Chapter 458 of 460

Chapter 20: A Clouded Sunset

(JEREMIAH 40-44)

Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name?

Builder and maker Thou of houses not made with hands!

What! have fear of change from Thee, who art ever the same?

Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands?

There never shall be one lost Good! What was, shall live as before,

The Evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound;

What was good, shall be good, with for evil so much good more;

On the earth the broken arcs—in the heaven a perfect round!"

BROWNING.

IF THE CLOSING verses of the Book of Jeremiah were written by his own hand, he must have lived for twenty years after the fall of Jerusalem; but they partook of the same infinite sadness as the forty years of his public ministry. It would appear that so far as his outward lot was concerned, the prophet Jeremiah spent a life of more unrelieved sadness than has perhaps fallen to the lot of any other, with the exception of the Divine Lord. This was so apparent to the Jewish commentators on the prophecies of Isaiah, that they applied to him the words of the fifty-third chapter, which tell the story of the Man of Sorrows who was acquainted with grief, and stood as a sheep dumb before her shearers. Of course, in the light of Calvary, we see the depths of substitutionary suffering in those inimitable words which no mortal could ever realize; but it is nevertheless significant that in any sense they were deemed applicable to Jeremiah.

His sufferings may be classed under three divisions those recited in the Book of Lamentations, and connected with the fall of Jerusalem; those connected with the murder of Gedaliah, and the flight into Egypt; and those of the exile there. But amid the salt brine of these bitter experiences, there was always welling up a spring of hope and peace. Oppressed on every side, but not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed; always delivered unto death, yet passing through death into the true life, sure that the Lord would not cast off for ever; but though he caused grief, He would have compassion, according to the multitude of his mercies.

I. THE DESOLATE CITY.—It is only latterly that any question has been raised as to the authorship of the Book of Lamentations. In the text no author is named, and these exquisite elegiacs have descended to us anonymously. But a very old tradition ascribes them to our prophet. In the Septuagint translation, made in the year 280 B.C., the following introduction is prefixed to the book: "It came to pass, after Israel was taken captive, and Jerusalem made desolate, Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented this lamentation over Jerusalem." To this the Vulgate adds, "in bitterness of heart sighing and crying." The cave in which Jeremiah is said to have written them is still shown on the western side of the city; and every Friday the Jews assemble to recite as his these plaintive words, at their wailing-place in Jerusalem, where a few of the old stones still remain. There is no good reason, therefore, for disassociating the Book of Lamentations from the authorship of Jeremiah.

This being so, what a flood of light is cast upon the desolate scene when Nebuzaradan had completed his work of destruction, and the long lines of captives were already far on their way to Babylon! How many went into exile we have no means of knowing; the number would probably amount to several thousands, principally of the wealthier classes. Only the poor of the people were left to cultivate the land, that it might not revert to an absolute desert. But the population would probably be very sparse—a few peasants scattered over the sites which had teemed with crowds.

The city sat solitary, which had been full of people. She had become as a widow. Night and day it seemed to the eye of her patriot lovers as though she were weeping sore, and her tears were upon her cheeks; the holy fire was extinct upon her altars; pilgrims no longer traversed the ways of Zion to attend the appointed feasts; her gates had sunk into the ground; and her habitations were pitilessly destroyed by fire. How often would Jeremiah pass mournfully amid the blackened ruins! Here was the sight of the altar; there of the most holy place. That was the palace of David; this the new palace that Jehoiakim had made for himself, with its wide windows and heavy coatings of vermilion; yonder was the court of the guard, where he had suffered so many months of confinement; and there, again, was the place where he had so often stood to warn his people of their sins.

Above and around, nature preserved the unbroken round of her seasons and months, of day and night. The old mountains which had stood around the city in the days of David and Hezekiah glowed with the morning light, and softened in the darkening shadows of the night. The sun arose over Olivet, and set in the western sea. The panorama of hill and valley, which lay around like the undulations of a sea of rock, spread itself in its accustomed strength and beauty; for Zion had always been beautiful in her situation. But upon the site of the virgin daughter of Zion the stillness of death had fallen, broken only by the cry of jackal and wild dog.

