Divine Presence, Divinely Inflicted Pain, and Forced Migration in Jeremiah and Ezekiel

The books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel describe their eponymous prophets experiencing undeserved pain caused by YHWH. Paradoxically, the texts repeatedly assert that YHWH is a fair god, who causes pain as a punishment on those who are unfaithful to him. Using pain studies from medicine and literature as well as comparisons with other biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts, this article investigates the unexplained pain experienced by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. I argue that the divinely caused pain the two prophets are said to experience functions as literary “proof” of YHWH’s presence with them in a historical moment of doubt—the destruction of Jerusalem and displacement of its population—and ultimately of the deity’s own “migration” with a select group of his people.