ere the
date is given the chronological order is not always observed. In the
fourth year of Jehoiakim the prophet, by God's direction, dictated to
Baruch, and he wrote in a roll of a book all the prophecies which God
had communicated to him from the days of Josiah to that time (36:1-4).
When the king had destroyed this roll, he was directed to prepare
another containing the same prophecies, and "there were added besides
unto them many like words" (36:27-32). Whatever use may have been made
of this manuscript in the compilation of our present book, it is plain
that it has not come down to us in its original form as a constituent
part of Jeremiah's prophecies; since in these, as we now have them,
there is an intermingling of messages before and after the fourth year
of Jehoiakim. We cannot tell the origin of the present order, nor is it
a matter of importance, so far as the instructions to be derived from
Jeremiah's writings are concerned. Following the Hebrew order (see
below) we have the following general divisions:

(1.) Prophecies addressed to Judah, with which are connected many
notices of Jeremiah's personal history, and at the close of which stands
a message to Baruch. Chaps. 1-45.

(2.) Prophecies against foreign nations.

(3.) An appendix taken almost verbatim from 2 Kings 24:18-20 and chap.
25, and which seems to have been added by some later writer, as Ezra
(chap. 52.)

It is not necessary to consider particularly the attempt made to
disprove the genuineness of certain parts of Jeremiah's prophecies,
since they all rest, not on critical grounds, but on the false principle
that has been already considered--the denial of the reality of prophetic
inspiration. Men who deny that Isaiah could foresee the restoration of
the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, must deny also that Jeremiah
could limit the duration of that captivity to seventy years. But with
those who believe that "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost," such arguments cannot have weight. It is well known that
Jeremiah, particularly in his prophecies against foreign nations, made
use of earlier prophecies, as those of Isaiah and Obadiah. Compare Isa.
chaps. 15, 16 with Jer. chap. 48; Obadiah with Jer. 49:7-17.

The Alexandrine version differs unaccountably from the Hebrew
text in its arrangement of the prophecies of Jeremiah. Those
against foreign nations come after chap. 25:13, and also follow
a very different