God chose, how much more may we expect and believe that the true prophet

whose heart was in harmony with his Lord and the message he was called upon

to give, would speak by inspiration.

On several occasions Isaiah concluded a prophetic utterance with the

words, 'The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it', but Jeremiah and his

ordination sets forth very vividly this aspect of the prophetic gift.  After

Jeremiah learned that he had been ordained 'a prophet unto the nations' he

'Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.  But the Lord

said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I

shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak ...

then the Lord put forth His hand, and touched my mouth.  And the Lord

said unto me, "Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth"' (Jer. 1:5 -

Then follows, in verse 10, a summary of the prophecies that Jeremiah

was to utter, and this in turn was followed by a test.  How far could

Jeremiah enter into the message he was bound to deliver?

The Lord said to Jeremiah, 'what seest thou?' and Jeremiah replied, 'I

see a rod of an almond tree'.  To this the Lord replied, 'Thou hast well

seen: for I will hasten My word to perform it' (1:11,12).

To the English reader, the Lord's commendation does not seem to follow.

There seems no obvious connection between an 'almond tree' and 'hastening'

the Word.  An almond tree is in the Hebrew shaqed, 'a watcher'; the almond

was a harbinger of spring, being among the first to flower in January.  The

word 'hasten' is the translation of the Hebrew shaqad, but why the Authorized

Version translators should have so translated it is not evident.  The word

means 'to watch' as can be seen in Jeremiah 5:6 and 44:27.  The matter is

placed beyond dispute by a reference in Jeremiah 31:28.  Jeremiah's

prophecies were related to 'rooting out', 'pulling down' and subsequently

'building' and 'planting' the nations (1:10) and in chapter 31 this is

referred to:

'And it shall come to pass, that like as I have Watched over them, to

pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to

afflict; so will I Watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the

Lord' (Jer. 31:28).

What therefore the Lord said to Jeremiah at the beginning was, 'I will

Watch (over) My Word to perform it' and according to Jeremiah 31:31 this

promise of restoration will be accomplished under the terms of the New

Covenant, a covenant that has no place in the dispensation of the Mystery.

The prophet Hosea uses a very bold figure of speech when he says:

'Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the

words of My mouth' (Hos. 6:5).

It may possibly come into the mind of anyone not too well -grounded in

the truth that, after all, this reference to the words of God being put into

'the mouth' of a prophet is very primitive and belongs only to a primitive

age.  We therefore turn to the New Testament, where both before and after

Pentecost the figure is employed.