The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus, who lived a little over a century before the prophet Jeremiah, observed: “There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” For those driven from Jerusalem by the Babylonians, memory was a double-edged sword.

While in exile, the people of Jerusalem recalled all that they had lost (v. 7). Besides being a testimony to God’s past faithfulness to them, the painful recollection of these lost treasures was a bitter reminder of their sin. Their sense of shame was due to something more than Judah’s lowered status. The graphic imagery Jeremiah employs is a sharp reminder that the city’s fall had been a result of spiritual adultery.

Verses 8–9 are evocative of the kind of treatment given to a woman caught in adultery. Verse 10 intensifies the description and mixes the metaphor by describing what happened as an assault. There is an allusion to rape in these images: the enemy laid hands “on all her treasures,” and pagans, who had no right to do so, “enter her sanctuary.”

Jeremiah shifts to more literal language in verse 11 to describe the hardship of the city’s residents: all her people “groan.” This Hebrew word appears in Exodus 2:23 to describe Israel’s cry of desperation while in Egypt. The glimmer of light in this dark picture is the effect of these circumstances on God’s people. Judah’s cry to the Lord to “look” and “consider” is an appeal to mercy. Remembrance leads to remorse, which in turn motivates them to seek God’s mercy. Shame, like memory, has a double edge. It can drive us to despair, or it can open the door to godly sorrow that leads us to repentance (see also 2 Cor. 7:10).

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