he Lord said unto me in the days of Josiah
the king?" Every thing on which these interpreters endeavour to found
more accurate determinations in regard to the single Sections,
disappears upon a closer consideration. Thus, _e.g._, the twofold
reference to the seeking of help from Egypt, in chap. ii. 16 ff.,
xxxvi., xxxvii., on which _Eichhorn_ and _Dahler_ lay so much stress.
We are not entitled here to suppose a reference to a definite
historical event, which, moreover, cannot be historically pointed
out in the whole time of Josiah, but can only be supposed on unsafe
and unfounded conjectures. In both of the passages something future
is spoken of, as is evident from vers. 16 and 19. The thought is
this:--that Asshur, _i.e._, the power on the Euphrates (compare 2 Kings
xxiii. 29), which had. for a long time opened its mouth to swallow up
Judah, just as it had already swallowed up the kingdom of the ten
tribes, would not be conciliated, and that Egypt could not grant help
against him. This thought refers to historical circumstances which had
already existed, and continued to exist for some centuries, and which,
in reference to Israel, is given utterance to as early as by Hosea,
compare Vol. i. p. 164, f. Our view is this: We have here before us,
not so much a series of prophecies, each of which had literally been so
uttered at some particular [Pg 374] period in the reign of Josiah, as
rather a _resume_ of the whole prophetic ministry of Jeremiah under
Josiah; a collection of all which, being independent of particular
circumstances of that time, had, in general, the destiny to give an
inward support to the outward reforming activity of Josiah, a specimen
of the manner in which the Prophet discharged the divine commission
which he had received a year after the first reformation of Josiah.
Even the manner in which chap ii. is connected with chap. i. places
this relation to his call beyond any doubt. We have thus before us here
the same phenomenon which we have already perceived in several of the
minor prophets; comp. _e.g._, the introduction to Micah.

In the section before us, the Prophet is engaged with a two-fold
object,--first, with the proclamation of salvation for Israel, chap.
iii. 6-iv. 2; secondly, with the threatening for Judah, chap. iv. 3, to
the end of chap. vi. It is only incidentally, in chap. iii. 18, that it
is intimated that Judah also, after the threatening has been fulfilled
upon them, shall partake in th