JEREMIAH
14
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2003 James Melough
14:1. “The word
of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth (drought).”
Though there is no other
specific mention of this drought it seems probable that it occurred in
Jeremiah’s time, and was sent as chastisement for Judah’s wickedness, for in
Lev 26 and Dt 28 drought is listed as one of the punishments that would result
from Israel’s failure to keep their part of the covenant, and the drought sent
in the days of Ahab, see 1 Ki 17, ought to have been a warning that God was
not to be trifled with.
It is to be noted
incidentally that chapters 14 to 39 were written before the Babylonian
captivity began.
14:2. “Judah
mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and
the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.”
The severity of the drought
is indicated here, for its being said that “the gates languish” means that all
normal business activity had ceased; while “black unto the ground” is taken by
most to mean that the people sat on the ground mourning, their wails of
despair being virtually the only sound to be heard in the stricken city.
14:3. “And their
nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and
found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and
confounded, and covered their heads.”
Some translations render
nobles as flock-masters; and pits as wells, water-holes,
pools, storage cisterns, but the exact definition is unimportant: the
picture is of nation-wide deadly drought, while the empty-handed return of the
servants or children “ashamed and confounded” is rendered by Taylor as,
“baffled and desperate.”
14:4. “Because
the ground is chapt (parched and cracked), for there was no rain in the earth,
the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads.”
The hardened and cracked
ground, impossible to plow, left the idled plowmen helpless, frightened, and
in despair.
14:5. “Yea, the
hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass.”
The terrible drought
affected also the wild creatures so that hinds, dying of hunger and thirst,
abandoned their young also to death.
14:6. “And the
wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons
(jackals); their eyes did fail, because there was no grass.”
The wild asses likewise were
dying, standing on the bare hillsides, their mouths open, gasping for air in
an effort to relieve their thirst, their eyes dimming in death.
These graphic cameos present
an appalling scene of desolation and death that ought to instil in every heart
the dread of incurring God’s wrath. But sadly, it failed to touch the
consciences of God’s people then, nor does the reading of it affect them
today. The majority of Christians, in fact, don’t even bother to read this
that has been written for their warning; and the few who do read remain
unmoved, too busy with the things of this world to consider that the record of
the past has been preserved for the warning of all generations.
If these were the physical
results of Judah’s having incurred God’s anger, who can begin to imagine the
eternal torment that awaits every unrepentant sinner in the terrible lake of
fire! A sin-blinded world refuses to recognize that the God Who delivered His
Own Son up to such suffering at Calvary, will deliver up to eternal torment
every man who dies without having trusted that Son as his Savior. The God to
Whom all men must eventually account is not just a God of transcendent love
and grace and mercy: He is also a God of absolute holiness and justice Who
will consign to the eternal torment of the lake of fire every man who refuses
to be cleansed from sin by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior.
Corresponding to the literal
drought that had brought ruin and death to rebellious Judah is the spiritual
drought that is wreaking havoc in Christendom today. Water is a biblical
symbol of Scripture, and as has been discussed already, much of its language
is symbolical and typological, but the enlightenment of an ungrieved and
unquenched Holy Spirit is essential to the understanding of that deeper
spiritual meaning. God would have us see in rebellious Judah dying from lack
of water, a picture of today’s Christendom dying spiritually from lack of the
water of life.
In Judah’s case it wasn’t
that the water didn’t still exist: it was that God refused to make it
available in the form of rain and dew and bubbling springs. And so is it
today: Scripture still has the power to quench the thirst of men’s souls, to
refresh their spirits, and cleanse their sins; but it can do all this only
when there is submission to God’s will; and as Judah’s rebellion cut off the
literal water, so has Christendom’s rebellion cut off the spiritual water.
The Scriptures are still there, but without the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment
they might as well not exist, with the result that an apostate Christendom is
suffering spiritual ills which are the counterparts of the literal misery of
ancient Judah.
