|
|
|
|
CHAPTER 1
Jeremiah foreordained to be a prophet unto the nations—He is called, as a mortal, to declare the word of the Lord. |
||
|
1 THE words of Jeremiah
the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in
aAnathoth in the land of
Benjamina:
2 To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiaha the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth ayear of his reign. 3 It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the acarrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month. |
1a of the priests that were in
Anathoth in the land of Benjamin Jeremiah was a Levite priest who
was of the land or tribe of Benjamin, that is his priestly assignment was
unto the land and tribe of Benjamin. And thus were the Levite priests so
called after that land and tribe unto which they were called upon to serve,
for the Levites had no land given unto them but which was of the other
tribes and they were not counted as a separate tribe but were called
according to which so ever tribe they were assigned to serve. Thus a Levite
priest might be said he was of 'Judah' or of 'Benjamin' or of 'Ephraim', etc.
(note: John the Baptist was of Ephraim, being of the land of Ramah which was that which was assigned unto Ephraim. Ramah was that land which Herod did search and have killed all the enfant children to the age of 2 years. Jesus was also of 'Ramah' (Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew 2:18) and that Bethlehem Ephratha or of Ephraim in which Chirst was born (Micah 5:2), near the tomb of Rachel who so prophecied that he would be rightfully of her seed. You see, though the Old Testament text does not so stated it, each tribe's 'princes' which participated in the government of Jerusalem were given lands of inheritances about Jerusalem and even at that, the land about Rachel's tomb called 'Zelzah' had always been that of Benjamin (or of Joseph) as so stipulated in the days of Saul (1 Samuel 10:2) and this gives rise to the distinction between Bethlehem of Ephratah or Ephraim and that Bethlehem of Judah, it being a 'shared' or divided city between those of Joseph and Judah and also referenced as 'Rama' or 'Ramah', the hill counties of Ephraim.) 2a in the days of Josiah Josiah had been anointed King at the age of 8 and in the 13th year of his reign came the call of Jeremiah. Thus Josiah was about age 18 at the time and it is estimated that Jeremiah was about that same age, perhaps 19, at the time of his call, relatively a 'child' in terms of the 30 years of age requirement before one is to 'minister' in Jewish tradition. But this certainly makes Jeremiah and Josiah immediate comtempories even down to comparable ages. As for Lehi, who had two married daughters in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah and four aditional sons, Lehi too dates back to the days of Josiah and Jeremiah in his youthful age and so well aquainted with them and likely very much influenced by them during his lifetime. Thus three comtempories, Lehi, Jeremiah and Josiah all close in age and of the same time frame. (Note: Lehi's calculated age would be about 20-25 years married in the first year of Zedekiah (600 BC-BoM time) with two married daughters and 4 sons ages 10-18, thus he be about age 20+ at 625 BC the estimated time of his marriage and therefore about age 5-8 at the date of King Josiah's anointing as King at his age 8. Thus Jeremiah, Josiah and Lehi were very much comtemporaries in their relative and immediate ages as well.) |
|
|
4 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
5 Before I aformed thee in the belly I bknew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I csanctified thee, and I dordained thee a prophet unto the enations. 6 Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot aspeak: for I am a bchild. |
||
|
7 ¶ But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I
am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall
asend thee, and whatsoever I bcommand
thee thou shalt cspeak.
8 Be not aafraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD. |
||
|
9 Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched
my amouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put
my bwords in thy mouth.
10 See, I have this day aset thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to bpull down, and to destroy, and to cthrow down, to dbuild, and to plant. |
||
|
11 ¶ Moreover the word of the LORD came
unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what aseest thou? And I said, I
see a rod of an almond tree.
12 Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it. |
||
|
13 And the word of the LORD came unto me the
second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a
aseething bpot; and the face thereof is toward the north.
14 Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the anorth an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. |
||
|
15 For, lo, I will call all the families of
the kingdoms of the north, saith the LORD; and they shall come, and they
shall set every one his throne at the entering of the
agates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof
round about, and against all the cities of Judah.
16 And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have aforsaken me, and have burned incense unto other bgods, and worshipped the works of their own hands. |
||
The 'Sanhedrin' of Jeremiah's DayNow there are some who have painted a very informal picture of the 'elders' who did rule the Jews. But it was not so since the time and day of Moses who selected seventy of the leading elders or princes of Israel to administer and regulate and judge in the matters of the regulating the Law of Moses among the people. In fact the 'princes' or 'officers and rulers' of the people of the Jews in the days of Jeremiah were not that different from those in the days of Jesus Christ which made up the Sanhedrin. Since the days of Moses the seventy were under the leadership of the chief high priest, this was so in Jeremiah's day and also in Christ's day. And the previous high priest who in Jeremiah's day conveyed that position to his son, was just as influential as the ruling high priest as was also such in the day of Jesus. Thus when Jeremiah 38 lists the leading princes or rulers of the people of the 'church' or the Law of Moses, it lists both the current head, the current high priest, as well as his father Pashur, the previous high priest of the 'sanhedrin' of Jeremiah's day. |
||
|
17 ¶ Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.
18 For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the aprinces thereof, against the priests thereofa, and against the people of the land. 19 And they shall afight against thee; but they shall not bprevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee. |
18a against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof While it mentions against the land and the people also, it is the kings on the one hand and the 'other' leading body made up of the 'princes and priests' who are the leadship of the people who Jeremiah will contend against. And in particular it will be the 'princes' or the 'Sanhedrin' of his day, the princes and chief priests thereof, who will more specifically contend against Jeremiah and also Lehi in Lehi's day of prophesying against Jerusalem, foretelling of its pending destruction. And it is these very 'princes' or 'Sarim' or 'Elders' of the Law of Moses who King Zedekiah could not contend against as he was a weak king (Jeremiah 38). | |