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The document is a promotional overview for the 4th edition of the eBook 'Issues in Political Theory', highlighting its new chapters and case studies that address contemporary political issues. It includes acknowledgments to contributors and editors, as well as a detailed table of contents outlining various political themes such as liberty, democracy, and global poverty. Additionally, it provides links to download the eBook and other related resources.

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100% found this document useful (3 votes)
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(eBook PDF) Issues in Political Theory 4th Editionpdf download

The document is a promotional overview for the 4th edition of the eBook 'Issues in Political Theory', highlighting its new chapters and case studies that address contemporary political issues. It includes acknowledgments to contributors and editors, as well as a detailed table of contents outlining various political themes such as liberty, democracy, and global poverty. Additionally, it provides links to download the eBook and other related resources.

Uploaded by

kaideirik
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Acknowledgements

Our contributors, whether new additions or longstanding stalwarts, have


provided excellent clear, careful and stimulating chapters and case studies. It
is obvious but nonetheless important to reiterate that without their hard work
the textbook could not succeed. Thanks to them all, including Paul
Billingham, who updated the online case studies excellently. OUP and
particularly our editor, Francesca Walker, have been a constant source of
patient and professional support for which we are similarly very grateful.
Finally, we would like to thank our families, who make all this possible in
another kind of way: Matt, Bria and Caelan; Nina, Max, and Lukas; and
Maria Carla.
New to this edition

• New chapters on liberty, global poverty, sovereignty and borders, and the
environment provide students with fresh insight on important debates in
political theory.
• A range of new case studies - including those on same-sex marriage, racial
inequality, sweatshop labour, and Brexit - demonstrate the relevance of
political theory to current real-world issues.
• Two new editors, Robert Jubb (University of Reading) and Patrick Tomlin
(University of Warwick), join the editorial team, offering new expert
perspectives on key political ideas.
Contents

List of case studies


Notes on the contributors
How to use this book
How to use the online resources

Introduction
1 Political obligation
2 Liberty
3 Crime and punishment
4 Democracy
5 Power
6 Equality and social justice
7 Toleration
8 Multiculturalism
9 Gender
10 Global Poverty
11 Human Rights
12 Sovereignty and Borders
13 War and Intervention
14 The Environment
Glossary
References
Index
Detailed contents

List of case studies


Notes on the contributors
How to use this book
How to use the online resources

Introduction
1 Political obligation
Introduction
Consent
Fairness
Community
Morality
Philosophical anarchism
Conclusion
2 Liberty
Introduction
Rival interpretations of liberty
Republican liberty
Liberty and equality
The value of negative liberty
Conclusion
3 Crime and punishment
Introduction
Consequentialist justifications of punishment
Retributivist justifications of punishment
Mixed approaches to the justification of punishment
Conclusion: punishment and beyond
4 Democracy
Introduction
Instrumentalism
Does democracy have non-instrumental value?
The problem of democratic citizenship
Democratic institutions
Conclusion
5 Power
Introduction
The concept of power and modes of power
Three dimensions of power
An alternative view of power
Power, freedom, and responsibility
Conclusion
6 Equality and social justice
Introduction: the history of social justice
The political rejection of social justice and its revival
Equality
Equality of opportunity
Social justice and social relations
The capability approach
Conclusion: prospects for achieving social justice
7 Toleration
Introduction
The traditional doctrine of toleration
The moral analysis of toleration
The contemporary liberal theory of toleration
Toleration as recognition
Conclusion
8 Multiculturalism
Introduction
Multiculturalism: thick or thin?
Liberalism and cultural rights
Do cultural rights oppress the oppressed?
The politics of recognition
Multiculturalism: open-minded dialogue and a common culture
Conclusion
9 Gender
Introduction
What is feminism?
The sex/gender distinction
Feminism, liberalism, and the law
‘The personal is political’
The ethics of care
Sex and violence
Conclusion
10 Global Poverty
The problem
Global political theory
The duty to aid
Uncertainty and ‘Why me?’
No duty of justice?
The duty not to harm
So, what can and should an individual do?
Conclusion
11 Human Rights
Introduction
Natural rights, the rights of man, and human rights
Analytical issues
Justifying theories
Implementing human rights
Conclusion
12 Sovereignty and Borders
Introduction
Sovereignty
Less or more sovereignty?
Who is sovereign?
Borders
The relationship between sovereignty and borders
Conclusion
13 War and Intervention
Introduction
The just war tradition
Theoretical approaches to the ethics of war
Jus ad bellum
Jus in bello
Jus post bellum
Conclusion
14 The Environment
Introduction
The environment and its relationship to humanity
Justice, value, and the environment
Responsibilities to the future
Policies to protect the environment
Who makes the decisions? Democracy and governance
Conclusion

