This contrasts with the times of invasion when the vintage was destroyed or carried off by the enemy. Then follows the Divine purpose, the crowning mercy of Israel's renewed prosperity:—
"For the day cometh when the vintagers[401] shall cry in the hill-country of Ephraim,
Arise, let us go up to Zion, to Jehovah our God."
Israel will no longer keep her vintage feasts in schism at Samaria and Bethel and her countless high places, but will join with Judah in the worship of the Temple, which Josiah's covenant had accepted as the one sanctuary of Jehovah.
The exultant strain continues stanza after stanza:—
"Thus saith Jehovah:
Exult joyously for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations;
Make your praises heard, and say, Jehovah hath saved His people,[402] even the remnant of Israel.
Behold, I bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the uttermost ends of the earth;
Among them blind and lame, pregnant women and women in travail together."
None are left behind, not even those least fit for the journey.
"A great company shall return hither.
They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them."
Of old, weeping and supplication had been heard upon the heights of Israel because of her waywardness and apostasy;[403] but now the returning exiles offer prayers and thanksgiving mingled with tears, weeping partly for joy, partly for pathetic memories.
"I will bring them to streams of water, by a plain path, wherein they cannot stumble:
For I am become once more a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My first-born son."
Of the two Israelite states, Ephraim, the Northern Kingdom, had long been superior in power, wealth, and religion. Judah was often little more than a vassal of Samaria, and owed her prosperity and even her existence to the barrier which Samaria interposed between Jerusalem and invaders from Assyria or Damascus. Until the latter days of Samaria, Judah had no prophets that could compare with Elijah and Elisha. The Jewish prophet is tenacious of the rights of Zion, but he does not base any claim for the ascendency of Judah on the geographical position of the Temple; he does not even mention the sacerdotal tribe of Levi. Jew and priest as he was, he acknowledges the political and religious hegemony of Ephraim. The fact is a striking illustration of the stress laid by the prophets on the unity of Israel, to which all sectional interests were to be sacrificed. If Ephraim was required to forsake his ancient shrines, Jeremiah was equally ready to forego any pride of tribe or caste. Did we, in all our different Churches, possess the same generous spirit, Christian reunion would no longer be a vain and distant dream. But, passing on to the next stanza,—