Depending on who you ask, you might be told that crying isn’t considered manly. And sure, there are some situations where tears are not befitting the way that men ought to carry themselves, but those not withstanding, crying at certain times and for certain causes is not only manly, it is godly. The psalmist who loved God’s law (Ps. 119:97) wept streams of tears because men did not follow God’s Law (vs.36). The prophet Elisha wept because he knew what Hazael would do to the people of Israel once he assassinated Ben-Hadad and became king of Syria (2 Ki. 8:11-12). Even the one who was the perfect man, the one who represented what every man ought to be like, even He, Jesus Christ, wept at the funeral of a friend (Jn. 11:35), wept in prayer (Heb. 5:7), and wept over a city that was on a collision course with the judgment of God (Lk. 19:41-44). Jeremiah, then, stands in good company.

Considering what he wrote in the closing verses of the previous chapter, the opening verse of chapter nine shouldn’t be a surprise. His heart had become faint (Jer. 8:18a). He could hear the cries of the daughter of his people from a far away country (vs.19a). He could foresee the proverb-like quotation found on the lips of his countrymen: “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved!” (vs.20). The false hopes of the false prophets had been proven to be just that – false. If there were ever a time for an ‘I told you so’ it would have been then. But Jeremiah offered no sign of gloating; rather, he described himself as hurt, mourning, and astonished because of what he knew was coming upon his people. In that astonishment he asked a series of questions (vs.22) which lead to a climactic heart-cry in the opening verse of chapter nine:

 

Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! (Jer. 9:1)

 

It’s as though Jeremiah was saying that he didn’t have enough tears to do his sorrow justice. He depicted himself as being adequately able to express his grief if his “head were waters” and his “eyes a fountain of tears” so that he could weep day and night for the slain daughter of his people. Their hearts were hard but Jeremiah’s heart was soft. And it wasn’t because he sugarcoated how depraved the people were. He didn’t look at the people and say, ‘They’re all really good people deep down inside. I can’t believe this is going to happen to them…’ Not at all. Look at the following verse:

 

Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for travelers; That I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. (Jer. 9:2)

 

On the one hand he was weeping for them, and on the other hand he wanted to get away from them! He wished that he had a place in the wilderness that had been formerly useful to those traveling and that it might presently be useful to him. Even though it wouldn’t have been the most desirable choice or the greatest accommodation he would have loved to go there. Not because the people were mean to him (even though they were – Jer. 1:19; 15:10) but because, like Lot, he was “vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked” (2 Pet. 2:7 KJV). He described the people as “all adulterers” (Jer. 9:2b) – a fitting designation seeing as they were physical adulterers (Jer. 5:8), or spiritual adulterers (Jer. 3:20), or both! Furthermore, he depicted their collective wickedness and perhaps, implicitly, the phoniness of their religious performances, by calling them, “an assembly of treacherous men” (Jer. 9:2c). The word translated “assembly” is the Hebrew word atsarah (Heb.  עֲצָ֫רֶת), a word that usually refers to a solemn or sacred assembly unto the Lord and by the Lord’s ordination (Lev. 23:36; Num. 29:35; Deut. 16:8); but this assembly did not know the LORD (Jer. 9:3b) and, the text even states: they refused to know the LORD (Jer. 9:6b).

It’s not difficult to see how Jeremiah’s disposition is instructive to us. He was encompassed with spiritual hypocrisy and moral decay yet his heart did not become callous. He had a front-row seat to repeated illustrations of the doctrine of total depravity; yet, like his Savior, his wells of compassion did not dry up. Jeremiah’s instruction went a step further, yes he had compassion for the sinner but he also had no desire to sinfully pal-around in the darkness under the guise of doing prophetic evangelism. He fit the description of the Psalm 1 blessed man – no desire to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or stand in the path that sinners stand, or sit among the seat of the scoffers (Ps. 1:1). By God’s grace Jeremiah walked in a painful but appropriate balance. Let us be instructed and follow him even as he foreshadowed Christ.