Book of Jeremiah

Tanakh Torah | Nevi'im | Ketuvim Books of Nevi'im
First Prophets
1. Joshua
2. Judges
3. Samuel
4. Kings
Later Prophets
5. Isaiah
6. Jeremiah
7. Ezekiel
8. 12 minor prophets Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi

The Book of Jeremiah, is part of the Hebrew Bible, and is also included in Christianity's Old Testament. It was originally written in a complex and poetic Hebrew, recording the words and events surrounding the life of the Jewish prophet Jeremiah, who lived in the late seventh and early sixth century B.C.E. in Jerusalem, during the fall of the Kingdom of Judah at the hands of Babylonia.

Together with the books of Isaiah and Ezekiel, the Book of Jeremiah represents the highest point of the prophetic literature of ancient Israel. It is best known for its theme of the "New Covenant" in which a personal relationship with God will replace external observances such as temple sacrifice. It also emphasizes such themes as God's personal love the people as both a parent and a husband, the need for national and person repentance, and the need for sincere religious faith rather than formal adherence to external ceremony.

The book is also an important source of historical information about the period just prior to, during, and after the fall of Jerusalem to King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, whom the Book of Jeremiah portrays at some points as "God's servant" rather than an enemy to be resisted.

The Prophet Jeremiah

According to the book, the prophet Jeremiah was a son of a priest from Anatot in the land of Benjamin, who lived in the last years of the Kingdom of Judah just prior to, during, and immediately after the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, culminating in the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the raiding of the city by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. For a quarter century prior to the destruction, Jeremiah repeatedly issued prophecies predicting God's forthcoming judgment, advocating the Jews repent in hopes of turning away God's wrath and fulfilling their destiny as his chosen people. Jeremiah's fellow Jews refused to heed his warnings and did not repent. He came to see King Nebuchadnezzar II not as an enemy but as God's "servant" (25:9 etc.) chosen to carry out divine judgment. Later, he urged a policy of non-resistance to the Babylonians and urged the first wave of exiles to settle into their new lives and pray for the Babylonian king (29).

To some, such acts bordered on treason. Jeremiah was thus denounced by other prophets and priests who believed God would deliver Judah from Babylon if the nation fought back against Babylonian aggression. Jeremiah found himself banned from the Temple and imprisoned on more than one occasion. After the Babylonians put down a rebellion by King Zedekiah, Jeremiah was given special treatment by the Babylonians, while Zedekiah was blinded and taken captive to Babylon and the both the Temple and city of Jerusalem were destroyed. After a subsequent rebellion against the Gedaliah, whom the Babylonians had placed in charge of Judah, Jeremiah fled to Egypt and seems to have died in exile there.

The Book of Jeremiah depicts a remarkably introspective prophet, struggling with and often overwhelmed by the role into which he has been thrust. More than any historical figure in the Bible, Jeremiah bears his soul to his readers. His self-portrait is not one of inner peace and harmony with the Divine. "Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable?" he complains to God. "Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails?"

Having surrendered to the divine will at an early age, Jeremiah apparently became a lifelong celibate at God's command, something unprecedented in the history of the prophets. He faced assassination plots from people in his own hometown, as well as official opposition that cost him his freedom several times and nearly cost him his life.

In the end, Jeremiah would be known as one of the greatest of the prophets, whose sacrifices left an enduring legacy of hope for mankind. But in his own lifetime, it can only be concluded that his closeness to God brought him deepest sorrow and loneliness.

Contents

Some commentators have divided the book into 23 subsections, and perceived its contents as organized into in five major sections or "books."

1. The introduction, ch. 1.
2. Scorn for the sins of the Jews, consisting of seven sections, (1.) ch. 2; (2.) ch. 3-6; (3.) ch. 7-10; (4.) ch. 11-13; (5.) ch. 14-17:18; (6.) ch. 17:19-ch. 20; (7.) ch. 21-24.
3. A general review of all nations, foreseeing their destruction, in two sections, (1.) ch. 46-49; (2.) ch. 25; with a historical appendix of three sections, (1.) ch. 26; (2.) ch. 27; (3.) ch. 28, 29.
4. Two sections picturing the hopes of better times, (1.) ch. 30, 31; (2.) ch. 32,33; to which is added a historical appendix in three sections, (1.) ch. 34:1-7; (2.) ch. 34:8-22; (3.) ch. 35.
5. The conclusion, in two sections, (1.) ch. 36; (2.) ch. 45.

In Egypt, after an interval, Jeremiah, or his secretary, Baruch, is supposed to have added three later sections, viz., ch. 37-39; 40-43; and 44.

Themes

The New Covenant

Possibly the most enduring theme of the Book of Jeremiah is the idea of a New Covenant.

"The time is coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt... "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people." (31:31-33)

God's love

The Book of Jeremiah, more than any previous biblical book, also develops the concept of God's love and the importance of man's faithfulness. God is a loving father to his people, and he mourns their estrangement:

Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him," declares the Lord. (31:39)

The book also describes God's love for his people in terms of the conjugal relations between man and wife: "I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown" (2:2). "I am your husband," God declares to Israel, "'Return... I will frown on you no longer" (3:11-12).

