Woe is me... — The abruptness of the transition suggests the thought that we have a distinct fragment which has been merged in the artificial continuity of the chapter. Possibly, as some have thought, Jeremiah 15:10-11 have been misplaced in transcription, and should come after Jeremiah 15:14, where they fit in admirably with the context. The sequence of thought may, however, be that the picture of the sorrowing mother in the previous verses suggests the reflection that there may be other causes for a mother’s sorrow than that of which he has spoken, and so he bursts out into the cry, “Woe is me, my mother!” The prophet feels more than ever the awfulness of his calling as a vessel of God’s truth. He, too, found that he had come “not to send peace on earth, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). His days were as full of strife as the life of the usurer, whose quarrels with his debtors had become the proverbial type of endless litigation. As examples of the working of the law of debt, see Exodus 22:25; 2 Kings 4:1; Proverbs 6:1-5; Isaiah 24:2; Psalms 15:5; Psalms 109:11.
We note, as characteristic of the pathetic tenderness of the prophet’s character, the address to his mother. We may think of her probably as still living, and the thought of her suffering embitters her son’s grief. The sword was piercing through her soul also (Luke 2:35). There, too, there was a Mater dolorosa.