THIS IS WHAT the LORD said to me: “Go and buy a linen belt and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.” 2So I bought a belt, as the LORD directed, and put it around my waist.
3Then the word of the LORD came to me a second time: 4“Take the belt you bought and are wearing around your waist, and go now to Perath and hide it there in a crevice in the rocks.” 5So I went and hid it at Perath, as the LORD told me.
6Many days later the LORD said to me, “Go now to Perath and get the belt I told you to hide there.” 7So I went to Perath and dug up the belt and took it from the place where I had hidden it, but now it was ruined and completely useless.
8Then the word of the LORD came to me: 9“This is what the LORD says: ‘In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10These wicked people, who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt—completely useless! 11For as a belt is bound around a man’s waist, so I bound the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to me,’ declares the LORD, ‘to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But they have not listened.’
12“Say to them: ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Every wineskin should be filled with wine.’ And if they say to you, ‘Don’t we know that every wineskin should be filled with wine?’ 13then tell them, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am going to fill with drunkenness all who live in this land, including the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets and all those living in Jerusalem. 14I will smash them one against the other, fathers and sons alike, declares the LORD. I will allow no pity or mercy or compassion to keep me from destroying them.’”
15Hear and pay attention,
do not be arrogant,
for the LORD has spoken.
16Give glory to the LORD your God
before he brings the darkness,
on the darkening hills.
You hope for light,
but he will turn it to thick darkness
and change it to deep gloom.
17But if you do not listen,
I will weep in secret
because of your pride;
my eyes will weep bitterly,
overflowing with tears,
because the LORD’s flock will be taken captive.
18Say to the king and to the queen mother,
“Come down from your thrones,
for your glorious crowns
will fall from your heads.”
19The cities in the Negev will be shut up,
and there will be no one to open them.
All Judah will be carried into exile,
carried completely away.
20Lift up your eyes and see
those who are coming from the north.
Where is the flock that was entrusted to you,
the sheep of which you boasted?
21What will you say when the LORD sets over you
those you cultivated as your special allies?
Will not pain grip you
like that of a woman in labor?
22And if you ask yourself,
“Why has this happened to me?”—
it is because of your many sins
that your skirts have been torn off
and your body mistreated.
23Can the Ethiopian change his skin
or the leopard its spots?
Neither can you do good
who are accustomed to doing evil.
24“I will scatter you like chaff
driven by the desert wind.
25This is your lot,
the portion I have decreed for you,”
declares the LORD,
“because you have forgotten me
and trusted in false gods.
26I will pull up your skirts over your face
that your shame may be seen—
27your adulteries and lustful neighings,
your shameless prostitution!
I have seen your detestable acts
on the hills and in the fields.
Woe to you, O Jerusalem!
How long will you be unclean?”
Original Meaning
THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS a collection of judgment prophecies, each intended to expose the failure of Judah and Jerusalem before the Lord and to indicate the historical form of judgment to come as a consequence of that failure. As with most of the first half of the book, the text provides no dates in Jeremiah’s ministry for either the symbolic act in 13:1–11 or the oracles that follow. Judgment appears to be looming on the historical horizon (one of the assaults by Nebuchadnezzar on Judah?). In 13:18–19 some form of destruction and depopulation is assumed.
13:1–11. This prophecy, a prose account with an autobiographical element, takes the form of a symbolic act accompanied by commentary from the Lord. The prophets often carried out symbolic acts as illustrations or reinforcements of their proclamation.1 This is the first of several acts Jeremiah performs to portray his message.
God commands Jeremiah to take a linen waistcloth, clothe himself with it, then remove it and take it to the bank of the Perath and leave it. Scholars have debated whether the river or stream named Perath is the well-known Euphrates (ca. 300 miles from Jerusalem) or the seasonal stream near Anathoth with a similar name (cf. Josh. 18:23). In Hebrew perat can refer to either entity. The difficulty with concluding that Perath is the Euphrates comes when we recognize that considerable time and expense would be required for two round trips to the banks of the Euphrates River. What purpose does such a long trip have, either for the prophet who would make the trek or for the hearers/readers? If there is significance attached to the river in this symbolic act, it is implicit and not explicit in the text. The textual emphasis falls on the linen waistcloth, not on the river.
In response to these considerations, however, note that convenience of access is not a primary consideration when considering prophetic motivation. It was not convenient for Hosea to marry a prostitute or for Ezekiel to lie on his side for weeks. If the closer-but-lesser-known stream near Anathoth is the location of the discarded waistcloth, then it is almost certainly chosen because its name reminds Jeremiah (and the audience) of the Euphrates and the mighty powers coming from the north (cf. Jer. 13:20), powers long associated with Assyria and Babylon. One can make a case in context that the allies courted by Jerusalem and mentioned in 13:21 are the Assyrians and Babylonians from across the great River Euphrates.
