In Jeremiah, chapter twenty, verses seven through eighteen, Jeremiah expresses to God the conflicting emotions of intense grief and deep depression on the one hand, and yet persistent faith and trust in God on the other. “O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me,” as in verse seven. Jeremiah was not accusing God of lying; “deceived here means literally “reduced” or “overpowered.” Jeremiah maintains that he had been forced into becoming a prophet by divine compulsion and that this had reduced him to shame and ridicule. His message, which had not yet been fulfilled, was continually being laughed at and mocked, and he himself was being treated with contempt by his fellow citizens.
“Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a flaming fire shut up in my bones, as I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay,” as in verse nine. No matter how hard Jeremiah tried, he was unable to suppress God’s message within him. He sympathized fully with God’s anger against the sins of the people. The prophet felt such oneness with God and His cause that he had to proclaim the word of the Lord, even though it brought him excruciating pain and suffering.
Jeremiah’s suffering and his feelings of frustration and failure made him wish he had never been born, as in Job three, which is similar to verses fourteen to eighteen of Jeremiah twenty; Yet he continued to declare the word of the Lord sustained by God’s grace in the darkest hours, as in verses eleven through thirteen. “O Lord, my God” is the original expression.