NOTES for Jer 4:1-31

Jeremiah is the prophet of catastrophe. Not only because the fall of the kingdom of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem took place before his eyes, but also because of how vividly and clearly he sees the approaching threat. It is as though he can already hear enemy trumpets and soldiers' shouts. All the more astonishing, then, is that beyond the inevitability of war and Judah's national collapse he sees a possibility of salvation—repentance, a return to God and His commandments. He sees history as a living process in the relationship of God's people with God, a process in which spiritual renewal can avert war, and vice versa. He brings together people's moral condition and the most complex historical processes, proceeding not from sociological or political premises, but from the knowledge of God as the Creator of history, and of the human person, on whose relationship with the Creator that history so greatly depends.