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Jeremiah Introduction
Jeremiah introduction
Understanding the prophets often requires understanding their historical context. Jeremiah was born at the end of God's patience with Judah. In the 700's God had raised up Assyria to use as His instrument to punish Israel for their ungodliness and unfaithfulness to the covenant. Assyria was now to be punished even as had been foretold. God was now going to use Babylon to punish Assyria for its inhumanity and evil. At the same time He was going to also punish Judah for its ungodliness and unfaithfulness.
Assyria was the main political / military power during the 700's and early 600's. Babylon was a city-state that continually tried to rebel and become independent. In 625 B.C. it declared its independence and in began a civil war against Assyria. Quickly Babylon grew in strength and in 612 it conquered the capital of Assyria - Nineveh. With this defeat the Assyrians moved their capital further west to Harran. When the Babylonians captured Harran in 608 B.C., Assyria moved its capital even further west to Carchemish.
Assyria had joined with Egypt to try to stop this growth of Babylon. The turning battle was at Carchemish in 605 B.C. The good king Josiah had gone to try and stop Egypt and Pharaoh Necho from joining the Assyrians and was killed in the ensuing battle. Babylon at that point was unable to dominate the area of Judah so it came under the control of the Egyptians.
This brought about much political turmoil for Judah. Jehoahaz became king when Josiah died but Egypt soon tired of him and replaced him with Jehoiakim (2Kings 23:31-35). When Babylon began its aggression against Judah and Egypt, Jehoiakim 'switched' sides and sided with the Babylonians. Babylon defeated both Jerusalem and Egypt. Judah thus became a vassal to Babylon. At this time Babylon took many of the leading men like Daniel and moved them to Babylon. This left a very weak political machine in Judah.
Jehoiakim then rebelled against Babylon but died before Babylon could punish him (598 B.C.). Jehoiachin then reigned for 3 months as the Babylonians punished Jerusalem for the rebellion of Jehoiakim. Babylon then placed Zedekiah on the throne. At this time Babylon again removed many of the leading people that were left in Judah including Ezekiel.
After a few years Zedekiah joined yet another rebellion against Babylon. This time Babylon came and destroyed the city and the temple (586 B.C.). Babylon then appointed Gedaliah to be a governor over Judah. This ended the kings of Judah.
Gedaliah tried to rule within the boundaries of Babylonian guidelines. For a while things began to improve (at least economically) but then some of the people of Judah killed Gedaliah. Afraid for their lives, they took Jeremiah and fled to Egypt. From all we know, it appears that Jeremiah died in Egypt.
During all this time, Jeremiah was preaching that Babylon was God's instrument to punish Judah for their unfaithfulness. He counseled them to just accept the chastisement. He preached against their ungodliness and attempted to get them to turn back to God and His covenant. When they chose to join with Egypt to fight for their freedom from Babylon, he strongly objected to this. He was seen as a traitor and a Babylonian sympathizer. He spent his life preaching from a very unpopular position. Being a prophet of God was often very difficult and unpopular. Serving God often requires one to both politically and religiously out of step with the majority of people.
