and planting activity.
As the object of the _throwing_, we have to conceive, not of the
unfaithful covenant-people only. This appears from the mention of the
_nations and kingdoms_ here, and farther, from ver. 14, where the Lord
says to the Prophet: "Out of the North the evil breaks forth upon all
the inhabitants of the earth." To be the herald of the judgment to be
executed upon the whole world by the Chaldeans, was so much the destiny
of the Prophet, that, in chap. i. 3, the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in
which this judgment was brought to a close, as far as Judah was
concerned, is mentioned as the closing point of his ministry. The
Prophet, as is reported by the book itself, still continued his
ministry even among the remnant of the people; but that is lost sight
of The "carrying away of Jerusalem" is treated as the great closing
point; just as, in a manner altogether similar, it is, in the case of
Daniel, in chap. i. 21, the year of Israel's deliverance, although,
according to chap. x. 1, his prophetic ministry extended beyond that
period.

Jeremiah was called to his office when still a youth, in the 13th year
of king Josiah, and hence one year after the first reformation of this
king, who, as early as in the 16th year of his life, and the 8th of his
reign, which lasted 31 years, began to seek the Lord. A king such as
he, unto whom no king before him was like, who turned to the Lord with
all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, (2 Kings
xxiii. 25), in the midst of an evil and adulterous generation, is a
remarkable phenomenon, as little conceivable from natural causes as the
existence of Melchizedec without father, without descent--isolated from
all natural development--in the midst of the Canaanites who, with rapid
strides and irresistibly, hastened on to the completion of their sin.
His existence has the same root as that of Jeremiah,--a fact which
becomes the [Pg 364] more evident when we take into consideration the
connection of the Regal and Prophetical offices in Christ for the
salvation of the people hastening anew to its destruction, and the
faithfulness of the Covenant-God, and His long-suffering which makes
every effort to lead the apostate children to repentance. The zeal of
both, of Josiah and Jeremiah,--although supported by manifold
assistance from other quarters, as _e.g._ by the prophetess Huldah and
the prophet Zephaniah--was unable to stem the tide of prevailing
corruption, and