Jeremiah 14

Translator Notes

1. The Hebrew batstsarot (plural of batstsoret) refers to drought or severe lack of rain — the KJV's 'dearth' is archaic. The plural form may indicate either repeated droughts or the comprehensive nature of the disaster. This superscription frames the entire chapter as a prophetic response to an actual agricultural crisis.

Translator Notes

1. The verb avelah ('mourns') is used of both human grief and the land itself mourning — a common prophetic device where the physical landscape participates in covenant judgment. The verb qaderu ('they are dark, they sit in gloom') can mean either literal darkness or the posture of mourning (sitting on the ground in black garments). The cry of Jerusalem 'rising up' uses the verb alah, the same root as olah ('burnt offering') — the city's anguish ascends like smoke.

Translator Notes

1. The word tse'oreihem is debated — it can mean 'their little ones' (KJV) or 'their servants/subordinates.' In context, nobles sending servants for water makes more practical sense. The covering of heads is a gesture of mourning and shame (cf. 2 Samuel 15:30, Esther 6:12). The empty vessels are a powerful concrete image — drought reduces the mighty to helplessness.

Translator Notes

1. The verb chattah ('cracked, shattered') describes soil so dry it fractures — the same root can mean 'terrified' when applied to people, creating a subtle double meaning where the ground itself recoils in fear. The farmers (ikkarim) are the backbone of Judah's economy; their shame represents the collapse of the agricultural order that sustained covenant life in the promised land.

Translator Notes

1. The image of the doe (ayyelet) abandoning her newborn fawn is devastating — maternal instinct, the most powerful force in the animal world, is overridden by the severity of the drought. The absence of deshe ('fresh grass, vegetation') means the mother cannot produce milk. Nature itself breaks under covenant judgment.

Translator Notes

1. The pera'im ('wild donkeys') are the hardiest animals of the wilderness — if they are failing, all life is failing. They stand on shepayim ('bare heights') where wind might carry the scent of water. The word tannim is 'jackals' (not 'dragons' as in the KJV) — jackals pant with open mouths in heat. The dimming eyes indicate approaching death from dehydration. The drought has reached even the untamed creatures that depend on no one.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Jeremiah's intercession begins here and runs through verse 9. He uses first-person plural — identifying with the people's sin rather than standing apart. The appeal 'for the sake of your name' (lema'an shimkha) is a classic Mosaic strategy: God's reputation among the nations is at stake (cf. Exodus 32:12, Numbers 14:13-16). The word meshuvotenu ('our turnings away, backslidings') is from shuv, Jeremiah's key verb.

Translator Notes

1. The title miqveh yisra'el ('Hope of Israel') doubles as a wordplay — miqveh also means 'pool of water, reservoir' (cf. Genesis 1:10), making it poignant in a drought context: Israel's reservoir has gone dry. The accusation that God acts like a ger ('stranger, resident alien') in his own land is theologically shocking — God should be the permanent resident, the landowner, but he behaves like a passing foreigner with no stake in the place. The metaphor of the overnight traveler intensifies the charge: God is merely passing through.

Translator Notes

1. The word nidham ('stunned, dazed, bewildered') accuses God of being paralyzed — unable to act, like a warrior frozen in battle. This is extraordinarily bold language directed at the Almighty. The phrase shimkha alenu niqra ('your name has been called over us') is covenant-possession language — Israel bears God's name as a wife bears her husband's name. To abandon them would be to abandon his own reputation. The verb tannichenu ('abandon us') from the root n-ch-h carries the force of permanent desertion.

Translator Notes

1. God's response to Jeremiah's prayer is blunt refusal. The verb lanu'a ('to wander, to stagger') suggests aimless, uncontrolled movement — the people wander from God not by deliberate choice but by habitual restlessness. The phrase lo chasaku ('they have not restrained') implies willing self-indulgence. The divine response switches from the intimate 'you are in our midst' to the distancing 'this people' — God refuses the closeness Jeremiah invoked.

Translator Notes

1. This is the third and final occurrence of the intercession prohibition (cf. 7:16, 11:14). The word letovah ('for their good, for their welfare') is emphatic — Jeremiah may not even ask for minimal benefit for them. The progressive closure of intercession across these three texts represents the exhaustion of prophetic mediation. The prophet's most essential function — standing between God and the people — has been revoked.

