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Category: Personal Study
Thread: Battling Depression in Scripture
Post Topic: The Weepiest Prophet in the Bible Laments – Jeremiah
Post in Thread: #5
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Scripture: Jeremiah 9:1-16
Key Verses:
Jeremiah 9:1
Oh, that my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
for the slain of my people.
Observations
Context
The Prophet
Jeremiah, born about 100 years after Isaiah, grew up in a small village not far from Jerusalem. When he was twenty, God called him to be His prophet. Like Moses, Jeremiah told God ,“I don’t know how to speak,” adding , “for I am only a youth.” But God said, I will be with you, and Jeremiah never wavered from believing God’s promise.
His Country
Jeremiah’s call happened during the 13th year of good King Josiah’s reign. Unlike his grandfather Manasseh and father Amon, both who did great evil in the sight of God, Josiah was committed to obeying God. As the king’s workers repaired Solomon’s Temple, they discovered the five books of Moses. As would be hoped, Torah powerfully impacted King Josiah and consequently all of Judah. Josiah made sure all worship centered on Yahweh. He sought diligently to eliminate idol worship.
After Josiah died in battle and the good high priest Jehoiada also died, the people again abandoned the Lord and fell into idol worship. Jeremiah served God 40 years under the last 5 kings of Judah: Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Of all of these, only Josiah is considered to have been good.
The World Beyond
Beyond Judah’s borders, Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt were struggling for world power. Assyria was weakening after 300 years of dominion. Babylon and Egypt were both rearing up their front legs like stallions and snorting with desire for control. About half way through Jeremiah’s ministry, Babylon won. Its power stunned the world for seventy years—the same seventy years that God’s people suffered captivity in Babylon.
Why Jeremiah Weeps (includes additional Scripture)
- Despair over the moral decay of his nation: “[Our people] know no bounds in deeds of evil” (Jeremiah 5:26-28).
- The people scoff at his warnings and “they have spoken falsely of the Lord” (Jeremiah 5:12).
- How bad that they scoffed at him? Bad enough. Even worse, the lies about God swirled mockingly in his presence.
- Pending doom – When God describes the utter destruction that will come upon the land, Jeremiah can only weep. His sorrow is inexpressible (Jeremiah 9:12).
- If you knew — for certain — the exact punishments that would happen to those you loved, how would you respond? Think about eternity.
- Rejection, professionally – During the 4th year of Johoiakim’s reign, Jeremiah dictates all his prophecies to Baruch. He writes them all on a scroll. When the scroll is read to the king, he angrily rips and burns it … (and, yikes, it hadn’t been saved to the cloud). God tells Jeremiah to write it again (Jeremiah 36:1-28).
- I also might be close to tears. Good thing Baruch was there.
- Little known fact: if you count the words in Hebrew or Greek, Jeremiah is the longest book in the Bible. (according to Logos Bible Software) Not that Jeremiah was crying about this, but we thought we’d lighten the mood for a moment.
- Rejections, personally – After his release from a day in the stocks—Why have you made me the laughingstock of Israel? (Jeremiah 20:7-18)
- Wooden stocks twisted his body painfully and held him taunt, as mockers hurled insults.
- Based on Jeremiah’s question to God, what was worse for him—the physical or emotional torment?
- Frustration — “Why do all who are treacherous thrive?” (Jeremiah 12:1).
- Loneliness — God says he may not marry or go to funerals (Jeremiah 16:1-5). Maybe his empathy would show the people how much he cares. Maybe then they might listen. But God says nope.
- Persecution (Jeremiah 38:2-10)
- Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, Accept God’s punishment from the Babylonians.
- Furious princes of Judah denounced God’s prophet as a traitor, seized him, and lowered him into a muddy cistern to die (eventually, Ebed-Melech intervened and rescued Jeremiah from the pit).
Interpretation
Author/Genre
The book of Jeremiah is like an anthology – a collection of writings from Jeremiah’s lifetime of prophesying. It also contains biographical elements of Jeremiah’s ministry sprinkled in. Most of it is poetic prophecy, which Jeremiah dictated to his scribe Baruch during King Jehoiakim’s reign (609-598 BC). Baruch may have written the few prose sections in the book. Also, Jeremiah’s dramatic acting out God’s warnings are scattered throughout the book.
