Житие и страдание святого пророка Иеремии

The holy prophet Jeremiah 2847 was born in Anathoth, a priestly city 2848 within the tribe of Benjamin, near Jerusalem. The son of the priest Hilkiah, he was pre-elected and destined for prophetic service, like Samuel (1 Samuel 2), even before his birth, as the Lord Himself said: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you: I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:4-5). Saint Jeremiah, a priest by birth, a teacher and prophet by title from God, was, according to the testimony of Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer, a virgin throughout his entire life (Jer. 16:2). He entered the prophetic ministry in 630 BC, still at a tender youthful age, as can be seen from the first chapter of his book, where it is narrated that in response to a call from the Lord to prophecy, he expressed his embarrassment in the following way: - Oh Lord God! - I don’t know how to speak, because I’m still young - a teenager. The Lord encouraged him and, endowing him with the intelligence of an adult and perfect man, said: – Do not say: “I am young,” for you will go to everyone to whom I send you, and you will say everything that I command you. Don't be afraid of them; for I am with you to deliver you. Having said this, the Lord stretched out His hand and, touching Jeremiah’s lips, said to him: - Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. Look, I have set you on this day over nations and kingdoms to uproot and destroy, destroy and destroy (sinful, lawless human life) and in the place of what was destroyed and uprooted to again build and plant” [good morals and a godly life of people] (Jer. 1:7-10). This word of the Lord, calling Jeremiah to prophetic ministry, was in the days of Josiah king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign 2849; The holy prophet was then fifteen years old: at such a young age he became an instrument of the effective grace of God! In those days, the Jewish people, although outwardly they remained devoted to the faith of their fathers, worshiped the true God who had once brought them out of Egypt, but inwardly they were far from truly serving Him. Entering into close relations with surrounding peoples, the Jews were morally corrupted; Submitting to foreign customs, the majority of them, especially the wealthy and powerful ones, served pagan abominations. Not only in the vicinity of Jerusalem, in the hills and valleys, but also in Jerusalem itself, near the church of the Lord, erected by Solomon, idols were erected, to which sacrifices were made in the same way as to the true God. This moral corruption, which penetrated deeply into the people's life, arousing the just wrath of God, prepared ruin and destruction for the land of Judea, which was foretold to Saint Jeremiah in two visions: the nut stick and the boiling cauldron. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: – What do you see, Jeremiah? – I see an almond tree rod. – You see correctly; for I am watching 2850 over My word, that it may speedily be fulfilled. And the Word of the Lord came to him another time: “I see,” answered Jeremiah, “a boiling cauldron blown by the wind, and it appears from the north.” – From the north, disaster 2851 will fall on all the inhabitants of this land. And you gird up your loins and stand up and tell them everything that I command you; Do not be faint-hearted before them, lest I strike you down before their eyes. And behold, I have made thee this day a fortified city, and a pillar of iron, and a wall of brass, in all this land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they will not prevail against you, for I am with you to deliver you (Jer. 1:17-19). Fulfilling the command of God, Saint Jeremiah began to denounce the Jews for their apostasy from the true God and deviation towards pagan superstition, threatening the coming wrath of the Almighty on them and exhorting them to repent in order to get rid of the terrible consequences of the Lord’s wrath. The prophetic ministry of Jeremiah continued from the days, as has already been said, of King Josiah in the days of his son Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim - the brother of Jehoiakim, and in the days of Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, and in the days of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, the brother of Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim 2852. The prophet of God endured much suffering from his fellow tribesmen, who had lost true faith in God and the fear of God! – He proclaimed the terrible rebuke of the Lord of Hosts without hesitation or embarrassment; he boldly and boldly proclaimed the word of truth in the courtyard of the church, and at the gates of the city, and in the royal palace, and in prison, and in the outskirts of Jerusalem. More than once we brought him to kings and nobles, and to everyone he directly, without guile or cowardly shyness, openly said that if they did not repent and turn away from lies, then evil misfortunes would befall them. For this is what the Lord says: “I will call all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, and they will come and set up every throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and around the walls thereof, and in all the cities of Judah. And they will be the executors of My judgments over the criminal people, the executioners of the lawless. And I will allow all this to happen to them because they forsook Me and burned incense to foreign gods and worshiped the work of their own hands (Jer. 1:15-16). Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob and all the servants of the house of Israel! Thus says the Lord: What unrighteousness did your fathers find in Me, that they departed from Me and became futile and did not say: Where is the Lord, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, who led us through an uninhabited wilderness, through a dry land, through the land of the shadow of death, where no one walked and where no man dwelt? I brought you into a fruitful land, so that you might eat its fruits and good things; But you entered and defiled My land, and made My heritage an abomination. I will sue you, and I will sue your sons' sons. For go to the islands of Hittim and look, and send to Kedar and scout carefully, and consider: was there anything like this there? Has any people changed their gods, although they are not gods? But My people exchanged their glory for something that does not help. Marvel at this, O heavens, and tremble and be terrified at the foundations of the earth: My people have committed two evils, having lost My fear: they have forsaken Me, the Lord their God, the fountain of living water, and have created and hewed out for themselves worthless ones who cannot hold water. I planted My people like a noble vine - on the banks of the Jordan - the purest seed, but it turned into a wild branch of someone else's vine. Israel, My servant and member of the household, like a frisky camel, like a wild donkey prowling in the desert, swallowing air in the passion of her soul, said: Do not hope, no! For I love strangers and will walk in their ways. The house of Israel has disgraced itself: its people, and its kings, and its princes, and its priests, and its prophets, turned their backs to Me, and not their faces, and said: “We are our own masters; we will no longer come to You"; but during their disaster they will say: “Rise up and save us!” - Oh family! Hear ye the word of the Lord: Was I the wilderness or the land of Israel? – Does a maiden forget her jewelry and a bride her outfit? But My people have forgotten Me; the days of their forgetfulness are endless! And through your treachery you skillfully direct, covering your shame with the robe of piety, your paths in order to win love! And for this reason you adapt your ways even to crimes, so that on the edges of your clothing is the blood of poor, innocent people... (Jer. 2:4-34). And because they act according to the stubbornness of their evil heart, I will bring disaster and great destruction upon them from the north. And on that day, says the Lord, the heart of the king will freeze, and the heart of the princes, and the priests will be horrified, and the prophets will be amazed! ( Jer.43:17, 4:6-9 ). Just as a spring spews out water, so Jerusalem spews out evil: violence and robbery are heard in it, and before My face there are always insults and wounds. Take heed, O Jerusalem, lest My soul depart from thee, lest I make thee a wilderness, an uninhabited land” (Jer. 6:7–8). With such and similar enthusiastic and fiery speeches, Saint Jeremiah repeatedly addressed his contemporaries; they, like a hammer breaking rocks, are set out at length in his prophetic book. And everything he said prophetically came true. Political adversities and disasters for Jerusalem began under King Josiah like this: in the thirty-first year of his reign (2 Kings 22:1; 2 Chronicles 34:1), the Egyptian pharaoh Necho undertook a military campaign against the king of Assyria on the Euphrates River. And since his path lay through the borders of the land of Judea, Josiah, in order to protect his kingdom from the invasion of the Egyptians, gathered his army and decided to confront them. Pharaoh sent messengers to him to say: “What do you and me, king of the Jews? Now I am not going against you, but to where I have a war. And God commanded me to hurry; Do not resist God, lest He destroy you.” But Josiah did not listen to this warning from Necho and went out against him with his army to the Magiddon Plain, which lay on the way from the Mediterranean coast to the Jordan, from where Necho intended to reach the banks of the Euphrates by the closest route through Damascus. A battle took place; the Jewish army, suppressed by the numerical superiority of the enemy, was completely defeated; Josiah himself was mortally wounded. The bodyguards hastily took their beloved dying king and took him to Jerusalem, where he gave up his spirit to God. Josiah was buried in the tomb of his fathers and was mourned by the people in Jerusalem and throughout Judea with great sorrow, for he was the best, most worthy of kings in his kindness and fear of God (2 Chron. 