Jeremiah 14:4

Jer 14:4 Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads.

Ver. 4. Because the ground is chapt.] As our hearts also are and will be, when the heaven doth not hear the earth. {as Hos 2:21} It hath been before observed, that in the use of the ordinances, if we open our shells (our souls), the heaven will drop the fruitful dew of grace to the making of pearls of good works and solid virtue.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14:4-6 Both people and animals were helpless in the drought. • The farmers would cover their heads with coarse burlap to express shame, humiliation, and mourning.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 4. The ground is chapt] The cracks in the earth before the descent of the rains are in some places a cubit wide, and deep enough to receive the greater part of a human body.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Prophet had said, that though the whole common people were sent to the waters, yet none would be found. He now adds the same firing respecting the husbandmen. Ashamed, he says, shall be the husbandmen, for the ground shall be turned into dust, and God will pound it small. When the heavens supply moisture, the earth retains thus its solid character; but in a great heat we see the earth dissolving into dust, as though it was pounded in a mortar.

So he says, On account of the chapt ground, because there is no rain, ashamed shall be the husbandmen, and they shall cover their heads; for sorrow shall not only seize on them, but also fin them with such shame as to make them to shun the light and the sight of men. These things were intended for the same purpose, even to make the Jews to know that they were not by chance deprived of water, but because God had cursed their land, so that it yielded them no water even for the common wants of nature. It follows —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(4) The ground is chapt.—The word is so vivid as describing the long fissures of the soil in a time of drought that one admits with reluctance that no such meaning is found in the Hebrew word, which simply means is struck with terror. The translators apparently followed Luther, who gives lechzet—“languishes for thirst,” “gapes open with exhaustion,” and so applied to the earth, “is cracked or chapt.”

As the “gates” in Jer_14:2 stood for the people of the city, so the “ground” stands here as in visible sympathy with the tillers of the soil, the “plowmen” of the next clause.

They covered their heads.—There is a singular, almost awful, pathos in the iteration of this description. Cities and country alike are plunged into the utter blackness of despair.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. Because of the ground, etc.] rather, according to Du.’s excellent emendation, with a slight change in MT., virtually supported by LXX, The tillers of the ground are dismayed. This enables us to restore (with mg.) to the verb rendered “chapt,” but elsewhere used only of persons, its right sense, thus at the same time re-establishing parallelism of clauses.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Because the ground is chapt,.... Through the violent heat of the sun, and want of rain; or, is broken (y); and crumbles into dust. The Targum is,

"because of sins, the inhabitants of the earth are broken:''

for there was no rain in the earth; this was the reason of the dearth, and of the famine, and why there was no water in the pits, and the ground was parched. It is to be understood of the land of Judea only, not of the whole earth:

the ploughmen were ashamed; because they could not work the earth with their plough; were obliged to sit still, could do no work, or go on with their husbandry; nothing could be done for want of rain: they covered their heads; as before; See Gill on Jer 14:3.

(y) "confracta", Schmidt; "attritam", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Is chapt - Rather, is dismayed. “The ground” is used metaphorically for the people who until the ground.

In the earth - i. e., “in the land.”

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Hebrew word signifieth more largely than chapt, broken, spoiled, turned into dust, as is usual in great droughts. The word also which we translate ploughmen, doth not strictly signify ploughmen, but husbandmen: there having been no rain upon the earth, it brought forth little or no grass for those that employed themselves in breeding or feeding cattle; and it was so hard, and so much wanted moisture, that they could not plough nor sow, but were like men ashamed and confounded, who knew not what to do.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. Chapped — Rather, dismayed, or confounded. The Hebrew, more frequently than western languages, speaks of inanimate things as animate.

The earth — Rather, the land.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The ground is chapt. Perhaps: but it is more obvious to render, is dismayed, according to the usual meaning of the word. Words which properly belong to human beings are often, by a "poetic fallacy," applied to inanimate objects (as in Ver. 2). In the earth; rather, in the land.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

General Information:

Yahweh, through the prophet Jeremiah, has continued to tell the people about the drought.

The plowmen are ashamed and cover their heads

In biblical times, people would wear a headcovering to show that they were ashamed. (See: Symbolic Action)

the doe leaves her young in the fields and abandons them

These two phrase have the same meaning and emphasize that the doe leaves her young deer because she cannot provide for them. A doe is a female deer. AT: "the deer leaves her young in the field" (See: Parallelism)

for there is no grass

This means that there is no grass for the deer to eat. AT: "for there is no grass for them to eat" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

they pant in the wind like jackals

This speaks of the donkeys panting because they are thirsty by saying that they pant like jackals. Jackals are fiece wild dog which pant a lot. AT: "they pant in the wind like thirsty jackals" (See: Simile)

Their eyes fail to work, for there is no vegetation

"They become blind because there is no grass to eat"

translationWords

donkey

works

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

farmers bubirs [?] in O.F.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.