JODHAN MORAN, THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGE.
CHAPTER V.

"What nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, in all that they call upon him for?" - Deut. 4:7

WE learn from unexceptionable authority, that "the Rabbi in the Talmud say, that the Messias shall be called Joden Muren, for He shall be the Judge, as in Isaiah 11. Thus it is very plain that the Irish name is derived from the Chaldee, Choshen Hemeshpot, or Joden Muran." J. Heidegger, Prof Ling. Oriental. apud Keating.

F.R.A. Glover: The mention of the existence of this Official, so named, is constantly on record in Irish history.

The words themselves, according to the application made of them by the above authorities, are the highest prophecy of The High Being whose advent was to be.

How is it possible to account for these words of prophecy and its concomitant events being understood, or being at all, in Ireland, at that time? .. the promise also of the perpetual sceptre, and the promised return to the East, - all alike indicative of the expectation of the Shiloh in the East, - but in the presence, there, of the mind, of what we know would, under the circumstances, have been the mind of Jeremiah? This can point only to Jeremiah.

Again, why was this Hebrew phrase incorporated into the nomenclature of a foreign people? Does not this fact exhibit strikingly the influence which the Hebrew introducer of this Office and Title must have had with those whom he persuaded, in recognizing the office, as well, to adopt a Hebrew name for it?

Whence this influence of this strange man with this Baalitish people, in the things of God, but that it was felt, or believed, he was a messenger of God? If they believed this, it must have been because he declared he was. And who could have so declared, at that time, in Ireland, but Jeremiah? He not only was, - he was so by special appointment, - "prophet to the nations," but the prophet as well who had the duty to perform "to plant and to build" the kingdom of the Lord wherever he came: namely, that of resuscitated Judah, the perpetuity of which he had been so expressly commanded to declare I? (Jer. 33:17, 21, 26)

Jeremiah, also, had been instructed, commanded in a very especial manner, on two several occasions, (Jer. 23, 32) to declare the advent of The Righteous Judge of Isaiah and the SHILOH Of Jacob (Gen. 48:10), at whose appearance Judah should be saved, and Israel dwell safely and, "out of the north Country," restored "to its own land."

Now, the Jodhan Moran of Irish history was, when first that name was assumed, the Prophetic Impersonation of this SHILOH; that gatherer-up of all the promises "spoken by all the holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:21) And the fact of an Official assuming, in the Name of God, this highest of all earthly titles, showed, that he who assumed it, and in assuming proclaimed it, and proclaimed the doctrine involved in it, knew what he was about; and that he know also what, his duty it was, to state. He who set up this office, in these words, could only have been Jeremiah.

Keating says, "The famous Moran was one of the chief judges of this kingdom (Ireland). When he sat upon the bench to administer justice, he put his miraculous JODHAN MORAN about his neck " [by a chain], "which had that wonderful power, that if the judge pronounced an unjust decree, the breastplate would instantly contract itself, and encompass the neck so close that it would be impossible to breathe; but, if he delivered a just sentence, it would open itself and hang loose upon his shoulders."

The Jodhan Moran is a character who appears not only in the pages of Keating, but over and over again on the stage of Irish History; but the gold insignia of the Office having been exhumed more than once from the bogs of Ireland, into which they may have been cast, or buried, in times of trouble, no more doubt can exist as to the reality of tho Office, than of Tara itself, or of any other fact well authenticated by circumstantial evidence. A golden collar or breastplate, supposed by Vallancey to be the Jodhan Moran, was found, some years since, in the county of Limerick, twelve feet deep in a bog. "It is made of thin plated gold, and chased in a very neat and workmanlike manner; the breastplate is single, but the hemispherical ornaments at the top are lined throughout with another thin plate of pure gold." Collectan. Hibern. No. 13. The traditional memory of this chain or collar (says O'Flanigan) is so well preserved to this day, that it is a common expression for a person asseverating absolute truth to say, " I would swear by Moran's chain for it." - Trans. of Gaelic Soc. vol. i. apud Moore.

