The Seven Feasts of Israel

1. PASSOVER

5 On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord's Passover. 

2. THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; seven days you must eat unleavened bread.
7. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. 

8 But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.' " 

9. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

3. THE FEAST OF FIRSTFRUITS

10. "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.

Continue Reading »

Jeremiah Meetings with Mother Zion

One day Jeremiah the prophet was walking up the hills towards Jerusalem, which was desolate and in ruins. He lifted up his eyes and he saw a woman sitting on the top of the mountain, where the Beth Hamikdosh stood only a short time ago in all its glory. The woman was dressed in black and her hair was disheveled, like that of a woman in mourning. She was weeping and lamenting; who could comfort her? Jeremiah himself was weeping sorrowfully over the destruction of the Beth Hamikdosh, yet he approached the woman and said to her: "If you are human, speak to me; if you are a ghost, away with thee."

The woman raised her tearful eyes, and replied, "Don't you recognize me? I was a happy wife, and the mother of seven children. The father of my children has left me and gone overseas. Then came a messenger with evil tidings: 'Your house has collapsed and buried your children in the ruins.' For whom shall I mourn first, for my children or for my husband?"

In the midst of his own grief, Jeremiah's heart was filled with compassion for

Continue Reading »

Jeremiah and the Gibeonite

The dark days of the siege of the Holy City had begun. The vast army of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon surrounded all the walls of Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar himself remained in Rivlah, a safe distance from Jerusalem. He sent his chief general Nebuzaradan to raze the city.

There was famine and distress inside the city. The Jews began to see that Jeremiah, their faithful prophet, was right. He had warned them of this trouble, and of many more to come. Would the other prophecies also come true?

There were other prophets who claimed to speak in the name of G-d. They told the people there was nothing to fear, for the walls of Jerusalem were too strong for any army.

One of these false prophets was a man called Hanamah. He was a descendant of the Gibeonites, a tribe that tricked Joshua into giving them everlasting protection. Joshua kept his oath, and the Gibeonites became the servants of the people, serving as water carriers and wood hewers.

Now this Hananiah the Gibeonite appeared in the Temple court and said that he had a message from G-d. "Fear not," were his words, "for thus said G-d the Lord of Hosts,

Continue Reading »

More on Jeremiah message to Exiles

Jeremiah pleaded with King Zedekiah and the people not to be misled by the false prophets. He appeared everywhere with his yoke on his neck, tirelessly repeating G-d's message that their only salvation lay in obedience to G-d's Will. It was G-d's Will that they patiently bear the yoke of Babylonian rule which, however humiliating, left them free to serve G-d. Indeed, the sooner they returned to G-d and took upon themselves the "yoke" of His Torah and Mitzvos, the sooner they would free themselves from the Babylonian yoke.

Jeremiah and the False Prophet Hananiah

It was the same year, in the fifth month (Av) that Jeremiah appeared in the Beis Hamikdosh. He was met by Hananiah the son of Azzur, a self styled prophet from Gibeon, who declared in the presence of Jeremiah and all the Kohanim and the people:

"Thus said the L-rd of Hosts, the G-d of Israel: 'I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years I will bring back into this place all the vessels of G-d's house that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon. And I will bring back to this place Jechoniah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah...' "

Jeremiah promptly replied, "Amen! May the L-rd do so... but only that prophet whose word comes true shall be known that G-d has truly sent him."

Continue Reading »

Jeremiah's Message to the Exiles

In the year 3327 - eleven years before the Destruction of the (first) Beis Hamikdosh - Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty King of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem with a huge army. King Jehoiachin, who had ascended the throne of Judea only 100 days earlier, now surrendered, in order to avoid the destruction of the Holy City.

Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive, together with his mother and other members of the royal family. He also rounded up leading figures in the land of Judea, including many scholars and elders, and led them all to Babylon. Altogether some 10,000 captives were taken in this First Exile to Babylon. In addition, the Babylonian king ransacked the royal treasury as well as that of the Beis Hamikdosh and took the spoils with him.

Before returning to his country, Nebuchadnezzar placed Zedekiah, the uncle of the deposed king and youngest son of the late King Josiah, on the throne of Judea, after taking an oath of loyalty to his Babylonian overlord.

The new king, however, had no intention of remaining the obedient servant of his Babylonian master, and secretly looked for a way of throwing off the Babylonian yoke. With his chief officers and leaders of his army gone, and the country greatly impoverished, Zedekiah knew that he could not achieve independence without outside help. He turned to Egypt for help, since the ever growing power of Babylon was a threat to Egypt too. And he looked around for help also from neighboring kingdoms. The only real and sure help that was his for the asking - the help of G-d, the king recklessly ignored.

In those critical times, as for many years earlier, the great prophet Jeremiah of Anathoth, the Town of Kohanim, was the G-d-sent messenger to warn the people of the mortal danger hanging over their heads. He did not cease calling on the king and the people to mend their ways and return to G-d. Only wholehearted repentance and a complete break with the way of idolatry, injustice and immorality, could save the people from doom, he preached. Jeremiah tried to convince the king that it was useless to depend on false hopes of freeing himself from the Babylonian yoke with the help of Egypt. The prophet sternly warned him, in G-d's Name, to follow a peaceful path with the mighty Babylonian, who was G-d's rod to punish the Jewish people if they persisted in their faithlessness.

