This week and next week, I'm studying Jeremiah, the second of the three major prophets. Here are two websites that provide a lot of background and detail about this book:
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8586-jeremiah
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Jeremias_(the_Prophet)
Jeremiah (Yeremiyahu in Hebrew) began his prophetic career in about 626 BCE, the 13th year of Josiah’s reign, across four more kings to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 BCE. So he preached and ministered during the worst crisis time in Judah’s history, and Jeremiah’s famous sorrowfulness and distress reflects his involvement in his people’s fate. He was the son of a priest (kohen) named Hilkiah from a Benjamin village (Jer. 1:1-3). As the Jewish Study Bible points out, "Thus, like Moses, who was of Levitical descent, Jeremiah is a priest and prophet who guided his people for forty years--often in the fact of stiff opposition--but, unlike Moses who led the people from Egypt into the promised land, Jeremiah saw the exile of his people form that same promised land and lived out his own days in Egypt." Jeremiah's assistant, who conveyed his teachings, was Baruch ben Neriah.
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| from: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/ article/judah-israel-a-divided-monarchy/ |
Jeroboam II of Israel (786-746). The prophets Amos and Hosea prophesied to the Northern Kingdom in about the 740s and 750s.
Azariah/Uzziah of Judah (783-742), 15:1-7, who did what was right but also did not remove the foreign altars and so God struck him with leprosy. Isaiah dated his prophetic call to the year Uzziah died.
Zechariah of Israel (746-745), 15:8-12
Shallum of Israel (one month in about 745), 15:13-16
Menahem of Israel (745-738), 15:17-22
Pekahiah of Israel (738-737), 15:23-26
Pekah of Israel (737-732), 15:27-31
Jotham of Judah (742-735), 15:32-38
Ahaz of Judah (737-715).
Hoshea of Israel. 17:1-6. The Deuteronomistic historian comments extensively on the sins that led to Israel’s fall (17:7-23), and describes the resettlement of the area. Among the new settlers were the people who became known as Samaritans.
And kings of Judah:
Hezekiah (715-687), 18:1-8-20:1-21.
Manasseh (687-642), 21:1-18, Hezekiah’s son, was very wicked and did much evil. This is the last straw, God’s judgment against Judah was now certain because of Manasseh's idolatry and violence.
Amon of Judah (642-640), 21:19-26, was also evil, but
Josiah (640-609), 22:1-25:30, was a righteous king who prepared the temple, and in doing so recovered the book of the law (probably the text of Deuteronomy 12-26) and with great sorrow sought to renew the covenant and to initiate reforms throughout the kingdom. *The prophets
Zephaniah (about 628-622), Jeremiah (about 626-587), Habakkuk (about 605), and Ezekiel (about 593-573) are from this general period, while 2 Isaiah was exilic: about 540.
Jehoahaz (609), 23:31-33, briefly reigned, but he was taken captive by the Pharaoh. His successor
Eliakim/Jehoiakim (609-598), 23:34-24:6, also did evil in God’s sight, as did Jehoiachin (598-597), 24:7-12. In his eighth year as king, he was taken prisoner by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who looted Jerusalem and carried away many inhabitants. Nebuchadnezzar installed Jehoiachin’s uncle Zedekiah as king. But Zedekiah rebelled against Babylon, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and the terrible end of Zedekiah and his sons (25:1-7). Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple was burned, demolished, and looted. Nebuchadnezzar appointed the ill-fated Gedaliah to be governor of the land of Judah (25:22-26).
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The prophet Isaiah began his ministry in 742, and as we saw last week, portions of 1-39 come from the 600s, while 40-66 are from around 540 and later. Jeremiah profited during the period 626-587, and although we don't know when he died, he was exiled in Egypt at the time. Our next book Ezekiel, is from 593-573. In his book Biblical Literacy, Rabbi Telushkin comments that the northern kingdom had no prophetic voices of hope---but the southern kingdom had words of hope from 2 Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. So the tribes of the northern kingdom disappeared into history, while the the tribes Judah, Benjamin, and Levi in the south remained and were recipients of God's promises.
‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’
Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’
But the Lord said to me,
‘Do not say, “I am only a boy”;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.’
hen the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
‘Now I have put my words in your mouth.
See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.’ (1:4-11)
John Bracke (1), recently retired from Eden Seminary where I’m an adjunct, points out three important perspectives about God of special importance within Jeremiah:
1. God is sovereign. “God’s word changes history through judgment---plucking up and pulling down---and through restoration---building and planting” (p. 7). The people who had been rescued from Egypt and given a precious land had broken God’s covenant and strayed from God’s law, and therefore they must go into exile. But God is also faithful and merciful and will restore the land and the temple and will establish a new covenant (pp. 7-8).
