The History of Antiquity, Vol. 3 (of 6)

After this occurrence in the temple, Jeremiah no longer ventured to come forth in public; he contented himself for the present with dictating his warnings and announcements to his scribe Baruch. After the battle of Karchemish it was clear to him at once that the king of Babel would be the instrument of Jehovah to accomplish the approaching judgment: the mission which Isaiah had assigned to the Assyrians 100 years previously – to destroy all nations – Jeremiah now saw given to the Chaldæans. But as Isaiah then prophesied the fall of Assyria, when she had accomplished the judgments of Jehovah, so, according to the views of Jeremiah, the Chaldæans are to be destroyed when they have done their work. After a rule of 70 years, i. e. after a period of ten Sabbath-years (II. 219), this fortune will overtake the Babylonians – such is the view of Jeremiah. "For 23 years," so Jeremiah commanded his scribe Baruch to write,598 "the word of Jehovah hath come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, but ye have not hearkened; ye have hearkened to other prophets, not to the servants of Jehovah. Therefore I will bring Nebuchadnezzar my servant against this land and its inhabitants, saith Jehovah, and against all the nations round about, and I will destroy out of them the voice of mirth, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill, and the light of the lamp. The whole land shall be a desolation, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Take the wine-cup of this fury at my hand, so spake Jehovah to me, and cause all the nations to drink it, that they may drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them. Cause Jerusalem to drink it, and the cities of Judah, the Pharaoh of Egypt, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, the kings of Tyre and Sidon, and the kings of the islands beyond the sea, the Edomites, and the Moabites, and the kings of Arabia who dwell in the deserts, and the kings of Media. Jehovah shall roar from on high, he shall roar upon his habitation (Jerusalem); he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth. Jehovah will reckon with the nations; he will plead with all flesh, and give them that are wicked to the sword. Evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and the slain of Jehovah will be in that day from one end of the earth to the other; they shall not be lamented, nor buried, they shall be dung upon the ground."599

At Karchemish Necho had lost all the fruits of his struggles in Syria. He did not venture to engage in a second battle for the possession of Syria, but retired to the borders of Egypt. In Jerusalem a day of fasting was kept at the approach of the Babylonian army. More than three years and eight months had passed since Necho made Jehoiakim king of Judah.600 These and other announcements Jeremiah commanded Baruch to read before the assembled multitude in the upper court of the temple on the day of fasting. "It may be they will present their supplication before Jehovah," he said, "for great is the anger that Jehovah hath pronounced upon this people." Baruch carried out the command of Jeremiah. The letter made a deep impression. Baruch had to read it again before the captains of Jehoiakim, at their request. These told the king, who was at that time in his winter house, of the prophecies of Jeremiah. Jehoiakim caused three or four leaves to be read, then seized the roll, cut it with a knife, threw the pieces into the pan of coals which stood before him, and gave orders that Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch should be brought before him, but both had hidden themselves, and the captains were not inclined to discover them by any strict search.601

The Babylonian army did not appear before Jerusalem. Nabopolassar lay sick at Babylon; the account of his death summoned Nebuchadnezzar back to the metropolis. He hastened with a few companions through the deserts to Babylon, in order to take the crown of the new kingdom. The army, with the prisoners and the booty, were to follow (605 B.C.). Meanwhile the priests at Babylon had made provision, and set up a regent from among themselves who governed the kingdom till the return of Nebuchadnezzar.602

