In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah. Jeremiah 26 Afflictions, distresses, tumults F. B. Meyer, B. A. Jehoiakim was, perhaps, the most despicable of the kings of Judah. Josephus says that he was unjust in disposition, an evil-doer; neither pious towards God nor just towards men. Something of this may have been due to the influence of his wife, Nehushta, whose father, Elnathan, was an accomplice in the royal murder of Urijah. Jeremiah appears to have been constantly in conflict with this king; and probably the earliest manifestation of the antagonism that could not but subsist between two such men occurred in connection with the building of Jehoiakim's palace. Though his kingdom was greatly impoverished with the heavy fine of between forty and fifty thousand pounds, imposed by Pharaoh-Necho afar the defeat and death of Josiah, and though the times were dark with portents of approaching disaster, yet he began to rear a splendid palace for himself, with spacious chambers and large windows, floors of cedar, and decorations of vermilion. Clearly, such a monarch must have entertained a mortal hatred towards the man who dared to raise his voice in denunciation of his crimes; and, like Herod with John the Baptist, he would not have scrupled to quench in blood the light that cast such strong condemnation upon his oppressive and cruel actions. An example of this had been recently afforded in the death of Urijah, who had uttered solemn words against Jerusalem and its inhabitants in the same way that Jeremiah had done. But it would appear that this time, at least, his safety was secured by the interposition of influential friends amongst the aristocracy, one of whom was Ahikam, the son of Shaphan ( Jeremiah 26:20-24 ). I. THE DIVINE COMMISSION. Beneath the Divine impulse, Jeremiah went up to the court of the Lord's house, and took his place on some great occasion when all the cities of Judah had poured their populations to worship there. Not one word was to be kept back. We are all more or less conscious of these inward impulses; and it often becomes a matter of considerable difficulty to distinguish whether they originate in the energy of our own nature or are the genuine outcome of the Spirit of Christ. It is only in the latter ease that such service can be fruitful. There is no greater enemy of the highest usefulness than the presence of the flesh in our activities. There is no department of life or service into which its subtle, deadly influence does not penetrate. We meet it after we have entered upon the new life, striving against the Spirit, and restraining His gracious energy. We are most baffled when we find it prompting to holy resolutions and efforts after a consecrated life. And lastly, it confronts us in Christian work, because there is so much of it that in our quiet moments we are bound to trace to a desire for notoriety, to a passion to excel, and to the restlessness of a nature which evades questions in the deeper life, by flinging itself into every avenue through which it may exert its activities. There is only one solution to these difficulties. By the way of the cross and the grave we can alone become disentangled and discharged from the insidious domination of this evil principle, which is accursed by God, and hurtful to holy living, as blight to the tender fruit. II. THE MESSAGE AND ITS RECEPTION. On the one side, by his lips, God entreated His people to repent and turn from their evil ways; on the other, He bade them know that their obduracy would compel Him to make their great national shrine as complete a desolation as the site of Shiloh, which for five hundred years had been in ruins. It is impossible to realise the intensity of passion which such words evoked. They seemed to insinuate that Jehovah could not defend His own, or that their religion had become so heartless that He would not. "So it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made, an end of speaking all that the Lord commanded him to speak unto all the people," that he found himself suddenly in the vortex of a whirlpool of popular excitement. There is little doubt that Jeremiah would have met his death had it not been for the prompt interposition of the princes. Such is always the reception given on the part of man to the words of God. We may gravely question how far our words are God's, when people accept them quietly and as a matter of course. That which men approve and applaud may lack the King's seal, and be the substitution on the part of the messenger of tidings which he deems more palatable, and therefore more likely to secure for himself a larger welcome. III. WELCOME INTERPOSITION. The princes were seated in the palace, and instantly on receiving tidings of the outbreak came up to the temple. Their presence stilled the excitement, and prevented the infuriated people from carrying out their designs upon the life of the defenceless prophet. They hastily constituted themselves into a court of appeal, before which prophet and people were summoned. Then Jeremiah stood on his defence. His plea was that he could not but utter the words with which the Lord had sent him, and that he was only re-affirming the predictions of Micah in the darts of Hezekiah. He acknowledged that he was in their hands, but he warned them that innocent blood would bring its own Nemesis upon them all; and at the close of his address he re-affirmed his certain embassage from Jehovah. This bold and ingenuous defence seems to have turned the scale in hie favour. The princes gave their verdict: "This man is not worthy of death, for he hath spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God." And the fickle populace, swept hither and thither by the wind, appear to have passed over en masse to the same conclusion; so that princes and people stood confederate against the false prophets and priests. Thus does God hide His faithful servants in the hollow of His hand. No weapon that is formed against them prospers. They are hidden in the secret of His pavilion from the strife of tongues. ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ) When Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the Lord had commanded him, the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die. Jeremiah 26:8-16 The characteristics of a true prophet J. Cunningham Geikie, D. D. I. THE TRUE PROPHET HAS A STERN MESSAGE TO DELIVER (4-7). If they ally themselves with Egypt, the Temple will be made desolate, as Shiloh had been destroyed by the Assyrians at the deportation of Israel after the fall of Samaria, Jerusalem will become a curse to all nations (will be recognised by all nations as having fallen by the curse of God). To prophesy smooth things in a sinful world is to be false to God. How often does even our blessed Lord denounce sin, and remind men of the wrath of God for it! ( Matthew 11:21-24 ; Matthew 12:41, 42 ; Matthew 23:31-38 , &c.) II. THE TRUE PROPHET MAY NOT "DIMINISH A WORD" OF GOD'S MESSAGE, HOWEVER UNPOPULAR, OR UNPLEASANT, OR PERSONAL. 