Jeremiah 14:10 - Meaning and Application

God’s dispute with his prophet in this chapter is like the one between a vineyard owner and the man who tended the vineyard about a barren fig tree (Luke 13:7). The owner’s justice calls for it to be cut down, while the gardener pleads for a little more time. Jeremiah had been pleading with God in prayer to show mercy to the people. Now God answers him and shows that the plea cannot stand.

God says concerning this people, not “my people,” because they had broken covenant with him. They still bore his name and had once enjoyed signs of his presence, but their sin had driven him away. Jeremiah had admitted their guilt and had hoped mercy might still come through prayer and sacrifice. God now tells him that they were not fit for pardon, because their backslidings were many and they had no real desire to turn back. They had wandered, and they loved to wander, so their ruin would come from their own choice. Their sin was not just weakness or carelessness, it was something they enjoyed. Sinners do wander from God, and that wandering forfeits his favor. But loving to wander, instead of grieving over it, shuts them out entirely.

God had warned them what would come of this path, that one sin would lead to another and end in destruction. Yet they had not listened, even after prophets spoke and judgments fell. They had not so much as paused in their sinful course. This was what God was now calling them to account for. When he withheld rain from heaven, he was remembering their sin and dealing with them for it. Their fruitful land was becoming barren because of their iniquity.

They also had no right to expect that the God they had rejected would still accept them, even if they fasted and prayed or spent money on burnt offerings and sacrifices. The Lord did not accept them. He took no pleasure in them, because the holy God cannot delight in those who delight in his rivals, preferring anything else to him. Fasting should have shown repentance and a changed life. Burnt offerings and grain offerings were meant to show faith in a mediator, one who stands between God and people. But if their hearts were still proud and unchanged, God would not hear their cry, no matter how loud it was, and he would not accept either them or their worship. Long before, it had been declared that the sacrifice of the wicked is hateful to the Lord, and only those who do what is right are accepted (Genesis 4:7).

They had also lost the benefit of Jeremiah’s prayers because they had refused to listen to his preaching. That is why God repeats the command, “Do not pray for this people for their good” (Jeremiah 7:15; Jeremiah 11:14). This did not forbid Jeremiah from still caring for them, just as Moses kept pleading for Israel after God said, “Leave me alone” (Exodus 32:10). But it did mean they must not expect any good result from his prayers while they kept turning away from God’s law. In this way the sentence on the unrepentant was confirmed, just as Saul’s rejection was confirmed when Samuel was told, “How long will you mourn for Saul?” God says he will consume them, not only by famine, but also by sword and disease, because he has many arrows in his quiver. Those who will not be corrected by one judgment will be destroyed by another.

Jeremiah then offers another reason for the people’s stubbornness, though it is only an excuse. He says false prophets had misled them, promising peace while the people kept living in sin (Jeremiah 14:13). He speaks sadly: “Ah, Lord God, the people seem ready to listen to anyone who speaks in your name. There are men who tell them, in your name, that they will not see sword or famine. They speak with the confidence of prophets, and the people believe them. I tell them otherwise, but I stand against many. Since people are so ready to believe what favors them, Lord, pity them and spare them, because their leaders have caused them to go wrong.” This excuse would matter more if they had not already been warned about false prophets and taught how to recognize them. So if they were deceived, the blame was still their own. Even so, we should, as far as truth allows, make the best judgment we can and speak as kindly as the case permits.

God not only rejects this excuse, he also condemns both the deceivers and the deceived to fall together. First, he disowns the flattering prophets. They prophesy lies in his name. He did not send them, command them, or speak to them. He never gave them any message at all, much less this one that lulled people into false security. They were not sent by God, and God does not flatter people. Men may flatter themselves, and Satan may flatter them, but God never does. What is false is empty and worthless. A vision that is not true, even if it is pleasant, is good for nothing. It is only the deceit of their own hearts, like a spider’s web spun from themselves. They imagine it will shelter them, but it will vanish in a moment and prove a cruel fraud. Those who set their own thoughts against God’s word, saying in effect, “God says this, but I think otherwise,” are walking in self-deception, and it will ruin them.

Then God pronounces judgment on the flattering prophets themselves. Since they told the people they would have peace, and even used God’s name to do it, they will have no peace themselves.

They will fall first under the very judgments they had promised others would never come. These prophets had assured the people that sword and famine would not enter the land, but it will soon be clear how little their word is worth when they themselves are cut off by sword and famine. How could they protect others or speak peace to them when they could not protect themselves, or even see their own trouble coming in time to escape it?

The lesson is plain: the worst punishment waits for those who tell sinners they can go on in evil without consequence. The people who listened to these lies, and were willing to be deceived, will also die by sword and famine (Jeremiah 14:16). Even when people refuse to believe God’s warnings, and false teachers deny them, God’s threats still stand. Sword and famine will come just as surely as he said, and those who feel safest are often the least safe. Ungodly people will not escape hell by saying they do not believe it exists. They will feel what they refused to fear.

This people will not only fall by sword and famine, but will be left as public examples of God’s justice, as if they were hung up in chains. Their bodies will be left in the streets of Jerusalem, a place that should have been kept clean from such misery. They will lie there unburied. Their closest relatives, who should have done that final act of love, will be unable to do it, because they are too poor, too weak from hunger, too crushed by grief, or too lacking in natural affection to show honor.

In this way God will pour their own wickedness back on them, meaning the punishment their wickedness deserves. The full cups of God’s anger will be poured out on them, because they have made themselves liable to it. When sinners are overwhelmed with trouble, they should see in it their own wickedness being brought back upon them. This applies to both the false prophets and the people. The blind lead the blind, and both fall into the ditch together, where they will have no comfort from each other.