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Book of Jeremiah
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Book of Jeremiah
The Book of Jeremiah (Hebrew: ספר יִרְמְיָהוּ) is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. The superscription at chapter Jeremiah 1:1–3 identifies the book as "the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah". Of all the prophets, Jeremiah comes through most clearly as a person, ruminating to his scribe Baruch about his role as a servant of God with little good news for his audience.
His book is intended as a message to the Jews during the Babylonian exile, explaining the disaster of exile as God's response to Israel's pagan worship: the people, says Jeremiah, are like an unfaithful wife and rebellious children, their infidelity and rebelliousness made judgment inevitable, although restoration and a new covenant are foreshadowed. Authentic oracles of Jeremiah are probably to be found in the poetic sections of chapters 1 through 25, but the book as a whole has been heavily edited and added to by the prophet's followers (including, perhaps, his companion, the scribe Baruch) and later generations of Deuteronomists.
It has come down in two distinct though related versions, one in Hebrew, the other known from the Septuagint Greek translation. The dates of the two (Greek and Hebrew) can be suggested by the fact that the Greek shows concerns typical of the early Persian period, while the Masoretic (i.e., Hebrew) shows perspectives which, although known in the Persian period, did not reach their realisation until the 2nd century BCE.
It is difficult to discern any structure in Jeremiah, probably because the book had such a long and complex composition history. It can be divided into roughly six sections:
The background to Jeremiah is briefly described in the superscription to the book: Jeremiah began his prophetic mission in the thirteenth year of king Josiah (about 627 BCE) and continued after the eleventh year of King Zedekiah (586 BCE), "when Jerusalem went into exile in the fifth month". During this period, Josiah instituted religious reforms; Babylon destroyed Assyria; Egypt briefly imposed vassal status on Judah; Babylon defeated Egypt and made Judah a Babylonian vassal (605 BCE); Judah revolted but was subjugated again by Babylon (597 BCE); and Judah revolted once more.
The latter revolt was the final one: Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple and exiled its king and many of the leading citizens in 586 BCE, ending Judah's existence as an independent or quasi-independent kingdom and inaugurating the Babylonian exile.
The book can be conveniently divided into biographical, prose, and poetic strands, each of which can be summarised separately.
The biographical material is found in chapters 26–29, 32, and 34–44, and focuses on the events leading up to and surrounding the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BCE; it provides precise dates for the prophet's activities beginning in 609 BCE. The non-biographical prose passages, such as the Temple sermon in chapter 7 and the covenant passage in Jeremiah 11:1–17, are scattered throughout the book and show clear affinities with the Deuteronomists, the school of writers and editors who shaped the series of historiographies from the Book of Judges to the Books of Kings. While it is unlikely they came directly from Jeremiah, they may well have their roots in traditions about what he said and did.
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Book of Jeremiah
The Book of Jeremiah (Hebrew: ספר יִרְמְיָהוּ) is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. The superscription at chapter Jeremiah 1:1–3 identifies the book as "the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah". Of all the prophets, Jeremiah comes through most clearly as a person, ruminating to his scribe Baruch about his role as a servant of God with little good news for his audience.
His book is intended as a message to the Jews during the Babylonian exile, explaining the disaster of exile as God's response to Israel's pagan worship: the people, says Jeremiah, are like an unfaithful wife and rebellious children, their infidelity and rebelliousness made judgment inevitable, although restoration and a new covenant are foreshadowed. Authentic oracles of Jeremiah are probably to be found in the poetic sections of chapters 1 through 25, but the book as a whole has been heavily edited and added to by the prophet's followers (including, perhaps, his companion, the scribe Baruch) and later generations of Deuteronomists.
It has come down in two distinct though related versions, one in Hebrew, the other known from the Septuagint Greek translation. The dates of the two (Greek and Hebrew) can be suggested by the fact that the Greek shows concerns typical of the early Persian period, while the Masoretic (i.e., Hebrew) shows perspectives which, although known in the Persian period, did not reach their realisation until the 2nd century BCE.
It is difficult to discern any structure in Jeremiah, probably because the book had such a long and complex composition history. It can be divided into roughly six sections:
The background to Jeremiah is briefly described in the superscription to the book: Jeremiah began his prophetic mission in the thirteenth year of king Josiah (about 627 BCE) and continued after the eleventh year of King Zedekiah (586 BCE), "when Jerusalem went into exile in the fifth month". During this period, Josiah instituted religious reforms; Babylon destroyed Assyria; Egypt briefly imposed vassal status on Judah; Babylon defeated Egypt and made Judah a Babylonian vassal (605 BCE); Judah revolted but was subjugated again by Babylon (597 BCE); and Judah revolted once more.
The latter revolt was the final one: Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple and exiled its king and many of the leading citizens in 586 BCE, ending Judah's existence as an independent or quasi-independent kingdom and inaugurating the Babylonian exile.
The book can be conveniently divided into biographical, prose, and poetic strands, each of which can be summarised separately.
The biographical material is found in chapters 26–29, 32, and 34–44, and focuses on the events leading up to and surrounding the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BCE; it provides precise dates for the prophet's activities beginning in 609 BCE. The non-biographical prose passages, such as the Temple sermon in chapter 7 and the covenant passage in Jeremiah 11:1–17, are scattered throughout the book and show clear affinities with the Deuteronomists, the school of writers and editors who shaped the series of historiographies from the Book of Judges to the Books of Kings. While it is unlikely they came directly from Jeremiah, they may well have their roots in traditions about what he said and did.
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