is wholly oppression in the midst of her. As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness; violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds! Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem! lest my soul depart from thee: lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited!" Jer. vi. 6 to 8.
But in vain were the warnings of the prophet, till the judgments themselves began to appear in all the horrors of a hopeless war, which began in the ninth year (Kings xxv. 1.) of King Zedekiah's reign, notwithstanding that the monarch had previously rendered himself secure (as he thought) by his military preparations (in sending for horses and men from Egypt to complete his standing army) and had also made Pharaoh (another presumptuous military tyrant) his ally, which encouraged him to break his oath and covenant with the king of Babylon.
But "when Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth, of his dominion, and all the people, fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof"—then God ordered his prophet to remind Zedekiah of that dreadful vengeance, defeat and captivity, which had so often before been denounced as the necessary consequences of oppression and injustice!—"Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel" (viz. to Jeremiah): "Go, and speak to Zedekiah King of Judah, and tell him, thus saith the Lord; behold I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon; and he shall burn it with fire. And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shall surely be taken, and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the King of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon," &c. Jer. xxxiv. 1 to 3.
The impending vengeance being then become visible, and consequently more tremendous, by the near approach of the Babylonian army, that irresistible instrument in the hand of God, by which the Jews had so often been subdued, the king's stubborn heart began to relent, and his military confidence to forsake him, which had before encouraged his injustice; his firmness in worldly politics was
