Jeremiah 14:19

JEREMIAH PLEADS WITH GOD NOT TO BREAK THE COVENANT

"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, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and, behold, dismay! We acknowledge, O Jehovah, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against thee. Do not abhor us, for thy name's sake; do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us. Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O Jehovah our God? therefore we will wait for thee; for thou hast made all these things."

This is one of the saddest appeals in the Bible. Their day of grace almost over, their nation threatened and anticipating an absolute and irrevocable destruction, their false prophets facing exactly the same doom they faced, their acknowledgment, at last, of their consummate wickedness which was a long continuation of the unceasing wickedness of the whole nation for ages past, yet, with all of that, they were desperate, pleading with God not to abhor them, pleading for him not to break the covenant, the very covenant which they had not merely broken, but which they had shattered and rejected.

"The throne of they glory ..." (Jeremiah 14:21) "This is a reference to the temple (2 Kings 19:15; Psalms 99:1)."[23]

Feinberg noted that this prayer for the people was based upon three things: "(1) God's reputation, (2) his temple, and (3) his covenant with Israel"[24]

"Here were a group of people who had gone too far in sin, so far that they have become ignorant of God's character, that God is indeed a God of holiness and righteousness. How could they be such fools?"[25]

"Break not thy covenant with us ..." (Jeremiah 14:21). Despite the fact that they had already broken that covenant, yet they wished God to go ahead and fulfill his part of it.

They ceased to be God's people when they abandoned themselves to idolatry; yet they still wanted God to be their God, to defend, support and bless them. They appeared to be ignorant of the fact that when the conditions of a covenant are broken by one party, the other is no longer bound by it. The covenant is necessarily annulled.

"Are there any among the vanities ..." (Jeremiah 14:22)? This question suggests that of the apostle Peter who asked, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou only hast the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). "The vanities here are the artificial deities,"[26] that is, all of the idol gods.