This account of Jeremiah's call prepares the reader for the prophet's ministry that unfolds beginning in chapter 2. The events recorded here prepared Jeremiah for that ministry, a ministry that frequently discouraged him and made him wish that God had never called him.
1:4 The prophet now began speaking to his readers and telling them what the Lord had said to him. Throughout this book, an indication that the Lord had told Jeremiah something is often the sign of a new pericope, as here (cf. vv. 11, 13; 2:1, 4; 3:6, 11; 4:3, 27; et al.).47
1:5 Yahweh knew (Heb. yada', committed Himself to) Jeremiah before He had formed him in his mother's womb (cf. Gen. 4:1; Ps. 1:6; Hos. 4:1; Amos 3:2).48He had set him aside (Heb. hiqdish) from all other uses for prophetic ministry even before his birth (cf. Isa. 6; Ezek 1-3; Amos 7:10-17). His prophetic ministry would involve many nations (chs. 46-51), not just Judah (chs. 2-45).
"The thought that his very existence was a conscious part of divine purpose and not an incidental biological occurrence must have given him a special sense of destiny. This in turn doubtless contributed to his determination to fulfil [sic] his prophetic mission regardless of personal considerations."49
"God identified Himself to be sovereign over Jeremiah in that He (1) foreknew Jeremiah before he was born, (2) had caused him to be born, and (3) had separated him for a holy service. On this basis, He also had the sovereign prerogative to appoint Jeremiah to be a prophet."50
1:6 When the Lord revealed his calling to him, Jeremiah expressed dismay, first, because he was still a youth and, second, because he had not yet learned how to speak confidently and effectively.
Jeremiah's age at his call is not clear except that he was a youth (Heb. na'ar, a word that describes children through young men; cf. Gen. 14:24; 22:3; 34:19; Exod. 2:6; 33:11; 1 Sam. 4:21; Judg. 8:14). Jeremiah was probably about 20 years old.51
Jeremiah's response to his call reveals the first of his many similarities to Moses (cf. Exod. 4:1-17). The people to whom they spoke did not believe either prophet, and both men claimed to be inadequate as speakers, to name only two likenesses. Jeremiah's contemporaries could very well have mistaken him for the prophet like Moses that Moses predicted would come after himself (Deut. 18:18).
1:7 The Lord refused to accept Jeremiah's reasons for refusing his call. It did not matter that he was young and inexperienced because the Lord had called him. He would go where God sent him and say what God told him to say.
1:8 He was not to fear the response of his audience because the Lord promised to be with him and to deliver him from his threatening hearers (cf. Gen. 15:1; Num. 21:34; Deut. 3:2; 31:6, 8; Josh. 1:9; Dan. 10:12, 19; Matt. 28:20; Luke 1:30; 5:10; Acts 27:24). The Lord always supports the servants whom He sends on His missions (cf. Exod. 3:12).
1:9 By stretching out His hand and touching Jeremiah's mouth, the Lord symbolized the transfer of His words to the prophet's mouth (cf. Deut. 18:18). He also explained the meaning of His act. This was a powerful way of visualizing that the Lord Himself would participate in all that Jeremiah would undertake (cf. Isa. 6:6-7; Ezek. 3:1-3).
God uses ordinary people to accomplish His extraordinary work if they trust in Him in spite of their fears, obey Him in spite of their inexperience, and proclaim His Word in spite of their feelings of inadequacy.52
1:10 The Lord appointed Jeremiah to a position of authority over the nations in the sense that he would announce God's will for them. He would announce both good news and bad, oracles of judgment and messages of comfort and encouragement. The verbs in this verse anticipate the whole message of this book, as one might expect in an introduction.53Four of them are destructive and only two are constructive reflecting the predominantly negative emphasis of Jeremiah's ministry. The Lord compared Jeremiah's work to that of two types of workers: a farmer and an architect.
"This is a paradigm of the spiritual life, for God has first to remove the sin before the sinner can begin to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ (cf. Eph. 4:15; 2 Pet. 3:18)."54
". . . the Bible gives us a realistic message that Jeremiah preached into his own days, a message I am convinced the church today must preach if it is to be any help in the post-Christian world."55
"First, we may say that there is a time, and ours is such a time, when a negative message is needed before anything positive can begin. There must first be the message of judgment, the tearing down. There are times, and Jeremiah's day and ours are such times, when we cannot expect a constructive revolution if we begin by overemphasizing the positive message. . . .
Second, with love we must face squarely the fact that our culture really is under the judgment of God. We must not heal the sickness lightly. We must emphasize the reality."56
The Lord gave Jeremiah two visions to help him appreciate the nature of his calling. The first one stresses the ultimate effectiveness of his ministry and the second its negative emphasis. The first deals with the time of judgment and the second with the direction and nature of it.
