Book of Jeremiah - Overview | Steve Gregg

I believe that we'll find the Book of Jeremiah to be somewhat easier to understand than the Book of Isaiah so there will be challenges in covering it in the time we have partly because Jeremiah is the longest of the books of the prophets ah he has fewer chapters that Isaiah has but he has more pages there's more words and Jeremiah than there are in Isaiah because in general the average length of the chapter is longer in Jeremiah some of them are very long over 50 verses but not many of that long but as we read Jeremiah we will find I think greater ease and understanding his message I think he doesn't use quite as much figurative language as Isaiah does but he does use much of the same figurative language but at least it'll be familiar to us now having gone through Isaiah together there will be things that would have been maybe more difficult in Jeremiah have we not already encountered them and explained them when we run through Isaiah Jeremiah lived and prophesied about a hundred years after Isaiah and while Isaiah did predict the Babylonian exile and even the return from Babylon Jeremiah lived at the time when the Exile was actually took it actually took place the political situation at the time of Jeremiah was considerably different than in Isaiah in Isaiah's lifetime the kings of Judah were threatened by Assyria primarily and in fact Jerusalem almost fell to Assyria Judah the cities of Judah other than Jerusalem did fall to Assyria Jerusalem was spared supernaturally but by the time of Jeremiah a serious dominance of the region was pretty much had been gone for about three centuries and yet it was waning Assyria was beginning to wane in power and a new power was rising in the region and that was Babel at the same time Egypt was trying to reassert some of its former glory but Egypt never quite had what it took to recover from frankly from the exodus hundreds of years earlier Egypt was a mighty powerful nation in the time before the Exodus but God did a lot of devastating things to Egypt's economy and when he delivered Israel and Egypt never really rose again to be the world power it had been before but it kept trying at times and so Egypt was a player and of course Egypt was southwest of Israel and Babylon was northeast of Israel as Assyria was and so Israel was often caught in the middle of the power plays of these different nations that were trying to control the whole area and which often did Jeremiah and Josiah the King were both born during the reign of Manasseh Manasseh the son of Hezekiah was the worst king Judah had and although Hezekiah his father had done much to try to reform the idolatry of the country he had done so at the expense of trusting in Yahweh instead of Egypt and Assyria had come in in Hezekiah Stein and wiped out the whole nation except for Jerusalem while we rejoice in the fact that Jerusalem survived the Assyrian invasion the nation of Judah was devastated only Jerusalem survived therefore the policy of trusting Yahweh by Hezekiah might have been viewed as a bad policy his son Manasseh may have thought well if we had trusted in the other gods Judah wouldn't have been devastated like this by the Assyrians whatever his reasons Manasseh took the country back into idolatry with a vengeance and more than any other King before him he even ended up sacrificing his own children to Molech and established every kind of occult and idolatrous practice and evil practiced in Judah and to make matters worse he had the longest reign of any King in Judah so the very worst King reigned the longest it was definitely the darkest spiritually the darkest season for Judah a nation would you have many dark seasons but the worst King reigning longer than anybody else is about as bad as it can get but it was during the reign of Manasseh that two babies were born that were to change things or at least gave Judah a chance to change in significant ways one was Josiah who became King and and set about to reform things as Hezekiah had done the other baby was Jeremiah who is probably just a little bit younger than Josiah there were contemporaries and therefore during Judah's darkest hour God gave them some hope in the birth of some significant young men the King Josiah and the Prophet Jeremiah it was in 627 was the year that Josiah began his reforms six years later the priest tokaiya in renovating the temple found a copy of a book of the law most scholars believe this is the book of Deuteronomy there's probably an allusion to the book of Deuteronomy in Jeremiah chapter 11 and when Josiah was showed this book by the priest it was unfamiliar it's interesting because Josiah had already tried to eradicate idolatry from the nation before the book was found and yet he was unaware of the book he was unaware of the law of God and when he read Deuteronomy he tore his clothes and realized that that the nation was in trouble with God because Deuteronomy had said that if Israel would turn from God that God would bring every curse and every plague upon them and so Josiah seeking to avert this brought about very powerful radical reforms both in Judah and up in his which was not his territory he went up to the altars that Jeroboam had set up and desecrated those altars because they've been made to a golden cat out there so he actually intruded into territory that wasn't in his domain and trying to bring reforms all around he is a very good King he was not perfect nobody's