Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/432

 416 ISRAEL asks it as a religious duty that man should render to mm what is right, that His will lies not in any unknown height, but in the moral sphere which is known and under stood by all. 1 But the result of the innovation did not correspond exactly to its prophetic origin. Prophecy died when its precepts attained to the force of laws ; the prophetic ideas lost their purity when they became practical. Whatever may have been contemplated, only provisional regulations actually admitted of being carried, and even these only in cooperation with the king and the priests, and with due regard to the capacity of the masses. The final outcome of the Deuteronomic reformation was principally that the cultus of Jehovah was limited to Jerusalem and abolished everywhere else, such was the popular and practical form of prophetic monotheism. The importance of the Salomonic temple was thereby increased in the highest degree, and so also the influence of the priests of Jerusalem, the sons of Zadok, who now in point of fact got rid entirely of their rivals, the priests of the country districts. 9. Josiah lived for thirteen years after the accomplish ment of his great work. It was a happy period of external and internal prosperity. The nation possessed the covenant, and kept it. It seemed as if the conditions had been attained on which, according to the prophets, the continu ance of the theocracy depended ; if their threatenings against Israel had been fulfilled, so now was Judah proving itself the heir of their promises. Already in Deuteronomy is the &quot; extension of the frontier &quot; taken into consideration, and Josiah actually put his hand to the task of seeking the attainment of this end. Religion Jshovah and Israel, religion and patriotism, once more and went hand in hand. Jeremiah alone did not suffer himself to be misled by the general feeling. He was a second Amos, upon a higher platform but, unlike his predecessor, a prophet by profession : his history, like Isaiah s, is practi cally the history of his time. In the work of introducing Deuteronomy he had taken an active part, and throughout his life he showed his zeal against unlawful altars and against the adoration of wood and stone (Asheras and pillars). Jere- But he was by no means satisfied with the efforts of the miah s reformation that had been effected ; nothing appeared to him more sinful r more silly than the false confidence produced by it in Jehovah and in the inviolability of His one true temple. This confidence he maintained to be delusive ; Judah was not a whit better than Israel had been, Jerusalem would be destroyed one day like the temple of Shiloh. The external improvements on which the people of Judah prided themselves he held to leave this severe judgment unaffected ; what was needed was a quite different sort of change, a change of heart, not very easy positively to define. An opportunity for showing his opposition presented itself to the prophet at the juncture when King Josiah had fallen at Megiddo in the battle with Pharaoh Necho (608), and when the people were seeking safety and protection by cleaving to Jehovah and His holy temple. At the instance of the priests and the prophets he had almost expiated with his blood the blasphemies he had uttered against the popular belief ; but he did not suffer himself to be driven from his course. Even when the times had grown quiet again, he persisted, at the risk of his life and under uni versal reproach and ridicule, in his work as a prophet of 1 The commandments which I command thee are not unattainable for thee, neither are they far off ; not in heaven so that one might say, Who can climb up into heaven and bring them down, and tell us them that we might do them ! not beyond the sea, so that one might say, Who shall go over the sea, and fetch them and tell us them that we might do them! but the matter lies very near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, so that thou canst do it. Deut. xxx. 11-14. tion S evil. Moments of despair sometimes came to him; but that he had correctly estimated the true value of the great con version of the nation was speedily proved by the facts. Although Deuteronomy was not formally abolished under Jehoiakim, who as the vassal of Egypt ascended the throne of his father Josiah, nevertheless it ceased to have practical weight, the battle of Megiddo having shown that in spite of the covenant with Jehovah the possibilities of non-success in war remained the same as before. Jehoiakim tended to return to the ways of Manasseh, not only as regarded idolatry, but also in his contempt for law and the private rights of his subjects ; the two things seem to stand in connexion. The course of events at last brought upon the theocracy the visible ruin which Jeremiah had been so long expecting. After the Egyptians had, with comparative ease, subjugated Syria at a time when the Medes and Chaldaeans were busied with the siege of Nineveh, Nebuchadnezzar, that Ne task accomplished, came upon them from Babylon and nezzai routed them on the Euphrates near Carchemish (605-4). The people of Judah rejoiced at the fall of Nineveh, and also at the result of Carchemish ; but they were soon undeceived when the prospect began to open on them of simply exchanging the Egyptian for the Chaldasan yoke. The power of the Chaldeans had been quite unsuspected, and now it was found that in them the Assyrians had suddenly returned to life. Jeremiah was the only man who gained any credit by these events. His much ridiculed &quot; enemy out of the north,&quot; of whom he had of old been wont to speak so much, now began to be talked of with respect, although his name was no longer &quot; the Scythian &quot; but &quot; the Babylonian.&quot; It was an epoch, the close of an account which balanced in his favour. There fore it was that precisely at this moment he received the Divine command to commit to writing that which for twenty-three years he had been preaching, and which, ever pronounced impossible, had now showed itself so close at hand. After the victory of Carchemish the Chaldeans drove Pharaoh out of Syria, and also compelled the submission of Jehoiakim (c. 602). For three years he continued to pay his tribute, and then he withheld it ; a mad passion for liberty, kindled by religious fanaticism, had begun to rage with portentous power amongst the influential classes, the grandees, the priests, and the prophets. Nebuchad nezzar satisfied himself in the first instance with raising against Judah several of the smaller nationalities around, especially the Edomites ; not till 597 did he appear in person before Jerusalem. The town was compelled to Depoi yield ; the more important citizens were carried into exile, ti n c amongst them the young king Jechoniah, son of Jehoiakim, ^j^ who had died in the interval ; Zedekiah ben Josiah was sa ] em made king in his stead over the remnant left behind. The 597 B patriotic fanaticism that had led to the revolt was not broken even by this blow. Within four years afterwards new plans of liberation began to be again set on foot ; but on this occasion the influence of Jeremiah proved strong enough to avert the danger. But when a definite prospect of help from Pharaoh Hophra (Apries) presented itself in 589, the craving for independence proved quite irrepressible. Revolt was declared; and in a very short time the Chaldaean army, with Nebuchadnezzar at its head, lay before Jeru salem. For a while everything seemed to move prosper ously ; the Egyptians came to the rescue, and the Chal- dseans were compelled to raise the siege in order to cope with them. At this there was great joy in Jerusalem ; but Jeremiah continued to express his gloomy views. The event proved that he was right ; the Egyptians were repulsed and the siege resumed. The city was bent on obstinate resistance ; in vain did Jeremiah, at continual risk of his