God's compassion for his people to be so intense as to cause God to weep in sympathetic pain:

Let my eyes overflow with tears night and day without ceasing; for my virgin daughter—my people—has suffered a grievous wound, a crushing blow. (14:17)

"Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people... They go from one sin to another; they do not acknowledge me," declares the Lord. (9:1-3)

Repentance vs. doom

Michelangelo's Jeremiah on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Like other biblical prophets, Jeremiah strongly condemned idolatry, which he likened to a wife's committing adultery, and warned of doom for God's people if they did not repent. His prophecies betray a tortured soul who must stand reluctantly for an angry God before the people, while also standing for the people before God. He sometimes spoke as if God's anger, resulting from his people's lack of faith, was so great that there was no hope of salvation:

Then the Lord said to me, "Do not pray for the well-being of this people. Although they fast, I will not listen to their cry; though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Instead, I will destroy them with the sword, famine and plague." (14:11-12)

Yet, in other prophecies, Jeremiah conveyed the hope that it was never too late for repentance:

"If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned." (18:7-8)

The book of Jeremiah emphasizes the seriousness and pervasiveness of sin, which it portrays as offending God deeply:

"From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when I punish them," says the Lord. (6:13-15)

True religion

The theme of true versus false religion is also prevalent in the book, whether practiced in Canaanite shrines or in the name of Yahweh himself:

The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes, declares the Lord. They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my Name and have defiled it. They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind. (7:30-31)

True religion must be practiced first and foremost in the heart of the individual. Like Hosea, Isaiah, and other prophets before him, Jeremiah stressed the need for morality, spiritual sincerity, and social justice over external piety and Temple ritual. He challenged the priestly authority directly, saying in God's name:

What do I care about incense from Sheba or sweet calamus from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me. (6:20) ...I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, 'Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.' (7:21-23)

Thus for Book of Jeremiah, the "circumcision of the heart" is more important than the circumcision of the flesh (4:4). The prophet wrestled with God over the question of moral and social evil: "O Lord... I would speak with you about your justice. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?" (12:1). He threatened kings with God's wrath if they did not administer justice properly (21:12) and demanded that the wealthy citizens of Judah liberate their slaves of Hebrew birth (43).

Order

Although Jeremiah was keenly aware of the historical and political implications of his prophecies, the organization of the Book of Jeremiah is not chronological. The reader must therefore sift the prophecies to determine when, and in what context they were made. Several examples include:

• Threats of punishments to be inflicted on Judah and the surrounding nations, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, c. 605 (25).

• Threats against the "unfaithful shepherds" (i.e., the false prophets), the promise of peace and of the true shepherd ; warnings against false prophets and godless priests (perhaps in the time of King Jehoiakim; 23: 1-8, 9-40).

• Prophecies against the kings of Judah in the time of Jehoiakim (21:11-22:19), completed by the passage (22:20-30), descriptive of the leading away of Jehoiachin into captivity c. 597 B.C.E.

• Vision of the two baskets of figs, illustrating the fate of the captives and of those who were left behind, from the period after the first deportation by Nebuchadnezzar, in 597 (24).

• A proclamation of the certain fall of Jerusalem, made during the siege of Jerusalem, i.e., about 588 B.C.E. (21:1-10);

• The first of the historical passages recounting Jeremiah's prophecy in the Temple, his arrest, his threatened death, and his rescue (26).

• Protection for Israel following the period of destruction and exile, made at various junctures.

• Utterances from the time of King Zedekiah with an appendix, (ch. 35).

• the "Oracles against the Nations," (46-51) often thought to have been made in the final part of Jeremiah's in Egypt.

Versions

Considerable differences have been noted in the transmission of the text between the Masoretic and Septuagint versions of the book. The Septuagint (Greek or 'LXX') version does not include 10:6-8; 25:14; 27:19-22; 29:16-20; 33:14-26; 39:4-13; 52:2, 3, 15, 28-30, etc. In all, about 2,700 words found in the Masoretic text are not found in the Septuagint. Also, the "Oracles against the Nations," that appear as chapters 46-51 in the Masoretic and most dependent versions, in the Septuagint are located right after 25:13, and in a different order.

The Septuagint version also includes the Book of Baruch and the supposed Letter of Jeremiah. The great early translator Saint Jerome explained his rational for not including these in his Latin version of the book was based on the fact that it was not accepted as scripture by the Jews. However, the Council of Trent included them as part of the authorized apocrypha of the Old Testament.

Parts of the Book of Jeremiah have also been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in cave 4 in Qumran. These texts, in Hebrew, correspond sometimes with the Masoretic text and other times the Septuagint.

New Testament influence

The Book of Jeremiah strongly influenced the attitude and writings of the New Testament. Like Jeremiah, Jesus predicted that the Temple of Jerusalem would be made desolate if the rulers, priests, and people did not respond to God's call. Jesus even quoted Jeremiah 7:11 in his words to the moneychangers in the Temple courtyard, saying: "Is it not written, 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'?

The earliest Christian writer, Saint Paul, speaks of the Christian ministry as fulfilling Jeremiah's prophecy of a New Covenant. Both Paul (I Cor. 11:25) and Luke (22:20) portray the Last Supper as initiating the New Covenant of Jesus' blood. Hebrews 8:7-8 directly quotes Jeremiah's own prophecy of the New Covenant as being fulfilled in Jesus. Indeed, the term "New Testament" itself is simply an alternate translation of the normal rendering Jeremiah's "New Covenant."

See also

• Jeremiah
• Prophets
• Kingdom of Judah
• Babylonian exile
• Nebuchadnezzar II

Preceded by: Isaiah	Hebrew Bible	Followed by Ezekiel
	Christian Old Testament	Followed by Lamentations

External links

• (Jewish Encyclopedia) Book of Jeremiah article
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Jeremiah
• Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton's 1851 English translation of Septuagint Jeremiah
• Farrell Till (1990). The Jeremiah Dilemma. The Skeptical Review (4).

This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897. This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.

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