Setting
Most of Jeremiah’s prophecy and despair happened in Jerusalem. The impending doom for Jerusalem, in fact, is one of the themes.
Takeaways
Loss
Jeremiah endured the pain of rejection and loneliness, but these were not the core of his grief. Rejection and loneliness only compounded his grief over the wickedness of the city and the nation he loved. Having experienced the blessings of God on the kingdom in his early days under the faithful King Josiah, the rapid moral decay of Judah and Jerusalem’s impending doom caused him a great sense of loss.
Jeremiah’s Response?
- He laments. In verse one and two, he describes his misery. He’s not afraid to express his emotion.
- Jeremiah repeatedly warned God’s people. They retorted: “Go away,” Today, godly men and women cry out against wickedness. Culture responds: “You are canceled.” The reaction of unbelief doesn’t change much.
- Job mourns yet continues to worship and prophesy. Jeremiah weeps but never wavers from his task.
Bottom Line
Jeremiah’s depression cuts deeper than his own pain and loneliness. He weeps for his nation and his people and their lack of repentance. This is a virtuous mourning.
Imagine
The nation had turned from the faithful King Josiah to the evil Zedekiah. God showed Jeremiah what was coming, and it wasn’t good.
Have you ever experienced a loved one turning away from God? This is what Jeremiah experienced with an entire nation — a nation he was charged with shepherding. But they wanted nothing to do with him. The consequences were disastrous.
Correlation
The Prophets – Most prophets faced rejection, opposition, and persecution. A few examples:
Moses (Exodus 2:14)
The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”
Elijah (I Kings 19:2)
So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me…if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of [her dead prophets].”
Ezekiel (Ezekiel 3:7-11)
During exile in Babylon, his audience was “hard of face and obstinate of heart.” He was despised and hated.
Zechariah – (2 Chronicles 24:20-22)
But they plotted against [Zechariah], and by order of the king they stoned him to death in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple.
Jesus teachings (Luke 16:31; Matthew 23:25)
[Jesus] said to [the rich man in hell, who asked the Lord to warn his brothers], “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
The first martyr, Stephen, speaking boldly to the high priest, comparing the persecuted prophets to Jesus (Acts 7:51-52)
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered
Jeremiah personified in the Beatitudes (Jesus’s sermon on the mount):
Matthew 5:4 – Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Matthew 5:6 – Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Matthew 5:8 – Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Matthew 5:10 – Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Application
Generic Applications
Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet. He experienced all kinds of loss – the loss of his dreams, the loss of companionship, the loss of his health and safety, the loss of his nation…
Personalize it
What are my greatest sources of loss? What can I learn from how Jeremiah handled his grief?
Summary
In this series about Bible characters who experienced depression, we are adding a bonus section that summarizes each person’s affliction.
Cause, false expectation, remedy
Cause – Jeremiah cherished his people and his homeland. His vision of the approaching tsunami sent his gentle heart into despair (God showed him a boiling pot, ready to tip over, sending its devastation in waves southward over all Israel). (Jeremiah 1:13-19). For forty years of ministry, he lived under a dark shadow of impending doom and then he experienced the prophecy’s fulfillment.
False Expectation – Jeremiah must have had some expectation of a break-through, even though God told him the people wouldn’t listen. He had some good days early in his ministry under King Josiah, and longed to return to those days.
Remedy – It seems Jeremiah never escaped from his depression. But he persevered. God has extravagant words of praise for the prophets who kept their faith (Hebrews 11:32-40).
The OT prophets are God’s heroes. Perhaps we might agree that Jeremiah faced the worst woes for the longest time. Jeremiah, the tragic super-hero of prophets.
Bible study methodology adapted from Searching the Scriptures with permission from Tyndale House:
Swindoll, Charles, Searching the Scriptures. Tyndale House Publishers, 2016.
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