Glossary
References
Index
List of case studies

1 Conscription—by Jeremy Williams


2 Nudging
3 Preamble and Article 1 of the Rome Statute
4 Deliberative polling—by Jeremy Williams
5 Power and Racial Inequality in America
6 Social justice and disability
7 Same-sex marriage
8 Wisconsin v Yoder: the cultural rights of isolationist religious
groups.
9 Pornography
10 Sweatshops and You
11 Torture and counter-terrorism—by Jeremy Williams
12 Sovereignty and Borders in the European Union
13 Afghanistan and the ‘War on Terror’
14 Climate change
Notes on the contributors

Tom Campbell is a former professorial fellow in the Centre for Applied


Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), Charles Sturt University,
Australia. He has been a visiting professor in the School of Law, King’s
College, London, Professor of Jurisprudence at The University of
Glasgow, and Professor of Law at the Australian National University. He
retired from Charles Sturt University in 2017 and has settled in to golfing
and gardening in Canberra where his wife Beth Campbell continues to
serve as a magistrate.
Simon Caney is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Warwick.
He is the author of Justice Beyond Borders (2005) and the co-editor of
Climate Ethics: Essential Readings (2010). His research interests are in
global justice, environmental justice and climate change, and our
responsibilities to future generations.
Ian Carter is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Pavia,
Italy. He is the author of A Measure of Freedom (Oxford University Press,
1999) and the editor, with Matthew H. Kramer and Hillel Steiner, of
Freedom: A Philosophical Anthology (Blackwell, 2006). His articles have
appeared in Ethics, Economics and Philosophy, The Journal of Political
Philosophy, and Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. He is currently
working on the concept of basic equality and its role in a freedom-based
theory of justice.
Clare Chambers is Reader in Political Philosophy and a Fellow of Jesus
College, University of Cambridge. She is the author of Against Marriage:
An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State (Oxford University
Press, 2017); Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice (Penn State
University Press, 2008); Teach Yourself Political Philosophy: A Complete
Introduction (with Phil Parvin, Hodder, 2012); and numerous articles and
chapters on feminist and liberal political philosophy.
Thomas Christiano is Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of
Arizona. He has been a fellow at the Princeton University Center for
Human Values, the National Humanities Center, All Souls College, and
Australian National University. He is the author of The Rule of the Many
(Westview, 1996) and The Constitution of Equality (Oxford University
Press, 2008) and articles on moral and political philosophy. He is editor of
Politics, Philosophy and Economics (Sage). His current research is on
global justice and international institutions, human rights, fair exchange,
democracy, and the foundations of equality.
Sarah Fine is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at King’s College London. She
is co-editor (with Lea Ypi) of Migration in Political Theory: The Ethics of
Movement and Membership (Oxford University Press, 2016). Much of her
research focuses on issues related to migration and citizenship.
Helen Frowe is Wallenberg Academy Research Fellow in Philosophy at
Stockholm University, where she directs the Stockholm Centre for the
Ethics of War and Peace. She is the author of The Ethics of War and
Peace: An Introduction (Routledge, 2011) and Defensive Killing: An
Essay on War and Self-Defence (Oxford University Press, 2014).
Anna Elisabetta Galeotti is Full Professor of Political Philosophy at the
Università del Piemonte Orientale. She has spent several years as a
research fellow in various institutions abroad, including Cambridge
University, the European University Institute in Florence, the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton, the Centre for Ethics and Public Affairs of
St Andrews University, and the Safra Foundation Center for Ethics of
Harvard University. She has worked on toleration for many years, and has
published three books and many essays, including Toleration as
Recognition (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and ‘Female
circumcision’ (Constellations, 14, 2007). She is currently writing a book
on self-deception and democratic politics.
Keith Hyams is a Reader in Political Theory and Interdisciplinary Ethics at
the University of Warwick. He has held visiting positions at the
Universities of Toronto, Oxford, and Louvain, and is the winner of the
Inaugural 2015 Sanders Prize in Political Philosophy. He has published on
consent, distributive justice, and the ethics of climate change. He is current
research interests include ethical issues in the governance of extreme
technological risk, and ethics in international development.
Robert Jubb is an Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of
Reading, and has also worked at the University of Leicester and UCL. He
has published on egalitarianism, collective responsibilities and method in
political theory, particularly ideal theory and realism.
Catriona McKinnon is Professor of Political Theory at the University of
Reading. She is the author of Liberalism and the Defence of Political
Constructivism (Palgrave, 2002), Toleration: A Critical Introduction
(Routledge, 2006), and Climate Change and Future Justice: Precaution,
Compensation, and Triage (Routledge, 2011). She is writing a book on
climate change as an international crime against future people.
Monica Mookherjee is a Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy at the
University of Keele. She is the author of Women’s Rights as Multicultural
Claims: Reconfiguring Gender and Diversity in Political Philosophy
(Edinburgh University Press, 2009) and the editor of Democracy.
Religious Pluralism and the Liberal Dilemma of Accommodation
(Springer, 2010). She is currently writing a book on the application of the
human capabilities approach to theories of multiculturalism.
David Owen is Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the University
of Southampton. He has also been Visiting Professor in Politics and in
Philosophy at the JW Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main. He is the
author of Maturity and Modernity (Routledge, 1994), Nietzsche, Politics
and Modernity (Sage, 1995), and Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality
(Acumen, 2007) and has co-edited volumes including Multiculturalism
and Political Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Recognition
and Power (Cambridge University Press, 2007), as well as writing articles
on a wide range of topics. He is currently working on issues in the ethics
of migration.
Massimo Renzo is Professor of Politics, Philosophy & Law at King’s College
London. He has held visiting appointments at the Australian National
University, the universities of Virginia and Arizona, the Murphy Institute,
the National University of Singapore and the Nathanson Centre for
Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security. He is an affiliated
researcher at the Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War & Peace and the
Honorary Secretary of the Society for Applied Philosophy.
Zofia Stemplowska is Associate Professor of Political Theory at the
University of Oxford and Asa Briggs Fellow of Worcester College,
Oxford. She was previously Associate Professor of Political Theory at the
University of Warwick. She writes on domestic and global justice and
mitigation of historical injustice.
Patrick Tomlin is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Warwick.

