Jeremiah

[After JEREMIAH¹.]

(jer-uh-MY-uh)

noun
A person who complains continually, has a gloomy attitude, or one who warns about a disastrous future.

Etymology
After Jeremiah, a Hebrew prophet during the seventh and sixth centuries BCE who prophesied the fall of the kingdom of Judah and whose writings are collected in the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations

(click to enlarge)
Jeremiah, detail from a fresco by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, c. 1512 (credit: Alinari/Art Resource, New York)

(born probably after 650, Anathoth, Judah — died c. 570 BC, Egypt) Hebrew prophet and reformer, author of the book of Jeremiah. Born into a priestly family in a village near Jerusalem, he began to preach c. 627 BC, charging his fellow citizens with injustice and false worship and calling on them to reform. He accurately predicted the destruction of Judah by Babylonia. After Jerusalem fell in 586 and much of its population was carried into exile, he remained behind under the protection of its new governor. When the governor was assassinated, Jeremiah was taken to Egypt by Jews who feared reprisals, and he remained there until he died. His most significant prophecy looked to a time when God would make a new covenant with Israel.

For more information on Jeremiah, visit Britannica.com.

The book contains five poignant laments (11:18-12:6, 15:10-15:21, 17:14-17:18, 18:18-18:23, 20:7-20:18) that have been frequently mined for biographical information about Jeremiah and a section of consolation (ch. 30-31) which includes the promise that God will institute a new covenant, replacing the heart of stone of the people with one of flesh. Another major literary complex within the book is the prose narrative about Jeremiah's suffering.

The major themes of the book are not readily perceived. One message that stands out is that the nation of Judah had rejected God, who was therefore determined to punish it by sending Babylon against it. Unimpressed by the nationalistic sentiments of his compatriots, Jeremiah urged capitulation to avoid a disastrous siege. The book has several extensive accounts of prophecy dramatized in the presence of onlookers: the burial of a linen waistcloth and its retrieval; refusal to marry; breaking a potter's vessel; purchasing a field during a siege of the city; offering wine to Rechabites, who were prohibited from partaking of the fruit of the vine.

a prophetic collection of 52 chapters attributed to Jeremiah, whose activity covered over four decades during momentous events in the ancient Near East (c. 626-580 B.C.). Four distinct kinds of material make up the contents of the book: (a) poetic oracles of judgment in the first person, mostly in chapters 1-25; (b) sermons in prose, also in the first person (e.g., 1:4-10; chaps. 7; 11; 18; 21; 25; 32; 34); (c) biographical narratives in the third person (19:1-20:6; chaps. 26-29; 37-44); and (d) poetic oracles against foreign nations (chaps. 45-51). Much of this material displays similarities in style and language with literature from the Deuteronomic school, giving rise to various theories: Jeremiah used a style in vogue during the 6th century; Baruch, the prophet's faithful scribe, wrote some of the book in the style of the learned; later editors inserted their own materials into the authentic oracles from Jeremiah.

The nature of the literature seems best explained in terms of a living tradition. The basic core of Jeremiah's prophecy was adapted over the years in a way that addressed new circumstances within the exilic community in Babylon. The prophetic utterances were originally oral, and that situation lasted for over two decades. The actual decision to write down his oracles came about because Jeremiah had incurred royal anger. As a result of King Jehoiakim's hostility toward him, the prophet did the only thing left to him. He dictated his oracles of judgment from the last twenty years to Baruch, who wrote them on a scroll and proceeded to read it before some chief officials and subsequently before the king. Jehoiakim showed his contempt for Jeremiah by cutting up the scroll and burning it. Thereupon, Jeremiah dictated the oracles once more, adding further words of similar content (see chap. 36). Scholars have tried, with little success, to discover the contents of the original scroll.

Two blocks of material within the present book have generated considerable discussion: the so-called confessions (11:18-12:6; 15:10-21; 17:14-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-18) and the Book of consolation (chaps. 30-31). The former comprise five poignant laments that have frequently been mined for personal information about Jeremiah. For instance, they refer to attempts on his life by members of his own larger family at Anathoth, and they complain that God took advantage of his weakness and innocence (the actual term refers to rape). The little Book of Consolation, expressed in language akin to Deuteronomy, includes a promise that God will institute a new covenant, replacing the heart of stone with one of flesh. Another major literary complex within the book is the prose narrative about Jeremiah's suffering, which may have come from the hand of Baruch. Here is the beginning of a significant body of literature focusing on the trials and tribulations of holy persons, for which scholars have adopted the term martyrology. In this instance, however, Jeremiah escaped death at the hands of his enemies, but his suffering was nonetheless real and prolonged.

The major themes of the book are not easily perceived. One message stands out as singularly important: the nation Judah has rejected the fountain of living waters, hewing for themselves leaking cisterns, and the deity is determined to punish the sinners by sending Babylon against them. Unimpressed by the pro-Egyptian and nationalistic sentiments of his compatriots, Jeremiah urged capitulation to avoid a devastating siege. A central concept in the book is the word shub, "return". The future and hope for Judah lay in the exiles, who were called good figs, provided they repented and went in search of the Lord. But the possibility of turning arose from the fact that divine judgment had already fallen. Hence an equally important theme was the idea of impending doom, the "boiling pot" (1:13) or "disaster from the north" (4:6). Perhaps the supreme poetic achievement of the book, rivaled only by the lyrical laments, is the picture of the earth's return to chaos (4:23-26). Judging from the scope of material devoted to the subject of false prophecy, it is reasonable to conclude that this topic also loomed large in the eyes of those persons who compiled the book. It appears that conflicting opinions about what God was doing at the time separated Jeremiah from many of his fellow prophets. The struggle to legitimate a given message generated considerable heat on both sides, prompting Jeremiah to search for reliable criteria for distinguishing true prophets from false ones.