Behind the boisterous hollow
laughter, are troubled aching hearts. Families are torn apart by divorce
which dooms children to live in new marriage alliances with new “fathers” and
“mothers” who are such in name only. Drowned by the cacophony of so-called
music, is the weeping of those whose lives have been destroyed by sin. An
ever increasing tidal wave of crime has people living in fear, on the streets,
in their cars, in their homes. Terrorism has them living in the constant
uneasy awareness that at any moment there could be another calamity similar to
that of 9/11. There is a seldom voiced awareness that the world is a powder
keg ready to explode and engulf the globe in war more terrible than anything
ever known.
And added to these social
ills are natural disasters in the form of drought, floods, earthquakes, and
forest fires.
And as the animal kingdom in
the land of Judah became also the hapless victims of man’s sin, so is it in
today’s world. With their natural habitat shrinking annually as a result of
human encroachment, countless wild creatures die of starvation.
Scripturally taught men have
no difficulty seeing in the Judah languishing under the judgment of an angry
God, the microcosm of today’s wicked world tottering on the very brink of the
impending terrible Tribulation judgments.
14:7. “O Lord,
though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name’s sake: for
our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee.”
Writhing in hopeless anguish
under the terrible judgment of the God they had brazenly defied, the people
recognized Him as the Author of their misery, and now, seeking deliverance
from the consequences of the sins they reluctantly confessed, but did not
really repent of, they begged Him “do thou it,” i.e., deliver us.
“... for thy name’s sake.”
Their hypocrisy is unbelievable! They who had by their wickedness caused His
name to be mocked by the nations, now had the brazen effrontery to make the
honor of His name a reason for Him to intervene and save them! What they
couldn’t grasp was that they had crossed the invisible line which separates
His mercy from His wrath. Their fate was sealed. No appeal would induce Him
to spare them.
And so is it with today’s
apostate Christendom. An America which has defied God to His face, which has
banned prayer and His book from her schools, which teaches evolution and
denies Him as Creator, stunned by the calamity of 9/11, had the brazen
hypocritical effrontery to call upon Him, but whereas Judah in the day of her
calamity, at least had confessed her sin though unrepentantly, no such
confession has been heard in America except by the obscure and ignored few who
see this great nation hastening down the same road to ruin as was trodden by
Judah.
14:8. “O the
hope of Israel,
the savior thereof in time of trouble, why shouldst thou be as a stranger in
the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?”
Too late they looked to Him
as their only Hope, as their only Savior, not realizing that their repentance
had come too late. His relationship to them and to the land was better
portrayed by that of a stranger passing through and looking only for a night’s
lodging. They who had had no use for Him in the time of their prosperity were
now to learn that He had no use for them in the time of their calamity. Their
failure to repent in His time had changed His role from that of Savior to
Destroyer; and so will it be with every man or nation which refuses to repent
in His time. The apostasy of Christendom has brought about that change today:
her doom is sealed.
14:9. “Why
shouldest thou be as a man astonished (dumbfounded), as a mighty man that
cannot save? yet thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by
thy name; leave us not.”
Desperately looking for any
appeal that would induce Jehovah to deliver them, they asked why He acted as
though He were unable to save them, hoping thereby to tempt Him into
displaying His mighty power on their behalf. What folly! God can’t be
tempted to do anything. He has no need to vindicate Himself in the eyes of
His creatures. What they failed to understand was that obedience is the only
thing that commands His blessing, but they wouldn’t obey. They continued in
their idolatry, having become to long accustomed to it that they failed to
realize that it was the foremost sin that had provoked His wrath against
them. They didn’t understand that they had exhausted His patience and thereby
sealed their doom.
“... thou art in the midst
of us ... we are called by thy name.”
They clung tenaciously to
the belief that empty form, and mere outward ritual, were all that was
necessary to secure His blessing.
Apostate Christendom makes
the same mistake, and will, like Judah, perish.
“... leave us not.” Had
they not been spiritually blind they would have understood that they had long
ago left Him, and had spurned every plea to return, thus making impossible His
return to them, for it is written that man must first return to God, “Draw
nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you,” Jas 4:8.
