Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 (NRSV)
18 My joy is gone, grief is upon me,
my heart is sick.
19 Hark, the cry of my poor people
from far and wide in the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King not in her?”
(“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
with their foreign idols?”)
20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.”
21 For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
not been restored?
9 O that my head were a spring of water,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night
for the slain of my poor people!
Jeremiah 8:18-22 is a lament during the famine in 598. Interpreters find it difficult to tell if the prophet or the Lord is speaking here.[1] Scholars also differ on the intended audience, the answer depending upon whether the destruction by the invaders has already happened or is yet to come.[2] 18 My joy is gone, grief (yagon means also agony and anguish, as well as sorrow, for which see Jeremiah 20:18; 31:13; 45:3) is upon me, my heart is sick (or faint). Of all the biblical prophets, none is more revealing of his psychological, emotional, mental and spiritual anguish than Jeremiah, and none identifies himself more closely with the people of Israel than does this prophet from a priestly lineage. 19 Hark, (hinneh, attend closely to or hear now seems a more fitting translation[3]) the cry (for help, shav‘ah, even scream) of my poor people from far and wide in the land. “My poor people” may mean an unfortunate people in this context. The expression has nothing to do with poverty; it is “poor” in the sense of unfortunate, pitiable, or dear. In biblical Hebrew, bat-‘ammi means literally “the daughter of my people.” This expression means something like ‘my beloved people’ or ‘my unfortunate people,’ with love and sorrow combined.[4] The passage is deeply moving as Jeremiah reflects in his own hear the anguish of God. The Lord shares in the grief the people experience (8:18-22), grieves over their sin (9:1-6), and calls them to lament in the face of inevitable judgment (9:7-22).[5] Here is the cry of the people: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” The questions hope for a positive answer, but where is the help from God? The Lord interrupts the cry of the people, possibly giving an answer to their questions: (“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”)[6] The cry of the people returns. 20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” 21 For the hurt (shéber) of my poor people I am hurt (shabar). The Hebrew root for “hurt” here actually comes from a root meaning breaking (in pieces), crushing (as in the fracturing of a bone) or the collapse or ruin of something. The prophet is himself shattered as he sees the shattering of his people, God’s people. I mourn (qadar) coming from a root meaning darkness or absence of light. In Jeremiah 4:28, the earth mourns (another verb) as the paralleled heavens “grow black” (qadar). Further, dismay has taken hold of me. 22 Is there no balm (an aromatic ointment made from the gum resin of the balsam tree (see Genesis 37:25 and Jeremiah 46:11) in Gilead? Gilead is across the Jordan River from most of the Israelites’ territory. Is there no physician there? The prophet Jeremiah is mournfully calling for a doctor. We can easily imagine Jeremiah weeping as he cries for help. His heart is breaking because of his people’s unfaithfulness. “Is there no balm, no medicine that can help? Is there no doctor in the house, no one who can bring true healing to this wayward and ailing people?” He is talking of sin as a serious moral ailment, a disease that is lethal and only an outside power can bring healing. Isaiah alludes to the Suffering Servant as the Wounded Healer who is the Great Physician: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed” (53:5; NIV has “by his wounds we are healed”). The questions may hope for a positive answer, but we are not sure. Where is the help from God? Jeremiah 8:4-13 suggests the answer to lack of repentance among the people is a devastating judgment. 8:19c suggests anger is the response from the Lord. If so, the text is harsh. Rather than finding healing balm or physician, the people will find anger and judgment.
I want to pause and reflect upon the imagery of the balm in Gilead and the physician.
Across the River Jordan, not far from Jerusalem, was Gilead. It was famous for its spices, ointments, and herbal remedies. The merchants who bought Joseph came "from Gilead with camels bearing spices, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry them down to Egypt" (Gen 37:25). That is one of the lovely ironies of the Bible story: the merchants threw Joseph in with the spices and the balm, as just another piece of merchandise. Yet his children would one day come to possess the land of Gilead, and its balm would be theirs to make their fortunes from (Joshua 17:1). However, we come back to Jerusalem in Jeremiah's time, as the Lord contemplates the spiritual sickness there. Of course, the literal balm of Gilead could not heal the spiritual sores of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, just as they could go to Gilead for balm to heal sores upon their bodies, so they could go to the physician in the spiritual Gilead (heaven) to find healing for their spiritual ills. If we interpret the questions as coming from God, "Is there no balm in Gilead?" means "Why haven't you come to me for healing for your souls?" The implied answer to the question is affirmative. Yet, the people have not experienced healing. Why do people, perhaps even you and I, not come to the heavenly physician for spiritual healing?
