1The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the region of Benjamin, 2to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3And it continued in the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, until Jerusalem went into exile in the fifth month. 4And the word of the LORD came to me, saying:
5Before I fashioned you in the belly I knew you,
and before you came out of the womb, I consecrated you.
A prophet to the nations I made you.
6And I said, “Alas, O Master, LORD,
for, look, I know not how to speak,
7And the LORD said to me,
Do not say, “I am but a lad,”
for wherever I send you, you shall go,
and whatever I charge you, you shall speak.
8Do not fear them,
for I am with you to save you,
said the LORD.
9And the LORD reached out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me, “Look, I have put My words in your mouth. 10See, I have appointed you this day over nations and over kingdoms to uproot and to smash and to destroy and to lay waste, to build and to plant.” 11And the word of the LORD came to me, saying: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “An almond-tree wand do I see.” 12And the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am vigilant with My word to do it.” 13And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying: “What do you see?” And I said, “A seething pot I see, and it is turned to the north.” 14And the LORD said to me, “From the north shall the evil be broached on all the dwellers of the land. 15For I am about to call forth all the clans of the kingdoms of the north,” said the LORD, “and they shall come and each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem and against its walls all round and against all the towns of Judah. 16And I will speak out My judgments against them, for all their evil in that they forsook Me and burned incense to other gods and bowed down to the work of their hands. 17As for you, you shall gird your loins and rise and speak to them all that I charge you. Do not be broken-spirited before them, lest I break you before them. 18As for Me, look, I have made you today a fortress town and an iron pillar and walls of bronze against all the land, against the kings of Judah and its nobles, against its priests and the people of the land. 19And they shall battle against you but shall not prevail over you, for I am with you,” said the LORD, “to save you.”
CHAPTER 1 NOTES
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1. The words of Jeremiah. The term for “words,” devarim, could also mean “acts,” though a continuity with “the word of the LORD” in the next verse might argue against that sense here.
Anathoth. This is a village near Jerusalem. Although Jeremiah is identified as a member of the priestly caste there, what follows does not indicate that he was an officiant in the Temple.
2. in the thirteenth year of his reign. This would be 626 B.C.E., four years before Josiah’s sweeping cultic reforms followed the purported discovery of the Book of Teaching (Deuteronomy) in the Temple. While some scholars have wondered why there is no direct reflection of the Josianic reforms in Jerusalem’s prophecies, it is noteworthy that he begins with an indictment of imported pagan practices (see verse 16), unlike Isaiah, whose initial emphasis is on social injustice. This stress on pagan practices may bespeak a Deuteronimistic context.
3. until Jerusalem went into exile. This occurred in 586 B.C.E., roughly four decades after the inauguration of Jeremiah’s mission. There are, moreover, indications that he was not entirely silent in the years immediately following the exile.
5. I knew you, / . . . I consecrated you. The sequence of verbs reflects the general pattern of focusing in the second verset of a line of biblical poetry: first God has an intimate relationship with Jeremiah (“knew”); then He consecrates him as prophet. The third verset spells out the nature of the consecration.
6. I know not how to speak. Jeremiah conforms here to a virtual topos of biblical prophecy. Moses and Isaiah before him first professed their inability to speak when God charged them with the prophetic mission.
but a lad. The chronological range of the Hebrew naʿar slides from small child to young man. If Jeremiah is perhaps in his early twenties in 526 B.C.E., this would bring him into his sixties at the end of his career.
7. And the LORD said to me. Jeremiah’s prophecies strikingly begin with a series of exchanges in dialogue between God and him, a feature that will continue in the prose section of this chapter.
8. Do not fear them. From the very start, a bitter antagonism is anticipated between Jeremiah and his audience. This theme will be developed in the military imagery of the concluding verses of the chapter.
9. touched my mouth. This dedication or empowering gesture is clearly reminiscent of Isaiah 6, where the seraph touches the prophet’s mouth with a burning coal.
10. to build and to plant. After the prophecies of destruction, which will be preponderant as the items of destruction are preponderant in this sentence, there will be prophecies of restoration.
11. What do you see, Jeremiah? The question about the riddling vision resembles the question at the beginning of Amos. Both hinge on a pun (see the next note).
11–12. An almond-tree wand . . . I am vigilant. “Almond-tree” is shaqed; “vigilant” is shoqed.
13. it is turned to the north. More literally, “it is facing the north.” This wording has puzzled interpreters because a pot has no front. Perhaps the least strained suggestion is Yair Hoffman’s: the pot is sitting over a fire in a three-sided hearth, with the open side facing north.
14. From the north shall the evil be broached. The ominous nature of this prediction is enhanced by the vagueness of the formulation. The enemy in the later sixth century B.C.E. would have to be Babylonia, which is definitely more to the east than to the north, though perhaps a northern invasion route is envisaged. The destroyer from the north also invokes the dire memory of Assyria, which a century earlier descended from the north and annihilated the kingdom of Israel.
15. each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem. These are thrones because kings command these daunting forces; what emerges is a rather surrealistic picture of kings on their thrones sitting in siege against Jerusalem. It should be noted that many scholars, including the editors of the Biblia Hebraica, read all or most of the section beginning with verse 14 as poetry. To this translator, however, all these verses do not seem to be sufficiently tight metrically to qualify as verse; however, as is often the case with high-rhetorical prose, they exhibit loose approximations of the parallel structures of poetry.
16. against them. As the next clause makes clear, “them” refers to the Judahites, not to the invading kings.
17. Do not be broken-spirited. The basic meaning of this verb is “to be afraid” but the next clause plays on its other sense, “to be broken.”
18. a fortress town and an iron pillar and walls of bronze. Here the military metaphor of Jeremiah’s oppositional stance is spelled out: God will make him an impregnable city, with pillars not of stone but of iron and walls not of stone but of bronze. All this suggests a prophet who is apprehensive from the start of a fierce struggle with those to whom he has been sent.