Just as the waistcloth was to be bound to its wearer, so Israel and Judah have been formed by God to be bound to him. The verb “be bound” (dabaq) in verse 11 is the same word used in Genesis 2:24 to describe the man who leaves his parents to “be united” (in Elizabethan English, “cleave”) to his wife and to become “one flesh.” Israel was enjoined to be united to the Lord (Deut. 10:20; 11:22; 13:4; 30:20). The soiling of the waistcloth came because Jeremiah removed it and buried it near the bank of the water. So Israel and Judah—whose separation from the Lord was caused by their faithlessness—were like the ruined waistcloth.
The conclusion in verse 11 uses the daring metaphor of bound clothing as a way of emphasizing the fall from grace of Israel and Judah. Their sad description is emphatic and corporate—the “whole house” of Israel and that of Judah have fallen away. They are ruined as surely as the waistcloth was fouled from its exposure to the elements on the riverbank. Israel and Judah were formed for God’s “renown and praise and honor,” but they are no better than dirty underwear.
13:12–14. The prophecy about wineskins contains a command to Jeremiah to repeat a proverbial saying: “Every wineskin should be filled with wine.” Of course, this is the expectation for wineskins—they are created to hold wine. The punch line, however, is that God will fill the land’s inhabitants with drunkenness so that they will crash against one another. In this scenario the intended function of the wineskins is ruined in similar fashion to the waistcloth. Neither waistcloth nor wine jars fulfill their intended functions and thus are failures.
13:15–19. Jeremiah utters judgments against the pride that leads to a fall. Verse 16 employs the unusual command to “give glory to the LORD your God” before the darkness of judgment falls on the people. Perhaps this command functions like that given to Achan in Joshua 7:19. There Achan is brought forward for execution, but before the sentence is carried out, he is asked to “give glory to the LORD.” That command to Achan seems to play two roles: (1) a call to tell or admit the truth in public, and (2) an acknowledgment that God’s ways and judgments are just. If these two roles lie behind the command to the people in Jer. 13:16, then it is not meant as a way to spare the people from the coming judgment; rather, it is a call for them to admit the justice of the judgment about to befall them.
It is possible, however, that the call to “give glory to the LORD” is a way to avert the disaster to come. If so, then Jeremiah’s message functions as a call for repentance and change on the part of the people. Jeremiah reports that he will weep over the folly of the people whose pride is such that they are heedless of their dire circumstances.
Verses 18–19 point to a particular source of pride, the king and queen mother. Their crowns will fall from their heads as a sign of the fall of the people. These two royal figures are not specifically named. Jeremiah contains a section elsewhere (chs. 21–22) in which Judean royalty is the object of his judgmental oracles. In that section the monarchs are named. This short section is the only one in Jeremiah in which the role of the queen mother is taken up.
13:20–27. Jerusalem is called to see the foe from the north who comes in judgment. Should she wonder why destruction has come to her, Jeremiah quotes a proverbial saying (v. 23). Just as neither Ethiopians (Africans) nor leopards can change the distinctive color of their skin, so the evil propensity of God’s people cannot be removed by their own hand. The evil of Jerusalem is also personified as a prostitute, whose private parts are shamefully exposed.
The concluding question, “How long will you be unclean?” (v. 27), assumes that even though Jerusalem is incapable of righting herself, she could at least recognize her plight and seek the Lord, who alone can heal her failures. The imagery of this section is similar to that of the prophecies against Jerusalem in chapters 2–3.
Bridging Contexts
AUDIENCE. THERE ARE two audiences who initially heard these judgment prophecies: (1) those who heard the oral proclamation of Jeremiah, and (2) the exilic audience to whom the written prophecies were directed. We have no clue as to how the symbolic act/ interpretation of Jer. 13:1–11 may have been communicated in oral form to Jeremiah’s contemporaries. Did he, for example, wear the fouled waistcloth as a sign to the people, offering oral commentary when opportunity presented itself? This is possible and consistent with the enactment of other such messages. Isaiah, for example, gave his son a symbolic name, and when he sought an audience with King Ahaz, he took his son with him (Isa. 7:1–17). The account only makes sense if the name of the child (Shear-Jashub, “a remnant will return”) was meant to communicate to King Ahaz. If Jeremiah wore the fouled clothing, we are not told so directly.
This silence suggests that we should begin an interpretation based on the perspective of the reading audience, who hear the account as a way to confirm God’s judgment to come and as indications of behavior to avoid. All the prophecies in Jeremiah 13 are part of a chorus line of scriptural texts (Old and New Testament) indicating the righteous judgments of the Lord. As such these prophecies invite readers to examine themselves and their communities in light of God’s call to holiness and obedience.
Enacted illustrations. For the sequential reader of the book, the enacted parable of the waistcloth is Jeremiah’s first example of a symbolic act. He is one of several biblical persons whose acts illustrate concretely their message and even embody the gist of their oral communication. Jeremiah later wears a yoke (chs. 27–28) and purchases property (ch. 32) as symbolic acts; the first indicated judgment to come in the historical process, and the second foreshadowed restoration from exile.
