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

CHAPTER XVIII
THE PHILISTINES

xlvii

"O sword of Jehovah, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard; rest, and be still." – Jer. xlvii. 6

According to the title placed at the head of this prophecy, it was uttered "before Pharaoh smote Gaza." The Pharaoh is evidently Pharaoh Necho, and this capture of Gaza was one of the incidents of the campaign which opened with the victory at Megiddo and concluded so disastrously at Carchemish. Our first impulse is to look for some connection between this incident and the contents of the prophecy: possibly the editor who prefixed the heading may have understood by the northern enemy Pharaoh Necho on his return from Carchemish; but would Jeremiah have described a defeated army thus?

 
"Behold, waters rise out of the north, and become an overflowing torrent;
They overflow the land, and all that is therein, the city and its inhabitants.
Men cry out, and all the inhabitants of the land howl,
At the sound of the stamping of the hoofs of his stallions,
At the rattling of his chariots and the rumbling of his wheels."
 

Here as elsewhere the enemy from the north is Nebuchadnezzar. Pharaohs might come and go, winning victories and taking cities, but these broken reeds count for little; not they, but the king of Babylon is the instrument of Jehovah's supreme purpose. The utter terror caused by the Chaldean advance is expressed by a striking figure: —

"The fathers look not back to their children for slackness of hands."

Their very bodies are possessed and crippled with fear, their palsied muscles cannot respond to the impulses of natural affection; they can do nothing but hurry on in headlong flight, unable to look round or stretch out a helping hand to their children: —

 
"Because of the day that cometh for the spoiling of all the Philistines,
For cutting off every ally that remaineth unto Tyre and Zidon:
For Jehovah spoileth the Philistines, the remnant of the coast of Caphtor.²¹¹
Baldness cometh upon Gaza; Ashkelon is destroyed:
O remnant of the Anakim,²¹² how long wilt thou cut thyself?"
 

This list is remarkable both for what it includes and what it omits. In order to understand the reference to Tyre and Zidon, we must remember that Nebuchadnezzar's expedition was partly directed against these cities, with which the Philistines had evidently been allied. The Chaldean king would hasten the submission of the Phœnicians, by cutting off all hope of succour from without. There are various possible reasons why out of the five Philistine cities only two – Ashkelon and Gaza – are mentioned; Ekron, Gath, and Ashdod may have been reduced to comparative insignificance. Ashdod had recently been taken by Psammetichus after a twenty-nine years' siege. Or the names of two of these cities may be given by way of paronomasia in the text: Ashdod may be suggested by the double reference to the spoiling and the spoiler, Shdod and Shoded; Gath may be hinted at by the word used for the mutilation practised by mourners, Tithgoddadi, and by the mention of the Anakim, who are connected with Gath, Ashdod, and Gaza in Joshua xi. 22.

As Jeremiah contemplates this fresh array of victims of Chaldean cruelty, he is moved to protest against the weary monotony of ruin: —

"O sword of Jehovah, how long will it be ere thou be quiet?

Put up thyself into thy scabbard; rest, and be still."

The prophet ceases to be the mouthpiece of God, and breaks out into the cry of human anguish. How often since, amid the barbarian inroads that overwhelmed the Roman Empire, amid the prolonged horrors of the Thirty Years' War, amid the carnage of the French Revolution, men have uttered a like appeal to an unanswering and relentless Providence! Indeed, not in war only, but even in peace, the tide of human misery and sin often seems to flow, century after century, with undiminished volume, and ever and again a vain "How long" is wrung from pallid and despairing lips. For the Divine purpose may not be hindered, and the sword of Jehovah must still strike home.

"How can it be quiet, seeing that Jehovah hath given it a charge?

Against Ashkelon and against the sea-shore, there hath He appointed it."

Yet Ashkelon survived to be a stronghold of the Crusaders, and Gaza to be captured by Alexander and even by Napoleon. Jehovah has other instruments besides His devastating sword; the victorious endurance and recuperative vitality of men and nations also come from Him.