The heart of Jeremiah reaches out with compassion. These people are sick, so very sick — and no doctor is on the case. The pharmacy shelves are bare. The great missionary doctor Albert Schweitzer, who dedicated his life to running a backcountry hospital in the steamy jungles of West Africa, took a medical image from his own African practice and applied it to the European culture of his birth:
“You know of the disease in Central Africa called sleeping sickness. There also exists a sleeping sickness of the soul. Its most dangerous aspect is that one is unaware of its coming. That is why you have to be careful. As soon as you notice the slightest sign of indifference, the moment you become aware of the loss of a certain seriousness, of longing, of enthusiasm and zest, take it as a warning. You should realize your soul suffers if you live superficially.”[7]
22b Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?
Jeremiah 9:1-6 is the despair of the prophet over the depravity of the people. O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep (bakah) day and night for the slain of my poor people! People weep for their dead (as Abraham for Sarah in Genesis 23:2). Weeping involves not only the shedding of tears but also wailing with a loud voice. In the cultures of that part of the world, weeping/mourning was not a private grieving but a demonstrative public act. Jeremiah 9:10 has weeping and wailing. See Lamentations 1:2, 16. Israelites wept in the exile (Psalm 137:1; Jeremiah 22:10; 31:15). Students of the Old Testament have called Jeremiah “the weeping prophet” (also see 13:17). Similarly, see Isaiah 22:2b-4 (which also uses the bat-‘ammi language — but here in Isaiah the NRSV translates as “my beloved people”). Jeremiah is not apart from his people but a part of them. Note the profound parallel in Luke 19:41-44, when Jesus weeps in anguish over the coming utter destruction of Jerusalem. The Greek word klaiw(weep) of Luke 19:41 is also the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew bakah of Jeremiah 9:1 [8:23 in Hebrew and LXX]. Here, the prophet has a good cry. His identification of himself with his doomed nation is painful, bringing anguish to him and a profound prophetic witness to the Bible of Jews and Christians.
Jeremiah never pretends the solution to sin is just exercising a little willpower. “Just say no” is no answer. Jeremiah is a realist. He knows the problem runs much deeper than that. Sin is a deadly malady that needs healing. He did not subscribe to the “gospel of sin management.”[8] Church leaders on both the right and the left proclaim the gospel of sin management. Whether it is the collective social sins of tolerating poverty and homelessness, or the individual sins of adultery and stinginess, proponents of this stripped-down, incomplete version of the gospel teach that being a Christian is all about managing sinful behaviors. Just stop sinning, this school of thought teaches — or, at least, cut down on it — and God will smile on you, bestowing upon you the gift of eternal life. The gospel of sin management, as it manifests itself within Christianity, is a hard ideal to live up to. Cutting out all sinful behaviors is impossible. Yet, proponents of this way of thinking are quick to remind us that, while God may scrawl a bright red “F” on the top of our examination paper, the Lord is quick to counteract that negative judgment —saving us by giving an “A” for effort.
The 20th century was a time when many people around the world turned from the church as an institution and sought sin-management help from other places. Communism, for example. Just overthrow the government and replace it with a benevolent central management that makes sure a central power distributes all the goods of the world equally. Then there is Nazism, that evil ideology that has at its core a scientific theory known as eugenics. According to eugenics, the way to solve the world’s problems is through selective breeding of human beings. Destroy the so-called inferior stock by means of mass murder, and match up male and female examples of the true Aryan ideal, so they may bring forth a Master Race. Then there is Social Darwinism (which actually has nothing to do with Charles Darwin himself). Taking a leaf from Darwin’s The Origin of Species, Social Darwinists believe the way to a better world is to step back and allow the various tribes of modern society to fight it out. It is survival of the fittest applied to human communities. The general process of labeling the Other with the worst epithets one can think about, such as Hitler, Nazi, Communist, White Supremist, Racist, and so on, can be a way of objectifying sin in the Other, rather than having the courage to face the prejudice and hatred contained in the heart.
All these ideologies have the same fundamental idea at their roots: eliminating sin of one sort or another. Communism, Nazism and all the rest peddle their bill of goods to a world grown profoundly tired of traditional religion. They believe they can save themselves by dealing with the sin they always locate in the Other rather than face the sin in them. In trying to manage sin, they subject the human race to unspeakable horrors. Essentially, their proponents imagine they could remake the human race: building from the ashes of the past a golden city, where there would be no more sin — or at least a whole lot less of it.
Over and against all these unrealistically optimistic ideologies is a much older creed: religion. Religion — be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam or some other faith — is not so optimistic about the human condition. Most of the great religions have within them some concept of sin. They see it as a fatal malady that gets hold of the human heart and never lets go — at least not of its own accord. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no doctor in the house to apply the miracle cure so we may banish sin and restore spiritual health and wholeness? Jeremiah can name no such nostrum — although he seems confident one must exist somewhere.
There is, in fact, such a cure. We know it in the Christian tradition as the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The African slaves of the American South knew it probably better than we do. Held captive and oppressed all their days, laboring under the lash of the overseer, their captors allowed them to sing some spiritual songs as they worked. One of them is the beloved hymn based on this very passage from Jeremiah, “There Is a Balm in Gilead.” That hymn endeavors to answer the prophet’s mournful cry.
Refrain:
There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole,
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.
Sometimes I feel discouraged
and think my work's in vain,
but then the Holy Spirit
revives my soul again. Refrain
If you cannot preach like Peter,
and you cannot pray like Paul,
you just tell the love of Jesus,
how he died to save us all. Refrain
“My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick,” writes the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Israel. “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me” We know what Jeremiah is feeling, do we not? Heartsickness, grief, loss of joy. Hurt, dismay and deep mourning. We know it. Even if we do not admit it.
For many of us, the challenge of embracing Jeremiah is that his profound sadness runs against the grain of our natural American optimism. We have a cultural predisposition to look on the bright side, accentuate the positive and search for the unseen benefit. Generally, it has worked well for our nation and for many of us as individuals.
Author Barbara Ehrenreich says we are Bright-Sided. This means we flock to business seminars called Get Motivated!, where we dance in a crowd of thousands to the bouncy sounds of “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” swat beach balls around the auditorium and listen to motivational speakers encourage us to focus on faith, optimism and principled living. Being Bright-Sided means we embrace “possibility thinking” and books such as The Secret, Your Best Life Now and the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series. To be Bright-Sided is to turn your frown upside down. Don’t worry; be happy! If you dream it, you can do it.
Maybe these types of books and seminars are so popular because we are not naturally bright-sided people. We have to keep convincing ourselves to be positive precisely because we naturally think negative about the world or ourselves. Yet, even such negative thinking has its role. The world is a dangerous place. Things can go very wrong. We have to be alert.
In any case, I hope you do not think less of me. However, sometimes, I am just not in the mood for bright-sided optimism. Although I am oriented toward seeing possibilities where others may not see much, such thinking can get one into trouble. There is a serious side to life that we need to be willing to see clearly and honestly. If a pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, while an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty (Winston Churchill), then maybe we need a bit of both as we confront the challenges of life. We may well wish for a life without difficulties. However, we also need the reminder that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are the result of tremendous pressure (Peter Marshall).
The prophet Jeremiah is a truth-teller, not a Bright-Sider. He respects his people enough to be brutally honest, not overly optimistic. In ancient Israel and today, people facing tough times need the truth, not spin. A message of hope is important, of course. The ground of that hope must be the promises of God. In this case, the promise is for another generation of Jewish people. This generation shall experience exile.
First, it is better to be honest than optimistic. Barbara Ehrenreich first noticed that positive thinking was the law of the land when doctors diagnosed her with breast cancer. In her case, she felt thrust into a world of pink ribbons, cancer walks and uplifting testimonials from cancer survivors. For her, something was missing: outrage at the disease. She felt as if she was not supposed to be angry or melancholy because it seemed people did not think such feelings aided the fight against the cancer. In all forms of positive thinking, the key is to ignore the negative emotions and realities and focus instead on your desired outcomes of health and wealth.[9] After this experience, Ehrenreich set out to discover how positive thinking became such an American norm. She wrote the book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Positive thinking originated in America as a response to the harsh theology of New England Calvinists. Such thinking made human life quite serious business. There were many reactions against it. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter was one reaction. Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science movement, rose up and suggested that spiritual practices could solve health problems and moral issues. Later, Norman Vincent Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking and developed a Bright-Sided theology that Robert H. Schuller and Joel Osteen continues to preach.
Now, all of this can be quite helpful for some people at certain times in their lives. They have offered insights that have helped me at certain times in my life. It may be helpful for some readers of this text now. However, I am also suggesting that for some people, another message is important. It is all right to admit the quite real pain you feel and hurdles you must overcome.
Second, it is OK to grieve. In the face of all our optimism, the prophet Jeremiah asks whether there is a balm in Gilead or a physician there. If there is, he wonders why the restoration of health has not taken place. He wants to have enough tears to weep for his people 24/7 (8:22, 9:1). There is nothing Bright-Sided in these words from the prophet. Sometimes, we need to face this side of ourselves. Jeremiah is weeping day and night for the slain of his people, just as we might weep for the victims of any evil action or tragedy.