perfect and every king of Judah that was good had one fatal flaw Josiah was that he went to battle against Pharaoh Neko when the Egyptians were coming up to fight against Babylon and apparently Josiah wanted to prevent that he took his armies on to fight against them a prophet warned Josiah not to go but chose I went anyway and he got killed there and so he actually got killed at the valley of Megiddo and so Josiah died and his reforms fell apart actually his sons the Kings that succeeded him didn't have a heart for God and so there was only a succession of wicked rulers that followed Josiah's reign and all the reforms he had done were unfortunately too shallow probably too little too late as we should see if the nation was pretty apostate they were they were in love with her sins and with their idolatry and although there was a good king he couldn't change the heart of the people he could only make them stop doing those things but when he was gone they reverted back which of course is the way of the world after all I mean you can have a good leader who outlaws sinful behavior but if the people themselves are not righteous in their hearts they'll revert to it as soon as the pressures off and many people actually feel like you know what our nation needs is to get some good legislators in there to legislate some moral standards for the country but obviously if our country loves sin legislating moral standards is only going to have a short-term effect and you know if some leader gets in there that makes people behave differently than they want to they'll vote him out and get someone in there who let him in let them do what they want that's how Israel was they had a ruler that was righteous they weren't righteous they had to behave under his rule but as soon as he was gone they went right back and and the Kings that followed him also back to their idolatry and remained in it until they fell to the Babylonians now the rise of Babylon was taking place in the lifetime of Jeremiah in 607 BC battlin conquered Assyria and Assyria had been of course the big nation for 300 years but now was subjected to babbling and now Babylon was the big nation the big oppress or the big Kingdom in the world and that was in six oh seven and two years later at the Battle of Carr commish babblin conquered Egypt also and therefore Egypt was no longer a serious play Babylon was the only superpower in the region or frankly in the world now between these two victories between the time that Babylon conquered Syria and the time they conquered Egypt a car commissioned Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem and did some harm some damaged the city did not destroy the city and didn't fully conquer it in all respects but but did take some captives managed to get some partial victories and took captives away to Babylon with him and Daniel and his three friends were among those captives that were taken away in 605 BC and we read about Daniel in his own book and and about Nebuchadnezzar capturing these Nobles basically people from note of noble birth sort of the cream of Jerusalem society were taken away from Jerusalem and taken into Babylon and that was included Daniel and his three friends but Jerusalem had not followed later Babylonian troops returned and did further harm to Jerusalem in 597 BC and took some more captives and Ezekiel was one of the captives taken at that time and then Zedekiah was the last king in judah to rebelled against babblin and his rebellion cause nebuchadnezzar come back again in 586 BC and destroyed the city burned down the temple and so forth and carried most of the rest of the people of Jerusalem into babbling so Judah and Jerusalem are pretty much deep populated in 586 BC but not entirely the poor of the land some of the harmless peasants that Nebuchadnezzar did not find to be a threat he let them stay in Judah among those that stayed in Judah was Jeremiah he was prophesying for about 50 years during the reigns of the last five kings of Judah until the time Jerusalem fell and he was there for all three of the Babylonian attacks so when Daniel his friends were taken captive Jeremiah was there in Jerusalem to see that happen and when Ezekiel is taken captive Jeremiah was in Jerusalem and saw that captivity - in 597 and he was also there to see the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC now when I was a devastating conquest and many hundred thousands of Jews apparently were killed and taken into captivity Jeremiah was given mercy by the Ballet's because it was known that he had to actually counsel Jerusalem to surrender and he had actually been put in prison by the king of Judah because he was counseling surrender that that made him a friend of the Babylonians as far as the Babylonians were concerned and so he was spared and given his liberty after the city fell he was however compelled against his wishes to go into Egypt with some of the people who with him had survived and that's that's where he ended up but Jeremiah's historical setting there is during this time where Babylon is rising famine conquers Assyria conquers Egypt and conquers Jerusalem during Jeremiah's lifetime and there are three deportations including the last one she actually was the destruction of the walls of the city and the buildings in the temple in it and he lived to see that after that there was a governor set up named Goliath that the Babylonians set up in Jerusalem but was destroyed and and then he got