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<p>The first verse is the title of the whole chapter: it does indeed all <i>concern the dearth</i>, but much of it consists of the prophet’s prayers concerning it; yet these are not unfitly said to be, <i>The word of the Lord which came to him</i> concerning it, for every acceptable prayer is that which God puts into our hearts; nothing is our word that comes to him but what is first his word that comes from him. In these verses we have,</p>
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<p class="tab-1">I. The language of nature lamenting the calamity. When the heavens were as brass, and distilled no dews, the earth was as iron, and produced no fruits; and then the grief and confusion were universal. 1. The people of the land were all in tears. Destroy their vines and their fig-trees and you cause all their mirth to cease, <a class="bibleref" title="Hos.2.11,Hos.2.12" href="/passage/?search=Hos.2.11,Hos.2.12"><span class="bibleref" title="Hos.2.11">Hos. 2:11</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Hos.2.12">12</span></a>. All their joy fails with the joy of harvest, with that of their corn and wine. <i>Judah mourns</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.14.2" href="/passage/?search=Jer.14.2">Jer. 14:2</a>), not for the sin, but for the trouble—for the withholding of the rain, not for the withdrawing of God’s favour. <i>The gates thereof</i>, all that go in and out at their gates, <i>languish</i>, look pale, and grow feeble, for want of the necessary supports of life and for fear of the further fatal consequences of this judgment. <i>The gates</i>, through which supplies of corn formerly used to be brought into their cities, now look melancholy, when, instead of that, the inhabitants are departing through them to seek for bread in other countries. Even those that sit in the gates languish; <i>they are black unto the ground</i>, they go in black as mourners and sit on the ground, a the poor beggars at the gates are <i>black in the face</i> for want of food, <i>blacker than a coal</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Lam.4.8" href="/passage/?search=Lam.4.8">Lam. 4:8</a>. Famine is represented by a black horse, <a class="bibleref" title="Rev.6.5" href="/passage/?search=Rev.6.5">Rev. 6:5</a>. They fall to the ground through weakness, not being able to go along the streets. <i>The cry of Jerusalem has gone up</i>; that is, of the citizens (for the city is <i>served by the field</i>), or of people from all parts of the country met at Jerusalem to pray for rain; so some. But I fear it was rather the cry of their trouble, and the cry of their prayer. 2. The great men of the land felt from this judgment (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.14.3" href="/passage/?search=Jer.14.3">Jer. 14:3</a>): <i>The nobles sent their little ones to the water</i>, perhaps their own children, having been forced to part with their servants because they had not wherewithal to keep them, and being willing to train up their children, when they were little, to labour, especially in a case of necessity, as this was. We find Ahab and Obadiah, the king and the lord chamberlain of his household, in their own persons, seeking for water in such a time of distress as this was, <a class="bibleref" title="1Kgs.18.5,1Kgs.18.6" href="/passage/?search=1Kgs.18.5,1Kgs.18.6"><span class="bibleref" title="1Kgs.18.5">1 Kgs. 18:5</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="1Kgs.18.6">6</span></a>. Or, rather, <i>their meaner ones</i>, their servants and inferior officers; these they sent to seek for water, which there is no living without; but there was none to be found: They <i>returned with their vessels empty</i>; the springs were dried up when there was no rain to feed them; and then <i>they</i> (their masters that sent them) <i>were ashamed and confounded</i> at the disappointment. They would not be ashamed of their sins, nor confounded at the sense of them, but were unhumbled under the reproofs of the word, thinking their wealth and dignity set them above repentance; but God took a course to make them ashamed of that which they were so proud of, when they found that even on this side hell their nobility would not purchase them a drop of water to cool their tongue. Let our reading the account of this calamity make us thankful for the mercy of water, that we may not by the feeling of the calamity be taught to value it. What is most needful is most plentiful. 3. The husbandmen felt most sensibly and immediately from it (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.14.4" href="/passage/?search=Jer.14.4">Jer. 14:4</a>): <i>The ploughmen were ashamed</i>, for the ground was so parch
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<p class="tab-1">II. Here is the language of grace, lamenting the iniquity, and complaining to God of the calamity. The people are not forward to pray, but the prophet here prays for them, and so excites them to pray for themselves, and puts words into their mouths, which they may make use of, in hopes to speed, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.14.7-Jer.14.9" href="/passage/?search=Jer.14.7-Jer.14.9">Jer. 14:7-9</a>. In this prayer, 1. Sin is humbly confessed. When we come to pray for the preventing or removing of any judgment we must always acknowledge that our <i>iniquities testify against us</i>. Our sins are witnesses against us, and true penitents see them to be such. They testify, for they are plain and evident; we cannot deny the charge. They testify against us, for our conviction, which tends to our present shame and confusion, and our future condemnation. They disprove and overthrow all our pleas for ourselves; and so not only accuse us, but answer against us. If we boast of our own excellencies, and trust to our own righteousness, our iniquities testify against us, and prove us perverse. If we quarrel with God as dealing unjustly or unkindly with us in afflicting us, our iniquities testify against us that we do him wrong; “for <i>our backslidings are many</i> and our revolts are great, whereby <i>we have sinned against thee</i>—too numerous to be concealed, for they are many, too heinous to be excused, for they are against thee.” 2. Mercy is earnestly begged: “<i>Though our iniquities testify against us</i>, and against the granting of the favour which the necessity of our case calls for, yet <i>do thou it</i>.” They do not say particularly what they would have done; but, as becomes penitents and beggars, they refer the matter to God: “Do with us as thou thinkest fit,” <a class="bibleref" title="Judg.10.15" href="/passage/?search=Judg.10.15">Jdg. 10:15</a>. Not, <i>Do thou it</i> in this way or at this time, but “<i>Do thou it for thy name’s sake</i>; do that which will be most for the glory of thy name.” Note, Our best pleas in prayer are those that are fetched from the glory of God’s own name. “Lord, do it, that they mercy may be magnified, thy promise fulfilled, and thy interest in the world kept up; we have nothing to plead in ourselves, but every thing in thee.” There is another petition in this prayer, and it is a very modest one (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.14.9" href="/passage/?search=Jer.14.9">Jer. 14:9</a>): “<i>Leave us not</i>, withdraw not thy favour and presence.” Note, We should dread and deprecate God’s departure from us more than the removal of any or all our creature-comforts. 3. Their relation to God, their interest in him, and their expectations from him grounded thereupon, are most pathetically pleaded with him, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.14.8,Jer.14.9" href="/passage/?search=Jer.14.8,Jer.14.9"><span class="bibleref" title="Jer.14.8">Jer. 14:8</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Jer.14.9">9</span></a>. (1.) They look upon him as one they have reason to think should deliver them when they are in distress, yea, though their iniquities testify against them; for in him mercy has often rejoiced against judgment. The prophet, like Moses of old, is willing to make the best he can of the case of his people, and therefore, though he must own that they have sinned many a great sin (<a class="bibleref" title="Exod.32.31" href="/passage/?search=Exod.32.31">Exod. 32:31</a>), yet he pleads, <i>Thou art the hope of Israel</i>. God has encouraged his people to hope in him; in calling himself so often the <i>God of Israel</i>, the <i>rock of Israel</i>, and the <i>Holy One of Israel</i>, he has made himself the <i>hope of Israel</i>. He has given Israel his word to hope in, and caused them to hope in it; and there are those yet in Israel that make God alone their hope, and expect he will be <i>their Saviour in time of trouble</i>, and they look not for salvation in any other; “Thou hast many a time been such, in the time of their extremity.” Note, Since God is his
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