1 Samuel 17:44-46

17:44 The Philistine said to David, “Come here to me, so I can give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the field!” ¹ 

17:45 But David replied to the Philistine, “You are coming against me with sword and spear and javelin. But I am coming against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel’s armies, whom you have defied! 17:46 This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand! I will strike you down and cut off your head. This day I will give the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land. Then all the land will realize that Israel has a God

Psalms 79:1-3

Psalm 79 ² 

A psalm of Asaph.

79:1 O God, foreigners ³  have invaded your chosen land; ⁴ 

they have polluted your holy temple

and turned Jerusalem ⁵  into a heap of ruins.

79:2 They have given the corpses of your servants

to the birds of the sky; ⁶ 

the flesh of your loyal followers

to the beasts of the earth.

79:3 They have made their blood flow like water

all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury them. ⁷ 

Isaiah 34:3

34:3 Their slain will be left unburied, ⁸ 

their corpses will stink; ⁹ 

the hills will soak up their blood. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 7:33

7:33 Then the dead bodies of these people will be left on the ground for the birds and wild animals to eat. ¹¹  There will not be any survivors to scare them away.

Jeremiah 8:1

8:1 The Lord says, “When that time comes, ¹²  the bones of the kings of Judah and its leaders, the bones of the priests and prophets and of all the other people who lived in Jerusalem will be dug up from their graves.

Jeremiah 16:4

16:4 They will die of deadly diseases. No one will mourn for them. They will not be buried. Their dead bodies will lie like manure spread on the ground. They will be killed in war or die of starvation. Their corpses will be food for the birds and wild animals.

Jeremiah 19:7

19:7 In this place I will thwart ¹³  the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will deliver them over to the power of their enemies who are seeking to kill them. They will die by the sword ¹⁴  at the hands of their enemies. ¹⁵  I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild beasts to eat.

Jeremiah 34:20

34:20 I will hand them over to their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals. ¹⁶ 

Ezekiel 39:17-20

39:17 “As for you, son of man, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Tell every kind of bird and every wild beast: ‘Assemble and come! Gather from all around to my slaughter ¹⁷  which I am going to make for you, a great slaughter on the mountains of Israel! You will eat flesh and drink blood. 39:18 You will eat the flesh of warriors ¹⁸  and drink the blood of the princes of the earth – the rams, lambs, goats, and bulls, all of them fattened animals of Bashan. 39:19 You will eat fat until you are full, and drink blood until you are drunk, ¹⁹  at my slaughter ²⁰  which I have made for you. 39:20 You will fill up at my table with horses and charioteers, ²¹  with warriors and all the soldiers,’ declares the sovereign Lord.

[17:44]  ¹ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss have “the earth” here, instead of the MT’s “the field.”

[79:1]  ² sn Psalm 79. The author laments how the invading nations have destroyed the temple and city of Jerusalem. He asks God to forgive his people and to pour out his vengeance on those who have mistreated them.

[79:1]  ³ tn Or “nations.”

[79:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “have come into your inheritance.”

[79:1]  ⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[79:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “[as] food for the birds of the sky.”

[79:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “they have poured out their blood like water, all around Jerusalem, and there is no one burying.”

[34:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “will be cast aside”; NASB, NIV “thrown out.”

[34:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “[as for] their corpses, their stench will arise.”

[34:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “hills will dissolve from their blood.”

[7:33]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.”

[8:1]  ¹² tn Heb “At that time.”

[19:7]  ¹³ sn There is perhaps a two-fold wordplay in the use of this word. One involves the sound play with the word for “jar,” which has been explained as a water decanter. The word here is בַקֹּתִי (vaqqoti). The word for jar in v. 1 is בַקְבֻּק (vaqbuq). There may also be a play on the literal use of this word to refer to the laying waste or destruction of a land (see Isa 24:3; Nah 2:3). Many modern commentaries think that at this point Jeremiah emptied out the contents of the jar, symbolizing the “emptying” out of their plans.

[19:7]  ¹⁴ sn This refers to the fact that they will die in battle. The sword would be only one of the weapons that strikes them down. It is one of the trio of “sword,” “starvation,” and “disease” which were the concomitants of war referred to so often in the book of Jeremiah. Starvation is referred to in v. 9.

[19:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and in the hand of those who seek their soul [= life].” In this context the two are meant as obvious qualifications of one entity, not two. Some rearrangement of the qualifiers had to be made in the English translation to convey this.

[34:20]  ¹⁶ sn See this same phrase in Jer 7:33; 16:4; 19:7.

[39:17]  ¹⁷ tn Or “sacrifice” (so also in the rest of this verse).

[39:18]  ¹⁸ sn See Rev 19:17-18.

[39:19]  ¹⁹ sn Eating the fat and drinking blood were God’s exclusive rights in Israelite sacrifices (Lev 3:17).

[39:19]  ²⁰ tn Or “sacrifice” (so also in the rest of this verse).

[39:20]  ²¹ tn Heb “chariots.”