GEMS FROM JEREMIAH (8) “The Prince & the Priest: The Life & Times of Jeremiah”, part II

 


     “The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah… to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.” (Jer. 1.1-2).  Since the division of the United Kingdom around 930 B.C., the northern kingdom of Israel did not have a single king who honoured the covenant with Yahweh.  Judah could boast a few righteous kings, but for the most part, its monarchs were no better than their counterparts to the North.  Jeremiah’s lifetime coincided with that of both the worst and the best king Judah had ever seen (Manasseh and Josiah, respectively).  Jeremiah was born near the end of the reign of Manasseh (cf. 2 Kgs 21; Jer. 15.4), the son of Hezekiah, whose reign had been marked by the three Assyrian invasions of the Levant which resulted in the destruction/exile of the kingdom of Israel in the year 722 and the invasion of Judah/siege of Jerusalem in 701 (cf. 2 Kgs 18-19).  The prophet Isaiah had been Hezekiah’s counselor during this crisis, and from this point on, Judah had been a tribute-paying province of the Assyrians.[1]  Unlike his father, Manasseh acted with contempt towards the covenant.  He was the perfect tyrant, and set up pagan shrines in the Temple of Yahweh itself (2 Kgs 21.1-8, 16).  The Chronicler (2 Chr 33.10-13) describes Manasseh’s deportation to Babylon by the Assyrians (neo-Assyrian monarchs were largely based in Babylon).  The Assyrians had the habit of temporarily deporting vassal kings in order to ensure their continued loyalty; Pharaoh Necho I had a similar experience at the hands of Ashurbanipal, the last great Assyrian emperor.[2]  Once he was returned to Jerusalem, Manasseh undertook a campaign of reform (2 Chr 33.14-17).  Upon the assassination of Manasseh’s son Amon after a two-year reign, his grandson Josiah, in the year 640, assumed the throne of Jerusalem at the tender age of eight (2 Kgs 22.1).  No initiative on the part of Josiah is recorded until “the 18th year of his reign” (2 Kgs 22.3; Jeremiah received his prophetic call in the 13th year of his reign: Jer. 1.2).  There must have been a regency in the intervening years and the prophet Zephaniah may have had some influence.[3]

     So, here’s what we know about events in and around Jerusalem during the first decade of Jeremiah’s life (coinciding with that of prince Josiah).  Jeremiah was born into a priestly family in the Levitical town of Anathoth, a few miles north of the capital, a few years before the death of King Manasseh.  Manasseh sired Amon rather late in life, and Amon fathered Josiah at the age of 16.  Six years following the birth of his son, Amon succeeded his father as king only to be assassinated two years later.  By the time Jeremiah was around 10 years old, Josiah, the third king since Jeremiah’s birth, ascended the throne of Judah.

     The following is purely speculative.  What if, in order to protect him from any intrigues of the kind that resulted in the assassination of his father,[4] the newly-crowned Josiah was sent to Anathoth for safekeeping?  It seems to be plausible that while a regent ensured administrative oversight of the kingdom from Jerusalem, the young king may have been “adopted” by a priestly family who would have thoroughly educated him in the Torah,[5] all in the hope that the young monarch would grow up to follow the example of his great-grandfather Hezekiah, as opposed to that of his grandfather and father.  This may help explain Josiah’s zeal for bringing the people of God back to covenant-observance, beginning at the age of 26 (cf. 2 Kgs 22.3-13).  Might we imagine that Jeremiah and King Josiah spent their youth under the same roof?  Might Jeremiah’s preaching for five years have spurred Josiah to undertake his reform campaign, beginning with the renovation of the Temple?  Did Jeremiah play a John the Baptist to Josiah’s Jesus?


[2] Cf. Ibid., pp. 63-64.

[3] Merrill C. Tenney, ed. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible 3, Grand Rapids: Regency, 1976, p. 710.

[4] Granted, the assassins were killed by “the people” (2 Kgs 21.23-24), who then proceeded to crown Josiah.

[5] Teaching the law was a key function of priests: Merrill C. Tenney, ed. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible 4, Grand Rapids: Regency, 1976, p. 854.

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