Third, God has a message of judgment: actions have consequences. We do not like the notion of judgment much. Jeremiah makes clear that the people have died because of their sins, for they have clung to deceit and fail to repent (Jeremiah 8:5-6). Sounds familiar, does it not? Deceit, dishonesty, blindness to our own sinfulness. Thousands of years after Jeremiah spoke to the Israelites, we are still turning to our own courses and pursuing our own selfish agendas. From top to bottom in the economic and social scale, people are greedy, act shamefully, and yet have no shame (Jeremiah 8:10, 12).
I do not mention political matters often. When I do, I want to word things in a way that neither Democrat nor Republican will think I am targeting them. Thus, in the economic meltdown of 2008-9, many individuals spent well beyond their means. In addition, politicians passed laws that opened doors to risky real estate investments, putting the financial risk at a minimum to the lender, but also putting those who received the mortgages at risk. It seemed like everyone benefited, but in the end, everyone was greedy for unjust gain, as Jeremiah puts it. Yet, many of the same politicians, Republican and Democrat, who got us into trouble are the same ones whom we see making pronouncements in public, blaming still others. I would love to hear a politician simply admit, “We blew it. We thought we were doing the right thing, but we did not. We are sorry.” I am not holding my breath. They have forgotten how to “blush.”
God’s judgment comes through loud and clear, as applicable to us as it was to the Israelites. We are setting ourselves up for destruction if we do not repent of our sinful ways.
Fourth, God has a message of love. God is speaking in verses 18 and 21. “My joy is gone, my grief is upon me, my heart is sick” (v. 18). “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me” (Jeremiah 8:21). These are the words of a lover, whose beloved is going through profound suffering. Yes, I am saying that God is in love with us. “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?” asks the Lord in verse 19. The words are those of a betrayed lover who wants nothing more than restoration to right relationship. “O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!” (9:1). This is God’s grief. God’s tears. God’s weeping, day and night.
Some of us are afraid of tears. Yet, what soap is for the body, tears are for the soul (Jewish proverb). Granted, bitter are the tears that fall, but more bitter are the tears that fall not (Irish proverb). Tears are sacred. We need to remember that, for from being a mark of weakness, they are a mark of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand words. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.[10]
Clearly, God wants to be in relationship with us, and God invites us to repent and return to the ways of God. “Is there no balm in Gilead?” asks the Lord. Will we find no healing in the aromatic resins of Gilead, a region east of the River Jordan? No, one will find no balm there, to heal our sin-sick souls.
Friends, the healing balm is available right here, and right now. We know this because God has turned toward us with love, grace, healing, and liberation, in Jesus Christ. Our repentance and return to God opens the door to such healing. Fortunately, God reaches out to us in love, and promises never to let us go.
A few months before the terrorist attacks of 2001, a movie was released that provided an escape from the horrors of life in the 21st century. Called Moulin Rouge, it was a romantic musical set in Paris in 1899. One song from the film became a hit, capturing the hope of two people in love. It is not an optimistic song because the movie ends in tragedy. However, it is a hopeful song because it contains the promise of love in the face of any pain and suffering the world can throw at us. “Come What May” is the song’s name and also its chorus:
Come what may
Come what may
I will love you until my dying day.
This love does not have its basis in happy endings, improved health or sudden wealth. Such love is the kind of love God feels for us — a love that is eternal, come what may. The second verse of the song is equally appropriate:
And there’s no mountain too high
No river too wide
Sing out this song and I’ll be there by your side
Storm clouds may gather
And stars may collide
But I’ll love you until the end of time.
This is God’s love for us — heartfelt, passionate, and eternal. It is a love that is brutally honest, calling us to repent and return to God’s way. Nevertheless, because it is love, it engenders hope, which gives birth to optimism, all of which can sustain us, come what may.
[1] Who is speaking in this passage? The answer is complex. At first glance, it would appear to be Jeremiah. But 19b’s “Is the Lord not in Zion ... ?” and verse 20’s “The harvest is past … ” likely comprise the content of 19a’s “the cry of my poor people.” And it is the people who speak in 8:14-16. It is the Lord, not Jeremiah, who speaks 19c’s “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?” In 8:17; 9:3 and more widely in this section of Jeremiah (8:4–10:25), it’s frequently the Lord who is speaking through Jeremiah regarding the by-now-certain destruction that’s coming upon the people for their enumerated sins. “My people” is often part of a covenant formula, where the people call the Lord “our God” and the Lord calls them “my people.”
