10 If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them. 11 Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: 'return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. 12 And they said, "There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart. 13 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Ask ye now among the heathen, who hath heard such things: the virgin of Israel hath done a very horrible thing. 14 Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from the rock of the field? or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken? 15 Because my people hath forgotten "me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up; 16 To make their land desolate, and a perpetual hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and wag his head. the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity. 18 Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; "for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words. 19 Give heed to me, O LORD, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me. 20 Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Re- | member that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them. 21 Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and "pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle. 22 Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet. 23 Yet, LORD, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me: forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee: deal thus with them in the time 17 I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will shew them / of thine anger. 9 Chap. 2. 10. 72 Kings 17. 13. Chap. 7.3, and 25. 5, and 35. 15. 8 Chap. 2. 25. 10 Or, my fields for a rock, or, for the snow of Lebanon? shall the running waters be forsaken for the strange cold waters? 11 Chap. 2. 13, and 17.13. 12 Chap, 6. 16. 13 Chap. 19.8, and 49. 13, and 50. 13. 14 Mal. 2. 7. 15 Or, for the tongue. 18 Psal. 109. 10. 17 Heb. pour them out. 18 Heb. for death. Verse 3. " He wrought a work on the wheels." -The original word )אבנים abenam), rendered "wheels," is literally "stones;" and so the Seventy have it in the present text. In Exod. i. 16, the same is rendered "stools; " and so, or rather "seats," the Arabic and some other versions have here. But the Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate have "wheels," as in our version. There is no question that "stones" is the literal meaning; and we incline to think that the potter's wheel is really intended, and that it is called a stone either because it was made of stone, or because its horizontal rotatory action resembled that of the upper mill-stone. Some interpreters have been induced to reject the "wheel" interpretation, because Jeremiah lived before Anacharsis, who is said to have invented the potter's wheel. Such a reason has now little weight, particularly as the paintings of the ancient Egyptians, who were famous for their pot teries, show the same wheel in operation, the use of which is still retained in the country, and the form of which is so clearly shown in our engraving as to render any particular description unnecessary. It will be seen that, as in common, it consists of an horizontal wheel fixed on the top of a stake, the lower part of which falls into a pit, in which stands the potter, who gives the necessary motion to the wheel with his feet, while he works the clay with his hands. This mode of working is very general among the Oriental potters; and seems to agree very well with the description in Ecclesiasticus, which is of considerable interest: "So doth the potter, sitting at his work and turning the wheel about with his feet, who is always carefully set at his work, and maketh all his work by number: he fashioneth the clay with his arm, and boweth down his strength before his feet; he applieth himself to lead it over; and is diligent to make clean the furnace." (ch. xxxix. 29. 30.) It is observable that the clause rendered "boweth down his strength before his feet," is read in the margin "tempereth with his feet;" and it is a fact that the Oriental potters temper their clay by treading it with their feet; and this is depicted among the operations of the potter in the paintings of ancient Egypt, as may be seen in the great work of Rosellini. 17. "An east wind."-From the frequency with which the "east wind" is mentioned in Scripture, it becomes desirable to mention that every wind that blows from any point of the compass between the east and north, and between | the east and south, was called an east wind by the Hebrews, as is still the case among the Orientals, who attend but little to the subdivisions of the compass. " I will shew them the back, and not the face." This was doubtless a remark of rejection and contempt. In the East cely any deeper insult can be conveyed than for one person to rise and turn his back upon another, especially upon iter. There are among ourselves traces of the ideas which the Orientals, more markedly, associate with this :n: thus, persons retire from the presence of individuals or assemblies, to which it is necessary that high respect Bia Id be shown, without turning their backs upon them. ti A CHAPTER XIX. er the type of breaking a potter's vessel is fore wed the desolation of the Jews for their sins. s saith the LORD, Go and get a potter's hen bottle, and take of the ancients of people, and of the ancients of the sts; And go forth unto the valley of the son Hinnom, which is by the entry of 'the gate, and proclaim there the words that 1 'all tell thee, And say, Hear ye the word of the D, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of salem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, ** God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil 1 this place, the which whosoever hearhis ears shall *tingle. Because they have forsaken me, and * estranged this place, and have burned ase in it unto other gods, whom neither nor their fathers have known, nor the 8 of Judah, and have filled this place the blood of innocents; 5 They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind: 6 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter. 7 And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their 'carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. 8 And I will make this city 'desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof. 9 And I will cause them to eat the 'flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, Chap. 7.33, and 16. 4 Chap. 18. 16, and 49. 13, and 50.13. 6 Lev. 26. 29. Deut. 28 53. Lament. 4. 