The Encyclopedia of World Religions

236 S Jeremiah

worship of all gods besides YHWH (“the Lord”). He also tried to make the temple in Jerusalem the only place where the people worshipped YHWH. Although these changes were religious, they also meant that Josiah was declaring independence from Assyria and trying to unify his kingdom. Indeed, according to some scholars, the T EN C OM MANDMENTS have the same form as Assyrian trea ties, but they make the people subjects of YHWH, not the king of Assyria. In 609, Josiah died fighting Egypt, an ally of Assyria, and Egypt made one of his sons king. But in 605 Babylon defeated Assyria and Egypt, and Judah became a Babylonian possession—until it rebelled. In 597, the Babylonians conquered Jeru salem and gave Judah a new king, another son of Josiah. When that king rebelled, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 587 and simply took Judah over. It was during these stormy days that Jere miah prophesied. CONTENT Jeremiah’s prophecies mostly predict the destruc tion of Judah. He started making those prophecies about the time Josiah, already king, turned 21. He said Judah would be destroyed because it had aban doned YHWH, worshipped other gods, and had sub mitted to Assyria and Egypt. These were precisely the abuses that Josiah sought to correct five years later. But Josiah’s sons did not continue his religious policies, so Jeremiah continued to prophesy destruc tion. He said that YHWH would use a “power from the north” to destroy Judah. That power turned out to be Babylon. Eventually Jeremiah urged the people to surrender to Babylon and accept the con sequences. Judah would be free again, he said, but only after 70 years. At that time G OD would establish a new covenant. Christians later identified the new covenant with C HRISTIANITY . Like other prophets, Jeremiah gave his mes sages in deeds as well as words. For example, to symbolize that Judah would lose its independence, he wore a yoke. To symbolize that it would be restored, he bought a field. Many government officials did not like Jeremi ah’s prophecies. Many prophets opposed him, too.

Several other practices have also made the Witnesses stand out: They refuse blood transfu sions, they refuse to celebrate C HRISTMAS , E ASTER , and birthdays (they celebrate the “Memorial of Christ’s Death”), and they are neutral regarding governments and wars. Their faith forbids them to pledge allegiance to any government or to salute any flag. Especially the last characteristics have provoked governments around the world, result ing in persecution and even death. As a result, the Witnesses have been at the forefront of legal efforts to guarantee religious freedom. As of August 2004, the organization claimed to have about 6,500,000 members in over 230 countries. Further reading: Andrew Holden, Jehovah’s Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement (New York: Routledge, 2002); M. James Penton, Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses, rev. ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997). Jeremiah a prophet in Judah during the late sev enth and early sixth centuries B . C . E . and a book in the Hebrew B IBLE that contains his prophecies Jer emiah began to prophesize around 627. He was last heard from after the fall of J ERUSALEM 40 years later, in 587. He dictated his prophecies to a man named Baruch. In fact, part of the book of Jeremiah con tains records about Jeremiah written by Baruch (fl. early sixth century B . C . E .). These prophecies and records are closely related to the complicated his tory of the times. CONTEXT Jeremiah lived at a time when momentous events were taking place in the Middle East. A century earlier the empire of Assyria had destroyed Israel, the “northern kingdom.” The “southern kingdom,” Judah, had become a subject state. But in 622 min isters presented the king of Judah, Josiah, with a book they had found in the temple in Jerusalem. This was probably an early form of the book of Deuteronomy. In response, Josiah began a massive redesign of his kingdom. He tried to eliminate the