Prophet to Judah before and during the Babylonian exile
c. 627–582 BC · Old Testament
The 'weeping prophet' — called by God before birth (Jeremiah 1:5), who proclaimed judgment on Judah for forty years, witnessed Jerusalem's fall, and wrote the book of Lamentations in the rubble.
Jeremiah was the son of Hilkiah, a priest from Anathoth in Benjamin (Jeremiah 1:1). God called him as a young man in the thirteenth year of King Josiah (c. 627 BC). His call is one of the most personal in Scripture: '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). Jeremiah's response was reluctance: 'Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.' But God touched his mouth and gave him his words. For over forty years, Jeremiah prophesied to Judah — through the reigns of Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. His message was unwelcome: judgment was coming. The Babylonians would conquer Jerusalem, and the people must accept it as God's discipline. He was rejected, mocked, beaten (Jeremiah 20:2), thrown in a cistern (Jeremiah 38:6), and threatened with death. Yet he could not stop preaching — '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). Jeremiah's heart was broken by the people's sin and the coming judgment. He is called 'the weeping prophet' for verses like '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). He prophesied the New Covenant — Jeremiah 31:31-34: 'Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel... I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.' This is the foundational NT passage on the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:8-12). When Jerusalem fell in 586 BC, Jeremiah remained in the ruins, writing the book of Lamentations. Eventually he was taken against his will to Egypt by Jewish refugees (Jeremiah 43). Tradition holds he died there. He wrote the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations.
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee"
Symbol of hope during the siege
Daniel reads this in Daniel 9:2
Hebrews 8 quotes this in full
Left to die in the mud
Babylonians breach the walls
Five poems of grief over Jerusalem
Died there per tradition
Jeremiah's significance: (1) He prophesied the most important new-covenant passage in the OT (Jeremiah 31:31-34). (2) His grief models prophetic compassion — the prophet weeps over the people he warns. (3) He shows that faithfulness sometimes means unpopular ministry — Jeremiah was never welcomed by his people. (4) His seventy-year prophecy (Jeremiah 25) was the explicit basis for Daniel's prayer of restoration (Daniel 9). (5) Lamentations 3:22-23 — 'his compassions fail not. They are new every morning' — was written in the rubble.
“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee.”— Jeremiah 1:5
“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.”— Jeremiah 31:31
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil.”— Jeremiah 29:11
“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
Jeremiah was a prophet to Judah from c. 627 BC until after Jerusalem's fall in 586 BC. Called by God before birth (Jeremiah 1:5), he prophesied for over forty years through the reigns of five kings, warning of Babylonian judgment, witnessing Jerusalem's destruction, and writing the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations. He is called the 'weeping prophet' for his deep grief over Judah's sin.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 — 'Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel... I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people... for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.' The NT identifies this as fulfilled in Christ (Hebrews 8:8-12; Luke 22:20).
Because of his deep grief over Judah's sin and the coming judgment. Jeremiah 9:1 — 'Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears.' He wept for his people even as he warned them. After Jerusalem fell, he wrote Lamentations — five poems of grief over the city. His tears show God's heart: judgment is real but grievous to him.
'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.' Written to the Jews already in Babylonian exile, urging them to settle, build, and trust God's plan for their restoration after 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10). Often quoted as a personal promise, the immediate context is corporate restoration after judgment — but the principle (God's good intentions toward his people) applies broadly.