5. The Fifth Song upon the Scythians, Ch. V. 15-17, besides still leaving them nameless, emphasises their strangeness to Israel's world. There was a common language in Western Asia, Aramean, the lingua franca of traders from Nineveh to Memphis; and Jew, Assyrian and Egyptian conversed in it. But the tongue of these raiders from over the Caucasus was unintelligible. Yet how they would set their teeth into the land! Mixed with the verses which thus describe them are others which suit not them but the Chaldeans and must have been added by the Prophet in 604. A people so new to the Jews might hardly have been called by Jeremiah an ancient nation, from of old a nation, and in fact these phrases are wanting in the Greek version.
Behold, I am bringing upon you V. 15
A nation from far,
[O house of Israel, Rede of the Lord
An ancient nation it is,
From of old a nation.][229]
A nation thou knowest not its tongue, 16
Nor canst hear what it says,
Its quiver an open grave,[230]
All of it stalwarts.[231]