It seems then, thus, that there was once an officer in Ireland, a chief justiciary, whose office not only gave him great influence, but that it was, at one time, believed to be endowed - as was that of the Hebrew High Priest - with miraculous powers.

Dismissing all consideration of the marvelous from this case, the doctrine set forth, by this teacher, was good. It inculcated the direct interference of Almighty God to overrule the acts of His servants, for His people's good; for he who dispensed justice in the name of The Righteous Judge was necessarily God's servant (Deut. 4:7); while the promise which the title itself implied, was the highest then, or since known by Revelation; namely, the coming of a GREAT ONE, - in Whose Name this Witness for God presented himself to the People, - to bring in Universal Righteousness and renovate the Earth (Acts 3:21): a doctrine which was, as we shall see, proclaimed in the title itself of this grand officer of state.

The full import of this Phrase, can only be arrived at, by quoting the chapter referred to by the Talmudist, and those chapters in the Book of Jeremiah which declare the same truth of the same great person, alleged, by the Talmudist, to be the Messiah.

The Judge in Isaiah 11, then, is, "a Root out of the Stem of Jesse; and, a Branch is to grow out of his Roots; and which, in that day, is to stand for an Ensign to the people: to it shall the Gentiles seek, and his Rest shall be glorious." It is He who is to be, THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGE. He is, to "set up the Ensign for the nations," .. to assemble "the outcasts of Israel," and gather together "the dispersed of Judah" from the "four corners of the earth."

When? In the day in which THE STONE is to return to the East, whence it came?

The same is He who is spoken of in Jeremiah 23, "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a Righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute JUDGMENT and JUSTICE (="The Righteous Judge") on the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is the name by which he" [the Righteous Judge] "shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS."

When? In the day that the Stone is to return to the East, whence it came?

And, again, when Jeremiah was in prison (Jer.33:1) for foretelling the destruction of Judah, he was informed, and instructed especially to set the testimony before the people, "Behold, the days come, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the House of Israel "- (then already 180 years scattered and lost to sight, - almost to memory, and never, even yet, restored or recovered) - "and to the House of Judah:" then about to be cut off with a severity amounting, to an entire excision of the males of the Royal Line of Judah, which also came to pass; for there was no King of the House of Judah to resume the throne on the return from the captivity. And yet, notwithstanding, the Prophet was instructed to say, "In those days, and, at that time, will I cause the Branch of Righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute Judgment and Righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely. And this is the name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. For thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the Throne of the House of Israel."

In those days! When? In the day that the Stone which came from the East is to return to the East, whence it came?

It is impossible not to see that these three portions of Holy Writ are identical: and that, therefore, what appertains to one of them, is inseparable from the other two; referring all of them, as they do, to the same person, The Righteous Judge, The Branch of Judah; therefore, to the same time, and to the same great event; and, therefore, to all its concomitants. That event, which we call the second Advent of the Lord Jesus, the Jews before Christ considered, even as the present "dispersed of Judah" consider it, the Coming of Messiah; .. that Shiloh of Jacob, until the time of Whose appearance, the sceptre of Judah was never to disappear from the earth as a Reality and a Power (Gen. 49:10). So, if Jeremiah had been made to pronounce its excision (Jer. 22: 28,30; 36:30), and was in prison because he did so in obedience to the word of the Lord, he was called upon, at the same time, in accordance with his own belief, to record and reiterate that it could be no more than a partial eclipse of the promised perpetuity of enduring continuance of the Royal Line; inasmuch as he was made to conclude the message with the remarkable promises in the succeeding parts of the chapter. (Jer. 33:17, 20-26)

Here, then, is the authority for Jeremiah to pronounce, as he would set up the Stone of Jacob any where, and anoint it with oil again, as it had been anointed aforetime (Gen. 28:48), at Bethel, that, God would not leave it until He had done by it, and those to whom it should belong and should belong of right, all of which He had spoken to our Father, Jacob (Gen. 28:15): viz. that the sceptre should abide with it, until the time of its return to the place whence it came; .. the time that Shiloh, The Righteous Judge, should come to manifest Himself to the nations, to restore Jerusalem to Judah, and "their own Land, to Israel." Now all this knowledge was evidently in the mind of him, who, in the Name and in the Character of the Branch of Jesse, set up, in The Righteous Judge, the witness for GOD in Ireland: the witness to Him Who was to come, in fulfillment of the words of Isaiah and of the prophet Jeremiah, before spoken in Judea.