Jonathan Wolff is the Blavatnik Chair in Public Policy, at the Blavatnik


School of Government, Oxford. His books include An Introduction to
Political Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1996; 2006; 2016),
Disadvantage (with Avner de-Shalit; Oxford University Press, 2007),
Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Inquiry (Routledge, 2011), The
Human Right to Health (Norton, 2012) and An Introduction to Moral
Philosophy (Norton 2018).
How to use this book

This textbook is enriched with a range of learning features to


help you navigate the text and reinforce your knowledge and
understanding of political theory. This guide shows you how to
get the most out of your book.

Reader’s Guides
Identify the scope of the material to be covered and what themes and
issues you can expect to learn about with Reader’s Guides at the
beginning of each chapter.

Key Concepts
Develop your understanding of core principles in political theory with Key
Concept boxes throughout the text.

Key Thinkers
Contextualize your learning with information about key figures in
political theory with Key Thinkers boxes.

Key Texts
Learn more about some of the most important writings in the
development of political thought with Key Text features throughout the
book.

Key Points
Consolidate your knowledge as you progress through the chapter with
key points which summarize the most important ideas and arguments
discussed.

Case Studies
Develop your ability to connect theory with the real world with an
extended case study at the end of each chapter.
Questions
Assess your understanding of core themes and reflect critically on key
ideas with carefully devised end of chapter questions.

Further Reading
Broaden your learning with guided further reading, where the authors
highlight additional resources you may wish to read, with explanations
of why these readings are helpful.

Web Links
At the very end of the chapters, you will find an annotated list of
important websites which will help you take your learning further and
conduct further research.
Glossary Terms
Look up and revise key terms which appear in colour throughout the
text and are defined in a glossary at the end of the book.
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"Thus saith Jehovah:
Behold, they to whom it pertained not to drink of the
cup shall assuredly drink.
Art thou he that shall go altogether unpunished?
Thou shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt
assuredly drink" (12).

Ay, and drink to the dregs:—

"If grape-gatherers come to thee, would they not leave


gleanings?
If thieves came by night, they would only destroy till
they had enough.
But I have made Esau bare, I have stripped him stark
naked; he shall not be able to hide himself.
His children, and his brethren, and his neighbours are
given up to plunder, and there is an end of
him" (9, 10).
"I have sworn by Myself—is the utterance of Jehovah—
That Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a
reproach, a desolation, and a curse;
All her cities shall become perpetual wastes.
I have heard tidings from Jehovah, and an
ambassador is sent among the nations, saying,
Gather yourselves together and come against her,
arise to battle" (13, 14).

There was obviously but one leader who could lead the nations to
achieve the overthrow of Edom and lead her little ones away captive,
who could come up like a lion from the thickets of Jordan, or "flying
like an eagle and spreading his wings against Bozrah" (22)—
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who had come up against Judah
with all the kingdoms and peoples of his dominions.[233]
In this picture of chastisement and calamity, there is one apparent
touch of pitifulness:—
"Leave thine orphans, I will preserve their lives;
Let thy widows put their trust in Me" (11).

