his name to Zedekiah. The latter also, relying on a covenant with Pharaoh-hophra, unwisely, and contrary to the repeated remonstrances of Jeremiah, rebelled in the ninth year. Nebuchadnezzar now commenced the third siege of Jerusalem, and prosecuted it during two years. A terrible famine ensued. Zedekiah the fugitive is seized, and, as Ezekiel had foretold (ch. 12: 13), his eyes were put out, and he was carried to Babylon, bound with fetters. Jerusalem was totally destroyed, and all the sacred vessels of the temple were carried to Babylon, 588 B. C. OBS.-During the 387 years which had elapsed since the division of the kingdom, twenty kings had reigned in Judah, all of whom belonged to the family of David (the female usurper Athaliah is not here enumerated); of these, only seven walked in the ways of their father David. Neither these faithful kings, nor the many mighty prophets who arose, could permanently repress the torrent of corruption which invaded the people, although divine chastisements and divine patience had long sought to produce a different result. 3. 2 Kings 25: 22, &c. (Jerem. 40-44). - Nebuchadnezzar had left a small portion of the rural population behind, and made Gedaliah the governor of the country. He resided in Mizpah, which was furnished with a small number of Chaldee soldiers; he maintained friendly relations with Jeremiah, and exercised his authority with great gentleness. Many fugitives gradually returned; peace and order in civil life began to be again established, when Gedaliah, who would not entertain suspicions, although he had been warned, was assassinated, two months after he had assumed office, by Ishmael, a fanatical Jew who was connected with the royal family. All the people who still remained, dreading the vengeance of the Chaldees, fled to Egypt. § 105. The Prophets of the Captivity (Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah). 1. The prophet Nahum, of Elkosh, in Galilee, foretold the destruction of Nineveh.-Habakkuk announced that the kingdom of Judah would be destroyed by the Chaldeans as it abundantly deserved, and also set forth the judgment which awaited those wicked invaders themselves.-Zephaniah prophesied in the days of king Josiah. He announces God's judgments both against Jerusalem and also against the enemies of the people of God; he likewise refers to the salvation and the blessings which the preaching of the Gospel will bring to all nations. OBS. - It is Habakkuk from whom that saying proceeded, which has already exercised such vast influence: "The just shall live by his faith." (Hab. 2: 4; Rom. 1: 17.) — Zephaniah refers to the Messianic age in these words: "Then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent." (3 : 9.) And 2. Jeremiah, the son of the high priest Hilkiah, and, perhaps, the grand-son of the prophetess Huldah (compare 2 Kings 22: 14 with 1 Chron. 6: 13), was very young when he was called to assume the prophetic office in the reign of Josiah; the period of his labors extended beyond the destruction of Jerusalem. It was the lot of this gentle and tender-hearted man, not only to receive the commission to declare the severe judgments which awaited the degenerate people of Judah, but also to witness the infliction himself. He mournfully exclaimed: "Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child." But the Lord answered: "Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee." the Lord put forth his hand, and touched his mouth, saying: "Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant." He was, like Moses, a meek and afflicted man, and, like Elijah, he was hated and persecuted, without possessing the vigor and energy of the former, or the unyielding spirit of the latter. He encountered affliction and persecution in every direction; but the wonderful support and consolation which he received from above, and his clear view of deliverance, both in the present and in remote times, fully sustained him, and made him "a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land." (1 18.)-"O Lord, thou hast deceived me," he says : (20: 7-11), “and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily. . . . Then I said, I will not. . . . speak any more in his name. But his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. . . . But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one."--Jeremiah is the John of the Old Testament (§ 131. 3, OBS.), easily moved, mild and tender, and, nevertheless, possessing a spirit which glows and burns when it is aroused. He was, on one occasion, so far misled by his excited feelings, as to curse the day wherein he was born. (20 : 14–18.) 