The Language of Genesis 1:14-19

Even conservative scholar John MacArthur acknowledges the language was taken from Genesis 1 and is used in reverse to speak of what happened in northern Israel. But this language does not mean the fabric of spacetime opened up and sucked out the land of the northern kingdom. The sun was still literally shining on the region. There were still humans and there was no reason to believe birds refused to fly over the area or that no plants grew. Jeremiah is simply using this language to metaphorically say the northern kingdom no longer functions properly.