Divine Rape (Revisited)
O Lord, You have deceived me and I was deceived; You have overcome me and prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. Jeremiah 20:7 NASB 1995
Deceived/overcome – Sometimes the translator’s morality gets in the way of communicating the crass and deliberately offensive speech of the Bible’s prophets. Of course, since we read the translation, we don’t even know that the prophets use rude and objectionable imagery to rivet the people’s attention. We read placid Scriptures from a tranquil God. No wonder we never think of God as an emotionally charged deity. But the prophets certainly did, and a few corrections in the translations help us see just how deeply offensive their words really are. Our passage, Jeremiah 20:7, is typically translated as above (NASB 1995). But the translation obscures the real intensity.
“This standard rendition misses completely the meaning of the text and ascribes to Jeremiah a pitiful platitude (‘Thou art stronger than I’). The proper rendition of Jeremiah’s exclamation would be:
O Lord, Thou hast seduced me,
And I am seduced;
Thou hast raped me
And I am overcome.
The meaning of this extraordinary confession becomes clear when we consider what commentators have failed to notice, namely, the specific meaning of the individual words. The striking feature of the verse is the use of two verbs pātâ and ḥāzaq. The first term is used in the Bible and in the special sense of wrongfully inducing a woman to consent to prenuptial intercourse (Exod. 22:16 [H. 22:15]; cf. Hos.2:14 [H. 2:16]; Job 31:10). The second term denotes the violent forcing of a woman to submit to extranuptial intercourse, which is thus performed against her will (Deut. 22:15; cf. Judg.19:25; II Sam. 13:11). The first denotes seduction or enticement; the second, rape.”[1]
Does Jeremiah feel violated by the God he serves? Absolutely! In fact, he feels more than enticement. He might have been able to reconcile God’s seduction with the importance of his assigned mission, but Jeremiah feels more than that. He has been raped by God; sexually violated by a more powerful person, the victim of divine abuse. Have you considered Jeremiah’s emotional state of mind under these circumstances? Have you felt his trauma about God? Do you finally understand what it means to be a prophet? Ah, there’s no great honor or glory in this role. To be a prophet is to be a rape victim, to be emotionally and physically violated by a divine, irresistible power. No one would smile and hand you a business card with the title “Prophet” on it if what Jeremiah knew was properly translated. And that raises an important question for us: What do you imagine will happen to you when you ask God to take over your life? Maybe the answer is scarier than you thought. Better ask Job.[2]
Topical Index: pātâ, seduce, ḥāzaq, rape, Jeremiah 20:7
[1] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (Hendrickson Publishers, 1962), Vol 1, p. 113
[2] First published 20 January 2020
“What do you imagine will happen to you when you ask God to take over your life?”
What I imagined… before realization was brought into my personal circumstances of being… was that God’s “take over” would allow me the experience of his goodness— but a goodness imagined by me as “good” for me. It’s taken many years for me to understand that God’s goodness isn’t necessarily rendered in terms of my preference, favor, and liking. In that respect my understanding of the goodness of God demanded the “renewal of my mind, that I might approve what is the good and well-pleasing and perfect will of God”.
Even as I write this I am grieved by tragic circumstances that resulted in loss through death of a dear and very close friend and daily companion with whom I was blessed to have shared both the deep love and spirit of God. I do question God’s purpose in my loss… and yes, I feel emotionally and physically violated… because I know the divine power that could have prevented this. The searching, and yearning inclination to ask, “God, why?,” is ever present… and ever painful. Moreover, there is no honor… and no glory… found by me in the role of declaring God in this particular set of circumstances.
Even so, I must… I am compelled to declare, Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
“From: Sha’ul, by God’s will an emissary of the Messiah Yeshua, and brother Timothy To: God’s Messianic community in Corinth, along with all God’s people throughout Achaia: Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah. Praised be God, Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, compassionate Father, God of all encouragement and comfort; who encourages us in all our trials, so that we can encourage others in whatever trials they may be undergoing with the encouragement we ourselves have received from God. For just as the Messiah’s sufferings overflow into us, so through the Messiah our encouragement also overflows. So if we undergo trials, it is for your encouragement and deliverance; and if we are encouraged, that should encourage you when you have to endure sufferings like those we are experiencing. Moreover, our hope for you remains staunch, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, you will also share in the encouragement. For, brothers, we want you to know about the trials we have undergone in the province of Asia. The burden laid on us was so far beyond what we could bear that we even despaired of living through it. In our hearts we felt we were under sentence of death. However, this was to get us to rely not on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead! He rescued us from such deadly peril, and he will rescue us again! The one in whom we have placed our hope will indeed continue to rescue us. And you must add your help by praying for us; for the more people there are praying, the more people there will be to give thanks when their prayer for us is answered.”
