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 Physics
Modeling for
Game
Programmers

David Conger
© 2004 by Thomson Course Technology PTR. All rights reserved. No SVP, Thomson Course
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by Technology PTR
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, record- Andy Shafran
ing, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written
Publisher
permission from Thomson Course Technology PTR, except for the
Stacy L. Hiquet
inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Senior Marketing Manager
The Premier Press and Thomson Course Technology PTR logo and
Sarah O’Donnell
related trade dress are trademarks of Thomson Course Technology PTR
and may not be used without written permission. Marketing Manager
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All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Manager of Editorial Services
Important: Thomson Course Technology PTR cannot provide software
Heather Talbot
support. Please contact the appropriate software manufacturer’s techni-
cal support line or Web site for assistance. Acquisitions Editor
Mitzi Koontz
Thomson Course Technology PTR and the author have attempted
throughout this book to distinguish proprietary trademarks from Senior Editor
descriptive terms by following the capitalization style used by the man- Mark Garvey
ufacturer.
Associate Marketing Managers
Information contained in this book has been obtained by Thomson Kristin Eisenzopf and Sarah Dubois
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Thomson Course Technology PTR, or others, the Publisher does not Karen A. Gill
guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any information Series Editor
and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or the results obtained André LaMothe
from use of such information. Readers should be particularly aware of
the fact that the Internet is an ever-changing entity. Some facts may have Technical Reviewer
changed since this book went to press. David Jenner

Educational facilities, companies, and organizations interested in multi- Thomson Course Technology PTR
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For my children, who make the daily grind worthwhile.
 Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the many talented individuals who helped make this
book possible.
First, I would like to thank Professor Russ Higley, master physicist, for his help and moral
support. Also, I want to thank astronomer, physicist, writer, and technical reviewer extra-
ordinaire David Jenner. I greatly value my long associations with these two brilliant men.
Thanks also goes to the great support people who helped me along the way. In particular,
thanks to Mitzi Koontz and Karen Gill.
Finally, thanks to my wife and children who put up with the long hours I disappear into
my office to write my books.

vi
About the Author

David Conger has been programming professionally for more than 20 years. That’s 350
years in Internet time. After writing entirely too many programs (graphics display con-
troller firmware for military aircraft, DOS games, multiplayer Internet games, and many,
many custom business applications), he decided to become a writer. Despite the protests
of his students, he also managed to spend four years as a college professor teaching com-
puter science and business computer programming.
For about seven years, he wrote documentation for Microsoft Corporation. The projects
he wrote for included the Xbox Development Kit (XDK), DirectDraw and Direct3D (ver-
sions 5 and 6), OpenGL, Extensible Scene Graph (XSG), Image Color Management
(ICM), Still Image (STI), Windows Image Acquisition (WIA), Remote Procedure Calls
(RPC), the Microsoft Interface Definition Language Compiler (MIDL), and the Mobile
Internet Toolkit (MIT).
His first book, published in 1987, was a collection of folktales from India and the Far East.
Since then, he’s written programming books about C, C++, C#, and .NET Remoting, as
well as an introductory textbook on microcomputers.
Currently, David resides in the wilds of western Washington state. There, he continues to
nurture dreams of once again traveling the Orient as he walks the back roads with Biggles,
his giant dog (or small and hairy horse, whichever you prefer). In addition to Biggles,
David is fortunate to find himself blessed with a plethora of fantastic children and a wife
of great distinction.

vii
 About the Series Editor

André LaMothe, CEO, Xtreme Games LLC and the creator of the XGameStation, has been
involved in the computing industry for more than 27 years. He wrote his first game for
the TRS-80 and has been hooked ever since! His experience includes 2D/3D graphics, AI
research at NASA, compiler design, robotics, virtual reality, and telecommunications. His
books are top sellers in the game programming genre, and his experience is echoed in the
Thomson Course Technology PTR Game Development books. He can be contacted at
ceo@nurve.net and www.xgamestation.com.

viii
Letter from the Series Editor
This book is the first in the Game Development series to cover physics modeling. As
always, I don’t want to put a book out that only covers one aspect of game develop-
ment; rather, I want a book that defines or innovates in that area and creates the tar-
get for others to follow. In general, most physics books on game development focus
on the physics modeling you would use in games, but then fall short of the actual
implementation and practical application of the physics to games.
This book starts slowly with the framework of physics modeling and then moves on
to specific physics modeling techniques that are applicable to games, such as point
modeling, rigid body dynamics, collision response, and related topics. After you are
armed with tools to model basic physics, the book increases the complexity and deals
with trajectory problems, gravity, springs, and water dynamics.
From there, the book moves into application programming and applies all these
techniques so that you can create physics for land vehicles and air vehicles. This is
really the “reward” in the book as far as I am concerned. The ability to use physics
modeling to create a racing game, a Jet Ski game, or even a flight simulator is all
within your grasp.
There are several books on the market about game physics, but none of them focuses
on the detailed use of physics for actual game programming applications like this
one does. That is the strength of this text and why it’s a must for anyone who wants
to become an expert at physics modeling for games. I highly recommend Physics
Modeling for Game Programmers whether you are in charge of physics modeling, AI,
or even general gameplay. This text will get you up to speed. In short order, you will
have multiple spring models bouncing off each other, mesmerizing your friends and
family.

Sincerely,

André LaMothe
Series Editor, Premier Game Development Series
 Contents at a Glance

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xxiii

Part One: Physics, Math, and Game Programming 1

Chapter 1
Physics in Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Chapter 2
Simulating 3-D with DirectX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Chapter 3
Mathematical Tools for Physics and 3-D Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

Chapter 4
2-D Transformations and Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85

Chapter 5
3-D Transformations and Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107

Chapter 6
Meshes and X Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125

Part Two: 3-D Objects, Movement,

and Collisions 145
Chapter 7
Dynamics of Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147

x
 Contents at a Glance xi

Chapter 8
Collisions of Point Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173

Chapter 9
Rigid Body Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201

Chapter 10
Collisions of Rigid Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235

Chapter 11
Gravity and Projectiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .267

Chapter 12
Mass and Spring Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .297

Chapter 13
Water and Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .333

Part Three: ds-On 3-D Simulation 365

Chapter 14
Getting Ready for Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .367

Chapter 15
Cars, Hovercraft, Ships, and Boats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .407

Chapter 16
Aircraft and Spacecraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .433

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .463

Appendixes 465
Appendix A
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .467

Appendix B
A Brief Overview of C++ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .471

Appendix C
The Basics of Windows Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .485

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .495
 Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xxiii

Part One: Physics, Math, and Game Programming 1

Chapter 1 Physics in Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

How Much Physics Do I Need to Know to Write Games? . . . . . . . . . .4
3-D Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
3-D Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Rigid Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Friction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Air and Water Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Collisions and Explosions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
Springy Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
How Much Math Do I Need to Know to Write Games? . . . . . . . . . . .7
The Essential Geometry of Triangles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

xii Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
 Contents xiii

Matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
Derivatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
How Much Programming Do I Need to Know? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Chapter 2 Simulating 3-D with DirectX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

What Is DirectX? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
Two Views of DirectX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
The Low-Level View: The HAL and the HEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
The High-Level View: DirectX Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
COM Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
Using DirectX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Initializing DirectX the Hard Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
Initializing Direct3D with the DirectX AppWizard . . . . . . . . . .26
Initializing Direct3D with the Physics Modeling Framework . . .29
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

Chapter 3 Mathematical Tools for Physics and 3-D Programming . . .41

The Geometry of Triangles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
2-D Coordinate Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
3-D and 4-D Coordinate Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Implementing Vectors in Code: The Physics Modeling Math
Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
Multiplication and Division of a Vector by a Scalar . . . . . . . . .57
The Dot Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
The Cross Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
Unit Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
Projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66
Vectors in Direct3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
xiv Contents

Matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70
The Identity Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
Addition and Subtraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
Multiplication and Division by a Scalar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
Matrix Multiplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74
Transpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
Determinants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
Matrix Inversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84

Chapter 4 2-D Transformations and Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85

2-D Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85
Active Versus Passive Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86
Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87
Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88
Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92
Combining Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94
Implementing Transformations: Spinning a Triangle . . . . . . . . . . . . .96
Using the Physics Modeling Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97
Setting Up the Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99
Updating Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102
Rendering Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104
Putting It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105

Chapter 5 3-D Transformations and Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107

3-D Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107
Homogenous Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107
Translations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108
Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109
Rotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110
 Contents xv

The 3-D Pipeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

Local Coordinates to World Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113
World Coordinates to Viewing Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114
Viewing Coordinates to Projection Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . .115
Projection Coordinates to Screen Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . .116
Rendering in 3-D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116
Example 1: The 3-D Spinning Triangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116
Example 2: The Spinning Pyramid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124

Chapter 6 Meshes and X Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125

Textures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .126
Creating Textures from Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127
Setting the Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127
Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128
Loading a Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129
Extracting Textures and Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129
Rendering the Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131
Cleaning Up the Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131
The d3d_mesh Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .132
Loading a Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133
Rendering a Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136
Reference Counting in the d3d_mesh Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144

Part Two: 3-D Objects, Movement, and

Collisions 145

Chapter 7 Dynamics of Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147

Point Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147
xvi Contents

1-D Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .148

Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149
Velocity as a Derivative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150
Acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153
Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153
2-D and 3-D Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155
The Modeling Point Masses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .158
Introducing the d3d_point_mass Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .158
Using the d3d_point_mass Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163
Point Masses in Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .172

Chapter 8 Collisions of Point Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173

Collision Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173
Bounding Spheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .174
Bounding Cylinders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177
Bounding Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178
Optimization with Spatial Partitioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179
Collision Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181
Conservation of Momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .182
Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184
Elastic Collisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185
Inelastic Collisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .186
The Coefficient of Restitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .187
Point Particle Collisions in Two and Three Dimensions . . . . . .188
Collisions of Spheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189
Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .190
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .199
 Contents xvii

Chapter 9 Rigid Body Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201

Rigid Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201
The Center of Mass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .202
2-D Rigid Body Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .204
Point Particles of a 2-D Rigid Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205
Torque and the Moment of Inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209
Rigid Bodies in 3-D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214
Torque in 3-D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .217
The Parallel Axis Theorem in Three Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . .220
The Principal Axes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .220
Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .221
Implementing Rigid Bodies in 3-D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223
The d3d_rigid_body Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223
Initializing a d3d_rigid_body Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .226
Updating a d3d_rigid_body Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .228
Rendering a d3d_rigid_body Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .232
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .234

Chapter 10 Collisions of Rigid Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235

Collision Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235
Rough Approximations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235
Improved Collision Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .238
Collision Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241
Linear Collision Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241
Angular Collision Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .242
Combining Linear and Angular Collision Response . . . . . . . . .243
Updating the Physics Modeling Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . .246
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .266

Chapter 11 Gravity and Projectiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .267

Newton’s Law of Gravitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .267
xviii Contents

Projectile Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .269

Modeling Projectile Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .272
Differentiating Between Impulse and Constant Forces . . . . . .272
Rolling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .295
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .296

Chapter 12 Mass and Spring Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .297

What Can I Do with Springs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .297
Hair and Ponytails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .297
Cloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .299
It All Starts with Harmonic Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .300
Hooke’s Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .302
Dampened Harmonic Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .302
Implementing Cloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .303
Upgrading Point Masses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .303
Springs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .310
The cloth Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .316
Initializing a Piece of Cloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .319
Updating and Rendering a Piece of Cloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .326
Tuning Cloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .331
Suggested Enhancements for Cloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .332
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .332

Chapter 13 Water and Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .333

Water and Buoyancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .333
The Properties of Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .334
Why Things Float . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .335
Finding Pressure and Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .337
Resistance to Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .338
A Quick Look at Friction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .339
Viscous Drag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .341
 Contents xix

Currents in Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .342

Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .344
Implementing Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .347
Low-Overhead Ways to Cheat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .347
3-D Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349
Putting Objects in Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .350
Adding Buoyancy to Rigid Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .350
Will It Float? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .357
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .363

Part Three: Hands-On 3-D Simulation 365

Chapter 14 Getting Ready for Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .367

Redesigning the Physics Modeling Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .367
Simplifying Program Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .367
Adding a game Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .371
Setting Transformation Matrices Efficiently . . . . . . . . . . . . . .375
Restoring Lost Device Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .379
Redefining Rigid Bodies Using Point Masses . . . . . . . . . . . . . .380
The Center of Mass and the Origin of the Mesh . . . . . . . . . . .386
Introducing DirectInput . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .388
Initializing DirectInput . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .389
Getting Keyboard and Mouse Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .396
Closing Down DirectInput . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .400
Camera Movement in DirectX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .401
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .405

Chapter 15 Cars, Hovercraft, Ships, and Boats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .407

Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .407
Power, Force, Acceleration, and Friction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .407
xx Contents

Air Resistance on Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .411

Braking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .411
Turning Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .413
Implementing a Basic Car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .415
Hovercraft and Antigravity Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .421
How Hovercraft Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .421
Air Resistance on Hovercraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .423
Turning Hovercraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .423
Ships and Boats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .423
Buoyancy of Ships and Boats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .423
Calculating Hull Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .424
Stability of Ships and Boats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .426
Mass and Virtual Mass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .427
Resistance and Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .429
Air Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .430
Currents and Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .430
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .432

Chapter 16 Aircraft and Spacecraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .433

Flight Simulators the Easy Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .433
Flight with Little or No Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .435
Implementing a Simple Flight Simulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .435
The Physics of Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .445
Essential Parts of an Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .445
Basic Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .447
Modeling Aircraft: The Right Forces in the Right Places . . . . .449
The Physics of Spacecraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .450
Dogfights in Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .450
Rockets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .451
Lunar Landers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .456
 Contents xxi

Getting to Other Planets with Known Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . .457

Getting to Other Planets with Speculative Physics . . . . . . . . .460
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .462

Epilogue 463

Appendixes 465

Appendix A Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .467

Appendix B A Brief Overview of C++ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .471

It All Begins with Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .471
main() and Functions Called By main() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .472
Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .472
Return Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .473
Inline Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .473
Classes and Object-Oriented Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .473
Namespaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .476
Inheritance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .477
Overriding Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .479
Virtual Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .479
Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .481
Other Ways of Making Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .482
Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .482
Enumerated Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .483
typedef Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .484

Appendix C The Basics of Windows Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .485

Welcome to WinMain() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .485
Writing a WinMain() Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .486
Defining a Window Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .486
xxii Contents

Registering a Window Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .488

Creating a Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .489
Displaying the Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .491
Processing Windows Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .491
Handling Windows Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .492

Index 495
Introduction

Welcome to Physics Modeling for Game Programmers!

Physics modeling is exploding in the game development industry. It’s a powerful tool for
producing great-looking games, and it’s really the only tool for making the action in
games look realistic. Companies that employ game programmers are increasingly seeking
programmers whose physics skills are strong. These skills can turn someone who has a lit-
tle programming knowledge and a passion for games into a professional who is in high
demand.
Physics modeling is also a lot of fun. A simple model can create effects that the program-
mer never dreamed possible. A nice physical model of a fire will work and look beautiful,
even if you wave it around or put a leg of mutton over it.
Modern computer games are about creating a virtual world. The virtual world can behave
in any way that the programmer decides. However, if we game programmers want players
to understand and engage with our games, our virtual worlds must mostly model the
physical world. The rules about how the real world behaves are what physics is all about.
It isn’t just familiarity that makes it a good idea to use real-world physics. The truth is that
the world is an amazing place; nobody’s virtual worlds are as intricate, rich, and beautiful
as the universe around us.

The Book
The book is divided into three parts.

xxiii
xxiv Introduction

Part One: Physics, Math, and Game Programming

This part covers the basic math required for physics modeling. It also introduces Euclid-
ean geometry. This type of geometry is intimately related to DirectX Graphics, which is
also presented in this part. DirectX Graphics is mostly just an accelerated platform for
depicting Euclidean geometry in Windows.

Part Two: 3-D Objects, Movement, and Collisions

Part Two introduces particle and rigid body dynamics. Simply put, dynamics is the study
of objects in motion. This part of the book presents the principles and equations of
dynamics that you can use to make nearly anything in a game move in a realistic way. It
also discusses how to crash objects, which seems to be one of the main activities in com-
puter games.
Physics in computer games doesn’t have to be limited to dynamics. In this part, you’ll also
learn about gravitation, masses and springs, and fluids. These topics are often used in
computer games for highlights to make the scene more realistic, but as machines become
faster, they’ll take on a more central role in game development.

Part Three: Hands-On 3-D Simulation

It’s not possible to describe everything completely. Computational power is limited, espe-
cially for a computer game that has to be calculated and updated no less than 30 times per
second. Even if you had all the speed you needed, you would still eventually run into
something that wasn’t understood. At some point, approximations have to be made. This
is the essence of simulation. This part discusses the most common types of simulations
used in games.

The CD
The CD is full of good stuff to turn you into a physics modeling genius. Of course, you’ll
find all the source code to save you that burdensome typing. All the source code is in the
Source folder.

