Who Was Jeremiah? The Weeping Prophet's Life and Message

Jeremiah was a prophet in Judah for about forty years, from roughly 627 BC until after Babylon destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC. He was called as a young man and spent his life warning a nation that did not want to listen. He was mocked, beaten, imprisoned and thrown into a muddy cistern, and he is called the weeping prophet because of his grief for his people. Yet the same book holds some of the most hopeful promises in Scripture.

Here is his story in brief.

Called Before He Was Born

Jeremiah came from a family of priests in Anathoth, a village near Jerusalem. God's call came early:

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Jeremiah 1:5 (KJV)

His first reaction was the one many people feel when God asks something hard:

Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.

Jeremiah 1:6 (KJV)

God answered that he would put his words in Jeremiah's mouth, and the young man began a ministry that lasted through five kings.

An Unwelcome Message

Jeremiah's message was hard: Judah had turned to idols and injustice, and if it did not repent, Babylon would conquer it. He even gave the length of the exile:

And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

Jeremiah 25:11 (KJV)

He paid for it. A priest named Pashur "smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks" (Jeremiah 20:2). God also told him not to marry or have children, as a sign of the suffering coming on Judah's families (Jeremiah 16:2).

The Scroll in the Fire

Jeremiah dictated his messages to his scribe Baruch, who read them aloud. When the scroll reached King Jehoiakim:

And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.

Jeremiah 36:23 (KJV)

The king burned the words, but Jeremiah dictated them again, with more added (Jeremiah 36:32). God's word did not go into the fire with the scroll.

Fire in His Bones

Jeremiah was honest with God about his pain. At one point he decided to stop speaking altogether, but could not:

Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

Jeremiah 20:9 (KJV)

He wept openly for his people: "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" (Jeremiah 9:1). That is why he is remembered as the weeping prophet.

In the Cistern

During the final siege of Jerusalem, officials accused Jeremiah of weakening the soldiers' morale:

Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sunk in the mire.

Jeremiah 38:6 (KJV)

An Ethiopian official, Ebed-melech, pleaded with the king and pulled Jeremiah out with ropes and old rags (Jeremiah 38:7–13). The one person who stood up for the prophet was a foreigner.

Hope in the Darkest Hour

Jeremiah was not only a prophet of doom. To the exiles already in Babylon he wrote a letter telling them to build houses, plant gardens and pray for the city, because God had not forgotten them:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

Jeremiah 29:11 (KJV)

While Babylon's army surrounded Jerusalem, God told Jeremiah to buy a field in his hometown, a strange act when the land was about to be lost. The reason:

For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land.

Jeremiah 32:15 (KJV)

And he gave one of the greatest promises in the Old Testament:

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jeremiah 31:33 (KJV)

The New Testament sees this new covenant fulfilled in Jesus (Hebrews 8:8–13).

After the Fall

Jerusalem fell in 586 BC, as Jeremiah had warned. The Babylonians let him stay in the land, but a group of Judeans later fled to Egypt and took him with them against his will (Jeremiah 43:6–7). That is the last we hear of him.

Tradition credits him with Lamentations, a set of poems mourning Jerusalem. In the middle of its grief stands a line of hope:

It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22–23 (KJV)

What Jeremiah Teaches

Jeremiah shows that faithfulness is not measured by results. By human standards his ministry failed: almost no one listened. But he told the truth, wept for the people who rejected him, and held on to God's promises when everything was falling. His life points to another rejected prophet who wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) and made the new covenant real in his own blood.

For the king who carried Judah into exile, see why God humbled Nebuchadnezzar.