Who then, we ask, could have done that, at that time, and have dared to conceive of the Stone, and to pronounce of it, and connect with it, the words and promise of the Legend, but this very Prophet, Jeremiah, himself? - he, who alone knew, and was able to see through, the mystery Of the CUT-OFF, and to-be-resuscitated House of Judah? .. "cut off," for the breaking of Sabbaths, themselves; .. for promising to the Lord and keeping it not, in breaking the law of the Sabbatical year to their slaves (Jer. 34); .. for despising the Prophets; .. for cutting up the word of the Lord and burning it in the fire (Jer 36:23); .. for these and like things "cut off," but to be resuscitated. "King (Jer. 33:17-18) and priest", "not by bow, nor sword, nor battle, nor horses, nor horsemen" (Hos 1:7) - by what then? - by influence (Jer. 15:11) - "by the Lord their God;" (Hos 1:7) because God would not fail Jacob, whom He had promised, nor Abraham whom He had loved; (Deut 7:8) nor David, to whom Nathan had been commanded to say, "Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever." (2 Sam. 7:16)

Here, then, are two very extraordinary things; with respect to the Man, and with respect to the Stone. What we have chiefly to consider, as concerning the man, in connexion with the Legend of the Stone is, that the phrase, "The Righteous Judge," is itself, a Prophecy of His future appearance to restore Israel to "his own," and "his own" to Israel. He who knew of The Righteous Judge, must have known the concomitants of the Prophecy: for, by the parallel passages quoted, that is all contained in the proper knowledge of this one phrase: and none knew this so well as Jeremiah; Isaiah having been dead, and the Prophet having twice given forth the same grand prophecy of Isaiah, with amplifications.

The Righteous Judge, of the Root of Jesse, would be in the East; and the Stone was to go back to the East; until when, a Sceptre was to continue with it: that is, until Shiloh, The Branch, The Righteous Judge, would be manifested. What is, then, the Legend of the Stone, supposing it to have been pronounced by a proper authority, but a paraphrase of the prophecy, "The Sceptre shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh come?"

There are, thus, unmistakable indications of a Prophet having been in Ireland at that remote time: and what Prophet of the Lord but Jeremiah, - consecrated the "Prophet to the Gentiles" in his mother's womb, - could have had any business there? He had; and he was able to go there.

And while he had also, as we have already seen, good reasons for going somewhere, Jeremiah's peculiar doctrine is found in Ireland, where he is, also, said to have gone: a doctrine, which, in so far as we can see, could hardly have been taken there by any but himself. Thus, he, and the business which he had to do somewhere, appear on the Scene, in Ireland, at Tara, at the very time that he was free to go where he listed: which business, as done at Tara, nobody else beside himself could have had, at that time, either knowledge, or authority, or power to do, as we now discover, and consequently, know, it to have been done.

Hence, it is concluded, with entire conviction of the truth of the conclusion, that, if the accounts of the presence of the Jodhan Moran in Ireland be true, Jeremiah the Prophet, and Jeremiah alone, was, could be, the only then living being, who was able to know, do, and say, and be justified in saying at that time, that, which the account declares to have been known, done, and said, with respect to the Stone of Destiny, then, at Tara, in Ireland: and that he accordingly was there, and did it.

It will, consequently, be clear, from the foregoing, that the fact of the Prophet Jeremiah having been in Ireland, requires no other evidence to establish it, than that of this one fact, even if it stood alone; viz. the certainty of the existence of this Official with this significant Title, to illustrate and give sense to the Legend of the Stone.

From: "England, the Remnant of Judah, and the Israel of Ephraim", written by F.R.A. Glover, M.A., Chaplain to the Consulate at Cologne. Published by Rivingtons, London, 1861. Based on research commenced in 1844.