GEMS FROM JEREMIAH (45) Prophetic Pain, part IV.3

 


     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. 20.13 is a bit of a mystery; it seems out of place.  But actually, it fits with vv. 7-12, completing the common 4-step method of prayer in ancient Israel: complaint/trust/petition/praise.  Jeremiah cannot find satisfaction in the public arena, nor in social relations.  He is finally driven to face the theological reality of his life and vocation.  He is driven to God as his “only source of comfort and strength”.  In the face of God, he is made aware of the deep, inescapable problematic of his life.  Finally, the move from complaint to praise is the only form of “prevailing” that is available to Jeremiah – and to Israel.[1]

Structure of Jeremiah’s 6th lament (20.7-13):

-Complaint

7 O Lord, you have enticed me,
    and I was enticed;
you have overpowered me,
    and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all day long;
    everyone mocks me.
8 For whenever I speak, I must cry out,
    I must shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
    a reproach and derision all day long.
9 If I say, “I will not mention him,
    or speak any more in his name,”
then within me there is something like a burning fire
    shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
    and I cannot.
10 For I hear many whispering:
    “Terror is all around!
Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
    All my close friends
    are watching for me to stumble.
“Perhaps he can be enticed,
    and we can prevail against him,
    and take our revenge on him.”

-assertion of Trust in Yahweh


11 But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior;
    therefore my persecutors will stumble,
    and they will not prevail.
They will be greatly shamed,
    for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor
    will never be forgotten.

-Petition


12 O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous,
    you see the heart and the mind;
let me see your retribution upon them,
    for to you I have committed my cause.

-Doxology

13 Sing to the Lord;
    praise the Lord!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
    from the hands of evildoers.

 

Jeremiah’s despair (20.14-18)

     These shocking verses demonstrate that the theological resolution and well-being expressed in vv. 11-13 cannot be sustained, because life is too raw.  This bold and obedient prophet found himself in this moment of candid poetry alone, abandoned, hopeless, full of despair.  The measure of the crisis is that this cry, this curse, is not addressed to God or to anyone (vv. 14-15).  The poet is bereft of anyone to whom address can be made, utterly alone with only shrillness against a hostile abyss.  We are given no clue as to what might have evoked this poem of violent rejection and self-hatred.  Perhaps this outpouring is triggered by the massive resistance Jeremiah encountered in his prophetic vocation, or perhaps he is aware that God is not overly attentive.  The curse speech may be an un-differentiated act of both deep exhaustion and a sense of futility about his vocation.[2]

     The main assault in vv. 15-17 is against the bearer of the news of his birth.  As Jeremiah himself is rejected as a messenger, so Jeremiah would reject the messenger who caused him to be present and known in the world.  Jeremiah knows all about messengers being rejected, and he wishes his birth message had never been delivered.  The poem ends with the great “why” question of human existence (v. 18).  The issue is not existence per se, but vocation that shapes existence.  Jeremiah’s dread-filled question lingers unanswered, as we might expect.  We do not know why, as Jeremiah does not know – because the ground and reason are hidden in the purposes of God.[3]

     This passage shows us that the Bible does not deny or deceive about how costly the truth of God’s word is.  Such deep faith as Jeremiah’s does not lead neatly to well-being, but to recurring crisis.  The Bible knows about troubled, bitter faith that is left unresolved.  We must be aware of the odd juxtaposition of Jer. 20.7-13 and 14-18.  These two poetic units are utterances of faith in tension.  The second does not cancel the first.  They are both given to us as witnesses of this powerful, troubled faith.  They both belong to this prophetic life of vitality and fidelity.  Such faith as Jeremiah’s has seasons of trustful resolution and of bitter alienation.  The two moods here in juxtaposition perhaps echo God’s way with Jerusalem, which also knows about judgment and promise, about alienation and resolution.  The alienation never quite reaches nullification.  The resolution seems never to be total.  Both speeches of reassurance and of harsh protest are on the way.  It is a troubled way, but it is the only way available to Israel.[4]

     Here are words for those who have plunged to such depths that they would rather not go on.  Suicide is never an option in Scripture.  But persons then as much as now could be in circumstances that led them to such despair.  The lament that we have here is the path that is offered for such persons as an alternative to suicide.  Relentlessly expressive of the terror that makes non-existence and non-living a better alternative and presenting no easy response, such praying is from the pit without any confidence that one will ever get out.  One of the reasons for learning the Scriptures is to have available such prayers when the pain is so great and a voice is needed to express it.  It is difficult to recommend such a prayer.  It is important that it be available for the grasping when there is nothing else to hold on to.[5]

    


[1] Brueggemann, Walter, A Commentary on Jeremiah, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, p. 184; cf. idem. The Message of the Psalms, Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1984, pp. 56, 58: this movement from plea to praise is one of the most startling in all of OT literature.  There is a covenantal-theological move from one part of the text to the other.  We do not know concretely how this move was made.  However, both the structure of the text and our own experience teach us that grievance addressed to an authorized partner does free us – in the case of the lament psalms, Yahweh is the senior covenant partner; cf. Miller, Patrick D. “The Book of Jeremiah” in The New Interpreter’s Bible: Vol. VI, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001, p. 730.

[2] Brueggemann, Walter, A Commentary on Jeremiah, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, p. 185.

[3] Ibid, pp. 185-86.

[4] Ibid, pp. 186-87.

[5] Miller, Patrick D. “The Book of Jeremiah” in The New Interpreter’s Bible: Vol. VI, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001, p. 729.

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