Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Jeremiah · About this commentary
Why Does the Way of the Wicked Prosper
Jeremiah 12:1-17
1 You are righteous, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet I would like to plead a case with you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are they all at ease who deal very treacherously? · WEB
Jeremiah brings the oldest complaint in Scripture and gets an answer that promises harder conditions rather than relief.
He opens by conceding the verdict before arguing the case: You are righteous, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet I would like to plead a case with you. The concession is not politeness. It fixes the terms of the complaint. A man who has already granted that God is right is not asking for a different verdict but for an explanation. The question itself is the standing one — why the wicked prosper — and he sharpens it by attributing their prosperity to God directly. You planted them, they took root, they grow, they produce fruit. And then the diagnosis in six words, which is the whole book compressed: You are near in their mouth, and far from their heart.
The answer he receives is famous for not being an answer. If running with men on foot has worn him out, what will he do against horses? If he stumbles in open country, how will he manage the thickets along the Jordan where the lions were? Nothing is explained and nothing is denied. He is told that the present difficulty is the easy stage. That is either the cruelest reply in the prophets or the most respectful, depending on whether a man asking that question wants comfort or wants to be taken seriously. The confirmation that follows grants his facts entirely: even your brothers and your father's house have dealt treacherously with you.
Then the passage turns, and what turns it is that God begins to speak about his own losses in the same register. I have forsaken my house. I have cast off my heritage. I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies. Three verbs of abandonment, each with a term of ownership attached, and the last with an endearment. The vineyard is trampled by many shepherds. The land mourns. And the reason it stays desolate is given in four words that indict everyone still standing: because no one cares. Jeremiah asked why the wicked are at ease. The reply, when it eventually comes, is a description of a God who is not.
The chapter closes on something unexpected. The neighboring nations that have preyed on Israel will be plucked up — and then, after the plucking, God says he will return and have compassion on them, and bring each man back to his own land. More than that: if they will learn the ways of his people and swear by his name, as they once taught his people to swear by Baal, they will be built up in the middle of my people. The traffic that carried idolatry into Israel is imagined running the other way, with the same nations taught the same way. The offer is genuine enough to carry the same condition Judah was given. Only the last verse holds the alternative, and it is the same alternative. If they will not hear, they will be plucked up.
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