You are here:

Jeremiah 26 is a prophecy given “in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim.”

The “Doomsday Clock” has about 22 years left until the last king is removed and Judah is reduced to a district governed by the Babylonians. But keep in mind that, politically, things are already rather unsteady. Jehoahaz was made king when Josiah was killed in Battle with Pharaoh Necho. After Necho returns from losing the battle of Carchemish, he deposes Jehoahaz and puts his brother Eliakim in charge, (who he renames Jehoiakim). And Judah has to pay tribute to Egypt.

At this point, Yahweh is STILL offering the people a chance to repent.

The scene here in chapter 26 is very similar to Peter and John being arrested in Acts 5. In both accounts you have the chief priests wanting to silence God’s chosen speakers. In both cases, the men of God are speaking in the temple when they are arrested. In each case, the men have been previously arrested and still refuse to disobey God’s command to them to speak. And in both stories you have a wise man who stands up and diverts the council from killing the men of God.

In Jeremiah’s case he was announcing judgment. The temple would become like Shiloh – abandoned by God.

In the case of Peter and John, they are teaching the Good News of Jesus. And, the Gospel teaches that the Most High no longer dwells in temples made by human hands. The believers are the temples. This message, (which eliminated their position as the gatekeepers to Yahweh’s presence), was just as threatening to the chief priests in the Apostle’s time as it was in Jeremiah’s.

Peter and John had the Rabbi Gamaliel stand up and remind the council that they were not the first to proclaim a Messiah. Others had come before. If this new movement was not of God, it would fall apart soon enough. This wisdom restrained the council from executing the Apostles,

For Jeremiah, there was Ahikam son of Shaphan who stood up and reminded the assembly that Jeremiah was not the first to prophecy the destruction of Jerusalem. He had been reading the prophecy of Micah! And he quoted Micah 3:12 about Zion becoming a plowed field. Then he asked the council,

“But did King Hezekiah and the people kill him for saying this? No, they turned from their sins and worshiped the Lord. They begged him for mercy. Then the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had pronounced against them. So we are about to do ourselves great harm.”
‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭26‬:‭19‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Gamaliel and Ahikam understood enough to know that if the message was not from God, it would become apparent in time. BUT, if Yahweh was truly inspiring these men, it would be foolish to choose a position in opposition to God.

Then there’s the prophet whose book we do not have in our Bibles: Uriah.

He was a contemporary of Jeremiah and was giving the same kinds of prophecies about the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem. When he learned the king had sent a hit man to kill him, Uriah fled to Egypt. But they went after him and caught him and brought him back where he was executed in Jerusalem and his body thrown in an unmarked grave.

How many other unnamed or unknown prophets were there? The LORD knows.

When Jesus was in Jerusalem after the Triumphal Entry” on what we call “Palm Sunday” he had a lot to say to the scribes and Pharisees. Matthew chapter 23 sounds like something Jeremiah could’ve said to the leadership in his day. It’s a series of woes and judgments of doom pronounced upon them. And at the end, Jesus references all of the righteous servants – both past and future – who have obediently spoken what the LORD gave them to say…

“Therefore, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers of religious law. But you will kill some by crucifixion, and you will flog others with whips in your synagogues, chasing them from city to city. As a result, you will be held responsible for the murder of all godly people of all time—from the murder of righteous Abel to the murder of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you killed in the Temple between the sanctuary and the altar. I tell you the truth, this judgment will fall on this very generation. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. And now, look, your house is abandoned and desolate.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭23‬:‭34‬-‭38‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Jesus is preaching the same message as Micah, and Uriah, and Jeremiah: this temple is going to be abandoned.