Jeremiah

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Jeremiah. 1. A warrior of the tribe of Gad, fifth in reputation (  1 Chronicles 12:10 ). 2. The tenth in reputation (  1 Chronicles 12:13 ) of the same Gadite band. 3. A bowman and slinger of the tribe of Benjamin (  1 Chronicles 12:4 ). 4. The head of a family in E.Manasseh (  1 Chronicles 5:24 ). 5. A Jew of Libnah, whose daughter, Hamutal or Hamital, was one of the wives of Josiah, and mother of Jehoahaz (  2 Kings 23:31 ) and Zedekiah (  2 Kings 24:18 ,   Jeremiah 52:1 ). 6. The son of Habazziniah and father of Jaazaniah, the head of the Rechabites (  Jeremiah 35:3 ) in the time of the prophet   Jeremiah 7:1-34 . A priest who returned with Zerubbabel (  Nehemiah 12:1 ). His name was given to one of the twenty-two courses of priests (  Ezra 2:38-39 ,   Nehemiah 7:39-42;   Nehemiah 12:13 ). 8. A priest who sealed the covenant (  Nehemiah 10:2 ) and took part in the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem (  Nehemiah 12:34 ). 9. The prophet. See next article.

Jeremiah

1. The times . Jeremiah the prophet was born towards the close of Manasseh’s long and evil reign ( c [Note: circa, about.] . b.c. 696 641), the influence of which overshadowed his life (  Jeremiah 15:4 ,   2 Kings 23:26 ). He prophesied under Josiah and his sons from the year 626 to the fall of Jerusalem in b.c. 586 (  2 Kings 1:2 f.), and for some short time after this until he vanishes from sight amongst the fugitive Jews in Egypt (chs. 40 44).

Through Josiah’s minority (see Josiah) the ethnicizing régime of Manasseh continued; Jeremiah’s earliest preaching (chs. 2 6), 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 Israel’s world, is in rapid decline, and is threatened by the new Median State on its eastern border; Nahum (wh. see) had already celebrated Nineveh’s downfall in his splendid verses. The Assyrian capital was saved for the time by the irruption of the Scythian nomads (Ezekiel’s 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 (  2 Kings 22:2;   2 Kings 23:15-20 ,   2 Chronicles 35:20 ). The Pharaoh pointedly calls him ‘thou king of Judah,’ as if bidding him keep within his bounds (  2 Chronicles 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 (  Jeremiah 22:15-17 ).

The great event of Josiah’s 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 ( 2 Kings 22:8 to   2 Kings 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 Israel’s 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 Nebuchadrezzar’s 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 Nebuchadrezzar’s yoke, to escape which Tyre endured successfully a thirteen years’ siege. His enormous works of building (see  Habakkuk 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 then apparently without allies or reasonable hope of support rebelled ( 2 Kings 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 king’s anger, like his disciple Uriah (  Jeremiah 26:20-24;   Jeremiah 36:26-30;   Jeremiah 22:13-19 ). The revived national faith in Jehovah, which had rested on Josiah’s 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 leaders the prophet Hananiah amongst them (  Jeremiah 28:1-17 ) preached out of season Isaiah’s old doctrine of the inviolability of Zion; even after the capture of Jerusalem in 597 and the first exile, ‘the prophets’ promised in Jehovah’s name a speedy re-instatement. The possession of the Temple and the observance of the Law, they held, bound Jehovah to His people’s 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 Jehoiakim’s first revolt, in 601, he let loose bands of raiders on the Judæan territory ( 2 Kings 24:2; cf.   Jeremiah 12:9;   Jeremiah 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 Nebuchadrezzar’s death in 561 (  2 Kings 24:6-17;   2 Kings 25:27-30 ,   Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah’s 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 ( Jeremiah 27:1-11; see RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] on   Jeremiah 27:1 ). The Judæans, instead of being cowed by the recent punishment, were eager for a rising; public opinion expressed itself in Hananiah’s contradiction to Jeremiah’s warnings (ch. 28). The same false hopes were exciting the exiles in Babylon (ch. 29). Nebuchadrezzar, aware of these movements, summoned Zedekiah to Babylon (  Jeremiah 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 Nebuchadrezzar conduct sternly condemned by Ezekiel (  Ezekiel 17:11-21 ) as well as by Jeremiah and 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 (588 586). The Egyptians under the new and ambitious Pharaohhophra (Apries, 588 569), effected a diversion of the Chaldæan troops (  Jeremiah 37:5-10 ,   Ezekiel 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 (  2 Kings 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   Jeremiah 39:1-18;   Jeremiah 40:1-16;   Jeremiah 41:1-18;   Jeremiah 42:1-22;   Jeremiah 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 prophet’s 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 (  Jeremiah 25:11;   Jeremiah 29:10 ).

2. The man . The Book of Jeremiah is largely autobiographical. The author became, unconsciously, the hero of his work. This prophet’s 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 Jeremiah’s 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 Isaiah’s 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 3 1 / 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 ( Jeremiah 4:15;   Jeremiah 7:14-15;   Jeremiah 12:5;   Jeremiah 31:4-5;   Jeremiah 31:18;   Jeremiah 49:19 ). Jeremiah had no mere Judæan outlook; the larger Israel was constantly in his thoughts. His father was ‘Hilkiah [not the Hilkiah of   2 Kings 22:4 ], of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin’ (  2 Kings 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 Eli’s house, who was banished thither by Solomon (  1 Kings 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 (  1 Kings 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 (  Jeremiah 32:6 ff.,   Jeremiah 37:11-14 ), go to show that he was not entirely cut off from friendly relations with his kindred and native place.

Jeremiah’s 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 Jeremiah’s 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  Jeremiah 1:5;   Jeremiah 1:9 ). No intermediary not 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 Jehovah’s council, to perceive and hear his word’ (  Jeremiah 23:18; cf.   Isaiah 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 (  Jeremiah 16:1-13 ), a sentence peculiarly bitter to his tender and affectionate nature. Jeremiah’s imagination was haunted by his lost home happiness (  Jeremiah 7:34;   Jeremiah 16:9;   Jeremiah 25:10;   Jeremiah 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, Jeremiah’s 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,  Jeremiah 8:18 to   Jeremiah 9:2;   Jeremiah 15:10-11 and   Jeremiah 15:15-21;   Jeremiah 17:14-18;   Jeremiah 18:18-23;   Jeremiah 20:1-18;   Jeremiah 26:1-24;   Jeremiah 30:1-24;   Jeremiah 31:1-40;   Jeremiah 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. 626 621; ( b ) the time of disillusion and silence, subsequent to Josiah’s reforms, 621 608; ( c ) the critical epoch, 608 604, 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 prophet’s 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. 2 6, 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 Jeremiah’s first acquaintance with Jerusalem; in ch. 6 Jehovah’s scourge in the first instance the Scythians is held over the city. With rebukes mingle calls to repentance and, more rarely, hopes of a relenting on the people’s part (  Jeremiah 3:21-25; in other hopeful passages critics detect interpolation). Jeremiah’s powerful and pathetic preaching helped to prepare the reformation of 621. But as the danger from the northern hordes passed and Josiah’s rule brought new prosperity, the prophet’s vaticinations were discounted; his pessimism became an object of ridicule.