In the Tools folder, you’ll find goodies that you can use to write killer games. The Tools
folder contains a folder called Microsoft DirectX SDK. In it, you’ll find a copy of Microsoft’s
entire toolset that is offered to programmers who are developing games with DirectX. If
you plan to follow along with the code samples in this book, you’ll need to install the
Microsoft DirectX SDK.
The Tools folder also contains a folder called MilkShape3D. In it, you’ll find a fantastic little
program that enables you to create your own 3-D meshes and models in a simple and
straightforward way. The version of MilkShape3D found on the CD is shareware. If you
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
end, they have owned, with sinking heart, that the only way to
salvation lay through the ruin of health, fortune, and reputation. So,
when the edge of youthful hopefulness had quickly worn itself away,
Jeremiah knew in his inmost heart that, in spite of prayers and
promises and exhortations, the fate of Judah was sealed. Let us
therefore try to reproduce the picture of coming ruin which Jeremiah
kept persistently before the eyes of his fellow-countrymen. The pith
and power of his prophecies lay in the prospect of their speedy
fulfilment. With him, as with Savonarola, a cardinal doctrine was that
"before the regeneration must come the scourge," and that "these
things will come quickly." Here again, Jeremiah took up the burden
of Hosea's utterances. The elder prophet said of Israel, "The days of
visitation are come";[318] and his successor announced to Judah the
coming of "the year of visitation."[319] The long-deferred assize was
at hand, when the Judge would reckon with Judah for her manifold
infidelities, would pronounce sentence and execute judgment.
If the hour of doom had struck, it was not difficult to surmise
whence destruction would come or the man who would prove its
instrument. The North (named in Hebrew the hidden quarter) was to
the Jews the mother of things unforeseen and terrible. Isaiah
menaced the Philistines with "a smoke out of the north,"[320] i.e. the
Assyrians. Jeremiah and Ezekiel both speak very frequently of the
destroyers of Judah as coming from the north. Probably the early
references in our book to northern enemies denote the Scythians,
who invaded Syria towards the beginning of Josiah's reign; but later
on the danger from the north is the restored Chaldean Empire,
under its king Nebuchadnezzar. "North" is even less accurate
geographically for Chaldea than for Assyria. Probably it was accepted
in a somewhat symbolic sense for Assyria, and then transferred to
Chaldea as her successor in the hegemony of Western Asia.

Nebuchadnezzar is first[321] introduced in the fourth year of

Jehoiakim; after the decisive defeat of Pharaoh Necho by
Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish, Jeremiah prophesied the
devastation of Judah by the victor; it is also prophesied that he is to
carry Jehoiachin away captive,[322] and similar prophecies were
repeated during the reign of Zedekiah.[323] Nebuchadnezzar and his
Chaldeans very closely resembled the Assyrians, with whose
invasions the Jews had long been only too familiar; indeed, as
Chaldea had long been tributary to Assyria, it is morally certain that
Chaldean princes must have been present with auxiliary forces at
more than one of the many Assyrian invasions of Palestine. Under
Hezekiah, on the other hand, Judah had been allied with Merodach-
baladan of Babylon against his Assyrian suzerain. So that the
circumstances of Chaldean invasions and conquests were familiar to
the Jews before the forces of the restored empire first attacked
them; their imagination could readily picture the horrors of such
experiences.
But Jeremiah does not leave them to their unaided imagination,
which they might preferably have employed upon more agreeable
subjects. He makes them see the future reign of terror, as Jehovah
had revealed it to his shuddering and reluctant vision. With his usual
frequency of iteration, he keeps the phrase "the sword, the famine,
and the pestilence" ringing in their ears. The sword was the symbol
of the invading hosts, "the splendid and awful military parade" of the
"bitter and hasty nation" that were "dreadful and terrible."[324] "The
famine" inevitably followed from the ravages of the invaders, and the
impossibility of ploughing, sowing, and reaping. It became most
gruesome in the last desperate agonies of besieged garrisons, when,
as in Elisha's time and the last siege of Jerusalem, "men ate the
flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and ate every
one the flesh of his friend."[325] Among such miseries and horrors,
the stench of unburied corpses naturally bred a pestilence, which
raged amongst the multitudes of refugees huddled together in
Jerusalem and the fortified towns. We are reminded how the great
plague of Athens struck down its victims from among the crowds
driven within its walls during the long siege of the Peloponnesian
war.
An ordinary Englishman can scarcely do justice to such prophecies;
his comprehension is limited by a happy inexperience. The constant
repetition of general phrases seems meagre and cold, because they
carry few associations and awaken no memories. Those who have
studied French and Russian realistic art, and have read Erckmann-
Chatrain, Zola, and Tolstoï, may be stirred somewhat more by
Jeremiah's grim rhetoric. It will not be wanting in suggestiveness to
those who have known battles and sieges. For students of
missionary literature we may roughly compare the Jews, when
exposed to the full fury of a Chaldean attack, to the inhabitants of
African villages raided by slave-hunters.
The Jews, therefore, with their extensive, first-hand knowledge of
the miseries denounced against them, could not help filling in for
themselves the rough outline drawn by Jeremiah. Very probably, too,
his speeches were more detailed and realistic than the written
reports. As time went on, the inroads of the Chaldeans and their
allies provided graphic and ghastly illustrations of the prophecies
that Jeremiah still reiterated. In a prophecy, possibly originally
referring to the Scythian inroads and afterwards adapted to the
Chaldean invasions, Jeremiah speaks of himself: "I am pained at my
very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I cannot hold my peace;
for my soul heareth[326] the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of
war.... How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the
trumpet?"[327] Here, for once, Jeremiah expressed emotions that
throbbed in every heart. There was "terror on every hand"; men
seemed to be walking "through slippery places in darkness,"[328] or
to stumble along rough paths in a dreary twilight. Wormwood was
their daily food, and their drink maddening draughts of poison.[329]
Jeremiah and his prophecies were no mean part of the terror. To the
devotees of Baal and Moloch Jeremiah must have appeared in much
the same light as the fanatic whose ravings added to the horrors of
the Plague of London, while the very sanity and sobriety of his
utterances carried a conviction of their fatal truth.
When the people and their leaders succeeded in collecting any force
of soldiers or store of military equipment, and ventured on a sally,
Jeremiah was at once at hand to quench any reviving hope of
effective resistance. How could soldiers and weapons preserve the
city which Jehovah had abandoned to its fate? "Thus saith Jehovah,
the God of Israel: Behold, I will turn back the weapons in your
hands, with which ye fight without the walls against your besiegers,
the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans, and will gather them into the
midst of this city. I Myself will fight against you in furious anger and
in great wrath, with outstretched hand and strong arm. I will smite
the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a
great pestilence."[330]
When Jerusalem was relieved for a time by the advance of an
Egyptian army, and the people allowed themselves to dream of
another deliverance like that from Sennacherib, the relentless
prophet only turned upon them with renewed scorn: "Though ye had
smitten the whole hostile army of the Chaldeans, and all that were
left of them were desperately wounded, yet should they rise up
every man in his tent and burn this city."[331] Not even the most
complete victory could avail to save the city.
The final result of invasions and sieges was to be the overthrow of
the Jewish state, the capture and destruction of Jerusalem, and the
captivity of the people. This unhappy generation were to reap the
harvest of centuries of sin and failure. As in the last siege of
Jerusalem there came upon the Jews "all the righteous blood shed
on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of
Zachariah son of Barachiah,"[332] so now Jehovah was about to
bring upon His Chosen People all the evil that He had spoken against
them[333]—all that had been threatened by Isaiah and his brother-
prophets, all the curses written in Deuteronomy. But these threats
were to be fully carried out, not because predictions must be
fulfilled, nor even merely because Jehovah had spoken and His word
must not return to Him void, but because the people had not
hearkened and obeyed. His threats were never meant to exclude the
penitent from the possibility of pardon.
As Jeremiah had insisted upon the guilt of every class of the
community, so he is also careful to enumerate all the classes as
about to suffer from the coming judgment: "Zedekiah king of Judah
and his princes";[334] "the people, the prophet, and the priest."[335]
This Last Judgment of Judah, as it took the form of the complete
overthrow of the State, necessarily included all under its sentence of
doom. One of the mysteries of Providence is that those who are
most responsible for national sins seem to suffer least by public
misfortunes. Ambitious statesmen and bellicose journalists do not
generally fall in battle and leave destitute widows and children.
When the captains of commerce and manufacture err in their
industrial policy, one great result is the pauperism of hundreds of
families who had no voice in the matter. A spendthrift landlord may
cripple the agriculture of half a county. And yet, when factories are
closed and farmers ruined, the manufacturer and the landlord are
the last to see want. In former invasions of Judah, the princes and
priests had some share of suffering; but wealthy nobles might incur
losses and yet weather the storm by which poorer men were
overwhelmed. Fines and tribute levied by the invaders would, after
the manner of the East, be wrung from the weak and helpless. But
now ruin was to fall on all alike. The nobles had been flagrant in sin,
they were now to be marked out for most condign punishment—"To
whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required."
Part of the burden of Jeremiah's prophecy, one of the sayings
constantly on his lips, was that the city would be taken and
destroyed by fire.[336] The Temple would be laid in ruins like the
ancient sanctuary of Israel at Shiloh.[337] The palaces[338] of the
king and princes would be special marks for the destructive fury of
the enemy, and their treasures and all the wealth of the city would
be for a spoil; those who survived the sack of the city would be
carried captive to Babylon.[339]
In this general ruin the miseries of the people would not end with
death. All nations have attached much importance to the burial of
the dead and the due performance of funeral rites. In the touching
Greek story Antigone sacrificed her life in order to bury the remains
of her brother. Later Judaism attached exceptional importance to the
burial of the dead, and the Book of Tobit lays great stress on this
sacred duty. The angel Raphael declares that one special reason why
the Lord had been merciful to Tobias was that he had buried dead
bodies, and had not delayed to rise up and leave his meal to go and
bury the corpse of a murdered Jew, at the risk of his own life.[340]
Jeremiah prophesied of the slain in this last overthrow: "They shall
not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung
on the face of the ground; ... their carcases shall be meat for the
fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth."
When these last had done their ghastly work, the site of the Temple,
the city, the whole land would be left silent and desolate. The
stranger, wandering amidst the ruins, would hear no cheerful
domestic sounds; when night fell, no light gleaming through chink or
lattice would give the sense of human neighbourhood. Jehovah
"would take away the sound of the millstones and the light of the
candle."[341] The only sign of life amidst the desolate ruins of
Jerusalem and the cities of Judah would be the melancholy cry of
the jackals round the traveller's tent.[342]
The Hebrew prophets and our Lord Himself often borrowed their
symbols from the scenes of common life, as they passed before their
eyes. As in the days of Noah, as in the days of Lot, as in the days of
the Son of Man, so in the last agony of Judah there was marrying
and giving in marriage. Some such festive occasion suggested to
Jeremiah one of his favourite formulæ; it occurs four times in the
Book of Jeremiah, and was probably uttered much oftener. Again
and again it may have happened that, as a marriage procession
passed through the streets, the gay company were startled by the
grim presence of the prophet, and shrank back in dismay as they
found themselves made the text for a stern homily of ruin: "Thus
saith Jehovah Sabaoth, I will take away from them the voice of mirth
and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice
of the bride." At any rate, however, and whenever used, the figure
could not fail to arrest attention, and to serve as an emphatic
declaration that the ordinary social routine would be broken up and
lost in the coming calamity.
Henceforth the land would be as some guilty habitation of sinners,
devoted to eternal destruction, an astonishment and a hissing and a
perpetual desolation.[343] When the heathen sought some curse to
express the extreme of malignant hatred, they would use the
formula, "God make thee like Jerusalem."[344] Jehovah's Chosen
People would become an everlasting reproach, a perpetual shame,
which should not be forgotten.[345] The wrath of Jehovah pursued
even captives and fugitives. In chapter xxix. Jeremiah predicts the
punishment of the Jewish prophets at Babylon. When we last hear of
him, in Egypt, he is denouncing ruin against "the remnant of Judah
that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn
there." He still reiterates the same familiar phrases: "Ye shall die by
the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence"; they shall be "an
execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach."
We have now traced the details of the prophet's message of doom.
Fulfilment followed fast upon the heels of prediction, till Jeremiah
rather interpreted than foretold the thick-coming disasters. When his
book was compiled, the prophecies were already, as they are now,
part of the history of the last days of Judah. The book became the
record of this great tragedy, in which these prophecies take the
place of the choric odes in a Greek drama.
 CHAPTER XXX
RESTORATION—I. THE SYMBOL
xxxii

