The prophet Jeremiah is the son of Helkin, a Levitical priest. Jeremiah was probably born between 650 and 645 BC. e. in the small town of Anathoth, about three miles northeast of Jerusalem in the land of Benjamin. Jeremiah is often called the “weeping prophet .” He is revered as one of the great prophets of the Old Testament.
From the very childhood of the prophet, God had plans for his future.
...before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you: I made you a prophet to the nations. (Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 1).
In the 13th year of the reign of King Josiah of Judah (c. 627 BC), God called Jeremiah when he was still a youth:
I have set you this day over nations and kingdoms, to uproot and destroy, to destroy and destroy, to build and to plant. (Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 1).
God forbade Jeremiah to take a wife. Jeremiah had to devote himself entirely to serving God:
...do not take yourself a wife, and let you have neither sons nor daughters in this place.
The Life and Times of Jeremiah
Jeremiah was one of God's prophets during the reigns of the five kings of Judah (Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah). Jeremiah witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC. e.
His prophetic ministry lasted more than 40 years, during which he created the BOOK OF JEREMIAH and THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH, which were included in the Bible. Contemporaries of Jeremiah were the prophets Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Daniel and Ezekiel.
Jeremiah was a member of a generation that lived surrounded by both pagan and Old Testament relics. At the beginning of Jeremiah's prophetic ministry, King Josiah of Judah was about 21 years old. Josiah carried out serious reforms in order to return Judah to God and to the purity of religious rituals:
... while still a youth, he began to resort to the God of David, his father, and in the twelfth year he began to cleanse Judea and Jerusalem from high places and sacred trees and from carved and cast images (Second Book of Chronicles, chapter 34).
God called Jeremiah to prophetic ministry about a year after King Josiah's religious reforms. It is worth saying that before Josiah reigned the wicked king Manasseh, who resumed the practice of child sacrifice, which was still going on in the time of Jeremiah. (Mentions of this can be found in the Book of Jeremiah - chapters 7, 19 and 32).
The purpose of Jeremiah's ministry was to expose sinfulness and teach about the dire consequences of ignoring it. Jeremiah hoped for a complete spiritual revival of Judah, but tragedy soon occurred - the righteous King Josiah suddenly died at the age of 39. The whole people mourned his death, and the prophet Jeremiah was no exception.
Josiah and Jeremiah mourned in a lamentable song; and all the singers and singers spoke about Josiah in their lamentable songs. (2 Chronicles, chapter 35)
Ultimately, it turned out that Josiah's reforms were not enough to cleanse Judah of the pagan rites introduced by the wicked Manasseh. God's people broke their covenant with God. They abandoned God and worshiped false gods everywhere.
Through the prophet Jeremiah, God warned His people about the impending destruction of Jerusalem from invaders from the north.
And the Lord said to me: From the north will disaster come upon all the inhabitants of this land. (Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 1)
Jeremiah exposed the sins of the people, including pride and ingratitude towards God's mercy. He also spoke out against idolatry, adultery, oppression of foreigners, widows and orphans, lies and slander, breaking the Sabbath, etc.
Jeremiah warned that the consequences of sin would be dire: the people would face famine, then invaders would come and the people would be taken captive.
Jeremiah witnessed the fulfillment of God's warning. He saw natural disasters and the destruction of Jerusalem. The Babylonian king Jehoiakim repeatedly attacked the cities of Judea. Soon Jerusalem was destroyed. Jeremiah lived in Jerusalem during these terrible years. He witnessed the blockade and destruction of the city by the Babylonians under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar.
Jeremiah in art
Jeremiah consoles his foremother Rachel.
Engraving by I. Budko. The personality of Jeremiah has been the theme of many works of art and literature from the Renaissance to the present day. Frescoes and sculptures in many European cathedrals are dedicated to Jeremiah (Donatello's sculptures in the Florentine bell tower, Michelangelo's fresco in the Sistine Chapel and others).
In Jewish art, L. Uri’s painting “Jeremiah” deserves special attention. In literature, the drama of S. Zweig, the novels of F. Werfel and J. Dobrachinsky (in Polish), and the poems of D. Merezhkovsky and S. Frug are dedicated to Jeremiah in Russian. In Hebrew literature, Jeremiah is the main character in M. Z. Volfovsky’s novel “Beit Ha-Rechavim” (“House of the Rechavites”, 1962).
