Plot: God calls Jeremiah to be His prophet, and warns him that one of the nations from the north (Babylon or Egypt) will invade Jerusalem, and act as God’s agent to bring His judgment on the people of Israel and Judah, to punish his chosen people as they still do not act as He has decreed, paying only lip service to His words, and persisting in wrongdoing and the worship of other gods and false idols. Jeremiah repeatedly warns the King, the priests and false prophets, but his words are ignored, the written warnings burnt, and finally Jeremiah is imprisoned.  Jerusalem will be destroyed, and those who are not slain, or killed by famine or pestilence will be enslaved by the invaders. But later generations of those taken away will be restored to the Promised Land and a new Covenant made with them, and Babylon will fall in its turn. The Book of Jeremiah ends with the actual sack of Jerusalem, the death of King Zedekiah, and the enslavement of the peoples of Judah as prophesised.

Lamentations, originally believed to be authored by Jeremiah hence its placement, poetically expresses the grief and suffering from the destruction of Jerusalem. In particular, the first chapter which personifies the city as a woman whose lovers and children have been killed or taken captive, and the sufferings of the prophet (?) in the third chapter, are quite moving.

Reading from the Authorised King James Version (Collins, 1934)

My thoughts: The Book of Jeremiah seems more historically grounded than Isaiah, with dates based on the years of reign of the kings of Judah.

Again, God uses Babylon (as he did Egypt in Moses’ day) to punish the Israelites, then in turn wreaks havoc on these peoples who carried out his wishes, indeed the desolation prophesised for Babylon seems a hundredfold more violent than that which destroys Jerusalem and Judah.

His anger and threats to both the Israelites and the Babylonians recorded in these  chapters must have provided much fodder for the sermons of old-school hellfire preachers.

Favourite lines/passages:
“Gird up thy loins, and arise…” Jeremiah 1:17
“thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins” Jeremiah 12:5
“…they shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse and a reproach” Jeremiah 44:12
(I’ll try to remember that the next time another driver cuts in front of me. “YOU BLOODY ASTONISHMENT!!!” I’ll cry at them and wave my fist)

Personal rating: Too much repetition of the central theme. A modern publisher would edit it heavily, which would be a blessing or a curse depending on your religious viewpoint. A 3.

The sanity in between: The Last Kingdom, Bernard Cornwell’s first volume in the series, and a long standing resident of my TBR shelves. Perhaps not as great as his Sharpe books, but I am sucker for a good series and this will provide some painless history lessons amongst the battles and intrigues. Also my monthly hit of obscure Wodehouse – Big Money sees two impoverished young English gentlemen resolve their individual problems of true love and financial happiness with the usual Wodehousian complications. I was too busy chortling (that seems the most apt verb) to take down any quotes. Two very different but excellent reads.

Next : Some of the speeches of Demosthenes (384-322 BC)

First of the Major Prophets, The Book of Isaiah deals with the upcoming judgment and punishment of nations, and the eventual restoration of Judah and Jerusalem. It also foreshadows the coming of Jesus.

Again I am surprised by the numerous times the Israelites turned away from the Lord and worshipped idols in the Old Testament, and God’s wrath in placing them under the yoke of other nations, only to forgive and raise them up, and smite their enemies. And finally now we have the possibility of inclusion of other nations and peoples under God’s hand, after they have been suitably ‘humbled’ as had the Israelites before them.

Favourite lines/passages: Some very well known verses here, and despite the predominant themes of punishment, the ones which resonate are to do with peace

“… and he shall judge amongst the nations, and shall rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore”      Isaiah 2:4

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them”  Isaiah 11:6

which leads me to the foretelling of the coming of Christ

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign ; Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel”                             Isaiah 7:14

Diversions and digressions: This read was a diversion in itself from the dry works of Aristotle, but it’s not very satisfactory and I am still hanging out for a work of dramatic  literature. I will have to wait until Menander’s comic play Dyskolos (aka Old Cantankerous) which is still about 8 books away.

Personal rating: By no means a work of clarity on first reading – it might improve with study and more personal knowledge of the historical background. 2

Next : Back to Aristotle and his work on Metaphysics. Yikes!

Also called the Song of Songs, or the Canticles, this is the last of the Books of Wisdom in the Protestant Old Testament. It is a three way dialogue between a woman, her lover, and a chorus of her friends. While the chapter headings in my Bible and biblical scholars refer to the two lovers as Christ and the Church, it is hard not to believe that the author is describing the mutual, physical sexual desire between two lovers (Solomon and a shepherdess, possibly his concubine)

This is the first dedicated love poetry I have reached (excluding Sappho, which was mostly unrequited yearnings) and I found it quite sensual and erotic. Lots of natural imagery and symbolism especially gardening.

It is a little hard to tell who is talking when, and what is real or imagined or remembered. The verses breaks do not necessarily tell me when the dialogue switches from woman to man until a pronoun puts it in context again.

Favourite lines/passages:

“Rise up my love, my fair one and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone ; the flowers appear on the earth ; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.  The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise my love, my fair one and come away.”    Song 2:10-13.

(Turtle presumably meaning turtledove, as he calls her his dove in the next verse)

“My beloved is mine, and I am his ; he feedeth among the lilies until the day break, and the shadows flee away …”       Song 2:16-17

“Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of thy neck”   Song 4:9

“Awake, O north wind; and come thou south ; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits”   Song 4:16

“Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm ; for love is strong as death ; jealousy as cruel as the grave ; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.  Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it …”     Song 12:6-7

Diversions/digressions:   Mentioned twice in this Book, spikenard is a luxurious perfumed oil obtained from a flower growing in the Himalayas. It’s exoticness not only suggests the special nature of the love between the two, but on a pragmatic level shows trade between two areas rarely connected in my thoughts – a trade route across Asia linking India or China with Israel in the centuries before the Roman Empire?

Personal rating:   The most literary and ‘non-Bible’ chapter of the Bible so far. Definitely a 6.

Next :  Back to me old mate Plato, and his post-Socratic dialogue Gorgias

I found I enjoyed Ecclesiastes more than the previous books of the Old Testament. It starts with a great feeling of the disillusionment of the old wise King (Solomon?) as he realises that all he has achieved – his great works and wealth, his happiness and wIsdom  –  is all vanity, and will not survive after this death ; that death comes to both the wise and the foolish, the righteous and the sinners. There is injustice, evil and danger in the world, so we may as well enjoy life and our own works for now as they will not last.

There are so many well-known sayings in this small book that I lost count of them. “All is vanity and vexation” is repeated in almost every chapter.

Favourite lines/passages: As I say above, there are many familiar lines, and the ones that appeal most will differ depending on the reader and their mood. I recommend you read the book itself (it’s only 7 pages or 12 ‘chapters’) to find what speaks to you best. Of course, any child of the Sixties will savour  Chapter 3 : 1-8

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven,

A time to be born, and a time to die ; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted,

A time to kill, and a time to heal ; a time to break down and a time to build up

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance …..

A time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace”

but there are other gems such as

“Better a living dog than a dead lion”  Ecclesiastes 9:4

“A man hath no better thing under the Sun than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry”  Ecclesiastes 8:15

Personal rating:  A high 5 for this.

Next : The next book in the Old Testament : The Song of Solomon.