As soon as the first succession to the throne of the new kingdom was happily completed, and Nebuchadnezzar saw his position established, he applied his forces to extending and securing his empire. If the new dynasty was to take root, it was incumbent on it to renew the splendour and power of the ancient kingdom of Babylon. The successes which Nabopolassar had achieved against the Assyrians, the splendid victory which Nebuchadnezzar had gained against the Egyptians, must have confirmed the confidence of the new ruler in his own power, and the strength of his army. Yet the first consideration was not merely splendour and glory. Egypt could not indeed maintain her place in Syria, but she was still in possession of Gaza; if the Syrian States were not annexed, they would always incline to Egypt, and would soon join her again. To abandon Syria was equivalent to handing over the country to the Egyptians. A further consideration was, that the Median power in league with which Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar had risen was far superior to the Babylonians. At present, it was true, they were in the closest and best relations with the Median and Lydian courts – but could they count on the continuance of these relations? Was it not advisable to create for the new kingdom of Babylon an empire which should form an adequate counterpoise to the power of the Medes? The north and east belonged to the Medes, the natural direction for the extension of Babylon therefore lay to the south, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, and to the west. The victorious campaigns of the Assyrian rulers pointed in this direction; here, on the shore of the Mediterranean, lay the cities of the Phenicians, who collected within their walls the trade of the world, whose industry and wealth could bring to the new kingdom the greatest sources of help.

Nebuchadnezzar's first object was to extend his power over the Arabians on the lower Euphrates, in North Arabia, and in the Syrian desert. The tribes of the Temanites, Dedanites, and Kedarites were subjugated. The princes of the Arabians of Dedan, Tema, Kedar, and Hazor, became vassals of Babylon.603 Then Arpad, Hamath, and Damascus, which had resisted Assyria so long and stubbornly, succumbed. Jerusalem trembled at the fall of the neighbouring nations. "The Chaldæans are roused," says the prophet Habakkuk; "that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the earth, and shall possess the dwelling-places which are not theirs. Their horses are swifter than leopards, and more fierce than evening wolves; proudly their horses spring from far: they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn to them; they shall deride every stronghold, for they shall heap up earth against it, and take it, and carry off prisoners like sand. Then will they go on like a storm-wind, and their might is their god.604 My knees quaked that I might look with rest upon the day of trouble, upon the people which oppresses us.605 Shall they slay the nations continually without punishment? can he not rest who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people? Will not the people suddenly rise up and demand usury from thee? will not the nations plunder thee, whom thou hast plundered?"606 Of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah says: "Like a lion he will come up against the well-stocked pasture.607 Flee, flee with all your might, ye inhabitants of Hazor, for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath taken counsel against you, and hath conceived a purpose against you. Get you up to the nation which hath neither gates nor bars, and dwelleth alone; go up to Kedar and spoil the men of the East. Your tents and your flocks will they take; your curtains and your camels they will carry away; the multitude of your flocks shall be a spoil to them. I will scatter to all the winds of the earth those who cut the corners of their hair (the Arabians), saith Jehovah, and will bring destruction on them from every side, and Hazor shall be a dwelling for the jackal, a desolation for ever.608 Cry, ye daughters of Rabbath (Rabbath Ammon, II. 155), gird yourselves with sack-cloth, for Milcom shall go away into misery, his priests and princes together.609 Woe to thee, Moab; the people of Camos (Chemosh, I. 372) perisheth. He shall fly like an eagle, and spread his wings over Moab; the strong places are taken.610 Hamath is confounded, and Arpad. Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee.611 Thou wert confident, O Edom, because thou dwellest on the high rocks and the tops of the mountains. Though thou buildest thy nest like the eagle thou shalt be thrown down."612

Five years had elapsed since the battle of Karchemish when Nebuchadnezzar crossed the borders of Judah (600 B.C.).613 Jehoiakim submitted and thus escaped destruction. After the subjugation of Ammon, Moab, and Judah, Nebuchadnezzar could turn his arms against the southern coast of Syria. This advance of Nebuchadnezzar and the necessity of preventing Babylonia from establishing herself on the borders of Egypt, could not but bring Egypt again into arms. Necho had had time to recover from the defeat of Karchemish. The hope of aid from Egypt induced Jehoiakim to renounce his obedience three years after he had submitted to Nebuchadnezzar, and to turn his arms against Babylonia. At Nebuchadnezzar's command the troops of the neighbouring states who had remained loyal, the Northern Syrians, the Ammonites, and Moabites, first invaded the land of Judah. When the Egyptians had been driven back into their borders, and the king of Babylon had "taken everything that belonged to the king of Egypt from the river Euphrates to the brook of Egypt," Nebuchadnezzar turned his arms back against Jerusalem to punish the rebels.614 Jehoiakim had recently died, and the people had raised to the throne his son Jechoniah, a youth of eighteen years old. Jerusalem was invested by the Babylonian army: Nebuchadnezzar came in person to conduct the siege.615 "By my life," – such are the words Jeremiah puts in the mouth of Jehovah, – "if Jechoniah were a signet on my right hand, I would pluck him off, and give him into the hands of those who seek after his life, into the hands of the Chaldæans. I cast thee away and thy mother into another land, and they shall not bring thee back unto the land whither thy heart yearns to return."616 Jechoniah had only sat three months on the throne when he saw himself compelled by the advance of the siege to open the gates of Jerusalem to the enemy. With his mother Nehustha, who appears to have been regent for him, with the officers of his household and the eunuchs, he went into the camp of the Chaldæans to give himself up to the king of Babylon (597 B.C.).617