Persecution of Jeremiah.
When King Josiah died, Jeremiah experienced difficulties as a prophet of God. His preaching led to him receiving threats. His life in his hometown was dangerous. In his hometown of Anathoth, the priests of the pagan temple, dissatisfied with the prophetic activity of Jeremiah, conspired to kill him. Even Jeremiah's relatives participated in this conspiracy. However, the Lord revealed a plot to keep Jeremiah alive and continue his activities. Jeremiah had to leave his hometown and go to Jerusalem.
I left My house; I have left My inheritance; He gave the most dear thing to My soul into the hands of his enemies. (Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 12)
He was also persecuted in Jerusalem. A priest named Pashor pursued the prophet and put him in stocks at the upper Benjamin Gate. Jeremiah became a universal laughing stock and the subject of universal mockery.
Soon, by order of the king, Jeremiah was again punished for his prophecies about the disasters that would face the people of Israel. Jeremiah was caught and lowered by ropes into a pit of mud. Jeremiah was saved from death by Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, one of the eunuch slaves, who persuaded the king to let Jeremiah go.
After this incident, the prophet Jeremiah did not stop spreading the word of God, although he tried to stop. However, the words of God burned like fire in his heart, and he could not contain them.
God told Jeremiah that He would give him strength to endure all the persecution.
And I will make you a strong wall of brass for this people; They will fight against you, but they will not prevail against you, for I am with you to save and deliver you, says the Lord. (Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 15)
Contents of the Book of Jeremiah
Jeremiah was deeply versed in historical and liturgical literature - the book of Jeremiah is replete with quotations from the Torah and Tehillim, and especially from the works of the prophets who preceded him. Already in his early sermons, Jeremiah mercilessly denounces the Jews for their apostasy from the Covenant. Demanding that all thoughts and efforts be concentrated on moral improvement, on the implementation of social justice and true justice, he foreshadows for Judah the fate that befell the kingdom of Israel: complete destruction by “the people who will come from the north.”
Jeremiah considers himself called by God to “uproot and destroy, destroy and destroy,” and only then again “to build and plant” (Jer. 1:10, 14–15). The severity of his prophecies, the terrifying pictures of destruction, disaster and famine prepared for Judea, arouse the hatred of those around him even in his hometown. In deeply personal poetic “confession”, Jeremiah bitterly complains about loneliness and doom to be a man all his life, “who argues and quarrels with all the earth” (Jeremiah 15:10), but does not consider himself entitled to renounce the mission entrusted to him by God.
Destiny
According to legend, the prophet Jeremiah, whose biography will be briefly presented below, embarked on the path of piety at the behest of the Lord himself. According to legend, Jehovah first appeared to him at the age of 15. The Lord informed the young man that he had chosen him as a prophet even before his birth. At first, Jeremiah refused God's offer, citing, first of all, his tongue-tiedness. Then the Lord touched his lips and said, “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.” After this, the young man accepted the gift of the prophet and carried it throughout 40 years of his life.
Righteous rulers
The death of the pious King Josiah was a real blow for the saint, who foresaw the onset of troubled times. In honor of this event, the prophet Jeremiah, whose life can be an example for both Jewish and Christian believers, even wrote a special lamentation song. And indeed, the country was subsequently ruled by a not very pious and intelligent king. True, after Josiah, the rather kind and God-obedient Johaz also ascended the throne. However, he reigned, unfortunately, not for long - only three months. Jochaz was the youngest son of the deceased Josiah and ascended to the throne, bypassing his older brother Joachim. Historically, it is known that he broke relations with the pharaoh of Egypt Necho the Second due to the latter’s defeat near the Babylonian city of Harran. Angry at this, the treacherous ruler summoned Johaz to his headquarters in the city of Riblah, supposedly for negotiations, but captured him and sent him to Egypt, where he subsequently died.
The prophet Jeremiah grieved for this king even more than for Josiah, calling on the Jews in his next song to “pity not the dead, but the one who will never return to his native land.”
