Jeremi′ah the prophet, son of Hilkiah the priest, was a native of Anathoth, in the territory of Benjamin. While still young he received a call to be a prophet (B. C. 627–6), and lived as a prophet, mainly in Jerusalem, for at least 40 years. Jeremiah had been a prophet five years when the lost book of the law was found and an important reformation began under Josiah. The prophet was in sympathy with this reformation, and most of his prophetic teaching had reference to it. Jehoiakim had not been long on the throne before Jeremiah began to foretell the doom of Judah. He was the first of the writing prophets and the first to declare that religion is an individual and personal relation between the soul and God. Jeremiah is believed to have met a martyr’s death about B. C. 585 at Tahpanes, the border-city of Egypt, but rabbinical tradition says that he escaped when Nebuchadrezzar conquered Egypt. See Cheyne’s Jeremiah and the Bible-book of the same name.
