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 |
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 at the time of the destruction of Solomon's Temple (587/6 B.C.E.) in Jerusalem during the fall of the Kingdom of Judah at the hands of Babylonia.
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. 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. For this, Jeremiah was denounced by other prophets 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 went to Egypt with a large group fleeing the Babylonians 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. Jeremiah alternates efforts to warn the people with pleas to God for mercy, until he is ordered to "pray no more for this people." He engages in extensive symbolic acts, walking about in the streets with a yoke about his neck to symbolize Judah's inevitable captivity or buying land in the midst the Babylonian advance to show that one day Judah's sovereignty would one day be restored.
A troubled relationship
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. In fact, his own relationship with God was a stormy one. At times his closeness to God clearly brought him happiness: "When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty" (15:17). Yet almost immediately, the prophet lapses into complaint: "Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails?"
Having surrendered to the divine will at an early age, he 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. At the time of his calling, God had promised him protection and great authority, but neither of these seem to have materialized.
Jeremiah's feelings of trapped frustration are palpable as he laments:
- O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me... But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot... Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, who made him very glad, saying, "A child is born to you—a son!"... Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame? (20:14-18)
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."
- The introduction, ch. 1.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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)
Faithfulness to 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
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.
See also
| Preceded by: Isaiah |
Hebrew Bible | Followed by Ezekiel |
| Christian Old Testament | Followed by Lamentations |
Notes
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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