Jeremiah 9:21

9:21 ‘Death has climbed in ¹  through our windows.

It has entered into our fortified houses.

It has taken away our children who play in the streets.

It has taken away our young men who gather in the city squares.’

Jeremiah 18:21

18:21 So let their children die of starvation.

Let them be cut down by the sword. ² 

Let their wives lose their husbands and children.

Let the older men die of disease ³ 

and the younger men die by the sword in battle.

Deuteronomy 28:18

28:18 Your children ⁴  will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

Deuteronomy 28:32

28:32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it. ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 28:41

28:41 You will bear sons and daughters but not keep them, because they will be taken into captivity.

Deuteronomy 28:53-56

28:53 You will then eat your own offspring, ⁶  the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege ⁷  by which your enemies will constrict you. 28:54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. 28:55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict ⁸  you in your villages. 28:56 Likewise, the most ⁹  tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, ¹⁰  will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters,

Hosea 9:12-17

9:12 Even if they raise their children,

I will take away every last one of them. ¹¹ 

Woe to them!

For I will turn away from them.

9:13 Just as lion cubs are born predators, ¹² 

so Ephraim will bear his sons for slaughter.

9:14 Give them, O Lord –

what will you give them?

Give them wombs that miscarry,

and breasts that cannot nurse! ¹³ 

9:15 Because of all their evil in Gilgal,

I hate them there.

On account of their evil deeds,

I will drive them out of my land. ¹⁴ 

I will no longer love them;

all their rulers are rebels.

9:16 Ephraim will be struck down ¹⁵  –

their root will be dried up;

they will not yield any fruit.

Even if they do bear children,

I will kill their precious offspring.

9:17 My God will reject them,

for they have not obeyed him;

so they will be fugitives among the nations.

¹ sn Here Death is personified (treated as though it were a person). Some have seen as possible background to this lament an allusion to Mesopotamian mythology where the demon Lamastu climbs in through the windows of houses and over their walls to kill children and babies.

² tn Heb “be poured out to the hand [= power] of the sword.” For this same expression see Ezek 35:5; Ps 63:10 (63:11 HT). Comparison with those two passages show that it involved death by violent means, perhaps death in battle.

³ tn Heb “be slain by death.” The commentaries are generally agreed that this refers to death by disease or plague as in 15:2. Hence, the reference is to the deadly trio of sword, starvation, and disease which were often connected with war. See the notes on 15:2.

⁴ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

⁵ tn Heb “and there will be no power in your hand”; NCV “there will be nothing you can do.”

⁶ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NRSV); NASB “the offspring of your own body.”

⁷ tn Heb “siege and stress.”

⁸ tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”

⁹ tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.

¹⁰ tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”

¹¹ tn Heb “I will bereave them from a man”; NRSV “I will bereave them until no one is left.”

¹² tc The MT is corrupt in 9:13. The BHS editors suggest emending the text to follow the LXX reading. See D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 5:250-51.

¹³ tn Heb “breasts that shrivel up dry”; cf. KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV “dry breasts.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “out of my house” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV, NCV, NLT “my land.”

¹⁵ tn Or perhaps, following the plant metaphor, “will be blighted” (NIV similar).