3. Jeremiah exhorted his people to yield quietly to the power of Babylon; when his words were found to produce no effect, he announced the destruction of the holy city and the removal of the people to Babylon. Nevertheless, he comforted them also, and assured them that they should return after a captivity of seventy years. Nebuchadnezzar permitted him to select a place of residence, and he remained in the holy land. His deep and affectionate interest in the remnant of his people, whom he accompanied to Egypt after the murder of Gedaliah, urged him to exhort and comfort the unhappy fugitives in that country; there also he encountered persecution, and, according to an ancient tradition, he was stoned to death. In his Lamentations he mourns for his people, as he surveys the ruins of the holy city, and while their misery distresses his soul, he exhorts them to repent. OBS. The following prediction concerning Christ occurs in ch. 33: 14-17: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel, and to the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness. For thus saith the Lord: David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel." § 106. The Captives.- Ezekiel. : 1. False prophets and deceivers appeared among the captives, who encouraged the perverse spirit with which the people bore the yoke of the Chaldeans that was laid upon them by God's judgment; they led the people astray by awakening delusive hopes in their hearts. When the tidings of these things reached Jeremiah, he availed himself of the opportunity afforded by the journey of certain ambassadors of Zedekiah to Babylon, and transmitted a letter to the captives. "Build ye houses," he wrote in the name of the Lord, "and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them . . . . Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace . . . After seventy years shall be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end" (ch. 29). .... 2. While Jeremiah labored among those who had been left in the holy land, Ezekiel was similarly engaged among the captives by the river of Chebar (Chaboras, Habor, emptying into the Euphrates at Carchemish). He contended against the delusions propagated by false prophets, and against the carnal hopes and the impenitent mind of the captives. The features of his character are entirely different from those which predominate in Jeremiah; he is ardent and impetuous, bold and glowing with zeal. His writings abound in sublime and mysterious visions. During the short period which preceded the actual destruction of the city of Jerusalem, the captives, deceived by their false prophets, entertained the hope of a speedy return to their country. This unfounded hope the prophet labored to expel from their bosoms, and announced both by his words and by his actions, by direct instructions and by symbols, that the destruction of the holy city was inevitable. When that catastrophe had really occurred, he comforted the dispirited people by indicating both a deliverance which was approaching, and also one which was still distant. OBS. — The following predictions of Ezekiel refer to the times of the Messiah: "I will set up one Shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd." (34: 23.) "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." (36: 26, 27.) The vision in ch. 37, of a valley full of dry bones which are restored to their former condition by the breath of God, is a description of the redemption of the people. ( 119.) The sketch in ch. 40-48, derived from a prophetic vision, of a new temple, a new Jerusalem and a new division of the land, is remarkable in the highest degree. 3. Great numbers of the captives were soon reconciled to the necessity of dwelling in a strange land; their outward condition was so favorable, indeed, that many who were satisfied with mere external prosperity, ceased to long for their own home. Nevertheless, those who were governed by more elevated sentiments, retained in their hearts an ardent desire to be restored to the land of their fathers, to the holy city, and to the courts of the Lord. These sentiments are expressed in impassioned language in the one hundred and thirty-seventh psalm: "By the rivers of Babylon, &c." The discipline of the Captivity produced abundant fruits; the inclination of the Israelites to worship strange gods, which had previously been invincible, disappeared entirely, and was succeeded by a faithful and inflexible adherence to the Law of the fathers, which was, however, often characterized by formality and self-righteousness. § 107. The Prophet Daniel. 1. Ch. 1-3. Daniel was educated in Babylon, together with his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, in the school of the Magians, and received the name of Belteshazzar. On a certain occasion, Nebuchadnezzar perceived that he had forgotten a remarkable dream which had troubled his spirit; as the magians whom he summoned, could not make known either the dream or the interpretation of it, the choleric king commands that they should all be put to death. Daniel asks that time should be given to him, prays to God, and reveals to the king both the dream and its interpretation. The king had beheld a great image with a head of gold, a breast of silver, a body of brass, legs of iron, and feet part of iron and part of clay. A stone, cut out |