What all this meant to Jeremiah words fail to say. No truer heart ever beat in patriot's bosom. What Phocion felt for Athens, what Savonarola for Florence, what the elder Pitt for England, amid the catastrophes that darkened his latter days—that in a concentrated form must Jeremiah, whose love for country was so intimately bound up with his religious life, have felt and suffered. Anticipating the words of One who in after days was to sit on the same mountain and look across the valley, he might have said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee! How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!"

II. GEDALIAH'S MURDER. - Nebuchadnezzar and his chiefs had evidently been kept closely informed of the state of parties during the siege of Jerusalem; and the king gave definite instructions to his chief officers to take special precautions for the safety of Jeremiah. When the upper city fell into their hands, they sent and took him out of the court of the guard; and he was brought in chains among the other captives to Ramah, about five miles north of Jerusalem.

In a remarkable address which the captain of the guard made to Jeremiah, he acknowledged the retributive justice of Jehovah—one of the many traces of the real religiousness that gave a tone and bearing to these men by which they are altogether removed from the category of ordinary heathen. "The Lord thy God pronounced this evil upon this place, and the Lord bath brought it, and done according as He spake; because ye have sinned against the Lord, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing is come upon you."

The chains were then struck from off his fettered hands, and liberty was given him either to accompany the rest of the people to Babylon, or to go where he chose throughout the land. Ultimately, as he seemed to hesitate as to which direction to take, the Chaldean general urged him to make his home with Gedaliah, to strengthen his hands, and give him the benefit of his counsel in the difficult task to which he had been appointed. Thus again he turned from rest and ease to take the rough path of duty.

Gedaliah was the grandson of Shaphan, king Josiah's secretary, and son of Ahikam, who had been sent to inquire of the prophetess Huldah concerning the newly found book of the law. On a former occasion the hand of Ahikam had rescued Jeremiah from the nobles. Evidently the whole family was bound by the strongest, tenderest ties to the servant of God, imbued with the spirit, and governed by the policy which he enunciated.

These principles Gedaliah had consistently followed; and they marked him out, in the judgment of Nebuchadnezzar, as the fittest to be entrusted with the reins of government, and to exert some kind of authority over the scattered remnant. To him, therefore, Jeremiah came, with an allowance of victuals and other marks of the esteem in which the conquerors regarded him.

For a brief interval all went well. The new governor took up his residence at Mizpah, an old fort which Asa had erected three hundred years before, to check the invasion of Baasha. The town stood on a rocky eminence; but the castle was supplied with water from a deep well. Chaldean soldiers gave the show of authority and stability to Gedaliah's rule. To Mizpah the scattered remnant of the Jews began to look with hope. The captains of the forces which were in the fields still holding out, as roving bands, against the conqueror, hastened to swear allegiance to the representative of the Jewish state, and the Jews who had fled to Moab, Edom, and other surrounding peoples, returned out of all places whither they had been driven, and they came to the land of Judah to Gedaliah unto Mizpah.

How glad must Jeremiah have been to see this nucleus of order spreading its influence through the surrounding chaos and confusion; and with what eagerness he must have used all the energy he possessed to aid in the establishment of Gedaliah's authority! The fair dream, however, was rudely dissipated by the treacherous murder of Gedaliah—who seems to have been eminently fitted for his post—by Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah. In the midst of a feast given by the unsuspecting governor, he was slain with the sword, together with all the Jews that were with him and the Chaldean garrison. On the second day after, the red-handed murderers, still thirsting for blood, slew seventy pilgrims who were on their way to weep amid the ruins of Jerusalem, and lay offerings on the site of the ruined altar. The deep well of the keep was choked with bodies, and shortly afterwards Ishmael carried off the king's daughters and all the people that had gathered around Gedaliah, and started with them for the court of Baalis, the king of the children of Ammon, who was an accomplice in the plot.

It was a bitter disappointment; and to none would the grief of it have been more poignant than to Jeremiah, who in the demolition of this last attempt to effect the peaceable settlement of his country, saw the irreconcilable antagonism of his people against the reign of the king of Babylon. This he knew must last for at least seventy years.

The people themselves appear to have lost heart: for though Johanan and other of the captains of roving bands pursued Ishmael and delivered from his hand all the captives he had taken, and recovered the women and the children, yet none of them dared to return to Mizpah; but like shepherdless sheep, harried by dogs, driven, draggled, panting, and terrified, they resolved to quit their land, and retire southwards, with the intention of fleeing into the land of Egypt, with which during the later days of their national history they had maintained close relations.