Nebuchadnezzar wished to be secure of the obedience of the Jews; he did not intend that the hope of Egypt should again bring them under arms. He caused not only the young king and his mother, the courtiers, the treasures, and the best furniture of the temple to be carried to Babylon, but also the influential people in the city, the captains of the army, and all the men of war in Jerusalem to the number of 7000. In order to disarm the city more completely, the workers in iron, the smiths and lock-smiths, were carried away. In all, 10,023 souls were transplanted by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylonia, only people of no importance are said to have been left in Jerusalem. In Jechoniah's place Nebuchadnezzar set up his uncle Zedekiah, the fourth son of Josiah, as viceroy, and pledged him to obedience and fidelity by joining hands and taking an oath.618 The Jews carried away were settled, after the example of the Assyrian princes, in Babylonia, in part on the Chaboras.

These rules for securing the obedience of the small territory did not break the tough spirit of the Jews, their stubborn resistance, or their eager desire for freedom and independence. Zedekiah and those around him felt the disgrace of the yoke which was laid upon them, and shared with the mass of the people the desire to shake it off on the first opportunity. Many prophets favoured this tendency and promised victory and success to a new rebellion in arms. Not long after Zedekiah had been placed on the throne, the prophet Hananiah of Gibeon announced before all the people in the temple: "In two years Jehovah will bring back to this place all the furniture of the temple which Nebuchadnezzar has carried to Babylon; and I will bring back, saith Jehovah, Jechoniah the king of Judah and all the captives, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon."619 Jeremiah came forward in opposition and said: "Wooden yokes thou wilt break, and lay on iron yokes. Behold, I will remove thee from the earth, saith Jehovah; in this year thou shalt die, for thou hast counselled rebellion." And Hananiah died, as tradition adds, in the same year, in the seventh month.620

Jeremiah was never weary of opposing to the uttermost any view of this kind. To him the Chaldæans were the instrument of Jehovah for the punishment of the nations: to endure their rule was, in his view, the will of Jehovah; any one who resisted the Chaldæans only brought on himself a heavier yoke, and called down destruction more completely on his head. If Isaiah had at least cherished the belief in the continuance of Jerusalem and the temple, Jeremiah, as we have seen, did not share in this hope. And therefore he preached without ceasing submission to the yoke, and patient obedience; he was unwearied in taking from the people every prospect of rescue; he sent letters to the Jews transplanted to Babylonia, and urged them not to enter into conspiracies; he went so far as to commend the lot of these captives, and requested them to build houses in Babylon, and pray to Jehovah for the welfare of that country.621 But though the national feelings and impulses of his nation were unknown to a prophet whose eyes were directed upwards, though for him the feeling of nationality was lost in religious conceptions, – the efforts of the people to win back its independent existence, the stubborn tenacity with which the Jews were ready to fight for their fatherland, and break the yoke of the foreigner, even when they rested on deceptive calculations, were not less justified than the intelligent calculation of the impossibility of such an attempt; and even from the lofty religious position of Jeremiah, who regarded nothing but the inward salvation, the purity, and elevation of the heart, could claim appreciation, since even the common children of earth must have their rights. Who could blame those who, even in the most hopeless, desperate condition, estimated more highly the duty of dying for their country, than the advice to submit quietly to the conqueror? That persons who held these views should consider this step on the part of Jeremiah as a corrupt movement, should demand that the prophet take the side of his own nation against the foreigner, and brand his predictions as treason to the state, is easily intelligible.

