045. I. Jeremiah, The Young Reformer

I JEREMIAH, THE YOUNG REFORMER A brisk walk of an hour northward from Jerusalem along one of the great highways which radiate from the sacred city, brings one to the little town of Anâta, the Anathoth of the Hebrews. It is unattractive to-day, with its few poor hovels, and it must have been insignificant also in antiquity (cf. Isaiah 10:30). Although shut off from Jerusalem by hills, it figured as one of the northern military out-posts of the capital. In the days of Solomon, Abiathar, a descendant of the priestly house of Eli, was banished thither (1 Kings 2:26); and it is referred to elsewhere (Joshua 21:8) as the residence of certain priestly families. To one of these families belonged Hilkiah, the father of Jeremiah. It is easy to imagine that, on the day of his birth (which he later, in a time of deep despondency, bitterly cursed), heavy clouds shut out the warm sunshine, and the descending rains converted the filth, which is never wanting in an Oriental town, into slippery slime,—a true suggestion of the unpleasant environment amidst which he was destined to spend his long life.

Concerning his boyhood, we have some hints in the opening chapters of his prophecy. In the character of his parents he recognized an important element in his preparations for the work of a prophet. Possibly some one of his ancestors belonged to that group of disciples who drank in and treasured the teachings of the great Isaiah. Jeremiah’s sermons demonstrate that he was also a careful student of the earlier prophets. With Hosea, whose language and ideas made the deepest impression upon him, he must have recognized the closest kinship, in experience as well as in thought. For both lived in the deep shadow of a great national catastrophe which they were powerless to avert; both were rejected by their contemporaries, and both, capable of the most intense happiness, were denied all the joys which their age held dear.

During Jeremiah’s boyhood, spent in the latter days of Manasseh’s reactionary reign, that which was purest and best in his nation’s experience was found in the past. The heathenism which reigned all but supreme in court and in temple made the life of a true prophet a living sacrifice. If, however, the revelation already vouchsafed to the Hebrew race was to be preserved, and if that nation was to move forward instead of hopelessly reverting to heathenism, such a sacrifice was absolutely necessary.

Appreciating facts like these, it is not difficult to understand the soul struggles reflected in the chapter which tells of Jeremiah’s call. When the final decision was made, about the year 626 B. C., he must have been still a young man of twenty or twenty-five, since for over forty years following that event he continued to preach uninterruptedly to his countrymen. Those forty years witnessed more startling changes than any other four decades in Hebrew history. During the entire period, Jeremiah was in reality the most prominent figure in Judah’s life. His prophecies, so full of historical allusions, are the best and fullest sources for the knowledge of that period. Through all the varying changes of party and political fortunes, he proclaimed the same eternal truths, adapting them, as necessary, to new conditions. Naturally he frequently repeats himself. As with Hosea’s sermons, the situation and the prophet’s feelings were too intense to favor logical development and literary finish; but through all of Jeremiah’s sermons one may trace the evidence of an ever-deepening appreciation of the sublimest truths vouchsafed to man. Despised, often persecuted, without the consolations of wife or children, sometimes discouraged, but never daunted, this great soul, faithful to the commands of Jehovah, gave his all as a voluntary offering for his race and for humanity, thus presenting the most conspicuous example in the old Hebrew state of service perfected through suffering and complete self-surrender. His earliest sermons, which are preserved in the collection made during the fourth year of Jehoiakim, reveal the important part which he enacted in connection with the movement which culminated in the great reformation of 621 B.C. under Josiah. At first the prevailing idolatry, which survived from the days of Manasseh, almost appalled him; but this condition only brought out into brighter contrast later successes, crowned by the public acceptance of the Book of the Covenant,—practically our present Book of Deuteronomy. Associated with him was a faithful band of prophets like Zephaniah, and priests like Hilkiah, all united in one noble purpose to reform the religious life of their nation. The foes from the north, described in chapters 4–6, are probably the dread Scythians, who, about 626 B.C., came sweeping down the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean, furnishing in the terror-stricken Judeans an audience, and in themselves an effective text, for such prophets of reform as Zephaniah and Jeremiah. The short section preserved in verses 1–8 of the eleventh chapter (Jeremiah 11:1-18), probably contains extracts from sermons preached by Jeremiah about the year 621 B.C., in connection with the institution of reform measures under Josiah. They are the only reminders of what must have been one of the most active and happy periods of the prophet’s life.