Jeremiah 14:13

14:10-16 The Lord calls the Jews this people, not his people. They had forsaken his service, therefore he would punish them according to their sins. He forbade Jeremiah to plead for them. The false prophets were the most criminal. The Lord pronounces condemnation on them; but as the people loved to have it so, they were not to escape judgments. False teachers encourage men to expect peace and salvation, without repentance, faith, conversion, and holiness of life. But those who believe a lie must not plead if for an excuse. They shall feel what they say they will not fear.

Then said I, Ah, Lord God!.... Being grieved at heart for the people, because he was forbid to pray for them, and because the Lord had resolved on the ruin of them; and the rather he pitied them, because they were deceived by the false prophets, and therefore he tries to excuse them, and lay the blame upon them, as follows: behold, the prophets say unto them; that is, the false prophets, as the Targum; Jeremiah does not call them so, being willing to make the best of it: ye shall not see the sword; the sword of the enemy drawn in your country, or fall by it: neither shall ye have famine; by which it appears, that it was not yet come, only foretold; the contrary to which is here affirmed: but I will give you assured peace in this place; so they spoke as from the Lord, and in his name, with all the confidence imaginable; assuring the people that they should have peace and prosperity, and be in the utmost safety in Jerusalem; and that neither famine nor sword would come to them, nor in the least hurt them. In the Hebrew text it is, "peace of truth" (l); that is, true peace, firm and lasting. The Septuagint render it "peace and truth"; see Isaiah 39:8. (l) "pacem veritatis", Montanus, Schmidt.

Jeremiah 14:13-16 . Ah, Lord God! Behold the prophets, &c. — See note on Jeremiah 4:10 . Thus saith the Lord — And what he saith he will assuredly make good; By the sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed — They shall fall first by those very judgments, with the hopes of an exemption from which they have flattered others. And the people shall be cast out in the streets, &c. — The people contributed to their own delusions, and readily hearkened to such false prophets as confirmed them in their evil ways: God therefore justly threatens to punish them, because they were unwilling to know the truth.

13 . assured peace ] mg. Heb. peace of truth (stability). They may have sought to support their reassuring assertions by reference to such utterances as those of Isaiah 37:33 ff. 13, 14 . For the attitude of the false prophets and their relation to the true see Intr. pp. xxxii. f.; also xxiii. 9 ff.

Verse 13. - "Pleading with Providence, the good prophet lays the blame on ill teaching, but the stern answer (Ver. 14), admitting the plea as true, rejects it as inadequate (Ver. 14), and denounces sorrows which (Vers. 17-22) the prophet passionately deprecates" (Rowland Williams). Ah, Lord God! rather, Alas! O Lord Jehovah (see on Jeremiah 1:6). The prophets say unto them . The greater part of the prophetic order had not kept pace with its more spiritual members (Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc.). They still traded on those natural gifts of divination ( Micah 3:6 ) which were, no doubt, where genuine, of Divine origin, but which, even then, needed to be supplemented and controlled by a special impulse from the Spirit of holiness. Jeremiah, however, declares, on the authority of a revelation, that these prophets did not divine by any God-given faculty, but "the deceit of their own heart" (Ver. 14). The Deuteronomic Torah , discovered after a period of concealment at the outset of Jeremiah's ministry, energetically forbids the practice of the art of divination ( Deuteronomy 18:10 ). Jeremiah 14:13

Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, the {k} prophets say to them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place. (k) He pities the people, and accuses the false prophets who deceived them: but the Lord answered that both the prophets who deceived and the people who permitted themselves to be seduced, will perish, Jer 23:15,27:8,9,29:8.