In such a sharp opposition of views, and in the strained position of affairs in which Judah found herself between Babylon and Egypt, it was impossible but that heavy accusations should be brought against Jeremiah, and a hot persecution set on foot against him. He complains bitterly how he was daily mocked and derided;622 he is in despair and laments his destiny; he tells us how he had determined to speak no more in the name of Jehovah, but the inward voice compelled him; the fire was kindled in his heart: "I could not stay."623 "Cursed be the day," he exclaims, "on which I was born! cursed be the man who brought glad tidings to my father, and said unto him, 'A son is born unto thee!' Why, Jehovah, didst thou not slay me in the womb, that I should see labour and sorrow, and consume my days with shame?"624 These moods alternate with a fierce desire for vengeance on his opponents. He is guiltless. Jehovah has driven him forth to speak, and put his word in his mouth; he has often besought Jehovah to turn away from Judah the day of destruction: Jehovah, for whom he suffers, must avenge him on his enemies. He is so embittered and angry that he even calls down bloody destruction upon his enemies. "Look on me, Jehovah," he says, "and avenge me of my persecutors, and know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke.625 I have not desired the woful day, thou knowest: that which came out from my lips was before thee.626 If thy words came to me, I took them eagerly, and they are the joy and rejoicing of my heart; I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced. I sat alone, for thou hast filled me with indignation. I was like a lamb led to the slaughter, and knew not that they had devised devices against me.627 Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable?628 Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are they happy that deal very treacherously?629 Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of destruction.630 Consider how I stand before thee, to turn away thy wrath from them. Therefore give up their children to the famine, and deliver them to the sword. Let their men be the sacrifice of death, and their women bereaved and widows. Thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me; forgive them not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight."631 Jeremiah then received the answer of Jehovah, who said to him: "Gird thy loins; speak to them all that I bid thee; be not afraid of them. I will make thee a fenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land; against the king, the priests, the elders, and the people. They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; I will save thee from the hand of the wicked, and deliver thee from the grasp of the furious."632

So Jeremiah prophesied again: "No doubt, their prophets say to them: Ye shall not see the sword nor shall ye have famine, but the Lord will give you happy days in this land. But Jehovah saith: I have not commanded them nor spoken to them; they prophesy a false vision, and the deceit of their heart, and divination. By the sword and famine shall they perish. The people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem.633 They will say: We acknowledge, O Jehovah, our iniquity, and the sin of our fathers, but do not abhor us, for thy name's sake; do not disgrace the throne of thy glory; break not thy covenant with us. But Jehovah saith to me: Pray not for this people; though Moses and Samuel stood before me, my mind could not be towards them.634 Sorrow not with them. I have taken from them my salvation, my grace, and mercy. The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and graven with the point of a diamond upon the table of their hearts, and upon the horns of their altars."635

In such a contest of opposite views, in such an alternation of moods, four years had passed for the Jews after Zedekiah was placed by Nebuchadnezzar upon the throne, when the kings of Sidon and Tyre sent to Jerusalem to call on the Jews to revolt against Nebuchadnezzar, by whose attack they were threatened. Messengers also came from the Ammonites and the Moabites, who had been in subjection longer than the Jews, and from the Edomites (593 B.C.). If their forces were united there seemed to be a prospect of success in resistance and rebellion, and the reduction of the Phenician cities might be prevented. But Jeremiah spoke to the envoys in the name of Jehovah: "I have made the earth, the man and the beast, and I gave them to whom it seemed meet to me; and now I give all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him the beasts of the field also to serve him. And the nation and the kingdom which will not serve Nebuchadnezzar, – that nation I will punish with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. If ye put your necks in the yoke of Babylon, ye shall live."636 This time the view of the prophet prevailed; Zedekiah repaired in person to Babylon obviously to assure Nebuchadnezzar of his fidelity.637 The Phenicians were left to their fate, and subjugated by Nebuchadnezzar.638 Only Sidon seems to have made a vigorous resistance.639 The island city of Tyre retained her independence.

