# A memoir of Granville Sharp/Law of retribution

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AN EXTRACT
FROM
THE LAW OF RETRIBUTION
BY GRANVILLE SHARP
Published in 1776.
The African slave trade has been publicly supportted and encouraged by the Legislature of this kingdom for near a century last past; so that the monstrous destruction of the human species which is annually occasioned thereby, may certainly be esteemed a national crime of the most aggravating kind, which (according to the usual course of God's Providence in the world) will probably draw down some exemplary vengeance upon the unrepenting inhabitants of this island! And, with respect to the British colonies the uncharitable practice of slaveholding, especially in the West-India Islands and the more Southern Colonies, is grown up into a more enormous and destructive oppression (whether we view the prodigious multitudes of the oppressed, or the unconscionable severity of the oppresors) than perhaps ever disgraced any other nation at any one period of time!
The several attempts that have lately been made to justify these two branches of abominable national iniquity by the Holy Scriptures, and especially by the permission ​therein granted to the Iraelites to purchase and retain slaves among them, have induced me to collect, from the history of the Jews in several books of Holy Scripture, some plain examples of God's vengeance upon that particular nation, expressly for this kind of oppression; which, I hope, will sufficiently prove that slavery was ever detestable in the sight of God, and consequently that a speedy reformation is absolutely necessary, as well with respect to the African slave trade, encouraged in this kingdom, as the toleration of slavery in the British American dominions, if we mean to entertain the least hope of escaping a severe national retribution, which, if we may judge by our present civil dissentions and horrid, mutual slaughters of national brethren, seem ready to burst upon us!
I am well aware, indeed, how very unfashionable it is, now-a-days, to quote Scripture, when matters of law, politics, or trade are called in question; yet I flatter myself that the following examples, drawn from thence, are perfectly suitable to my present point, and consequently must have weight to convince all persons, who sincerely acknowledge the truth of the Scriptures, that we have the greatest reason to apprehend the infliction of some heavy judgment from Almighty God upon these kingdoms, on account of the monstrous load of guilt which the British subjects, on each side of the Atlantic have incurred by the oppressions above mentioned.
In some former tracts I have already shown that the servitude which the Jews, by the Mosaic Law, were permitted to exact of their brethren, even when the latter were sold to them, was very much limited; that they were not to be treated as bond servants, (Levit. xxv. 39, 40.) but as hired servants; that the servitude could not lawfully be extended beyond seven years (Exod. xxi. 2.) unless the servant loved, his master and condition, and voluntarily demanded (Exod. xxi. 5, 6,) of him to be continued in his service; and that, in every other case, it was absolutely unlawful to hold a brother Hebrew in slavery.
I have likewise shown, that, under the glorious dispensation of the gospel, we are absolutely bound to consider ​ourselves as citizens of the world; that every man what ever without any partial distinction of nation, distance, or complexion, must necessarily be esteemed our neighbor, and our brother; and that we are absolutely bound in Christian duty to entertain a disposition towards all man. kind as charitable and benevolent, at least, as that which was required of the Jews, under the law, towards their national brethren, and, consequently, that it is absolutely unlawful for those, who call themselves Christians, to exact of their brethren (I mean their brethren of the universe) a more burthensome service than that to which the Jews were limited with respect to their brethren of the house of Israel: and the slavery, or involutary bondage, of a brother Israelite was absolutely forbid.
