Bible Strands
Jeremiah 14:3
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.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jeremiah speaks to Judah during a prolonged drought, documenting the immediate collapse of civic infrastructure and the shame falling on the nation's leadership.
The words — The Hebrew אַדִּרֵי (addirei) denotes "nobles" or "rulers," while גְּבִים (gevim) literally means "hewn cisterns" or "water reservoirs."
The thread — The motif of covered heads in shame appears in 2 Samuel 15:30, and the plea against those who are "ashamed and humiliated" parallels the language of Psalm 40:14.
Why it lands — The passage requires the reader to acknowledge that institutional authority cannot manufacture sustenance, leaving even the highest officials powerless and publicly disgraced when divine provision ceases.
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
And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.
Cross-references
- 2 Samuel 15:30 But David continued up the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went up. His head was covered, and he was walking barefoot. And all the people with him covered their heads and went up, weeping as they went.
- 2 Kings 18:31 Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,
- Psalms 40:14 May those who seek my life be ashamed and confounded; may those who wish me harm be repelled and humiliated.
- Jeremiah 2:13 “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
- Amos 4:8 People staggered from city to city for water to drink, but they were not satisfied; yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
- 2 Samuel 19:4 But the king covered his face and cried out at the top of his voice, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!”
- 1 Kings 17:7 Some time later, however, the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.
- 1 Kings 18:5 Then Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go throughout the land to every spring and every valley. Perhaps we will find grass to keep the horses and mules alive so that we will not have to destroy any livestock.”
- Esther 6:12 Then Mordecai returned to the king’s gate. But Haman rushed home, with his head covered in grief.
- Job 6:20 They are confounded because they had hoped; their arrival brings disappointment.