The Book of Jeremiah

Of the Major Prophets, Jeremiah is perhaps the least straightforward. It is variously comprised of stories about the prophet Jeremiah, exchanges between Jeremiah and Yahweh, and messages directly from Yahweh—meaning a consciousness of form is essential to the understanding of its content. At times it is written in poetry, resembling Isaiah, while at other times it is written in prose, more similar to Ezekiel. And it is without doubt the darkest and most threatening of the Major Prophets, inviting comparisons to Amos and Hosea.

John Goldingay, a widely respected biblical scholar who has written extensively on the entire Old Testament, navigates these complexities in the same spirit as other volumes of the New International Commentary on the Old Testament series—rooted in Jeremiah’s historical context but with an eye always trained on its meaning and use as Christian Scripture. After a thorough introduction that explores matters of background, composition, and theology, Goldingay provides an original translation and verse-by-verse commentary of all fifty-two chapters, making this an authoritative and indispensable reference for scholars and pastors as they engage with Jeremiah from a contemporary Christian standpoint.

Table of Contents Introduction

• 1. Background
• 2. Unity of Composition
• 3. Authorship and Date
• 4. Place of Origin, Occasion, and Destination
• 5. Canonicity
• 6. The Hebrew Text
• 7. Theology
• 8. Main Themes and Their Implications
• 9. Analysis of Contents

Text and Commentary

• 1. Prologue: An Introduction to the Scroll (1:1–19)
• 2. Part One: Confrontation, Exhortation, Warning (2:1–6:36)
• 3. Part Two (7:1–24:10)
• 4. An Interim Conclusion (25:1–38)
• 5. Part Three: The Die Cast and/or the Possibility of Restoration (26:1–36:32)
• 6. Part Four: The Calamity and the Aftermath (37:1–45:5)
• 7. Part Five: Messages about Other Peoples (46:1–51:64)
• 8. Epilogue (52:1–34)