Jeremiah's Woe

The Judgement is Coming

  • 15:1 “even if Moses or Samuel” - it’s not you, Jeremiah, it’s them.
  • 15:2 “Where shall we go?” - four destinations. Once again, Jeremiah must describe the awful judgement fast approaching. “death” - figuratively, pestilence.
  • 15:3 “four kinds of destroyers” - desecration of the dead was more horrible to them than it seems to us.
  • 15:4 “because of what Manasseh did” - although Manasseh repented, and Josiah was a Godly king, judgement could not be averted. The people were too addicted to the evil of Manesseh to repent. Even his son did not repent, but followed in the evil footsteps of his father. 2 Chronicles 33:10-20
  • 15:5 “Who will have pity?” - their treacherous foreign policy left them no friends internationally.
  • 15:6 “I am weary of compassion” - God had been holding back judgement and pleading for repentance for many decades and was tired of it.
  • 15:9 “mother of seven” - a crowning achievement for a woman in that culture: “a woman who bears 10 sons is like a man who defeats 10 enemies”. but all her labor invested in children will be destroyed at once.

Jeremiah’s Complaint

  • 15:10 “yet everyone curses me” - Jeremiah’s message was unpopular, nay unpatriotic.
  • 15:11 “I will intercede with your enemy” - Nebuzaradan was instructed to take care of Jeremiah, and seemed personally acquainted with why such judgement had fallen on the nation.
  • 15:12 “iron from the north” - the strongest iron was made near the Black Sea. Judgement by Babylon was immutable at this point. But destruction of Jerusalem and the temple could still be avoided by repentance.
  • 15:17 “never sat with the revelers” - Jeremiah does not participate in the wickedness of the land.
  • 15:18 “mirage” - Jeremiah is mad at God for all that he suffers and feels far from God.
  • 15:19 “if you return” - God did not move, Jeremiah did.
  • 15:20 “they will fight against you” - it’s not going to stop.