illing of
the Word. The Vision is followed by a charge to the Prophet himself.

And the word of the Lord came to me the second time, What art thou
seeing? And I said, A caldron boiling and its face is from (?) the
North.(130) And the Lord said unto me:--

Out of the North shall evil boil forth(131)
On all that dwell in the land;
For behold, I am calling
All the realms(132) of the North.
They shall come and each set his throne
In the openings of the gates of Jerusalem,
On all of her walls round about,
And every township of Judah.
And My judgments by them(133) shall I utter
On the evil of those who have left Me,
Who have burned to other gods
And bowed to the works of their hands.

But thou shalt gird up thy loins,
Stand up and speak(134) all I charge thee.
Be not dismayed before them,
Lest to their face I dismay thee.
See I have thee set this day
A fenced city and walls of bronze
To the kings and princes of Judah,
Her priests and the folk of the land;
They shall fight but master thee never,
For with thee am I to deliver--
Rede of the Lord.(135)

Jeremiah was silenced and went forth to his ministry--the Word upon his
lips and the Lord by his side.

Two further observations are natural.

_First_, note the contrast between the two Visions--the blossoming twig and
the boiling caldron brewing tempests from the North. Unrelated as these
seem, they symbolise together Jeremiah's prophesying throughout. For in
fact this was all blossom and storm, beauty and terror, tender yearning
and thunders of doom--up to the very end. Or to state the same more deeply:
while the caldron of the North never ceased boiling out over his
world--consuming the peoples, his own among them, and finally sweeping him
into exile and night--he never, for himself or for Israel, lost the clear
note of his first Vision, that all was watched and controlled. There is
his value to ourselves. Jeremiah was no prophet of hope, but he was the
prophet of that without which hope is impossible--faith in Control--that be
the times dark and confused as they may, and the world's movements
ruthless, ruinous and inevitable, God yet watches and rules all to the
fulfilment of His Will--though how we see not, nor can any prophet tell us.

_Second_, note how the story leaves the issue, not with one will only, but
with two--God's and the Man's, whom God has