Jeremiah and God's Plans of Well-being

4 Deep Learning—Experiencing the Heart of God

64 4 Deep Learning—Experiencing the Heart of God Chapters 11–20 A variety of characters play the role of lamenter. Israel’s God, the primary lamenter, bemoans his role in the destruction of his beloved estate. Job Y. Jindo, Biblical Metaphor Reconsidered The purpose of this chapter is twofold: First, to examine the poetry in chaps. 11–20 and demonstrate how the pieces can—in terms of genre and rhetoric—be seen productively and reasonably as soliloquy laments of prophet and deity, where each main speaker responds to impinging realities—notably those we have just seen unfold. The second task is to suggest how each group of poetic outbursts works as a set and with its partner set—that is, what each soliloquizer learns on his own and what we can see listening to both. If, as this book centrally claims, what the prophet must come to know and trust is that a quasi-voluntary journey to Babylon is necessary for the survival of God’s people—an insight so counterintuitive and abhorrent that he will struggle toward it only with great difficulty and present it with little apparent success—then the soliloquies of this partnership of YHWH and Jeremiah will evidence the struggle to grasp and appropriate this truth to share with any who will listen. The unthinkable must be rehearsed, refused, ruminated, resolved. Implicated here is the question of whether the best means toward the insight is threat, punishment, and retaliatory violence, or if profound learning arrives by another route. We will proceed in three steps. First, I will discuss briefly the six prophetic soliloquies, often called “confessions,” which have been comprehensively treated in the literature. Second, I will spend more time on the divine soliloquies, not so readily recognized or read in the literature. And finally, I will suggest the key learnings of both sets, ask now they intersect each other, and make an additional proposal about their relation to the prose units in these chapters. 65 experiencing the heart of god Prophetic Soliloquies The prophetic soliloquies or so-called confessions of Jeremiah are generally agreed to and can be seen for what they are, some six laments of the prophet.1 They are here identified as follows: 11:18–23: trusting lamb; 12:1–6: sheep for slaughter; 15:15–21: tasty words; 17:14–18: reluctant shepherd; 18:18–23: the pits; 20:7–13 (or –18): enticing deity. Scholars ask a variety of questions about them and consequently offer a wealth of insights, generally tending to see the lament or confession form as composed of miscellaneous elements. I suggest that this soliloquy genre is distinctive and constellates the following features: address to deity inviting and occasionally prompting the ascription of divine response; consistently recurring metaphors for deity, prophet, opponents; prophetic quoting of opponent and deity; asseveration of prophetic innocence; call for a retaliatory response or for some envisioned outcome.2 Other rhetorical features less consistently present include questions and proverbs. These prophetic soliloquies thematize most prominently what we may call the turning of tables: Jeremiah’s experience and feelings prompting him to invoke God to visit on his opponents the things he claims they wish for him. Let me here both demonstrate genre consistency and establish crucial content for each. First prophetic soliloquy: 11:18–23: trusting lamb:3 The prophet opens his self-talk, speaking both of and to God. Characterizing himself metaphorically as a trusting lamb on the way to slaughter and as a tree whose extirpation is under discussion by others, he names his main concern: the plotting of his foes bent already for some time on the obliteration of his language, ministry, existence, and memory. Now, finally, aware of the danger—thanks be to the knower of hearts and deeds who has informed him and saved him for the moment—Jeremiah invokes God as smelter and judge to sort fairly who deserves what and to recompense Jeremiah’s opponents suitably. God is reported to reply affirmatively to that expressed hope, condemning and quoting those who have tried to silence and then sentence to death their prophet kinsman, visiting on them what they had hoped for Jeremiah: destruction of stock. They and their offspring will die, whether by sword or by famine. None will survive. 66 deep learning Second prophetic soliloquy: 12:1–6: sheep for slaughter: Jeremiah speaks here to God, prefacing his question with the admission...