In this series, Carmel McCarthy, RSM, enlightens us on the lives and works of the Biblical Prophets. This week we look at the life and work of the prophet JEREMIAH (5)
Because of the emotional intensity of Jeremiah’s writings we know more about his prophetic career and inner struggles than about any other Old Testament prophet.
Born in Anathoth, a small village near Jerusalem, Jeremiah was active from about 626–580 bc. This was a time of unprecedented political upheaval, during which Jerusalem was besieged, the temple destroyed, and both king and leading citizens carried into exile in Babylon. A reluctant prophet who felt overwhelmed at the enormity of his calling, Jeremiah protested that he was too young and too unpolished for a public career. The Lord’s reply that he has known him through and through since his very conception has been a source of reassurance not only to Jeremiah, but to many faltering spirits over the centuries (1:4-10).
There is a decisive effort in the book to present Jeremiah as a prophet like Moses. Like Moses he was active for a period of forty years (1:1–3), and called for adherence to the law of God as the basis for the relationship between the people and God. Jeremiah suffered abuse and rejection from both the Lord and the people in a manner similar to Moses’ experience in the wilderness, and, like Moses, Jeremiah died outside the land of Israel.
Jeremiah’s initial concerns were focused on the religious and moral corruption of the time, and the imminent invasion of the Babylonian army. He interpreted the looming disaster as the consequence of Israel’s moral failure, and pleaded with the people to turn from their flagrant infidelity (3:1-22). Filled with agonising confusion, Jeremiah’s
inner struggles mirror the awful events about to unfold.
Jeremiah’s poetry possesses a lyrical quality and a wealth of imagery. His self-disclosures in the so-called ‘confessions’ are the most intimate and authentic of any that have been preserved from ancient times. Small wonder that he is remembered in the English dictionary through the word jeremiad (a doleful complaint!). The laments of the prophet are remarkable for their fluctuation of feeling and mood, the constant ebb and flow from faith to doubt, from courage to despair, from compassion to hostility. The following words may sound familiar (11:19). They capture vividly a sense of betrayal that some of us may have felt occasionally in our personal lives. “But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. And I did not know it was against me that they devised schemes, saying, ‘Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered!’”
When Jerusalem was eventually captured and crushed, Jeremiah identified himself with its fate in a poignant and beautiful lament: “Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness, and before your feet stumble on the mountains at twilight; while you look for light, he turns it into gloom and makes it deep darkness. But if you will not listen, my soul will weep in secret for your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive (13:16-17). Yet the tragedy only confirmed his conviction that Judah’s sufferings were the result of its defection from the Lord (15:5-9). He calls for just treatment of the underprivileged in Judean society, and severely criticizes the king for neglecting the welfare of his people while building a sumptuous palace for himself. When the king was taken to Babylon as a captive, Jeremiah refused to offer any hope for his return or for the resumption of the royal dynasty (chapter 22).
Chapters 30-31 contain promises of hope, centred on the prophecy of the new covenant, in which the dejected people would receive a new law inscribed on their hearts. The imagery of covenant is central to the Bible, an image which conveys that the relationship of love and protection between God and his people is solid, when both parties to the agreement keep their part of the pact. ‘The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord”, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more’ (31:31-34). The importance of this passage cannot be underestimated. Its emphasis on integrity of the heart, rather than on outward show was to find its highest fulfilment in the Sermon on the Mount. This new covenant was finally realized in the words and actions of Jesus at the Last Supper, when he sealed it through his body and blood of ‘the new and eternal covenant’, given for the forgiveness of sins.
Thus, Jeremiah comes across as a prophet who was heavily involved in the public affairs of his own society at a time of deep national crisis. As such, he represents a model of unswerving commitment to God, to his own people, and to the principles of righteousness and justice that stood at the foundation of God’s relationship with the people of Israel and Judah. It is not easy to read this book from cover to cover, but reading short passages can convey something of this powerful figure who, through his moral courage, his willingness to suffer for the people, and his personal integrity, prefigured Jesus the ultimate prophet.