Prophet of Judah
Jeremiah
Active
c. 620 BCE to c. 580 BCE
His letter to the exiles advises building homes, raising families and seeking the welfare of their Babylonian city.
What the sources say
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3 statements
Tradition or narrative
The book of Jeremiah, the second-longest prophetic book after Isaiah, shows how Judahites adapted to captivity. In Jeremiah 29, a letter the prophet is said to have written to the exiles does not encourage them to hope for return but urges them to settle down in the cities where they were deported: build houses, plant gardens, marry, have children and seek the city's welfare, for in its welfare will be theirs.
Confronting his society's devastation, Jeremiah does not call for immediate recovery of Canaan, Judahite independence or the Temple. He tells his audience to adapt, accept foreign government temporarily and establish lives in exile, while foretelling a 'new covenant' through which God would eventually renew what had been lost.
Learning to adapt in this way proved crucial for the long-term survival of Judahite culture. After the biblical era its descendants, the Jews, would be ruled by other foreigners (Persians, Greeks, Romans, Muslims and others), and texts such as Jeremiah were an important resource for coping, endorsing submission as religiously acceptable and proposing ways to keep the relationship with God outside Canaan.