Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/201

* JEREMIAH. 177 JEREMIAH. theory which had developed, that the entire religious historj- from the conquest of Palestine to the downfall of the two kingdoms represented, with few exceptions, a defection from the law of Yahweh as given to the people at Sinai tlirough Jloses. But it was also held that the ohservance of the law which had been adopted through the influence of Ezra and Xehemiali would surely secure for the people again the favor of their God, and hence the gloomy pro- phecies of the past were so shaped as to justify this hope and a bright outlook for the future. Jeremiah naturally appealed to the pious writers as a type of the true prophet, uncompromising in his fidelity to Yahweh. full of deep love for his people, and yet denouncing them, though with a bleeding heart. The sad days that set in soon after Xehcmiah's dejjarture from Jerusalem, and continued almost without interruption till the uprising of the Maccabees, prompted the pious to the study of .Jeremiah, and it is the result of this study in the form peculiar to those days ll^at led to the production of Jeremianic collec- tions of sternly religious but also consolatory discourses — based in part upon real or supposed utterances of .Jeremiah — which, however, were used more in the manner of texts requiring and suggesting amplification and interpretation. The Book of .Jeremiah is thus an important source for the internal history of the .Jewish religion, and in part lor the political histor*- during the centuries intervening between Ezra and Nehe- miah and the uprising of the people against Greek rule under the lead of the JIaccaljees. BiBLiooRAPHT. Consult the commentaries of Ewald, Keil.Graf, Payne Smith, Giesebrecht.Orel- li. Clicyne, and Bennett, ard the Old Testament Introductions of Driver. Kuenen, Bleek-Wellhau- sen, Kautzsch, and Piepenbring: also T>uhm.The- ologie der Prophcten (Bonn. 187.51 ; ilarti, Der Prophet Jeremia von Anatot (Basel, 1889); Chevne, Jeremiah, His Life and Times (London, 1888). JEREMIAH, TjAMEN'T.tioxs of. The name given in the English Bible to a short book placed immediately after the Book of the Prophet .Jere- miah. In the Hebrew it is called 'Ekah ('How,' the first word), sometimes also ivi/?'?^/! ('Dirges'), and is placed among the Hagiographa. The Sep- tuagint title is Qpfj^oL. Thrrnoi. a translation of Kinoth. The book consists of five chapters, which may be designated as so many elegies or dirges over the desolation of the land, the exile of the people, the destruction of the first temple, the fall of the Kingdom of Judah, and the writer's own woes. Properly speaking, only chapters i., ii., and iv. are dirges, bewailing the death of the .Jewish nation. Chapter iii, deals with th:j aftliction of the people, or rather of the pious section of the commiinity. Chapter v. is in the form of a prayer. The elegies are in poetical fcrm, the metre of the first four being that com- monly employed in dirges in the ancient and modern Orient — the so-called Kinah strain. Each verse member is divided by a caesura into two unequal parts, of which the first is the longer; the second usually presents an enforcement of Ihe thought contained in the first. This unequal proportion between the two parts of a verse member gives to the lines a 'limping' character. In chapters i, and ii. the verses consist of three members; in chapter iii. of one member: in chap- ter iv. of two members. The metre of the fifth poem consi.sts of three-toned lines. The structure of the elegies is very artificial. The first, second, and fourth each contain twenty-two verses, each verse beginning with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet arranged in the usual order except that in i. and iv. the seventeenth letter of the alphabet, according to the ordinary arrange- ment (pe), precedes the sixteenth (uyin). Chap- ter iii. follows the same arrangement as i. and iv. multiplied by 3 — 6G verses in all. Chapter v. contains twenty-two verses, but their initial let- ters are not in alphabetic order. The contents of the five elegies may be sum- marized as follows: (I) Lamentation over the state of Jerusalem after the people had been carried captive; its sins acknowledged as the just cause of its misfortunes ; Vahweh approached with penitence as the only source of help. (2) The destruction of the citv, and sufferings of its people lamented : false prophets condemned ; Yah- weh again invoked as alone able to save. (3) Description of the affliction of the religious com- munity under the tvpe of a single individual, as in the songs of the 'servant of Y'ahweh' in Isaiah (q.v. ). The sufferings are regarded as just pun- ishments, and the speaker expresses confidence in Y'ahweh's ultimate compassion. (4) Lamenta- tion over present conditions in contrast with former prosperity; all misfortune confessed to be the result of transgression and sin. (5) A final appeal to Y'ahweh ; the calamities of the nation again recited; the sins that caused them penitently confessed: and Y'ahweh entreated to turn His people back to Himself and to renew the blessings they had formerly enjoyed. The last verse contains a sentiment that was con- sidered to be of ill omen, and hence in reading the book it became customary to repeat the preceding verse, which embodies the appeal for a return of divine grace. Concerning the authorship and date of the poems, opinions are at variance. The internal evidence is not conclusive. The tradition assign- ing the entire book to .Jeremiah may be traced to the Septuagint, but it should be noted that not all manuscripts contain this ascription. The tradition is thought by some to be based upon the late statement in IT. Chron. xxxv. 2.5 that Jeremiah was the author of an elegy upon Kin'» .Josiah. On the whole. mo<lern scholars reject .Jeremiah's authorship of the book. But it is freely admitted that it shows influences of his style and thought. Some think that it may be the work of a contemporarv (or contemporaries). Others assign a later date. The compositions are evidently specimens of the elegiac literature of the Hebrews (or .Jews) suggested by the national catastrophe and the sufferings of the post-exilic community, especially during the first century- after the return and again under the Seleucidan rule. Some critics think that no two poems have the same author, and the most plausible arrangement with respect to date is ii., iv., i,, V,, iii. Chapters ii. and iv. have more in common than any of the others. Comparison with sentiments in the Psalms that belong to the later Persian period speaks in favor of plac- ing these two chapters about the middle of the fourtli centurv B.C. There is no reason to assume a long intenal between ii. and iv. on the one side and i. and v. on the other. Chapter iii, may belong to the age of Greek supremacy. Consult the commentaries of Ewald, Nagels-