McKeating achieves his modest goal to make clear the plain meaning of the text. This enables the reader to grasp the structure of the book as a whole. The tremendous increase in the reader's confidence that she understands both the book and Jeremiah is the major contribution of the commentary. The Epworth Commentary series uses the text of the Revised English Bible, and McKeating points out difficulties in translation. He also compares the Hebrew to the Greek bible when the passage is missing or placed differently in the Greek.
Philological discussion is kept to a minimum, as is discussion of previous scholarship.
The book is well-written and extremely readable. In addition to clarifying the plain meaning, McKeating tries to explain the intrusions in the text that may stem from a deuteronomic redactor. He invites the doubtful reader to compare the passage to Deut. To explain these intrusions, McKeating considers first the possibility that Jeremiah took over the theology and interpretation of the Deuteronomists. He next posits that a deuteronomic school edited the Jeremiah material and refocused it according to its own views.