Jeremiah, Lamentations

J. Andrew Dearman

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780310872832
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context.

To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections:

• Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context.
• Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the timely pages of the Bible.
• Contemporary Significance. This section identifies comparable situations to those faced in the Bible and explores relevant application of the biblical messages. The author alerts the readers of problems they may encounter when seeking to apply the passage and helps them think through the issues involved.

This unique, award-winning commentary is the ideal resource for today's preachers, teachers, and serious students of the Bible, giving them the tools, ideas, and insights they need to communicate God's Word with the same powerful impact it had when it was first written.

Commentary on Jeremiah

Text and Commentary on Jeremiah

Jeremiah 1:1–3

Jeremiah 1:1–3

THE WORDS OF Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. 2The word of the LORD came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah, 3and through the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, down to the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile.

Original Meaning

LIKE MOST PROPHETIC books, Jeremiah begins with a superscription (i.e., a heading) indicating the time of the prophet’s ministry. Dates in Judah were reckoned in accordance with the reign of a monarch, a common procedure in the ancient world.1 As noted in the introduction, the forty plus years given for Jeremiah’s ministry (ca. 627–584 B.C.) cover some of the most tumultuous and tragic events of the nation’s history. Included among them were rebellions against foreign control, the death of Judean kings at the hands of foreign powers, the demise and virtual destruction of the nation itself, and the forced descent of the prophet into Egypt in the aftermath of the destruction.

Jeremiah was from a priestly family of Anathoth, a village about three miles north of Jerusalem, the capital city of Judah. Anathoth was part of the Benjamite inheritance and assigned as a Levitical city (Josh. 21:18).2 It was also the home of the priest Abiathar, who centuries earlier had served David faithfully but who had backed Adonijah, Solomon’s brother and rival for the throne, at David’s death. Anathoth became the home in exile of Abiathar (1 Kings 2:26), and thus Jeremiah’s hometown likely had deep roots in the priestly and Levitical traditions of the nation, providing the future prophet with an education suited to his task.

King Josiah attempted to free Judah from the control of Assyria and to set Judah on the road to spiritual reform. His thirteenth year coincides with the demise of Assyria’s last strong king Assurbanipal and probably also includes his initial steps to alter Judah’s politically subservient and religiously degenerate path. The eleventh year of Zedekiah is among the most somber in all of biblical history. Jerusalem was captured and destroyed by the Babylonians, Zedekiah himself was seized and blinded, and many Judeans were taken into exile by their captors (Jer. 52; cf. 2 Kings 25).

Bridging Contexts

JEREMIAH’S MINISTRY IS embedded in the convulsive events leading to Judah’s tragic demise. This is typical of the timely nature of biblical prophets and the books that record their work. The heading to the book also bears a significant cultural marker: Time itself is reckoned according to the regnal years of a Davidic monarch. Eventually much of the world will adopt a chronological scheme that is dated to the birth of a descendant from David’s line, that is, Jesus of Nazareth. These Davidic kings in Jeremiah 1:1–3, therefore, are in a chosen line of great significance; nevertheless, each of them failed in varying degrees to lead God’s people from the paths of syncretism and idolatry.

The search for the original meaning of biblical prophecy is based on the conviction that the words and deeds of a prophet first address the pressing issues of a prophet’s own day. Indeed, Jeremiah’s life story is a reflection of the pain of Judah’s failure, and his own suffering mirrors that of the people. But the very fact that a book of Jeremiah is still being read after 2,500 years is evidence that it was intended to instruct later readers through its portrayal of past events and its predictions of God’s transforming moments to come. By God’s grace and in light of subsequent biblical revelation, readers are also invited to find new light coming forth from the same words of the prophetic book, reflecting the transcendent quality of God’s Word and his intention to instruct all generations of his people in the twin contexts of their common humanity and their inheritance among the saints.

Scripture provides additional contexts in which to place the words of Jeremiah. In the Old Testament the prophetic books of Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Nahum, and Ezekiel address audiences whose life spans overlap with those first addressed by Jeremiah. Previous prophetic models in Scripture include the accounts of Elijah and the prophecies of Amos, Isaiah, Micah (cf. Jer. 26), and Hosea. The covenant and Torah about which the prophet will speak are subjects well known to his audience. Whether they grasped the significance of either is debatable. Jeremiah certainly regards their adherence to them as inadequate!

The prophecy of Jeremiah not only interprets the significance of historical events; it offers specific judgments on corporate failure and includes promises that God would see the people through their self-generated demise in order to heal the consequences of their failures. This pattern of historical judgment and redemption in Jeremiah is intended as more than a historical report about the past; it is also typological and analogical instruction for later generations, who are to see themselves corporately addressed as God’s people of their day.

Contemporary Significance

ACCORDING TO APOSTOLIC preaching, God “has not left himself without testimony” (Acts 14:17). The manner of God’s self-revelation varies according to divine discretion. Jeremiah’s historical rootedness is testimony to one facet of God’s revelation, a timely witness intended not only for the generation to which it was first delivered but for subsequent generations as well. Jeremiah the prophet and the book called by his name are chosen vessels, brought forth in specific contexts, to communicate God’s timely truth.

The prophetic superscription reflects a form of incarnational theology. Just as God’s supreme revelation was his Word become flesh in Jesus Christ, so God’s Word took historical form in the life of Jeremiah and acquired written form in a book. It is by consideration of God’s revelation through the prophet Jeremiah and in his book that subsequent generations of God’s people continue to find divine instruction.

For the people of God, the timely nature of Jeremiah’s ministry takes on the primary character of corporate address, inviting the church to consider God’s judging and redeeming activity within the historical process. For individual reflection, Jeremiah’s words provide testimony that God uses both people and events to further his purposes and to instruct the faithful.

Jeremiah 1:4–19

Jeremiah 1:4–19

THE WORD OF THE LORD came to me, saying,

5“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

before you were born I set you apart;

I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

6“Ah, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.”

7But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. 8Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.

9Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth. 10See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”

11The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

“I see the branch of an almond tree,” I replied.

12The LORD said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.”

13The word of the LORD came to me again: “What do you see?”

“I see a boiling pot, tilting away from the north,” I answered.

14The LORD said to me, “From the north disaster will be poured out on all who live in the land. 15I am about to summon all the peoples of the northern kingdoms,” declares the LORD.

“Their kings will come and set up their thrones

in the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem;

they will come against all her surrounding walls

and against all the towns of Judah.

16I will pronounce my judgments on my people

because of their wickedness in forsaking me,

in burning incense to other gods

and in worshiping what their hands have made.

17“Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them. 18Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. 19They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.

Original Meaning

THE REST OF chapter 1 contains an account of Jeremiah’s call and appointment to prophesy (1:4–10), followed by two divine oracles (1:11–12 and 1:13–19) assuring the prophet that God is with him as he delivers a judgmental word to Judah.

Jeremiah’s call is cast in poetic form. Verse 5 has paired phrases indicating that God’s decision to use Jeremiah came prior to his birth. The phrase translated in the NIV as “set apart” is a rendering of the Hebrew verb qdš, whose basic meaning is to be holy. Holiness can be a property, like clean or unclean, and it can be related to ethical activity and spiritual dedication; but the term assumes that what God designates as holy is reserved for (i.e., set apart for) a particular task. Otherwise said, God’s choice of Jeremiah, his designation of him as prophet, is the reason he is sanctified. It is not the other way around, as if Jeremiah’s moral and spiritual attributes are the impetus for God’s selection of him as...