Jeremiah son of Hilkiyahu was born on the margins of Jerusalem’s monarchy and priesthood, an heir to a long lineage of outlier priests who may have been a vocal opposition to the Judean hierarchy.
Literally born to be a troublemaker, he lived this legacy to his bitter end - and Jerusalem’s brutal demise, the tragedy he tried so hard to prevent.
He was not loved for his critical courage and powerful poetry of protest - not by his own relatives, and not by the leaders and the people of Jerusalem. But his important message was heard then and lives on now, with whatever meanings it may hold for each of us.
Jeremiah saw the fall coming, tried to warn the people, and failed. But he really tried, at serious cost to his own safety and wellbeing. In some ways this book remains as a recipe for resistance, and the power of prophetic protest, regardless of the immediate results. In other ways this book serves as a warning against fanaticism and how radicalized religion can disrupt personal lives and dissolve society. This is history - but also reads like an eerie forerunner and echo of current events, not just once again in Jerusalem but also all over the fast changing world.
Jeremiah’s prophetic voice was so pained and dark that it would eventually become its own noun: Jeremiad, generated by the Puritans who populated North American in the 17th century may have coined the term now defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “A lamentation; a doleful complaint; a complaining tirade; a lugubrious effusion.”
The socio-political reality Jeremiah was living in gave him a lot to lament and complain about and he did so at the public gates of Jerusalem, for about 40 years. When Jerusalem fell, as he predicated, he would go on to join the humiliated exiles in Egypt, where the story ends.
Outlined in the 52 chapters of the book he is traditionally assumed to be the actual author of, Jeremiah’s story chronicles his visions and prophecies, as well as the people’s harsh response, during the period in which 3 consecutive davidic kings ruled Judea over 4 decades and the kingdom slowly collapsed into the final fateful fall and destruction by Babylon in 586 BCE.
It begins with the first chapter of Jeremiah which contains a ‘Vision of Initiation’, continuing the traditional ‘call to prophecy’ narrative, from Moses onwards to Isaiah, in which the prophet is called to serve YHWH and be a spokesperson bearing harsh truths. Moses and Isaiah got the call as adults. But in Jeremiah’s case - it’s already in the womb - he’s the first prophet to be the recipient of such a birthright, with little agency to resist. While this raises some questions about free will - it also gives us a clue to the sense of continuity that his story represents - he was born into this thankless role, whether he liked it or not - and he often was vocal about his resistance to the prophetic role:
בְּטֶ֨רֶם אֶצׇּרְךָ֤ בַבֶּ֙טֶן֙ יְדַעְתִּ֔יךָ וּבְטֶ֛רֶם תֵּצֵ֥א מֵרֶ֖חֶם הִקְדַּשְׁתִּ֑יךָ נָבִ֥יא לַגּוֹיִ֖ם נְתַתִּֽיךָ׃ וַיִּשְׁלַ֤ח יְהֹוָה֙ אֶת־יָד֔וֹ וַיַּגַּ֖ע עַל־פִּ֑י וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהֹוָה֙ אֵלַ֔י הִנֵּ֛ה נָתַ֥תִּי דְבָרַ֖י בְּפִֽיךָ׃
“Before I created you in the womb, I selected you;
Before you were born, I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations...
YHWH reached out and touched my mouth, and YHWH said to me: Herewith I put My words into your mouth.
Jeremiah 1: 4-9
The symbol of the Divine hand touching the human mouth frames Jeremiah as the spiritual heir of Isaiah, whose initiation vision included being touched in the mouth with a fiery coal. The oral tradition ascribes a similar rite of passage to young Moses. For Jeremiah this is the beginning of a career that will include both the use of words and the use of images and gestures - visual and dramatic aid to deliver the visions he would receive. Already in this first chapter he’ll use the image of a blossoming almond branch and a pot boiling over, facing north, to illustrate the warnings and portents that await the nation. This first set of vision seems to occur as Jeremiah is still a young man, interacting with King Josiah, who may be just a few years older, and has been ruler of Judea for 13 years by now, since the time he was eight years old. In the years ahead he will double down on a religious reform that will try to bring Judah back to its YHWH-focused ways and away from assimilation with Assyrian religion and culture. Jeremiah will back Josiah up, but neither men will ultimately succeed in turning the tide that will eventually drown Jerusalem and demolish their civilization. For Jeremiah, this would mean endless attempts to get people to change their ways and reprioritize religious and moral choices. He would live to rail against King Josiah’s heirs, neither of whom liked him very much either.
And perhaps it isn’t just his own voice that was so unpopular but the fact that he already came from a family that defined an alternative choice. The first verse of the book mentions that Jeremiah descends from the priests of Anatot, assumed to be a village to the north of Jerusalem. Back in King Solomon’s days, the high priest of Jerusalem, Eviatar, was banished to Anatot because he supported another of King David’s sons in the fight to become the future king. Eviatar was the sole survivor of the massacre on the priests of Nob committed by King Saul, and the great-grandson of Eli, the priest of Shiloh, whose priestly line was ultimately replaced by the priests of Jerusalem.
So by the time Jeremiah is called to prophecy in his (nameless) mother’s womb - he is a member of a bitter, displaced, marginalized priestly family with a long pedigree and an old grudge against the Davidic kings and the line of appointed high priests. Nature and nurture combined to make this young priest into the loudest of the family’s prophets.
By the time young Jeremiah makes his way from Anatot to Jerusalem to start protesting the political situation, his pedigree alone sets him up for dismissal by the mainstream establishment, deep in denial.
From the get go, Jeremiah knows, his task will not be easy. The initiation vision sets him up for war:
וַאֲנִ֞י הִנֵּ֧ה נְתַתִּ֣יךָ הַיּ֗וֹם לְעִ֨יר מִבְצָ֜ר וּלְעַמּ֥וּד בַּרְזֶ֛ל וּלְחֹמ֥וֹת נְחֹ֖שֶׁת עַל־כׇּל־הָאָ֑רֶץ לְמַלְכֵ֤י יְהוּדָה֙ לְשָׂרֶ֔יהָ לְכֹהֲנֶ֖יהָ וּלְעַ֥ם הָאָֽרֶץ׃
“I make you this day
A fortified city,
And an iron pillar,
And bronze walls
Against the whole land—
Against Judah’s kings and officers,
And against its priests and citizens.”
Jeremiah 1:18
Born this way, like it or not, and built for battle, Jeremiah enters centerstage in Jerusalem and begins to preach, the first Jeremiad unleashed.
Image: The Call of Jeremiah, 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld
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