Jeremiah 15:15

JEREMIAH RENOUNCES HIS COMMISSION

"O Jehovah, thou knowest; remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I have suffered reproach. Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by thy name, O Jehovah, God of hosts. I sat not in the assembly of them that make merry, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand; for thou hast filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual? and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook, as waters that fail?"

Jeremiah here fell into a distressing pit of self-pity. He had succumbed to the "me" virus, for he used the personal pronoun of himself no less than sixteen times in these four verses. It appears that the great prophet was almost totally discouraged about the seeming failure of his mission.

Green pointed out that Jeremiah's appeal to God has the following: (1) he appeals to God to remember him; he feels forsaken, and checkmated by his enemies; (2) he reminds God of his love and respect for the divine word; (3) he protests his loneliness and his being left out of the assemblies of the people; (4) and he even echoed the sentiments of Christ on Calvary, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"; and (5) finally, in Jeremiah 15:18 he seemed to hit the very depths of despair, "The figure of the deceitful brook is devastating."[23] It appears that Jeremiah was even tempted to believe that God had become to him a lying water hole, that promised refreshment but failed to give it.

The so-called "weeping prophet" came near to deserving the title here. Halley noted that there is a grotto called Jeremiah's Grotto which is located at the foot of the very hill where the Cross of Jesus would be raised some 600 years later. "Jeremiah is said to have retired there to weep."[24]

"Jeremiah had expected that, called to a high office, there would be a perpetual interference upon his behalf; but instead everything seemed to be taking its natural course."[25]

Jeremiah 15:18, here "is certainly a cry of distrust and despair by Jeremiah."[26] God's dramatic answer came in the next verses.