Jeremiah 14
Jeremiah 14 opens on a land dying of thirst. The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth (v. 1) - the drought - and the verses that follow paint it in unforgettable strokes. Judah mourneth, the city gates languish, the people are black unto the ground with grief. The nobles send their little ones to the cisterns and they come back with empty vessels, ashamed and confounded, their heads covered. The plowmen are dismayed because there is no rain. Even the animals fail: the deer abandons her newborn for lack of grass, and the wild asses stand panting on the heights, their eyes did fail. It is a portrait of a whole creation gasping, and it sets the stage for prayer.3
Out of the dust rises the chapter's great cry. The people pray with raw honesty: O LORD, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name's sake… we have sinned against thee (v. 7). They make no defense; they appeal entirely to God's own name. Then comes the title that gives the chapter its weight: O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land? (v. 8). Their fear is that God has become a passing guest, near for a night and gone by morning. Yet they cling to one thing: yet thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not (v. 9).
But the chapter does not let the prayer go unanswered, and the answer is severe. The LORD tells Jeremiah, Pray not for this people for their good (v. 11), and exposes the false prophets who have been crying peace where there is no peace - promising assured peace in this place when judgment is at the door (vv. 13-16). The chapter ends with the prophet's tears, a confession of sin, and a final turning away from every idol that cannot help toward the only One who can: Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain?… art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee (v. 22). Between the false comfort that ruins and the honest hope that saves, the whole chapter asks where a desperate people will finally turn.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Jeremiah 14:1-6The Land Without Rain
1The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth. 2Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. 3And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads. 4Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. 5Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass. 6And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass.
The chapter is headed The word of the LORD… concerning the dearth (v. 1) - a drought so severe it becomes a sign. What follows is one of the most vivid pictures of a land in crisis anywhere in Scripture. Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up (v. 2). The whole land is in mourning dress. The gates - the civic heart of a town, where elders sat and business was done - languish, emptied of the bustle of ordinary life. The people are black unto the ground, bowed low in grief and dressed for sorrow, while a cry rises up from the city. Drought in the ancient world was not a mere inconvenience; it was the slow undoing of everything. No rain meant no harvest, no harvest meant famine, and famine meant death. Jeremiah does not rush past the suffering to get to the sermon. He lets us feel the weight of it first - a land gone silent and grieving under a brass-hard sky - because it is out of exactly this kind of trouble that the chapter's great prayer will rise.3
The next verses bring the disaster down to eye level, into scenes a reader can picture. Their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads (v. 3). Notice who is sent: not servants, but little ones - the household's own children, dispatched to the cisterns because the need is that desperate. They trudge to the pits, the hewn-stone reservoirs that should hold the rainwater, and find them dry. They come home with empty jars, heads covered in the posture of shame and grief. And the same gesture spreads to the men who work the soil: the ground is chapt - cracked and split open like dried clay - and the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads (v. 4). The repeated covering of the head is the image that lingers. These are people with nowhere to look and nothing to say, undone by a thing entirely beyond their power to fix. No amount of effort can make it rain. The drought strips away every illusion of self-sufficiency and leaves the whole community standing, heads bowed, before a God they cannot command.
Then Jeremiah widens the lens to take in the animals, and the picture grows almost unbearable. Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass (v. 5). The hind is the doe, the female deer, and her abandoning her own newborn fawn is a violence against the deepest instinct in nature. A mother does not leave her young unless there is truly nothing - no grass, no milk, no hope of keeping it alive. The drought has broken even the bond between a mother and her calf. And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass (v. 6). The wild donkeys climb to the bare ridges and gulp at the air like gasping creatures, desperate for any trace of moisture on the wind, until their very eyes grow dim with hunger. The whole created order is straining and failing together. There is a sober truth pressed here: human sin does not stay neatly contained in human hearts. It ripples outward into the land, the crops, the animals - the whole web of life groans under it. And that groaning is itself a kind of cry, joining the cry of Jerusalem that is going up to God.