The prophetic word was deeply rooted in daily life. Even the proverbs of Judah left an impression on Jeremiah: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (31:29), "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved" (8:20), and "I have neither lent for interest, nor have men lent to me for interest. Every one of them curses me" (15:10). It is little surprise that a prophet who appreciated the power of speech to this extent would resort to symbolic actions as well. The book therefore has several extensive accounts of prophecy being dramatized in the presence of onlookers: the burial of a linen waistcloth and its retrieval; refusal to marry; breaking a potter's vessel; purchasing a field during a siege of the city, offering wine to Rechabites who were opposed to the fruit of the vine.

Part of a series of articles on the Hebrew Bible
Tanakh (Books common to all Christian and Judaic canons)
Genesis  · Exodus  · Leviticus  · Numbers  · Deuteronomy  · Joshua  · Judges  · Ruth  · 1–2 Samuel  · 1–2 Kings  · 1–2 Chronicles  · Ezra (Esdras)  · Nehemiah  · Esther  · Job  · Psalms  · Proverbs  · Ecclesiastes  · Song of Songs  · Isaiah  · Jeremiah  · Lamentations  · Ezekiel  · Daniel  · Minor prophets
Deuterocanon
Tobit  · Judith  · 1 Maccabees  · 2 Maccabees  · Wisdom (of Solomon)  · Sirach  · Baruch  · Letter of Jeremiah  · Additions to Daniel  · Additions to Esther
Greek and Slavonic Orthodox canon
1 Esdras  · 3 Maccabees  · Prayer of Manasseh  · Psalm 151
Georgian Orthodox canon
4 Maccabees  · 2 Esdras
Ethiopian Orthodox "narrow" canon
Apocalypse of Ezra  · Jubilees  · Enoch  · 1–3 Meqabyan  · 4 Baruch
Syriac Peshitta
Psalms 152–155  · 2 Baruch  · Letter of Baruch
Bible Portal
This box: view • talk • edit

v • d • e Books of Nevi'im
First Prophets
1. Joshua
2. Judges
3. Samuel
4. Kings
Later Prophets
5. Isaiah
6. Jeremiah
7. Ezekiel
8. 12 minor prophets Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi

The Book of Jeremiah, or Jeremiah (יִרְמְיָהוּ Yirməyāhū in Hebrew), is part of the Hebrew Bible, Judaism's Tanakh, and later became a part of Christianity's Old Testament. It was originally written in a complex and poetic Hebrew (apart from verse 10:11, curiously written in Biblical Aramaic), recording the words and events surrounding the life of the Jewish prophet Jeremiah who lived at the time of the destruction of Solomon's Temple (587/6 BC) in Jerusalem during the fall of the Kingdom of Judah at the hands of Babylonia.

Contents 1 The Prophet Jeremiah 2 Prophecies of Jeremiah 3 Qumran version 4 Online text, translations, and commentaries 5 See also 6 Footnotes 7 External links

The Prophet Jeremiah

Main article: Jeremiah

According to the book, the Prophet Jeremiah was a son of a priest 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 Jews 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 Jews 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 Jewish 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. He is often bitter about his experience and expresses his anger and frustration freely.

Prophecies of Jeremiah

• Threats against the "unfaithful shepherds" (i.e., the 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 Jehoiakim; 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, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e., the year of the Battle of Carchemish (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 Uriah 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 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^[1]. 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), Baruch 6 being the Epistle or Letter of Jeremiah in the Vulgate.

Qumran version

Parts of the Book of Jeremiah have also been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls 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.^[2]

Online text, translations, and commentaries

• Original Hebrew text:
  • ירמיהו Yirmiyahu - Jeremiah (Hebrew)
• Translations into English
  • Jewish translations:
    • Jeremiah at Mechon-Mamre (Jewish Publication Society translation)
    • Yirmiyahu - Jeremiah (Judaica Press) translation with Rashi's commentary at Chabad.org
  • Christian translations:
    • Online Bible at GospelHall.org
    • Jeremiah at The Great Books (New Revised Standard Version) (via archive.org)
• Commentary
  • Jewish Commentary
    • Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets. HarperCollins Paperback, 1975. ISBN 0-06-131421-8

See also

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Jeremiah

• Nebo-Sarsekim Tablet

Footnotes

1. ^ An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, Henry Barclay Swete, Cambridge University Press, 1914, Part II, Chapter III, Section 6, [1], "Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah were regarded by the Church as adjuncts of Jeremiah, much in the same way as Susanna and Bel were attached to Daniel. Baruch and the Epistle occur in lists which rigorously exclude the non-canonical books; they are cited as 'Jeremiah' (Iren. v. 35. I, Tert. scorp. 8, Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus i. 10, Cyprian, Testimonia ii. 6); with Lamentations they form a kind of trilogy supplementary to the prophecy."
2. ^ Tov, Emanuel: "The Septuagint and Literary Criticism", The Folio: Bulletin of the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center, 22(2):1-6

External links

• (Jewish Encyclopedia) Book of Jeremiah article
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Jeremiah
• Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton's 1851 English translation of Septuagint Jeremiah
• Farrell Till (1990). "The Jeremiah Dilemma". The Skeptical Review (4). http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1990/4/4jerem90.html. 

This article incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897. This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.

Preceded by Isaiah	Hebrew Bible	Followed by Ezekiel
	Christian Old Testament	Followed by Lamentations

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)