brother Ram (apparently the same as Arni). An extensive genealogy is included for Jerahmeel’s descendants, some of whom inhabited the southern part of Judah.—1 Chron. 2:4, 5, 9-15, 25-42; 1 Sam. 27:10; Luke 3:33.

2. Son or descendant of a Merarite Levite named Kish.—1 Chron. 24:26, 29; 23:21.

3. One of the three men sent by King Jehoiakim in his fourth year to seize Jeremiah and Baruch. They returned empty-handed, however, for Jehovah kept his two faithful servants concealed. (Jer. 36:1, 26) Jerahmeel’s being called here “the son of the king” probably denotes simply that he was one of the royal household. Since Jehoiakim’s successor and presumed firstborn Jehoiachin was only ten or eleven years old during his father’s fourth year of rule, other sons of Jehoiakim were likely still younger, too young to be sent on such a mission as Jerahmeel’s.—2 Ki. 23:36; 24:1, 6, 8.

JERAHMEELITES

(Je·rahʹme·el·ites).

The descendants of Judah through Jerahmeel son of Hezron. (1 Chron. 2:4, 9, 25-27, 33, 42) The Jerahmeelites lived in the southern part of Judah, apparently in the same general region as the Amalekites, Geshurites and Girzites whom David raided while residing among the Philistines as a fugitive from King Saul. When returning from such raids David would ambiguously report that these raids had been made “upon the south of Judah and upon the south of the Jerahmeelites and upon the south of the Kenites.” Philistine King Achish, therefore, assumed that David had raided Israelites, thus making himself a stench to his countrymen and enhancing his value to Achish. (1 Sam. 27:7-12) In reality, David later shared spoils of war with the older men “in the cities of the Jerahmeelites.”—1 Sam. 30:26, 29.

JERBOA

The Hebrew word ʽakh·barʹ, variously rendered “mouse,” “rat,” “jerboa” and “jumping rodent,” is understood by many scholars as possibly embracing all varieties of rats, mice and related animals such as the jerboa. However, a recent Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon by Koehler and Baumgartner gives the meaning of the Hebrew term as “jerboa.” Lending weight to the correctness of this definition is the fact that in Arabic, a language related to Hebrew, ʽakbar denotes “male jerboa.” The proper name “Achbor” is considered to be but a variant of the Hebrew word rendered jerboa.—Gen. 36:38; 2 Ki. 22:12.

The jerboa is a jumping rodent that somewhat resembles a miniature kangaroo and is still encountered in the arid parts of the Middle East. Jerboas, of which there are several varieties, vary in combined head and body length from two to eight inches (c. 5 to 20 centimeters). Their ears and eyes are large. The front limbs are short, but the two hind limbs measure about two-thirds of the total head and body length. The tail is the longest part of the animal and terminates in a small brush. It enables the jerboa to retain balance when jumping and also gives it support when standing. The general coloration of jerboas is a yellowish brown, with white underparts and often a black-tipped tail. This nocturnal animal prefers desert lands, spending the hot day in its underground burrow but venturing forth during the cooler night to procure food.

Although the Arabs inhabiting the Syrian desert use the jerboa for food, it was legally unclean to the Israelites. (Lev. 11:29) But it seems that apostate Israelites ignored this prohibition of the Law.—Isa. 66:17; compare NW, 1958 ed., ftn.

Jerboas are destructive to grain and other crops. During the time the sacred Ark was in the territory of the Philistines, the divinely sent plague of jerboas brought the land to ruin.—1 Sam. 6:4, 5, 11, 18.

[Picture on page 900]

The desert jerboa resembles a miniature kangaroo

JERED

(Jeʹred) [descent].

A descendant of Judah and “father” of those who settled Gedor.—1 Chron. 4:1, 18; see ATROTH-BETH-JOAB.

JEREMAI

(Jerʹe·mai) [perhaps, high, elevated].

A postexilic Israelite, one of the seven sons or descendants of Hashum who had taken foreign wives but sent them away.—Ezra 10:25, 33, 44.

JEREMIAH

(Jer·e·miʹah) [Jehovah loosens (the womb), or, Jehovah exalts].

1. A Benjamite who joined David when he was at Ziklag. He was among David’s “mighty men, . . . armed with the bow, using the right hand and using the left hand with stones or with arrows in the bow.”—1 Chron. 12:1-4.

2. One of the sons of Gad who gathered to David “at the place difficult to approach in the wilderness” when David was a refugee from Saul. He was the fifth among these “valiant, mighty men, army men for the war, keeping the large shield and the lance ready, whose faces were the faces of lions, and they were like the gazelles upon the mountains for speed.” Of these Gadite heads of David’s army, it is said: “The least one was equal to a hundred, and the greatest to a thousand.” They “crossed the Jordan in the first month when it was overflowing all its banks, and they then chased away all those of the low plains, to the east and to the west.”—1 Chron. 12:8-15.

3. The tenth one of the Gadite heads in David’s army, as described in No. 2.—1 Chron. 12:13, 14.

4. One of the heads of paternal houses in the section of the tribe of Manasseh E of the Jordan in the days of the kings. The Reubenites, Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh E of the Jordan (among them being this Jeremiah’s descendants) “began to act unfaithfully toward the God of their forefathers and went having immoral intercourse with the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had annihilated from before them. Consequently the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul the king of Assyria and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser the king of Assyria, so that [in the days of Pekah, king of Israel] he took into exile those of the Reubenites and of the Gadites and of the half tribe of Manasseh and brought them to Halah and Habor and Hara and the river Gozan.”—1 Chron. 5:23-26; 2 Ki. 15:29.

5. A man of the town of Libnah, a priestly city. He was the father of King Josiah’s wife Hamutal, who was the mother of Kings Jehoahaz and Zedekiah (Mattaniah).—2 Ki. 23:30, 31; 24:18; Jer. 52:1; Josh. 21:13; 1 Chron. 6:57.

6. One of the “major prophets,” the son of Hilkiah, a priest of Anathoth, a city of the priests located in Benjamin’s territory a little less than three miles (c. 5 kilometers) N-NE of Jerusalem. (Jer. 1:1; Josh. 21:13, 17, 18) Jeremiah’s father, Hilkiah, was not the high priest of that name, who was of the line of Eleazar. Jeremiah’s father was very likely of the line of Ithamar, and possibly descended from Abiathar, the priest whom King Solomon dismissed from priestly service.—1 Ki. 2:26, 27.

COMMISSIONED AS PROPHET

Jeremiah was called to be a prophet when a young man, in 647 B.C.E., in the thirteenth year of the reign of King Josiah of Judah (659-628 B.C.E.). Jehovah