You are always righteous, O Lord, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts.

Yet you know me, O Lord; you see me and test my thoughts about you. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the day of slaughter! How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, the animals and birds have perished. Moreover, the people are saying, “He will not see what happens to us.” (Jeremiah 12:1-4)

In order to understand the message of this passage it is necessary to read the whole of chapter 12 which is what we will be commenting on today. There is no other passage in the whole of the Bible that so directly confronts theodicy – the problem of why God allows wickedness and evil to prosper.

The Prosperous Wicked

Jeremiah begins by stating an absolute truth: God is always righteous. The whole Bible is based upon the truth of this conviction. It is because God is the very embodiment of truth that he is totally trustworthy, and it is on the basis of this bedrock assumption that Jeremiah poses the question of theodicy: why do wicked people prosper? A similar question was put by Job: “Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?” (Job 21:7).

If we put this question into the context not only of the righteousness and trustworthiness of God, but also of the sovereignty of God – of the control he exercises over the nations – it becomes an even more difficult question. Jeremiah was very familiar with the Psalter and he would certainly have known the statement in Psalm 2 that when the kings of the earth try to oppose the sovereignty of God, he scoffs at them: “The One enthroned in heaven laughs”.

The whole Bible is based upon the truth of the conviction that God is always righteous.

Accusing God

On the surface it looks as though Jeremiah is really trying to say, ‘Why do righteous people like me fail to prosper?’ But this is not Jeremiah’s intention. He is not trying to lead a theological seminar! He is actually making a direct accusation against God; rather like Habakkuk does when he says “Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?” (Hab 1:3).

Jeremiah, like Habakkuk, also listens for God’s response. God appears to dismiss the question as being too simple for a direct answer. If Jeremiah cannot cope with a simple question about God’s dealings with right and wrong, how is he going to understand the far more complex subject of God’s dealing with the people of Israel – a nation to whom he is bound by covenant? It’s like the difference between running in a race against other human beings and racing against horses; or taking a safe path in the countryside as against cutting a way through a thick jungle (Jer 12:5).

Jeremiah betrays his own thoughts about the wicked and what the justice of God ought to be doing – “Drag them off like sheep to be slaughtered!” He then adds his own accusation against God, whom he sees as responsible for the extensive drought that had left the land parched and the grass in every field withered. He blames God for the deaths of so many animals and birds as well as untold hardship in the population due to failed harvests for several seasons.

Family Betrayal

Later in the chapter, God spells out the answer to the question about his justice in his dealings with his own covenant people whom he loves. He reminds Jeremiah of how hurt he had been when his own family, his brothers, betrayed him and even plotted to kill him. God further reminds him that even when his own family spoke well of him, he could not trust them (Jer 12:6).

Something similar had happened in God’s own household, his family of people – the descendants of Abraham, his friend – whom he loved and whom he had created into a nation, the people of Israel. They had behaved towards God as Jeremiah’s family had behaved towards him, and God was deeply hurt and deeply grieved. They had become like a lion in the forest roaring at him. Despite his great love for them he hated their abominable behaviour (Jer 12:7).

So, the verdict of his righteous judgment was “Go and gather all the wild beasts; bring them to devour.” He was also going to allow the rulers of other nations to ruin the land that he had given to his people, to devastate the whole land. “It will be made a wasteland, parched and desolate before me” (Jer 12:12). When these terrible things began to happen, it would be evidence of “the sword of the Lord” which would devour the whole land from one end to the other.

Israel had behaved towards God as Jeremiah’s family had behaved towards him.

Reaping the Harvest

The final word in this prophetic poem is a warning that the die has now been cast by the wickedness of the people. The justice of God demanded that he should bring judgment upon those with whom he had entered into a covenant relationship which they had broken. Even though they sowed wheat, they would reap thorns, because their evil deeds did not match their words: as Jeremiah rightly says, “You are always on their lips, but far from their hearts”. What they were about to reap was in fact their own harvest - what they themselves had sown. This is the justice of God!

Is it not time for us also to look at the state of our own nation and what we have sown over the past generation? The justice of God demands that we should reap what we have sown. Can we, therefore, be surprised at the chaotic state of our nation today? Surely the only answer is repentance and turning!

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here to read previous instalments.