Category: Jeremiah & Lamentations

The book of Lamentations presents five intricately interconnected poems. Together they describe a movement from horrible loss and personal shame, to restored hope and prayer for renewal. This movement has both individual and community components, and is conveyed by the literary type, acrostic forms, meter, and basic movement of Lamentations. The key passage in Lamentations

As we close our study of Jeremiah, we see a significant shift. Having preached about the sins of Judah and her coming exile, now the prophet declares what will happen to neighboring nations. He speaks at length regarding the two superpowers, Egypt and Babylon, as well as many others. Because Yahweh, the LORD God, is

First the end was near; now, the end was here. Two and a half years after the siege began, on July 18, 586 BC, the Babylonian army breached the walls of Jerusalem. The princes of Babylon set up their thrones in the Middle Gate of the city and began to take over and remake the

The fourth year of Jehoiakim was 605 BC, the year of the fateful Battle of Carchemish when Pharaoh Necho defeated King Josiah and made Judah a vassal to Egypt (Jer. 46:2; 2 Chron. 35:20–27). Jehoiakim had gotten his throne only because Egypt had deposed his brother Jehoahaz. Jeremiah had been ministering for twenty-three years, and

Ebed-Melech, whose name means “servant of the king,” was an Ethiopian eunuch in the house of King Zedekiah, the last king of Judah before the exile. When Jeremiah the prophet had been lowered into a cistern and left there to die without bread, Ebed-Melech pled with the king for the prophet’s life. With the king’s

The year was 588 BC, and Nebuchadnezzar’s army was successfully conquering the kingdom of Judah. The last two fortified cities were about to fall: Lachish, twenty-three miles from Jerusalem, and Azekah, eighteen miles from Jerusalem (34:7). Not only did Nebuchadnezzar bring his own invincible Babylonian troops, but also he demanded that the vassal countries he’d

Jeremiah had been serving for twenty-three years when he delivered the messages recorded in chapters 25 and 26 (25:3; 26:1). He was called into prophetic service in the year 626 BC (1:2) and continued to minister after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, a period of over forty years. He was now at the

In 588 BC, the invincible Babylonian army was camped around the walls of Jerusalem. Hoping to secure help from Egypt, weak King Zedekiah had rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar by refusing to pay tribute (2 Chron. 36:13; see Ezek. 17:11–18); now Judah was suffering the dreadful consequences of his foolish decision. – Wiersbe Jer 21      Critical Moment 21:1-7        

At the potter’s house, Yahweh (the LORD) powerfully and graphically illustrates and explains His relationship to Judah and all the nations. On the one hand, because He is the potter, He is sovereign and free to do whatever He chooses with the clay. On the other hand, however, the outcome is not predetermined. The clay

These graphic messages came when a great calamity had begun (16:10). This may have been the time when Jehoiakim rebelled against Babylon (602 BC) after first submitting to Nebuchadnezzar for three years. In response to Judah’s rebellion, Babylon sent punishing raids. The armies of Babylonia, Aram, Moab, and Ammon swept across the land (2 Kg