The Expositor's Bible Part 44

art thou become like unto us?' ... All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulchre like an abominable branch, as the raiment of those that are slain, that are thrust through with the sword, that go down to the stones of the pit.... They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee ... and say, 'Is this the man that made the earth to tremble? that did shake kingdoms? that made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof? that let not loose his prisoners to their home?'"[778]

Yes, a.s.syria had fallen like some mighty cedar in Liba.n.u.s, and the nations gazed without pity and with exultation on his torn and scattered branches.

And coincident with the fate of Nineveh had been the rise of the Chaldaean power.

Nabupalussur[779] had been a general of one of the last a.s.syrian kings, and had been sent by him with an army to quell a Babylonian revolt.

Instead of this, he seized the city and made himself king. When the final overthrow and obliteration of Nineveh had secured his power, he sent his brave and brilliant son Nebuchadrezzar[780] (B.C. 605) to secure the provinces which he had wrested from a.s.syria, and especially to regain possession of Carchemish, which commanded the river.

Necho marched to protect his conquests, and at Carchemish the hostile forces encountered each other in a tremendous battle,--immemorial Egypt under the representative of its age-long Pharaohs; Babylon, with her independence of yesterday, under a prince hitherto unknown, whose name was to become one of the most famous in the world. The result is described by Jeremiah (xlvi. 1-12). Egypt was hopelessly defeated. Her splendidly arrayed warriors were panic-stricken and routed; her chief heroes were dashed to pieces by the heavy maces of the Babylonians, or fled without so much as looking back. The scene was one of "Magor-missabib"--terror on every side.[781] Pharaoh's host came up like the Nile in flood with its Ethiopian hoplites and Asiatic archers; but they were driven back. The daughter of Egypt received a wound which no balm of Gilead could cure. The nations heard of her shame, and the prophet p.r.o.nounced her further chastis.e.m.e.nt by the hands of Nebuchadrezzar.

Then, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the young Babylonian conqueror swept down upon Syria and Palestine like a bounding leopard, like an avenging eagle (Hab. i. 7, 8). Jehoiakim had no choice but to change his va.s.salhood to Necho for a va.s.salage to Nebuchadrezzar.[782] He might have suffered severe consequences, but tidings came to the young Chaldaean that his father had ended his reign of twenty-one years and was dead. For fear lest disturbances might arise in his capital, he at once dashed home across the desert with some light troops by way of Tadmor, while he told his general to follow him home through Syria by the longer route. He seems, however, to have carried away with him some captives, among whom were Daniel, Ananias, Azarias, and Misael,[783] destined hereafter for such memorable fortunes. Jehoiakim himself was thrown into fetters to be carried into Babylon; but the conqueror changed his mind, and probably thought that it would be safer for the present to accept his pledges and a.s.surances, and leave him as his viceroy. "He took an oath of him," says Ezekiel (xvii. 13); "he took also the mighty of the land."[784]

For three years this frivolous egotist who occupied the throne of Judah remained faithful to his covenant with the King of Babylon, but at the end of that time he rebelled. In this rebellion he was again deluded by the glamour of Egypt, and reliance on the empty promise of "horses and much people." Ezekiel openly disapproved of this policy,[785] and reproached the king for his faithlessness to his oath. Jeremiah went further, and declared in the plainest language that "Nebuchadrezzar would certainly come up and destroy this land, and cause to cease from thence both man and beast."[786]

Nearer and nearer the danger came. At first the King of Babylon was too busy to do more than send against the Jewish rebel marauding bands of Chaldaeans, who acted in concert with the hereditary depredators of Judah--Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites. But the prophet knew that the danger would not end there, believing that G.o.d would yet "remove Judah out of His sight" for the unforgiven sins of Mana.s.seh and the innocent blood with which he had filled Jerusalem.[787] At last Nebuchadrezzar had time to turn closer attention to the affairs of Judah, and this became necessary because of the revolt of Tyre under its King Ithobalus.

In the stress of the peril Jehoiakim proclaimed a fast and a day of humiliation in the Temple. Jeremiah was at this time "shut up"--either in hiding, or in some sort of custody. As he could not go and preach in person, he dictated his prophecy to Baruch, who wrote it on a scroll, and went in the prophet's place to read it in the Lord's House to the people there a.s.sembled from Jerusalem and all Judah in the chamber of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, in the inner court, by the new gate.[788]

Gemariah was the brother of Ahikam, the protector of the prophet.

No one was more painfully alarmed by Jeremiah's prophecy than Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, and he thought it his duty to go and tell his father and the other princes what he had heard. They were a.s.sembled in the scribe's chamber, and sent a courtier of Ethiopian race--Jehudi, the son of Cus.h.i.+--bidding him to bring the scroll with him, and to come to them.[789]

Baruch was a person of distinction. He was the brother of Seraiah, who is called in our A.V. "a quiet prince," and in the margin "prince of Menucha" or "chief chamberlain," literally "master of the resting-place"; and he was the grandson of Maaseiah, "the governor" of the city.[790] The office imposed on him by Jeremiah was so perilous and painful that it nearly broke his heart. He exclaimed to Jeremiah, "Woe is me now! the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow. I am weary with my sighing, and I find no rest." The answer which the prophet was commissioned to give him was very remarkable. It confirmed the terrible doom on his native land, but added, "'And seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not. For, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh,' saith the Lord: 'but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.'"[791]

Baruch obeyed the summons of the princes, and at their request sat down with them and read the scroll in their ears. When they had heard the portentous prophecy, they turned shuddering to one another, and said, "We must tell the king of all these words." They asked Baruch how he had written them, and he said he had taken them down at the prophet's dictation. Then, knowing the storm which would burst over the bold offenders, they said, "Go, hide thee, thou and Jeremiah, and let no man know where ye be."

Not daring to imperil the awful doc.u.ment, they laid it up in the chamber of Elishama, the scribe, but went to the king and told him its contents. He sent Jehudi to fetch it, and to read it in their hearing.

Jehoiakim and the ill.u.s.trious company were seated in the winter-chamber; for it was October, and a fire was burning in the brazier, where Jehoiakim sat warming himself in the chilly weather.

As he listened, he was filled not only with fury, but with contempt.

Such a message might well have caused him and his worst counsellors to rend their clothes; but instead of this they adopted a tone of defiance.

By the time that Jehudi had read three or four columns, Jehoiakim s.n.a.t.c.hed the scribe's knife which hung at his girdle, and began to cut up the scroll, with the intention of burning it. Seeing his purpose, Gemariah, Elnathan, and Seraiah entreated him not to destroy it. But he would not listen. He flung the fragments into the brazier, and they were consumed. He ordered his son Jerahmeel,[792] with Seraiah and Shelemiah, to seize both Baruch and Jeremiah, and bring them before him for punishment. Doubtless they would have suffered the fate of Urijah, but "the Lord hid them." There were enough persons of power on their side to render their hiding-place secure.

But the king's impious indifference, so far from making any difference in the things that were, only brought down upon his guilt a fearful doom. Truth cannot be cut to pieces, or burnt, or mechanically suppressed.

"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; The eternal years of G.o.d are hers: But error, vanquished, writhes in pain, And dies amid her wors.h.i.+ppers."

All the former denunciations, and new ones added to them, were rewritten by Jeremiah and his faithful friend in their hiding-place, and among them these words[793]:--

"Thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, 'He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.'"

A frightful drought added to the misery of this reign, but failed to bring the wretched king to his senses. Jeremiah describes it[794]:--

"Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they bow down mourning unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. And the n.o.bles send their menials to the waters: they come to the pits, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are ashamed and confounded, and cover their heads, because of the ground which is chapped, for that no rain hath been in the land.... Yea, the hind also in the field calveth, and forsaketh her young, because there is no gra.s.s. And the wild a.s.ses stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage."

Even this affliction, so vividly and pathetically described, failed to waken any repentance. And then the doom fell. Nebuchadrezzar advanced in person against Jerusalem.[795] Even the hardy nomad Rechabites had to fly before the Chaldaeans, and to take refuge in the cities which they hated. The sacred historian tells us nothing as to the manner of the death of Jehoiakim, only saying that he "slept with his fathers": his narrative of this period is exceedingly meagre. Josephus says that Nebuchadrezzar slew him and the flower of the citizens, and sent three thousand captives to Babylon.[796] Some imagine that he was killed by the Babylonians in a raid outside the walls of Jerusalem, or "murdered by his own people, and his body thrown for a time outside the walls."

