Why does the Lord say that Jacob’s hurt is incurable?

The next passage (Jeremiah 30:12–17) begins with the word for and it explains further what the Lord means by the discipline he spoke of in Jeremiah 30:11. A new metaphor is used, that of the healing of an incurable wound or sickness. The nouns used throughout this passage are feminine singular and refer to Zion, personified as a woman suffering from what seems to be a fatal injury.¹ The wound or injury is of course the devastating impact that the Babylonian invasion will have on the people of Judah, but it also speaks of Judah’s spiritual condition which has led to the Lord’s judgment. It is common in Scripture for the Lord’s judgment and discipline because of sin to be referred to as an incurable injury (Psalm 38:3–11; Isaiah 1:5–6; Nahum 3:19). The metaphor becomes mixed with that of a lawsuit in Jeremiah 30:13 which suggests that the people have no one to present their case. This may mean they have no advocate in heaven before the Lord or no allies as they face Babylon.² The mixing of metaphors in this way may be pointing to the fact that the injury that Judah has been inflicted with is the result of being found guilty before the Lord.