I like the prophet Jeremiah. All the prophets wrote about the despair they sometimes felt in living out their mission but Jeremiah takes it to a whole new level. His despair is liberally sprinkled throughout this book and he also wrote the book of Lamentations. Jeremiah doesn’t shrink away from confronting the bad in life and letting God know he’s not happy about it. One commentator says “Jeremiah laments longer and better than anyone in the Bible!” I think he gives us a model of being honest in prayer.
The kingdom of Israel fell to Babylon in the early 700s BC. For about 100 years Babylon made forays further and further south to threaten the kingdom of Judah. Finally, Judah fell to Babylon in 587 BC and almost all the Israelites were deported throughout the Babylonian empire.
Jeremiah’s career begins in the late 500s and spans the fall and deportation. His job was primarily to tell the Jewish people of the kingdom of Judah that being conquered by Babylon was inevitable and, in fact, was God’s judgment, and they should just accept it and go meekly into captivity. Obviously this was considered a bit treasonous and so Jeremiah did not have an easy life.
Date
The material in this book was most likely collected from the oral form and written down after the return of the exiles from Babylon.