"And I bought the field of Hanameel."—Jer. xxxii. 9.

When Jeremiah was first called to his prophetic mission, after the
charge "to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to
overthrow," there were added—almost as if they were an
afterthought—the words "to build and to plant."[346] Throughout a
large part of the book little or nothing is said about building and
planting; but, at last, four consecutive chapters, xxx.-xxxiii., are
almost entirely devoted to this subject. Jeremiah's characteristic
phrases are not all denunciatory; we owe to him the description of
Jehovah as "the Hope of Israel."[347] Sin and ruin, guilt and
punishment, could not quench the hope that centred in Him. Though
the day of Jehovah might be darkness and not light,[348] yet,
through the blackness of this day turned into night, the prophets
beheld a radiant dawn. When all other building and planting were
over for Jeremiah, when it might seem that much that he had
planted was being rooted up again in the overthrow of Judah, he
was yet permitted to plant shoots in the garden of the Lord, which
have since become trees whose leaves are for the healing of the
nations.
The symbolic act dealt with in this chapter is a convenient
introduction to the prophecies of restoration, especially as chapters
xxx., xxxi., have no title and are of uncertain date.
The incident of the purchase of Hanameel's field is referred by the
title to the year 587 b.c., when Jeremiah was in prison and the
capture of the city was imminent. Verses 2-6 are an introduction by
some editor, who was anxious that his readers should fully
understand the narrative that follows. They are compiled from the
rest of the book, and contain nothing that need detain us.
When Jeremiah was arrested and thrown into prison, he was on his
way to Anathoth "to receive his portion there,"[349] i.e., as we
gather from this chapter, to take possession of an inheritance that
devolved upon him. As he was now unable to attend to this business
at Anathoth, his cousin Hanameel came to him in the prison, to give
him the opportunity of observing the necessary formalities. In his
enforced leisure Jeremiah would often recur to the matter on which
he had been engaged when he was arrested. An interrupted piece of
work is apt to intrude itself upon the mind with tiresome
importunity; moreover his dismal surroundings would remind him of
his business—it had been the cause of his imprisonment. The bond
between an Israelite and the family inheritance was almost as close
and sacred as that between Jehovah and the Land of Promise.
Naboth had died a martyr to the duty he owed to the land. "Jehovah
forbid that I should give thee the inheritance of my fathers,"[350]
said he to Ahab. And now, in the final crisis of the fortunes of Judah,
the prophet whose heart was crushed by the awful task laid upon
him had done what he could to secure the rights of his family in the
"field" at Anathoth.
Apparently he had failed. The oppression of his spirits would suggest
that Jehovah had disapproved and frustrated his purpose. His failure
was another sign of the utter ruin of the nation. The solemn grant of
the Land of Promise to the Chosen People was finally revoked; and
Jehovah no longer sanctioned the ancient ceremonies which bound
the households and clans of Israel to the soil of their inheritance.
In some such mood, Jeremiah received the intimation that his cousin
Hanameel was on his way to see him about this very business. "The
word of Jehovah came unto him: Behold, thine uncle Shallum's son
Hanameel is coming to thee, to say unto thee, Buy my field in
Anathoth, for it is thy duty to buy it by way of redemption." The
prophet was roused to fresh perplexity. The opportunity might be a
Divine command to proceed with the redemption. And yet he was a
childless man doomed to die in exile. What had he to do with a field
at Anathoth in that great and terrible day of the Lord? Death or
captivity was staring every one in the face; land was worthless. The
transaction would put money into Hanameel's pocket. The eagerness
of a Jew to make sure of a good bargain seemed no very safe
indication of the will of Jehovah.
In this uncertain frame of mind Hanameel found his cousin, when he
came to demand that Jeremiah should buy his field. Perhaps the
prisoner found his kinsman's presence a temporary mitigation of his
gloomy surroundings, and was inspired with more cheerful and
kindly feelings. The solemn and formal appeal to fulfil a kinsman's
duty towards the family inheritance came to him as a Divine
command: "I knew that this was the word of Jehovah."
The cousins proceeded with their business, which was in no way
hindered by the arrangements of the prison. We must be careful to
dismiss from our minds all the associations of the routine and
discipline of a modern English gaol. The "court of the guard" in
which they were was not properly a prison; it was a place of
detention, not of punishment. The prisoners may have been
fettered, but they were together and could communicate with each
other and with their friends. The conditions were not unlike those of
a debtors' prison such as the old Marshalsea, as described in Little
Dorrit.
Our information as to this right or duty of the next-of-kin to buy or
buy back land is of the scantiest.[351] The leading case is that in the
Book of Ruth, where, however, the purchase of land is altogether
secondary to the levirate marriage. The land custom assumes that
an Israelite will only part with his land in case of absolute necessity,
and it was evidently supposed that some member of the clan would
feel bound to purchase. On the other hand, in Ruth, the next-of-kin
is readily allowed to transfer the obligation to Boaz. Why Hanameel
sold his field we cannot tell; in these days of constant invasion, most
of the small landowners must have been reduced to great distress,
and would gladly have found purchasers for their property. The
kinsman to whom land was offered would pretty generally refuse to
pay anything but a nominal price. Formerly the demand that the
next-of-kin should buy an inheritance was seldom made, but the
exceptional feature in this case was Jeremiah's willingness to
conform to ancient custom.
The price paid for the field was seventeen shekels of silver, but,
however precise this information may seem, it really tells us very
little. A curious illustration is furnished by modern currency
difficulties. The shekel, in the time of the Maccabees, when we are
first able to determine its value with some certainty, contained about
half an ounce of silver, i.e. about the amount of metal in an English
half-crown. The commentaries accordingly continue to reckon the
shekel as worth half-a-crown, whereas its value by weight according
to the present price of silver would be about fourteenpence.
Probably the purchasing power of silver was not more stable in
ancient Palestine than it is now. Fifty shekels seemed to David and
Araunah a liberal price for a threshing-floor and its oxen, but the
Chronicler thought it quite inadequate.[352] We know neither the size
of Hanameel's field nor the quality of the land, nor yet the value of
the shekels;[353] but the symbolic use made of the incident implies
that Jeremiah paid a fair and not a panic price.
The silver was duly weighed in the presence of witnesses and of all
the Jews that were in the court of the guard, apparently including
the prisoners; their position as respectable members of society was
not affected by their imprisonment. A deed or deeds were drawn up,
signed by Jeremiah and the witnesses, and publicly delivered to
Baruch to be kept safely in an earthen vessel. The legal formalities
are described with some detail; possibly they were observed with
exceptional punctiliousness; at any rate, great stress is laid upon the
exact fulfilment of all that law and custom demanded. Unfortunately,
in the course of so many centuries, much of the detail has become
unintelligible. For instance, Jeremiah the purchaser signs the record
of the purchase, but nothing is said about Hanameel signing. When
Abraham bought the field of Machpelah of Ephron the Hittite there
was no written deed, the land was simply transferred in public at the
gate of the city.[354] Here the written record becomes valid by being
publicly delivered to Baruch in the presence of Hanameel and the
witnesses. The details with regard to the deeds are very obscure,
and the text is doubtful. The Hebrew apparently refers to two deeds,
but the Septuagint for the most part to one only. The R.V. of verse
11 runs: "So I took the deed of the purchase, both that which was
sealed, according to the law and the custom, and that which was
