Jeremiah 1:4

The book opens with the prophet’s name, his priestly family and the span of his ministry, from the reign of Josiah through Jehoiakim to Zedekiah (Jeremiah 1:1–3). His call came in the thirteenth year of Josiah (Jeremiah 1:2), around 627/626 BC. Then Jeremiah takes up the story himself: “Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying.” Prophets in Israel used this phrase to introduce what God had told them, and it means that every warning and promise in the book comes from the LORD himself.

The noun for “word” is dâbâr. It means a word or speech, and in a separate sense it can mean a matter or a thing. “The LORD” is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of God, which Strong’s explains as “the self-Existent or Eternal”. This is the God who bound himself to Israel, now speaking personally to one young man. “Saying” is ʼâmar, the ordinary verb for saying something, and here it introduces the words Jeremiah heard, which follow in verse 5.

The initiative was God’s. Jeremiah went looking for neither a message nor a role, and the word came to him. God called Samuel in the same way, by name, in the night (1 Samuel 3:1–10), and he called Isaiah in a vision of his glory (Isaiah 6:1–8). Peter writes that prophecy came as holy men of God spoke, moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:20–21). God’s word is living and powerful (Hebrews 4:12), and it does what he sends it to do (Isaiah 55:11).

Jeremiah was called into one of the darkest periods of Judah’s history. The people had broken their covenant with God through idolatry and oppression, and the brief and partial reforms of King Josiah (2 Kings 22–23) did little to turn the nation. Assyria was in decline, Egypt was pressing, and Babylon was rising. Judah looked to foreign alliances for safety, and false prophets promised peace. Jeremiah’s ministry carried on until Jerusalem fell to Babylon in 586 BC and the people went into exile. He would be arrested and threatened for what he said (Jeremiah 26), and he would also carry some of the brightest promises in the Old Testament, among them the new covenant (Jeremiah 31). He needed to know beyond doubt that his message was God’s, and this verse gives him that.

“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” God’s first words to Jeremiah reach back before his birth, and before his conception. The word for “before”, ṭerem, means “not yet”, and it stands at the head of both halves of the verse: before God formed him, and before he came out of the womb. Everything God did for Jeremiah came first, ahead of anything Jeremiah could do.

“Formed thee in the belly” is Jeremiah’s making in his mother’s womb, and God claims that work as his own, just as David praises God for covering him in his mother’s womb and writing all his days in his book (Psalm 139:13–16). Yet God’s knowledge of Jeremiah came even earlier. The verb yâdaʻ, “knew”, is the common word for knowing, and here it is personal and purposeful. God knew who Jeremiah was to be and chose him for it, and that choice was already made when his life began.

“Sanctified” is qâdash. Strong’s traces it to a root meaning to be clean or to make holy, and it means to set apart, consecrate or dedicate for a sacred purpose. Since this happened before Jeremiah was born, it rested wholly on God’s choice and on nothing Jeremiah had done. Scripture tells of others marked out in the same way. Samson was to be a Nazarite from the womb (Judges 13:5), John the Baptist was “filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15), and the Servant of the LORD says, “The LORD hath called me from the womb” (Isaiah 49:1). Paul speaks of God, “who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace” (Galatians 1:15).

“Ordained” is nâthan, the everyday verb for giving, used with great latitude for putting, setting and making. God set Jeremiah in his office, and the role was God’s gift and charge, given by his authority. The same verb returns in verse 9, where God has “put” his words in Jeremiah’s mouth.

Jeremiah’s first recorded words in the book are a protest. “Ah” is ʼăhâhh, an exclamation of pain, something like “alas”, and it carries dismay and pleading. Yet he still addresses God reverently as “Lord GOD”, ʼĂdônây Yᵉhôvih, joining the title Lord to God’s covenant name.

