Jerusalem!--the mention of that magical name touches another chord in the prophet's soul; and the fierce tones of his oracle of doom change into a dirge-like strain of pity without hope. "For who will have compassion on Thee, O Jerusalem? And who will yield thee comfort? And who will turn aside to ask of thy welfare? 'Twas thou that rejectedst Me (it is Iahvah's word); Backward wouldst thou wend: So I stretched forth My hand against thee and destroyed thee; I wearied of relenting. And I winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I bereaved, I undid My people: Yet they returned not from their own ways. His widows outnumbered before Me the sand of seas: I brought them against the Mother of Warriors a harrier at high noon; I threw upon her suddenly anguish and horrors. She that had borne seven sons did pine away; She breathèd out her soul. Her sun did set, while it yet was day; He blushed and paled. But their remnant will I give to the sword Before their foes: (It is Iahvah's word)." The fate of Jerusalem would strike the nations dumb with horror; it would not inspire pity, for man would recognise that it was absolutely just. Or perhaps the thought rather is, In proving false to Me, thou wert false to thine only friend: Me thou hast estranged by thy faithlessness; and from the envious rivals, who beset thee on every side, thou canst expect nothing but rejoicing at thy downfall (Ps. cxxxvi.; Lam. ii. 15-17; Obad. 10 _sqq._). The peculiar solitariness of Israel among the nations (Num. xxiii. 9) aggravated the anguish of her overthrow. In what follows, the dreadful past appears as a prophecy of the yet more terrible future. The poet-seer's pathetic monody moralizes the lost battle of Megiddo--that fatal day when the sun of Judah set in what seemed the high day of her prosperity, and all the glory and the promise of good king Josiah vanished like a dream in sudden darkness. Men might think--doubtless Jeremiah thought, in the first moments of despair, when the news of that overwhelming disaster was brought to Jerusalem, with the corpse of the good king, the dead hope of the nation--that this crushing blow was proof that Iahvah had rejected His people, in the exercise of a sovereign caprice, and without reference to their own attitude towards Him. But, says or chants the prophet, in solemn rhythmic utterance, "'Twas thou that rejectedst Me; Backward wouldst thou wend: So I stretched forth My hand against thee, and wrought thee hurt; I wearied of relenting."