12 “Can anyone smash iron,
Iron from the north, or bronze?
13 “Your wealth and your treasures
I will give for booty without cost,
Even for all your sins
And within all your borders.
14 “Then I will cause your enemies to bring [e]it
Into a land you do not know;
For a fire has been kindled in My anger,
It will burn upon you.”Jeremiah’s Prayer and God’s Answer
15 You who know, O Lord,
Remember me, take notice of me,
And take vengeance for me on my persecutors.
Do not, in view of Your patience, take me away;
Know that for Your sake I endure reproach.
16 Your words were found and I ate them,
And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart;
For I have been called by Your name,
O Lord God of hosts.
17 I did not sit in the circle of merrymakers,
Nor did I exult.
Because of Your hand upon me I sat alone,
For You filled me with indignation.
18 Why has my pain been perpetual
And my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?
Will You indeed be to me like a deceptive stream
With water that is unreliable?19 Therefore, thus says the Lord,
“If you return, then I will restore you—
Before Me you will stand;
And if you extract the precious from the worthless,
You will become [f]My spokesman.
They for their part may turn to you,
But as for you, you must not turn to them.
20 “Then I will make you to this people
A fortified wall of bronze;
And though they fight against you,
They will not prevail over you;
For I am with you to save you
And deliver you,” declares the Lord.
21 “So I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked,
And I will redeem you from the [g]grasp of the violent.”
God asks the rhetorical question in v. 12, whether anyone can smash bronze, and it’s interesting that He uses bronze in answer to Jeremiah’s plea. In v. 20, God promises to make him like a “fortified wall of bronze”. In between, there’s a lot more going on though, and it seems Jeremiah had to suffer through quite a lot.
Most obviously, there was the coming judgment and destruction, and I’m sure Jeremiah was a little nervous that he would be caught up in their doom. Then, we’ve seen previously that even the men of Jeremiah’s home town were plotting to kill him, and it is likely they were harassing him otherwise (verbally and physically).
God hadn’t called Jeremiah to an easy thing, he had to preach doom and judgment to his neighbors and fellow countrymen, even to the king and the religious leaders. That’s a tall order, and though Jeremiah loved God, he endured a lot of hardship because of God’s calling.
In response, God reminds Jeremiah not to compromise (v. 19), but to stay faithful, and God would take care of the wicked and the violent men who were out to get him. I don’t know what that looked like, but here’s the key. Jeremiah had to put his trust in God’s provision. Even had he been this big strong brute of a man like Samson, he could not have stood up against his enemies, for they were too many.
Instead of trying to outsmart his persecutors on his own, Jeremiah called upon God for help, and so should we. Too often we try to do everything ourselves, but we need to remember that God has a plan for our lives. Not only that, but He has promised to provide what we need to accomplish that plan. It might not look anything like we expect, but trust God, his plan is the best.