How did Jeremiah die?

Answer

Jeremiah was one of the major prophets of ancient Israel and a key figure in the Old Testament. The Bible provides more details about his life and times than any other prophet. However, there is no record in the Scriptures of how Jeremiah died. According to church tradition, Jeremiah was stoned to death in Egypt by the Jews.

Jeremiah prophesied in Judah around 626–587 BC, starting in King Josiah’s reign and continuing through the fall of Judah to the Babylonians. Over his 40-year ministry, Jeremiah survived numerous close calls with death. Following Josiah’s death, Jeremiah angered Israel’s priests, creating powerful enemies by challenging them. In a sermon at the temple, Jeremiah urged the people to abandon their idols, repent of their sins, and cease their hypocritical worship of God in the temple. As a result, he was expelled from the temple, despite being a priest’s son himself, and the priests attempted to kill him. Additionally, the prophet consistently advised his fellow countrymen to submit to Babylon, the nation chosen by God to discipline Israel. Consequently, Jeremiah was viewed as a traitor and frequently faced threats to his life. On one occasion, when the people decided Jeremiah should die, God intervened, pronouncing that they would perish instead (Jeremiah 11:21-23).

Jeremiah often opposed the king’s favored prophets, accumulating more adversaries in influential circles. During a break in the final days of the siege on Jerusalem, Jeremiah left the city, presumably to visit his family in Anathoth. He was captured and detained in Benjamin, charged with desertion, physically assaulted, and imprisoned (Jeremiah 37:11-16). After seeking help from King Zedekiah, Jeremiah was confined to house arrest. While there, Jeremiah’s enemies…

Had him cast into an abandoned cistern to die, but he was rescued by an Ethiopian named Ebed-Melech (Jeremiah 38).

Soon after, the Babylonians captured Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar gave orders not to harm Jeremiah. The prophet was released and allowed to go to Mizpah. Our last glimpse of Jeremiah in Scripture is when he was forcibly taken by a band of Jewish rebels who left Judah to live in Egypt around 585—582 BC (Jeremiah 43—45).

According to the early church father Tertullian, the Jews stoned Jeremiah to death in Daphne (Tahpanhes in Hebrew), Egypt. Jeremiah’s “crime” was telling them truths they did not want to hear [Scorpiace, Chapter VIII]. The tradition of Jeremiah’s martyrdom is backed by other first-century, extrabiblical writings (Lives of the Prophets), and invoked in the works of Jerome, Isidore of Seville’s De Ortu Et Obitu Patrum, and Peter Comestor’s twelfth-century Historia Scholastica. However, one Jewish tradition claims that, when Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt around 569 BC, he took Jeremiah from Egypt to Babylon, where Jeremiah died.

The words “some died by stoning” in Hebrews 11:37 are quite possibly an allusion to Jeremiah’s death. This New Testament chapter, which some refer to as the “Hall of Faith,” introduces a long list of Old Testament heroes of faith, including anonymous martyrs and tortured saints. Although we cannot know with certainty, Jeremiah likely died by stoning in Egypt.