A Taunting Song

Have you ever gone to a sports game and heard the chant. Na-nana-naa-nah Na-nana-naa-nah, hey hey hey goodbye! It is sung for the opposing team and their fans. Essentially it is a taunt.

In 1977, the Chicago White Sox organist began playing the song when White Sox sluggers knocked one out of the park. It later was adopted for throwing out the opposing pitcher. The fans would sing, and a sports ritual was born. The song's chorus remains well-known and is still frequently used as a crowd chant at many sporting events. It is generally directed at the losing side in an elimination contest when the outcome is all but certain or when an individual player is ejected or disqualified. It has also been sung by crowds in political rallies, to taunt political opponents or to drown out and mock disruptive counter-protesters.

It is bad enough when you are defeated but to hear someone sing a taunt song at you is like they are pouring salt on an open wound.

Our brother Jeremiah the prophet of God Most High has been obedient and gave the people all the words of Father God Yahweh. They never listened to him and as you know, they experienced total devastation.

Instead of appreciating Jeremiah’s faithfulness in his obedience to speak up the pending destruction the people on the other hand rejoiced in his heartache by putting together their own version of a taunting song. We will learn how this comes about in today’s study.

In this lament we have a wonderful picture of a godly man struggling through from a position of almost despair to a confident trust that God is with him in the midst of his troubles, so much so that he can turn his thoughts away from himself to others (the change from ‘I’ to ‘we’) as he brings them before God.

In this section God is simply spoken of as ‘He’, the only mention of His Name being in verse 18 where the prophet declares that his expectation from YHWH has perished. It describes what the prophet has had to endure in the most trying of circumstances, and the condition of soul that it has brought him to. He is almost in blank despair. But it is soul preparation which will then lead on to a recognition of God’s faithfulness. God does not leave him in the dark. He prays through it. It is a reminder that life is not necessarily easy for the people of God. Sometimes we have to walk in a difficult pathway, so that God can seem far away, and even hostile, because we do not understand His ways. But always beyond the darkness there will be light.

1 I ?am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. 2 He has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. 3 Surely, He has turned His hand against me time and time again throughout the day.

The prophet is very much aware that his afflictions, which are many, and the misery that he is enduring, are due to the wrath of God, not necessarily directly directed against him, but against his people, although he is a participant in it. He is aware that he is not blameless.

In terms later taken up by Jesus, Who spoke of walking in darkness (John 8.12, “hen Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”), and Who brought light into the darkness, the prophet recognizes that God has led him in a dark path. Although he is conscious that God is leading him, He feels that he is walking in darkness and not in light. But unlike the Psalmist in Psalm 23 he does not have the confidence that YHWH is with him in a positive way in the valley of deep darkness. Rather all is black. He sees no glimmer of hope for the future. (But he still sees himself as led by God. In that no doubt was his comfort to hang in there).