and this is the name with which they will call him, Jehovah Our Righteousness." This prediction is repeated (XXXIII, 14-16), in the midst of the promise of Israel's future restoration, which Jeremiah, when he was imprisoned in the tenth year of Zedekiah by the princes of Judah, received as a divine consolation. The naming of the Messiah as points back to 2 Sam. XXIII, 3; Is. IV, 2; and his name is designed to indicate, that Jehovah as just and the one who justifies dwells in him, and reveal's Himself through him; for in XXXIII, 15 the new Jerusalem receives this name as the city in which Jehovah as the source of justice to Israel will have His dwelling (compare Gen. XXXIII, 10; Ex. XVII, 5; Ezech. LVIII, 35). The notion of justice (PT or P) has two sides, a legal and an evangelical. It is therefore called either the justice, which rewards men according to their works (justitia recompensativa or punitiva), or the justice, which exactly follows the decree and order of salvation (justitia justificans, compare Rom. I, 17; III, 26). The one side can be called the side of fire and the other the side of light. In the expression: "Jehovah our justice" the justice is meant as the manifestation of the light. In this sense therefore we translate the phrase our righteousness".

"Jehovah

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Jeremiah's Consolatory Promises in XXX, XXXI.

After Jerusalem had fallen, Jeremiah was compelled in the midst of the rest of the exiles, and in fetters to migrate with them to Ramah, there however his fortune took a more favorable turn. The decision being left to him, he preferred to remain in the country and betook himself to Gedaliah, son of Ahikam (XXVI, 24), as is related more briefly in chapter XXXIX, and more fully in XL. In the first verse of this chapter the word of Jehovah is introduced, which at that time came to Jeremiah in Ramah, but the prediction does not follow. Without doubt this word of Jehovah is that which is introduced with the same formula in chapters XXX and XXXI consisting of the comforting predictions which the prophet wrote down by the special command of God: respecting Israel's future restoration, the second David, Rachel's lamentation in Ramah because of her departing children, the promise of their future return, and

regarding the new covenant resting upon the forgiveness of sins. We notice here:

(1) That according to XXX, 21 compare XXXIII, 17 Israel from this time has holy and glorious princes, who enjoy special privileges as priests, but who are all far surpassed by the "second David";

(2) That in chapter XXXI, 22: 3

on the paradox

is expressed, that the protection (indicated by o Deut. XXII, 10; Ps. XXXII, 10) of the men will henceforth be effected by a woman, since a woman will bear the second David and in Him the victorious Defender of His people;

(3) That Jeremiah is the first prophet, who comprehends the future renewal of the covenant under the conception and the name

(XXXI, 31), and who in general makes the covenant the centre of his prophecy as a religious relation founded in love, which excludes wrath (X, 24; XXX, 11; XLVI, 28, where signifies the federal right) a relation through which Jehovah binds Himself legally to Israel and binds Israel legally to Him.

(4) That according to the fundamental thought of XXXI, 29—30, 31 -34 personality is invested with its rights, since hereafter the individual will be freed from the consequences of the generic connection with which it had hitherto been bound.

The tone of the comforting adresses is to a certain extent quite Deutero-Isaianic. The reproduced passages however, if they are such, do not stand abruptly, but in close connection.

in XXX, 8—10 how the representation of Israel as arisen.

We see

has

CHAPTER XII.

Messianic Prophecy just before the Catastrophe

and during the Exile.

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Parallels between Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

Jeremiah entered his prophetic office under Josiah, when the Chaldean catastrophe could no longer be averted. He witnessed it in his own country, and never went to Babylon, but emigrated to Egypt after Gedaliah's assassination with a great company of those who feared the revenge of the Chaldeans. There he delivered his last prophetic addresses (XLIII, 8 etc.; XLIV), and there he disappeared. Ezekiel on the contrary was one of the exiles with Jehoiachin. He experienced the catastrophe with them on the Babylonian Chebar. Five years after the carrying into captivity (594 B. C.) he was called to the prophetic office. Each prophet has, in accordance with the Jewish expression, his own distinguishing mark (7). In Ezekiel we find characteristics entirely different from those in Jeremiah. His book is far more pictorial than that of any other prophet. It is, so to say, an orbis pictus. Heavenly and earthly things transform themselves to him into plastic pictures, which he not only sketches, but also paints even to the smallest details. His call is unique. The fact that it is God, the judge and omnipotent ruler over the world and in it, who calls him as the prophet of the catastrophe, is established by a vision of unparalleled grandeur. While Isaiah caught up to heaven is called by the One enthroned there who is surrounded by the seraphim, Ezekiel sees the Almighty dwelling in the universe and riding on the wings of the cherubim, who sweeps down to him. What the Psalmist sketches (XVIII, II) is multifariously expanded in the vision of the chariot (, compare 1 Chron. XXVIII, 18). From the fiery chariot which is Jehovah's throne, the fire will come which

