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Jeremiah 1: What the Passage Says

77 claims across 19 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Jeremiah 1 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The book opens by naming Jeremiah, a priest's son from Anathoth, and dating his messages from the LORD to the reigns of Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, up to the exile of Jerusalem. God tells Jeremiah he was chosen before birth as a prophet to the nations; Jeremiah objects that he is only a child, and God answers that he must go where he is sent and say what he is given to say. Two visions follow, an almond branch and a boiling pot tilting from the north, which God explains as his watching over his word and as disaster coming from the north against Judah for abandoning him. God then tells Jeremiah to get ready and speak, promising to make him like a fortified city that his opponents will fight but not defeat.

Claim by Claim

  1. 1:1
    • These are the words of Jeremiah.
    • Jeremiah was the son of Hilkiah.
    • Hilkiah was one of the priests who were in Anathoth.
    • Anathoth was in the land of Benjamin.
  2. 1:2
    • The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.
    • The word of the LORD came to him in the days of Josiah king of Judah.
    • Josiah was the son of Amon.
    • The word came in the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign.
  3. 1:3
    • The word of the LORD also came in the days of Jehoiakim king of Judah.
    • Jehoiakim was the son of Josiah.
    • The word continued to come until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah king of Judah.
    • Zedekiah was the son of Josiah.
    • The word continued to come until Jerusalem was carried away into exile.
    • Jerusalem was carried away in the fifth month.
  4. 1:4
    • The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.
    • The word of the LORD spoke to him.
  5. 1:5
    • The LORD said he knew Jeremiah before he formed him in the belly.
    • The LORD said he set Jeremiah apart as holy before he came out of the womb.
    • The LORD said he appointed Jeremiah a prophet to the nations.
  6. 1:6
    • Jeremiah said, Ah, Lord GOD.
    • Jeremiah said that he did not know how to speak.
    • Jeremiah said that he was a youth.
  7. 1:7
    • The LORD said to Jeremiah not to say that he was a youth.
    • The LORD said Jeremiah would go to everyone he sent him to.
    • The LORD said Jeremiah would speak whatever he commanded him.
  8. 1:8
    • The LORD told Jeremiah not to be afraid of their faces.
    • The LORD said he was with Jeremiah to deliver him.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
  9. 1:9
    • The LORD put forth his hand.
    • The LORD touched Jeremiah's mouth.
    • The LORD said to Jeremiah that he had put his words in Jeremiah's mouth.
  10. 1:10
    • The LORD said he had that day set Jeremiah over the nations and over the kingdoms.
    • Jeremiah was set over them to uproot.
    • Jeremiah was set over them to pull down.
    • Jeremiah was set over them to destroy.
    • Jeremiah was set over them to overthrow.
    • Jeremiah was set over them to build.
    • Jeremiah was set over them to plant.
  11. 1:11
    • The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.
    • The LORD asked Jeremiah what he saw.
    • Jeremiah said he saw a rod of an almond tree.
  12. 1:12
    • The LORD said to Jeremiah that he had seen well.
    • The LORD said he was watching over his word to perform it.
  13. 1:13
    • The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah a second time.
    • The LORD asked Jeremiah what he saw.
    • Jeremiah said he saw a boiling pot.
    • Jeremiah said the face of the pot was turned away from the north.
  14. 1:14
    • The LORD said to Jeremiah that evil would break forth out of the north.
    • The LORD said the evil would come upon all the inhabitants of the land.
  15. 1:15
    • The LORD said he was calling all the families of the kingdoms of the north.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
    • The LORD said they would come.
    • The LORD said each one would set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem.
    • The LORD said they would set their thrones against all the walls of Jerusalem round about.
    • The LORD said they would set their thrones against all the cities of Judah.
  16. 1:16
    • The LORD said he would utter his judgments against them.
    • The judgments concerned all their wickedness.
    • The LORD said they had forsaken him.
    • The LORD said they had burned incense to other gods.
    • The LORD said they had bowed down to the works of their own hands.
  17. 1:17
    • The LORD told Jeremiah to gird up his loins.
    • The LORD told Jeremiah to arise.
    • The LORD told Jeremiah to speak to them all that he commanded him.
    • The LORD told Jeremiah not to be dismayed before them.
    • The LORD said that otherwise he would break Jeremiah before them.
  18. 1:18
    • The LORD said he had that day made Jeremiah a fortified city.
    • The LORD said he had made Jeremiah an iron pillar.
    • The LORD said he had made Jeremiah bronze walls.
    • Jeremiah was made so against the whole land.
    • Jeremiah was made so against the kings of Judah.
    • Jeremiah was made so against its princes.
    • Jeremiah was made so against its priests.
    • Jeremiah was made so against the people of the land.
  19. 1:19
    • The LORD said they would fight against Jeremiah.
    • The LORD said they would not prevail against him.
    • The LORD said he was with Jeremiah to deliver him.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1
Anathoth was a village about three miles northeast of Jerusalem, set aside as a home for priests. It lay in the territory of Benjamin, one of the twelve tribes of Israel; by Jeremiah's time that land was part of the small southern kingdom of Judah. Priests were the hereditary officials who ran the sacrificial worship and taught the law, so Jeremiah came from a family already inside the religious establishment he would spend his life criticizing.
1:2
"The LORD" in small capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God (the four Hebrew letters YHWH), which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud; where the King James prints "Lord" in ordinary letters it is translating an ordinary Hebrew word for master. The thirteenth year of Josiah was about 627 BC. Kings were dated by the years of their reigns because there was no continuous calendar era.
1:3
The two kings named here, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, were both sons of the Josiah of verse 2, so the span covers roughly forty years, about 627 to 586 BC. "The carrying away of Jerusalem captive" is the Babylonian conquest, when the city was taken and much of its population deported to Babylon. The "fifth month" is the fifth of the Hebrew religious year, falling in our July–August.
1:5
A prophet in Hebrew usage is someone who speaks on another's behalf, a spokesman, rather than primarily a predictor of the future. "I knew you" translates a verb that can mean simple acquaintance but also singling someone out or choosing them. The King James "sanctified" does not mean made morally pure; it means set apart for a particular use, the same word used of dedicating objects for the temple. "Ordained" here is an ordinary word for appointing someone to a job.
1:6
"Lord GOD" with GOD in small capitals marks a doubled title in the Hebrew: the word for master followed by the divine name. The word rendered "child" covers a wide range, from a young boy to an unmarried young man or a servant; it is a claim to be too young and inexperienced to be taken seriously, not a statement of being an infant.
1:8
"Be not afraid of their faces" is a Hebrew idiom: to be afraid of someone's face is to be intimidated when standing in front of them.
1:9
Touching the mouth is a commissioning gesture: the organ that will do the work is singled out and equipped. A similar scene occurs in Isaiah 6, where a burning coal touches the prophet's lips.
1:10
The six verbs come in two sets of images (uprooting and pulling up plants, and demolishing buildings) against two of putting them back, building and planting. "Build and plant" and "pluck up and tear down" recur as fixed phrases throughout the book. In the ancient understanding of a prophet's role, announcing what would happen and bringing it about were not sharply separated, which is why he is described as being set over kingdoms himself.
1:11
The point turns on a play on words that cannot survive translation. The Hebrew for almond is *shaqed*, and the word for watching or being wide awake is *shoqed*. The almond is the first tree in the region to blossom, in late winter, and was nicknamed the wakeful or watchful tree.
1:12
The King James "I will hasten my word" and the modern "I am watching over my word" translate the same Hebrew verb, which means to stay awake, keep watch, and so be alert to act, the echo of "almond" in the previous verse.
1:13
A "seething pot" is a cooking pot at a full boil over a fire. The Hebrew of the second half is genuinely unclear: the pot's "face" is either turned away from the north, so that its contents would spill southward toward Judah, or turned toward the north; translators split over which. Either way the north is what is being pointed at.
1:14
Invading armies from Mesopotamia, including Babylon, could not cross the desert directly and so always arrived down through Syria from the north. "The north" therefore functions in Hebrew prophecy as shorthand for the direction danger comes from. The word translated "evil" here means disaster or calamity rather than wickedness.
1:15
The open space just inside a city's gates was where rulers and elders sat to hold court and settle disputes. For a foreign king to set up his throne there is a picture of a conqueror taking over the seat of local authority, not simply of an army camping outside.
1:16
Burning incense was a standard act of worship at an altar, not an incidental gesture; doing it "unto other gods" means conducting formal worship of them. "The works of their own hands" is the usual scornful term for carved or cast images.
1:17
"Gird up thy loins" is a literal description of an everyday action: men wore long robes, and to run, work or fight you pulled the hem up and tucked it into your belt. The English idiom means get ready for hard action. "Lest I confound thee" uses the same Hebrew verb as "be not dismayed" just before it, do not let them break you, or I will break you in front of them.
1:18
A "defenced city" is a fortified one, ringed with walls. "Brasen" means bronze; brass as we know it was not in use, and the King James regularly says brass where the metal is bronze. "The princes" are court officials and nobles rather than royal sons. "The people of the land" was a semi-technical term in Judah for the free landholding population, a body with real political weight, not the general poor.

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