Jeremiah 11:14

Lexham English Bible

Contextual Overview

¹¹ Therefore thus says Yahweh, "I am about to bring on them disaster from which they will not be able to escape. Though they cry out to me, yet I will not listen to them. ¹² Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they are making smoke offerings, but they will certainly not save them in the time of their trouble. ¹³ For the number of your towns are your gods, O Judah, and the number of the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to the shameful things, to make smoke offerings to Baal. ¹⁴ Therefore you must not pray for this people, and you must not lift up for them a cry of entreaty, or a prayer, for I will not listen in the time of their calling to me, in the time of their trouble. ¹⁵ What rights has my beloved in my house when she has done many wicked things? Can the flesh of holiness pass over you? For you engage in your wickedness, then you exult. ¹⁶ Yahweh called your name, ‘A leafy olive tree, beautiful with fine fruit.' With the sound of a great storm he will set fire to it, and its branches will be good for nothing. ¹⁷ And Yahweh of hosts, the one who planted you, has spoken evil against you, because of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, that they have done to themselves, to provoke me to anger by making smoke offerings to Baal."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

pray: Jeremiah 7:16, Jeremiah 14:11, Jeremiah 15:1, Exodus 32:10, Proverbs 26:24, Proverbs 26:25, 1 John 5:16

for: Jeremiah 11:11, Psalms 66:18, Hosea 5:6

trouble: Heb. evil, Jeremiah 11:11

Reciprocal: 1 Samuel 16:1 - How long Jeremiah 18:20 - Remember Ezekiel 14:14 - Job Ezekiel 20:4 - judge them Ezekiel 23:36 - judge James 4:3 - and

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Therefore pray not thou for this people,.... If for a remnant among them, yet not for the body of the people; and if for their spiritual and eternal good, yet not for their temporal salvation; their temporal ruin was certain; the decree was gone forth, and there was no revoking it; and this is said, not so much by way of prohibition of the prophet, as by way of threatening to the people, to show that as their own prayers should not profit them, so they should not have the benefit of the prayers of good men, their sin was a sin unto death, at least temporal death, and must not be prayed for, 1 John 5:16:

neither lift up a cry or prayer for them; more words are used, to show the divine resolution, how inexorable he was, and how desperate was their condition, and their ruin sure; these words are repeated from Jeremiah 7:16:

for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble; for, as he would not hear their prayers when they should cry to him to be delivered from their trouble, it cannot be thought that he should hear the prayers of others for them, The Targum understands this of the prayers of the prophet for them, paraphrasing the words thus,

"for there is no acceptance before me (or it is not pleasing to me) when thou shall pray for them before me, in the time of their evil;''

neither their prayers, nor the prophet's for them, would be acceptable to God, or of any avail, he being determined to bring evil upon them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A parenthesis. As in Jeremiah 7:16, all intercession is forbidden, and for this reason. Prayer for others for the forgiveness of their sins avails only when they also pray. The cry of the people now was that of the guilty smarting under punishment, not of the penitent mourning over sin.

Jeremiah 11:15

This passage, like Isaiah 1:12, rebukes the inconsistency of Judah’s public worship of Yahweh with their private immorality and preference for idolatry. Translate it: “What hath My beloved in My house to practice guile there? The great men and the holy flesh (i. e., the sacrifices) shall pass away from thee.”

Jeremiah 11:16

The “goodly” or “shapely fruit,” signifies the righteousness and faith which ought to have been the result of Israel’s possession of extraordinary privileges. The tree did not bear this fruit, and God now destroys it by a thunderstorm.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 11:14. Therefore pray not thou for this people — I am determined to give them up into the hands of their enemies; I will neither hear thy intercession, nor regard their prayers. Their measure is full.