Chapter IX: The Drought and Its Moral Implications (3)

And how much fierce hostility that one term "my pursuers" may cover, it is easy to infer from the narratives of the prophet's evil experience in chaps. xx., xxvi. and xxxviii. But allowing for all this, we can at best only affirm that the prophet's imprecations on his foes are natural and human; we cannot pretend that they are evangelical and Christ-like.[77] Besides, the latter would be a gratuitous anachronism, which no intelligent interpreter of Scripture is called upon to perpetrate. It is neither necessary to the proper vindication of the prophet's writings as truly inspired of God, nor helpful to a right conception of the method of revelation.

FOOTNOTES:

[57] HITZIG: (1) xiv. 1-9, 19-22: "Lament and Prayer on occasion of a Drought." (2) xiv. 10-18. "Oracle against the false Prophets and the misguided People" (Hitzig mistakes the import of the phrase לנוע אהבו כן, "_Thus_ have they loved to wander," ver. 10; supposing that the "thus" refers to xiii. 27, and that xiv. 1-9 is misplaced). (3) xv. 1-9. "The incorrigible People will be punished mercilessly." Hitzig thinks C. B. Michaelis wrong in asserting close connexion with the end of the preceding chapter, because the intercession, vv. 2-9, does not agree with the prohibition, xiv. 11; and because xiv. 19-22, merely prays for cessation of the Drought; while the rejection of "the hypothetical intercession," xv. 1, delivers the people over to all the horrors which follow in the train of war. xv. 1-9 may originally have followed xiv. 18. But this is far from cogent reasoning. There is nothing surprising in the renewal of the prophet's intercession, except on a theory of strictly verbal inspiration; and xv. 1 _sqq._ in refusing deliverance from the Drought, or rather in answer to the prayer imploring it, announces further and worse evils to follow. (4) "Complaint of the Seer against Iahvah, and Soothing of his Dejection," xv. 10-21. Hitzig thinks internal evidence here points to the fourth year of Jehoiakim; and that xvii. 1-4 originally preceded this section, especially as ch. xvi. connects closely with xv. 9. (5) xvi. 1-20. "Prediction of an imminent general Judgment by Plague and Captivity." Written immediately after xv. 1-9, and falls with that in the short reign of Jehoiachin. (6) xvii. 1-4. "Judah's unforgotten Guilt will be punished by Captivity." Wanting in LXX. (as early as Jerome), but contains original of xv. 13, 14, and must therefore be genuine. Belongs 602 B.C., year of Jehoiakim's revolt. (7) xvii. 5-18. "The Vindication of Trust in God on Despisers and Believers. Prayer for its Vindication." Date immediately after death of Jehoiakim. (8) 19-27. "Warning to keep the Sabbath." Time of Jehoiachin.

[58] The Heb. verb חַתָּה "is broken" may probably have this meaning. "Dismayed" is not nearly so suitable, though it is the usual meaning of the term. Cf. Isa. vii. 8.

[59] Cf. viii. 9. "And no wisdom is in them."

[60] So Dathe, Naegelsbach.

[61] Lit. "all these things," _i.e._, this visible world. There is no Heb. special term for the "universe" or "world." "The all" or "heaven and earth," or the phrase in the text, are used in this sense.

[62] The reference to an eclipse of the sun in the words

"Her sun went down, while it yet was day;
He blushed and paled."

appears fairly certain. Such an event is said to have occurred in that part of the world, Sept. 30, B.C. 610.

[63] 13. Read במתיך "Thine high places" for במחיר לא "without price"; and transpose בחטאת (xvii. 3).

[64] 14. Read והעברתיך "and I will make thee serve" (xvii. 4) for והעברתי "and I will make to pass through...."

The third member is a quotation from Deut. xxxii. 22. In the fourth, read על־עולם "for ever" (xvii. 4) instead of עליכם "upon you."

[65] The tone of all this indicates that the prophet was no novice in his office. It does not suit the time of Josiah; but agrees very well with the time of confusion and popular dismay which followed his death. That event must have brought great discredit upon Jeremiah and upon all who had been instrumental in the religious changes of his reign.

[66] Practices forbidden, Lev. xxi. 5; Deut. xiv. 1. Jeremiah mentions them as ordinary signs of mourning, and doubtless they were general in his time. An ancient usage, having its root in natural feeling, is not easily extirpated.

[67] Naegelsbach.

[68] The figure recalls the Persian custom of sweeping off the whole population of an island, by forming a line and marching over it, a process of extermination called by the Greek writers σαγηνεύειν, "fishing with a seine or drag-net" (Herod. iii. 149, iv. 9, vi. 31).

[69] For the construction, cf. Gen. i. 22; Jer. li. 11. Or "With their abominations they filled, etc.," a double accusative.

[70] _i.e._, Loose thine hold of ... let go ... release. Read ידך for ובך. The uses of שִמט "to throw down," "let fall," resemble those of the Greek ἵημι and its compounds. I corrected the passage thus, to find afterwards that I had been anticipated by J. D. Michaelis, Graf, and others.

[71] There is something strange about the phrase "by (upon, _`al_) the evergreen tree." Twenty-five Heb. MSS., the Targ., and the Syriac, read "every" (_kol_) for "upon" (_`al_). We still feel the want of a preposition, and may confidently restore "under" (_taḫath_), from the nine other passages in which "evergreen tree" (`_ec̰ ra`anan_) occurs in connexion with idolatrous worship. In all these instances the expression is "under every evergreen tree" (_taḫath kol `ec̰ ra`anan_); from the Book of the Law (Deut. xii. 2), whence Jeremiah probably drew the phrase, to 2 Chron. xxviii. 4. Jeremiah has already used the phrase thrice (ii. 20, iii. 6, 13), in exactly the same form. The other passages are Ezek. vi. 13; Isa. lvii. 5; 2 Kings xvi. 4, xvii. 10. The corruption of _kol_ into _`al_ is found elsewhere. Probably _taḫath_ had dropt out of the text, before the change took place here.

[72] A popular opinion of the time.

[73] Isa. xxii. 23.

[74] The Heb. term is probably written with omission of the final _mem_, a common abbreviation; and the right reading may be וסורים "and apostates."

[75] מלא for מרעה.

[76] מִרְעֵה for מֵרֹעִה.

[77] I have left this paragraph as I wrote it, although I feel great doubts upon the subject. What I have remarked elsewhere on similar passages, should be considered along with the present suggestions. We have especially to remember, (i) the peculiar status of the speaker as a true prophet; and (ii) the terrible invectives of Christ Himself on certain occasions (St. Matt. xxiii. 33-35; St. Luke x. 15; St. John viii. 44).