In Jeremiah, chapter eight, verses eighteen through twenty-two, ” When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint in me.” These words reveal the prophet’s profound grief over the sin and the destruction of God’s people. He is torn by his loyalty to God and his deep ties to the people; he is in such anguish that he wants to leave the people forever, as in chapter nine, verse two. “Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.” Wayfaring men are those who travel like tourists.
“Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people because of them that dwell in a far country: Is not the LORD in Zion? Is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities? This was what made his heart faint, such was his sympathy with his countrymen, his people in distress, whom he affectionately calls the daughter of his people, whose cry was loud, and whose voice he heard lamenting their case.
“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?”
Believers experience the same kind of grief over their family when they see their loved ones live in rebellion against God and His righteous ways. Vicarioulsy, they experience the suffering of God as they anticipate the disaster awaiting those who will not repent.