“I cannot speak” in Hebrew is literally “I do not know how to speak”. The verb is dâbar, to speak, mention or tell (Strong’s suggests it may first have meant to arrange). Jeremiah is speaking of skill and standing. He feels he lacks the eloquence, confidence and authority to speak in public, above all to the powerful people he will have to face. He could talk well enough, and his words are an honest overstatement of how unready he felt.

His reason is “for I am a child”. The word naʻar means a boy or young man, anywhere from infancy to adolescence, and by implication a servant. Jeremiah was young, and he uses the word to say that he lacks the maturity and experience people expected in anyone who spoke for God before kings, priests and a rebellious nation. His fear was realistic, as his later complaints under persecution show (Jeremiah 20), and it was for that hard road that God promised to make him “a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land” (Jeremiah 1:18–19).

Jeremiah stands in good company. Moses protested that he was slow of speech, and God answered with a promise (Exodus 4:10–12). Isaiah cried out that he was a man of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5). God has chosen “the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27–29), and he told Paul, “my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God’s choice of Jeremiah rested on his own will and purpose, and Jeremiah’s weakness became the place where God’s help would show.

“But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child.” The LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, answers at once and forbids the excuse. God weighs Jeremiah by his own purpose for him, so Jeremiah’s youth and inexperience are set aside, and the word naʻar that Jeremiah used of himself is the very word God tells him to stop using.

God gives his reason in two parts. First, “thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee.” The verb shâlach means to send, and also to stretch out, especially the hand. God will direct where Jeremiah goes and to whom, and the one who sends him takes responsibility for the mission. Second, “whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.” The verb is dâbar again, the speaking Jeremiah said he could not do. The content of his message will come wholly from God, and his task is to deliver it faithfully, whatever it costs and however it is received. The law held a prophet to exactly this standard of speaking what God commanded (Deuteronomy 18:18–20). Isaiah, once cleansed, answered God’s call by offering to go and was sent (Isaiah 6:8–9).

The calling comes with God’s enabling. Paul could say, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13), and the God who sends Jeremiah goes on in the next two verses to promise his presence and give him his words.

God knew what Jeremiah would face, and he speaks to his fear directly. “Afraid” is yârêʼ, to fear, which can also mean to revere and, in a causative form, to frighten. Reverent fear of God is good and right, and the fear in this verse is dread of people, the kind that could stop a prophet from doing his work.

“Their faces” is pânîym, a word plural in form and always used as a singular, meaning the face and, by extension, the presence. The faces stand for the people themselves in all their power to intimidate. Later in the chapter God names them as the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests and the people of the land (Jeremiah 1:18).

“For I am with thee to deliver thee” is the ground of courage. God promised his presence in the same words to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:12), and to Joshua before he led Israel into the land (Joshua 1:9, Deuteronomy 31:6). Isaiah gives the same promise to all God’s people: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee” (Isaiah 41:10). “Deliver” is nâtsal, which Strong’s gives as to snatch away, rescue or save. Jeremiah is the one God will rescue, and the danger is the hand of those who oppose him.

“Saith the LORD” closes the promise. The word nᵉʼum means an utterance or declaration, and here it marks the promise as the LORD’s own declaration, which makes it as sure as God himself.

“Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth.” In Scripture the hand of the LORD often stands for his power and his action, and here God reaches out to the very part of Jeremiah he had said was unable. The verb nâgaʻ means to touch or lay the hand upon, and by implication to reach. God himself explains what the touch means: “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.” “Behold” calls attention to it, “put” is nâthan, the same verb as “ordained” in verse 5, and “words” is dâbâr, the whole message God will give him.

So Jeremiah’s protest that he could not speak is answered. He will speak God’s words, and their truth and authority will come from God, whatever Jeremiah’s age or skill. The calls of other prophets have similar moments. A seraph touched Isaiah’s lips with a live coal from the altar, taking away his iniquity (Isaiah 6:6–7), and Ezekiel was given a scroll to eat before he was sent to Israel (Ezekiel 3:1–3). God had promised Moses a prophet in whose mouth he would put his words (Deuteronomy 18:18), and he says the same of his servant in Isaiah: “I have put my words in thy mouth” (Isaiah 51:16).

“See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms.” “See” is râʼâh, the ordinary verb for seeing, here a call to look and take notice. “This day” is yôwm, day, and the commission takes effect now. “Set thee over” is pâqad, which means to attend to, visit, inspect, muster, appoint or punish, and here it means to appoint. “Nations” is gôwy, a word for a nation, often a foreign or Gentile people, and with “kingdoms” it shows how far Jeremiah’s word would reach. God rules over all of them, for “he removeth kings, and setteth up kings” (Daniel 2:21).

Six verbs then give Jeremiah’s task, four to tear down and two to raise up.

• “To root out” is nâthash, to tear away or pluck up, used of plants and of people taken from their land.
• “To pull down” is nâthats, to tear down or break down, as with a building.
• “To destroy” is ʼâbad, which properly means to wander away or be lost and so to perish, and in its causative sense to destroy.
• “To throw down” is hâraç, to tear down, throw down, overthrow or break through.
• “To build” is bânâh, to build, establish or repair (Strong’s adds the sense of obtaining children).
• “To plant” is nâṭaʻ, to plant.

The pictures come from the field and from building. A farmer pulls up and plants, and a builder pulls down and builds. Judgment comes first in Jeremiah’s message, because Judah’s sin and idolatry had to be dealt with, and most of the book warns of it. Yet the commission ends with building and planting, and God returns to these very words in his promise of restoration: “so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 31:28). The new covenant follows a few verses later (Jeremiah 31:31–34). Other prophets speak of the same rebuilding of ruins (Isaiah 58:12, Ezekiel 36:33–36). Right after this commission God gives Jeremiah the visions of the almond rod and the seething pot, which confirm that the judgment will surely come (Jeremiah 1:11–16).

Jeremiah received God’s words, and Jesus Christ is himself the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), and that Word became flesh (John 1:14). God, who spoke through the prophets, “hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2). Jesus is the prophet promised in Deuteronomy 18:18. He spoke what the Father commanded him (John 12:49–50) and said, “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:30). People were astonished that he taught as one having authority (Matthew 7:29).

Long before any prophet was formed in the womb, the Son was with the Father. All things were created by him (Colossians 1:16), and he is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3). He is the one “whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world” (John 10:36), the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and the light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:6), who came to preach good news to the poor and deliverance to the captives (Luke 4:18–19). He preached the kingdom of God faithfully (Luke 4:43) all the way to rejection and the cross. In that hour he said, “I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (John 16:32), and God delivered him through death by raising him again (Romans 4:25).

The tearing down and building of verse 10 find their fullest work in him. He holds authority over all creation (Colossians 1:16–17). At the cross he triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15), and there our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed (Romans 6:6). He builds his people as lively stones into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5), a holy temple built on the apostles and prophets with himself as the chief corner stone (Ephesians 2:20–22), and he gives new birth by the Spirit (John 3:5–8). Then he sends his disciples to all nations with the promise God gave Jeremiah: “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:19, Matthew 28:20).

The God who knew Jeremiah before he was formed knew you too, and your life has its place in his purposes. When he gives you something to do for him, whether in public or in a quiet corner, your youth, age or lack of skill is what he answers with his own strength, as he answered Jeremiah’s. He gives what he asks for. For Jeremiah that was his presence and his words, and for us it is the same Lord with us by his Spirit and his words in Scripture.

When the faces in front of you are hard to meet, remember whose promise this is. God told Jeremiah that he was with him to deliver him, and Jeremiah found that deliverance through stocks and prison and scorn, to the end of his work. Jesus has made the same promise to all who go in his name, and he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion (Philippians 1:6). The God who uproots also plants. His judgments clear the ground, and his last word in this passage is to build and to plant, as it is through all of Jeremiah 1 and the book that follows.