14:3 The leading men of the cities send their servants for water.
They go to the cisterns, 3 but they do not find any water there.
They return with their containers 4 empty.
Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands. 5
4:7 “I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. 6
I gave rain to one city, but not to another.
One field 7 would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.
4:8 People from 8 two or three cities staggered into one city to get 9 water,
but remained thirsty. 10
Still you did not come back to me.”
The Lord is speaking!
1 tn Heb “grass.”
2 tn Heb “to cut off.”
3 tn Though the concept of “cisterns” is probably not familiar to some readers, it would be a mistake to translate this word as “well.” Wells have continual sources of water. Cisterns were pits dug in the ground and lined with plaster to hold rain water. The drought had exhausted all the water in the cisterns.
4 tn The word “containers” is a generic word in Hebrew = “vessels.” It would probably in this case involve water “jars” or “jugs.” But since in contemporary English one would normally associate those terms with smaller vessels, “containers” may be safer.
5 tn Heb “they cover their heads.” Some of the English versions have gone wrong here because of the “normal” use of the words translated here “disappointed” and “dismayed.” They are regularly translated “ashamed” and “disgraced, humiliated, dismayed” elsewhere (see e.g., Jer 22:22); they are somewhat synonymous terms which are often parallel or combined. The key here, however, is the expression “they cover their heads” which is used in 2 Sam 15:30 for the expression of grief. Moreover, the word translated here “disappointed” (בּוֹשׁ, bosh) is used that way several times. See for example Jer 12:13 and consult examples in BDB 101 s.v. בּוֹשׁ Qal.2. A very similar context with the same figure is found in Jer 2:36-37.
6 sn Rain…three months before the harvest refers to the rains of late March-early April.
7 tn Heb “portion”; KJV, ASV “piece”; NASB “part.” The same word occurs a second time later in this verse.
8 tn The words “people from” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
9 tn Heb “to drink.”
10 tn Or “were not satisfied.”