 
"Come, and let us return unto Jehovah:
For He hath torn, and He will heal us;
He hath smitten, and He will bind us up."²¹³
 

CHAPTER XIX
MOAB

xlviii

"Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he hath magnified himself against Jehovah." – Jer. xlviii. 42

"Chemosh said to me, Go, take Nebo against Israel … and I took it … and I took from it the vessels of Jehovah, and offered them before Chemosh." – Moabite Stone

"Yet will I bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days." – Jer. xlviii. 47

The prophets show a very keen interest in Moab. With the exception of the very short Book of Joel, all the prophets who deal in detail with foreign nations devote sections to Moab. The unusual length of such sections in Isaiah and Jeremiah is not the only resemblance between the utterances of these two prophets concerning Moab. There are many parallels²¹⁴ of idea and expression, which probably indicate the influence of the elder prophet upon his successor; unless indeed both of them adapted some popular poem which was early current in Judah.²¹⁵

It is easy to understand why the Jewish Scriptures should have much to say about Moab, just as the sole surviving fragment of Moabite literature is chiefly occupied with Israel. These two Terahite tribes – the children of Jacob and the children of Lot – had dwelt side by side for centuries, like the Scotch and English borderers before the accession of James I. They had experienced many alternations of enmity and friendship, and had shared complex interests, common and conflicting, after the manner of neighbours who are also kinsmen. Each in its turn had oppressed the other; and Moab had been the tributary of the Israelite monarchy till the victorious arms of Mesha had achieved independence for his people and firmly established their dominion over the debatable frontier lands. There are traces, too, of more kindly relations: the House of David reckoned Ruth the Moabitess amongst its ancestors, and Jesse, like Elimelech and Naomi, had taken refuge in Moab.

Accordingly this prophecy concerning Moab, in both its editions, frequently strikes a note of sympathetic lamentation and almost becomes a dirge.

 
"Therefore will I howl for Moab;
Yea, for all Moab will I cry out.
For the men of Kir-heres shall they mourn.
With more than the weeping of Jazer
Will I weep for thee, O vine of Sibmah.
 
 
Therefore mine heart soundeth like pipes for Moab,
Mine heart soundeth like pipes for the men of Kir-heres."
 

But this pity could not avail to avert the doom of Moab; it only enabled the Jewish prophet to fully appreciate its terrors. The picture of coming ruin is drawn with the colouring and outlines familiar to us in the utterances of Jeremiah – spoiling and destruction, fire and sword and captivity, dismay and wild abandonment of wailing.

 
"Chemosh shall go forth into captivity, his priests and his princes together.
Every head is bald, and every beard clipped;
Upon all the hands are cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth.
On all the housetops and in all the streets of Moab there is everywhere lamentation;
For I have broken Moab like a useless vessel – it is the utterance of Jehovah.
How is it broken down! Howl ye! Be thou ashamed!
How hath Moab turned the back!
All the neighbours shall laugh and shudder at Moab.
 
 
The heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day
Shall be like the heart of a woman in her pangs."
 

This section of Jeremiah illustrates the dramatic versatility of the prophet's method. He identifies himself now with the blood-thirsty invader, now with his wretched victims, and now with the terror-stricken spectators; and sets forth the emotions of each in turn with vivid realism. Hence at one moment we have the pathos and pity of such verses as we have just quoted, and at another such stern and savage words as these: —

 
"Cursed be he that doeth the work of Jehovah negligently,
Cursed be he that stinteth his sword of blood."
 

These lines might have served as a motto for Cromwell at the massacre of Drogheda, for Tilly's army at the sack of Magdeburg, or for Danton and Robespierre during the Reign of Terror. Jeremiah's words were the more terrible because they were uttered with the full consciousness that in the dread Chaldean king²¹⁶ a servant of Jehovah was at hand who would be careful not to incur any curse for stinting his sword of blood. We shrink from what seems to us the prophet's brutal assertion that relentless and indiscriminate slaughter is sometimes the service which man is called upon to render to God. Such sentiment is for the most part worthless and unreal; it does not save us from epidemics of war fever, and is at once ignored under the stress of horrors like the Indian Mutiny. There is no true comfort in trying to persuade ourselves that the most awful events of history lie outside of the Divine purpose, or in forgetting that the human scourges of their kind do the work that God has assigned to them.

