Description
The Prophet Jeremiah lived about 650 years before Christ and prophesied to Israel many calamities which would befall them because of their faithlessness to the God Who had brought His People out of Egypt with a promise. He was one of the four Great Prophets of Israel, along with Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. The name Jeremiah in Hebrew means “God exalts.” Because the great Prophet told God’s People the truth of their waywardness and lack of living faith, Jeremiah was attacked by his own brothers. He was beaten and then put into the stocks by a false prophet, imprisoned, threatened with death, thrown into a cistern, driven into exile in Egypt, and finally stoned to death by his own countrymen. The Egyptians gave him a royal burial and regarded him as a wonder-worker after his death.
In this icon the Prophet holds a scroll of his prophecies which reads, “Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?…Do I not fill Heaven and earth? saith the Lord” (Jer. 23:23-24). The Prophet looks up to God for his help and the soothing of his heart, as he did when he was alive and prophesying.