35:20-24; Zech. 12:11). Josiah mourned the king and Jeremiah in mournful songs (2 Chronicles 35:25). Pharaoh Necho continued his military march to Assyria, and in Jerusalem the second son of Josiah, Joahaz 2853, was anointed king, who reigned, however, only three months before Necho returned from the Assyrian campaign. The Egyptian king, to whom, after the victory of Magiddon, supremacy over the land of Judah passed and who at that time had in mind the main and powerful enemy - Assyro-Babylonia, and left the weak kingdom of Judah without attention, on the way back he took possession of Jerusalem and all of Judea and subjugated it to his power - the newly elected king Jehoahaz, when this one appeared to him in a military camp in Rivla, the land Hamath 2854, in order to gain confirmation of his royal dignity, he deposed him and sent him as a captive in chains to Egypt, and installed his eldest brother Eliakim as king in Judea, renaming him Joachim. At the same time, Necho imposed on Judea a tribute of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold 2855, unbearably heavy for a small state and especially since it was exacted with merciless severity (2 Kings 23:35). So the seed of Abraham, a free people, a once glorious and powerful kingdom, lost its identity and found itself enslaved. And this was an inevitable consequence of the lawlessness of the Jews, with which they angered the Almighty God, without bringing sincere repentance according to the prophetic admonitions, without arranging their moral life according to the law of God! At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, there was the following word from the Lord to Saint Jeremiah: “Stand in the courtyard of the house of the Lord and say to all the Jews who come to worship in the house of the Lord all the words that I command you to say—do not lessen a word. “Thus says the Lord: If you do not obey Me in walking according to My law, which I have given you, in order to obediently listen to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I send to you early in the morning and whom you ignore, then to this house, which is called by My name and on which you place your hope (cf. Jer. 7:14), I will do the same thing that I did to Shiloh 2856, and the city I will give this one over as a curse to all the nations of the earth” (Jer. 26:1–6). Hearing such menacing broadcasts of the prophet on behalf of God, the imaginary zealots of public peace and state security - priests and false prophets, filled with anger, seized Jeremiah and demanded a trial over him, demanding that both the princes and the people pronounce a death sentence on him. Crowds of people, thus excited against Jeremiah, gathered in the house of the Lord; the princes of Judah and some persons from the royal house came there and sat down at the entrance of the gate to the house of the Lord. In this way, a formal trial of the prophet was formed. The wicked priests and false prophets addressed the assembly of the people and the rulers of the Jews and said: “Death to this man, because he prophesies against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.” Jeremiah said in his defense: “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that you have heard. Therefore, correct your ways and your deeds and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will cancel the evil that He has spoken against you. As for me, here I am - in your hands; do with me whatever you please and whatever seems best and fair in your eyes. But just know for sure that if you kill me, you will lay innocent blood on yourself, and on this city, and on its inhabitants, for truly the Lord sent me to you to speak all those words into your ears. Then the Jewish princes and royal nobles who presided over the people's assembly said to the frantic priests and false prophets: “This man cannot be sentenced to death because he spoke to us in the name of the Lord our God.” Some of the elders of the land also came to Jeremiah’s defense and addressed the people with the following words: “Remember, Micaiah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and said to all the people of Judah: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, and the church mount will become a wooded hill.” “Did King Hezekiah and the people of Judah kill him for this?” Did they not fear the Lord and entreat Him? And the Lord canceled the disaster that he had spoken against them; and we - we want to do great harm to our souls (Jer. 26:11-19). So, let us repent, turn away from evil and not seek the death of an innocent person. For was there at least any benefit from the recently shed blood of Uriah, the son of Shemaiah of Cariathyarim, who prophesied in the name of the Lord against this city and against this land in exactly the same words as Jeremiah prophesies? - The king and his nobles, hearing then the speeches of this Uri, hated him and sought to kill him; and he, doomed to death, fled to Egypt out of fear; King Joachim sent his people to Egypt, who brought him from there: Uriah was killed with a sword; but what happened from that? - popular indignation against the king and the princes of Judah: the same will certainly happen if you put Jeremiah to death. After this, a division occurred in the national assembly: some insisted on killing the holy prophet, while others defended his innocence. And the haters of Jeremiah would certainly have defeated his defenders if one of the influential nobles at the royal court, named Ahikam, the son of Saphan, had not taken him under his protection; he delivered Jeremiah from the hands of evil people who were ready to kill him (Jer. 26:20–24). Meanwhile, idolatry, which poisoned the people's conscience for many previous years and gave rise to extreme corruption of morality, grew more and more intensified in Judea. There were also among the Jews those who, in response to the prophetic call - to correct the path of their lives and follow the law of God - mockingly said: – Don’t get your hopes up; We will live according to our own thoughts and we will each act according to the desire of our evil heart (Jer. 18:12), - we will do everything that came out of our mouths, we will burn incense to the goddess of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we and our fathers, our kings and our princes did, in the cities of Judea and on the streets of Jerusalem, because it gave us satiety and happiness (Jer. 44:17). The truth was no longer with them, it was taken away from their mouths; From the least to the greatest, each of them was devoted to greed, and from the [lying] prophet to the priest - everyone acted deceitfully and, doing abominations, were not at all ashamed or blushed (Jer. 6:13-15). The king of the Jews, Joachim, also did what was objectionable in the eyes of the Lord, being carried away by the general stream of wickedness (2 Kings 23:37, 2 Chronicles 36:5). And so Saint Jeremiah again received an order from the Lord: “Go and enter the house of the king of Judah and speak this word there and say: Hear the word of the Lord, king of the Jews who sits on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter through this gate.” Thus says the Lord: carry out justice and righteousness and save the oppressed from the hand of the oppressor, do not offend or oppress the stranger, the widow and the orphan, do not shed innocent blood in this place. For if you do this word, then the kings who sit on the throne of David from his family will enter through the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, themselves and their servants and their people. And if you do not listen to these words, then I swear by myself (says the Lord) that the house will become empty, the cities will become uninhabited and the whole land of Judah will turn into a desert; for I will prepare destroyers with their weapons, who will smite the unrepentant people as trees are cut down. And many nations will pass through this desolate city and say to each other: “Why did the Lord do this to this great city?” And they will say in response: “Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God and worshiped other gods and served them.” And about the king of the Jews Joachim himself, the holy prophet said in the name of the Lord that since his eyes and heart are turned to self-interest and the shedding of innocent blood, to committing oppression and violence, then after death they will not mourn him, expressing grief with exclamations: “alas, sir!” and “alas, his greatness!” – He will be buried like a donkey’s burial: they will drag him out and throw him far beyond the gates of Jerusalem (Jer. 22:1-19). Such daring words of the prophet of God, spoken publicly, before the people, aroused the great anger of the king and his entourage: Saint Jeremiah would certainly have been put to death if God’s providence had not preserved him for future mysterious broadcasts from the face of the Lord. He was roughly seized and dishonorably, in chains, put in prison. At this time, the execution of God's Judgment began on the criminal city, desecrated by pagan abominations and stained with the blood of the innocent. – Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopallasar, king of Babylon, a representative of the Assyrian