The Curriculum of Calamity Text: Jeremiah 9:17-22
Introduction: The Lost Art of Weeping
We live in a culture that has forgotten how to weep. We are experts in distraction, medication, and the relentless pursuit of positive vibes. Grief, when it comes, is expected to be a private affair, handled neatly and quickly, preferably with the help of a therapist who can help us "process" it and move on. The idea of public, corporate, gut-wrenching lamentation strikes us as unseemly, embarrassing, or perhaps a sign of mental instability. We have air-conditioned our souls against the heat of genuine sorrow.
Into this sanitized, emotionally sterile environment, the prophet Jeremiah speaks like a thunderclap. God does not simply permit grief here; He commands it. He does not suggest a moment of quiet reflection; He calls for professional mourners, for skillful women to come and orchestrate a national wailing. This is not a therapeutic suggestion. This is a divine summons to a funeral. The deceased is the nation of Judah itself.
What Jeremiah presents is a curriculum of calamity. When a nation has become so steeped in sin, so deaf to the warnings of the prophets, and so arrogant in its rebellion, the time for gentle correction passes. The time for judgment arrives. And the appropriate response to that judgment is not denial, not bargaining, and not a stiff upper lip. The only sane, righteous, and obedient response is to learn how to weep properly. This passage is God's lesson plan for a people who have forgotten the grammar of grief because they have forgotten the gravity of sin.
We must understand that this is not a historical curiosity from the ancient Near East. This is a revelation of the character of God. He is a God who takes sin seriously, and He demands that His people take it seriously as well. If we read a passage like this and our first instinct is to recoil from its harshness, it is not the text that is out of step. It is us. We have been catechized by a soft and sentimental age, and we need the bracing, bitter medicine of the prophet to wake us from our slumber.
The Text
Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “Carefully consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come; And send for the skillful women, that they may come! Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, That our eyes may shed tears And our eyelids flow with water. For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion, ‘How we are destroyed! We are put to great shame, For we have left the land Because they have cast down our dwellings.’ ” Indeed, hear the word of Yahweh, O you women, And let your ear receive the word of His mouth; Teach your daughters wailing, And everyone her neighbor a funeral lamentation. For death has come up through our windows; It has entered our palaces To cut off the infants from the streets, The choice men from the open squares. Speak, “Thus declares Yahweh, ‘The corpses of men will fall like dung on the open field And like the sheaf after the reaper, But no one will gather them.’ ”
(Jeremiah 9:17-22)
A Commanded Grief (vv. 17-18)
The instruction begins with a divine command to get serious about sorrow.
"Thus says Yahweh of hosts, 'Carefully consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come; And send for the skillful women, that they may come! Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, That our eyes may shed tears And our eyelids flow with water.'" (Jeremiah 9:17-18)
God Himself, Yahweh of hosts, the commander of heaven's armies, issues the order. This is not Jeremiah’s emotional overreaction. This is the calculated decree of the sovereign Lord. The people are to "carefully consider" this. This is a summons to sober thought, not mindless panic. And what are they to conclude? That the situation is so catastrophic, their own capacity for grief is insufficient. They need to hire professionals.
In the ancient world, mourning women were specialists. They were skilled in the art of lament. They knew the songs, the gestures, and the words to express a sorrow too deep for ordinary people to articulate. God's command to call them is a stunning indictment. It means the people of Judah were so spiritually dull, so calloused by their sin, that they no longer knew how to grieve rightly. They had lost the instinct for repentance. God says, in effect, "You don't even know how to be sad about your own destruction. So I will command you to bring in tutors who will teach you."
The purpose is explicit: "That our eyes may shed tears And our eyelids flow with water." This is not about feeling bad. It is about a physical, tangible, public expression of utter devastation. God is not interested in a quiet, internal sense of regret. He demands a flood. He is orchestrating the funeral of a nation, and He requires that the mourners show up and do their job. This is a formal, liturgical act of national repentance, prompted by the sharp spear of judgment.
The Content of the Lament (v. 19)
The professional mourners are given their script. The reason for the wailing is not vague; it is specific and covenantal.
"For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion, ‘How we are destroyed! We are put to great shame, For we have left the land Because they have cast down our dwellings.’" (Jeremiah 9:19)
The wailing comes "from Zion," the very place where God had set His name. The holy city has become the epicenter of grief. The lament has three parts. First, utter destruction: "How we are destroyed!" This is the recognition of total ruin. Second, public disgrace: "We are put to great shame." Sin does not just break God's law; it humiliates the sinner. They had been a people set apart for God's glory, and now they are a spectacle of shame before the nations. This is the reversal of their entire calling.