In this inventory, as it were, of the ruin of Moab our attention is arrested by the constant and detailed references to the cities. This feature is partly borrowed from Isaiah. Ezekiel too speaks of the Moabite cities which are the glory of the country;²¹⁷ but Jeremiah's prophecy is a veritable Domesday Book of Moab. With his epic fondness for lists of sonorous names – after the manner of Homer's catalogue of the ships – he enumerates Nebo, Kiriathaim, Heshbon, and Horonaim, city after city, till he completes a tale of no fewer than twenty-six,²¹⁸ and then summarises the rest as "all the cities of the land of Moab, far and near." Eight of these cities are mentioned in Joshua²¹⁹ as part of the inheritance of Reuben and Gad. Another, Bozrah, is usually spoken of as a city of Edom.²²⁰

The Moabite Stone explains the occurrence of Reubenite cities in these lists. It tells us how Mesha took Nebo, Jahaz, and Horonaim from Israel. Possibly in this period of conquest Bozrah became tributary to Moab, without ceasing to be an Edomite city. This extension of territory and multiplication of towns points to an era of power and prosperity, of which there are other indications in this chapter. "We are mighty and valiant for war," said the Moabites. When Moab fell "there was broken a mighty sceptre and a glorious staff." Other verses imply the fertility of the land and the abundance of its vintage.

Moab in fact had profited by the misfortunes of its more powerful and ambitious neighbours. The pressure of Damascus, Assyria, and Chaldea prevented Israel and Judah from maintaining their dominion over their ancient tributary. Moab lay less directly in the track of the invaders; it was too insignificant to attract their special attention, perhaps too prudent to provoke a contest with the lords of the East. Hence, while Judah was declining, Moab had enlarged her borders and grown in wealth and power.

And even as Jeshurun kicked, when he was waxen fat,²²¹ so Moab in its prosperity was puffed up with unholy pride. Even in Isaiah's time this was the besetting sin of Moab; he says in an indictment which Jeremiah repeats almost word for word: —

 
"We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud,
Even of his arrogancy and his pride and his wrath."²²²
 

This verse is a striking example of the Hebrew method of gaining emphasis by accumulating derivatives of the same and similar roots. The verse in Jeremiah runs thus: "We have heard of the pride (Ge'ON) of Moab, that he is very proud (GE'EH); his loftiness (GABHeHO), and his pride (Ge'ONO), and his proudfulness (GA'aWATHO)."

Jeremiah dwells upon this theme: —

 
"Moab shall be destroyed from being a people,
Because he hath magnified himself against Jehovah."
 

Zephaniah bears like testimony²²³: —

 
"This shall they have for their pride,
Because they have been insolent, and have magnified themselves
Against the people of Jehovah Sabaoth."
 

Here again the Moabite Stone bears abundant testimony to the justice of the prophet's accusations; for there Mesha tells how in the name and by the grace of Chemosh he conquered the cities of Israel; and how, anticipating Belshazzar's sacrilege, he took the sacred vessels of Jehovah from His temple at Nebo and consecrated them to Chemosh. Truly Moab had "magnified himself against Jehovah."

Prosperity had produced other baleful effects beside a haughty spirit, and pride was not the only cause of the ruin of Moab. Jeremiah applies to nations the dictum of Polonius —

"Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits,"

and apparently suggests that ruin and captivity were necessary elements in the national discipline of Moab: —

 
"Moab hath been undisturbed from his youth;
He hath settled on his lees;
He hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel;
He hath not gone into captivity:
Therefore his taste remaineth in him,
His scent is not changed.
 
 
Wherefore, behold, the days come – it is the utterance of Jehovah —
That I will send men unto him that shall tilt him up;
They shall empty his vessels and break his²²⁴ bottles."
 

