Why is Jeremiah known as the weeping prophet?

He has been called "the weeping prophet" and is generally known by that name. No other prophet wept like Jeremiah. That outburst in his lamentations, "For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye, runneth down with water" (Lam. 1:16) shows how tender hearted he was, and how his tears flowed freely. But he was something else beside the weeping prophet. He was a man of great courage, with the boldness of a lion. In the presence of His Lord he was prostrate and broken, one who trembled at His Word, filled with godly fear. He was a man of prayer and faith in the Lord and faithful in the discharge of his great commission.

Jeremiah, the second of the so-called four Major prophets is rightly the so called crying prophet (compare Jer. 9:1.10; 13:17; 14:17; 15:10; 20:14). No other prophet encountered so much opposition and hatred. Although he had to suffer much sorrow by his compatriots during his life Jeremiah was greatly honoured after his death (compare with Math. 16:14). And although Jeremiah constantly lashed the Jews' unrighteousness and their apostasy off the living God he loved his people up to the end (comp. chap. 17:16; 18:20).

The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah has a different character from that of Isaiah. It does not contain the same development of the counsels of God respecting this earth that Isaiah does. It is we, that we are told many things in it concerning the nations; but it is principally composed of testimony addressed immediately to the conscience of the people, on the subject of their moral condition at the time the prophet speaks, and with an eye to the judgment with which they were threatened. Judah had forsaken Jehovah; for their repentance under Josiah was but a fair appearance, and under the kings that succeeded him their degradation was complete. The prophet's heart was overwhelmed with grief, because of his love for the people; at the same time that he was filled with a deep sense of their relationship with the Lord. The sense of this produced a continual conflict in his soul between the thought of the value of the people as the people of God, and a holy jealousy for the glory of God and His rights over His people — rights which they were trampling under foot. This was an incurable wound to his heart. He had pleaded for the people, he had stood in the breach for them before Jehovah; but he saw that it was all in vain: the people rejected God and the testimony that He sent them. God Himself would no longer hearken to prayer made for Israel. Jeremiah prophesies under this impression: a sorrowful task, indeed, and one which made the prophet truly a man of sorrow. And although he could always say that, if the people repented, they would be received in grace, he well knew that the people had even no thought of repenting. Two things sustained him in this painful service: (for what could be more painful than to announce judgment for their iniquities, to a people beloved of God?) first of all, the energy of the Spirit of God, which filled his heart and compelled him to announce the judgment of God, in spite of contradiction and persecution; and then the revelation of the people's final blessing according to the unchangeable counsels of God. After this brief notice of the spirit of the Book of Jeremiah, the proofs and details of which we shall find in going through his prophecies, let us now examine these in succession.

I have thus gone at some length into the Book of Isaiah, not only because it is the chiefest and fullest of the prophets, but because it shows us that all the others can be thus analyzed. We must examine Jeremiah more briefly. You are struck with one or two things, the moment we come to the book. The prophet feels every word which he says. Was he telling them of the judgment that was fallen upon them, was he telling them of their sin? it makes such an awful impression upon him that he wished he had never been born, to have to declare such a message. As we tell lost sinners of their condition, do we feel the terror of the message? something like Paul when he says, "knowing the terror of the Lord." Would there not then be something of the divine compassion working through our soul entreating and beseeching, yea weeping over them? See how Jeremiah in the ninth chapter looks upon the sins of those people, whom he could denounce most sternly. "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." Here is no indifference, but a sorrow which though it be human, and though it lead the beloved prophet even sometimes to complain of God, manifests the divine pity working through it. Is it not the sorrow of Him, who when He came near to that beloved city and saw it lying there upon the hills, which God had foretold would be its eternal foundation, wept over it as He said: "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belonged to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes?" What sorrow, when He could say, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, but ye would not." Sorrow, pity, longing for His beloved people, that is what you find all through Jeremiah. It makes an intensely human book.

On account of these things the prophet weeps, as he had wept, before they came to pass, in foretelling them. There is no comforter; for Judah 's children are desolate. Zion spreadeth forth her hands, but there is no helper, nor any to sympathize. She is as a separated, unclean woman, because of the Lord's anger (v.16-17).

Verses 1-9. Here again is a deplorable break. The opening verses of this chapter belong to the preceding one. The prophet still speaks. He is overwhelmed with sorrow; his eyes are fountains of tears. He weeps day and night over the slain. He wishes himself away in some wilderness, to be alone and separated from the adulterous generation. Then follows a description of the moral corruption of the people. The Lord answered him and once more asks the question: "Shall not I visit them for these things? saith the LORD; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" (See chapter 5:9, 29.)

Jeremiah was keenly aware of the distress that was to be the portion of his nation: “For the breach of the daughter of my people am I crushed ... that I may weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” (8:21; 9:1)

When Israel suffered in Egypt the Lord said: "I have surely seen the affliction of My people" (Exodus 3:7). Lamentations shows the same blessed fact, that Jehovah has a loving and deep interest in the afflictions of His people through which they pass on account of their sins. He who had to chastise His people is nevertheless moved with compassion in their behalf. Yea, in their affliction He Himself is afflicted and He yearns over them. The feelings, deep emotions of sorrow and humiliation, expressed by the mouthpiece of Jehovah, Jeremiah, were produced by the Spirit of Christ, in the heart of the prophet.

Like our Lord Jesus Christ, the prophet loved Israel and Jerusalem. He felt very really their sorrowful state; so deeply did Jeremiah enter into it that we find him exclaiming, “My bowels, my bowels, I am pained at my very heart” (Jer. 4:19). And just as if their desolation was his own, he cries, “When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint in me” (Jer. 8:18).

There was the bitter aggravation, ever present, of what the city of the great King had lost, which He, when He came and was refused, told out in His broken words of weeping over it. "Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sighs, and turns backward. Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembers not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O Jehovah, behold my affliction: for the enemy has magnified himself. The adversary has spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she has seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation. All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O Jehovah, and consider: for I am become vile." (Ver. 7-11.) Faith however sees in the prostration of the guilty city under the relentless adversary a plea for Jehovah's compassion and interposition on its behalf.

Then the prophet personifies the downtrodden Zion turning to the passing strangers for their pity. "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow, which is done to me, wherewith Jehovah has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. From above has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them: he has spread a net for my feet, he has turned me back: he has made me desolate and faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he has made my strength to fall, the Lord has delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. The Lord has trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he has called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord has trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runs down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed." (Ver. 12-16.) Still all is traced to Jehovah's dealing because of Jerusalem's rebellious sins; and hence He is morally vindicated. "Zion spreads forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: Jehovah has commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. Jehovah is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls." (Ver. 17-19.)