What did God mean when He said, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you," in Jeremiah 1:5?

Nothing like this happened to Jeremiah. God simply spoke to him in his early youth declaring in a few precise statements why He chose to send him: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer. 1:4-10). This is God’s foreknowledge. For us it is connected with His election before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. 1:2; Eph. 1:4). The motives of this great plan are not revealed to us.

But to Jeremiah the Lord revealed more, “Before you were born I sanctified you.” Like the apostle Paul, Jeremiah was set apart from his mother’s womb (see Gal. 1:4, Acts 9:15; 22:14). Then God spoke further to him, “I ordained you a prophet to the nations,” and finally “I shall send you.”

Verses 4-10. "Then the Word of the LORD came unto me" (verse 4). The prophet is the writer who tells us how he was called into the office of a prophet. A sovereign, omniscient and omnipotent Lord speaks to and informs the young Jeremiah that He knew him, that his call was prenatal. He had been chosen and set apart for the specific work which he now was to undertake. (See Isa. 49:1; Gal. 1:15, 16). What comfort this assuring knowledge must have been to the prophet in his trying ministry, in the persecutions which were his portion and the suffering he passed through! The Lord had called him, the Lord knew all that would take place, and He had the power to sustain him. And he is the same Lord today, and Jeremiah's comfort is still the comfort of His trusting people.

Jeremiah expresses at once his fear. Like Moses (Exodus 4:10), he manifests self-distrust. He was but a child, not in the sense of a mere child, but a youth. The Septuagint translates it, "I am too young." After that the Lord encouraged him by the promise of His presence, "I am with thee to deliver thee." Then He touched his mouth and said, "Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth." He was the mouthpiece of Jehovah, Who commissioned him to fulfill a ministry over nations and kingdoms, to announce the overthrow of them by the judgments of the Lord.

It is important, too, to see that Jeremiah was known by God before he was appointed; God says, "I knew thee".

Jeremiah did not know that at first, but God knew it before he was born, and there came a moment when the Lord made it known to him.

It would be an amazing thing to Jeremiah to know that God had him in mind before he was born; but what an encouragement it would also be to him!

In choosing this vessel God began a long way back, exactly as He did with Saul of Tarsus, as we see in Galatians 1. The choice of God in relation to His servants is not haphazard, nor is it determined by existing circumstances; the circumstances in which Jeremiah and Paul ministered occurred long after God had chosen them, but He chose them for those circumstances.

Jeremiah was actually chosen before his conception; which clearly shows the great importance of the sovereignty of God apart from every human agency. Not only are we Vessels of Mercy, but before we were the recipients of that mercy, and before we understood anything about it, God had His eye upon us in view of His service.

We cannot doubt that the circumstances surrounding our birth, and our growing up in those circumstances, have been ordained of God in view of the service into which He would call us, just as He did with Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 1:5 and Galatians 1:15, 16 show that God marks out and calls His servants even before they are born. In the light of this He fashions the vessel for His purposes and orders all the circumstances of his after life. Everything which he passes through is calculated of God to prepare and train him for his divine calling in life, even though he may as yet be unconverted and unaware of his heavenly calling. The apostle Paul is an example of a man possessing a most remarkable natural character, as well as extraordinary training and acquirements before conversion, all of which were providentially ordered of God to fit him for his special place of ministry in the Church of God.

Of the early verses of chapter 1 we have spoken. Although at first Jeremiah felt he was but a child, it must have been a great stay for him afterwards to think of God’s foreknowledge of him, even before his birth, setting him apart, and giving him to be a prophet not only to Israel, but also to the nations (Jer. 1:4,10). This fact of God’s foreknowledge was made known to him at his call to the work, when the Lord touched him and put His words in his mouth. “I am with thee” is twice said to him (vv. 8 and 19). Every servant of the Lord should have some sense of this, along with a settled conviction of the foreknowledge of God. This gives stability amidst trials and testings. The Lord said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee”. Paul constantly speaks of himself as “a called apostle of Jesus Christ, by God’s will”, and Peter reminds us that we are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”. The faithful servant may have to meet great difficulties and fierce foes, but he is encouraged like Jeremiah, who is again twice told not to fear (vv. 8 and 17). God would fortify him against all opposition (v. 18), and however strong it might be, none should prevail against him. The greater the foe the greater becomes faith’s victory. “I am with thee, says the Lord, to deliver thee”.

The word of Jehovah, as we are told in Jeremiah 1, came to Jeremiah, saying, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee." "I ordained thee," it is carefully added, "a prophet to the nations." Why to the nations? This special commission brings before us a peculiarity of Jeremiah's service which we shall find abundantly verified in this book. Although he was a Jew himself and even a priest and although the Jews in Jerusalem have an immense place in his prophecy, the nations also are given great prominence.

In verse 5 we read that before he was born he was appointed to be a prophet; that was divine selection. Now in verse 18 we have the divine confirmation, "Behold, I appoint thee this day" (New Trans.). He was not only to know God's mind for him, but to have the power to fulfil his appointment.

To his office as a spokesman for Jehovah, Jeremiah was sanctified from birth, and he is distinguished among his fellow-prophets of the Old Testament as a prophet to the nations. Jerusalem was set in the midst of the Gentiles as the centre of divine government in the earth. Before the city of Zion was destroyed by the Gentiles, Jeremiah's is the last voice to utter from that centre the word of Jehovah to Judah and Israel and to the surrounding nations.