Chapter 20
A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE
The new law-book seemed a great victory. Yet sometimes victories are more dangerous than defeats. They lead to self-satisfaction. This was certainly the case with this victory of the authors of Deuteronomy. The people were careful to offer up their sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem, and very few offerings were brought to the old village shrines. But the real kernel of the truth which the prophets had proclaimed was in danger of being forgotten. This was the truth that _no_ forms of sacrifice, _no_ solemn religious feasts are of any account in the sight of God unless accompanied by simple justice and brotherly kindness between neighbors. This was the state of affairs against which one more great reforming prophet was raised up to fight--Jeremiah, of the little town of Anathoth, five miles north of Jerusalem.
A CONVERSATION IN A JERUSALEM STREET
To understand clearly what Jeremiah's message was and why it was needed let us listen to a conversation between two citizens of Jerusalem. This one is imaginary. But there must have been many, in reality, very similar to this.
_First citizen:_ Did you hear of my good fortune? I have just got a fine piece of ground for almost nothing.
_Second citizen:_ How?
_First citizen:_ I had loaned some money to an old farmer, and made him pledge me his field as security. Last summer the Babylonian soldiers came through that valley and burned all the wheat and barley stacks. So the old man couldn't pay back the loan. He tried to tell his story to King Jehoiakim, but the king drove him from the palace. So I went and took his field.
_Second citizen:_ What would the prophets have said to a transaction like that? Did not Isaiah call down woes from Jehovah on those who took away poor men's fields?
_First citizen:_ I have just offered a sacrifice to Jehovah.
_Second citizen:_ I suppose, then, it is all right. But did not the prophets speak against sacrifice, unless one remembered justice and mercy?
_First citizen:_ Yes, but they were speaking of the old sacrifices on the "high places," at the village shrines. Everyone knows they were heathen shrines and hateful to Jehovah. I offered my sacrifice at the temple yonder, just as we are told to do in the law of Moses, which King Josiah's servants found in the temple.
Look! Why is all that crowd gathered over there in the temple yard? Let us go and see what is happening. I heard some one say, that a certain Jeremiah who calls himself a prophet, was to speak there to-day. All my friends who have heard him say that he is a false prophet.
(They reach the edge of the crowd. Jeremiah is standing on the steps of the temple, addressing the people, as follows:)
="Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow ... then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forevermore. Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, ... and come and stand before me in this house, ... and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?"=
JEREMIAH'S MESSAGE OF A HEART RELIGION
It is clear that Jeremiah was fighting the same old battle that Amos and the other prophets had fought against a religion of mere empty ceremonies. But the battle had grown even harder, because the old false practices had been accepted as though they were just the kind of religion that Amos had preached. The people said, "We are keeping the law of Jehovah," and so they were satisfied with themselves.
=The law to be written on the heart.=--Jeremiah saw that this mistake had come from relying too much on a written law. Something more than an outward law was needed before men could succeed in living together as brothers. It is so easy to keep the letter of the law, or to think one is keeping it, while we lose the spirit of it. What is needed, Jeremiah said, is a changed heart. Again and again he cried to the people, "Oh Jerusalem, cleanse thy _heart_." And in one of the great chapters of the Bible, the thirty-first of the book of Jeremiah, he looks forward to a time when Jehovah and his people should be bound together in a new covenant--not a covenant written on tables of stone like the one which Moses wrote at Sinai:
="But this is the covenant that I will make ... after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their hearts I will write it."=
The apostle Paul saw this promise fulfilled by the love which Jesus Christ awakens in men's hearts, so that they gladly and eagerly do the will of God. On account of this prophecy of Jeremiah our Christian Bible is called the New Covenant, or (from the Latin) the New Testament.
JEREMIAH AND THE BABYLONIANS
In Jeremiah's time (a decade or so before and after B.C. 600) the Babylonians had taken the place of the Assyrians as the rulers of the world. There was a powerful king, Nebuchadrezzar, on the throne of Babylon. And the existence of the kingdom of Judah depended on submission to him. But, just as in Isaiah's time a century before, there was now a party in Jerusalem who were constantly plotting to rebel against the Babylonians, hoping for help from Egypt.
=Jeremiah as a patriot.=--Jeremiah had no sympathy with them. He loved his native land deeply and tenderly. But until the people were _worthy_ of liberty he was sure Jehovah would not give it to them.
Again and again they proved their unworthiness. Once when the Babylonian armies were knocking almost at the gates of Jerusalem they remembered that law about Hebrew slaves, which had been made even more strict in the new law, Deuteronomy. According to this law, no Hebrew could be kept in slavery longer than seven years. So in their fear of the Babylonians these rich nobles solemnly set free a great number of slaves whom they had been illegally keeping in slavery. A few days later the hostile army, for some reason or other, withdrew. And within a month all these slaves who had been set free were seized and reenslaved. How Jeremiah denounced this hypocrisy!
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
If Jeremiah's advice had been followed, the people of Judah would have been spared a world of sorrow. But the leaders of the kingdom seemed bent on dragging the whole nation into ruin. In B.C. 597, Jerusalem was captured and some ten thousand of the inhabitants were carried away as exiles to Babylon.
Even that lesson was not enough. Within a few years the new king, Zedekiah, and his nobles again rebelled against Nebuchadrezzar. Jeremiah protested and was called a traitor. Many times his life was threatened; for a long period he was kept in a filthy dungeon, and almost perished from hunger. But friends saved him. Very soon, in B.C. 586, the city came to the horrible end which Jeremiah had so patiently tried to ward off. The city was captured by Babylonian soldiers and burned. Thousands were carried away as exiles. Thousands more fled to Egypt and to other foreign countries. Only the poorest farmers were left to till the soil. David's kingdom and dynasty were ended.
Jeremiah himself was not taken to Babylon, but remained in Palestine. According to tradition, his last days were spent in Egypt, with a Hebrew colony there. His life had been spent in keeping alive the soul of true religion in an age when few would listen. He is one of the great heroes of uncompromising truth.
STUDY TOPICS
1. Look up the story of Jeremiah in the Bible dictionary.
2. Read Jeremiah 1. 1-9, for a taste of his style of writing.
3. One man sacrifices to a heathen god; another tries to bribe Jehovah with a sacrifice as though he were _like_ the heathen gods:
_a._ Which is worse? _b._ Which would the authors of Deuteronomy have considered worse? _c._ Which would Jeremiah have considered worse?