JEREMIAH

Chapter 1

1. From the thirteenth year of King Josiah through the reign of King Zedekiah. This was forty years.
2. Jeremiah had a will of his own (vs. 6). He was not made to be righteous he was righteous. These type of people God knows because their hearts are like Him.
3. The almond tree was the first tree to bloom in season. This signified that God was ready to begin His plans with Israel.
4. Babylon would be the boiling pot. They would be used to cleanse and manipulate Israel.

Chapter 2

1. Cyprus and Kedar worshiped false gods but did not go after other or new gods. Israel had the true God but left Him for worthless gods.
2. Israel did not have the fear of God within themselves.
3. Israel called on God only when they were in trouble.

Chapter 3-4

1. The people had the mind of a harlot. They were not ashamed of what they were doing.
2. Israel did evil but did not pretend to know God too. Judah did evil but pretended to serve God too.
3. God will bless once again those who return to Him.
4. Our own ways and doings brings calamities on us.

Chapter 5-6

1. We should look to see if we are out of God's will when calamity comes upon us. We should know His ways to determine this.
2. Fearing God's wrath, judgement, and supremeness will open us to understanding and obeying His ways.
3. The prophets were telling lies and the priests were leading by their own power. They were using their own wisdom and agenda.
4. The people did not want to hear the ways and purity of God. They sought to hear the wicked and unclean things.
5. The peole were so far from God in their hearts that their sacrifices and offerings meant nothing to Him.

Chapter 7-8

1. We must completely and thoroughly change our ways to be pleasing to God. This is something we must work on all our lives.
2. The people would come to the temple to 'worship' God even after committing all kinds of evil.
3. The scribes would twist the laws and actions of God to support their wicked agenda.

Chapter 9-10

1. The people would have calamity and destruction come upon them. God would turn a deaf ear to their cries during this time.
2. If one has great wisdom, strength, and wealth but does not know God it is useless. If one were to gain the whole world yet lose his soul, what does it profit him?
3. The people were seeking prophetic signs of the times in the sky.

Chapter 11-13

1. The faithful to God were regarded as a green olive tree.
2. The people did not want to hear the words of Jeremiah the prophet. They wanted to destroy him and the words.
3. The Gentiles whom God used against Israel would later be given the opportunity to learn about God. If they did then they would dwell with God's people. If they did not then they would be destroyed.
4. God would ruin or destroy the people by putting them away from Him in captivity. They would dwell with the foreign nations and their gods and be profitable for nothing.

Chapter 14-15

1. God was not a stranger or an overnight traveler who could not help Israel. He dwelled with them continually.
2. The prophets were telling the people that nothing bad from God was going to happen to them even though they were in sin.
3. When God turned away from them then whatever came against them was going to happen. He would not be there to help them.
4. Even when we have all against us, we are not to accept their ways and teachings. We must stay with the truth, not fall into sin, and keep faith in God. He will have us prevail over them.

Chapter 16-17

1. Men who know God would be sent to Israel during their captivity. They would pull them out of the teachings and idolatries of the foreign nation. First, Israel would suffer double punishment for all their iniquities.
2. The Gentiles would come to know God as the true God.
3. A man who trust in human strength has forsaken God. he will suffer curses in life and the loss of his soul.
4. Those who trust in the Lord will receive blessings from God and peace in times of trouble. They will continue to do good works for God even in times of trouble.

Chapter 18-20

1. The Lord can build us up or break us down as a potter does a clay pot when forming it. We should fear God because we are the clay in His hands.
2. The people attack Jeremiah with the tongue. They contended with him on all he was saying.
3. The broken flask represented the catastrophe that God would bring upon Israel.
4. Pashhur would go into captivity with his friends. He would see his friends killed by the sword and he too would die there.

Chapter 21-22

1. There was no reason for them to fight the against the king of Babylon because God Himself was against Zedekiah and the people and would fight against them.
2. To know God is to do good to all and to especially help the poor and the needy.
3. These were the words of Jeremiah to the previous kings(Jehoahaz - a son; Jehoiakim - a son; Jehoiachin - a grandson) who were already in captivity during the time of the reign of Zedekiah (Jehoiachin's uncle, a son of Josiah also).

Chapter 23-24

1. Jesus is the branch of righteousness to come.
2. The priest and the prophets misled the people making them worthless and sinful before God. (The people did not turn from this even when they knew the true way before God. They wanted to follow the dictates of their own hearts.)
3. The good figs are those taken in the first captivity. They were taken for their own good and would find repentance there. God would bring them back and build them up. The bad figs represent those left in the city with King Zedekiah. They are to be driven into all the surrounding land and be consumed until none of them are left.
4. All the unrighteous people are worthless to God and will be destroyed. Those who do good or have the potential to do good will be given the opportunity to serve God. They will not be killed.

Chapter 25-27

1. The people would be in captivity for seventy years.
2. If God punishes His own people how could the other nations expect to go unpunished?
3. Jeremiah told them the condeming words of God. The people did not want to accept or believe his words. they wanted to keep him from speaking these words again.
4. Certain elders of the land helped Jeremiah. These were of the good figs who would not be killed with the sword.
5. Three son's of Nebuchadnezzer, King of Babylon, would rule over Judah during their captivity.
6. Babylon would be taken over by other nations and serve them after God finished using them against Israel.