They carried Jeremiah with them. They had confidence in his prayers and in his veracity, since his predictions had been verified so often by the event. They knew he stood high in the favour of the court of Babylon. They believed that his prayers prevailed with God. And, therefore, they regarded him as a shield and defence; a noble representative of the highest hopes and traditions of their people; one in whom the statesman, sage, and prophet, mingled in equal proportion.

Halting at the caravanserai of Chimham, whose name recalls David's flight from and return to Jerusalem, the spot where travellers left the frontiers of Palestine for Egypt, the people earnestly debated whether they should go forward or return. They came also to Jeremiah, and asked him to give himself to prayer, that the Lord his God should show them the way wherein they should walk, and the thing they should do. They professed their willingness to be guided entirely by the voice of God, though in this they were probably not sincere. They dealt deceitfully against their own souls by appearing to desire only God's ways; whilst, in point of fact, they were determined to enter into Egypt.

For ten days Jeremiah gave himself to prayer. Then the word of the Lord came unto him, and he summoned the people around him to declare it. Speaking in the name of the Most High, he said: "If ye will still abide in this land, there will He build you, and not pull you down; He will plant you, and not pluck you up. Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, for He is with you to save you, and to deliver you out of his hand." If, on the other hand, they persisted in going into the land of Egypt, in the hope that they would see no more war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread, then they would be overtaken there by the sword, the famine, and the pestilence; they would be an execration, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach; and they should never again see their native land. As he spoke he seems to have been sadly aware that during the ten days devoted to intercession on their behalf the prepossession in favour of Egypt had been growing, and that his words would not avail to stay the strong current which was bearing them thither.

So it befell. When he had made an end of speaking all the words wherewith the Lord had sent him to them, the chiefs accused him of speaking falsely, and of misrepresenting the Divine word. Not willing to accuse him flatly of treachery, they suggested that Baruch, who was still accompanying him as his faithful friend, had incited him to urge the return to Canaan with the view of betraying them into the hand of the Chaldeans for death or exile. So the terrified people pursued their way to Egypt, and settled at Tahpanhes, which was ten miles across the frontier.

Almost the last ingredient of bitterness in Jeremiah's cup must have been furnished by this pertinacious obstinacy, which would not be controlled by his word, which resisted his entreaties, and suggested that his advice was tinctured by treachery in their best interests. How terrible that they should malign and misunderstand the man who had spent forty years of consistent public ministry in efforts to save them from the effects of evil counsel, and to recall them to a simple and absolute faith in the God of their fathers!

III. EGYPT.—His life of protest was not yet complete. No sooner had the people settled in their new home than he was led to take great stones in his hand and lay them beneath the mortar in some brickwork which was being laid down at the entry of Pharaoh's palace in Tahpanhes. "On these stones," he said, "the king of Babylon shall set his throne, and spread out his royal pavilion upon them. He shall smite the land of Egypt, and kindle a fire in the houses of its gods, and array himself in her spoils, as easily as a shepherd throws his outer garment around his shoulders. The obelisks of Heliopolis will be also burnt with fire. To have come here, therefore, is not to escape the dreaded foe, but to throw yourselves into his arms."

Some years must have followed of which we have no record, and during which the great king was engaged in the siege of Tyre, and therefore unable to pursue his plans against Pharaoh. During this time the Jews scattered over a wide extent of territory, so that colonies were formed in Upper as well as Lower Egypt, all of which became deeply infected with the prevailing idolatries and customs around them. Notwithstanding all the bitter experiences which had befallen them in consequence of their idol-worship, they burnt incense unto the gods of Egypt, and repeated the abominations which had brought such disaster and suffering upon their nation.

Taking advantage, therefore, of a great convocation at some idolatrous festival, Jeremiah warned them of the inevitable fate which must overtake them in Egypt, as it had befallen them in Jerusalem. "Behold," said the faithful prophet, "God will punish you who dwell in the land of Egypt as He punished Jerusalem, by sword, by famine, and by pestilence; so that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape, or remain, or return to the land of Judah to dwell there."

