exaltation of the Lord
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
JEREMIAH.1. A warrior of the tribe of Gad, fifth in reputation (1Ch_12:10). 2. The tenth in reputation (1Ch_12:13) of the same Gadite band. 3. A bowman and slinger of the tribe of Benjamin (1Ch_12:4). 4. The head of a family in E.Manasseh (1Ch_5:24). 5. A Jew of Libnah, whose daughter, Hamutal or Hamital, was one of the wives of Josiah, and mother of Jehoahaz (2Ki_23:31) and Zedekiah (2Ki_24:18, Jer_52:1). 6. The son of Habazziniah and father of Jaazaniah, the head of the Rechabites (Jer_35:3) in the time of the prophet Jer_7:1-34. A priest who returned with Zerubbabel (Neh_12:1). His name was given to one of the twenty-two courses of priests (Ezr_2:38-39, Neh_7:39-42; Neh_12:13). 8. A priest who sealed the covenant (Neh_10:2) and took part in the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem (Neh_12:34). 9. The prophet. See next article.
JEREMIAH
1. The times.Jeremiah the prophet was born towards the close of Manassehs long and evil reign (c [Note: circa, about.] . b.c. 696641), the influence of which overshadowed his life (Jer_15:4, 2Ki_23:26). He prophesied under Josiah and his sons from the year 626 to the fall of Jerusalem in b.c. 586 (2Ki_1:2 f.), and for some short time after this until he vanishes from sight amongst the fugitive Jews in Egypt (chs. 4044).
Through Josiahs minority (see Josiah) the ethnicizing régime of Manasseh continued; Jeremiahs earliest preaching (chs. 26), and the prophecies of his contemporary Zephaniah (wh. see), reveal a medley of heathen worships in Jerusalem, gross oppression and profligacy, insolence and insensibility characterizing both court and people. Meanwhile an international crisis is approaching. The giant power of Asshur, which for a century had dominated Israels world, is in rapid decline, and is threatened by the new Median State on its eastern border; Nahum (wh. see) had already celebrated Ninevehs downfall in his splendid verses. The Assyrian capital was saved for the time by the irruption of the Scythian nomads (Ezekiels Gog and Magog), who were swarming southwards from the Oxus plains and over the Caucasus passes. These hordes of wild horsemen overran Western Asia for a generation, leaving a lasting horror behind them. Nineveh avoided capture by the Medes in 625 only at the expense of seeing her lands wasted and her dependencies stripped from her. The war-cloud of the Scythian invasion overhangs the sky of Zephaniah, and of Jeremiah at the outset of his ministry. The territory of Judah seems, after all, to have escaped the Scythian deluge, which swept to the borders of Egypt. The nomad cavalry would reach with difficulty the Judæan highlands; and if Josiah, coming of age about this time, showed a bold front against them and saved his country from their ravages, we can account for the prestige that he enjoyed and used to such good purpose. At the same date, or even earlier, the Assyrian over-lordship had been renounced; for we find Josiah exercising independent sovereignty. It was not as the vassal of Nineveh, but in the assertion of his hereditary rights and as guardian of the old territory of Israel, that he challenged Pharaoh-necho, who was attempting to seize the lost western provinces of Assyria, to the fatal encounter of Megiddo in the year 608 (2Ki_22:2; 2Ki_23:15-20, 2Ch_35:20). The Pharaoh pointedly calls him thou king of Judah, as if bidding him keep within his bounds (2Ch_35:21). Jeremiah praises Josiah, in contrast to his son, as an upright and prosperous king, good to the poor and commending his religion by his rule (Jer_22:15-17).
The great event of Josiahs reign was the reformation effected by him in its eighteenth year (b.c. 621), upon the discovery of the book of the law in the Temple (2Ki_22:8 to 2Ki_23:25; see Deuteronomy). So far as concerned outward religion, this was a drastic and enduring revolution. Not merely the later idolatries imported from the East under the Assyrian supremacy, but also the indigenous rites of Molech and the Baalim were abolished. Above all, an end was put to the immemorial cultus of the local high places, at which the service of Jehovah had been corrupted by mixture with that of the Canaanite divinities. Worship was centralized at the royal Temple of Jerusalem; and the covenant with Jehovah made by king and people there in the terms of Deuteronomy, followed by the memorable Passover feast, was designed to inaugurate a new order of things in the life of the people; this proved, in fact, a turning-point in Israels history. However disappointing in its immediate spiritual effects, the work of Josiah and his band of reformers gave the people a written law-book and a definitely organized religious system, which they carried with them into the Exile to form the nucleus of the OT Scriptures and the basis of the later Judaism.
The fall of Josiah in battle concluded the interval of freedom and prosperity enjoyed by Judah under his vigorous rule. For three years the country was subject to the victorious Pharaoh, who deposed and deported Shalum-Jehoahaz, the national choice, replacing him on the throne of Judah by his brother Eliakim-Jehoiakim. The great battle of Carchemish (605), on the Euphrates, decided the fate of Syria and Palestine; the empire of Western Asia, quickly snatched from Egypt, passed into the strong hands of the Chaldæan king Nebuchadrezzar, the destined destroyer of Jerusalem. From this time Babylon stands for the tyrannous and corrupting powers of the world; she becomes, for Scripture and the Church, the metropolis of the kingdom of Satan, as Jerusalem of the kingdom of the saints. The Chaldæan empire was a revival of the Assyrian,less brutal and destructive, more advanced in civilization, but just as sensual and sordid, and exploiting the subject races as thoroughly as its predecessor. The prophecies of Habakkuk (chs. 1 and 2) reveal the intense hatred and fear excited by the approach of the Chaldæans; the ferocity of Nebuchadrezzars troops was probably aggravated by the incorporation with them of Scythian cavalry, large bodies of which still roamed south of the Caspian. The repeated and desperate revolts made by the Judæans are accounted for by the harshness of Nebuchadrezzars yoke, to escape which Tyre endured successfully a thirteen years siege. His enormous works of building (see Hab_2:12-13) must have involved crushing exactions from the tributaries.
Jehoiakim, after Carchemish, transferred his allegiance to Babylon. For three years he kept faith with Nebuchadrezzar, and thenapparently without allies or reasonable hope of supportrebelled (2Ki_24:1). Jehoiakim was a typical Eastern despot, self-willed, luxurious, unprincipled, oppressive towards his own people, treacherous and incompetent in foreign policy. Jeremiah denounces him vehemently; the wonder is that he did not fall a victim to the kings anger, like his disciple Uriah (Jer_26:20-24; Jer_36:26-30; Jer_22:13-19). The revived national faith in Jehovah, which had rested on Josiahs political success, was shaken by his fall; the character of the new king, and the events of his reign, furthered the reaction. A popular Jehovist party existed; but this was the most dangerous factor in the situation. Its leadersthe prophet Hananiah amongst them (Jer_28:1-17)preached out of season Isaiahs old doctrine of the inviolability of Zion; even after the capture of Jerusalem in 597 and the first exile, the prophets promised in Jehovahs name a speedy re-instatement. The possession of the Temple and the observance of the Law, they held, bound Jehovah to His peoples defence. The fanaticism thus excited, of which the Jewish race has given so many subsequent examples, brought about the second, and fatal, rupture with Babylon.
Nebuchadrezzar showed a certain forbearance towards Judah. On Jehoiakims first revolt, in 601, he let loose bands of raiders on the Judæan territory (2Ki_24:2; cf. Jer_12:9; Jer_12:14); four years later be marched on the capital. Jehoiakim died just before this; his youthful son Jehoiachin (called also Jeconiah and Coniah) surrendered the city, and was carried captive, with the queen-mother and the élite of the nobles and people, to Babylon, where he lived for many years, to be released upon Nebuchadrezzars death in 561 (2Ki_24:6-17; 2Ki_25:27-30, Jer_22:24-30).
The reign of Mattaniah-Zedekiah, raised to the throne by Nebuchadrezzar, was in effect a repetition of that of his elder brother. Zedekiah failed through weakness more than through wickedness; he sought Jeremiahs advice, but lacked decision to follow it. Early in his reign a conspiracy was on foot in Palestine against the Chaldæans, which he was tempted to join (Jer_27:1-11; see RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] on Jer_27:1). The Judæans, instead of being cowed by the recent punishment, were eager for a rising; public opinion expressed itself in Hananiahs contradiction to Jeremiahs warnings (ch. 28). The same false hopes were exciting the exiles in Babylon (ch. 29). Nebuchadrezzar, aware of these movements, summoned Zedekiah to Babylon (Jer_51:59); the latter was able, however, to clear himself of complicity, and returned to Jerusalem. At last Zedekiah yielded to the tide; he broke his oaths of allegiance to Nebuchadrezzarconduct sternly condemned by Ezekiel (Eze_17:11-21) as well as by Jeremiahand the Jewish people were launched on a struggle almost as mad as that which it undertook with Rome 650 years later. The siege of Jerusalem was stubbornly prolonged for two years (588586). The Egyptians under the new and ambitious Pharaohhophra (Apries, 588569), effected a diversion of the Chaldæan troops (Jer_37:5-10, Eze_17:15); but, as often before, Pharaoh proved a broken reed to those who trusted in him. Reduced by famine, Jerusalem was stormed, Zedekiah being captured in his attempt to escape, and meeting a pitiable death (2Ki_25:1-7). This time Nebuchadrezzar made an end of the rebels. Jerusalem was razed to the ground; the survivors of the siege, and of the executions that followed, were carried into exile. A remnant, of no political importance, was left to till the ground; the bulk of these, after the tragic incidents related in Jer_39:1-18; Jer_40:1-16; Jer_41:1-18; Jer_42:1-22; Jer_43:1-13, fled to Egypt. Jeremiah, who had in vain resisted this migration, was carried with the runaways; he had the distress of seeing his companions relapse into open idolatry, protesting that they had fared better when worshipping the queen of heaven than under the national Jehovah. Jewish tradition relates that he died at the hands of his incensed fellow-exiles. The prophets prediction that the sword of Nebuchadrezzar would follow the fugitives, was fulfilled by the Chaldæan invasion of Lower Egypt in the year 569, if not earlier than this. The Babylonian empire lasted from b.c. 605 to 538,a little short of the 70 years assigned to it, in round numbers, by Jeremiah (Jer_25:11; Jer_29:10).
2. The man.The Book of Jeremiah is largely autobiographical. The author became, unconsciously, the hero of his work. This prophets temperament and experience have coloured his deliverances in a manner peculiar amongst OT writers. His teaching, moreover, marks an evolution in the Israelite religion, which acquires a more personal stamp as its national framework is broken up. In Jeremiahs life we watch the spirit of revelation being driven inwards, taking refuge from the shipwreck of the State in the soul of the individual. Jeremiah is the prophet of that church within the nation, traceable in its beginnings to Isaiahs time, to which the future of revealed religion is henceforth committed. This inner community of heart-believers survived the Exile; it gave birth to the Bible and the synagogue.
Jeremiah was a native of Anathoth, a little town some 31/2 miles N. E.from Jerusalem, perched high on the mountain-ridge and commanding an extensive view over the hills of Ephraim and the Jordan valley, towards which his memory often turned (Jer_4:15; Jer_7:14-15; Jer_12:5; Jer_31:4-5; Jer_31:18; Jer_49:19). Jeremiah had no mere Judæan outlook; the larger Israel was constantly in his thoughts. His father was Hilkiah [not the Hilkiah of 2Ki_22:4], of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin (2Ki_1:1); but he does not show, like the contemporary priest-prophet Ezekiel, the sacerdotal mind. Anathoth had been the settlement of Abiathar, the last high priest of Elis house, who was banished thither by Solomon (1Ki_2:26); Jeremiah may have been a scion of this deposed line. His mission brought him, probably at an early period, into conflict with the men of Anathoth, who sought his life (1Ki_11:18-23). His attempt to visit Anathoth during the last siege of Jerusalem, and the transaction between himself and his cousin over the field at Anathoth (Jer_32:6 ff., Jer_37:11-14), go to show that he was not entirely cut off from friendly relations with his kindred and native place.
