JEREMIAH'S prophecies began in the thirteenth year of Josiah, king of Judah, and continued after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar some forty years later. His testimony was therefore rendered at the time when the kingdom of David was about to be abolished as a national witness for Jehovah in the earth.
There is some analogy in moral character between the last days of Judah and the last days of the church, and as the various truths delivered by Jeremiah were chosen by the Spirit to suit the condition of the Jewish people, this Book has great practical value in the present times. Many salutary lessons of faithfulness and obedience amid prevailing weakness and confusion may be gathered from the prophet's own experiences and from the messages he received from the Lord. These are as needful to-day as then.
To his office as a spokesman for Jehovah, Jeremiah was sanctified from birth, and he is distinguished among his fellow-prophets of the Old Testament as a prophet to the nations. Jerusalem was set in the midst of the Gentiles as the center of divine government in the earth. Before the city of Zion was destroyed by the Gentiles, Jeremiah's is the last voice to utter from that center the word of Jehovah to Judah and Israel and to the surrounding nations.
The prophet himself was a man of keen sensibilities and tender feeling, much hated and despised by his fellow-countrymen for the fidelity of his prophetical service to them. His personal sorrow and actual suffering arose both from his fervent zeal for the glory of Jehovah and from his intense affection for his fellow-Jews. Throughout the Book, the pious exercises of Jeremiah's heart are displayed upon the dark background of the inveterate evil in the hearts of the men of Judah and Jerusalem.
Some of Jeremiah's prophecies have been fulfilled, while others still await fulfillment. In the former class are included the return of Jewish captives from Babylon after an exact period of seventy years, and also the destruction of the empire of Babylon itself, the first great Gentile power to which world-dominion was entrusted by God at the displacement of Israel.
Among those of his prophecies as yet unfulfilled is that relating to the restoration of both Israel and Judah to be Jehovah's peculiar people in the earth, when all the families of Israel will return in prosperity under the direct rule of the long-promised Son of David, Jehovah's righteous Branch and Israel's King. But this introduction of the new and everlasting covenant, which the prophet foretold, will not take place until they have passed through the unprecedented period of Jacob's trouble, the great tribulation out of which the remnant will be saved.
In the comparatively brief outline by the late William Kelly, these and other topics in the Book are indicated as and where they occur. This outline has been prepared from records of his oral ministry. Without being an exposition of Jeremiah's prophecies in their entire range, the outline forms a valuable introduction to their study, a study which cannot be neglected without spiritual loss in this day of appalling declension in the Christian profession and of growing antagonism in the political world.
W. J. HOCKING 31St October, 1937