Jeremiah 4c: The Perfidy of the People and the Pains of the Prophet.

Jeremiah 4: 19-22.

My anguish, my anguish!

I writhe in pain!   

Oh, the walls of my heart!

My heart is beating wildly;   

I cannot keep silent,

for I hear the sound of the trumpet,   

the alarm of war.

Disaster overtakes disaster;   

the whole land is laid waste.

Suddenly my tents are destroyed,   

my curtains in a moment.

How long must I see the standard   

and hear the sound of the trumpet?“

For my people are foolish;   

they do not know me;

they are stupid children;   

they have no understanding.

They are skilled in doing evil   

but do not know how to do good.”

Who is speaking? The text does not say. Sounds like Jeremiah, but Jeremiah may just be channeling the grief of God, at least at the end of this passage. Why do the prophet and/or God show anguish? Because much pain is coming to the people they love. What makes it worse is the people have brought this disaster on themselves; it could have been avoided. 

 Jeremiah wonders: ‘Why is this happening?’ The answer God gives is: ‘My people are foolish; they do not know me’. Because they do not know God, they do not know how to behave as God behaves, that is, with steadfast love, graciousness, and righteousness (justice). They have worshipped other gods to get at power, wealth, and sex. In the process, they have taken on the characteristics of those other gods. They have learned to be “skilled in doing evil” and they “do not know how to do good.”’

 I have said, more than once, that the issue is not just that they broke their agreement with God and were thus unfaithful, though that is bad enough. God’s concern is deeper. The gods that they worship, Ba’al and Astarte, have a system of values quite different from the values of YHWH. 

 The values of false gods teach that ‘the world is a zero-sum game’. The more others get, the less I get, so I had better get all I can. Those values teach that ‘the end justifies the means’; so any way that I can get more power, more wealth, and more sex is justified by the fact that others are trying to get more than me. This world is an ‘every man for himself’ world where a person can make alliances, but they turn out to be utilitarian and tenuous. Eventually the winner will contract new agreements and stab his old allies in the back. They are in it only for themselves.  

 Worshipping other gods warps one’s personality. If a whole nation does that, what does it look like? What if such a nation joins in the world political game, and loses? Jeremiah says that he has had a glimpse of what happens to the losers in this game in which everyone eventually loses.

Jeremiah 4: 23-26. 

I looked on the earth,

and it was complete chaos,   

and to the heavens,

and they had no light.

I looked on the mountains,

and they were quaking,   

and all the hills

moved to and fro.

I looked, and there was no one at all,   

and all the birds of the air had fled.

I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert,   

and all its cities were laid in ruins   

before the LORD, before his fierce anger.

‘The Lord’s blazing anger.”

That should send a shudder down your spine. Remember that the issue is not just faithlessness to God, it is what devotion to other gods does to people’s character, outlook, and practices. Their sin and misdirection affects society: “it was complete chaos and their cities lay in ruins.” Their sin and misdirection affect the earth and the sky: “they had no light.” Their sin and misdirection affects the environment: “the mountains were quaking and the hills moved to and fro.” Their sin and misdirection affects the animal and plant life: “the birds of the air had fled and the fruitful land was a desert.” When people do not practice godly behavior, everyone and everything suffers. Why do people not see that Creation Care is part of the mission of mature Christians? Is there no hope?

Jeremiah 4: 27. 

For thus says the LORD:

The whole land shall be a desolation,

yet I will not make a full end.

 Suddenly, there is just a glimmer of hope. God will stop just short of complete destruction of the people and the land. Perhaps the first listeners and readers were not paying attention at all because they thought that this prophet was crazy. Assyria had been overcome, city by city, by the Babylonians. What was there to worry about now? However, readers in a later decade, the people who are now in exile in Babylon, perk up their ears. They are this ‘remnant’ that the prophet was talking about. Maybe there is a little hope; but for the moment they have only memories of the horror of invasion, the disgrace of filing out of Jerusalem in chains, and the shame of being just a slave in a foreign land. Do they remember? How could they forget?

Jeremiah 4: 28-31.  

Because of this the earth shall mourn   

and the heavens above grow black,

for I have spoken; I have purposed;   

I have not relented, nor will I turn back.

At the noise of horseman and archer   

every town takes to flight;

they enter thickets; they climb among rocks;   

all the towns are forsaken,   

and no one lives in them.

And you, O desolate one,

what do you mean that you dress in crimson,   

that you deck yourself with ornaments of gold,   

that you enlarge your eyes with paint?

In vain you beautify yourself.   

Your lovers despise you;   

they seek your life.

Even though there is a glimmer of hope, it is only for the small remnant that is left after the destruction. There will be some people of Judah left, a small miserable group with no prospects of being saved from slavery. God has spoken, the evil that Judah has done will come down on their heads in spades. This is what the invasion will look like.  

People will flee from the towns and cities whose fires blacken the sky with smoke. They cannot run fast enough or far enough. As the Babylonian soldiers overtake them, some women may try to look attractive in order to avoid death. That too will not work. If they are raped, they will still be despised. What do the Babylonian soldiers want the people of Judah to do? Die. 

Jeremiah 4: 31.

For I heard a cry as of a woman in labor,   

anguish as of one bringing forth her first child,

the cry of daughter Zion gasping for breath,   

stretching out her hands,

"Woe is me!

I am fainting before killers!”