The PROPHET JEREMIAH..  What a guy!  He LOVED the LORD, and the LORD's people, Israel.. Of whom were his brethren!   Considered the 2nd of the MAJOR prophets, in Judaism! News to me, & NO DOUBT, to the LORD - considering how he was treated!!  Of course, sadly, ALL the prophets of God were mistreated during their lives; then, honored AFTER death by Israel!  Jesus, Himself, expounded on this fact when He said, "Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchers of the prophets, and your fathers killed them!!" ~ (Luke 11:47)

 Among my favorites of the prophets, however!  He learned to say whatever the LORD said to say, without reserve nor regard as to what his brethren would say, think, or do to him!  FEARLESS to them..  And his ministry was a TOUGH one to say the least!  For it was a period of time in history where God was FED UP  with the whoring of an unrepentant  Israel.. And utter destruction - was immanent!!  ON MANY occasions, they would beat him, spit on him, or try insulting him.. But with Jeremiah ~ what the LORD said.. Trumped ANYTHING they could do to him!  Obviously he was worried about the coming destruction to his land & people, & it baffled him as to why Israel didn't care!

Jeremiah was MOST DEFINITELY a prophet to be ADMIRED for the example he set in the life he lived!  And with that said.. 

..JEREMIAH's ADMIRABLE STORY...

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THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, was born in c. 650 BC, in Anathoth, Israel.  The prophetess Huldah was a close relative, and contemporary of Jeremiah!  While the prophet Zephaniah was his mentor! COOL STUFF!..

 

Initially when God called Jeremiah to be a prophet in about 626 BC.. Jeremiah was reluctant, saying that he was, "only a child and did not know how to speak," but the Lord placed the word in Jeremiah's mouth, commanding "Get yourself ready!"  (Jer. 1:17)

The qualities of a prophet listed in Jeremiah include; not being afraid, standing up to speak, speaking as told, and going where sent.  

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Jeremiah was guided by God to proclaim that the nation of Judah would suffer famine, foreign conquest, plunder, and captivity in a land of strangers.. but was, for the most part, rejected amongst his fellow people Israel.  Through Jeremiah, God guided his pen in writing two Books of the Bible... (the one bearing his name, Jeremiah, and Lamentations.)

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Jeremiah LOVED Israel and his Jewish people VERY MUCH!!  It HAD TO  be hard on him that his people rejected him and the Words God gave to him, (EVEN THOUGH the Words God gave him that he spoke, came to truth TIME AND TIME AGAIN!)  Israel had deviated so far from God's laws, that they had not just broken His covenant, they were doing so in BLATANT disobedience, causing God to withdraw His blessings.  During the reign of King Zedekiah, the Lord instructed Jeremiah to make a yoke with the message that the nation would be subject to the king of Babylon. The false prophet Hananiah took the yoke off Jeremiah's neck and broke it, prophesying that within two years the Lord would break the yoke of the king of Babylon, but Jeremiah prophesied in return: "You have broken the yoke of wood, but you have made instead a yoke of iron," and INDEED, it was to be Babylon that came in and conquered Israel.  Through all of his warnings to Israel, all Jeremiah could do was watch as they plundered it, took the priceless items of gold from the Lord's house, and took Israel into captivity, back to Babylon... though he, himself, remained in Jerusalem. 

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Over the time of his ministry, Jeremiah was persecuted regularly over speaking what God told him.   After Jeremiah prophesied that Jerusalem would be handed over to the Babylonian army, the king's officials, including Pashur the priest, tried to convince King Zedekiah that Jeremiah should be put to death for disheartening the soldiers and the people. Zedekiah allowed them, and they cast Jeremiah into a cistern, where he sank down into the mud. The intent seemed to be to kill Jeremiah by starvation, while allowing the officials to claim to be innocent of his blood.  Ebed-Melech, an Ethiopian, rescued Jeremiah by pulling him out of the cistern, but Jeremiah remained imprisoned until Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian army in 587 BC.

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Babylon, upon seizing Israel, showed Jeremiah great kindness, allowing him to choose the place of his residence, according to a Babylonian edict. Jeremiah accordingly went to Mizpah in Benjamin with Gedaliah, who had been made governor of Judea.

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Much is speculated about his death.  While there is evidence to the fact that he went to Egypt after the fall of Israel, and died there.. the HOW  he died there is all speculation.  While the Bible doesn't detail his death, later Jewish tradition suggests he was stoned to death in Egypt in martyrdom, fulfilling his warnings of judgment.  That is tradition though.  

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His tomb is here, in Ireland.  RIP Jeremiah.  Your love for your people, Israel, and most importantly, for Christ, is one we could 

ALL learn from.

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TRIVIA

Express.co.uk gives us this

In 1982, Israeli archaeologists were excavating the layer of ruins from the time of Jerusalem’s destruction by Babylon in 586 BC.  In a place that has now been labelled 'The Bullae House', (shot of the sign here), archaeologists discovered over 50 bullae or seals dating to the time of the famous Jeremiah the prophet."

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A room there is believed to have stored in the past a number of papyrus documents.  The documents themselves, unfortunately, did not survive the fire from the Babylonian invasion, but their 'bulla' clay seals did.  A bulla was a seal fashioned from a lump of clay that bore the impression of its owner.

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In this particular case, Professor Meyer said one of the discovered seals, pictured below, was stamped with the name of 'Gemariah the son of Shaphan'. Gemariah is mentioned in passing in Jeremiah 36, as an official scribe under King Jehoiakim.

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The Bible expert added: "He is probably most famous for pleading with that wicked king not to burn the scroll of Jeremiah which contained prophecies concerning the disasters YHWH was about to inflict upon the kingdom of Judah."  Thanks to Express.co.uk; FULL STORY is here.​​