(3.) An appendix taken almost verbatim from 2 Kings 24:18-20 and chap. 25, and which seems to have been added by some later writer, as Ezra (chap. 52.)

It is not necessary to consider particularly the attempt made to disprove the genuineness of certain parts of Jeremiah’s prophecies, since they all rest, not on critical grounds, but on the false principle that has been already considered—­the denial of the reality of prophetic inspiration.  Men who deny that Isaiah could foresee the restoration of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, must deny also that Jeremiah could limit the duration of that captivity to seventy years.  But with those who believe that “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” such arguments cannot have weight.  It is well known that Jeremiah, particularly in his prophecies against foreign nations, made use of earlier prophecies, as those of Isaiah and Obadiah.  Compare Isa. chaps. 15, 16 with Jer. chap. 48; Obadiah with Jer. 49:7-17.

The Alexandrine version differs unaccountably from the Hebrew text in its arrangement of the prophecies of Jeremiah.  Those against foreign nations come after chap. 25:13, and also follow a very different order.  Besides this, the Alexandrine exhibits a number of variations larger and smaller from the Hebrew text.  The explanation of these differences in arrangement and in the text is a matter of uncertain conjecture.

13. The book of Lamentations is designated in Hebrew by the opening word Echa, how.  The unanimous voice of antiquity ascribes it to Jeremiah, and with this tradition agree its internal character and style.  It was written in view of the desolation of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, by an eye-witness of all the unutterable miseries connected with that catastrophe.  While it laments, in strains of the deepest anguish, the desolation of Jerusalem with the slaughter and captivity of its inhabitants, and heaps together images of horror, it ascribes righteousness to God, and acknowledges the manifold sins of the rulers and people as the cause of the overwhelming calamities that had come upon them.  We see throughout the feelings of a tender-hearted and compassionate man, of a sincere patriot, and of a devout worshipper of Jehovah beautifully blended together.  Sad as is the picture, it is to us who contemplate it in the light of history, not without its lessons of comfort as well as of warning.  It teaches us that in the midnight of Zion’s adversity her covenant God is with her, and that she has an indestructible life.  The prerogative which the Roman bard applied to his country:  “Plunge her in the deep, she comes out the stronger”—­this high prerogative belongs to the true spiritual Jerusalem, which no fire can destroy, nor floods overwhelm.