W

CHAPTER VI.

E have followed the Judean exiles to Babylon, and would willingly remain with them, tracing step by step the career of the great Daniel, and listening to the pleasant voice' and 'lovely songs' of the captive prophet on the

banks of the Chebar, but we may not at present do so, and must return to the wreck of Judah. What words can describe the scene of desolation! Ruins everywhere-not picturesque, venerable ruins, half hidden by moss and ivy, and from whose crevices many a sweet-scented herb and flower send forth their fragrance, and round whose broken columns the creeper fondly twines, but bare, blackened heaps, among which the mourning Hebrew remnant dare not linger, for birds and beasts of prey have already claimed the holy city as their own, and break the awful silence that reigns around with their discordant voices. And, if we turn from shattered walls, what then? Unsightly mounts, bearing on summit, side, and

foot, all the sad tokens of fierce and bloody war; half-choked, putrid streams; gardens and vineyards trodden down; and forest glades laid bare-these are now thy country scenes, apostate, fallen Judah! But thou art not yet left utterly desolate. One of thy 'daughters,' sacred Mizpah, has been spared, and within her walls thy faithful guardian Gedaliah holds his little court, and thy chief mourner Jeremiah bewails thy fate. Mizpah (watch-tower) lay a little to the north-east of Jerusalem, not far from Ramah, and was at the first foundation of the monarchy the great sanctuary of Jehovah-the special resort of the people in times of difficulty and solemn deliberation. Here Samuel assembled the penitent Hebrews to offer to God the sacrifice of a broken and contrite spirit; and, while the people fasted, and prayed, and wept, the Philistines, taking advantage of their unarmed, defenceless condition, came up to fight against them, but 'the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited, them; and they were smitten before Israel.'1 Nearly two centuries later we read of Mizpah being fortified by Asa, king of Judah, against the incursions of Baasha, king of Israel. Three hundred years passed away after Asa was buried in the sepulchre of his fathers, and Baasha in beautiful Tirzah, and then Mizpah became again memorable in the chronicles of Judah as the scene of a diabolical

Jeremiah

act of treachery and blood-guiltiness. tells us that after Nebuzar-adan had given him permission to leave Ramah, he (Jeremiah) went 'unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, to Mizpah; and dwelt with him among the people that were left in the land.' A short season of rest and peace followed, undisturbed even by any apprehensions for the future. The entire population of Mizpah consisted at that time, we believe, of the governor and his attendants and Chaldean guard, the young daughters of Zedekiah and their eunuchs, Jeremiah and his faithful secretary Baruch, and the families of such vine-dressers and husbandmen who were employed in the immediate neighbourhood. As Mizpah stood on higher ground than Jerusalem, on the broad ridge which forms the continuation of the Mount of Olives to the north and east, the ruins of the holy city might be visible, at least, from the governor's residence. No marvel, therefore, that the devoted and inspired patriot and poet Jeremiah, with the wreck of her he loved so passionately ever in view, lamented for Jerusalem in language unrivalled for touching pathos and beauty:

'How solitary doth she sit, the many-peopled city! She is become a widow, the great among the nations; The queen among the provinces, how is she tributary! Weeping-weeps she all the night; the tears are on her cheeks;

From among all her lovers she hath no comforter;

Her friends have all dealt treacherously; they are become her foes.'1

It is not known for a fact that the Lamentations of Jeremiah were written at Mizpah, but there is ground for supposing that they were the patriotic effusions of the author's burdened heart during the period of his brief respite from personal danger and suffering under the protection of Gedaliah. By turns, the prophet and the holy city, in these exquisite elegies, are introduced as pouring forth. their sorrows, and in the end a chorus of the people send up the most plaintive and earnest supplications to God. 'We cannot admire too much (says Dr. Blayney) the full and graceful flow of pathetic eloquence in which the author pours forth the effusions of a patriotic heart, and piously weeps over the ruins of his venerable country. Never was there a more rich and elegant variety of beautiful images ranged together within so small a compass nor more happily chosen and applied. The prophet's peculiar talent lay in working up and expressing the passions of grief and pity, and unhappily for him, as a man and a citizen, he met with a subject but too well calculated to give his genius its full display.' Another critic says, 'The power of entering into the spirit and meaning of poems such as these depends on two distinct Lam. i. I, 2. Milman's translation.

conditions. We must seek to see, as with our own eyes, the desolation, misery, and confusion which came before those of the prophet. We must endeavour, also, to feel as he felt when he looked upon them ; and the last is the more difficult of the two. Jeremiah was not merely a patriot poet weeping over the ruin of his country, he was a prophet who had seen all this coming, and had foretold it as inevitable. He had urged submission to the Chaldeans as the only mode of diminishing the terrors of that day of the Lord. And now the Chaldeans were come, irritated by the perfidy and rebellion of the kings and princes of Judah, and the actual horrors that he saw surpassed, though he predicted them, all that he had been able to imagine. All feeling of exultation in which, as a mere prophet of evil, he might have indulged at the fulfilment of his forebodings, was swallowed up in deep, overwhelming sorrow. Yet sorrow not less than other emotions works on men according to their characters, and a man with Jeremiah's gifts of utterance could not sit down in the mere silence and stupor of a hopeless grief. He was compelled to give expression to that which was devouring his heart and the heart of his people. The act was a relief to him, it led him on to a calmer and serener state, and revived the faith and hope which had been nearly crushed out.' The Jews, to this day, read fasting on every anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem, the sad and