These premises naturally lead us to consider the severe national judgments which the Jews brought upon themselves principally by exceeding these very limitations which I have here specified; and the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from these examples is, that we are absolutely in danger of the like judgments, if we do not immediately put a stop to all similar oppression by national authority: because an uncharitable extension of the said limits, by those who call themselves Christians, will certainly be, at least, as heinous in the sight of God as the oppression of brethren under the law; and probably much more so, if we consider the purity and benevolence which is required of all men under the gospel dispensation: and I have clearly proved (I trust) that the permission to the Israelites, to keep bondmen of the heathen (or more properly the nations, הגױם) that were round about them, and of "the children of the strangers that dwelt among them," cannot be extended to any other people, whatever, except the Israelites themselves; and that even to them it was only tempoporary, during the dispensation of the Mosaic Law, whilst they possessed the land ofCanaan, the former inhabitants of which (viz. the seven abominable nations of Palestine, expressly mentioned by name in the seventh chapter of Deuteronomy, where the sameHeb. noun גױם, rendered heathen in the former text, is properly expressed by the ​English word nations) the Israelites were expressly directed to drive out, kill, and destroy without pity (Deut. vii. 16,) and to make no covenant with them (Deut. vii. 2.): and I hope I have also proved that the remainder of these particular wicked nations, thus expressly doomed to destruction, were undoubtedly "the heathen" (or nations) "that dwelt round about" the Israelites, and "the children of the strangers" whom (and whom alone) it was lawful to hold in perpetual bondage; for otherwise that permission cannot be reconciled to God's positive commands, given in the same law, to love the stranger. "The Lord your God is God of Gods, and Lord of Lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible, which regardeth not persons" (so that this was apparently a general law, or rule, of conduct, towards all persons, except the people of those particular nations which were expressly, by name, condemned to destruction by the hands of the Israelites, in other parts of the law, for their abominable wickedness) "nor taketh reward: he doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. LOVE YE THEREFORE the stranger," (and the almighty inculcates a sympathetic concern for the welfare and happiness of strangers, by reminding the Israelites of their own unhappy situation formerly in a strange country,) " for ye" (says the text,) "were strangers in the land of Egypt." Deut. x. 17 to 19. See also Levit. xix. 33, 34. "Thou shalt love him," that is (the stranger,) "as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
National wickedness, from the beginning of the world, has generally been visited with national punishments: and surely no national wickedness can be more heinous in the sight of God, than a public toleration of slavery and oppression! for tyranny, (in whatsoever shape it appears,) must necessarily be esteemed a presumptuous breach of that divine command, in which "all law is fulfilled" (Gal. v. 14.) viz. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Levit. xix. 18.
The histories of all nations, indeed afford tremendous examples of God's vengeance against tyrants; but no ​history is so proper to illustrate this subject, (which now so nearly concerns us, as that of the Jews: for as the knowledge of the divine law was revealed in a more particular manner to that people, and to others only through them, so the effect even of their disobedience was an exemplary demonstration, from time to time, of God's vengeance, as well as of his mercy, for the instruction of all other nations, amongst whom they are now dispersed as living monuments of the same to this very day: and we have the authority of an apostle (Cor. x. 11,) to assert, that "all these things happened unto them for examples; and they are written," (says he) "for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."
One of the first and most signal instances of mercy which the Almighty was pleased to show that people, after they became a nation, was, the restoring them to their natural freedom from the deplorable slavery in which they were detained by a lyranical Egyptian monarch (Exod. iii. 23, 24,): and the tremendous judgments whereby this deliverance was effected (viz. the plagues of Egypt) are so many signal examples of God's severe vengeance against slaveholders, which ought to be had in everlasting remembrance, to warn all nations of the world against the unnatural and baneful practice of keeping slaves.
This deliverance from bondage was frequently mentioned, even in the words of God himself, by his prophets, from time to time (as I have before remarked)—"Thus saith the Lord" (i. e. Jehovah) "God of Israel: I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage;" (צבדים מביה, more literally "from the house of slaves") "and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you," &c. Judges vi. 8.—"I removed his shoulder from the burden; his hands were delivered from the pots: thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee." Psal. lxxxi. 6, 7.
The Israelites themselves were also particularly directed ​to remember this signal exertion of divine mercy and power in the cause of popular freedom: "Remember that thou wast a servant" (viz. a slave) "in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm," &c. Deut. v. 15.
It was surely for the moral purpose of stirring up in the Israelites a sympathetic concern for the sufferings of the oppressed, and more particularly of oppressed strangers, that they were so frequently reminded of their own former deplorable condition in slavery, and of their miraculous deliverance from thence; being expressly referred to their own feelings and remembrance of the cruel foreign tyranny, which they themselves had so lately experienced in Egypt:—" thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart" (נפט, properly the soul) "of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Exod. xxiii. 9.
God also gave the Israelites due warning of the danger of oppression, by declaring that he would surely revenge the cause of the injured stranger: "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry" (mark this ye African traders of this island, and ye West India and British American slave holders! for ye are all guilty of the like abominable oppressions, and God will surely avenge the cause of the oppressed) "and my wrath shall wax hot and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless." Exod. xxii. 21 to 24.
And have not the careless inhabitants of Great Britain and her colonies too much reason also to apprehend that the same God (who professes to hear the cry of oppressed strangers, if they cry at all unto him) will, sooner or later, visit these kingdoms with some signal mark of his displeasure, for the notorious oppression of an almost innumerable multitude of poor African strangers, that are harrassed, ​and continually wearing out, with a most shameful involuntary servitude in the British colonies! nay, and that by a public toleration, under the sanction of laws to which the monarchs of England, from time to time, by the advice of their privy counsellors, have given the royal assent, and thereby rendered themselves parties in the oppression, and (it is to be feared) partakers of the guilt!
