JERBOA, Dipus, a genus of rodent quadrupeds, of the family muridce, remarkable for the great length of the hindlegs, and kangaroo-like power of jumping. The fore-legs are very small, hence the ancient Greek name, dipons (two-footed). l'he tail is long, cylindrical, covered with short hair, and tufted at the end. The jerboas are inhabitants of sandy deserts and wide grassy plains in Asia and the e. of Europe, Africa, and Australia. They are burrowing animals, nocturnal, very destructive to grain and other crops, laving up hoards for their winter use. They take prodigious leaps when alarmed; the fore feet are then not used at all, but by means of the hind feet and the tail they leap, although they are small animals, several yards. Their flesh is said to resemble that of the rabbit. —Closely allied to the jerboas are the gerbils (gerbillus), small quadru peds, also distinguished by great length of hind legs and power of leaping, inhabitants of the warm and sandy portions of the old world.
TEREMI'All (lieb. Yirrniyahu), a Hebrew prophet, was the son of Hilkiah, a priest of Anathoth, a place about 8 m. n. of Jerusalem. He prophesied under the reigns of Josiah, Jehoaliaz. Jchoiakim, Jchoinchin, and Zedekiah (630)90 Be.),. and even later. His character and fortunes are clearly discernible in his writings. To him, a man of an emphatically spiritual, truthful, self-sacrificing nature, it was given to predict in the midst of the both politically and religiously rotten state of the commonwealth, under the successive weak kings, its speedy destruction. Fearless yet hopeless, he delivers his mournful messages from year to year, and battles with despairing heroism against the inevitable. His life thus became one long martyrdom. We read of his enduring "reproach and derision daily" (xx. 8); his townsmen of Anathoth threatened to slay him if he did not stop prophesying woe (xi. 21); his own brethren, the house of his father, "dealt treacherously" with him (xxii. 6); so that his spirit at times failed him. There were two political parties in Judah at this time:—in favor of a Chaldean and an Egyptian alliance respectively. Like the earlier patriotic prophets, Jeremiah repudiated both at first. The course of events, however, had necessitated a compromise, and the religious party—gradually decreasing in numbers and influence—bad declared against Egypt, and in favor of Cealdea. King Josiah, who belonged to it, perished at Megiddo,
in the valley of Esdraelon, in an attempt to stop the progress of Pharaoh-Necho (609 sac.). After this things grew worse. The Egyptian party became predominant, and Jeremiah was now forced to take a side, and became a partisan as well as a prophet. He speaks of the king of Babylon as God's servant, and prophesies the destruction of the temple. A. cry arose from ,the priesthood and the prophets for his life, and he escaped with difficulty (xxvi.). At last came the judgment. The best portion of the people were carried into captivity; and Jeremiah urged his countrymen to wait for the period of deliverance with religious fortitude and patience. A sudden irruption of the Egyptians drove the Chaldeans out of Judah, and Jeremiah was again exposed to perse cution, thrown into a pit to die, and only rescued by the kindness of an Egyptian eunuch. The capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar rendered the prophet's position more tolerable. Jeremiah had always preached submission to the Chaldeans. He was even patronized by the conqueror, and offered a home at Babylon, but he preferred to reside among the wretched remnant of the people left in Judah (xl.). Intestine strifes, however, soon drove some to take refuge in Egypt. Jeremiah was carried off along with the exiles, and here he is believed to have died, and his grave was long shown at Cairo. According to others, however, he came back to Judea. The writings of this prophet, dictated by him to Baruch, have been arranged with little regard to order, and the text is in a state of great confusion, notwithstanding that Jeremiah himself under took two distinct redactions. They exhibit great tenderness and elegiac beauty of senti ment, but lack the sublime grandeur of Isaiah. He often borrows largely from his poetic predecessors. Several of the Psalms have been attributed to him, especially by modern critics. Hitzig numbers 34, which he believes to be the composition of Jere miah. There is no reason to doubt that the Lamentations are properly ascribed to him, while the apocryphal work of his, mentioned by Jerome (Matt. xxvii.), deserves little notice. Among commentators may be mentioned Origen, Jerome, Theodoret, Oecolam padius, Sanctius, Venema, Michaelis, Umbreit, Henderson, Dallier, Kuobel, Ewald, I fengstenberg, and.Bunsen.