( b ) Jeremiah’s attitude towards Josiah’s reformation is the enigma of his history. The collection of his prophecies made in 604 (see chs. 1 12), apart from the doubtful allusion in   Jeremiah 11:1-8 , ignores the subject; Josiah’s name is but once mentioned, by way of contrast to Jehoiakim, in   Jeremiah 22:13-19 . From this silence we must not infer condemnation; and such passages as   Jeremiah 7:22-23 and   Jeremiah 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   Jeremiah 11:1-8 , if not from   Jeremiah 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’ (  Jeremiah 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 Josiah’s reign. Hence the years 621 608 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 prophet’s soul the lesson of the worthlessness of everything without the law written on the heart .

( c ) Josiah’s 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   Jeremiah 7:1 to   Jeremiah 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 Shiloh’s 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. 7 10 (subtracting the great interpolation of   Jeremiah 9:23 to   Jeremiah 10:16 , of which   Jeremiah 10:1-16 is surely post-Jeremianic); so, probably, most of the matter of chs. 14 20, identified with the ‘many like words’ that were added to the volume of Jeremiah burnt by Jehoiakim in the winter of 604 (  Jeremiah 36:27-32 ).

The personal passages of chs. 15, 17, 18, 20 belong to this decisive epoch (608 605, between Megiddo and Carchemish). The climax of Jeremiah’s 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’ ( Jeremiah 20:7-18 ). Jehovah has used His almighty power to play with a weak, simple man, and to make him a laughing-stock! Jehovah’s 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 people’s 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 (  Jeremiah 15:10;   Jeremiah 17:16;   Jeremiah 18:20 ). The scene of ch. 20 was Jeremiah’s 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 Jehovah’s servant and executioner (ch. 25). At this juncture the conclusive breach with Jehoiakim came about, when the faithless king, by running his knife through Jeremiah’s book, severed the ties which had bound prophecy to the secular throne of David since Samuel’s day. Recalling at this date his misgivings and inward fightings against God, the prophet virtually tells us that they are past. From the years 605 4 he marches with firm step to the goal; he sees the end of God’s 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. 30 33 (  Jeremiah 33:14-26 are wanting in the Lxx [Note: Septuagint.]; the remainder of 33, along with   Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah’s 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 God’s 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’ (  Jeremiah 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’ (  Jeremiah 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 Josiah’s 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 ’ (  Jeremiah 32:38-39;   Jeremiah 32:31-44 of this disputed chapter are full of Jeremianic traits). The announcement of the ‘new covenant’ in ch.   Jeremiah 31:31-34 is the kernel of the ‘Book of the Future’; this is Jeremiah’s 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   Hebrews 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 life’s edifice; it is to make his rôle one of ‘plucking up and breaking down,’ with no commensurate ‘building and planting’ (  Jeremiah 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.

Jeremiah’s 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. Jeremiah’s 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 Baruch’s 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. 2 12 of the existing book (the two fragments of   Jeremiah 9:23-26 seem to be a later Jeremianic, and   Jeremiah 10:1-16 a post-Jeremianic insertion; some would also refer   Jeremiah 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 14 20, with (possibly) 25, may be taken to contain the supplementary matter referred to in   Jeremiah 36:32 , extending and illustrating chs. 2 12 (ch. 13 is out of place, since it bears in the allusion of   Jeremiah 36:18-19 manifest reference to the captivity of 597). With the exceptions named, and some others of less moment, chs. 1 20 may be read as the re-written roll of   Jeremiah 36:32 , which dated from the winter of b.c. 604.

In chs.  Jeremiah 21:11 to   Jeremiah 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:   Jeremiah 21:1-10 ) about king Zedekiah, germane to the later collection of chs. 37 39. Chs. 13 and 24 and 27 29 are reminiscences of Jeremiah relative to the early years of Zedekiah’s reign, subsequent to the First Captivity (597) surely ch. 35, the story of the Rechabites (in 1st person), relating to Jehoiakim’s closing years, should come in here. This added matter may have gone to make up a third edition of Jeremiah-Baruch’s work, published about this date, extending over chs. 1 29, with the deductions and addition previously noted (ch. 26 is mentioned below).

Chs. 30 33 form a totally distinct work from the Book of Doom thus far analyzed; this is Jeremiah’s book of promise or consolation , recording the revelation of his people’s future given to him during the last slege of Jerusalem. Chs. 37 39, to which   Jeremiah 21:1-10 should be attached, and 40 44, are two distinct memoirs, bearing on Jeremiah’s 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   Jeremiah 1:1-3 do not cover the matter of chs. 40 44. It looks as though that superscription was drawn up when the book extended only from ch. 1 39, and as though we ought to recognize a fourth stage in the growth of Jeremiah’s book a redaction made soon after the fall of Jerusalem, which was supplemented afterwards when Baruch added chs. 40 45, 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 Baruch’s account of the crisis in Jeremiah’s work to which   Jeremiah 7:1 to   Jeremiah 8:3 relates (b.c. 608). Altogether, we may credit to Baruch’s memoirs of Jeremiah chs. 26, 36, 37 39 and 40 45; 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 Jeremiah’s works, in chs. 46 51; 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.   Jeremiah 50:1 to   Jeremiah 51:58 , judged by internal evidence, was certainly a postscript to Jeremiah’s work and a product of the Exile; critical doubts, of less gravity, attach to other parts of the Foreign Oracles. In   Jeremiah 38:28-39:10 we find already inserted, in shorter form, the first part of the narrative incorporated in ch. 52. Ch.   Jeremiah 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   Jeremiah 50:2 to   Jeremiah 51:58 , if written by an exilic prophet, could hardly have been ascribed to Jeremiah until a late age. On the other hand, chs. 50 52 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. 46 51) 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 sentences amongst the chief of these being   Jeremiah 11:7-8 ,   Jeremiah 17:1-4 ,   Jeremiah 29:16-20 ,   Jeremiah 33:14-26 ,   Jeremiah 48:45-47 ,   Jeremiah 51:45-48 ,   Jeremiah 52:2-3;   Jeremiah 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 translator’s 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. 1 20, 25, with parts (probably) of 46 51, corresponding to the original volume read by Baruch (  Jeremiah 36:2;   Jeremiah 36:10 ) and the ‘many like words’ added on re-writing (  Jeremiah 36:32 ).

( a ) The book burnt by Jehoiakim: chs. 2 12 ( minus   Jeremiah 9:23 to   Jeremiah 10:16 etc.). This included

1. The Judgment upon Judah’s treachery towards Jehovah: chs. 2 6, embodying Jeremiah’s pre-reformation teaching [  Jeremiah 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 Judah’s hypocrisy . chs. 7 12 (?   Jeremiah 12:7-17; minus   Jeremiah 9:23 to   Jeremiah 10:15 ); belonging to the post-reformation preaching of 608 and onwards.