If so, the Babylonians did not war with the dead. His remains, after this "burial of an a.s.s,"[797] may have been finally suffered to rest in a tomb. The Septuagint says (2 Chron. x.x.xvi. 8) that he was buried "in Ganosan," by which may be meant the sepulchre of Mana.s.seh in the garden of Uzza.[798] Not for him was the wailing cry "_Hoi, adon! Hoi, hodo!_" ("Ah, Lord! Ah, his glory!").

"The memory of the wicked shall rot." Certainly this was the case with Jehoiakim. The Chronicler mysteriously alludes to "his abominations which he did, _and that which was found in him_."[799] The Rabbis, interpreting this after their manner, say that "the thing found" was the name of the demon Codonazor, to whom he had sold himself, which after his death was discovered legibly written in Hebrew letters on his skin. "Rabbi Johanan and Rabbi Eleazar debated what was meant by 'that which was found on him.' One said that he tattooed the name of an idol upon his body (????), and the other said that he had tattooed the name of the G.o.d Recreon."[800]

FOOTNOTES:

[766] Not Jehoiakim, but Jehoiachin, as the sequel shows.

[767] Ezek. xix. 5-9. The allusions to Jehoiakim by Jeremiah are numerous, and all unfavourable (xxii. 13-19, xxvi. 20-23, x.x.xvi.

20-31, etc.)

[768] Josephus (_Antt._, X. v. 2) is very severe on this king. He says that "he was unjust in disposition, an evil-doer, neither pious towards G.o.d nor just towards men."

[769] Perhaps an allusion to a sort of fortified palace on Ophel.

[770] Hab. ii. 9-11.

[771] The text is perhaps corrupt. Two MSS. of the LXX. read "because thou viest _with Ahab_," and the Vatican MSS. has "_with Ahaz_."

Cheyne adopts the former reading.

[772] Jer. xxii. 13-17.

[773] Jer. xxiii. 1.

[774] Jer. xxii. 23.

[775] Jer. xii. 5.

[776] Jer. xxvi. 20-23. So far as I am aware, Bunsen stands alone in identifying Urijah with the "Zechariah" who wrote Zech. xii.-xiv.

Others refer Zech. xii. 10 to the murder of Urijah.

[777] Jer. xxvi. 18.

[778] Isa. xiv., _pa.s.sim_.

[779] Nabu-pal-ussur, "Nebo protect the son."

[780] Nabu-kudur-ussur, "Nebo protect the crown" (Schrader, ii. 48), or "the youth" (Oppert). The portrait of Nebuchadrezzar--this is the proper spelling, as generally in Jeremiah--is preserved for us on a black cameo which he presented to the G.o.d Merodach. It is now in the Berlin Museum, and shows strong but not cruel or ign.o.ble characteristics. It is copied in Riehm's _Handworterbuch_, ii. 1067. The Jews, as they were fond of doing to their enemies, made insulting puns on his name. Thus in the _Vayyikra Rabba_ (Wunsche, _Bibl. Rabb._) the Three Children are represented as saying to him, "You are Neboo-cad-netser: bark [_nabach_]

like a dog; swell like a water-jar [_kad_], and chirp like a cricket [_tsertser_],"--in allusion to his madness.

[781] Jer. xlvi. 5 (vi. 25).

[782] Jos., _Antt._, X. xi.; Berosus, p. 11. The Chronicler and Josephus show some confusion, caused by the similarity of the names Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin.

[783] Dan. i. 6.

[784] We might infer from Ezek. xvii. 12 that Nebuchadrezzar actually took Jehoiakim with him to Babylon.

[785] Ezek. xvii. 15.

[786] Jer. x.x.xvi. 29, xxv. 9, xxvi. 6.

[787] 2 Kings xxiv. 2-4.

[788] Gratz thinks that Jeremiah's roll was substantially Jer. xxv.