|
The prophetic vision that affirmed principles of absolute justice and morality emerged in the Jerusalem of the First Temple period. This, together with the traditions related to the genesis of the three monotheistic faiths, transformed Jerusalem into a major city in the history of human civilization. The prophets emphasized the concept of historical linearity, which maintains that the flawed present, with its rampant suffering and injustice, will ultimately undergo a radical metamorphosis, and that finally absolute justice, peace, harmony, and spiritual awareness will prevail. It was in Jerusalem that people first lifted their eyes toward a more hopeful future. |
|
The prophet Jeremiah was active in Jerusalem during the tragic period of the city's destruction by the Babylonians, a process that involved several stages. Beginning in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah (626 BCE), Jeremiah prophesied during the reigns of a number of kings: Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah, and during the brief rule of Gedaliah ben Ahikam, whose assassination in ca. 585 BCE put a final end to the remnant of the Jewish community in Judah and Jerusalem and symbolized the conclusion of the First Temple period. Jeremiah's prophecies of destruction spoke of an ineluctable, unavertible disaster: "Lo, I am bringing against you, O House of Israel, a nation from afar declares the Lord. It is an enduring nation... a nation whose language you do not know... Their quivers are like a yawning grave they are all mighty men. They will devour your harvest and food, they will devour your sons and daughters..." (Jeremiah 5:15-17). And again: "As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry of prayer on their behalf, do not plead with Me; for I will not listen to you"(7:16). The prophet, who launched his mission in his native village of Anathoth, lying northeast of Jerusalem, was rejected by his fellow villagers, as his doom-laden prophecies would later be rejected in Jerusalem: "Assuredly, thus said the Lord of Hosts concerning the men of Anathoth who seek your life and say, 'You must not prophesy any more in the name of the Lord, or you will die by our hand ... 'I am going to deal with them: the young men shall die by the sword, their boys and girls shall die by famine" (11:21-22). |
|
Jeremiah severely castigated the people for forsaking God and the Torah and turning to idolatry. Aware of the inevitability of a terrible punishment, he felt disgust with his life (20:14-18). Gradually he became the leading exponent of the approach which called for surrender to Babylonian might and not attempting a rebellion against its awesome strength under the auspices of Egypt (chs. 25, 27, 32, 33, etc.). This was considered a defeatist stance and as such was rejected both by the people and by the various kings during whose reigns Jeremiah uttered his prophecies. The concept which had been successfully enunciated by the prophet Isaiah about a century earlier, holding that Jerusalem and the Temple possessed an almost magical inviolability, had become distorted by Jeremiah's time, and was no longer bound up with the moral leadership of the nation. The prophet railed against this approach:"Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: mend your ways and your actions, and I will let you dwell in this place. Don't put your trust in illusions and say, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these [buildings]. ... therefore I will do to the House which bears My name, on which you rely... just what I did to Shiloh" (7:3-4, 14). Considered a traitor, Jeremiah was placed outside the law during the reign of Zedekiah and placed in detention until the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar (39:14) . He saw the shattering of the last hope for the survivors of the destruction in the murder of Gedaliah, whom the Babylonians had appointed to rule over Judah. Although Jeremiah was saliently a prophet of apocalypse, he emphasized the temporary nature of the destruction and the consolation to be found in the certainty of the nation's return to its land. |
    |
