GEMS FROM JEREMIAH (42) Prophetic Pain, part III

 


     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).

 

     The fourth and fifth laments are found in Jer. 17.14-18 & 18.18-23.  In 17.14-18, Jeremiah asks that his enemies experience the very things that he is trying to escape – namely, shame, dismay, the day of evil and destruction.  The hostility of this prayer is shocking, but Jeremiah prays out of the boldness characteristic of the tradition of Israel since Moses.  The language of this prayer demonstrates that the relationship between Jeremiah and Yahweh is one of intense communion.  The one who prays is filled with hurt and rage, and entrusts vengeance to God.[2]  Such complaints are usually answered by an oracle of assurance.  In this poem, however, there is no answer.  The hostility that Jeremiah faces from his opponents is matched by the silence of God.  This silence is not explained – it is simply a reality in this anguished life of faith.  The prophet experiences the very absence of Yahweh that is the destiny of Israel.[3]

     In Jer. 18.18, we see the murderous reaction to Jeremiah’s pronouncement of judgment in 18.13-17.  The time for repentance has passed, announces Jeremiah, and judgment is now inevitable.  The clay refuses to allow itself to be molded by the potter (i.e., Judah refuses to return to Yahweh; cf. 18.1-12: in other words, “the die is cast”) and now it will be discarded.  The triad of opponents – priest, wise (men), prophet – represents the power structure, the knowledge industry, and the religious authority of the establishment (cf. 26.8-11; 36.19, 26).  Jeremiah’s prayer begins in 18.19 with reference to “my plea”.  The language is juridical.  It suggests that Jeremiah is in court, stands accused, and now turns to Yahweh for vindication.  The ground of vindication is that he has acted faithfully as intercessor and has practiced obedience, even if it was an unwelcome obedience.  Jeremiah’s petition is for God to implement covenant curses against his enemies, including the standard triad of famine, sword, and pestilence (18.21).  Jeremiah offers two reasons for this petition – he has done good even for his enemies (18.20) and he trusts the God who “knows”, the God of justice to whom he entrusts the response to his opponents.  Jeremiah is completely confident that he will be vindicated and that his opponents will be found guilty.[4]


[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. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974 [1966], p. 57, where, commenting on the “imprecatory psalms” (those in which the psalmist prays that God will judge his enemies), Bonhoeffer insists that the believer who prays these psalms today must dismiss from his/her mind all thought of personal revenge and that only the one who is innocent in relation to her/his enemy can leave the vengeance to God.

[3] Cf. Brueggemann, Walter, A Commentary on Jeremiah, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, pp. 163-65.

[4] Brueggemann, Walter, A Commentary on Jeremiah, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, pp. 171-73.

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