When was Jeremiah written?

Jeremiah prophesied in Jerusalem and Judah during the 41 year period from 629 to 588 BC. The word came to him “in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign ... also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah . . . until the carrying away of Jerusalem captive.” After the final deportation, he continued his service in relative obscurity among the poor of the country whom Nebuchadnezzar had left. Subsequently he followed into Egypt the remnant of the people who took refuge in that country. Very probably he died there after having given his last known prophecy (Jer. 44).

This prophecy commenced in the thirteenth year of Josiah, B.C. 629, and extended beyond the destruction of Jerusalem. The great captivity was in B.C. 599, when Zedekiah was left in Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and Jerusalem was not destroyed until B.C. 588, eleven years after. Great efforts were made by the prophet to bring Zedekiah to the fear of the Lord. What especially marks the spirit of the prophet personally is sorrow. It was a grief to him to see Judah departing from Jehovah, and to be obliged to predict the judgement of God upon them, the people he loved; added to which he actually suffered from the hand of those whom he sought to help. A similar sorrow is seen in the Lord Jesus respecting Jerusalem, and in Paul respecting the church. In some instances Jeremiah's parables were acted, so as the more forcibly to impress the careless people. The prophecies are not arranged chronologically, but there is doubtless a divine reason why that order is not followed. In the LXX the order of the chapters differs widely from that in the Hebrew and the A.V., but it is not known what led to the difference. The LXX appears to have been made from a faulty copy, or the text was misunderstood by the translators, for there are many deviations from the Hebrew. The phrase 'the Lord saith' is omitted sixty-four times, with other omissions — in all about one-eighth of the whole.

Jeremiah's prophecies began in the thirteenth year of Josiah, king of Judah, and continued after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar some forty years later. His testimony was therefore rendered at the time when the kingdom of David was about to be abolished as a national witness for Jehovah in the earth.

Out of Jeremiah's records we see that he was born during the reign of impious king Manasseh (696 - 642 BC). He originated from the priestly family of Aaron. His hometown was Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, which was not far from Jerusalem (Jer. 1:1). In his very early years he was called by Jehovah to be a prophet (Jer. 1:4-10). This happened in king Josiah's 13th year, which was in 627 BC (he reigned from 640 - 609 BC). Jeremiah's service lasted over 40 years till after Jerusalem's destruction through Nebuchadrezzar in the year 586 BC (Jer. 39). According to Jehovah's command Jeremiah remained unmarried (Jer. 16:2).

Jeremiah prophesied during the sunset decades of the Jewish kingdom: over the course of the last 40 years, starting in the 13th year of the reign of Josiah (629 BC). He had to show up the deplorably low state of the people even under godly king Josiah (3:6ff). He then had to experience the ungodly kings Jehoahaz, Johoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. He had to witness the beginning of the ‘times of the Gentiles’ (Luke 21:24) under Nebuchadnezzar and the three deportations that ensued (606 BC, 599 BC, 588 BC), the last of which occurred under Zedekiah and resulted in the complete destruction of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry, as he intimates, in the thirteenth year of Josiah, the last king of Judah. It was the year which followed the first effort to purge the capital and the country from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. The fairness of the promise but added to the poignancy of his grief when the reformation turned out altogether superficial, and the ruin impending was only stayed, under God, so to speak, by the life of Josiah, who died at the age of 39. Then followed the deplorable reigns of Jehoahaz (= Shallum), whom Pharaoh-Necho deposed, setting up Eliakim (= Jehoiakim); who was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin (= Jeconiah or Coniah), for whom Nebuchadnezzar soon substituted "his brother" (or, as we would say, his father's brother) Zedekiah (= Mattaniah). Under these kings the closing disasters of Jerusalem, were mixed up with the struggle between Egypt and Babylon, which ended in the indisputable world-sovereignty of the latter and the various stages of Judah's captivity. What juncture so suited to call out the exercises of such a heart as Jeremiah's? These soul-trials, which the Holy Ghost wrought in, were, as far as circumstances and persons could be, the mould in which the various parts of the prophecy were cast.

But these points will be better understood by examining the passages which bring them into notice. The period during which Jeremiah prophesied was of considerable length, and embraced the whole time of Israel's decline, from the year after that in which Josiah began to cleanse Jerusalem and all the land, until the final destruction of Jerusalem by the army of the Chaldeans; and even a little while after in Egypt, a period of more than forty years — a period throughout of distress and anguish. For although Josiah was a godly king, the reformation of the people was only an outward one, as we shall see. So that the anguish of one who saw with God was so much the greater on account of this appearance of piety. "And Jehovah was not turned away from his fierce anger, because of the sins of Manasseh." Nevertheless the prophet distinguishes between the two periods, that is, the reign of Josiah, and that of his successors.

Jeremiah was ordained a prophet to the nations before his birth, and was early called to the office (Jer. 1:5-7), which he occupied for the long period of forty-two years — about one hundred and thirty years after the call of Isaiah. Jeremiah uttered his predictions in and about the metropolis of Judea; then, on the capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, among the people spared by the clemency of the Chaldean conqueror, and who, after the murder of Gedaliah, the governor of Judea, and in spite of the faithful remonstrances of the prophet, went down into Egypt (Jer. 43, 44), and nearly all perished there.

These prophecies, in our English Bibles, as also in the Hebrew, are arranged (by whom we cannot tell, probably by Ezra) without regard to chronological order. But whoever was the editor of Jeremiah's weeping prophecies, for almost "every letter is written with a tear, and every word is the sound of a broken heart" — especially so of the Lamentations — must have been divinely directed; for the moral order, and connection of the various prophecies to each other are evidently of God. In the Septuagint they are arranged chronologically. The last verse of the fifty-first chapter ends with "Thus far are the words of Jeremiah." The last chapter of the book is not written by Jeremiah, but is an historical appendix substantially the same as 2 Kings 24:18-20, 25; and equally given by inspiration of God, and needful in its place. The predictions of the prophet respecting Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, were fulfilled to the letter, as this historical appendix, probably written by Ezra, conclusively prove. It is only in this book, so far as we know, that the duration of the Chaldean kingdom is given, as also the duration of Judah's captivity in Babylon (Jer. 25:9-14; Jer. 29:10). Daniel was a devout student of these very prophecies, especially of those portions just referred to (Dan. 9:2). We may observe that Jer. 10:11 contains a message to the heathen written in their own language — the Aramean or Syriac.

Jeremiah ("Jehovah will cast forth") has been called the weeping prophet. Called of God evidently at a young and tender age, he prophesied during the reigns of Josiah, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, and following the capture of Judah and Jerusalem ‑ apparently altogether about forty years. He was of the priestly family, but like John the Baptist was more a prophet than a priest. The deep sorrow of his soul over the condition of the kingdom of Judah is evident, but he faithfully delivers the stern message of God to the effect that the Chaldeans would take Judah captive.

From the very first verse we find these features. Jeremiah was the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. The word of Jehovah came to him in the days of Josiah, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. That is, he was called to the work when God was working powerfully not only in the good king Josiah but in a few of the Jewish people.