Jeremiah 14:3

3 The great ones sent their inferiors to the water: they came to draw, they found no water, they carried back their vessels empty: they were confounded and afflicted, and covered their heads.

Jeremiah 14:3 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 14:3

And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters,
&c.] To places where water used to be; to the pools, the upper and the lower, particularly to the fountain of Shiloah, which, Jerom says, was the only one the city of Jerusalem used. The meaning either is, that the nobles in Jerusalem sent their own children to get water for them, they having no servants to attend them, these being put away because they could not support them, the famine being so sore; or rather that they sent their menial servants, their subjects, as the Targum renders it, to fetch them a little water to refresh themselves with: they came to the pits and found no water;
their servants came according to order to the pools and cisterns, or to the deep wells, and to such places where there used to be a great confluence of water, and plenty of it, but now they could find none: they returned with their vessels empty;
just as they came: they were ashamed and confounded;
either the servants that were sent, or rather their masters that sent them, when they saw them come with their empty vessels; having been looking out and longing for their return, expecting they would have brought water with them for their refreshment; but to their great disappointment and confusion brought none: and covered their heads;
as persons ashamed, or as mourners used to do, being full of anguish and distress because of the drought.

Jeremiah 14:3 In-Context

1 The word of the Lord that came to Jeremias concerning the words of the drought.

2 Judea hath mourned, and the gates thereof are fallen, and are become obscure on the ground, and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up.

3 The great ones sent their inferiors to the water: they came to draw, they found no water, they carried back their vessels empty: they were confounded and afflicted, and covered their heads.

4 For the destruction of the land, because there came no rain upon the earth, the husbandman were confounded, they covered their heads.

5 Yea, the hind also brought forth in the field, and left it, because there was no grass.