157
See also: Moses and the Burning Bush 66–69 ■ The Golden Calf 84–85 ■ Elijah and the Prophets of Baal 125 ■
The Fall of Jerusalem 128–31 ■ Rebuilding Jerusalem 133God selected Jeremiah before
he was even born to exhort the
people of Judah to mend their
idolatrous and disrespectful ways.
He later tells Jeremiah He made
him a prophet “in the womb”
(Jeremiah 1:5). Despite an initial
reluctance to accept his role,
Jeremiah ultimately accepts that
his life’s work is predestined, and
faithfully follows God’s carefully
mapped plan throughout his life.Called to God’s work
Jeremiah was born in Anathoth,
a small village 4 miles (6km) north
of Jerusalem, the son of Hilkiah, a
priest. His lineage can be traced
back to Moses, and there are
several parallels in the two men’s
lives. Just as Moses demurs when
God instructs him to lead theIsraelites out of Egypt, the young
Jeremiah makes excuses as to why
he is not fit to extract the repentance
of the people of Judah and fulfill the
mission that God has assigned to
him. He protests to God that he is
too young to take on such a role
and, like Moses, is not a sufficiently
good speaker to cope with such a
weighty task. In response, God
reassures Jeremiah, as He did
Moses, telling the prophet not to
fear, as He will support and rescue
him. The Lord then touches
Jeremiah’s mouth and says
to him, “I have put my words in
your mouth. See, today I appoint
you over nations and kingdoms to
uproot and tear down, to destroy
and overthrow, to build and to
plant” (1:9 –10).A dangerous mission
Won over by God’s words, Jeremiah
prepares to try and reconvert the
errant sons and daughters of Judah.
He begins his ministry around
626 bce, in what was a tumultuous
period for the people of Israel.
The message was dire. God wasWISDOM AND PROPHETS
The desolation of Jeremiah is
captured with dramatic intensity in
Cry of prophet Jeremiah on the Ruins
of Jerusalem, painted in 1870 by the
Russian artist Ilya Yefimovich Repin.Predestination
The theological concept of
"predestination" holds that
all events are willed and
predetermined by God. The
theory is aired in the Bible in
Jeremiah 1:5, Romans 8:29,
and Ephesians 1:5–14. The
“paradox of free will,” long a
subject of theological debate,
is the apparent incompatibility
between God’s omniscience
and the free will of a human
being. In the ways shown in the
Bible, predestination usually
amounts to a form of religiouscalling on him to prophesy a
severe, cataclysmic event to
the people—the destruction of
their holy city Jerusalem by the
Babylonians. Jeremiah’s task was
to remind the people of their
covenant with God and to dissuade
them from breaking the laws
associated with it, despite any
opposition he faced. Of their many
crimes, the idolatrous worship of
the false god Baal represented a
particularly disturbing offense. ❯❯determinism or predeterminism.
The dilemma that Christians
face is whether they are able to
freely make choices of their own
volition, as opposed to choices
that are predetermined by God.
Scholars have labored over the
question for centuries. The
general consensus is that not
all people live predestined lives
and therefore enjoy free will.
However, in Jeremiah’s case, he
had little choice in the path that
his life would take; the events
shaping his existence were
preordained by God when he
was in his mother’s womb.Call to Me and
I will answer you
and tell you great and
unsearchable things
you do not know.
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