is to lay the temple and the holy city in ashes. From it a hand. presents a roll to Ezekiel which he is compelled to eat. It is full of woes. But since God assigns him this bitter task, the bitter becomes sweet to him. He is henceforth God's instrument. In this is his duty and at the same time his comfort. The phrase "son of man" (8) hereafter becomes the divine designation of the prophet, which not only expresses his distance from God and his dependence upon Him, but also the nobility of his divine relationship, for the One throned upon the chariot has a human form.

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The Messiah in the Book of Ezekiel.

As the mode of the Messianic prediction is determined elsewhere by the law of contrast so also in Ezekiel, where it shines from the dark background of the present. The Messiah is announced in the following terms:

(1) Generally in contrast to the bad shepherds of that time, as the one good shepherd, whom Jehovah raises up, since he gives people and concludes a bond of peace with The Messiah is here called 77, but in or the sprout raised up to David, or the sprout

himself again to his them (XXXIV, 23). Jeremiah only

of righteousness.

(2) In contrast to the partition of Israel into two kingdoms, which, separated like two pieces of wood from each other, will again grow together under one shepherd and king who here also is called

.(24 ,XXXVII) עבדי דָוִד

(3) In contrast to Jehoiachin and Zedekiah (XVII). The Messiah here appears as the tender twig which Jehovah plucks from the cedar of the house of David, plants upon Zion, and causes to grow to a high tree exalted above all the trees of the field, under which the birds of heaven build their nests. This occurs after Jehoiachin, the top of the cedar, has been removed by the Chaldean eagle to Babylon, and Zedekiah, the vine, which languished for the Nile water of the Pharonian eagle, has been rooted up and withered. The expression (ver. 22b) indicating the insignificant, humble beginning of the Messiah reminds us of Is. XI, 1 and in the form of the expression still more of Is. LIII, 2, as well as of the parable of the mustard seed (Matt. XIII, 31-32).

(4) In contrast to Zedekiah in particular (XXI, 31, 32). The king of Babylon in chapter XXI is represented as standing where two ways part, one of which leads to Rabbath Ammon, the other to Jerusalem. The lot falls upon Jerusalem, the faithless city, which thinks itself protected by its feudal oath. The prophet then turns to Zedekiah with the following words (ver. 30-32):

"And thou pierced one [compare Jer. XXXIX, 7], O blasphemer,

O ruler of Israel, whose day has come at the time of the guilt of the end [that is, which summons the final judgment, VII, 2], thus saith the Lord Jehovah: The turban [the royal tiara] will be removed, and the crown will be taken away [this is the real crown, instead of which the king usually wore the tiara as a sign of royalty]. This is not this [i. This is not this [i. e. the sign of royalty will be hereafter unlike its former self], the low will be exalted, and the exalted will be brought low. [The four infinitives are used as plastic expressions for future events]. Overthrow, overthrow, overthrow [compare Jer. XXII, 29] will I bring upon it [tiara and crown, i. e. the kingdom], it also [namely the crown, as well as the temple, city, prosperity, and possession of the land] shall be destroyed [as ver. 18; Is. XV, 6; Job. VI, 21], until he comes to whom the government belongs [ like Hos. V, 1], and I give it." The prophet here alludes to Gen. XLIX, 10, since he understands in the sense of like most of the old translators, and interprets it exactly like Onkelos

עַד דְיֵיתִי מְשִׁיחָא דְיִדְלֵיהּ הִיא and the second Jerusalem Targum

. We are not therefore compelled to consider this as the original sense of, but there are three things which are evident from this old interpretation: (1) that Ezekiel regarded these words of the blessing of Jacob as a Messianic prophecy; (2) that he did not have the form, but in his text; (3) that even at a very ancient period this was understood in the sense of cujus

est (regnum) as a designation of the Messiah.

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The Idea of the Servant of Jehovah in its Genesis.

The mass of Israel fell in the exile into heathenism. There is no greater error than when it is supposed that in the exile all Israel became dead to idolatry. The great mass rather perished in