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The weeping prophet and Jesus

The weeping prophet
During the period of his public ministry, our Lord Jesus Christ modeled Himself on many of the heroes of Israel whom He had encountered in the Old Testament pages: Moses, Elijah, and David, to name just a few. But when He pronounced terrifying prophecies about the future, Jesus was emulating one particular prophet more than anyone else. Do you know who this man was?

A Den of Thieves
When our Lord Jesus entered the Temple and overturned the moneychangers' tables, He was following in the footsteps of one of the greatest prophets of ancient Israel. Six centuries earlier, this prophet had condemned the people for turning the House of God into a "den of thieves" (Jer. 7:11). Jesus used precisely the exact phrase when He saw the immoral business practices taking place in the same holy place. This was the prophet, Jeremiah.

The Lord lifts up
Jeremiah lived in the late 7th century BC, and much of his life was spent trying to stop the Jewish people from sinning. He warned them about the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. In the original Hebrew of the Bible, the name Jeremiah is Yirmiyahu יִרְמְיָהוּ meaning "the Lord (yahu) lifts up (yarim)." This seems like an overly cheerful name for a man known as the "weeping prophet." But in fact, the name is perfectly apt.

Lift up your knowledge of Scripture
In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet changes his tone from condemnation to consolation. He tells the people that despite their past sins, God has not rejected them. The Lord will restore Jerusalem and establish a "new covenant" with His people in the future. Six hundred years later, Jesus came to Jerusalem to inaugurate this covenant by being "lifted up" by the Lord on the cross.