A severe altercation then ensued. The men indignantly protested that they would still burn incense unto the queen of heaven as they had done in the streets of Jerusalem; and they even ascribed the evils that had befallen them to their discontinuance of this custom. Jeremiah, on the other hand, gray with age, his face marred with suffering, an old man now, did not hesitate to insist, in the name of the God he served so faithfully, that the sufferings of the people were due, not to their discontinuance of idolatry, but to their persistence in its unholy rites. "Because ye have burned incense and sinned against the Lord, and have not walked in his law, his statutes or his testimonies, therefore is this evil happened unto you, as it is this day." He went on to predict the invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, which took place in the year B 100:568, and which resulted, as Josephus tells us, in the carrying off to Babylon of the remnant of Jews who had, against Jeremiah's advice, fled there for refuge. So it was proved whose word should stand, God's or theirs.

Through all these dark and painful experiences, the soul of Jeremiah quieted itself as a weaned babe. When he said his strength was perished, still his expectation was from the Lord. When his soul remembered its wormwood and gall, he recalled to mind the covenant, ordered in all things, and sure; therefore he had hope. The Lord was his portion, and he hoped and quietly waited for the salvation of God. He knew that God would not cast off for ever; but though He caused grief, yet He would have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. He knew that his Redeemer lived, who would arise for his cause, and render a recompense to his foes. He looked far away beyond the mist of years, and saw the expiry of the sentence of captivity; the return of his people; the rebuilding of the city; the holy and blessed condition of its inhabitants; the glorious reign of the Branch, the scion of David's stock; the new covenant, before which the old should vanish away. Probably, therefore, his days were not all dark; but aglow with the first rays of the Sun of Righteousness, smiting the Alpine peaks of his holy and loyal spirit. The Comforter must have come to him. God, who comforteth those that are cast down, must have spoken words of balm and tender peace. Never yet in the history of the world has He permitted his servants to sink in unrelieved and hopeless midnight. Unto the upright there always arises light in the darkness. The gloomiest hours that ever brooded over the Son of Man broke up with the cry. "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

If these words should be read by some whose life, like Jeremiah's, has been draped with curtains of sombre hue, shutting out the glad light of day, who have trodden the path of sorrow and the valley of shadow, let them know that nothing brings men into such intimate relationship with the Spirit of God, and that to none does the Infinite One stoop so closely as to those that are sore broken on the wheel of affliction. It is only when we fall into the ground and die that we cease to abide alone, and begin to bear much fruit. Do not try to feel resigned. Will resignation. Submit yourself under the mighty hand of God. If you can say nothing else, fill your nights and days with the cry or sob of "Father, not my will, but thine be done." Never doubt the love of God. Never suppose for a moment that He has forgotten or forsaken. Never yield to the suggestion of the adversary that the harvests which you are to garner could have been procured at any less cost. As for God, his way is perfect, and He makes our way perfect.

Scripture says nothing about the death of Jeremiah. Whether it took place, as Christian tradition affirms, by stoning in Egypt, or whether he breathed out his soul beneath the faithful tendance of Baruch, in some quiet chamber of death, we cannot tell. The Bible makes comparatively little of death-scenes, that it may throw into greater prominence the prolonged narrative of the One Death, which has abolished death. God's chief interest is focussed on the life and work of his servants. What they did, said, and suffered, is more to Him than how they surrendered their lives at his bidding. Indeed, to know how a man has lived is to make us largely indifferent of information regarding his last hours. The sculptured column projects its shaft in perfect symmetry upward from the earth, though we may not be able to follow it, because the mass of waving verdure veils it from our gaze. But we know it is beautiful, and in perfect harmony with all we behold.

But how gladly did the prophet close his eyes upon the wreck that sin had wrought on the chosen people, and open them on the land where neither sin, nor death, nor the sight and sound of war break the perfect rest! What a look of surprise and rapture must have settled upon the worn face, the expression of the last glad vision of the soul as it passed out from the body of corruption, worn and weary with the long conflict, to hear the "Well done!" and welcome of God. His memory was cherished with exceptional reverence. It seemed to the restored people as if his tender spirit were watching over their interests. The struggles of Judas Maccabeus were cheered by the thought that he had come to succour him. It was believed that he continued in heaven the intercessions for which he had been so famous on earth; and, in the days that preceded the second siege of Jerusalem, it was supposed that he had reappeared in the person of the Son of Man.

END

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