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Begin Typing VigilThe prophet Jeremiah was of priestly descent. He was sprung (1:1) from a little community of priests settled at Anathoth (1 Kings 2:26, Josh 21:18), a town not far north of Jerusalem, in the tribe of Benjamin, with which he continued to maintain a connexion (11:21, 37:12), though the main scene of his prophetic ministry was Jerusalem. His first public appearance as a prophet was in the 13th year of king Josiah (1:2, 25:3), i.e. 626 B.C., 5 years before the memorable year in which the 'Book of the Law' was found by Hilkiah in the Temple. Of his life during the reign of Josiah no further particulars are known: but his book contains abundant notices of the part played by him in the anxious times which began soon after the accession of Jehoiakim, and did not cease till the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans in 586.
Politically, the 4th year of Jehoiakim, in which Nebuchadnezzar won his great victory over Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish on the Euphrates, was the turning-point of the age. Jeremiah at once grasped the situation: he saw that Nebuchadnezzar was destined to achieve further successes; he greeted him with the ode of triumph in c. 46, and declared that the whole of West Asia would fall under his sway (c. 25), implying thereby what he afterwards taught explicitly, that the safety of Judah lay in yielding to the inevitable, and accepting the condition of dependence upon Babylon. In the end, however, Jehoiakim revolted; and under his son and successor Jehoiachin the penalty for his imprudence fell severely upon the nation: Jerusalem was besieged; and after 100 days' reign, the king ‘went out’ (2 Kings 24:12), i.e. surrendered at discretion, to the enemy: he himself, the queen mother Nehushta, the principal members of the court, and the elite of Jerusalem generally, were condemned to exile in Babylonia. Zedekiah, having sworn (Ez 17:11-18) a solemn oath of allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar, was nominated king over those who remained in Jerusalem. After a few years, however, Zedekiah compromised himself by treasonable negotiations with Pharaoh Hophra; and in his 9th year the second siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans began.
Jeremiah now (21:1-10, 38:17f) declares unambiguously that the besiegers will prevail, adding, as a piece of practical advice to the people generally, that desertion to them was the sole guarantee of personal safety. This counsel did not proceed from any unpatriotic motive, though it is easy to see that it might be so interpreted: Zedekiah, in revolting at all, had been guilty of a gross breach of faith (see Ez. 17), and the position taken now by Jeremiah was but the corollary of that adopted by him in 604 (c. 25). Jeremiah's experiences during the siege — how he was arrested in the north gate of the city on a charge of deserting to the Chaldaeans, and thrown into the common dungeon; how he was released thence in consequence of the king's anxiety to learn from him the final issue of the siege; how Zedekiah was compelled to relinquish him into the hands of his courtiers; and how he was only rescued from death by starvation through the intercession of a friendly foreigner, an Ethiopian, Ebed-melech — are related in vivid detail in c. 37-38. After the capture of Jerusalem, Jeremiah was treated with consideration by the Chaldaeans, and allowed to remain where he pleased: he was carried against his will by some of the Jews who had been left in Palestine into Egypt (c. 42-44).
The Major prophets are here grouped with 'the Twelve' prophets, forming the core of the Nevi'im.