The Call

The Call

Jeremiah Chapter 1

Jeremiah

When we begin to study any book of the bible, there are certain general questions we want to ask. We want to know who wrote the book, in what setting, and to what purpose. The introduction in verses 1-3 tell us much of what we want to know. It begins by saying that these are the words of Jeremiah, a priest of Anathoth. This likely means that he was a descendant of Abiathar, the priest who associated himself with Adonijah, who set himself up as King David’s successor. When Solomon was made King, he banished Abiathar from Jerusalem to Anathoth, where Abiathar owned property (1 Kings 2:26).

We must note, however, that the introduction states that these are the words of Jeremiah, but does not say how they came to be recorded. Jeremiah himself was a preacher, not a writer. In Chapter 36, God tells Jeremiah to write down all he has said to him, so Jeremiah dictates the words to the scribe Baruch, who records them in a scroll. Baruch then read from the scroll in the temple, and the king heard about it, and destroyed the scroll, and Jeremiah dictated it again. Since the story of the creation of the scroll is in the present book, the book must be composed of other sources. There are various theories, but the book seems to have four parts.

1. The beginning chapters (1-25) are the word of God through Jeremiah.
2. The next section (26-45) is more narrative in nature, and shows the life and actions of Jeremiah. This may have been recorded by Baruch.
3. The last major section (46-51) is a collection of both prophecy and narrative pieces, but these are of a different quality than the others, and may have been collected later by students of Jeremiah, rather than by Jeremiah or Baruch.
4. Chapter 51, verse 64, says, roughly translated, that it is the last of the words of Jeremiah, and the final chapter (Chapter 52) is composed of verses from 2 Kings 24:18-25:30 which describe the fall of Jerusalem.

We are also told in these verses that the word of God came to Jeremiah beginning in the reign of Josiah and lasting through the reign of Zedekiah as the people of Jerusalem went into exile. As we will read, Jeremiah himself was among those in exile. We know from 2 Kings 22 & 23 and from 2 Chronicles 34 & 35 that Josiah was a good king who brought the people to a renewed covenant with God. Nevertheless, in 2 Kings 23:26-37 the Lord says that Judah will fall, just as Israel had fallen. The author of 2 Kings attributes this to the Lord’s anger over the actions of Manessah. 2 Kings ends with the kingdoms divided and fallen, the people in captivity, and all due to the will of the Lord.

2 Chronicles tells the same story, but ends more hopefully, with the exiled returning from Babylon, as prophesied by Jeremiah (2 Chronicles 36:20-23). Indeed, though it breaks Jeremiah’s heart – “O that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night” as he says in 9:1 – still he unrelentingly declares that the end will come to pass, but all the while declares that there is hope in God.

Always Known

The first revelation from God to Jeremiah is in verses 4-10, and it is a record of Jeremiah’s call. Let us begin at the end and note that God’s word is for all nations, not only for Judah, and that God’s prophecy is not only for tearing down and destroying, but also for planting and building up.

Jeremiah must have been very alarmed at this call from God. Though he makes an excuse about not knowing what to say, the whole idea must have disturbed him. I know it would be disturbing to me. God responds both to Jeremiah’s unspoken concern the general idea of being a prophet and the particular issue of having the right words to say. Both of these responses warrant careful inspection, as they seem to run contrary to the idea of the free will.

First, the Lord says that, the idea may be new to Jeremiah, but he was appointed as a prophet before he was even born. Though this is the sort of verse that has been used in the support of Pro-Life cause, we must note this beautiful couplet begins by stating that the Lord knew Jeremiah even before the womb. This is not saying that God knew Jeremiah merely as a step in some preordained plan – the knowledge of God is much deeper than that. God knows us intimately, in every detail, from start to finish. How could God know someone even before they were born?

You and I exist in time. We are born and we die. We grow; we learn; we change. What happened before we remember dimly; what happens around us, we barely understand; what will happen is beyond our scope. Our nature is tied to time. God did not begin. God will not end. He is changeless. He is timeless. As he said to Moses, “I am” (Exodus 3:14). God is outside of time, and what we struggle to understand as unfolding events, God sees as whole, everything that is, was, and will be.

Now, the idea that God knows everything we will do has prompted some to conclude that we have no choice: what is foreknown is inescapable. Here, to my thinking, is the critical thing to remember, and it is what we have just discussed: we live in a world of cause and effect, God does not; the concepts of before and after apply to us, but not to God.

There is another idea in these verses that might make us wonder about our free will. In verse 7 the Lord says “[G]o to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.” What good is our free will if we must spend our lives doing exactly what God tells us to? Of course, God did not say exactly how Jeremiah would be sent, or how the command would come. We will find, later in our study of the book of Jeremiah that his call became a burden to him. For some of us, sometimes, it becomes a burden to breathe oxygen, too, but it is always in our best interest to do so.

These issues may be beyond our understanding, our wisdom, our reasoning, but they are not beyond the bounds of God, and so we might stop to remember that, while time is not part of the essential nature of God, the essential nature of God is love. The answer to all of our questions is in the love of God. The co-existence of human will and Devine knowledge may not make sense to human understanding, but it makes sense to the love of God. Complete submission to any earthly authority would mean complete loss of identity, but complete submission to the love of God makes us complete.

The Word of the Lord

In verses 11-16, Jeremiah tells of two separate epiphanies in which the word of the Lord comes to him as he sees everyday objects. In the first, there is a play on words, and the words, or course, are ancient Hebrew words, not modern English words. Jeremiah sees an almond branch, which perhaps attracted his attention because it is one of the first trees to bloom in spring. The Hebrew word for “almond tree” is shaqed, and the word God spoke to Jeremiah was shoqed. This word means waiting, watching, remaining, etc. In fact, there are only three Hebrew words in what is translated “for I am watching over my word to perform it,” so the nuance of the translation is a bit tricky. In addition to the word shoqed, there is the word “word”, which meant more to the Hebrew mind than it does to ours. It was not simply a written record or spoken utterance, but was also purpose and essence. Finally, the word translated “to perform” means “to do”, “to accomplish”, or “to bring about”. However these are put together, they state that God remains active in accomplishing his purpose. This is good news for all of us, but certainly something that a prophet would want to know before he set out to declare the word of God.

After the almond branch Jeremiah saw a pot facing from the north, about to spill its boiling contents to the south. God says that there will, indeed, come nations from the north that will besiege Jerusalem and all of Judah. These two images, the certainty of the fall of Jerusalem and the security of God’s promise during and after that fall, will continue as themes throughout the book of Jeremiah.

The Call

In the final verses (17-19) of the chapter the Lord reiterates his call to Jeremiah, and his assurance to him. In his assurance we should note that the Lord says Jeremiah will prophecy against “the kings of Judah”. Of course, Judah had only one king at a time, and the reason the Lord said this because the Lord knew that Jeremiah would prophecy to more than one king, and that, though he would urge the people to repent, the nation would fall. If he knew this, then why bother sending a prophet at all? Again, we have to stop thinking of it as something God “knew” (which implies past tense) and try to think of it as something God “knows”. God knows everything at once and is always acting to redeem us all, no matter where or when we may be.

The Lord says to Jeremiah he must get up and go, but though he will be among those who would harm him, he would be protected as a fortified city. In John 17:15-18 we hear our Lord calls us also, sending us as the Father sent him, to be in the world, but not of the world. Though the outcome is known, the Lord has chosen us. Let us also choose the Lord.