Jeremiah

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET

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INTRODUCTION

JEREMIAH, son of Hilkiah, one of the ordinary priests, dwelling in

Anathoth of Benjamin

(Jer 1:1),

not the Hilkiah the high priest who discovered the book of the law

(2Ki 22:8);

had he been the same, the designation would have been "the

priest", or "the high priest". Besides, his residence at

Anathoth shows that he belonged to the line of Abiathar, who was

deposed from the high priesthood by Solomon

(1Ki 2:26-35),

after which the office remained in Zadok's line. Mention occurs of

Jeremiah in

2Ch 35:25; 36:12, 21.

In 629 B.C. the thirteenth year of King Josiah,

while still very young

(Jer 1:5),

he received his prophetical call in Anathoth

(Jer 1:2);

and along with Hilkiah the high priest, the prophetess Huldah, and the

prophet Zephaniah, he helped forward Josiah's reformation of religion

(2Ki 23:1-25).

Among the first charges to him was one that he should go and proclaim

God's message in Jerusalem

(Jer 2:2).

He also took an official tour to announce to the cities of Judah the

contents of the book of the law, found in the temple

(Jer 11:6)

five years after his call to prophesy. On his return to Anathoth, his

countrymen, offended at his reproofs, conspired against his life. To

escape their persecutions

(Jer 11:21),

as well as those of his own family

(Jer 12:6),

he left Anathoth and resided at Jerusalem. During the eighteen years of

his ministry in Josiah's reign he was unmolested; also during the three

months of Jehoahaz or Shallum's reign

(Jer 22:10-12).

On Jehoiakim's accession it became evident that Josiah's reformation

effected nothing more than a forcible repression of idolatry and the

establishment of the worship of God outwardly. The priests, prophets,

and people then brought Jeremiah before the authorities, urging that he

should be put to death for his denunciations of evil against the city

(Jer 26:8-11).

The princes, however, especially Ahikam, interposed in his behalf

(Jer 26:16, 24),

but he was put under restraint, or at least deemed it prudent not to

appear in public. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (606 B.C.), he was

commanded to write the predictions given orally through him, and to

read them to the people. Being "shut up", he could not himself go into

the house of the Lord

(Jer 36:5);

he therefore deputed Baruch, his amanuensis, to read them in public on

the fast day. The princes thereupon advised Baruch and Jeremiah to hide

themselves from the king's displeasure. Meanwhile they read the roll to

the king, who was so enraged that he cut it with a knife and threw it

into the fire; at the same time giving orders for the apprehension of

the prophet and Baruch. They escaped Jehoiakim's violence, which had

already killed the prophet Urijah

(Jer 26:20-23).

Baruch rewrote the words, with additional prophecies, on another roll

(Jer 36:27-32).

In the three months' reign of Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, he prophesied the

carrying away of the king and the queen mother

(Jer 13:18; 22:24-30;

compare

2Ki 24:12).

In this reign he was imprisoned for a short time by Pashur

(Jer 20:1-18),

the chief governor of the Lord's house; but at Zedekiah's accession he

was free

(Jer 37:4),

for the king sent to him to "inquire of the Lord" when Nebuchadnezzar

came up against Jerusalem

(Jer 21:1-3,

&c.; Jer 37:3).

The Chaldeans drew off on hearing of the approach of Pharaoh's army

(Jer 37:5);

but Jeremiah warned the king that the Egyptians would forsake him, and

the Chaldeans return and burn up the city

(Jer 37:7, 8).

The princes, irritated at this, made the departure of Jeremiah from the

city during the respite a pretext for imprisoning him, on the

allegation of his deserting to the Chaldeans

(Jer 38:1-5).

He would have been left to perish in the dungeon of Malchiah, but for

the intercession of Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian

(Jer 38:6-13).

Zedekiah, though he consulted Jeremiah in secret yet was induced by his

princes to leave Jeremiah in prison

(Jer 38:14-28)

until Jerusalem was taken. Nebuchadnezzar directed his captain,

Nebuzar-adan, to give him his freedom, so that he might either go to

Babylon or stay with the remnant of his people as he chose. As a true

patriot, notwithstanding the forty and a half years during which his

country had repaid his services with neglect and persecution, he stayed

with Gedaliah, the ruler appointed by Nebuchadnezzar over Judea

(Jer 40:6).

After the murder of Gedaliah by Ishmael, Johanan, the recognized ruler

of the people, in fear of the Chaldeans avenging the murder of

Gedaliah, fled with the people to Egypt, and forced Jeremiah and Baruch

to accompany him, in spite of the prophet's warning that the people

should perish if they went to Egypt, but be preserved by remaining in

their land

(Jer 41:1-43:13).

At Tahpanhes, a boundary city on the Tanitic or Pelustan branch of the

Nile, he prophesied the overthrow of Egypt

(Jer 43:8-13).

Tradition says he died in Egypt. According to the PSEUDO-EPIPHANIUS, he was stoned at

Taphnæ or Tahpanhes. The Jews so venerated him that they believed

he would rise from the dead and be the forerunner of Messiah

(Mt 16:14).

