early drawn to the exiles from that
province on which the northward windows of his village looked out.(627)
Now once more he was in Benjamin's territory, at Ramah and at Mispah, with
the same northward prospect. Naturally his heart went out again to Ephraim
and its banished folk. Of the priestly tribe as Jeremiah's family were,
their long residence in the land of Benjamin must have infected them with
Benjamin's sense of a closer kinship to Ephraim, the son of Joseph, the
son of Rachel, than to Judah, the son of Leah. And there was, in addition,
the influence of neighbourhood. If blood be thicker than water it is
equally true that watered blood is warmed to affection by nearness of
locality and closeness of association.(628)

It is questionable whether the opening couplet quotes the deliverance of
Israel from Egypt as a precedent for the future return of the northern
tribes from captivity, described in the lines that follow; or whether this
return is at once predicted by the couplet, with the usual prophetic
assurance as though it had already happened. If we take _the desert_ as
this is taken in Hosea II. 14, we may decide for the latter alternative.

Grace have they found in the desert, XXXI. 2
The people escaped from the sword;
While Israel makes for his rest from afar
The Lord appears to him(629): 3
"With a love from of old I have loved thee,
So in troth I (now) draw thee.(630)
"I will rebuild thee, and built shalt thou be, 4
Maiden of Israel!
"Again thou shalt take(631) thee thy timbrels
And forth to the merrymen's dances.
"Again shall vineyards be planted(632) 5
On the hills of Samaria,
"Planters shall surely plant them(?)
And forthwith enjoy(633) (their fruit).
"For comes the day when watchmen are calling 6
On Ephraim's mountains:
"Rise, let us go up to Sion,
To the Lord our God."

The everyday happiness promised is striking. Here speaks again the man,
who, while ruin ran over the land, redeemed his ancestral acres in pledge
of the resettlement of all his people upon their own farms and fields. He
is back in the country, upon the landscapes of his youth, and in this
fresh prospect of the restoration of Israel he puts first the common joys
and fruitful labours of rural life, and only after these the national
worship centred in Jerusalem. Cornill denies this last verse to Jeremiah,
feeling it inconsistent with