Jeremiah 14

A terrible drought grips Judah, and Jeremiah prays for the people, confessing their sin and pleading with God. God answers that the people’s wandering has gone too far, and He tells Jeremiah to stop interceding. Lying prophets promise peace, but judgment is coming. The chapter ends with the people turning again to the LORD, the only one who gives rain.

Jeremiah 14:1

The chapter opens by saying this is a message from God, not Jeremiah’s own thoughts. The occasion is a drought. A natural disaster becomes the setting in which God speaks to His people about their condition.

BSA: drought (“dearth, time of little or no rain”): The word points to a time when rain has failed and everyone feels the lack.

Jeremiah 14:2

The whole land is in mourning. The city gates, where people met to do business and settle disputes, sit drooping like mourners. A cry rises from Jerusalem. The drought has stopped normal life and the grief is public.

BSA: gates (“city entrances, places of gathering”): The gates were the center of town life, so their languishing shows the whole community failing.

Hebrew: אֻמְלְלוּ (ʾumlĕlû, H535) — “they wither, droop, languish.” This word is used of plants that wilt. The gates are pictured as drooping like dried-up plants, which suits a land without rain.

Jeremiah 14:3

Even the wealthy suffer. The nobles send servants to the cisterns, the storage pits for rainwater, and the jars come back empty. Their money cannot buy relief. Shame and grief drive them to cover their heads.

BSA: cover (“to conceal, hide”): Covering the head was a sign of grief and shame, a way of hiding a face that had nothing left to show.

Hebrew: חָפוּ רֹאשָׁם (ḥāpû rōʾšām, H2645) — “they cover their head.” This is a recognized gesture of mourning and humiliation. The proud leaders are reduced to the posture of people in despair.

Jeremiah 14:4

The farmers, who depend most on rain, look at ground split open by dryness. Their work has come to nothing, and they too cover their heads. The cracked soil is a picture of a people dried out and in need.

See also: Deuteronomy 28:23-24.

Jeremiah 14:5-6

The suffering reaches the wild animals. A doe abandons her newborn fawn, which is against all her instinct. Wild donkeys stand on bare hills, gasping for air like jackals, their eyes failing for want of food. All creation groans under the drought.

BSA: deserts (“abandons, forsakes”): A mother leaving her young shows how severe the lack is, since even the strongest bond gives way.

Hebrew: תַּנִּים (tannîm, H8577) — “jackals.” These are wild scavengers of the wasteland. Their panting for air paints a picture of desperate, open-mouthed thirst.

Jeremiah 14:7

Jeremiah prays on behalf of the people. He does not claim they deserve help. He admits that their sins testify against them and appeals to God’s own name, meaning His character and reputation. Mercy is asked for God’s sake, not ours.

BSA: name (“Your reputation, honor”): The plea rests on who God is and what His honor among the nations requires, not on the people’s merit. rebellions (“faithlessness, backslidings”): The word describes repeatedly turning away from God and going back to old ways.

See also: Daniel 9:18-19.

Jeremiah 14:8

The prayer turns bold. God is Israel’s hope and its rescuer in trouble, so why does He act like a foreigner passing through, or a traveler staying one night? The people feel God is distant and not really at home with them.

BSA: Hope (“expectation, source of confidence”): God Himself is the thing His people lean on and wait for, so His apparent absence feels like the collapse of hope.

Hebrew: מִקְוֵה (miqwēh, H4723) — “hope; also a gathering of water.” The same word can mean a pool of water. In a land without water, the title ‘Hope of Israel’ also suggests the pool that never runs dry.

See also: Jeremiah 17:13.

Jeremiah 14:9

Jeremiah asks why God seems bewildered, like a warrior who cannot save. Then he holds on to what is certain. The LORD is among them, and they carry His name. He asks God not to leave them.

BSA: forsake (“abandon, forsake, leave”): The final cry is simply that God would not walk away from His people.

Jeremiah 14:10

God answers, and it is not what Jeremiah hoped. The people love to wander and will not restrain their feet. Their turning away is not an accident but a habit they enjoy. So the LORD will now call their sins to account.

BSA: wander (“move from one place to another, stray”): The people restlessly drift from God and chase other loyalties, and they take pleasure in it.

See also: Hosea 8:13.

Jeremiah 14:11-12

God tells Jeremiah not to pray for their well-being. Their fasting and sacrifices are only outward acts with no change of heart, so He will not listen. This does not describe how God treats a sincere, repentant heart. It describes a point where the people’s unrepentance had hardened.

BSA: fast (“abstain from food in order to honor me”): Fasting is meant to honor God, but it means nothing when the heart is not turned toward Him.

See also: Jeremiah 7:16; Isaiah 1:15.

Jeremiah 14:13

Jeremiah cries out in distress and points to another problem. Other prophets are telling the people that no sword or famine will come, and promising lasting peace. They offer what the people want to hear.

BSA: peace (“shalom, completeness”): This is the full peace of wholeness and security, which the false prophets promised without any call to repent.

Hebrew: שְׁלוֹם אֱמֶת (šĕlôm ʾĕmet, H7965) — “peace of truth, lasting peace.” The phrase literally speaks of a ’true’ peace. The false prophets promised a peace that sounded firm, but it was not true.

Jeremiah 14:14

God says plainly that these prophets are liars. He did not send them, appoint them, or speak to them. What they offer comes from their own minds. Using God’s name does not make a message His.

BSA: lies (“deception, falsehood”): These words are a deliberate deception that leaves the hearers feeling safe while danger is near.

Hebrew: שֶׁקֶר (šeqer, H8267) — “lie, falsehood.” This is the common Hebrew word for a deceptive claim. It is used again and again of prophets who speak what God has not said.

See also: Jeremiah 23:21.

Jeremiah 14:15

God pronounces judgment on the false prophets. They said no sword or famine would come, and by sword and famine they will die. Their own message will be shown false by what happens to them.

See also: Jeremiah 23:16-17.

Jeremiah 14:16

The people who believed the lies will share the same end. Their bodies will lie in the streets with no one to bury them, and their families will die with them. God says He will pour out their own evil upon them. The disaster is what their choices have earned.

BSA: pour out (“shed, unleash”): The picture is of something stored up, such as a vessel being emptied, now poured out on those who earned it.

Jeremiah 14:17

Jeremiah is told to speak this word, and it is a word of tears. The prophet does not rejoice in the judgment he announces. His eyes run day and night because his people, like a young woman, have been badly broken.

BSA: virgin (“pure, untouched”): The picture is of a people once whole and protected, now cruelly wounded.

See also: Lamentations 2:11.

Jeremiah 14:18

Wherever Jeremiah goes, he sees death. In the country, the bodies of those killed by the sword. In the city, people wasted by hunger. Even prophet and priest, the spiritual leaders, are headed into a land they do not know, which likely means exile.

BSA: ravaged (“sick, diseased”): Famine leaves people not just hungry but weak and sick, wasting away.

Jeremiah 14:19

The people pour out their questions to God. Have You utterly rejected Judah? Do You despise Zion? They hoped for peace and healing and found only terror. They speak honestly, without hiding their pain, and God invites that kind of honesty.

BSA: healing (“a cure, restoration, wholeness”): They long not just for relief but for full restoration of the nation’s health.

Hebrew: מַרְפֵּא (marpēʾ, H4832) — “healing, cure.” The word is used of both physical and national recovery. Here the people say there is no cure in sight, which shows how deep their despair has become.

Jeremiah 14:20

The people confess openly. They acknowledge their own wickedness and the guilt of their fathers, whose pattern they have continued. Confession names the sin honestly, without excuse or blaming others.

BSA: acknowledge (“confess, are conscious of”): Confession means admitting what one knows to be true and no longer denying it.

Jeremiah 14:21

Again the plea rests on God’s name and not on their worth. They ask Him not to disgrace His glorious throne, which stands in Jerusalem, and to remember His covenant. They hold God to His own promise, since a promise is the one thing they can lean on.

BSA: covenant (“promise, agreement”): God bound Himself by an agreement with His people, and the prayer reminds Him of it.

Hebrew: בְּרִית (bĕrît, H1285) — “covenant.” This is a solemn, binding agreement made by God Himself. To ask Him to remember it is to appeal to His faithfulness.

Jeremiah 14:22

The chapter ends in faith. Idols cannot bring rain, and the sky does not produce it on its own. Only the LORD gives it. The drought drives the people back to the one who made everything and who alone can restore them.

BSA: hope (“wait with expectation”): To hope in God here means to wait for Him with confident expectation, even when nothing has changed yet.

See also: Deuteronomy 11:13-17.