y the Law of God (Lev.
xxvi. 6) to faithfulness, faithfulness itself must exist.

In ver. 14 ff., the Jerusalem of the future is addressed; compare the
expression, "at that time," ver. 20.

[Pg 362]

THE PROPHET JEREMIAH.

GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

In Malachi iii. 1, the Lord promises that He would send His messenger
who should prepare the way before _Him_, who was to come to His temple,
judging and punishing; vers. 23, 24 (iv. 5, 6): that before the coming
of His great and dreadful day, before He smites the land with a curse,
He would send another Elijah, who should bring back the heart of the
fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their
fathers. Even before this prophecy was expressed in words, it had
_actually_ been given in the existence of Jeremiah, who, during the
whole long period of forty-one years, before the destruction, announced
the judgments of the Lord,--who, with burning zeal and ardent love to
the people, preached repentance,--and who, even after the destruction,
sought the small remnant that had been left, and was anxious to secure
it against the new day of the Lord, which, by its obstinate
impenitence, it was drawing down upon itself. It is this typical
relation of Jeremiah to John the Baptist and Christ, of which the
Jewish tradition had an anticipation, although it misunderstood and
expressed it in a gross, outward manner, by teaching that, at the end
of days, Jeremiah would again appear on earth,--it is this, which
invests with a peculiar charm the contemplation of his ministry, and
the study of his prophecies.

The name of the Prophet is to be explained from Exod. xv. 1, from which
it is probably taken. It signifies "The Lord throws." He who bore it
was consecrated to that God who with an almighty hand throws to the
ground all His enemies. From chap. i. 10: "See, I set thee to-day over
the nations [Pg 363] and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull
down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant," it appears
that it was by a dispensation of divine providence, that the Prophet
bore this name with full right, and that the character of his mission
is thereby designated. The judging and destructive activity which the
Prophet, as an instrument of God, is to exercise, is here not only
placed at the commencement, but four appellations are also devoted to
it, whilst only two are devoted to his healing