1:1 The words of Jeremias the son of Helcias, of the priests that were in Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin. 1:2 The word of the Lord which came to him in the days of Josias the son of Amon king of Juda, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 1:3 And which came to him in the days of Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda, unto the end of the eleventh year of Sedecias the son of Josias king of Juda, even unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive, in the fifth month. 1:4 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 1:5a Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee:


St. Jerome. After the beginning of Jeremiah's prophesying, in the thirty-fifth year of his prophetic career, Ezekiel began to prophesy to those who had been taken captive.


Theodoret. The prophet was accorded a double grace, the priestly and the prophetic: he took one from his linage, and received the other from the gift from on high.  He also mentions the period of his prophesying: In the days etc., He makes mention also of those who reigned next up till the end of the siege.

St. Jerome. In those days etc. The great clemency of God is astonishing; with the captivity already neat and the Babylonian army besieging Jerusalem, he nevertheless provokes the people to repentance, preferring to save the converted rather than to destroy wrongdoers.

before I. This is not as heresy supposes because Jeremiah existed before his conception, but because the Lord, to whom things not yet made are already made, foreknew that he was going to exist.

before etc. Fruthermore, when he says, "I appointed you a prophet to the nations," he wishes this to be understood: later on in this very prophet, we are going to read that he prophesied not only to Jerusalem but also to many of the surrounding nations.  Certain people understand this passage to be about the Savior, who was in the strictest sense a prophet to the nations and who called all nations through the apostles.  For that one, before being formed in the virgin's womb and coming forth from his mother's body, was truly sanctified in the womb and known in the Father, and the Father was always in Him.

Origen. Jeremiah called Abraham a prophet in the passage, He is a prophet and he will pray for you.  Yet God did not say to him, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.  But later on Abraham was exalted.

Theodoret. The election was not without basis: knowledge preceded it.  He had knowledge, note, and then he consecrated; for he knows everything before its coming to be.





1:5b and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations. 1:6 And I said: Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child. 1:7 And the Lord said to me: Say not: I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee: and whatsoever I shall command thee, thou shalt speak. 1:8 Be not afraid at their presence: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. 1:9 And the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth: and the Lord said to me: Behold I have given my words in thy mouth: 1:10a Lo, I have set thee this day over the nations, and over kingdoms, to root up, and to pull down,


St. Jerome. This statement from Paul: "He who set me apart from the womb of my mother and called me through his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles." (Gal 1:15-16)  John the Baptist was also sanctified in the womb.  He received the Holy Spirit, stirred in the womb and spoke through the mouth of his mother.

Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: He pleads against his office, which in view of his age he cannot fulfill, showing the same modesty as Moses, who said that he was slight and meager of voice.  But Moses was summoned, as it were, at a great and robust age, whereas Jeremiah is given the grace of boyhood, which is adorned with modesty and reserve.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Some readily complied with the call, others deprecated the gift... Isaiah readily submitted (Is 6:8), but Jeremiah was afraid of his youth.

Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: What is it that has induced this fear in me, that, instead of supposing me to be needlessly afraid, you may highly commend my foresight? I hear from Moses himself, when God spoke to him, that, although many were bidden to come to the mount, and Moses alone to draw near, and the people were not to go up with him. Exodus 24:1-2 For it is not everyone who may draw near to God, but only one who, like Moses, can bear the glory of God. Moreover, before this, when the law was first given, the trumpet-blasts, and lightnings, and thunders, and darkness, and the smoke of the whole mountain, and the terrible threats that if even a beast touched the mountain it should be stoned, Hebrews 12:18 and other like alarms, kept back the rest of the people, for whom it was a great privilege, after careful purification, merely to hear the voice of God. But Moses actually went up and entered into the cloud, and was charged with the law, and received the tables, which belong, for the multitude, to the letter, but, for those who are above the multitude, to the spirit.

Theodoret. The Lord said this also to the divinely-inspired Moses: when he dreaded the role of service and said, "Who am I to go to make my way to Pharaoh?"  the Lord said, "I shall be with you."  He gave this firm promise to the sacred nations, and as God knowing in advance that doubts rose up in their hearts about the possibility of eleven mere men bereft of eloquence converting the whole world, he resolved their uncertainty and dispelled their fear by saying, "And behold I am with you all the days to the end of the age."  He said this here as well to the prophet, I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.



Origen. Often we have said that with respect to the inner man one can be a child even if he is old in body.  Yet sometimes one might be a child with respect to the outer man, but an adult with respect to the inner.  Such a one was Jeremiah, who already had grace from God while still a child in body. For this reason the Lord said to him, Do not say, “I am a youth.”  It is a sign he is nor a youth, but a mature man.

1:9 And the Lord put forth etc.:But when he saw the vision told about in from God in his prophecy, he saw and said, I have given my words in thy mouth: And Isaiah wrote, Woe is me, I am wretched for having unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people who have unclean lips and I have seen with my eyes the Kind, the Lord of hosts.  And there was sent to me, he said, one of the Seraphim he touched my lips and he said, “Behold I have removed your transgression and this will purge your sins.”  Ezekiel also attests of divine mysteries.

1:10 to root up etc: “God set up over nations and kingdoms to root up, and to break down, and to destroy, and to build up, and to transplant,” having made Him to be a prophet to the Gentiles to whom He proclaimed the word.  Moreover also those who said, “that he was a certain one of the prophets,” conceived this opinion concerning Him because of those things which had been said in the prophets as unto them, but which had not been fulfilled in their case.  But also the Jews, as worthy of the veil which was upon their heart.  Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. (Mt 15:13) And in the next place, as we must not stop with rooting out and pulling down the hindrances which have just been mentioned, but must, in room of what has been rooted out, plant the plants of "God’s husbandry;” and in place of what has been pulled down, rear up the building of God, and the temple of His glory,—we must for that reason pray also to the Lord, who bestowed the gifts named in the book of Jeremiah, that He may grant even to us words adapted both for building up the (temple) of Christ, and for planting the spiritual law, and the prophetic words referring to the same.





1:10b and to waste, and to destroy, and to build, and to plant. 1:11 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: What seest thou, Jeremias? And I said: I see a rod watching. 1:12 And the Lord said to me: Thou hast seen well: for I will watch over my word to perform it. 1:13 And the word of the Lord came to me a second time saying: What seest thou? And I said: I see a boiling caldron, and the face thereof from the face of the north.


Origen. And do not suppose that Jeremiah has received some sort of unfortunate gift from God because he has been placed over nations and kingdoms, to uproot.  God is good when he uproots what is bad through words, in the iniquitous by the kingdom of Heaven, the hostile nations by the nation of God.  To uproot and demolish.  There is a building of the Devil, there is a building of God. For God says, "Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things?  The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord, and against his Christ."



Theodoret.