Bible Strands
Jeremiah 27:13
Why should you and your people die by sword and famine and plague, as the LORD has decreed against any nation that does not serve the king of Babylon?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jeremiah addresses King Zedekiah and the people of Judah during the Babylonian campaign, immediately after commanding Zedekiah to submit to Babylonian rule to preserve his life. The prophet poses a direct rhetorical question to contrast the survival available through submission with the destruction awaiting those who refuse.
The words — The Hebrew לָמָּה (lammah) asks "why?" while תָמוּתוּ (tamutu) states "will you die," structuring the verse as a warning of preventable death. The terms חֶרֶב (cherev) for "sword," רָעָב (ra'av) for "famine," and דֶּבֶר (dever) for "pestilence" explicitly list the three instruments of the LORD's decree.
The thread — The text restates the identical conditional warning found in Jeremiah 27:8 regarding nations that refuse to place their necks under Nebuchadnezzar's yoke. The verse's linkage of prophetic warning to concrete national outcomes parallels the broader scriptural pattern that rejecting divine instruction results in death, as recorded in Proverbs 8:36.
Why it lands — The text states that death by sword, famine, and plague is the direct result of refusing to serve the king of Babylon, which the LORD has decreed. It requires the reader to accept the stated consequence as the logical outcome of rejecting the commanded path, rather than treating the warning as arbitrary.
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
Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 18:31 Cast away from yourselves all the transgressions you have committed, and fashion for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel?
- Jeremiah 27:8 As for the nation or kingdom that does not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and does not place its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation by sword and famine and plague, declares the LORD, until I have destroyed it by his hand.
- Proverbs 8:36 But he who fails to find me harms himself; all who hate me love death.”
- Jeremiah 38:20 “They will not hand you over,” Jeremiah replied. “Obey the voice of the LORD in what I am telling you, that it may go well with you and you may live.
- Jeremiah 24:9 I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them.
- Jeremiah 38:2 “This is what the LORD says: Whoever stays in this city will die by sword and famine and plague, but whoever surrenders to the Chaldeans will live; he will retain his life like a spoil of war, and he will live.
- Ezekiel 14:21 For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?
- Ezekiel 18:24 But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, committing the same abominations as the wicked, will he live? None of the righteous acts he did will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness and sin he has committed, he will die.
- Ezekiel 33:11 Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’