naturally come from the possessors of privilege, and so his interests lead him to be their champion (23. 17). But he is no mere sycophant, for he really believes in things as they are, discounts the evils as incidental, and expects always good fortune to come to his people. With the passionate prophet of justice he has no sympathy. Convention is his master; "justice" is a word for the sentimentalist. He is, of course, a conservative. He believes in the great heroes who are dead, he repeats the great language of forgotten issues (23. 30). He sees old truth but never new truth. That new occasions teach new duties he cannot understand, that time makes ancient good uncouth seems to him not only contradictory but immoral. We have already noted that the professional prophets of the sixth century B. C. were zealous exponents of Isaiah's theory of the indestructibility of Zion. They gloried in that promise, and cited Isaiah's great name in support of their contention. Jeremiah told the people who heard this comfortable doctrine, "Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit" (7.8). The professional prophets were patriots of course; that is to say, they were concerned for the independence and prosperity of their country and anxious for the confusion of their country's enemies. But they were provincial patriots. They could not see over the walls of Jerusalem. They never asked themselves whether Judah was worth preserving, whether the world would be advantaged by her success. Their motto was, "Right or wrong, my country." They had nothing but scorn for the pessimist who could contemplate evil consequences for his own people. Jeremiah saw the folly of such vainglorious self-content (14. 13-18). Not unnaturally they were immoral. The unthinking optimist, the defender of things as they are, accepts the current immoralities of his day, the self indulgences, the corruptions, the "things that everybody does" as permitted. They would say that Jerusalem, as towns go, was a very decent town (6. 14; 23. 14). These professional politicians were favorites at the court and they had the popular ear. They always had a cheering word to speak of the good things that were shortly coming (14. 13). After the deportation, when Jerusalem was beggared and bereft, Jeremiah felt the obligation to tell the people plainly that the yoke of the Chaldean must be accepted (ch. 27). He put a yoke on his own neck and wore it in the temple courts as a sign of the inevitable submission. When Hananiah broke it he went away, but returned the next day with the grim message that the yoke of the Chaldean was of iron and could not be broken (28. 1-17). § 5. THE HOPE OF NATIONAL REDEMPTION Yet Jeremiah was the real optimist. He believed in the destiny of Israel more gloriously than any of the timeserving prophets who proclaimed it. He wrote a letter to the exiles telling them of a great restoration that should come in the third generation (29. 10-14). When he was thrown into prison as a traitor during the last siege he spoke exultantly of his great hope for the future day when a king should reign in Jerusalem, who should "execute justice and righteousness in the land" (33. 14-16) With a fine patriotism he used the meager funds at his disposal to purchase a piece of land in his native town of Anathoth as a sign of his confidence that houses and fields should yet again be bought in Judah (ch. 32). But the heart of Jeremiah's faith was that his people should actually come to have a longing for righteousness. He never gave up his confidence that there would be a national penitence, and he knew that that meant salvation: "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Jehovah, thoughts of peace, and not of evil. . And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart" (29. 11-13). Jeremiah believed in a future social state as a result of a socialized people who should passionately desire it. With a wonderful insight, which we greatly need to-day in our own social endeavors, he saw that this would come about as a result of individual and national regeneration. The inner motive that comes when individual human hearts are stirred in a great enterprise and the social enthusiasm which results from united endeavor were combined in Jeremiah's great expectation of the future. He had seen the failure of the project of imposing the noble Deuteronomic Covenant upon the people. He looked for a deeper reformation, that should come out of the conscience of the individual and of the nation stirred by great religious motives:/Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them" (31. 31-34)./ This is one of the noblest words of prophecy. So much of what we call social service and social endeavor is an effort to make other people good. Jeremiah sees men with humble hearts seeking each to do the will of God as he finds it in his own conscience, and thus united together seeking to organize a society in which justice and truth shall prevail. He has been called a pessimist. His is a faith in the reign of God and the possibilities of humanity that is fundamental evidence of ethical optimism. DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 1. Read Deut 28, and consider the appropriateness of this appeal to the Hebrews of the seventh century B. C. How far does this accord with our own ideas of social and political philosophy? Is there a truth in this view? If so, what complementary truth is needed to round it out? 2. What estimate of Jeremiah would you make from the account of his call in ch. I? 3. Read ch. 5, and note the social sins which the prophet denounced. What connection was there between idolatry and these iniquities? 4. Read 18. 1-12. Note the principle that all God's promises and warnings were conditional upon man's response. tude of the people was this intended to meet? What atti 5. Read ch. 36, and consider how different persons in Jerusalem probably regarded Jeremiah. 6. The words "calamity howler" and "muckraker" have come to have an evil significance with us. Could the people of Jerusalem have applied such epithets to Jeremiah? Would they have been justified in doing so? 7. Read 7. 3-11. Was Jeremiah essentially an optimist? What would be the social philosophy of a man of his insight in America to-day? 8. What was the contribution of Jeremiah's individualism (24. 7; 31. 28-30, 31-34) to the development of a right social attitude? 9. What was the relation in Jeremiah's thought of religion and social justice? Is this a necessary relation? 10. Read chs. 37 and 38. Note the reward that a prophet of social righteousness may get in his own day. CHAPTER XXVI EZEKIEL In one of his striking picture sermons Jeremiah described two baskets of figs: "One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad” (Jer 24. 2). He explained to the people that the good figs were the Hebrews that had been taken to Babylon and the bad figs were the people that had been left in Jerusalem. His estimate, though not very complimentary to the people whom he addressed, was doubtless correct. Nebuchadrezzar had been careful to take away all the men of ability and initiative in government, in the priesthood, and in industry, for he was determined that Judah should have no leaders who could induce her again to rebel. Jeremiah urged the people not to rebel and turned their attention to the superiority of the Babylonian Jews in order that they might realize that the future of Israel lay in the purification of the exiles rather than in the development of the remnant that had been left behind. While Jeremiah for the eleven years that elapsed between the deportation of the first exiles and the fall of Jerusalem in 586 was thus endeavoring to keep the city from revolt and to encourage the exiles themselves to expect a long residence in Babylonia, the Jews who had been carried from their own land were by no means willing to accept the situation. It was not that Nebuchadrezzar was a tyrannical master, for with statesmanlike clemency he endeavored to make their condition comfortable and prosperous. But they wanted to go home. However little they might have manifested loyalty to Jehovah, they wanted to worship him in his |