Jeremiah 1
God picks a kid as a prophet
Jeremiah’s ministry begins
1These words you’re about to read come from a priest named Jeremiah. He’s the son of priest Hilkiah. They lived in the town of Anathoth, [1] in the tribal territory of Benjamin.2The LORD gave Jeremiah messages to deliver. This began when King Josiah, son of Amon, was 13 years [2] into his reign over Judah. 3These messages continued through the reign of Josiah’s son, Jehoiakim, and all the way until the fall of Jerusalem. That was 11 years [3] into the reign of another one of Josiah’s sons, Zedekiah. [4] And that’s when Jerusalem fell, five months [5] into that year.
God knew Jeremiah before Dad knew Mom
4The Lord told me this:5“I knew you
Before you were conceived. [6]
Before you were born,
I assigned you to serve as my prophet to the world.”
Jeremiah doesn’t want to be a prophet
6I told him, “Oh no, master. Please God, I’m too young to speak for you. I’m just a young boy.” 7But the LORD said,“Hey, don’t give me any of that
‘I’m just a kid.’ [7]
You will go
Wherever I send you.
You will say
Whatever I tell you.
I’m with you to protect you.
You’re hearing this
From the LORD himself.”
God touches Jeremiah’s mouth
9Then the LORD reached his hand toward me and touched my mouth. He told me this.“I just put my words in your mouth.
To deliver my words to the world.
You’ll tear up and tear down,
Overpower and overthrow,
Build and plant.”
11Then the LORD said, “Jeremiah, what do you see now?” I told him, “I see the branch of an almond tree.” 12Then he said, “That’s right. But just as you watch [8] for the first buds of springtime, I’m watching for my words to come to life.”
13Then the LORD asked me again, “What do you see now?” I said, “It’s a boiling pot. And it’s tipping this way, away from the north.” 14The LORD said, “That’s because disaster is coming to the northland. All the people up there will suffer.
God’s army vs. Judah
15I’m assembling all the northern armies for an attack on Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah. Kings will come with their soldiers and surround the city walls and gates throughout the kingdom.16I’m going to pronounce sentence on the defendants, the people of Judah. I’m going to declare them guilty of sheer evil. They turned their backs on me. They sacrificed to gods of other nations. They took credit for successes in their jobs.
Jeremiah suited up for battle
17Lock and load, because you’re going into battle. You tell these people what I tell you to tell them. Don’t be afraid of telling them. Be afraid of me if you don’t. Because what I do to you, I’ll do it in front of them.18Today, you’re not just a man. I’ve turned you into a superman. You’re going to take on the kings of Judah with all the officials, priests, and common citizens. 19They will fight you. They will lose. They’ll lose because I am right here with you. I will keep you safe.”
Footnotes
Anathoth was about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) northeast of the Jerusalem Temple.
The years that kings ruled some 2,600 years ago are debated. Josiah ruled about 641-609 BC, give or take a couple of decades. Some say 640-609 BC or 626-609 BC, among other possibilities. If the first date is accurate, God delivered his first messages to Jeremiah in about 628 BC. Josiah famously, led a religious reform, pointing the nation back to God. It’s unknown if Jeremiah influenced the king and helped talk him into it. But as Jeremiah would learn, the reform was too little, too late. God would punish Judah for centuries of sin. He would allow invaders to level Jerusalem, and exile survivors, and erase the Jewish nation from the world map.
Jehoiakim was 25 years old when Egypt’s Pharaoh Neco appointed him as king of Judah (2 Chronicles 36:5). Judged in 2 Chronicles as “a bad king” (36:5), he ruled for nine years, from about 609-598 BC. He hated Jeremiah. Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah, captured him, and took him in chains to Babylon. Jehoiakim’s 18-year-old son, Jehoiachin, ruled three months and 10 days after him (2 Chronicles 36:9). King Nebuchadnezzar took him to Babylon, too. Then came the last king, Zedekiah.
Zedekiah, Judah’s last king, ruled from 597-586 BC. Some say he ruled until 587 BC. He might have seen the lights go out in Jerusalem if King Nebuchadnezzar hadn’t blinded him. The last thing he saw was the Babylonians execute his sons. Nebuchadnezzar apparently got fed up with rebel kings in this family. One after another ignored his orders and the power he had to enforce them. Zedekiah died a prisoner in Babylon.
July or August of 586 or 587 BC.
This is like a style of writing in Bible times that emphasizes the authority of someone. Six hundred years after Jeremiah, apostle Paul said, “Even before I was born, God in his kindness developed a plan for my life” (Galatians 1:15). A century before Jeremiah, Egypt’s god of sun and air, Amun, reportedly said Piankhy was destined from birth to be pharaoh. So was Ashurbanipal, as king of Assyria, and Nabonidus as king of Egypt, as ancient records report. But in Jeremiah’s case, it’s not only before he was born—it was before his parents conceived a child. Perhaps the LORD or the writer phrased it this way to emphasize Jeremiah’s authority Or perhaps both phrases were saying the same thing. In Jeremiah’s case, then, it simply meant he was born to become a prophet. This is a phrase some Christians use to argue against abortion. But others say that this is taking the poetry too literally and out of context. Abortion is not the topic. Authority to speak on behalf of God is the theme. The imagery, some argue, is to confirm Jeremiah’s ministry. It’s not intended to defend the rights of the unborn who haven’t drawn a breath, and to instead elevate their rights over those of the living, breathing mother. Jeremiah might have been stunned to discover that many readers today would interpret God’s words that way. That’s not to say the life of the unborn is unimportant, but it’s not what God or Jeremiah is talking about here.
Bible scholars estimate he was about 17 years old when he started his ministry in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign, 628 BC See footnote for verse 2. If that guess is correct, he would have been about 59 years old when Babylonian invaders leveled Jerusalem but freed him, apparently for trying to talk Judah’s king into surrendering.
This is a play on words. Almond trees are among the first buds of springtime in Bible lands. In Hebrew, the word for almond is saqed. And the Hebrew word for watching is saqad. The point isn’t the almond tree, in verse 11. The point is that God is watching—and he’ll keep watching to see that everything he warned the people about and everything he promised comes true.
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