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Jeremiah Being The Baird Lecture for 1922
By
George Adam Smith
New York
George H. Doran Company
1924
CONTENTS
Dedication.
Preface.
Preliminary.
Lecture I. The Man And The Book.
Lecture II. The Poet.
Lecture III. The Prophet His Youth And His Call.
Lecture IV. The Prophet In The Reign Of Josiah.
1. His Earliest Oracles. (II. 2 IV. 4.)
2. Oracles on the Scythians. (With some others: IV. 5 VI. 29.)
3. Jeremiah and Deuteronomy. (Chs. VII, VIII. 8, XI.)
Lecture V. Under Jehoiakim.
1. From Megiddo to Carchemish, 608 605.
2. Parables. (XIII, XVIII XX, XXXV.)
3. Oracles on the Edge of Doom. (VII. 16 XVIII passim , XXII, XLV.)
Lecture VI. To The End And After.
1. The Release of Hope. (XXIV, XXIX.)
2. Prophets and Prophets. (XXIII. 9 32, XXVII XXIX, etc.)
3. The Siege. (XXI, XXXII XXXIV, XXXVII, XXXVIII.)
4. And After. (XXX, XXXI, XXXIX XLIV.)
Lecture VII. The Story Of His Soul.
1. Protest and Agony. (I, IV. 10, 19, VI. 11, XI. 18 XII. 6, XV.
10 XVI. 9, XVII. 14 18, XVIII. 18 23, XX. 7 18.)
2. Predestination. (I, XVIII, etc.)
3. Sacrifice.
Lecture VIII. God, Man And The New Covenant.
1. God.
2. Man and the New Covenant.
Appendix I. Medes And Scythians.
Appendix II. Necoh's Campaign.
Index Of Texts.
Index Of Names And Subjects.
Footnotes
DEDICATION.
TO
THE UNION
OF
THE SCOTTISH CHURCHES
PREFACE.
The purpose and the scope of this volume are set forth in the beginning of
Lecture I. Lecture II. explains the various metrical forms in which I
understand Jeremiah to have delivered the most of his prophecies, and
which I have endeavoured, however imperfectly, to reproduce in English.
Here it is necessary only to emphasise the variety of these forms, the
irregularities which are found in them, and the occasional passage of the
Prophet from verse to prose and from prose to verse, after the manner of
some other bards or rhapsodists of his race. The reader will keep in mind
that what appear as metrical irregularities on the printed page would not
be felt to be so when sung or chanted; just as is the case with the
folk songs of Palestine to day. I am well aware that metres so primitive
and by our canons so irregular have been more rhythmically rendered by the
stately prose of our English Versions; yet it is our duty reverently to
seek for the original forms and melodies of what we believe to be the
Oracles of God. The only other point connected with the metrical
translations offered, which need be mentioned here, is that I have
rendered the name of the God of Israel as it is by the Greek and our own
Versions The Lord which is more suitable to English verse than is either
Yahweh or Jehovah.
The text of the Lectures and the footnotes show how much I owe to those
who have already written on Jeremiah, as also in what details I differ
from one or another of them.
I have retained the form of Lectures for this volume, but I have very much
expanded and added to what were only six Lectures of an hour each when
delivered under the auspices of the Baird Trust in Glasgow in 1922.
George Adam Smith.
CHANONRY LODGE,
OLD ABERDEEN,
18th October, 1923.
PRELIMINARY.
First of all, I thank the Baird Trustees for their graceful appointment to
this Lecture of a member of what is still, though please God not for long,
another Church than their own. I am very grateful for the privilege which
they grant me of returning to Glasgow with the accomplishment of a work
the materials for which were largely gathered during the years of my
professorship in the city. The value of the opportunity is enhanced by all
that has since befallen our nation and the world. The Great War invested
the experience of the Prophet, who is the subject of this Lecture, with a
fresh and poignant relevance to our own problems and duties... Continue reading book >>