open." The Septuagint omits everything after "that which was
sealed"; and, in any case, the words "the law and the custom"—
better, as R.V. margin, "containing the terms and the conditions"—
are a gloss. In verse 14 the R.V. has: "Take these deeds, this deed of
the purchase, both that which is sealed, and this deed which is
open, and put them in an earthen vessel." The Septuagint reads:
"Take this book of the purchase and this book that has been read,
[355] and thou shalt put it in an earthen vessel."[356] It is possible
that, as has been suggested, the reference to two deeds has arisen
out of a misunderstanding of the description of a single deed.
Scribes may have altered or added to the text in order to make it
state explicitly what they supposed to be implied. No reason is given
for having two deeds. We could have understood the double record
if each party had retained one of the documents, or if one had been
buried in the earthen vessel and the other kept for reference, but
both are put into the earthen vessel. The terms "that which is
sealed" and "that which is open" may, however, be explained of
either of one or two documents[357] somewhat as follows: the
record was written, signed, and witnessed; it was then folded up
and sealed; part or the whole of the contents of this sealed-up
record was then written again on the outside or on a separate
parchment, so that the purport of the deed could easily be
ascertained without exposing the original record. The Assyrian and
Chaldean contract-tablets were constructed on this principle; the
contract was first written on a clay tablet, which was further
enclosed in an envelope of clay, and on the outside was engraved an
exact copy of the writing within. If the outer writing became
indistinct or was tampered with, the envelope could be broken and
the exact terms of the contract ascertained from the first tablet.
Numerous examples of this method can be seen in the British
Museum. The Jews had been vassals of Assyria and Babylon for
about a century, and thus must have had ample opportunity to
become acquainted with their legal procedure; and, in this instance,
Jeremiah and his friends may have imitated the Chaldeans. Such an
imitation would be specially significant in what was intended to
symbolise the transitoriness of the Chaldean conquest.
The earthen vessel would preserve the record from being spoilt by
the damp; similarly bottles are used nowadays to preserve the
documents that are built up into the memorial stones of public
buildings. In both cases the object is that "they may continue many
days."
So far the prophet had proceeded in simple obedience to a Divine
command to fulfil an obligation which otherwise might excusably
have been neglected. He felt that his action was a parable which
suggested that Judah might retain its ancient inheritance,[358] but
Jeremiah hesitated to accept an interpretation seemingly at variance
with the judgments he had pronounced upon the guilty people.
When he had handed over the deed to Baruch, and his mind was no
longer occupied with legal minutiæ, he could ponder at leisure on
the significance of his purchase. The prophet's meditations naturally
shaped themselves into a prayer; he laid his perplexity before
Jehovah.[359] Possibly, even from the court of the guard, he could
see something of the works of the besiegers; and certainly men
would talk constantly of the progress of the siege. Outside the
Chaldeans were pushing their mounds and engines nearer and
nearer to the walls, within famine and pestilence decimated and
enfeebled the defenders; the city was virtually in the enemy's hands.
All this was in accordance with the will of Jehovah and the mission
entrusted to His prophet. "What thou hast spoken of is come to
pass, and, behold, thou seest it." And yet, in spite of all this, "Thou
hast said unto me, O Lord Jehovah, Buy the field for money and take
witnesses—and the city is in the hands of the Chaldeans!"
Jeremiah had already predicted the ruin of Babylon and the return of
the captives at the end of seventy years.[360] It is clear, therefore,
that he did not at first understand the sign of the purchase as
referring to restoration from the Captivity. His mind, at the moment,
was preoccupied with the approaching capture of Jerusalem;
apparently his first thought was that his prophecies of doom were to
be set aside, and at the last moment some wonderful deliverance
might be wrought out for Zion. In the Book of Jonah, Nineveh is
spared in spite of the prophet's unconditional and vehement
declaration: "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Was it
possible, thought Jeremiah, that after all that had been said and
done, buying and selling, building and planting, marrying and giving
in marriage, were to go on as if nothing had happened? He was
bewildered and confounded by the idea of such a revolution in the
Divine purposes.
Jehovah in His answer at once repudiates this idea. He asserts His
universal sovereignty and omnipotence; these are to be manifested,
first in judgment and then in mercy. He declares afresh that all the
judgments predicted by Jeremiah shall speedily come to pass. Then
He unfolds His gracious purpose of redemption and deliverance. He
will gather the exiles from all lands and bring them back to Judah,
and they shall dwell there securely. They shall be His people and He
will be their God. Henceforth He will make an everlasting covenant
with them, that He will never again abandon them to misery and
destruction, but will always do them good. By Divine grace they shall
be united in purpose and action to serve Jehovah; He Himself will
put His fear in their hearts.
And then returning to the symbol of the purchased field, Jehovah
declares that fields shall be bought, with all the legal formalities
usual in settled and orderly societies, deeds shall be signed, sealed,
and delivered in the presence of witnesses. This restored social
order shall extend throughout the territory of the Southern Kingdom,
Benjamin, the environs of Jerusalem, the cities of Judah, of the hill
country, of the Shephelah and the Negeb. The exhaustive
enumeration partakes of the legal character of the purchase of
Hanameel's field.
Thus the symbol is expounded: Israel's tenure of the Promised Land
will survive the Captivity; the Jews will return to resume their
inheritance, and will again deal with the old fields and vineyards and
oliveyards, according to the solemn forms of ancient custom.
The familiar classical parallel to this incident is found in Livy, xxvi.
11, where we are told that when Hannibal was encamped three
miles from Rome, the ground he occupied was sold in the Forum by
public auction, and fetched a good price.
Both at Rome and at Jerusalem the sale of land was a symbol that
the control of the land would remain with or return to its original
inhabitants. The symbol recognised that access to land is essential to
all industry, and that whoever controls this access can determine the
conditions of national life. This obvious and often forgotten truth
was constantly present to the minds of the inspired writers: to them
the Holy Land was almost as sacred as the Chosen People; its right
use was a matter of religious obligation, and the prophets and
legislators always sought to secure for every Israelite family some
rights in their native soil.
The selection of a legal ceremony and the stress laid upon its forms
emphasise the truth that social order is the necessary basis of
morality and religion. The opportunity to live healthily, honestly, and
purely is an antecedent condition of the spiritual life. This
opportunity was denied to slaves in the great heathen empires, just
as it is denied to the children in our slums. Both here and more fully
in the sections we shall deal with in the following chapters, Jeremiah
shows that he was chiefly interested in the restoration of the Jews
because they could only fulfil the Divine purpose as a separate
community in Judah.
Moreover, to use a modern term, he was no anarchist; spiritual
regeneration might come through material ruin, but the prophet did
not look for salvation either in anarchy or through anarchy. While
any fragment of the State held together, its laws were to be
observed; as soon as the exiles were re-established in Judah, they
would resume the forms and habits of an organised community. The
discipline of society, like that of an army, is most necessary in times
of difficulty and danger, and, above all, in the crisis of defeat.
 CHAPTER XXXI
RESTORATION—II. THE NEW ISRAEL

xxiii. 3-8, xxiv. 6, 7, xxx., xxxi., xxxiii.[361]

"In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell
safely: and this is the name whereby she shall be called."—Jer.
xxxiii. 16.

