In his own prayer to the Lord, Jeremiah has expressed the impact that Judah’s unfaithfulness has on the land (Jeremiah 12:4). The same impact is seen here as the Lord speaks of his judgment on his people. The nation will not experience the covenant blessing of the land yielding a harvest for them. Because of the invasion they will harvest thorns, either literally because they were unable to tend to their crops which were strangled by weeds or figuratively because the invaders took their crops for themselves. This failure to harvest a crop is consistently seen in the Old Testament as part of the Lord’s judgment (Leviticus 26:16; Deuteronomy 28:38; Hosea 8:7; Micah 6:15).1 The lack of harvest will bring shame to the people because it will reveal the Lord’s anger against them and possibly because it exposes their foolish trust in pagan gods to guarantee their crops.
13 They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns; they have tired themselves out but profit nothing. They shall be ashamed of their harvests because of the fierce anger of the LORD.”