A Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations by Chad Sychtysz

Twenty-five lessons through Jeremiah and Lamentations — the prophet nobody listened to, rearranged so you can finally follow him.

Jeremiah is hard to teach, and not because the material is obscure. It is hard because the book is not in order. The chapters jump from one king's reign to another without warning, so a class that reads straight through spends half its energy trying to work out where it is standing in the story.

Chad Sychtysz solves that by putting the prophecies back into historical sequence. The study moves forward through Jeremiah's forty-year ministry in four sections — what he preached under Josiah, then under Jehoiakim, then under Zedekiah, and finally what he said after Jerusalem had already fallen. Chapter 26 comes before chapter 2's neighbors; chapter 52 lands where it belongs. The result is a consistent, forward-moving account of one man's career and the slow collapse of a nation that would not hear him.

He is worth following. Jeremiah is called "the weeping prophet," which leaves the wrong impression — he was one of the most bull-headed men in the Old Testament, beaten, imprisoned, lowered into a pit to die, and unwilling to soften a word of it. The weeping was for the people doing it to him.

The study then turns to Lamentations, five acrostic poems written over the smoking ruins of the city. It is a book most Christians have never read, and the reason is obvious enough: it is relentlessly sad. But the ground of hope is right there in the middle of it. God's compassions are new every morning. He had warned Israel in the Law exactly what disobedience would bring, and when it came He was not abandoning His covenant — He was keeping it.

What's Inside

Introduction to Jeremiah — the prophet's life and temperament, the purpose and themes of the book, authorship and its unusual organization, and the historical background: Assyria in decline, Egypt rising, and Babylon rushing to fill the vacuum

1. Jeremiah's Call to His Ministry (chapter 1)

Section I — Prophecies Made During Josiah's Reign (627–609 BC)

2. Denouncement of Judah's Idolatry (2:1–3:5)
3. Judah's Destruction Announced (3:6–6:30)
4. The People's False Confidence (7:1–34)
5. Judah Has Forsaken God (8:1–10:25)
6. Judah's Breach of Covenant (11:1–13:27)
7. Judah's Captivity Is Certain (14:1–17:27)
8. Symbolic Acts of Judah's Sin (18:1–20:18)

Section II — Prophecies Made During Jehoiakim's Reign (609–598 BC)

9. Seventy-year Captivity Promised (chapters 26 and 25)
10. Prophecies against Foreign Nations (46:1–49:33)
11. Jehoiakim's Defiance (chapters 35, 36, and 45)
12. Warnings and Promises (chapters 22 and 23)

Section III — Prophecies Made During Zedekiah's Reign (598–586 BC)

13. The Basket of Figs (chapter 24 and 49:34–51:64)
14. Submission to Babylon (chapters 27–29)
15. Future Restoration (chapters 30 and 31)
16. Jeremiah Is Imprisoned (chapters 37, 32, and 33)
17. Jeremiah and Zedekiah (chapters 21, 34, and 38)
18. The Fall of Jerusalem (chapters 39 and 52)

Section IV — Prophecies Made after the Fall of Jerusalem (586–? BC)

19. Gedaliah's Murder (chapters 40 and 41)
20. Flight to Egypt (chapters 42–44)

Introduction to Lamentations — what a lament was in the ancient world, the alphabetic acrostic structure, the case for Jeremiah as author, and why a book this dark is worth a class's time

21. The First Lament (1:1–22)
22. The Second Lament (2:1–22)
23. The Third Lament (3:1–66)
24. The Fourth Lament (4:1–22)
25. The Fifth Lament (5:1–22)

Format & Features

Every lesson closes with discussion questions written to push past comprehension and into application — not "what did the almond rod signify," though that is asked too, but whether the certainty of resistance is a good reason to keep quiet about God's truth today. The questions are spaced for writing, so the book works on a Wednesday night, in a Sunday adult class, or at the kitchen table.

Two reference aids sit up front: a chart of the kings of Israel and Judah with their reigns and the passages that cover them, and a map of the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. Nearly twenty pages of endnotes carry the supporting detail — Keil and other standard commentators among them — without slowing the lessons down, and a full source list closes the book.

The restoration language is read consistently. When Jeremiah speaks of Zion, of a regathered people, of a new covenant and the reign of the Branch, Sychtysz shows why these are fulfilled in Christ and His church rather than in a future earthly kingdom, and he holds that reading throughout instead of switching whenever the poetry turns vivid.

Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible.

Product Details

Who It's For

Adult Bible class teachers who want a full quarter and more of Old Testament material laid out lesson by lesson, in an order a class can actually follow. Preachers working through the major prophets. Anyone who has tried to read Jeremiah straight through and given up somewhere around chapter 25, or who has never once opened Lamentations and suspects they are missing something.

About the Author

Chad Sychtysz has been a minister of the gospel since 1994, serving churches in Alaska and Washington state. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and has written numerous books and workbooks on the Bible, including studies of Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. He lives in Billings, Montana.