10. the sun gate. 1 Sam. 3. 11. 9 Kings 21. 12. 3 Chap. 7. 31, 32. wherewith their enemies, and they that seek | filed as the place of Tophet, because of all their lives, shall straiten them. 10 Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, 11 And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury. 12 Thus will II I do unto this place, saith the LORD, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet: 13 And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be de the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods. 14 Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the LORD had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the LORD'S house; and said to all the people, 15 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words. 7 Heb. be healed. 8 Chap. 7.32. 9 Chap. 32.29. Verse 2. "The east gate."-As the valley of Ben-Hinnom lay to the south of the city, it has seemed perplexing that the entrance to it should be from the east; and hence very various translations, explanations, and emendations have been suggested. But it seems sufficient to observe, that the south side of Mount Zion is so steep and precipitous that we should hardly expect to find there the gate which furnished the usual communication between the town and the valley, but should rather look for it on the east, although the valley itself was to the south. 5. "To burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings." -As this text is very explicit, we take the opportunity which it offers of making a few remarks on the subject of human sacrifice. The reader of the Bible is aware that the horrid custom is most frequently described as making the children " pass through the fire." This form of expression has led some to contend that the poor victims were not really destroyed in the fire, but that they were made to pass through it, and were thereby consecrated to the idol in whose honour the rite was performed. Mr. C. Taylor, in one of his 'Fragments to Calmet,' supports this view by adducing, from Maurice's History of Hindostan,' an account of the ceremo nies observed at the annual festival held in India in honour of Darma Rajah, when the devotees walk barefoot over a glowing fire extending forty feet; in doing which, some carry their children in their arms, that they may participate in the benefits attributed to this act. A similar explanation has been sometimes given to the alleged human sacrifices of the Carthaginians; but that they were real sacrifices has been abundantly proved by Selden and others, and indeed appears from the uniform tenor of history. From an attentive consideration of the subject, we regret to be unable to acquiesce in the more humane view suggested by the above explanation. That the sacrifices were real seems to give a force to the peculiar horror with which the act is mentioned in Scripture; as, for instance, in the present verse, where the Lord declares, in every variety of expression, how repugnant such doings were to Him. Besides, as the Hebrews, from time to time, fell into the grossest idolatries of the surrounding nations, and they were all addicted to this dreadful custom, this furnishes the strongest collateral evidence that real human sacrifice is intended. And also, whatever seeming doubt may be involved in such expressions as "to cause to pass through the fire," or even in "to burn," seems completely removed by such definite expressions as in the present text, in which it is said that the victims were offered as burnt offerings, than which term, in its Scriptural acceptation, none can be stronger or clearer in showing that the victims were really destroyed-consumed by fire. The existence of the practice among the Jews might be proved from these more definite passages alone, even if we allowed that simple consecration by fire is intended by all the other less definite expressions. a An opinion has been entertained by many commentators and others, that human sacrifices arose originally from distorted tradition, and consquent misapplication, of Abraham's intended sacrifice of his son Isaac. So remarkable a circumstance could scarcely fail to have been noticed by the Canaanites, Amorites, Phœnicians, and others, in or near whose territories it took place. The fact that the injunction was intended as a trial of the patriarch's faith, and nothing more, may have been less clearly understood, or, if at first understood, the impression may gradually have worn off, while it remained well known that the patriarch obtained the Divine approbation and blessing for his conduct on that occasion. If this be adinitted, it is not difficult to suppose that they might conclude, that if his bare intention to sacrifice his son had been so well received, what marks of the Divine favour might not they expect who should actually sacrifice their children? And when once they had taken up the notion that the main merit of this cruel rite consisted in the stiffing all sense of humanity and natural affection, it was easy for them to infer, that the more they did so, by the deaths to which they put their children, the more would the value of the sacrifices be enhanced. 1 There seems to us, however, something revolting in the idea that a Divine command, for the trial of Abraham's faith, however misunderstood, could be attended with such lamentable consequences. And when we consider the extent to which the custom of human sacrifice prevailed among ancient nations, the most remote from each other, and between which no communication of customs and ideas can be traced later than the original dispersion of the human race; and also when we reflect upon its prevalence among the people of unknown continents and islands discovered within the last 350 years, it seems very difficult to trace its origin to this circumstance, and more easy to seek for it in some common and obvious principle, founded upon a notion which all men entertained. This, we venture to think, may be discovered in the idea, that whatever was most costly and precious was most acceptable and proper as an offering to the gods. Hence, when animal sacrifice became common, care was taken that the animal should be fair and unblemished, the flower of the flock or of the herd; and when these ideas were established, it was an easy transition to infer, that human life-the most precious of earthly things-being a more valuable, must be a still more acceptable offering than even the blood of sheep and oxen. In fact, we do find the idea of relative value carried into this awful practice: for not only was human life the most acceptable