felt by later generations in Israel, that most probably it is not his.

[Pour out Thy rage on the nations, 25 Who do not own Thee, And out on the kingdoms Who call not Thy Name!

For Jacob they devoured and consumed, And wasted his homestead](418)

Another series of Oracles, as reasonably referred to the reign of Jehoiakim as to any other stage of Jeremiah's career, is scattered over Chs. XI-XX. I reserve to a later lecture upon his spiritual conflict and growth those which disclose his debates with his G.o.d, his people and himself-XI. 18-XII. 6, XV. 10-XVI. 9, XVII. 14-18, XVIII. 18-23, XX. 7-18, and I take now only such as deal with the character and the doom of the nation.

Of these the first in the order in which they appear in the Book is XI.

15, 16, with which we have already dealt,(419) and the second is XII.

7-13, generally acknowledged to be Jeremiah's own. It is undated, but of the invasions of this time the one it most clearly reflects is that of the mixed hordes let loose by Nebuchadrezzar on Judah in 602 or in 598.(420) The invasion is more probably described as actual than imagined as imminent. G.o.d Himself is the speaker: His _House_, as the parallel _Heritage_ shows, is not the Temple but the Land, His _Domain_. The sentence p.r.o.nounced upon it is a final sentence, yet delivered by the Divine Judge with pain and with astonishment that He has to deliver it against His _Beloved_; and this pathos Jeremiah's poetic rendering of the sentence finely brings out by putting verse 9_a_ in the form of a question. The Prophet feels the Heart of G.o.d as moved as his own by the doom of the people.

I have forsaken My House, XII. 7 I have left My Heritage, I have given the Beloved of My Soul To the hand of her foes.

My Heritage to Me is become 8 Like a lion in the jungle, She hath given against Me her voice, Therefore I hate her.

Is My Heritage to Me a speckled wild-bird 9 With wild-birds round and against her?

Go, gather all beasts of the field, Bring them on to devour.

Shepherds so many My Vineyard have spoiled 10 Have trampled My Lot- My pleasant Lot they have turned To a desolate desert They make it a waste, it mourns, 11 On Me is the waste!

All the land is made desolate, None lays it to heart!

Over the bare desert heights 12 Come in the destroyers!

[For the sword of the Lord is devouring From the end of the land, And on to the end of the land, No peace to all flesh.(421) Wheat have they sown and reaped thorns, 13 Have travailed for nought, Ashamed of their crop shall they be In the heat of G.o.d's wrath.]

The last eight lines are doubtfully original: the speaker is no longer G.o.d Himself. There follows, in verses 14-17, a paragraph in prose, which is hardly relevant-a later addition, whether from the Prophet or an editor.

The next metrical Oracles are appended to the Parables of the Waist-cloth and of the Jars in Ch. XIII.(422) We have already quoted, in proof of Jeremiah's poetic power, the most solemn warning he gave to his people, XIII. 15, 16.(423) At some time these lines were added to it:-

But if ye will not hear it: XIII. 17 In secret my soul shall weep Because of your pride, And mine eyes run down with tears For the flock of the Lord led captive.(424)