Jeremiahs call (ch. 1) in b.c. 626 found him a diffident and reluctant young man,not wanting in devotion, but shrinking from publicity, and with no natural drawing towards the prophetic career; yet he is set over the nations, to pluck up and to break down, and to build and to plant! Already there begins the struggle between the implanted word of Jehovah and the nature of the man, on which turns Jeremiahs inner history and the development of his heroic character,all things considered, the noblest in the OT. His ministry was to be a long martyrdom. He must stand as a fenced city and an iron pillar and brazen walls against the whole land,a solitary and impregnable fortress for Jehovah. The manner of his call imports an intimacy with God, an identification of the man with his mission, more close and complete than in the case of any previous prophet (see Jer_1:5; Jer_1:9). No intermediarynot even the spirit of Jehovah,no special vehicle or means of prophetical incitement, is ever intimated in his case: simply the word of Jehovah came to him. He conceives the true prophet as standing in Jehovahs council, to perceive and hear his word (Jer_23:18; cf. Isa_50:4). So that he may be in person, as well as in word, a prophet of the coming tribulation, marriage is forbidden him and all participation in domestic life (Jer_16:1-13),a sentence peculiarly bitter to his tender and affectionate nature. Jeremiahs imagination was haunted by his lost home happiness (Jer_7:34; Jer_16:9; Jer_25:10; Jer_33:11). Endowed with the finest sensibilities, in so evil a time he was bound to be a man of sorrows.
Behind the contest waged by Jeremiah with kings and people there lay an interior struggle, lasting more than twenty years. So long it took this great prophet to accept with full acquiescence the burden laid upon him. We may trace through a number of self-revealing passages, the general drift of which is plain notwithstanding the obscurity of some sentences and the chronological uncertainty, Jeremiahs progress from youthful consecration and ardour, through moods of doubt and passionate repugnance, to a complete self-conquest and settled trust (see, besides chs. 1, 11, 16 already cited, Jer_8:18 to Jer_9:2; Jer_15:10-11 and Jer_15:15-21; Jer_17:14-18; Jer_18:18-23; Jer_20:1-18; Jer_26:1-24; Jer_30:1-24; Jer_31:1-40; Jer_32:1-44). The discipline of Jeremiah may be divided into four stages, following on his supernatural call:(a) the youthful period of fierce denunciation, b.c. 626621; (b) the time of disillusion and silence, subsequent to Josiahs reforms, 621608; (c) the critical epoch, 608604, opened by the fall of Josiah at Megiddo and closing in the fourth year of Jehoiakim after the battle of Carchemish and the advent of Nebuchadrezzar, when the paroxysm of the prophets soul was past and his vision of the future grew clear; (d) the stage of full illumination, attained during the calamities of the last days of Jerusalem.
To (a) belongs the teaching recorded in chs. 26, subject to the modifications involved in condensing from memory discourses uttered 20 years before. Here Jeremiah is on the same ground as Zephaniah. He strongly recalls Hosea, whose love for Ephraim he shares, and whose similitude of the marriage-union between Jehovah and Israel supplies the basis of his appeals. Judah, he insists, has proved a more faithless bride than her northern sister; a divorce is inevitable. Ch. 5 reflects the shocking impression made by Jeremiahs first acquaintance with Jerusalem; in ch. 6 Jehovahs scourgein the first instance the Scythiansis held over the city. With rebukes mingle calls to repentance and, more rarely, hopes of a relenting on the peoples part (Jer_3:21-25; in other hopeful passages critics detect interpolation). Jeremiahs powerful and pathetic preaching helped to prepare the reformation of 621. But as the danger from the northern hordes passed and Josiahs rule brought new prosperity, the prophets vaticinations were discounted; his pessimism became an object of ridicule.
(b) Jeremiahs attitude towards Josiahs reformation is the enigma of his history. The collection of his prophecies made in 604 (see chs. 112), apart from the doubtful allusion in Jer_11:1-8, ignores the subject; Josiahs name is but once mentioned, by way of contrast to Jehoiakim, in Jer_22:13-19. From this silence we must not infer condemnation; and such passages as Jer_7:22-23 and Jer_8:8 do not signify that Jeremiah was radically opposed to the sacrificial system and to the use of a written law. We may fairly gather from Jer_11:1-8, if not from Jer_17:19-27 (the authenticity of which is contested), that Jeremiah commended the Deuteronomic code. His writings in many passages show a Deuteronomic stamp. But, from this point of view, the reformation soon showed itself a failure. It came from the will of the king, not from the conscience of the people. It effected no circumcision of the heart, no inward turning to Jehovah, no such breaking up of the fallow ground as Jeremiah had called for; the good seed of the Deuteronomic teaching was sown among thorns (Jer_4:3-4), which sprang up and choked it. The cant of religion was in the mouths of ungodly men; apostasy had given place, in the popular temper, to hypocrisy. Convinced of this, Jeremiah appears to have early withdrawn, and stood aloof for the rest of Josiahs reign. Hence the years 621608 are a blank in the record of his ministry. For the time the prophet was nonplussed; the evil he had foretold had not come; the good which had come was a doubtful good in his eyes. He could not support, he would not oppose, the work of the earnest and sanguine king. Those twelve years demonstrated the emptiness of a political religion. They burnt into the prophets soul the lesson of the worthlessness of everything without the law written on the heart.
(c) Josiahs death at Megiddo pricked the bubble of the national religiousness; this calamity recalled Jeremiah to his work. Soon afterwards he delivered the great discourse of Jer_7:1 to Jer_8:3, which nearly cost him his life (see ch. 26). He denounces the false reliance on the Temple that replaced the idolatrous superstitions of 20 years before, thereby making the priests and the prophets, to whose ears the threat of Shilohs fate for Zion was rank treason, from this time his implacable enemies. The post-reformation conflict now opening was more deadly than the pre-reformation conflict shared with Zephaniah. A false Jehovism had entrenched itself within the forms of the Covenant, armed with the weapons of fanatical self-righteousness. To this phase of the struggle belong chs. 710 (subtracting the great interpolation of Jer_9:23 to Jer_10:16, of which Jer_10:1-16 is surely post-Jeremianic); so, probably, most of the matter of chs. 1420, identified with the many like words that were added to the volume of Jeremiah burnt by Jehoiakim in the winter of 604 (Jer_36:27-32).
The personal passages of chs. 15, 17, 18, 20 belong to this decisive epoch (608605, between Megiddo and Carchemish). The climax of Jeremiahs inward agony was brought about by the outrage inflicted on him by Pashhur, the Temple overseer (ch. 20), when, to stop his mouth, the prophet was scourged and put in the stocks. He breaks out, O Jehovah, thou hast befooled me, and I have been befooled! and ends by cursing the day of his birth (Jer_20:7-18). Jehovah has used His almighty power to play with a weak, simple man, and to make him a laughing-stock! Jehovahs word is a fire in his bones; he is compelled to speak it, only to meet ridicule and insult! His warnings remain unfulfilled, and God leaves him in the lurch! He desires nothing but the peoples good; yet they count him a traitor, and put down his terrifying visions to malignity! This last reproach cut Jeremiah to the heart; again and again he had repelled it (Jer_15:10; Jer_17:16; Jer_18:20). The scene of ch. 20 was Jeremiahs Gethsemane. It took place not long before the crisis of the fourth year of Jehoiakim,the occasion when the roll of doom was prepared (ch. 36) which was read to the people and the king, and when, after the battle of Carchemish, Nebuchadrezzar was hailed as Jehovahs servant and executioner (ch. 25). At this juncture the conclusive breach with Jehoiakim came about, when the faithless king, by running his knife through Jeremiahs book, severed the ties which had bound prophecy to the secular throne of David since Samuels day. Recalling at this date his misgivings and inward fightings against God, the prophet virtually tells us that they are past. From the years 6054 he marches with firm step to the goal; he sees the end of Gods kingdom, and the way. Jeremiah is at last equal to his office, ready to pluck up and to break down the nations, and to build and to plant. Master of himself, he is master of the world.
(d) Chs. 3033 (Jer_33:14-26 are wanting in the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] ; the remainder of 33, along with Jer_32:16-44, lies under grave critical suspicion) contain a distinct word of Jehovah, committed to a separate book. This is the Book of the Future of Israel and Judah (Duhm), and the crown of Jeremiahs life-work. Like the Christian prophet who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, Jeremiah fled to the ideal and eternal from the horrors of the national downfall; as the earthly Zion sinks, the image of Gods true city rises on his soul. The long foreseen catastrophe has arrived; Jeremiah meets it bravely, for days are coming, Jehovah tells him, when I will restore the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, and I will cause them to return to the land of their fathers (Jer_30:3 ff.). The prophet adds deeds to words: he takes the opportunity of buying, before witnesses, a field at Anathoth offered during the siege by his cousin Hanameel, in token that houses and fields and vineyards shall yet again be bought in this land (Jer_32:15). But the restoration means something far better than recovery of the land; it will be a spiritual renovation, a change of heart going deeper than Josiahs renewal of the old covenant. They shall be my people, Jehovah promises, and I will be their God; and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for ever.
And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and I will put my fear in their hearts (Jer_32:38-39; Jer_32:31-44 of this disputed chapter are full of Jeremianic traits). The announcement of the new covenant in ch. Jer_31:31-34 is the kernel of the Book of the Future; this is Jeremiahs greatest contribution to the progress of the Kingdom of God. This passage touches the high-water mark of OT prophecy; it was appropriated by the Lord Jesus at the Last Supper, and supplied the basis of the NT doctrine of salvation (see Heb_10:14-18). To deprive Jeremiah of the New-Covenant oracle (as B. Duhm, e.g., would do) is to remove the top-stone of his lifes edifice; it is to make his rôle one of plucking up and breaking down, with no commensurate building and planting (Jer_1:10) upon the desolated site. Jeremiah had read first in his own heart the secret thus conveyed to Israel. The mission which he had borne for long as a painful yoke, he learnt to rest in with entire contentment. He is able to say, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart; and he prophesies that, under the new covenant, every man shall say this.
Jeremiahs style and powers as a writer have been underestimated; better justice is done to them by recent scholars. The gloom overshadowing many of his pages has been repellent; and the mistaken attachment of his name to Lamentations has brought on him the disparaging epithet of the weeping prophet. Much of the book comes to us from other pens; in its narrative parts we recognize the hand of Baruch; and allowance should be made for editorial glosses and additions, here and there interrupting the flow and impairing the force of the original. Jeremiahs language is touched with occasional Aramaisms, and shows some falling off from the perfection of the classical Hebrew of the 8th century. Jeremiah has neither the sublimity and sustained oratorical power of Isaiah, nor the pungency of Amos, nor the poignancy of Hosea, nor the fire and verve of Nahum, nor the subtlety of Habakkuk; but in richness of imagery, in fulness of human interest, in lucidity and naturalness, in his command of the various resources of poetry, eloquence, pathos, and practical appeal, by virtue of the combination of excellences he presents and the value of his total output, Jeremiah is the greatest of the writing prophets.
3. The Book.We owe the Book of Jeremiah to his collaborator Baruch (ch. 36). In fairness, this should be entitled The Book of Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the scribe. With Baruchs help Jeremiah issued in 604 a roll of a book, containing the sum of his public teaching up to that date. This volume was not too large to be read to the assembled people, and read aloud twice more in the course of the same day. In size and contents it corresponded to chs. 212 of the existing book (the two fragments of Jer_9:23-26 seem to be a later Jeremianic, and Jer_10:1-16 a post-Jeremianic insertion; some would also refer Jer_12:7-17 to a subsequent date). The destruction of the first roll by Jehoiakim called for a new edition, containing many like words, which added to the bulk of the first publication: chs. 1 and 1420, with (possibly) 25, may be taken to contain the supplementary matter referred to in Jer_36:32, extending and illustrating chs. 212 (ch. 13 is out of place, since it bears in the allusion of Jer_36:18-19 manifest reference to the captivity of 597). With the exceptions named, and some others of less moment, chs. 120 may be read as the re-written roll of Jer_36:32, which dated from the winter of b.c. 604.