( b ) The ‘many like words,’ illustrating ( a ): chs.   Jeremiah 1:14-19 , and probably 25, etc.; consisting of scenes and reminiscences from Jeremiah’s 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. 21 23 [  Jeremiah 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.   Jeremiah 12:7-17 (?) 13, 24, 27 29 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 Zedekiah’s reign and before the final struggle with Nebuchadrezzar.

Iv. The little Book of Consolation  : chs. 30 33, dating from the second siege.

V. Baruch’s Memoirs of Jeremiah  :

( a ) Before the Fall of Jerusalem (covered by the title in   Jeremiah 1:1-3 ): chs. 26, 36, 34, 37 39, with   Jeremiah 21:1-10 .

( b ) After the Fall of Jerusalem: chs. 40 44.

( c ) Baruch’s 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. 46 49 [  Jeremiah 50:2 to   Jeremiah 51:58 ]   Jeremiah 51:59-64 against Egypt (2), Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazor, Elam [Babylon]. In the Lxx [Note: Septuagint.] the Dooms are differently arranged, attached to   Jeremiah 25:13 , and slightly shorter. The Babylon Doom admittedly betrays the hand of a late compiler; additions to Jeremiah’s 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   2 Kings 24:18 to   2 Kings 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   Jeremiah 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   Jeremiah 10:1-16 and   Jeremiah 33:14-26 .

G. G. Findlay.

Holman Bible Dictionary

1. The head of a clan of the tribe of Manasseh in East Jordan ( 1 Chronicles 5:24 ).  2 . Three soldiers of David's army at Ziklag (1Chronicles 12:4,1Chronicles 12:10, 1 Chronicles 12:13 ).  3 . The father-in-law of King Josiah of Judah (640-609 B.C.) and grandfather of the Kings Jehoahaz [609 B.C.] ( 2 Kings 23:31 ) and Zedekiah (597-586 B.C.) ( 2 Kings 24:18;  Jeremiah 52:1 ).  4 . A representative of the sect of the Rechabites ( Jeremiah 35:3 ).  5 . Three priests or heads of priestly families in the times of Zerubbabel about 537 B.C. ( Nehemiah 12:1 ,Nehemiah 12:1, 12:12 ) and Nehemiah about 455 B.C. ( Nehemiah 10:2;  Nehemiah 12:34 ).

Other persons by the name of Jeremiah are referred to in Hebrew inscriptions from Lachish and Arad about 700 B.C. and in a number of ancient Jewish seals. The Bible has a short form of the name seventeen times and a long form 121 times. Both forms are applied to the prophet. Inscriptions use the longer form.

Jeremiah, the prophet The Bible tells us more about personal experiences of Jeremiah than of any other prophet. We read that his father's name was Hilkiah, a priest from Anathoth ( Jeremiah 1:1 ). He was called to be a prophet in the thirteenth year of King Josiah (627/6 B.C.) ( Jeremiah 1:2 ). He was active under the Kings Jehoahaz-Shallum (609 B.C.) ( Jeremiah 22:11 ), Jehoiakim (609-587 B.C.) ( Jeremiah 1:3;  Jeremiah 22:18;  Jeremiah 26:1;  Jeremiah 35:1;  Jeremiah 36:1 ,  Jeremiah 36:9 ), Jehoiachin/Jeconiah/Coniah (597 B.C.) ( Jeremiah 22:24;  Jeremiah 24:1;  Jeremiah 27:20;  Jeremiah 28:3;  Jeremiah 29:2;  Jeremiah 37:1 ), and Zedekiah (597-586 B.C.) ( Jeremiah 1:3;  Jeremiah 21:1;  Jeremiah 27:1-12;  Jeremiah 28:1;  Jeremiah 32:1;  Jeremiah 34:2;  Jeremiah 37-38;  Jeremiah 39:4;  Jeremiah 52:7 ). When Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C., Jeremiah moved to Mizpah, the capital of Gedaliah, the newly appointed Jewish governor of the Babylonian province of Judah ( Jeremiah 40:5 ). When Gedaliah was assassinated ( Jeremiah 41:1 ), Jeremiah was deported to Egypt against his will by Jewish officers who had survived the catastrophes ( Jeremiah 42:1-43:7 ). In Egypt he continued to preach oracles against the Egyptians ( Jeremiah 43:8-13 ) and against his compatriots ( Jeremiah 44:1-30 ).

Jeremiah is depicted as living in constant friction with the authorities of his people, religious (priests  Jeremiah 20:1-6; prophets  Jeremiah 28:1; or both  Jeremiah 26:1 ), political (kings   Jeremiah 21-22;  Jeremiah 36-38 ), or all of them together ( Jeremiah 1:18-19;  Jeremiah 2:26;  Jeremiah 8:1 ), including Jewish leaders after the Babylonian invasion ( Jeremiah 42:1-43:13 ). Still his preaching emphasized a high respect for prophets whose warning words could have saved the people if they had listened ( Jeremiah 7:25;  Jeremiah 26:4;  Jeremiah 29:17-19;  Jeremiah 35:13 ). He trusted in the promise of ideal future kings ( Jeremiah 23:5;  Jeremiah 33:14-17 ). He recommended national surrender to the rule of the Babylonian Empire and called Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon's emperor and Judah's most hated enemy, the “servant of the Lord” ( Jeremiah 25:9;  Jeremiah 27:6 ). He even incited his compatriots to desert to the enemy ( Jeremiah 21:8 ). He was accused of treason and convicted ( Jeremiah 37:11;  Jeremiah 38:1-6 ), and yet the most aggressive oracles against Babylon are attributed to him (50–51). Enemies challenged his prophetic honesty and the inspiration of his message ( Jeremiah 43:1-3;  Jeremiah 28:1;  Jeremiah 29:24 ), and yet kings and nobles sought his advice ( Jeremiah 21:1;  Jeremiah 37:3;  Jeremiah 38:14;  Jeremiah 42:1 ).

He constantly proclaimed God's judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem, and yet he was also a prophet of hope, proclaiming oracles of salvation, conditioned ( Jeremiah 3:22-4:2 ) or unconditioned (30–31;  Jeremiah 32:36;  Jeremiah 33:6;  Jeremiah 34:4 ). God forbade him to intercede for his people ( Jeremiah 7:16;  Jeremiah 11:14;  Jeremiah 14:11; compare  Jeremiah 15:1 ); yet he interceded ( Jeremiah 14:7-9 ,Jeremiah 14:7-9, 14:19-22 ). God ordered him to live without marriage and family ( Jeremiah 16:2 ). He had to stay away from the company of merrymakers ( Jeremiah 15:17 ) and from houses of feasting ( Jeremiah 16:8 ). He complained to and argued with God ( Jeremiah 12:1-17 ), complaining about the misery of his office ( Jeremiah 20:7-18 ). At the same time he sang hymns of praise to his God ( Jeremiah 20:13 ).

