Jeremiah 14: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD's word comes to Jeremiah during a drought, and the chapter opens with a picture of a land with no water: empty cisterns, cracked ground, farmers with covered heads, and animals starving. The people admit their sin and beg the LORD not to act like a stranger among them, but the LORD tells Jeremiah not to pray for their good and says he will finish them off by sword, famine, and plague. When Jeremiah points to prophets promising peace, the LORD answers that he never sent them and that they and their hearers will die by sword and famine. The chapter closes with Jeremiah weeping over the wounded nation and with a confession that asks God, for the sake of his own name and his covenant, not to reject them, since only he can send rain.

Claim by Claim

1. 14:1
   • The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.
   • This word concerned the drought.
2. 14:2
   • Judah mourns.
   • The gates of Judah languish.
   • They sit in mourning down to the ground.
   • The outcry of Jerusalem has gone up.
3. 14:3
   • The nobles sent their subordinates for water.
   • The subordinates came to the cisterns.
   • They found no water.
   • They returned with their vessels empty.
   • They were ashamed and humiliated.
   • They covered their heads.
4. 14:4
   • The ground is cracked.
   • There was no rain in the land.
   • The plowmen were ashamed.
   • The plowmen covered their heads.
5. 14:5
   • The doe gave birth in the field.
   • The doe abandoned her young.
   • There was no grass.
6. 14:6
   • The wild donkeys stood on the bare heights.
   • They panted for air like jackals.
   • Their eyes failed.
   • There was no vegetation.
7. 14:7
   • The speakers say their iniquities testify against them.
   • They ask the LORD to act for the sake of his name.
   • They say their backslidings are many.
   • They say they have sinned against the LORD.
8. 14:8
   • The LORD is addressed as the hope of Israel.
   • The LORD is addressed as Israel's savior in time of trouble.
   • They ask why he would be like a stranger in the land.
   • They ask why he would be like a traveler who turns aside only to lodge for a night.
9. 14:9
   • They ask why the LORD would be like a man stunned.
   • They ask why he would be like a warrior who cannot save.
   • They affirm that the LORD is in their midst.
   • They affirm that they are called by the LORD's name.
   • They ask the LORD not to abandon them.
10. 14:10
    • The LORD speaks concerning this people.
    • The LORD says they have loved to wander.
    • The LORD says they have not restrained their feet.
    • The LORD does not accept them.
    • The LORD will now remember their iniquity.
    • The LORD will punish their sins.
11. 14:11
    • The LORD said to Jeremiah not to pray for the good of this people.
12. 14:12
    • When they fast, the LORD will not hear their cry.
    • When they offer burnt offering and grain offering, the LORD will not accept them.
    • The LORD will consume them by the sword.
    • The LORD will consume them by famine.
    • The LORD will consume them by pestilence.
13. 14:13
    • Jeremiah said, Ah, Lord GOD.
    • Jeremiah said the prophets tell the people they will not see the sword.
    • Jeremiah said the prophets tell the people they will not have famine.
    • Jeremiah reported the prophets saying God will give them true peace in this place.
14. 14:14
    • The LORD said to Jeremiah that the prophets prophesy lies in his name.
    • The LORD did not send them.
    • The LORD did not command them.
    • The LORD did not speak to them.
    • They prophesy a false vision.
    • They prophesy divination.
    • They prophesy a worthless thing.
    • They prophesy the deceit of their own heart.
15. 14:15
    • The LORD speaks concerning the prophets who prophesy in his name.
    • The LORD did not send them.
    • Those prophets say sword and famine shall not be in this land.
    • Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine.
16. 14:16
    • The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem.
    • This will be because of the famine and the sword.
    • There will be no one to bury them.
    • This includes them, their wives, their sons, and their daughters.
    • The LORD will pour their own wickedness upon them.
17. 14:17
    • Jeremiah is told to say this word to them.
    • His eyes are to run down with tears night and day.
    • His eyes are not to cease.
    • The virgin daughter of his people is broken with a great breach.
    • The blow is very grievous.
18. 14:18
    • If Jeremiah goes out into the field, he sees those slain by the sword.
    • If he enters the city, he sees those sick with famine.
    • Both prophet and priest go about into a land they do not know.
19. 14:19
    • They ask whether the LORD has utterly rejected Judah.
    • They ask whether his soul loathes Zion.
    • They ask why he has struck them.
    • They say there is no healing for them.
    • They looked for peace.
    • No good came.
    • They looked for a time of healing.
    • Terror came instead.
20. 14:20
    • They acknowledge their wickedness before the LORD.
    • They acknowledge the iniquity of their fathers.
    • They have sinned against the LORD.
21. 14:21
    • They ask the LORD not to spurn them, for the sake of his name.
    • They ask him not to dishonor his glorious throne.
    • They ask him to remember.
    • They ask him not to break his covenant with them.
22. 14:22
    • They ask whether any among the worthless idols of the nations can bring rain.
    • They ask whether the heavens can give showers by themselves.
    • They ask whether it is not the LORD their God who does so.
    • They will wait in hope for the LORD.
    • The LORD has made all these things.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

14:1

Judah had no great river; its farming depended entirely on rains that came in two seasons, autumn and spring. A failed rainy season meant no crops and no drinking water, so a drought was a national emergency rather than an inconvenience.

