Jeremiah Grieves Over His Unhappy Situation And The Effect That It Is Having On His Mother (Jeremiah 15:10).
‘Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me,
A man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!
I have not lent, neither have men lent to me,
Every one of them curses me.'
The ‘woe is me' or ‘alas' is wrung from him as he thinks about the mothers who will have lost their sons in Jeremiah 15:9, for he grieves over what his own mother has to bear. He recognises that while his own mother may not have lost him to death she has lost him in another way. She has had to look on with grief in her heart as all men curse him and call him ‘traitor' and she suffers the affliction of seeing every man's hand turned against him, even that of his own family. And that is in spite of the fact that he has given them no reason to hate him apart from by his acting as YHWH's mouthpiece. For he has lent no money, thus making men wary of him, nor does he owe money, causing dissension through not paying it back (see Deuteronomy 23:19; Psalms 15:5). He is not involved in anything that is the usual cause of dissension between men. As far as he is aware there is nothing in his personal life that should cause them to hate him. But they do.
The reference to lending and borrowing brings out how much such activity was despised in Judah if it was connected with obtaining gain by doing so. This was in fact in accordance with the covenant which forbade lending for interest, apart from to foreigners (Deuteronomy 23:19-20; Deuteronomy 15:2-3). Any loans to fellow Israelites had to be made in goodwill without any hope of gain (Deuteronomy 15:7-11).