At first sight, at any rate, these seem to be the words of Jehovah. All
the adult males of Edom would perish, yet the helpless widows and
orphans would not be without a protector. The God of Israel would
watch over the lambs of Edom,[234] when they were dragged away
into captivity. We are reluctant to surrender this beautiful and
touching description of a God, who, though He may visit the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation, yet even in such judgment ever remembers mercy. It is
impossible, however, to ignore the fact that such ideas are widely
different from the tone and sentiment of the rest of the section.
These words may be an immediate sequel to the previous verse, "No
Edomite survives to say to his dying brethren, Leave thine orphans
to me," or possibly they may be quoted, in bitter irony, from some
message from Edom to Jerusalem, inviting the Jews to send their
wives and children for safety to Mount Seir. Edom, ungrateful and
treacherous Edom, shall utterly perish—Edom that offered an asylum
to Jewish refugees, and yet shared the plunder of Jerusalem and
betrayed her fugitives to the Chaldeans.
There is no word of restoration. Moab and Ammon and Elam might
revive and flourish again, but for Esau, as of old, there should be no
place of repentance. For Edom, in the days of the Captivity,
trespassed upon the inheritance of Israel more grievously than
Ammon and Moab upon Reuben and Gad. The Edomites possessed
themselves of the rich pastures of the south of Judah, and the land
was thenceforth called Idumea. Thus they earned the undying
hatred of the Jews, in whose mouths Edom became a curse and a
reproach, a term of opprobrium. Like Babylon, Edom was used as a
secret name for Rome, and later on for the Christian Church.
Nevertheless, even in this prophecy, there is a hint that these
predictions of utter ruin must not be taken too literally:—
"For, behold, I will make thee small among the nations,
Despised among men" (15).

These words are scarcely consistent with the other verses, which
imply that, as a people, Edom would utterly perish from off the face
of the earth. As a matter of fact, Edom flourished in her new
territory till the time of the Maccabees, and when the Messiah came
to establish the Kingdom of God, instead of "saviours standing on
Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau,"[235] an Edomite dynasty
was reigning in Jerusalem.
CHAPTER XXII
DAMASCUS
xlix. 23-27.

"I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour
the palaces of Benhadad."—Jer. xlix. 27.

We are a little surprised to meet with a prophecy of Jeremiah


concerning Damascus and the palaces of Benhadad. The names
carry our minds back for more than a couple of centuries. During
Elisha's ministry, Damascus and Samaria were engaged in their long,
fierce duel for the supremacy over Syria and Palestine. In the reign
of Ahaz these ancient rivals combined to attack Judah, so that Isaiah
is keenly interested in Damascus and its fortunes. But about b.c.
745, about a hundred and fifty years before Jeremiah's time, the
Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser[236] overthrew the Syrian kingdom and
carried its people into captivity. We know from Ezekiel,[237] what we
might have surmised from the position and later history of
Damascus, that this ancient city continued a wealthy commercial
centre; but Ezekiel has no oracle concerning Damascus, and the
other documents of the period and of later times do not mention the
capital of Benhadad. Its name does not even occur in Jeremiah's
exhaustive list of the countries of his world in xxv. 15-26. Religious
interest in alien races depended on their political relations with
Israel; when the latter ceased, the prophets had no word from
Jehovah concerning foreign nations. Such considerations have
suggested doubts as to the authenticity of this section, and it has
been supposed that it may be a late echo of Isaiah's utterances
concerning Damascus.
We know, however, too little of the history of the period to warrant
such a conclusion. Damascus would continue to exist as a tributary
state, and might furnish auxiliary forces to the enemies of Judah or
join with her to conspire against Babylon, and would in either case
attract Jeremiah's attention. Moreover, in ancient as in modern
times, commerce played its part in international politics. Doubtless
slaves were part of the merchandise of Damascus, just as they were
among the wares of the Apocalyptic Babylon. Joel[238] denounces
Tyre and Zidon for selling Jews to the Greeks, and the Damascenes
may have served as slave-agents to Nebuchadnezzar and his
captains, and thus provoked the resentment of patriot Jews. So
many picturesque and romantic associations cluster around
Damascus, that this section of Jeremiah almost strikes a jarring
note. We love to think of this fairest of Oriental cities, "half as old as
time," as the "Eye of the East" which Mohammed refused to enter—
because "Man," he said, "can have but one paradise, and my
paradise is fixed above"—and as the capital of Noureddin and his still
more famous successor Saladin. And so we regret that, when it
emerges from the obscurity of centuries into the light of Biblical
narrative, the brief reference should suggest a disaster such as it
endured in later days at the hands of the treacherous and ruthless
Tamerlane.

"Damascus hath grown feeble:


She turneth herself to flee;
Trembling hath seized on her.

How is the city of praise forsaken,[239]


The city of joy!
Her young men shall fall in the streets,
All the warriors shall be put to silence in that day."
We are moved to sympathy with the feelings of Hamath and Arpad,
when they heard the evil tidings, and were filled with sorrow, "like
the sea that cannot rest."
Yet even here this most uncompromising of prophets may teach us,
after his fashion, wholesome though perhaps unwelcome truths. We
are reminded how often the mystic glamour of romance has served
to veil cruelty and corruption, and how little picturesque scenery and
interesting associations can do of themselves to promote a noble
life. Feudal castles, with their massive grandeur, were the
strongholds of avarice and cruelty; and ancient abbeys which, even
in decay, are like a dream of fairyland, were sometimes the home of
abominable corruption.
CHAPTER XXIII
KEDAR AND HAZOR
xlix. 28-33.

