Jeremiah

What makes Jeremiah special?

The prophet Jeremiah lived during a time of great change for God's people. The tiny kingdom of Judah was caught in the middle of the struggle between old and new empires fighting to gain power over the region. Jeremiah began to serve as God's prophet in 627 b.c. when he was a young man, possibly less than 20 years old, and continued until shortly after the Babylonians captured Judah's capital city, Jerusalem, in 586 b.c. During Jeremiah's time as prophet he warned the kings, priests, and people of Judah of their coming doom.

We also know much about the feelings this prophet had for God's people. Jeremiah felt God's anger and sadness as the people turned away from God and stubbornly pursued their own ways. Jeremiah also was made to suffer in order to show the suffering that Judah would have to experience. During Jeremiah's lifetime Judah was conquered by the Babylonians from the east, and many of its leaders and people were taken into exile. But Judah's defeat was not God's last word. Jeremiah sent a message of comfort and hope to those who went into exile: God promises to make a new agreement with God's people in the future (Jer 30–31).

Why was Jeremiah written?

Jeremiah likely knew the message of Hosea, the prophet who had spoken to Israel over a hundred years earlier. Their messages are alike. Both Jeremiah and Hosea told the people to be faithful to the Lord, who had brought them out of slavery in Egypt and kept the promise to give them a land of their own. Jeremiah's message was a strong reminder that God's people were to base their lives on the agreement (covenant) the Lord God made with Moses and their ancestors at Mount Sinai. They were to obey God's Law above everything else.

But the people sinned by worshiping other gods. The leaders trusted their own military strength and the power of foreign countries rather than depending on the Lord to protect their nation. So, Jeremiah had two main messages for Judah. First, he warned that Judah would be defeated and its holy city Jerusalem would be destroyed. And second, because God continued to love the people, he would make a new agreement with the people after their punishment was over (Jer 31.31-34). Disaster is certain, but the future is filled with hope.

What's the story behind the scene?

Jeremiah's message was delivered during the reign of the last five kings of Judah, beginning in the “thirteenth year that Josiah was king of Judah” (627 b.c.). Josiah was considered a good king, who made a series of reforms that were based on a scroll containing parts of the book of Deuteronomy. This scroll, discovered in the Jerusalem temple around 621 b.c., prompted Josiah to get rid of foreign gods in the Jerusalem temple and to encourage the people to turn back to the Lord.

Josiah also wanted to reestablish the empire of Israel as it was in the days of David and Solomon. This meant trying to break free from the powerful Assyrian Empire, which had defeated Israel's northern tribes in 722 b.c., and escape from the influence of Egypt, Judah's powerful neighbor to the west. However, Josiah was killed by the Egyptians in battle at Megiddo in 609 b.c. Josiah's son Jehoahaz ruled for three months in 609 b.c., but then the Egyptian ruler set Jehoiakim (ruled 609-598 b.c.) on the throne of Judah.

King Jehoiakim brought back the worship of foreign gods, which Josiah had banished from Judah. And he burned Jeremiah's message written on a scroll, which warned that God would use the new rising power, Babylon, to punish sinful Judah. Jehoiakim also refused to listen when Jeremiah encouraged him to pay bribe money to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in order to keep Judah from being attacked by the powerful Babylonian army. It was at this low point in Jeremiah's ministry that he and his friend Baruch went into hiding and he wrote his “Confessions” (see 11.18-23; 12.1-6; 15.10,11,15-21; 17.14-18; 18.19-23; 20.7-18).

In 598 b.c. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah. He discovered that Jehoiakim had died, so he took Jehoiakim's young son Jehoiachin (who ruled for only three months in 598) into captivity along with many leaders of the land. Nebuchadnezzar then put Zedekiah on the throne as a puppet king, and Judah was forced to pay heavy taxes to its Babylonian overlords.

Over the next ten years the situation in Judah got worse as the leaders and lying prophets plotted against both Babylon and Jeremiah. Because of his message of doom and his opinion that Judah should pay off Babylon to avoid attack, Jeremiah was considered by many to be a traitor. Jeremiah was beaten, put in prison, and then placed under house arrest. Finally, when King Zedekiah made an agreement with Egypt and broke his treaty with Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar returned and destroyed Jerusalem in 586 b.c. He killed Zedekiah's sons, blinded the king, and took him along with many of the Jewish people back to exile in Babylon (Jer 39; 52; 2 Kgs 24.18—25.21).

Jeremiah stayed in Jerusalem, where he tried to help those who were left behind. It was at this time that his message changed from doom and destruction to hope and the promise of a new agreement between the Lord and his people. Jeremiah and his loyal friend Baruch were forced to flee to Egypt when some Jewish rebels killed Gedaliah, the ruler Nebuchadnezzar had chosen to rule Judah. These rebels still considered Jeremiah to be a traitor. This is the last we know of this great prophet, who suffered so much on behalf of his beloved Judah.

For more about this period of Israel's history, see the article called “From Joshua to the Exile: The People of Israel in the Promised Land,” XXB 7.0.

How is Jeremiah constructed?

The message of Jeremiah is one of doom before the fall of Judah and one of hope after the fall. During Jeremiah's career many major events occurred. His messages, however, do not describe these events in order. They are roughly grouped by subject, not by dates. This makes it confusing to read the book straight through. Not only are the messages out of order, but we find different types of writing in this book. Many of the book's messages are written in a poetic form known as prophetic oracles. Other sections are sermon-like material similar to the speeches of Moses in Deuteronomy. Still other sections are narrative passages, which describe events in Jeremiah's life and report the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Some of the writing was done by Jeremiah's friend Baruch, who wrote down parts of Jeremiah's message on at least two different scrolls (Jer 36).

The following outline is one way that Jeremiah can be outlined: