Book of Jeremiah
Encyclopedia
The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible
, following the book of Isaiah
and preceding Ezekiel
and the Book of the Twelve. (The order is somewhat different in the Christian Old Testament
). It derives its name from, and records the visions of, Jeremiah
, who lived in Jerusalem in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BCE during the time of king Josiah
and the fall of the Kingdom of Judah
to the Babylonia
ns. The book is written in a complex and poetic Hebrew (apart from verse 10:11, curiously written in Biblical Aramaic
).
in cave 4 in Qumran
. These texts, in Hebrew, correspond both to the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint Text. This discovery has shed much light on the differences between the two versions; while it was previously maintained that the Greek Septuagint (the version used by the earliest Christians) was only a poor translation, professor Emanuel Tov
, senior editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls' publication, wrote that the Masoretic edition either represents a substantial rewriting of the original Hebrew, or there had previously been two different versions of the text.
, who advanced religious reform. This can be clearly viewed in the parallel use of language found in both Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. For example in comparing Jer 11.4 and Deut 4.20, both use the metaphor of an iron furnace. Also, the impetus for religious reform appears to be aligned between Jeremiah and the Deuteronomists in ending of infant child sacrifices (see Jer 7.31, 19.5, 32.35; Lev 18.21). However, considerable debate exists as to whether Jeremiah was actually a member of the Deuteronomistc school since he does not explicitly mention Deuteronomy or Josiah's religious reform. In fact, due to the repetitious nature of some of phrases or intertextuality with Jeremiah, an argument has been put forth that the “historical Jeremiah” is hard to validate and should be abandoned. By contrast, evidence based on the textual differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text has been used to argue that the context of the MT truly does depict a historical Jeremiah.
from Anatot in the land of Benjamin
, who lived in the last years of the Kingdom of Judah
just prior to, during, and immediately after the siege of Jerusalem, culminating in the destruction of Solomon's Temple
and the raiding of the city by Nebuchadnezzar
of Babylon
. According to the book, for a quarter century prior to the destruction, Jeremiah repeatedly issued prophecies predicting God's forthcoming judgment; advocating the Israelites put down their idols and repent in hopes of turning away God's judgment and fulfilling their destiny as his chosen people. Jeremiah's fellow Israelites refused to heed his warnings and did not repent. His efforts failed and he witnessed the destruction of everything he knew, the exile
of the Israelite elite to Babylonia, and the fleeing of the remainder to Egypt.
The book of Jeremiah depicts a remarkably introspective prophet, a prophet who was impetuous and often angered by the role into which he has been thrust. Jeremiah alternates efforts to warn the people with pleas to God for mercy until he is ordered to "pray no more for this people." He engages in extensive performance art
, walking about in the streets with a yoke about his neck and engaging in other efforts to attract attention. He is taunted and retaliates; he is thrown in jail as the result. At one point he is thrown into a pit to die.
Jeremiah's prophecies are noted for the frequent repetitions found in them of the same words, phrases, and imagery. They cover the period of about 50 years. They are not in chronological order.
The Septuagint (Greek
or 'LXX') version of this book is, in its arrangement and in other particulars, different from the Masoretic Hebrew. The Septuagint does not include 10:6-8; 25:14; 27:19-22; 29:16-20; 33:14-26; 39:4-13; 52:2, 3, 15, 28-30, etc. In all, about 2,700 words found in the Masoretic text are not found in the Septuagint. Also, the 'Oracles against the Nations', that appear as chapters 46-51 in the Masoretic and most dependent versions, in the Septuagint are located right after 25:13, and in a different order.
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia
, "a comparison of the Masoretic text with the Septuagint throws some light on the last phase in the history of the origin of the Book of Jeremiah, inasmuch as the translation into Greek was already under way before the work on the Hebrew book had come to an end... The two texts differ above all in that the Septuagint is much shorter... Even if the text of the Septuagint is proved to be the older, it does not necessarily follow that all these variations first arose after the Greek translation had been made, because two different editions of the same text might have been in process of development side by side..."
The Septuagint version of Jeremiah also includes the Book of Baruch
and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Jerome
's Prologue to Jeremiah says he excluded them: "And the Book of Baruch, his scribe, which is neither read nor found among the Hebrews, we have omitted, standing ready, because of these things, for all the curses from the jealous, to whom it is necessary for me to respond through a separate short work. And I suffer because you think this. Otherwise, for the benefit of the wicked, it was more proper to set a limit for their rage by my silence, rather than any new things written to provoke daily the insanity of the envious." But the Canon of Trent included them as "Ieremias cum Baruch" (Jeremiah with Baruch), being the Epistle or Letter of Jeremiah in the Vulgate
.
