Context No. 4027 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Jeremiah 15:1-10: in context

1Then the LORD said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not turn toward this people. Cast them out of my sight, and let them go out! 2It will happen when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go out?’ then you shall tell them, ‘The LORD says: “Such as are for death, to death; such as are for the sword, to the sword; such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.”’ 3“I will appoint over them four kinds,” says the LORD: “the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy. 4I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. 5For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Who will mourn you? Who will come to ask of your welfare? 6You have rejected me,” says the LORD. “You have gone backward. Therefore I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you. I am weary of showing compassion. 7I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land. I have bereaved them of children. I have destroyed my people. They didn’t return from their ways. 8Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas. I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly. 9She who has borne seven languishes. She has given up the spirit. Her sun has gone down while it was yet day. She has been disappointed and confounded. I will deliver their residue to the sword before their enemies,” says the LORD. 10Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet every one of them curses me.

This is a heavy chapter, in which God declares that judgment on his persistently rebellious people is now fixed. But at the end of it, Jeremiah, the faithful prophet who must deliver this hard word, gives voice to his own anguish: woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land; I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.

Jeremiah had done nothing to deserve the hatred he received; he had simply been faithful to speak God's truth, and for that he was cursed by everyone. There is a poignant honesty here about the cost of faithfulness. Jeremiah did not enjoy being a man of strife; he did not choose conflict, and he had wronged no one. But because he spoke the truth God gave him, an unwelcome truth, he became an object of universal hostility, isolated and cursed. It is a reminder that being faithful to God can be a lonely and painful thing. There is comfort in knowing that such loneliness is not a sign of failure; even the faithful servants of God, and supremely his Son, knew the pain of being rejected for the truth.

When faithfulness to God leaves me lonely, misunderstood, or opposed, do I take comfort that even Jeremiah, and supremely Christ, knew this pain, so that such suffering is not a sign of failure but can be the cost of faithfulness?

Sources

Jeremiah 15:10: "Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth!... yet every one of them curses me."
Jeremiah 15:1: "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not turn toward this people."
Jeremiah 15:6: "You have rejected me, says the LORD. You have gone backward."