The Divine utterances in chapter xxxiii. were given to Jeremiah when

he was shut up in the "court of the guard" during the last days of
the siege. It may, however, have been committed to writing at a
later date, possibly in connection with chapters xxx. and xxxi., when
the destruction of Jerusalem was already past. It is in accordance
with all analogy that the final record of a "word of Jehovah" should
include any further light which had come to the prophet through his
inspired meditations on the original message. Chapters xxx., xxxi.,
and xxxiii. mostly expound and enforce leading ideas contained in
xxxii. 37-44 and in earlier utterances of Jeremiah. They have much
in common with II. Isaiah. The ruin of Judah and the captivity of the
people were accomplished facts to both writers, and they were both
looking forward to the return of the exiles and the restoration of the
kingdom of Jehovah. We shall have occasion to notice individual
points of resemblance later on.
In xxx. 2 Jeremiah is commanded to write in a book all that Jehovah
has spoken to him; and according to the present context the "all," in
this case, refers merely to the following four chapters. These
prophecies of restoration would be specially precious to the exiles;
and now that the Jews were scattered through many distant lands,
they could only be transmitted and preserved in writing. After the
command "to write in a book" there follows, by way of title, a
repetition of the statement that Jehovah would bring back His
people to their fatherland. Here, in the very forefront of the Book of
Promise, Israel and Judah are named as being recalled together
from exile. As we read twice[362] elsewhere in Jeremiah, the
promised deliverance from Assyria and Babylon was to surpass all
earlier manifestations of the Divine power and mercy. The Exodus
would not be named in the same breath with it: "Behold, the days
come, saith Jehovah, that it shall no more be said, As Jehovah
liveth, that brought up the Israelites out of the land of Egypt; but, As
Jehovah liveth, that brought up the Israelites from the land of the
north, and from all the countries whither He had driven them." This
prediction has waited for fulfilment to our own times: hitherto the
Exodus has occupied men's minds much more than the Return; we
are now coming to estimate the supreme religious importance of the
latter event.
Elsewhere again Jeremiah connects his promise with the clause in
his original commission "to build and to plant":[363] "I will set My
eyes upon them (the captives) for good, and I will bring them again
to this land; and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I
will plant them, and not pluck them up."[364] As in xxxii. 28-35, the
picture of restoration is rendered more vivid by contrast with Judah's
present state of wretchedness; the marvellousness of Jehovah's
mercy is made apparent by reminding Israel of the multitude of its
iniquities. The agony of Jacob is like that of a woman in travail. But
travail shall be followed by deliverance and triumph. In the second
Psalm the subject nations took counsel against Jehovah and against
His Anointed:—
 "Let us break their bands asunder,
And cast away their cords from us";

but now this is the counsel of Jehovah concerning His people and
their Babylonian conqueror:—

"I will break his yoke from off thy neck,

And break thy bands asunder."[365]

Judah's lovers, her foreign allies, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and all the
other states with whom she had intrigued, had betrayed her; they
had cruelly chastised her, so that her wounds were grievous and her
bruises incurable. She was left without a champion to plead her
cause, without a friend to bind up her wounds, without balm to allay
the pain of her bruises. "Because thy sins were increased, I have
done these things unto thee, saith Jehovah." Jerusalem was an
outcast, of whom men said contemptuously: "This is Zion, whom no
man seeketh after."[366] But man's extremity was God's opportunity;
because Judah was helpless and despised, therefore Jehovah said, "I
will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds."
[367]

While Jeremiah was still watching from his prison the progress of the
siege, he had seen the houses and palaces beyond the walls
destroyed by the Chaldeans to be used for their mounds; and had
known that every sally of the besieged was but another opportunity
for the enemy to satiate themselves with slaughter, as they executed
Jehovah's judgments upon the guilty city. Even at this extremity He
announced solemnly and emphatically the restoration and pardon of
His people. "Thus saith Jehovah, who established the earth, when
He made and fashioned it—Jehovah is His name: Call upon Me, and I
will answer thee, and will show thee great mysteries, which thou
knowest not."[368]
"I will bring to this city healing and cure, and will cause them to
know all the fulness of steadfast peace.... I will cleanse them from
all their iniquities, and will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they
have sinned and transgressed against Me."[369]
The healing of Zion naturally involved the punishment of her cruel
and treacherous lovers.[370] The Return, like other revolutions, was
not wrought by rose-water; the yokes were broken and the bands
rent asunder by main force. Jehovah would make a full end of all the
nations whither He had scattered them. Their devourers should be
devoured, all their adversaries should go into captivity, those who
had spoiled and preyed upon them should become a spoil and a
prey. Jeremiah had been commissioned from the beginning to pull
down foreign nations and kingdoms as well as his native Judah.[371]
Judah was only one of Israel's evil neighbours who were to be
plucked up out of their land.[372] And at the Return, as at the
Exodus, the waves at one and the same time opened a path of
safety for Israel and overwhelmed her oppressors.
Israel, pardoned and restored, would again be governed by
legitimate kings of the House of David. In the dying days of the
monarchy Israel and Judah had received their rulers from the hands
of foreigners. Menahem and Hoshea bought the confirmation of their
usurped authority from Assyria. Jehoiakim was appointed by
Pharaoh Necho, and Zedekiah by Nebuchadnezzar. We cannot doubt
that the kings of Egypt and Babylon were also careful to surround
their nominees with ministers who were devoted to the interests of
their suzerains. But now "their nobles were to be of themselves, and
their ruler was to proceed out of their midst,"[373] i.e. nobles and
rulers were to hold their offices according to national custom and
tradition.
Jeremiah was fond of speaking of the leaders of Judah as
shepherds. We have had occasion already[374] to consider his
controversy with the "shepherds" of his own time. In his picture of
the New Israel he uses the same figure. In denouncing the evil
shepherds, he predicts that, when the remnant of Jehovah's flock is
brought again to their folds, He will set up shepherds over them
which shall feed them,[375] shepherds according to Jehovah's own
heart, who should feed them with knowledge and understanding.
[376]

Over them Jehovah would establish as Chief Shepherd a Prince of

the House of David. Isaiah had already included in his picture of
Messianic times the fertility of Palestine; its vegetation,[377] by the
blessing of Jehovah, should be beautiful and glorious: he had also
described the Messianic King as a fruitful Branch[378] out of the root
of Jesse. Jeremiah takes the idea of the latter passage, but uses the
language of the former. For him the King of the New Israel is, as it
were, a Growth (çemaḥ) out of the sacred soil, or perhaps more
definitely from the roots of the House of David, that ancient tree
whose trunk had been hewn down and burnt. Both the Growth
(çemaḥ) and the Branch (neçer) had the same vital connection with
the soil of Palestine and the root of David. Our English versions
exercised a wise discretion when they sacrificed literal accuracy and
indicated the identity of idea by translating both "çemaḥ" and
"neçer" by "Branch."
"Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will raise up unto
David a righteous Branch; and He shall be a wise and prudent King,
and He shall execute justice and maintain the right. In His days
Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell securely, and His name
shall be Jehovah 'Çidqenu,' Jehovah is our righteousness."[379]
Jehovah Çidqenu might very well be the personal name of a Jewish
king, though the form would be unusual; but what is chiefly
intended is that His character shall be such as the "name" describes.
The "name" is a brief and pointed censure upon a king whose
character was the opposite of that described in these verses, yet
who bore a name of almost identical meaning—Zedekiah, Jehovah is
my righteousness. The name of the last reigning Prince of the House
of David had been a standing condemnation of his unworthy life, but
the King of the New Israel, Jehovah's true Messiah, would realise in
His administration all that such a name promised. Sovereigns delight
to accumulate sonorous epithets in their official designations—
Highness, High and Mighty, Majesty, Serene, Gracious. The glaring
contrast between character and titles often only serves to advertise
the worthlessness of those who are labelled with such epithets: the
Majesty of James I., the Graciousness of Richard III. Yet these titles
point to a standard of true royalty, whether the sovereign be an
individual or a class or the people; they describe that Divine
Sovereignty which will be realised in the Kingdom of God.[380]
The material prosperity of the restored community is set forth with
wealth of glowing imagery. Cities and palaces are to be rebuilt on
their former sites with more than their ancient splendour. "Out of
them shall proceed thanksgiving, and the voice of them that make
merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also
glorify them, and they shall not be small. And the children of Jacob
shall be as of old, and their assembly shall be established before
Me."[381] The figure often used of the utter desolation of the
deserted country is now used to illustrate its complete restoration:
"Yet again there shall be heard in this place ... the voice of joy and
the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of
the bride." Throughout all the land "which is waste, without man
and without beast, and in all the cities thereof," shepherds shall
dwell and pasture and fold their flocks; and in the cities of all the
districts of the Southern Kingdom (enumerated as exhaustively as in
xxxii. 44) shall the flocks again pass under the shepherd's hands to
be told.[382]
Jehovah's own peculiar flock, His Chosen People, shall be fruitful and
multiply according to the primæval blessing; under their new
shepherds they shall no more fear nor be dismayed, neither shall
any be lacking.[383] Jeremiah recurs again and again to the quiet,
the restfulness, the freedom from fear and dismay of the restored
Israel. In this, as in all else, the New Dispensation was to be an
entire contrast to those long weary years of alternate suspense and
panic, when men's hearts were shaken by the sound of the trumpet
and the alarm of war.[384] Israel is to dwell securely at rest from fear
of harm.[385] When Jacob returns, he "shall be quiet and at ease,
and none shall make him afraid."[386] Egyptian, Assyrian, and
Chaldean shall all cease from troubling; the memory of past misery
shall become dim and shadowy.
The finest expansion of this idea is a passage which always fills the
soul with a sense of utter rest. "He shall dwell on high: his refuge
shall be the inaccessible rocks: his bread shall be given him; his
waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty:
they shall behold a far-stretching land. Thine heart shall muse on the
terror: where is he that counted, where is he that weighed the
tribute? where is he that counted the towers? Thou shalt not see the
fierce people, a people of a deep speech that thou canst not
perceive; of a strange tongue that thou canst not understand. Look
upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem
a quiet habitation, a tent that shall not be removed, the stakes
whereof shall never be plucked up, neither shall any of the cords
thereof be broken. There Jehovah will be with us in majesty, a place
of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars,
neither shall gallant ship pass thereby."[387]
For Jeremiah too the presence of Jehovah in majesty was the only
possible guarantee of the peace and prosperity of Israel. The voices
of joy and gladness in the New Jerusalem were not only those of
bride and bridegroom, but also of those that said, "Give thanks to
Jehovah Sabaoth, for Jehovah is good, for His mercy endureth for
ever," and of those that "came to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving in
the house of Jehovah."[388] This new David, as the Messianic King is
called,[389] is to have the priestly right of immediate access to God:
"I will cause Him to draw near, and He shall approach unto Me: for
else who would risk his life by daring to approach Me?"[390] Israel is
liberated from foreign conquerors to serve Jehovah their God and
David their King; and the Lord Himself rejoices in His restored and
ransomed people.
The city that was once a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and
a curse among all nations shall now be to Jehovah "a name of joy, a
praise and a glory, before all the nations of the earth, which shall
hear all the good that I do unto them, and shall tremble with fear for
all the good and all the peace that I procure unto it."[391]
 CHAPTER XXXII
RESTORATION—III. REUNION
xxxi.

