The Book of Jeremiah

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The chapter opens "concerning the dearth", a devastating drought. The picture is vivid and grim. "Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish", the city gates, where life and commerce gathered, sit desolate. The wealthy send their servants to the cisterns, but "they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty," ashamed and heads covered. The "ground is chapt" (cracked) for lack of rain, and even the "plowmen were ashamed," unable to work dead soil. The suffering reaches the animal world: the gentle "hind" (deer) abandons her newborn fawn "because there was no grass," an unnatural act driven by desperation, and the "wild asses" stand gasping on the bare heights, "their eyes did fail" from starvation. It is a portrait of total helplessness. Human wealth and skill are useless; no one can command the rain. The whole creation groans under a heaven of brass. And the effect God intends is already beginning: "the cry of Jerusalem is gone up." Trouble is driving the people to pray.

Gospel Focus

The drought is a picture of what only God can supply. Human beings, for all their wealth and cleverness, "cannot make it rain", they are utterly dependent on heaven for the most basic gift of water. This physical helplessness mirrors a deeper spiritual truth: we cannot produce the living water our souls need. Just as the empty vessels came back from the dry pits "ashamed," so every attempt to satisfy the soul apart from God returns empty. Jeremiah earlier named the two evils, forsaking "the fountain of living waters" and hewing "broken cisterns, that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13); here the cisterns are literally dry. But the God who withholds rain to humble His people is the God who freely gives the water of life: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7:37). Often it takes a "drought", a season of emptiness and failure, to drive us to the only Source who can satisfy. The cry that "is gone up" from a dry and desperate Jerusalem is the beginning of grace. If your vessels have come back empty and your own pits have run dry, let the emptiness turn you to the Fountain that never fails.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Driven by the drought, the people pray, and it is a model of honest appeal. First, confession: "though our iniquities testify against us... our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee." They do not pretend innocence. But then they plead the only ground that can hold when merit fails: "do thou it for thy name's sake." Save us, they say, not because we deserve it, but for the honor of Your own name. Then they address God with a beautiful title: "O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble." They appeal to who He is, the Hope, the Saviour, and ask why He seems so distant, "as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night", a traveler just passing through, uninvolved. Why act "as a mighty man that cannot save," as if He were powerless? And they close with their strongest plea, His presence and His name upon them: "thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not." Whatever else is true, they belong to Him, and they beg Him not to abandon His own.

Gospel Focus

This prayer teaches us how to come to God when we have no merit of our own. Every ground it pleads is grace. "Do thou it for thy name's sake", the surest foundation of prayer is not our goodness but God's glory and covenant faithfulness. When our sins "testify against us," we can still appeal to His name, exactly as David did, "for thy name's sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great" (Psalm 25:11). And the title they use is gloriously fulfilled in Christ: "O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble." Jesus is the Hope of Israel, the Saviour who meets us precisely "in time of trouble," "a very present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1). The plea "leave us not" is answered forever in the gospel, for the risen Christ promises, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5), and "lo, I am with you alway" (Matthew 28:20). God is not "a stranger" or "a wayfaring man" passing through; in Christ He came to dwell in the midst of us, "Immanuel... God with us" (Matthew 1:23), and by His Spirit He abides. When you are in the drought and your sin testifies against you, pray this prayer: for Your name's sake, O Hope of Israel, my Saviour in time of trouble, leave me not.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God responds to the people's prayer, and it is sobering. Their crying out in the drought was not true repentance: "Thus have they loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet." They prayed but never changed course. Therefore "the LORD doth not accept them." He even tells Jeremiah again, "Pray not for this people for their good," and warns that fasting and sacrifices will not avail: "I will not hear their cry... I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence." Jeremiah objects, pointing to the false prophets: "the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword... but I will give you assured peace." The people were being fed lies. God's answer is devastatingly clear: "The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them." Their messages are "a false vision and divination... and the deceit of their heart." And judgment falls on both liar and listener: the false prophets themselves will "be consumed" by the very "sword and famine" they denied, and the people who loved their comforting lies will be "cast out in the streets." The comfortable lie destroys everyone who trusts it.

Gospel Focus

Two warnings press home from this passage. First, prayer without repentance does not move God. The people "cried" in the drought, fasted, and sacrificed, but "loved to wander" and "have not refrained their feet." God is not manipulated by religious activity that leaves the life unchanged; He looks for a turning of the feet, real repentance, "let the wicked forsake his way" (Isaiah 55:7). Second, the deadly danger of false teachers who prophesy "peace" where God has spoken judgment. God's test is clear, "I sent them not... the deceit of their heart", they speak from their own imagination, not His word. And the people are not innocent victims; they loved the lie. Jesus warned, "beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing" (Matthew 7:15), and Paul of teachers who suit "itching ears" (2 Timothy 4:3). The safeguard is to measure every message against God's actual word, "to the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isaiah 8:20). Do not offer God prayers your feet contradict, and do not trust a prophet of "assured peace" when God is calling you to repent. Both the lie and the love of the lie lead to ruin.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Jeremiah is told to pour out his grief: "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." The prophet weeps ceaselessly over a mortally wounded people. Everywhere he looks is horror, "the slain with the sword" in the field, "them that are sick with famine" in the city, even prophet and priest wandering into exile "into a land that they know not." Then the people (or Jeremiah for them) pray again, and this prayer is deeper than the first. They ask the anguished questions of the suffering, "Hast thou utterly rejected Judah?... why hast thou smitten us?", echoing the false prophets' broken promise, "we looked for peace, and there is no good." But they add fuller confession, "We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers," and they plead God's name, His glory, and His covenant: "do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us." And the chapter ends on the one solid ground left: idols are worthless, only God gives rain. "Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain?... art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee." Whatever comes, they will look to Him alone.

Gospel Focus

The chapter ends where faith must always end: waiting on God alone. "Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain?... art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee." The idols cannot help; only the Creator "hast made all these things." That is the logic of true faith, since God alone can do what needs doing, we wait on Him and no other. This is the posture the whole Bible commends: "they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles" (Isaiah 40:31); "wait on the LORD: be of good courage" (Psalm 27:14). Notice too that their appeal rests entirely on grace, "for thy name's sake... break not thy covenant with us." And here the gospel gives what the old covenant could only long for: a covenant God will never break, sealed in the blood of Christ, "the blood of the everlasting covenant" (Hebrews 13:20). The tears of Jeremiah over "the virgin daughter of my people" are again the tears of God, made flesh in Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. When you are in the drought, having confessed your sin and finding every idol useless, do the one thing left and the best thing possible: wait upon the LORD your God, who alone can send the rain, and who has bound Himself to you in an unbreakable covenant.