Is There No Balm in Gilead?

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard which was in the palace of the king of Judah.

For Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying, Why do you prophesy and say, "Thus says the Lord: Behold I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it; Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye; and he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall remain until I visit him, says the Lord; though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed?"

Jeremiah said, "The word of the Lord came to me: Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you and say, 'Buy my field which is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.' Then Hanamel my cousin came to me in the court of the guard in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, 'Buy my field which is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.' Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.

"And I bought the field at Anathoth from Hanamel my cousin, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales. Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy; and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my cousin, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Jews who were sitting in the court of the guard. I charged Baruch in their presence, saying 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.'" -Jeremiah 32:1-15

My grief is beyond healing,
my heart is sick within me.
Hark, the cry of the daughter of my people
from the length and breadth of the land:
"Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King not in her? ..."
For the wound of the daughter of my people
is my heart wounded,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?
O that my head were waters,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night for the slain
of the daughter of my people!
O that I had in the desert a wayfarers' lodging place,
that I might leave my people and go away from them!
...for they proceed from evil to evil,
and they do not know me, says the Lord. -Jeremiah 8:18-9:3

Holding to a vision of how it will be is the business of prophetic faith. It is a key mark of ancient Israel's prophets that they held to a vision of an alternative world in season and out of season. And they could hold to such a deep and abiding hope precisely because they understood that the new alternative to come was not to be derived from present circumstance.

Their hope was not grounded in their sense that things are going to get better, nor in the notion that things were evolving in a desired direction. And, therefore, they were not utterly undone when things got worse, for that also was not finally relevant to their vision. Their hope had an independence from the present, because the new world would be a gift from God, who would act in unqualified freedom.

It is that uncompromised rootage of vision to which the prophets cling. It is the memory of the Exodus that seems to be the root for that vision. As the prophets and all of Israel reflected on the Exodus, they understood that the newness of Israel was in no way derived from its context, but it was a new gift wrought by God. If God could do that, then prophets could still hope God might do that sort of newness again.

The maintenance of the prophetic vision thus depended on distinguishing between the gifts God would give and the possibilities of the present situation. Certainly the prophets were not uninterested in the present situation. They were acutely aware of it and observed it most discerningly. Indeed their emotional life was very much in response to the ache they saw in the world around them. But they never confused present possibility with divine impossibility. And that, I suggest, is a terribly important distinction for radicals, both those who are tired and those who are not. There is a tendency to care so much and invest so deeply in the present struggle that it begins to appear to be God's last, best hope. Then the historical process turns thin in its promise. It is tempting to become hopeless.

For that reason, the fundamental distinction between social prospect and divine promise is crucial. We need to be saying to each other that our energies are rooted in and aimed toward God's promises and not social prospects.

THERE IS NO PROPHET who had to face this problem of prospect and promise more acutely than did the prophet Jeremiah. His career stretches over the period of Judah's last gasp, its deepest obduracy, and its eventual demise. Jeremiah surely understood, above all, that Judah would not change and indeed was incapable of change. He did not flinch from announcing judgment, harsh and inescapable. It was he who understood that Judah must fall into the terrible hands of Babylon, and he discerned that this was God's awful will for his very own people. For all this, he was reckoned a traitor against king and people. All of that we might have expected from such an acute and candid social critic.

But Jeremiah is more than social critic. He is holder to a vision rooted in nothing other than God's promise. In the very midst of the hopelessness of defeat and inescapable judgment, he hopes. He continues to articulate an alternative vision for the future.

The critical judgments about the "Book of Consolation" (Jeremiah 30-33) are difficult and disputed. One cannot know for sure if these poetic ventures are from the poet. In any case, as it now stands, Jeremiah is remembered and presented as having spoken these remarkable promises. Of all the promises that are found in this section, Jeremiah 32:1-15 has the ring of authenticity. It is a narrative that does not sound theologically tendentious. It is carefully rooted in the exactness of history. The action is enacted with legal precision. This could hardly be a fiction, for the grounds of the narration argue and are intended to argue against that. Thus, there seems no reason for doubting the authenticity of the report.

As the report stands, it is an awesome moment in which to act. It is 588 B.C., just one miserable year before the final collapse of Judah. The inept Zedekiah is on the throne. The Babylonian armies are at the gates of the city. The prophet is imprisoned as a subversive agent. This is no time for a wager on the future. The word of Yahweh with a promise acts in contradiction to every social possibility. It is a free word of hope, utterly underived from or linked to the current circumstances. It is on this word that Jeremiah stakes his life and future.

Jeremiah anticipates a divine command; it is as though he already knew that God's hope would not cave in to this hopelessness. The command comes from his cousin, and Jeremiah knows he must act, since he does not, even now, doubt the future. So he buys a plot of land just at the moment of disaster—surely a foolish investment. He is willing to bet against all historical circumstances.

As every hope dwindles, he purchases a piece of land for the future. He puts himself on the record as a hoper against circumstance. The basis for his action is an unprovable, unmeasured word that there will be a future underived from the present. This is incredible buoyancy, in which everything depends on the free word of God that is not supported by any visible prop. It takes enormous "chutzpah" to act in a concrete way toward the future when it is clear that the known present is about to end.

