What Does Jeremiah 14:6 Mean?
And the wild donkeys stood on the bare heights; they snuffed up the breath like jackals; their eyes ran out, for there was no grass.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass.THE KEY
The wild asses are reduced to drawing in air itself, and even their eyes are spent because no grass remains.
THE MEANING
Deprivation reaches even creatures adapted to the open land: they stand on the heights and pant at the wind, while their eyes give out for lack of grass. Their wildness offers no shelter from a world that no longer feeds them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that strength or self-sufficiency guarantees survival: even the untamed are exhausted when what sustains life is gone.
THE ROOT
שָׁאֲפוּ
sha'afu
GROWS FROM
שׁאף
sha'af
To pant, gasp, draw in, or pant after something.
“snuffed up” in this verse is sha'afu. This verb holds physical panting and straining after something in the same word. Here the asses draw at the air while the ground has nothing to feed them.
ALSO GROWS
sha'af: To pant, gasp, or long for.
שָׁאַף
It names both the body’s effort to draw in air and the intensity of reaching after what is desired.
she'ifah: Inhalation; drawing in.
שְׁאִיפָה
This noun preserves the physical act behind the verse’s image: the animals pull air inward, but it cannot replace food.
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
ruach
Moving air, wind, or breath.
“the breath” in this verse is ruach. Ruach names wind and breath with one word, while the related form revachah names relief or breathing room. The asses can draw in ruach, but the air cannot restore the life the absent grass sustains.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind, breath, or spirit, according to context.
רוּחַ
Here the animals pant for wind, and the same word also carries the sense of breath.
revachah: Relief, respite, or breathing room.
רְוָחָה
This related form brings a sense of room and relief into the sound-shape; the verse shows air without the release from deprivation that real sustenance would bring.
THE PATTERN
When the ground withholds what sustains life, creatures make the deprivation visible through their bodies.
Even the doe bore young in the field and left it, for there was no grass.Even the beasts of the field pant toward you; for the channels of the waters are dried up, and fire has eaten the pastures of the wilderness.For we know that the whole creation groans together and labors together in the pangs of birth until now.THE THREAD
A wild donkey trained to the wilderness, in her craving snuffs up the breath. Who can turn her back? All who seek her will not faint; in her month they will catch her.This uses the same Hebrew roots, שׁאף and רוח, for a wild ass snuffing the wind. There the image emphasizes unrestrained desire; here the same motion appears beside the absence of grass, marking the extremity of need.
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