@bookofjeremiah · 24 posts
His words, and what they did to him.
Jeremiah’s messages from the LORD, and the story of what happened to him for saying them, from King Josiah’s reign to the fall of Jerusalem and after. Jeremiah dictated his words to the scribe Baruch, who wrote them on a scroll (and wrote them again after the king burned it). The parts about Jeremiah are told from the outside. Who put the whole book together isn’t known for certain.
JudahFirst seen Jeremiah 1:1
Jeremiah son of Hilkiah. From a family of priests in Anathoth, a village in Benjamin. The LORD first spoke to him in King Josiah’s thirteenth year, and kept speaking to him all through the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, until the month the people of Jerusalem were taken away.
Early in King Jehoiakim’s reign. The LORD sends Jeremiah to stand in the temple courtyard, where people come in from all over Judah to worship, and say every word. Leave nothing out. Maybe they’ll listen.
The king’s officials hear about it and come up from the palace. They sit down at the entrance of the New Gate. It’s a trial now, right there.
Replying to @bookofjeremiah
The officials and the people tell the priests and prophets: this man doesn’t deserve to die. He spoke to us in the name of the LORD our God.
Ahikam son of Shaphan stood by Jeremiah, so he wasn’t handed over to be killed.
Nebuchadnezzar has taken King Jehoiachin, also called Jeconiah, off to Babylon. The officials of Judah, the craftsmen and the metalworkers went with him.
Replying to @hananiah.gibeon
Jeremiah just walks off.
Replying to @jeremiah
Seventh month of that same year. Hananiah died.
During the siege King Zedekiah gets everyone in Jerusalem to make a solemn agreement: set your Hebrew slaves free, men and women. They all do. Then they change their minds and take them back.
News that Pharaoh’s army has marched out of Egypt. The Babylonians pull back from Jerusalem.
Replying to @irijah.gate
Irijah won’t listen. He hands him to the officials, who beat him and lock him up in the house of Jonathan the secretary, which they’ve turned into a prison. He’s in a cell down there a long time.
King Zedekiah has Jeremiah moved to the courtyard of the guard, with a loaf of bread a day from Bakers’ Street, as long as there’s any bread left in the city.
So they take Jeremiah and lower him on ropes into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, in the courtyard of the guard. No water in it. Just mud. And Jeremiah sinks into the mud.
Tenth year of King Zedekiah. The Babylonian army has Jerusalem surrounded. Jeremiah is shut up in the courtyard of the guard at the palace.
Ninth year of Zedekiah, tenth month. Nebuchadnezzar comes with his whole army and builds siege walls all round Jerusalem. Eleventh year, fourth month, ninth day: the famine is so bad there’s no food left for anyone. The wall is broken through.
Zedekiah and the soldiers run for it at night, through the king’s garden and out by the gate between the two walls. The Babylonians catch up with the king on the plains of Jericho. His army scatters.
Replying to @bookofjeremiah
They take him to the king of Babylon at Riblah.
A month later Nebuzaradan, captain of the king of Babylon’s guard, arrives in Jerusalem. He burns the LORD’s temple, the royal palace, and every house of any size. The Babylonian army pulls down the walls all the way round.
Replying to @bookofjeremiah
The people still left in the city are taken off to Babylon, along with the ones who’d gone over to the Babylonians. Nebuzaradan leaves some of the very poorest behind, and gives them vineyards and fields.
What really happened that day. King Zedekiah had met Jeremiah at the third entrance of the LORD’s temple and sworn in secret not to kill him. Jeremiah told him: surrender to the king of Babylon’s officers and you’ll live, and this city won’t be burned. The king said he was afraid of the Jews who’d already gone over. And afterwards he told Jeremiah exactly what to say if the officials came asking.
King Zedekiah's officials@zedekiahs.officialsWe understand the king had Jeremiah brought to him. We duly asked Jeremiah what was discussed. He states that he was begging the king not to send him back to Jonathan’s house to die. There were no other witnesses. The matter is closed.Replying to @nebuzaradan
Nebuchadnezzar himself had given orders about Jeremiah: look after him, don’t let any harm come to him, and do whatever he asks.
Jeremiah goes to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and stays there among the people left in the land.
Replying to @gedaliah.mizpah
Jews scattered in Moab, Ammon, Edom and further away hear about it and come home to Judah. And they bring in a huge harvest.
The seventh month. Ishmael son of Nethaniah, who is from the royal family, comes to Mizpah with ten men, and they eat a meal with Gedaliah. Then they get up and kill him.