Let us not forget, before it is too late, that the Almighty has not only declared himself ready to "hear the cry" of the oppressed stranger, but hath deigned to add to his glorious name Jehovah, a brief remembrance of his merciful interposition in behalf of an enslaved nation: "I am the Lord your God" (or Jehovah your God, said the Almighty to the Israelites) "which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Exod. xx. 1. Thus the Almighty Deliverer from slavery vouchsafed to set his own divine example before the eyes of his redeemed people, to excite benevolence and thankfulness; and the like remembrance of that glorious redemption from slavery was very frequently repeated from time to time; which the Scriptures sufficiently testify: but alas! the Israelites profited so little by these wholesome lessons, that it became necessary, no less frequently, to remind them of the dreadful vengeance which would inevitably overtake them for their notorious oppressions of the poor; for their unjust exactions of involuntary and unrewarded service; and for exceeding the limitations of bondage (already recited)which the law expressly enjoined!
"For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; and will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him," or "that would ensnare him." Psal. xii. 5.
The princely prophet Isaiah plainly declared to them, that their public fasts and outward humiliations were not only vain, but even offensive to God, while such notorious oppressions continued among them, "Behold" (said he) "in the day of your fast, you find pleasure, and exact all your labors." lviii. 3. And again,—"Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is ​it to bow down his head as a bulrush?" &c. "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burthens" (or rather the bundles of the yoke, אגרות מוטה plainly referring to the severe and unjust bondage of the poor) "and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?"—"Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and to bring the poor that are cast out" (or rather to bring the poor that are reduced, or depressed, viz. as it were by tyrants; for so the word מרורום seems more properly to signify in this place) "to thy house?" &c. Compare this with Deut. xxiii. 15, 16. And he warned them of the divine justice that would pursue them for their oppression and tyrannical treatment of the poor.
"The Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people! The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients (or senators) of his people, and the princes thereof; for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses! What mean ye that you beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor?" saith the Lord of hosts! Isa. iii. 13 to 15.
The wicked practices whereby the Israelites reduced their poor brethren to slavery are described by the prophet Amos: "Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, when will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the Ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? That we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes" (that is, comparatively speaking, at a most contemptible price ! whereby we may presume that slave markets were not so notoriously established at that time as at the present; and that the bidders were few, though the oppressed were many) "yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat? The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, surely I will never forget any of" these works. Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein ?" &c. Amos viii. 4 to 8.
Here is a solemn appeal from God to the human ​understanding: "Shall not the land tremble for this!" that is, for this same abominable oppression of the poor (the buying them for slaves) in which Great Britain and her Colonies are infinitely more guilty than the people to whom this appeal was made! and "shall not the land" (therefore) "even our land, tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein?" &c. Surely "God will never forget any of these works," my countrymen!
The prophet Jeremiah manifestly alluded to the like deceitful practices of the Jews (whereby they reduced the poor to slavery) when he made a solemn protest against them in the name of God:—"Your sins" (said he) "have withholden good things from you. For among my people are found wicked (men): they lay wait as he that setteh snares; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage (or coup) is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked; they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord! Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" &c. Jer. v. 26 to 29. Here again the Almighty plainly appeals to the human understanding concerning the propriety or rather the necessity, of exerting the divine vengeance against such an oppressive nation.
And yet how inconsiderable was the crime of the Jewish nation in this respect, if compared with the numerous bondage and with the unbounded oppsession of the poor negroes in the British colonies? Have we not therefore just reason to fear that God will "visit for these things ?" Does not the word of God, which cannot change, appeal to us, my countrymen, as well as to the Jews?—"Shall not my soul" (saith the Lord!) "be avenged on such a nation as this?"
The same prophet, in the next chapter, declares the divine vengeance to be at hand:—"For thus hath the Lord of hosts said,—Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem. This (is) the city to be visited! she ​is wholly oppression in the midst of her. As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness; violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds! Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem! lest my soul depart from thee: lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited!" Jer. vi. 6 to 8.
But in vain were the warnings of the prophet, till the judgments themselves began to appear in all the horrors of a hopeless war, which began in the ninth year (Kings xxv. 1.) of King Zedekiah's reign, notwithstanding that the monarch had previously rendered himself secure (as he thought) by his military preparations (in sending for horses and men from Egypt to complete his standing army) and had also made Pharaoh (another presumptuous military tyrant) his ally, which encouraged him to break his oath and covenant with the king of Babylon.
