The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign [627 BC] (Jeremiah 1:1-2).
That's to answer the question posed at the end of the last link. Who, then, were the priests who were in Anathoth? Well, first of all, if Jeremiah was a priest, then he was a descendant of Aaron. Aaron and Moses, sons of Amram and Jochebed, were both of the tribe of Levi, a son of Leah and Jacob. After the conquest of Canaan, the Levites were not given a section of land all their own, as were the other tribes. As priests, they were to minister to the people. So, instead of being given their own section of land (Numbers 35)Numbers 35:1-8
And the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, saying: "Command the children of Israel that they give the Levites cities to dwell in from the inheritance of their possession, and you shall also give the Levites common-land around the cities. They shall have the cities to dwell in; and their common-land shall be for their cattle, for their herds, and for all their animals. The common-land of the cities which you shall give the Levites shall extend from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around. And you shall measure outside the city on the east side two thousand cubits, on the south side two thousand cubits, on the west side two thousand cubits, and on the north side two thousand cubits. The city shall be in the middle. This shall belong to them as common-land for the cities. Now among the cities which you will give to the Levites you shall appoint six cities of refuge, to which a manslayer may flee. And to these you shall add forty-two cities. So all the cities you will give to the Levites shall be forty-eight; these you shall give with their common-land. And the cities which you will give shall be from the possession of the children of Israel; from the larger tribe you shall give many, from the smaller you shall give few; each shall give some of its cities to the Levites, in proportion to the inheritance that each inherits."
, they were given lands and cities within the domains of all the other tribes. This meant that the priests of Israel could move from tribe to tribe regardless of any internecine squabbles, as well as possessing cities of refuge for perpetrators of manslaughter. And Anathoth, one of the Levite cities, is in the land of Benjamin Joshua 21:13-19
Thus to the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with its common-land (a city of refuge for the slayer), Libnah with its common-land, Jattir with its common-land, Eshtemoa with its common-land, Holon with its common-land, Debir with its common-land, Ain with its common-land, Juttah with its common-and Beth Shemesh with its common-land; nine cities from those two tribes ; and from the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its common-land, Geba with its common-land, Anathoth with its common-land, and Almon with its common-land; four cities. All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their common-lands.
, where Jerusalem is.
Anathoth is also mentioned in an altercation which resulted in the turning over of the high priesthood, following a struggle for power for the throne. As King David lay sick and advanced in years, his fourth son, Adonijah, plotted a coup d'etat, along with a priest named Abiathar (I Kings 1:5-8). Nathan the prophet and Bathsheba Solomon's mother go to King David and remind him that he pronounced the kingship as going to Solomon, so the coup is unsuccessful. Following David's death, Solomon executes judgments on the plotters.
And to Abiathar the priest the king said, "Go to Anathoth, to your own fields, for you are worthy of death; but I will not put you to death at this time, because you carried the ark of the LORD GOD before my father David, and because you were afflicted every time my father was afflicted." So Solomon removed Abiathar from being priest to the LORD, that he might fulfill the word of the LORD which He spoke concerning the house of Eli at Shiloh (I Kings 2:26-27).
And the priest put in Abiathar's place was Zadok. Now Zadok was a pretty common name, but Jeremiah may have been a descendant of this Zadok, and I'll explain why I say this, and why it has any importance.
The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign (Jeremiah 1:1-2).
And Jeremiah said, "The word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum your uncle...(Jeremiah 32:6-7)
[* Ezra was a prophet at the time of the return from Babylon- approximately 70 years after Jeremiah]
Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shallum, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub, the son of Amariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Meraioth, the son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzzi, the son of Bukki, the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the chief priest--this Ezra came up from Babylon; and he was a skilled scribe in the Law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given (Ezra 7:1-6).
If Shallum had two sons, Hilkiah and Hanameel, and Jeremiah was Hilkiah's son, then Hanameel would be his uncle. And so Jeremiah and Ezra are cousins
I could leave it at that, but I'm going to open up a small can of worms by taking issue with that other school of Bible study, the literalists. In the excerpts from the genealogies of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, difficulties can be raised with my conclusion above that Jeremiah and Ezra are related. But I see the hand of man in these chronicles, trying to maintain complicated and involved information, and I don't think they did the best job. I maintain that in those days, where one is known as "So-and-so son of Such-and-such," you don't have too many Hilkiah Ben Shallum Ben Zadoks, anymore than you'd have had a legion of Jacob Ben Isaac Ben Abrahams, because it would have been too difficult to keep track of people.
