“A linen loincloth”
Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.… just as a loincloth clings to a man's waist, so I have made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me (Jeremiah 13:1 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A strange errand about burying underwear by a river.
The cultural key
Burying a linen undergarment and digging it up rotted looks bizarre until read as an enacted parable, the prophets' way of preaching with objects. The key is what a loincloth does: worn against the skin, it 'clings to a man's waist,' the closest, most intimate garment there is. God says that is exactly how He bound Israel and Judah to Himself, to cling to Him 'for My renown and praise and glory' (13:11). Jeremiah is told to take the cloth to Perath (the Euphrates, the direction of Babylon), hide it in the rocks, and later retrieve it, now 'ruined, of no use at all.' The picture is devastating: the people meant to cling to God in intimate belonging have, through pride and idolatry, been carried off to the Euphrates and rotted into worthlessness. Even 'do not let it touch water' points to their unwashed defilement. What seems like an odd stunt is a tender, tragic image of a broken intimacy.
Recovered meaning
Jeremiah's buried, rotted loincloth is a sign-act: as an undergarment clings to the waist, God made Israel cling to Him in intimacy. Their pride and idolatry, and coming exile to the Euphrates, have ruined that closeness and left them useless.