Israel. 13. And now because you committed all those works, is Yahveh's oracle, and, although I spoke early and diligently to you, you did not hear, and, although I called to you, you did not answer,-14. I do to the house, over which my name was proclaimed, in which you put your trust, and to the place which I gave to your fathers, like as I did to Shiloh, 15. and I cast you away from my sight, like as I cast away all your brethren, the whole seed of Ephraim.

16. But thou, pray not for this people, and lift not up for them supplication and intercession, and urge me not; for I will not hear thee. 17. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah, in the streets of Jerusalem ? 18. The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough to prepare cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out libations to foreign gods to provoke me. 19. Do they then provoke me, is Yahveh's oracle, not rather

as time went on into a permanent building. The theocratic centre remained in Shiloh from the days of Joshua to the death of Eli, Josh. xviii. 1, 1 Sam. iv. 3, thus during the whole period of the Judges. After the removal of the ark (1 Sam. iv.) the sanctuary fell into decay, so that it nowhere figures as a rival of the one at Jerusalem, like Bethel and Dan. A literal destruction may have taken place in Samuel's days; it cannot be proved from Judg. xviii. 30 f. But the obvious proof in the prophet's view of the rejection of Shiloh, which the Lord once acknowledged, is the carrying away of "Israel," whose sacred centre it was, by the Assyrians. Then Shiloh may have been laid waste, so that now it presented a desolate look, although, according to Jer. xli. 5, it still had inhabitants. Ver. 13. God's having spoken unceasingly to Judah increases responsibility. 771, as in ver. 25, xxv. 4, xxvi. 5, xxix. 19. Cf. Gesen. § 131. 36; Eng. § 128. Ver. 15. Ephraim, name of the northern nation = Israel, ver. 12, as in Hos. iv. 17, Isa. vii. 2, and often. Ver. 18. The queen of heaven (cf. xliv. 17, 19, 25) is probably Atar-Astarte, who is repeatedly mentioned in the inscriptions of Assurbanipal as Atar Samain=Atar of heaven, and indeed as the goddess of a north-Arabian tribe of the Kedarenes (Schrader, ii. 107). The epithet "of heaven" alludes to her astral character. As Baal stood in relation to the sun, Astarte, widely known in Asia, stood in relation to the moon. Special cakes were baked for this goddess (cf. the grape-cakes, Hos. iii. 1, with which there may be some connection), which are

themselves to the shaming of their countenance ?—20. Therefore thus says the Lord Yahveh: Behold, my anger and my fury shall be poured out against this place, upon the men, and upon the cattle, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruits of the ground, and shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

21. Thus says Yahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt-offerings to the sacrifices and eat up the flesh! 22. For I spake not with your fathers, nor commanded them on the day when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, in relation to burnt-offering and sacrifice. 23. On the contrary, I commanded them this word, saying: Hearken to my voice,

called, it is conjectured a foreign word; cf. Greek, xauves, xaßuves. According to xliv. 19 (see there), these cakes were symbolic representations of the moon, and so moon-shaped. Her worship belonged chiefly to the women (xliv. 17), this goddess representing the female principle of fertility. Ver. 20. 7, cf. Nah. i. 6. p, see on ver. 3. Ver. 21. D, imper. of p, or better, p: add your burnt-offerings (which were to be wholly burnt to the Lord) to your sacrifices (most of which was consumed by the offerers) and eat (everything together as) flesh (a depreciatory word, suggesting the profane character of the act). Vv. 22, 23. This passage forms a main argument against the pre-exilian origin of the detailed Pentateuchal law of sacrifice, the so-called Priest-Codex, since Jeremiah knows no Mosaic sacrificial laws (Hitzig, Graf, Kuenen, Wellhausen et al.). But so understood, this saying would seem very strange, even apart from that codex. Jeremiah would also have no knowledge of the "book of the covenant" with its sacrificial precepts (Ex. xx. 24, xxiii. 18, cf. xxxiv. 25), and just as little of the Jehovistic narrative, according to which the Lord summoned His people to a sacrificial feast in the wilderness (Ex. v. 1, 3, 8). Even Deuteronomy, whose Mosaic character he plainly defends, contains regulations in regard to sacrifice, xii. 6, 11, 13, 14, 27. Nay, Jeremiah would contradict himself; for according to xvii. 26, xxxi. 14, xxxiii. 11, the offering of sacrifice is part of the Church's normal state, and therefore pleasing to God; and xxxiii. 17-24 (assuming the passage to be genuine) speaks explicitly of an eternal divine covenant with the sacrificial priests, which must reach back to the days of Moses. One might therefore be tempted with the Rabbins in this passage to understand "on the day when I brought