In chs. Jer_21:11 to Jer_23:40 we find a distinct collection of oracles, relating to the kings (down to Jehoiachin) and prophets, associated under the designation of shepherds; it is prefaced by a story (in 3rd person: Jer_21:1-10) about king Zedekiah, germane to the later collection of chs. 3739. Chs. 13 and 24 and 2729 are reminiscences of Jeremiah relative to the early years of Zedekiahs reign, subsequent to the First Captivity (597)surely ch. 35, the story of the Rechabites (in 1st person), relating to Jehoiakims closing years, should come in here. This added matter may have gone to make up a third edition of Jeremiah-Baruchs work, published about this date, extending over chs. 129, with the deductions and addition previously noted (ch. 26 is mentioned below).
Chs. 3033 form a totally distinct work from the Book of Doom thus far analyzed; this is Jeremiahs book of promise or consolation, recording the revelation of his peoples future given to him during the last slege of Jerusalem. Chs. 3739, to which Jer_21:1-10 should be attached, and 4044, are two distinct memoirs, bearing on Jeremiahs history (a) in the final siege, and (b) after the capture of Jerusalem; the authorship of his secretary is indicated by the fact that the short oracle concerning Baruch (ch. 45) is set at the end of these narratives, though the event related took place earlier, in 604. It is to be noted that the data of Jer_1:1-3 do not cover the matter of chs. 4044. It looks as though that superscription was drawn up when the book extended only from ch. 139, and as though we ought to recognize a fourth stage in the growth of Jeremiahs booka redaction made soon after the fall of Jerusalem, which was supplemented afterwards when Baruch added chs. 4045, making the fifth (enlarged) edition. To (a) is prefixed the supremely important Baruch story (ch. 36), of the same date as the above-mentioned (ch. 45) which concludes (b). Ch. 26 is a detached narrative piece, out of place where it stands; this appears to be Baruchs account of the crisis in Jeremiahs work to which Jer_7:1 to Jer_8:3 relates (b.c. 608). Altogether, we may credit to Baruchs memoirs of Jeremiah chs. 26, 36, 3739 and 4045; to some extent he probably worked over and edited the matter received by dictation from his master.
This leaves remaining only the collection of Foreign Oracles, which have been separately placed at the end of Jeremiahs works, in chs. 4651; and the Historical Appendix, ch. 52, borrowed by his editors from the Book of Kings (or by the compilers of Kings from this place). The great doom of the Chaldæans and Babylon in chs. Jer_50:1 to Jer_51:58, judged by internal evidence, was certainly a postscript to Jeremiahs work and a product of the Exile; critical doubts, of less gravity, attach to other parts of the Foreign Oracles. In Jer_38:28 b39:10 we find already inserted, in shorter form, the first part of the narrative incorporated in ch. 52. Ch. Jer_52:28-30 supplies a valuable bit of tradition about the Captivity wanting in Kings, missing also in the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] text of Jeremiah. The final redaction of the canonical Jeremiah (the sixth edition?) dates considerably posterior to the Exile; for Jer_50:2 to Jer_51:58, if written by an exilic prophet, could hardly have been ascribed to Jeremiah until a late age. On the other hand, chs. 5052 are found in the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , which dated c [Note: circa, about.] . b.c. 200, and must therefore have been incorporated in the book before this time.
The LXX [Note: Septuagint.] departs from the Massoretic text in two main respects: (1) in arrangement,the Foreign Oracles (chs. 4651) being let in between vv.13 and 14 of ch. 25, and running in a different order. It is not unlikely that the Dooms of the Nations were originally associated with ch. 25; but their Greek position cannot possibly be sustained. (2) Again, the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] text differs from the MT [Note: Massoretic Text.] in quantity, being shorter by some 2700 words, or one-eighth of the whole. The subtracted matter consists partly of omissions of paragraphs and sentencesamongst the chief of these being Jer_11:7-8, Jer_17:1-4, Jer_29:16-20, Jer_33:14-26, Jer_48:45-47, Jer_51:45-48, Jer_52:2-3; Jer_52:28-30; partly of abbreviations,titles shortened, proper names dispensed with, synonyms dropped and descriptions curtailed. The former phenomena point, in a number of instances, to accretions gathered by the MT [Note: Massoretic Text.] subsequently to the date of translation; the abbreviations betray in the translator a studied attempt at conciseness. It has been supposed that the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] rested on an older and purer recension of the Hebrew text, preserved in Egypt; but this theory is abandoned. Both texts of Jeremiah have the same archetype; but this archetype underwent a gradual process of expansion, and the process is represented at an earlier stage in the MS or MSS underlying the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , and at a more advanced stage in those at the basis of the MT [Note: Massoretic Text.] .
Speaking generally, the MT [Note: Massoretic Text.] is qualitatively greatly superior to the Greek; but, on the other hand, quantitatively, the Greek is nearer the original text. This judgment is general, admitting many exceptions,that is, cases where the quality of the Greek text is better, and its readings more original than the Hebrew; and also cases where, in regard to quantity, the Hebrew is to be preferred, the omissions in the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] being due to faults in the translators MS, to his own oversight, or to his tendency to scamp and abridge (A. B. Davidson).
Synopsis of the Book
I. The great Book of Doom, dictated by Jeremiah in b.c. 604: chs. 120, 25, with parts (probably) of 4651, corresponding to the original volume read by Baruch (Jer_36:2; Jer_36:10) and the many like words added on re-writing (Jer_36:32).
(a) The book burnt by Jehoiakim: chs. 212 (minus Jer_9:23 to Jer_10:16 etc.). This included
1. The Judgment upon Judahs treachery towards Jehovah: chs. 26, embodying Jeremiahs pre-reformation teaching [Jer_3:6-18 has slipped out of its place; this oracle should come either before (Cornill), or after (Bruston), the rest of chs. 2, 3].
2. The Judgment upon Judahs hypocrisy. chs. 712 (? Jer_12:7-17; minus Jer_9:23 to Jer_10:15); belonging to the post-reformation preaching of 608 and onwards.
(b) The many like words, illustrating (a): chs. Jer_1:14-19, and probably 25, etc.; consisting of scenes and reminiscences from Jeremiahs earlier ministry, up to b.c. 604 [ch. 13 was later; it has been displaced; see § V.].
II. The Judgment on the Shepherds (kings, priests, and prophets): chs. 2123 [Jer_21:1-10 has been transferred from § V.: the remainder of this section need not have been later than c [Note: circa, about.] . b.c. 597].
III. Later memoranda of Jeremiah, extending from c [Note: circa, about.] . 600 to 593: chs. Jer_12:7-17 (?) 13, 24, 2729 and 35. §§ II. and III. may have been added to § I. to form a third (enlarged) edition of the great Book of Doom, issued in the middle of Zedekiahs reign and before the final struggle with Nebuchadrezzar.
IV. The little Book of Consolation: chs. 3033, dating from the second siege.
V. Baruchs Memoirs of Jeremiah:
(a) Before the Fall of Jerusalem (covered by the title in Jer_1:1-3): chs. 26, 36, 34, 3739, with Jer_21:1-10.
(b) After the Fall of Jerusalem: chs. 4044.
(c) Baruchs personal note: ch. 45.
Whether the above memoirs were introduced by Barocbor extracted later by other editors from a separate work of his, cannot be determined with certainty. The position of ch. 45 speaks for his editing up to this point; but if so, some later hand has disturbed his arrangement of the matter. In some instances the displacements we have noted may be due to accidents of transcription.
VI. The Collection of Foreign Oracles: chs. 4649 [Jer_50:2 to Jer_51:58] Jer_51:59-64against Egypt (2), Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazor, Elam [Babylon]. In the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] the Dooms are differently arranged, attached to Jer_25:13, and slightly shorter. The Babylon Doom admittedly betrays the hand of a late compiler; additions to Jeremiahs work are suspected in other parts of the section, particularly in the Dooms of Egypt and Moab.
VII. The Historical Appendix: ch. 52, nearly identical, by general admission, with 2Ki_24:18 to 2Ki_25:30.
The above must be taken as a general outline and sketch of the growth of the work. There are a number of detached fragments, such as Jer_9:23-26, the true connexion of which is lost. And post-Jeremianic interpolations and annotations, relatively numerous, must be recognized; the most conspicuous of these, besides the last three chapters, are Jer_10:1-16 and Jer_33:14-26.
G. G. Findlay.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
("exalted of Jehovah") (Jerome); ("appointed of Jehovah") (Gesenius); ("Jehovah throws") (Hengstenberg); compare Jer_1:10.
1. Son of Hilkiah, a priest in Anathoth of Benjamin; not the high priest Hilkiah who discovered the book of the law in Josiah's reign (2Ki_22:8), for Jeremiah's father is not designated as "the priest" or "the high priest." Moreover, the Anathoth priests were of the line of Abiathar, who was deposed by Solomon (1Ki_2:26-35). Thenceforward the high priesthood was in Eleazar's and Zadok's line. The independent history (2Ch_35:25; 2Ch_36:12; 2Ch_36:21) mentions his "lamentation for Josiah," Zedekiah's "not humbling himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of Jehovah," and the Babylonian captivity "to fulfill Jehovah's word by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths, for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath to fulfill threescore and ten years" (Jer_27:7; Jer_25:9-12; Jer_26:6-7; Jer_29:10).
In 629 B.C., the 13th of Josiah's reign, while a mere youth at Anathoth, three miles from Jerusalem (Jer_1:2), "the word of Jehovah came to him" just as manhood was opening out to him, calling him to lay aside his natural sensitiveness and timid self distrust, and as Jehovah's minister, by the might of Jehovah's efficacious word, to "root out ... throw down, build and plant." "Before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified and ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." To his pleas of childlike inability to speak (as Moses, Exo_3:11-12; Exo_4:10-12; and Isaiah, Isa_6:5-8), Jehovah opposes His mission and His command: "thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak." To his fear of men's faces Jehovah declares "I am with thee to deliver thee." Touching Jeremiah's mouth (as Isaiah's; compare Jesus' touch, Mat_9:21-29), Jehovah put His words in the prophet's mouth, so that the prophetic word became divinely efficient to produce its own fulfillment; even as the Word was the efficient cause of creation.
Jeremiah must have at first exercised his office in contemplation rather than action, for he is not mentioned in connection with Josiah's reforms, or the great Passover held in the 18th year of his reign, five years subsequent to Jeremiah's call. It is from the prophetess Huldah, not from him, that the godly king sought counsel. Yet he must have warmly sympathized with this great revival. Indications of affinity or friendship with some of the actors in it occur in the sameness of names: Jeremiah's father bearing the name of Hilkiah, Josiah's high priest; his uncle that of Shallum, Huldah's husband (Jer_32:7; compare 2Ki_22:14); Ahikam, Jeremiah's protector (Jer_26:24), was also the fellow worker with Huldah in the revival; moreover Maaseiah, governor of Jerusalem, sent by Josiah as ally of Hilkiah in repairing the temple (2Ch_34:8), was father of Neriah, the father of both Baruch and Seraiah, Jeremiah's disciples (Jer_36:4; Jer_51:59).
The finding of the book of the law, the original temple copy (See HILKIAH) exercised a palpable effect on his later writings. (Compare Jer_11:3-5 with Deu_7:12; Deu_4:20; Deu_27:26; Jer_34:14 with Deu_15:12; Deu_32:18 with Exo_20:6; Exo_32:21 with Exo_6:6). He saw that the reformation was but a surface one, and would not ensure the permanent peace which many anticipated from it (Jer_7:4), for while "the temple" was restored the spirit of apostasy still prevailed, so that even Israel seemed just in comparison with what Judah had become (Jer_3:11), a seeker of the truth was scarcely to be found, and self seeking was the real aim, while "the prophets prophesy falsely, the priests hear rule by their means, and God's people (!) love to have it so" (Jer_5:1; Jer_5:31).
Five years after his call to prophesy the book of the law was found in the temple by Hilkiah (2Ki_22:8; 2Ki_23:25); then Jeremiah in Jehovah's name proclaimed, "Hear ye this covenant, and speak (it in your turn to others, namely,) unto the men of Judah and Jerusalem." Next Jehovah commanded Jeremiah to take a prophetic tour, proclaiming the covenant through the cities of Judah, as well as in Jerusalem (Jer_11:1-2; Jer_11:6). Apparently, he lived at first in Anathoth, repairing thence from time to time to prophesy in Jerusalem (Jer_2:2), until the enmity of his townsmen and even his brethren, because of his godly faithfulness (Jer_11:18-21; Jer_12:6), drove him to Jerusalem. He knew not of their plotting against his life until Jehovah revealed it. His personal experiences were providentially ordered to qualify him to be the type in his own person, as well as the prophet, of Messiah (compare Isa_53:7).
So His brethren, and the Nazarenes His townsmen, treated Christ (Luk_4:24-29; Joh_1:11; Joh_7:5; Psa_69:8). By Jehovah's direction Jeremiah was to have neither wife or children (Jer_16:2), in order to symbolize the coming of calamities on Judea so severe that the single state (contrary to the natural order) would be preferable to the married (1Co_7:8; 1Co_7:26; 1Co_7:29; Mat_24:19; Luk_23:29). Eighteen years after his first call king Josiah died. During this period, when others thought evil distant, the vision of the almond tree, the emblem of wakefulness, showed Jeremiah that evil was hastening, and the seething pot that it should come from the N., namely, the Babylonians entering into the Holy Land from the N. by way of Hamath (Jer_1:11-15). (See ALMOND.)
Jeremiah, like Isaiah (Isa_30:1-7), foresaw that the tendency of many to desire an alliance with Egypt, upon the dissolution of the Assyrian empire whose vassal Manasseh was, would end in sorrow (Jer_2:18): "what hast thou to do in the way of (with going down to) Egypt? to drink the waters of Sihor (to seek hosts as allies from the Nile land)?" Josiah so far molded his policy according to Jeremiah's counsel; but he forgot that it was equally against God's will for His people to lean upon Assyrian or Babylonian "confidences" as upon Egyptian (Jeremiah 36 - 37); so taking the field as ally of Assyria and Babylon against the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho he fell (2Ki_23:29). Josiah's death was one of his bitterest sorrows (Jer_22:10; Jer_22:15-16), the remembrance of his righteous reign intensified the pain of witnessing the present injustice of his successors.
Jeremiah composed the funeral dirge which "the singing men and women in their lamentations" used at the anniversary kept subsequently as an ordinance in Israel (2Ch_35:20-25). Jeremiah had also inward conflicts. Like Asaph (Psalm 73) he felt perplexed at the prosperity of the wicked (Jer_12:1-4) plotters at Anathoth against his life (Jer_11:19-21), to which Jehovah replies that even worse is before him at Jerusalem: "if thou hast run with the footmen (the Anathoth men), and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses (the men of Jerusalem)? And if (it is only) in a land of peace thou trustest (so the Hebrew is), then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" Or else, if in the plain country alone thou art secure, how wilt thou do "in the pride (the wooded banks, the lair of beasts: Zec_11:3; 2Ki_6:2 compare Pro_24:10) of Jordan?"
Jeremiah sensitively shrank from strifes, yet the Holy Spirit enabled him to deliver his message at the certain cost of rousing enmity and having his sensitiveness wounded (Jer_15:10). His nature said, "I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name; but (the Spirit made him feel) His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing" (Jer_20:9). In Jer_22:11-12 Jeremiah foretold that Josiah's son, Shallum or Jehoahaz who reigned but three months and was carried to Egypt by Pharaoh Necho, should never return. (See JEHOAHAZ.) On Jehoiakim's accession idolatry returned, combined with the worship of Jehovah; and priests, prophets, and people soon brought Jeremiah before the authorities, urging that he should be put to death for denouncing evil against the temple and the city (Jer_26:7-11).
This he had done in Jer_7:12-14; Jer_7:8-9. and more summarily in Jer_26:1-2; Jer_26:6, at the feast of tabernacles, when the law was commanded to be read, or at either of the other two great feasts, before the people of "all the cities of Judah," assembled for worship "in the court of Jehovah's house"; he "diminished not a word" through fear of offending. The "princes," including doubtless some of Josiah's counselors or their sons, interposed in his behalf (Jer_26:16), appealing to Micah's case, who had uttered a like prophecy in Hezekiah's reign with impunity; adding the implication which they durst not express, that though Urijah who prophesied similarly was brought back from his flight into Egypt, and slain by Jehoiakim, yet that the notorious prostration of the state showed that evil, not good, is the result of such persecutions.
So Ahikam his friend, the former officer of good Josiah (2Ki_22:12; 2Ki_22:14), saved him from death; however Jeremiah deemed it prudent not to appear in public then. (See AHIKAM.) In Jehoakim's (and see BARUCH; JEHUDI.) fifth year Jeremiah escaped his violence by the Lord's hiding him and Baruch (Jer_36:27-32), after the king had destroyed the prophetic roll of prophecies for the 23 years past of Jeremiah's ministry, which Jeremiah was commanded to write in Jehoiakim's fourth year, and which in the fifth Baruch, having first written them, read to the people assembled on the fast. (See JEHOIAKIM.) Jeremiah had shown his prophetic prescience by opposing as delusive what as a patriot he would have desired, the hopes cherished of his country's independence of Babylon (Jer_27:1; Jer_27:6-8): "thus saith Jehovah of hosts, I have made the earth ... and now have I given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar ... My servant ... and all nations shall serve him, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come."
So in Jehoiakim's fourth year Judah's hopes from Egypt were crushed by Nebuchadnezzar's defeat of Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish (
Jer_46:2, a prophecy uttered shortly before the event). Jeremiah had in this year foretold that not Judah alone, but all nations should be subject to Babylon for 70 years, having to drink God's wine cup of fury, and then Babylon itself should be made "perpetual desolations" (Jer_25:8-38). Hence, the Rechabites (See JEHONADAB) were constrained at this time to take refuge within Jerusalem through fear of the Chaldees. Jeremiah's own ascetic spirit was instinctively attracted to them, famed as they were for their abstemious, pilgrim, devout, and idolatry abhorring walk. The occurrence of the name Jeremiah among them, and their ready admission into the temple, mark previous association with Jeremiah and the priests.
Jeremiah made their filial obedience to their earthly father a condemnation of Judah's disobedience to their heavenly Father (Jeremiah 35). (In Jeremiah 45, concerning an individual, subjoined to his prophecies concerning nations, though belonging to the time just after (Jeremiah 36) the close of Jehoiakim's reign, Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 18-19 (probably in Jeconiah's reign), by the symbols of the remaking by the potter of the marred vessel, and of the breaking of the bottle in the valley of Hinnom, sets forth God's absolute power over His creatures to give reprobates to destruction, and to raise others instead of the people who prove unfaithful to His election (Isa_45:9; Isa_64:8; Rom_9:20-21). (See BARUCH.) The potter's field significantly was the purchase with the price of reprobate Judas' treachery (Mat_27:9-10, which quotes Zec_11:12-13 as Jeremiah's because Zechariah rests on Jeremiah; compare Psa_2:8-9; Rev_2:27).
Pashur, chief governor in the Lord's house, in consequence smote and put him in the stocks (Jer_20:2); when liberated, he renewed his prophecy against the city, denouncing Pashur as about to become Magor Missabib, "terror round about." Then he gave way to complaints of God, but to God, as if God had deceived him; but God had promised (Jer_1:19), not that he should escape suffering, but that God would deliver him out of it; he even, like Job (Job_3:3-11), in impatience cursed his day of birth, but better feelings prevailed soon, and he records his deep depression (Jer_1:14-18) after his believing thanksgiving only to show how great was his deliverance (Jer_1:11-13). In the three months' reign of Jehoiachin, Jeconiah, or Coriah (the omission of the Jah marking his severance from Jehovah), Jeremiah prophesied the carrying away of the king and the queen mother Nehushta, daughter of Elnathan (Jer_13:18; Jer_22:24-30; 2Ki_24:6; 2Ki_24:8; 2Ki_24:12; 2Ki_24:15).
In this reign Jeremiah gave the symbolical prophecy of the girdle on his loins taken to the Euphrates, and hidden in a hole of the rock (Jer_13:1-7). Some symbolical acts of prophets, being scarcely possible, probable, or decorous, existed only in spiritual vision; when possible and proper, they were often materialized by outward performance. The act, even when only internal, vivified the naked statement of prophetic truth. A journey twice of 200 miles to the Euphrates may have been taken only in the spiritual world wherein the seer moved (compare Jer_19:1; Jer_19:10; Jer_27:2-3; Isa_20:2). Nebuchadnezzar was evidently acquainted with him, but whether it was by an actual journey of Jeremiah to Babylon is uncertain (Jer_39:11). In spite of the warning given in Jeconiah's case, Zedekiah set at naught Jeremiah's words and revolted.
So in his ninth year, tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar began the siege of Jerusalem (Jer_39:1). Zedekiah in the tenth year, through Jehucal and Zephaniah, begged Jeremiah, "pray for us," as the issue between Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh Hophra (Apries) was at that time as yet undecided. In consequence of fear the Jews obeyed the law by temporarily emancipating their bondservants at, the end of seven years, but on the remission of the siege again enslaved them (Jeremiah 34). Jeremiah therefore foretold that Zedekiah and his princes should be given up to their enemies (Jer_32:2-5). Yet he foretold the sure repossession of Judaea by the Jews, by redeeming his uncle Hanameel's field in due form; just as at Rome the ground whereon Hannibal was encamped was put up for sale and found a purchaser. Pharaoh's advance caused the Chaldeans to withdraw temporarily from besieging Jerusalem (Jer_37:1-5).
Jeremiah warned the king that the Chaldeans would return and burn the city with fire. Therefore Zedekiah shut him up in the court of the prison. Jeremiah himself tried to escape to his native place, Anathoth of Benjamin; but Irijah arrested him at the gate of Benjamin on the charge of desertion to the Chaldeans. Then the princes smote and imprisoned him in the house of Jonathan the scribe. It was a pit (dungeon) with vaulted cells ("cabins") round the sides. After many days in the dungeon Zedekiah the king took him out, and inquired secretly (compare Joh_3:2; Joh_5:44; Joh_12:43; Joh_19:38), "is there any word from Jehovah?" Jeremiah without regard to his earthly interests (contrast Jer_6:14; Isa_30:10; Eze_13:10) foretold Zedekiah's being delivered up to Nebuchadnezzar, and begged not to be left to "die" in Jonathan's house.
His natural shrinking from death (Jer_37:20) makes his spiritual firmness the more remarkable; ready to die rather than swerve from duty. Zedekiah committed him to the court of the prison (the open space occupied by the guard, Jer_32:2, where his friends had access to him: Jer_32:12; Jer_37:12-21), and commanded bread to be supplied to him until all in the city was spent (Psa_37:19; Isa_33:16). Honest reproof sometimes gains more favor than flattery (Pro_28:23). Zedekiah again sent Pashur and Zephaniah to Jeremiah to inquire of him, and received the reply that submission to the Chaldees is the only way of life (Jer_21:1-9; Jer_38:2 ff); and then the princes accused Jeremiah of weakening the hands of the warriors by such words, and the weak prince left. Jeremiah in their hand, saying "the king cannot do anything against you."
So they cast him into Malchiah's dungeon, or cistern emptied of its water during the siege, the mire alone remaining (compare Zec_9:11 and the Antitype, Psa_69:2; Psa_69:14). An Ethiopian stranger, the eunuch Ebedmelech, saved the prophet whom his own countrymen tried to destroy. (See EBEDMELECH.) "Old cast clouts and rags" were used to raise him up (compare spiritually 1Co_1:27-29). Zedekiah again secretly consulted Jeremiah, taking him to the third or N. entry of the outer or inner temple court. Fear of the mocking of the Jewish deserters deterred him from following the prophet's counsel, that he should go forth to the Chaldees; by refusing he brought on himself, as Jeremiah foretold, the mocking not only of the deserters but even of his own concubines. Jeremiah stayed in the court of the prison until Jerusalem was taken. Nebuchadnezzar directed Nebuzaradan, and he gave him liberty to stay with the remnant or go to Babylon, and added "victuals and a reward."
Notwithstanding the wrongs he had received from his countrymen for 40 years, as a true patriot he stayed with the Jews under Gedaliah, the son of his friend Ahikam (Jeremiah 39-40). After Gedaliah's murder by Ishmael, Johanan first consulted Jeremiah as to going to Egypt with a foregone conclusion, then carried Jeremiah, in spite of the prophet's warning, to Egypt (Jeremiah 41-43). (See GEDALIAH; ISHMAEL; JOHANAN.) At Tahpanhes he foretold Egypt's overthrow (Jer_43:8-13), and tradition says he was stoned there (Pseudo Epiphanius; compare Heb_11:37). The Jews expected his reappearing as the forerunner of Messiah (Mat_16:14), "that prophet" (Joh_1:21). He in a true sense did forerun Messiah, foreseeing to his own "sweet" comfort (Jer_31:26) not only His conception by a "virgin," but His kingdom, first spiritual, whereby He is "the Lord our righteousness" (Jer_23:5-6), making the "new covenant," "remembering our sin no more," and "writing His law in our hearts" (Jer_31:22; Jer_31:31-34; Heb_8:8-12; Heb_10:16-17), then visible in Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel, in the last days (Jer_33:6-26; Jer_3:16-18).
Jeremiah wrote too an epistle to the exiles at Babylon, carried away with Jeconiah (Jeremiah 29), similar in form and style to the New Testament epistles, advising them to settle quietly in Babylon and pray for its peace, for the captivity must last 70 years. The portion of the nation remaining in Judah Jeremiah saw by the Spirit was the worst (Jeremiah 24), and would fare the worst. Early in Jehoiakim's reign (Jer_27:1) he had by symbolic yokes foretold Nebuchadnezzar's subjugation of Judah, etc. But the Syriac and Arabic versions make it likely "Zedekiah" ought to be read; so Jer_27:3; Jer_27:12; Jer 27:28:1. The false prophet Hananiah broke the yokes of wood; but Jehovah declared yokes of iron should be substituted, and that Hananiah should die; he accordingly died the seventh month of the same year. Jeremiah took advantage of the embassy sent by Zedekiah to send his letter to the captives (Jeremiah 29).
Even among the captives at Babylon were false prophets, Ahab, Zedekiah, and Shemaiah (the writer to Zephaniah at Jerusalem that he should imprison Jeremiah as "mad"), who held out delusive hopes of a speedy return. Therefore, Jeremiah announces their doom. Six whole years before Jerusalem's fall Jeremiah wrote the prophecy of Babylon's own doom, for Seraiah to take to Babylon when he went there on behalf of Zedekiah (margin, Jer_51:59-64), and therewith to console the captives. The Jews say, "the spirit of Jeremiah dwelt afterward in Zechariah"; Matthew (Jer_27:9) therefore quotes the words of Zechariah as Jeremiah's. His protests against the priests and prophets answer to our Lord's against the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23); his lamentations over his doomed country correspond to the Saviour's tears over Jerusalem.
The picture of his sufferings in Lam_1:12 is antitypically realized in Messiah alone. The subjective and the elegiac elements preponderate in him. His Hebrew is tinged, as was to be expected, with Chaldaism. Sheshach (which, on the Kabalistic system of making the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet express the first, would be Babel) is supposed to prove his using that mystic system (
Jer_25:26); but in Jer_51:41 there can be no design of concealment, for he mentions expressly Babylon; the word is rather from Shech the Babylonian goddess, during whose feast Cyrus took the city. Pathos and sympathy with the suffering are his characteristics. As Ezekiel views the nation's sins as opposed to righteousness, so Jeremiah as productive of misery. Ezekiel is as marked by firmness as Jeremiah is by delicate sensitiveness. His heaping of phrase on phrase, and repeating of stereotyped forms, are due to his affected feelings; but in the rhythmical parts, and against foreign nations, he is concise, sublime, and energetic. Division.-The various parts are prefaced by the formula, "The word which came to Jeremiah from Jehovah." Notes of time mark other divisions more or less historical. In the poetical parts there are 23 sections, divided into strophes of seven or nine verses, market by "Jehovah said also unto me. "The five books thus are:
I. Introduction: Jeremiah 1.
II. Reproofs of the Jews, seven sections, Jeremiah 2-24:
(1) Jeremiah 2;
(2) Jeremiah 3-4;
(3) Jeremiah 7-10,
(4) Jeremiah 11-13,
(5) Jeremiah 14-17,
(6) Jeremiah 18-20,
(7) Jeremiah 21-24.
III. Review of all nations, in two sections:
(1) Jeremiah 46-49.
(2) Jeremiah 25.
IV. Historical appendix, in three sections:
(1) Jer_34:1-7,
(2) Jer_34:8-22,
(3) Jeremiah 35.
V. Conclusion, in two sections:
(1) Jer_36:2, etc.,
(2) Jeremiah 45.
Subsequently in Egypt he added Jer_46:13-26 to his previous prophecy as to Egypt; also the three sections Jeremiah 37-39; Jeremiah 40-44. A later hand (see Jer_51:64) probably appended Jeremiah 52 from 2Ki_24:18 ff; Jer_25:30. Our Hebrew text seems the latest and fullest edition from Jeremiah's own hand. The Septuagint has a different order of the prophecies against foreign nations, Jeremiah 46-51 being placed after Jer_25:13-14. Probably these prophecies were repeated more than once; in the original smaller collection (for Septuagint omit much that is in the Hebrew) they stood early, in the fuller and later one they stood in their present position, and Jeremiah inserted then the clause of Jer_25:13, which implies that they existed in some other part of the book, "all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the nations."
It was in this very year (compare Jer_25:1 with Jer_36:1) that Jeremiah was directed to write in a regular book all he had prophesied from the first against Judah and foreign, nations. We saw above that Jeremiah 21; Jeremiah 35-36, are out of chronological order. The whole may be divided into (1) Jeremiah 1-45, concerning Israel; (2) Jeremiah 46-51, concerning the nations. Jeremiah 1-23, are prophetic as to Israel; Jeremiah 24-45. combine prophecy and history; Jeremiah 24-29, set forth Nebuchadnezzar as God's instrument of chastising Israel and the nations, irresistible for the time, submission the wisest policy, the exiles better in position than the people at home; Jeremiah 30-33, the most Messianic portion, sets forth Israel restored under Messiah reigning upon David's throne; Jeremiah 34-45, mainly historical, illustrating from the people's unbelief the need of God's judgments. The New Testament by quotations stamps Jeremiah's canonicity (Mat_2:17; Mat_16:14; Heb_8:8-12). Philo quotes Jeremiah as an "oracle." Melito, Origen, Jerome, and the Talmud similarly include it in the canon.
2. 2Ki_23:31.
3. 1Ch_12:4; 1Ch_12:10; 1Ch_12:13.
4. 1Ch_5:24.
5. Neh_10:2-8; Neh_12:1; Neh_12:34.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
Jeremi'ah. (whom Jehovah has appointed). Jeremiah was "the son of Hilkiah of the priests, that were in Anathoth." Jer_1:1.
I. History. ? He was called very young, (B.C. 626), to the prophetic office, and prophesied forty-two years; but we have hardly any mention of him during the eighteen years between his call and Josiah's death, or during the short reign of Jehoahaz.
During the reigns of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, B.C. 607-598, he opposed the Egyptian party, then dominant in Jerusalem, and maintained that the only way of safety lay in accepting the supremacy of the Chaldeans. He was accordingly accused of treachery, and men claiming to be prophets had the "word of Jehovah" to set against his. Jer_14:13; Jer_23:7.
As the danger from the Chaldeans became more threatening, the persecution against Jeremiah grew hotter. Jeremiah 18. The people sought his life; then follows the scene in Jer_19:10-13 he was set, however, "as a fenced brazen wall," Jer_15:20, and went on with his work, reproving king and nobles and people.
The danger which Jeremiah had so long foretold, at last came near. First Jehoiakim, and afterwards, his successor, Jehoiachin, were carried into exile, 2 Kings 24; but Zedekiah, B.C. 597-586, who was appointed by Nebuchadnezzar, was more friendly to the prophet, though powerless to help him.
The approach of an Egyptian army, and the consequent departure of the Chaldeans, made the position of Jeremiah full of danger, and he sought to effect his escape from the city; but he was seized and finally thrown into a prison-pit to die, but was rescued.
On the return of the Chaldean army, he showed his faith in God's promises, and sought to encourage the people by purchasing the field at Anathoth, which his kinsman Hanameel wished to get rid of. Jer_32:6-9 At last, the blow came. The city was taken, the Temple burnt. The king and his princes shared the fate of Jehoiachin. The prophet gave utterance to his sorrow in the Lamentations.
After the capture of Jerusalem, B.C. 586, by the Chaldeans, we find Jeremiah receiving better treatment; but after the death of Gedaliah, the people, disregarding his warnings, took refuge in Egypt, carrying the prophet with them. In captivity, his words were sharper and stronger than ever. He did not shrink, even there, from speaking of the Chaldean king, once more as "the servant of Jehovah." Jer_43:10. After this, all is uncertain, but he probably died in Egypt.
II. Character. ? Canon Cook says of Jeremiah, "His character is most interesting. We find him sensitive to a most painful degree, timid, shy, hopeless, desponding, constantly complaining and dissatisfied with the course of events, but never flinching from duty. Timid in resolve, he was unflinching in execution; as fearless when he had to face the whole world as he was dispirited and prone to murmuring when alone with God. Judged by his own estimate of himself, he was feeble, and his mission a failure; really, in the hour of action and when duty called him, he was in very truth 'a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land.' Jer_1:18. He was a noble example of the triumph of the moral over the physical nature."
(It is not strange that he was desponding, when we consider his circumstances. He saw the nation going straight to irremediable ruin, and turning a deaf ear to all warnings. "A reign of terror had commenced (in the preceding reign), during which not only the prophets but all who were distinguished for religion and virtue were cruelly murdered." "The nation tried to extirpate the religion of Jehovah;" "Idolatry was openly established," "and such was the universal dishonesty that no man trusted another, and society was utterly disorganized." How could one who saw the nation about to reap the awful harvest they had been sowing, and yet had a vision of what they might have been and might yet be, help indulging in "Lamentations"? ? Editor).
Seven other persons bearing the same name as the prophet are mentioned in the Old Testament: ?
1. Jeremiah of Libnah, father of Hamutal, wife of Josiah. 2Ki_23:31. (B.C. before 632).
2, 3, 4. Three warriors ? two of the tribe of Gad ? in David's army. 1Ch_12:4; 1Ch_12:10; 1Ch_12:13. (B.C. 1061-53).
5. One of the "mighty men of valor," of the TransJordanic half-tribe of Manasseh. 1Ch_5:24. (B.C. 782).
6. A priest of high rank, head of the second or third of the twenty-one courses, which are apparently enumerated in Neh_10:2-8; Neh_12:1; Neh_12:12. (B.C. 446-410).
7. The father of Jazaniah, the Rechabite. Jer_35:3. (B.C. before 606).
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
The Prophet Jeremiah was of the sacerdotal race, being, as he records himself, one of the priests that dwelt at Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin, a city appropriated out of that tribe to the use of the priests, the sons of Aaron, Jos_21:18, and situate, as we learn from St. Jerom, about three miles north of Jerusalem. Some have supposed his father to have been that Hilkah, the high priest, by whom the book of the law was found in the temple in the reign of Josiah: but for this there is no better ground than his having borne the same name, which was no uncommon one among the Jews; whereas, had he been in reality the high priest, he would doubtless have been mentioned by that distinguishing title, and not put upon a level with priests of an ordinary and inferior class. Jeremiah appears to have been very young when he was called to the exercise of the prophetical office, from which he modestly endeavoured to excuse himself by pleading his youth and incapacity; but being overruled by the divine authority, he set himself to discharge the duties of his function with unremitted diligence and fidelity during a period of at least forty-two years, reckoning from the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign. In the course of his ministry he met with great difficulties and opposition from his countrymen of all degrees, whose persecution and ill usage sometimes wrought so far upon his mind, as to draw from him expressions, in the bitterness of his soul, which many have thought hard to reconcile with his religious principles; but which, when duly considered, may be found to demand our pity for his unremitted sufferings, rather than our censure for any want of piety and reverence toward God. He was, in truth, a man of unblemished piety and conscientious integrity; a warm lover of his country, whose misery he pathetically deplores; and so affectionately attached to his countrymen, notwithstanding their injurious treatment of him, that he chose rather to abide with them, and undergo all hardships in their company, than separately to enjoy a state of ease and plenty, which the favour of the king of Babylon would have secured to him. At length, after the destruction of Jerusalem, being carried with the remnant of the Jews into Egypt, whither they had resolved to retire, though contrary to his advice, upon the murder of Gedaliah, whom the Chaldeans had left governor in Judea, he there continued warmly to remonstrate against their idolatrous practices, foretelling the consequences that would inevitably follow. But his freedom and zeal are said to have cost him his life; for the Jews at Tahpanhes, according to tradition, took such offence at him that they stoned him to death. This account of the manner of his end, though not absolutely certain, is at least very probable, considering the temper and disposition of the parties concerned. Their wickedness, however, did not long pass without its reward; for, in a few years after, they were miserably destroyed, by the Babylonian armies which invaded Egypt according to the prophet's prediction, Jer_44:27-28.
The idolatrous apostasy, and other criminal enormities of the people of Judah, and the severe judgments which God was prepared to inflict upon them, but not without a distant prospect of future restoration and deliverance, are the principal subject matters of the prophecies of Jeremiah; excepting only the forty-fifth chapter, which relates personally to Baruch, and the six succeeding chapters, which respect the fortunes of some particular Heathen nations. It is observable, however, that though many of these prophecies have their particular dates annexed to them, and other dates may be tolerably well conjectured from certain internal marks and circumstances, there appears much disorder in the arrangement, not easy to be accounted for on any principle of regular design, but probably the result of some accident or other, which has disturbed the original order. The best arrangement of the chapters appears to be according to the list which will be subjoined; the different reigns in which the prophecies were delivered were most probably as follows: The first twelve chapters seem to contain all the prophecies delivered in the reign of the good King Josiah. During the short reign of Shallum, or Jehoahaz, his second son, who succeeded him, Jeremiah does not appear to have had any revelation. Jehoiakim, the eldest son of Josiah, succeeded. The prophecies of this reign are continued on from the thirteenth to the twentieth chapter inclusively; to which we must add the twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth chapters, together with the forty-fifth, forty- sixth, forty-seventh, and most probably the forty-eighth, and as far as the thirty-fourth verse of the forty-ninth chapter. Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, succeeded. We read of no prophecy that Jeremiah actually delivered in this king's reign; but the fate of Jeconiah, his being carried into captivity, and continuing an exile till the time of his death, were foretold early in his father's reign, as may be particularly seen in the twenty-second chapter. The last king of Judah was Zedekiah, the youngest son of Josiah. The prophecies delivered in his reign are contained in the twenty-first and twenty-fourth chapters, the twenty-seventh to the thirty-fourth, and the thirty-seventh to the thirty-ninth inclusively, together with the last six verses of the forty-ninth chapter, and the fiftieth and fifty-first chapters concerning the fall of Babylon. The siege of Jerusalem, in the reign of Zedekiah, and the capture of the city, are circumstantially related in the fifty-second chapter; and a particular account of the subsequent transactions is given in the fortieth to the forty-fourth inclusively. The arrangement of the chapters, alluded to above, is here subjoined: 1-20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 35, 36, 45, 24, 29-31, 27, 28, 21, 34, 37, 32, 33, 38, 39, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth verse, 39, from the first to the fourteenth verse, 40-44, 46, and so on.
The prophecies of Jeremiah, of which the circumstantial accomplishment is often specified in the Old and New Testament, are of a very distinguished and illustrious character. He foretold the fate of Zedekiah, Jer_34:2-5; 2Ch_36:11-21; 2Ki_25:5; Jer_52:11; the Babylonish captivity, the precise time of its duration, and the return of the Jews. He describes the destruction of Babylon, and the downfall of many nations, Jer_25:12; Jer_9:26; Jer_25:19-25; Jer_42:10-18; Jeremiah 46, and the following chapters, in predictions, of which the gradual and successive completion kept up the confidence of the Jews for the accomplishment of those prophecies, which he delivered relative to the Messiah and his period, Jer_23:5-6; Jer_30:9; Jer_31:15; Jer_32:14-18; Jer_33:9-26. He foreshowed the miraculous conception of Christ, Jer_31:22, the virtue of his atonement, the spiritual character of his covenant, and the inward efficacy of his laws, Jer_31:31-36; Jer_33:8. Jeremiah, contemplating those calamities which impended over his country, represented, in the most descriptive terms, and under the most impressive images, the destruction that the invading enemy should produce. He bewailed, in pathetic expostulation, the shameless adulteries which had provoked the Almighty, after long forbearance, to threaten Judah with inevitable punishment, at the time that false prophets deluded the nation with the promises of assured peace, and when the people, in impious contempt of the Lord's word, defied its accomplishment. Jeremiah intermingles with his prophecies some historical relations relative to his own conduct, and to the completion of those predictions which he had delivered. The reputation of Jeremiah had spread among foreign nations, and his prophecies were deservedly celebrated in other countries. Many Heathen writers also have undesignedly borne testimony to the truth and accuracy of his prophetic and historical descriptions.
As to the style of Jeremiah, says Bishop Lowth, this prophet is by no means wanting either in elegance or sublimity, although, generally speaking, inferior to Isaiah in both. His thoughts, indeed, are somewhat less elevated, and he is commonly more large and diffuse in his sentences; but the reason of this may be, that he is mostly taken up with the gentler passions of grief and pity, for the expression of which he has a peculiar talent. This is most evident in the Lamentations, where those passions altogether predominate; but it is often visible also in his prophecies, in the former part of the book more especially, which is principally poetical: the middle parts are chiefly historical; but the last part, consisting of six chapters, is entirely poetical, and contains several oracles distinctly marked, in which this prophet falls very little short of the lofty style of Isaiah. But of the whole book of Jeremiah it is hardly the one half which I look upon as poetical.
Jeremiah survived to behold the sad accomplishment of all his darkest predictions. He witnessed all the horrors of the famine, and, when that had done its work, the triumph of the enemy. He saw the strong holds of the city cast down, the palace of Solomon, the temple of God, with all its courts, its roofs of cedar and of gold, levelled to the earth, or committed to the flames; the sacred vessels, the ark of the covenant itself, with the cherubim, pillaged by profane hands. What were the feelings of a patriotic and religious Jew at this tremendous crisis, he has left on record in his unrivalled elegies. Never did city suffer a more miserable fate, never was ruined city lamented in language so exquisitely pathetic. Jerusalem is, as it were, personified, and bewailed with the passionate sorrow of private and domestic attachment; while the more general pictures of the famine, the common misery of every rank, and age, and sex, all the desolation, the carnage, the violation, the dragging away into captivity, the remembrance of former glories, of the gorgeous ceremonies and the glad festivals, the awful sense of the divine wrath heightening the present calamities, are successively drawn with all the life and reality of an eye-witness. They combine the truth of history with the deepest pathos of poetry.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
Among the Old Testament prophets, Jeremiah is the one who reveals more personal details than anyone else. Like all the prophets he declared his opposition to false religious practices, wrong social behaviour and foolish government policies, but above all his writings display the unhappiness that was a feature of much of his life. This unhappiness resulted partly from his unpopularity with the community in general, but his greatest distress came from a feeling that God had been unfair to him.
We can understand Jeremiahs problems only as we see them against the background of conditions in Judah as set out in his book. Since the messages and events detailed in the book are not in chronological order, the following outline of events may help towards an understanding of the man and his work.
Forty years of preaching
Jeremiah began his prophetic work in 627 BC, the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, king of Judah (Jer_1:1-2). Josiah had carried out sweeping reforms, firstly to remove all the idolatrous and immoral practices that had become deeply rooted in Judah over the previous generations, then to re-establish the true worship of Yahweh (2 Kings 22; 2Ki_23:1-25). Jeremiah saw that in spite of the kings good work, little had changed in peoples hearts. Judah was heading for terrible judgment. (Jeremiah Chapters 1-6, and possible parts of Chapters 7-20, seem to belong to the early period of Jeremiahs preaching.)
Meanwhile to the north, Babylon was growing in power, and with its conquest of Assyria in 612 BC, it established itself as the leading nation in the region. When Egypt, the leading nation to Judahs south, decided to challenge Babylon, Josiah tried to stop the Egyptians from passing through Palestine and was killed in battle (609 BC; 2Ki_23:28-30). Considering itself now the master of Judah, Egypt removed Jehoahaz, the new Judean king, and made his older brother Jehoiakim king instead (2Ki_23:31-37).
Jehoiakim was a cruel and ungodly ruler. He opposed Jeremiah because of his condemnation of Judahs sins and his forecasts of its destruction (Jer_22:13-19; Jer_26:1-6; Jer_26:20-24; Jeremiah 36). (Much of Jeremiah Chapters 7-20, along with Chapters 22, 23, 25, 26, 35, 36 and 45, belong to the time of Jehoiakim.)
When Babylon conquered Egypt at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC (Jer_46:2), it thereby gained control of Judah and took selected Jerusalemites captive to Babylon (Dan_1:1-6). When Jehoiakim later tried to become independent of Babylon, the Babylonian army, under Nebuchadnezzar, besieged Jerusalem. Jehoiakim died during the siege, and three months later his son and successor Jehoiachin surrendered. Jehoiachin and most of the useful people were then taken captive to Babylon. The Babylonians appointed Zedekiah, another brother of Jehoiakim, as the new king (597 BC; 2Ki_24:8-17).
Jeremiah and Zedekiah were constantly in conflict. Jeremiah assured Zedekiah that Babylons overlordship was Gods judgment on Judah for its sin. Judah should therefore accept its punishment and submit to Babylon. To resist would only bring invasion, siege, starvation, bloodshed and captivity (2Ki_24:18-20; Jer_21:1-10; Jeremiah 24; Jer_27:12-22; Jer_28:12-14).
The opponents of Jeremiah assured Zedekiah that with the help of Egypt he could overthrow Babylonian rule. Foolishly, Zedekiah followed their advice instead of Jeremiahs, and brought upon Judah a long and devastating siege. In the end Babylon destroyed the city and its temple, and took the king, along with all remaining useful citizens, into foreign captivity (587 BC; 2Ki_25:1-21; Jer_32:1-5; Jer_32:28-29; Jer_33:1-5; Jer_37:16-17; Jer_38:17-18; Jer_39:1-10). (The parts of Jeremiah that deal largely with the reign of Zedekiah are Chapters 21, 24, 27-34, 37-39 and 52.)
On more than one occasion during this long crisis Jeremiah was imprisoned (Jer_32:2; Jer_37:15; Jer_37:20-21; Jer_38:1-6; Jer_38:13; Jer_38:28). Upon conquering the city, the victorious Babylonians released him and gave him full freedom to decide where he would like to live, Babylon or Judah. Jeremiah decided to stay in Judah. The Babylonians placed him under the protection of Gedaliah, the Jewish governor whom they had appointed over the Judeans left in the land (2Ki_25:22; Jer_39:13-14; Jer_40:4-6).
Sadly, Gedaliah was murdered by some Judeans who were still opposed to Babylon (2Ki_25:25; Jer_40:13-16; Jeremiah 41). The remaining Judeans then fled for safety to Egypt, taking an unwilling Jeremiah with them (2Ki_25:26; Jeremiah 42; Jer_43:1-7). Jeremiah warned that they would not escape Gods punishment by fleeing to Egypt, but, as always, the people refused to heed the message (Jer_43:8-13; Jeremiah 44). The Bible records nothing further of Jeremiahs life, though one tradition says that the Judeans in Egypt later stoned him to death. (The period of Gedaliahs governorship and the Judeans flight to Egypt is dealt with in Jeremiah Chapters 40-44.)
Jeremiahs personal life
From the book of Jeremiah we learn much about the prophets personal life. It appears that he was only about twenty years of age when he began his prophetic preaching (1:6). Apparently he never married (16:2) and for much of his life he had few friends (20:7). His family opposed him (12:6) and the people of his home town plotted to kill him (11:19,21). The common people of Jerusalem cursed him (15:10), false prophets ridiculed him (28:10-11; 29:24-28), priests stopped him from entering the temple (36:5) and the civil authorities plotted evil against him (36:26; 38:4-6).
In addition to being imprisoned, Jeremiah was at times flogged (20:2; 37:15) and often threatened with death (11:21; 26:7-9; 38:15). On occasions, however, certain people in positions of influence gained protection for him against his persecutors (26:24; 38:7-13; 40:5-6).
There can be no doubt that Jeremiah loved his people and his country (8:18-22; 9:1-2; 14:19-22). It almost broke his heart to have to announce his countrys overthrow and urge his countrymen to submit to the enemy (4:19-22; 10:17-21; 14:17-18; 17:16-17). He was deeply hurt when people accused him of being a traitor (37:13; 38:1-6), for his great longing was that the people heed his warnings and so avoid the threatened destruction (7:5-7; 13:15-17; 26:16-19; 36:1-3).
Jeremiah wished for peace, but he knew there could be no peace as long as the people continued in their sin. The false prophets, on the other hand, assured the people of peace, knowing that messages that pleased the hearers brought good financial rewards (6:13; 8:11). Jeremiah knew that the peoples hopes would be disappointed, but this gave him no satisfaction, only greater distress (7:1-15; 14:13-18; 23:9).
Although it hurt Jeremiah to have to announce judgments on his own people, he did it faithfully as Gods messenger (20:8-10). When the people responded with hatred and violence (11:19; 18:18), Jeremiah complained to God bitterly. He accused God of being unfair in giving him a cruel reward for his devoted loyalty (12:1-4; 15:10-12,17-18; 20:14-18). God rebuked Jeremiah for his self-pity, though he also strengthened him to meet further troubles. As long as Judah remained faithless, Jeremiah could expect opposition (12:5-6).
These experiences emphasized to Jeremiah the importance of an individuals personal relationship with God. Those who sincerely sought God found him; those who had no personal fellowship with God did not know him, no matter how outwardly religious they might have been (23:21-22). Jeremiah looked beyond the captivity to a day when there would be a new covenant between God and his people. This would be a covenant characterized not by a communitys conformity to religious laws, but by an individuals personal relationship with God (31:31-34).
Outline of the book
The first six chapters of the book deal with the main features of Jeremiahs early ministry: his call to be a prophet (1:1-19); his denunciation of Judah for its unfaithfulness, idolatry and immorality (2:1-3:5); his demand for true, inward repentance (3:6-4:4); and his warning of the coming destruction of Jerusalem (4:5-6:30).
Chapters 7-20 record incidents and messages which, in general, demonstrate the sinful condition of Judah and, in particular, Jerusalem. Three topics are prominent in this section. The first concerns Judahs widespread sin and its certain punishment (7:1-8:17; 11:1-23; 16:1-17:13). The second concerns the approaching judgment on the capital city, Jerusalem (8:18-10:25; 13:1-15:9; 18:1-20:6). The third concerns Jeremiahs inner conflicts and his complaints to God (12:1-17; 15:10-21; 17:14-27; 20:7-18).
After this come five chapters of warnings. There are warnings to rulers, such as Zedekiah (21:1-10; 24:1-10), kings in general (21:11-22:9), Jehoahaz (Shallum), Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin (Coniah) (22:10-30). There are additional warnings to lying prophets (23:9-40), and messages concerning Gods control over the destinies of nations (23:1-8; 25:1-38).
Prophecies of captivity and return (Chapters 26-36) include a warning to the Jerusalemites to submit to Babylon or be destroyed (26:1-28:17); an assurance to those already in exile that there is no hope for an immediate return to Jerusalem (29:1-32); the promise of a new age after the nations restoration (30:1-33:26); and guarantees that though treachery and rebellion will be punished, fidelity will be rewarded (34:1-36:32).
A unit of eight chapters then traces events in chronological sequence from the final siege of Jerusalem to the settlement of the Jews in Egypt: Jeremiahs imprisonment and rescue (37:1-38:28); the fall of Jerusalem (39:1-18); the appointment of Gedaliah and his brutal assassination (40:1-41:18); the migration to Egypt (42:1-43:7); and Jeremiahs message to the Jews in Egypt (43:8-44:30). An earlier message for Jeremiahs secretary, Baruch, is also recorded (45:1-5).
Finally there is a collection of messages for foreign nations: Egypt (46:1-28), Philistia (47:1-7), Moab and Ammon (48:1-49:6), Edom (49:7-22), Damascus, Kedar, Hazor and Elam (49:23-39), and Babylon (50:1-51:64). An historical appendix details matters relating to the fall of Jerusalem (52:1-34).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
Jeremi?ah (raised up or appointed by God), was the son of Hilkiah, a priest of Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin [ANATHOTH]. Jeremiah was very young when the word of the Lord first came to him (Jer_1:6). This event took place in the thirteenth year of Josiah (B.C. 629), while the youthful prophet still lived at Anathoth. It would seem that he remained in his native city several years, but at length, in order to escape the persecution of his fellow townsmen (Jer_11:21), and even of his own family (Jer_12:6), as well as to have a wider field for his exertions, he left Anathoth and took up his residence at Jerusalem. The finding of the book of the law five years after the commencement of his predictions, must have produced a powerful influence on the mind of Jeremiah, and king Josiah no doubt found him a powerful ally in carrying into effect the reformation of religious worship (2Ki_23:1-25). During the reign of this monarch we may readily believe that Jeremiah would be in no way molested in his work; and that from the time of his quitting Anathoth to the eighteenth year of his ministry, he probably uttered his warnings without interruption, though with little success (see Jeremiah 11). Indeed, the reformation itself was nothing more than the forcible repression of idolatrous and heathen rites, and the re-establishment of the external service of God, by the command of the king. No sooner, therefore, was the influence of the court on behalf of the true religion withdrawn, than it was evident that no real improvement had taken place in the minds of the people. Jeremiah, who hitherto was at least protected by the influence of the pious king Josiah, soon became the object of attack, as he must doubtless have long been the object of dislike to those whose interests were identified with the corruptions of religion. We hear nothing of the prophet during the three months which constituted the short reign of Jehoahaz; but 'in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim' the prophet was interrupted in his ministry by 'the priests and the prophets,' who with the populace brought him before the civil authorities, urging that capital punishment should be inflicted on him for his threatenings of evil on the city unless the people amended their ways (Jeremiah 26). The princes seem to have been in some degree aware of the results which the general corruption was bringing on the state, and if they did not themselves yield to the exhortations of the prophet, they acknowledged that he spoke in the name of the Lord, and were quite averse from so openly renouncing His authority as to put His messenger to death. It appears, however, that it was rather owing to the personal influence of one or two, especially Ahikam, than to any general feeling favorable to Jeremiah, that his life was preserved. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (B.C. 606) he was commanded to write the predictions which had been given through him, and to read them to the people. As he was at that time 'shut up,' and could not himself go into the house of the Lord (Jer_36:5), he deputed Baruch to write the predictions after him, and to read them publicly on the fast-day. These threatenings being thus anew made public, Baruch was summoned before the princes to give an account of the manner in which the roll containing them had come into his possession. The princes, who, without strength of principle to oppose the wickedness of the king, had sufficient respect for religion, as well as sagacity enough to discern the importance of listening to the voice of God's prophet, advised both Baruch and Jeremiah to conceal themselves, while they endeavored to influence the mind of the king by reading the roll to him. The result showed that their precautions were not needless. The bold self-will and reckless daring of the monarch refused to listen to any advice, even though coming with the professed sanction of the Most High. Having read three or four leaves, 'he cut the roll with the penknife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed,' and gave immediate orders for the apprehension of Jeremiah and Baruch, who, however, were both preserved from the vindictive monarch. Of the history of Jeremiah during the eight or nine remaining years of the reign of Jehoiakim we have no certain account. At the command of God he procured another roll, in which he wrote all that was in the roll destroyed by the king, 'and added besides unto them many like words' (Jer_36:32). In the short reign of his successor Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, we find him still uttering his voice of warning (see Jer_13:18; comp. 2Ki_24:12, and Jer_23:24-30), though without effect. It was probably either during this reign, or at the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, that he was put in confinement by Pashur, the 'chief governor of the house of the Lord.' He seems, however, soon to have been liberated, as we find that 'they had not put him into prison' when the army of Nebuchadnezzar commenced the siege of Jerusalem. The Chaldeans drew off their army for a time, on the report of help coming from Egypt to the besieged city; and now feeling the danger to be imminent, and yet a ray of hope brightening their prospects, the king entreated Jeremiah to pray to the Lord for them. The hopes of the king were not responded to in the message which Jeremiah received from God. He was assured that the Egyptian army should return to their own land, that the Chaldeans should come again, and that they should take the city and burn it with fire (Jer_36:7-8). The princes, apparently irritated by a message so contrary to their wishes, made the departure of Jeremiah from the city, during the short respite, the pretext for accusing him of deserting to the Chaldeans, and he was forthwith cast into prison. The king seems to have been throughout inclined to favor the prophet, and sought to know from him the word of the Lord; but he was wholly under the influence of the princes, and dared not communicate with him except in secret (Jer_38:14; Jer_38:28); much less could he follow advice so obnoxious to their views as that which the prophet gave. Jeremiah, therefore, more from the hostility of the princes than the inclination of the king, was still in confinement when the city was taken. Nebuchadnezzar formed a more just estimate of his character and of the value of his counsels, and gave a special charge to his captain Nebuzaradan, not only to provide for him but to follow his advice (Jer_39:12). He was accordingly taken from the prison and allowed free choice either to go to Babylon, where doubtless he would have been held in honor in the royal court, or to remain with his own people. We need scarcely be told that he who had devoted more than forty years of unrequited service to the welfare of his falling country should choose to remain with the remnant of his people rather than seek the precarious fame which might await him at the court of the king of Babylon. Accordingly he went to Mizpah with Gedaliah, whom the Babylonian monarch had appointed governor of Judea; and after his murder sought to persuade Johanan, who was then the recognized leader of the people, to remain in the land, assuring him and the people, by a message from God in answer to their inquiries, that if they did so the Lord would build them up, but if they went to Egypt the evils which they sought to escape should come upon them there (Jeremiah 42). The people refused to attend to the divine message, and under the command of Johanan went into Egypt, taking Jeremiah and Baruch along with them (Jer_43:6). In Egypt the prophet still sought to turn the people to the Lord, from whom they had so long and so deeply revolted (Jeremiah 44); but his writings give us no subsequent information respecting his personal history. Ancient traditions assert that he spent the remainder of his life in Egypt. According to the pseudo-Epiphanius he was stoned by the people at Taphnae, the same as Tahpanhes, where the Jews were settled. It is said that his bones were removed by Alexander the Great to Alexandria.
