This is a paper that describes the historical situation going on during the time of Jeremiah's prophesying in word, action, and his very self. Jeremiah the person is described, as well as a summary of his prophetic message and his deep sympathy with the suffering of the rejected God. There is an appendix of some images from art that depict Jeremiah.

1. Running head: JEREMIAH, THE WEEPING PROPHET
Jeremiah, the Weeping Prophet
Elizabeth M. Cole
Big Sandy Community and Technical College

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Introduction
The prophet Jeremiah prophesied in a time of great turmoil, from the decline of the
Assyrian empire, through a brief period of Egypt’s attempt at empire, through the ascendance of
Babylon as the dominant empire. The turmoil of these times and Judah’s futile attempt to
survive as an independent nation serve as the political context of Jeremiah’s message. However,
his message is for Judah itself, in its infidelity to the covenant and the inevitable destruction and
exile to come. After these terrible events come to pass, Jeremiah provides messages of
consolation and hope of restoration, with God’s great promise of a new covenant. Jeremiah is
the weeping prophet for the anguish and distress of God that he feels and communicates. This
paper will explore these ideas and themes in more detail.
Historical Background
Jeremiah’s call to prophecy began during the reign of Josiah of Judah (640-609). Jeremiah
received his call in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign, in 627 (Jer 1:2). At that time, the power
of the dominating empire was waning, after the death of the strong Assyrian king Assurbanipal.
The Assyrian kingdom was overextended, and the successors could not maintain the power of
this empire. In 612, the kings of Media and Babylon, Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, brought down
the Assyrian empire, to the relief of all the neighboring countries (Clifford, 2011).
Beginning in 627, Josiah led a program of national rebuilding and religious reform. While
Assyria was strong, these would have been dangerous undertakings, counting as treason; Josiah
would have lost his throne (Clifford, 2011). However, as Assyrian power declined, it gave the
room for these reforms. Josiah extended the borders to the time of King David, reincorporating
Samaria, Gilead, and Galilee (Clifford, 2011). It seemed that “all Israel” would be reunited, the
Assyrian deportees restored in their homeland, and a united kingdom established for the first

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time since Solomon. In 622, a scroll was found in the Temple, which was the core content of
Deuteronomy, and this formed the basis of the religious reform.
In 609, King Josiah was killed in battle or as a result of wounds sustained in battle, in
trying to repel the Egyptian pharaoh Neco. His reforms collapsed and no king of Judah ever
ruled with fidelity and competence again. His son Jehoahaz (Shallum) succeeded Josiah, but
after only three months, the Egyptians removed him and replaced him with another son of Josiah,
Jehoiakim.
In 605, the Babylonians decisively defeated Egypt at the battle of Carchemish, and Babylon
became the dominant empire. These two nations had struggled to become the next dominant
empire after Assyria, and this battle settled the issue (McKenzie, 1995).
In 598, Jehoiakim died, either of natural causes, or by being captured by Nebuchadnezzar
of Babylon and taken there. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him, but reigned only three months
before being deported to Babylon in 597. Nebuchadnezzar then installed a vassal king,
Zedekiah.
In 597, in response to Judah’s rebellion, Babylon conducted the first deportation of Judah’s
leaders to captivity in Babylon: king, priests, leaders, skilled craftsmen, and their families.
In 594, emissaries from Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon came to persuade King
Zedekiah to rebel against the Babylonians. Zedekiah sought counsel from Jeremiah, then
ignored it and followed other political voices advocating resistance. This led to a response by
Babylon that was utterly disastrous for Judah.
In 586, Babylon breached the walls of Jerusalem, invaded, looted and destroyed the temple
and the city. Babylon offered Jeremiah the choice of a palace in Babylon, or to remain in Judah,
because Jeremiah had been advocating submission to Babylon. Jeremiah chose to remain in

