Divine Rape
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
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 thought 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). 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 patah and hazak. 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 with 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.
Topical Index: patah, seduce, hazak, rape, Jeremiah 20:7
[1] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (Hendrickson Publishers, 1962), Vol 1, p. 113
