Bible Strands
Lamentations 2:21
Both young and old lie together in the dust of the streets. My young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered them without compassion.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The speaker, a prophet representing the devastated city, addresses God directly during the immediate aftermath of Jerusalem's total destruction. The moment captures the precise point of enemy conquest and divine wrath.
The words — שָׁכְבוּ (sha.khe.vu) means "they have lain down," and נָפְלוּ (na.fe.lu) means "they have fallen," both describing the unceremonious death of the population. These verbs emphasize the finality of their defeat and the absence of burial rites.
The thread — The text describes the indiscriminate slaughter of young and old in the streets, followed by the direct attribution of this slaughter to God's anger and lack of compassion. This pattern of covenant judgment appears in 2 Chronicles 36:17, Jeremiah 13:14, and Zechariah 11:6, where divine wrath overrides mercy and spares no demographic.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that divine anger operates without human distinction or pity. It requires the reader to confront the reality of covenant judgment where even the most vulnerable suffer without escape.
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
The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
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,
- Zechariah 11:6 For I will no longer have compassion on the people of the land, declares the LORD, but behold, I will cause each man to fall into the hands of his neighbor and his king, who will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from their hands.”
- Jeremiah 13:14 I will smash them against one another, fathers and sons alike, declares the LORD. I will allow no mercy or pity or compassion to keep Me from destroying them.’”
- Lamentations 3:43 You have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us; You have killed without pity.
- 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.
- Lamentations 1:15 The Lord has rejected all the mighty men in my midst; He has summoned an army against me to crush my young warriors. Like grapes in a winepress, the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah.
- Lamentations 2:2 Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes.
- Lamentations 2:17 The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.
- Deuteronomy 28:50 a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young.
- Joshua 6:21 With the edge of the sword they devoted to destruction everything in the city—man and woman, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.