Jeremiah 14:17

My Notes

What Does Jeremiah 14:17 Mean?

Jeremiah 14:17 is God telling the prophet to weep — and the instruction reveals something extraordinary about the divine nature. "Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them" — the tears aren't Jeremiah's personal emotion. They're dictated. God tells Jeremiah what to say, and the message is: let my eyes run down with tears. The tears may be God's own grief, channeled through the prophet's eyes.

"Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day" — terdnah eynai dim'ah laylah veyomam. Night and day — without interruption, without the relief of sleep, without a break from the grief. The tears flow continuously. "And let them not cease" — ve'al tidmanah. Don't stop. The grief has no pause button. The weeping is commanded to be perpetual.

"For the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach" — ki shever gadol nishberah betulat bat-ammi. The daughter — bat-ammi, daughter of my people — is called betulah, virgin. The word carries connotations of purity, youth, and vulnerability. She should have been protected. She should have been treasured. Instead: nishberah, she's been broken. Shever gadol — a great shattering, a catastrophic fracture. "With a very grievous blow" — makkah nachалah — a wound that is incurable, terminal, beyond treatment.

The God who pronounces judgment on Israel in one verse weeps over Israel in the next. The fury and the tears exist in the same God, in the same breath, directed at the same people. The judgment is deserved. The grief is genuine. And both are real.

Reflection Questions

• 1.How does knowing God weeps over the judgment He pronounces change your image of Him?
• 2.Have you experienced the 'great breach' — a shattering that felt incurable? Did you sense God's grief in it?
• 3.What does it mean that fury and tears exist in the same God at the same time?
• 4.Where is God weeping right now — over something broken in your life that His grief signals He hasn't abandoned?

Devotional

God tells Jeremiah to cry. And the tears don't stop.

Night and day. Without ceasing. The grief flows continuously — not as a brief episode of sadness but as a permanent state. And the source isn't Jeremiah's personal emotion, though he certainly felt it. The tears are dictated — God telling the prophet to express what God Himself feels. The weeping is divine grief channeled through human eyes.

The virgin daughter of my people is broken. Virgin — young, pure, vulnerable. She should have been protected. Daughter — she belongs to someone. She's not an orphan. She has a father. And the father is the one weeping because the daughter he should have shielded is shattered. Not scraped. Not bruised. Broken — shever gadol, a great fracture. A wound so severe it's called incurable.

The same God who pronounces judgment weeps over the people He's judging. That's the tension Jeremiah lives inside — the impossible emotional space where fury and grief occupy the same heart. God isn't coldly executing a sentence. He's crying while He does it. The punishment is deserved and the pain is real — on both sides. Israel is broken by judgment. God is broken by the necessity of it.

If you've been on the receiving end of consequences — if something in your life has been shattered by the weight of choices you can't undo — this verse says God isn't standing over the wreckage with arms crossed. He's weeping. Night and day. Without ceasing. The hands that broke are the hands that grieve. And the tears are the first evidence that the breaking isn't the end of the story.

Commentary

Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.

Cross References

Related passages throughout Scripture