Home

Learning from the Holy Bible

The Weeping Prophet
During the period of His public ministry, our Lor Jesus Christ modeled Himself on many of the heroes of Israel whom He had encountered in the pages of the Old Testament: Moses, Elijah, and David, to name just a few.

But when Jesus 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 Jesus entered the Temple and overturned the moneychangers' tables, He followed in the footsteps of one of the greatest prophets of ancient Israel. Six centuries earlier, this man had condemned the people for turning the House of God into a "den of thieves" (Jer. 7:11). Our Lord used precisely the same phrase when He saw the immoral business practices taking place in the same holy place. This man 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 ܢܒܝܐ ܐܰܠܳܝܳܐ." 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 God has not rejected them despite their past sins. 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" on the cross to be accepted offering to save us from our sins.