In the year 589 B.C., Hophrah, the grandson of Necho, ascended the throne of Egypt. Zedekiah soon directed his eyes to the new ruler of the valley of the Nile. He showed himself ready to venture on the struggle with Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah dissuaded them: "Egypt is a very fair heifer," he exclaims, "but destruction cometh from the North. O thou daughter, dwelling in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into captivity; for Noph (Memphis) shall be waste, and burnt, and desolate without an inhabitant. The hired men in the midst of her are like fatted bullocks, for they also are turned back and are fled away together; they did not stand because the day of their calamity was come upon them, the time of their visitation. The daughter of Egypt shall be confounded. Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Behold, I will punish Ammon of No (Thebes), and Pharaoh and Egypt, with their gods and their kings, even Pharaoh and all them that trust in him. And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants."640

But the prince and people of Judah were not to be restrained. Building on the help of Egypt, Zedekiah, in the year 588 B.C., took up arms against Babylonia.641 But before Hophrah had finished his preparations Nebuchadnezzar was in Judah with a powerful army.642 The strong places were invested: one city after another surrendered, only Lachish and Aseka resisted for any length of time.643 "At the meeting of the ways," says the prophet Ezekiel, "the king of Babylon halts to make divination; he shakes his arrows, consults with the teraphim, looks in the liver of the victim. In his right hand is the divination for Jerusalem, to throw up a wall against Jerusalem, to build towers, to appoint battering-rams against the gates, to lift up the voice with shouting. The head-band will be taken, and the crown removed from the prince of Israel."644

The siege of Jerusalem commenced. If in former times, when the Assyrians were encamped before Jerusalem, Isaiah had urged the nation and king to a courageous endurance though arms had been taken up against his advice, the absoluteness of his deep conviction, the certainty which he had received from above, did not permit Jeremiah to take up the attitude of his great predecessor; on the contrary, he did not cease even now to condemn the resistance in the strongest terms. In his eyes it was a rebellion against the counsels of God, against the divine order of the world. When Zedekiah sent to him, to bid him inquire of Jehovah about the issue of the siege, Jeremiah answered: "I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and I will bring the Chaldæans into the city. I will fight against you with an outstretched arm, and will deliver the city into the hands of the king of Babylon, that he may burn it, and I will visit your inhabitants with famine, sword, and pestilence, and those that are left I will give into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, that he may smite them with the edge of the sword. I set before you the way of life and the way of death; he that abideth in the city shall fall by the sword; but he that goeth out and falleth to the Chaldæans he shall live."645 Though these announcements were adapted to undermine the courage and strength of the resistance, and heavy as was the weight given to them by the position which Jeremiah held among the prophets, they did not discourage the king and the population of the metropolis. The debtors and all slaves of Hebrew birth were set at liberty in order to strengthen the numbers for the defence.

Success seemed to come to the aid of their endurance and courage. The Egyptian army advanced and compelled the Chaldæans to raise the siege of Jerusalem (587 B.C.).646 There was time to recover breath. Had not Jehovah again delivered Jerusalem as in the day when Sennacherib oppressed the city? Jeremiah's dreary proclamations seemed contradicted. But he persisted in his position and announced: "Pharaoh's army which is come forth to help you shall return into Egypt, and the Chaldæans shall come again before the city, and shall take it. And though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldæans and there remained but wounded men in their tents, they would rise up and burn Jerusalem with fire."647 It was natural that Jeremiah, in consequence of these speeches and predictions, should appear a traitor in the eyes of the nation, who were struggling for freedom and existence. When, availing himself of the raising of the siege, he wished to go to his plot of ground at Anathoth, he was seized in the gate as a deserter to the Chaldæans and thrown into prison. Yet the king allowed him to be kept in less severe custody, and soon set him at liberty.648