{"id":70527,"date":"2020-02-22T15:21:31","date_gmt":"2020-02-22T13:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=70527"},"modified":"2023-10-16T12:28:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-16T09:28:37","slug":"jeremiahs-very-physical-suffering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jeremiahs-very-physical-suffering\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremiah\u2019s Very Physical Suffering"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[738,840,606,588],"acf":{"old_id":"70527","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":37561,"related_cahpter":"421","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Bodies are canvasses for the trauma of destruction\r\n\r\n","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By this point in the book, it is clear to us readers that Jeremiah is a tortured man, burdened by a message nobody wants to hear. In this way, he is like many of the other prophets, who are called to deliver messages of warning and impending doom to an obstinate people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But without minimizing the challenges that other prophets faced in fulfilling their prophetic roles, we might feel that Jeremiah stands out among them for his uniquely embodied, traumatic physical experience. In other prophets, the threat to the people, and the prophet himself, reads as a metaphor. In Jeremiah, the body itself is under attack. Just last chapter, we read about God\u2019s words burning Jeremiah from the inside, and he will also be made to eat the curses he delivers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trauma of his prophecy is not just promised to the Israelites. As their prophet, Jeremiah himself is made to suffer repeatedly and explicitly. In Jeremiah, nothing is off limits. The body is treated as a legitimate victim of war. Four times in his book, the body is referred to as a spoil of war (21:9, 38:2, 39:18, 45:5). Each time, the context promises destruction and death to all those surrounding the prophet or who are the subject of the prophecy. In this chapter, verse 9 promises that anyone who surrenders to the conquerors will be allowed to escape with his life as a spoil of war.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Surrender, the verse says, and your very physical existence will be saved. In modern parlance, we might phrase this as \u201cescaping with your life\u201d. To some readers, this seems like a pragmatic message to a people who are suffering at the hands of a superior military power. However, the mention of famine and pestilence remind us that God ultimately controls life and death. Pestilence and famine are indiscriminate&#8211; they strike all levels of society. They are divinely inflicted punishments to cause suffering and death. Mentioning pestilence and famine in a trio with the sword shows us that God also controls the Chaldeans, and indeed any enemy of the Israelites.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The message here is that God seems intent on bringing down the entire Israelite society, and is willing to let those who surrender to God\u2019s power, enacted through the army of the Israelites\u2019 enemy, live. The threat is concrete; Jeremiah bears no mere metaphor. We will continue to see his body, and the bodies of the Israelites, treated as canvasses for the trauma of destruction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":70530,"id":70530,"title":"jer21-canvas","filename":"jer21-canvas.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer21-canvas.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jeremiahs-very-physical-suffering\/jer21-canvas\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer21-canvas","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":70527,"date":"2020-02-22 13:21:10","modified":"2020-02-22 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