Expositor's Bible: The Book of Jeremiah, Chapters XXI.-LII.. William Henry Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ and nobles, priests and prophets, shall be carried off by the Chaldean invaders, as trees and houses are swept away by a hurricane. These shepherds who had spoiled and betrayed their flock would themselves be as silly sheep in the hands of robbers.

      "Thy lovers shall go into captivity.

      Then, verily, shalt thou be ashamed and confounded

      Because of all thy wickedness.

      O thou that dwellest in Lebanon!

      O thou that hast made thy nest in the cedar!"

      The former mention of Lebanon reminded Jeremiah of Jehoiakim's halls of cedar. With grim irony he links together the royal magnificence of the palace and the wild abandonment of the people's lamentation.

      "How wilt thou groan98 when pangs come upon thee,

      Anguish as of a woman in travail!"

      The nation is involved in the punishment inflicted upon her rulers. In such passages the prophets largely identify the nation with the governing classes – not without justification. No government, whatever the constitution may be, can ignore a strong popular demand for righteous policy, at home and abroad. A special responsibility of course rests on those who actually wield the authority of the state, but the policy of rulers seldom succeeds in effecting much either for good or evil without some sanction of public feeling. Our revolution which replaced the Puritan Protectorate by the restored Monarchy was rendered possible by the change of popular sentiment. Yet even under the purest democracy men imagine that they divest themselves of civic responsibility by neglecting their civic duties; they stand aloof, and blame officials and professional politicians for the injustice and crime wrought by the state. National guilt seems happily disposed of when laid on the shoulders of that convenient abstraction "the government"; but neither the prophets nor the Providence which they interpret recognise this convenient theory of vicarious atonement: the king sins, but the prophet's condemnation is uttered against and executed upon the nation.

      Nevertheless a special responsibility rests upon the ruler, and now Jeremiah turns from the nation to its king.

      "As I live – Jehovah hath spoken it —

      Though Coniah ben Jehoiakim king of Judah were a signet ring upon My right hand – "

      By a forcible Hebrew idiom Jehovah, as it were, turns and confronts the king and specially addresses him: —

      "Yet would I pluck thee thence."

      A signet ring was valuable in itself, and, as far as an inanimate object could be, was an "alter ego" of the sovereign; it scarcely ever left his finger, and when it did, it carried with it the authority of its owner. A signet ring could not be lost or even cast away without some reflection upon the majesty of the king. Jehoiachin's character was by no means worthless; he had courage, energy, and patriotism. The heir of David and Solomon, the patron and champion of the Temple, dwelt, as it were, under the very shadow of the Almighty. Men generally believed that Jehovah's honour was engaged to defend Jerusalem and the house of David. He Himself would be discredited by the fall of the elect dynasty and the captivity of the chosen people. Yet everything must be sacrificed – the career of a gallant young prince, the ancient association of the sacred Name with David and Zion, even the superstitious awe with which the heathen regarded the God of the Exodus and of the deliverance from Sennacherib. Nothing will be allowed to stand in the way of the Divine judgment. And yet we still sometimes dream that the working out of the Divine righteousness will be postponed in the interests of ecclesiastical traditions and in deference to the criticisms of ungodly men!

      "And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life,

      Into the hand of them of whom thou art afraid,

      Into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the Chaldeans.

      And I will hurl thee and the mother that bare thee into another land, where ye were not born:

      There shall ye die.

      And unto the land whereunto their soul longeth to return,

      Thither they shall not return."

      Again the sudden change in the person addressed emphasises the scope of the Divine proclamation; the doom of the royal house is not only announced to them, but also to the world at large. The mention of the Queen Mother, Nehushta, reveals what we should in any case have conjectured, that the policy of the young prince was largely determined by his mother. Her importance is also indicated by xiii. 18, usually supposed to be addressed to Jehoiachin and Nehushta: —

      "Say unto the king and the queen mother,

      Leave your thrones and sit in the dust,

      For your glorious diadems are fallen."

      The Queen Mother is a characteristic figure of polygamous Eastern dynasties, but we may be helped to understand what Nehushta was to Jehoiachin if we remember the influence of Eleanor of Poitou over Richard I. and John, and the determined struggle which Margaret of Anjou made on behalf of her ill-starred son.

      The next verse of our prophecy seems to be a protest against the severe sentence pronounced in the preceding clauses: —

      "Is then this man Coniah a despised vessel, only fit to be broken?

      Is he a tool, that no one wants?"

      Thus Jeremiah imagines the citizens and warriors of Jerusalem crying out against him, for his sentence of doom against their darling prince and captain. The prophetic utterance seemed to them monstrous and incredible, only worthy to be met with impatient scorn. We may find a mediæval analogy to the situation at Jerusalem in the relations of Clement IV. to Conradin, the last heir of the house of Hohenstaufen. When this youth of sixteen was in the full career of victory, the Pope predicted that his army would be scattered like smoke, and pointed out the prince and his allies as victims for the sacrifice. When Conradin was executed after his defeat at Tagliacozzo, Christendom was filled with abhorrence at the suspicion that Clement had countenanced the doing to death of the hereditary enemy of the Papal See. Jehoiachin's friends felt towards Jeremiah somewhat as these thirteenth-century Ghibellines towards Clement.

      Moreover the charge against Clement was probably unfounded; Milman99 says of him, "He was doubtless moved with inner remorse at the cruelties of 'his champion' Charles of Anjou." Jeremiah too would lament the doom he was constrained to utter. Nevertheless he could not permit Judah to be deluded to its ruin by empty dreams of glory: —

      "O land, land, land,

      Hear the word of Jehovah."

      Isaiah had called all Nature, heaven and earth to bear witness against Israel, but now Jeremiah is appealing with urgent importunity to Judah. "O Chosen Land of Jehovah, so richly blessed by His favour, so sternly chastised by His discipline, Land of prophetic Revelation, now at last, after so many warnings, believe the word of thy God and submit to His judgment. Hasten not thy unhappy fate by shallow confidence in the genius and daring of Jehoiachin: he is no true Messiah."

      "For saith Jehovah,

      Write this man childless,

      A man whose life shall not know prosperity:

      For none of his seed shall prosper;

      None shall sit upon the throne of David,

      Nor rule any more over Judah."

      Thus, by Divine decree, the descendants of Jehoiakim were disinherited; Jehoiachin was to be recorded in the genealogies of Israel as having no heir. He might have offspring,100 but the Messiah, the Son of David, would not come of his СКАЧАТЬ