himself assassinated and he was assassinated by Jews and therefore you know Nebuchadnezzar would come down and bring reprisals on the Jews for killing the governor that he appointed and because those reprisals were anticipated some people in fled from there to get away attacks that would come and they went out to eat gifted a force Jeremih to go with them against his will now as far as the man Jeremiah he's a very interesting character in the Bible there are other Jeremiah's seven in fact other men in the bottle or name Jeremiah but this one was the Prophet and he was also a priest many times God seemed to call prophets from among the priesthood Ezekiel was a priest also and zechariah the son of berechiah who wrote the book of zechariah is also a priest who is called to be a prophet there's another Zechariah the son of jehoiada who the Spirit came upon and he promised I'd he got killed he's the one who was killed between the temple and the altar Jesus referred to so priests sometimes were the ones that God called to be prophets and Jeremiah was a priest also he probably had not served in the priesthood because he was very young when God called him his ministry was over a period of 50 years and and when he was called he complained that he was too young to be a prophet but God said don't say that I'm going to be with you and I'm going to make you you know a sharp sword and a shaft in my hand to to bring my words to these people so even if Jeremiah was say 20 at the time that he was called he would have lived to be 70 and beyond he would have been 70 in fact at the time of the fall Jerusalem in that case and he lived beyond that because down into Egypt and live sometime we don't know how long they're so he was probably under 20 when he was called probably a teenager and that would mean he had not begun functioning as a priest yet because they would start at age 30 he lived in a town in the region of Benjamite Territory just three miles from Jerusalem actually called anitha it was actually a priestly town where a lot of Levitical town and he wrote this book but he also is thought by the Jews to have written first and second Kings it's a Jewish tradition that he did he certainly lived through much of the material that Kings talks about and he may have written the books of Kings it's a possibility because he did live to the end of that period that they record and the style of Kings is not very different than that of his historical portions in his book now it was the 13th year of Josiah when he was called to ministry that's 626 BC and he ministered until 586 BC when Jerusalem fell and that's exactly 50 years from 626 to 586 but he didn't die immediately at that time of course in Egypt he lived some more years we don't know how many maybe some tradition says may is 20 fact one tradition of the Jews says that he that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt 20 years later after 586 BC and took Jeremiah captive to babble so on that tradition Jeremiah didn't die in Egypt he died in Babylon but the more prevailing tradition is that he did die in Egypt and that he was killed by one of his countrymen we don't have details about that and it's not in Scripture it's just a tradition of the Jews so he may have died in Egypt or in Babylon actually the period described that he lived is described in 2nd Kings 22 through 25 and second chronicles chapter 34 through 36 he is often referred to as the weeping prophet because he is so emotional he groans he weeps the travails he cries and there are certain references there to that in your notes chapter nine verse one is a really classic passage about how he wished his eyes were rivers of Tears he says oh that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of Tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people and likewise in other places in his book he makes reference to his weeping over them he was still young of course when he began to prophesy and apparently not hardened still more emotionally sensitive than maybe an older man might be at first he was reluctant to be a prophet he said I'm too young for that and God said no don't say that just you're going to be my prophet after all he did become rather bold though once God's Spirit enabled him and he was very confrontational to the apostate Jews he put his life on the line and was imprisoned more than once and his life was in danger at least one time when they were going to kill him he was delivered with providentially by someone speaking up in his favor but he was very courageous and yet very sensitive and emotional in this respect he might be seen as a type of Christ because Christ was sensitive tender gentle but also very confrontational with the hypocrisy of the people of his time there are other ways that I think Jeremiah could be seen as a type of Christ as well which we'll talk about in a moment the early days of Jeremiah's message were a call to repent the nation was in trouble they were in sin they were endangered Babylon was looming as a danger and of course even Isaiah had predicted that Babylon would take everything away to Babylon and they'd go into a captivity Jeremiah specifically predicted the 70 year of captivity in chapter 25 and that's the only prophet who actually said how long the captivity would be but he was right lasted for seventy years when his calls to repentance failed God told him to stop praying for these people and instead he urged them to surrender to the Babylonian