[18] My joy is gone, grief is upon me,
my heart is sick.
[19] Hark, the cry of daughter of my poor people
from far and wide in the land:
"Is Yahweh not in Zion?
Is her King not in her?"
("Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
with their foreign idols?")
[20] "The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved."
[21] For the hurt daughter of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
[22] Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health daughter of my poor people
not been restored?
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[1] O that my head were a spring of water,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night
for the slain daughter of my poor people!
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In these selected verses taken from Jeremiah 8, Yahweh has spoken to His prophet about the anger He has for the waywardness of people claiming to be His children. That anger will allow Yahweh to let the Judeans to have as much rope as they want to hang themselves. Then, when released from their bodies of flesh they worship as gods, they will face the full wrath of Yahweh in Judgment for their souls. These verses 18 – 22 are Jeremiah’s mourning words for the people he was one of, although Jeremiah did not stray from the voice of Yahweh.
It is important to realize that Jeremiah wrote (in Hebrew) “baṯ-‘am·mî” four times. Each time, the translation read aloud by the Episcopal Church shows “of my poor people.” The Hebrew word “ammi” (construct from “am”) says “my people.” The word “bat” means “daughter,” as the feminine version of “bar” (meaning “son”). The NASB translates all of these verses correctly, as “the daughter of my people.” However, the Episcopal Church – which goes to great lengths to change Greek text that says “brothers” (“adelphoi”) as “brothers and sisters.” They do that to encourage the women widows in the congregations to see how important them bequeathing their estates to the Church when they did. Here, however, they decide to hide the femininity of “daughters” and simply infer that all women as “poor.”
Knowing this element of “daughters,” which is not a statement about physical females, but a statement of the femininity of a soul trapped within a body of flesh, where physical bodies of both genders are called “daughters,” these verses in Jeremiah’s voice (following many verses spoken by Yahweh) are not to be read as if he were assessing his physical torment, based on all Yahweh said. Jeremiah speaks spiritually about his soul trappend within a body of flesh, but one that has been promised eternal life after death, because Jeremiah’s soul was married to Yahweh, had received His Spirit of Anointment, Bpatized pure by that Spirit, and a soul where the soul of Yahweh’s Son Adam-Jesus had resurrected, becoming the Lord over his life.
Seeing that, verse eighteen is poorly conveyed as if Jeremiah were lamenting, “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.” All of that speaks of poor physical Jeremiah, not about the soul of Jeremiah saying, “I comfort my soul in sorrow , over me my mind faint .” That says the sorrows Yahweh had projected as coming to the wayward Judeans was not Jeremiah’s to experience. His soul was “comforted” through its complete subjection to Yahweh’s Will in divine union. Yahweh had sent Jeremiah His Son’s soul to Lord over his soul-flesh, so “above me” is knowledge that is greater than “my mind” (where “lib·bî” means “my inner man, my will, my mind, and/or my heart”). That speaks of Jeremiah sacrificing his “heart, mind, soul” to Yahweh, totally and completely, out of the deepest love, as stated as the foremost Commandments. The use of “faint” is then a statement that all self-ego Jeremiah might have once possessed has grown “faint,” in its fading into the background (follower mode) of the soul of Adam-Jesus, which had become his Lord.
When that is seen as a strong statement by Jeremiah that his soul was a wife-soul of Yahweh, verse nineteen than presents the first of four uses of “daughter of my people,” where marriage is stated in “Yahweh in Jeremiah’s dry place” (the meaning of “Zion”), whereas the other wayward Jews were unable to find Yahweh bringing ever living waters of eternal life into their souls. Their souls had become dry, like a woman’s womb can only produce young for so many years. When Jeremiah asked, “If her king is not in her,” this is a statement about the penetration of marriage, on the bed of consummation. For any descendant of the people Moses led to the promised land to be called Israel, not to have Yahweh’s Son spring from each “daughter’s “ womb – a soul Baptized by the Spirit and made virginally pure – meant those wayward “daughters” had turned to “images and foreign idols,” which was akin to an adulterous affair by a bride-to-be.
In verse twenty, when Jeremiah says “the harvest is past, summer is over and we not are saved,” this speaks of the limited season of planting and growing, where this refers to “daughters” bringing forth new bodies of flesh (male and female) that will received souls (breaths of life) from Yahweh. Those new “daughters” are to be taught to prepare for divine union with Yahweh, so the “harvest” will be when one’s soul-flesh has died figuratively, so a new soul – that of Yahweh’s Son – can keep the expansion of eternal life, as truly “Yahweh’s people.”
In verse twenty-one, twice the Hebrew word “sheber” (constructed as “še·ḇer” and “hā·šə·bā·rə·tî”) has been translated as a form of “hurt.” The word means “a breaking, fracture, crushing, breach, crash.” This makes “darkness” (from “qā·ḏar·tî”) come from the “breaking” be the Covenant, which are the vows of divine marriage to Yahweh. Without the presence of Yahweh surrounding one’s soul-flesh (from His Spirit of purification) and the soul of His Son resurrected within a “daughter’s” soul, becoming it guiding light, then “horror” (from “šam·māh”) fills one’s whole being and the “waste” of a soul means it has been taken hold of by Satan and his demon spirits.
In verse twenty-two (the last of chapter eight), the name of the place “Gilead” must be known as meaning “perpetual fountain.” To say to this “no balm” and “no healer” in the void of one’s soul-flesh, then the “perpetual fountain” is the ever living waters of eternal salvation. The flesh can only develop sores and sicknesses; but those will all vanish when Judgment comes after the weak body dies away. A saved soul is cured of all ailments of the flesh, forever. There can be “no recovery” from sins and their markings upon the flesh and soul, because the only salve that can remedy the path of the wayward Judeans would for each to become a true “daughter of Yahweh’s people” and submit one’s soul to His service – willingly and lovingly – so the “health” of the soul is more important than the restrictions a body of flesh places on a soul.
It must be realized that verse one, coming from a new chapter (9) is not a natural continuation of that stated in a prior chapter. Because Jeremiah expresses his wish that the everlasting waters (Spiritual, not physical) within his soul could fill his “head” and flow from his “eyes like a fountain of tears,” which the wayward could drink freely from. In this, his “weeping day and night” says the light of truth would be exposed by living waters and the darkness of selfishness would be enlightened. Those “slain” are the souls in bodies of flesh that sacrifice their soul-flesh unto Yahweh, so they can be reborn in the name of His Son. If they die of evil deeds – self-sacrificing as “slaying” their own response to the urges of their flesh – and marry their souls to Yahweh, then they return to the truth of the status that is “a daughter of Yahweh’s people,” the same as Jeremiah and all Yahweh’s prophets.