* The descent and birthplace of Jeremiah are given at the beginning of his prophecies (i. 1).  He must have been quite young in the thirteenth year of Josiah, as is evident from the statement in i. 6.  We are told in chap, xxxvi. that in the fourth year of Jehoiakim he dictated a summary of all the prophecies delivered by him from the thirteenth year of Josiah up to the date indicated to his servant Baruch, and that later on he added a number of others of the same kind.

When Jahveh called him, he cried out in amazement, “Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak:  for I am a child.”  But Jahveh reassured him, and touching his lips, said unto him, “Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth:  see, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”  Then the prophet perceived a seething cauldron, the face of which appeared from the north, for the Eternal declared to him that “Out of the north evil shall break out upon all the inhabitants of the land.”  Already the enemy is hastening:  “Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as the whirlwind:  his horses are swifter than eagles.  Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.  O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved.  How long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee?  For a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth evil from the hills of Ephraim:  make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem!” The Scythians had hardly been mentioned before they were already beneath the walls, and the prophet almost swoons with horror at the sound of their approach.  “My bowels, my bowels!  I am pained at my very heart:  my heart is disquieted in me; I cannot hold my peace; because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.  Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.  How long shall I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?” It would seem that the torrent of invasion turned aside from the mountains of Judah; it flowed over Galilee, Samaria, and the Philistine Shephelah, its last eddies dying away on the frontiers of Egypt.  Psammetiehus is said to have bribed the barbarians to retire.  As they fell back they plundered the temple of Derketo, near Ashkelon:  we are told that in order to punish them for this act of sacrilege, the goddess visited them with a disease which caused serious ravages amongst them, and which the survivors carried back with them to their own country.*

* Herodotus calls the goddess Aphrodite Urania, by which we must understand Derketo or Atargatis, who is mentioned by several other classical authors, e.g.  Xanthus of Lydia, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny.  According to Justin, the Scythians were stopped only by the marshes of the Delta.  The disease by which the Scythians were attacked is described by