Jeremiah, the weeping prophet

Jeremiah is known as “the weeping prophet”. For more than forty years he announced to his people a message no one wanted to hear: if Judah did not repent, Jerusalem would be destroyed and the people carried captive to Babylon. He was rejected, beaten, imprisoned, thrown into a muddy cistern and accused of treason. He saw his prophecies of judgment fulfilled with his own eyes. But amid the pain, Jeremiah also received one of the most hopeful announcements in the whole Bible: the promise of a new covenant, in which God would write his law on the heart.

The call of a young man

Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, came from a priestly family of Anathoth, a village a few kilometres north of Jerusalem. He was called to prophesy in the thirteenth year of King Josiah, around 627 BC, while very young. God told him:

“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”

Jeremiah 1:5

Jeremiah replied: “Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.” But God told him not to be afraid, for he would be with him to deliver him. Then he put forth his hand, touched his mouth and said: “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.” His mission would be “to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant”.

A hard message

Jeremiah prophesied during the reigns of Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, the last kings of Judah. Good King Josiah had carried out a religious reform, but after his death the people returned to idolatry and injustice. Jeremiah denounced them for forsaking God, “the fountain of living waters”, to hew out “broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

In his famous sermon at the temple gate, he warned the people not to trust in lying words, saying, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” The temple would not protect them if they kept oppressing the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, shedding innocent blood and following other gods (Jeremiah 7). For that message he was nearly condemned to death.

Visual lessons

God used Jeremiah to convey his message through symbolic actions. He bought a linen girdle and hid it by the river until it rotted, showing how God would mar the pride of Judah. He went to the potter’s house and saw that when a vessel was spoiled, the potter made it again: “as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand” (Jeremiah 18:6). He broke a clay jar before the elders. He wore a wooden yoke on his neck to announce that the nations must submit to Babylon. And when Jerusalem was under siege, he bought a field in Anathoth as a sign that one day people would again buy houses and fields in that land.

The prophet’s suffering

Jeremiah paid a high price for his faithfulness. The men of his own town, Anathoth, plotted to kill him. The priest Pashur beat him and put him in the stocks. King Jehoiakim cut up with a penknife the scroll of prophecies Jeremiah had dictated to his scribe Baruch and burned it in the fire, piece by piece. Jeremiah dictated it again. During the siege of Jerusalem he was accused of deserting, beaten and imprisoned. Some princes threw him into a cistern with no water but mire, and Jeremiah sank in the mud. An Ethiopian eunuch named Ebed-melech pleaded with the king and pulled him out with cords and old rags (Jeremiah 38).

Jeremiah expressed his pain with moving honesty. In his “confessions” he complains to God, curses the day of his birth and says he wanted to stop speaking in his name. But he could not: “his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay” (Jeremiah 20:9).

The fall of Jerusalem

At last what Jeremiah had announced came to pass. In 586 BC the army of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, breached Jerusalem’s walls, burned Solomon’s temple, the king’s palace and the houses, and carried the people captive. King Zedekiah, who had ignored Jeremiah’s counsel, was captured near Jericho; his sons were killed before his eyes, his eyes were put out and he was taken in chains to Babylon. The Babylonians gave Jeremiah freedom to choose where to live, and he stayed with the poor who remained in the land. Later a group of Judeans fled to Egypt and took him with them against his will. According to tradition, he died there.

Hope in the midst of judgment

Jeremiah did not only announce judgment. In a letter to the exiles in Babylon, he advised them to build houses, plant gardens, raise families and seek the peace of the city where they lived, praying for it. And he passed on a promise: after seventy years, God would bring them back.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”

Jeremiah 29:11-13

The new covenant

Jeremiah’s most important prophecy is the announcement of the new covenant. The old covenant had been broken by the people again and again. But God promised something new:

“But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Jeremiah 31:33-34

No longer a law written on stone, but on the heart. Everyone would know God personally, and their sins would be completely forgiven.

Lamentations

Tradition attributes to Jeremiah the book of Lamentations, five poems mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. In the midst of that weeping appears one of the most beautiful declarations of hope in the Bible: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Places in the story

Interesting facts

Lessons for our lives

God knows us and has a purpose for us from before birth. Age or insecurity do not prevent God’s call. Faithfulness sometimes costs dearly. We can express our pain to God honestly. God is the potter who can remake our lives. Even in exile, God has plans for good. His mercies are new every morning.

On the road to Jesus

At the Last Supper Jesus took the cup and said: “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20). With those words he announced that Jeremiah’s promise was being fulfilled in him. Hebrews 8 quotes the new covenant passage in full and explains that Jesus is its mediator. Jeremiah wept over Jerusalem; Jesus too wept over the city (Luke 19:41). Jeremiah was rejected by his people, unjustly accused and sunk in the mire; Jesus was rejected, condemned and killed, but he rose again. That is why some, seeing Jesus, thought he was Jeremiah (Matthew 16:14). In Christ, God writes his law on our hearts through the Holy Spirit and forgives our sins for ever.

In the next episode we will meet Ezekiel, the prophet who had visions of God’s glory in exile.

Prayer

Lord, thank you that you knew me before you formed me. I am clay in your hands: remake my life according to your will. Give me courage to be faithful even when it costs. Write your law on my heart, as you promised in the new covenant sealed with the blood of Jesus. Your mercies are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Amen.