This pericope contains two instances in which Jeremiah faced crushing discouragement in his ministry (vv. 10-14, 15-21). He confessed his frustration to the Lord, and the Lord responded with encouragement.
15:10 Jeremiah addressed his mother and mourned that she had born him (cf. 20:14-18; Job 3:3-10). It is normal for a single man like Jeremiah to think of his mother when he gets lonely and discouraged. Since the Lord's call of him antedated his birth (1:5), cursing his birth was tantamount to rejecting God's call on his life. His ministry had produced much strife and contention, both for him and his people (cf. 11:18-20). He sounds like a lawyer who was tired of bringing accusations against his countrymen. He felt that everyone cursed him. Their disagreements with him did not spring from borrowing and lending, a common cause of animosity, but from his preaching. Today we would say that Jeremiah felt burned out.
15:11 The Lord told Jeremiah that He would set him free (of his own frustrations) so that he would be a force for good in the coming national crisis.248The enemy of Judah would even ask him for help in the coming distress (cf. 21:1-7; 37:1-10; 38:14-18; 42:1-6). Jeremiah would emerge from this catastrophe as a tower of strength.
15:12 The enemy from the north would be impossible to defeat, as strong as iron or bronze. What Jeremiah had been preaching would indeed come to pass.
15:13 Furthermore, the Lord would hand over the wealth of Judah to the enemy freely, as war booty, because of all her sins. The Lord knew what He would do and what was coming even if Jeremiah seemed to stand alone in a sea of unbelievers of God's Word.
15:14 The enemy would indeed carry Judah's wealth off to a distant land with which the Judahites were unfamiliar because Yahweh was angry with His people.
This passage is similar to the immediately preceding one in that they both contain Jeremiah's confessions of complaint (vv. 10, 15-18) followed by the Lord's response (vv. 12-14, 19-21). However, this passage reveals a more serious crisis that Jeremiah faced.
15:15 Jeremiah asked Yahweh, who knows all things, to remember him and to punish his persecutors. He requested that the Lord not allow him to die because he had endured reproach for the Lord's sake.
"There is a boldness about such words which only those in a very close relationship with Yahweh may show."249
15:16 When the priests discovered God's Word in the temple during Josiah's reign (2 Kings 22:13; 23:2), Jeremiah had consumed it. He may have had a deep appreciation for God's Word even before that event. Whenever Jeremiah began to relish God's Word, it had become his delight and a joy to his soul (cf. Ezek. 2:8-3:3; Rev. 10:9-10), in contrast to the majority of people who despised it (8:9). The Lord's words included his messages to the prophet as well as His written Word. Jeremiah's love for the Word was a result of God's initiative because Almighty Yahweh had called him to Himself (cf. 1:4-10).
One of the greatest blessings God can give His servants is a hunger for His Word. If you do not have it, ask Him to give it to you. Then cultivate a taste for it (cf. 1 Pet. 2:2).
15:17 Jeremiah had not spent his time with the people who disregarded God's messages to repent. Rather he felt indignation at their hard hearts and separated himself from them (cf. Ps. 1:1; 26:4-5). Their attitude repulsed him, and he felt under divine constraint to behave with integrity, in harmony with his preaching. Jeremiah felt that he had become a social leper (cf. Lev. 13:46).
"Every true servant of God is likely to experience tensions of this kind, especially if, like Jeremiah, his foes are his relatives (cf. Mt. 10:36)."250
15:18 The prophet asked God why his broken heart refused to heal (cf. 6:14). The Lord promised refreshment to His people, even Himself (2:13), but this had not been Jeremiah's personal experience. God seemed like an unreliable wadi (stream bed) to Jeremiah. It promised water but was completely dry for most of the year (cf. Job 6:15-20).
"The prophet Jeremiah found himself in a situation of conflict, conflict with his people and conflict with his God. He was at conflict with his people because of the message of judgment he proclaimed to them. He was at conflict with his God because he considered it unjust that he should suffer as a result of proclaiming God's message. He consequently complained to the Lord about his situation."251
15:19 The Lord replied that if Jeremiah would turn to Him he would find restoration and renewed strength to stand for his God. Jeremiah had been calling the people to repent, but he needed to repent of his self-pitying attitude (vv. 15-18). If he would purify himself inwardly (undergo a refining process), the Lord would continue to use him. Some of the people might turn to follow Jeremiah, but he must not turn to follow them. He must lift them and not allow them to drag him down.
"Perhaps God was telling the prophet that he had been overconcerned about what people thought and said about him when his one concern should have been to heed God's word and proclaim it."252
15:20-21 If Jeremiah repented, the Lord would make him as indestructible as a bronze wall (cf. v. 12; 1:18-19). No one would be able to destroy him because the Lord would be with him and deliver him from his adversaries. He would rescue him from the wicked who would try to kill him and would free him from the grasp of those who would handle him violently.
"The antidote for the prophet's earlier Woe is me' [v. 10] was the Lord's I am with thee' (15:20). No better word could ever be given by God to one of His servants, anywhere or anytime! [cf. Matt. 28:20]."253
This passage probably reflects Jeremiah's lowest point emotionally in his ministry.
