Jeremiah 18:21
◄  Jeremiah 18:21  ►
New International Version (©2011)
So give their children over to famine; hand them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives be made childless and widows; let their men be put to death, their young men slain by the sword in battle.

New Living Translation (©2007)
So let their children starve! Let them die by the sword! Let their wives become childless widows. Let their old men die in a plague, and let their young men be killed in battle!

English Standard Version (©2001)
Therefore deliver up their children to famine; give them over to the power of the sword; let their wives become childless and widowed. May their men meet death by pestilence, their youths be struck down by the sword in battle.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
Therefore, give their children over to famine And deliver them up to the power of the sword; And let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their men also be smitten to death, Their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
Therefore, hand their children over to famine, and pour the sword's power on them. Let their wives become childless and widowed, their husbands slain by deadly disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

International Standard Version (©2012)
Therefore, make their children undergo famine, and deliver them over to death in time of war. May their women be childless widows! May their men be slaughtered! May their young men be slain by the sword in battle!

NET Bible (©2006)
So let their children die of starvation. Let them be cut down by the sword. Let their wives lose their husbands and children. Let the older men die of disease and the younger men die by the sword in battle.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Now, hand their children over to famine. Pour out their [blood] by using your sword. Then their wives will become childless widows. Their husbands will be put to death. Their young men will be struck down in battle.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle.

American King James Version
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle.

American Standard Version
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, and their young men smitten of the sword in battle.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Therefore deliver up their children to famine, and bring them into the hands of the sword: let their wives be bereaved of children and widows: and let their husbands be slain by death: let their young men be stabbed with the sword in battle.

Darby Bible Translation
Therefore give up their children to the famine, and deliver them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of children and be widows; and let their men be swept off by death, their young men be smitten by the sword in battle.

English Revised Version
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, and their young men smitten of the sword in battle.

Webster's Bible Translation
Therefore deliver their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle.

World English Bible
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, [and] their young men struck of the sword in battle.

Young's Literal Translation
Therefore, give up their sons to famine, And cause them to run on the sides of the sword, And their wives are bereaved and widows, And their men are slain by death, Their young men smitten by sword in battle,

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

18:18-23 When the prophet called to repentance, instead of obeying the call, the people devised devices against him. Thus do sinners deal with the great Intercessor, crucifying him afresh, and speaking against him on earth, while his blood is speaking for them in heaven. But the prophet had done his duty to them; and the same will be our rejoicing in a day of evil.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 21. - Pour out their blood by the force, etc.; rather, spill them into the hands of, etc. (see Psalm 63:10); a phrase akin to that in Isaiah 53:12. The sword is personified. Let their men he put to death; another personification, for the Hebrew has "slain of Death" - pestilence is referred to, as Jeremiah 15:2.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore deliver up their children to the famine,.... To be starved, and perish by it, as they were in the siege of Jerusalem, both by the Chaldeans, and the Romans:

and pour out their blood by the force of the sword: or, "upon the hands of the sword" (f); by means of it; that is, the blood of the parents of the children; let the one perish by famine, and the other by the sword; which, when thrust into a man, blood gushes out, and runs upon the sword to the handle of it:

and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; let them have neither husbands nor children; which latter might be a comfort to them, when they had lost their husbands; but being stripped of these also, the affliction and distress must be the greater:

and let their men be put to death; or "slain with death" (g); with the pestilence, as Kimchi rightly interprets it; see Revelation 6:8; Jarchi understands it of the angel of death; see Hebrews 2:14;

let their young men be slain by the sword in battle; such being commonly employed in military service, as being the most proper persons for it.

(f) "super manus gladii", Montanus, Schmidt. (g) "occisi morte", Pagninus, Montanus, "i.e. peste" Schmidt; "occisi mortis", Cocceius.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

21. pour out their blood by the force of the sword—literally, "by the hands of the sword." So Eze 35:5. Maurer with Jerome translates, "deliver them over to the power of the sword." But compare Ps 63:10, Margin; Isa 53:12. In this prayer he does not indulge in personal revenge, as if it were his own cause that was at stake; but he speaks under the dictation of the Spirit, ceasing to intercede, and speaking prophetically, knowing they were doomed to destruction as reprobates; for those not so, he doubtless ceased not to intercede. We are not to draw an example from this, which is a special case.

put to death—or, as in Jer 15:2, "perish by the death plague" [Maurer].

men … young men—Horsley distinguishes the former as married men past middle age; the latter, the flower of unmarried youth.

Jeremiah 18:21 Parallel Commentaries

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The Plot against Jeremiah
…20Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have dig a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before you to speak good for them, and to turn away your wrath from them. 21Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle. 22Let a cry be heard from their houses, when you shall bring a troop suddenly on them: for they have dig a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet.

1 Samuel 15:33 But Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so will your mother be childless among women." And Samuel put Agag to death before the LORD at Gilgal.
Psalm 63:10 They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals.
Psalm 109:9 May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
Isaiah 9:17 Therefore the Lord will take no pleasure in the young men, nor will he pity the fatherless and widows, for everyone is ungodly and wicked, every mouth speaks folly. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.
Isaiah 13:18 Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants, nor will they look with compassion on children.
Jeremiah 9:21 Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses; it has removed the children from the streets and the young men from the public squares.
Jeremiah 11:22 therefore this is what the LORD Almighty says: "I will punish them. Their young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters by famine.
Jeremiah 14:16 And the people they are prophesying to will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and sword. There will be no one to bury them, their wives, their sons and their daughters. I will pour out on them the calamity they deserve.
Jeremiah 15:7 I will winnow them with a winnowing fork at the city gates of the land. I will bring bereavement and destruction on my people, for they have not changed their ways.
Jeremiah 15:8 I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. At midday I will bring a destroyer against the mothers of their young men; suddenly I will bring down on them anguish and terror.
Jeremiah 50:30 Therefore, her young men will fall in the streets; all her soldiers will be silenced in that day," declares the LORD.
Lamentations 1:15 "The Lord has rejected all the warriors in my midst; he has summoned an army against me to crush my young men. In his winepress the Lord has trampled Virgin Daughter Judah.