Why does Jeremiah ask the Lord to “deliver up their children to famine; give them over to the power of the sword; let their wives become childless and widowed” and for their men, young and old to be struck down?
These words can rightly be described as a curse formula as Jeremiah calls for the Lord to bring his judgment on Judah.1 His words may seem harsh, and many people may be shocked that the Lord’s prophet would speak this way. But following years of warning a stubborn, unresponsive people of the Lord’s judgment, Jeremiah must have wondered where the Lord’s help would come from. When would the Lord finally act and bring the judgment he was speaking of? But even more importantly, Jeremiah saw that it was actually the Lord they were rejecting. He is calling on the Lord to bring covenant curses on a people who have broken their covenant relationship and refused to repent. Jeremiah has said and done all that he could, and he realizes that he can no longer find any grounds for the Lord not to judge Judah. He calls on the Lord to fulfill his promise.2 Rather than bitter denunciation, these words are Jeremiah’s sorrowful acknowledgement that the people will not change and that judgment is inevitable.
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The judgment Jeremiah calls for is described in terms of the foreign invasion that he has warned Judah against, over and over again. It is made very clear again that it is the Lord who will bring this devastating invasion because of Judah’s rejection of the Lord, seen here as their plotting against his prophet, For they have dug a pit to take me and laid snares for my feet.
18 Et ils ont dit: Venez, complotons contre Jérémie! Car la loi ne périra pas faute de sacrificateurs, Ni le conseil faute de sages, ni la parole faute de prophètes. Venez, tuons-le avec la langue; Ne prenons pas garde à tous ses discours!