Jeremiah 11:14 Therefore pray not you for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them… God here forbids Jeremiah to intercede for the people in their sore trouble. Similar expressions are found in Jeremiah 7:16; Jeremiah 14:11; 15:1. It was evidently meant that the prophet should feel how unavailing all intercession was. I. WE HAVE HERE A VERY PAINFUL EXCEPTION TO A VERY IMPORTANT RULE. The rule is to pray, to pray continually, and to pray with not the least fervency and devotion when our prayers are intercessions. God delights in the dependent and confiding approaches of his people; and intercession must be specially a joy to him because it looks away from individual good, and exemplifies most effectively the loving of one's neighbor as one's self. Moses, Job, Samuel, Daniel, are all found interceding for transgressors. Hence the very forbidding here makes continual remembrance of the needs of others all the more a duty. We have to pray for those who lack the faith or the disposition to pray for themselves. And especially we have to bear in mind him "who ever liveth to make intercession" for the spiritually needy. It is worth noting that, while God here forbids Jeremiah to intercede for the people, he is represented in Romans 11:2-4 as reproving and enlightening Elijah when he interceded against the people. We must give special pains to say for sinners all that we can. And in order to do this, we must be observant and pitiful; for as a general rule we have a quick eye for faults, and become censorious by a kind of second nature. It wonderfully suits the inclinations of fallen man in be an accuser of his brethren. II. WHY THE EXCEPTION IS HERE MADE. There are two considerations here. 1. The petition, as to its literal aim, could not be granted. It was evidently a petition for the delivery of Judah and Jerusalem from the special calamity now so near. That calamity had become necessary. There was no choice for the people but to drink the waters of the full cup now wrung out for them. God, in refusing to hear Jeremiah, had really the same end in view as the prophet himself; but the prophet, in his keen sensitiveness, wished the end to come by some less painful way than through desolated Jerusalem. But God knew that this was the right way - just because it was the way of humiliation and loss, and thus, in refusing the special supplication of the prophet, God was really taking the best way of answering it - paradox though it may seem to say so. 2. Jeremiah's own position had to be considered. We may conclude that it was reckoned one of the distinctions of a prophet that he could act as intercessor. Jeremiah, we know, was asked to pray to God for the people (Jeremiah 37:3; Jeremiah 42:2); and just at the times when the refusal was most emphatic, the appeal for intercession may have been most urgent. Welt, then, was it that Jehovah should, as it were, stop the mouth of his servant in his supplication, so that no one could take up a reproach and say, "If thou weft indeed a prophet, thy petition for us would immediately avail." The honor of Jeremiah as a faithful servant was dear to his Divine Master. This is brought out very clearly by the reference to Moses and Samuel in Jeremiah 15:1. It was no shame to him to fail where Moses and Samuel could not have succeeded. III. OBSERVE WHAT LAY BEYOND THE PRESENT REFUSAL. Though all is so stern and forbidding here, we look further on in the book, and there is brightness again. Jeremiah 29:1-14 is a beautiful contrast to the word we have been considering. Desolation and exile were a cheap price to pay for such a restoration into favor as God there provides. He has shut the gates of mercy for a while; but only for a little while - seventy years, two generations of men! The permanent command, only to be set aside by a special interference, is that which says, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee" (Psalm 122:6). - Y. Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble. |
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