But "when Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth, of his dominion, and all the people, fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof"—then God ordered his prophet to remind Zedekiah of that dreadful vengeance, defeat and captivity, which had so often before been denounced as the necessary consequences of oppression and injustice!—"Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel" (viz. to Jeremiah): "Go, and speak to Zedekiah King of Judah, and tell him, thus saith the Lord; behold I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon; and he shall burn it with fire. And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shall surely be taken, and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the King of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon," &c. Jer. xxxiv. 1 to 3.
The impending vengeance being then become visible, and consequently more tremendous, by the near approach of the Babylonian army, that irresistible instrument in the hand of God, by which the Jews had so often been subdued, the king's stubborn heart began to relent, and his military confidence to forsake him, which had before encouraged his injustice; his firmness in worldly politics was ​shaken, and yielded to a sense of guilt! It was upon this return of conscience and right reason that Zedekiah sent two messengers, Passur and Zephaniah, to Jeremiah, saying, "Inquire, I pray thee, of the Lord for us; for Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon maketh war against us! if so be the Lord will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us," &c. See chap. xxi. ver. 1 and 2. But a very unwelcome answer was given to the messengers, to be returned to their monarch; for the prophet confirmed all the heavy judgments (Jer. xxi. 3 to 7.) which had before been denounced, as well against the king, expressly by name as against the city and its iniquitous inhabitants, whose notorious oppressions were now to be recompensed upon their own heads, measure for measure:—"Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations," &c. Ezek. vii. 3. See also the 4th, 8th, and 9th verses, to the same effect. And afterwards, in the 11th verse, one of the principal causes of God's vengeance is mentioned:—"Violence" (said the prophet) "is risen up into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of their's; neither shall their be wailing for them. The time is come, the day draweth near!" &c.—And again, in the 23d verse:—"Make a chain" (said the prophet); for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses," &c.—"Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and their shall be none. Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumor shall be upon rumor," &c.—"The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their (own) way, and according to their deserts" (or rather their own judgments) "will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the Lord." Again, in the 12th chapter, the same reason is clearly assigned for the pouring out of God's vengeance:—"Say unto the people of the land, ​thus saith the Lord God of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and of the land of Israel; they shall eat their bread with carefulness; and drink their water with astonishment, that her land may be desolate from all that is therein, because of the violence of them that dwell therein." Ezek. xii. 19. The nature of this baneful violence, which occasioned their destruction, is more particularly described by the same prophet, in chap. xxii. ver. 7.—"in the midst of thee" (still speaking of Jerusalem) "have they dealt by oppression with the stranger" (mark this ye British slave dealers and slaveholders); "in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow. Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my Sabbaths. In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness," &c.—"One hath committed abomination with his neighbour's wife: and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law," &c. "In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood: thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotton me, saith the Lord God. Behold, therefore, I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee," &c. Ezek. xxii. 7, &c.
Oh that the subjects of the British empire would seriously compare these crimes with their own practices! they would then, surely, be sensible of their danger; and that they have reason to expect the like, or rather much heavier, judgments, than those denounced against the Jews! For, besides the notorious adulteries, and other acts of lewdness, which many amongst us (from the frequency of such crime) commit, even without shame or remorse, we have far exceeded the guilt of the Jews, I fear, in many of the other points also which provoked the vengeance of the Almighty against them! What "violence" amongst the Jews, before their captivity, was ever "risen up into" so destructive "a rod of wickedness"—as the African slave trade, now carried on chiefly by our Liverpool and Bristol merchants? What "bloody crime" among the ​Jews was more notorious, and more wickedly premeditated, than the late invasion and conquest of the poor innocent Carribees at St. Vincent's? And what nation hath "dealt by oppression with the stranger" so generally, so inhumanly, and in so great a degree, as our British American slaveholders!—Have we not ample reason to expect that the same tremendous decree will, in God's justice, be fulfilled upon these kingdoms?—"Destruction cometh: and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none. Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumor upon rumor," &c. &c. &c.—"I will do unto them after their (own) way, and according to their (own) judgments will I judge them!" &c.
Nevertheless, God was pleased to offer the Jews a choice in their fate,—either to forsake their wicked King (who had forfeited all right to govern, by his neglect of justice and natural right) and to fall away to the king's enemies, the Chaldeans; or else to perish miserably in the city, and partake of its destruction!—"And unto this people" (said God to the prophet Jeremiah) "thou shalt say, thus saith the Lord; behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death. He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that be-siege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey," &c. Jer. xxi. 8, 9.