[2] For what group of hearers are these words spoken or recorded? The answer depends partly on whether or not the destruction of Zion/Jerusalem has already occurred (586 B.C.) and the people taken into exile in Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. If the destruction is yet to come, then Jeremiah would be speaking in expectation of what God’s exiled people will experience, then feel/say while mourning and questioning God about their losses. Several of the verbs are Hebrew perfects, but the Hebrew perfect can refer to something other than past events. And even what comes into English as a past-tense expression can, in prophetic contexts, actually be an anticipatory projection of what God’s people will come to experience (for the “prophetic perfect,” see Waltke and O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 490). Most of Jeremiah’s prophesying in verses 1-20 comes not too many years before the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. (and earlier incursions, such as in 605 B.C.). But there is the possibility of one or more exilic editors who, in compiling Jeremiah’s prophecies for later readers, took the role of prophetic interpreters, giving voice to the outcry and the bewilderment of early exiles in Babylon and to Yahweh’s responses (for such a view, see R.E. Clements, “Interpretation” series, Jeremiah commentary, 52 ff., passim).
[3] “Hark” is likely to convey, at least initially, positive associations (as in “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” “Hark, My Soul, It Is the Lord,” “Hark, the Glad Sound!,” etc.). The traditional translation of hinneh as “Behold” is even less satisfactory here.
[4] ” (W.F. Stinespring, “Zion, Daughter of,” supplementary volume of the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, 985). (See also Jeremiah 4:11; 6:26.) The expression has nothing to do with poverty; it is “poor” in the sense of unfortunate or pitiable or dear. In biblical Hebrew, bat-‘ammi is literally “the daughter of my people.” This expression means “something like ‘my beloved people’ or ‘my unfortunate people,’ with love and sorrow combined” (W.F. Stinespring, “Zion, Daughter of,” supplementary volume of the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, 985). This is an extension of the meaning of bat (Hebrew for daughter). Stinespring (ibid.) says bat “is often used as a term of affection for any girl or young woman, as when Boaz addressed Ruth (Ruth 2:8) as (bitti), not meaning ‘my daughter’ but something such as ‘my dear’” (translated thus by NET). The NRSV’s “my poor people” is mirrored by Tanakh in verses 19 and 9:1; NET has “my dear people” in all four verses of our passage. A note in the NET for Isaiah 22:4 (also with bat-‘ammi) says “‘Daughter’ is here used metaphorically to express the speaker’s emotional attachment to his people, as well as their vulnerability and weakness.” The NET note for Jeremiah 4:11 says, “The term ‘daughter of’ is appositional to ‘my people’ and is supplied in the translation [‘my dear people’] as a term of sympathy and endearment. Compare the common expression ‘daughter of Zion.’” Stinespring (ibid.) says that in such expressions, “the first [Hebrew] word is in the construct state, and the following genitive is not the usual genitive of possession, but the appositional genitive.” In fact, verse 19 technically has a four-noun construct chain (exaggeratedly literally, “the sound of the cry of the daughter of my people”). Note regarding “my poor people” their cry (in v. 19), their hurt (v. 21), their unrestored health (v. 22) and their slain (9:1).
[5] Cawley and Millard (“Jeremiah” in The New Bible Commentary: Revised, 634)
[6] The phrase fits far more logically immediately after verse 18 (as the editors of the Jewish Publication Society translation have placed them), leaving the quotation in verse 20 (“The harvest is past ... and we are not saved”) as the cry of the destitute people of the land, which makes much better sense than the NRSV arrangement, which follows the MT. Although the JPS arrangement makes better sense of a difficult passage, its weakness is that it lacks support from the versions. The JPS editors also understand the quotation in verse 19 to be spoken by the deity (see their text note), which makes the idolatry condemned at the end of that verse a more logical sequel, coming from the same speaker (and obviating the need for enclosing the words in parentheses, as NRSV feels obliged to do). The first rhetorical question is clearly meant to be answered in the affirmative — Yes, Yahweh remains in his holy temple in his holy precinct — which makes the answer to the second rhetorical question a baffled, “Who knows?” There is a cultic logic behind the questions that may escape modern hearers. The close association of deity and geographical territory in the ancient Near East, combined with Israel’s exclusivist monotheism, meant that the presence of any deity’s image on Yahweh’s turf (as it were) was not only unfaithful, but it was also illogical. The very existence of a sacred precinct (Zion) and a sacred shrine (the temple) implied devotion to the deity to whom both precinct and shrine were dedicated; to bring statues of other deities into such spaces simply made no sense to the Bible’s Yahwistic theologians, whose perspective formed the canon of Scripture.
[9] Christianity Today (January 2010)
[10] —Unknown, although frequently attributed to Washington Irving and Samuel Johnson.
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