Continue Reading »

God message to Jeremiah

The linen belt

In this parable, the Lord asked Jeremiah to buy a belt and wear it around his waist for a time ensuring that it did not come in contact with water. Later, the Lord came to Jeremiah again and then asked him to take the belt to Perath and to hide it in a rock crevice. Several days later he was asked to return to where he hid the belt and retrieve it. When Jeremiah did so, the belt was completely ruined and useless. Just as a belt is bound around the waist, God had bound the people of Israel to his covenant. The ruining of the belt was to be like the ruining of Judah and Jerusalem’s pride. Its uselessness is as useless as the gods they served and worshiped.^[69]

Wineskins

In Jeremiah's ministry, he declared that God had likened the filling of wineskins to filling with drunkenness all who lived in the land of Israel, including the kings who sat on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets and all those in Jerusalem. Then it was proclaimed that God would smash them one against the other, both parents and children, and they were not to be interceded for with pity, mercy nor compassion.^[70] God was so angry over their sins, that he says that even if Moses and Samuel were to intercede for the people, he would not relent.^[71]

The potter

While at the potter's house, Jeremiah watched a craftsman shaping a

Continue Reading »

Prophet Jeremiah Prophesied

Babylon

The Biblical narrative portrays Jeremiah as being subject to additional persecutions. 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 because he was discouraging the soldiers as well as the people. Zedekiah answered that he would not oppose them. Consequently, the king’s officials took Jeremiah and put him down into a cistern, where he sank down into the mud. The intent seemed to be to kill Jeremiah by allowing him to starve to death in a manner designed to allow the officials to claim to be innocent of his blood.^[59] A Cushite rescued Jeremiah by pulling him out of the cistern, but Jeremiah remained imprisoned until Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian army in 587 BC.^[60]

The Babylonians released Jeremiah, and showed him great kindness, allowing Jeremiah 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.^[61]

Egypt

Johanan succeeded Gedaliah, who had been assassinated by an Israelite prince in the pay of Ammon "for working with the Babylonians." Refusing to listen to Jeremiah's counsel, Johanan fled to Egypt, taking with him Jeremiah and Baruch, Jeremiah's faithful scribe and servant, and the king's daughters.^[62] There, the prophet probably

Continue Reading »

Prophet Jeremiah Conflicts with false prophets

At the same time while Jeremiah was prophesying coming destruction because of the sins of the nation, a number of other prophets were prophesying peace.^[58] The Lord had Jeremiah speak against these false prophets.

For example, during the reign of King Zedekiah, The Lord instructed Jeremiah to make a yoke of the message that the nation would be subject to the king of Babylon and that listening to the false prophets would bring a much worse disaster. The prophet Hananiah opposed Jeremiah’s message. He took the yoke off of Jeremiah’s neck, broke it, and prophesied to the priests and all the people that within two years the Lord would break the yoke of the king of Babylon, but the lord spoke to Jeremiah saying "Go and speak to Hananiah saying, you have broken the yoke of wood, but you have made instead a yoke of iron." (see: Jeremiah 28:13).

Jeremiah was still a young man when the spirit of prophecy came upon him. He was fearful to accept such a responsibility, declaring, "I am still a boy!" But G-d said to him, "Say not, 'I am a boy,' for you shall go to all that I shall send you, and whatever I command you shall speak. Be not afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you" (Jeremiah

Continue Reading »

Prophet Jeremiah Calling

The Lord called Jeremiah to prophetic ministry in about 626 BC,^[22] about one year after Josiah king of Judah had turned the nation toward repentance from the widespread idolatrous practices of his father and grandfather. Ultimately, Josiah’s reforms would not be enough to preserve Judah and Jerusalem from destruction, both because the sins of Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather, had gone too far ^[36] and as a result of Judah's return to Idolatry (Jer 11.10ff.). Such was the lust of the nation for false gods that after Josiah’s death, the nation would quickly return to the gods of the surrounding nations.^[37] Jeremiah was appointed to reveal the sins of the people and the coming consequences.^[6][7]

In contrast to Isaiah, who eagerly accepted his prophetic call,^[38] and similar to Moses who was less than eager,^[39] Jeremiah resisted the call by complaining that he was only a child and did not know how to speak.^[24] However, the Lord insisted that Jeremiah go and speak as commanded, and he touched Jeremiah’s mouth and put the word of the Lord into Jeremiah’s mouth.^[40] God told Jeremiah to “Get yourself ready!”^[41] The character traits and practices Jeremiah was to acquire in order to be ready are specified in Jeremiah

Continue Reading »

The Prophet Jeremiah

The great prophet Jeremiah lived during one of the most critical periods in Jewish history. He saw the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Beth Hamikdosh, after his warnings and prophecies fell on deaf ears. When the catastrophe came, he lamented the terrible fate of his people in the Book of Eichah (Lamentations) which we read on Tisha B'Av. At the same time he was a source of courage to his people by pointing out to them the path that would lead to their redemption. His prophecies are recorded in the Book of Jeremiah, which also contains the important events of his life.

Jeremiah was born in a priestly family, in the town of Anatoth belonging to the Tribe of Benjamin. His father was the prophet and Kohen-Gadol (High Priest) Hilkiah. Jeremiah began his prophecies in the thirteenth year of King Josiah's reign (in the year 3298). The prophet Zephania and the prophetess Hulda also lived at that time.

Lineage and early life

According to the Book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah was a kohen (Jewish priest), from a landowning family. It is mentioned that he had a joyful early life; however, the difficulties in Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations have prompted scholars to refer to him as "the weeping prophet”. Jeremiah was called to prophetic ministry in c. 626 BC, He was the son of Hilkiah from the village of Anathoth  The Book of Jeremiah says that Jeremiah was called by Yahweh to prophesy Jerusalem’s destruction that would occur by invaders from the North. This was because Israel had been unfaithful to the laws of the covenant and had forsaken God by worshiping the Baals. The people of Israel had even gone as far as building high altars to Baal in order to burn their children in fire as offerings to Baal.

Continue Reading »