Jeremiah 15:2

15:2 If they ask you, ‘Where should we go?’ tell them the Lord says this:

“Those who are destined to die of disease will go to death by disease.

Those who are destined to die in war will go to death in war.

Those who are destined to die of starvation will go to death by starvation.

Those who are destined to go into exile will go into exile.” ¹ 

Jeremiah 19:9

19:9 I will reduce the people of this city to desperate straits during the siege imposed on it by their enemies who are seeking to kill them. I will make them so desperate that they will eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and the flesh of one another.”’” ² 

Jeremiah 21:9

21:9 Those who stay in this city will die in battle or of starvation or disease. Those who leave the city and surrender to the Babylonians who are besieging it will live. They will escape with their lives. ³ 

Jeremiah 25:10

25:10 I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness, to the glad celebration of brides and grooms in these lands. ⁴  I will put an end to the sound of people grinding meal. I will put an end to lamps shining in their houses. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 38:9

38:9 “Your royal Majesty, those men have been very wicked in all that they have done to the prophet Jeremiah. They have thrown him into a cistern and he is sure to die of starvation there because there is no food left in the city. ⁶ 

Leviticus 26:26

26:26 When I break off your supply of bread, ⁷  ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, ⁸  and you will eat and not be satisfied.

Deuteronomy 28:52-53

28:52 They will besiege all of your villages ⁹  until all of your high and fortified walls collapse – those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the Lord your God has given you. 28:53 You will then eat your own offspring, ¹⁰  the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege ¹¹  by which your enemies will constrict you.

Deuteronomy 32:24

32:24 They will be starved by famine,

eaten by plague, and bitterly stung; ¹² 

I will send the teeth of wild animals against them,

along with the poison of creatures that crawl in the dust.

Isaiah 3:1

A Coming Leadership Crisis

3:1 Look, the sovereign Lord who commands armies ¹³ 

is about to remove from Jerusalem ¹⁴  and Judah

every source of security, including ¹⁵ 

all the food and water, ¹⁶ 

Lamentations 4:4-6

ד (Dalet)

4:4 The infant’s tongue sticks

to the roof of its mouth due to thirst;

little children beg for bread, ¹⁷ 

but no one gives them even a morsel. ¹⁸ 

ה (He)

4:5 Those who once feasted on delicacies ¹⁹ 

are now starving to death ²⁰  in the streets.

Those who grew up ²¹  wearing expensive clothes ²² 

are now dying ²³  amid garbage. ²⁴ 

ו (Vav)

4:6 The punishment ²⁵  of my people ²⁶ 

exceeded that of ²⁷  of Sodom,

which was overthrown in a moment

with no one to help her. ²⁸ 

Lamentations 5:10

5:10 Our skin is hot as an oven

due to a fever from hunger. ²⁹ 

Ezekiel 4:9-17

4:9 “As for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, ³⁰  put them in a single container, and make food ³¹  from them for yourself. For the same number of days that you lie on your side – 390 days ³²  – you will eat it. 4:10 The food you eat will be eight ounces ³³  a day by weight; you must eat it at fixed ³⁴  times. 4:11 And you must drink water by measure, a pint and a half; ³⁵  you must drink it at fixed times. 4:12 And you must eat the food like you would a barley cake. You must bake it in front of them over a fire made with dried human excrement.” ³⁶  4:13 And the Lord said, “This is how the people of Israel will eat their unclean food among the nations ³⁷  where I will banish them.”

4:14 And I said, “Ah, sovereign Lord, I have never been ceremonially defiled before. I have never eaten a carcass or an animal torn by wild beasts; from my youth up, unclean meat ³⁸  has never entered my mouth.”

4:15 So he said to me, “All right then, I will substitute cow’s manure instead of human excrement. You will cook your food over it.”

4:16 Then he said to me, “Son of man, I am about to remove the bread supply ³⁹  in Jerusalem. ⁴⁰  They will eat their bread ration anxiously, and they will drink their water ration in terror 4:17 because they will lack bread and water. Each one will be terrified, and they will rot for their iniquity. ⁴¹ 

Ezekiel 5:10-12

5:10 Therefore fathers will eat their sons within you, Jerusalem, ⁴²  and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter any survivors ⁴³  to the winds. ⁴⁴ 

5:11 “Therefore, as surely as I live, says the sovereign Lord, because you defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominable practices, I will withdraw; my eye will not pity you, nor will I spare ⁴⁵  you. 5:12 A third of your people will die of plague or be overcome by the famine within you. ⁴⁶  A third of your people will fall by the sword surrounding you, ⁴⁷  and a third I will scatter to the winds. I will unleash a sword behind them.

Ezekiel 7:15

7:15 The sword is outside; pestilence and famine are inside the house. Whoever is in the open field will die by the sword, and famine and pestilence will consume everyone in the city.

Ezekiel 14:21

14:21 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send my four terrible judgments – sword, famine, wild animals, and plague – to Jerusalem ⁴⁸  to kill both people and animals!

[15:2]  ¹ tn It is difficult to render the rhetorical force of this passage in meaningful English. The text answers the question “Where should we go?” with four brief staccato-like expressions with a play on the preposition “to”: Heb “Who to the death, to the death and who to the sword, to the sword and who to the starvation, to the starvation and who to the captivity, to the captivity.” The word “death” here is commonly understood to be a poetic substitute for “plague” because of the standard trio of sword, famine, and plague (see, e.g., 14:12 and the notes there). This is likely here and in 18:21. For further support see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:440. The nuance “starvation” rather than “famine” has been chosen in the translation because the referents here are all things that accompany war.

[19:9]  ² tn This verse has been restructured to try to bring out the proper thought and subordinations reflected in the verse without making the sentence too long and complex in English: Heb “I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. And they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the straits which their enemies who are seeking their lives reduce them to.” This also shows the agency through which God’s causation was effected, i.e., the siege.

[21:9]  ³ tn Heb “his life will be to him for spoil.”

[25:10]  ⁴ sn Compare Jer 7:24 and 16:9 for this same dire prediction limited to Judah and Jerusalem.

[25:10]  ⁵ sn The sound of people grinding meal and the presence of lamps shining in their houses were signs of everyday life. The Lord is going to make these lands desolate (v. 11) destroying all signs of life. (The statement is, of course, hyperbolic or poetic exaggeration; even after the destruction of Jerusalem many people were left in the land.) For these same descriptions of everyday life applying to the end of life see the allegory in Eccl 12:3-6.

[38:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “Those men have made evil all they have done to the prophet Jeremiah in that they have thrown him into the cistern and he will die of starvation in the place where he is because there is no more food in the city.” The particle אֵת (’et) before “they have thrown” (אֵת אֲשֶׁר הִשְׁלִיכוּ, ’et ’asher hishlikhu) is explanatory or further definition of “all they have done to” (i.e., the particle is repeated for apposition). The verb form “and he is sure to die” is an unusual use of the vav (ו) consecutive + imperfect that the grammars see as giving a logical consequence without a past nuance (cf. GKC 328 §111.l and IBHS 557-58 §33.3.1f).

[26:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “When I break to you staff of bread” (KJV, ASV, and NASB all similar).

[26:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “they will return your bread in weight.”

[28:52]  ⁹ tn Heb “gates,” also in vv. 55, 57.

[28:53]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NRSV); NASB “the offspring of your own body.”

[28:53]  ¹¹ tn Heb “siege and stress.”

[32:24]  ¹² tn The Hebrew term קