Jeremiah continues to express the powerful emotions he is feeling regarding his role as the Lord’s prophet. As he looks back at his life as a prophet, including his commissioning, he recalls his reluctance and says that his experience of the Lord is that you are stronger than I, you have prevailed.
There is an element of truth in what Jeremiah is saying. He had indeed been reluctant to answer the Lord’s call (Jeremiah 1:6) and the Lord had overcome his reluctance and persuaded him. Having carried out his ministry as a prophet Jeremiah now feels that he has become the laughingstock
of the nation; everyone mocks me.
The nation rejected Jeremiah as a joke because his unpopular message of judgment had not come true. Clearly, the work of being the Lord’s faithful prophet has been very difficult for Jeremiah.
However, the Lord had not deceived Jeremiah. He made it clear from the very beginning (Jeremiah 1:8, Jeremiah 1:17–18) that Jeremiah would face the kind of opposition that he had experienced from the hands of Pashhur ( Jeremiah 20:1–6). The Lord had assured Jeremiah that he would be with him as he faced opposition. However, as he finds himself experiencing exactly what the Lord said he would, Jeremiah is saying that if he knew then what he knows now he would have said no.1
7 O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me.