Chapter 4 - God in Anguish

There is a lot at stake in the book of Jeremiah. Reading it brings you warning, description of terror and devastating loss. Depicting such warning and loss requires the employment of metaphor after metaphor. In chapter 4, “break up the fallow ground, wrath like fire, a lion has gone, like chariots as a whirlwind, like keepers of a field.” 
Each metaphor can help us to see the intensity of what is being described. The metaphors refer to the sin of the people, the judgment of God, the strength of the invading nation, and the resulting loss. The book will also present, even in most warnings of impending judgment, metaphors to describe future renewal. 
What strikes me most in this chapter arrives from verses 19 and following. First, we hear of anguish. This is not, as described here, the anguish of the people. It is the anguish of God. 
Hear it again; 

“My anguish! My Anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent.” and then soon after, “My people are foolish, they know me not.” 

I read passages like this and I am moved to pray.  
Dear God, show me the love you have for this world. I have had times when I have felt my heart pounding like this. As I hear you speaking of feeling the “walls of your heart” I picture the your grief and the pain and loss and hatred in the world.  

Right after this description there is another metaphor. It comes up in verse 23 of the chapter. The world itself, creation itself, is being undone by the evil of the people. The evil is idolatry and injustice. People have failed to see God’s love and they have failed to love others. This evil has brought about a kind of reversal of creation itself. 

“I looked to the earth and behold, it was without form and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains and behold, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked and behold there was no man, and all the birds of the air had fled.”  Such powerful metaphors, God’s anguished heart and the undoing of creation itself.