t, even here, single sunbeams everywhere constantly
break through the dark clouds. But towards the close, when the total
destruction is already at hand, and his commission to root out and
destroy draws to an end, because now the Lord himself is to speak by
deeds, he can, to the full desire of his heart, carry out the second
part of his calling, viz., to plant and to build (compare chap. i.);
and it is now, that his mouth is overflowing, that it is seen how full
of it his heart had always been. The whole vocation of the Prophet,
_Calvin_ strikingly expresses in these words: "I say simply that
Jeremias was sent by God to announce to the people the last defeat,
and, farther, to proclaim the future redemption, but in such a manner,
that he always puts in the seventy years'exile." That, according to
him, this redemption is not destined for Israel only, but that the
Gentiles also partake in it, appears not incidentally only in the
prophecies to his own people; but it is also prominently brought out in
the prophecies against the foreign nations themselves, _e.g._, in the
prophecy against Egypt, chap. xlvi. 26; against Moab, chap. xlviii. 47;
against Ammon, xlix. 6.

In announcing the Messiah from the house of David (chap, xxii. 5, xxx.
9, xxxiii. 15), Jeremiah agrees with the former prophets. The Messianic
features peculiar to him are the following:--The announcement of a
revelation of God, which by far outshines the former one from above the
Ark of the Covenant, and by which the Ark of the Covenant, with every
[Pg 372] thing attached to it, shall become antiquated, chap. iii.
14-17; the announcement of a new covenant, distinguished from the
former by greater richness in the forgiveness of sins, and the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit: "I give my law in their inward parts,
and I will write it in their hearts," chap. xxxi. 31-34; the intimation
of the impending realization of the promise of Moses: "Ye shall be to
me a kingdom of priests," with which the abolition of the poor form of
the priesthood hitherto is connected, chap. xxxiii. 14-26.

As regards the style of Jeremiah, _Cunaeus_ (_de repub. Hebr._ i. 3, c.
7) pertinently remarks: "The whole majesty of Jeremiah lies in his
negligent language; that rough diction becomes him exceedingly well."
It is certainly very superficial in _Jerome_ to seek the cause of that
_humilitas dictionis_ of the Prophet, whom he, at the same time, calls
_in majestate sensuum profundissimum_, in h