Jeremiah’s “confessions” are a type of individual lament
. Such laments are found elsewhere in the psalms and the book of Job
. Like Job, Jeremiah curses the day of his birth (Jer. 20.14-18 and Job 3.3-10). Likewise, Jeremiah’s exclamation “For I hear the whispering of many: Terror is all around!” (Jer. 20.10) matches Psalm 31.13 exactly. However, Jeremiah’s laments are made unique by his insistence that he has been called by Yahweh to deliver his messages. These laments that are attributed to Jeremiah “provide a unique look at the prophet's inner struggle with faith, persecution, and human suffering”.
The following is a list of noteworthy sign-acts found in Jeremiah.
This is not an exhaustive list of the prophetic gestures found in the book of Jeremiah. It is important in one's reading of the text of Jeremiah that one remember that the recorder of these events (i.e. the author of the text) had neither the same audience nor, potentially, the same intent that Jeremiah had in performing these prophetic gestures. This is also true of most other texts containing prophetic gestures.
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
, following the book of Isaiah
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...
and preceding Ezekiel
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and preceding the Book of the Twelve....
and the Book of the Twelve. (The order is somewhat different in the Christian Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
). It derives its name from, and records the visions of, Jeremiah
Jeremiah
Jeremiah Hebrew：יִרְמְיָה , Modern Hebrew:Yirməyāhū, IPA: jirməˈjaːhu, Tiberian:Yirmĭyahu, Greek:Ἰερεμίας), meaning "Yahweh exalts", or called the "Weeping prophet" was one of the main prophets of the Hebrew Bible...
, who lived in Jerusalem in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BCE during the time of king Josiah
Josiah
Josiah or Yoshiyahu or Joshua was a king of Judah who instituted major reforms. Josiah is credited by most historians with having established or compiled important Jewish scriptures during the Deuteronomic reform that occurred during his rule.Josiah became king of Judah at the age of eight, after...
and the fall of the Kingdom of Judah
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
to the Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
ns. The book is written in a complex and poetic Hebrew (apart from verse 10:11, curiously written in Biblical Aramaic
Biblical Aramaic
Biblical Aramaic is the form of the Aramaic language that is used in the books of Daniel, Ezra and a few other places in the Hebrew Bible and should not be confused with the Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible known as targumim....
).
Texts and manuscripts
Parts of the Book of Jeremiah have also been found among the Dead Sea ScrollsDead Sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
in cave 4 in Qumran
Qumran
Qumran is an archaeological site in the West Bank. It is located on a dry plateau about a mile inland from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli settlement and kibbutz of Kalia...
. These texts, in Hebrew, correspond both to the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint Text. This discovery has shed much light on the differences between the two versions; while it was previously maintained that the Greek Septuagint (the version used by the earliest Christians) was only a poor translation, professor Emanuel Tov
Emanuel Tov
Emanuel Tov is Professor in the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, corresponding to Fellow of the British Academy , since 2006.-Biography:...
, senior editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls' publication, wrote that the Masoretic edition either represents a substantial rewriting of the original Hebrew, or there had previously been two different versions of the text.
Composition
Some believe that the book of Jeremiah was edited and influenced by the Deuteronomists, or the writers of the book of DeuteronomyDeuteronomy
The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...
, who advanced religious reform. This can be clearly viewed in the parallel use of language found in both Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. For example in comparing Jer 11.4 and Deut 4.20, both use the metaphor of an iron furnace. Also, the impetus for religious reform appears to be aligned between Jeremiah and the Deuteronomists in ending of infant child sacrifices (see Jer 7.31, 19.5, 32.35; Lev 18.21). However, considerable debate exists as to whether Jeremiah was actually a member of the Deuteronomistc school since he does not explicitly mention Deuteronomy or Josiah's religious reform. In fact, due to the repetitious nature of some of phrases or intertextuality with Jeremiah, an argument has been put forth that the “historical Jeremiah” is hard to validate and should be abandoned. By contrast, evidence based on the textual differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text has been used to argue that the context of the MT truly does depict a historical Jeremiah.
Sections of the Book
The book can be divided into roughly 6 sections and uses poetic, narrative, and biographical genres that are interspersed throughout the book. The breakdown of sections is as follows:- Chapters 1-25 (The earliest and main core of Jeremiah's message)
- Chapters 26-29 (Biographic material and interaction with other prophets)
- Chapters 30-33 (God's promise of restoration)
- Chapters 34-45 (Mostly interaction with Zedekiah and the fall of Jerusalem)
- Chapters 46-51 (Divine punishment to the nations surrounding Israel)
- Chapter 52 (Appendix that retells 2 Kings 24.18-25.30)
The Prophet Jeremiah
According to the book, the Prophet Jeremiah was a son of a priestKohen
A Kohen is the Hebrew word for priest. Jewish Kohens are traditionally believed and halachically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron....
from Anatot in the land of Benjamin
Tribe of Benjamin
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Benjamin בִּנְיָמִין was one of the Tribes of Israel.From after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c. 1050 BCE, the Tribe of Benjamin was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes...