Third, the reason for it all is stated with stark clarity: "For we have left the land Because they have cast down our dwellings." Notice the agency. It is passive. "They have cast down our dwellings." But the verse begins with the active confession, "we have left the land." Spiritually and morally, they had abandoned the covenant long before the Babylonians showed up to physically dispossess them. The destruction of their homes was simply the external manifestation of their internal apostasy. They abandoned God, and as a direct result, God abandoned them to the consequences laid out in the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28. This is not a random tragedy; it is the bill for their spiritual adultery coming due.
A New Catechism (v. 20)
The command is then broadened. This is not just a one-time event. It is to become the new culture.
"Indeed, hear the word of Yahweh, O you women, And let your ear receive the word of His mouth; Teach your daughters wailing, And everyone her neighbor a funeral lamentation." (Jeremiah 9:20)
The address to the women is significant. Women were the keepers and transmitters of culture and tradition within the home. In a healthy society, mothers teach their daughters the songs of joy, the skills of the home, and the stories of God's faithfulness. But here, in a society under the judgment of God, the curriculum is radically altered. The primary lesson is now wailing. The new catechism is a funeral lamentation.
This is a terrifying picture. The most important skill a mother can pass on to her daughter is how to grieve the death of her own culture. This is to be the new normal. It is to be taught deliberately, from mother to daughter, from neighbor to neighbor. It is the establishment of a new tradition, a tradition of sorrow. This is what happens when a people's rebellion becomes so entrenched that the only thing left to do is weep over the wreckage. The music stops, the laughter dies, and the only sound left is the sound of weeping, passed down to the next generation.
The Unstoppable Invasion (vv. 21-22)
Lest anyone think this is hyperbole, God provides a graphic and brutal explanation for why this new curriculum is necessary.
"For death has come up through our windows; It has entered our palaces To cut off the infants from the streets, The choice men from the open squares... Speak, 'Thus declares Yahweh, The corpses of men will fall like dung on the open field And like the sheaf after the reaper, But no one will gather them.'" (Jeremiah 9:21-22)
Death is personified as a relentless home invader. It doesn't knock politely. It climbs through the windows, the unsecured entry points. It invades the most fortified places, the "palaces." No one is safe. The security systems of the nation have failed because the nation has revolted against the God who was their only true security.
And the victims are the lifeblood of the nation. It cuts off the "infants from the streets," extinguishing the future. It cuts off the "choice men from the open squares," destroying the present strength and leadership. This is the complete unraveling of a society, from its weakest to its strongest. The streets and squares, places of life and commerce, become slaughterhouses.
The final word, spoken directly by Yahweh, is the most shocking of all. The dead will not even be buried. Their corpses will lie scattered "like dung on the open field." This is an image of utter contempt and defilement. To be left unburied was the ultimate curse, a sign of complete abandonment by God and man. They will be like a sheaf of grain left behind by the reaper, forgotten, worthless, and left to rot. "No one will gather them." There will be either no one left to bury them, or no one who cares enough to do so. This is the final stop on the road of rebellion: total desolation, total shame, and total abandonment.
Grief with a Purpose
So what do we do with a text like this? We are not sixth-century B.C. Judah facing the Babylonian army. But we are a people living in a civilization that has, in a thousand ways, "left the land." We have abandoned the covenant of our God. We have celebrated perversion, legalized the slaughter of the unborn, and taught our children that they are the meaningless products of time and chance. We should not be surprised when death starts climbing through our windows.
This passage calls us to learn the lost art of lament. We must learn to weep over the state of our nation, not with the hopeless grief of the world, but with the purposeful grief of repentance. We must see the dung on the open field as the logical end of our sin, and it should drive us to our knees.
But for the Christian, the lament does not end there. This picture of ultimate shame, of a body left exposed for contempt, finds its ultimate fulfillment at the cross. Jesus Christ became the one who was cut off. He was put to open shame. He bore the full weight of God's covenant curse, the ultimate desolation, so that we would not have to. He was abandoned so that we might be gathered in.
Therefore, our wailing is different. We teach our children to lament sin, yes. We teach them to weep over the brokenness of the world. But we do so in the bright and glorious light of the resurrection. Our grief over sin leads to repentance, and our repentance leads to life. God still commands us to grieve, but He has provided the sacrifice that turns our wailing into dancing. We must first learn the curriculum of calamity, seeing the horror of our sin, before we can truly appreciate the grammar of grace, which gathers us in, cleanses us from all defilement, and brings us home.