HAVERNICK observes that the combination of features in Jeremiah's

character proves his divine mission; mild, timid, and susceptible of

melancholy, yet intrepid in the discharge of his prophetic functions,

not sparing the prince any more than the meanest of his subjects--the

Spirit of prophecy controlling his natural temper and qualifying him

for his hazardous undertaking, without doing violence to his

individuality. Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Daniel, and Ezekiel were his

contemporaries. The last forms a good contrast to Jeremiah, the Spirit

in his case acting on a temperament as strongly marked by firmness as

Jeremiah's was by shrinking and delicate sensitiveness. Ezekiel views

the nation's sins as opposed to righteousness--Jeremiah, as productive

of misery; the former takes the objective, the latter the subjective,

view of the evils of the times. Jeremiah's style corresponds to his

character: he is peculiarly marked by pathos, and sympathy with the

wretched; his Lamentations illustrate this; the whole series of elegies

has but one object--to express sorrow for his fallen country; yet the

lights and images in which he presents this are so many, that the

reader, so far from feeling it monotonous, is charmed with the variety

of the plaintive strains throughout. The language is marked by

Aramæisms, which probably was the ground of

JEROME'S charge that the

style is "rustic". LOWTH

denies the charge and considers him in

portions not inferior to Isaiah. His heaping of phrase on phrase, the

repetition of stereotyped forms--and these often three times--are due

to his affected feelings and to his desire to intensify the expression

of them; he is at times more concise, energetic, and sublime,

especially against foreign nations, and in the rhythmical parts.

The principle of the arrangement of his prophecies is hard to

ascertain. The order of kings was--Josiah (under whom he prophesied

eighteen years), Jehoahaz (three months), Jehoiakim (eleven years),

Jeconiah (three months), Zedekiah (eleven years). But his prophecies

under Josiah (the first through twentieth chapters) are immediately

followed by a portion under Zedekiah (the twenty-first chapter). Again,

Jer 24:8-10,

as to Zedekiah, comes in the midst of the section as to Jehoahaz,

Jehoiakim, and Jeconiah (the twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fifth

chapters, &c.) So the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth chapters as to

Jehoiakim, follow the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth,

thirty-third, thirty-fourth chapters, as to Zedekiah; and the

forty-fifth chapter, dated the fourth year of Jehoiakim, comes after

predictions as to the Jews who fled to Egypt after the overthrow of

Jerusalem. EWALD thinks the present arrangement

substantially Jeremiah's own; the various portions are prefaced by the

same formula, "The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord"

(Jer 7:1;

11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 25:1; 30:1; 32:1; 34:1, 8; 35:1; 40:1; 44:1;

compare

Jer 14:1; 46:1; 47:1; 49:34).

Notes of time mark other divisions more or less historical

(Jer 26:1; 27:1; 36:1; 37:1).

Two other portions are distinct of themselves

(Jer 29:1; 45:1).

The second chapter has the shorter introduction which marks the

beginning of a strophe; the third chapter seems imperfect, having as

the introduction merely "saying"

(Jer 3:1,

Hebrew). Thus in the poetical parts, there are twenty-three

sections divided into strophes of from seven to nine verses, marked

some way thus, "The Lord said also unto me". They form five books: I.

The Introduction, first chapter II. Reproofs of the Jews, the second

through twenty-fourth chapters, made up of seven sections: (1) the

second chapter (2) the third through sixth chapters; (3) the seventh

through tenth chapters; (4) the eleventh through thirteenth chapters;

(5) the fourteenth through seventeenth chapters; (6) the seventeenth

through nineteenth and twentieth chapters; (7) the twenty-first through

twenty-fourth chapters. III. Review of all nations in two sections: the

twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth through forty-ninth chapters, with a

historical appendix of three sections, (1) the twenty-sixth chapter;

(2) the twenty-seventh chapter; (3) the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth

chapters. IV. Two sections picturing the hopes of brighter

times, (1) the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters; (2) the

thirty-second and thirty-third chapters; and an historical appendix in

three sections: (1)

Jer 34:1-7;

(2)

Jer 34:8-22;

(3)

Jer 35:1-19.

V. The conclusion, in two sections: (1)

Jer 36:2;

(2)

Jer 45:1-5.

Subsequently, in Egypt, he added

Jer 46:13-26

to the previous prophecy as to Egypt; also the three sections, the

thirty-seventh through thirty-ninth chapters; fortieth through

forty-third chapters; and forty-fourth chapter. The fifty-second

chapter was probably (see

Jer 51:64)

an appendix from a later hand, taken from

2Ki 24:18,

&c.; 2Ki 25:30.

The prophecies against the several foreign nations stand in a different

order in the Hebrew from that of the Septuagint; also the

prophecies against them in the Hebrew (the forty-sixth through

fifty-first chapters) are in the Septuagint placed after

Jer 25:14,

forming the twenty-sixth and thirty-first chapters; the remainder of

the twenty-fifth chapter of the Hebrew is the thirty-second

chapter of the Septuagint. Some passages in the Hebrew

(Jer 27:19-22; 33:14-26; 39:4-14

Jer 48:45-47)

are not found in the Septuagint; the Greek translators

must have had a different recension before them; probably an earlier

one. The Hebrew is probably the latest and fullest edition from

Jeremiah's own hand. See on

Jer 25:13.

The canonicity of his prophecies is established by quotations of them

in the New Testament (see

Mt 2:17; 16:14;

Heb 8:8-12;

on

Mt 27:9,

see on

Introduction to Zechariah);

also by the testimony of

Ecclesiasticus 49:7,

which quotes

Jer 1:10;

of PHILO, who quotes his word as an "oracle"; and

of the list of canonical books in MELITO, ORIGEN, JEROME, and the Talmud.