, who lived in the last years of the Kingdom of Judah
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
just prior to, during, and immediately after the siege of Jerusalem, culminating in the destruction of Solomon's Temple
Solomon's Temple
Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the main temple in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount , before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE....
and the raiding of the city by Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadrezzar II
Nebuchadnezzar II was king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who reigned c. 605 BC – 562 BC. According to the Bible, he conquered Judah and Jerusalem, and sent the Jews into exile. He is credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and also known for the destruction...
of Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
. According to the book, for a quarter century prior to the destruction, Jeremiah repeatedly issued prophecies predicting God's forthcoming judgment; advocating the Israelites put down their idols and repent in hopes of turning away God's judgment and fulfilling their destiny as his chosen people. Jeremiah's fellow Israelites refused to heed his warnings and did not repent. His efforts failed and he witnessed the destruction of everything he knew, the exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
of the Israelite elite to Babylonia, and the fleeing of the remainder to Egypt.
The book of Jeremiah depicts a remarkably introspective prophet, a prophet who was impetuous and often angered by the role into which he has been thrust. Jeremiah alternates efforts to warn the people with pleas to God for mercy until he is ordered to "pray no more for this people." He engages in extensive performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
, walking about in the streets with a yoke about his neck and engaging in other efforts to attract attention. He is taunted and retaliates; he is thrown in jail as the result. At one point he is thrown into a pit to die.
Prophecies of Jeremiah
- Threats against the "unfaithful shepherds" (i.e., the false prophets), the promise of peace and of the real shepherd (after 597), and warnings against false prophets and godless priests (perhaps in the time of JehoiakimJehoiakimJehoiakim .On Josiah's death, Jehoiakim's younger brother Jehoahaz was proclaimed king, but after three months pharaoh Necho II deposed him and replaced him with the eldest son, Eliakim, who adopted the name Jehoiakim and became king at the age of twenty-five...
; 23:1-8, 9-40);
- Vision of the two baskets of figs, illustrating the fate of the captives and of those who were left behind, from the period after the first deportation by Nebuchadnezzar, in 597 (chapter 24);
- Threats of punishments to be inflicted on Judah and the surrounding nations, the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e., the year of the Battle of CarchemishBattle of CarchemishThe Battle of Carchemish was fought about 605 BC between the allied armies of Egypt and Assyria against Babylonia.- Background :When the Assyrian capital Nineveh was overrun by the Babylonians in 612 BC, the Assyrians moved their capital to Harran...
(605; chapter 25);
- The first of the historical passages recounting Jeremiah's prophecy in the Temple (compare chapter 7), his arrest, his threatened death, and his rescue, in which connection the martyrdom of the prophet UriahUrijahUrijah is a prophet mentioned in Jeremiah 26:20-23. He is described as being the son of Shemaiah from Kirjath-jearim. During the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, he fled into Egypt from the cruelty of the king, but having been brought back he was beheaded and his body "cast into the graves of...
is briefly mentioned (chapter 26).
- Protection for Israel following the period of destruction and exile
- Utterances from the time of Zedekiah (see § II.), with an appendix, the last connected prophecy of any length, in chapter 35, treating of the fidelity of the Rechabites and of the unfaithfulness of Judah. This dates from a somewhat earlier period, that of Jehoiakim (because certainly before 597), and thus forms a transition to the first passages of the narrative sections.
Jeremiah's prophecies are noted for the frequent repetitions found in them of the same words, phrases, and imagery. They cover the period of about 50 years. They are not in chronological order.
The Septuagint (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
or 'LXX') version of this book is, in its arrangement and in other particulars, different from the Masoretic Hebrew. The Septuagint does not include 10:6-8; 25:14; 27:19-22; 29:16-20; 33:14-26; 39:4-13; 52:2, 3, 15, 28-30, etc. In all, about 2,700 words found in the Masoretic text are not found in the Septuagint. Also, the 'Oracles against the Nations', that appear as chapters 46-51 in the Masoretic and most dependent versions, in the Septuagint are located right after 25:13, and in a different order.
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia
Jewish Encyclopedia
The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...
, "a comparison of the Masoretic text with the Septuagint throws some light on the last phase in the history of the origin of the Book of Jeremiah, inasmuch as the translation into Greek was already under way before the work on the Hebrew book had come to an end... The two texts differ above all in that the Septuagint is much shorter... Even if the text of the Septuagint is proved to be the older, it does not necessarily follow that all these variations first arose after the Greek translation had been made, because two different editions of the same text might have been in process of development side by side..."
The Septuagint version of Jeremiah also includes the Book of Baruch
Book of Baruch
The Book of Baruch, occasionally referred to as 1 Baruch, is called a deuterocanonical book of the Bible. Although not in the Hebrew Bible, it is found in the Septuagint and in the Vulgate Bible, and also in Theodotion's version. It is grouped with the prophetical books which also include Isaiah,...
and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Jerome
Jerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
's Prologue to Jeremiah says he excluded them: "And the Book of Baruch, his scribe, which is neither read nor found among the Hebrews, we have omitted, standing ready, because of these things, for all the curses from the jealous, to whom it is necessary for me to respond through a separate short work. And I suffer because you think this. Otherwise, for the benefit of the wicked, it was more proper to set a limit for their rage by my silence, rather than any new things written to provoke daily the insanity of the envious." But the Canon of Trent included them as "Ieremias cum Baruch" (Jeremiah with Baruch), being the Epistle or Letter of Jeremiah in the Vulgate
Vulgate
The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...
.
The “Confessions” of Jeremiah
Scholars have identified several passages in Jeremiah that can be understood as “confessions;” they occur in the first section of the book (chapters 1-25) and are 11.18-12.6, 15.10-21, 17.14-18, 18.18-23, and 20.7-18. In these passages, Jeremiah expresses his discontent with the message he is to deliver, but also his steadfast commitment to the divine call despite the fact that he had not sought it out. Additionally, in several of these “confessions,” Jeremiah prays that the Lord will avenge his persecutors (for example, see Jeremiah 12.3).Jeremiah’s “confessions” are a type of individual lament
Lament
A lament or lamentation is a song, poem, or piece of music expressing grief, regret, or mourning.-History:Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments. Laments are present in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and laments continued to be sung in elegiacs accompanied by...
. Such laments are found elsewhere in the psalms and the book of Job
Book of Job
The Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
. Like Job, Jeremiah curses the day of his birth (Jer. 20.14-18 and Job 3.3-10). Likewise, Jeremiah’s exclamation “For I hear the whispering of many: Terror is all around!” (Jer. 20.10) matches Psalm 31.13 exactly. However, Jeremiah’s laments are made unique by his insistence that he has been called by Yahweh to deliver his messages. These laments that are attributed to Jeremiah “provide a unique look at the prophet's inner struggle with faith, persecution, and human suffering”.
Prophetic Gestures
Prophetic gestures, also known as sign-acts or symbolic actions, was a form of communication in which a message was delivered by performing symbolic actions. These actions were often bizarre actions that violated the cultural norms of the time (e.g. lying on one's left side for 390 days only turn over and lie on one's right side for another 40- Ezekiel 4:4-8). These actions served the purposes of both drawing audience and causing that audience to ask questions, giving a prophet the opportunity to explain the meaning of the behavior. Prophetic gestures are not unique to the book of Jeremiah.The following is a list of noteworthy sign-acts found in Jeremiah.
- Jeremiah 13:1-11 The wearing, burial, and retrieval of a linen waistband.
- Jeremiah 16:1-9 The shunning of the expected customs of marriage, mourning, and general celebration.
- Jeremiah 19:1-13 the acquisition of a clay jug and the breaking of said jug in front of the religious leaders of Jerusalem
- Jeremiah 27-28 The wearing of an oxen yoke and its subsequent breaking by a fellow prophet, Hananiah.
- Jeremiah 35:1-19 The offering of wine to the Rechabites, a tribe known for living in tents and refusing to drink wine. This was done in the Temple, which is an important part of the breaking of societal norms.
This is not an exhaustive list of the prophetic gestures found in the book of Jeremiah. It is important in one's reading of the text of Jeremiah that one remember that the recorder of these events (i.e. the author of the text) had neither the same audience nor, potentially, the same intent that Jeremiah had in performing these prophetic gestures. This is also true of most other texts containing prophetic gestures.
Online text, translations, and commentaries
- Original Hebrew text:
- ירמיהו Yirmiyahu - Jeremiah (HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
)
- ירמיהו Yirmiyahu - Jeremiah (Hebrew
- Translations into English
- JewishJudaismJudaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
translations:- Jeremiah at Mechon-Mamre (Jewish Publication Society translation)
- Yirmiyahu - Jeremiah (Judaica Press) translation [with RashiRashiShlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...
's commentary] at Chabad.org
- ChristianChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
translations:- Online Bible at GospelHall.org
- Jeremiah at The Great Books (New Revised Standard Version) (via archive.org)
- Jewish
- Commentary
- Jewish Commentary
- Jeremiah (Judaica Press) [with RashiRashiShlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...
's commentary] at Chabad.org - Abraham Joshua HeschelAbraham Joshua HeschelAbraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century.-Biography:...
, The Prophets. HarperCollins Paperback, 1975. ISBN 0-06-131421-8
- Jeremiah (Judaica Press) [with Rashi
- Jewish Commentary