Translator Notes

1. The triad of sword (cherev), famine (ra'av), and plague (dever) is Jeremiah's signature judgment formula, appearing over a dozen times in the book (21:7, 9; 24:10; 27:8, 13; 29:17-18; 32:24, 36; 34:17; 38:2; 42:17, 22; 44:13). These represent the three faces of siege warfare — military violence, starvation, and disease. God declares that neither fasting nor sacrifice will be accepted — the normal means of averting divine wrath have been rendered ineffective by persistent covenant violation.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Jeremiah raises the defense that the people are being misled by other prophets. The exclamation ahahh ('Ah!') expresses anguished protest — Jeremiah is not making excuses but genuinely grieving the deception. The false prophets' promise of shelom emet ('true peace') directly contradicts God's announcement of sword and famine. The phrase 'in this place' (bamaqom hazzeh) refers to Jerusalem and the temple — the false prophets are promising that Jerusalem is inviolable.

Translator Notes

1. God's response to Jeremiah's defense is devastating — the false prophets have no commission. Three denials ('I did not send... command... speak') systematically dismantle every possible claim to authority. The word sheqer ('falsehood, lie') is the key accusation — these are nevi'ei sheqer ('false prophets'), using God's name without his authorization. The term qesem ('divination') is particularly damning because divination was explicitly forbidden in Israel (Deuteronomy 18:10). The word elil ('worthless thing, nothing') dismisses their entire prophetic output as empty.

Translator Notes

1. The punishment fits the crime with bitter irony — the prophets who denied sword and famine will die by sword and famine. The verb yittammu ('they will be consumed, they will come to an end') from the root t-m-m carries finality — total consumption. This is measure-for-measure judgment (middah keneged middah).

Translator Notes

1. The horror escalates: unburied corpses in the streets represent the ultimate disgrace in ancient Near Eastern culture, where proper burial was a sacred obligation. The catalog of victims — wives, sons, daughters — emphasizes that the false prophets' lies destroy entire families. The verb shafakhti ('I will pour out') is the same verb used for pouring out blood — God will pour their wickedness back upon them like blood poured on the ground.

Translator Notes

1. The speaker shifts ambiguously — it could be God or Jeremiah weeping, or both. This deliberate blurring is characteristic of Jeremiah, where the prophet's grief and God's grief merge. The epithet betulat bat-ammi ('virgin daughter of my people') personifies Judah/Jerusalem as a young, vulnerable woman who has been violently assaulted. The word shever ('shattering, breaking') suggests a fracture so severe it cannot be repaired — the same word describes a broken bone or a shattered vessel.

Translator Notes

1. The verse paints a panorama of total devastation — the countryside holds the sword-slain, the city holds the famine-starved. The word tachalu'ei ('those sick with, those wasting from') emphasizes the slow agony of famine death. The final line is puzzling — sacharu el-erets velo yada'u ('they wander to a land they do not know') may mean the prophets and priests practice their trade in ignorance, or it may refer to exile, or to death as a journey to an unknown land. We preserved the ambiguity.

Translator Notes

1. Jeremiah's second intercessory prayer begins here and runs through verse 22. The emphatic infinitive hama'os ma'asta ('have you utterly, completely rejected') presses God on whether the rejection is final. The verb ga'alah ('loathe, abhor') is visceral — it suggests nausea, the reaction to something repulsive. Asking if God's nephesh ('soul, being') loathes Zion is asking whether God's deepest self is revolted by his own people. The contrast between hoped-for shalom and actual be'atah ('terror') echoes 8:15 almost verbatim.

Translator Notes

1. This is a formal confession of sin using three terms: rish'enu ('our wickedness'), avon avotenu ('the iniquity of our ancestors'), and chatanu ('we have sinned'). The inclusion of ancestral iniquity acknowledges that the current generation bears the accumulated weight of generational covenant-breaking. The verb yada'nu ('we know, we acknowledge') implies not just awareness but admission — they are not claiming ignorance.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Three imperatives in rapid succession create urgency: al-tin'ats ('do not despise'), al-tenabbel ('do not dishonor'), al-tafer ('do not break'). The 'throne of your glory' (kisse' kevodekha) refers to the temple in Jerusalem, God's earthly throne — Jeremiah pleads that God not bring disgrace upon his own dwelling place. The climactic appeal is to the covenant itself: berit — the binding agreement God swore. Jeremiah is essentially arguing that God cannot abandon Israel without violating his own oath.

Translator Notes

1. The prayer ends with a theological argument: since the idols (havlei haggoyim, literally 'the vapors/vanities of the nations') cannot produce rain, and even the heavens themselves cannot give rain on their own authority, only the LORD can end the drought. The word havalim ('vapors, breaths, worthless things') is the same word Ecclesiastes uses for 'vanity' — the idols are literally nothing, hot air. The final affirmation 'you have made all these things' asserts God's sovereignty over the created order, including weather — making the drought itself a deliberate divine act rather than cosmic accident.