s, and clearly reflect their
appearance and manner of raiding. It is indeed doubtful that Judah was
visited by the Scythians, who appear to have swept only the maritime plain
of Palestine. And once more we must remember that when the Prophet
dictated his early Oracles to Baruch for the second time in 604, and
_added to them many more like words_,(204) the impending enemy from the
North was no longer the Scythians but Nebuchadrezzar and his Chaldeans;
for this will explain features of the poems that are not suited to the
Scythians and their peculiar warfare, which avoided the siege of fortified
towns but kept to the open country and the ruin of its villages and
fields. Jeremiah does not give the feared invaders a name. The Scythians
were utterly new to his world; yet their name may have occurred in the
poems as originally delivered and have been removed in 604, when the
Scythians were no longer a force to be reckoned with.(205)

1. As it has reached us, the First Scythian Song, Ch. IV. 5-8, opens with
the general formula--

Proclaim in Judah and Jerusalem,
Make heard and say!

which may be the addition of a later hand, but is as probably Jeremiah's
own; for the capital, though not likely to be besieged by the Scythians,
was just as concerned with their threatened invasion as the country folk,
to whom, in the first place, the lines are addressed. The _trump_ or
_horn_ of the first line was the signal of alarm, kept ready by the
watchman of every village, as Amos and Joel indicate.(206)

Strike up the trump through the land, IV. 5_b_
Call with full voice,
And say, Sweep together and into
The fortified towns.
Hoist the signal towards Sion, 6
Pack off and stay not!
For evil I bring from the North
And ruin immense.
The Lion is up from his thicket, 7
Mauler of nations;
He is off and forth from his place,
Thy land(207) to lay waste;
That thy townships be burned
With none to inhabit!
Gird ye with sackcloth for this, 8
Howl and lament,
For the glow of the wrath of the Lord
Turns not from us.

These lines are followed by a verse with an introduction to itself, and
therefore too separate from the context, and indeed too general to have
belonged to so vivid a song:--

9. And it shall be in that day--Rede of the Lord--

The heart of the king shall perish,
And the heart of the princes,
A