Jeremiah continues to describe how the yoke of God’s judgments should be carried. First, a person should look to God, and not to Babylon, as the one who has brought this destruction. Therefore, he must be quiet and alone before God, not complaining against God or people, and not trying to find excuses.
In the ancient Near East, people bowed before kings with their faces on the ground. This is how deeply Jeremiah tells his listeners to humble themselves before God, to bury their faces in the dust. This will show that they confess God’s judgment to be righteous and just. In times of judgment, we cannot claim God’s grace as our right. That is why Jeremiah can only say, “There may yet be hope.” The words “may yet” express the quiet expectation of faith.
Jeremiah himself received physical blows from his enemies (Jeremiah 20:2; Jeremiah 37:15). Now he tells his listeners to bear it patiently if God’s judgment would cause their enemies to hit and insult them. Like the psalmist, they can lay the wrongdoing of their enemies before God (see Psalm 123:1–4). We should remember Jesus Christ, who underwent God’s judgment in our place and remained quiet when the Sanhedrin and Pilate’s soldiers hit, spat at, and insulted him.
28 Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him;