14:2

The gates of a walled town were its public square: markets, courts, and civic business all happened in the gateway. Saying the gates "languish" means public life itself has collapsed. Sitting or sinking down on the ground was a recognized posture of mourning, like wearing black at a funeral.

14:3

The water pits are cisterns, pear-shaped tanks cut into bedrock and plastered, which collected and stored the winter rain for use through the dry months. Finding them empty meant the last reserves were gone. The Hebrew word behind "servants" means "their little ones" or "their lesser ones"; it can mean children or junior household staff, and translators differ.

14:4

Covering the head was a public sign of shame and grief, the gesture of someone who cannot bear to be seen. Farmers whose fields fail are shown behaving like mourners at a funeral.

14:5

A doe normally hides and defends her newborn fawn for days after birth. Abandoning it is the image of nature itself breaking its own instincts under the strain.

14:6

Wild donkeys were desert animals, proverbial for surviving where nothing else could; when even they are failing, the drought is total. The jackal was a scavenging wild dog of the region, known for panting with its mouth open.

14:7

A person's "name" in this culture meant their public reputation, what everyone knew them for. Asking God to act "for the sake of your name" is asking him to act to protect his own standing before onlookers, not because the people deserve it.

14:8

A traveler stopping for one night had no stake in the place and no obligation to anyone in it. The complaint is that God is behaving like a passing guest rather than a resident with responsibilities.

14:9

The Hebrew word rendered "caught off guard" is uncertain; it suggests someone stunned, dazed, or taken by surprise, and translators render it variously. "Called by your name" is an ownership formula, like a name stamped on property or a family name carried by a household, used of both the people and the temple.

14:10

"Wandering feet" is a stock image in Jeremiah for going off after other gods and other alliances. "Remember" here is not simply recalling; the Hebrew pairs it with a verb meaning to come and inspect, and by extension to settle accounts.

14:11

Pleading with God on the people's behalf was understood to be part of a prophet's job, as Moses and Samuel were remembered for doing. Being ordered not to pray for them is therefore a striking reversal of the prophet's normal role.

14:12

Going without food was a public act of mourning and appeal, often accompanied by torn clothes and ashes. A burnt offering was an animal burned whole on the altar; a grain offering was flour with oil and incense, part burned and the rest given to the priests. "Sword, hunger, and deadly disease" is a set formula in Jeremiah for the three things that kill in a siege: fighting, starvation, and the epidemics that follow.

14:13

Where the King James prints "Lord GOD" with GOD in capitals, the Hebrew has two words for God together: the ordinary word for master or lord, followed by God's personal name, which the tradition avoided pronouncing. Elsewhere "LORD" in capitals stands for that personal name on its own.

14:14

"Reading of signs" is divination: seeking hidden knowledge by techniques such as casting lots, inspecting the organs of sacrificed animals, or interpreting omens and dreams. It was a normal professional practice across the ancient Near East and was banned in Israel's law.

14:16

To be thrown into the street and left unburied was the worst disgrace imaginable, reserved for criminals and enemies; burial in a family tomb was a basic duty owed to the dead. The picture is of a city with more corpses than surviving relatives to bury them.

14:17

Cities and nations were routinely spoken of as women in this poetry, and "virgin daughter" was a standard title for a city that had never been captured. The words for "broken" and "blow" are the vocabulary of a physical wound, as of a limb shattered beyond setting.

14:18

The last line is genuinely ambiguous in the Hebrew and has been read two ways: that prophet and priest are dragged off into exile in a land they do not know, or that they go on plying their trade around the country without knowing what they are doing.

14:19

Zion was originally the ridge Jerusalem was built on, and came to stand for the city as a whole, and especially the temple hill within it.

14:20

Ancient Israel thought of guilt as something a community carries and passes on, not only a private individual record. Admitting "the iniquity of our fathers" alongside their own is part of a single confession, not an attempt to shift blame onto previous generations.

14:21

The "throne of your glory" is the temple in Jerusalem, understood as the place where God was enthroned among his people. An agreement of this kind, a covenant, was a formal binding treaty with sworn obligations on both sides, the same word used for treaties between kings, not a casual understanding.

14:22

The word behind "worthless idols" literally means vapor or breath: things with no substance. Rain in the surrounding nations was credited to storm gods, above all Baal, so the question of who actually sends showers was a live public argument, not a rhetorical flourish.