The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

298 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH
their lives in the city, exclaiming :
'' Our end is near,
our days are fulfilled ; for our end is come." ^ Now
they are in sore extremities. The swift pursuit suggests
Jeremiah's image of the eagles on the wing overtaking
their quarry. "Behold, he shall come up as clouds,"
said the prophet, "and his chariots shall be as the
whirlwind ; his horses are swifter than eagles." ^ There
was no possibility of escape from such persistent foes.
At the same time, ambuscades were in waiting among
the many caves that honeycomb these limestone moun-
tains—in the district where the traveller in the parable
of " The good Samaritan " fell among thieves. The king
himself was taken like a hunted animal caught in a
trap, though, as we learn from the history, not till
he had reached Jericho.^
The language in which Zedekiah is described is
singularly strong. He is " the breath of our nostrils,
the anointed of the Lord." The hope of the fugitives
had been " to live under his shadow among the
nations." * It is startling to find such words applied to
so weak and worthless a ruler. It cannot be the expression
of sycophancy ; for the king and his kingdom
had disappeared before the elegy was written. Zede-
kiah was not so bad as some of his predecessors. Like
Louis XVI., he reaped the long accumulating retribution
of the sins of his ancestors. Yet after making
due allowance for the exuberance of the Oriental style,
we must feel that the language is out of proportion to
the possibilities of the most courtly devotion of the
time. Evidently the kingly idea means more than the
prosaic personality of any particular monarch. The
romantic enthusiasm of Cavaliers and Nonjurors for
' iv. l8. ^ 2 Kings xxv. 4, 5; Jer. xxxix. 4, 5.
^ Jer. iv. 13. * iv. 20.