Bible Strands
Jeremiah 51:22
With you I shatter man and woman; with you I shatter the old man and the youth; with you I shatter the young man and the maiden.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God speaks through Jeremiah in a prophetic oracle of judgment, addressing a hostile nation as the instrument of destruction. The declaration occurs within a sequence of pronouncements detailing comprehensive societal collapse.
The words — וְ/נִפַּצְתִּי (ve./ni.patz.Ti) = and I smash; אִישׁ ('ish) = man. The verb denotes violent breaking, applied systematically to paired demographics across age and gender.
The thread — The pattern of total demographic shattering runs in 2 Chronicles 36:17; Isaiah 13:18; and 1 Samuel 15:3. Jeremiah 51:21 and Jeremiah 51:23 frame this verse with identical structural judgments against military and civil leaders.
Why it lands — The text states that no age, gender, or social role escapes the declared judgment. It asks the reader to acknowledge that divine sovereignty dismantles human hierarchies without exception and demands alignment with that authority.
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
With thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid;
Cross-references
- 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,
- Isaiah 13:18 Their bows will dash young men to pieces; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; they will not look with pity on the children.
- 1 Samuel 15:3 Now go and attack the Amalekites and devote to destruction all that belongs to them. Do not spare them, but put to death men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
- Ezekiel 9:6 Slaughter the old men, the young men and maidens, the women and children; but do not go near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the temple.
- 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.
- Isaiah 13:16 Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be ravished.
- Jeremiah 6:11 But I am full of the LORD’s wrath; I am tired of holding it back. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the young men gathered together. For both husband and wife will be captured, the old and the very old alike.
- Lamentations 2:11 My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
- Isaiah 20:4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old alike, naked and barefoot, with bared buttocks—to Egypt’s shame.