now you have to realize that when a nation is under siege by Babylonians and someone inside the city is going telling the people publicly God wants you to surrender if you don't surrender you'll die but God says if you don't if you do surrender you'll live and be taken in captivity that's that undermines the military effort especially in a religious community where prophets are speaking for God he says God's telling you to surrender but the king and the people don't want a surrender he is charged with demoralizing the morale of troops and so he's put in jail for that so his early messages are about repentance maybe the city can be spared later he realizes they're not going to repent or be spared so their best option is to surrender in chapter 16 verses 1 through 4 God told Jeremiah not to get married which is unusual for a Jewish man Jewish men usually would marry Ezekiel was married and Isaiah was married and certainly Hosea was married and it seems like most prophets were married but it was a special sign that God said Jeremiah should not get married because people who had lives and children in Jerusalem would would have great heartache because of the disasters around the city it's like when Jesus said when he's talked about the fall jersey seventies he said but you'll say those days blessed are the wombs that never bore are and the breasts that never gave suck that things will be so awful weep for yourselves and for your children you said the women who are going to be facing that 70ad time in times of great judgment and disaster it's nice not to have the grief of seeing your family suffering and so God spared Jeremiah that so don't get married don't have kids because those who have kids and who are married are going to see their wives and children taken into captivity or slaughtered or whatever it's going to be a horrible thing for those families that they care about better to not have a family in a case like this and so he didn't marry now I already told you about his being forced to flee to Egypt in it there be two two traditions about his death what is that he was killed by a countryman in Egypt one of his fellow Jews the other is that twenty years later in 566 Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt and you know Jeremiah and others have been down there he was captured and taken away to Babylon there we don't have any way of confirming any of the traditions about this about prescription now there is a tradition and it may have been alluded to in the New Testament that that when Jeremiah went to Egypt he managed to get the Ark of the Covenant out of the temple away from away from Israel anyway the temple had been burned by then but the point is that he would have gotten the Ark and hidden it and carried it down to Egypt so the Jewish rabbis something taught that when the Messianic age comes Jeremiah will return and he will bring the Ark of the Covenant back again and he'll bring out the pot of manna that was in it and miraculously feed the multitudes with the manna from the pot and that may be why the people said of Jesus when he fed the multitudes with a few bits of bread in John chapter 6 and verse nine or not verse nine verse 14 it's that when those men when they have seen this signs that Jesus did said this is truly the prophet who is to come into the world they might have met Jeremiah the Prophet who is to come as a precursor to the Messiah coming in the Messianic age dawning in Matthew chapter 16 when Jesus asked the disciples whom do men say that I the Son and em they answered in Matthew 16 14 some say John the Baptist saw me Liza and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets but why would even think that Jesus was Jeremiah Jeremiah had died hundreds of years earlier that is probably reflecting their beliefs this Jewish tradition that Jeremiah would return to beginning of the messianic age and so they figured Elijah or John the Baptist or Jeremiah one of those figures not the Messiah apparently strange they didn't have Messiah in the mix there but that's probably because Jesus wasn't acting messianic in their opinion he wasn't rallying the troops he wasn't making any moves to deliver the Jews from Rome so people thought that he was you know maybe one of the precursors the Messiah rather than Messiah Elijah was expected to come Jeremiah was expecting him so maybe he was one of them now I believe that in likening Jesus to Jeremiah or thinking he might be Jeremiah there was some similarity that almost makes that suggestion reasonable of course Jeremiah was not Jesus and Jesus was not general but Jeremiah could easily have been a type of Jesus on the back of your knee looks I've listed a few things about Jeremiah that could be said to parallel Jesus now the New Testament does not tell us that Jeremiah is a type of Christ so this would be a matter of some speculation but it's not based on nothing both Jeremiah and Jesus were called and their ministry specified before they were born in Jeremiah chapter one of course in verse 5 God said before I formed you in the womb I knew you before you were born I sanctified you and ordained you a prophet to the nation's Jesus also was called and named before his birth as the savior of the world as the Messiah in Matthew 1:21 while he was still in the womb an angel told Joseph that his name would be called Jesus because he will save his people from their sins he was named and called before birth not all the prophets were but