As the chapter, in its present form, concludes with a note —

"I will bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days – it is the utterance of Jehovah" —

we gather that even this rough handling was disciplinary; at any rate, the former lack of such vicissitudes had been to the serious detriment of Moab. It is strange that Jeremiah did not apply this principle to Judah. For, indeed, the religion of Israel and of mankind owes an incalculable debt to the captivity of Judah, a debt which later writers are not slow to recognise. "Behold," says the prophet of the Exile, —

 
"I have refined thee, but not as silver;
I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction."²²⁵
 

History constantly illustrates how when Christians were undisturbed and prosperous the wine of truth settled on the lees and came to taste of the cask; and – to change the figure – how affliction and persecution proved most effectual tonics for a debilitated Church. Continental critics of modern England speak severely of the ill-effects which our prolonged freedom from invasion and civil war, and the unbroken continuity of our social life have had on our national character and manners. In their eyes England is a perfect Moab, concerning which they are ever ready to prophesy after the manner of Jeremiah. The Hebrew Chronicler blamed Josiah because he would not listen to the advice and criticism of Pharaoh Necho. There may be warnings which we should do well to heed, even in the acrimony of foreign journalists.

But any such suggestion raises wider and more difficult issues; for ordinary individuals and nations the discipline of calamity seems necessary. What degree of moral development exempts from such discipline, and how may it be attained? Christians cannot seek to compound for such discipline by self-inflicted loss or pain, like Polycrates casting away his ring or Browning's Caliban, who in his hour of terror,

 
"Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!
'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,
Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month
One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape."
 

But though it is easy to counsel resignation and the recognition of a wise loving Providence in national as in personal suffering, yet mankind longs for an end to the period of pupilage and chastisement and would fain know how it may be hastened.

CHAPTER XX
AMMON

xlix. 1-6

"Hath Israel no sons? hath he no heir? why then doth Moloch possess Gad, and his people dwell in the cities thereof?" – Jer. xlix. 1

The relations of Israel with Ammon were similar but less intimate than they were with his twin-brother Moab. Hence this prophecy is, mutatis mutandis, an abridgment of that concerning Moab. As Moab was charged with magnifying himself against Jehovah, and was found to be occupying cities which Reuben claimed as its inheritance, so Ammon had presumed to take possession of the Gadite cities, whose inhabitants had been carried away captive by the Assyrians. Here again the prophet enumerates Heshbon, Ai, Rabbah, and the dependent towns, "the daughters of Rabbah." Only in the territory of this half-nomadic people the cities are naturally not so numerous as in Moab; and Jeremiah mentions also the fertile valleys wherein the Ammonites gloried. The familiar doom of ruin and captivity is pronounced against city and country and all the treasures of Ammon; Moloch,²²⁶ like Chemosh, must go into captivity with his priests and princes. This prophecy also concludes with a promise of restoration: —

"Afterward I will bring again the captivity of the children of Ammon – it is the utterance of Jehovah."

CHAPTER XXI
EDOM

xlix. 7-22

"Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse." – Jer. xlix. 13

The prophecy concerning Edom is not formulated along the same line as those which deal with the twin children of Lot, Moab and Ammon. Edom was not merely the cousin, but the brother of Israel. His history, his character and conduct, had marked peculiarities, which received special treatment. Edom had not only intimate relations with Israel as a whole, but was also bound by exceptionally close ties to the Southern Kingdom. The Edomite clan Kenaz had been incorporated in the tribe of Judah;²²⁷ and when Israel broke up into two states, Edom was the one tributary which was retained or reconquered by the House of David, and continued subject to Judah till the reign of Jehoram ben Jehoshaphat.²²⁸

Much virtuous indignation is often expressed at the wickedness of Irishmen in contemplating rebellion against the dominion of England: we cannot therefore be surprised that the Jews resented the successful revolt of Edom, and regarded the hostility of Mount Seir to its former masters as ingratitude and treachery. In moments of hot indignation against the manifold sins of Judah Jeremiah might have announced with great vehemence that Judah should be made a "reproach and a proverb"; but when, as Obadiah tells us, the Edomites stood gazing with eager curiosity on the destruction of Jerusalem, and rejoiced and exulted in the distress of the Jews, and even laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity, and occupied the roads to catch fugitives and deliver them up to the Chaldeans,²²⁹ then the patriotic fervour of the prophet broke out against Edom. Like Moab and Ammon, he was puffed up with pride, and deluded by baseless confidence into a false security. These hardy mountaineers trusted in their reckless courage and in the strength of their inaccessible mountain fastnesses.

 
"Men shall shudder at thy fate,²³⁰ the pride of thy heart hath deceived thee,
O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill:
Though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle,²³¹
I will bring thee down from thence – it is the utterance of Jehovah."
 

