Bible Character Studies: The Prophet Jeremiah

Known as the weeping prophet (Jer. 9:1, 13:17, 14:17) He was called to be a prophet from the womb (Jer 1:5-10) and warned not to fear people. This foreshadowed his unpopular message. He is quoted in both the Old and New Testaments at least 7 times. He served as both a priest and a prophet. He was the son of a priest named Hilkiah. He was from the small village of Anathoth. He remained unmarried (Jer. 16:1-4) He was assisted in ministry by a scribe named Baruch (Jer 36: 4,32, 45:1) His ministry was primarily to his own people in Judah.

He lived a life of conflict because he had an unpopular message: Judah would be judged and taken into exile by the invading Babylonians. Specifically, he prophesied that they would be in captivity for 70 years, no longer. This 70 years corresponded to 490 Sabbath years, so that the land could finally rest since the people had been unfaithful in allowing it to rest every seven years. (Lev.26:34,35)

After that time, God would restore them to the land and a foreign king would issue orders to rebuild the temple and walls of Jerusalem (Jer. 29:10, 25:11.12) Daniel knew about this and it was a comfort to those in captivity because they knew God would keep His promise (Dan. 9:2) False prophets continually preached a contradictory message and persecuted Jeremiah relentlessly. He was threatened, tried for his life, put in stocks, forced to flee from Jerusalem, publicly humiliated, and thrown into a pit.

Jeremiah appealed to the people of Judah to repent and avoid judgment. They did not. Once invasion was both certain and imminent, he appealed to them not to resist the Babylonian conqueror in order to prevent total destruction. His ministry spanned five decades from Josiah’s 13^th year to beyond the fall of Jerusalem in 538 B.C.  Jeremiah was forced to go with a fleeing remnant of Judah to Egypt (Jer. 43, 44). He may have been taken captive to Babylon when Babylon invaded Egypt. He may even have penned the closing remarks of the book, about the favourable treatment of Jehoiachin (Jer. 52:31-34). He would have been about 85-90 years old at the time. According to tradition in extrabiblical sources, Jeremiah died by stoning by fellow Jews in Egypt.