Introduction to Jeremiah

September 9, 2016

Introduction to Jeremiah

The author of the book of Jeremiah is the Holy Spirit, and He used the hand and pen of Jeremiah to put it on paper.  It's time line was 625 – 586 B.C. and Jeremiah is the second of the Major Prophets.  When God called him, he was around 14 years of age, and his calling was to prophesy during the last years of the nation of Judah.  Jeremiah was the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests living in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin.

When the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, it was Jeremiah who gave God’s message to the exiles as they departed and to the remnant that was left, and it was not a popular message.  This was the message, submit to the judgment and later will come blessing.  Before the fall of Jerusalem Jeremiah had been telling the people that it was judgment time and that God would no longer defend Jerusalem that was a very unpopular message.  The Babylonians are coming, and you will be exiled so submit and settle in your new home for you will be there a long time.  You can imagine how this came across and he was thought of as a traitor and threatened by both the religious and political leaders.  There was another prophet that God had given the same message, and he was killed for proclaiming the words of God, but Jeremiah was faithful to stay on message.

Jeremiah was referred to as the weeping prophet, in that he had a deep love for people who God told him would not listen and would be judged for their rebellion.  Both Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied concerning four-time lines of history: First the imminent, second the return of the exiles in 70 years, third the new covenant in the Messiah, and fourth the end of the age, where both Israel and Judah would be brought into fellowship with God in the land of Israel.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice