His Oy & Joy: Was Jeremiah Bi-Polar?

Jeremiah 15:10

We don’t know anything about Jeremiah’s mother or their relationship but in today’s poetic flood of fury that comes out of his mouth he laments his life and wishes he was never born at all. This is the only reference he ever makes to his maternal origins: 

אֽוֹי־לִ֣י אִמִּ֔י כִּ֣י יְלִדְתִּ֗נִי אִ֥ישׁ רִ֛יב וְאִ֥ישׁ מָד֖וֹן לְכׇל־הָאָ֑רֶץ לֹֽא־נָשִׁ֥יתִי וְלֹא־נָֽשׁוּ־בִ֖י כֻּלֹּ֥ה מְקַֽלְלַֽוְנִי׃    

“Woe is me, my mother, that you ever bore me—

A man of conflict and strife with all the land!

I have not lent,

And I have not borrowed;

Yet everyone curses me.”

Jeremiah 15:10

‘Woe is me’ is translated from the original Hebrew which contains the oldest Jewish complaint - OY to me!  According to the Talmud this loud plaintive exhale, still so familiar to us today,  was first used by Adan and Eve back in Eden, and already referenced several times in the Hebrew Bible - including by Jeremiah himself.

But by the time he delivered this litany - things are getting worse in Jerusalem - and worse for him. In this chapter he shows us two sides of his inner reality - both the joy and the oy of prophecy.

On the one hand he is drawn to the divine command and can only obey the voices that demand his obedience - and on the other hand he pays a heavy price for it, hated and persecuted by his people.  The chapter picks up where the last one ended - as Jeremiah echoes the despair of the people, priests and prophets, merchants and children roam the famished roads and beg for forgiveness from YHWH.

But it’s too late now, Jeremiah tells them - you had your chance. He lays it out with little kindness, as instructed by the voice of YHWH in his head:

וְהָיָ֛ה כִּי־יֹאמְר֥וּ אֵלֶ֖יךָ אָ֣נָה נֵצֵ֑א וְאָמַרְתָּ֨ אֲלֵיהֶ֜ם כֹּה־אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר לַמָּ֤וֶת לַמָּ֙וֶת֙ וַאֲשֶׁ֤ר לַחֶ֙רֶב֙ לַחֶ֔רֶב וַאֲשֶׁ֤ר לָרָעָב֙ לָרָעָ֔ב וַאֲשֶׁ֥ר לַשְּׁבִ֖י לַשֶּֽׁבִי׃

And if they ask you, ‘What next? Where shall we go?’ 

answer them, ‘Thus said YHWH:

Those destined for the plague, to the plague;

Those destined for the sword, to the sword;

Those destined for famine, to famine;

Those destined for captivity, to captivity.

Jeremiah 15:2

This is tough truth and it will become reality. No wonder the people hate him. No wonder he voices a death wish. 

Robert Alter comments here that

“More than any other prophet, Jeremiah repeatedly complains about the destiny of bitter contention that his calling has imposed upon him. It were better, he says here, had he never been born.”

But it isn’t just despair that drives him to keep going. A few lines later he  confides in God that despite the hardships, the role of prophet is dear to him and nourishes his soul with delight. And then, one sentence later, he returns to complaining about his loneliness and rejection: 

נִמְצְא֤וּ דְבָרֶ֙יךָ֙ וָאֹ֣כְלֵ֔ם וַיְהִ֤י דְבָֽרְךָ֙ לִ֔י לְשָׂשׂ֖וֹן וּלְשִׂמְחַ֣ת לְבָבִ֑י כִּֽי־נִקְרָ֤א שִׁמְךָ֙ עָלַ֔י יְהֹוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵ֥י צְבָאֽוֹת׃     

לֹא־יָשַׁ֥בְתִּי בְסוֹד־מְשַׂחֲקִ֖ים וָאֶעְלֹ֑ז מִפְּנֵ֤י יָֽדְךָ֙ בָּדָ֣ד יָשַׁ֔בְתִּי כִּי־זַ֖עַם מִלֵּאתָֽנִי׃

“When Your words were offered, I devoured them;

Your word brought me the delight and joy

Of knowing that Your name is attached to me,

O ETERNAL One, YHWH God of Hosts.”

I have not sat in the company of revelers

And made merry!

I have sat lonely because of Your hand upon me,

For You have filled me with gloom.

Jeremiah 15:16-17

Perhaps this back and forth between polarities , oh so human, gives us a clue as to his mental health challenges? There is definitely depression, maybe he’s also bi-polar?  There is some speculation on the topic, although there is no clear diagnosis. (if any of the readers knows of such research, please let us know!)

In The Prophets, Heschel pays close attention to these inner tensions and struggles of prophets - with Jeremiah as a prime example of conflicting voices. Heschel listens to the theological realities that Jeremiah shares with us but also notices the psychological aspects that of course so intertwined. He exposes a brutal vocabulary that reveals the deeper layers of this ambivalence: 

“The words used by Jeremiah to describe the impact of God upon his life are identical with the terms for seduction and rape in the legal terminology of the Bible These terms used in immediate juxtaposition 

forcefully convey the complexity of the divine-human relationship: sweetness of enticement as well as violence of rape. But Jeremiah, also speaking  of the relationship between God and Israel in the image of love, interpreted his own involvement in the same image. This interpretation betrays an ambivalence in the prophet’s understanding of his own experience. 

The call to be a prophet is more than an invitation. It is first of all a feeling of being enticed, of acquiescence or willing surrender. But this winsome feeling is only one aspect of the experience. The other aspect is a sense of being ravished or carried away by violence, of yielding to overpowering force against one’s own will. The prophet feels both the attraction and the coercion of God, the appeal and the pressure, the charm and the stress. He is conscious of both voluntary identification and forced capitulation. This dialectic of what takes place in the prophetic consciousness points to the approach we have adopted in our analysis. Objectively considered, it is, on the one hand, the divine pathos which stirs and entices the prophet, and, on the other hand, unconditioned power which exercises sheer compulsion over the prophet. Subjectively, it is in consequence the willing response of sympathy to persuasion and also the sense of being utterly delivered up to the overwhelming power of God. 

A man whose message is doom for the people he loves not only forfeits his own capacity for joy, but also provokes the hostility and outrage of his contemporaries. 

The sights of woe, the anticipation of disaster, nearly crush his soul. And yet, the life of Jeremiah was not all misery, tension or pressure. He also knew the bliss of being engaged to God, “the joy and delight” of being, as it were, a bride. Thy words were found, and I ate them, Thy words became to me a joy, The delight of my heart, For I am called by Your name, O YHWH, God of hosts. (Jeremiah 15:16)”

It won’t get any easier for Jeremiah, nor for Jerusalem. Perhaps what we are noticing here is the very essence of the human push and pull between love and rejection, pain and pride, connection to the sacred source - and its utter rejection. The prophet, like the artist, models the extreme human experience in a heightened and lowered sense of sensitivity and with greater exposure to the core - and this exposure is not without its heavy toll. 

In the next chapters we’ll meet more of Jeremiahs’ misery including why he chose - or had to - never marry and remain alone. 

Breaking the Bottle: Jeremiah’s Prophetic Performance Art 

OUR NEXT BELOW THE BIBLE BELT ZOOM TALK - NOW AT 5PM ET. 

Was Jeremiah a performing artist protesting social ills? Was he a poet speaking truth to power or a madman everybody tried to avoid? 

What does his story have to teach us today, on the eve of a new Jewish year? 

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