The prophet, however was directed to add to his message a word of advice to the king and court, which shows that a seasonable repentance might, even then, have saved the state, and turned away the impending vengeance.
It was such advice, too, as every other monarch, who tolerates any unnatural bondage or oppression in his dominions, ought seriously to consider, because the event proved it to be the best means of averting God's anger, if the king had but persevered in it.—"And touching the house of the king of Judah" (continued the prophet) "say,—hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of David — thus saith the Lord; execute judgment in the morning, and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go ​out like fire, and burn that none can quench (it), because of the evil of your doings." Jer. xxi. 12. This is a manifest declaration that the neglect of justice and right, and the toleration of oppression, were the principal causes of God's heavy vengeance against that royal house!
The same advice was, by God's command, repeated by the prophet to the king himself in his palace (see the next chapter):—"Thus saith the Lord; go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, and say, hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David, thou, and thy servants, and thy people that enter in by these gates" (that is, all persons whatever that enter in by the palace gates, plainly including the whole court, before whom the prophet was to deliver his message): "Thus saith the Lord; execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor ; and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger," &c.—"For if ye do this thing in-deed" (that is, if ye will execute judgement and righteousness, deliver the oppressed, &c.) "then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David" (or rather "that sit, i. e. reign, "for David upon his throne") "riding in chariots and on horses, he and his servants, and his people" (that is, the court should continue and prosper.) "But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith the Lord" (i. e. Jehovah) that this house" (i. e. the palace) "shall become a desolation." Jer. xxii. 1 to 5. So that the whole court were as much interested to promote a speedy reformation, as the king himself. Thus it is plain that the king and court had also a choice given them of life and death, as well as the people; and, consequently, that the judgments denounced were only conditional, in case the warning was neglected; for it is manifest that God mercifully tendered to them (even at the eve of their destruction) a continuance of the ​monarchy (viz. "kings sitting upon the throne of David") if they would but resolve to execute judgment and righteousness;" to "deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor;" and to do no wrong, no violence, "to the stranger," &c. But the prophet also added much more advice to the king and his court, though he was not li made of the king's council (See 2 Chron. xxv- 16 to 24.);" for he boldly warned the monarch by the tremendous examples of God's judgments upon three of his immediate predecessors in the kingdom; two of whom were his own brothers, the sons of king Josiah; and the third his own nephew, whom he immediately succeeded. They were all particularly mentioned by him in the proper order of their respective reigns, as we find by the copy of his message or remonstrance, preserved in the collections of his prophecies; and, throughout the said remonstrance, frequent allusions are made to the principal causes of the failure and destruction of each of them which afford a most striking and interesting lesson to kings and governors in general; but it must have been more particularly affecting to Zedekiah, if we consider his critical situation at the time the message was delivered to him, and that the examples of vengeance, to which the prophet referred him, were actually accomplished in the persons of his nearest relations and predecessors, who were successively deprived of their royal dignity, and carried away in chains into a slavish captivity; the very fate which, the prophet assured him, was to be his own!
But before I recite the remainder of God's message to the court of Zedekiah, it will be necessary for me to give some general account of that monarch and of his immediate predecessors, in order that the remonstrance, in which they are all distinctly mentioned, may be more easily understood by the generality of readers. It will likewise be necessary for me to prove, that the whole 22d chapter of Jeremiah is included in that message, or remonstrance, which the prophet was then to deliver in the presence of the whole court of Zedekiah. And I propose to insert also some remarks, as they occur, concerning the prophet himself, and ​the order of time, in which he delivered the several tremendous predictions of God's vengeance against the wicked princes.
Zedekiah was the son of that excellent prince Josiah king of Judah, on whose account, expressly, the dreadful vengeance, due to that wicked nation, was postponed for several years, viz. till after his death.
The Scriptures mention four sons of king Josiah, viz. "the first born, Johanan (or John); the second, Jehoiakim; the third, Zedekiah; and the fourth, Shallum." 1 Chron. iii. 15. What became of the eldest son, Johanan, or John, is not recorded (1 Chron. iii. 15.) but all the others ascended the throne of David; and first of all, the youngest son Shallum, whom, on the death of king Josiah, "the people of the land took, and" (as it seems, without regard to seniority) "made him king in his father's stead in Jerusalem." 2 Chron. xxxvi. 1.
