Jeremiah to be put in stocks for a day. Jeremiah complains bitterly of the treatment he meets with on account of his prophesying, and wishes to resign the office, but the impulse proves too strong for him. He consoles himself with a pious hope that Jehovah will let him see his vengeance on his enemies (Jer. xx. 1-12). He continues to predict misfortunes, but intermingles with his gloomier forebodings a fine vision of the time when God shall gather together the remnant of his flock from the countries to which he has driven them, and raise up "a righteous Branch" of the house of David, who will reign and prosper, who will execute justice and equity, in whose days Judah will be saved, and Israel dwell secure (Jer. xxiii. 2-6).
In a third section of his work (chap. xlvi. 1-12, and chap. xlvii. 49) Jeremiah deals with foreign nations, and then (in chap. xxv.) declares that he has been prophesying a long time without being able to get the Jews to listen to him, foretells their subjugation by Nebuchadnezzar, and (rather unfortunately for his own and Jehovah's reputation for correct foresight) commits himself to the definite term of seventy years as the duration of the coming captivity. A wise prophet would have kept within the safe region of vagueness, where he could not come into collision with awkward dates nor drive orthodox interpreters into such pitiable straits as those in which Ewald, for example, finds himself, when he is compelled to say that seventy years is a perfectly general indication of a future that cannot be more precisely fixed, and that it merely refers to the third generation from the writer (P. A. B., vol. ii. p. 230). The remainder of this section (chap. xxvi.-xxix.) relates certain cencounters with other prophets whose predictions had turned out false, and one of whom, as Jeremiah exultingly relates, died during the year, exactly as Jeremiah had declared he would. Interesting evidence is supplied by these chapters of the existence of numerous prophets who differed from each other, and between whose claims only the event could decide.
In the fourth section (chap. xxx.-xxxv.) Jeremiah prophesies the restoration of Israel, and tells his readers how he bought a field from his cousin on the strength of his hopes that the captivity would have an end. A fifth part (chaps. xxxvi., xlv.) relates to Baruch, Jeremiah's secretary; and an appendix (chap.
