Yesterday, I finished preparing the first draft of the first sermon in our next series, that will begin mid-April, in Jeremiah. As I turned to the first passage, I was confronted by this in Jeremiah 1:1-3:
The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests living in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. 2 The word of the Lord came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah. 3 It also came throughout the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile.
Now, the tempting thing to do here is skip over this stuff and run straight into the meat of the passage. But there is a wealth of information here that helps us understand the particular issues and concerns that were likely to be prominent in Jeremiah’s mind as he writes.
For one, we can see that Jeremiah was a priest living in Benjamin. At a bare minimum, that suggests he would be reasonably familiar with the priestly caste and the goings on at the temple in Jerusalem. As we read through his writing and see the things he has to say about the priests and their involvement with the kings and the troubling compromises they appear to be making, Jeremiah 1:1 tells us that we aren’t dealing with the conspiratorial ramblings of an outsider looking on and filling in massive gaps. We are hearing from an insider, who understands and knows the goings on and is delivering God’s verdict on it all.
Second, we have some means of dating when Jeremiah was writing. We know when these different kings ruled Judah and can work out when Jeremiah was writing. In this case, over a forty or so year period from King Josiah up to when Jerusalem was destroyed and the exiles were taken to Babylon. Being able to date it allows us to place the book on our biblical timeline. We know that this is all taking place after God has made his covenant with David – so that might well be in our minds – but before God sends Judah into exile. This helps us understand what assumptions people may have been making at the time. It also helps us know what is coming and how what Jeremiah says speaks into those events.
Third, those date allow us to flick back to 2 Kings and look into the various things going on in Judah under those particular kings and can get a picture of some of the specific things that Jeremiah might have seen that he was writing into. So, when he mentions certain practices and issues, we can see who was reigning at the time, what they were doing and why those things had come about. Dating the book within the biblical timeline and understanding what was going on nationally helps us get behind some of what we read in the book itself.
Fourth, those dates allow us to do a bit of digging outside of scripture to discover what was going on in the wider international context. We know by this time the Assyrians had already ransacked Northern Israel and we know, because Jeremiah tells us, that his prophecy runs up to the time Babylonians ransack Jerusalem. What we may not know (but 2 Kings can help a bit and some external historical study can also help) is that Jeremiah is writing at a time of political turmoil. The major world power when Jeremiah was born was Assyria; the major power when he finished writing was Babylon. So Jeremiah is writing on the cusp of major world change; one empire giving way to another. This has ramifications for the language, culture and religion – and therefore a series of associated political pressures – for the entire region. It obviously has particular pressures for God’s people in the region too. Knowing some of this background sheds some light on why Judah ended up where it did and why Jeremiah is keen to highlight what he does.
Of course, none of these things are substitutes for reading the text on its own terms as it is presented to us. But they do provide helpful context. They might help us understand the comments about ‘unfaithful Israel and treacherous Judah’ for example. It might help us understand his word about ‘judgement from the North’ and the ‘false trust in the temple’ and this sort of thing. Where did such false trust come from? Where was this judgement from the North going to come from and why was it coming? The historical context gives us some pointers on these, and many other, things mentioned in this book.
So, all that is to say, don’t just skip over the historical details. They are not meaningless. Nor are they only there to prove – when our apologetics demands – that the Bible was written by real people in real places and can be assessed historically by sources outside itself. They are there so that we can understand the context into which it is written. We can understand where it sits on the Bible’s own timeline. We can see what issues are being spoken into in that particular place and culture at the time. We can see how those concerns might be at play throughout the writing and how they, at least to some degree, impact our reading of what the book actually says. Don’t just gloss over them but pay attention to these little details and see what difference they make to your understanding of what is being said.