The reign of Shallum (alias Jehoahaz 2 Kings xxiii. 31, 32.) was only three months; for he regarded not the eternal laws of God, and thereby drew down the divine vengeance upon himself, by the hand of Pharaoh-Neco, who deposed him at Jerusalem (2 Chron. xxxvi. 3,) and afterwards "put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem" (2 Kings xxiii. 33) there being, probably, some reason to apprehend, that he would attempt to supplant his elder brother Eliakim, whom the Egyptian conqueror had thought proper to set up in his stead upon " the throne of David;" and therefore, to secure the new established monarch, he not only put Shallum in bands, but also carried him away with him into captivity in Egypt where he died (2 Kings xxiii. 34.)
Thus Eliakim (through the mercy of God to "the house of David") was raised to the throne and kingdom of his ancestors, even by a foreign enemy! who also changed his name (that the providence of God might be more apparent in the revolution) from Eliakim (אל־וקים, signifying God will establish) to Jehoiakim, signifying (as I have before remarked) "Jehovah will establish;" whereby it is manifest that even a heathen monarch took pains to remind the ​new king of Judah of his dependence on Jehovah the God of Israel, whose laws and religion of course, we may presume, were likewise re-established in Judea by the same foreign authority; for it would have been absurd in the Egyptian monarch to have changed the name of his royal vassal to another name more particularly testifying a belief in Jehovah, the true God of Israel, if he did not mean thereby to keep the Jewish king in constant remembrance of the national profession of law and religion by the sacred name of the great Author of them!
The same remarkable change in the name of a future king of Judah was made also by another foreign and heathen conqueror afterwards, in honor of the eternal Jehovah; so that it was manifestly the Providence of God which inclined these two great enemies of the Jewish State, though they were also mortal enemies to each other, (I mean Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar) to pursue exactly the same method in restoring "the sceptre of Judah" to "the house of David," and in declaring the establishment of the national law and religion, by putting a respectful memorial of the sacred name of Jehovah upon the new-raised monarchs!
In the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, though Judea and all Syria were then under the Egyptian empire, the prophet Jeremiah, in his 27th chapter foretold the universal empire of "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon," even before that great warrior was king of Babylon, his father Nabopollasar, who was also called Nebuchodonosor, being still alive. The prophet was directed to make bonds and yokes, and put them upon his own neck, and to send them afterwards to the kings of several neighboring nations, with a most awful message from God concerning the rising power of the Babylonian monarch:—"And now" (said the prophet, in the name of the Lord, or Jehovah, of hosts, the God of Israel, see ver. 4.) "have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant;" &c.—"and all nations" (many of whom are expressly mentioned in the third verse) " shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time ​of his land come" (for the empire continued for three lives or successions, until the Babylonian measure of iniquity and oppression was fulfilled in the reign of Belthazar, when the Medes and Persians were to retaliate upon them the hard slavery of Israel); "and then," continues the prophet, "many nations and great Kings shall serve themselves of him," &c. Jer. xxvii. 6,7. that is, they shall enslave his people, in the same manner that he and his two successors enslaved and oppressed other nations: rendering slavery for slavery.
In the same chapter Zedekiah is also mentioned by name as king of Judah (Jer. xxvii. 1 to 3,) several years before he received the name of Zedekiah; so that neither he himself, whose proper name was Mattaniah, nor any other person could possibly know, in the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, what particular person was then signified by the name of Zedekiah; for even Nebuchadnezzar himself, who afterwards gave him that name, was not king of Babylon when the prophecy was delivered, as I have already remarked. But after this foreign conqueror had really appointed a king of Judah, and given him the name of Zedekiah, the name foretold by the prophet, such an extraordinary circumstance would add unquestionable authority to the truth of Jeremiah's mission, and would render Zedekiah and his courtiers inexcusable, as they really were, for rejecting the earnest and repeated remonstrances of that prophet.
This timely prediction, therefore, in the reign of Jehoiakim, with the internal proofs which it contained, concerning the necessity of Zedekiah's submission to the Babylonian yoke, seems to have been absolutely necessary to enable the prophet to confute the many false prophets, diviners, dreamers, &c. (see 9th verse) who were, afterward, in Zedekiah's reign, publicly employed to excite the people to shake off the Babylonian yoke.
