Jeremiah hasn’t used a lot of props so far to promote his prophetic visions but in his older years he began experimenting with peculiar performance art, including some perplexing props. In the first chapter, still a young man, he had visions of a blossoming almond branch and a pot boiling over, portents of change.
But in today’s chapter, at a dramatic period of transition in Judean history, and as he is a much older man, Jeremiah predicts the dire end by destroying his own underwear. He does so over the elastic span of time, at least a season or two, that is part of the protest-performance.
In this chapter, likely combining a few different fragments of his prophetic highlights from different historical moments, he’ll also use a jug of wine as a metaphor, and coin an idiom that will become quite famous. Some scholars claim that this chapter occurs during the very last years of the kingdom with King Jehoiakim on the vassal-throne, around the year 600 BCE, after the first wave of royal exile to Babylon and just before the final destruction.
The use of undergarments as a metaphor is almost literal - there’s really not a lot left.
The particular undergarment in question is some sort of loincloth, or underwear. This intimate item of clothing, known from that period as one worn by men, appears in a command to the prophet by YHWH. He’s instructed to purchase this linen undergarment, wrap it tight, make sure it doesn’t get wet, and then leave Jerusalem to go bury the jock-strap under a rock in the Perath valley, in the Judean desert where he grew up. Some time goes by and he’s called again to go and dig it up. As he holds up the decayed and now useless undewear he hears the voice of YHWH in what seems like a literally private prophetic performance:
As this undergarment is ruined, so will I ruin the excessive pride of Judah and Jerusalem.This wicked people who refuse to heed My bidding, who follow the willfulness of their own hearts, who follow other gods and serve them and worship them, shall become like that loincloth, which is not good for anything.
For as a loincloth clings close to a man’s loins, so I brought close to Me the whole House of Israel and the whole House of Judah—declares YHWH —that they might be My people, for fame, and praise, and splendor. But they would not obey.”
Ok. Wow. So God is comparing the people of Israel to the divine underwear now soiled and ruined because of the level of intimacy we once had to the divine loins?? What is going on here?
In Jeremiah: The Fate of a Prophet, Rabbi Lau reads this prophecy in its historical context, as he places this chapter towards the end of Jeremiah’s life and at the last days of the kingdom of Judah - when all is truly lost:
“This is the first time that Jeremiah is commanded to perform an act rather than speak... As he looks at the ruined undergarment, he understands God's word: "Thus shall I ruin the pride of Judah." This prophecy seems to be the source of Jeremiah's frustration with and lack of faith in young King Jeconiah, successor to Jehoiakim, who was just exiled. It might well have taken place during the few days between Jehoiakim's death and Jeconiah's brief reign. With these strong feelings generated by the useless undergarment (symbolizing the king), Jeremiah returns to the public sphere and to a nation reeling from exile...The exiled king has left behind an empty treasury, a desecrated and vacant Temple, and has taken all the artisans and elite members of society with him. The people feel orphaned and rudderless.
Jeremiah remembers the worn-out loincloth he retrieved from Perat, which can no longer conceal his nakedness. And then he answers the people's despairing question, why is this happening to us? "Because of your many sins, your skirt has been uncovered, your limbs laid bare" (ibid.). Your clothes no longer cover you. Your robes, O Jerusalem, have been peeled away, revealing your nakedness. With this sad declaration, Jeremiah concludes his prophetic use of the loincloth.”
Later in this chapter Jeremiah sends a wrathful message to the exiled king and the queen mother, as they head to Babylon, humiliated. The prophet blames them for the downfall of the kingdom. And the ultimate sadness in this chapter is again an allusion to the most private parts, the hidden pain that even the divine carries most intimately -- it’s only in this private reality that god can weep, with regret for the destruction that became inevitable:
When the private becomes public and the public betrays the intimate and privacy - is when destruction of dignity, the collapse of civilization, takes over. Perhaps this is why the prophetic underwear, soiled, useless and on display echo this tragic moment in history. And yet - not all is soiled or lost.
Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections.Become a free or paid subscriber and join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible. Enjoy daily posts, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. 2022-2025.