JEREMIAH. A great Judean prophet. He seems to have been born at Anathoth, the mod ern Anat, three miles north of Jerusalem, c. 650 s.c., and belonged to a priestly family re siding there. His father Hilkiah has been identified with the discoverer of the law (2 Kings xxii, 28) by Clement of Alexandria, Pseudo-Jerome (c. 800), Joseph Kimchi, Paul of Burgos, Abarbanel and a number of other interpreters; and V. Bohlen supposed that father and son collaborated in the production of the code promulgated in 620 B.C. This iden tification was rejected by Lyranus, Calvin, Junius, Piscator and others, because he is not described as the high-priest; Castro, Sanctius, Ghisler, Sebastian Schmidt, Carpzov, Calmet, Venema, Blayney and most recent exegetes have assumed that he was a descendant of Abiathar, the priest deposed by Solomon and relegated to Anathoth (1 Kings ii, 26), and Ryssel thinks the opposition of Jeremiah to the priesthood in Jerusalem was a continuation of the rivalry between the sons of Eli and the Zadokites. It is possible, however, that in the course of four centuries members of other priestly families had moved into the town so conveniently near the capital. Jeremiah had an uncle by the name of Shallum, and a cousin named Hanamel. From Jer. xvi, 1 it may be inferred that he never married. He probably began his prophetic ministry in 625 B.c. When he heard the divine voice calling him to be a prophet to his people, he was first reluctant because of his youth, but was reassured by a vision of an almond tree the name of which suggested that Yahwe would watch over his oracles to bring them to early fulfilment, and forced to speak by a vision of a seething cal dron whose smoke was blown from the north, indicating the direction whence the evil would break forth.' Until recent times it was gener ally supposed that the enemy whose advance into Judah Jeremiah expected was the Chal dean. Allusions to the Scythian invasion de scribed by Herodotus (i,105) by his contem porary Zephaniah were suspected by Pezron (EEssai sur les prophites,) 1693), Hermann v. der Hardt ((In Iobum,) 1728) and F. C. Cramer ((Scythische Denkmaler in Palastina,) 1777). Volney ((Recherches nouvelles,' 1814) and Eichhorn (1819) identified Jere miah's northern enemy with the Scythians, and this opinion has been adopted by the majority of critics and historians. But the older view has been maintained, not only by Kueper, Hfiv ernick, Neumann, 'i'holuck, Nagelsbach, Keil, Vigouroux, Trochon, Schneedorfer, Knaben baucr and Myrberg, but also by Graf, Reuss, 1814) and Eichhorn (1819) identified Jere miah himself and many of his hearers looked upon Yahwe's oracles of doom as conditional, so that if the conduct of the people warranted it, he would repent him of the evil he had spoken (xxvi, 17-19). With their ignorance of the secret treaties in the chancelleries of the allied nations, their narrow escape from the Scythians who naturally spared Assyrian terri tory must have seemed to them more marvelous than it does to us. An in creased fear of Yahwe and gratitude to ward him, in consenuence of his deliverance, may have prepared the way for the reform of 620. Some scholars have supposed that Jere
miah went about preaching in the interest of the centralization of the cult in Jerusalem, and was persecuted by his townsmen because of his advocacy of the Deuteronomic Code. His atti tude toward the temple, the sacrificial system, and the written law renders this improbable. It is significant that the prophetess Huldah, and not Jeremiah, was consulted after the discovery of the law-book If his declaration that ((the false pen of the scribes has wrought falsely* (viii, 8) referred to some other code then be ing prepared in priestly circles, he would have laid himself open to serious misapprehension, since those who said the law of Yahwe is with us* undoubtedly had in mind the Deutero nomic Code that had been discovered and officially adopted (2 Kings xxii, 8; xxiii, 3). To the covenant of Yahwe, involving obedi ence to his commandments when he led his people out of Egypt, he sincerely answered Amen (xi, 5); but he was convinced that on that day Yahwe had not spoken concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices (vii, 22). If the people of Anathoth conspired to put him to death (xi, 19), it was because he had rebuked them for worshiping other divinities, among them probably the goddess Anath. He may at this time have removed to Jerusalem. Practi cally nothing is known of his life during the next fifteen years. It is strange that the battle of Megiddo and its tragic outcome have left no echo in his extant prophecies. Like Isaiah, he was strongly opposed to any alliance with Egypt; but neither does he seem to have fav ored a pro-Assyrian policy (ii, 18). His silence may indicate disapproval of Josiah's course, whether it was dictated by loyalty as a vassal or ambition for additional territory as a reward for service. The Chronicler charges Josiah with having disregarded the warning of a pagan oracle not to interfere in a quarrel that was .not his (2 Chron. xxxv, 21ff) ; and even if the story was invented to account for the fate of a good king, it never theless reflects a position that may well have been Jeremiah's. He ascribes to the prophet an elegy (vs. 26) which is lost and can scarcely be thought to be genuine. The Assyrian em pire fell in 606, and the eyes of Jeremiah turned once more to the north to discover what Yahwe's purpose was. It was probably his unshaken faith in the oracles Yahwe had given him to utter that made it certain to his mind that the real evil would not come from the south (Egypt), but from the north. Nebuchadnezzar s march through Mesopo tamia, his victory over Necho at Carchemish in 605, and his descent to the border of Egypt revealed to Jeremiah that it was not Media, into whose power Assyria proper had fallen, but Chalclea, that was to be the scourge in Yahwe's hand to bring his people to a genuine reformation or to utter ruin. The moral con dition of Judah and the character of Jehoiakim rendered the need of such a visitation obvious.