The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

1-7.]
DESOLATION
they not rather its effects ? Two solutions of this
difficulty have been proposed. It has been suggested
that the captivity is here presented as a consequence
of the misconduct of the Jews in oppressing peoples
subject to them. But the abstract words will not
readily bear any such meaning ; we should have expected
some more explicit charge. Then it has been
proposed to read the words " out of affliction/' etc., in
place of the phrase " because of affliction," etc., as
though in escaping from trouble at home the Jews had
only passed into a new misfortune abroad. This is not
so simple an explanation of the poet's language as that
at which we arrive by the perfectly legitimate substitution
of the word " exile " for " captivity." It may
seem strange that the statement should be affirmed of
"Judah," as though the whole nation had escaped to
Egypt ; but it would be equally inexact to say that
" Judah " was carried captive to Babylon, seeing that
only a selection from the upper classes was deported,
while the majority of the people was probably left in
the land. But so many of the Jews, especially those
best known to the poet, were in voluntary exile, that ic
was quite natural for him to regard them as virtually
the nation. Now upon these refugees three troubles
fall. First, the asylum is a heathen country, abominable
to pious Israelites. Second, even here the fugitives
have no rest ; they are not allowed to settle down ; they
are perpetually molested. Third, on the way thither
they are harassed by the enemy. They are overtaken
by pursuers " within the straits," a statement which
may be read literally ; bands of Chaldaeans would hover
about the mountains, ready to pounce upon the disorganised
groups of fugitives as they made their way
through the narrow defiles that led out of the hill