Jeremiah was and Jesus was and also both Jesus and Jeremiah never married again a fairly unusual circumstance for Jewish men in Jewish which we say attitudes of Jesus time Jewish sentiments an unmarried man was not a complete man some of the rabbi's said a man without a wife is not a complete man and therefore it expressed a a sentiment that men should marry and most did it was unusual for men not to marry Paul didn't marry but he indicated that that was because of his special calling Jesus didn't marry either he never indicated why he did but he didn't and Jeremiah didn't in that respect they resemble each other also also both Jesus and Jeremiah wept over Jerusalem we saw it Jeremiah's called the weeping prophet but Jesus also wept over Jerusalem they both lived at a time when they saw Jerusalem was about to be destroyed Jeremiah saw the Babylonian destruction Jerusalem Jesus was looking at the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and Jesus wept over Jerusalem as Jeremiah had in Luke chapter 19 and verse 41 it says now as he drew near Jesus saw the city and wept over it saying if you had known even you especially in this year the things that make for your piece but now they're hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you surround you and close you in on every side and level you and your children within you to the ground and they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation this weeping over Jerusalem over the fact that the Romans would come and destroy it resembles Jeremiah weeping over Jerusalem knowing that the Babylonians were going to come in destroyed Jerusalem in his day here's maybe a far-fetched comparison but I thought of it as contemplating ways in which Jeremiah might be like Jesus Jeremiah actually made a yoke as part of his prophetic actions he he had enacted parable like some of the prophets do and he made an ox yoke and he wore it in jeremiah 20:7 - the Lord said to me make yourselves for yourselves bonds and yokes now plural yourselves maybe Jeremiah and his few disciples he may have had we only know of two there's Baruch his scribe and there was an Ethiopian eunuch named Evan Melek who was faithful to God and sympathetic to Jeremiah whether there were others or not we don't know but apparently those that were with Jeremiah were to make along with him yokes and put them on their necks and this was to symbolize the yoke of bondage that we coming upon them from babblin now jesus said obviously in Matthew chapter 11 when I take my yoke upon you and learn from me he may have even made yokes Justin Martyr an early Christian father said that in when Jesus was a young man before he went into the ministry and when he worked as a carpenter in Nazareth that he actually had as all the craftsmen did in those days a slogan for his business and got out in front of Jesus business his carpentry business as you might put a shingle out there the name of your company or whatever or your slogan like you know have it your way or whatever you whatever the slogan is for the company Justin Martyr said that the slogan that Jesus had over his coffee shop was my yokes fit well in other teams specialize in making ox yoke and claimed that they fit well now I don't know where Justin got that information he may it may be a true tradition passed down orally from the first century on with or he may have made it up but if it is true it's rather ensuring that Jesus was a man who made yokes for a living before he was in the ministry and then he told people take my yoke upon you my yoke is easy and my burden is life and of course Jeremiah was not predicting an easy over but he's the only prophet the Old Testament or any person the Old Testament who put a yoke over his neck and made the Axio is part of his message so in a sense both Jesus and Jeremiah used the imagery of a yoke to convey their message also Jeremiah and Jesus alone spoke about the significance of the Valley of Hinnom is the place where the those who are slain in Jerusalem would be thrown their corpses only Jeremiah speaks of it this way actually I think Isaiah makes sort of an allusion to it of sorts he uses the word tuffet the Tophet is the another name for valley you know Jeremiah actually used the name Valentin on and so did Jesus in his use of the word Gehenna no other writer of Scripture in the New Testament used the word Gehenna except James who didn't use it literally James said that the tongue is a fire a world of evil it's full of the fire of Gehenna he said the tongue is set on fire from Gehenna not entirely clear how James means that but he's not obviously talking about a literal situation the fire is not really burning I mean the talking is not really very it's not the burning of Johana but apart from that one statement in James the only person in the Bible who use the word Gehenna in the New Testament was Jesus and he used it several times a dozen times on record or so and he spoke of it is the place where those who rejected him were going to be thrown into the flames of Gehenna from the Valley of Hinnom as the word means Jeremiah also spoke similar about the valley of hinnom and as such seemed to give Jesus the language of gana as the place of judgment in Jeremiah chapter 7 and verse 31 Jeremiah said if they have built the high places of Tophet which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom that's the valid Henan or Gehenna to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire which I did not come in nor did it come to my heart therefore behold the days are coming says Yahweh when it will be no more called Tophet or the valley of the son of Hinnom but the valley of slaughter for they will bury in tuffet until there is no room the corpses of the people will be for food for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth and no one will frighten them away of course he's talking about the great slaughter that would come on Jerusalem for the Babylonians came and Jesus also wanted continually of the danger that coming upon the Jews of his day that they were going to be facing a similar fate if they did not respond him I mentioned Isaiah made an allusion to it we have an allusion to it in Isaiah 30 but it's Jeremiah who spells it out somewhat more in Isaiah chapter 30 in verse 33 Isaiah said 4-top remember Tophet is without Hinnom for Tophet was established of old yes for the king it is prepared he has made it deep and large it spire which is of course as a burnt corpses of higher is fire with much wood the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone so we see that Isaiah refers to the Valley of Hinnom as a place where the dead or burned corpses are burned it's the funeral pyre Jeremiah refers to it as a mass grave the abundance of the corpses that will be buried there will be make it suited to call the place the valley of slaughter and Jesus also gave gruesome descriptions of Gehenna in one place he borrowed language from Isaiah where Isaiah did not use the term gana but Jesus did and he said the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die a passage from Isaiah 66 24 where according to Jesus it is talking about Gehenna or the valley you know although Isaiah doesn't use the term in that place so Jesus and Jeremiah named the Valley of Hinnom as the place where the judgment of the wicked will take place and it did in 586 BC in Jeremiah's day and in 70 AD in the lifetime of Jesus disciples some of them also of course Jesus and Jeremiah were messengers of the New Covenant now when we think of the term New Covenant in the Old Testament we're always thinking Jeremiah 31 there are many references in the Old Testament to another covenant god make an everlasting covenant a covenant of peace but the term new covenant is from Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31 and beginning at verse 31 he says behold the days are coming says the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not according to the Covenant I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt my covenant which they broke though I was a husband to them says the Lord but this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people no more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them so the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and their sins I will remember no more God said times coming when it will not be like the Old Covenant where God had a few people like the Levites to teach the people about God to teach them to law God a rights law in their hearts so they internally know him those who are in the New Covenant know God personally and do not depend on someone else to inform them who God is or help them to know the Lord they have him dwelling inside so that's the New Covenant now Jesus of course in the Upper Room with his disciples at the Last Supper instituted a new ritual at the Passover there and in Luke 22 20 says likewise also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the New Covenant in my blood which is shed for you no new covenant Jeremiah predicted Jesus instituted you drink this cup you're drinking the blood of the New Covenant now you won't remember the Exodus where God made the Old Covenant anymore you're not gonna remember the exes and you're going to remember me now when you take this Passover from now on you're not going to remember the Exodus like your father did you'll be doing this in remembrance of me because there's a new covenant I'm making with you it's not about Moses in the Old Covenant anymore so both Jeremiah and Jesus were called before their birth to the ministry both of them never married both of them wept over Jerusalem both of them had made use of a yoke in their message both of them warned that they're the sinners of their day would be thrown into the Valley of Hinnom and both of them were messengers of a new covenant and those respects I think Jeremiah qualifies as a foreshadowing of Christ himself as I said his temperament was also a lot like Christ in that he was sensitive and tender but also quite bold and confrontational his message but he needed to be now Jeremiah was not the only prophet on the scene during his ministry during the 50 years that he ministered there were prophets in besides him and there were some that had already gone into exile remember Daniel went into exile during the lifetime of Jeremiah and Daniel's book was written at least the early parts of Daniel correspond with the lifetime of Jeremiah Daniel outlived him Daniel is apparently a younger contemporary of Jeremiah and lived very long beyond the time that Jeremiah probably did but they were contemporary for a while and Ezekiel also was a younger contemporary of Jeremiah in fact Ezekiel might very well have heard Jeremiah preached in Jerusalem before the time that Ezekiel was carried away in 597 BC because Jeremiah had been preaching there for some time when when Ezekiel is carried away and so these prophets were actually