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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 14:2 - 14:2
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Description of the distress arising from the drought. - Jer 14:2. Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish, like mourning on the ground, and the cry of Jerusalem goeth up. Jer 14:3. Their nobles send their mean ones for water: they come to the wells, find no water, return with empty pitchers, are ashamed and confounded and cover their head. Jer 14:4. For the ground, which is confounded, because no rain is fallen upon the earth, the husbandmen are ashamed, cover their head. Jer 14:5. Yea, the hind also in the field, she beareth and forsaketh it, because there is no grass. Jer 14:6. And the wild asses stand on the bare-topped heights, gasp for air like the jackals; their eyes fail because there is no herb."
The country and the city, the distinguished and the mean, the field and the husbandmen, are thrown into deep mourning, and the beasts of the field pine away because neither grass nor herb grows. This description gives a touching picture of the distress into which the land and its inhabitants have fallen for lack of rain. Judah is the kingdom or the country with its inhabitants; the gates as used poetically for the cities with the citizens. Not mankind only, but the land itself mourns and pines away, with all the creatures that live on it; cf. Jer 14:4, where the ground is said to be dismayed along with the tillers of it. The gates of the cities are mentioned as being the places where the citizens congregate. אֻמְלַל, fade away, pine, is strengthened by: are black, i.e., mourn, down to the earth; pregnant for: set themselves mourning on the ground. As frequently, Jerusalem is mentioned alongside of Judah as being its capital. Their cry of anguish rises up to heaven. This universal mourning is specialized from Jer 14:3 on. Their nobles, i.e., the distinguished men of Judah and Jerusalem, send their mean ones, i.e., their retainers or servants and maids, for water to the wells (גֵּבִים, pits, 2Ki 3:16, here cisterns). The Chet. צָעֹור, here and in Jer 48:4, is an unusual form for צָעִיר, Keri. Finding no water, they return, their vessels empty, i.e., with empty pitchers, ashamed of their disappointed hope. בּשׁוּ is strengthened by the synonym הָכְלְמוּ. Covering the head is a token of deep grief turned inwards upon itself; cf. 2Sa 15:30; 2Sa 19:5. הָאֲדָמָה is the ground generally. חַתָּה is a relative clause: quae consternata est. "Because no rain," etc., literally as in 1Ki 17:7. - Even the beasts droop and perish. כִּי is intensive: yea, even. The hind brings forth and forsakes, sc. the new-born offspring, because for want of grass she cannot sustain herself and her young. עָזֹוב, infin. abs. set with emphasis for the temp. fin., as Gen 41:43; Exo 8:11, and often; cf. Gesen. §131, 4, a, Ew. §351, c. The hind was regarded by the ancients as tenderly caring for her young, cf. Boch. Hieroz. i. lib. 3, c. 17 (ii. p. 254, ed. Ros.) The wild asses upon the bleak mountain-tops, where these animals choose to dwell, gasp for air, because, by reason of the dreadful drought, it is not possible to get a breath of air even on the hills. Like the תַּנִּים, jackals, cf. Jer 9:10; Jer 10:22, etc. Vulg. has dracones, with the Aram. versions; and Hitz. and Graf are of opinion that the mention of jackals is not here in point, and that, since תַּנִּים does not mean dracones, the word stands here, as in Exo 29:3; Exo 32:2, for תַּנִּין, the monster inhabiting the water, a crocodile or some kind of whale that stretches its head out of the water to draw breath with gaping jaws. On this Näg. has well remarked: he cannot see why the gaping, panting jaws of the jackal should not serve as a figure in such a case as the present. Their eyes fail away - from exhaustion due to want of wear. עֵשֶׂב, bushes and under-shrubs, as distinguished from דֶּשֶׁא, green grass.