What Does Jeremiah 14:11 Mean in the King James?
Then said the LORD unto me, Pray not for this people for their good.
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
Hebrew casts prayer as entering another’s case, and this verse draws a hard boundary around that intervention.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you with a severe limit on intercession: this people’s welfare is not to be the object of prayer. The reason is left unstated here, so the force falls on the refusal itself and on the limit it places on what prayer can secure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that sincere prayer guarantees the requested good for every people; here, intercession for their welfare is expressly barred.
THE ROOT
תִּתְפַּלֵּל
titpallel
GROWS FROM
פלל
palal
Interpose, intervene, or adjudicate; in the reflexive form used here, pray or intercede.
“Pray” in this verse is titpallel. The verb is the reflexive form of palal, whose wider range includes intervening in a matter. English can make prayer sound like words alone; this root also carries the sense of stepping into a case, and here that intervention is forbidden for this people’s good.
ALSO GROWS
tefillah: Prayer, supplication
תְּפִלָּה
This prayer noun shares the root, keeping prayer connected to the act of intervening or appealing in a matter.
pelilim: Judges, arbiters
פְּלִילִים
This related word for those who adjudicate shows the root’s connection to entering a case for judgment.
THE PATTERN
Intercession is consequential, yet scripture marks limits to when it may be offered and what it can change.
Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.THE THREAD
For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.The word translated “prayer” is תְּפִלָּה (tefillah), from the same פלל (palal) root as “pray” here. Psalm 109:4 shows this root as a posture of intercession; Jeremiah’s command lands sharply because it stops that act on this people’s behalf.
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