The power of prayer

These prohibitions of prayer in response to Jeremiah’s continuing inter- cessions are not simply a statement of God’s firmness or wrath in the face of the people’s recalcitrance. Rather, they testify to the power of prophetic prayer, which appeals to YHWH’s predisposition to show mercy. And they are intertwined with expressions of God’s own grief and pathos over the coming judgment (as in 14:17–18).—Abraham's Silence, 59–60