I Cannot Speak, I Am a Child

Jeremiah gets one sentence in before he starts arguing.

That is worth noticing at the front, because Jeremiah 1:4-10 is often read as a beautiful passage about being known before birth, and it is that, but it is also a short and slightly tense conversation in which a young man tries to get out of something and is not allowed to.

Here is the opening.

Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.Jeremiah 1:4-5, King James Version

Three verbs, and they are stacked in an order that is doing work. Knew. Sanctified. Ordained. Every one of them is past tense, and every one of them is dated before Jeremiah existed as a person anybody could evaluate.

Then Jeremiah answers, and his answer is the honest one.

Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.Jeremiah 1:6, King James Version

Two objections in one breath. I cannot speak, which is about ability. I am a child, which is about standing. He is saying: I do not have the skill and I do not have the years, and either one of those on its own would be enough to rule me out.

This is happening in the thirteenth year of Josiah, around 627 years before Christ, in a village called Anathoth a few miles outside Jerusalem. Jeremiah is from a priestly family and he is young, and the country he is being sent to speak to is about forty years away from being destroyed.

Now watch God's answer, because it is not what people expect and it is not what most of us would say.

He does not encourage him. He forbids the sentence.

Here is the reply.

But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.Jeremiah 1:7, King James Version

Say not.

God does not tell him he is more capable than he thinks. He does not offer a compliment about his potential. He does not argue with the assessment at all. He forbids the sentence.

And then He gives a reason, and the reason is the whole thing: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Two clauses, and neither one of them is about Jeremiah's ability. The first is about a sending. The second is about a supply.

You are not allowed to be the one who rules you out, and that is a prohibition and not a pep talk. Jeremiah 1:7 opens with say not, which is an instruction about a mouth, and it is the Holy Spirit who is the one applying that instruction tonight rather than leaving it in a village outside Jerusalem.

I want to be careful here, because this is where the passage gets misused, and it gets misused in a way that hurts people.

God is not telling him his self-assessment was inaccurate. Jeremiah probably was a poor speaker and he certainly was young. Nothing in the chapter contradicts either fact. What God does is remove the assessment from the list of things that decide the matter. The disqualification is not refuted. It is overruled.

You have been overruled rather than corrected, and those are different mercies with the second one being larger. The written word never once tells Jeremiah he was wrong about himself, and the same Spirit who left that assessment standing is the one who took it off the deciding table.

Then the next verse, and it names something narrower than fear in general.

Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.Jeremiah 1:8, King James Version

Their faces. Not their power. Not the danger, which was real, and which by the end of his life would include a pit and a prison. Faces. The look on somebody's face when you say the thing.

That is a startlingly precise diagnosis, and it is the one that keeps most people quiet. Not the consequences. The expression.

You were named accurately in verse eight, and the thing named there was a face and not a threat. Jeremiah 1:8 says be not afraid of their faces, and it is His Spirit who makes that precision personal instead of merely interesting.

Then the physical part, which is easy to skip because it is one clause long.

Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.Jeremiah 1:9, King James Version

He said I cannot speak, and the answer arrives at the mouth. Not at his confidence, not at his self-image, not at his preparation. God goes to the exact organ the man named and puts something in it.

You have had the objection answered at the precise place you raised it, and heaven did not widen it into something more general. Jeremiah 1:6 and 1:9 name the same body part, and the same Spirit who arranged that correspondence is the reason it is not a coincidence.

And the last thing in the passage is the strangest and the best. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant. Six verbs, and the young man who just said he could not speak is handed authority over nations.

Not gradually. This day.