^{17 Shevat 5780 | February 12, 2020}

929

Rabba Aliza Libman Baronofsky

Class of 2022

If a picture is worth 1000 words, how many is a demonstration worth? In this chapter, Jeremiah joins many previous prophets in using symbolic demonstrations to make God’s point to the people. (We’ll see many more in the chapters to come.)

School children (and viewers of the Prince of Egypt) are familiar with Moses’s staff turning into a snake – precisely the sort of demonstration that is engineered to win over an obstinate audience.

In our chapter, the obstinate audience is the remaining population of Judea. The symbolic demonstration is a little more complicated than a stick becoming a snake. In verse 1, God commands Jeremiah to get a girdle, or loincloth, and wear it. Jeremiah complies. In verse 3, God commands him to hide the girdle in the hole of a rock in Perath. God then waits many days before commanding Jeremiah to retrieve the girdle from the rock. Jeremiah complies and discovers that the garment is ruined. Verse 8 begins the explanation of the symbol: namely, that like the girdle, the people will be ruined. Like a girdle sticks to its wearer, the children of Israel were attached to God but did not listen.

On its surface, this does not seem like a convincing demonstration. Having many days elapse between Jeremiah buying the girdle and its destruction would likely lead any observers to forget the girdle and its significance. Who does God command this for? On its surface, it would seem to be either a demonstration for Jeremiah (to strengthen his resolve) or for the future generations reading this prophecy, for whom ‘many days’ can pass in few verses.

One detail in the text, though, suggests that this prophecy is even more nuanced. The Malbim, writing in the 19th century, noticed that Jeremiah takes the girdle to Perath. This place (a body of water) is mentioned in Jeremiah’s time, as the site of the battle with Pharaoh Nekho. It is here where the story of the virtuous king Josiah ends abruptly with his untimely death in battle (II Kings 23:29).

We don’t have any indication whether this chapter takes place before or after the death of Josiah, but Malbim thinks it is an explicit reference to God’s concern that the Jews should never go back to Egypt.

Perhaps the girdle is here because it is a utilitarian garment that people might wear, thinking it would be useful and provide protection. In contrast, the demonstration shows the garment is itself prone to destruction. The nakedness they might experience is explicitly referenced in verses 22 and 26.

The book of Jeremiah plays off his predecessor Isaiah here as elsewhere. If we can’t protect ourselves with garments of ordinary human making, what can protect us?

Isaiah 11:5 provides the answer: "Justice shall be the girdle of his loins, And faithfulness the girdle of his waist."