Jeremiah 14:7-9O the Hope of Israel, the Saviour Thereof
7O LORD, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name's sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee. 8O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? 9Why shouldest thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? yet thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not.
Here the chapter turns from describing the trouble to praying out of it, and the prayer is remarkable for its honesty. O LORD, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name's sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee (v. 7). There is no excuse-making here, no bargaining, no list of merits laid on the table. The people freely admit that their own sins stand as witnesses against them - our iniquities testify against us - and they say it twice over: our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee. And yet, having no ground of their own to stand on, they appeal to the one ground that never fails: do thou it for thy name's sake. They ask God to act, to send the rain, to save - not because they have earned it, but because of who He is, because His own name and character are at stake in how He treats His people. This is one of the deepest movements in all of prayer. When a person has nothing to offer and knows it, the only honest plea left is an appeal to the mercy and the name of God Himself. It is a prayer that has given up on self-justification entirely and cast itself wholly on grace.1
Then the prayer reaches for the title that gives this chapter its heart: O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble (v. 8). Before any request is finished, the people name who God is to them - their hope, their saviour, and specifically the saviour in time of trouble, the One to turn to precisely when everything has gone dark. But the verse carries an ache inside it too: why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? The complaint is tender and almost wounded. It feels, they say, as though the God who is the hope of Israel has become a stranger - a passerby with no real stake in the place - or like a wayfaring man, a traveler who stops at an inn for a single night and is gone again by morning, leaving no trace. The drought has made God seem distant, uninvolved, just passing through. And the prayer presses harder still: why shouldest thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save? (v. 9) - as though God were dazed and powerless, a warrior somehow unable to rescue. These are bold words to pray. But they are honest words, and the honesty is the point: the people are pouring out to God exactly how His apparent absence feels.
And then, in the same breath as the complaint, the prayer turns and clings. Yet thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not (v. 9). The little word yet is the hinge of the whole prayer. Whatever it feels like - stranger, traveler, dazed warrior - the people refuse to let the feeling have the last word. The truth they hold to is deeper than the appearance: yet thou… art in the midst of us. God has not actually departed; He dwells among His people still. And they ground their appeal in two things that cannot be taken away. First, His presence: He is in the midst of us. Second, His name upon them: we are called by thy name - they belong to Him, they bear His name as a people, they are His own. On that basis comes the simplest, most childlike plea in the chapter: leave us not. It is the cry of someone who knows they have no claim except relationship, and who appeals to that relationship for everything. Do not abandon the people who are called by your name. It is faith holding on in the dark - not because the circumstances look hopeful, but because of who God is and whose they are.
Jeremiah 14:10-16The Prophets Who Cry Peace
10Thus saith the LORD unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore the LORD doth not accept them; he will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins. 11Then said the LORD unto me, Pray not for this people for their good. 12When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. 13Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place. 14Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart. 15Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. 16And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness upon them.
The LORD answers the prayer, and at first the answer sounds like a closed door. Thus saith the LORD unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore the LORD doth not accept them (v. 10). The diagnosis is not a single failure but a settled love - they have loved to wander. The straying has become what they want, a path they have refused to hold their feet back from, and so the consequence has its own ripeness: he will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins. Then comes the hardest word in the chapter: Then said the LORD unto me, Pray not for this people for their good (v. 11). Jeremiah, the great intercessor, is told to stop interceding. This is a sobering signal - not that God has grown cold, but that the people have reached a point where the judgment must now run its course, and even the prophet's prayers will not turn it aside. And the LORD presses why their religious motions will not help: When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them (v. 12). The problem was never that they failed to perform the rituals. It was that the rituals had become hollow - outward acts with no turning of the heart behind them. A fast that masks an unbroken will, a sacrifice offered by hands still reaching to wander, is no real prayer at all.
Jeremiah pushes back with an objection that is really a plea for the people: Ah, Lord GOD! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place (v. 13). It is as if Jeremiah says, but Lord, look what they are being told - how can they prepare for a judgment they have been promised will never come? And the message of the false prophets is laid bare in all its appeal: ye shall not see the sword… assured peace in this place. This is the signature lie of the false prophet in every age - peace announced precisely where there is no peace, comfort offered exactly where warning is needed. The false prophet tells people what they want to hear. Of course Judah would rather believe the soothing voice that says all is well than the hard voice that says judgment is coming and the time to return is now. The lie is attractive because it costs nothing and demands no change; it lets everyone go on exactly as they are. But a promise of peace that papers over a real danger is not a kindness. It is the cruelest thing of all, because it leaves people unprepared for the very thing that is about to fall on them - comfort that comforts a person straight into ruin.3
The LORD's verdict on these prophets is unsparing, and it is the moral center of the section. The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart (v. 14). Three things are named that they are not. God did not send them; He did not command them; He never spake to them. Whatever authority they claim is borrowed and false - they speak in my name, but the name is stolen. And the source of their message is exposed: it is the deceit of their heart, their own wishes and imaginings dressed up as the word of God. The judgment then turns and falls on the deceivers themselves: the very sword and famine they swore would never come shall those prophets be consumed by (v. 15), and the people who trusted them shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem with none to bury them (v. 16). It is a grim picture, but its logic is exact. Those who taught others there was no danger will perish in the danger they denied. False comfort does not merely fail to help; it actively destroys, dragging both the speaker and the hearer down together. The most loving voice, the chapter quietly insists, is the one that tells the truth.
Jeremiah 14:17-22Therefore We Will Wait Upon Thee
17Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them; Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow. 18If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! yea, both the prophet and the priest go about into a land that they know not. 19Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble! 20We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we have sinned against thee. 21Do not abhor us, for thy name's sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us. 22Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.
The chapter's final movement opens not in argument but in tears. Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow (v. 17). This is the heart of the prophet laid bare. Jeremiah does not announce the coming judgment from a safe distance, with cold satisfaction; he weeps over it without ceasing, day and night. The people are his virgin daughter - tender, beloved, vulnerable - and the disaster falling on them is no light thing but a great breach… a very grievous blow. Then he walks us through the ruin: If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! (v. 18). Out in the countryside, the bodies of the fallen; inside the walls, the wasting of hunger. There is nowhere to turn that is not touched by it, and even the prophet and the priest - the very ones who should have guided the people - wander dazed into a land that they know not. This is what makes Jeremiah the prophet he is. The truth he must speak breaks his own heart to speak it. He shows that loving people and telling them hard truth are not opposites: the most truthful voice in the chapter is also the one most drenched in tears.
Out of the weeping rises a second prayer, and it is even more honest than the first. It begins with raw, almost desperate questions: Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble! (v. 19). The very peace the false prophets had promised is exposed as the lie it was - the people looked for peace, and there was none; they hoped for healing, and got only more trouble. The false comfort has run out, and now they face reality. And facing it, they do the one thing that had been missing: they own their sin without deflection. We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we have sinned against thee (v. 20). There is no blaming circumstance, no appeal to bad luck - a clean confession. Then comes the plea, and it returns to the exact ground of the chapter's first prayer: Do not abhor us, for thy name's sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us (v. 21). Again the appeal is not to merit but to God's name, His glory, and His covenant. Remember, they plead - not our worthiness, but your own promise. It is the cry of people who have finally stopped trusting in lies and have thrown themselves entirely on the faithfulness of God.
The chapter ends on a note of pure faith, and it is the resolution everything has been straining toward. Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things (v. 22). The question is rhetorical and devastating in its simplicity. The vanities of the Gentiles - the idols, the false gods, the things people turn to when the true God seems distant - can any of them send a single drop of rain? Of course not. They are empty, powerless, vanities. Nor can the sky give showers of its own accord. There is only One who sends the rain: art not thou he, O LORD our God? And from that recognition comes the chapter's closing resolve: therefore we will wait upon thee. This is the destination of the whole journey - from the empty pits and covered heads of the opening, through the false promises of peace, to this. Every counterfeit hope has been stripped away, every idol exposed as useless, and the people are left with the one true ground of hope: the LORD their God, the Maker of all things, the only One who can send what they need. To wait upon Him is the posture of faith itself - not passive resignation, but the active, trusting expectancy of those who have learned there is nowhere else to turn and no one else worth turning to. The chapter that began with a name - the hope of Israel - ends with the only fitting response to that name: waiting.2
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Jeremiah 14 with Rashi, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for miqveh Yisrael (v. 8, “the hope of Israel”), for moshia (v. 8, “the saviour”), and for the plea for thy name's sake (vv. 7, 21) that grounds the whole prayer in God's own character rather than the people's merit.
- Jeremiah 14 ↔ 1 Timothy 1 · John 1 · 1 John 1-2Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Jeremiah 14 to the rest of Scripture - the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof (v. 8) read alongside Jesus Christ, which is our hope (1 Tim. 1:1) and the One who dwelt among us (John 1:14), and the plea do it for thy name's sake (v. 7) read beside forgiveness for his name's sake (1 John 2:12).
- Jeremiah 14 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Jeremiah 14 - the imagery of the drought in verses 1-6, the difficult appeal of verses 7-9, the prohibition against intercession (v. 11), and the LORD's verdict on the prophets who promise peace where there is none (vv. 13-16).
Where this echoes in Scripture
The Land Without Rain
- Joel 1:18-20How do the beasts groan!... the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures.The same scene as verses 5-6 - the animals and the land themselves crying out under drought.
- 1 Kings 17:1there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.Drought as a sign from God, the backdrop against which verses 1-6 unfold.
- Romans 8:22the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.The deeper truth behind verses 5-6 - a creation that suffers and groans, waiting to be set right.
- Deuteronomy 28:23-24thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass... the rain of thy land powder and dust.The covenant warning of a sky shut up - the very condition Judah now endures in verses 1-4.
- Psalm 102:1-2Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee... in the day when I call answer me speedily.The cry of a people in trouble going up to God, as the cry of Jerusalem rises in verse 2.
O the Hope of Israel, the Saviour Thereof
- 1 Timothy 1:1Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope.The hope of Israel (v. 8) named in person - Christ Himself called our hope.
- John 1:14And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us... full of grace and truth.The answer to the ache of verse 8 - the hope of Israel who did not remain a stranger but came and dwelt among us.
- Matthew 1:21-23thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins... Emmanuel... God with us.The saviour of verse 8 and the God in the midst of His people of verse 9, named and arrived.
- Jeremiah 17:13O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed.The same title as verse 8 - the LORD Himself confessed as Israel’s only hope.
- 1 John 1:9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.The logic of verse 7 - forgiveness grounded not in our merit but in God’s own faithfulness and name.
The Prophets Who Cry Peace
- Jeremiah 6:14They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.The same false message as verse 13 - peace announced precisely where there is none.
- Ezekiel 13:10they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace.The verdict of verses 14-16 echoed - prophets who deceive with a peace God never spoke.
- John 12:49I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say.The opposite of the false prophets of verse 14 - the true Prophet who speaks only what He is given.
- 2 Timothy 4:3they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.The enduring temptation behind verse 13 - preferring teachers who say what we want to hear.
- John 14:27Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.The true peace over against the false peace of verse 13 - real because it comes from the One who is truth.
Therefore We Will Wait Upon Thee
- Isaiah 40:31they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles.The promise behind the resolve of verse 22 - strength given to those who wait upon the LORD.
- Psalm 130:5-6I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.The posture of verse 22 - the soul that waits on the LORD and hopes in His word.
- Titus 2:13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.The waiting of verse 22 carried forward - the people of God still waiting on the hope and Saviour now named.
- Hosea 6:3he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.The rain the chapter longs for (v. 22) as an image of the LORD’s own coming and the life He brings.
- Lamentations 3:22-23It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed... great is thy faithfulness.The covenant faithfulness pleaded in verse 21 - the mercy that does not abandon the people called by His name.