then will I be your God and you shall be my people; and you shall walk in all the way which I shall command you, thee out of Egypt" specifically of the exodus, excluding the Sinaitic legislation (cf. Ex. vi. 7, xv. 26); but this is precluded by the use of this indication of time in Jer. xxxiv. 13 ff. The key then is to be sought not in the indication of time, but in the exact sense of the words. The antithesis in ver. 23 cannot mean that "this word" is the only one that God uttered on Sinai. It is rather a general maxim, expanded by further commands which, according to Deut. v. 30, were given by Moses. But this principle is also the chief condition laid down by God in connection with His covenant with His people (Ex. vi. 7, xv. 26 f., etc.). Thus His chief care was not for the receiving of sacrifices, but for an obedient people. If, then, we take by simply as introducing the contents: in respect of, in matters of, we have here the form, frequent in Semitic languages, of the absolute for the relative antithesis. We should say I have not so much given you commands in respect of sacrifice as rather enjoined you this. In Hos. vi. 6 the absolute and relative forms stand beside each other; in the great saying of the father of prophecy, 1 Sam. xv. 22, only the relative is found. Even there rhetorical exaggeration is not to be spoken of. The Lord denies with good reason that He has commanded sacrifices in the sense which the people thought, independently of deep, internal conditions. The prophet, of course, discloses with solemn boldness (as in ii. 2) God's true word, because His real will. But another formal point gives help. by, Lat. de. Prevailing usage assigns to it a causal sense: Gen. xii. 17, xx. 11, 18, etc., also Jer. xiv. 1, "on occasion of the drought." Also 2 Sam. xviii. 5 (the only passage in which it could be reduced to an indication of contents) implies that Absalom was not merely the object, but the cause of the royal commands. The present passage, therefore, denies that sacrifice was the motive or occasion, and so the substantive content of God's legislation. Rather the message then ran: Hearken to my voice, and walk in all the way that I shall command you. Thus the stress is laid on obedience, and at the same time a one-sided ritual and therefore perverted piety is avoided (cf. Bredenkamp, Gesetz u. Proph. p. 105 ff.; we do not, however, approve his change of the text). The mutual relation between Yahveh and Israel is described in accordance with Ex. vi. 7 (iv. 16); Lev. xxvi. 12; Deut. xxix. 12; just so Jer. xi. 4, xxiv. 7, xxx. 22, xxxi. 1, 33, xxxii. 38, and often in

= is not simply על דברי or על דבר

that it may be well with you. 24. But they hearkened not and inclined not their ear, and walked in that which they devised in the obstinacy of their evil heart, and showed their back and not their face. 25. From the day when your fathers went out of the land of Egypt until this day I sent to you all my servants, the prophets; daily I sent them early; 26. but they hearkened not to me and inclined not their ear, but hardened their neck; they did worse than their fathers. 27. And though thou shalt say all these words to them, they will not hear thee; and though thou call to them, they will give thee no answer. 28. Thus then say to them: This is the nation that never hearkened to the voice of Yahveh their God, and did not receive correction. Faithfulness is vanished and perished out of their mouth.

29. Shave off thy head-ornament (O daughter of Zion), and cast it away, and strike up a lament; for Yahveh has rejected and driven away the generation of his displeasure. 30. For the sons of Judah have done evil in mine eyes, is Yahveh's oracle; they have set up their abomination in the house, over which my name was proclaimed, to defile it;

is למען ייטב

as elsewhere יום

Ezekiel. Cf. also Deut. v. 30 with ver. 23. peculiar to Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, Deut. v. 16, 26, vi. 18, xii. 25, 28, xxii. 7; Jer. xlii. 6; cf. xxxviii. 20, xl. 9. Ver. 24. nya, status absol.; a prepositional qualification follows instead of an adjective. Cf. iii. 17. Properly "they became the back, not the front." Ver. 25a up to n might with LXX be joined to the foregoing; but the change of person is against it. after indication of time, as in viii. 1. DD, day by day. Cf., man by man, every one. , see on ver. 13. Ver. 28. Faithfulness, see on v. 1 f. Ver. 29. The fem. form shows (x. 17, xxii. 20) that the virgin of Zion is addressed: Shave off thy crown and cast it away. The two figures (the chief hair, which is shaven off in sorrow, and the crown which is thrown away) play into each other. Cf. Micah i. 16. She is to mourn on the heights, because she has sinned there, as in iii. 21; perhaps even merely because the mourning is heard farther there, cf. ix. 9. Generation of His anger, cf. Isa. x. 6. Ver. 30. Their enormities, i.e. idols and heathen symbols, they have brought even into the temple of the Lord (cf. vii. 11). This was done under Manasseh,

31. and have built the high places of Tophet, that are in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I commanded them not, nor did it come into my mind. 32. Therefore, behold, days are coming, is Yahveh's oracle, that they shall no longer call it "Tophet" and "Valley of Ben-Hinnom," but "Valley of Slaughter," and they shall bury in Tophet for lack of room. 33. And the corpses of this people shall be food for the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth, and none shall scare them away. 34. And I banish from the cities of Judah and from the cities of Jerusalem the sound of singing and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a desolation. VIII. 1. At

=

2 Kings xxi. 3-5, 7. Ver. 31. They set up the heights (high sacrificing-places) of Tophet, lying in the vale of the son of Hinnom. This valley, named already in Josh. xv. 8, xviii. 16, after a man or family (2 Kings xxiii. 10, Kethib), not appellatively "valley of wailing," girdles the city on the south-west and south; of a charming character in itself, it became afterwards an object of abhorrence through the shameful practices carried on there, and gave its name to hell (ysévva Db). More exactly, the place where these horrors took place is called (from , to spit out: loathing). See Isa. xxx. 33. There the deity (according to xix. 5, Baal; according to xxxii. 35, Moloch, who is a special form of that universal god) was worshipped by sacrifices of children in heathen fashion. This was done first by Ahaz, 2 Kings xvi. 3, then especially by Manasseh, xxi. 6. Josiah, on the other hand, desecrated the place, 2 Kings xxiii. 10, which was perhaps afterwards called Tophet. Ver. 32. In that blood-stained place judgment will come on the inhabitants of Jerusalem (see xix. 7), so that the whole valley will be called Valley of Slaughter, and the dead are buried in impure, hated Tophet, because there is no room elsewhere for the crowd. Ver. 33. Climax: the corpses will lie unburied, a prey to carrion-eaters, from which Orientals shrink with special horror. Cf. Deut. xxviii. 26; Jer. viii. 2, xvi. 4, xix. 7, xxxiv. 20. Ver. 34 like xxv. 10 f.

CHAPTER VIII.

Ver. 1., the Vav before the jussive is not to be erased. The motive of the conquerors in this dishonouring of the bones