The Foe_, though no longer the
Scythian of his early expectations, was still _out of the North_.

By 602, if not before, Nebuchadrezzar, having succeeded his father as King
of Babylon, carried his power to the coasts of the Levant and the Egyptian
border. Judah was his vassal, and for three years Jehoiakim paid him
tribute, but then defaulted, probably because of promises from Egypt after
the fashion of that restless power. As if not yet ready to invade Judah in
force, Nebuchadrezzar let loose upon her, along with some of his own
Chaldeans, troops of Moabites, Ammonites and Arameans. Soon afterwards
Jehoiakim died and was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin, a youth of
eighteen, who appears to have maintained his father's policy; for in 598,
if not 597, Nebuchadrezzar came up against Jerusalem, which forthwith
surrendered, and the king, his mother and wives, his courtiers and
statesmen were carried into exile, with the craftsmen and smiths and all
who were _apt for war; none remained save the poorest of the people of the
land_.(327)

Throughout these convulsions of her world, this crisis in the history of
Judah herself, Jeremiah remains the one constant, rational, and far-seeing
power in the national life. But at what terrible cost to himself! His
experience is a throng of tragic paradoxes. Faithful to his mission, every
effort he makes to rouse his people to its meaning is baffled. His word is
signally vindicated by the great events of the time, yet each of these but
tears his heart the more as he feels it bringing nearer the ruin of his
people. His word is confirmed, but he is shaken by doubts of himself, his
utterance of which is in poignant contrast to his steadfast delivery of
his messages of judgment. No prophet was at once more sure of his word and
less sure of himself; none save Christ more sternly denounced his people
or upon the edge of their doom more closely knit himself to them.

It is a staggering world, and the one man who has its secret is shaken to
despair about himself. Yet the Word with which he is charged not only
fulfils itself in event after event but holds its distracted prophet fast
to the end of his abhorred task of proclaiming it.

The cardinal event was Nebuchadrezzar's victory over Necoh at Carchemish
in 605 or 604 with its assurance of Babylonian, not Egyptian, supremacy
throughout Western Asia. Such confirmation of the substance of Jeremiah's
prophecies of the past twenty-three years was that