14:10. “Thus
saith the Lord unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not
refrained their feet, therefore the Lord doth not accept them; he will now
remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.”
The Lord’s angry charge
against them was that instead of delighting in following Him in the paths of
obedience, they loved to walk in sin, and made no attempt whatsoever to resist
enticement to do evil; with the result that He no longer looked upon them as
being His people.
The assurance God gives to
every believer is, “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more,”
Heb 8:12; but the assurance given unbelieving Judah was the very opposite, “He
will now remember their iniquity, and visit (punish) their sins,” the
punishment being destruction.
Faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ is the only thing that causes God to forget for ever a man’s sins, and
it is to be remembered that the faith of the OT saints was exactly the same as
that of their NT counterparts, the faith of the OT believer looking forward to
Calvary; that of the NT saint looking back to that same place where sin has
been completely atoned for by the death of the sinner’s Substitute. The fact
that God would remember and punish Judah’s sins declares, that with the
exception of the small believing remnant within the apostate mass of the
nation, Judah did not have that saving faith, without which she, and all other
unbelievers, must perish.
14:11. “Thus
saith the Lord unto me, Pray not for this people for their good.”
No intercession was to be
made for the apostates, nor any prayer for their blessing. Sin long reveled
in, and unrepented of in God’s time, had carried them irrevocably beyond hope
of mercy. They had mocked His warning given in the beginning to every man,
“My spirit shall not always strive with man,” Ge 6:3, and now they had become
the heirs of His fierce anger that was about to destroy them.
Apostate unrepentant
Christendom has likewise made herself the object of that same destructive
anger.
14:12. “When
they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and
an oblation (meal offering), I will not accept them: but I will consume them
by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.”
This declares the
worthlessness of the mechanical performance of the outward ritual of religious
forms. All of it was, and still is, an abomination in God’s sight. Instead
of securing blessing as they hoped, it would compound their iniquity, and
increase the measure of their punishment. God would destroy them by war,
famine, and disease; and the Great Tribulation will destroy apostate
Christendom by the same means, as the book of Revelation makes abundantly
clear.
14:13. “Then
said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see
the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in
this place.”
This indicates that the
drought had not yet occurred, since it is clear that the lying prophets had
not yet been discredited.
14:14. “Then the
Lord said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not,
neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you
a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their
heart.”
Today’s false teachers are
the counterparts of the false prophets, and they do the same evil work. Their
lack of knowledge of Scripture renders them ignorant of what God has written,
hence their inability to understand prophecy. Their corrupted minds and
fertile imaginations, however, together with their wish to curry favor by
preaching what the people want to hear, have led them to present a God Who is
too loving to punish anyone; and to present a so-called gospel that has been
expunged of warning, and therefore of any mention of hell. They, as deluded
as the dupes to whom they preach, see no warning in the natural phenomena
which the scripturally taught man sees clearly to be the expression of God’s
anger, and His warnings of coming judgment.
Divination, condemned in
Scripture, is the practice of attempting to foretell the future or acquire
knowledge by means of occult or supernatural means.
14:15.
“Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my
name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in the
land; By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.”
The lying prophets would be
destroyed by the same agents as would destroy their duped hearers, but then it
would be too late; and so is it today. But this raises a legitimate question,
How could the people have distinguished between a genuine prophet and a
counterfeit? Very easily! True prophecy would foretell what was in accord
with Scripture, and by that criterion the people ought to have known that
their sinfulness must inevitably bring God’s judgment, for it is written
clearly in His Word.
The gift of prophecy ceased
with the completion of the canon of Scripture, the prophet’s office having
been replaced with that of the teacher, see 2 Pe 2:1; but the same rule
applies to the means of discriminating between false and genuine teachers. If
the man’s teaching isn’t confirmed by the written Word he is a fraud, and by
that infallible standard many of today’s preachers and teachers are frauds.