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Judah, and this writer wonders if it was partly in fear of being perceived as a traitor by his
countrymen.
After destroying Jerusalem and the temple, Babylon installed a governor at Mizpeh,
Gedaliah. Through this time, civil order was collapsing. Nationalist groups were fomenting
unrest and campaigning for rebellion. A nationalist, Ishmael, assassinated Gedaliah in 582. The
people were afraid of violent reprisals by Babylon and decided to flee. One of these groups
forcibly took Jeremiah with them to Egypt. What ultimately happened to Jeremiah in Egypt is
uncertain, but the early Christian writer Tertullian wrote that Jeremiah was stoned to death by his
countrymen in Egypt (Hahn, 2009).
Jeremiah
Jeremiah means “the Lord will restore” (Hahn, 2009). A name was more than just what to
call a person; in Scripture, it captures the meaning and destiny of a person (Hahn, 2009). It is
clear to see that Jeremiah’s mission included the promise of restoration to a dejected and
defeated People of God.
Jeremiah was the son of Hilkiah, of the priests of Anathoth in the land of Benjamin (Jer
1:1). Anathoth was a village a few miles north of Jerusalem; it would have taken about an hour
to walk to Jerusalem (Arnold & Beyer, 1999). It was one of the forty-eight Levitical cities set
apart for the descendents of Aaron (Josh 21:18). Jeremiah’s ancestry could be traced back to Eli,
the priest in charge of the sanctuary at Shiloh (1 Sam 1-4, 14:3) in the premonarchical period
(Sweeney, 2000). He is possibly a descendent of Abiathar (McKenzie, 1995). Jeremiah may
have served as a priest. His images are priestly (Sweeney, 2000): the budding almond branch
calls to mind the budding staff of Aaron, a symbol of priesthood; the boiling pot would have
reflected the priest’s duties of cooking some of the sacrificed meat; the baskets of figs would

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have been received as a tithe (Sweeney, 2000). While Jeremiah uses priestly images, he is not as
focused on Zion as was Isaiah of Jerusalem a century before him (von Rad, 1967).
Jeremiah’s Message
Although the political background during Jeremiah’s time formed part of the content of
Jeremiah’s message, he was not considered a prophet just because of political sagacity. He was
shrewd in seeing that submitting to Babylon was the safest course for the country. While
Assyria had destroyed and deported Israel, Babylon would let Judah exist as a vassal state
relatively unharmed by comparison. This was an unpopular message to a Judah that felt a little
too confident about its prospects, perhaps emboldened by the successful territorial expansion that
Josiah had accomplished.
Jeremiah’s prophesying was through words, prophetic actions, and through his very
person and life (Williams, 2003). The Lord commanded him not to marry and have children, as
a sign of the destruction to come (Arnold & Beyer, 1999). The Lord told him not to mourn or
celebrate with the community, to be a sign of times to come when there would be no time for
mourning and no opportunity to celebrate (Arnold & Beyer, 1999).
A prophet is not just an ecstatic, or a fortune teller. Jeremiah enters into a sympathy with
the divine pathos, feeling the sadness of God at the necessary discipline that must come to Judah
in the form of death, destruction, and exile (Heschel, 2001). Jeremiah sometimes resists the call,
complaining to God about the misery and the rejection by the people who remain hard-hearted.
Jeremiah loves his country and his people, and does not want them to have to endure the
catastrophe to come. He enters into the suffering of a God who loves Judah and who is rejected
and forgotten by Judah. There are strong notes of anguish and melancholy, as well as anger and
wrath, in the feelings of God as felt, lived, and communicated by Jeremiah (Williams, 2003).

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These emotions do not originate in Jeremiah alone, but in Jeremiah’s sympathy with the sorely
disappointed, lamenting God (Heschel, 2001). The line between Jeremiah’s own words and
God’s words is blurred (von Rad, 1967).
The reader gets some feeling of the dilemma of the prophet, who must accept the call,
and yet is overwhelmed by the experience and responsibility of it (Heschel, 2001). God invites
the prophet to service, and yet who can resist? The attraction is powerful, winsome, and leads to
acquiescence and surrender; and yet God overwhelms the prophet with ravishment and a sense of
being overpowered by God (Heschel, 2001). According to Abraham Heschel (2001), most Bible
translations are weak in the way they state Jer 20:7 in English. Patah is to entice a woman to
engage in pre-nuptial intercourse, but she submits willingly (Heschel, 2001). Ḥazak is to submit
a woman to extramarital/non-marital intercourse against her will (Heschel, 2001). The more
accurate translation would be:
O Lord, Thou has seduced me,
And I am seduced;
Thou hast raped me
And I am overcome. (Heschel, 2001)
This powerful statement clearly shows Jeremiah’s sense of being enticed and overpowered.
Jeremiah’s message to the people is the call to repent, to embrace fidelity to God and the
covenant. Yet he knows it is hopeless; the people will not repent, they will not turn from their
evil ways, their complacent trust in God’s promises of the Davidic dynasty, the city of Jerusalem,
and the Temple (Cook, 2006). Jeremiah criticized kings, priests, the rich, and all the people for
their infidelity to God, their empty rituals, their idolatry, and their evil treatment of neighbors.
Even brothers and friends could not be trusted, as they were selfish and deceitful (Prévost, 1995).