Pliny speaks of the Edomite capital as "oppidum circumdatum montibus inaccessis,"²³² and doubtless the children of Esau had often watched from their eyrie Assyrian and Chaldean armies on the march to plunder more defenceless victims, and trusted that their strength, their good fortune, and their ancient and proverbial wisdom would still hold them scatheless. Their neighbours – the Jews amongst the rest – might be plundered, massacred, and carried away captive, but Edom could look on in careless security, and find its account in the calamities of kindred tribes. If Jerusalem was shattered by the Chaldean tempest, the Edomites would play the part of wreckers. But all this shrewdness was mere folly: how could these Solons of Mount Seir prove so unworthy of their reputation?

 
"Is wisdom no more in Teman?
Has counsel perished from the prudent?
Has their wisdom vanished?"
 

They thought that Jehovah would punish Jacob whom He loved, and yet spare Esau whom He hated. But: —

 
"Thus saith Jehovah:
Behold, they to whom it pertained not to drink of the cup shall assuredly drink.
Art thou he that shall go altogether unpunished?
Thou shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt assuredly drink" (12).
 

Ay, and drink to the dregs: —

 
"If grape-gatherers come to thee, would they not leave gleanings?
If thieves came by night, they would only destroy till they had enough.
But I have made Esau bare, I have stripped him stark naked; he shall not be able to hide himself.
His children, and his brethren, and his neighbours are given up to plunder, and there is an end of him" (9, 10).
"I have sworn by Myself – is the utterance of Jehovah —
That Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a desolation, and a curse;
All her cities shall become perpetual wastes.
I have heard tidings from Jehovah, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, saying,
Gather yourselves together and come against her, arise to battle" (13, 14).
 

There was obviously but one leader who could lead the nations to achieve the overthrow of Edom and lead her little ones away captive, who could come up like a lion from the thickets of Jordan, or "flying like an eagle and spreading his wings against Bozrah" (22) – Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who had come up against Judah with all the kingdoms and peoples of his dominions.²³³

In this picture of chastisement and calamity, there is one apparent touch of pitifulness: —

 
"Leave thine orphans, I will preserve their lives;
Let thy widows put their trust in Me" (11).
 

At first sight, at any rate, these seem to be the words of Jehovah. All the adult males of Edom would perish, yet the helpless widows and orphans would not be without a protector. The God of Israel would watch over the lambs of Edom,²³⁴ when they were dragged away into captivity. We are reluctant to surrender this beautiful and touching description of a God, who, though He may visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, yet even in such judgment ever remembers mercy. It is impossible, however, to ignore the fact that such ideas are widely different from the tone and sentiment of the rest of the section. These words may be an immediate sequel to the previous verse, "No Edomite survives to say to his dying brethren, Leave thine orphans to me," or possibly they may be quoted, in bitter irony, from some message from Edom to Jerusalem, inviting the Jews to send their wives and children for safety to Mount Seir. Edom, ungrateful and treacherous Edom, shall utterly perish – Edom that offered an asylum to Jewish refugees, and yet shared the plunder of Jerusalem and betrayed her fugitives to the Chaldeans.

There is no word of restoration. Moab and Ammon and Elam might revive and flourish again, but for Esau, as of old, there should be no place of repentance. For Edom, in the days of the Captivity, trespassed upon the inheritance of Israel more grievously than Ammon and Moab upon Reuben and Gad. The Edomites possessed themselves of the rich pastures of the south of Judah, and the land was thenceforth called Idumea. Thus they earned the undying hatred of the Jews, in whose mouths Edom became a curse and a reproach, a term of opprobrium. Like Babylon, Edom was used as a secret name for Rome, and later on for the Christian Church.

Nevertheless, even in this prophecy, there is a hint that these predictions of utter ruin must not be taken too literally: —

"For, behold, I will make thee small among the nations,

Despised among men" (15).

These words are scarcely consistent with the other verses, which imply that, as a people, Edom would utterly perish from off the face of the earth. As a matter of fact, Edom flourished in her new territory till the time of the Maccabees, and when the Messiah came to establish the Kingdom of God, instead of "saviours standing on Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau,"²³⁵ an Edomite dynasty was reigning in Jerusalem.