2 Corinthians (2 Co) 1:1-11 CJB
https://bible.com/bible/1275/2co.1.1-11.CJB
I don’t offer this portion of scripture to you as any sort of “spiritual-bypass”, as I’ve heard it called. You know, just pray and ask God for grace ‘cause this portion of scripture is true so, suck it up and move on. I heard the phrase “the ache of alienation” from someone I can’t remember a few weeks ago. It was defined as ‘the state or experience of being isolated from a person, group or activity to which one should be involved”. The word “ache” I felt was very accurate. I’m alienated from one of my children now going on two years, and it’s a steady, ubiquitous ache. It’s always with me, unrelenting. Being asked to live as if someone you love is dead, though they are alive. Then a friend of mine sent me a YouTube video of an interview of Brad Jersak. In it he mentioned a mystic who lived during WWII named Simone Weil. He mentioned her regarding attention and affliction, in a discussion about the goodness of God and the affliction of humanity. She said this, “look up and see the affliction of the cross. Be astonished by the goodness of the One there. Be astonished by the level of affliction He is suffering there. There’s an infinite distance between the goodness of God and the affliction of man, but the cross spans the distance and the entire timeline of the human race lies between his nail scarred hands and it passes right through His heart. Your affliction is like a nail driven into the heart of God, and through His wounds healing is released into your life and through your life healing is released to others.”
Jersak added that what she said was mystically experienced, but it seemed to me to be in line with the scripture above. Weil felt that the highest form of love you could give anyone was your attention, to be attentive to them as a human being. It put me to thinking about God, and the “love the Lord your God” scripture, and how suffering is used to in a redemptive but albeit painful way to position us to do just that, be attentive to God. If we feel the ache of alienation, God must feel it times 8 billion individuals plus (current world population). His righteousness knows that my situation with my child is wrong, and He feels it more than I ever will. That doesn’t take the pain away, I know. But I don’t think it’s supposed to. But since He is with me in it more than I ever realized, I can keep going, and be a living witness to the fact that life with God in it is better than no life at all. We can be His witnesses to His worth, to His presence with us in life, so others can see and be encouraged, and be pointed to Him.
My deepest condolences to you Richard in your loss. I hope you know and feel His presence in it.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration, Kent. Although there is pain, I do know and feel His presence in it. And I appreciate your heart and agree so as to affirm your thought… “I can keep going, and be a living witness to the fact that life with God in it is better than no life at all. We can be His witnesses to His worth, to His presence with us in life, so others can see and be encouraged, and be pointed to Him.” Amen.
Amen Richard…glad to hear that for you.
Tisha B’av is understood in the practice of the faith of the Jewish people as a day of mourning an act of destruction wrought against them and their divinely assigned place of worship… worship of the true and living God of creation.
The significance of Tisha B’av is not that of the destruction of a people, nor their place of worship. Rather, it is the extension of the promises of God to include all people. No longer confined to God’s chosen people, Israel, the land of Israel, the rituals of the religious faith of Israel, or even God’s presence in the Temple in Israel, God’s gracious promises were now extended to include all those throughout the earth called by God— from destruction—by and through his own uniquely beloved Son.
The consequence of sin— a consequence well understood by the experience of the people of Israel throughout their history— is destruction. Destruction as such is a true nothingness which is utterly distinct from both Creator and creation, and it is expressed by the creature as sin— for it is in opposition primarily and supremely to God Himself, and therefore necessarily and irrevocably to all His work and creation, an antithesis not only to God’s whole creation but to the Creator Himself. Yet God Himself comprehends, envisages and controls it. In truth, He overcomes and has already overcome it… in accordance with the fact that He transcends it from all eternity in His essence as God.
According to the New Testament, the last and true form in which God—through Christ Jesus—exposed Himself to this total enemy is that of His crucifixion. He did it by suffering death, this death, the death of condemnation. The New Testament says that He suffered death for the forgiveness of the sins of many, but it also says—and the two statements must not be dissociated—that He did so in order to take away the power of death, real death, death as the condemnation and destruction of the creature, death as the offender against God, and the last enemy. In His resurrection from the dead God reveals that He has done this. His resurrection sums up the whole process of revelation. It is the manifestation of the divine act which according to the New Testament was effected in His work, the work of His person. According to this witness, it shows that His death is God’s own reconciling and liberating act against nothingness… against destruction… in all its scope.
Whatever is born of God overcomes/defeats the world, the flesh, and the devil. And this is the “overcoming/defeating” that “overcomes/defeats” the world— our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
“By this we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God: that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, because everyone who is fathered by God conquers the world. And this is the victory which has conquered the world: our faith. Now who is the one who conquers the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (Cf. 1 John 2:2-5)
Very well said Richard…do you teach, or are you a writer?
I posted my response to Richard…and then I heard this:
https://youtu.be/cH470xAJBOM?si=dnlEW-ClGshD9szQ
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