1. This message referred to the public policy of the nation. The morality of a nation as imperative as that of an individual 2. Other messages assail the sins of classes, from the king to the humblest citizen. III. THE TRUE PROPHET WILL SPEAK FEARLESSLY. IV. THE TRUE PROPHET IS PROMISED THE SUPPORT OF GOD. V. THE TRUE PROPHET NEVER WAS AND NEVER CAN BE POPULAR, BUT MUST RAISE UP ENEMIES AGAINST HIMSELF. IV. THE TRUE PROPHET WILL SPEAK PEACE AS WELL AS WRATH IF MEN REPENT. ( J. Cunningham Geikie, D. D. ) Prophetic virtues John Trapp. "The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house." In this apology of the prophet thus answering for himself with a heroic spirit, five noble virtues, fit for a martyr, are by an expositor observed. 1. His prudence in alleging his Divine mission. 2. His charity in exhorting his enemies to repent. 3. His humility in saying, "Behold I am in your hand." 4. His magnanimity and freedom of speech in telling them that God would revenge his death. 5. His spiritual security and fearlessness of death in so good a cause and with so good a conscience. ( John Trapp. ) A Saint's resignation, meekness, and cheerfulness in persecution Dean Farrar. One thousand eight hundred years ago an aged saint was being led into Rome by ten rough Roman soldiers, to be thrown to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre. Can you imagine anything more dreary and deplorable? Was he unhappy? Did he count cruelty and martyrdom as evil? No. In one of the seven letters that he wrote on his way, he says: "Come fire and iron, come rattling of wild beasts, cutting and mangling and wrenching of my bones, come hacking of my limbs, come crushing of my whole body, come cruel tortures of the devil to assail me! Only be it mine to attain to Jesus Christ! What are those words of St. Ignatius but an echo of the apostle's, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss that I may win Christ"? How well the early Christians understood these things by which we opportunists, cringing cowards, effeminate time-servers, as most of us are in this soft. sensuous, hypocritical age, have so utterly forgotten! ( Dean Farrar. ).

Benson Commentary Jeremiah 26:1 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah came this word from the LORD, saying, Jeremiah 26:1 . In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, &c. — The preceding chapter is dated in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, but ascribed, with probability, to the early part of that year. This chapter is dated in the beginning of the same reign. Hence it has been concluded, that this must have preceded the former in order of time. “But the conclusion,” says Blaney, “will not hold, if we consider that, ( Jeremiah 28:1 ,) the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign is expressly declared to mean the fourth year and the fifth month of it. The same therefore may be the case here,” and this chapter may be allowed to speak of events subsequent to those of the foregoing one, though taking place immediately after them. Jeremiah 26:2 Thus saith the LORD; Stand in the court of the LORD'S house, and speak unto all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the LORD'S house, all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word: Jeremiah 26:2-3 . Stand in the court of the Lord’s house — The great court where both men and women ordinarily worshipped, says Dr. Lightfoot, when they brought no sacrifice; for when they did so, they were to bring it into the inner court, otherwise called the court of Israel, or of the priests, as the same learned author has observed in his treatise concerning the temple service. And speak unto all the cities of Judah — Here it is evident that ??? , cities, are put for their inhabitants; and we may conjecture from hence, that this transaction passed at one of the great festivals, when the people of Judah were assembled, out of all their cities, to worship at Jerusalem. All the words that I command thee — Not in the least varying from them, either to please men or to save thyself harmless. Diminish not a word — Either out of fear, favour, or flattery: declare not only the truth, but the whole truth, and give them faithful warning. Thus must all God’s ambassadors keep close to their instructions, and neither add to, nor diminish from, the word of the truth of the gospel, but must faithfully make known the whole counsel of God. If so be they will hearken and turn, &c. — Not that God was ignorant of their obstinacy, or did not foreknow that they would harden their hearts, and remain impenitent; yet it was for the glory of his justice, mercy, and holiness, to afford them both time for, and the means of, repentance. And he did give them time, for it was at least six years after this before the captivity of Jehoiakim, and seventeen before that of Zedekiah took place; and as for means, God favoured them not only with such as were ordinary, but such as were extraordinary, namely, with the ministry of this prophet. Jeremiah 26:3 If so be they will hearken, and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings. Jeremiah 26:4 And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD; If ye will not hearken to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you, Jeremiah 26:5 To hearken to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I sent unto you, both rising up early, and sending them , but ye have not hearkened; Jeremiah 26:6 Then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth. Jeremiah 26:7 So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD. Jeremiah 26:7 . So the priests and the prophets — Namely, the false prophets; they who pretended to be prophets, though they had received no divine commission. And all the people — Who were present at that time; heard Jeremiah, &c., in the house of the Lord — That is, “In the court before the Lord’s house. The outer courts, being holy ground, and dedicated to God’s worship, are called by the name of the temple. So the treasury, where Christ preached, is called the temple, ( John 8:20 ,) though it stood in the outer court of it. And St. Paul is said to have entered into the temple, Acts 21:26 , &c. that is, into the court of the temple, and the Jews to have laid hold on him there.” — Lowth. Jeremiah 26:8 Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die. Jeremiah 26:8-10 . The priests and prophets took him, &c. — As a disturber of the government, and a discourager of the people from defending their country against the enemy, in prophesying that the temple and city of Jerusalem should become a desolation. When the princes of Judah heard these things — That is, the king’s counsellors, or chief officers of the state, who were also members of the great court of the sanhedrim, first instituted Numbers 11:16 , and revived by Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles 19:8 . They came and sat in the entry of the gate, &c. — This was built by Jotham, as we read 2 Kings 13:35. The intelligent reader will observe a great similarity between the conduct of these priests and false prophets toward Jeremiah, and that of the priests, the scribes, and Pharisees toward Jesus Christ, of whom Jeremiah was a type: see particularly Mark 14:58 ; Matthew 26:61 . Jeremiah 26:9 Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant? And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD. Jeremiah 26:10 When the princes of Judah