monarchy, on behalf of his father, spoke out against the Egyptian king Necho and, at Carchemish 2857, having defeated the army of the pharaoh who attempted to take possession of Assyria, he immediately directed his forces against his tributary, the king of Judah. Jerusalem, after a short siege, was taken by Nebuchadnezzar; King Joachim of Judah, in the third year of his reign, was captured and, together with selected youths from the royal and princely noble families (including the prophet Daniel, still a youth, and three youths Ananias, Misail and Azariah) (Dan. 1: 1-6), was taken to Babylon. A significant part of the citizens of Jerusalem were taken there and some were taken from the vessels of the house of God. A short time later, Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned in Babylon after the death of his father, returned the captive Joachim to Jerusalem, restoring him to the dignity of the king of the Jews, and only made him his tributary. So three years passed: Joachim paid tribute to the king of Babylon, as before until now he had paid tribute to the Pharaoh of Egypt. Having thus been freed from the dependence on Egypt that weighed heavily on Judea and not seeing the future menacing danger from Babylon, a still young monarchy then busy organizing its internal affairs, Joachim and his nobles, having arrogantly decided to throw off the Chaldean yoke, indulged in debauchery and various follies. But before Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, openly renounced obedience to Nebuchadnezzar and clearly proclaimed the independence of his kingdom from Babylon, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, who was then kept in prison, the following word: “Take yourself a scroll of books and write in it all the words that I spoke to you about Israel and about all the nations, from the day that I began to speak to you, from the days of Josiah until this day; Perhaps the house of Judah, the people of Judah, will hear about all the evils that I am thinking of doing to them, so that they will each turn from their evil way, so that I will forgive their iniquities and their sins. Jeremiah fulfilled this command of God through his disciple-scribe Baruch, son of Neriah, who wrote down in a book scroll all the words from the lips of the prophet. After this Jeremiah said to Baruch: “I am imprisoned and guarded; I cannot leave here and go to the house of the Lord.” So go and read the words of the Lord, written by you from my lips, in the hearing of the people in the house of the Lord, on the day of fasting, and also in the hearing of all the Jews who came from their cities; read to them, and perhaps they will offer up prayer before the face of the Lord and each one will turn from his evil way, for great is the indignation and anger that the Lord has declared against this people. Baruch read the words of the Lord written on a scroll before the people's assembly. This was in the fifth year of Jehoiakim's reign (Jer. 36:9). Reading the scroll made a stunning impression on everyone; the people's assembly was excited. The incident was reported to the royal palace, where all the noble advisers were then located; the latter demanded Baruch to come to them. The prophecy of Jeremiah, read by Baruch, also struck the carelessly dissolute nobles who had been corrupted in their conscience. They looked at each other in horror and asked Baruch how he wrote this prophecy. Baruch replied, “Jeremiah spoke these words with my mouth, and I wrote them in this scroll.” The dignitaries said: “These prophecies are so important that their contents must certainly be retold to the king” (Jer. 36:10–19). Those who were kind to Baruch advised him to hide for a while, and they also ordered Jeremiah the prophet to be transferred to another place of imprisonment so that no one would know where the heralds of God’s decrees were. When the king was brought to the attention of the prophetic scroll, Joachim ordered that this scroll be presented to him and read aloud to all the princes in his presence. The time was cold then: it was the month of November; The king was sitting in his house in front of a brazier filled with burning coals, and the nobles stood around him. Some of the nobles 2858 listened with intense attention to the words of Jeremiah, but the reading of the prophecy did not make the proper impression on the hardened heart of the king and his servile dignitaries. Moreover, as the reader unfolded the scroll and read three or four columns, the king cut them off with a scribe's knife and threw them into the fire in the brazier; the scroll was read in its entirety and the whole was burned (Jer.36:1-26). Joachim then gave orders to his minions to take Jeremiah and Baruch and put them both to death. But by the providence of God they were hidden at that time and escaped death; and soon such a time came for the kingdom of Judah that the enemies and haters of the prophets had no time to think and carry out their revenge. Meanwhile, at the command of God, the prophet Jeremiah uttered a new word in denunciation of the wicked king: “Take yourself another scroll,” the Lord told him, “and write in it all the previous words that were in the first scroll, which Joachim, king of the Jews, burned.” Tell Joachim: Thus says the Lord - you burned the scroll, because it was written in it that the king of Babylon would certainly come and devastate this land, destroy people and cattle on it. For this, this is what the Lord says about Joachim: his descendants will not sit on the throne of David, and after his death his body will be thrown into the heat of the day and the cold of the night (Jer. 36:27-30). This command of the Lord was fulfilled by the holy prophet: from the lips of Jeremiah another scroll was written by the hand of Baruch, in which much was added to the previous prophetic speeches. At this time, unexpectedly for the Jews, Jerusalem was surrounded by the army of Nebuchadnezzar, composed of light detachments of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites. The holy city, not prepared for defense, was easily taken by the attackers; King Joachim was captured and died an inglorious death: his corpse was thrown outside the city walls to be devoured by wild animals and birds. Thus the prophetic word of Saint Jeremiah came true that the king of Judah would be buried in a donkey’s burial: he would be pulled out and thrown far beyond the gates of Jerusalem (Jer. 22:19), that his dead body would be thrown into the heat of the day and the cold of the night. However, his remaining bones, eaten by beasts, were buried by the Jews in the royal family tomb (2 Chronicles 36:8). After the death of Joachim, his son, Jehoiachin, ascended the throne of Jerusalem, and was no more pious than his father. Saint Jeremiah prophesied about him that he and his entire household would be delivered from the Lord into the hands of the king of Babylon - and would no longer see his land! - which soon came true. Jehoiachin occupied the throne of David for only one hundred days. Having reigned in place of his father, he, in unreasonable blindness, indulged in the unrealizable dream of being able to resist Nebuchadnezzar and did not want to voluntarily submit to him, to recognize his power over himself. Indulging in immoral, idolatrous abominations like his father, Jeconiah thought to find safety behind the strong walls of Jerusalem, and in the event of a siege of his capital, he counted on help from Egypt. But taken by surprise by the rapid attack of Nebuchadnezzar, who appeared in person among his troops surrounding Jerusalem, he had to surrender to the will of the winner with his entire family, with the entire court and eunuchs. The entire royal house, noble nobles, all the best people of the land of Judea, the elite of warriors and artisans - in total, up to ten thousand of the selected population were taken to Babylon; Gold vessels from the church of the Lord and royal treasures were taken there along with the captives (2 Kings 24:8-16). Thus the prophetic word of Jeremiah was fulfilled: Jehoiachin, king of Judah, - this ring on the right hand of the Lord God, who once led the Jews out of Egypt, was torn from its place and, like a despised and rejected creature, like an obscene vessel, was thrown with his mother and his tribe into a foreign country, which they did not know, where they were not born, and there they died, not returning to their native land, which their soul desired ( Jeremiah 44:24–29 ). After the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the deportation to Babylon of the most respected, best people of the Kingdom of Judah, almost only the poor, lower population remained in Judea. To manage this remnant of Judah, the Chaldean victor installed in the place of Jeconiah the third son of King (pious) Josiah, Matthanius - the uncle of Jeconiah, the brother of Jehoahaz and Joachim - renamed Zedekiah. Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar's protege, reigned for eleven years, and throughout his entire reign he did almost only what should have overwhelmed the measure of God's long-suffering: moral depravity was so strong in him that, despite the most difficult trials that befell him, he could not overcome his wicked inclinations, could not turn with heartfelt sincerity to the Lord God of Israel. Such were the people around him, those close to him, and the priests. In Judea, pagan abominations multiplied more and more; the very house of God, the temple in Jerusalem, was desecrated by the abominations of idolatry (Ezek. 8, cf. Jer. 23); They did not listen to the speeches of the Lord, broadcast through prophetic lips, listening to the more flattering words of false prophets who indulged the passionate lusts of corrupt people. All this gathered the wrath of the Lord, like a menacing cloud, over Jerusalem and over the entire land of Judea, until the Lord finally turned His face away from His people and handed over the holy city of Jerusalem to final destruction and desolation (Jer. 52:1-3). This last attack that broke out over Jerusalem, the most terrible of all the previous ones, happened like this. Nebuchadnezzar, who deported strong and militantly opposed Jews to Babylon and installed Zedekiah as king in Jerusalem over the weak remnant of the people of God, hoped to have a stronghold in weakened Judea against Egypt, the struggle with which continued to occupy him. The Chaldean ruler hoped that his protege, the non-warlike Zedekiah, while remaining his tributary, would seek support for himself in his powerful strength and remain obedient to him. So it was for about three or four years. But then, having strengthened himself, or better yet, more precisely, having just sat on the royal throne, Zedekiah ceased to be content with his humble position and wanted to free himself from the yoke of the king of Babylon. The courtiers around him, seized by insane blindness, also disposed him to this; What was especially tempting for him was the advice of the surrounding kings - Edomite, Moab, Ammonite, Tire and Sidon, who also hated dependence on Chaldea. The latter formed an alliance against Nebuchadnezzar and sent an embassy to Jerusalem with an invitation to Zedekiah to join their alliance in order to stand together against the rule of the king of Babylon, overthrow his hated yoke and not pay him tribute. At this time there was a command from the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah: “Make yourself bonds and a yoke and put them on your neck; send the same to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tire and Sidon through their ambassadors; and command them to speak the word of the Lord to their rulers” (Jer. 27:2-4). The holy prophet did so: having placed chains and a wooden yoke around his neck, he appeared in the palace of Zedekiah, when the ambassadors of the said kings were there, and said: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, so tell it to your rulers: I created the earth, man and the animals that are on the face of the earth, by My great power and gave it to whomever I pleased.” And now I have given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And all nations will serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the time comes for both his land and himself. And if any people and kingdom do not want to serve him, the king of Babylon, and do not bend their neck under the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, I will punish that people with sword, famine and pestilence, until I destroy them by the hand of the king of Babylon. And do not listen to your soothsayers and fortune tellers, your dreamers, and wizards, and astrologers, who assure you that “you will not serve the king of Babylon”; for they are telling you lies to remove you from your land, so that I will drive you out and destroy you. Do not listen to them, but serve the king of Babylon and live; Why bring this city and your lands to desolation (Jer. 27:5-17)? This was in the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah (Jer. 28:1). With a yoke around his neck, one day the prophet of God entered the church of the Lord, and here he met one of the false prophets named Ananias, who, before the eyes of the priests and all the people, said: “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon; in two years I will return to this place all the vessels of the house of the Lord that were taken to Babylon, and I will return Jehoiachin the king and all the Jews here. And Ananias took the yoke that lay on the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke it. Jeremiah left the church, but soon, having received a revelation from God, returned to the church and said to Ananias: - Listen, Ananias! The Lord did not send you, and you are giving false hope to this people. You have broken the yoke of wood; make instead an iron yoke. For God will put an iron yoke on the necks of all these nations, so that they will serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And you, because you spoke a lie in the name of God, will die this same year, you will be thrown off the face of the earth, because you spoke contrary to the Lord. And indeed, after a month, death befell the false prophet. Notified of this, Zedekiah was embarrassed and did not dare to openly break away from the king of Babylon at that time. Subsequently, when the Egyptian pharaoh, Psammetichus II, the son of Necho, became the head of the allied Canaanite kings, who, after the victory over the Ethiopians, became carried away with a bold plan to expand his rule in the region of the Euphrates, Zedekiah clearly sided with the allies: he abandoned Nebuchadnezzar, declared himself his opponent, not listening to the admonitions of Saint Jeremiah, who always gave him and all the people time-effective tips. Meanwhile, at the same time, the prophet Jeremiah secretly sent message 2859 to Babylon to the Jews taken there into captivity. In his message, he informed his fellow tribesmen that, by God’s determination, they would stay there for seventy years, and in the name of God he exhorted them to “build themselves houses there and plant vineyards, arrange marriages for their sons and daughters, so that the chosen people do not diminish in captivity, but multiply, and also take care of the improvement of the city where they are settled, and pray to God for it, for with its prosperity it will be good for them, they will also live peacefully and calm." In addition, in the name of God, the holy prophet warned his fellow tribesmen against false prophets, imaginary patriots who were among them and promised them a quick release from captivity, for this is what the Lord says: When you are seventy years old in Babylon, then I will visit you and fulfill My good word about you, in order to return you to this land; Only I know the intentions that I have for you, intentions for good and not for evil, to give you a future and hope (Jer. 29:5). The message of Jeremiah was carefully read and listened to by the Jews taken to Babylon; The supposedly true lovers of their unfortunate fatherland, the false prophets, also became acquainted with it, but among the latter it aroused anger and a desire to take revenge on the prophet. They wrote from themselves to Jerusalem to the priests there, asking them to forbid Jeremiah to prophesy and write epistles. Moreover, they demanded that the bound Jeremiah be subject to strict supervision in captivity, so that he would not confuse people either with words or letters, frightening them with prolonged captivity. However, the prophet of God, despite the prohibitions and shackles that were placed on him, did not cease to proclaim the word of the Lord and say that the Lord would visit those resettled to Babylon with His mercy, and those who remained in Jerusalem, on the contrary, would destroy with His righteous wrath. “Behold, I,” says the Lord about the king sitting on the throne of David and about all the people living in this city, “I will send upon them sword, famine and pestilence, and I will make them like worthless figs, which cannot be eaten because of their worthlessness; and I will persecute them and deliver them up as a source of embarrassment to all the kingdoms of the earth, as a curse and terror, as a mockery and reproach among all the nations, where I will drive them out, because they did not listen to My words (Jer. 29:1-32). Near Jerusalem there was a valley of the sons of Hinnom, called Tophet, on which high altars were built; there the wicked Jews made sacrifices to Molech, slaughtering and burning their sons and daughters; This area was often resounding with the frantic sounds of trumpets and kettledrums, drowning out the desperate cries and cries of the hardened children. To expose such vile, inhuman lawlessness of his contemporaries, the prophet Jeremiah, at the command of God, having bought a fired clay jug from a potter, went to the Tophet Valley, inviting with him the elders of the people and the elders of the priesthood. There he cried out in a loud voice: - Hear the word of the Lord, kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! “This is what the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place, of which whoever hears will have his ears ringing, because My people have abandoned Me and made this place strangers and burn incense on it to other gods, whom neither their fathers nor their kings knew before; They filled this place with the blood of the innocent, built high altars and burned their sons with fire as a burnt offering to Baal, which I did not command them and which did not occur to me. Therefore, behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when this place will no longer be called Tophet - the valley of Hinnom, but the valley of death, the slaughter, because here many Jews will be killed by the sword of their enemies; And I will give their carcasses as food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. I will bring this city of Jerusalem into ruin and make it an object of horror and wonder to everyone; everyone walking by will be amazed and whistle, looking at all his ulcers. And they will feed on the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, each one will eat the flesh of his neighbor, being under siege and cramped conditions, when they are surrounded and squeezed by enemies seeking their souls (Jer. 19:3-9).” Having uttered such terrible words on behalf of the angry God, Saint Jeremiah threw the clay jug that was