2. Along with the anguish of the people of Judah, God “also experiences hurt and disappointment” (p. 8). God is a rejected husband and a rejected parent. Although God punishes his people, God is also in tremendous pain because of their pain and anguish (p. 8).
3. God is ultimately interested in “building and planting” (1:10), although at the end of Jeremiah this is promised rather than fulfilled (p. 9).
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A basic outline of the book is:
Chapters 1-10, condemnations toward Judah.
Chapters 11-28: warnings of the destruction of Judah.
Chapters 29-38: the promise of the New Covenant.
Chapters 39-52: events concerning the fall of Jerusalem.
Stulman has also sketched groupings of material, reflecting theological themes within the book. He argues that the book has two sections, 1-25 and 26-52, forming a “two-part prophetic drama,” each with five acts (p. 221).
He calls the first part, “Dismantling Judah’s cherished social and symbolic categories.” This part’s five acts are:
Introduction (1:1-19)
1 The basis for God’s judgment (2;1-6:30)
2 Dismantling the Temple (7:1-10:25)
3 Dismantling the Covenant (11:1-17:27)
4 Dismantling “insider privileges” (18:1-20:18)
5 Dismantling the monarchy (21:1-24:10)
Conclusion, “the world under divine judgment” (25:1-38)
The second part is “Restoration and hope amid the wreckage: a survivor’s manual.” The five parts are:
Introduction, on hope (26:1-24)
1 “Conflicting theologies of hope” (27:1-29:3)
2 “The book of hope” (30:1-33:26)
3 “Moral instruction for the new community” (34;1-35:19)
4 “Traces of hope amid the wreckage” (36:1-45:5)
5 “God’s reign on earth signaling hope for Judean refugees in Babylon (46:1-51:64)
Conclusion: “Jehoiachin’s restoration as embryonic hope” (52:1-34)
One of Shulman’s summary statements is interesting: “Jeremiah is ‘guerilla theater,’ a text of resistance that reimagines symbol systems and reframes and social realities. It reenacts or performs the fall and rise of Judah as well as the defeat of the geopolitical power structures responsible for Judah’s mistreatment. it attempts to convince Jewish refugees in Babylon that economic-military domination is not the final word and that God is an unflinching advocate for those devastated by war and exile. In effect, the book of Jeremiah is a liturgical act that creates a quite particular world, one that stands in stark contrast to ‘other worlds’ where absolute power, autonomy, and economic exploitation reign... [T]he text ennobles those on the margins to protest and dissent, ridicule and revel, and imagine a counter ...world order. The prophetic script empowers broken people with the will to survive and the resolve to act with courage And ultimately Jeremiah functions as a dangerous ‘weapon of hope’ that will not knuckle under to political aggression, military might, or relentless despair” (pp. 234-235).
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Among the stylistic forms of Jeremiah, we frequently find personal complains. The Harper's Bible Commentary lists several: 11:18-12:6, 15:10-21, 1714-18, 18:18-23, 20:7-18. We think of the psalms of lamentation and complaint (p. 597) and find similarities in Jeremiah's expressions of sorrow.
Two other forms are prose sermons and third personal narratives about Jeremiah. Among the biographical passages are 19:1-20:6, 26:28-29, 36:37-45, 51:59-64. Among the sermons are 7:1-8:3, 11:1-14, 16:1-13, 17:19-27, 18:1-12 21:1-10, 25:1-14, 35:1-19. (HBC, p. 598) The sermons often reflect that Deuteronomistic theology: Judah’s punishment is linked to their sins.
We also find more symbolic prophetic actions---the special kind of performance art that we find in some of the problems--in Jeremiah. There are a few in Isaiah, like the symbolically named children of chapters 7 and 8 (Shear-jashub, Immanuel, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz), and Isaiah's nudity that warned of Egypt of Assyrian slavery (chapter 20). Here is a site that provides several of Jeremiah's symbolic actions: http://www.bibleteachingnotes.com/clientImages/29183/BTNMiscFiles/jeremiahsymbolicacts.pdf
The Jewish Study Bible concludes: "In the end, the book of Jeremiah is the product of a debate within Jewish circles from the late monarchy and the exilic periods concerning the question of theodicy or the righteousness of God. Although fully aware of the theological problems posed by the destruction of the Temple and the exilic of the Jewish people, the book affirms God's existence and righteousness as well as the future of the restored nation Israel on its land" (p. 920).
Note:
1. John M. Bracke, Jeremiah 1-29 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000); and his book, Jeremiah 30-52 and Lamentations (same date and publisher).
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