heard these things, then they came up from the king's house unto the house of the LORD, and sat down in the entry of the new gate of the LORD'S house . Jeremiah 26:11 Then spake the priests and the prophets unto the princes and to all the people, saying, This man is worthy to die; for he hath prophesied against this city, as ye have heard with your ears. Jeremiah 26:12 Then spake Jeremiah unto all the princes and to all the people, saying, The LORD sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that ye have heard. Jeremiah 26:13 Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you. Jeremiah 26:13-16 . Amend your ways, and the Lord will repent, &c. — It appears here again that God’s determination to give up Jerusalem to destruction was conditional: see note on Jeremiah 18:7-10 . If the people had repented of their sins, and reformed their conduct, their ruin would have been prevented, and they would have enjoyed a continuance of peace and prosperity. As for me, behold I am in your hand — I have neither any power, nor can make any interest to oppose you; do with me as seemeth good in your sight — I am content even to lose my life, if God be pleased to permit you to take it. But know ye for certain, &c. — Be fully assured; if you put me to death — Who, as you well know, am not guilty of any crime; ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, &c. — You may think that by killing the prophet you will defeat the accomplishment of the prophecy, but you will find yourselves wretchedly deceived: such an act will at once greatly add to your guilt, and aggravate your ruin. Their own consciences could not but tell them that if Jeremiah was (as certainly he was) sent of God to bring them this message, it was at their utmost peril if they treated him for it as a malefactor. For of a truth the Lord hath sent me unto you, &c. — Such is Jeremiah’s justification of himself. He reduces all to this, that God had sent him; and his adversaries were able to make no reply. “If God hath sent me, you can have nothing to say against me.” It is upon this that he is declared innocent in the following verse, This man is not worthy to die — Which was the sentence pronounced by the princes and all the people: for the people, who before were forward to condemn him, now, upon hearing his apology, were as forward to acquit him. Jeremiah 26:14 As for me, behold, I am in your hand: do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you. Jeremiah 26:15 But know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the inhabitants thereof: for of a truth the LORD hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears. Jeremiah 26:16 Then said the princes and all the people unto the priests and to the prophets; This man is not worthy to die: for he hath spoken to us in the name of the LORD our God. Jeremiah 26:17 Then rose up certain of the elders of the land, and spake to all the assembly of the people, saying, Jeremiah 26:17-19 . Then rose up certain of the elders — Either the princes before mentioned, or the more intelligent men of the people, stood up, and put the assembly in mind of a former case, as is usual with us in giving judgment, the wisdom of our predecessors being a direction to us. The case referred to is that of Micah, the book of whose prophecies we have among those of the minor prophets. Was it thought strange that Jeremiah prophesied against this city and the temple? Micah did so before him, even in the reign of Hezekiah, that reign of reformation, Jeremiah 26:18 . Micah said as publicly, as Jeremiah had now spoken to the same purpose, Zion shall be ploughed like a field — The buildings shall be all destroyed, so that nothing shall hinder but it may be ploughed; Jerusalem shall become heaps — Of ruins; and the mountain of the house — On which the temple is built; shall be as the high places of the forest — Overrun with briers and thorns. This Micah not only spoke, but wrote, and left it upon record, Micah 3:12 . Now did Hezekiah and all Judah put him to death? — Did the people come together in a body to accuse Micah, and demand sentence against him, as they had now done in the case of Jeremiah? Did they and their king make an act to silence him, or take away his life? No: on the contrary, they took the warning he gave them. Hezekiah, that renowned prince, set a good example before his successors; for he feared the Lord, as Noah, who, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, was moved with fear. He besought the Lord — To turn away the judgment threatened, and to be reconciled to them; and he found it was not in vain to do so; for the Lord repented him of the evil — Returned in mercy to them, and even sent an angel, who routed the army of the Assyrians that then threatened to destroy Jerusalem. These elders conclude, that it would be of dangerous consequence to the state if they should gratify the importunity of the priests and prophets in putting Jeremiah to death; saying, Thus we might procure great evil against our souls — Observe, reader, it is well to deter ourselves from sin, with the consideration of the mischief we should certainly do to ourselves by it, and the irreparable damage we should thereby bring upon our own souls. Jeremiah 26:18 Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest. Jeremiah 26:19 Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? did he not fear the LORD, and besought the LORD, and the LORD repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them? Thus might we procure great evil against our souls. Jeremiah 26:20 And there was also a man that prophesied in the name of the LORD, Urijah the son of Shemaiah of Kirjathjearim, who prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah: Jeremiah 26:20-23 . And there was also a man — There are three different opinions respecting the following passage. The first ascribes it to an opposite party, who, by a contrary precedent to the foregoing, urged the condemnation of Jeremiah, a precedent in which the speaking such words as he had spoken was adjudged treason. But against this view of the passage it is objected that such a transition of the speakers would have had some mark of distinction prefixed. Others suppose that this instance was alleged by the same persons that adduced the former, and with an intent to mark the different consequences that had ensued, and to caution the people and government against taking another step of a similar kind, and thereby adding sin to sin. As if he had said, Hezekiah, who had protected Micah, prospered; but did Jehoiakim, who slew Urijah, prosper? No: they all saw the contrary: one prophet had been slain already, let them not fill up the measure of national iniquity by slaying another. But Blaney thinks the least exceptionable opinion is, “that the elders concluded their speeches Jeremiah 26:19 , and that the writer of the narrative goes on here to observe, in his own person, that notwithstanding the precedent of Micah, there had been a later precedent in the present reign, which might have operated very unfavourably to the cause of Jeremiah, but for the influence and authority of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, which was exerted to save him.” Who prophesied against