leased again, repeated his prediction, adding that Pashur would himself be carried captive to Babylon, and die there.* Besides his prophecies, we have come down to us the lamentations of Jeremiah, a collection of mournful elegies, or funeral odes, in which, says Bishop Lowth, He celebrates in plaintive strains the obsequies of his ruined country." The poem is divided into five parts in the first, second, and fourth, the prophet speaks in his own person, or beautifully personifies Jerusalem, once a flourishing city, chief among the nations, now solitary and afflicted, betrayed by her friends, and imploring in vain relief and consolation: in the third chapter a chorus of Jews is introduced, after the manner of the Greek tragedies and in the fifth, the whole nation of the Jews pour forth their complaint, on being led away into captivity. The arrangement of the parts was according to an alphabetical order, not uncommon in the Hebrew ode, adapted probably to assist the memory. The whole is so exquisitely tender, so deeply mournful, that one would conceive, says Lowth, "that

*Jeremiah xix.-xx.

For an account of this book, see its analysis by Bishop Lowth, Lecture xxii., from which most of the observations above are drawn; also Bishop Gray, on the same subject.— Key to Old Testament.-The hundred and thirty-seventh psalm, and part of the sixty-fifth, are sometimes attributed to Jeremiah, but probably neither, says the latter authority, were written by him but the former, beginning, "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down," was composed by some captive Jew, and the latter by David, after a drought.

every letter was written with a tear; every word the sound of a broken heart."

The general style of this prophet, says Bishop Gray, is more plain and simple than any of the prophets, excepting perhaps Obadiah, and though not devoid of occasional splendour and sublimity, is certainly inferior to Isaiah. The first chapters of the book, containing denunciations against idolatry, and sorrow at the approaching calamities of his people, are chiefly poetical the middle part is historical, and is written in prose with much simplicity: the last six chapters, containing several predictions relating to other nations, the overthrow of Tyre, and Babylon, and invasion of Egypt, are entirely in verse, and in a high strain of dignity, and rise almost to the sublimity of Isaiah.

The chapters of Jeremiah are not arranged in the exact order of time. The first twelve belong to the reign of Josiah: the rest, to ch. xliv., are not consecutive. "The fifty-first chapter ends the prophecies, and the concluding chapter was probably compiled from Kings, and added by Ezra."

CHAPTER XXV.

B. C.

HABAKKUK. OBADIAH.

HABAKKUK. Much uncertainty rests

612. upon the personal history of this prophet, and the time of his delivering his prophecies is variously placed. The Jews generally consider him to have lived in the reign of Manasseh, but Gray, and most modern commentators, place him in the reign of Jehoiakim, thus making him contemporary with Jeremiah. Habakkuk

makes no mention of the Assyrian Empire of Nineveh, which renders it probable that he lived after its destruction by Nabopolassar; but he speaks of the Chaldeans, "this bitter and hasty nation," and foretells the approaching invasion of Judea by them, under Nebuchadnezzar, and the captivity of the Jews.

The style of this prophet is highly poetical, particularly the sublime prayer which occupies the third chapter, and concludes with that beautiful expression of holy confidence, in the midst of dark distress and worldly sorrow.

"Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no beast in the stall: yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation."

Habakkuk is commonly thought to have lived and died in Judea, and his tomb is said to have existed in the neighbourhood of Eleutheropolis. One tradition asserts that he quitted his country and fled into Arabia on the approach of Nebuchadnezzar, and returned after the Chaldeans had left the land, but this rests on insufficient authority : it is supposed, that he refused to follow his countrymen into Egypt, and was allowed to remain behind the exact time of his death is unknown.

Habakkuk is erroneously said to have written some other predictions, and also one, if not two, of the books in the Apocrypha; but the prophetical book in the Old Testament is the only authentic work we possess.

We shall give Obadiah next in order, as the prophet Daniel is so intimately connected with the history of the Jews in the captivity, that his life cannot be separated from it: he is indeed, contemporary with Obadiah, and some of his prophecies must have been delivered later in point of time.

B. C.

OBADIAH.

OBADIAH. There is nothing certainly 588. known of the prophet Obadiah: some have attempted to identify him with one of the various Obadiahs mentioned in the Old Testament, such as Obadiah, governor of Ahab's house, who saved a hundred prophets from the persecutions of Jezebel; or Obadiah, the captain of fifty men

who was sent to bring Elijah to the presence of Ahaziah; but all these conjectures are unfounded, and we only know that the prophet was commissioned to deliver God's judgment against Edom, and that his book was admitted into the Jewish canon of the minor prophets. It is conjectured that he lived contemporary with Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who also prophecied against Edom, and in language nearly resembling Obadiah's.*

The Edomites, whose country is the modern Petræa, and lay south of Judea, are reproached with their hatred and cruelty towards the inhabitants of the land of Judah, though they were brethren, being descended from Esau, Jacob's brother; and yet, notwithstanding this tie of near kindred, they rejoiced when Jerusalem was destroyed, and insulted her people in their distress: they joined with their adversaries, and even cut off those that sought to escape; for all this, the prophet declared they should be brought low, and should themselves suffer the misery and humiliation they had helped to inflict upon their brethren." As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee," says the prophet, " even though they deceived themselves, and vainly imagined their rocky abode impregnable." "Thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high, that saith in his heart, who shall bring me down:" yet should they be brought low and utterly fall away as a nation from the earth.

*Compare Jeremiah xlix. and Eezekiel xxxv.