Seduced

 

"You have seduced me and I have let myself be seduced;
you have overpowered me: you were the stronger."
Jeremiah 20:7
These strong words capture the conflicted relationship that the prophet Jeremiah feels with God. This translation from the Jeresalem Bible has always appealed to me, but I thought it might be making the sexual symbolism too strong. So I checked the Jewish Study Bible and found, "The prophet employs strong language to characterize God's deceptive character." The Hebrew verb is used in several places in the Jewish Scriptures to describe a man's seduction of a woman and a woman's seduction of a man. The note goes on to say, "The following verbs, 'You overpowered me and you prevailed' suggest rape"
Jeremiah is complaining to God that God's love has enticed him to be a prophet, but then God has given him only woeful warnings to speak to the people. In English we even have the term "jeremiad." These warnings make Jeremiah extremely unpopular. So he says he would decide not to speak for God. But he couldn't resist. "There seemed to be a fire," he cries, "burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones." He surrenders to God's overpowering love.
Most of us at some time in our lives, and maybe many times, have felt this kind of conflicted relationship with God. God loves us beyond imagining, beyond deserving. We want to give in and surrender to such overwhelming love, yet we know that difficult demands may follow. We feel the same fire burning in our hearts and cannot resist.