Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Jeremiah 15:15-21
Private Dealings Between Jeremiah and YHWH (Jeremiah 15:15).
In this passage where he is wrestling with self-doubt Jeremiah stresses that he has been faithful to God's word (Jeremiah 15:16) and God's ways (Jeremiah 15:17) and reminds Him of the loneliness that he has endured in serving Him (Jeremiah 15:17). In his anguish at what ministering for Him has meant for him (Jeremiah 15:18), for it has been very costly, he calls on God and asks Him to step in on his behalf (Jeremiah 15:15). He is clearly both troubled and puzzled as to why things are as they are. He was learning that God's ways are not men's ways, and finding it very hard.
We must never underestimate what Jeremiah had to go through. For long periods he stood ‘alone' against the world with almost every man's hand against him, while he himself bore the burden of the nation's sin. We can understand therefore why it had begun to get him down.
YHWH's reply is intriguing for it reveals that to some extent He saw Jeremiah as faltering in his ministry (Jeremiah 15:19). But He graciously promises him that if he will but return to Him with all his heart, and seek what is pure, true and right (Jeremiah 15:19), He will give him the strength to endure and make him strong in the face of his adversaries (Jeremiah 15:20), delivering him out of their hands (Jeremiah 15:21). He will restore him to being a successful ‘man of God'.
We have a reminder in this that while God will make all provision for us as we seek to serve Him, walking with Him does not promise an easy and carefree life, nor is it a guarantee of outward success. Indeed, like Jeremiah, we might find ourselves alone against the world. For like Jeremiah, some sow and see little reward, laying the foundation for others who will follow and reap. That is God's way. Some sow in hardship for others to reap in rejoicing (John 4:34). And it is such lonely sowing that requires the greatest grace from God. But what all His people are called to do, whether they sow or reap, is to receive and rejoice in His word (Jeremiah 15:16), and not to be conformed to this world, but to keep themselves separate from ‘worldliness' and worldly attitudes (Jeremiah 15:17), by having a new and transformed mind (Romans 12:2).
‘O YHWH, you know, remember me,
And visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors.
Do not take me away in your longsuffering.
Know that for your sake I have suffered reproach.'
The first thing that he stresses here, and which is a comfort to him, is that YHWH knows exactly what his position is. ‘O YHWH you know.' In the words of Job he could say, ‘you know the way that I take, and when you have tried me I will come forth as gold' (application of Job 23:10). So he is confident in this at least that God has not forgotten him, and that He is acquainted with all his ways. Nevertheless he calls on Him urgently to take note of those ways (‘remember me'), and prays that God will ‘visit him' by acting on his behalf, and will avenge him on his persecutors. This cry for vengeance may initially surprise us in the light of Jesus' later teaching, but we should note that he is not himself by this seeking to take personal vengeance but, aware that what they are doing to him is because their hearts are hardened towards God, he is following out the injunction that declares, ‘vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord (See Romans 12:19; Deuteronomy 32:35; Hebrews 10:30; compare Luke 18:7; Revelation 6:10) and calling on Him to vindicate His word. We must remember in this regard that, unlike us, he is speaking of those for whom God has forbidden him to pray because their doom is determined (Jeremiah 7:16; Jeremiah 11:14). Thus he knows that only judgment awaits them and his desire is to survive in order that he might see the vindication of his ministry as God brings His will about and obtains vengeance on His adversaries, as indeed He had promised him when He initially called him (Jeremiah 1:14).
He recognises that at the present time God is showing longsuffering towards the people, giving them an opportunity, if they will, to repent, and he prays that such longsuffering may not result in his own demise. He might well have recalled that it had certainly had that result for Uriah the prophet (Jeremiah 26:20). So he reminds Him in this regard of the reproach that he is suffering for His sake, and indicates firmly that he does not want to be cut off in the middle of his ministry with his work left undone.
‘Your words were found, and I did eat them,
And your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart,
For I am called by your name,
O YHWH, God of hosts.'