"Concerning Kedar, and the kingdoms of Hazor which


Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon smote."—Jer. xlix. 28.

From an immemorial seat of human culture, an "eternal city" which


antedates Rome by centuries, if not millenniums, we turn to those
Arab tribes whose national life and habits were as ancient and have
been as persistent as the streets of Damascus. While Damascus has
almost always been in the forefront of history, the Arab tribes—
except in the time of Mohammed and the early Caliphs—have
seldom played a more important part than that of frontier
marauders. Hence, apart from a few casual references, the only
other passage in the Old Testament which deals, at any length, with
Kedar is the parallel prophecy of Isaiah. And yet Kedar was the great
northern tribe, which ranged the deserts between Palestine and the
Euphrates, and which must have had closer relations with Judah
than most Arab peoples.
"The kingdoms of Hazor" are still more unknown to history. There
were several "Hazors" in Palestine, besides sundry towns whose
names are also derived from Hāçēr, a village; and some of these are
on or beyond the southern frontier of Judah, in the wilderness of the
Exodus, where we might expect to find nomad Arabs. But even
these latter cities can scarcely be the "Hazor" of Jeremiah, and the
more northern are quite out of the question. It is generally supposed
that Hazor here is either some Arabian town, or, more probably, a
collective term for the district inhabited by Arabs, who lived not in
tents, but in Hāçērîm, or villages. This district would be in Arabia
itself, and more distant from Palestine than the deserts over which
Kedar roamed. Possibly Isaiah's "villages (Hāçērîm) that Kedar doth
inhabit" were to be found in the Hazor of Jeremiah, and the same
people were called Kedar and Hazor respectively according as they
lived a nomad life or settled in more permanent dwellings.
The great warlike enterprises of Egypt, Assyria, and Chaldea during
the last centuries of the Jewish monarchy would bring these desert
horsemen into special prominence. They could either further or
hinder the advance of armies marching westward from
Mesopotamia, and could command their lines of communication.
Kedar, and possibly Hazor too, would not be slack to use the
opportunities of plunder presented by the calamities of the
Palestinian states. Hence their conspicuous position in the pages of
Isaiah and Jeremiah.
As the Assyrians, when their power was at its height, had chastised
the aggressions of the Arabs, so now Nebuchadnezzar "smote Kedar
and the kingdoms of Hazor." Even the wandering nomads and
dwellers by distant oases in trackless deserts could not escape the
sweeping activity of this scourge of God. Doubtless the ravages of
Chaldean armies might serve to punish many sins besides the
wrongs they were sent to revenge. The Bedouin always had their
virtues, but the wild liberty of the desert easily degenerated into
unbridled licence. Judah and every state bordering on the wilderness
knew by painful experience how large a measure of rapine and
cruelty might coexist with primitive customs, and the Jewish prophet
gives Nebuchadnezzar a Divine commission as for a holy war:—

"Arise, go up to Kedar;
Spoil the men of the east.
They (the Chaldeans) shall take away their tents and
flocks;
They shall take for themselves their tent-coverings,
And all their gear and their camels:
Men shall cry concerning them,
Terror on every side."[240]
Then the prophet turns to the more distant Hazor with words of
warning:—

"Flee, get you far off, dwell in hidden recesses of the


land, O inhabitants of Hazor—
It is the utterance of Jehovah—
For Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon hath counselled
a counsel and purposed a purpose against
you."

But then, as if this warning were a mere taunt, he renews his


address to the Chaldeans and directs their attack against Hazor:—

"Arise, go up against a nation that is at ease, that


dwelleth without fear—it is the utterance of
Jehovah—
Which abide alone, without gates or bars"—

like the people of Laish before the Danites came, and like Sparta
before the days of Epaminondas.
Possibly we are to combine these successive "utterances," and to
understand that it was alike Jehovah's will that the Chaldeans should
invade and lay waste Hazor, and that the unfortunate inhabitants
should escape—but escape plundered and impoverished: for

"Their camels shall become a spoil,


The multitude of their cattle a prey:
I will scatter to every wind them that have the
corners of their hair polled;[241]
I will bring their calamity upon them from all sides.
Hazor shall be a haunt of jackals, a desolation for
ever:
No one shall dwell there,
No soul shall sojourn therein."
CHAPTER XXIV
ELAM
xlix. 34-39

"I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might."—Jer.
xlix. 35.