"I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the
seed of man, and with the seed of beast."—Jer. xxxi. 27.

In his prophecies of restoration, Jeremiah continually couples

together Judah and Israel.[392] Israel, it is true, often stands for the
whole elect nation, and is so used by Jeremiah. After the
disappearance of the Ten Tribes, the Jewish community is spoken of
as Israel. But Israel, in contrast to Judah, will naturally mean the
Northern Kingdom or its exiled inhabitants. In this chapter Jeremiah
clearly refers to this Israel; he speaks of it under its distinctive title
of Ephraim, and promises that vineyards shall again be planted on
the mountains of Samaria. Jehovah had declared that He would cast
Judah out of His sight, as He had cast out the whole seed of
Ephraim.[393] In the days to come Jehovah would make His new
covenant with the House of Israel, as well as with the House of
Judah. Amos,[394] who was sent to declare the captivity of Israel,
also prophesied its return; and similar promises are found in Micah
and Isaiah.[395] But, in his attitude towards Ephraim, Jeremiah, as in
so much else, is a disciple of Hosea. Both prophets have the same
tender, affectionate interest in this wayward child of God. Hosea
mourns over Ephraim's sin and punishment: "How shall I give thee
up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee to thine enemies, O Israel?
how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim?"
[396] Jeremiah exults in the glory of Ephraim's restoration. Hosea
barely attains to the hope that Israel will return from captivity, or
possibly that its doom may yet be averted. "Mine heart is turned
within Me, My compassions are kindled together. I will not execute
the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not again any more destroy
Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One of Israel in the
midst of thee."[397] But Jehovah rather longs to pardon than finds
any sign of the repentance that makes pardon possible; and similarly
the promise—"I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall blossom as
the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall
spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as
Lebanon"—is conditioned upon the very doubtful response to the
appeal "O Israel, return unto Jehovah thy God."[398] But Jeremiah's
confidence in the glorious future of Ephraim is dimmed by no shade
of misgiving. "They shall be My people, and I will be their God," is
the refrain of Jeremiah's prophecies of restoration; this chapter
opens with a special modification of the formula, which emphatically
and expressly includes both Ephraim and Judah—"I will be the God
of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be My people."
The Assyrian and Chaldean captivities carried men's thoughts back
to the bondage in Egypt; and the experiences of the Exodus
provided phrases and figures to describe the expected Return. The
judges had delivered individual tribes or groups of tribes. Jeroboam
II. had been the saviour of Samaria; and the overthrow of
Sennacherib had rescued Jerusalem. But the Exodus stood out from
all later deliverances as the birth of the whole people. Hence the
prophets often speak of the Return as a New Exodus.
This prophecy takes the form of a dialogue between Jehovah and
the Virgin of Israel, i.e. the nation personified. Jehovah announces
that the Israelite exiles, the remnant left by the sword of
Shalmaneser and Sargon, were to be more highly favoured than the
fugitives from the sword of Pharaoh, of whom Jehovah sware in His
wrath "that they should not enter into My rest; whose carcases fell
in the wilderness." "A people that hath survived the sword hath
found favour in the wilderness; Israel hath entered into his rest,"
[399]—hath found favour—hath entered—because Jehovah regards
His purpose as already accomplished.
Jehovah speaks from his ancient dwelling-place in Jerusalem, and,
when the Virgin of Israel hears Him in her distant exile, she answers:
—

"From afar hath Jehovah appeared unto me (saying),

With My ancient love do I love thee;
Therefore My lovingkindness is enduring toward
thee."[400]

His love is as old as the Exodus, His mercy has endured all through
the long, weary ages of Israel's sin and suffering.
Then Jehovah replies:—

"Again will I build thee, and thou shalt be built, O

Virgin of Israel;
Again shalt thou take thy tabrets, and go forth in the
dances of them that make merry;
Again shalt thou plant vineyards on the mountains of
Samaria, while they that plant shall enjoy the
fruit."

This contrasts with the times of invasion when the vintage was
destroyed or carried off by the enemy. Then follows the Divine
purpose, the crowning mercy of Israel's renewed prosperity:—

"For the day cometh when the vintagers[401] shall cry

in the hill-country of Ephraim,
Arise, let us go up to Zion, to Jehovah our God."

Israel will no longer keep her vintage feasts in schism at Samaria

and Bethel and her countless high places, but will join with Judah in
the worship of the Temple, which Josiah's covenant had accepted as
the one sanctuary of Jehovah.
The exultant strain continues stanza after stanza:—

"Thus saith Jehovah:

Exult joyously for Jacob, and shout for the chief of
the nations;
Make your praises heard, and say, Jehovah hath
saved His people,[402] even the remnant of
Israel.
Behold, I bring them from the land of the north, and
gather them from the uttermost ends of the
earth;
Among them blind and lame, pregnant women and
women in travail together."

None are left behind, not even those least fit for the journey.

"A great company shall return hither.

They shall come with weeping, and with supplications
will I lead them."

Of old, weeping and supplication had been heard upon the heights
of Israel because of her waywardness and apostasy;[403] but now
the returning exiles offer prayers and thanksgiving mingled with
tears, weeping partly for joy, partly for pathetic memories.

"I will bring them to streams of water, by a plain path,

wherein they cannot stumble:
For I am become once more a father to Israel, and
Ephraim is My first-born son."

Of the two Israelite states, Ephraim, the Northern Kingdom, had

long been superior in power, wealth, and religion. Judah was often
little more than a vassal of Samaria, and owed her prosperity and
even her existence to the barrier which Samaria interposed between
Jerusalem and invaders from Assyria or Damascus. Until the latter
days of Samaria, Judah had no prophets that could compare with
Elijah and Elisha. The Jewish prophet is tenacious of the rights of
Zion, but he does not base any claim for the ascendency of Judah on
the geographical position of the Temple; he does not even mention
the sacerdotal tribe of Levi. Jew and priest as he was, he
acknowledges the political and religious hegemony of Ephraim. The
fact is a striking illustration of the stress laid by the prophets on the
unity of Israel, to which all sectional interests were to be sacrificed.
If Ephraim was required to forsake his ancient shrines, Jeremiah was
equally ready to forego any pride of tribe or caste. Did we, in all our
different Churches, possess the same generous spirit, Christian
reunion would no longer be a vain and distant dream. But, passing
on to the next stanza,—

"Hear the word of Jehovah, O ye nations, and make it

known in the distant islands.
Say, He that scattered Israel doth gather him, and
watcheth over him as a shepherd over his
flock.
For Jehovah hath ransomed Jacob and redeemed him
from the hand of him that was too strong for
him.
They shall come and sing for joy in the height of
Zion;
They shall come in streams to the bounty of Jehovah,
for corn and new wine and oil and lambs and
calves."

Jeremiah does not dwell, in any grasping sacerdotal spirit, on the

contributions which these reconciled schismatics would pay to the
Temple revenues, but rather delights to make mention of their share
in the common blessings of God's obedient children.