offering in the abstract, but every circumstance which rendered the individual life most valuable or most cherished, rendered it most acceptable as an offering to the gods. Hence the lives of i the most pure, the most beautiful, the most high-born-children, virgins, and noble youths were considered the most splendid sacrifices; although, in default of such, the lives of slaves, prisoners of war, and criminals, were deemed of 36 e 12 [B.C. 605. far more importance than those of victims from the herd or the flock. We incline to think that this way of viewing the question more satisfactorily accounts for this widely extended practice than does the obscure knowledge of Abraham's intended sacrifice; although it is not unlikely that the Jews themselves, when they adopted the horrid ledge custom from their heathen neighbours, may so have misconceived that circumstance as to imagine that it afforded some or tradition sanction to this most horrible rite. It is very possible that the verse before us, "Which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither entered it into my heart," may have been intended by the Father of all Mercy as a protest against this delusive impression, so dishonouring to Him. We are content in this place to have introduced the subject in a general way. but may perhaps, under future texts, adduce some illustrative details. Meanwhile, the engavings we now offer. from the Etruscan tombs of Camparini, require a few words of explanation. They appear to represent sacrifices, unwilling on the part of the victims. In the first, we observe, on one side of the altar, victims in the act of being stripped for sacrifice; while, on the other side, we see one already stripped and conducted to the altar. In the second piece, a friend or relation (apparently) attempts to pull back, by the mantle, a victim who is dragged to the altar. In the third we observe a seemingly aged person, perhaps a father, weeping, or endeavouring to suppress his emotions, at the act of sacrifice which is about to take place. CHAPTER XX. 1 Pashur, smiting Jeremiah, receiveth a new name, Now Pashur the son of 'Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied phet, and put him in the stock in the pron 2 Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the pro these things. Benjamin, which was the high gate of friends: and they shall fall by the sword of of this city, and all the labours thereof, and 5 Moreover I will deliver all the strength treasure hand of their enemies, which shall treasures of the kings of Judah will I give all the precious things thereof, and all the by spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon. 3 And it came to morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The Lord hath not called thy name Pashur, die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thine house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt 6 And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in but Magor-missabib. thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied 4 For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will lies. make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy 7¶O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and 11 Chron, 24. 14. That is, fear round about. 32 Kings 20. 17. I was 'deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. 8 For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily. 9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a 'burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. 10 For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. "All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him. 11 But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their 'everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten. • Or, enticed. 5 Psal. 39. 3. 12 But, O LORD of hosts, that triest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I opened my cause. 13 Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers. 14 "Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. 15 Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad. 16 And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide; 17 Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me. 18 13 Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame? 6 Job 32. 18. 7 Heb. Every man of my peace. 8 Chap. 15, 20, and 17. 18. 9 Chap. 23. 40. 10 Chap. 11. 20, and 17. 10. 11 Job 3.3. Chap. 15. 16. 18 Gen. 19. 25. 13 Job 3. 20. Verse 15. "The man who brought tidings to my father," &c. We have had frequent occasion to mention the great anxiety of the Orientals to obtain male offspring. This is particularly exhibited by the father when the wife is confined. He is generally in attendance in the house or garden to receive the earliest intelligence of the event. A confidential servant about the harem is usually the first to obtain the information from the mother's chamber. If he learns that the child is a boy, he runs with all speed and announces to the father with high exultation that a male child is born unto him, for which glad tidings he never fails to receive a valuable present. In India, this news is conveyed to the father by the midwife herself. If the child should prove a girl, this, not being considered likely to "make him very glad," is not communicated to him, and he learns the result only through the non-appearance of the man with his tidings. CHAPTER XXI. 1 Zedekiah sendeth to Jeremiah to enquire the event of Nebuchadrezzar's war. 3 Jeremiah foretelleth a hard siege and miserable captivity. 8 He counselleth the people to fall to the Chaldeans, 11 and upbraideth the king's house. THE word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, when king Zedekiah sent unto him Pashur the son of Melchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying, 2 Enquire, I pray thee, of the LORD for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us; if so be that the LORD will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us. 3 Then said Jeremiah unto them, Thus shall ye say to Zedekiah: against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans, which besiege you without the walls, and I will assemble them into the midst of this city. 5 And I myself will fight against you with an 'outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath. 6 And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence. 7 And afterward, saith the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor 4 Thus saith the LORD God of Israel; Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight | have mercy. 1 Exod. 6. 6. |