JEREMIAH, Boot: or. The second of the four major prophets. The Book of Jeremiah, while not as complex in its structure as that of Isaiah (q.v.), nevertheless is believed by critics to he a composite production. consisting of several independent series of documents as cribed to Jeremiah, which have been combined by a series Of editions into a fictitious unit by means of historical narratives introduced as illustrations of the eireumstances under the discourses were delivered and the conditions to which they refer. In the book itself. Baruch (q.v.) is introduced as the secretary to whom Jeremiah dictates discourses ((Imp. xxxvi., 4 sqq.), but it is quite out of the question to suppose that Baruch produced the Book of Jere miah. Indeed, the proportion of discourses in the book that. can with definiteness be ascribed to Jeremiah is not large. and it is quite unlikely that we have a single discourse preserved in the form in which Jeremiah delivered it. In its present form, the book is a compilation intended chiefly to illustrate the religious and political conditions in Palestine during the last decades of the Judean kingdom. It is a mixture of narrative and prophecies with poetical frag ments, portions of psalms. elegies, and gnomic poems interspersed.
The compilation may be divided into seven smaller collections, it would seem that each of these collections once had an independent existence: (1) Chapters i.-xx.; (2) xxi.-xxiv.; (3) xxv., xlvi.-Ii.: (4) xxvisxxix.; (5) xxx. ((1) xxxiv.-xxxix..xlv.: (7) xl.-xliv. Chap ter lii. is an appendix derived from II. Kings xxv. The compilation of none of these collections can be earlier than the third century, for in all of them are references to events that carry us censiderably beyond the days of Nehemiah. From the thirt jet chapter on. the genuinely Jeremianie utterances are comparatively few in number. The entire group of oracles against the nations (chap ters belongs to the Persian period. and some of the oracles may even be as late as the Asmoneans. The chief utterances of Jeremiah are to lie found accordingly in the first, second, and fourth divisions, but in all cases they have been amplified and in part adapted to later con ditions. The aim of the series of writers in thus producing smaller or larger collections of Jere mianie with historical introductions and with additions of all kinds, was the same that actuated the compilers who gradually pro duced the Book of Isaiah. namely, to furnish
food for religious thought. and, above all. con solation to the pious circles of the struggling Jewish community in Jerusalem. The sufferings of this community, first harassed by Persian rulers. and then forced to submit to Greek supremacy. were looked upon as a atonement for the sins of the past, under the theory which had developed, that the entire religious history from the conquest of Palestine to the downfall of the two kingdoms represented, with few exceptions, a defection from the law of Yahweh as given to the people at Sinai through Moses. But it was also held that the observance of the law which had been adopted through the influence of Ezra and Nehemiah would surely secure for the people again the favor of their God. and hence the gloomy pro phecies of the past were so shaped as to justify this hope and a bright outlook for the future. Jeremiah naturally appealed to the pious writers as a type of the true prophet, uncompromising in his fidelity to Yahweh, full of deep love for his people, and yet denouncing them, though with a bleeding heart. The sad days that set in soon after Nehemiah's departure from Jerusalem. and continued almost without interruption till the uprising of the Maccabees. prompted the pious to the study of Jeremiah. and it is the result of this study in the form peculiar to those days that led to the production of Jeremianic collec tions of sternly religious but also consolatory discourses—based in part upon real or supposed utterances of Jeremiah—which, however, were used more in the manner of texts requiring and amplification and interpretation. The Book of Jeremiah is thus an important source for the internal history of the Jewish religion, and in part for the political history during the centuries intervening between Ezra and Nehe miah and the uprising of the people against Greek rule under the lead of the Maccabees.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Consult the eommentaries of Bibliography. Consult the eommentaries of Ewald, Heil. Graf, Payne Smith, Giesebrecht, Orel Cheyne. and Bennett. ar.d the Old Testament Introductions of Driver, Kuenen, Bleek-Wellhau sem Kautzsch, and Piepenbrim;4: also Dubm. The ologie der Propheten (Bonn. 1875) ; Marti. Der Prophet Jeremia von Anatot (Basel. 1889) ; Chevne, Jeremiah, His Life and Times (London, 1888).