Jeremías 1

INTRODUCTION

Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, one of the ordinary priests, dwelling in Anathoth of Benjamin (Jr 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 (Jr 1:5), he received his prophetical call in Anathoth (Jr 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 (Jr 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 (Jr 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 (Jr 11:21), as well as those of his own family (Jr 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 (Jr 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 (Jr 26:8-11). The princes, however, especially Ahikam, interposed in his behalf (Jr 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 (Jr 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 (Jr 26:20-23). Baruch rewrote the words, with additional prophecies, on another roll (Jr 36:27-32). In the three months' reign of Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, he prophesied the carrying away of the king and the queen mother (Jr 13:18; 22:24-30; compare 2Ki 24:12). In this reign he was imprisoned for a short time by Pashur (Jr 20:1-18), the chief governor of the Lord's house; but at Zedekiah's accession he was free (Jr 37:4), for the king sent to him to "inquire of the Lord" when Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem (Jr 21:1-3, &c.; Jr 37:3). The Chaldeans drew off on hearing of the approach of Pharaoh's army (Jr 37:5); but Jeremiah warned the king that the Egyptians would forsake him, and the Chaldeans return and burn up the city (Jr 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 (Jr 38:1-5). He would have been left to perish in the dungeon of Malchiah, but for the intercession of Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian (Jr 38:6-13). Zedekiah, though he consulted Jeremiah in secret yet was induced by his princes to leave Jeremiah in prison (Jr 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 (Jr 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 (Jr 41:1-43:13). At Tahpanhes, a boundary city on the Tanitic or Pelustan branch of the Nile, he prophesied the overthrow of Egypt (Jr 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, Jr 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" (Jr 7:1; 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 25:1; 30:1; 32:1; 34:1, 8; 35:1; 40:1; 44:1; compare Jr 14:1; 46:1; 47:1; 49:34). Notes of time mark other divisions more or less historical (Jr 26:1; 27:1; 36:1; 37:1). Two other portions are distinct of themselves (Jr 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" (Jr 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) Jr 34:1-7; (2) Jr 34:8-22; (3) Jr 35:1-19. V. The conclusion, in two sections: (1) Jr 36:2; (2) Jr 45:1-5. Subsequently, in Egypt, he added Jr 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 Jr 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 Jr 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 (Jr 27:19-22; 33:14-26; 39:4-14 Jr 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 Jr 25:13. The canonicity of his prophecies is established by quotations of them in the New Testament (see Mt 2:17; 16:14; He 8:8-12; on Mt 27:9, see on Introduction to Zechariah); also by the testimony of Ecclesiasticus 49:7, which quotes Jr 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.

Jr 1:1-19. The General Title or Introduction

Jr 1:1-3, probably prefixed by Jeremiah, when he collected his prophecies and gave them to his countrymen to take with them to Babylon [Michaelis].

1. Anathoth--a town in Benjamin, twenty stadia, that is, two or three miles north of Jerusalem; now Anata (compare Is 10:30, and the context, Is 10:28-32). One of the four cities allotted to the Kohathites in Benjamin (Jos 21:18). Compare 1Ki 2:26, 27; a stigma was cast thenceforth on the whole sacerdotal family resident there; this may be alluded to in the words here, "the priests ... in Anathoth." God chooses "the weak, base, and despised things ... to confound the mighty."

2-3. Jehoiakim ... Josiah ... Zedekiah--Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin are omitted for they reigned only three months each. The first and last of the kings under whom each prophet prophesied are often thus specified in the general title. See on these kings, and Jeremiah's life, my Introduction.

thirteenth ... of his reign--(Jr 25:3).

fifth month--(2Ki 25:8).

4-10. Jeremiah's call to the prophetical office.

unto me--other manuscripts read "to him"; but English Version probably represents the true Hebrew text; this inscription was doubtless made by Jeremiah himself.

11. rod--shoot, or branch.

almond tree--literally, "the wakeful tree," because it awakes from the sleep of winter earlier than the other trees, flowering in January, and bearing fruit in March; symbol of God's early execution of His purpose; Jr 1:12, "hasten My word" (compare Am 8:3).

12. hasten--rather, "I will be wakeful as to My word," &c.; alluding to Jr 1:11, "the wakeful tree" [Maurer].

13. Another vision, signifying what is the "word" about to be "performed," and by what instrumentality.

seething--literally, "blown under"; so boiling by reason of the flame under it kept brisk by blowing. An Oriental symbol of a raging war.

toward--rather, "from the north." Literally, "from the face of the region situated towards the north" (compare Jr 1:14, 15) [Maurer]. The pot in the north rested on one side, its mouth being about to pour forth its contents southwards, namely, on Judea. Babylon, though east of Judea, was regarded by the Hebrews as north, because they appropriated the term "east" to Arabia-Deserta, stretching from Palestine to the Euphrates; or rather [Bochart], the reference here is not to the site, but to the route of the Babylonians; not being able to cross the desert, they must enter the Holy Land by the northern frontier, through Riblah in Hamath (Jr 39:5; 52:9).

14. break forth--"shall disclose itself."

Out of the north--(Jr 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 25:9; Eze 26:7). The Chaldeans did not cast off the yoke of Assyria till several years after, under Nabopolassar, 625 B.C.; but long previously they had so increased as to threaten Assyria, which was now grown weak, and other neighboring peoples.

15. families--the tribes or clans composing the various kingdoms of Babylon; the specification of these aggravates the picture of calamity (Jr 25:9).

throne at ... gates--the usual place of administering justice. The conquering princes will set up their tribunal there (Jr 39:3, 5; 52:9). Or the reference is to the military pavilion (Jr 43:10) [Maurer].

16. utter--pronounce. The judicial sentences, pronounced against the Jews by the invading princes, would be virtually the "judgments of God" (Is 10:5).

works--idols.

17. gird ... loins--resolutely prepare for thy appointed task. Metaphor from the flowing robes worn in the East, which have to be girt up with a girdle, so as not to incommode one, when undertaking any active work (Job 38:3; Lu 12:35; 1Pe 1:13).

dismayed ... confound--the same Hebrew word; literally, "to break." Be not dismayed at their faces (before them), lest I make thee dismayed before their faces (before them), that is, "lest I should permit thee to be overcome by them" (compare Jr 49:37).

18. defenced city, &c.--that is, I will give thee strength which no power of thine enemies shall overcome (Jr 6:27; 15:20; Is 50:7; 54:17; Lu 21:15; Ac 6:10).

walls--plural, to express the abundant strength to be given him. De Rossi's'S manuscripts read singular, "wall."

people of the land--the general masses, as distinguished from the princes and priests.