in his hands to the ground, broke it in front of everyone and said: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Thus will I break this people and this city, as a potter is broken, which can no longer be restored; I will make Jerusalem like Tophet, and the houses of the people of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be like the place of Tophet, unclean (Jer. 19:10-13). Having uttered this formidable prophecy, Jeremiah left Tophet and returned to Jerusalem. And here, standing in the courtyard of the house of the Lord, he addressed the people with these words: - Thus says the Lord God of Israel: “Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all its cities all the evil that I have spoken upon it, because they are stiff-necked and do not listen to My words (Jer. 19:14-15).” The prophetically spoken words did not please Paschor, the priest, who was also an overseer in the house of the Lord. He struck Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stock that was at the upper gate of Benjamin by the house of the Lord. But the next day Pashor released Jeremiah, and Jeremiah said to him: “It is not Pashor (peace be upon you) that befits your name, but Magor Missavib (the horror around); for thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; you will all fall by the sword of your enemies: you will see this with your own eyes. And I will deliver all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will lead them to Babylon and smite them with the sword. And I will deliver all the wealth of this city and all its acquisitions, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah I will give into the hands of their enemies, and they will plunder them and take them and send them to Babylon. And you, Pashor, and all who live in your house will go into captivity; and you will come to Babylon and die there, and you and all your friends to whom you prophesied falsely will be buried” (Jer. 20:1-6). Soon this prophecy of Saint Jeremiah came true. In the ninth year of his reign, Zedekiah, the king of Judah, openly broke away from the king of Babylon and interrupted his dependence on him; and on the tenth day of the tenth month Nebuchadnezzar approached (Jer. 52:4) Jerusalem with his numerous army and surrounded it on all sides; built high embankments around its walls, on which he placed siege towers. A terrible hour has come for Jerusalem! In the capital of the kingdom of Judah, protected by strong walls and sufficiently supplied with water and all kinds of supplies, due to the extraordinary accumulation of people hiding from the Chaldean invasion (Jer. 35:11), a great need for the most necessary things was soon discovered - there was a shortage of bread in the city (Jer. 52:6). At this difficult time, the Prophet of God, at the command of God, appeared to King Zedekiah and said to him and all the people: “Thus says the Lord: “Behold, I am giving this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will take it and burn it; and you, O king, will not escape from his hand, but you will certainly be taken and delivered into his hands and led to Babylon” (Jer. 34:2-3). However, out of a desire to save Jerusalem from final ruin and the kingdom of Judah from destruction, Jeremiah advised Zedekiah to voluntarily surrender to Nebuchadnezzar, relying on his generosity. But the false prophets and the elders of the priests in every possible way opposed the advice of the prophet of God and, encouraged by the absurd dreams of selfish and ambitious nobles, convinced the king not to listen to “the madman, as they said, Jeremiah” (Jer. 28). Meanwhile, the unreasonable passion of Zedekiah and his advisers, who did not allow voluntary submission to the king of Babylon, apparently received justification for itself, although it did not last long. The Pharaoh of Egypt, in whom the king of Judah, together with the other previously mentioned allied kings, placed his trust, gathered his army and came to the aid of Zedekiah, besieged by the Chaldeans. Having learned about this, Nebuchadnezzar quickly stopped the siege of Jerusalem and rushed with all his forces against his main rival (Jer. 37:5). An extraordinary rejoicing then began in Jerusalem. When the gates, which had remained locked for almost a whole year, were opened, the Jerusalemites rushed out of the city to enjoy the feeling of freedom and see how things were in the surrounding villages and cities, what happened to the fields and vineyards. The Jews thought that Nebuchadnezzar hastily lifted the siege of their city and withdrew, realizing the weakness of his forces and the impossibility of defeating the fortress of their capital. “Behold,” the self-deluded zealots of their dreams of the power of their fatherland boasted, “the king of Babylon could not overcome us and fled shamefully.” And they swore, blaspheming Jeremiah’s prophecy as unfulfilled. However, Saint Jeremiah, even at this time, did not hesitate to proclaim that Jerusalem would be taken by the Chaldeans. “The Chaldeans,” he said, “will come again and fight against this city, and they will take it and burn it with fire.” Don't be fooled! – Even if you had defeated the entire army of the Chaldeans fighting against you, and only the wounded were left with them, then they would have risen, each one from his tent, and burned this city with fire (Jer. 37: 7-10). After the retreat of the Chaldeans from Jerusalem, along with other Jews who moved from the besieged city, Jeremiah the prophet of God, riding a donkey, went to his home city Anathoth, in the tribe of Benjamin, where he had his own property. But as soon as he reached the Benjamin city gate, he was stopped by the chief of the guard at that gate, named Irsiah, the grandson of the false prophet Hananiah (who was mentioned before), to whom Jeremiah predicted a quick death. This Irsiya, out of hatred for the prophet for his grandfather, detained him, suspecting him of treason. “You want to run over to the Chaldeans,” said Irsiya. “You lie, I am not going to the Chaldeans, but to my city, in which I have my property.” But, despite the assurances, the guard grabbed the servant of God and with brutal violence took him to the princes, and these, rejoicing at the opportunity to carry out their long-standing evil plan against the innocent man who was annoying them, looked at him as a real spy, subjected him to beatings and imprisoned him in an underground dungeon in the house of Jonathan - the scribe, a man (Jer. 37:12-16) cruel and heartless, who was also tasked with supervising the prisoner. They did not dare lay hands on the prophet or kill him, fearing thereby earning the disfavor of their king Zedekiah, who at times, although timidly (Jer. 37:19), paid attention to Saint Jeremiah. By order of Zedekiah, the prophet of God was soon transferred from the basement dungeon to the palace prison, where he was given bread (Jer. 37:21) and from where he could convey his instructions to the people. However, the joyful rejoicing in Jerusalem did not last long. Nebuchadnezzar, who held the Jewish capital under siege for 390 days and lifted this siege just to repel the Egyptian pharaoh who was coming to the aid of Zedekiah, soon put his enemy to flight and returned again to Jerusalem and besieged it even more closely than before. The Chaldean campaign against the Egyptians lasted a little over 100 days; the last siege of Jerusalem lasted only 40 days (Ezek.4:5-6). During all this time, the holy prophet Jeremiah did not cease to exhort the Jews to turn to God in repentance, pointing out to them his now clearly fulfilled predictions, that the time had already come for the execution determined by God for the iniquities of sinners, and gave useful advice not to resist the will of God and to submit to the Chaldeans. “Thus says the Lord,” said Jeremiah, “whoever remains in this city will die from the sword, hunger and pestilence, and whoever goes out to the Chaldeans will live, he will at least keep his main treasure - his soul and will remain alive.” This city will certainly be taken by the army of the king of Babylon (Jer.38:2-3). Hearing about such suggestions of the prophet, the Jewish princes and fanatic patriots, who had no idea about true love for the fatherland, turned to the king with the demand: “Let this man be put to death, because he weakens the hands of the soldiers and the hands of the whole people by speaking such words to them; for this man does not desire prosperity for his people, but ruin and shame. King Zedekiah answered them in despair: - It is in your hands - do with it what you want; the king cannot do anything contrary to you ( Jer. 38:4–5 ). Saint Jeremiah was then lowered by ropes into a deep hole in the courtyard of the court prison, in which there was a lot of unclean dirt. In this pit the man of God suffered innocently, immersed up to his neck in mud; and he would have died there from dampness and hunger if one God-fearing foreigner had not saved him. At the royal court there was a eunuch named Ebedmelech - an Ethiopian; He, hearing that Jeremiah was put in a pit, was outraged by such unworthy treatment of the respected prophet, turned to the king and said: - My lord, king! You did a bad thing by doing this to Jeremiah the prophet, exposing him to mortal danger. The king gave orders to Ebed-melech to pull him out of the pit. And then Zedekiah called Jeremiah to him and asked him privately whether everything he prophesied was true? “If I tell you the truth, will you put me to death?” And if I give advice, you won't listen to me. The king swore to Jeremiah that he would not put him to death and would not hand him over to the hands of those people who were seeking to kill him. Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah: - Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: if you (voluntarily submit and) go out to the princes of the king of Babylon, then your soul will live and this city will not be burned with fire, and you and your house will live; and if you do not go out to the commanders of the king of Babylon, then this city will be delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans, and they will burn it with fire, and you will not escape from their hands. The king, deceived by his imaginary friends, did not listen to the prophet and did not follow his good advice. But, fearing treachery on the part of these same friends, not so much for Jeremiah as for himself, he told the man of God that no one should know their secret conversation and that, if the princes were questioned about it, he should answer: “I submitted my petition before the king, so as not to return me to Jonathan’s house, so as not to die there.” And the prophet remained under supervision in the courtyard of the royal guard throughout the siege of Jerusalem, until the very day when it was taken by the Chaldeans. This happened in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign (Jer.38:1-28). Finally, the last hour struck for the city, the glorious stronghold of Israel - Jerusalem: the number of its defenders was reduced so much that they could no longer defend the city walls; there was no bread in the city - the horror of starvation hung over the Jewish capital; The Jerusalemites, overwhelmed by fear, lost the last remnants of human feeling: no longer in a figurative sense they “ate each other,” but literally “fed on the flesh of their sons and daughters and their neighbors.” Thus the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled! (Jer.19:9, etc.) On the ninth day of the month of Tammuz, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah (Jer. 39:2) (in the month of June 589 BC), the Chaldeans made a wide breach in the city wall and invaded Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar himself was not present. At that time he was in Rivla, in Syria. His generals, having burst into the city, placed their tents in the middle gate, which was located between Zion and the lower city (Jer. 39: 1-3). The stern warriors, embittered by the duration of the siege, scattered throughout the city and gave no mercy to anyone. The Jews, exhausted by hunger and terror, all who could, gave themselves up to flight (2 Kings 25:2). King Zedekiah and the bodyguards surrounding him managed to sneak through a secret passage at night, located near the royal garden, in the northeastern part of the city, and escape from the capital. He wanted to hide in the wilderness of Gilead. But his flight was soon noticed by the Chaldeans, and a pursuit was sent after him and his companions. The fugitives were easily overtaken on the Jericho Plain. The soldiers who were with the king either fled or were killed. Zedekiah was taken captive and taken to Nebuchadnezzar in Riblah, a Syrian city. The high priest Seraiah and the church commander Zephaniah, who were captured in the city, were also taken there, as well as the eunuch, the chief commander of the troops and seven nobles who stood before the king, and sixty noble representatives from the people. The winner pronounced his judgment on the vanquished: the sons of Zedekiah and all the Jerusalemites, brought before the menacing eyes of the eastern ruler, were stabbed to death in front of the unfortunate king of Judah, then his own eyes were gouged out, and after that he was sent in copper shackles to Babylon and there he was imprisoned, where he died (Jer. 52, cf. Jer. 39: 4–7 ). A month after the Chaldeans captured Jerusalem (Jer. 52:12), the chief of Nebuchadnezzar’s bodyguard, Nebuzaradan, arrived there. The capital of the kingdom of Judah then represented the dwelling of the dead: all its gates were empty, the roads to Zion were deserted, the priests languished, as the young men and maidens of Judah were trampled in a winepress (Lam. 1:1-15). But the city, the capital city of the descendants of David, until that time wonderful and glorious, still remained, retaining its greatness and beauty. The military leaders who conquered him did not have the authority to decide his fate. The ruler of the Chaldeans himself hesitated: on the one hand, he wanted to have a stronghold for himself in the land of Judea against the hostile encroachments of the Egyptian king, and Jerusalem with its fortress wall could be useful, but on the other hand, he could not help but suspect the danger for himself that the always insidious and rebellious Jews would take advantage of this strong stronghold in their treacherous ways. The last consideration prevailed: Nebuchadnezzar sent Nebuzaradan with instructions to destroy Jerusalem to its foundations. This final, complete destruction of Jerusalem was touchingly depicted by Saint Jeremiah, pouring out his great sorrow in the verses of his “Lamentation.” The death of the holy city deeply shocked the hearts of Israel - having begun their sincere lamentation “on the rivers of Babylon” (Ps. 136), they continue it to this day, spending the day dedicated to the memory of this event, fasting and without shoes on their feet - without boots and shoes as a sign of sadness. The governor Nebuzaradan had a special command regarding the holy prophet Jeremiah from his ruler Nebuchadnezzar - exactly this: take him and watch with special attention so that he lives without oppression, do not do anything bad to him and let him do in everything as he wants (Jer. 39: 11-12). Nebuchadnezzar knew about Jeremiah, about his predictions and advice that he gave to King Zedekiah; That’s why he gave Nebuzaradan such an order about the fate of the prophet. Saint Jeremiah, who during the siege of Jerusalem was kept in chains under the supervision of the court guard, was captured by the Chaldeans along with other Jews; upon the arrival of Nebuzaradan in Jerusalem, he was immediately presented to this authorized administrator of the fate of the city and the entire kingdom of Judah and heard from the latter such a favorable speech: “The Lord your God has spoken this disaster to this place and done what he said... But I am freeing you today from the chains that are in your hands: and if you want to go with me to Babylon, go; and if you don’t want to go with me, stay. The whole earth is before you, wherever you please and wherever you like to go, go there” (Jer. 40:1-4). Jeremiah expressed his desire to remain in his native land. Having received freedom and seeing the patronizing favor towards himself on the part of Nebuzaradan, Jeremiah first of all took care of the Holy Place of God, the highest beauty and glory of all times of Israel, that is, about the ark of the covenant, so that it would not be destroyed by foreigners, so that the glory of God would not be despised. The prophet boldly then asked the victor for permission to take the shrine of the God of Israel before the church of the Lord was plundered and burned. And taking advantage of this permission, he found the reverent, surviving priests and Levites, took them with him and, fearlessly and unhindered, walking with them among the Chaldeans, entered the church built by Solomon. Here the prophet of God ignited the lamp he had prepared from the fire that miraculously came down from the Lord in the days of Moses and Aaron for the burnt offering (Lev.9:24) and from that time on was inextinguishably maintained on the altar, and hid that lamp in a waterless well, having strong faith and prophetically foreseeing that this fire would go out there, if only temporarily (changing miraculously into another element, thick water), but in due time again, having returned to its former property, it will ignite, which was fulfilled upon the return of the Israelites from Babylonian captivity, during the restoration of the church during the time of Nehemiah, many years after the death of the holy prophet Jeremiah, who shut this fire into a well and leveled the place itself, so that it became unnoticed and remained unknown to anyone for a long time (2 Mac. 1:19-32). After hiding the sacrificial fire, the prophet of God took the ark of the covenant, carried it out of the church and kept it in his home until the turmoil in the city, which occurred as a result of the order given by Nebuzaradan at that time regarding the sack and burning of Jerusalem, ended. When the shrine of the Lord was taken out of the church, the Chaldean soldiers, by order of Nebuzaradan, immediately collected all the church jewelry, gold, silver and copper, to send them to Babylon, and the church itself was completely destroyed; At the same time, all the royal palaces and the best houses that adorned the streets of Jerusalem were destroyed and burned; The city walls were also excavated and razed to the ground. A great number of Jews then fell from the sword of the conquerors, and most of all - in the valley of Tophet, in which the lawless had previously sacrificed their sons and daughters to Molech and to which the Chaldeans were now driving them themselves for slaughter. Those who were left alive and who had not yet lost their strength were then taken into captivity. And only the weak and those who had nothing from the stiff-necked people were left in Judah, to whom, by order of Nebuzaradan, vineyards and fields were given for cultivation and for food (Jer. 39:10; 2 Kings 25:12). Leaving the plundered and devastated Jerusalem, Nebuzaradan appointed Gedaliah, the son of that Ahikam, who once delivered Jeremiah from the hands of murderers, over the devastated Judea as the regional commander, and who chose his residence no longer in Jerusalem, but in Mizpeh 