Jeremiah
Purpose
Jeremiah is called as a young man in the thirteenth year of Josiah to deliver the last, desperate warnings before the southern kingdom of Judah is swept into exile by Babylon. For forty years he preaches a message almost no one will hear — that judgement is certain, that the nation's superficial reliance on the temple and the covenant will not shield it, and that the people must turn back to the LORD with the heart and not merely with ritual. His book is unique for the windows it opens into the prophet's own suffering: his loneliness, his laments to God, his imprisonment, and his tears over a people who will not repent. Yet even amid the wreckage, Jeremiah announces the LORD's gracious future — the gathering of a remnant, a seventy-year limit to the exile, and above all the promise of a "new covenant" in which God will write his law on his people's hearts and remember their sins no more. Oracles against the nations and a closing historical appendix show that the LORD who judges Judah judges the whole world.
Author
Traditionally Jeremiah, dictated to Baruch the scribe
Time Period
Ministry c. 627-580 BC, from Josiah to after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC
Key Themes
- Judgement and exile
- The new covenant
- False prophets
- Repentance
- The weeping prophet
- Remnant
Outline
The prophet's call (ch. 1): his birth and commission, the visions of the almond branch and the boiling pot. Warnings to a faithless nation (ch. 2–25): the broken covenant, the good and bad figs, the false shepherds, the call to "stand by the roads and see," the coming captivity, and the seventy-year exile. The prophet's biography and suffering (ch. 26–45): temple arrest and trial; the yoke of Babylon; his letter to the exiles; the burning of the scroll by Jehoiakim; imprisonment in the cistern; rescue by Ebed-melech; the fall of Jerusalem; his release; his forced removal to Egypt; and the word of consolation to Baruch. Oracles against the nations (ch. 46–51): Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar, Elam, and the long proclamation of Babylon's doom. The historical appendix (ch. 52): the fall and destruction of Jerusalem and the release of Jehoiachin in Babylon.