The Northern Invader (4:5-31; 5:15-19; 6:1-8, 22-26). 

        This vivid prophetic portrayal of the fulfilment of 1:13ff was probably lived through by Jeremiah in visions — see his personal anguish, 4:19fL Some have seen in them the Chal­deans, but for a long time the prevalent view has been that we have here the Scythians portrayed. We know that they shared in the convulsions that preceded the destruction of Nineveh in 612 B.C., but the Greek historian Herodotus is our only authority for the story that they swept down to the very frontier of Egypt, where the Pharaoh was glad to buy them off. Herodotus’ account is, however, so vague and contains such demonstrable errors that it is probably best to ignore him. In any case some of the language is quite unsuited to the Scy­thians, so that those who hold this view have to assume that Jeremiah later worked over these poems adapting them to the Chaldeans. It is neither Scythian nor Chaldean that Jeremiah sees here. Just as 1:13ff was silent as to what people should pour out of the cauldron of God’s wrath, so here, when Jeremiah sees them, they are still unidentified. It is the sureness and terror of the doom that God reveals to His servant, not the identity of Plis executioners; that was to come later.

        There is a progression in these visions. In 4:5f the people arc called to flee to the fenced cities, and especially to Jeru­salem. The standard set up (ver. 6) is to act as a guide. But in 6:1 the Benjamites are called on to flee from Jerusalem, to which they had previously fled for safety.

        The reason for the change in attitude is caused by the realization of the moral corruption of Jerusalem (ch 5). When it is grasped that this chapter must almost certainly be attributed to a time after 621 B.C., when Josiah’s reached its height — note the lack of mention of idolatry in contrast to chs. 2 and 3, which are before the carrying through of the reform — we can begin to understand how superficial it had all been.