He draws attention to his faithfulness to the word of YHWH. He had, he points out, fully absorbed His words (‘eaten them') and they had been a delight to him. The ‘finding of His words' may refer to the discovery of the Law Book in the Temple in the days of Josiah, or it may simply signify the different ways in which YHWH's words came to him, for God is not restricted in His methods. But he stresses what a joy those words of God had been to him, and how they had rejoiced his heart. This was because he was one of God's true people. He was ‘called by His Name' (or more strictly had ‘His Name called upon him'), that is, the name of YHWH, God of hosts. To be ‘called by YHWH's name' was to be someone who responded to and served Him, honoured Him in his life, and revealed His attributes in his own life. That is what happens to anyone who is truly ‘begotten by the word of truth' (James 1:18; compare John 3:1; 2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 Peter 1:23). By their fruits they are known.
‘I did not sit in the assembly of those who make merry,
Nor did I rejoice,
I sat alone because of your hand,
For you have filled me with indignation.'
Jeremiah points out the loneliness that he had suffered because of his concern for the truth of YHWH, and the price that he had been willing to pay. He had not joined in with those who made merry, he did not enter into the general rejoicing of men and women, he had not set out to ‘enjoy life', rather he had ‘sat alone' because God had had His hand on him and had filled him with indignation at the behaviour of the people, whose ways were so contrary to YHWH's covenant. He had refused to compromise what he stood for by partaking in what was displeasing to YHWH, and this was because he was responding to the call of God. For the hand of YHWH upon him compare Jeremiah 1:9; Jeremiah 16:21; Isaiah 8:11; Ezekiel 8:1. The idea was of His irresistible power and pressure.
‘Why is my pain perpetual,
And my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed?
Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful wadi,
As waters that fail?'
But such dedication to YHWH had not been easy, and he finally asks why it is that, if God is pleased with him, he is suffering such pain and anguish, unable to find healing? Why do his wounds hurt so much and continue doing so? Indeed he asks, whether God will be to him like a river that is there one moment and gone the next, a flash flood, a river that appears to be permanent and then dries up? He is referring to a wadi, a river that flows in the rainy season, giving an impression of permanence (being ‘deceitful') but dries up in the hot summer, and he wants the assurance that God will not be like that, and will not desert him in the end. We can contrast this with his previous confident certainty that God was like an ever-flowing spring of living water, in contrast with cisterns that did dry up (Jeremiah 2:13). But the vicissitudes of life had begun to wear him down and it is clear that he senses that he is going through periods when, in the midst of his travail, he feels that God is not satisfying the needs of his soul. How treacherous such feelings are when they cause us to doubt the One Who is our Rock. But it happens to most of us, for such an experience is often that of Christians when they are being chastised or tested with a view to their refinement.
‘Therefore thus says YHWH,
“If you return, then will I bring you again,
That you may stand before me,
And if you take forth the precious from the vile,
You will be as my mouth.
They will return to you,
But you will not return to them.”'
YHWH's response was to bring home to Jeremiah that the fault lay at his own door. His problem lay in the fact that he had gone astray from his own dedication, and needed to sort out his life and return to God in repentance. Then God would bring him again to the place where he could ‘stand before Him' and his ministry would one again be powerful. To ‘stand before God' was a technical description for effectively coming before Him as a prophet or a priest (1Ki 17:1; 1 Kings 18:15; 2 Kings 3:14). But it was Jeremiah's choice (‘if you return') whether he did so.
And if he did truly return, seeking the pure spiritual gold and rejecting the dross, becoming righteously zealous instead of begrudgingly reluctant, speaking words of God's truth rather than the ideas of his own mind, then his ministry would be restored, and he would once more become God's mouthpiece, the one through whom the mouth of God would speak (compare Exodus 4:16). But he must certainly not let himself become like those against whom he spoke. They might turn to him, but he must not ‘turn to them' and become like them.
“And I will make you to this people a fortified bronze-covered wall,
And they will fight against you,
But they will not prevail against you,
For I am with you to save you,
And to deliver you,” the word of YHWH,
And I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked,
And I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.”
And if he did once again turn back to God with all his heart then his prophetic calling would be restored. Once again (compare Jeremiah 1:18) He would make him like a strong city wall reinforced with bronze, (which helped to absorb the impact of the siege machines). The people would still fight against him, but they would not prevail (compare Jeremiah 1:19). And this would be because YHWH was with him to save him and to deliver him (compare Jeremiah 1:19). No matter how wicked and terrible his opponents might be, he would be delivered out of their hand as Israel had been ‘redeemed' from the mighty Pharaoh so long ago (Exodus 20:2).