or the prophet speaks in the name of Babylon, and that, not of
the Babylon of the present, but of the Babylon of the future. This must
be granted, even by those who assert that this portion was composed at
a later period; so that, even from this quarter, the soundness of our
view cannot be assailed.

In ver. 9, the prophet returns to quiet description, from the
symbolical action to which he had been carried away by his emotions.
The subject of this description he states in the words: "_It cometh
unto Judah; it cometh unto the gate of my people, unto Jerusalem._" By
individualizing, he endeavours to give a lively view of the thought,
and to impress it. He begins with an allusion to the lamentation of
David over Saul and Jonathan in 2 Sam. i. 17 ff., which is so much the
more significant, that in this impending catastrophe, Israel also was
to lose his king (compare iv. 9), and that in it David was to
experience the fate of Saul. He then indicates the stations by which
the hostile army advances towards Jerusalem, and describes how, from
thence, it spreads over the whole country, even to its southern
boundary, and carries away the inhabitants into exile. But, in doing
so, he always chooses places, whose names might, in some way, be
brought into connection with what they were now suffering; so that the
whole passage forms a chain of _paronomasias_. These, however, are not
by any means idle plays. They have, throughout, a practical design. The
threatening is thereby to be, as it were, localized. The thought of a
divine judgment could not but be called forth in every one who should
think of one of the places mentioned. Jerusalem is first spoken of in
ver. 9 as the centre of the life of Judah: "The gate of my people,"
etc., being tantamount to "_the_ city or metropolis of it." Then, it
appears a second time in ver. 12, in the middle between five Judean
places preceding and five following it,--the number ten, which is the
symbolical signification of completeness, indicating that the judgment
is to be altogether comprehensive. The five places mentioned after
Jerusalem are all of them situated to the south of it. That the [Pg
431] five places, the mention of which precedes that of Jerusalem, are
all to be sought to the north of it, and that, hence, the judgment
advances from the north in geographical order, as is the case in Is. x.
28 ff. also, is evident from the fact that Beth-Leaphrah, which is
identical with Ophrah, is situat