The basis for this boldness is articulated in verses 16-25. Whether this comes from Jeremiah is debatable. But at the very, least, it is an early reflection on the prophet's buoyant, defiant act. The only ground for such an act is the conviction that Yahweh can do the "impossible"—create a future out of a hopeless present.

The reality of judgment is not denied. But the gamble is based on the rhetorical turn of verse 25: "Yet Thou." Yet—against the data. The reason for acting against the data is Thou. It is free, named, trusted, unrestricted Thou who makes buoyant hope possible. This Thou is the only warrant for action against all circumstance. Radicals who would not grow cynical must stay very close to this Thou, for whom nothing is too hard. Only then is there the prospect of a newness in this context of deep hopelessness.

BUT HOW DO WE stay close to this hope-giving Thou? That is the tricky question. Staying close under arrest, under siege, cannot be easy. One way might be to stay so close to such a triumphant God that one simply denies the trouble and looks to "alabaster cities ... undimmed by human tears." But Jeremiah does not have such nerve, and Yahweh is not that triumphant. And anyway, he is not dealing with alabaster cities, but only with troubled, fickle Jerusalem.

Rather Jeremiah stays close to Yahweh in his articulation of pained, anguished, overwhelming despair. With good reason, Jeremiah is known as the most troubled of the prophets. He aches and grieves, protests and rages. My point is simply that these "questionable" acts are Jeremiah's faithful way of staying close to Yahweh. Indeed, it is these actions that make the hope found in 32:1-15 possible and credible.

Here we can consider only one such articulation of despair. The poem of lament in chapters eight and nine provides a heavy, hurting glimpse at the prophet, who does not flinch from all the darkness of reality. This sounds not just like a tired liberal, but a radical grown cynical with fatigue. It is hard to know if the speaker is Jeremiah or Yahweh, for in verse 3 we have the divine verification. In any case, even if the words are those of the prophet, they reflect a deepness beyond political convention. But it does not matter greatly who the speaker is, for Jeremiah has fully committed himself to the grief of God. The poem serves to express the grief of both the prophet and the God of the prophet.

The poem begins with a cry of hopeless hurt, sick of body and sick of spirit. The people had grown testy, wanting God to be a ready answer to every need. It is God's business to save—and God has not. The prophet (or God) is immobilized with grief. He sees deeply into the irreversibleness of things. He understands that conventional resources for rehabilitation have all been tried. And all have been found wanting. He slowly speaks his way to the horrendous conclusion: The sickness is terminal.

The prophet then violates every nicety, no longer giving to any the benefit of any doubt. He calls a spade a spade. Rottenness, falseness, treachery—an unending process of evil. He has hoped longest and best for his people. He has such deep faith that he believed in Judah long after everyone else abandoned hope. But he cannot persuade even himself any longer.

So, he has two wishes, both utterly anguished. We do not know if they are serious wishes or only for rhetorical effect. But that does not matter either. Either way, we are confronted by a man who is betrayed for having hoped too long, too passionately, too unreasonably. He wants first to have adequate crying equipment, to be up to the task of grief that is now thrust upon him. His tear ducts and eyes are inadequate to his grief. This is undisciplined, unstructured, unlimited grief. Second, he wants to escape it all, for the whole plight of Judah is not really his problem.

The last line of verse 3 gives pause. Psychologically this should be the voice of Jeremiah. But the Hebrew texts make it the speech of Yahweh.

Jeremiah brings Yahweh's thought to speech. Despair is not only pervasive on earth, it has reached heaven. God can think of no way out. God has no thoughts about a newness, but only a dissolving of all reality into tears. If this be the speech of God, then God also is ready to pack up, for Judah is by now no longer his concern or problem either. Because Judah is so unresponsive, this people is not only prophet-forsaken, it is now also God-forsaken.

Jeremiah is competent beyond reason in bringing grief to speech. God stands with and for and among all those prophetic types who have bet too much, hoped too long, risked too greatly. And now they have had to face reality. No wonder the professional mourners must now be summoned (9:17-19). The grief work now to be done requires the best experts available.

NOW WE CAN consider the strange juxtaposition these two texts offer us. The grief of the poem (8:18-9:3) is unqualified. It reaches the person of the poet. But it also touches the person of Yahweh. It is, taken by itself, surely an act of unqualified despair. It is the voice of a radical who is now broken. The hope found in chapter 32 is also unqualified. It compels the person of the prophet. But it clearly comes from the speech of Yahweh. It is, taken as it stands, an act of bold hope.

The lament of the poem provides a glimpse of the broken heart of God. The promise in chapter 32 opens the buoyant, expectant heart of God. In both, Jeremiah has been very near to God, near in despair and near in buoyancy.

The deep hope of the promise, perhaps, is how we would like to be. But as our own society drifts toward its death, we find ourselves smitten with the cancer, helpless and astonished that our people do not know. We might like to speak the hope of Jeremiah. But we find ourselves more drawn to the honesty of his despair.

