Jeremiah was called to warn the people of the hour that God was about to address their sins. God, in his grace, had reached out to people who refused to listen, but He was still speaking to them to draw them to Himself. Yet, knowing that they would ultimately harden their hearts, God also spoke words of encouragement because there would be a day after they experienced His discipline that they would be restored. The psalmist rejoiced in that amazing truth that even God’s disciplines were a mercy to bring about a change of heart and give us a willingness to listen and obey Him.
Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I obey your word. You are good; what you do is good; teach me your decrees. (Psalm 119:67-68)
Yet what elements lead to that dreadful moment before that discipline in our personal, or at times in our nation’s life? What does a nation in decline look like?
It always happens that when a state becomes involved in difficulties, when its affairs are entangled and ruin threatens, the people arrange themselves into contending and hostile parties. There is polarization and deep divisions. So it transpired in the closing days of the kingdom of Judah; much more so was it in the last years of Jerusalem in the first century of the Christian era. The nation split into fierce factions; each denounced the other as the chief cause of all their woes. Mutual distrust broke up families, divided friends, and made a man’s enemies those of his household. Everyone had to take heed to his neighbour and suspect his brother (Jeremiah 9:4; 12:6).
As history repeatedly warns us, we see that people or nations get to this place. The more critical question is: How do God’s people get to a place where God speaks, yet we become unwilling to listen? Why do we harden our hearts and refuse to hear what He is saying? The result is contention and continued disobedience to God. God desires to be heard despite the many voices supposedly speaking in His name. Confusion reigns. One of the things we learn from the book of Jeremiah is the authentication of God’s voice through His sanctioned prophet. Another way of saying this is to distinguish the voice of the true prophet from the false. In chapter one, we gain Jeremiah’s reason for listening to his message. So, who was this man described by many as the weeping prophet? The book begins with a background and context in which Jeremiah is fulfilling his ministry. “The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin (Jeremiah 1:1). Immediately, we find that Jeremiah was from a priestly family living in the southern kingdom of Judah. Therefore, by lineage, Jeremiah was from the priestly line. Robert Davidson explains that “Anathoth [was] a small village of no importance a few miles north-east of Jerusalem; near enough for him to know what was going on in the big city…”
Other scholars share that the distance was negligible so that Jeremiah could see the city from his village. It seems that Jeremiah knew the proper role of the priests, yet in his writings, he exposes the corruption in the priesthood. This was the very place where godliness and holiness were expected to be practiced and proclaimed, but it was all a sham.
In chapter 1, Jeremiah explains that God called him and that the message he was proclaiming was God’s message. Tremper Longman relates: "While authorship is not an important issue in much of biblical and ancient Near Eastern literature, it is significant for the genre of prophecy. Prophets must be people who have encountered God and been commissioned by him for their task. Thus, the identity and credentials of prophets are significant and often described in anticipation of their oracles."