The prophet was also forewarned in the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, as the same chapter testifies, that the Kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Zidon would send messengers to a "Zedekiah king of Judah; all which kings, ​as Grotius remarks, were subdued by Nebuchadnezzar; and therefore it is not improbable that the said messengers or ambassadors were sent to Zedekiah for the purpose of forming a league against the Babylonian power: the public declarations of the false prophets above mentioned, and the actual rebellion soon afterwards of Zedekiah himself, renders the said supposition about the business of the messengers very probable; so that, if this singular state of affairs be considered, the sending, at such a seasonable time, to the several neighboring kings, by the return of their ambassadors, the yokes which had been worn by Jeremiah, together with God's awful message, that he would punish that nation which will not serve Nebuchadnezzar, and put their neck under his yoke, (Jer. xxvii. 8,) must needs strike these heathen monarchs, if they were not entirely abandoned in their principles, with fear and reverence; especially as their ambassadors would hear at Jerusalem, that the divine message concerning the yokes, then sent, had been revealed to the prophet long before (thirteen or fourteen years) in the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, in token of which the prophet had worn yokes upon his own neck (see chap, xxviii. ver. 10, 12, 13); and that no less than three circumstances of that extraordinary revelation were now already fulfilled: the prophet having not only foretold the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and the reign of Zedekiah, a name not applicable to Zedekiah himself till the Babylonian conqueror thought proper to give it him, so that no worldly prudence could foresee such an event, but had also foretold the very circumstance in which they themselves were concerned, viz. that messengers should be sent to this Zedekiah by such and such kings!
In what year these messengers or ambassadors really arrived at Jerusalem, or returned from thence, does not appear; but as the yokes were, first of all, to be put upon the prophet's own neck, before he was to send them to the kings (compare the 2d and 3d verses), and as it appears that he really wore such a wooden yoke, as a sign against them, in the temple, so late as the 4th year of Zedekiah, when a false prophet took it from his neck, and broke it, ​and thereby occasioned a further command respecting those kings, viz. that the prophet should "make for them yokes of iron (Jer. xxviii. 13,)" it seems most probable that the wooden yokes first ordered had not then been sent to them; and, consequently, that the messengers of those kings had not as yet arrived at Jerusalem, for, un-doubtedly, the prophet would obey the divine command as soon as he had the proper opportunity of doirg so; and as Zedekiah went to Babylon in the same year (see Jer. li. 59,) it is likely the messengers did not arrive, nor he rebel, till the year following. Nevertheless, in that year (the fourth of Zedekiah) the prophet declared the message to Zedekiah himself, which he had before been charged to send to the other kings:—"I spake also" (says he in ch. xxvii. ver. 12,) "to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words" (that is, "according to all these words" which precede in the same chapter respecting the yokes, and which had been revealed in the reign of Jehoiakim) "saying, bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, and his people, and live. Why will ye die, thou, and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?" &c. See ver. 12 and 13. The Almighty had laid upon all the other nations of Palestine and Syria the same fatal necessity, either to submit to a foreign yoke, or die! So that we have here a very remarkable example of God's vengeance and retribution upon several wicked and corrupt nations which regarded not the eternal laws of God!—They must either serve the king of Babylon, or be destroyed;—there was no alternative!—be destroyed "by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken" (compare the 13th verse with the 8th) "until I have consumed them by his hand," that is by the hand of the Babylonian conqueror, the appointed instrument of God's temporal vengeance:—and the God of armies (יהוה צבאוה) hath in all ages raised up some powerful scourges of this kind to punish wicked and ungrateful nations with fire and sword, and ​to reduce them to an unnatural bondage, on account of national iniquities! Even the present state of mankind affords some melancholy proofs of this. How many nations, now subsisting in the world, have forfeited their natural liberty, and are now sitting under the iron yokes of unnatural, arbitrary governments, subjected to the will and pleasure of their respective sovereigns, instead of law! And if the particular history of any, or perhaps all, of these nations be carefully examined, it will not, I believe, be found that any of them were ever reduced to such a deplorable state of national misery, till by national wickedness, and public contempt of God's eternal laws, they had rendered a national retribution strictly necessary, according to the unerring rules of eternal justice! All hopes, therefore of redress to these enslaved nations must be vain, without a sincere reformation of manners in each nation respectively, and without public and most earnest national or general endeavors to obtain reconciliation and forgiveness from the the King of Kings; as nothing but a strict obedience to his laws can render any nation truly free. Jeremiah made the same declaration also to the priests and people that he had made to the king: "Also I spake" (says he) "to the priests, and to all the people, saying, thus saith the Lord; hearken not to the words of your prophets that prophesy unto you, saying, behold, the vessels of the Lord's house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon; for they prophesy a lie (Micah iii. 11. Nehem. vi. 10 to 12.) unto you. Hearken not unto them: serve the king of Babylon, and live. Wherefore should this city be laid waste?" Jer. xxvii. 16, 17.
