Jeremiah 1:5 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Before I formed thee in the belly, i.e. womb, Isaiah 46:3. Having spoken before of the time of his call, Jeremiah 1:4, he now speaks of the manner of it. I knew thee, i.e. approved and appointed thee, as a fit minister for this work. Words of knowledge among the Hebrews note affection, as hath been formerly noted. I sanctified thee, viz. not with saving grace, though that need not to be excluded; but accordingly I prepared and ordained thee for this public service; and thus with Paul, Galatians 1:15, where both are expressed. See the like use of the word Isaiah 13:3. He speaks thus to Jeremiah, not to the other prophets, because he stood in need of greater and more direct encouragement than they, both in respect of the tenderness of his years, and also of those insuperable difficulties which in those most degenerate and corrupt times he must unavoidably encounter with, which might cause him to decline the work, Jeremiah 1:6. Unto the nations; either with reference to place, to other nations besides the Jews, as appears, Jer 43 Jer 46 Jer 47, &c, taking the Jews in among them, as Jeremiah 25:17,18, and so unto may be taken for against, as it is often expressed in those places and elsewhere; or with reference to time, to people of all times, who may be instructed by this book, or whose words are made use of, both by several prophets of the Old Testament, as Daniel, Ezekiel, Nehemiah, &c., and by our Saviour in the New; by Matthew 2:17,18; by Paul, 2 Corinthians 6:18; and by St. John, Revelation 2:23.