Bible Strands
Jeremiah 14:5
Even the doe in the field deserts her newborn fawn because there is no grass.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jeremiah speaks to Judah during a severe drought, immediately after describing cracked ground and ashamed farmers in Jeremiah 14:4. He uses animal behavior to depict the nation's imminent collapse before God.
The words — The Hebrew אַיֶּ֙לֶת ('ai.Ye.let) translates literally to "a doe," and עָז֑וֹב ('a.Zov) means "it has abandoned." These terms describe a mother animal leaving her young due to starvation.
The thread — The verse's drought imagery parallels the withered grass in Isaiah 15:6 and the panting donkeys in Jeremiah 14:6. The doe motif also appears in Job 39:1, where God questions human knowledge of animal birth.
Why it lands — The text states that maternal instinct yields to starvation when pasture vanishes. It asks the reader to acknowledge that natural safeguards fail under divine judgment.
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
Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass.
Cross-references
- Psalms 29:9 The voice of the LORD twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in His temple all cry, “Glory!”
- Job 39:1 “Do you know when mountain goats give birth? Have you watched the doe bear her fawn?
- Isaiah 15:6 The waters of Nimrim are dried up, and the grass is withered; the vegetation is gone, and the greenery is no more.