ly wisdom and advice, and for yielding
themselves unreservedly to the Divine will in bowing before the Chaldaean
of whom Jahveh made use, as of the Assyrian of old, to chastise the sins
of Judah. The struggle between the two factions constantly disturbed
the public peace, and it needed little to cause the preaching of the
prophets to degenerate into an incitement to revolt. On a feast-day
which occurred in the early months of Jehoiakim's reign, Jeremiah took
up his station on the pavement of the temple and loudly apostrophised
the crowd of worshippers. "Thus saith the Lord: If ye will not hearken
unto Me, to walk in My law, which I have set before you, to hearken to
the words of My servants the prophets, whom I send unto you, even rising
up early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened; then will I make
this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the
nations of the earth." Such a speech, boldly addressed to an audience
the majority of whom were already moved by hostile feelings, brought
their animosity to a climax; the officiating priests, the prophets, and
the pilgrims gathered round Jeremiah, crying, "Thou shalt surely die."
The people thronged into the temple, the princes of Judah went up to
the king's house and to the house of the Lord, and sat in council in the
entry of the new gate. They decreed that Jeremiah, having spoken in
the name of the Lord, did not merit death, and some of their number,
recalling the precedent of Micaiah the Morasthite, who in his time had
predicted the ruin of Jerusalem, added, "Did Hezekiah King of Judah and
all Judah put him at all to death?" Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, one of
those who had helped in restoring the law, took the prophet under his
protection and prevented the crowd from injuring him, but some
others were not able to escape the popular fury. The prophet Uriah of
Kirjath-jearim, who unweariedly prophesied against the city and country
after the manner of Jeremiah, fled to Egypt, but in vain; Jehoiakim
despatched Elnathan, the son of Achbor, "and certain men with him," who
brought him back to Judah, "slew him with the sword, and cast his dead
body into the graves of the common people."* If popular feeling had
reached such a pitch before the battle of Carchemish, to what height
must it have risen when the news of Nebuchadrezzar's victory had given
the death-blow to the hopes of the Egyptian faction! Jeremiah believed
the moment ripe for forcibly arresting