{"id":72793,"date":"2020-04-03T16:18:02","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T13:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=72793"},"modified":"2020-04-03T16:18:02","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T13:18:02","slug":"what-became-of-jeremiah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/what-became-of-jeremiah\/","title":{"rendered":"What Became Of Jeremiah?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Our Chapter continues Jeremiah\u2019s oracle against Babylon, concluding with the notice: \u201cThus far are the words of Jeremiah\u201d (Jeremiah 51:64). Since the last chapter of the Book of Jeremiah is a historical appendix rather than a continuation and conclusion of Jeremiah\u2019s prophecy, it seems clear that Jeremiah\u2019s prophetic career ends here at the end of our Chapter. But what then became of Jeremiah?<\/span><\/p>\n

Extra-Biblical sources fill in the picture of Jeremiah\u2019s ultimate demise. According to Midrash Aggadah on Numbers 30:15 (ed. Buber, page 157), after Jeremiah reproached the Judean exiles in Egypt, they stoned the prophet to death. But they respectfully laid Jeremiah to rest in Egypt, because they loved Jeremiah for having successfully prayed to rid the Nile of crocodiles. Afterwards, Alexander the Great had Jeremiah\u2019s body exhumed and re-interred in Alexandria (see Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, \u201cThe Exile\u201d, note 42).<\/span><\/p>\n

The 1<\/span>st <\/span>century CE Lives of the Prophets (originally composed in Hebrew or Aramaic, but preserved in Greek, Latin, Syriac and other languages) 2:1-7 elaborates on this midrashic tradition. Here we learn that after Jeremiah was stoned \u201cby his people\u201d in Tahpanhes in Egypt, he was buried near Pharaoh\u2019s palace because Jeremiah had prayed for the eradication of the local vipers. \u201cTo this very day\u201d, it is said, the faithful use the dust on Jeremiah\u2019s grave to cure snake bites. Alexander, having witnessed such miraculous cures, exhumed Jeremiah\u2019s remains, and scattered them in a circle around his newly founded city of Alexandria for protection.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, IV Baruch, Chapter 9, preserves an extensive tradition about how Jeremiah came to die in Jerusalem. When the people there wanted to kill him, Jeremiah appeared to them in the likeness of a stone. While he was revealing his remaining mysteries, the people cast stones at this deceptive doppelg\u00e4nger, thinking it was actually the prophet. After Jeremiah himself was eventually stoned to death, he was laid in a tomb, on which was placed Jeremiah\u2019s stone likeness bearing the inscription: \u201cThis is the stone that was the ally of Jeremiah\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

II Maccabees 15:12-16 relates that in Second Temple Times, Jeremiah reappeared in Jerusalem as an impressive white-haired man. In this vision, Jeremiah is said to have stretched forth his right-hand to give Judah Maccabee a gold sword, saying: \u201cThis holy sword is a gift from God. Take it and destroy your enemies\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hayyim ben Davrish Horowitz, in his Hibbat Yerushalayim (1844) 43a, records a local Jerusalem tradition that Jeremiah remains are buried in \u201cThe Court of the Guard\u201d\u00a0 (later known as \u201cJeremiah\u2019s Grotto\u201d) where he had been imprisoned (see Jeremiah 32:2), located across from the Damascus Gate.<\/span><\/p>\n

An otherwise unattested tradition preserved in the \u201cAktan de-Mar Yaakov\u201d (published by Eliakim Carmoly in 1842) page 24, relates that when Jeremiah saw the demise of Israel he prayed for his own death. But after the destruction of Babylon and the rebuilding of the Temple, the Holy One, blessed be He, \u201chid him \u2013 genazo\u201d, suggesting that the Biblical Prophet Jeremiah remains alive to this very day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Image: Jerusalem Grotto of Jeremiah, 1920s \/ wikimedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":72795,"id":72795,"title":"jer51-jeremiahs grotto","filename":"jer51-jeremiahs-grotto.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/jer51-jeremiahs-grotto.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/what-became-of-jeremiah\/jer51-jeremiahs-grotto\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer51-jeremiahs-grotto","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":72793,"date":"2020-04-03 13:17:35","modified":"2020-04-03 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