prophesying in Babylon among the exhales Daniel and Ezekiel at the same time that Jeremiah was prophesying in Jerusalem along with Jeremiah in Jerusalem were two other prophets at least that we know about who wrote books Habakkuk and Zephaniah if you read in the introduction of those books they also had ministries that overlapped the same time period in Jerusalem as Jeremiah there's also another guy he didn't write any books but his name was Uriah the son of shamaya Jeremiah 26 verses 20 through 23 mentions him he was killed he was a martyr and we don't he didn't write any books that we have but he was a prophet of God contemporaries Jeremiah we don't know much about his ministry because what what's going on there is the story is telling about how Jeremiah himself almost was killed but was just barely spared and he survived but in the context of telling you about Jeremiah's being spared from death he tells us about another prophet who was not spared and we don't know really much at all about it Jeremiah 26 verse 20 it says now there was also a man who prophesied in the name of the Lord you ride to this other shoe ayuh of kerchief Jairam who prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah so this guy's was speaking the same kind of message Jeremiah was he was you know he never he never made a big splash like Jeremiah did I mean we remembered Jeremiah he wrote a major book of the Bible the longest of the prophetic books but this man apparently had the same message but never became as well-known because he didn't write publisher parish you know and it says when Joey came the king with all his mighty men and all the princes heard the words of Uriah the King sought him to put him to death and when you Raja heard it he was afraid and fled and he went to Egypt but then joy come the king sent men to Egypt el Nathan the son of Akbar and other men who went with him to Egypt and they brought your idea from Egypt and brought him to Jehoiakim the king who killed him with a sword and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people so this is given as a contrast to Jeremiah who almost was killed in and did survive because as the verse 24 nevertheless the hand of the Hyken the son of shaphan was with jeremiah so that they should not give him to be to the hand of the people to put him to death so there's Habakkuk of Zephaniah our contemporary there in Jerusalem is Jeremiah also this man Uriah how long he prophesied we don't know he fled to Egypt and his voice was probably never again heard in Jerusalem now about the book itself it's the longest the prophetic books its main theme is God's impending judgment on Judah certainly chapters 1 through 29 more than half the book are devoted to that subject the impending judgment on Judah from the Babylonians but another theme in the book of course is the subsequent messianic age in that respect Jeremiah is on the same page that Isaiah wasn't much of his writings Isaiah talked about the fall of Jerusalem and the messianic age and so does Jeremiah but Jeremiah's living at the time where Jerusalem is about ready to fall the Messianic age especially focused on in chapters 30 through 33 which sometimes is called the little book of comfort remember Isaiah in chapter 40 through 66 those 27 chapters are called the book of comfort by most scholars well this smaller section of four chapters Jeremiah 33 33 is sometimes called the little book of comfort because it's of the same subject matter Jeremiah reveals more about the author's personal life and inner struggles than any of the other prophetic books do most of them are just words we don't really get to know the man very well we do get to know Jeremiah very well because he shares a lot of his inner emotional struggles he didn't write his prophecies initially he started prophesying 20 years before he wrote any of them down it was in chapter 26 that got our 36 skippy that God told him to write down the prophecies that he was giving and he did these chapters at least the first 21 chapters of his prophecies were presented to King Joe like him who showed no respect for them he cut them in pieces with a knife and threw them in the fire and so when Jeremiah heard that he rewrote it again and added more words to it too so it's kind of interesting that he would write down prophecies 20 years after he'd given them and then be able to rewrite them and add to them so I mean this really we sometimes think in terms of a prophet is you know he's under some kind of magical or supernatural influence II he's almost writing about automatic writing but instead he seems to be writing from memory and you know he piped he preached and 20 years later he wrote down what his sermons were his messages were and when that first copy got burned up by Jacob Jeremiah was able to write him down and expand on it he said he had many more similar words besides this is in chapter 36 that tell us about this The Book of Jeremiah has quoted seven times in other books most of the New Testament books but Daniel chapter 9 verse 2 Daniel is actually reading the Book of Jeremiah over in Babylon so Jeremiah's book outlived him and made its way to Babylon although he wrote to Jerusalem copies of it must been taken to Babylon and Daniel was reading it in Daniel chapter 9 and he was reading Jeremiah chapter 25 where it said that the Exile of the Jews would be seventy years and from that Daniel knew that he was living at the end of that time and he began to