An argument that gives up on merit

Where we are

Jeremiah 14 opens with a drought — the cisterns empty, the ground cracked, the wild donkeys panting on the bare heights — and then adds the sword. The chapter alternates between voices without labelling them, and today's reading begins in the middle of that alternation.

What happens

"Let my eyes stream with tears day and night, without rest, over the great destruction which overwhelms the virgin daughter of my people, over her incurable wound. If I walk out into the field, look! those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, look! those consumed by hunger... Have you cast Judah off completely? Is Zion loathsome to you? Why have you struck us a blow that cannot be healed? We wait for peace, to no avail; for a time of healing, but terror comes instead. We recognise, Yahweh, our wickedness, the guilt of our fathers; that we have sinned against you. For your name's sake spurn us not, disgrace not the throne of your glory; remember your covenant with us, and break it not. Among the nations' idols is there any that gives rain? Or can the mere heavens send showers? Is it not you alone, Yahweh, our Theos, to whom we look? You alone have done all these things."

What to notice

Nobody is sure whose eyes are crying, and the ambiguity is not sloppiness. The Hebrew simply says teradnah einai dim'ah — let my eyes run down with tears — and the chapter has been switching speakers all the way through. Read as Jeremiah's, it is the prophet weeping over the sentence he has been delivering. Read as Yahweh's — which is how many take the verse, since the speech has just been Yahweh's — it is the judge weeping over the verdict. The text will not settle it, and both readings survive into the rest of the book, where Jeremiah's grief and Yahweh's are increasingly hard to tell apart.

The injury is described with a word that turns back on itself: makkah nachlah me'od — a very sick blow. Nachlah is from chalah, to be ill. The wound is not merely severe; it has itself become diseased, which is what the older English grievous was trying to say.

And the geography of verse 18 closes every exit. Im yatsati ha-sadeh, ve-hinneh chalelei cherev; ve-im bati ha-ir, ve-hinneh tachalu'ei ra'av — if I go out to the field, look: those run through by the sword; and if I come into the city, look: the sicknesses of famine. Outside the walls, the army; inside them, the siege. The two clauses are built as a matched pair so that the sentence has no third option.

Then two questions with no cushioning. Ha-ma'os ma'asta et-Yehudah? — have you utterly rejected Judah? — using the verb doubled for emphasis. And im be-Tsion ga'alah nafshekha? — has your throat gagged on Zion? Ga'al here is the homonym of the redeemer-verb and means to be nauseated. The prayer asks Theos outright whether he finds his own city disgusting.

The confession, when it comes, is complete and it changes nothing: yada'nu Yahweh rish'enu, avon avoteinu, ki chatanu lakh — we know our wickedness, the guilt of our fathers, that we have sinned against you. Three admissions in one line, including the inherited one. And then the plea does not appeal to it.

This is the move that gives the day its shape. Lema'an shimkha al-tin'ats — for the sake of your name, do not spurn us — and al-tenabbel kisse khevodekha, do not let the throne of your glory be treated as a disgrace. Having confessed, the prayer stops talking about itself entirely and starts talking about Yahweh's public standing. Nabel is to treat as worthless, to make a fool of. The argument is: whatever we deserve, consider what this will look like. It is the argument Moses used at Sinai, and it is a strange one to find so bare in the middle of a lament — the pray-er has concluded that there is no version of this appeal that runs through his own merits, and has stopped attempting one.

And the closing argument is meteorological. Ha-yesh be-havlei ha-goyim magshimim? — among the vapours of the nations, are there any rain-makers? Hevel is the word Ecclesiastes uses for breath, mist, futility. Then the sharper question: ve-im ha-shamayim yittenu revivim? — or can the heavens themselves give showers? Even the sky is denied autonomy. And the last clause is deliberately double: ki attah asita et-kol-elleh — for you have done all these things. All these things: the rain — or the ruin. The Hebrew supports both, and in a chapter about a drought and a sword, the prayer is not choosing.