Jeremiah: the weeping prophet and the new covenant
Jeremiah is the book of the ‘weeping prophet’, who called Judah to turn back for more than forty years and lived to see Jerusalem fall. In the midst of judgement God promises a new covenant, his law written on his people's hearts.
About the book
The book opens with "the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin" (Jeremiah 1:1). Jeremiah was called in the thirteenth year of King Josiah, 627 BC (Jeremiah 1:2), and preached through the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah until Jerusalem fell to Babylon in 586, and beyond; at the last he was taken to Egypt against his will (Jeremiah 43:6-7). The map under the Jesus tab places the book at the close of the divided monarchy (930–586 BC).
The book tells how it was written. Jeremiah dictated the LORD's words and his scribe Baruch wrote them on a scroll (Jeremiah 36:4); when King Jehoiakim burned the scroll, Baruch wrote it again, "And many similar words were added to them" (Jeremiah 36:32). Jews and Christians have received Jeremiah as the book's author, and Jewish tradition holds that he wrote his own book, Kings and Lamentations Talmud, Bava Batra. Chapter 51 closes, "Here end the words of Jeremiah" (Jeremiah 51:64), and chapter 52 adds an account of Jerusalem's fall much like 2 Kings 24–25.
The book has come down in two forms. The ancient Greek translation is noticeably shorter than the Hebrew, and places the words against the nations (chapters 46–51 in the Hebrew) after 25:13, in another order. Hebrew fragments close to each form were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Many scholars think Jeremiah's words were gathered and edited in more than one edition by Baruch and later disciples, the shorter form being the earlier; some also distinguish his poetic oracles from prose sermons in a style like Deuteronomy's. Many others, among them evangelicals, who stress the authority of Scripture and the telling of the gospel, hold that both forms go back to Jeremiah and Baruch, the book growing as chapter 36 describes.
How it unfolds
| Chapters | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1 | The call: a prophet to the nations |
| 2–25 | Warnings to Judah: idols and false trust, the temple sermon, the prophet's laments |
| 26–45 | What Jeremiah suffered: the letter to the exiles, the new covenant (30–33), prison, the fall, Egypt |
| 46–51 | Words to the nations, from Egypt to Babylon |
| 52 | Jerusalem's fall |
Key passages
God called Jeremiah with words of his own purpose: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jeremiah 1:5). Jeremiah protested, "I am only a child!" (Jeremiah 1:6), but God put his words in his mouth. Judah's sickness, he said, lay in the heart: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure" (Jeremiah 17:9). The people had forsaken God, "the fountain of living water", for broken cisterns (Jeremiah 2:13). For saying so Jeremiah was beaten, imprisoned and lowered into a muddy cistern, yet he could not keep silent: the word was "a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones" (Jeremiah 20:9).
After King Jeconiah and many others were taken to Babylon in 597, Jeremiah wrote to the exiles (Jeremiah 29:1-2). False prophets promised a quick return; Jeremiah told them to build houses and "Seek the prosperity of the city to which I have sent you" (Jeremiah 29:7), for God would bring them back only "When Babylon’s seventy years are complete" (Jeremiah 29:10). The promise so often quoted on its own stands in that letter:
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11
It is not a promise of quick success. It is God's purpose for his people at the end of a wait so long that many would not live to see it. Matthew Henry writes that God will give them "not the expectations of their fears, or the expectations of their fancies, but the expectations of their faith" Matthew Henry.
In the midst of judgement, chapters 30–33 bring comfort, and at their heart is the new covenant:
I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.
Jeremiah 31:33
The law Israel had broken on tablets of stone God will write within, and he promises, "I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more" (Jeremiah 31:34).
The book and Christ
At the Last Supper Jesus took the cup and said, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you" (Luke 22:20). Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34 whole (Hebrews 8:8-12) and calls Jesus the mediator of a covenant that "is founded on better promises" (Hebrews 8:6). The covenant Jeremiah foretold was sealed in Christ's blood; Law and covenant, in the doctrine course, says more.
Jeremiah longed for "a fountain of tears" to weep for his people (Jeremiah 9:1), and so he has been called the weeping prophet. Jesus too, drawing near Jerusalem, "saw the city" and "wept over it", foreseeing its fall (Luke 19:41). Some who saw Jesus thought he was Jeremiah come again (Matthew 16:14). As Jeremiah rebuked a people who made the temple "a den of robbers" (Jeremiah 7:11), so Jesus quoted his words in the temple courts (Matthew 21:13).
Reading it
Two chapters a day takes twenty-six days; begin with Jeremiah 1. The book is not in order of time, so notice the king named at the head of a chapter; reading 2 Kings 22–25 first sets the scene. Read the comfort of chapters 30–33 slowly.
Catholic and Orthodox Bibles also hold a book of Baruch, named after Jeremiah's scribe, which Catholics call deuterocanonical; Protestant churches do not receive it as Scripture and count it among the Apocrypha. Afterwards go on to Lamentations.
Practice
- Practice 1 of 6
What did God say when he called Jeremiah?
- Practice 2 of 6
To whom was the promise of Jeremiah 29:11 first given?
- Practice 3 of 6
What does God promise in the new covenant of Jeremiah 31?
- Practice 4 of 6
Who wrote Jeremiah's words on a scroll as he dictated them?
- Practice 5 of 6
At the Last Supper, what did Jesus join to the new covenant?
- Practice 6 of 6
What is true of the ancient Greek translation of Jeremiah?
Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.
Related topics
Source
- The Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 14b–15a — Completed c. 6th century. The Jewish tradition of who wrote (or compiled) each book of the Hebrew Bible: Moses his own book, the portion of Balaam and Job; Joshua his and the Torah's last eight verses (his death recorded by Eleazar and Phinehas); Samuel his, Judges and Ruth (finished by Gad and Nathan); David the Psalms with the elders; Jeremiah his, Kings and Lamentations; Hezekiah and his company Isaiah, Proverbs, the Song and Ecclesiastes; the Men of the Great Assembly Ezekiel, the Twelve, Daniel and Esther; Ezra his and the genealogies of Chronicles.
Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds and classic commentary. Each book's author and date are given as the church has received them, and scholars who see them otherwise are presented fairly. Scripture quotations: BSB.