Notes. The Nature of Prophecy Given to Jeremiah no.1 (17 August 2017, 25 Av, 5777)
Prophecy in general is of two kinds:
1. Direct revelation as between God and Moses.
2. Indirect Revelation like as with all the other prophets.
cf.
Numbers 12:
6 He said,
Hear now My words:
If there is a prophet among you,
I, the Lord, shall make Myself known to him in a vision.
I shall speak with him in a dream.
7 Not so, with My servant Moses,
He is faithful in all My household;
8 With him I speak mouth to mouth,
Even openly, and not in dark sayings,
And he beholds the form of the Lord.
Why then were you not afraid
To speak against My servant, against Moses?
Much has been written on these matters. It has become a whole field in its own right.
Jeremiah 1 (NASB):
1 The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin,
 2 to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
3 It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the exile of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
4 Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.
6 Then I said, Alas, LORD God!
Behold, I do not know how to speak,
Because I am a youth.
7 But the LORD said to me,
Do not say, I am a youth,
Because everywhere I send you, you shall go,
And all that I command you, you shall speak.
8 Do not be afraid of them,
For I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.
9 Then the Lord stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me,
Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.
10 See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms,
To pluck up and to break down,
To destroy and to overthrow,
To build and to plant.
11 The word of the LORD came to me saying, 'What do you see, Jeremiah?' And I said, 'I see a rod of an almond tree.'
12 Then the LORD said to me, 'You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to perform it.'
For Commentary and Summaries of Prophecies of Jeremiah see:
http://www.britam.org/JeremiahContents.html
In order to understand a little concerning the Prophecy of Jeremiah we should perhaps know something about him.
The following notes have been adapted from the Commentary of
Rabbi Moshe David Valle (1697-1777, Padua near Venice, Italy):
Jeremiah was chosen to be a Prophet of exhortation and reproof. Jeremiah suffered in his lifetime.
The reasons for this include the following:
(1) Through his father Jeremiah was descended from Eli the Cohen who had been the teacher of Samuel.
Eli had been High Priest who officated at the Sanctuary at Shiloh (1-Samuel 1:3) at ashiloh in the territory of Ephraim.
Abiathar the Priest and a descendant of Eli had been sent by Solomon back to his family home in Anathoth,
"Go to Anathoth to your own field" (1-Kings 2:26).
The forefathers of Jeremiah had been Priests and had transgressed. Jeremiah needed to correct their transgression,
cf.
Lamentations 5:
7 Our fathers sinned, and are no more;
It is we who have borne their iniquities.
(2) Jeremiah through his mother was descended from Rahab the Whore (Joshua 2:1). Rahab in Hebrew is pronounced as "Rahav".
Rahab was a non-Israelite woman of fortune who helped the Israelites conquer the Land of Canaan in the time of Joshua.
It is almost not possible that some remnants of contrariness inherited from Rahab did not attach themselves to Jeremiah and he needed to correct them.
(3) Jeremiah was a Reincarnation of King Solomon.
[What exactly this means we cannot say. We do not have to accept it literally. It implies however that some aspect of the soul of King Solomon became attached to Jeremiah.]
Solomon had sinned by marrying the daughter of Pharaoh (1-Kings 3:1) and other matters. This too fell to the lot of Jeremiah to rectify.
Before Jeremiah was born the seeds of his prophecy were placed within him.
Jeremiah 1:
5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah was made a prophet to non-Israelite ones (as well as Israelite ones) due to the non-Israelite aspects of his genealogy he had inherited from Rahab.
The attributes of stern judgment that Jeremiah had received made it psychologically difficult to speak correctly.
God added to him powers of kindness and mercy to mollify and modify his speech.
Jeremiah 1:
6 Then I said, Alas, LORD God!
Behold, I do not know how to speak,
Because I am a youth.
7 But the LORD said to me,
Do not say, I am a youth,
Because everywhere I send you, you shall go,
And all that I command you, you shall speak.
8 Do not be afraid of them,
For I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.
9 Then the Lord stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me,
Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.
Jeremiah Highlights
Judah and Joseph will Re-unite; the Captive Jews will return; Israelites in the west will worship the Baal; The Lost Israelites will be Christians; they will be in the North Country; on coasts of the earth; Ephraim will be "Isles afar off"; Ephraim will become the Angles; Dolmens show a migratory trail of Israelites; a new covenant will be established; Descendants of King David will rule over Israel; Israelites will be in Scandinavia; Israelites will be opposed by the Edomites of Central Europe; Israel is the Battleaxe of God.Â
See: Jeremiah Summarized