JEREMIAH, one of the prophets of Judah, the writer of the greater part of the book in the Hebrew canon which bears his name, and of the whole of the book, succeeding it in that canon, called 'The Lamentations.' Ile was of the sacerdotal family, being the son of Hilkiala priest, whose residence was at .A.nathoth in the land of Betijatniu, about three miles north from Jerusalem. This we learn from the general title to his book of l'rophecies (chap. i., ver. 1), and that title sets distinctly before us the period through which he flourished.
He was called to the prophetic, office, being then iu his youth, in the thirteenth year of King Josiah, which, according to the received chronology, was 629 years before the Christian era commence& He continued in the prophetic office till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah, that is, till 13.0. 583. Nearly all the prophecies collected in this book were delivered by him iu those reigns, and in the inter mediate reigns of Jehoalutz, Jehoiakim, and Jehoiachin, the unhappy family of Josiah. Ho consequently witnessed the death of Josiah, who was slain in battle by the king of Egypt, the deposition of Jehoabaz, and the two groat invasions of the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who in the first carried away Jehoiachin and many of the people captive, and iu the second carried away still more, with Zedekiah the king, whose eyes he caused to be put out when be had slain his sons and many of his nobles in his presence. Then it was that ensued the burning of the king's palace and of the temple which had been erected by Solomon, and of the whole city of Jerusalem, in that fatal fifth month and seventh day of the month which was long remembered in the calendar of Jewish calamities.
These things saw Jeremiah; and in the midst of all this scene of misery his voice was often raised, as one of the prophets of Jehovah, to deplore the calamities which fell upon his country, or with the voice of warning to call his countrymen to depart from the °frames which had provoked those sufferings, and to turn themselves to God, both in outward observances and in inward purity and conformity of heart.
His contemporaries in the prophetic office were in the earlier periods Zephaniah and Habakkuk, and in the latter his era approaches near to that of Ezekiel and Daniel.
'1'he book entitled his 'Prophecies' is a collection of such prophecies or exhortations as Ito delivered at various times, mingled with relations of historical events. The last chapter, the fiftyasecoud, is wholly historical, and is eupposed to have been written by some other person, not improbably Ezra, and to be intended as a kind of introduction to the book of Lamentations which follows it. But the most remarkable circumstance relating to the composition of the book is this, that the various prophecies are put together without any regard to the order of time in which they were delivered. At the beginning indeed we have the account of his call to the prophetic office, but as we proceed we soon find that wo have prophecies delivered in the reigu of Jehoiakim following others which were delivered many years after in the reign of Zedekiali.
However, this does not lead to any serious inconvenience or ona• sion any important difficulty, as we are generally informed in whose reign and at what time the several distinct prophecies were delivered.
They are very easily distributed in the chronological order by any one who is desirous to do so, and thus to obtain a more distinct idea of the object of the prophet, and the relation of these compositions to the time at which he lived ; and on this account we omit the chronological arrangement of the several prophecies, either as fol lowing Dr. Blayney, or the German critic Rosenmuller, or proposing any other of our own. Those who desire to read the Scriptures with understanding can have no more agreeable and profitable exercise than thus to refer the writings of the prophets to the period of Jewish history to which they belong, and to observe how suitable they are to the then state of the people of God, and to the character which the prophets sustained among them.