2860, near Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah also settled there to live, by order of Nebuzaradan, under the protection and patronage of the regional commander (Jer. 40:5). Taking advantage of the freedom and the coming peace of his country, Saint Jeremiah, together with the reverent priests and Levites, took the shrine of the house of God that was preserved by him and carried it to a mountain in the land of Moab, beyond the Jordan River, near Jericho, from which the prophet Moses once contemplated the promised land, on which he died and was buried in a place unknown to anyone (Deut. 34). On that mountain the prophet Jeremiah found a cave and brought the ark of the covenant into it; The entrance to this cave was blocked with a large stone. And Jeremiah seemed to seal this stone, inscribing the name of God on it with his finger, and the writing was similar to writing with an iron point, for the hard stone under the writing finger of the prophet was soft like wax, and then hardened again according to the properties of its nature. And the place became strong, as if cast from iron. After this, Saint Jeremiah, turning to the people accompanying him, said: “The Lord has departed from Zion to heaven! - and He will return with power, and the sign of His coming will be: when all the nations of the earth will worship the tree” (the tree of the cross on which the Savior of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, was crucified). To this, Jeremiah also added that no one can take that ark out of this place, only Moses, the prophet of God, and none of the priests will open or read the tablets of the covenant that are in the ark, only Aaron, the saint of God; on the day of the general resurrection, he will be taken out from under the stone sealed in the name of God and placed on Mount Zion, and all the saints will gather to him in anticipation of the coming of the Lord, who will deliver them from the terrible enemy - the Antichrist, who seeks their death. When Saint Jeremiah said this to the priests and Levites, suddenly a cloud covered that sealed cave and no one could read the name of God inscribed on the stone with Jeremiah’s finger, even the place itself became unrecognizable, so no one could indicate it. Some of those present there would have liked to have noticed this place and the path to it, but they could not do so. The Prophet, in spiritual insight, told them: “This place will not be known to anyone until the Lord gathers councils of people, and then, having mercy, He will show this place - then the glory of God will be clearly revealed to everyone on it and a cloud will overshadow it, as it was under Moses (Lev.9:23-24) and under Solomon” (1 Kings 8:10-11). So that cave remains unknown, and that place will remain unknown until the end of the world; but the glory of God covertly illuminates the ark of the covenant with a bright flaming cloud, as it covered it in the tabernacle of Moses and the temple of Solomon, for its illumination cannot stop! After seventy years, upon returning from Babylonian captivity, the Jews built a new temple in Jerusalem, but it no longer contained the glory of the ancient church of the Lord’s holiness; Then a new ark was made of gold, according to the model of Moses, it was also arranged according to the previous model, and everything that was inside it and that surrounded it, but there was no longer miraculous power in it, the glory of God did not shine upon it. Only the heavenly fire from the previous church was preserved in the new church, hidden, as said above, in a well by the prophet Jeremiah and later found by the priests. After hiding the ark of the Lord, Saint Jeremiah returned to Mizpah, the new capital of the Judean country, to Gedaliah, the new ruler of the devastated fatherland, and began to live among his remaining compatriots, mourning his unhappy homeland with inconsolable tears. The Jews, who had fled to surrounding countries during the invasion of the Chaldeans, began to gather near Gedaliah. Gedaliah, who enjoyed the favor of the ruler, encouraged them, promising them his intercession against the Chaldeans and a peaceful life. The Lord Himself, having punished the wicked, in the very first year after the Babylonian invasion comforted the sorrowful remains of the sons of Israel: that year they collected a lot of all kinds of fruits from the land and wine (Jer. 40: 9-12), however, the infection of rebellious passions and unbridled arbitrariness, not restrained by the moral law, penetrated so deeply into the hearts of the Jewish people that its power and influence were felt even in those difficult times. A certain Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, a relative of King Zedekiah, who was taken to Babylon, and Johanan and Jonathan, the sons of Kareah, and other of the military leaders of Judah, who fled from the Chaldeans to the Moabites and Ammonites and Edomites, returned and settled with their warriors in the vicinity of destroyed Jerusalem; They also entered into relations with Gedaliah, appearing to him in Mizpeh as if expressing their submission to him. Trusting Gedaliah, not suspecting their evil intentions, received them cordially and with honor, even arranged feasts for them. Johanan, the son of Kareah, among other things warned Gedaliah that Ishmael, by agreement with the Ammonites, intended to kill him and secretly offered him his vile services: “Let me,” he said, “I will go and kill Ishmael, the son of Nathaniah, and no one will know; why allow him to kill you, and for the Jews who had gathered to you to be ruined, and for the remnant of Judas to perish? “Don’t do this,” Gedaliah told him, “you are telling lies about Ishmael.” Meanwhile, soon Ismail actually appeared to Gedaliah with ten of his warriors, and late in the evening, in the middle of the feast, with a sword he struck Gedaliah and all the Jews who were with him, and the Chaldeans - the military men who were present there. Having so successfully accomplished his vile bloody feat, Ismail and his flock of predatory conspirators plundered Mizpah, captured the daughters of the ruler of the region and the people who began to get used to peaceful life there, and led them to the Ammonite borders. This daring crime of the robber, as if acting for the benefit of the fatherland, aroused general hatred against him. Johanan, the son of Karey, and other leaders of the military detachments soon united and decided to punish the villain; Having gathered their squads, they chased Ismail and overtook him in Gibeon. The Jews captured by Ismail and even his comrades, as soon as they saw Johanan, rejoiced and went over to his side. Ishmael, accompanied by only eight close associates, fled to the Ammonites. But Ioanan and his comrades were far from a true understanding of the interests of their ill-fated fatherland, which the prophet Jeremiah always persistently proclaimed. After an easy victory over Ishmael, the Jews, stopping in the village of Himam, near Bethlehem, formed a council under the leadership of Johanan, at which, out of fear of revenge for the treacherous murder of Gedaliah, the protege of the Babylonian king, they decided to go to Egypt. And they began to prepare for the whole people to go to Egypt, from which their fathers had once been driven out by the strong hand of the Almighty God and His high arm!... But before carrying out such a decision, they wished to listen to the opinion of Saint Jeremiah about this. And all the commanders of the war came, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezeniah the son of Goshaiah, and all the people, from the least of them to the greatest, and said to Jeremiah the prophet: “Let our petition fall before your face, pray for us to the Lord your God (“yours,” they say, and not “ours,” - this is worthy of special attention) about all this remnant, for out of many there are few of us left, as your eyes see us, so that the Lord your God will show us the path along which we should go and what we should do. “I hear and I will pray to the Lord your God according to your words, and whatever the Lord says I will declare to you—I will not hide a word from you.” At the same time they declared to Jeremiah: - Let the Lord be a faithful and true witness among us that we will definitely fulfill everything with which the Lord your God sends you to us: whether it be good or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will be good for us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God. The Prophet fulfilled this promise and after ten days announced to Joanan and the commanders who were with him and to all the people: “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your prayer before Him: if you remain in this land, then I will build you and will not destroy you, I will plant you and will not uproot you, for I regret the calamity that has been done to you.” Do not fear the king of Babylon, whom you fear; Do not fear him, says the Lord, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you out of his hand. And I will show you mercy: he, the king of Babylon, will not punish you and will allow you to remain in your land. But if you say, “We do not want to live in this land,” and do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, saying, “No, we will go into the land of Egypt, where we will not see war, nor hear the sound of a trumpet, and will not starve, and we will live there,” then hear now the word of the Lord, you remnant of Judah, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: If you resolutely turn your faces to go to Egypt and go to dwell there, then the sword of which you you are afraid that it will overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine that you fear will always follow you; there, in