Bible Strands
Jeremiah 13:24
“I will scatter you like chaff driven by the desert wind.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God speaks through Jeremiah to Judah, pronouncing judgment immediately after declaring their entrenched habit of doing evil. The declaration follows the metaphor of the linen belt and establishes their impending fate.
The words — The Hebrew verb אֲפִיצֵם (aפיצם) means "I will scatter them," paired with כְּקַשׁ (kəqash) for "like chaff." This chaff is described as עוֹבֵר לְרוּחַ מִדְבָּר (oveir le-ruach midbar), "passing before the wind of the wilderness."
The thread — The chaff imagery echoes Psalm 1:4, which contrasts the righteous with the wicked who are like chaff driven by the wind. Leviticus 26:33 also uses scattering as a covenant curse when Israel abandons the land.
Why it lands — The text states that scattering like desert chaff is the measured portion for forgetting God and trusting falsehood. It requires the reader to acknowledge that persistent evil leaves no room for self-correction.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Therefore will I scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.
Cross-references
- Psalms 1:4 Not so the wicked! For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.
- Leviticus 26:33 But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste.
- Ezekiel 5:2 When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.
- Ezekiel 5:12 A third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine within you, a third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and a third I will scatter to every wind and unleash a sword behind them.
- Hosea 13:3 Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes, like chaff blown from a threshing floor, like smoke through an open window.
- Deuteronomy 4:27 Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
- Deuteronomy 28:64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
- Deuteronomy 32:26 I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind,
- Psalms 83:13 Make them like tumbleweed, O my God, like chaff before the wind.
- Isaiah 17:13 The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.