Jeremiah

Chapters

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6
7. 7
8. 8
9. 9
10. 10
11. 11
12. 12
13. 13
14. 14
15. 15
16. 16
17. 17
18. 18
19. 19
20. 20
21. 21
22. 22
23. 23
24. 24
25. 25
26. 26
27. 27
28. 28
29. 29
30. 30
31. 31
32. 32
33. 33
34. 34
35. 35
36. 36
37. 37
38. 38
39. 39
40. 40
41. 41
42. 42
43. 43
44. 44
45. 45
46. 46
47. 47
48. 48
49. 49
50. 50
51. 51
52. 52

In the maps

• Jeremiah 3:16

  Jeremiah foretells a day when the Ark of the covenant will not come to mind, be remembered, or be missed, and will not be made again. Pitre closes the lost-Ark quest with this prophecy (p 64): the Ark will not be missed because the New Testament shows exactly where the true Ark is — in heaven (Revelation 11:19). Mary is the Ark no one needs to search for.

• Jeremiah 7:17

  God asks Jeremiah whether he sees what Judah is doing in its cities and streets — introducing the family worship of 'the queen of heaven' in the next verse. Pitre opens the book with a Baptist pastor's challenge that Catholic devotion to Mary as 'Queen of Heaven' is exactly the idolatry Jeremiah condemns. The passage frames the objection that the rest of the book must answer.

• Jeremiah 7:18

  Families in Judah bake cakes and pour drink offerings to 'the queen of heaven.' Pitre confronts the objection head-on: the queen of heaven Jeremiah condemns is a false goddess receiving sacrifice, the worship due to God alone. Mary's queenship is a different thing altogether — the Davidic office of the queen mother, a human mother honoured and asked to intercede, never worshiped as divine.

• Jeremiah 13:18

  Jeremiah addresses the king and the queen mother together and tells both to humble themselves because their crowns are coming down. Pitre draws two points: the queen mother was a crowned royal figure who shared the king's rank, and she is named in the same breath as the king. This is the background to the crowned Woman of Revelation 12:1, the mother of the Messiah King.

• Jeremiah 20:15

  Jeremiah curses the day of his birth and the man who announced it, and in verse 17 wishes his mother's womb had been his tomb. Pitre quotes verses 15 and 17 together as the Bible's own pairing of womb and grave (pp 136–137). That Jewish habit of thought is what lets the Fathers read Jesus' birth from a sealed womb and his resurrection from a sealed tomb as one mystery seen twice.

• Jeremiah 20:17

  In his lament Jeremiah wishes his mother had been his grave, her womb his tomb for ever. Pitre cites this to show that ancient Jews naturally compared the womb and the tomb. That comparison underlies the parallel between Jesus' birth from a sealed virginal womb and his resurrection from a sealed tomb, which the Fathers (Ephrem especially) saw as two witnesses to one mystery.

• Jeremiah 31:15

  Jeremiah pictures Rachel weeping from the grave for her exiled children, and God answers her tears with a promise of return (vv. 16–17). Pitre notes that Jewish tradition made much of this: Rachel became the mother who intercedes for Israel and whose prayer God cannot refuse. Matthew places this very lament at the slaughter of the Bethlehem infants, drawing Mary, the Bethlehem mother, into Rachel's role.

• Jeremiah 31:16

  God tells Rachel to stop weeping because her 'work' will be rewarded: her children will come back from the land of the enemy. Pitre stresses that Rachel's intercession is heard and answered. This is the pattern for Mary as the New Rachel: a mother whose sorrow for her children becomes effective intercession before God.

• Jeremiah 31:17

  God answers Rachel's tears with a promise: there is hope, and her children will come home. Pitre stresses that Rachel's weeping is intercession that works (p 145), a point the rabbis developed into the tradition that Rachel's prayer succeeded where Abraham's and Moses' failed (Lamentations Rabbah 24). Mary, the new Rachel, weeps for her children and is heard.

• Jeremiah 44:17

  The Judean refugees in Egypt insist on continuing to burn incense and pour libations to the queen of heaven, crediting her with their past prosperity. Pitre uses the passage to define the sin precisely: it is sacrificial worship offered to a goddess as the source of blessing. That is the opposite of honouring the queen mother of the Davidic king, who is a creature, never worshiped, and whose role is to petition the King.