History of the Jews

by Paul Johnson

That the message of Isaiah penetrated into the people’s consciousness before the fall of Jerusalem we cannot doubt. But in the last decades before the catastrophe, his powerful voice was joined by another living one, less poetic but equally penetrating. We know more about Jeremiah than any other of the pre-Exilic writers because he dictated his sermons and autobiography to his scribal pupil, Baruch.224 His life was closely interwoven with the tragic history of his country. He was a Benjaminite, of a priestly family, from a village just north-east of Jerusalem. He began preaching in 627, in the tradition of Hosea and to some extent of Isaiah. He saw the nation as woefully sinful, hastening to its doom: ‘This people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart.’ He had no time, like Hosea, for the religious establishment, whether priests, scribes, ‘wise men’ or temple prophets: ‘The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?’225 He saw the great pro-Temple religious reform, under Josiah, as a total failure, and soon after the death of the king, in 609 BC, he went to the Temple and preached a furious sermon, saying so. As a result he was very nearly killed and forbidden to go near the Temple quarter. His own village, even his family, turned against him.