God promises to make a new covenant with His people.
The prophet Jeremiah was heartbroken as he witnessed the extent of his people’s sin and foresaw the judgment coming upon them. The books of Jeremiah and Lamentations express this grief so frequently and poignantly that Jeremiah has been called the “weeping prophet.” Many who imagine a prophet probably picture an angry malcontent railing against society, but Jeremiah’s righteous anger was fueled by his passion for his people as well as his God.
The Book of Jeremiah contains prophecies given during the lowest point in Judah’s history—the start of the Babylonian exile. Ironically, about the time that Jeremiah commenced his ministry, King Josiah had begun instituting reforms, and Judah seemed to be making a turnaround. Nevertheless, the Lord’s judgment was certain. The wickedness of Manasseh (see his profile at 2 Chr. 33:1), Josiah’s grandfather, added to a pile of sins that the nation had been heaping up for years. As a result, God vowed to allow Judah to go into captivity (2 Kin. 21:10–15), repeating His intentions even as Josiah was having repairs made to the temple (22:15–20).
This devastating judgment came to pass during Jeremiah’s lifetime. The Babylonians attacked Jerusalem three times, finally destroying the city in 587 B.C. (see “The Three Campaigns of the Babylonians” at Jer. 52:4–7). Through it all, Jeremiah continued to warn his people to turn back to God, to give up their idols, to practice piety toward the Lord and integrity toward each other, and to refrain from shoring up the nation’s faltering defenses by making military alliances with foreign countries, particularly Egypt. At one point Jeremiah was led by the Lord to visit a potter’s house, where the Lord spoke to him, explaining that just as the potter may refashion his clay vessels into new creations as he sees fit, so the Lord could just as easily transform Israel as He saw fit, promising to destroy it or build it up according to its just deserts.
Judah’s population generally ignored these warnings. They doubted that God would actually allow foreigners to capture Jerusalem, and they thought it inconceivable that their temple could ever be destroyed. They assumed their covenant with God gave them special protection regardless of whether they honored their side of the agreement.
This attitude signaled the need for a new relationship between God and His people. Jeremiah outlined this change in his prophecy of a new covenant (31:31–34). The new covenant would not only encourage but empower people to live out God’s will. In Jeremiah’s words, God’s law would be written no longer on tablets of stone but on their minds and hearts (31:33). It would be a covenant not of law and condemnation but of grace and forgiveness. This bright promise anticipated by five hundred years the work of grace accomplished by Jesus Christ through His death on the cross and by the Holy Spirit coming to indwell believers.
The Book of Jeremiah was written by the prophet Jeremiah (see his profile at Jer. 1:1), and his personality and emotions are evident throughout the book. His prophecies contain many literary styles including poetry, prose, lament, allegory, correspondence, parable, history, and biography. The material is not organized in chronological order, making reading the book as an account of history a challenge (see “Jeremiah in Chronological Order” here).
Jeremiah’s call to be a prophet occurred around 626 B.C. His work continued through the reigns of five kings—Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah (see “The Life and Times of Jeremiah” at Jer. 1:3)—and the governorship of Gedaliah, who was appointed by the Babylonians to manage Jerusalem after its fall in 587 B.C. After Gedaliah was assassinated, the city’s citizens fled to Egypt, taking Jeremiah along. Because of its close association with the theme, style, and topic of Jeremiah, the Book of Lamentations is also believed to have been written by that prophet.
The Book of Jeremiah focuses on Jerusalem, but the kingdoms of Babylon to the northeast and Egypt to the southwest, along with other nations in the ancient Middle East, also play important parts in these prophecies (see the maps at “Scattered Among the Gentiles” at Jer. 9:16; “The Cup of Fury” at Jer. 25:15, 16; and “Judgment and Redemption for the Nations” at Jer. 46:1).
Key Verses in Jeremiah
• “Your iniquities have turned these things away, and your sins have withheld good from you” (Jer. 5:25).
• “Is there no balm in Gilead?” (Jer. 8:22).
• “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, than he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight” (Jer. 9:23, 24).
• “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9).
• “As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand” (Jer. 18:6).
• “Cursed be the day in which I was born! Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me!” (Jer. 20:14).
• “Seek the peace of the city” (Jer. 29:7).
• “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11).
• “I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jer. 31:33).