Jeremiah 1-3

Jeremiah was a priest of God, from the Levitical family of Kohath, and He was called by God as a young man to be a prophet to Judah in the 13 th year of Josiah’s reign. He remained a prophet in for a long time, seeing the remainder of the kings in Judah (Josiah’s sons) until Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem, and the people were taken as slaves into Babylon for 70 years (which Jeremiah predicted by the Word of the Lord). He served as prophet of God in the declining days of Judah, and he has been appropriately called the weeping prophet because no one ever responded to his warnings with repentance towards God during his entire ministry.

The book of Jeremiah is not sequential or linear in time. The chapters and passages jump around between different times of the kings of Judah. Through the prophet, the Lord laments the treacheries of Israel and Judah, who have persisted in running after false gods, just like a shameless harlot who runs after her many lovers. The Lord calls for Judah to repent and return to Him, and expresses amazement at her hard heart, which had not changed even after Israel was taken into captivity by the Assyrians for all of their sins against Him. Throughout the prophecies of Jeremiah, we will see many times where the focus of time is shifted from the present day (he started prophesying around 640 BC) to the future. We see this clearly in chapter 3, verses 14-18, when the Lord will restore Israel in the last days, and He will be their God.