The wicked prophets, who thus misled the people with lies, presumed nevertheless to use the sacred name of Jehovah (Jer. xxvii. 14, 15,) as if they had really declared the will of God; so that the true prophet had need, not only of all those unquestionable proofs of his divine mission, which I have already mentioned, but even, of other proofs also, to enable him to oppose the lying prophets, who pretended to speak in the name of Jehovah, as well as himself; for "In the same year" (that is, in the fourth of ​Zedekiah) one of these wicked prophets, "Hananiah, the son of Azur the prophet, which was of Gibeon, (1 Chron. xxi. 29. 1 Kings iii. 5,)"—"look the yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and brake it. And Hananiah spake" (in the temple) "in the presence of all the people, saying, thus saith the Lord; even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years." Jer. xxviii. 1, 10, 11. Upon which, it seems, the prophet Jeremiah was directed by God to reprove Hananiah with a severe sentence; for he not only declared that "Yokes of Iron" should be substituted instead of the "yokes of wood" (Jer. xxviii. 12, 13,) which Hananiah had broken, as I before remarked, but he also pointed out the lying prophet himself to the public observation, as a notable and undeniable token, that the prophecies of Jeremiah were of divine authority!—"Hear now, Hananiah," (said the true prophet): "the Lord" (i. e. Jehovah) "hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. Therefore thus saith the Lord;—Behold, I will cast thee forth from the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the Lord. So Hananiah the prophet died the same year, in the seventh month." Jer. xxviii. 15 — 17. That is, he died exactly two months after the prediction, which was made in the fifth month of the fourth year of Zedekiah. Such evidence, added to the former clear tokens of authenticity which this prophecy of the yokes carried with it, must render Zedekiah and his courtiers totally inexcusable for neglecting the divine warning, and relying upon false prophets.
Thus the propriety of considering the former part of the 27th chapter as a revelation in the time of Jehoiakim, agreeable to the testimony of the Hebrew text, is rendered apparent by the particular advantages which such a prior revelation would afterwards give to the true prophet, when he had to oppose the pretended prophecies delivered in the fourth year of Zedekiah: and the remaining part of the 27th chapter, from the 12th verse, wherein the prophet mentions his personal address to Zedekiah, must necessarily ​be attributed to a future time, which in the following chapter (the 28th) is expressly declared to have been in the fourth year of Zedekiah.
Can any injury, except that of taking away a man's life, exceed that of taking away a man's liberty, who has never offended us! Can any robbery or injustice whatsoever be more atrocious than that of wearing out our poor brethren in a hard involuntary service, without wages or reward! thereby continually robbing them of the fruit of their labors! Have I not shown, by unquestionable examples from Scripture, that this is a crying sin, and that the Almighty hath denounced wo (Jer. xvii. 13,) against all such offenders? Do we not profess to serve the same God who so severely punished the Jews for this very crime ? And is there any just ground to hope, that God, who spared not his own peculiar people, will, nevertheless, excuse the inhabitants of Great Britain and her colonies, when they are wilfully guilty of the same offence!
The whole tenor of the Scriptures teaches us, that slavery was ever detestable in the sight of God, insomuch that it has generally been denounced (and, of course, inflicted) as the punishment of the most abandoned sinners; of which I have already given a great variety of instances.
And have not we just reason to dread the severe vengeance of Almighty God, when it is notorious, that the tyranny exercised in the British colonies is infinitely more unmerciful than than that which was formerly exercised by the Chaldeans, insomuch that the state of the Jews in their captivity might be esteemed rather as freedom than bondage, when compared with the deplorable servitude of the wretched negro slaves, as well as of the white servants, in our Colonies?
What must be the consequence of such abominable wickedness?
By as much as we exceed the Assyrians and Babylonians in religious knowledge, by so much more severely may we expect the hand of God upon us for our monstrous abuse of such advantages! ​The inhabitants of Great Britain and the inhabitants of the colonies seem to be almost equally guilty of oppression. The colonies protest against the iniquity of the slavetrade; but, nevertheless, continue to hold the poor wretched slaves in a most detestable bondage! Great Britain, indeed, keeps no slaves, but publicly encourages the slave trade, and contemptuously neglects or rejects every petition or attempt of the colonists against that notorious wickedness!
* ↑ In like manner there are multitudes of poor people retained in a deplorable bondage, even to this day, in the potteries of China.
* ↑ And what "wrong" or "violence to the stranger" can be more oppressive than that of detaining him in an involuntary servitude, without wages, in a miserable, wretched bondage, worse than that of brute beasts!
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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