NOTES for Jer 6:1-30
The enemy invasion is to become retribution for unfaithfulness. Quite recently the Lord was with His people as they fought their enemies; it was thanks to Him that the people won victories. But now He is on the side of those who are going to conquer Jerusalem. Yet it is not the Lord who betrayed the people; the people have departed from Him. This sits uneasily in minds accustomed to the logic of simple answers, but nevertheless it is so: even while fighting against the people, the Lord continues to preserve them and care for them, trying to help their ways be corrected.
For now, among this people words about peace are heard, but there is no peace either on earth or in hearts. This too is familiar to us: too often in our time words about peace become a hypocritical ritual that covers hatred and a constant readiness for enmity. And now we see that many people, having cast aside words that have lost trust, not only fail to seek genuine peace but openly sow discord. Their disgust with hypocrisy can be understood. But hypocrisy is not abolished by evil that gives birth to new hypocrisy; it is abolished by the genuine embodiment of good. If this does not happen, then the Lord not only rejects hypocritical rituals, but also does not prevent that very evil which the people chose for themselves from crashing down upon them: the one who rejected mercy will have to taste its opposite.
And yet again and again the grieving are compared to a woman in labor, and this comparison gives hope. A woman suffers during childbirth, but her pain is not meaningless: through it new life appears. And if the people are born anew through painful repentance, their sufferings will not be meaningless.