Jeremiah 1:2-3

2, 3. To whom the word of the Lord came To whom the spirit of prophecy was imparted.

In the days of Josiah The sixteenth king of Judah after the separation from it of the kingdom of Israel.

Thirteenth year of his reign From “the thirteenth year” of Josiah to the eleventh year of Zedekiah was about forty years; namely, eighteen remaining of Josiah’s reign, eleven of Jehoiakim’s and eleven of Zedekiah’s. The closing years of Jeremiah’s life, spent amid the ruins of his own land and in Egypt, are not here included. Josiah, the great reformer, stands out in his line of kings “faithful among the faithless.” Five years after the commencement of Jeremiah’s official career he led the people in a formal renewal of their covenant with Jehovah, and celebrated the occasion by a passover feast perhaps more remarkable and imposing than any other ever celebrated at Jerusalem. Eight years later, when Pharaoh-Necho was on his way to the memorable battle of Carchemish, Josiah went out against him, and being mortally wounded at Megiddo, (2 Kings 23:29-30; 2 Chronicles 35:22-24,) died before reaching Jerusalem. For him Jeremiah made public lamentation, “and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day.” 2 Chronicles 35:24-25. Jehoiakim was made king by Pharaoh-Necho, who had deposed his younger brother after a three months’ reign, and carried him in fetters to Riblah. As the Egyptian king was at this time making his expedition against Babylon, he charged his vassal Jehoiakim with the work of collecting a tribute of about $200,000, which he levied on the Jewish people. But Pharaoh met his Waterloo at Carchemish, and the king of Babylon seized upon Palestine as the natural fruit of his victory. He besieged and captured Jerusalem, made the king prisoner, and carried away to Babylon many of the principal inhabitants and some of the sacred vessels of the temple. Among these prisoners were Daniel and his three friends. Jehoiakim, having been subsequently reinstated, remained tributary to the king of Babylon for three years, and then, against the advice and warnings of Jeremiah, rebelled. The Babylonish king being at that time occupied with an Asiatic expedition, sent against the Jews an army composed from several of his allied and tributary peoples, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, who cruelly harassed the country. The misery of the land was extreme. Jehoiakim finally came to a violent and ignominious death, and the greatest dishonour was done to his body, for it was dragged away “beyond the gates of Jerusalem,” and buried “with the burial of an ass.” The times of Jehoiakim were characterized by gross and general corruption. The sacred places became altars of lust. The holy city and even the very temple were filled with abomination. See Ezekiel 8:0. The character of this most corrupt and foolish of all the kings of Judah is concentrated into two inspired phrases, “his abomination which he did,” (2 Chronicles 36:8,) and “he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood.” 2 Kings 24:4. As in the time of Josiah the zeal and faith of the prophet were stimulated and developed, so in that of Jehoiakim he must have been burdened and alarmed by the general and outbreaking wickedness of the people. Jehoiachin, who succeeded his father Jehoiakim, having, after a brief reign of three months, been carried away to Babylon with ten thousand other captives Zedekiah, his uncle, was made king, 599 B.C. He was a fitting successor of Jehoiakim, showing the same characteristics of weakness and wickedness. “He humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet… from the mouth of the Lord.” 2 Chronicles 36:12. The cup of Judah’s wickedness was now full, and God’s judgments came swiftly and terribly. Jerusalem was taken and pillaged; the temple burned; the sacred vessels, what remained of them, were taken away; the glory of Jerusalem, as a political capital, finally extinguished, and the captivity fully inaugurated.