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There is no social justice, which is only possible by following God and the covenant (Prévost,
1995). God repeatedly prohibits Jeremiah from interceding for the people, and cannot find one
good man in Judah. Jeremiah warned the people that an army from the north would invade,
conquer, destroy, kill, and capture the king, and that the suffering would be great. His message
is unpopular and results in imprisonment and beatings. Even after the dreadful events come to
pass, proving Jeremiah right, the people do not listen to him and prefer false prophets with
happier messages.
Jeremiah prophesies woe until the woes happen, and then he shifts to a message of
consolation. God will not utterly destroy and spurn Judah forever. When the leaders of society
are taken as exiles in 579, Jeremiah uses the image of two baskets of figs to give the message
that the exiles are the ones God will use to restore Judah eventually, after seventy years of exile.
Jeremiah sends a letter to the exiles in Babylon (Jer 29) advising them to marry, have children,
build houses, plant gardens, and pray for Babylon—in effect, not to resist their situation, not to
plot violently against their captors, or to give in to despair, but to carry on with their lives and be
fruitful in anticipation of the day of restoration. In these words of consolation, Jeremiah truly
lives up to the destiny of his name.
The most powerful message of consolation is the promise of the new covenant in Jer
31:31-34. Israel and Judah could not follow the covenant and stay in relationship with God.
This is not just a call to cling to the covenant already given, but the promise of a new covenant:
the law would be written on their hearts—internal, not on external tablets of stone. The law
would become a part of the people of Yahweh. They would have knowledge of God and this
would be in their hearts, forming them and helping them to live up to it. There is also the
promise that their sin would be forgiven and remembered no more. The first covenant contained

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prohibitions, definitions of sin, and curses, and the new covenant would be one of forgiveness
(Prévost, 1995).
After Jeremiah’s mention of the new covenant, there are six centuries of Scriptural
silence on the matter, until Jesus speaks of the new covenant at the Last Supper in Luke 22:20
(also 1 Cor 15:12-28). These words are spoken at every Eucharistic liturgy, and one must
imagine the amazement of Jesus’ followers at hearing those words the first time, realizing that
the sacrifice of the Last Supper, and Jesus’ death and resurrection, were the fulfillment of the
words of Jeremiah (from the Christian perspective).
In summary, Jeremiah had an extremely difficult prophetic calling in a time of turmoil in
the nation and the struggle of empires to ascend and dominate. He suffered intensely from the
message he came to deliver, as God used him as a teacher and guide for the days of woe and
catastrophe. Yet, he is also a prophet of hope in God’s fidelity to Judah, that there would be a
purification and restoration and better days ahead. Most importantly, he communicated that God
would change the terms of the relationship by writing the law upon people’s hearts. It is hard to
imagine how Judah could have understood events and maintained their hope of restoration
without this very important prophet whose very name declares, “The Lord will restore!”

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References
Arnold, B. T., & Beyer, B. E. (1999). Encountering the old testament: a Christian survey. Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books.
Clifford, R. J. (2011). Jeremiah reading guide. In D. Senior, J. J. Collins, & M. A. Getty (Eds.),
The Catholic study Bible (2nd ed., pp. 296-309). New York: Oxford University Press.
Cook, J. E. (2006). Hear, O heavens and listen, O earth: an introduction to the prophets.
Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press.
Hahn, S. (2009). Catholic Bible dictionary. New York: Doubleday.
Heschel, A. J. (2001). The prophets. New York: Harper Perennial.
McKenzie, J. L. (1995). Dictionary of the Bible. New York: Touchstone.
Prévost, J.-P. (1995). How to read the prophets. (J. Bowden, Trans.) Norfolk, United Kingdom:
SCM Press.
Sweeney, M. A. (2000). Jeremiah, Book of. In D. N. Freedman, A. C. Myers, & A. B. Beck
(Eds.), Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (pp. 686-689). Grand Rapids, Michigan:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
von Rad, G. (1967). The message of the prophets. (D. M. Stalker, Trans.) New York: Harper &
Row.
Williams, M. J. (2003). The prophet and his message: reading Old Testament prophecy today.
Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P & R Publishing Company.

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Figure Captions
Figure 1. Traditional iconography of the prophet Jeremiah. The scroll bears the promise from
Jeremiah 31:33.
Figure 2. The prophet Jeremiah, Michelango, early 16th century, Sistine Chapel ceiling.
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Figure 3. The prophet Jeremiah, statue, in the city of Rome, 1857.
Figure 3. The prophet Jeremiah, painting by Marc Chagall, 1968.
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