JEREMIAH THE Prophet.—
L The Lite ot the Pro|ihet. IL The Uookof Jereiiniih.
(1) Prophecies under Joslab ; (2) under Jeholaklm ; (3) under Zei]ekiah. UL, The Hebrew and (ireek TexU.
(1) Relative value o( the two text«. (2) OiigliUkl pUcc ot chs. 46 IT. Iv. Redaction ot the Book. T. Literary Style. tL Religious IdL-oa.
(l)Sui. (2)aod. (3)TbePature. (4) Jeremiah's Piety.
1. Life of the PnoriiKT.— Jeremiah (ii;-;-)', shorter form .t^i; ' whom J" casts,' i.e. po8.sil)ly, a« Ges. suggests, 'apjioiuts' Dn 7", 'lept/iiat, Jere- mias) was bom of a priestly family in Anathoth, now 'Andta, a small town, an hour or an hour and a quarter N.E. of Jerusalem (Is lO**), and prophesied from the 13th year of Josiah till after the Captivity, a period of more than 40 years (B.C. 62G-5SU). Though he had siioki-n as a prophet for live years when Josiah iiromulgateil the Hook of the Law and intro<luccd his Helorni, Jeremiah ai>[>car3 to have had no hand in these transactions ; but from the death of Josiah till his own death in Egj'pt he was a prominent liguro in all the history of that tragic jieriud. Almost alone he had to cxjHise the iniMioralilius, the self- deception founded on superlltial reforms, and the fanatical conlidence in the |irotection of J" who dwelt in His temple, by which all cla-nses were carried away. His conviction, constantly declared, that the Lord hail determined to dc-trov the temple and nation, exposed him to cruel insults from the
occasion.-- in danfjer or his lile, from his to^\^
of Anathoth (11^), the priests and prophets <
I teni|>le (20'- "), the arbitrary and vindictive
temple priests (20', cf. 37") ; and he was on many occa.sion.-- in danger of his life, from his to^\^lsmen
of the e king Jehoiakim (36"'- ■"), and the inilitary of the day (3i>*). The strife in which he was involved, so alien to his nature, wearied him : he longed for a lodge in the wilderness (U-), mourned the perpetual conllicts in which his life was piussed (15'"), cursed in de.spair the day of his birth (20'*), and vowed to have done with the word of the Lord, which isolated him from all that was human, — hut in vain : His word was in his heart like a fire shut up in his bones, and he must declare it (20"). Yet even in that degenerate day his life extorted a certain homage : the belter conscience of men was on his side (20"'"') ; the Ethiopian slave was moved with pity for his distress (38') ; king Ze<lekiah heard Iiini gladly, and did what he could to mitigate his sullerings (37="'- 38'") ; the Chalda-ans treated hira with consideration (40"'-), and even the wretched exiles insisted on draggin" him with them as a kind of fetish to Egj'pt (43"'-).
Jeremiah appears to have been called to the pro- phetic otlice j'oung, though the word ' child ' (lyj 1"), which he employs of himself, may chielly express his sense of insufticiency for the task set befure him. There is no reason to suppose his father Hilkiah identical with the chief priest of that name who discovered the Book of the Law in the temple (2 K 22"). His father may rather have been a descendant of Abiathar, whom Solomon banished to Anathoth (1 K 2-'') ; and if so, traditions of the days of David and the early monarchy, and the great part their ancestor then played, would be cherished in tlie family and give it a sense of dignity even in its decline, and they would be the food on which the mind of the child Jeremiah was nourished. The family owned land in Anathoth (32'), and though, in later times at least, living mainly in Jerusalem, the prophet continued to fre<iuent his native village (U'*"- 37"''-, cf. 29-"' where he is contemptuously called ' the Anatho- thite'). His prophetic mini.stry was probably begun here. As he was not consulted by Josiah and the priests regarding the newly-found Book of the Law (2 K 22'-''-), he may have been little known in the capital, unless indeed we 8up[.ose that owing to the violence of his denunciations the authorities preferred to seek the advice of some more moderate counsellors. There is no ground for supposing the dialogue 1*''" coloured by the prophets subsequent experience. No man became a prophet suddenly ; the decisive event, named his ' call,' was but the climax of many prior movements of mind leading up to it. Jeremiah felt himself 'predestinated' to oe a prophet (1"). The idea may cover much belonging to the past, the godly house out of which he came with its traditions, many movements in his own mind little attended to at the time but rememW-red now, and the nation's whole hislcry of which he was the child. It is no denial of the reality of the divine voice speaking to him when we look at the dialogue as a conllict in his own mind, in which thought «as invalidated by opposite thought, and suggestion and resolution met by counter sugge-stion and irresolution. The conflict already reveals the duality in his consciousness characteristic of his whole life. God and man wrestle within him no less than they do in St. I'aul. The impulses to stand forth as a prophet, awakened b3" the signs of the times, he calls Cio<l ; the reluctances and all the considerations that NUp)>ort them arc himself. And when the impulses jirovo the stronger, it is a victory of (ioil and a defeat of himself— ' O Lord, thmi didst induce me, and I wan induced ; thou art stronger than I ' (2U').