this city, &c., according to all the words of Jeremiah — The prophets of the Lord agreed in their testimony, and one would have supposed that this circumstance should have caused their word to be regarded. And the king sought to put him to death — Being, with his courtiers, greatly exasperated against him on account of the faithful testimony which he bore, and the true predictions of approaching judgments which God commissioned him to utter. But when Urijah heard it, he was afraid, and fled — In this, it seems, he was faulty, and that through the weakness of his faith: he was too much under the power of that fear of man which brings a snare, and did not sufficiently confide in the power of God to protect him in the faithful execution of his office. And Jehoiakim sent men into Egypt, &c. — One would have thought Jehoiakim’s malice might have been satisfied with driving him out of the country; but they are blood-thirsty that hate the upright, Proverbs 29:10 . It was the life, the precious life, that Jehoiakim hunted after, and nothing less would satisfy him. So implacable is his revenge, that he sends a party of soldiers into Egypt, (there being a strict alliance between him and Pharaoh-nechoh,) some hundreds of miles, and they bring him back by force of arms unto Jehoiakim, who slew him with the sword — Some think, even with his own hands, but this appears improbable. Neither did even this satisfy the king’s insatiable malice, but he loads the body of the good man with infamy, would not allow it the decent respects usually and justly paid to the remains of persons of distinction, but cast it into the graves of the common people — As if he had not been a prophet of the Lord. Thus Jehoiakim hoped both to ruin Urijah’s reputation with the people, that no heed might be given to his predictions, and to deter others from prophesying in like manner: but in vain. Jeremiah bears the same testimony. There is no contending with the word of God. Herod thought he had gained his point when he had cut off John the Baptist’s head, but found himself deceived when, soon after, he heard of Jesus Christ, and said in a fright, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead. Jeremiah 26:21 And when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death: but when Urijah heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into Egypt; Jeremiah 26:22 And Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, namely , Elnathan the son of Achbor, and certain men with him into Egypt. Jeremiah 26:23 And they fetched forth Urijah out of Egypt, and brought him unto Jehoiakim the king; who slew him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people. Jeremiah 26:24 Nevertheless the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death. Jeremiah 26:24 . Nevertheless, the hand of Ahikam, &c., was with Jeremiah — Both he and his father Shaphan were chief ministers under Josiah, 2 Kings 22:12-14 . And the brothers of Ahikam, Gemariah, Elasah, and Jaazaniah were considerable men in those days, with Ahikam, and members of the great council; Jeremiah 29:3 ; Ezekiel 8:11 . So Ahikam made use of his interest with them to deliver Jeremiah from the danger that threatened him. Thus God wonderfully preserved Jeremiah, though he did not flee as Urijah did, but stood his ground. Ordinary ministers may use ordinary means, provided they be lawful ones, for their preservation; but they that have an extraordinary mission may expect an extraordinary protection. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Jeremiah 26:1 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah came this word from the LORD, saying, Jeremiah 8:1-22 ; Jeremiah 9:1-26 ; Jeremiah 10:1-25 ; Jeremiah 26:1-24 In the four chapters which we are now to consider we have what is plainly a finished whole. The only possible exception { Jeremiah 10:1-16 } shall be considered in its place. The historical occasion of the introductory prophecy, { Jeremiah 7:1-15 } and the immediate effect of its delivery, are recorded at length in the twenty-sixth chapter of the book, so that in this instance we are happily not left to the uncertainties of conjecture. We are there told that it was in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah," that Jeremiah received the command to stand in the forecourt of Iahvah’s house, and to declare "to all the cities of Judah that were come to worship" there, that unless they repented and gave ear to Iahvah’s servants the prophets, He would make the temple like Shiloh, and Jerusalem itself a curse to all the nations of the earth. The substance of the oracle is there given in briefer form than here, as was natural, where the writer’s object was principally to relate the issue of it as it affected himself. In neither case is it probable that we have a verbatim report of what was actually said, though the leading thoughts of his address are, no doubt, faithfully recorded by the prophet in the more elaborate composition. { Jeremiah 7:1-34 } Trifling variations between the two accounts must not, therefore, be pressed. Internal evidence suggests that this oracle was delivered at a time of grave public anxiety, such as marked the troubled period after the death of Josiah, and the early years of Jehoiakim. "All Judah," or "all the cities of Judah," { Jeremiah 26:2 } that is to say, the people of the country towns as well as the citizens of Jerusalem, were crowding into the temple to supplicate their God. { Jeremiah 7:2 } This indicates an extraordinary occasion, a national emergency affecting all alike. Probably a public fast and humiliation had been ordered by the authorities, on the reception of some threatening news of invasion. "The opening paragraphs of the address are marked by a tone of controlled earnestness, by an unadorned plainness of statement, without passion, without exclamation, apostrophe, or rhetorical device of any kind; which betokens the presence of a danger which spoke too audibly to the general ear to require artificial heightening in the statement of it. The position of affairs spoke for itself" (Hitzig). The very words with which the prophet opens his message, "Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth, the God of Israel, Make good your ways and your doings, that I may cause you to dwell (permanently) in this place!" ( Jeremiah 7:3 , cf. Jeremiah 7:7 ) prove that the anxiety which agitated the popular heart and drove it to seek consolation in religious observances, was an anxiety about their political stability, about the permanence of their possession of the fair land of promise. The use of the expression " Iahvah Sabaoth " Iahvah (the God) of Hosts is also significant, as indicating that war was what the nation feared; while the prophet reminds them thus that all earthly powers, even the armies of heathen invaders, are controlled and directed by the God of Israel for His own sovereign purposes. A particular crisis is further suggested by the warning: "Trust ye not to the lying words, ‘The Temple of Iahvah, the Temple of Iahvah, the Temple of Iahvah, is this!"’ The fanatical confidence in the inviolability of the temple, which Jeremiah thus deprecates, implies a time of public danger. A hundred years before this time the temple and the city had really come through a period of the gravest peril, justifying in the most palpable and unexpected manner the assurances of the prophet Isaiah. This was remembered now, when another crisis seemed imminent, another trial of strength between the God of Israel and the gods of the heathen. Only part of the prophetic teachings of Isaiah had rooted itself in the popular mind-the part most agreeable to it. The sacrosanct inviolability of the temple, and of Jerusalem for its sake, was an idea readily appropriated and eagerly cherished. It was forgotten that all depended on the will and purposes of Iahvah himself; that the heathen might be the instruments with which He executed His designs, and that an invasion of Judah might mean, not an approaching trial of strength between His omnipotence and the impotency of the false gods, but the judicial outpouring of His righteous wrath upon His own rebellious people. Jeremiah, therefore, affirms that the popular confidence is ill-founded; that his countrymen are lulled in a false security; and he enforces his point, by a plain exposure of the flagrant offences which render their worship a mockery of God. Again, it may be supposed that the startling word, "Add your burnt offerings to your" (ordinary) "offerings, and eat the flesh (of them,)"{ Jeremiah 7:21 } implies a time of unusual activity in the matter of honouring the God of Israel with the more costly offerings of which the worshippers did not partake, but which were wholly consumed on the altar; which fact also might point to a season of special danger. And, lastly, the references to taking refuge behind the walls of "defenced cities," { Jeremiah 8:14 ; Jeremiah 10:17 } as we know that the Rechabites and doubtless most of the rural populace took refuge in Jerusalem on the approach of the third and last Chaldean expedition, seem to prove that the occasion of the prophecy was the first Chaldean invasion, which ended in the submission of Jehoiakim to the yoke of Babylon. { 2 Kings 24:1 } Already the northern frontier had experienced the destructive onslaught of the invaders, and rumour announced that they might soon be expected to arrive before the walls of Jerusalem. { Jeremiah 8:16-17 } The only other historical occasion which can be suggested with any plausibility is the Scythian invasion of Syria-Palestine, to which the previous discourse was assigned. This would fix the date of the prophecy at some point between the thirteenth and the eighteenth years of Josiah (B.C. 629-624). But the arguments for this view do not seem to be very strong in themselves, and they certainly do not explain the essential identity of the oracle summarised in Jeremiah 26:1-6 , with that of Jeremiah 7:1-15 . The "undisguised references to the prevalence of idolatry in Jerusalem itself ( Jeremiah 7:17 ; Jeremiah 7:30-31 ), and the unwillingness of the people to listen to the prophet’s teaching," { Jeremiah 7:27 } are quite as well accounted for by supposing a religious or rather an irreligious reaction under Jehoiakim-which is every way probable considering the bad character of that king, { 2 Kings 23:37 ; Jeremiah 22:13 sqq.} and the serious blow inflicted upon the reforming party by the death of Josiah; as by assuming that the prophecy belongs to the years before the extirpation of idolatry in the eighteenth year of the latter sovereign. And now let us take a rapid glance at the salient points of this remarkable utterance. The people are standing in the outer court, with their faces turned toward the court of the priests, in which stood the holy house itself. { Psalm 5:7 } The prophetic speaker stands facing them, "in the gate of the Lord’s house," the entry of the upper or inner court, the place whence Baruch was afterwards to read another of his oracles to the people. { Jeremiah 36:10 } Standing here, as it were between his audience and the throne of Iahvah, Jeremiah acts as visible mediator between them and their God. His message to the worshippers who throng the courts of Iahvah’s sanctuary is not one of approval. He does not congratulate them upon their manifest devotion, upon the munificence of their offerings, upon their ungrudging and unstinted readiness to meet an unceasing drain upon their means. His message is a surprise, a shock to their self-satisfaction, an alarm to their slumbering consciences, a menace of wrath and destruction upon them and their holy place. His very first word is calculated to startle their self-righteousness, their misplaced faith in the merit of their worship and service. "Amend your ways and your doings!" Where was the need of amendment? they might ask. Were they not at that moment engaged in a function most grateful to Iahvah? Were they not keeping the law of the sacrifices, and were not the Levitical priesthood ministering in their order, and receiving their due share of the offerings which poured into the temple day by day? Was not all this honour enough to satisfy the most exacting of deities? Perhaps it was, had the deity in question been merely as one of the gods of Canaan. So much lip service, so many sacrifices and festivals, so much joyous revelling in the sanctuary, might be supposed to have sufficiently appeased one of the common Baals, those half-womanish phantoms of deity whose delight was imagined to be in feasting and debauchery. Nay, so much zeal might have propitiated the savage heart of a Molech. But the God of Israel was not as these, nor one of these; though His ancient people were too apt to conceive thus of Him, and certain modern critics have unconsciously followed in their wake. Let us see what it was that called so loudly for amendment, and then we may become more fully aware of the gulf that divided the God of Israel from the idols of Canaan, and His service from all other service. It is important to keep this radical difference steadily before our minds, and to deepen the impression of it, in days when the effort is made by every means to confuse Iahvah with the gods of heathendom, and to rank the religion of Israel with the lower surrounding systems. Jeremiah accuses his countrymen of flagrant transgression of the universal laws of morality. Theft, murder, adultery, perjury, fraud, and covetousness, slander and lying and treachery, { Jeremiah 7:9 ; Jeremiah 9:3-8 } are charged upon these zealous worshippers by a man who lived amongst them, and knew them well, and could be contradicted at once if his charges were false. He tells them plainly that, in virtue of their frequenting it, the temple is become a den of robbers. And this trampling upon the common rights of man has its counterpart and its climax in treason against God, in "burning incense to the Baal, and walking after other gods whom they know not"; { Jeremiah 7:9 } in an open and shameless attempt to combine the worship of the God who had from the outset revealed Himself to their prophets as a "jealous," i.e., an exclusive God, with the worship of shadows who had not revealed themselves at all, and could not be "known," because devoid of all character and real existence. They thus ignored the ancient covenant which had constituted them a nation. { Jeremiah 7:23 } In the cities of Judah, in the streets of