Why does the Lord ask Jeremiah, “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses. And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?”
In Jeremiah 11:5–6 the Lord responds to Jeremiah’s complaints and prayers. It is probably not the response that either the reader or Jeremiah expected. Using two metaphors, expressed as questions, the Lord says to Jeremiah that if he finds his current circumstances difficult, then he needs to prepare for even harder times ahead.
In the first metaphor the Lord asks Jeremiah how he will compete with horses if he has grown weary in a race with men. The likely reference is a military one. If Jeremiah has grown weary of fighting men on foot, how will he manage when he has to fight men on horses?1 In his current circumstances the enemy are his own countrymen and the false prophets, but a much more powerful and terrifying enemy is coming when the Babylonians invade Judah.
In the second metaphor the Lord asks Jeremiah what he will do in the thicket of the Jordan when he is so trusting in a safe land. The thickets were a strip of land near the banks of the Jordan River that were overgrown with shrubs, and a place where lions and other wild animals lived (see Jeremiah 49:19; Jeremiah 50:44; Zechariah 11:3).2 The comparison is again between times of relative peace that exist now in the land, and the invasion of the Babylonian army that will bring war and devastation. If Jeremiah is finding it hard now when there is peace and safety in the land, how will he manage when all of that is changed by the invasion?
The Lord is not just warning Jeremiah that things are about to get much, much harder. He is also calling on Jeremiah to be more vigilant in his current circumstances. If he was wilting under the opposition of his own people during times of peace, then how would be manage when the invading enemy came? The people were complacent in their disobedience to the Lord and their rejection of Jeremiah and his message of judgment. Jeremiah could not afford any kind of complacency in both his current circumstances and in the future.3
5 “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?