s had raised the siege in order to meet the reported Egyptian
advance to the relief of Jerusalem.

XXXVII. 7. Thus saith the Lord: Thus say ye to the king of Judah
who sent you to inquire of Me,(577) Behold, Pharaoh's army, which
is coming forth to help you, shall return to the land of Egypt. 8.
And the Chaldeans shall come back and fight against this city and
take it and burn it with fire. 9. For(578) thus saith the Lord:
Deceive not yourselves saying, The Chaldeans shall surely go off
from us; they shall not go. 10. Even though ye smote the whole
host of the Chaldeans that are fighting with you, and but wounded
men were left, yet should these rise, each in his tent,(579) and
burn this city with fire.

It is very remarkable how the spiritual powers of the Prophet endowed him
with these sound views of the facts of his time, and of their
eventualities whether in the political or in the military sphere. For
nearly forty years he had foretold judgment on his people out of the
North: for eighteen at least he had been sure that its instrument would be
Nebuchadrezzar and he had foreseen the first deportation of the Jews to
Babylonia. Now step by step through the siege he is clear as to what must
happen--clear that the Chaldeans will invest the city, clear when they
raise the investment that they will beat off the Egyptian army of relief
and return, clear that resistance to them is hopeless, and will but add
thousands of deaths by famine and pestilence before the city is taken and
burned and its survivors carried into exile--all of which comes to pass.
But this political sagacity and military foresight have their source in
moral and spiritual convictions--the Prophet's assurance of the character
and will of God, his faith in the Divine Government not of a single nation
but of all the powers of the world, and his belief that a people is saved
and will endure for the service of mankind, neither because of past
privileges nor by the traditions in which it trusts, nor by adherence to
dogmas however vital these have been to its fathers, nor even by its
passionate patriotism and its stubborn gallantry in defence of land and
homes, but only by its justice, its purity, and its obedience to God's
will. These are the spiritual convictions which alone keep the Prophet's
eyes open and his heart steadfast through the fluctuations of policy and
of military fortune that shake his world, and under t