the very capital, the cultus of Ashtoreth, the Queen of Heaven, the voluptuous Canaanite goddess of love and dalliance, was busily practised by whole families together, in deadly provocation of the God of Israel. The first and great commandment said, Thou shalt love Iahvah thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. And they loved and served and followed and sought after and worshipped the sun and the moon and the host of heaven, the objects adored by the nation that was so soon to enslave them. { Jeremiah 8:2 } Not only did a worldly, covetous, and sensual priesthood connive in the restoration of the old superstitions which associated other gods with Iahvah, and set up idol symbols and altars within the precincts of His temple, as Manasseh had 2 Kings 21:4-5 ; they went further than this in their "syncretism," or rather in their perversity, their spiritual blindness, their wilful misconception of the God revealed to their fathers. They actually confounded Him-the Lord "who exercised lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, and delighted in" the exhibition of these qualities by His worshippers { Jeremiah 9:24 } -with the dark and cruel sun god of the Ammonites. They "rebuilt the high places of the Tophet, in the valley of ben Hinnom," on the north side of Jerusalem, "to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire"; if by means so revolting to natural affection they might win back the favour of heaven-means which Iahvah "commanded not, neither came they into His mind." { Jeremiah 7:31 } Such fearful and desperate expedients were doubtless first suggested by the false prophets and priests in the times of national adversity under king Manasseh. They harmonised only too well with the despair of a people who saw in a long succession of political disasters the token of Iahvah’s unforgiving wrath. That these dreadful rites were not a "survival" in Israel, seems to follow from the horror which they excited in the allied armies of the two kingdoms, when the king of Moab, in the extremity of the siege, offered his eldest son as a burnt offering on the wall of his capital before the eyes of the besiegers. So appalled were the Israelite forces by this spectacle of a father’s despair, that they at once raised the blockade, and retreated homeward. { 2 Kings 3:27 } It is probable, then, that the darker and bloodier aspects of heathen worship were of only recent appearance among the Hebrews, and that the rites of Molech had not been at all frequent or familiar, until the long and harassing conflict with Assyria broke the national spirit and inclined the people, in their trouble, to welcome the suggestion that costlier sacrifices were demanded, if Iahvah was to be propitiated and His wrath appeased. Such things were not done, apparently, in Jeremiah’s time; he mentions them as the crown of the nation’s past offences; as sins that still cried to heaven for vengeance, and would surely entail it, because the same spirit of idolatry which had culminated in these excesses, still lived and was active in the popular heart. It is the persistence in sins of the same character which involves our drinking to the dregs the cup of punishment for the guilty past. The dark catalogue of forgotten offences witnesses against us before the Unseen Judge, and is only obliterated by the tears of a true repentance, and by the new evidence of a change of heart and life. Then, as in some palimpsest, the new record covers and conceals the old; and it is only if we fatally relapse, that the erased writing of our misdeeds becomes visible again before the eye of Heaven. Perhaps also the prophet mentions these abominations because at the time he saw around him unequivocal tendencies to the renewal of them. Under the patronage or with the connivance of the wicked king Jehoiakim, the reactionary party may have begun to set up again the altars thrown down by Josiah, while their religious leaders advocated both by speech and writing a return to the abolished cultus. At all events, this supposition gives special point to the emphatic assertion of Jeremiah, that Iahvah had not commanded nor even thought of such hideous rites. The reference to the false labours of the scribes { Jeremiah 8:8 } lends colour to this view. It may be that some of the interpreters of the sacred law actually anticipated certain writers of our own day, in putting this terrible gloss upon the precept, "The firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto Me." { Exodus 22:29 } The people of Judah were misled, but they were willingly misled. When Jeremiah declares to them, "Lo, ye are trusting, for your part, upon the words of delusion, so that ye gain no good!" { Jeremiah 7:8 } it is perhaps not so much the smooth prophecies of the false prophets as the fatal attitude of the popular mind, out of which those misleading oracles grew, and which in turn they aggravated, that the speaker deprecates. He warns them that an absolute trust in the " praesentia Numinis " is delusive; a trust, cherished like theirs independently of the condition of its justification, viz., a walk pleasing to God. "What! will ye break all My laws, and then come and stand with polluted hands before Me in this house, { Isaiah 1:15 } which is named after Me ‘Iahvah’s House’, { Isaiah 4:1 } and reassure yourselves with the thought, We are absolved from the consequences of all these abominations?" ( Jeremiah 7:9-10 ). Lit. "We are saved, rescued, secured, with regard to having done all these abominations": cf. Jeremiah 2:35 . But perhaps, with Ewald, we should point the Hebrew term differently, and read, "Save us!" "to do all these abominations," as if that were the express object of their petition, which would really ensue, if their prayer were granted: a fine irony. For the form of the verb. {cf. Ezekiel 14:14 } They thought their formal devotions were more than enough to counterbalance any breaches of the decalogue; they laid that flattering unction to their souls. They could make it up with God for setting His moral law at naught. It was merely a question of compensation. They did not see that the moral law is as immutable as laws physical; and that the consequences of violating or keeping it are as inseparable from it as pain from a blow, or death from poison. They did not see that the moral law is simply the law of man’s health and wealth, and that the transgression of it is sorrow and suffering and death. "If men like you," argues the prophet, "dare to tread these courts, it must be because you believe it a proper thing to do. But that belief implies that you hold the temple to be something other than what it really is; that you see no incongruity in making the House of Iahvah a meeting place of murderers. {" spelunca latronum " Matthew 21:13 } That you have yourselves made it, in the full view of Iahvah, whose seeing does not rest there, but involves results such as the present crisis of public affairs; the national danger is proof that He has seen your heinous misdoings." For Iahvah’s seeing brings a vindication of right, and vengeance upon evil. { 2 Chronicles 24:22 ; Exodus 3:7 } He is the watchman that never slumbers nor sleeps; the eternal Judge, Who ever upholds the law of