Jeremiah 17:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not Or rather, as the words דגר לא ילד may be more literally rendered, hatcheth eggs which she did not lay; so he that getteth riches, and not by right That is, not in a due, regular manner, by the blessing of God upon honest endeavours, but by arts of knavery and injustice; shall leave them in the midst of his days Though he may make them his hope, he shall not have joy in them, nor the true and lasting possession of them; but they shall be soon taken from him, or he from them. And at his end shall be a fool That is, he shall evidently appear such. He was indeed a fool all along, and doubtless his conscience often told him so; but at his end his folly will be manifest to all men. Bochart, with a great deal of learning, contends that קרא, here rendered partridge, is not that bird, nor any one known in these parts. Blaney gives it the Hebrew name kore, observing, “that it is a bird which frequents the mountains, and is of no great value, as may be learned from 1 Samuel 26:20. Here it is said to sit upon and hatch the eggs of birds of another species. This want of distinction is common to many sorts of birds; and the partridge is no way remarkable for it. But where it is so done, the young ones, when fledged, are sure to forsake their supposititious dam, and to join with those of their own feather; in which circumstance the point of comparison seems to lie.”