1 To understand the prophet Jeremiah, it must not take much gloss, if one only looks at the stories that happened among the kings, at which time he preached. For the way things were in the land at that time is also the way his sermons go.
First, the land was full of vice and idolatry, strangled the prophets, and wanted their vice and idolatry unpunished. Therefore, the first part is almost a vain punishment.
and lamentation over the wickedness of the Jews, up to the twentieth chapter.
3) On the other hand, he also prophesies the punishment that existed, namely the destruction of Jerusalem and the whole country, and the Babylonian prison, even the punishment of all the Gentiles. And yet, in addition, he comforts and promises a certain, definite time, after such punishment, redemption and return to the land and to Jerusalem etc.
*) This preface is found in the collections, apart from Walch, only in the Leipzig edition, vol. XII, p. 17 and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 63, p. 59.
(4) And this piece is the most distinguished in Jeremiah. For it is for this that Jeremiah is awakened, as the vision of the valiant rod and boiling pots coming from midnight in the first chapter indicates.
(5) And this was very necessary. Because such a terrible plague was to come upon the people, so that they would be torn apart and led away from their land, the pious hearts, as Daniel and many others, would have had to despair of God and all His promises, as they could not have thought otherwise than that it was all over with them, and that they would be utterly rejected by God, that no Christ would ever come, but God would have withdrawn His promise in great wrath because of the sin of the people. Therefore Jeremiah had to be there and proclaim the punishment and the wrath so that they would not last forever, but for a certain time, as seventy years, and after that they would come again to grace.
(6) Whatever promise he had to comfort himself with and maintain himself with, he otherwise did not have much comfort nor good days. For he was a miserable, afflicted prophet, who lived in miserable, evil times, and also led an excellently difficult preaching ministry, when he had to scold evil, stiff-necked people for over forty years, until he was imprisoned, and yet was able to create little benefit, but saw that the longer they got the angrier, and always wanted to kill him, and caused him much trouble.
(7) Moreover, he had to experience and see with his eyes the destruction of the land and the imprisonment of the people, and much great sorrow and bloodshed. Without what he then had to preach and suffer in Egypt. For it is believed that he was stoned by the Jews in Egypt.
8) Third, like other prophets, he prophesies about Christ and his kingdom, especially in the 23rd and 31st chapters, where he prophesies very clearly about the person of Christ, about his kingdom, about the New Testament, and about the end of the Old Testament. But these three pieces do not follow one another in order, and are not separated from one another in the
1) "can", which is missing in the original, is inserted after the Weimar Bible.
The first chapter often contains something in the following chapter that was not done before. Yes, in the first chapter there is often something in the following chapter that has happened before, neither that in the previous chapter, so that it looks as if Jeremiah did not put such books together himself, but rather that they were composed piecemeal from his speech and written down in the book. Therefore one must not turn to order, and not let disorder hinder.
(9) We learn from Jeremiah, among other things, that the closer the punishment, the angrier the people become, and the more they are preached to, the more they despise it, and that when God wants to punish, he takes hold of them and makes them stubborn, so that they may perish without mercy and not atone for God's wrath with any repentance. Thus the people of Sodom not only despised the pious Lot, but, because he taught them, they also afflicted him, and yet their plague was at the door. Pharaoh, when he was about to be drowned in the Red Sea, had to torture the children of Israel twice as much as before. And Jerusalem also had to crucify God's Son, since her final destruction was coming.
(10) This is also the case now everywhere. Now that the end of the world is approaching, people are raging and raging against God in the most terrible way, blaspheming and condemning God's word, which they know to be God's word and the truth. In addition, so many terrible signs and wonders appear, both in the sky and almost in all creatures, which threaten them terribly, and is also such an evil, miserable time, and even worse than Jeremiah's time.
11. but it will and must be so, that they become sure and sing: Pax, it has no need; and only pursues everything that God wants, and all the threatening of the signs is thrown to the wind, until (as St. Paul says) suddenly the destruction hastens and disturbs them before they become aware of it.
(12) But Christ will know how to keep His own, for whose sake He makes His word shine in this shameful time, as He kept Daniel and his like at Babylon, for whose sake Jeremiah's prophecy had to shine. To the same dear Lord be praise and thanksgiving, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God above all and forever, amen.