GEMS FROM JEREMIAH (44) Prophetic Pain, part IV.2

 

     Everyone has their breaking point.  Everyone is vulnerable to psychological distress and the experience of doubt regarding the goodness of God and of life itself.  Jeremiah was indeed well acquainted with pain.  I believe that the “painful” tone of much of Jeremiah’s writing is that of a tired preacher, an exhausted messenger.  Think about it – Jeremiah warned his contemporaries (in vain) of coming disaster for 40 years, after which time Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed.  Not only was he called to deliver a message that no one wanted to hear, but Jeremiah also had to face hostile (and potentially deadly) opposition, even from those people closest to him.  As he experienced this solitary suffering, Jeremiah recorded 6 “lamentations”[1], i.e., 6 cries of distress to Yahweh, both expressing his anguish and requesting that God defend him and avenge him on his enemies.  These cries resemble those psalms in which a righteous, innocent person is unjustly persecuted by “wicked” people and pleads with God to take up their cause (e.g., Ps. 22).

     After an extended period of prophesying while people plotted to take his life (cf. 11.18-23; 18.23) and publicly threatened and shamed him (20.1-2), Jeremiah now utters the last and darkest of his prayers of lament (Jer. 20.7-18).  The lament proper is found in 20.7-10.  Few verses in Jeremiah have received more scholarly attention than 20.7, the issues of translation and interpretation being particularly acute.  Does Jeremiah accuse God of seduction and rape?  That is precisely the view of some scholars.[2]  However, the verb pth (i.e., “deceived” (NIV), “enticed” (NRSV)) only means “seduce” when used in explicitly sexual contexts (e.g., Ex. 22.16; cf. Prov. 1.10).  The verb hzq (“overpowered”) which can be translated to render 20.7 either as “you overpowered me and prevailed” or as “you were too strong for me and prevailed (ykl, occurs 4 times between vv. 7-11))”.  How then should 20.7a be understood?  While it is inappropriate to use sexual terms to translate pth and hzq here, the feeling of having been enticed/seduced/ deceived is similar.  There is a sense that someone has taken advantage of you, and, combined with the figure of strength here (hzq), your dignity and personhood have been violated.  An overall interpretation of v. 7 could be: “You drew me in and tricked me, Yahweh, and it worked.  You overpowered me, took advantage of my youthful naivete.  You were just too strong for me.  You won!”[3]

     Jeremiah is being ridiculed for proclaiming the word of the Lord, but he is unable to stop prophesying (20.9).  Yahweh “prevails” against Jeremiah through the word working in him like a fire.  His enemies seem to be prevailing against him.  Everyone is “prevailing”, except Jeremiah, who “powerlessly” proclaims the divine message in the face of his friends’ mockery.[4]  The language of 20.10 is identical to that of Ps. 31.13 (a classic lament; cf. Ps. 41.9), and here Jeremiah recounts in detail the pressure he is under.[5]  Jer. 20.11 contains an expression of confidence in God, the only ground on which complaint is possible.  Central to the divine word of promise is the assurance of God’s presence with the one in trouble (cf. Is. 41.10).  In this expression of confidence, we hear the final occurrence of the word “prevail”.  From the complaint against the Lord who prevails over him (v. 7), Jeremiah expresses his frustration at not being able to prevail over the Word that burns in him (9) and his fear that his enemies will prevail over him (10), now to assert, finally, his confidence that Yahweh will prevail over his enemies and deliver him (11).  That confidence is undergirded with an implicit declaration of Jeremiah’s innocence and righteousness.[6]  But we’re not out of the woods yet…

 

 


[1] “They seem to be the most direct, candid, and intimate prayers that we know about in the OT”: Brueggemann, Walter, A Commentary on Jeremiah, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, p. 114.

[2] Cf. Brown, Michael L. “Jeremiah” in Longman & Garland, eds. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary 7: Jeremiah-Ezekiel, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010, p. 286; Brueggemann, Walter, A Commentary on Jeremiah, p. 181; Heschel, Abraham, The Prophets, New York: Harper Perennial, 1962, pp. 144-45.

[3] Brown, Michael L. “Jeremiah”, pp. 286-88.

[4] Miller, Patrick D. “The Book of Jeremiah” in The New Interpreter’s Bible: Vol. VI, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001, p. 727.

[5] Brown, Michael L. “Jeremiah”, p. 290.

[6] Miller, Patrick D. “The Book of Jeremiah”, p. 728.

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