(3) Their little ones.--Not their children, but their menial servants. The word is peculiar to Jeremiah, and occurs only here and in Jeremiah 48:4. The vivid picture of the messengers running hither and thither to all wells, and springs, and tanks, reminds us of Ahab's search for wells or springs in the time of the great drought of his reign (1Kings 18:5), of the "two or three cities wandering" to the one city that was yet supplied with water of Amos 4:8.

The pits.--The tanks or reservoirs where, if anywhere, water might be looked for.

Covered their heads.--The extremest sign of a grief too great to utter itself to others, craving to be alone in its wretchedness (2Samuel 15:30; 2Samuel 19:4). The student will recollect it as occurring also in the account of the painting of Agamemnon at the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, ascribed to Timanthes.

Verse 3. - Their nobles - i.e. the upper classes of Judah and Jerusalem - have sent their little ones; rather, their mean ones; i.e. their servants, or perhaps (as Naegelsbach and Payne Smith) simply, "the common people;" it was not a matter concerning the rich alone. To the pits; i.e. to the cisterns. Covered their heads; a sign of the deepest mourning (2 Samuel 15:30; 2 Samuel 19:4; Esther 6:12).

14:1-9 The people were in tears. But it was rather the cry of their trouble, and of their sin, than of their prayer. Let us be thankful for the mercy of water, that we may not be taught to value it by feeling the want of it. See what dependence husbandmen have upon the Divine providence. They cannot plough nor sow in hope, unless God water their furrows. The case even of the wild beasts was very pitiable. The people are not forward to pray, but the prophet prays for them. Sin is humbly confessed. Our sins not only accuse us, but answer against us. Our best pleas in prayer are those fetched from the glory of God's own name. We should dread God's departure, more than the removal of our creature-comforts. He has given Israel his word to hope in. It becomes us in prayer to show ourselves more concerned for God's glory than for our own comfort. And if we now return to the Lord, he will save us to the glory of his grace.And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters,.... 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.