GEMS FROM JEREMIAH (7) “Of Priests & Politics: The Life & Times of Jeremiah”, part I

 


     “The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin” (Jer. 1.1).  Jeremiah’s personal background and his prophetic vocation involved him in the liturgical and political life of the people of God – i.e., he was intimately acquainted with the Temple, the priesthood, the city of Jerusalem, and the kings of Judah.  Israel’s priesthood traced its origins to the appointment of Aaron by his brother Moses as the first High Priest (Ex. 28).  All priests were descendants of Aaron.  Once Jerusalem had been captured by King David (2 Sam. 5) and the Temple had been constructed by Solomon (1 Kings 5-8), priestly families settled in and around Jerusalem (Anathoth was located a few miles north of the capital), and fulfilled their duties in the Temple based on a rotating schedule.[1]  Interestingly, one of Jeremiah’s ancestors, Abiathar, was banished to Anathoth by King Solomon, due to his having backed Adonijah, another son of David and a royal contender, during the struggle for the throne following David’s death (1 Kings 2.26-27; cf. 2 Sam. 8.18; 1 Kgs 1.19, 25).[2]  Jeremiah most probably frequented the Temple precincts quite often as he was growing up.  He was probably in his twenties when he received his prophetic call, presumably not having yet been ordained a priest, which traditionally happened at the age of 30[3].  Jeremiah was probably around the age of 60 when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C.[4]  This chronology places his birth around the middle of the 7th century (c. 650 B.C.).

     Around 75 years before Jeremiah’s birth, the people of God experienced a traumatic event whose aftershocks continued to reverberate in Jerusalem during Jeremiah’s lifetime.  Following Solomon’s death, another power struggle ensued, the result of which was the division of the “United Kingdom” of Saul, David and Solomon into the Northern Kingdom of Israel under the reign of Jeroboam, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah under the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son (1 Kings 12).  The cataclysm occurred in the year 722 B.C., when the Northern Kingdom fell to the Assyrian Empire, and the members of the 10 (Northern) tribes were exiled (2 Kgs 17-18).  During the third Assyrian invasion of the Levant in 701, Jerusalem was besieged but managed to survive with the help of Egypt (cf. 2 Kgs 18-19; Isaiah 36-39).  Survive though it did, Judah would never be quite free of Assyrian influence from this point until the rise of the Babylonian empire.  As he was growing up, Jeremiah’s grandparents may have told him stories about Assyrian armies marching past Anathoth on their way to Jerusalem.  When Jeremiah began to warn the inhabitants of the capital that this scenario would repeat itself, it must have evoked these types of memories in the minds of those who heard his prophecies.[5]

     So, during the first half of Jeremiah’s life, the Kingdom of Judah found itself precariously balanced between Assyrian imperialism coming “from the North” and Egyptian ambitions from the South.  Indeed, King Josiah – during whose reign Jeremiah began prophesying[6] – met his doom when he interfered in an Assyro-Egyptian campaign against the Babylonians in the year 609 (cf. 2 Kgs 23.28-30).  Josiah’s death marked the end of the period of stability which had marked his reign, as first Egypt, and then the new westward-expanding empire of Babylon, would continue the foreign manipulation of Judean politics begun by the Assyrians in the 8th century.


[1] A practice that continued during the Second-Temple Period, as reflected in the New Testament: cf. Lk. 1.8-9.

[2] Cf. Walter Brueggemann, Returning from the Abyss: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Jeremiah, Louisville; WJK, 2022, p. 3.

[3] Goldingay, John, The Theology of Jeremiah, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021, p. 4.

[4] Cf. Ibid., p. 15.

[5] The major Assyrian metropolis of Nineveh fell to the Babylonians in 612 (cf. Nahum & Jonah), when Jeremiah was around 40 years old, and about half-way through his prophetic career.  Cf. Patricia K. Tull, “Introduction to the Prophets” in Walter Brueggemann, From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets, Louisville: WJK, 2019, pp. 1-5.

[6] King Josiah and Jeremiah were almost exactly the same age, Josiah having been born in 648.

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