[712] Jer. xi. 3, 4. Since, in this part of my subject, I make frequent reference to the prophecies of Jeremiah which are indispensable to the right understanding of the history, I may here say that modern critics (Cheyne and others) arrange them as follows:-- In the reign of _Josiah_, Jer. ii. 1-iii. 5, iii. 6-vi. 30, vii. 1-ix. 25, xi. 1-17. In the reign of _Jehoiakim_, xxvi. 2-6, xlvi. 2-12, xxv., xxxv., and possibly xvi. 1, xviii. 19-27, xiv., xv., xviii., xi. 18-xii. 17. In the reign of _Jehoiachin_, x. 17-23, xiii. In the reign of _Zedekiah_, xxii.-xxiv., xxvii.-xxix. 1-11 (?), lii. In the _Exile_, xxxix.-xliv. [713] See Cheyne, _Jeremiah_, p. 56, _id._ 6. [714] Canon Cheyne shows that even Mohammed could not persuade the Qurashites wholly to give up their black stone at the Kaaba, and their dolmens and sacred trees (_id._ 103). He left the _auçab_, or sacrificial stones (_matstseboth_), though he warns his followers against them (_Quran_, v. 92). [715] Jer. xvii. 9-11. [716] Ewald, _The Prophets_, iii. 63, 64. [717] Jer. xvii. 1-4. [718] The Qurashites and other heathen Arabs accounted holy a large green tree, and every year had a sacrifice in its honour. "On the way to Hunain we called to God's Messenger (Mohammed) that he should appoint for us such trees. But he was terrified, and said, 'Lord God, Lord God! Ye speak even as the Israelites ... ye are still in ignorance,--thus are heathen enslaved'" (Vakïdi, _Book of the Campaigns of God's Messenger_, quoted by Cheyne, _Jeremiah_, p. 103, from Wellhausen). [719] Psalm lxxxv. 8. [720] Deut. xxx. 11-14. See Wellhausen, p. 165. [721] Jer. vi. 20. The passages of Jeremiah which seem of a different spirit may have been added by later hands--_e.g._, xxxiii. 18, which is not in the LXX. [722] Jer. vii. 21; Ewald; and Cheyne, _l.c._ 120. So the Jews seem to have understood it, for they appoint this passage to be read on the _Haphtara_ after the _Parashah_ about sacrifices from Leviticus. [723] Jer, vii. 22, 23. This alone would show that Jeremiah did not (as earlier critics thought) _write_ "Deuteronomy," in spite of the numerous close resemblances in phraseology. Thus, Jeremiah often denounces the priests (i. 18, ii. 8-26, iv. 9, v. 31, viii. 1, xiii. 13, xxxii. 32). Cheyne, p. 82. [724] Mic. iii. 11. [725] Jer. vii. 4, 8-15. [726] Jer. xxxi. 31, 32. [727] Jer. xxii. 15, 16. NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXI. "Jehovah is our Lawgiver."--ISA. xxxiii. 22. What was the Book of the Law which Hilkiah found in the Temple? The great majority of eminent modern critics have now come to the conclusion that it was the kernel of the Book of Deuteronomy. Nor is this in any sense a mere modern notion. It occurs as far back as St. Jerome (_Adv. Jovin._, i. 5) and St. Chrysostom (_Hom. in Matt._, ix., p. 135, B. See W. Rob. Smith, p. 258).