In these two pieces we meet the buoyancy and despair of the prophet, this one who believes so powerfully and yet who sees so clearly. How could these belong together? Is this juxtaposition of texts at all a responsible one? More is at stake than a critical, literary question. More is at stake than the matter of psychological possibility. What is at issue is how a griever can be a hoper.

I submit that holding these two texts together may be our most important agenda in our societal context. The vision of the promise cannot be abandoned because we are charged with a vision and cannot renege. But the poet of grief cannot be silent, for the word burns to be spoken. Our problem is how to hope so convincedly and yet to discern so deeply at the same time.

Of course there are several safe ways of handling this juxtaposition by disposing of it. One is to say the second text, the promise, is not from Jeremiah. However, I suggest that the texts do indeed reflect the same person. The narrative of 32:1-15 has about it sure marks of being from the person of Jeremiah.

Another way is to observe the chronological distance between the two texts. That is, even if they come from the same person, they are separated by as much as a decade. This is altogether possible. However, I suggest that the articulation of despair and buoyancy are not to be dated in isolation from each other, as though in one decade Jeremiah despairs, and in the next decade he is buoyant. More plausibly, these two statements reflect abiding tendencies in Jeremiah, who is persistently a man of despair and buoyancy.

A third way is to observe that our two texts are related as private despair and public hope. There is something in that. The poetry of Jeremiah 8:18-9:3 may or may not be public. It may well be a personal reflection shared only intimately. The texture of this poetry is nevertheless contrasted with the quite public presentation of 32:1-15. In any case, we can readily see that despair is indeed a more intimate matter.

So perhaps we have a poet who had grave doubts and misgivings, and who lived with these constantly, but who managed to keep a composed public face on things. Though smitten with despair, he kept his public articulations focused on buoyancy. If that is true, we still may wonder about the resources that permitted and generated such a buoyant, public articulation of hope. There must be some genuine basis for it.

Thus, none of these three possibilities finally removes the strangeness of this juxtaposition. And for bewildered or disheartened radicals, that juxtaposition is well worth noting. The same speaker knows about an awesome despair and a confirmed buoyancy. The one does not negate the other. In the very midst of a realistic despair that sees life in its rawness, there is nevertheless a word of hope. Despair does not override or drive out buoyancy, but succeeds it and lives with it.

But I suggest an even more helpful dimension of this juxtaposition. Our question is how hope in 32:1-15 is possible in such a context of siege and imprisonment. The answer given provisionally is this: Such hope was possible because Jeremiah stayed close to the hope-giving Thou of 32:25. And in what way did he stay close?

The answer I submit is this: Jeremiah was able to continue to hope buoyantly in this Thou because he stayed close to the Thou in his articulation of despair. It is the embrace of and engagement with the hurt and forsakenness of 8:18-9:3 that permits Jeremiah to move on past despair to buoyancy. Indeed, it is in the specific, concrete expression of despair that there come the seeds and possibilities of hope.

I conclude that tamed cynics and chastened radicals, if they are to continue their vision of an alternative world, must find concrete ways of giving voice to their despair that is likely also the despair of God. It is the utterance of the hopeless poem of 8:18-9:3 that creates the rhetorical, psychological, theological possibility of hope in 32:1-15.

Consider the alternative. If Jeremiah had not spoken the despair of 8:18-9:3, it would not have been verbalized anguish but would have become immobilizing, unexpressed rage. It would have stricken him and blocked any possibility of hope. Thus, the despair of 8:18-9:3 is not the antithesis or denial of hope. It is an essential "door to hope" (see Hosea 2:15).

The poem speaks honestly to God. It speaks honestly for God. It speaks honestly about the human prospect. But human speech has this strange power: It liberates, brings to expression, releases, and permits movement beyond. After this speech of despair, neither Yahweh nor Jeremiah is as fully despairing. They can move on to other things, free from the hopelessness of the human prospect and freed for the "new thing" from God.

Out of this, I submit a liberating juxtaposition for radicals who can move in and through and beyond despair to a new buoyancy. On the one hand, there is need for concrete, public acts of hope, public risks for newness, and public assault on conventional hopelessness. That is the meaning of the land-buying in 32:1-15 which is based only on God's surprising, unadministered word. This word is neither besieged by Babylon nor imprisoned by Zedekiah.

On the other hand, and prerequisite to the concrete public act of hope, is the pathos-filled expression of despair. Both Jeremiah and God engaged in that despair. Would-be radicals, who are sobered by the human prospect, must fully grieve and lament the emptiness of the human prospect. Only then is the new word of hope given or received.

So I argue it is the grief of Jeremiah that is the ground of hope. It is the pained word that precedes the anticipatory word. It is liturgy that grounds public action.

If radicals, tired or otherwise, cling to human prospects or are unable to release despair into speech, then there are no new hopes and the promise is dead. Jeremiah (and Jeremiah's God) understood the strange dynamic of fully speaking as the way of full surrender and liberation. Speechless radicals are bound to be hopeless radicals, left only with their wishes, stridency, and coercion. Grief-filled speech permits hope-filled action.

Walter Brueggemann was a professor of Old Testament and academic dean at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, when this article appeared.