pray and ask God to deliver the people as Jeremiah had predicted the other quotations are all in the New Testament Matthew 218 quotes a passage in Jeremiah where Rachel is weeping for her children in connection with the the slaughter of the infants in bethlehem in matthew 27:9 the prophecy about actually it's interesting there's a prophecy that is given and is attributed to Jeremiah but it appears more to be a prophecy of Zechariah it appears to be referring to Zechariah chapter xi but matthew attributes it to jeremiah most evangelical scholars would say that there's kind of two prophecies that are intended mixed together one from Jeremiah and one in Zechariah the prominent features that are quoted are really from Zechariah but since Jeremiah is a more major prophet it is he to whom it is attributed that is Matthew chapter 27 and verse 9 it says that it might be fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the Prophet saying and they took the thirty pieces of silver the value of him who is Christ whom they had whom they of the children is when pricing gave them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me that's not an exact quote but it's more the features of that quote are more from Zechariah than from Jeremiah but some think that it's also alluding to Jeremiah's purchase of a piece land there's purchase on piece of land in Zechariah 11 there's a purchase of piece of land in Jeremiah also and so some think it's like Jeremiah and zecharias ideas are being put together and the credits being given to Jeremiah because he's the more prominent prophet first Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 31 and then also second Corinthians 10:17 both quote let he who glories glory in the Lord that's from Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 24 Paul quotes it twice in first Corinthians 131 in sections of Tennessee 17 and then prophecy about the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31 is quoted in Hebrews at some length in chapter 8 of Hebrews Hebrews 8 8 through 12 quotes the New Covenant property in its entirety from Jeremiah 31 31 through 34 and then a part of it is quoted again in chapter 10 a smaller part Hebrews 10 16 and 17 so that's how Jeremiah's book appears elsewhere than in his own book on your notes I've given you several alternative ways to outline the book in the Charter gave you the topical outline on the left is probably the main outline that would if you were going to make an outline you probably made of something like this where the chapter 1 is the call of Jeremiah to prophesy chapters 2 through 29 would be prophecies condemning Judah and Jerusalem then chapters 33 33 would be the Messianic prophecy with the Little Book of comfort chapters 34 through 45 talking about the calamity coming on Judah again and then chapters 46 through 51 our prophecies against heathen nations just like Isaiah had in Isaiah chapters 13 through 23 we have a block of chapters against various heathen nations here in Jeremiah in chapters 46 through 51 and then chapter 52 is like a historical appendix it's not a prophecy at all it's more an appendix talking about what happened to Jeremiah afterwards and that's how we would normally outline the book I've given some alternative outlines here you can look at yourself if you want to but the chronological outline is the main thing I call your attention to real quickly here and that is that you may have noticed if you were reading Jeremiah recently and very attentively that it's not in chronological order at all many times a prophecy that is dated much earlier is presented later after prophecies that are really later prophecies and you don't have the chapters arranged in their chronological order so I have given you a chronological outline there at the bottom of your page summit you see which chapters were written in what order for example the chapters that were written in josiah's rain would be chapters 1 through 20 enjoy comes rain chapter 22 25 36 and 45 to 49 were written in joy comes rain according to the dates given Joe Hawkins rain next chapters 13 and part of 22 were written during Joe Atkins rain and then Zedekiah's rain chapters 23 and 24 27 through 29 parts of 49 50 and parts of 51 and so forth you can see that some of the earlier chapters belong to Zedekiah's rain like chapter 21 or chapters 23 and 24 and yet that was the later period of Jeremiah's life so you can see by looking at an outline which chapters were written when and I don't know if it helps when you look at any given chapter it's good to really figure out okay what was going on then you have to realize oh now I'm reading about an earlier period then I was reading about in the last chapter I just read and so laying those out Baili like that might be abused to you I don't know if it will or not but I I thought I would like to have that myself to my own studies of Jeremiah it's helpful amazing well we're out of time and so next time we'll actually get into Jeremiah chapter one [Music]

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Keywords: Steve Gregg, The Narrow Path, bible, God, Jesus, Christian, Christianity, evangelical, thenarrowpath.com, church, Babylonian Captivity, Book of Jeremiah, exile, history, intro, Israel, Jeremiah, Jerusalem, prophecy, war, Babylonian exile, holocaust, Jews, Judah, New Covenant, prophet, persecution

Id: _X1tmtOWHQg

Length: 52min 14sec (3134 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 08 2013