The phrase `son of' is a translation of the Hebrew `Ben,' which means `to build up,' i.e. a family name, and is not meant to be used in the strict sense of a physical son of a father, though it usually meant that. "Now all these men [listed in previous verses] were heads of a father's house in their fathers' houses (I Chronicles 9:9)." Compare the following:
The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. The children of Amram were Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. And the sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Eleazar begot Phinehas, and Phinehas begot Abishua. Abishua begot Bukki, and Bukki begot Uzzi; Uzzi begot Zerahiah, and Zerahiah begot Meraioth; Meraoith begot Amariah, and Amariah begot Ahitub; Ahitub begot Zadok, and Zadok begot Ahimaaz; Ahimaaz begot Azariah, and Azariah begot Johanan; Johanan begot Azariah (it was he who ministered as priest in the temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem); Azariah begot Amariah, and Amariah begot Ahitub; Ahitub begot Zadok, and Zadok begot Shallum; Shallum begot Hilkiah, and Hilkiah begot Azariah; Azariah begot Seraiah, and Seraiah begot Jehozadak. Jehozadak went into captivity when the LORD carried Judah and Jerusalem into captivity by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar (I Chronicles 6:1-15).
Of the priests: Jedaiah, Jehoiarib, and Jachin: Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam [Shallum], the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, the officer over the house of God(I Chronicles 9:10-11).
Of the priests: Jedaiah the son of Joiarib, and Jachin; Seraiah the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, was the leader of the house of God (Nehemiah 11:10-11).
Again, to call someone the "son of" someone else can be an indication of any paternalistic relationship- as the head of a household or a grandfather. Therefore it isn't necessarily a contradiction to call Zadok the son of Meraioth if Meraioth was an ancestor. So I am going to maintain that the Hilkiah who was father of Jeremiah was the same Hilkiah mentioned in these verses because of his relation to a man named Shallum who was the son of Zadok. And, unlisted here, a man named Hanameel "Jeremiah"
[From The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume 3, p686, David Noel Freedman editor in chief, Doubleday 1992:]
We know very little about Jeremiah's early life aside from what is mentioned in the superscription to his book (1:1). His father was very glad the day he was born (20:15), and he too was joyful earlier in life (8:18: "My joy is gone"). Jeremiah was born the son of Hilkiah, a priest at Anathoth. Anathoth was a village 2-3 miles north of Jerusalem in the old territory of Benjamin. That village is likely Ras el-Kharrubeh, a half mile or so S of the modern village of `Anata. Hilkiah could well be a descendant of Abiathar, a priest of David whom Solomon retired to Anathoth when he became king (1 Kings 2:26-27). The family possessed land (32:9) and may have been of some means.
"Hanamel"
[Ibid, p 43]
The son of Jeremiah's uncle Shallum (Jer 32:6,8,9) and the cousin whose field at Anathoth the prophet purchases. This incident, widely held to be authentic, occurred during the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem (587 B.C.E.) while Jeremiah was imprisoned. Included in that part of the book of Jeremiah known as the "Book of Consolation" (Jeremiah 30-33), the purchase of Hanamel's field expresses hope for Yahweh's restoration of Judah following the Exile: "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land" (Jer 32:15) *. The purchase of Hanamel's field occurs according to the right of redemption (Lev 25:25); so the event has been of particular interest because the detail of the text provides a glimpse into the social, economic, and legal practices of ancient Israel. It is widely held (Theophoric Personal Names in Ancient Hebrew, Fowler, J.D., 82) that Hanamel's name derives from hnn 'l, "God is gracious," though how this bears upon Jer 32:6-15 is uncertain.
was known as the son of Shallum, Jeremiah's uncle, who figures importantly in this history. I believe the case can be made, even if there are difficulties.
To sum up: Jeremiah, the prophet before the Babylonian captivity, is part of the same family as Ezra, the prophet of the return from the Babylonian captivity. These men are both prophets and both of the same family, possibly cousins. Something is going on here.