righteousness in the affairs of man, nor suffers the slightest infringement of that law to go unpunished. And this unceasing watchfulness, this perpetual dispensation of justice, is really a manifestation of Divine mercy; for the purpose of it is to save the human race from self-destruction, and to raise it ever higher in the scale of true well-being, which essentially consists in the knowledge of God and obedience to His laws. Jeremiah gives his audience further ground for conviction. He points to a striking instance in which conduct like theirs had involved results such as his warning holds before them. He establishes the probability of chastisement by a historical parallel. He offers them, so to speak, ocular demonstration of his doctrine. "I also, lo, I have seen, saith Iahvah!" Your eyes are fixed on the temple; so are Mine, but in a different way. You see a national palladium; I see a desecrated sanctuary, a shrine polluted and profaned. This distinction between God’s view and yours is certain: "for, go ye now to My place which was at Shiloh, where I caused My Name to abide at the outset" (of your settlement in Canaan); "and see the thing that I have done to it, because of the wickedness of My people Israel" (the northern kingdom). There is the proof that Iahvah seeth not as man seeth; there, in that dismantled ruin, in that historic sanctuary of the more powerful kingdom of Ephraim, once visited by thousands of worshippers like Jerusalem today, now deserted and desolate, a monument of Divine wrath. The reference is not to the tabernacle, the sacred Tent of the Wanderings, which was first set up at Nob { 1 Samuel 22:11 } and then removed to Gibeon, { 2 Chronicles 1:3 } but obviously to a building more or less like the temple, though less magnificent. The place and its sanctuary had doubtless been ruined in the great catastrophe, when the kingdom of Samaria fell before the power of Assyria (721 B.C.). In the following words ( Jeremiah 7:13-15 ) the example is applied. "And now"-stating the conclusion-"because of your having done all these deeds" ("saith Iahvah," LXX omits), "and because I spoke unto you" ("early and late," LXX omits), "and ye hearkened not, and I called you and ye answered not": { Proverbs 1:24 } "I will do unto the house upon which My Name is called, wherein ye are trusting, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers-as I did unto Shiloh." Some might think that if the city fell, the holy house would escape, as was thought by many like-minded fanatics when Jerusalem was beleaguered by the Roman armies seven centuries later: but Jeremiah declares that the blow will fall upon both alike; and to give greater force to his words, he makes the judgment begin at the house of God. (The Hebrew reader will note the dramatic effect of the disposition of the accents. The principal pause is placed upon the word "fathers," and the reader is to halt in momentary suspense upon that word, before he utters the awful three which close the verse: "as I-did to-Shiloh." The Massorets were masters of this kind of emphasis.) "And I will cast you away from My Presence, as I cast" ("all": LXX omits) "your kinsfolk, all the posterity of Ephraim." { 2 Kings 17:20 } Away from My Presence: far beyond the bounds of that holy land where I have revealed Myself to priests and prophets, and where My sanctuary stands; into a land where heathenism reigns, and the knowledge of God is not; into the dark places of the earth, that lie under the blighting shadow of superstition, and are enveloped in the moral midnight of idolatry. " Projiciam vos a facie mea ." The knowledge and love of God-heart and mind ruled by the sense of purity and tenderness and truth and right united in an Ineffable Person, and enthroned upon the summit of the universe-these are light and life for man; where these are, there is His Presence. They who are so endowed behold the face of God, in Whom is no darkness at all. Where these spiritual endowments are nonexistent; where mere power, or superhuman force, is the highest thought of God to which man has attained; where there is no clear sense of the essential holiness and love of the Divine Nature; there the world of man lies in darkness that may be felt; there bloody rites prevail; there harsh oppression and shameless vices reign: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. "And thou, pray thou not for this people," { Jeremiah 18:20 } "and lift not up for them outcry nor prayer, and urge not Me, for I hear thee not. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather sticks, and the fathers light the fire, and the women knead dough, to make sacred buns" { Jeremiah 44:19 } "for the Queen of Heaven, and to pour libations to other gods, in order to grieve." { Deuteronomy 32:16 ; Deuteronomy 32:21 } "Is it Me that they grieve? saith Iahvah; is it not themselves" (rather), "in regard to the shame of their own faces" ( Jeremiah 7:16-19 ). From one point of view, all human conduct may be said to be "indifferent" to God; He is self-sufficing, and needs not our praises, our love, our obedience, any more than He needed the temple ritual and the sacrifices of bulls and goats. Man can neither benefit nor injure God; he can only affect his own fortunes in this world and the next, by rebellion against the laws upon which his welfare depends, or by a careful observance of them. In this sense, it is true that wilful idolatry, that treason against God, does not "provoke" or "grieve" the Immutable One. Men do such things to their own sole hurt, to the shame of their own faces: that is, the punishment will be the painful realisation of the utter groundlessness of their confidence, of the folly of their false trust; the mortification of disillusion, when it is too late. That Jeremiah should have expressed himself thus is sufficient answer to those who pretend that the habitual anthropomorphism of the prophetic discourses is anything more than a mere accident of language and an accommodation to ordinary style. In another sense, of course, it is profoundly true to say that human sin provokes and grieves the Lord. God is Love; and love may be pained to its depths by the fault of the beloved, and stirred to holy indignation at the disclosure of utter unworthiness and ingratitude. Something corresponding to these emotions of man may be ascribed, with all reverence, to the Inscrutable Being who creates man "in His own image," that is, endowed with faculties capable of aspiring towards Him, and receiving the knowledge of His being and character. "Pray not thou for this people for I hear thee not!" Jeremiah was wont to intercede for his people. { Jeremiah 11:14 ; Jeremiah 18:20 ; Jeremiah 15:1 ; cf. 1 Samuel 12:23 } The deep pathos which marks his style, the minor key in which almost all his public utterances are pitched, proves that the fate which he saw impending over his country grieved him to the heart. "Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought"; and this is eminently true of Jeremiah. A profound melancholy had fallen like a cloud upon his soul; he had seen the future, fraught as it was with suffering and sorrow, despair and overthrow, slaughter and bitter servitude; a picture in which images of terror crowded one upon another, under a darkened sky, from which no ray of blessed hope shot forth, but only the lightnings of wrath and extermination. Doubtless his prayers were frequent, alive with feeling, urgent, imploring, full of the convulsive energy of expiring hope. But in the midst of his strong crying and tears, there arose from the depths of his consciousness the conviction that all was in vain. "Pray not thou for this people, for I will not hear thee." The thought stood before him, sharp and clear as a command; the unuttered sound of it rang in his ears, like the voice of a destroying angel, a messenger of doom, calm as despair, sure as fate. He knew it was the voice of God. In the history of nations as in the lives of individuals there are times when repentance, even if possible, would be too late to avert the evils which long periods of misdoing have called from the abyss to do their penal and retributive work. Once the dike is undermined, no power on earth can hold back the flood of waters from the defenceless lands beneath. And when a nation’s sins have penetrated and poisoned all social and political relations, and corrupted the very fountains of life, you cannot avert the flood of ruin that must come, to sweep away the tainted mass of spoiled humanity; you cannot avert the storm that must break to purify the air, and make it fit for men to breathe again. "Therefore"-because of the national unfaithfulness-"thus said the Lord Iahvah, Lo, Mine anger and My fury are being poured out toward this place-upon the men, and upon the cattle, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it will burn, and not be quenched!" { Jeremiah 7:20 } The havoc wrought by war, the harrying and slaying of man and beast, the felling of fruit trees and firing of the vineyards, are intended; but not so as to exclude the ravages of pestilence and droughts { Jeremiah 14:1-22 } and famine. All these evils are manifestations of the wrath of Iahvah., cattle and trees and "the fruit of the ground," i.e., of the cornlands and vineyards, are to share in the general destruction, {cf. Hosea 4:3 } not, of course, as partakers of man’s guilt, but only by way of aggravating his punishment. The final phrase is worthy of consideration, because of its bearing upon other passages. "It will burn and not be quenched," or "it will burn unquenchably." The meaning is not that the Divine wrath once kindled will go on burning forever; but that once kindled, no human or other power will be able to extinguish it, until it has accomplished its appointed work of destruction. "Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth, the God of Israel: Your holocausts add ye to your common sacrifices, and eat ye flesh!" that is, Eat flesh in abundance, eat your fill of it! Stint not yourselves by devoting any portion of your offerings wholly to Me. I am as indifferent to your "burnt offerings," your more costly and splendid gifts, as to the ordinary sacrifices, over which you feast and make merry with your friends. { 1 Samuel 1:4 ; 1 Samuel 1:13 } The holocausts which you are now burning on the altar before Me will not avail to alter My settled purpose. "For I spake not with your fathers, nor commanded them, in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, concerning matters of holocaust and sacrifice, but this matter commanded I them, ‘Hearken ye unto My voice, so become I God to you, and you-ye shall become to Me a people; and walk ye in all the way that I shall command you, that it may go well with you!"’ ( Jeremiah 7:22-23 ) cf. Deuteronomy 6:3 . Those who believe that the entire priestly legislation as we now have it in the Pentateuch is the work of Moses, may be content to find in this passage of Jeremiah no more than an extreme antithetical expression of the truth that to obey is better than sacrifice. There can be no question that from the outset of its history. Israel, in common with all the Semitic nations, gave outward expression to its religious ideas in the form of animal sacrifice. Moses cannot have originated the institution, he found it already in vogue, though he may have regulated the details of it. Even in the Pentateuch, the term "sacrifice" is nowhere explained; the general understanding of the meaning of it is taken for granted. {see Exodus 12:27 ; Exodus 23:18 } Religious customs are of immemorial use, and it is impossible in most cases to specify the period of their origin. But while it is certain that the institution of sacrifice was of extreme antiquity in Israel as in other ancient peoples, it is equally certain, from the plain evidence of their extant writings, that the prophets before the Exile attached no independent value either to it or to any other part of the ritual of the temple. We have already seen how Jeremiah could speak of the most venerable of all the symbols of the popular faith. { Jeremiah 3:16 } Now he affirms that the traditional rules for the burnt offerings and other sacrifices were not matters of special Divine institution, as was popularly supposed at the time. The reference to the Exodus may imply that already in his day there were written narratives which asserted the contrary; that the first care of the Divine Saviour after He had led His people through the sea was to provide them with an elaborate system of ritual and sacrifice, identical with that which prevailed in Jeremiah’s day. The important verse already quoted { Jeremiah 8:8 } seems to glance at such pious fictions of the popular religious teachers: "How say ye, We are wise, and the instruction" (A.V. "law") "of Iahvah is with us? But behold for lies hath it wrought-the lying pen of the scribes!" It is, indeed, difficult to see how Jeremiah or any of his predecessors could have done otherwise than take for granted the established modes of public worship, and the traditional holy places. The prophets do not seek to alter or abolish the externals of religion as such; they are not so unreasonable as to demand that stated rites and traditional sanctuaries should be disregarded, and that men should worship in the spirit only, without the aid of outward symbolism of any sort, however innocent and appropriate to its object it might seem. They knew very well that rites and ceremonies were necessary to public worship; what they protested against was the fatal tendency of their time to make these the whole of religion, to suppose that Iahvah’s claims could be satisfied by a due performance of these, without regard to those higher moral requirements of His law which the ritual worship might fitly have symbolised but could not rightly supersede. It was not a question with Hosea, Amos, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, whether or not Iahvah could be better honoured with or without temples and priests and sacrifices. The question was whether these traditional institutions actually served as an outward expression of that devotion to Him and His holy law, of that righteousness and holiness of life, which is the only true worship, or whether they were looked upon as in themselves comprising the whole of necessary religion. Since the people took this latter view, Jeremiah declares that their system of public worship is futile. "Hearken unto