Jeremiah's call came in the thirteenth year of King Josiah, about 627/6 B.C. ( Jeremiah 1:2;  Jeremiah 25:3; compare  Jeremiah 36:2 ). Josiah remains however, the only Jewish king contemporary with Jeremiah to and about whom no word is spoken in the whole book. No concrete reference appears to any of the dramatic changes of national liberation and religious reformation within the last eighteen years of Josiah's reign ( 2 Kings 22:1-23:30 ). The words of the call narrative: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” ( Jeremiah 1:5 Niv), may suggest that the date of Jeremiah's call and birth is one and the same. In this case his prophetic activity must have begun many years later, but again with uncertain date.

The Book of Jeremiah

1. Origin This second longest book of the Bible, next to the Psalms, is the only one of the Old Testament that tells us some details of its origin. According to  Jeremiah 36:1-26 , Baruch had written a first version at the dictation of Jeremiah. The scroll was read first in public, and then again for the state officials and for the king. King Jehoiakim burnt it piece by piece. Jeremiah therefore dictated a second and enlarged edition of the first book to Baruch ( Jeremiah 36:32 ). Additional references to Jeremiah's own writing activity ( Jeremiah 30:2;  Jeremiah 51:60; compare  Jeremiah 25:13 ) forbids the identification of the scroll of  Jeremiah 36:32 with the present form of the biblical book.

2. Structure and Content The book may be subdivided into the following main sections:

I. Call narrative and Visions ( Jeremiah 1:1-19 )

Ii. Prophecies and Visions ( Jeremiah 2:1-25:14 )

Iii. Stories about Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 26:1-45:5 )

Iv. Oracles Against Foreign nations ( Jeremiah 25:15-38;  Jeremiah 46:1-51:64 )

V. Historical epilogue ( Jeremiah 52:1-34 )

Vi. Oracles on the restoration of Israel ( Jeremiah 30:1-31:40 )

This structure is not based on chronology as seen above. Nor is it based on form. The so-called confessions of Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 11:18-23;  Jeremiah 12:1-6;  Jeremiah 15:10-21;  Jeremiah 17:14-18;  Jeremiah 18:19-23;  Jeremiah 20:7-13 ,Jeremiah 20:7-13, 20:14-18 ) are scattered through  Jeremiah 11-20 . Oracles of hope ( Jeremiah 30-31 ) interrupt the stories about Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 26-45 ). Words against kings ( Jeremiah 21:11-22:30 ) and against prophets ( Jeremiah 23:9-40 ) appear to be independent collections. The complex nature of the structure is further complicated by evidence from the earliest Greek translation. There the oracles against foreign nations are in a different order and appear immediately after  Jeremiah 25:13 rather than at   Jeremiah 46:1 . This and other evidence suggests a long and complicated process of collection of the Jeremiah materials into a book. Traditional scholarly theories have tried to attribute poetic oracles to Jeremiah, stories about the prophet to Baruch, and prose sermons to a later editor who used the Book of Jeremiah to exemplify and teach the theology of the Book of Deuteronomy. Such theories are much too simplistic and must be discarded. Aside from the stories of the scroll's destruction, expansion, and recopying ( Jeremiah 36:1 ), we do not know all the processes through which God led to produce His inspired Book of Jeremiah.

3. Text of the Book The earliest Greek version of Jeremiah, dating back to pre-Christian centuries, is more than 12.5% shorter than the Hebrew text. Only a few longer sections are missing ( Jeremiah 33:14-26;  Jeremiah 39:4-13 ). The Greek text rather uses less titles and epithets, and single words and verses are missing throughout the book. More than 2700 words of the Hebrew text do not have Greek equivalents. Fragments of Hebrew manuscripts from Qumran show that a longer and a shorter Hebrew text existed side-by-side in the time of Jesus. This confirms that the development of the Book of Jeremiah continued for centuries. Growing agreement among Jeremiah Bible students suggests that the shorter text represents an older stage of development.

4. The Message Theologically, the Book of Jeremiah stimulates the search for the will of God in moments when all the institutions and religious representatives normally in charge of administrating His will are discredited. Neither the Davidic monarchy ( Jeremiah 21:1-22:30 ), nor prophets and priests ( Jeremiah 23:9-40 ), nor the cultic institutions of the Temple ( Jeremiah 7:1-34;  Jeremiah 26:1-9 ) could help the people to prevent impending calamities; nor could they detect that inconspicuous apostasy that mixes up the little aims of personal egoism ( Jeremiah 2:29-37;  Jeremiah 7:21-26;  Jeremiah 28:1-17 ) with God's commission ( Jeremiah 4:3 ). God's justice and righteousness cannot be usurped by His People. He can be a stumbling block even for His prophet ( Jeremiah 12:1-6;  Jeremiah 20:7-12 ). Execution of judgment and destruction is not God's delight. God himself suffers pain because of the alienation between Himself and His people ( Jeremiah 2:1-37 ). Better than the prophet was able to admit, the apostate members of God's people remembered a correct notion of the nature of God. He continued to be their Father, and His anger would not last forever ( Jeremiah 3:4 ,Jeremiah 3:4, 3:12-13 ). Conversion is possible ( Jeremiah 3:14 ,Jeremiah 3:14, 3:22;  Jeremiah 4:1-2 ), but this is no consolation for the apostate generation. Contrary to the expectations of the religious and political authorities, Judah and Jerusalem would meet the cruel catastrophe. This was not God's last word. His faithfulness prevails and creates new hope where all hope is lost ( Jeremiah 30-33 ).

Outline

I. God Calls His Spokesman ( Jeremiah 1:1-19 ).

Ii. God's Spokesman Warns His People ( Jeremiah 2:1-6:30 ).

A. God brings a lawsuit against His unfaithful people ( Jeremiah 2:1-37 ).

B. God pleads with His faithless people to return ( Jeremiah 3:1-4:4 ).

C. God threatens judgment through invasion ( Jeremiah 4:5-6:30 ).

Iii. Prophetic Theology Opposes Traditional Theology ( Jeremiah 7:1-11:17 ).

A. A place of worship cannot save ( Jeremiah 7:1-15 ).

B. A prophet cannot fulfill his traditional role for a people who foresake God ( Jeremiah 7:16-20 ).

C. Obedience, not ritual, is the most important ( Jeremiah 7:21-28 ).

D. False worship will have its terrible reward ( Jeremiah 7:29-8:13 ).

E. Lamentation, not praise, is the appropriate worship in face of desolation and deceitfulness ( Jeremiah 8:14-9:22 ).

F. Worship of images is folly in light of God's creative power ( Jeremiah 9:23-10:16 ).

G. God threatens judgment through exile ( Jeremiah 10:17-25 ).

H. A covenant brings disaster on God's people ( Jeremiah 11:1-17 ).

Iv. Struggle with God Defines the Prophetic Role ( Jeremiah 11:18-20:18 ).