(13) Ah, Lord God! —Literally, as in Jeremiah 1:6 , Alas, my Lord ( Adonaï ) Jehovah! We have had in Jeremiah 5:31 a glimpse of the evil influence of the great body of the prophetic order; and now the true prophet feels more bitterly than ever the misery of having to contend against it. The colleges or schools of the prophets had rapidly degenerated from their first ideal, and had become (as the Mendicant Orders did in the history of mediæval Christendom) corrupt, ambitious, seekers after popularity. So Micah ( Micah 3:8-11 ), whose words were yet fresh in the memories of men (see Jeremiah 26:18 ), had spoken sharp words of the growing evil. So Ezekiel through one whole chapter (Jeremiah 13) inveighs against the guilt of the prophets, male or female, who followed their own spirit, and had seen no true vision. Ye shall not see . . .—To the eye of Jeremiah the future was clear. The sins of the people must lead to shame, defeat, and exile. Out of that discipline, but only through that, they might return with a better mind to better days. The false prophets took the easier and more popular line of predicting victory and “assured peace” (literally, peace of truth, i.e., true peace) for the people and their city.

The false prophets in Jeremiah's days were so numerous and influential an to counteract and almost nullify the influence of the true prophet. We find in Isaiah the first indications of the internal decay of the prophetic order; and Micah, his contemporary, denounces the false prophets in the strongest terms Micah 3:5 , Micah 3:11 . For the secret of their power see Jeremiah 5:31 .

We have many complaints of this prophet against false prophets that contradicted his prophecies, Jeremiah 4:10 23:9 , and we shall hereafter meet with the names of some of them. Corrupt governments never want prophets to their humour, though a bolder transgression can hardly be imagined, than for men to entitle God to their own imaginations and fancies, and we shall, Jeremiah 14:15 , meet with the usual wages of such works.

The Lord's answer. - Jeremiah 14:10 . "Thus saith Jahveh unto this people: Thus they loved to wander, their feet they kept not back; and Jahveh hath no pleasure in them, now will He remember their iniquities and visit their sins. Jeremiah 14:11 . And Jahveh hath said unto me: Pray not for this people for their good. Jeremiah 14:12 . When they fast, I hear not their cry; and when they bring burnt-offering and meat-offering, I have no pleasure in them; but by sword, and famine, and pestilence will I consume them. Jeremiah 14:13 . Then said I: Ah Lord Jahveh, behold, the prophets say to them, Ye shall see no sword, and famine shall not befall you, but assured peace give I in this place. Jeremiah 14:14 . And Jahveh said unto me: Lies do the prophets prophesy in my name: I have not sent them, nor commanded them, nor spoken to them; lying vision, and divination, and a thing of nought, and deceit of their heart they prophesy to you. Jeremiah 14:15 . Therefore thus saith Jahveh concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, when I have not sent them, who yet say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine shall these prophets perish. Jeremiah 14:16 . And the people to whom they prophesy shall lie cast out upon the streets of Jerusalem, by reason of the famine and of the sword, and none will bury them, them and their wives, their sons and their daughters; and I pour their wickedness upon them. Jeremiah 14:17 .

And thou shalt say to them this word: Let mine eyes run down with tears day and night and let them not cease; for with a great breach is broken the virgin-daughter of my people, with a very grievous blow. Jeremiah 14:18 . If I go forth into the field, behold the slain with the sword; and if I come into the city, behold them that pine with famine; for prophet and priest pass into a land and know it not." To the prophet's prayer the Lord answers in the first place, Jeremiah 14:10, by pointing to the backsliding of the people, for which He is now punishing them. In the "thus they love," etc., lies a backward reference to what precedes. The reference is certainly not to the vain going for water (Jeremiah 14:3), as Chr. B. Mich. and R. Salomo Haccohen thought it was; nor is it to the description of the animals afflicted by thirst, Jeremiah 14:5 and Jeremiah 14:6, in which Ng. finds a description of the passionate, unbridled lust after idolatry, the real and final cause of the ruin that has befallen Israel. Where could be the likeness between the wild ass's panting for breath and the wandering of the Jews? That to which the "thus" refers must be sought for in the body of the prayer to which Jahveh makes answer, as Ros. rightly saw.