Jeremiah 14:4
in Jeremiah 14The ground is cracked because no rain has fallen on the land. The farmers are ashamed; they cover their heads.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Because of the ground which is cracked, for that no rain hath been in the land, the plowmen are put to shame, they cover their heads.
KJV
Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads.
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This verse in Jeremiah 14
Commentary
10 notes on this verseBecause 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.
This site's exposition
came to Jeremiah concerning the drought
on Jeremiah 14:1-6
The drought reaches every rank of creature, from nobles whose servants find the cisterns empty to farmers who “cover their heads” over cracked ground. Even “the doe in the field deserts her newborn fawn”. The spread from noble to farmer to beast shows a judgment on Judah as a whole.
This site's exposition
The ground is cracked because no rain
Adam Clarke reports that the cracks in such ground can run a cubit wide before rain falls on the land. Matthew Henry pictures the farmers idle, the ground too hard to plow. Like the nobles, they cover their heads in shame.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
(Verse 4) Because of the desolation of the land (or the works of the land, for they failed), because there was no rain upon the land: the farmers were confused, they covered their heads. Because of the desolation of the land, or rather, because the works of the land have failed, through which we come to know God. And the reason is clear: because, he says, rain has not come upon the earth. For it was commanded to the clouds not to rain down rain upon it. (Isai. V).
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
): The ploughmen were ashamed, for the ground was so parched and hard that it would not admit the plough even when it was so chapt and cleft that it seemed as if it did not need the plough. They were ashamed to be idle, for there was nothing to be done, and therefore nothing to be expected.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
3 ) and has her keeping for her labour, when the wild ass, that scorns the crying of the driver, is forced to live upon air, and is well enough served for not serving. He that will not labour, let him not eat. Here is the language of grace, lamenting the iniquity, and complaining to God of the calamity.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-citation-number+unbalanced-parens
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
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.
IT is my heart's desire and earnest prayer that many in this house may this morning say with the Prophet, "O Lord our God, we will wait upon You." I shall not be satisfied to have delivered a discourse, nor for you to have heard it, and even approved of it, unless there shall come from it this delightful fruit, that those far off from God shall be drawn near to Him. And that they shall say, in very deed and of a truth, "Therefore we will wait upon You." In God alone can men live happily. And if they would be recovered from their fallen state, it is to the Lord their God that they must turn, Oh, that they would wait upon Him! In the last verse we have the word "therefore," which shows that the speakers had come to this conclusion by an argument. In truth, they had been forced to their resolution by a very painful and personal argument, which God had set before them in the order of His Providence. By their thirst and by their failure to find water anywhere, the Lord had driven them to say, "Therefore we will wait upon You." I trust it will not be needful to urge us to conversion by sufferings as terrible. "Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding." Come willingly, since the argument for coming is clear and cogent. I should like you to go this morning mentally through the process by which the Israelites passed practically when they came to the gracious conclusion, "Therefore we will wait upon You." Let us begin at once with the argument, praying God to send it home to every heart by His good Spirit, that we may reach the desired conclusion. I. First, consider that MAN IS A VERY DEPENDENT CREATURE. He is, in some respects, the most dependent creature that God has made. For the range of his wants is very wide, and at a thousand points he is dependent upon something outside of himself. All creation exists by the will of the Lord.
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
IT is my heart's desire and earnest prayer that many in this house may this morning say with the Prophet, "O Lord our God, we will wait upon You." I shall not be satisfied to have delivered a discourse, nor for you to have heard it, and even approved of it, unless there shall come from it this delightful fruit, that those far off from God shall be drawn near to Him. And that they shall say, in very deed and of a truth, "Therefore we will wait upon You." In God alone can men live happily.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
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.”
The words behind it
12 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| בַּעֲב֤וּר | baavur | forsake of | H5668 → | |
| הָאֲדָמָה֙ | haadamah | the ground | H127 → | 225 times |
| חַ֔תָּה | chatah | [which] it is cracked | H2865 → | 52 times |
| כִּ֛י | ki | for | H3588 → | 4482 times |
| לֹא־ | lo'- | not | H3808 → | 5168 times |
| הָיָ֥ה | hayah | it has come | H1961 → | 3559 times |
| גֶ֖שֶׁם | geshem | rain | H1653 → | |
| בָּאָ֑רֶץ | baaretz | in the land | H776 → | 2504 times |
| בֹּ֥שׁוּ | boshu | they are ashamed | H954 → | 127 times |
| אִכָּרִ֖ים | ʾikarim | farmers | H406 → | 7 times |
| חָפ֥וּ | chafu | they have covered | H2645 → | |
| רֹאשָֽׁם׃ | rosham | head their | H7218 → | 599 times |
בַּעֲב֤וּרforsake of
baavurH5668 →
הָאֲדָמָה֙the ground
haadamahH127 →225 times
חַ֔תָּה[which] it is cracked
chatahH2865 →52 times
כִּ֛יfor
kiH3588 →4482 times
לֹא־not
lo'-H3808 →5168 times
הָיָ֥הit has come
hayahH1961 →3559 times
גֶ֖שֶׁםrain
geshemH1653 →
בָּאָ֑רֶץin the land
baaretzH776 →2504 times
בֹּ֥שׁוּthey are ashamed
boshuH954 →127 times
אִכָּרִ֖יםfarmers
ʾikarimH406 →7 times
חָפ֥וּthey have covered
chafuH2645 →
רֹאשָֽׁם׃head their
roshamH7218 →599 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 3:3Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to be ashamed.
it leads to
- Leviticus 26:19
I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze,
- Jeremiah 5:24
They have not said in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.’
- Amos 4:7
“I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another. One field received rain; another without rain withered.
- Deuteronomy 28:23
The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.
- Jeremiah 14:22
Can the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies alone send showers? Is this not by You, O LORD our God? So we put our hope in You, for You have…
- Leviticus 26:19
Through
Joel 1:11Be dismayed, O farmers, wail, O vinedressers, over the wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.
it leads to
- Jeremiah 14:3–4
The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns, but find no water; their jars return empty. They are ashamed and humiliated; they cover their heads.
- Jeremiah 14:3–4
Through
Deuteronomy 29:23All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the…
it leads to
- Zephaniah 2:9
Therefore, as surely as I live,” declares the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, “surely Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah—a place of weeds and salt pits, a perpetual…
- Jeremiah 17:6
He will be like a shrub in the desert; he will not see when prosperity comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.
- Zephaniah 2:9
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Jeremiah
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2115: “The Drought of Nature, the Rain of Grace and the Lesson Therefrom” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Jerome, Commentary on Jeremiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.