mple the
book of the law (2 Kings 22:8), rests upon mere conjecture. Anathoth,
his native place, was in the land of Benjamin, about four miles north of
Jerusalem. He was called to the prophetical office in his youth, and
exercised it in his native land from the thirteenth year of Josiah to
the close of Zedekiah's reign, through a period of about forty-one years
(chap. 1:3); and afterwards in Egypt, whither he was carried by the
rebellious remnant of the people (chaps. 43, 44). His first appearance,
therefore, was about one hundred and thirty-one years after that of
Isaiah, if we reckon from the last year of Uzziah, and some seventy or
more after the close of Isaiah's prophecies. During all this time the
religious and moral condition of the Jewish nation had been steadily
changing for the worse under such kings as Manasseh and Amon; nor could
the zealous efforts of Josiah avail to check the swelling tide of
idolatry and profligacy. Sent by Jehovah in such a degenerate age to
rebuke the wicked rulers and people for their sins, and to forewarn them
of God's impending judgments, he was necessarily subjected to much
persecution. Isaiah had administered stern rebukes to Ahaz and his
people, but he had encouraged them with the hope of successful
resistance to the Assyrian power. But from the Chaldeans, who had
succeeded the Assyrians as the ruling monarchy of the world, Jeremiah
could promise no deliverance. In the name of the Lord he counselled
submission, solemnly assuring the kings and princes of Judah that their
reliance on Egyptian help would end in shame and disappointment
(37:5-10). This brought upon him a load of calumny, insult, and
persecution, which he keenly felt, but bore with fortitude, never
swerving from the path of strict fidelity towards God. The prophecies of
Jeremiah do not contain so many animating visions of the distant future
as are found in Isaiah. He is more occupied with the sins of his own
age, and the heavy judgments of God that impend over his countrymen. His
mission is emphatically to unfold the connection between national
profligacy and national ruin. This he does with a masterly hand, holding
up to the world, in the character and fate, of his countrymen, a mirror
for all time, in which wicked nations may see themselves and the ruin
which awaits them. The whole compass of profane history does not contain
so much clear instruction on this point as is crowded into the few pages
of "the weeping proph