Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet unto the nations.
All Commentaries on Jeremiah 1:5 Go To Jeremiah 1
Jerome
AD 420
It was not that Jeremiah existed before he was conceived, as some heretics suppose, but that the Lord foreknew Jeremiah to be coming, the Lord to whom what does not yet exist is already present, in accordance with what the apostle said of him: “who calls that which is not as though it were.” But we also ought to understand Jeremiah’s consecration in the womb according to the apostle’s word: “When it pleased him, he set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might proclaim him to the nations.” John the Baptist similarly was consecrated in the womb, where he received the Holy Spirit and leaped and spoke through his mother’s mouth. Furthermore, when the Lord says, “I appointed you a prophet to the nations,” he wants it to be understood that we will eventually read in him the prophet who will prophesy not only to Jerusalem but also to a multitude in the entire company of nations. Some understand this as referring to the Savior, who was himself a prophet to the nations and called all peoples through the apostles. For it is certainly true of him that before he was formed in the virginal womb of his mother and before he came forth from her, he was consecrated in the womb and was known to the Father, he, indeed, who is always in the Father and the Father always in him.