Sermons and Instructions
The Lord's first meeting with Jeremiah took place around 626 BC, in the thirteenth year of the reign of the righteous King Josiah. Jerusalem was already a very large city, and there was a huge temple there, in which a huge number of professing the Jewish faith gathered for holidays.
Apparently, it was in this large religious building, of which nothing remains today, that Jeremiah preached. The prophet (a photo of the mountain on which the Jerusalem Temple once stood can be seen above), judging by the available information, also proclaimed the word of God in the squares, in the gates and even in the king’s house. Unlike the various kinds of false prophets who preached in Jerusalem at that time, Jeremiah did not encourage or praise the Jewish people. On the contrary, he fiercely denounced his unrighteousness and sins. He reproached the high priests for hypocrisy, declaring that since there is no sincere faith in God in their hearts, the magnificent expensive rituals they perform are a waste of time. The prophet denounced the crowd, accusing them of idolatry. In those days, many Jews carved figures of foreign gods from wood and stone and prayed to them, and also made sacrifices.
Fall of Judea
The destruction of the scroll with unpleasant predictions for the unrighteous king Joachim, who spent all his time in unbridled amusements, did not help. In 605 BC. e. At the Battle of Carchemish, the young Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar inflicted a crushing defeat on the Egyptian troops. The Jews, who did not listen to the words of Jeremiah, of course, participated in this battle as vassals of Necho the Second.
When Nebuchadnezzar approached the walls of Jerusalem, King Joachim had to pay him off with part of the temple treasures and give the sons of many noble people of Judea as hostages. After the Babylonians left, the unrighteous ruler continued his carefree life.
In 601 BC. e. Nebuchadnezzar launched another campaign against Egypt. However, Necho the Second managed to repel him this time. King Joachim of Judea took advantage of this to finally break with Babylonia. The offended Nebuchadnezzar, who by that time had already subjugated Ammon and Moab, moved towards Jerusalem. In 598 BC. e. the city was taken by him, its ruler was killed, and the temple was destroyed. Jeremiah's prophecy came true. As he predicted, the Jews taken to Babylonia subsequently spent 70 years in captivity.
Jeremiah is a prophet who, as already mentioned, lived just a few kilometers from the walls of Jerusalem and for many years had the opportunity to admire its majestic outlines. The pictures of the destroyed city and temple struck him deeply. The prophet expressed all his pain and sadness in a special poetic text. The latter is officially included in the Bible and is called “The Lamentations of Jeremiah.”
A terrible prophecy
Many biblical prophets advised the Jews to submit to the will of God. Jeremiah is no exception in this regard. After Jochaz, the protege of Necho the Second, Joachim, ascended the throne of Judea, vowing to be a faithful vassal of Egypt. The reign of this ruler became a real curse for the prophet Jeremiah. Soon after his accession to the throne, the saint came to Jerusalem and announced that if the Jews did not repent and submit to the will of God, turning to the young but rapidly growing state of Babylonia, the city would soon be captured by foreigners, and its inhabitants would be taken captive for 70 years. The prophet also predicted the destruction of the main shrine of the Jews - the Jerusalem Temple. Of course, his words caused particular displeasure among false prophets and priests. The saint was captured and brought before the people and nobles, who demanded his death. However, the prophet still managed to escape. His high-born friend Ahikam and some other princes who were well disposed towards him helped him.
Origin and birth
The approximate date of birth of Jeremiah is known. He was born in 650 at the same time as the heir to the throne, Josiah, whose birth was announced by King Manasseh.
The father of the future herald of God was a priest, Helkin from the tribe of Benjamin, the family lived at that time in Anathoth, not far from Jerusalem. Josiah ascended the throne at the age of eight, and after eight years of his reign the king began to take effective measures to cleanse the country of idolatry.
Read about the prophets:
- Prophet Ezekiel
- Prophet Moses
- Book of the Prophet Daniel
The meaning of Jeremiah's predictions
Thus, Jeremiah is a prophet, the main idea of all of whose predictions was that the Jews should submit to the then young, but quickly gaining strength, state of Babylonia. The saint called on the nobility and the ruler to turn away from Egypt and not bring terrible misfortunes to Judea. Of course, no one believed him. Many even considered him a spy for Babylonia. After all, Egypt was the strongest state in those days, and no one could even imagine that some young country would become the cause of disaster for its vassals. Jeremiah's calls only irritated the Jews and turned them against him.