We do not know what principle or absence of principle determined


the arrangement of these prophecies; but, in any case, these studies
in ancient geography and politics present a series of dramatic
contrasts. From two ancient and enduring types of Eastern life, the
city of Damascus and the Bedouin of the desert, we pass to a state
of an entirely different order, only slightly connected with the
international system of Western Asia. Elam contended for the palm
of supremacy with Assyria and Babylon in the farther east, as Egypt
did to the south-west. Before the time of Abraham Elamite kings
ruled over Chaldea, and Genesis xiv. tells us how Chedorlaomer with
his subject-allies collected his tribute in Palestine. Many centuries
later, the Assyrian king Ashur-bani-pal (b.c. 668-626) conquered
Elam, sacked the capital Shushan, and carried away many of the
inhabitants into captivity. According to Ezra iv. 9, 10, Elamites were
among the mingled population whom "the great and noble
Asnapper" (probably Ashur-bani-pal) settled in Samaria.
When we begin to recall even a few of the striking facts concerning
Elam discovered in the last fifty years, and remember that for
millenniums Elam had played the part of a first-class Asiatic power,
we are tempted to wonder that Jeremiah only devotes a few
conventional sentences to this great nation. But the prophet's
interest was simply determined by the relations of Elam with Judah;
and, from this point of view, an opposite difficulty arises. How came
the Jews in Palestine in the time of Jeremiah to have any concern
with a people dwelling beyond the Euphrates and Tigris, on the
farther side of the Chaldean dominions? One answer to this question
has already been suggested: the Jews may have learnt from the
Elamite colonists in Samaria something concerning their native
country; it is also probable that Elamite auxiliaries served in the
Chaldean armies that invaded Judah.
Accordingly the prophet sets forth, in terms already familiar to us,
how Elamite fugitives should be scattered to the four quarters of the
earth and be found in every nation under heaven, how the sword
should follow them into their distant places of refuge and utterly
consume them.

"I will set My throne in Elam;


I will destroy out of it both king and princes—
It is the utterance of Jehovah."

In the prophecy concerning Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar was to set his


throne at Tahpanhes to decide the fate of the captives; but here
Jehovah Himself is pictured as the triumphant and inexorable
conqueror, holding His court as the arbiter of life and death. The
vision of the "great white throne" was not first accorded to John in
his Apocalypse. Jeremiah's eyes were opened to see beside the
tribunals of heathen conquerors the judgment-seat of a mightier
Potentate; and his inspired utterances remind the believer that every
battle may be an Armageddon, and that at every congress there is
set a mystic throne from which the Eternal King overrules the
decisions of plenipotentiaries.
But this sentence of condemnation was not to be the final "utterance
of Jehovah" with regard to Elam. A day of renewed prosperity was to
dawn for Elam, as well as for Moab, Ammon, Egypt, and Judah:—

"In the latter days I will bring again the captivity of


Elam—
It is the utterance of Jehovah."

The Apostle Peter[242] tells us that the prophets "sought and


searched diligently" concerning the application of their words,
"searching what time and what manner of time the Spirit of Christ
which was in them did point unto." We gather from these verses
that, as Newton could not have foreseen all that was contained in
the law of gravitation, so the prophets often understood little of
what was involved in their own inspiration. We could scarcely have a
better example than this prophecy affords of the knowledge of the
principles of God's future action combined with ignorance of its
circumstances and details. If we may credit the current theory,
Cyrus, the servant of Jehovah, the deliverer of Judah, was a king of
Elam. If Jeremiah had foreseen how his prophecies of the restoration
of Elam and of Judah would be fulfilled, we may be sure that this
utterance would not have been so brief, its hostile tone would have
been mitigated, and the concluding sentence would not have been
so cold and conventional.
CHAPTER XXV
BABYLON
l., li.

"Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in


pieces."—Jer. l., 2.

These chapters present phenomena analogous to those of Isaiah xl.-


lxvi., and have been very commonly ascribed to an author writing at
Babylon towards the close of the Exile, or even at some later date.
The conclusion has been arrived at in both cases by the application
of the same critical principles to similar data. In the present case the
argument is complicated by the concluding paragraph of chapter li.,
which states that "Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should
come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against
Babylon," in the fourth year of Zedekiah, and gave the book to
Seraiah ben Neriah to take to Babylon and tie a stone to it and
throw it into the Euphrates.
Such a statement, however, cuts both ways. On the one hand, we
seem to have—what is wanting in the case of Isaiah xl.-lxvi.—a
definite and circumstantial testimony as to authorship. But, on the
other hand, this very testimony raises new difficulties. If l. and li.
had been simply assigned to Jeremiah, without any specification of
date, we might possibly have accepted the tradition according to
which he spent his last years at Babylon, and have supposed that
altered, circumstances and novel experiences account for the
differences between these chapters and the rest of the book. But
Zedekiah's fourth year is a point in the prophet's ministry at which it
is extremely difficult to account for his having composed such a
prophecy. If, however, li. 59-64 is mistaken in its exact and
circumstantial account of the origin of the preceding section, we
must hesitate to recognise its authority as to that section's
authorship.
A detailed discussion of the question would be out of place here,
[243] but we may notice a few passages which illustrate the
arguments for an exilic date. We learn from Jeremiah xxvii.-xxix.
that, in the fourth year of Zedekiah,[244] the prophet was
denouncing as false teachers those who predicted that the Jewish
captives in Babylon would speedily return to their native land. He
himself asserted that judgment would not be inflicted upon Babylon
for seventy years, and exhorted the exiles to build houses and
marry, and plant gardens, and to pray for the peace of Babylon.[245]
We can hardly imagine that, in the same breath almost, he called
upon these exiles to flee from the city of their captivity, and
summoned the neighbouring nations to execute Jehovah's judgment
against the oppressors of His people. And yet we read:—

"There shall come the Israelites, they and the Jews


together:
They shall weep continually, as they go to seek
Jehovah their God;
They shall ask their way to Zion, with their faces
hitherward"[246] (l. 4, 5).