Likewise, Isaiah and Hosea enacted parables. Both named children as embodiments of their message. Ezekiel lay on his side and burned his shorn hair to act out the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (Ezek. 4–5). In the New Testament the priest Zechariah was struck dumb to embody his impertinence before the angelic messenger (Luke 1:5–25). His son John urged the embodiment of a new relationship with God based on repentance by baptizing people in the Jordan River. Jesus’ miracles were the embodiment of God’s kingdom made manifest; his works of power were signs of his divine Sonship.
From a slightly different angle, Jeremiah’s symbolic act illustrates the connection between word and deed. On numerous occasions Jeremiah announced God’s judgment. His personal engagement with his message was such that it led him to lamentations and tears. In the symbolic act not only did his soul internalize the message, but his very actions were a physical demonstration to his audience (for those with ears to hear and eyes to see) of his prophecy. There is even a sense in which God’s word is incarnate in Jeremiah’s actions, so close is the connection between human activity and the portrayal of the divine message.
Clothing metaphors. The waistcloth of Jer. 13:1–11 is also part of the larger scriptural appropriation of clothing metaphors to depict the life of God’s people. Since clothing was (and often remains) a recognized symbol of identity, the Bible occasionally uses it as a means of instruction. To illustrate his care for the first couple after their act of rebellion, God made them clothing of animal skin (Gen. 3:21). The rich symbolism of the priestly office is seen in the description of Aaron’s vestments (Ex. 28). A believer, confident in God’s grace, can exult in the “clothing” of salvation and righteousness (Isa. 61:10).
In the New Testament, Jesus declared that worry over clothing can divert attention from God’s good gifts, noting that not even the finery of Solomon compares to the lilies of the field as clothed by God. Paul indicated that those baptized into Christ have clothed themselves with the risen Lord (Gal. 3:27). The righteousness of God’s saints is symbolized as clean linen garments (Rev. 19:8). Indeed, John sees the risen Christ in finery like that of royalty and the priesthood, including a golden girdle or outer waistband (Rev. 1:13; 3:5; 7:9).
Modern cultures are capable of understanding the symbolism of clothing and acting as a medium of communication (plays, television, movies). The symbolic acts in Jeremiah are similar to a play, a pantomime, or street theater. Indeed, the increasing popularity of skits as part of a contemporary worship experience suggests the ability of role-playing to communicate effectively. A careful reader cannot help but notice how much Jeremiah carries his oral communication with elements of role-play and acting. How else can the change in voices be portrayed? In the modern age, this illustrative activity makes sense. The issue of God’s judgment on the disobedience of his people, however, is the more difficult matter for modern Christians (below).
Giving God glory. Among the words of judgment in Jeremiah 13 is the imperative to give God glory (13:16) rather than continue in a self-deceiving pride. As noted above, perhaps this specific word is linked to the wider scriptural injunction to acknowledge the rightness (the justice) of God’s judgment. Joshua urged Achan, the soldier who had violated the ban on trophies of battle, “to give glory to the LORD” and to confess what he had done (Josh. 7:19). His confession was an integral part of giving glory to God; in acknowledging his wrong Achan also affirmed the justness of God’s standards. In Acts 5 Peter accuses Ananias and Sapphira of lying before God. True, the injunction “to give God the glory” is not quoted there, but the public character of their interrogation was designed to underscore their guilt and the justness of the Lord’s standards.
Contemporary Significance
AS OFTEN WITH PROPHETIC JUDGMENTS, contemporary readers may seek instruction either in the announced judgment itself or in the judgment’s mirror image—those hoped-for characteristics of faithfulness and obedience. God’s announced judgment on the faithlessness of Judah for idolatry (Jer. 13:10) is a familiar refrain in this book, and any generation of God’s people must examine themselves for evidence that they have lost their first love, squandered their inheritance, or spurned the Lord. The same examination is relevant for individuals as well, even though Jeremiah’s own critique is corporately based.
The unusual illustration of the waistcloth brings to consideration the claim in 13:11 that God made all of Israel and Judah to be bound to him. The qualification “whole house” is intended to describe all the people in their God-intended unity. Here one meets the mirror image of judgment. God’s purpose for Israel and Judah was to be united to him as Lord, “my people for my renown and praise and honor.” God’s people in the Old Testament may be used as negative examples (i.e., as examples of what not to do), but their fundamental identity resides in their election by God as his people. These two things make them the spiritual ancestors of Christians today. The very oddity of comparison with a bound waistcloth helps drive one to see this glorious identity amidst the failures of that generation.
Finally, perhaps modern Christians should give more consideration to the impact of symbolic acts as part of their discipleship. The president of a North American seminary remarked recently that he had not realized the extent to which his various acts were evaluated for what they might represent with respect to his policies and commitments. After some consideration he concluded that there is justification in seeing a connection between his acts and his commitments. It made him reconsider the way in which his institution took public action, for communication is not just words but deeds.
Is not this true on both an individual and a corporate scale? A church that refuses to move from a changing neighborhood is making a statement as surely as is the church that moves. A Christian who volunteers in the nursery program “speaks” as surely as the teacher of a class. The church that refuses to play the insidious games of nationalism or racism speaks, no matter what it prints on paper.