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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 414. Jeremiah's Creed
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Jeremiah's Creed
Literature
Bennett, W. H., The Book of Jeremiah (Expositor's Bible) (1895).
Cheyne, T. K., Jeremiah: His Life and Times.
Cheyne, T. K., Jeremiah (Pulpit Commentary) (1883).
Davidson, A. B., The Theology of the Old Testament (1904), 362.
Davidson, A. B., Old Testament Prophecy (1903), 424.
Driver, S. R., Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (1913), 247.
Driver, S. R., The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah (1906).
Edghill, E. A., The Evidential Value of Prophecy (1906), 105, 324.
Erbt, W., Jeremia und seine Zeit (1902).
Gillies, J. R., Jeremiah: The Man and his Message (1907).
Godet, F., Biblical Studies: Old Testament (1875), 155.
Kirkpatrick, A. F., The Doctrine of the Prophets (1892), 286.
Maurice, F. D., The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament (1892), 388, 406, 426.
Meyer, F. B., Jeremiah: Priest and Prophet.
Orelli, C. von, Old Testament Prophecy (1885), 329.
Ottley, R. L., Aspects of the Old Testament (1897), 312.
Peake, A. S., Jeremiah and Lamentations (Century Bible) (1910).
Ramsay, A., Studies in Jeremiah (1905).
Robson, J., Jeremiah the Prophet (Bible Class Primers).
Sanders, F. K., and Kent, C. F., The Messages of the Earlier Prophets (1899), 201.
Smith, W. R., Lectures and Essays (1912), 341.
Streane, A. W., Jeremiah together with the Lamentations (Cambridge Bible) (1913).
Westphal and Du Pontet, The Law and the Prophets (1910), 312.
Woods, F. H., and Powell, F. E., The Hebrew Prophets, ii. (1910) 39.
Dictionary of the Bible, ii. (1899) 568 (A. B. Davidson).
Dictionary of the Bible, ii. (Single-volume, 1909) 432 (G. G. Findlay).
Encyclopœdia Biblica, ii. (1901), col. 2366 (N. Schmidt).
Expositor, 5th Ser., i. (1895) 66, 108, 309; ii. (1895) 118, 199, 278, 356 (J. Stalker).
Expository Times, xiii. (1902) 71 (B. Duhm).
Interpreter, ix. (1913) 271 (L. W. Grensted).
Jewish Encyclopedia, vii. (1904) (V. Ryssel).
Journal of Biblical Literature, xx. (1901) 56 (H. G. Mitchell).
Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, viii. (1900) 646 (F. Buhl).
The statement, now generally accepted, that the prophets were preachers rather than theologians, is as true of Jeremiah as of any of their number. By his creed, therefore, is meant, not a system of doctrine taught by him as such, but the aggregate, in a more scientific form of presentation, of the principles that constitute or underlie his prophetic teaching.
1. It will be well, first, to take some notice of the connexion or contrast between Jeremiah's teaching and that of earlier or contemporary prophets.
Isaiah was the first to make prophecy a real force in politics, and he also defined politics as the sphere in which prophecy might most fitly be exercised. Amos thundered forth his relentless denunciations in a single message which, though not wholly destitute of references to the political atmosphere, is yet in the main quite indifferent to the general movements of international life. To Hosea the utter rottenness of the intrigues of the ruling class is so apparent that he longs for a time when there shall be no alliances and no politics at all. But Isaiah was a politician in the highest and noblest sense, and subsequent prophets followed his example. We have a significant instance of this alteration of the prophetic standpoint in the works of Jeremiah, whose temperament singularly resembles that of Hosea, and whose environment constitutes an equally remarkable parallel to that of his Northern predecessor. Both witnessed the decline and fall of their country, but, while Hosea may almost be said to hail the prospect in so far as the destruction of the old would involve the possibility of an entirely new start, Jeremiah consistently labours in every possible way for the preservation of the Jewish State. His almost monotonous persistence in a course of political interference resulted in his being regarded as a menace to the welfare of the State-so little was his policy appreciated by those in authority. Like Isaiah, he urged the people to accept their circumstances as interpreting the will of God. Like Isaiah, he recognized that the sins of the nation cried for punishment. Like Isaiah, he saw in the power that oppressed and finally destroyed Judah an instrument in the hand of Israel's God. Like Isaiah, he advised submission to a nation which his own country was powerless to withstand. Like Isaiah, he knew how to rebuke kings and princes, how to oppose popular fears and popular aspirations. And all his teaching, embodying as it did marvellous conceptions of the transcendent spirituality of God, was not couched in the language of abstract propositions, but was translated into the common speech of everyday life, and brought into closest correlation with contemporary politics.
2. The great theological value of Jeremiah lies in the fact that he gave an impulse to those spiritual conceptions which appeared first definitely in the Book of Deuteronomy. Hosea and Isaiah had insisted that outward religious observances were useless, and even detestable to God, without a righteous life. Jeremiah further contended that conduct and character are themselves the outcome of an inward religious principle. There was to be an inward circumcision of the heart, which God would recognize as the only true circumcision. Thus the great Kingdom of Messiah would be signalized by a New Covenant based upon a law written not on tables, but in the heart. In this Kingdom outside nations would be lovingly welcomed, a promise which suggests that there is a latent relationship between all nations and Jehovah. Jeremiah therefore, more than any other of the prophets, justified their description as “the spiritual destroyers of old Israel.” For he most of all stands out as the harbinger of that new order which was to succeed to the old that was “nigh unto vanishing away,” an order which was to know no national or material restriction, but was to be characterized by the universal indwelling of the Spirit of God. If Hosea in teaching the love of God anticipated the chief tenet of Christian theology, Jeremiah may be said, in his insistence on an inward and spiritual motive, to have predicted the fundamental truth of Christian ethics.
If for political and public purposes there can be in the Bible one book more valuable than another to throw light on the days we live in it is Jeremiah. He was not always “looking to the sun,” but he was looking to the earth, entreating, preaching, warning, threatening, promising; and he was in consequence regarded as a bore and a blunderer. Yet, if he had been attended to, Jerusalem might have survived for many centuries; and certainly she would have been spared the indescribable sufferings of soul and body that followed her destruction by Nebuchadnezzar.1 [Note: Lord Shaftesbury, in Life, by E. Hodder, iii. 454.]