Chapters from the Biblical Law.
585
CHAPTERS FROM THE BIBLICAL LAW. VII. A CONVEYANCE OF LAND TO THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. BY DAVID WERNER AMRAM. IN the February number of the " Green Bag," in an article entitled " The Pur chase of the Cave of Machpelah," I described the method of conveying land before the in troduction of written records. In the present article, I shall describe the method followed during the last days of the Jewish Kingdom, at the beginning of the sixth century before the Christian era, as illustrated in the acqui sition by the prophet Jeremiah of a field be longing to his kinsman. At this time the art of writing seems to have been generally practised, and accord ingly the form of procedure which was in vogue during the earlier period was modified. The case under consideration shows distinct traces of the influence of Babylonian law, more especially in the duplication of the deed of conveyance and in the manner in which it was placed on record. For the purpose of better understanding the reason for the introduction of this frag ment of ancient law into the book of the prophet Jeremiah, it must be borne in mind that the doom of Judea was impending. The King of Babylon had entered the land, had deposed the King of Judea and had placed his uncle, Zedekiah on the throne. Zedekiah thus owed his crown to the grace of the Babylonian monarch. Babylonian soldiers, tax gatherers and other officials appeared in all parts of the land, and wise statesmen fore saw the end of Jewish independence. Among these farseeing men was Jeremiah, a man of noble descent, of priestly lineage and of commanding position in the state. He had foretold the political destruction of the Jewish state, and because of his prophecy King Zedekiah had thrown him into prison.
Jeremiah's influence upon the people was very great, and now that he had accomplished his purpose in opening the eyes of the people to the true condition of affairs and impressing them with the fact that the state was in its decline, his utterances took on a new aspect, and it became his purpose to console the peo ple with the thought that although the pres ent state was doomed, a new state would be established upon its ruins. For the purpose of teaching this to the people he cast it into concrete form and he used the incident about to be described in this paper, as a symbol of the re-establish ment of the state. The point lay in the fact that he, Jeremiah, although then in prison because of his prophecy of the destruction of the state, nevertheless took a deed of con veyance of land, thus manifesting his belief in the fact that the state would be re-estab lished, and that the houses and fields would yet again be bought, and that the people would be brought back out of their captivity. This city whereof ye shall say, it shall be de livered into the hands of the King of Babylonia by the sword and by the famine and by the pes tilence, behold I will gather them out of all coun tries .... and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. .... Like as I have brought this great evil upon these people, so will I bring upon them all the good that 1 have promised them and fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say it is desolate, without man or beast; it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.
Students of Roman history will recall a sin gular event recorded by Livy (Book XXVI, chapter 1 1 ), which indicates faith in the ulti mate supremacy of the Roman arms equal to
