What Does Jeremiah 11:14 Mean in the King James?
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 analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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.
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.
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 righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts:For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.THE THREAD
Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto 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.
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