Jeremiah and the Oppressed

Jeremiah is one of the Major Prophets in the Bible. His work contributed to the life of Israelites during his time. He also contributed in writing some of the Bible books. According to the Hebrew Bible, he wrote the book of Jeremiah, Kings, and Lamentation in the Old Testament (Sweeney, 2018). In his books, he wanted to pass the message of God to the Israelites as instructed by God. His books contain, the narration of his personal life, his life as a prophet. It also has what God was revealing and instructing him to say to the people of Israel. He was referred to a weeping prophet. His work concentrated on bringing justice during the times of kingship ruling at different times. He was able to proclaim many prophecies of God of Israel that came to pass. In his books, he writes an account of his personal life and prophesies life. There are different sermons in his book that advocate for equality among all people. He always passed the message of justice to all as he worked in the ministry of proclaiming his prophecies to the people of Israel.Most of his prophecies came to pass and because of that, those who were against him tried to stop him. However, he was able to make people turn into justice as God wished. This paper discusses some of his proclaims in the Bible regarding justice, greed, and the oppressed.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Overview of the Books of Jeremiah

Jeremiah was the author of the Book of Jeremiah among others as stated earlier. Jeremiah as a book in the Old Testament of the Bible is not a book that speaks of one theme entirely. There different themes and accounts of Jeremiah's prophesy. It is not also written in chronological form. Different verses contain information that may not necessarily be a continuation of the previous ones. The book of Jeremiah is all about challenging the lives of people of Israel under different leadership where at some point they were practicing oppressive practices and economic dishonest among its people. Through Jeremiah, God passed his anger and disappointment to the people of Israel. Jeremiah recorded his prophetic journey in the book of Jeremiah, Kings, and Lamentations. His message was to warn people against evil ways, he tried to bring people back to God bypassing his message to them. In his books, he communicated the bitter truth to the people he was prophesying for. He was successful in passing the message he was sent with by God.

Jeremiah and the Oppressed

The book of Jeremiah has different sermons that speak about oppression. Jeremiah 34:9 for instance talks about the release of enslaved Hebrews (Bennett, 2020). God spoke with Jeremiah saying that all the people who were enslaved and oppressed in Jerusalem should be freed and therefore Jeremiah called for King Zedekiah to release all male and female slaves and relieve them from labor and oppression. King Zedekiah had made a covenant with people that there will be liberty in his ruling. His calling saw many slaves released and they gained freedom. In this text, it is evident that God was using Jeremiah to pass the message of liberation to the people of Israel. As a prophet of God, he was also willing to stand and defend the rights of the oppressed people like slaves.

Jeremiah 7:6 also speaks about oppression; the verse tells how it will be good for people not to hurt foreigners by way of killing injustice in courts (Bennett, 2020). This was the time when many foreigners were facing oppression from people in Judah's reign. Foreigners were treated badly in courts and by private people, some of the oppression they were passing through included murder, injustice in court and they could not enjoy equality like other people. The message of plea was passed by Jeremiah to the people of Jerusalem to treat their foreign people nicely because it will be good to do so.

Jeremiah himself was also a victim of oppression. People who were against his prophesies tried to kill him, he was at one time beaten but god ordered disaster to the people of Anathoth. Jeremiah went ahead to work with god in his prophecy, he, later on, laments how the mockery and the oppression from the people of Anathoth were, despite the challenges he was facing his still found power and energy to continue with the work he had to do. Like any other person who was undergoing oppression, he knew that he had to be strong.

Injustice, Greed, and Integrity

At one point people of Judah did not recognize God as their source of good harvests. They started to oppress one another. Those who were strong attacked the defenseless and God was not happy about them. They had failed to show some sense of accountability to their God who was the provider of all the good deeds they had. Jeremiah wrote the accounts on what was happening at that time and it is capture in Jeremiah 5:28(Walker & Martens, 2017). The verse was talking about how the people of Judah had lost control and accountability to their God. They were practicing injustices among themselves. Through Jeremiah, God sent a warning to them, Jeremiah reminded them of hoe they had turned their ways away from God through the verse mentioned above. Despite the warning people continued doing things to their accounts and not to the accounts of, God punished them by withholding rain which resulted in drought and famine, it was through such punishments that brought back the people into the right track.

Jeremiah as a prophet could not give on his faith; he was not partial to the great or weak. He tried to find and associate with people who spoke the truth; he was looking for them around Jerusalem and would be happy to meet one. In the book of Jeremiah 8:10, he expressed his dissatisfaction when he realized that all the people had turned out to be greedy. He realized that neither the rich nor the poor was not greedy, however, since he was not partial to either of them, he was bold enough to condemn people despite their social standards. Nevertheless, Jeremiah continued to plead with people to turn away from greed and follow the command of God. The plea of Jeremiah is evident in different verses of the Bible in His books.

Conclusion

Jeremiah as a prophet stood by the truth; he was not scared of any speculation from kings or people. He faced the great and the small, he advocated for the vulnerable according to the instructions from God. His work lasted for several decades encountering different kings some of whom did not obey the command of the lord. His job was to warn people to go back to what is right. There are some scriptures as highlighted in the paper that shows him commanding people to get back to serving God in whatever they are doing under the sun. Jeremiah helped in freeing the oppressed, he called for the freedom of a slave, and he also called on integrity in justice systems during the time of King Zedekiah.

References

Bennett, W. H. (2020). The Book of Jeremiah, Chapters XXL-LII. BoD-Books on Demand.

Walker, L. L., & Martens, E. A. (2017). Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (Vol. 8). Tyndale House.

Sweeney, M. A. (2018). Jeremiah Among the Prophets. The Book of Jeremiah (pp. 26-44). Brill.