Jeremiah was contemporary with Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, and Daniel. None of these, however, are in any remarkable way connected with him, except Ezekiel. The writings and character of these two eminent prophets furnish many very interesting points both of comparison and contrast. Both, during a long series of years, were laboring at the same time and for the same object. The representations of both, far separated as they were from each other, are in substance singularly accordant; yet there is at the same time a marked difference in their modes of statement, and a still more striking diversity in the character and natural disposition of the two. No one who compares them can fail to perceive that the mind of Jeremiah was of a softer and more delicate texture than that of his illustrious contemporary. His whole history convinces us that he was by nature mild and retiring, highly susceptible and sensitive, especially to sorrowful emotions, and rather inclined, as we should imagine, to shrink from danger than to brave it. Yet, with this acute perception of injury, and natural repugnance from being 'a man of strife,' he never in the least degree shrinks from publicity; nor is he at all intimidated by reproach or insult, or even by actual punishment and threatened death, when he has the message of God to deliver. He is, in truth, as remarkable an instance, though in a different way, of the overpowering influence of the divine energy, as Ezekiel. The one presents the spectacle of the power of divine inspiration acting on a mind naturally of the firmest texture, and at once subduing to itself every element of the soul; while the other furnishes an example, not less memorable, of moral courage sustained by the same divine inspiration against the constantly opposing influence of a love of retirement and strong susceptibility to impressions of outward evil.
The style of Jeremiah corresponds with this view of the character of his mind; though not deficient in power, it is peculiarly marked by pathos. He delights in the expression of the tender emotions, and employs all the resources of his imagination to excite corresponding feelings in his readers. He has an irresistible sympathy with the miserable, which finds utterance in the most touching descriptions of their condition. He seizes with wonderful tact those circumstances which point out the objects of his pity as the objects of sympathy, and founds his expostulations on the miseries which are thus exhibited. His book of Lamentations is an astonishing exhibition of his power to accumulate images of sorrow. The whole series of elegies has but one object?the expression of sorrow for the forlorn condition of his country; and yet he presents this to us in so many lights, alludes to it by so many figures, that not only are his mournful strains not felt to be tedious reiterations, but the reader is captivated by the plaintive melancholy which pervades the whole.
The genuineness and canonicity of the writings of Jeremiah in general are established both by the testimony of ancient writers, and by quotations and references which occur in the New Testament.
The principal predictions relating to the Messiah are found in Jer_23:1-8; Jer_31:31-40; Jer_33:14-26.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Jeremiah
(Heb. Yirmeyah', יַרְמְיָה, often in the paragogic form יַרְמְיָהוּ, Yirmeya'hu, especially in the book of Jeremiah; raised up [i.e. appointed] by Jehovah; Sept. and N.T. Ι᾿ερεμίας; Jeremias, Mat_16:14; Jeremy, Mat_2:17; Mat_27:9; but in this last passage it probably occurs only by error of copyists; see Zec_11:12-13), the name of eight or nine men.
1. The fifth in rank of the Gadite braves who joined David's troop in the wilderness (1Ch_12:10). B.C. 1061.
2. The tenth of the same band of adventurers (1Ch_12:13). B.C. 1061.
3. One of the Benjamite bowmen and slingers who repaired to David while at Ziklag (1Ch_12:4). B.C. 1053.
4. A chief of the tribe of Manasseh east, apparently about the time of the deportation by the Assyrians (1Ch_5:24). B.C. 782.
5. A native of Libnah, the father of Hamutal, wife of Josiah, and mother of Jehoahaz and Zedekiah (2Ki_23:31; 2Ki_24:18). B.C. ante 632.
6. Son of Habaziniah, and father of Jaazaniah, which last was one of the Rechabites whom the prophet tested with the offer of wine (Jer_35:3). B.C. ante 606.
7. The second of the greater prophets of the O.T., a son of Hilkiah, a priest of Anathoth, in the tribe of Benjamin (Jer_1:1; comp. 32:6). The following brief account of the prophet's career, which is fully detailed in his own book, is chiefly from Kitto's Cyclopoedia. I. Relatives of Jeremiah. Many (among ancient writers, Clement. Alex., Jerome; among moderns, Eichhorn, Calovius, Maldonatus, Von Bohlen, etc.) have supposed that his father was the high priest of the same name (2Ki_22:8), who found the book of the law in the eighteenth year of Josiah (Umbreit, Praktischer Commentar über den Jeremia, p. 10). This, however, seems improbable on several grounds (see Carpzov, Introd. 3, 130; also Keil, Ewald, etc.): first, there is nothing in the writings of Jeremiah to lead us to think that his father was more than an ordinary priest (Hilkiah [one] of the priests, Jer_1:1); again, the name Hilkiah was common among the Jews (see 2Ki_18:13; 1Ch_6:45; 1Ch_26:11; Neh_8:4; Jer_29:3); and, lastly, his residence at Anathoth is evidence that he belonged to the line of Abiathar (1Ki_2:26-35), who was deposed from the high priest's office by Solomon: after which time the office appears to have remained in the line of Zadok.
II. History. Jeremiah was very young when the word of the Lord first came to him (Jer_1:6). This event took place in the thirteenth year of Josiah (B.C. 628), while the youthful prophet still lived at Anathoth. It would seem that he remained in his native city several years; but at length, in order to escape the persecution of his fellow townsmen (Jer_11:21), and even of his own family (Jer_12:6), as well as to have a wider field for his exertions, he left Anathoth and took up his residence at Jerusalem. The finding of the book of the Law, five years after the commencement of his predictions, must have produced a powerful influence on the mind of Jeremiah, and king Josiah no doubt found him an important ally in carrying into effect the reformation of religious worship (2Ki_23:1-25), B.C. 623. During the reign of this monarch, we may readily believe that Jeremiah would be in no way molested in his work; and that from the time of his quitting Anathoth to the eighteenth year of his ministry, he probably uttered his warnings without interruption, though with little success (see Jeremiah 11). Indeed, the reformation itself was nothing more than the forcible repression of idolatrous and heathen rites, and the reestablishment of the external service of God, by the command of the king. No sooner, therefore, was the influence of the court on behalf of the true religion withdrawn, than it was evident that no real improvement had taken place in the minds of the people. Jeremiah, who hitherto was at least protected by the influence of the pious king Josiah, soon became the object of attack, as he must doubtless have long been the object of dislike to those whose interests were identified with the corruptions of religion. The death of this prince was bewailed by the prophet as the precursor of the divine judgments for the national sins (2Ch_35:25). B.C. 609. SEE LAMENTATIONS.
We hear nothing of the prophet during the three months which constituted the short reign of Jehoahaz; but in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim (B.C. 607) the prophet was interrupted in his ministry by the priests and the prophets, who, with the populace, brought him before the civil authorities, urging that capital punishment should be inflicted on him for his threatenings of evil on the city unless the people amended their ways (Jeremiah 26). The princes seem to have been in some degree aware of the results which the general corruption was bringing on the state, and if they did not themselves yield to the exhortations of the prophet, they acknowledged that he spoke in the name of the Lord, and were quite averse from so openly renouncing his authority as to put his messenger to death. It appears, however, that it was rather owing to the personal influence of one or two, especially Ahikam, than to any general feeling favorable to Jeremiah, that his life was preserved; and it would seem that he was then either placed under restraint, or else was in so much danger from the animosity of his adversaries as to make it prudent for him not to appear in public. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (B.C. 605) he was commanded to write the predictions which had been given through him, and to read them to the people. From the cause, probably, which we have intimated above, he was, as he says, shut up, and could not himself go into the house of the Lord (Jer_36:5). He therefore deputed Baruch to write the predictions after him, and to read them publicly on the fast day. These threatenings being thus anew made public, Baruch was summoned before the princes to give an account of the manner in which the roll containing them had come into his possession.
The princes, who, without strength of principle to oppose the wickedness of the king, had sufficient respect for religion, as well as sagacity enough to discern the importance of listening to the voice of God's prophet, advised both Baruch and Jeremiah to conceal themselves, while they endeavored to influence the mind of the king by reading the roll to him. The result showed that their precautions were not needless. In his bold self will and reckless daring the monarch refused to listen to any advice, even though coming with the professed sanction of the Most High. Having read three or four leaves, he cut the roll with the penknife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed, and gave immediate orders for the apprehension of Jeremiah and Baruch, who, however, were both preserved from the vindictive monarch. At the command of God the prophet procured another roll, in which he wrote all that was in the roll destroyed by the king, and added besides unto them many like words (Jer_36:32). SEE BARUCH.
Near the close of the reign of Jehoiakim (B.C. 599), and during the short reign of his successor Jehoiachin or Jeconiah (B.C. 598), we find him still uttering his voice of warning (see Jer_13:18; comp. 2Ki_24:12, and Jer_22:24-30), though without effect; and, after witnessing the downfall of the monarchs which he had himself predicted, he sent a letter of condolence and hope to those who shared the captivity of the royal family (Jeremiah 29-31). It was not till the latter part of the reign of Zedekiah that he was put in confinement, as we find that they had not put him into prison when the army of Nebuchadnezzar commenced the siege of Jerusalem (Jer_37:4-5) (B.C. 589). On the investment of the city, the prophet had sent a message to the king declaring what would be the fatal issue, but this had so little effect that the slaves who had been liberated were again reduced to bondage by their fellow citizens (Jeremiah 34). Jeremiah himself was incarcerated in the court of the prison adjoining the palace, where he predicted the certain return from the impending captivity (Jer_32:33). The Chaldaeans drew off their army for a time on the report of help coming from Egypt to the besieged city, and now, feeling the danger to be imminent, and yet a ray of hope brightening their prospects, the king entreated Jeremiah to pray to the Lord for them. The hopes of the king were not responded to in the message which Jeremiah received from God. He was assured that the Egyptian army would return to their own land, that the Chaldaeans would come again, and that they would take the city and burn it with fire (Jer_37:7-8).
The princes, apparently irritated by a message so contrary to their wishes, made the departure of Jeremiah from the city (for he appears to have been at this time released from confinement), during the short respite, the pretext for accusing him of deserting to the Chaldaeans, and he was forthwith cast into prison, where he might have perished but for the humanity of one of the royal eunuchs (Jer_37:12 to Jer_38:13). The king seems to have been throughout inclined to favor the prophet, and sought to know from him the word of the Lord; but he was wholly under the influence of the princes, and dared not communicate with him except in secret (Jer_38:14-28), much less could he follow advice so obnoxious to their views as that which the prophet gave. Jeremiah, therefore, more from the hostility of the princes than the inclination of the king, was still in confinement when the city was taken, B.C. 588. Nebuchadnezzar formed a more just estimate of his character and of the value of his counsels and gave a special charge to his captain, Nebuzar- adan, not only to provide for him, but to follow his advice (Jer_39:12). He was accordingly taken from the prison and allowed free choice either to go to Babylon, where doubtless he would have been held in honor in the royal court, or to remain with his own people (B.C. 587). With characteristic patriotism he went to Mizpah with Gedaliah, whom the Babylonian monarch had appointed governor of Judea, and, after his murder, sought to persuade Johanan, who was then the recognized leader of the people, to remain in the land, assuring him and the people, by a message from God in answer to their inquiries, that, if they did so, the Lord would build them up, but if they went to Egypt, the evils which they sought to escape should come upon them there (Jeremiah 42). The people refused to attend to the divine message, and, under the command of Johanan, went into Egypt. taking Jeremiah and Baruch along with them (Jer_43:6). In Egypt the prophet still sought to turn the people to the Lord, from whom they had so long and so deeply revolted (Jeremiah 44), but his writings give us no subsequent information respecting his personal history. Ancient traditions assert that he spent the remainder of his life in Egypt. According to the pseudo-Epiphanius, he was stoned by the people at Taphnae (ἐν Τάφναις), the same as Tahpanhes, where the Jews were settled (De Vitis Prophet. 2, 239, quoted by Fabricius, Codex Pseudepigraphus V.T. 1, 1110). It is said that his bones were removed by Alexander the Great to Alexandria (Carpzov, Introd. pt. 3, p. 138, where other traditions respecting him may be found).
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.