A. Prophesying can be life-threatening ( Jeremiah 11:18-12:6 ).

B. God laments His errant people ( Jeremiah 12:7-17 ).

C. God's purpose is to punish pride and promote humility ( Jeremiah 13:1-27 ).

D. God can reject and prohibit prayers for forgiveness ( Jeremiah 14:1-15:9 ).

E. God's spokesman makes personal sacrifices because of God's calling ( Jeremiah 15:10-16:21 ).

F. Trust in humans rather than God leads to destruction ( Jeremiah 17:1-11 ).

G. God's spokesman must keep listening to God and preaching ( Jeremiah 17:12-27 ).

H. God's spokesman centers his message on God's freedom, not on human expectations ( Jeremiah 18:1-23 ).

I. God's message leads to persecution of His spokesman ( Jeremiah 19:1-20:6 ).

J. God's spokesman struggles with God over the hostility of the people ( Jeremiah 20:7-18 ).

V. God's Spokesman Confronts Unfaithful Leaders ( Jeremiah 21:1-29:32 ).

A. God's spokesman calls for sorrow and judgment based on the king's injustice ( Jeremiah 21:1-22:30 ).

B. God's spokesman bases hope on future righteous leaders ( Jeremiah 23:1-8 ).

C. God's spokesman must condemn those who preach lies ( Jeremiah 23:9-40 ).

D. God's word of hope is based in faithful, suffering people, not in institutions ( Jeremiah 24:1-25:38 ).

E. Prophetic hope lies in repentance, not in the Temple ( Jeremiah 26:1-6 ).

F. A prophetic precedent protects the endangered prophet ( Jeremiah 26:7-24 ).

G. God can condemn faithless leaders to serve enemies to fulfill His purpose ( Jeremiah 27:1-22 ).

H. God's true prophet overcomes false prophecy through God's divine Word ( Jeremiah 28:1-17 ).

I. Hope rests in dependence on God, not on popular prophecies or political power ( Jeremiah 29:1-32 ).

Vi. God Promises Restoration ( Jeremiah 30:1-33:26 ).

A. Restoration is based on God's promises in His preserved Word ( Jeremiah 30:1-24 ).

B. Restoration is based on God's faithfulness ( Jeremiah 31:1-14 ).

C. Restoration is based on God's mercy ( Jeremiah 31:15-26 ).

D. Restoration is based on God's promises to establish a new covenant with His people ( Jeremiah 31:27-40 ).

E. God's spokesman demonstrates his trust by a purchase of land ( Jeremiah 32:1-44 ).

F. Restoration is based on God's promises to restore the nation and David's dynasty ( Jeremiah 33:1-26 ).

Vii. God Protects His Spokesman ( Jeremiah 34:1-40:6 ).

A. God promises punishment upon the privileged for their treachery to their slaves ( Jeremiah 34:1-22 ).

B. God commends the Rechabites for their faithfulness ( Jeremiah 35:1-19 ).

C. God protects His servants and His Word from a wicked ruler ( Jeremiah 36:1-32 ).

D. God protects His servant from a weak and foolish ruler ( Jeremiah 37:1-38:28 ).

E. Prophetic preaching proves true ( Jeremiah 39:1-10 ).

F. Even foreign leaders acknowledge prophetic authority ( Jeremiah 39:11-14 ).

G. God protects His servant during a national crisis ( Jeremiah 39:15-40:6 ).

Viii. God's Spokesman Warns Those Who Continue in Unfaithfulness ( Jeremiah 40:7-45:5 ).

A. Political intrigue offers no basis for hope ( Jeremiah 40:7-41:18 ).

B. Disobeying God's Word brings disaster, not hope, for the remnant ( Jeremiah 42:1-43:13 ).

C. Disobeying God's law of loyal worship brings disaster, not hope, for the remnant ( Jeremiah 44:1-14 ).

D. The people answer God's spokesman with continued defiance ( Jeremiah 44:15-19 ).

E. Jeremiah promises punishment for the people ( Jeremiah 44:20-30 ).

F. God promises His faithful servant his life despite desperate changes ( Jeremiah 45:1-5 ).

Ix. God's Spokesman Warns the Nations ( Jeremiah 46:1-51:64 ).

A. God promises judgment upon Judah's pagan neighbors ( Jeremiah 46:1-49:39 ).

B. God promises perpetual desolation for the destroyer of His people ( Jeremiah 50:1-51:64 ).

X. Unfaithfulness Causes Destruction for God's People ( Jeremiah 52:1-34 ).

Hans Mallau

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

("exalted of Jehovah") (Jerome); ("appointed of Jehovah") (Gesenius); ("Jehovah throws") (Hengstenberg); compare  Jeremiah 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 ( 2 Kings 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 ( 1 Kings 2:26-35). Thenceforward the high priesthood was in Eleazar's and Zadok's line. The independent history ( 2 Chronicles 35:25;  2 Chronicles 36:12;  2 Chronicles 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" ( Jeremiah 27:7;  Jeremiah 25:9-12;  Jeremiah 26:6-7;  Jeremiah 29:10).

In 629 B.C., the 13th of Josiah's reign, while a mere youth at Anathoth, three miles from Jerusalem ( Jeremiah 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,  Exodus 3:11-12;  Exodus 4:10-12; and Isaiah,  Isaiah 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,  Matthew 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 ( Jeremiah 32:7; compare  2 Kings 22:14); Ahikam, Jeremiah's protector ( Jeremiah 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 ( 2 Chronicles 34:8), was father of Neriah, the father of both Baruch and Seraiah, Jeremiah's disciples ( Jeremiah 36:4;  Jeremiah 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  Jeremiah 11:3-5 with  Deuteronomy 7:12;  Deuteronomy 4:20;  Deuteronomy 27:26;  Jeremiah 34:14 with  Deuteronomy 15:12;  Deuteronomy 32:18 with  Exodus 20:6;  Exodus 32:21 with  Exodus 6:6). He saw that the reformation was but a surface one, and would not ensure the permanent peace which many anticipated from it ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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" ( Jeremiah 5:1;  Jeremiah 5:31).

Five years after his call to prophesy the book of the law was found in the temple by Hilkiah ( 2 Kings 22:8;  2 Kings 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 ( Jeremiah 11:1-2;  Jeremiah 11:6). Apparently, he lived at first in Anathoth, repairing thence from time to time to prophesy in Jerusalem ( Jeremiah 2:2), until the enmity of his townsmen and even his brethren, because of his godly faithfulness ( Jeremiah 11:18-21;  Jeremiah 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  Isaiah 53:7).