"Remove from the midst of Babylon, and be ye as he-


goats before the flock" (l. 8).

These verses imply that the Jews were already in Babylon, and
throughout the author assumes the circumstances of the Exile. "The
vengeance of the Temple," i.e. vengeance for the destruction of the
Temple at the final capture of Jerusalem, is twice threatened.[247]
The ruin of Babylon is described as imminent:—

"Set up a standard on the earth,


Blow the trumpet among the nations,
Prepare the nations against her."

If these words were written by Jeremiah in the fourth year of


Zedekiah, he certainly was not practising his own precept to pray for
the peace of Babylon.
Various theories have been advanced to meet the difficulties which
are raised by the ascription of this prophecy to Jeremiah. It may
have been expanded from an authentic original. Or again, li. 59-64
may not really refer to l. 1-li. 58; the two sections may once have
existed separately, and may owe their connection to an editor, who
met with l. 1-li. 58 as an anonymous document, and thought he
recognised in it the "book" referred to in li. 59-64. Or again, l. 1-li.
58 may be a hypothetical reconstruction of a lost prophecy of
Jeremiah; li. 59-64 mentioned such a prophecy and none was
extant, and some student and disciple of Jeremiah's school utilised
the material and ideas of extant writings to supply the gap. In any
case, it must have been edited more than once, and each time with
modifications. Some support might be obtained for any one of these
theories from the fact that l. 1-li. 58 is primâ facie partly a cento of
passages from the rest of the book and from the Book of Isaiah.[248]
In view of the great uncertainty as to the origin and history of this
prophecy, we do not intend to attempt any detailed exposition.
Elsewhere whatever non-Jeremianic matter occurs in the book is
mostly by way of expansion and interpretation, and thus lies in the
direct line of the prophet's teaching. But the section on Babylon
attaches itself to the new departure in religious thought that is more
fully expressed in Isaiah xl.-lxvi. Chapters l., li., may possibly be
Jeremiah's swan-song, called forth by one of those Pisgah visions of
a new dispensation sometimes granted to aged seers; but such
visions of a new era and a new order can scarcely be combined with
earlier teaching. We will therefore only briefly indicate the character
and contents of this section.
It is apparently a mosaic, complied from lost as well as extant
sources; and dwells upon a few themes with a persistent iteration of
ideas and phrases hardly to be paralleled elsewhere, even in the
Book of Jeremiah. It has been reckoned[249] that the imminence of
the attack on Babylon is introduced afresh eleven times, and its
conquest and destruction nine times. The advent of an enemy from
the north is announced four times.[250]
The main theme is naturally that dwelt upon most frequently, the
imminent invasion of Chaldea by victorious enemies who shall
capture and destroy Babylon. Hereafter the great city and its
territory will be a waste, howling wilderness:—

"Your mother shall be sore ashamed,


She that bare you shall be confounded;
Behold, she shall be the hindmost of the nations,
A wilderness, a parched land, and a desert.
Because of the wrath of Jehovah, it shall be
uninhabited;
The whole land shall be a desolation.
Every one that goeth by Babylon
Shall hiss with astonishment because of all her
plagues."[251]

The gods of Babylon, Bel and Merodach, and all her idols, are
involved in her ruin, and reference is made to the vanity and folly of
idolatry.[252] But the wrath of Jehovah has been chiefly excited, not
by false religion, but by the wrongs inflicted by the Chaldeans on His
Chosen People. He is moved to avenge His Temple[253]:—

"I will recompense unto Babylon


And all the inhabitants of Chaldea
All the evil which they wrought in Zion,
And ye shall see it—it is the utterance of Jehovah" (li.
24).
Though He thus avenge Judah, yet its former sins are not yet blotted
out of the book of His remembrance:—

"Their adversaries said, We incur no guilt,


Because they have sinned against Jehovah, the
Pasture of Justice,
Against the Hope of their fathers, even Jehovah" (l.
7).

Yet now there is forgiveness:—

"The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there


shall be none;
And the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found:
For I will pardon the remnant that I preserve" (l. 20).

