Jeremiah 18:21

Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — Jeremiah addresses God in a prayer, responding to adversaries who have plotted to kill him. He speaks at the moment of acute personal danger, asking God to remember his past intercession on behalf of the people.

The words — The Hebrew verb תֵּן (ten) means "give" or "hand over," directing the coming judgment toward the children. The phrase וְ/הַגִּרֵ/ם֮ (ve./ha.gi.Re/m) literally translates to "and pour out," describing the violent release of the sword.

The thread — This pattern of familial and communal judgment echoes the covenant curses in Deuteronomy 32:25 and the imprecatory language of Psalms 109:9. It also mirrors the warning in Exodus 22:24 where God threatens to slay oppressors and leave their families widowed and fatherless.

Why it lands — The text demands recognition that covenant rebellion invites severe, comprehensive consequences that extend beyond the individual to their household. It requires the reader to confront the gravity of opposing God’s messenger and the reality of divine justice.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Hebrew words

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.

Cross-references

Psalms 109:9 May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
Exodus 22:24 My anger will be kindled, and I will kill you with the sword; then your wives will become widows and your children will be fatherless.
Deuteronomy 32:25 Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man.
Jeremiah 9:21 For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
Jeremiah 15:8 I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. I will bring a destroyer at noon against the mothers of young men. I will suddenly bring upon them anguish and dismay.
Jeremiah 16:3 For this is what the LORD says concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and the mothers who bore them, and the fathers who fathered them in this land:
Lamentations 5:3 We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows.
Amos 4:10 “I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
2 Chronicles 36:17 So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God gave them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,
Jeremiah 11:20 O LORD of Hosts, who judges righteously, who examines the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause.