Jeremiah 1:3, commentary and pictures

The verse dates the word of the Lord and Jeremiah's prophetic ministry from the days of Jehoiakim to the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month. It marks the period his warnings and calls to repentance covered, ending with Judah's captivity, and Jeremiah 1-20 contains promises to Judah for obedience and threats of destruction for continued disobedience. Taken with its context, his work began earlier under Josiah and continued through the last kings of Judah — Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah — making him a later prophet than Isaiah in the closing days before the Babylonian captivity. That ministry is dated from about 629 before Christ to 588.

The dwindling close of the kingdom of Judah under those last vacillating kings, ending with Jerusalem carried away captive, came in B.C. 586. The verse presents a youthful priest from Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, of the tribe of Levi and the priestly family, who felt unqualified, shrank from the work, yet bore God's service from youth and was used mightily. His task through that period was to give many warnings, exhortations, and calls to repentance, pointing out the sins of Judah with reproof after reproof, with promises for obedience and threats of destruction for continued disobedience, until his heart seemed immersed in a fountain of tears, so he is well called the weeping prophet. His predictions that Jerusalem would fall to Babylon were rejected, and Zedekiah, the last king, was vacillating in character, often professing to believe Jeremiah's testimonies and surrendering to them but afterward swerving to the popular sentiment of the people.

The captivity foretold was the exile of Jerusalem to Babylon under the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, with Zedekiah as the last king carried away. The chapters of the book are not always arranged in chronological order of those reigns, with messages belonging to Zedekiah's reign placed before messages belonging to Jehoiakim's days. Up to chapter 20 they are in fairly chronological order, but from chapter 20 to 46 the chronological sequence is 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 35, 36, 45, 24, 29, 30, 31, 27, 28, 21, 34, 37, 32, 33, 38, 39:15-18, 39:1-14, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46. The book is a compilation of personal testimonies to those rulers and to the people that went into captivity, and in giving them the curtain was often rolled back so that he saw the end of this world and the condition of the people of God in the closing scenes of this world's history.

What was prophesied and judged then applies to the professed people of God now in larger measure, and the same God who was willing to pardon then is as willing to pardon now. The choice of Jeremiah also shows that prophetic calling and spiritual gifts are not of human choice but of God's choice, so believers should leave all choice of gifts to Him and be submissive to His endowment.