So His brethren, and the Nazarenes His townsmen, treated Christ ( Luke 4:24-29;  John 1:11;  John 7:5;  Psalms 69:8). By Jehovah's direction Jeremiah was to have neither wife or children ( Jeremiah 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 ( 1 Corinthians 7:8;  1 Corinthians 7:26;  1 Corinthians 7:29;  Matthew 24:19;  Luke 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 ( Jeremiah 1:11-15). (See Almond.)

Jeremiah, like Isaiah ( Isaiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( 2 Kings 23:29). Josiah's death was one of his bitterest sorrows ( Jeremiah 22:10;  Jeremiah 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 ( 2 Chronicles 35:20-25). Jeremiah had also inward conflicts. Like Asaph (Psalm 73) he felt perplexed at the prosperity of the wicked ( Jeremiah 12:1-4) plotters at Anathoth against his life ( Jeremiah 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:  Zechariah 11:3;  2 Kings 6:2 compare  Proverbs 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 ( Jeremiah 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" ( Jeremiah 20:9). In  Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 26:7-11).

This he had done in  Jeremiah 7:12-14;  Jeremiah 7:8-9. and more summarily in  Jeremiah 26:1-2;  Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( 2 Kings 22:12;  2 Kings 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 27:1;  Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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" ( Jeremiah 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 ( Isaiah 45:9;  Isaiah 64:8;  Romans 9:20-21). (See Baruch.) The potter's field significantly was the purchase with the price of reprobate Judas' treachery ( Matthew 27:9-10, which quotes  Zechariah 11:12-13 as Jeremiah's because Zechariah rests on Jeremiah; compare  Psalms 2:8-9;  Revelation 2:27).

Pashur, chief governor in the Lord's house, in consequence smote and put him in the stocks ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 1:14-18) after his believing thanksgiving only to show how great was his deliverance ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 13:18;  Jeremiah 22:24-30;  2 Kings 24:6;  2 Kings 24:8;  2 Kings 24:12;  2 Kings 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 ( Jeremiah 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  Jeremiah 19:1;  Jeremiah 19:10;  Jeremiah 27:2-3;  Isaiah 20:2). Nebuchadnezzar was evidently acquainted with him, but whether it was by an actual journey of Jeremiah to Babylon is uncertain ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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  John 3:2;  John 5:44;  John 12:43;  John 19:38), "is there any word from Jehovah?" Jeremiah without regard to his earthly interests (contrast  Jeremiah 6:14;  Isaiah 30:10;  Ezekiel 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 ( Jeremiah 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,  Jeremiah 32:2, where his friends had access to him:  Jeremiah 32:12;  Jeremiah 37:12-21), and commanded bread to be supplied to him until all in the city was spent ( Psalms 37:19;  Isaiah 33:16). Honest reproof sometimes gains more favor than flattery ( Proverbs 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 ( Jeremiah 21:1-9;  Jeremiah 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  Zechariah 9:11 and the Antitype,  Psalms 69:2;  Psalms 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  1 Corinthians 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 ( Jeremiah 43:8-13), and tradition says he was stoned there (Pseudo Epiphanius; compare  Hebrews 11:37). The Jews expected his reappearing as the forerunner of Messiah ( Matthew 16:14), "that prophet" ( John 1:21). He in a true sense did forerun Messiah, foreseeing to his own "sweet" comfort ( Jeremiah 31:26) not only His conception by a "virgin," but His kingdom, first spiritual, whereby He is "the Lord our righteousness" ( Jeremiah 23:5-6), making the "new covenant," "remembering our sin no more," and "writing His law in our hearts" ( Jeremiah 31:22;  Jeremiah 31:31-34;  Hebrews 8:8-12;  Hebrews 10:16-17), then visible in Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel, in the last days ( Jeremiah 33:6-26;  Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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  Jeremiah 27:3;  Jeremiah 27:12;  Jeremiah 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,  Jeremiah 51:59-64), and therewith to console the captives. The Jews say, "the spirit of Jeremiah dwelt afterward in Zechariah"; Matthew ( Jeremiah 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  Lamentations 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 ( Jeremiah 25:26); but in  Jeremiah 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)  Jeremiah 34:1-7,

(2)  Jeremiah 34:8-22,

(3) Jeremiah 35.

'''V.''' Conclusion, in two sections:

(1)  Jeremiah 36:2, etc.,

(2) Jeremiah 45.

Subsequently in Egypt he added  Jeremiah 46:13-26 to his previous prophecy as to Egypt; also the three sections Jeremiah 37-39; Jeremiah 40-44. A later hand (see  Jeremiah 51:64) probably appended Jeremiah 52 from  2 Kings 24:18 ff;  Jeremiah 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  Jeremiah 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  Jeremiah 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  Jeremiah 25:1 with  Jeremiah 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 ( Matthew 2:17;  Matthew 16:14;  Hebrews 8:8-12). Philo quotes Jeremiah as an "oracle." Melito, Origen, Jerome, and the Talmud similarly include it in the canon.

2.  2 Kings 23:31.

3.  1 Chronicles 12:4;  1 Chronicles 12:10;  1 Chronicles 12:13.

4.  1 Chronicles 5:24.

5.  Nehemiah 10:2-8;  Nehemiah 12:1;  Nehemiah 12:34.

Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

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 Jeremiah’s 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 ( Jeremiah 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;  2 Kings 23:1-25). Jeremiah saw that in spite of the king’s good work, little had changed in people’s 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 Jeremiah’s 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 Judah’s south, decided to challenge Babylon, Josiah tried to stop the Egyptians from passing through Palestine and was killed in battle (609 Bc;  2 Kings 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 ( 2 Kings 23:31-37).

Jehoiakim was a cruel and ungodly ruler. He opposed Jeremiah because of his condemnation of Judah’s sins and his forecasts of its destruction ( Jeremiah 22:13-19;  Jeremiah 26:1-6;  Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 46:2), it thereby gained control of Judah and took selected Jerusalemites captive to Babylon ( Daniel 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;  2 Kings 24:8-17).

Jeremiah and Zedekiah were constantly in conflict. Jeremiah assured Zedekiah that Babylon’s overlordship was God’s 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 ( 2 Kings 24:18-20;  Jeremiah 21:1-10; Jeremiah 24;  Jeremiah 27:12-22;  Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah’s, 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;  2 Kings 25:1-21;  Jeremiah 32:1-5;  Jeremiah 32:28-29;  Jeremiah 33:1-5;  Jeremiah 37:16-17;  Jeremiah 38:17-18;  Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 32:2;  Jeremiah 37:15;  Jeremiah 37:20-21;  Jeremiah 38:1-6;  Jeremiah 38:13;  Jeremiah 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 ( 2 Kings 25:22;  Jeremiah 39:13-14;  Jeremiah 40:4-6).

