Jeremiah; Let the prophets not pray for Jerusalem (ch14)

“Do not pray for the welfare of this people” (Jeremiah ch14 v11).

The first half of the chapter has already shown the rejection of Jerusalem’s own prayers, so the Lord is not going to accept mediation either. The three usual elements of “emergency repentance” are crying to the Lord, fasting, and making ritual offerings, but v12 re-iterates that all these will be ignored.

Instead the Lord will consume them “by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence”. Those are three-quarters of the four-fold pattern of “fates” presented in various places by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and also Revelation ch6.

This brings us to the fake “prophets” , offering false optimism which has not come from the Lord. They say, as if the Lord was speaking “You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place”. These people are telling lies, worthless divinations (vv13-14). So the Lord says those prophets themselves will be consumed by the sword and famine, and the corpses of the deceived inhabitants of Jerusalem will be cast in the street unburied.

From v17, the Lord resumes his original word to Jerusalem. Here is the “grieving” theme, though again it is not clear whether the prophet or the Lord himself is speaking out his grief for what is happening to the people. “The virgin daughter of my people” is smitten with a great blow. Those slain by the sword can be found in the field, while famine is evident in the city itself. This is happening because the professionals, the prophets and priests, are “plying their trade”, giving their customers all the encouragement they want, without having enough knowledge to give any true testimony from the Lord.

So the people make another direct appeal to the Lord (vv19-22). Has he really rejected Judah? (Yes he has, at least for the moment.) Has his love for Zion turned to loathing? They have been looking for peace and healing (as advised by their own prophets) and found none. Therefore (rather too late) they turn to repentance; they acknowledge their wickedness. They beg the Lord not to spurn them “for thy name’s sake” (the moral blackmail already attempted in v7). Let him remember his covenant with them and not break it (though they have already broken it themselves). None of the false gods of the nations can bring them the rain which they are desperate to receive (they should have been learning this more quickly).

Thou art “He”- that is, the One God. “We set our hope on thee, for thou doest all these things.” That is the right conclusion, a conclusion they should have reached a long time previously.

Ch15 v1;
But because they have been so slow to come to this point, the Lord now says that his heart will not turn towards this people even if greater prophets like Moses and Samuel stood before him to pray.

He tells Jeremiah to send them away. If they ask the prophet where they are to go, he is to reply;
“Those who are for pestilence, to pestilence,
And those who are for the sword, to the sword;
Those who are for famine, to famine,
And those who are for captivity, to captivity.” (v2)
This is a classic example of the “Four Fates” pattern.

Putting it another way, he will find them four kinds of destroyers; men with swords, dogs, birds of the air, and beasts of the field.

All the kingdoms of the earth will be horrified at the spectacle of their fate. And all this is happening because of the conduct of king Manasseh, fulfilling the warning already given in the time of that king; “I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside-down…. Because they have done what is evil in my sight” (2 Kings ch21 vv13-15). In brief, Manasseh had put together a grand coalition of all the idolatrous religions of the kingdom, giving his patronage to all of them, and in particular he was guilty of burning his own child as an offering. I have long been convinced that the religion which demanded the sacrifice of children was the last straw in God’s relations with the kingdom of Judah. He does not hide his anger whenever he speaks of it.

“Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem?” (v5)
The answer is “nobody”.
The Lord is speaking to them directly here. He says “You have rejected me, you keep going backward”. He has got tired of relenting at the last minute, which he has been doing too frequently in the past.

Finally, he sums up what he has done to them, or is about to do (the prophetic tense is often ambiguous).
He has winnowed them with a winnowing fork. A crop-harvesting metaphor.
By killing so many of them, he has bereaved the rest. He has made more widows than there are sands in the sea. He has brought up a “destroyer by noonday” (that is, a plague delivered by the sun), against the mothers of young men, taking the sons away from the widows. So she who was a mother of seven sons (a sacred and blessed number) now finds herself childless. Her sun went down before the day was over. She finds herself shamed and disgraced (which goes with the condition of childlessness). And the sword will deal with the rest of them.

A prose section (vv10-14) has been added into the middle of this chapter, evidently for the sake of the similarity of themes. In this section, vv13-14 belong to the theme of “God’s warnings to Judah”;
“Your wealth and your treasures I will give as spoil”.
“I will make you serve your enemies in a land which you do not know”
“In my anger, a fire is kindled which will burn for ever”.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
“Do not pray for the welfare of this people” (Jeremiah ch14 v11).

The actual verse with according toe the KJV of the his day, the Textus Receptus, is

Jer 14:11 Then said the LORD unto me, Pray not for this people for their good.

a book missing even 6 words and changes the rest is not a Bible that should be trusted.

Use the Monarch of the Text the KJV AV 1611

a reply to: ChesterJohn
In the context, "good" means "welfare".
Your obsession is pointless.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Then why not use in the KJV of his day word which was GOOD?

You see they only synonymous now but were used quite differently i the day of the 1611 and the Original inspiration of this book where the word is good not welfare. You lose so much by not doing a word study on the word GOOD. Up until the KJV 1611 the word was good and always was good. Only in the the last 130 years was the word welfare inserted in a version supposedly to make it clearer to understand that old archaic KJV word GOOD.

When you do the word study please add it to your books it will give you readers an abundance of information. As it is you limit the teaching the way your version limits God's words.