Chapter 28-30

1. Hananiah prophesied that all the captives and all the vessels of the Lord's house would return to Jerusalem within two full years.
2. If the things a prophet says comes true then that prophet was truly sent by God.
3. Hananiah was prophesied by Jeremiah to die that year. He died two months later.
4. Jeremiah sent his letter to the captives in Babylon by the messengers of King Zedekiah who were having to go and report to the king of Babylon.
5. Jeremiah told the people to multiply and live in peace in their captivity so they would not be diminished. They would be captive for seventy years.
6. At the end of the seventy years when the people came back to their land if they sought God with all their heart, prayed to Him, and called upon Him god would listen to them.
7. Shemaiah wrote to Zephaniah the priest that Jeremiah was a demented man who thought he was a prophet. He should be stopped from writing and saying the things he was saying . He should be locked up and put in stocks.
8. Shemaiah would die in Babylon and he would have no descendants.

Chapter 31-33

1. God would make the return of His people and easy one. No strength of the enemy would prevent the Lord from delivering His people to their land. The extended meaning here is that God will guide them by His spirit and lead them in the right direction.
2. God has returned His people from their enemies to freedom in their own land. The spiritual meaning here is a reference that Israel would be ransomed by God's son, Jesus.
3. The descendants of Rachal have been carried away captive by Babylon. When Jesus is born, King Herod would kill all the young children two years and under to destroy Jesus. Rachal is said to be weeping here too.
4. God put forth His Spirt for all men to be guided into righteousness by Him in all things.
5. Zedekiah did not like the words spoken to him by Jeremiah warning him of the coming calamity to Judah.
6. Jeremiah buying the field now in a time of trouble was to reassure them that God would one day bring His people back to their own land to be blessed and dwell freely in their own land.
7. Jesus would become the Branch of Righteousness who would save Israel.

Chapter 34-36

1. King Zedekiah tried to enforce the law concerning the release of slaves in the seventh year of their service.
2. The Rechabites were of the sons of the scribes and the priests.
3. God wanted the priests and scribes to know that they should obey Him as strictly as they had obeyed the instruction of their fathers.
4. God hoped that the people would fear the things coming against them and therefore repent and turn back to Him. He would then forgive their iniquities and relent of the calamities He was going to send against them.
5. Josiah cut the scroll up and through it in the fire. He did not want to here the words of Jeremiah.

Chapter 37-39

1. Jeremiah was imprisoned in the court of the house of Jonathan.
2. The princes of Judah had Jeremiah put in a deep mire filled dungeon.
3. Ebed-Melech, an Ethiopian, trusted in God and helped to get Jeremiah out of the dungeon and back into the house of Jonathan.
4. Zedekiah knew God was with Jeremiah. He wanted to know what was in store but did not want the people to come against him for confiding in Jeremiah (the people despised Jeremiah for his words against them).
5. Zedekiah did not heed the words of Jeremiah. Therefore, his sons were killed before his eyes and then his eyes were put out. He was carried off in fetters to Babylon.
6. Ebed-Melech was spared his life during the takeover by Babylon.

Chapter 40-42

1. Gedaliah was put in charge over the remnat of Judah.
2. Ishmael killed Gedaliah.
3. Ishmael killed seventy of the eighty men from Shiloh who had come to mourn at the house of the Lord.
4. Johanan came to rescue the people from Ishmael.
5. The people were afraid to go back to Jerusalem because Ishmael had also killed some officers of Babylon in his murderous rampage.

Chapter 43-45

1. Johanan and the people decided to go to the land of Egypt to dwell.
2. The people soon began to worship the gods of the land of Egypt.
3. God blessed Baruch by sparing his life while others would die in captivity.

Chapter 46-49

1. The people of Judah were returning to Egypt to the place where they once were slaves. Here God had worked mighty works before the Egyptians to free Israel from the bonds of slavery.
2. The cup of judgment and wrath was directed to ungodly idol worshiping nations around Judah and more specifically to those mentioned because they had fought against God's people or had a hand in corrupting them spiritually.

Chapter 50

1. Babylon has become prideful and rejoiced in their devouring of God's people. They do not acknowledge God or His will.
2. Babylon will be destroyed by another nation. No one will ever dwell in their city again.
3. The strong are the leaders of the land of Babylon
4. The leaders will flee Babylon when destruction comes.
5. There will be no one in Babylon to replace the fleeing leaders - no one who will seek the ways of God, who will lead the people in His ways, and who can stand before God. Therefore, God will put an end to the nation.

Chapter 51-52

1. We must pull ourselves out of sin, covetousness, and forms of idolatry so we will not be part of the sins of the world. Babylon represents this sinfulness. We must physically and spiritually remove ourselves from anything or anyone that does not conform to the ways of God.
2. A mountain signified what people followed or worshiped. The people of Babylon did not acknowledge God in any way and worshiped idols. Babylon did what pleased them and led others into their sins also.
3. The Medes would come against Babylon to end that nation.
4. The sea and springs represent the offspring or growth of the nation. Babylon would have no inhabitants in the land forever.
5. As Babylon should have acknowledged God in their daily lives or turned back to Him, we too should keep God in our lives or return to Him to keep His fierce anger or judgment from coming against us. This is something we must choose ourselves.
6. Jerusalem was under siege approximately two years and six months.
7. Nebuzaradan burned down the house of the Lord and carried away all the valuable utensils, items, and fixtures used in the service to the Lord.