But it is today as it was in the days of Jeremiah: the knowledge of the
Scriptures has been lost through neglect. Even amongst genuine believers only
a very few evince any desire to read or hear God’s Word expounded, and the
result is that an untaught Christendom is incapable of distinguishing between
true and false teaching, hence the almost universal disbelief of coming
judgment: either that of the impending Great Tribulation, or of hell and the
lake of fire for every unbeliever.
14:16. “And the
people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem
because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them,
them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their
wickedness upon them.”
Contrary to the euphoric
assurances of the false prophets to the contrary, the terrible reality was
that in a very short time God’s word would be fulfilled. In the siege and
capture of the city the dead bodies would be left lying in the streets with no
one to bury them.
“... for I will pour their
wickedness upon them” means that the judgment their wickedness deserved would
be poured out upon them.
14:17.
“Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them; Let mine eyes run down with
tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my
people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow.”
There is general agreement
that it is Jeremiah’s eyes that would run with unceasing tears as he beheld
the terrible end of the once virgin daughter, who having become a wretched
spiritual harlot, must now be put to death; the “great breach” and the “very
grievous blow” being the destruction of the city and the slaughter, captivity,
and enslavement of the people by the Babylonians.
14:18. “If I go
forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter
into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! yea, both the
prophet and the priest go about into a land that they know not.”
The unburied bodies of the
slain would be strewn throughout the length and breadth of the land, while in
the city the unburied bodies of those who had died of hunger and disease would
lie in the streets, those remaining still alive being too weak with hunger and
disease to bury them. And following the breaching of the city, those still
able to walk, including the lying prophets and priests, would be carried off
into slavery in Babylon.
The latter part of this
verse relative to the activity of the false prophets and evil priests is
understood by some to mean that these would ignore God’s warnings of coming
judgment, and would continue their evil work in the land, not knowing that
they and the land were to be destroyed.
When this is read in
conjunction with what is written in Revelation it is apparent to all but the
spiritually blind that this scene of death and destruction is but a preview of
what will be, not only in Palestine, but world-wide in the coming Great
Tribulation.
14:19. “Hast
thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul loathed Zion? why hast thou smitten
us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good;
and for a time of healing, and behold trouble!”
Long neglect of God’s Word
had so inured the people to sin that they were ignorant of their own
wickedness, hence their unbelief of God’s having rejected, not only the
nation, but also the worship associated with Zion, i.e., the Temple. They
found it impossible to grasp that He had cast them off and was about to
destroy them. And so is it with apostate Christendom. She too has lived so
long in sin that she no longer sees it as sin and an offence to God; nor can
she believe that He is about to destroy her.
14:20. “We
acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we
have sinned against thee.”
It is readily apparent that
their confession was superficial, divorced from repentance, and designed only
to procure removal of the judgment. God, however, deals in reality, nor can
He can be deceived. They had exhausted His patience, and must perish. It was
too late for repentance, as it is also with today’s apostate Christendom: she
too has crossed the spiritual Rubicon.
14:21. “Do not
abhor us, for thy name’s sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory:
remember, break not thy covenant with us.”
They who had so blatantly
dishonored God’s name and throne, and who had wantonly dragged His glory in
the dust, would then have the effrontery to imply that it was He Who had
broken His covenant with them!
The conduct of present day
apostate Christendom certifies that she too will be guilty of the same
temerity when her time of judgment comes.
14:22. “Are
there any among the vanities (idols) of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or
can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O Lord our God? therefore we
will wait upon (obey) thee: for thou has made all these things.”
When the foretold judgment
would come then they would acknowledge, too late, that the idols they had
worshiped were nothings, incapable of causing rain or anything else. Then
would they realize that apart from God’s direction the heavens themselves had
no power to give rain. They would then freely confess that He alone was the
omnipotent Creator of all things, and would promise to obey Him - but sadly,
all of this would come too late. There was no confession or promise that
would turn away His wrath: their long continued blatant rebellion had carried
them for ever from the realm of grace into that of judgment.
So will it yet be with
Christendom, and with every man who refuses to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as
his Savior within God’s time frame.
[Jeremiah 15]