Rejection. 

        Jeremiah had to share the experience of so many that “a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Matt. 10:36). One of his most shattering experiences was to find that his own family (12:6) was treacherously plotting his murder (11:18-12:6). The reason was injured family pride (11:21). Ever since his address in the temple he was a marked man, and his aristocratic family resented sharing in his notoriety.

        A couple of years later (18:19-23) Jeremiah discovered a more widespread plot to kill him. The motives are not in­dicated, but they can easily be guessed.

        After his solemn message of doom by the breaking of the jar (see above) Jeremiah repeated the gist of his message in the temple (19:14f). Pashhur, the priest responsible for order withm the sacred precincts (20:1) arrested him, put him in the stocks and left him there all night (20:2f). The failure of any to intervene must have been the final proof to Jeremiah of his friendlessness- Whether the smiting was a flogging or just a blow it was a supreme indignity for a man of aristocratic family, for whom death was better than a blow.

        In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (25:1; 36:1-605 B. C.), Nebuchadnezzar defeated Necho at Carchemish, and at one stroke became lord of the lands as far as the Egyptian frontier. Jehoiakim had to bow to a new lord (Dan. 1:1; for the date see p. 142). God told Jeremiah to make one last appeal. Baruch, Jeremiah’s friend and scribe (36:4) took down a sum­mary of Jeremiah’s messages up to date, and awaited an opportunity to read them to the people. Jeremiah was restrained (36:5, R.V., mg). from entering the temple, pre­sumably as a sequel to 20:1-6. A fast day the following year gave the desired opportunity (obviously ver. 8 anticipates ver. 9). What the result with the people might have been, we can­not say, for the curiosity of the high officials of state caused them to intervene and they brought the matter before the king, who will have already been ill-disposed to the prophet, thanks to the biting condemnation of 22:13-19. He dis­missed the whole message of the roll contemptuously and would have arrested and executed Jeremiah. He and Baruch had to go underground, and it was probably only as the shadow of Nebuchadnezzar fell across the city, that Jeremiah could emerge again, vindicated as a prophet indeed (35:1, 11).