The Date of Jeremiah's Call

Abstract

According to the present text of the book of Jeremiah the prophet was called to his work in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah (i 2). This would be about the year 627 B.C., and it is the date accepted in the standard Commentaries and Introductions 1). We have reason, however, to doubt if Jeremiah were active at all in the reign of Josiah. Mention of this king is made in certain passages (iii 6f.; xxii 15; xxv 3), but their authenticity is open to question. Apart from the reference to his call we have no record of Jeremiah uttering a prophecy in a definite year of Josiah's reign. And this is significant in view of the precise datings of his oracles in the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. We hear, for example, of Jeremiah's activity in the fourth and fifth years of Jehoiakim (xxxvi 1, 9), while we likewise read of his utterances in the fourth and tenth years of Zedekiah (xxviii 1; xxxii 1). Again while we read of Jeremiah attempting to advise these kings on certain occasions (xxvi 23 f.; xxxvii 17; xxxviii 14) we hear of no such relationship with Josiah. There is thus little in the content of the book of Jeremiah to point to the activity of the prophet in the reign of Josiah. And this is a conclusion to which more than one scholar has independently come. Rejecting the statement in Jeremiah i 2 as editorial, Friedrich HORST went on to argue that we may detect in the book an original tradition which places the prophet's call after the battle of Megiddo 2). In a study of the chronology of Jeremiah's oracles H. G. MAY similarly maintains that we have little to substantiate the claim that the prophet began his career before the reign of Jehoiakim 3). Arguing again that the contents of Baruch's roll contained only prophecies delivered