The Book of Jeremiah

To Uproot and To Plant

Jeremiah, a native of Anathoth, a Levitical town, was undoubtedly a descendant of the priest Abiathar, whom Solomon banished to that little village a few kilometers north of Jerusalem (1 Ki 2:26). Jeremiah’s activity, which lasted some forty years (626–587 B.C.), was carried on during the darkest period of his people’s history. He bore the marks of it in his flesh day after day. A century ago (in 721 B.C.), Israel, the northern kingdom, had been forever swept away by the Assyrians, and the tiny state of Judah had barely survived. But what could this people do without resources and while being squeezed by the great powers? The reform of Josiah (in 622 B.C.) was able to halt the decline for only a little while. In 605 B.C., at the decisive battle of Carchemish, Assyria made way for Babylon, and Nebuchadnezzar became the undisputed master of the Near East. In 598 B.C., Jerusalem was captured a first time and a first wave of refugees departed. In addition, the state of Judah was threatened by a religious and social breakdown that was ceaselessly denounced by the prophets, and it led to the disaster of 587 B.C., when the holy city was razed to the ground and the population was decimated and deported. This was the blackest moment in the history of the people of God (for the entire period, see 2 Ki 18–25 and 2 Chr 29–36).

All of Jeremiah’s preaching is focused on the crisis into which his people had entered. “To uproot and to pull down, . . . to build and to plant.” Contradiction is implicit in his very calling (Jer 1:10); the prophet will be a man torn by intolerable conflicts that are at bottom an opposition between an attitude of violence and an attitude of mercy.

“To uproot and to pull down.” Jeremiah’s invectives are violent, his sermons gloomy. He is aware of the evil that is eating away at his people and threatening the very reason for its existence, namely, the covenant. Corruption by the ancient Canaanite cults reigns everywhere; there are even sacrifices of children; the gods of the Assyrian masters find faithful servants even in the forecourts of the temple. This contempt for God mirrors a contempt for human beings: killings, adulteries, injustices. Society is degenerating because evil is sinking its ineradicable roots in the heart of society.

Though misunderstood, persecuted, even threatened with death, Jeremiah, a timid man but a friend of God, ceaselessly launches anguished appeals for conversion; he does not hesitate to point the finger at the authorities who have led the people astray: king, political leaders, priests, and prophets who have no mandate from God. He is angered by the false consciousness of the orthodox, who think they are in the right when they observe religious practices but do not live them in their souls. What good are temples, sumptuous sacrifices, pilgrimages, and other external observances if religion does not transform the concrete life of the community and the individual?

Jeremiah will, therefore, be at the side of the devout King Josiah when, starting in 622 B.C., he begins to cleanse the country of the high places with their pagan practices, to undertake a serious renewal of the covenant, and to restore the unity of Israel as it had been in the time of David. But with the advent of Jehoiakim, in 609 B.C., the doors are opened once again to all the excesses of immorality, injustice, and idolatry. Jeremiah strives with all his authority to stem this flood of wickedness. He pleads, threatens, and lays consciences bare, but he can accomplish nothing. The capture and sack of Jerusalem and the mass deportation of the people sadly fulfill the prophet’s threats.

“To build and to plant” was an even more difficult task in these times of anarchy and discouragement. And yet, even in the midst of the agony, when everything is collapsing, Jeremiah dares proclaim the most radiant visions of the future. In his own suffering and in his tender love for his people, he has learned to know the very heart of God. He knows that the Lord has no second thoughts when it comes to his love and his plan. Sin may seem beyond healing, but there is still forgiveness and resurrection, which are the work of divine grace. Jeremiah sees already rising on the ruins of the old covenant a new covenant that is more beautiful and more lasting. To know God will no longer mean simply observing an exterior law; it will mean obeying the interior movement of the Spirit and discovering a deep communion with the Lord. Chapter 31 (vv. 4, 31-33) offers a first statement of the new covenant that Jesus Christ will seal with his blood on the eve of Passover.

In the form in which it has come down to us, the Book of Jeremiah is one of the most muddled of the Old Testament: sermons, threats, exhortations, and intimate musings are mixed in with biographical narratives and historical fragments, all without any concern for chronology. The Book is clearly a composite work, and we must give up on trying to determine the precise point at which each part of the Book should come. However, there is good reason for thinking that it took shape on the basis of oracles recorded at the dictation of Jeremiah himself; later on, his disciples added others which they had heard from his mouth (36:4, 32). Baruch, an educated man and Jeremiah’s faithful secretary, must have added a good many references to the mission and the tormented life of the prophet.

Finally, the present text seems to have emerged in the period of the Exile; the deportees undoubtedly circulated and meditated closely on the writings of Jeremiah in order to nourish their faith in a time of bewilderment; they inserted into the Book their own reflections, their own awareness of their situation, their hopes. As a result, Jeremiah, prophet of suffering and of mercy, who prefigures more than any other the person of Jesus, remains for his people and for all Christians a witness to hope. He is also a model of incorruptible fidelity to his vocation despite all difficulties. His close relationship with God, and the religion of the heart which he lived out and preached, make of him the prophet par excellence of the interior life.

The Book of Jeremiah may be divided as follows:

I: Prophecies in the Days of Josiah (1:1—6:30)

II: Prophecies Mainly in the Days of Jehoiakim (7:1—20:18)

III: Prophecies in the Last Years of Jerusalem (21:1—33:26)

IV: The Fall of Jerusalem (34:1—45:5)

V: Prophecies against the Nations (46:1—51:64)

VI: Historical Appendix (52:1-34)