Egypt, you will die. And all who turn their faces to go to Egypt and live there will die by sword, famine and pestilence, and not one of them will remain or escape the disaster that I will bring on them. For thus says the Lord God of Israel: Just as My wrath and My wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so My wrath will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt, and you will be a curse and a terror and a reproach and a reproach, and you will see this place no more. To you, O remnant of Judah, the Lord has spoken: Do not go into Egypt; know for sure that I have now warned you! - do not sin against yourself: you sent me to the Lord God, saying that you will do everything that He tells you; and now I have declared to you the will of God. – So, know that you will die in that place from sword, famine and pestilence, where you want to go, so that you can live there in satiety and peace (Jer. 42: 2-22). This prophetic speech did not have the desired effect on hearts saturated with the poison of unbridled arbitrariness. Azariah, the son of Hosaiah, and Johanan, the son of Kareah, and other daring people said to Jeremiah: “You are speaking a lie; the Lord did not send you to tell us, ‘Do not go into Egypt,’ but Baruch, the son of Neriah, is inciting you against us to deliver us into the hands of the Chaldeans, so that they will either kill us or take us to Babylon” (Jer. 43:1-3). So the self-willed people did not heed the word of the Lord in order to remain living in the land of Judah. Johanan and his warriors and the rest of Judah, having gathered their families and belongings, went to Egypt, forcibly dragging with them the prophet Jeremiah and his faithful scribe, Baruch. Arriving in the Egyptian country, they settled in the city of Tafnis, where the prophet Moses once performed miraculous signs before Pharaoh. There, Jeremiah lived among voluntary migrants and compatriots for four years, enjoying great respect from the Egyptians for his righteous life and for the benefits that he showed them, defeating asps and crocodiles with his prayers. He died and was buried there. The death of the holy prophet was martyrdom. In Taphnis was the word of the Lord to Jeremiah: - Take in your hands large stones and hide them in crushed clay at the entrance to the house of the Pharaohs in Taphnis before the eyes of the Jews and say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I will set up his throne on these stones that I have hidden, and he will spread his magnificent tent over him; and he will come and strike the land of Egypt: whoever is doomed to death will be put to death, and whoever is doomed will go into captivity, and whoever is under the sword will be put to death (Jer 43:8-11). And only a small number of the Jews who escaped the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, and the remaining Jews who came to the land of Egypt to live here will know whose word will come true: Mine or theirs. And here is a sign for you, says the Lord, that I will visit you in this place, so that you may know that my words about you will come true to your destruction; Behold, I will deliver Pharaoh of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, just as I delivered Zedekiah king of Judah” (Jer. 44:28–30). The embitterment of the Jews from such speeches of Jeremiah reached its extreme limits and they finally stoned the prophet of God, who fearlessly told them the truth! In the year of the death of the holy prophet, the king of Babylon came to Egypt, defeated the Egyptian army and killed Pharaoh Vathri; at the same time, the children of Israel who settled there were also destroyed. The relics of the holy prophet Jeremiah, many years later, were transferred by King Alexander of Macedon 2861 to the city of Alexandria, which he had built, and placed in a place called Tetrapylus, which was highly revered by the Alexandrians. Queen Helena decorated the place in Jerusalem with a building where Jeremiah was cast into a pit of mud. Saint Jeremiah also prophesied about the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ, revealing in himself a mysterious prototype of Him, “the meek Lamb led to the slaughter” (Jer. 2:19; cf. Is. 53:7). According to the legend recorded by Saint Epiphanius, the prophet Jeremiah predicted the fall and destruction of all Egyptian idols at the time when the Virgin Mother and Child would come to Egypt, born in a den and placed in a manger; - which prophecy allegedly gave the basis for the custom that existed among the Egyptians of depicting a maiden resting on a bed with a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying next to her in a manger, and worshiping such an image. At the same time, it is also reported that the Egyptian priests, when asked by King Ptolemy why such an image was revered, answered that this was a secret predicted by the holy prophet to their ancient fathers, and that they were waiting for the fulfillment of this secret. Many years passed after the death of the holy prophet Jeremiah: the Jews captured by the Chaldeans returned to their native land; a new church of the Lord was built in Jerusalem, and the order of church and civil life was restored as much as possible in Judea. But in those days, the Jews no longer enjoyed political freedom and were subordinate either to the Syrians, then to the Egyptians, then to the Macedonians; they suffered hardships both from the Canaanite tribes and from internal unrest and strife. It happened one day that when the treacherous Syrian commander Nicanor, who had caused a lot of evil to the Jewish people, with arrogant pride wanted at all costs to destroy the fiery zealot of religious freedom, the formidable defender of the holy fatherly faith, Judas Maccabee, this Judas, arming his comrades not so much with strong shields and spears, but with his kind speeches and indications of former circumstances of miraculous help from the Almighty, he told them about his dream and with this story he delighted and inspired everyone (2 Mac. 15: 1-11). His vision was this: he saw Onias, a former high priest, an honest and kind man, who had zealously mastered everything related to virtue since childhood; he saw that this venerable-looking man, stretching out his hands, was praying for the entire Jewish people. Then another man appeared, adorned with gray hair and glory, surrounded by wondrous and extraordinary grandeur. And Onias said: - This is a brotherly lover who prays a lot for the people and for the holy city, Jeremiah the prophet of God. Then Jeremiah, stretching out his hand, gave Judah a golden sword and, handing it over, said: – Take this holy sword; it is a gift from God with which you will destroy your enemies (2Mac 15:12–16). And the comrades of Judas Maccabee, consoled and encouraged by his speech, bravely rushed into battle and defeated the enemy. This story of Judas about his dream clearly confirms that the holy saints of God, after their death, pray to God for us and provide us with help, just as Saint Jeremiah helped Judas Maccabee overcome his opponents. May His holy prayers help us to overcome visible and invisible enemies, by the grace and love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to Him be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen. Having purified in spirit, the great prophet and martyr, your radiant heart, glorious Jeremiah, you received the gift of prophecy from above and you cried out loudly in the countries: this is our God, and no one else will be added to him, who, having become incarnate, appeared on earth. Jeremiah from Heb. "Exalted by God." The tribe of Levi did not receive a special inheritance during the division of the Promised Land; it was scattered, settled among other tribes, where cities with their suburbs were assigned to the Levites, by lot. The city of Anathov was located within the tribe of Benjamin and belonged to the descendants of Aaron (Joshua 21:18; 1 Chron.6:60). Josiah reigned from 642 to 611 BC. The almond tree awakens from winter sleep earlier than other trees - it blooms in January, and in March it already bears fruit; That’s why the Jews called it “awake”. Among the peoples of the East, a boiling cauldron was a symbol of a fierce war. Jeremiah threatened Judah with an invasion of the Chaldeans; Babylon was in the east of Judea, but the Chaldeans invaded it in order to bypass the Arabian desert, bypassing through Syria, precisely from the north. His ministry lasted 42 years, from 627 to 585 BC. Johaz was the second son of Josiah and his beloved wife Hamutalia and was called Shallum (2 Kings 23:31; cf. 22:11). Hamav was located at the foot of the Anti-Lebanon mountains. Gold talent – ​​125,000 rubles. The entire tribute was equal to our 300,000 rubles. This indicates the fact that when, under the high priest Elijah, the Jews suffered a terrible defeat from the Philistines and the Ark of the Covenant was captured, then the glory departed from Israel. 1 Samuel 4:10–22. The city of Karchemysh stood at the confluence of Khobar and the Euphrates. Elnathan, Delaiah and Gemariah - the king's servants - apparently hoped that this reading would influence the king and incline him, like his father Josiah, to moral improvement. (2 Kings 22:10–13). Jeremiah's letter was delivered there by royal envoys sent by Zedekiah with gifts to Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 29:3). Mizpah was located near Jerusalem and was a place of prayer in ancient times; Samuel offered a burnt offering there before the Jews repelled the attacking Philistines (1 Samuel 7:1–17). Alexander the Great reigned from 336 to 323 BC. He became famous as a remarkable conqueror. Alexander the Great was in Jerusalem in 332 BC. You might be interested in: