The Moulding of the Prophet. 

        The dual pressure of rejection and of having to face the implications of his prophetic calling led to a spiritual develop­ment that can best be compared with that of Job’s. The passages that picture it should be closely studied, viz. 8:18-9:2; 10:23ff; 11:18-12:6; 15:10-21; 18:18-23; 20:7-18.

        Since chs. 1-20 represent approximately the enlarged roll (36:32, see p. 78), we must assume that both the insertion of these personal passages, and their position in the prophecy, are the work of Jeremiah himself. When we realize that 20:7-18 is the end and climax of the roll, we also realize that these Passages are essential to an understanding of Jeremiah’s message.

        His inner burden began with Jeremiah’s inability to dissociate himself from those to whom he brought God’s message of doom (8:18-9:2; and already 4:19ff). This identification of himself with his people is seen in 10:23ff, where the prayer is for them as well as for himself. Jeremiah’s attitude foreshadows our Lord’s on Olivet (Luke 19:41-44).

        Jeremiah’s spiritual sufferings grew greater when his family tried to murder him (11:18-12:6). Quite apart from the enormity of their attempted action, which probably still lay within the power of the head of the family, the exclusion of a man from his family group was a blow worse than death itself as may be seen from the violence of Jeremiah’s reaction. The only consolation that God had for him was that much worse was to come (12:5; the pride — A.V., swelling — of Jordan is the wild beast infested jungle that fringes the stream) (For a description see G. A. Smith: A Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 483f; N. Glueck: The River Jordan, p. 63.).

        Universal rejection and hatred broke Jeremiah down, and he turned to God in his fierce agony (15:10-21; the LXX suggests strongly that the text of ver. 11 is corrupt, while there is no really satisfactory explanation for vers. 12-14). His agony carried him so far that he virtually blasphemed (ver. 18), almost comparing Jehovah to the broken cisterns he had equated the false gods with (2:13). There is no sympathy apparent in God’s answer; He shocked him to his senses by His call to conversion (ver. 19, if thou return, cf. Luke 22:32), if he wished his prophetic ministry to continue.

        The last straw for Jeremiah was his exclusion not merely from the society of his fellow-men (18:18-23), but also from the temple (see above). He turned to God in even greater but fluctuating agony (20:7-18). He accused God of deceiving or, better, enticing (mg). him. The word stresses the simplicity Of the one deceived; it is used in Exod. 22:16 of the seducing of a girl. It is deliberately one of the ugliest words that he could have used. He accused God of having enticed him under false pretences into becoming a prophet, and then of having forced him to remain one. His cry to God ends with the wish that he had never been born (vers. 14-18, cf. Job 3).

        So the curtain falls on the prophet, rejected by family and nation, his life in danger, excluded from the worship of the nation, and apparently cut off from his God. We do not know how God dealt with him in the years while he hid from Jehoiakim and the king’s doom drew near; but before that doom fell, Jeremiah appeared again, fearless and unshakable. There is no evidence that he had come to understand the mes­sage of the Suffering Servant, and hence of his own sufferings; but he had learnt that it was as an individual that one had to come to God, and as an individual one had to be sustained by Him. In his spiritual agony we may see In Jeremiah a dim foreshadowing of our Lord.