NOTES for Jer 11:18-20
Hatred to the prophet is a quite common thing. Of course, when it is about Jeremiah, one can speak of particular circumstances of his ministry. He had to preach at a moment when the superficial religiosity, purely external was bound in the public consciousness with the boastful extolling, self-assuredly in its own justice, with the religious nationalism strongly mixed in the original mythology, having nothing common with the yahvisme. The prophet had to spiritually resist this situation provoking at least dislike, being quite often transformed into hatred, especially in the background of the military defeats (Jeremiah preached in the last years of the existence of Judea, becoming the witness of its end and the beginning of the Babylonian captivity). But the probleme is not only in the specifics of Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry, the probleme is also in the peculiarities of this ministry as such. If the prophet was simply a predictor of the future (as we sometimes consider the prophets), he would have completely probably been dangerous for those who have the power, but such predictor would not cause the general hatred. General hatred is explained by the fact that the prophet does not predict the future, which is generally impossible to predict at least because absolutely programmed future does exist, but is God's witness. He sees the situation such as God sees it, revealing to the prophet His vision. Here by the way, is possible the prediction of the events to come, especially if these events are already matured and can be explained by the present spiritual state of the society, and even when the disaster seems inevitable, the prophet usually calls all the same to conversion: nothing is predetermined, there is always an alternative, it is just necessary to repent from committed sins and turn to God. However the main part remains all the same in particular the testimony, for which cannot often forgive the prophet those, against whom it is directed. It [the testimony] provokes hatred, especially strong because those, against which is directed the testimony of the prophet, understand: if he, this troublesome prophet was not there with his sermon, they would have got no problems, they could live peacefully. Perhaps, these people understand that the prophet is right, that the disaster is inevitable; however the peculiarities of the psyche of the fallen man oblige him quite often to hide his head in the sand and not notice the threat approaching, especially when it is possible to prevent it only by abandoning the habitual lifestyle and the habitual system of values. In such situation, the words of the prophet can really provoke nothing to his contemporaries, except hatred. And only after years and decades (and sometimes even centuries), when the disaster, about which this prophet had warned, will become a reality and will spiritually be understood, that the descendants of those, to whom the prophet addressed, will understand and will recognize that he was right. Just as it happened with Jeremiah.
