What Does Jeremiah 11:14 Mean?
And you, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a ringing cry or a prayer for them, for I will not hear and respond in the time they call out to me, because of their harm.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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.THE KEY
The Hebrew word behind “trouble” also names evil, binding the people’s distress to the wrongdoing connected with it.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts the reader with a severe rupture: a people cries to God when distress arrives, while intercession is stopped. Their cry does not compel a response, and the verse keeps the evil connected to their trouble in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a desperate cry for relief automatically compels an answer, regardless of the rupture that precedes it.
THE ROOT
רָעָתָם
raʿatām
GROWS FROM
רעע
To be bad or evil; to do harm.
“harm” in this verse is raʿatām. The word here belongs to a Hebrew family that can name both evil and calamity. “Trouble” keeps the pain in view, while the Hebrew also connects that distress with the wrongdoing named in the verse.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad, evil
רַע
This branch keeps the people’s distress connected to the evil associated with it.
raʿāh: Evil, calamity, adversity
רָעָה
The same word family can name harm as something done and as something suffered.
שֹׁמֵעַ
shōmēaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear, listen, and heed.
“hear and respond” in this verse is shōmēaʿ. Hebrew shamaʿ can carry the sense of listening with heed. “I will not hear” therefore names withheld response, not a failure to detect sound.
ALSO GROWS
shāmaʿ: Hear, listen, heed
שָׁמַע
The verb’s range holds hearing and response together in the verse.
shemuʿāh: Report, tidings; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch shows the same root at work in what reaches a listener as heard news.
THE PATTERN
Scripture portrays divine hearing as responsive reception, which may be refused or given rather than automatically produced by a cry.
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.And it happened, just as he called out and they would not hear and respond, so they called out and I would not hear and respond, says the LORD of hosts.For the eyes of the LORD are upon the aligned, and his ears are open to their pleading; but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil.THE THREAD
Therefore thus says the LORD, Behold, I am bringing harm upon them, from which they cannot go out. And they will cry out to me, but I will not hear and respond to them.This verse holds both root connections together: “evil” belongs to the same רָעָה word family as “trouble,” and “hearken” shares the שמע root with “hear.” The connection makes the distress and the refusal to respond part of the same statement.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us