Jeremiah

1
Jeremiah
Adapted from http//www.usccb.org/nab/bible/jeremi
ah/intro.htm
Not this guy
2
This guy (by Rembrandt)
3
Jeremiah
Adapted from http//www.usccb.org/nab/bible/jeremi
ah/intro.htm
O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed
you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all day long
everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I must
cry out, I must shout, Violence and
destruction! For the word of the Lord has become
for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I
say, I will not mention him, or speak any more
in his name, then within me there is something
like a burning fire shut up in my bones I am
weary with holding it in, and I cannot. For I
hear many whispering Terror is all around!
Denounce him! Let us denounce him! All my close
friends are watching for me to stumble. Perhaps
he can be enticed, and we can prevail against
him, and take our revenge on him. But the Lord
is with me like a dread warrior therefore my
persecutors will stumble, and they will not
prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they
will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will
never be forgotten. O Lord of hosts, you test the
righteous, you see the heart and the mind let me
see your retribution upon them, for to you I have
committed my cause. Sing to the Lord praise the
Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy
from the hands of evildoers. Jeremiah 207-13
4
Jeremiah was born about 650 B.C.E of a priestly
family from the little village of Anathoth, near
Jerusalem. While still very young he was called
to his task in the thirteenth year of King Josiah
(628), whose reform, begun with enthusiasm and
hope, ended with his death on the battlefield of
Megiddo (609) as he attempted to stop the
northward march of the Egyptian Pharaoh Neco.
Josiah hearing the rediscovered early edition of
Deuteronomy
5
The prophet heartily supported the reform of the
pious King Josiah, which began in 629 B.C.E.
There are connections in literary style and
content linking Jeremiah and Josiah to
Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History
(Joshua-2 Kings, minus Ruth). Some scholars (like
Friedman) think Jeremiahs scribe Baruch may have
been the author of both.
Recently discovered clay seal with Baruchs name
6
After the death of Josiah the old idolatry
returned, and the leaders continued to exploit
the poor. Jeremiah opposed this with all his
strength. Arrest, imprisonment, and public
disgrace were his lot. Jeremiah saw in the
nation's impenitence the sealing of its doom. He
saw the newly reborn Babylonian empire as Gods
judgment on Judah for their faithlessness,
idolatry and social injustice.
7
During the years 598-587, Jeremiah attempted to
counsel Zedekiah in the face of bitter
opposition. The false prophet Hananiah proclaimed
that the yoke of Babylon was broken and a strong
pro-Egyptian party in Jerusalem induced Zedekiah
to revolt. Jeremiah contradicted him Hananiah by
walking the streets of Jerusalem wearing a yoke,
the symbol of coming slavery. He counseled
Zedekiah instead to submit to Babylon and spare
his people, placing all his trust in Gods power
to save.
8
Jeremiahs advice was refused, and he was labeled
a traitor. Nebuchadnezzar took swift and terrible
vengeance Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 and its
leading citizens sent into exile.
9
About this time Jeremiah uttered the great oracle
of the "New Covenant" (Jeremiah 3131-34)
sometimes called (by Christians) "The Gospel
before the Gospel." This passage is a landmark in
the theology of the Jewish Bible. The days are
surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a
new covenant with the house of Israel and the
house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant
that I made with their ancestors when I took them
by the hand to bring them out of the land of
Egypta covenant that they broke, though I was
their husband, says the Lord. But this is the
covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel after those days, says the Lord I will
put my law within them, and I will write it on
their hearts and I will be their God, and they
shall be my people. No longer shall they teach
one another, or say to each other, Know the
Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least
of them to the greatest, says the Lord for I
will forgive their iniquity, and remember their
sin no more.
10
The prophet remained amidst the ruins of
Jerusalem, but was later forced into Egyptian
exile by a band of conspirators. There, according
to an old tradition, he was murdered by his own
countrymen. The influence of Jeremiah was greater
after his death than before. The exiled community
read and meditated on the lessons of the prophet,
and his influence can be seen in Ezekiel, certain
of the psalms, and the second part of Isaiah.
Shortly after the exile, the Book of Jeremiah as
we have it today was published in a final
edition.