Jeremiah 4:25
in Jeremiah 4I looked, and no man was left; all the birds of the air had fled.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
KJV
I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
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This verse in Jeremiah 4
Commentary
7 notes on this verseThe birds of the heavens were fled - The land was so desolated that even the fowls of heaven could not find meat, and therefore fled away to another region. How powerfully energetic is this description! See Zep 1:3.
This site's exposition
it was formless and void
on Jeremiah 4:23-26
The vision borrows the Hebrew of the creation account, “formless and void”, the phrase Genesis uses for the earth before the first day. The heavens have no light, the mountains quake, no man is left, the birds have fled and the fruitful land is a desert.
This site's exposition
no man was left
The land is emptied of every man, then of every bird. Clarke reads the birds as having fled a land laid so waste that they found nothing to eat, and sets the verse beside Zephaniah 1:3.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
(Verse 23 and following) I looked at the earth, and behold, it was empty and void; and the heavens, and there was no light in them. I saw the mountains, and behold, they were moving; and all the hills were shaken. I looked, and there was no man, and every bird of the sky had fled. I looked, and behold, Carmel was a desert, and all its cities were destroyed before the Lord's face, and before the fierceness of his anger.
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
): I beheld the cities, the countries that used to be populous, and, lo, there was no man to be seen; all the inhabitants were either killed, or fled, or taken captives, such a ruining depopulating thing is sin: nay, even the birds of the heavens, that used to fly about and sing among the branches, had now fled away, and were no more to be seen or heard.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
And I beheld, and, lo, there was no man,....
"Thou must utterly abandon all sin, and not retain any of the relics of idolatry: Put away thy abominations out of my sight, " that is, out of all places (for every place is under the eye of God), especially out of the temple, the house which he had in a particular manner his eye upon, to see that it was kept clean.
The words behind it
8 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| רָאִ֕יתִי | raiti | I looked | H7200 → | 1300 times |
| וְהִנֵּ֖ה | vehineh | and there! | H2009 → | 843 times |
| אֵ֣ין | ʾein | there not | H369 → | 789 times |
| הָאָדָ֑ם | haadam | [was] <the> humankind | H120 → | 551 times |
| וְכָל־ | vekhol | and every | H3605 → | 5413 times |
| ע֥וֹף | of | <the> bird of | H5775 → | 71 times |
| הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם | hashamayim | the heavens | H8064 → | 421 times |
| נָדָֽדוּ׃ | nadadu | they had fled | H5074 → | 28 times |
רָאִ֕יתִיI looked
raitiH7200 →1300 times
וְהִנֵּ֖הand there!
vehinehH2009 →843 times
אֵ֣יןthere not
ʾeinH369 →789 times
הָאָדָ֑ם[was] <the> humankind
haadamH120 →551 times
וְכָל־and every
vekholH3605 →5413 times
ע֥וֹף<the> bird of
ofH5775 →71 times
הַשָּׁמַ֖יִםthe heavens
hashamayimH8064 →421 times
נָדָֽדוּ׃they had fled
nadaduH5074 →28 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Jeremiah 9:10I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not…
it leads to
- Jeremiah 12:4
How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said,…
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Hosea 4:3
Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Jeremiah 12:4
Through
Hosea 4:3Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.
it leads to
- Zephaniah 1:3
“I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, and the idols with their wicked worshipers. I will cut off mankind…
- Nahum 1:4
He rebukes the sea and dries it up; He makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.
- Isaiah 24:4–12
The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and fades; the exalted of the earth waste away.
- Ezekiel 38:20
The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, every creature that crawls upon the ground, and all mankind on the face of the earth will tremble at…
- Zephaniah 1:3
Through
Jeremiah 12:4How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said,…
it leads to
- Jeremiah 9:10
I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not…
- Psalms 107:34
and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.
- Jeremiah 9:10
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Jeremiah
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Jerome, Commentary on Jeremiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.