Jeremiah

The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the major prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, although Rabbinic tradition sometimes places it first following Kings and prior to Ezekiel due to its thematic focus on destruction (b. Baba Batra 14b–15a). It presents the words of the prophet, Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, who lived in Jerusalem during the reigns of the Judean kings, Josiah (640–609 bce), Jehoahaz (609 bce), Jehoiakim (609–598 bce), Jehoiachin (597 bce), and Zedekiah (597–587 or 586 bce). Jeremiah was a Levitical priest from Anathoth, who resided in Jerusalem during the last years of the kingdom of Judah. Major events during the period ascribed to Jeremiah include the outset of King Josiah’s reforms (c. 628 bce), the death of Josiah (609 bce), the Babylonian subjugation of Judah (605 bce), Nebuchadnezzar’s first deportation of Jews to Babylon (597 bce), the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem (587–586 bce), and the assassination of Gedaliah (582 bce). Jeremiah interpreted the Babylonian subjugation of Jerusalem in 605 bce and the later destruction of Jerusalem in 587 or 586 bce as acts of punishment by YHWH, the G-d of Israel and Judah, for the people’s alleged failure to observe the divine will. Although the book of Jeremiah is largely concerned with destruction, it also holds out hope for the restoration of Israel and Jerusalem, especially in Jeremiah 30–33. The book appears in two very distinctive forms from antiquity. The Hebrew Masoretic text (MT) is the standard form of Jeremiah in Jewish Bibles, but the Greek Septuagint (LXX) form of the book is approximately one-eighth shorter and displays a very different arrangement of materials (e.g., the oracles concerning the nations in MT Jeremiah 46–51 appear following portions of Jeremiah 25 in the LXX form of the book). The Dead Sea Scrolls likewise include remnants of early Hebrew forms of both of these versions. Scholarly consensus maintains that both versions grew out of a common original text, although the issue is still debated.