Bible Strands
Psalms 79:3
They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury the dead.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses God while describing the aftermath of a siege where enemies slaughtered Israel's people. This moment captures a communal lament following total military defeat and religious desecration.
The words — The Hebrew כַּ/מַּ֗יִם (ka./Ma.yim) literally means "like water," describing how the enemy poured out the victims' blood (דָמָ֨/ם\׀, da.Ma/m) across the city.
The thread — This imagery of unburied corpses and scattered blood echoes Jeremiah 14:16 and Jeremiah 16:4, and reappears in Revelation 11:9 regarding unpermitted burial of the dead.
Why it lands — The text demands acknowledgment of complete societal breakdown and divine judgment, leaving the reader to confront the reality of unmitigated violence without comfort.
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
Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 14:16 And the people to whom they prophesy will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of famine and sword. There will be no one to bury them or their wives, their sons or their daughters. I will pour out their own evil upon them.
- Jeremiah 16:4 “They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried, but will lie like dung on the ground. They will be finished off by sword and famine, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and beasts of the earth.”
- Revelation 11:9 For three and a half days all peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will view their bodies and will not permit them to be laid in a tomb.
- Psalms 79:10 Why should the nations ask, “Where is their God?” Before our eyes, make known among the nations Your vengeance for the bloodshed of Your servants.
- Psalms 141:7 As when one plows and breaks up the soil, so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of Sheol.
- Jeremiah 8:1 “At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.
- Jeremiah 15:3 I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the LORD: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.
- Jeremiah 25:33 Those slain by the LORD on that day will be spread from one end of the earth to the other. They will not be mourned, gathered, or buried. They will be like dung lying on the ground.
- Jeremiah 34:20 I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.
- Matthew 23:35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.