miah had written; Michaiah, the son of Gemariah, one of the king's officers, having heard Baruch, went down to the king's house, and informed the princes and nobles of the prophecies that had been read. The princes immediately sent for Baruch, and desired him to read the words of the Lord to them also; inquiring more particularly as to the manner in which they were delivered by the prophet, and promising to speak to the king on the subject, with which they seemed greatly impressed. They next sent away Baruch, desiring him to leave the roll, and advising that he and Jeremiah should immediately conceal themselves; then putting the roll carefully away, they proceeded to tell the king all that had passed. Jehoiakim sent for the roll, and commanded one of his nobles to read it to him; but he had not proceeded far, when the king seized it in a rage, and cutting it with a penknife, cast the whole into a fire that was burning before him, notwithstanding the entreaties of some of the nobles that he would not destroy it. He then commanded that Jeremiah and Baruch should be immediately apprehended, but the Lord preserved them, and rendered the search of the king's officers ineffectual. Jehoiakim's burning the roll, on which the threatenings of God against him and his people were written, is an act of presumption scarcely paralleled in history. Yet, as the prophet remarks, it had not the effect which might have been expected. The princes were not greatly shocked at this horrid impiety, neither did they show much concern at the awful message they had heard; they were accustomed

The Jews keep an annual fast even to this day for the burning of this roll; thus showing more compunction than the princes who witnessed it.

to such conduct in their king, and had in some measure anticipated it, when they advised Jeremiah and Baruch to hide themselves. How wretched must man become when he forsakes the living God, and how contemptible does he appear when striving against his Maker! God not only protected his prophet at this time from the impotent rage of Jehoiakim, but commanded him to write again the prophecies which the king's impiety had sought to obliterate, and to add to them a special message predictive of the monarch's awful doom. In the seventh year of Jehoiakim, Daniel, who had been above three years a captive in Babylon, and had finished the course of studies to which that time was assigned, was brought into public notice at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, by interpreting that monarch's dream, which had made a serious impression on his mind, though it had totally escaped his memory. This prophet, now about twenty-two years of age, was immediately advanced to great dignity; the first use he made of this distinction was to request similar advancement for his three companions; and the highest gratification he received was doubtless from the acknowledgment of Nebuchadnezzar, that his God was a "God of gods, and a Lord of kings." I would advise you now to read the first and second chapters of the book of Daniel, but I shall forbear any comment at present; for the character of Daniel is so lovely, that I intend, if God permit, to set it before you at a future period of the history, in a separate letter.

IN the same year that Daniel began to be publicly distinguished at Babylon, Jehoiakim rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, refusing to be any longer tributary to him, and entering into a league with Pharaoh Necho against him. The sacred historian informs us, that "the Lord sent against Jehoiakim bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servants the prophets." All the nations here mentioned were at this time under the dominion of Nebuchadnezzar, who most probably ordered them to annoy his disobedient vassal; but they as well as their sovereign were but instruments in the hands of God, to inflict the judgments with which he had threatened his impenitent people. These detachments continued to harass Jehoiakim during three years, till at length they completely invested Jerusalem, and shut him up in it. Here, in the eleventh year of his reign, he was taken prisoner by the assailants, and killed. His dead body was cast into the highway, without one of the gates of the city; and thus were fulfilled two remarkable prophecies to this effect one of which was delivered to him by Jeremiah in the beginning of his reign," the other written by God's command after he had burned the roll. Thus ended the reign of the impious Jehoiakim, whose character needs no comment, since it has been but too * Jeremiah xxii. 18, 19. ↑ Jeremiah xxxvi. 30.

apparent in his conduct. His confederate Pharaoh Necho had died the preceding year.

Jehoiachin next succeeded to the government of Judah. This prince, called also Jeconiah and Coniah, was the son of Jehoiakim. In the 2nd Book of Chronicles, chap. xxxvi. he is said to have been eight years old when he began to reign, while in the 2nd Book of Kings we are told he was eighteen. Divines reconcile these two accounts, by concluding that his father associated him in the government when only eight years of age: a custom very prevalent in those times. Jehoiachin followed the example of his father; but his career of impiety and vice was short, for Nebuchadnezzar now came in person against Jerusalem, and besieged the city in form. In the twenty-second chapter of Jeremiah, to which I have already referred you, there is a prediction so remarkable for its clearness, and the circumstantial manner in which it was accomplished, that I cannot forbear copying it for you; though I have every reason to hope that you always seek the passages of scripture to which I direct your attention. The Lord, speaking to Jehoiachin by his prophet, says, “ I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee, into another country, where ye were not born, and there shall ye die." This is the prophecy; and its fulfilment was literal, as we read in the 2nd Book of Kings xxiv. 12-15; for Nebuchadnezzar pressing the siege, and Jehoiachin having no means of escape or defence, the city was reduced in three months; and the king, with

all his family, household, and nobles, surrendered thems selves prisoners of war, and were carried captives to Babylon. It is a circumstance worthy of observation, that Jehoiachin and his mother are mentioned together in the narrative, as they had previously been in the prediction. Nebuchadnezzar at this time despoiled the temple of the vessels and treasures he had spared on his first visit, and seized all the treasures of the king's house also. The number of captives he now carried away amounted to several thousands, consisting not only of the higher classes and the remains of the army, but of all the carpenters, smiths, and artificers he found in Jerusalem and Judah, whom he intended to employ in the buildings he was carrying on at Babylon. The prophet Ezekiel who was among the captives, whenever he speaks of the captivity, reckons from this era. He was a priest when carried away, and was not called to the prophetical office till four or five years after. Jehoiachin, by surrendering himself to the king of Babylon, retarded the destruction of his capital, and escaped immediate death; but his lengthened life was no great advantage to him, since he was not allowed even the slender comfort of personal liberty in his degradation and exile, being kept in prison during the remainder of Nebuchadnezzar's life, a period of thirty-seven years. Thus were the Lord's threatenings executed upon him; he was indeed "a man that did not prosper in his days;" and it is much to be feared that adversity and chastisement had no salutary effect in leading him to repentance.

Nebuchadnezzar having thus subjected the kingdom of Judah, and sent the principal inhabitants of it into * 2 Kings xxiv. 15.