Jeremiah 1

Anathoth was about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) northeast of the Jerusalem Temple.

The years that kings ruled some 2,600 years ago are debated. Josiah ruled about 641-609 BC, give or take a couple of decades. Some say 640-609 BC or 626-609 BC, among other possibilities. If the first date is accurate, God delivered his first messages to Jeremiah in about 628 BC. Josiah famously, led a religious reform, pointing the nation back to God. It’s unknown if Jeremiah influenced the king and helped talk him into it. But as Jeremiah would learn, the reform was too little, too late. God would punish Judah for centuries of sin. He would allow invaders to level Jerusalem, and exile survivors, and erase the Jewish nation from the world map.

Jehoiakim was 25 years old when Egypt’s Pharaoh Neco appointed him as king of Judah (2 Chronicles 36:5). Judged in 2 Chronicles as “a bad king” (36:5), he ruled for nine years, from about 609-598 BC. He hated Jeremiah. Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah, captured him, and took him in chains to Babylon. Jehoiakim’s 18-year-old son, Jehoiachin, ruled three months and 10 days after him (2 Chronicles 36:9). King Nebuchadnezzar took him to Babylon, too. Then came the last king, Zedekiah.

Zedekiah, Judah’s last king, ruled from 597-586 BC. Some say he ruled until 587 BC. He might have seen the lights go out in Jerusalem if King Nebuchadnezzar hadn’t blinded him. The last thing he saw was the Babylonians execute his sons. Nebuchadnezzar apparently got fed up with rebel kings in this family. One after another ignored his orders and the power he had to enforce them. Zedekiah died a prisoner in Babylon.

July or August of 586 or 587 BC.

This is like a style of writing in Bible times that emphasizes the authority of someone. Six hundred years after Jeremiah, apostle Paul said, “Even before I was born, God in his kindness developed a plan for my life” (Galatians 1:15). A century before Jeremiah, Egypt’s god of sun and air, Amun, reportedly said Piankhy was destined from birth to be pharaoh. So was Ashurbanipal, as king of Assyria, and Nabonidus as king of Egypt, as ancient records report. But in Jeremiah’s case, it’s not only before he was born—it was before his parents conceived a child. Perhaps the LORD or the writer phrased it this way to emphasize Jeremiah’s authority. Or perhaps both phrases were saying the same thing. In Jeremiah’s case, then, it simply meant he was born to become a prophet. This is a phrase some Christians use to argue against abortion. But others say that this is taking the poetry too literally and out of context. Abortion is not the topic. Authority to speak on behalf of God is the theme. The imagery, some argue, is to confirm Jeremiah’s ministry. It’s not intended to defend the rights of the unborn who haven’t drawn a breath, and to instead elevate their rights over those of the living, breathing mother. Jeremiah might have been stunned to discover that many readers today would interpret God’s words that way. That’s not to say the life of the unborn is unimportant, but it’s not what God or Jeremiah is talking about here.

Bible scholars estimate he was about 17 years old when he started his ministry in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign, 628 BC See footnote for verse 2. If that guess is correct, he would have been about 59 years old when Babylonian invaders leveled Jerusalem but freed him, apparently for trying to talk Judah’s king into surrendering.

This is a play on words. Almond trees are among the first buds of springtime in Bible lands. In Hebrew, the word for almond is saqed. And the Hebrew word for watching is saqad. The point isn’t the almond tree, in verse 11. The point is that God is watching—and he’ll keep watching to see that everything he warned the people about and everything he promised comes true.