Sadly, Gedaliah was murdered by some Judeans who were still opposed to Babylon ( 2 Kings 25:25;  Jeremiah 40:13-16; Jeremiah 41). The remaining Judeans then fled for safety to Egypt, taking an unwilling Jeremiah with them ( 2 Kings 25:26; Jeremiah 42;  Jeremiah 43:1-7). Jeremiah warned that they would not escape God’s punishment by fleeing to Egypt, but, as always, the people refused to heed the message ( Jeremiah 43:8-13; Jeremiah 44). The Bible records nothing further of Jeremiah’s life, though one tradition says that the Judeans in Egypt later stoned him to death. (The period of Gedaliah’s governorship and the Judeans’ flight to Egypt is dealt with in Jeremiah Chapters 40-44.)

Jeremiah’s personal life

From the book of Jeremiah we learn much about the prophet’s 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 country’s 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 people’s 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 God’s 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 individual’s 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 community’s conformity to religious laws, but by an individual’s personal relationship with God (31:31-34).

Outline of the book

The first six chapters of the book deal with the main features of Jeremiah’s 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 Judah’s 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 Jeremiah’s 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 God’s 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 nation’s 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: Jeremiah’s 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 Jeremiah’s message to the Jews in Egypt (43:8-44:30). An earlier message for Jeremiah’s 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).

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

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,  Joshua 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,  Jeremiah 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,  Jeremiah 34:2-5;  2 Chronicles 36:11-21;  2 Kings 25:5;  Jeremiah 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,  Jeremiah 25:12;  Jeremiah 9:26;  Jeremiah 25:19-25;  Jeremiah 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,  Jeremiah 23:5-6;  Jeremiah 30:9;  Jeremiah 31:15;  Jeremiah 32:14-18;  Jeremiah 33:9-26 . He foreshowed the miraculous conception of Christ,  Jeremiah 31:22 , the virtue of his atonement, the spiritual character of his covenant, and the inward efficacy of his laws,  Jeremiah 31:31-36;  Jeremiah 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.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Jeremi'ah. (whom Jehovah has appointed). Jeremiah was "the son of Hilkiah of the priests, that were in Anathoth."  Jeremiah 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.  Jeremiah 14:13;  Jeremiah 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  Jeremiah 19:10-13 he was set, however, "as a fenced brazen wall,"  Jeremiah 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.  Jeremiah 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 ."  Jeremiah 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.'  Jeremiah 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.  2 Kings 23:31. (B.C. before 632).

2, 3, 4. Three warriors - two of the tribe of Gad - in David's army.  1 Chronicles 12:4;  1 Chronicles 12:10;  1 Chronicles 12:13. (B.C. 1061-53).

5. One of the "mighty men of valor," of the TransJordanic half-tribe of Manasseh.  1 Chronicles 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  Nehemiah 10:2-8;  Nehemiah 12:1;  Nehemiah 12:12. (B.C. 446-410).

7. The father of Jazaniah, the Rechabite.  Jeremiah 35:3. (B.C. before 606).

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

The mournful prophet so called. A man famous in his day and generation as the Lord's servant, and his memory ever blessed in the church through all ages. His name, it should seem, is a compound—from Ram, exaltation; and Jah, the Lord. The pronoun prefixed makes it, my exalted in the Lord. And exalted indeed he was in the Lord's strength, though continually buffeted and by men. It is blessed to read his prophecy, and under the Holy Ghost's teachings to enter into the spirit of this man's writings.

I beg the reader to behold, with suited attention, the account given of him in the first chapter. We find him ordained to the ministry before his birth. And who that reads this account of the servant, but must be struck with full conviction of what is said of his Master, called from the womb of eternity, and set up from everlasting to be Jehovah'S servant, to bring Jacob again to him. (See  Isaiah 49:1-26 throughout, and  Proverbs 8:12-36) What a decided proof and conviction by the way doth this afford, that if Jeremiah was ordained a prophet to the church before he was formed in the belly, surely the glorious Head of that church, and that church in him, was set up, and Christ in all his offices and characters ordained the Lord God of the prophets before all worlds. ( Colossians 1:15-18) It should seem from the date of the prophet's commission, when the word of the Lord first came to him, namely, in the thirtieth year of Josiah's reign, that Jeremiah could not be above fourteen years of age when he preached his first sermon. And what a sermon it is! (See  Jeremiah 2:1-37;  Jeremiah 3:1-25;  Jeremiah 4:1-31 etc.) But what may not a child preach when God the Holy Ghost hath ordained him? Oh, that more of that blessed voice was heard in this our day, which was heard by the church in Paul's day! (See  Acts 13:1-4) It was the lot of Jeremiah to live in an age when the nation was given up to daring impiety, and rebellion against God. Faithfulness at such a time, could not fail of bringing upon the poor preacher the hatred and indignation of all of a contrary way of thinking to himself. We have the relation of the persecution frequently raised against him, in several parts of his writings. The opposition made to him by the false prophet Hananiah, and the sequel of that awful event is recorded at large,  Jeremiah 28:1-17. (See Hananiah.) Blessed is the memory of Jeremiah, and will be in the churches to the latest generation. The Lord ordain many such, if it be his holy will, from the womb! There are several of this name in Scripture. (See  2 Kings 24:18. See also  1 Chronicles 5:24. Two of the name of Jeremiah in David's army.  1 Chronicles 12:4; 1Ch 12:10; 1Ch 12:13)

Easton's Bible Dictionary

One of the "greater prophets" of the Old Testament, son of Hilkiah (q.v.), a priest of Anathoth ( Jeremiah 1:1;  32:6 ). He was called to the prophetical office when still young (1:6), in the thirteenth year of Josiah (B.C. 628). He left his native place, and went to reside in Jerusalem, where he greatly assisted Josiah in his work of reformation ( 2 Kings 23:1-25 ). The death of this pious king was bewailed by the prophet as a national calamity ( 2 Chronicles 35:25 ).

During the three years of the reign of Jehoahaz we find no reference to Jeremiah, but in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the enmity of the people against him broke out in bitter persecution, and he was placed apparently under restraint ( Jeremiah 36:5 ). In the fourth year of Jehoiakim he was commanded to write the predictions given to him, and to read them to the people on the fast-day. This was done by Baruch his servant in his stead, and produced much public excitement. The roll was read to the king. In his recklessness he seized the roll, and cut it to pieces, and cast it into the fire, and ordered both Baruch and Jeremiah to be apprehended. Jeremiah procured another roll, and wrote in it the words of the roll the king had destroyed, and "many like words" besides ( Jeremiah 36:32 ).