"They shall be like a well-watered garden; they shall

no more be faint and weary:
Then shall they rejoice—the damsels in the dance—
the young men and the old together.
 I will turn their mourning into gladness, and will
comfort them, and will bring joy out of their
wretchedness.
I will fill the priests with plenty, and My people shall
be satisfied with My bounty—
It is the utterance of Jehovah."
It is not quite clear how far, in this chapter, Israel is to be
understood exclusively of Ephraim. If the foregoing stanza is, as it
seems, perfectly general, the priests are simply those of the restored
community, ministering at the Temple; but if the reference is
specially to Ephraim, the priests belong to families involved in the
captivity of the ten tribes, and we have further evidence of the
catholic spirit of the Jewish prophet.
Another stanza:—

"Thus saith Jehovah:

A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter
weeping, Rachel weeping for her children.
She refuseth to be comforted for her children, for
they are not."

Rachel, as the mother of Benjamin and Joseph, claimed an interest

in both the Israelite kingdoms. Jeremiah shows special concern for
Benjamin, in whose territory his native Anathoth was situated.[404]
"Her children" would be chiefly the Ephraimites and Manassites, who
formed the bulk of the Northern Kingdom; but the phrase was
doubtless intended to include other Jews, that Rachel might be a
symbol of national unity.
The connection of Rachel with Ramah is not obvious; there is no
precedent for it. Possibly Ramah is not intended for a proper name,
and we might translate "A voice is heard upon the heights." In Gen.
xxxv. 19, Rachel's grave is placed between Bethel and Ephrath,[405]
and in 1 Sam. x. 2, in the border of Benjamin at Zelzah; only here
has Rachel anything to do with Ramah. The name, however, in its
various forms, was not uncommon. Ramah, to the north of
Jerusalem, seems to have been a frontier town, and debatable
territory[406] between the two kingdoms; and Rachel's appearance
there might symbolise her relation to both. This Ramah was also a
slave depot for the Chaldeans[407] after the fall of Jerusalem, and
Rachel might well revisit the glimpses of the moon at a spot where
her descendants had drunk the first bitter draught of the cup of
exile. In any case, the lines are a fresh appeal to the spirit of
national unity. The prophet seems to say: "Children of the same
mother, sharers in the same fate, whether of ruin or restoration,
remember the ties that bind you and forget your ancient feuds."
Rachel, wailing in ghostly fashion, was yet a name to conjure with,
and the prophet hoped that her symbolic tears could water the
renewed growth of Israel's national life. Christ, present in His living
Spirit, lacerated at heart by the bitter feuds of those who call Him
Lord, should temper the harsh judgments that Christians pass on
servants of their One Master. The Jewish prophet lamenting the
miseries of schismatic Israel contrasts with the Pope singing Te
Deums over the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Then comes the answer:—

"Thus saith Jehovah:

Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from
tears.
Thou shalt have wages for thy labour—it is the
utterance of Jehovah—they shall return from
the enemy's land.
There is hope for thee in the days to come—it is the
utterance of Jehovah—thy children shall return
to their own border."[408]

The Niobe of the nation is comforted, but now is heard another

voice:—
 "Surely I hear Ephraim bemoaning himself: Thou hast
chastised me; I am chastised like a calf not yet
broken to the yoke.
Restore me to Thy favour, that I may return unto
Thee, for Thou art Jehovah my God.
In returning unto Thee, I repent; when I come to
myself, I smite upon my thigh in penitence."
[409]

The image of the calf is another reminiscence of Hosea, with whom

Israel figures as a "backsliding heifer" and Ephraim as a "heifer that
has been broken in and loveth to tread out the corn"; though
apparently in Hosea Ephraim is broken in to wickedness. Possibly
this figure was suggested by the calves at Bethel and Dan.
The moaning of Ephraim, like the wailing of Rachel, is met and
answered by the Divine compassion. By a bold and touching figure,
Jehovah is represented as surprised at the depth of His passionate
affection for His prodigal son:—

"Can it be that Ephraim is indeed a son that is precious

to Me? is he indeed a darling child?
As often as I speak against him, I cannot cease to
remember him,[410]
Wherefore My tender compassion is moved towards
him: verily I will have mercy on him—
It is the utterance of Jehovah."

As with Hosea, Israel is still the child whom Jehovah loved, the son
whom He called out of Egypt. But now Israel is called with a more
effectual calling:—

"Set thee up pillars of stone,[411] to mark the way;

make thee guide-posts: set thy heart toward the
highway whereby thou wentest.
 Return, O Virgin of Israel, return unto these thy
cities."
The following verse strikes a note of discord, that suggests the
revulsion of feeling, the sudden access of doubt, that sometimes
follows the most ecstatic moods:—

"How long wilt thou wander to and fro, O backsliding

daughter?
Jehovah hath created a new thing in the earth—a
woman shall compass a man."

It is just possible that this verse is not intended to express doubt of

Israel's cordial response, but is merely an affectionate urgency that
presses the immediate appropriation of the promised blessings. But
such an exegesis seems forced, and the verse is a strange
termination to the glowing stanzas that precede. It may have been
added when all hope of the return of the ten tribes was over.[412]
The meaning of the concluding enigma is as profound a mystery as
the fate of the lost tribes, and the solutions rather more
unsatisfactory. The words apparently denote that the male and the
female shall interchange functions, and an explanation often given is
that, in the profound peace of the New Dispensation, the women will
protect the men. This portent seems to be the sign which is to win
the Virgin of Israel from her vacillation and induce her to return at
once to Palestine.
In Isaiah xliii. 19 the "new thing" which Jehovah does is to make a
way in the untrodden desert and rivers in the parched wilderness. A
parallel interpretation, suggested for our passage, is that women
should develop manly strength and courage, as abnormal to them as
roads and rivers to a wilderness. When women were thus endowed,
men could not for shame shrink from the perils of the Return.
In Isaiah iv. 1 seven women court one man, and it has been
suggested[413] that the sense here is "women shall court men," but
it is difficult to see how this would be relevant. Another parallel has
been sought for in the Immanuel and other prophecies of Isaiah, in
which the birth of a child is set forth as a sign. Our passage would
then assume a Messianic character; the return of the Virgin of Israel
would be postponed till her doubts and difficulties should be solved
by the appearance of a new Moses.[414] This view has much to
commend it, but does not very readily follow from the usage of the
word translated "compass." Still less can we regard these words as a
prediction of the miraculous conception of our Lord.
The next stanza connects the restoration of Judah with that of
Ephraim, and, for the most part, goes over ground already traversed
in our previous chapters; one or two points only need be noticed
here. It is in accordance with the catholic and gracious spirit which
characterises this chapter that the restoration of Judah is expressly
connected with that of Ephraim. The combination of the future
fortunes of both in a single prophecy emphasises their reunion. The
heading of this stanza, "Thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of
Israel," is different from that hitherto used, and has a special
significance in its present context. It is "the God of Israel" to whom
Ephraim is a darling child and a first-born son, the God of that Israel
which for centuries stood before the world as Ephraim; it is this God
who blesses and redeems Judah. Her faint and weary soul is also to
be satisfied with His plenty; Zion is to be honoured as the habitation
of justice and the mountain of holiness.
"Hereupon," saith the prophet, "I awaked and looked about me, and
felt that my sleep had been pleasant to me." The vision had come to
him, in some sense, as a dream. Zechariah[415] had to be aroused,
like a man wakened out of his sleep, in order to receive the Divine
message; and possibly Zechariah's sleep was the ecstatic trance in
which he had beheld previous visions. Jeremiah, however, shows
scant confidence[416] in the inspiration of those who dream dreams,
and it does not seem likely that this is a unique exception to his
ordinary experience. Perhaps we may say with Orelli that the
prophet had become lost in the vision of future blessedness as in
some sweet dream.
In the following stanza Jehovah promises to recruit the dwindled
numbers of Israel and Judah; with a sowing more gracious and
fortunate than that of Cadmus, He will scatter[417] over the land, not
dragons' teeth, but the seed of man and beast. Recurring[418] to
Jeremiah's original commission, He promises that as He watched
over Judah to pluck up and to break down, to overthrow and to
destroy and to afflict, so now He will watch over them to build and
to plant.
The next verse is directed against a lingering dread, by which men's
minds were still possessed. More than half a century elapsed
between the death of Manasseh and the fall of Jerusalem. He was
succeeded by Josiah, who "turned to Jehovah with all his heart, and
with all his soul, and with all his might."[419] Yet Jehovah declared to
Jeremiah that Manasseh's sins had irrevocably fixed the doom of
Judah, so that not even the intercession of Moses and Samuel could
procure her pardon.[420] Men might well doubt whether the guilt of
that wicked reign was even yet fully expiated, whether their teeth
might not still be set on edge because of the sour grapes which
Manasseh had eaten. Therefore the prophet continues: "In those
days men shall no longer say, The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge; but every man shall die for
his own transgression, all who eat sour grapes shall have their own
teeth set on edge." Or to use the explicit words of Ezekiel, in the
great chapter in which he discusses this permanent theological
difficulty: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear
the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of
the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and
the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."[421] With the fall
of Jerusalem, a chapter in the history of Israel was concluded for
ever; Jehovah blotted out the damning record of the past, and
turned over a new leaf in the annals of His people. The account
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