The book of prophecies and the king
Some time after these unpleasant events, Jeremiah's disciple Baruch collected all the prophecies he had made in one book and read them before the people in the vestibule of the Jerusalem Temple. Having heard about this, King Joachim wished to personally familiarize himself with these records. After he read them, terrible anger fell on the prophet’s head. Court eyewitnesses said that the ruler himself cut off pieces from the scroll with records of Jeremiah's predictions and burned them in the fire of the brazier standing in front of him until he completely destroyed the book.
After this, the life of the prophet Jeremiah became especially difficult. He and his disciple Baruch had to hide from the wrath of Joachim in a secret refuge. However, here the saints did not waste time and recreated the lost book, adding other prophecies to it.
To whom does the prophet Jeremiah compare the Jewish people?
Jeremiah's predictions are thus largely related to the political events that took place during his lifetime. However, much attention was paid to the moral side in his sermons and instructions. The Prophet sincerely believed that it was possible to avoid future misfortunes only by repenting and submitting to the will of God.
He likens the Jewish people to an apostate who does not know what he is doing. Jeremiah compares all the ancestors of the Jews of that time who abandoned the faith to a bundle of firewood, which will flare up and burn from just the word of God.
The prophet, in spite of everything, assigns a special role to the Jewish people as God's chosen ones. However, at the same time, he compares it not only with a bundle of firewood, ready to catch fire, but also with a clay pot. This is evidenced by a significant incident that happened to the prophet. One day, walking through the streets of Jerusalem, he approached a potter, took one of the pots from him and smashed it on the ground, prophesying the imminent death of Judea and comparing it with this fragile vessel.
"Lamentations"
Jeremiah is a prophet especially revered by Christians. His work, known as the Lamentations of Jeremiah, is, as already mentioned, part of the Bible. This holy book contains only five songs. The first, second and fourth have 22 verses, each of which begins and is designated by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order. The third canto contains 66 verses, divided into three groups. The verses in them also begin with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order. The fifth song also consists of 22 verses, but in this case they are not ordered by letter numbering.
Jeremiah (the prophet), whose years of life were spent in Anathoth and Jerusalem, in the first song of Lamentations, speaks with great sorrow about the taking of the Jews into Babylonian captivity and the destruction of Zion. In the second, the prophet analyzes what happened, calling the misfortune that happened to the country a well-deserved punishment from God. The third canto is a manifestation of the saint's greatest sorrow. Only at the end of this part does the prophet express hope for the mercy of God. In the fourth part of Lamentation, the prophet tempers the bitterness of grief for the lost city with the awareness of his own guilt before the Lord. In the fifth song, the saint achieves complete calm, accepts what happened as a given and expresses hope for the best.
Thus, you now know to whom the prophet Jeremiah likens the Jewish people and what he preached about. This ancient biblical saint lived in troubled, difficult times, but despite this and the sorrows that befell him personally and all of Judea as a whole, he remained faithful to the God of his ancestors. And therefore can serve as an example for all Christians and Jews.
Reverence
A few years later, the Jews began to honor the prophet as a national hero, composing legends about him. The Orthodox Church honors the memory of Saint Jeremiah on May 1, drawing a parallel between him and the sufferer Job, identifying him who gave his life for God’s knowledge and salvation of the people with Jesus Christ.
John Chrysostom emphasized the similarity of the characters of Jeremiah and the Apostle Paul. Christians see in him an example of the results of repentance through tearful prayer for sins. Jeremiah's victory was as follows:
- was not defeated by the opinions of people, instead of hatred he gained respect;
- like Jacob, he struggled in the darkness of human sin, despite God’s refusal to hear prayers for salvation and mercy for the Jews, to continue to come before Yahweh with his petitions, believing that the Creator loved His creation with an eternal love;
- plunging into the core of a corrupt society, he looked there for souls who had not yet died to God, and the Lord, seeing the determination of his faith, changed his anger to mercy.
According to legend, the relics of the saint were transferred by order of Alexander the Great to Alexandria, and a monument to the beautiful Helen was built over them.