He remained in Jerusalem, uttering from time to time his words of warning, but without effect. He was there when Nebuchadnezzar besieged the city ( Jeremiah 37:4,5 ), B.C. 589. The rumour of the approach of the Egyptians to aid the Jews in this crisis induced the Chaldeans to withdraw and return to their own land. This, however, was only for a time. The prophet, in answer to his prayer, received a message from God announcing that the Chaldeans would come again and take the city, and burn it with fire (37:7,8). The princes, in their anger at such a message by Jeremiah, cast him into prison ((37:15-38:13).). He was still in confinement when the city was taken (B.C. 588). The Chaldeans released him, and showed him great kindness, allowing him to choose the place of his residence. He accordingly went to Mizpah with Gedaliah, who had been made governor of Judea. Johanan succeeded Gedaliah, and refusing to listen to Jeremiah's counsels, went down into Egypt, taking Jeremiah and Baruch with him ( Jeremiah 43:6 ). There probably the prophet spent the remainder of his life, in vain seeking still to turn the people to the Lord, from whom they had so long revolted (44). He lived till the reign of Evil-Merodach, son of Nebuchadnezzar, and must have been about ninety years of age at his death. We have no authentic record of his death. He may have died at Tahpanhes, or, according to a tradition, may have gone to Babylon with the army of Nebuchadnezzar; but of this there is nothing certain.

Copyright Statement These dictionary topics are from M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, published by Thomas Nelson, 1897. Public Domain.

Bibliography Information Easton, Matthew George. Entry for 'Jeremiah'. Easton's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ebd/j/jeremiah.html. 1897.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Jeremiah (jĕr-e-mî'ah ), whom Jehovah setteth up or appointeth. 1. The distinguished prophet, son of Hilkiah, a priest of Anathoth.  Jeremiah 1:1-6. He was called to assume the prophetic office when a youth, and on that account declined it: but God promised him grace and strength sufficient for his work. He prophesied under Josiah, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah; and for some time during the exile. During the course of his predictions, Jerusalem was in a distracted and deplorable condition, and the prophet was calumniated, imprisoned, and often in danger of death. Jeremiah expressly foretold that the captivity would endure for 70 years; he also predicted the return of the people to their own country. He appears to have stood high in the estimation of Nebuchadnezzar.  Jeremiah 39:11-14. Towards the close of his life he was carried into Egypt against his will, by the Jews who remained in Judea after the murder of Gedaliah, where he probably died. Jeremiah is called "Jeremy,"  Matthew 2:17 A. V., and "Jeremias,"  Matthew 16:14 A. V. The name Jeremy, in  Matthew 27:9-10, is probably an error of the transcribers for Zechariah. The ft. V. reads Jeremiah in all these places. 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.'  Jeremiah 1:18. He was a noble example of the triumph of the moral over the physical nature." There are eight persons of this name mentioned in the Scriptures.

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

One of the chief prophets of the Old Testament, prophesied under Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, and also after the captivity of the latter. He was born at Anathoth, of the race of the priests, and was destined of God to be a prophet, and consecrated for that object before his birth,  Jeremiah 1:1,5 . At an early age he was called to act as a prophet, B. C. 628, in the thirteenth year of King Josiah. This good king no doubt cooperated with him to promote the reformation of the people; but the subsequent life of the prophet was full of afflictions and persecutions. Jehoiakim threw his prophetic roll into the fire, and sought his life. Zedekiah was kindly instructed by him, and warned of the woes impending over his guilty people, and of their seventy years' captivity, but to no purpose. The fidelity of the prophet often endangered his life, and he was in prison when Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar. That monarch released him, and offered him a home in Babylon; but he chose to remain with the remnant of the Jews, and was carried by them before long into Egypt, B. C. 586, still faithfully advising and reproving them till he died. For forty-two years he steadfastly maintained the cause of truth and of God against his rebellious people. Though naturally mild, sensitive, and retiring, he shrank from no danger when duty called; threats could not silence him, nor ill usage alienate him. Tenderly compassionate to his infatuated countrymen, he shared with them the woes, which he could not induce them to avert from their own heads.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

1. Man of Libnah, whose daughter Hamutal was the wife of Josiah.  2 Kings 23:31;  2 Kings 24:18;  Jeremiah 52:1 .

2. Head of a family in the tribe of Manasseh.  1 Chronicles 5:24 .

3. One who resorted to David at Ziklag.  1 Chronicles 12:4 .

4,5. Two of the Gadites who resorted to David at Ziklag.  1 Chronicles 12:10,13 .

6. Son of Hilkiah, priest of Anathoth: the writer of the Book of Jeremiah. His history is contained in his prophecy. He was carried to Egypt by the rebellious Jews and his end is not recorded.  2 Chronicles 35:25;  2 Chronicles 36:12,21,22;  Ezra 1:1;  Jeremiah 1 —   Jeremiah 51 .

7. Priest who sealed the covenant.  Nehemiah 10:2;  Nehemiah 12:1,12,34 .

8. Father of Jaazaniah a Rechabite.  Jeremiah 35:3 .

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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,"  Matthew 16:14; "Jeremy,"  Matthew 2:17;  Matthew 27:9; but in this last passage it probably occurs only by error of copyists; see  Zechariah 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 ( 1 Chronicles 12:10). B.C. 1061.

2. The tenth of the same band of adventurers ( 1 Chronicles 12:13). B.C. 1061.

3. One of the Benjamite bowmen and slingers who repaired to David while at Ziklag ( 1 Chronicles 12:4). B.C. 1053.

4. A chief of the tribe of Manasseh east, apparently about the time of the deportation by the Assyrians ( 1 Chronicles 5:24). B.C. 782.

5. A native of Libnah, the father of Hamutal, wife of Josiah, and mother of Jehoahaz and Zedekiah ( 2 Kings 23:31;  2 Kings 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( 2 Kings 22:8), who found the book of the law in the eighteenth year of Josiah (Umbreit, Praktischer Commentar ü ber 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,"  Jeremiah 1:1); again, the name Hilkiah was common among the Jews (see  2 Kings 18:13;  1 Chronicles 6:45;  1 Chronicles 26:11;  Nehemiah 8:4;  Jeremiah 29:3); and, lastly, his residence at Anathoth is evidence that he belonged to the line of Abiathar ( 1 Kings 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 11:21), and even of his own family ( Jeremiah 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 ( 2 Kings 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 ( 2 Chronicles 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 ( Jeremiah 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" ( Jeremiah 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  Jeremiah 13:18; comp.  2 Kings 24:12, and  Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 37:12 to  Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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 ( Jeremiah 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).

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

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 . 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 , and even of his own family , 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 . 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 , 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' . In the short reign of his successor Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, we find him still uttering his voice of warning (see; comp. , and ), 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 . 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 ; 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 . 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 . 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;; .

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

A Hebrew prophet, born at Anathoth, a priestly city 3 m. N. of Jerusalem, where, after his removal thither, he spent as a prophet the greater part of his life, viz., from 629 to 588 B.C.; his prophecy was a lifelong protest against the iniquity and folly of his countrymen, and was conceived in bitter foreboding of the hopeless ruin they were bringing down upon their heads; his faithfulness offended friend and foe alike, and more than one plot was laid against his life, which was one of ever-deepening sadness and one long wail over the ruin of the country he so loved; he lived to see the issue of his prediction in the captivity of the people, though he did not go into captivity with them, the conqueror having allowed him to remain as he wished; he appears to have died in Egypt; he was the author of "Lamentations," and it is thought of sundry of the Psalms. See Hebrew Prophecy .