The Jews are urged to flee from Babylon, lest they should be
involved in its punishment, and are encouraged to return to
Jerusalem and enter afresh into an everlasting covenant with
Jehovah. As in Jeremiah xxxi., Israel is to be restored as well as
Judah:—

"I will bring Israel again to his Pasture:


He shall feed on Carmel and Bashan;
His desires shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim
and in Gilead" (l. 19).
BOOK III
JEREMIAH'S TEACHING CONCERNING ISRAEL
AND JUDAH
CHAPTER XXVI
INTRODUCTORY
"I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be
My people."—Jer. xxxi. 1.

In this third book an attempt is made to present a general view of


Jeremiah's teaching on the subject with which he was most
preoccupied—the political and religious fortunes of Judah.
Certain[254] chapters detach themselves from the rest, and stand in
no obvious connection with any special incident of the prophet's life.
These are the main theme of this book, and have been dealt with in
the ordinary method of detailed exposition. They have been treated
separately, and not woven into the continuous narrative, partly
because we thus obtain a more adequate emphasis upon important
aspects of their teaching, but chiefly because their date and
occasion cannot be certainly determined. With them other sections
have been associated, on account of the connection of subject.
Further material for a synopsis of Jeremiah's teaching has been
collected from chapters xxi.-xlix. generally, supplemented by
brief[255] references to the previous chapters. Inasmuch as the
prophecies of our book do not form an ordered treatise on dogmatic
theology, but were uttered with regard to individual conduct and
critical events, topics are not exclusively dealt with in a single
section, but are referred to at intervals throughout. Moreover, as
both the individuals and the crises were very much alike, ideas and
phrases are constantly reappearing, so that there is an exceptionally
large amount of repetition in the Book of Jeremiah. The method we
have adopted avoids some of the difficulties which would arise if we
attempted to deal with these doctrines in our continuous exposition.
Our general sketch of the prophet's teaching is naturally arranged
under categories suggested by the book itself, and not according to
the sections of a modern treatise on Systematic Theology. No doubt
much may legitimately be extracted or deduced concerning
Anthropology, Soteriology, and the like; but true proportion is as
important in exposition as accurate interpretation. If we wish to
understand Jeremiah, we must be content to dwell longest upon
what he emphasised most, and to adopt the standpoint of time and
race which was his own. Accordingly in our treatment we have
followed the cycle of sin, punishment, and restoration, so familiar to
students of Hebrew prophecy.

NOTE
SOME CHARACTERISTIC EXPRESSIONS OF JEREMIAH
This note is added partly for convenience of reference, and partly to
illustrate the repetition just mentioned as characteristic of Jeremiah.
The instances are chosen from expressions occurring in chapters
xxi.-lii. The reader will find fuller lists dealing with the whole book in
the Speaker's Commentary and the Cambridge Bible for Schools and
Colleges. The Hebrew student is referred to the list in Driver's
Introduction, upon which the following is partly based.
1. Rising up early: vii. 13, 25; xi. 7; xxv. 3, 4; xxvi. 5; xxix. 19; xxxii.
33; xxxv. 14, 15; xliv. 4. This phrase, familiar to us in the narratives
of Genesis and in the historical books, is used here, as in 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 15, of God addressing His people on sending the prophets.
2. Stubbornness of heart (A.V. imagination of heart): iii. 17; vii. 24;
ix. 14; xi. 8; xiii. 10; xvi. 12; xviii. 12; xxiii. 17; also found Deut. xxix.
19 and Ps. lxxxi. 15.
3. The evil of your doings: iv. 4; xxi. 12; xxiii. 2, 22; xxv. 5; xxvi. 3;
xliv. 22; also Deut. xxviii. 20; 1 Sam. xxv. 3; Isa. i. 16; Hos. ix. 15;
Ps. xxviii. 4; and in slightly different form in xi. 18 and Zech. i. 4.
The fruit of your doings: xvii. 10; xxi. 14; xxxii. 19; also found in
Micah vii. 13.
Doings, your doings, etc., are also found in Jeremiah and elsewhere.
4. The sword, the pestilence, and the famine, in various orders, and
either as a phrase or each word occurring in one of three successive
clauses: xiv. 12; xv. 2; xxi. 7, 9; xxiv. 10; xxvii. 8, 13; xxix. 17, 18;
xxxii. 24, 36; xxxiv. 17; xxxviii. 2; xlii. 17, 22; xliv. 13.
The sword and the famine, with similar variations: v. 12; xi. 22; xiv.
13, 15, 16, 18; xvi. 4; xviii. 21; xlii. 16; xliv. 12, 18, 27.
Cf. similar lists, etc., "death ... sword ... captivity" in xliii. 11; "war ...
evil ... pestilence," xxviii. 8.
5. Kings ... princes ... priests ... prophets, in various orders and
combinations: ii. 26; iv. 9; viii. 1; xiii. 13; xxiv. 8; xxxii. 32.
Cf. Prophet ... priest ... people, xxiii. 33, 34. Prophets ... divines ...
dreamers ... enchanters ... sorcerers, xxvii. 9.
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