Letter of Jeremiah

What the Letter of Jeremiah is about

This is one chapter — seventy-three verses — framed as a letter from Jeremiah to Jews being carried off to Babylon, warning them about what they are going to see there.

Babylon’s religion was visually overwhelming: gold-covered statues, processions, priests in robes, temples of a scale nothing in Judah could match. The letter’s strategy is to describe all of it in flat, practical terms until the effect collapses. The gods are carried, because they cannot walk. They are dusted, because they cannot keep themselves clean. Their faces are blackened by the smoke of their own temple. Bats and swallows perch on them. Priests sell the sacrifices, and their wives salt the meat and take it home. If a god falls over, someone has to pick it up.

A refrain runs through the whole piece, repeated ten times in slightly different words: from this it is evident that they are not gods; so do not fear them. That is the entire argument, and the repetition is the point — it is written to be remembered by people who will be surrounded by the opposite message every day.

Where it sits

The letter belongs to a long biblical tradition of satire against idols that runs through Isaiah 44, Jeremiah 10, and Psalm 115, and it is the most sustained example of it. Its purpose is pastoral rather than polemical: it is written to strengthen a minority community, not to insult its neighbours.

In Catholic Bibles it appears as chapter 6 of Baruch; in Orthodox and in Protestant Bibles that include the Apocrypha it usually stands on its own, which is why Bible references to it vary.

It is received as scripture by Catholic and Orthodox Christians. Protestants value it but do not treat it as canonical.

Why it is worth reading

Because the situation it addresses is more familiar than the subject matter suggests. A small community, surrounded by an impressive and confident culture, is being told to look carefully at what that culture actually worships. Ten minutes, and the refrain stays with you.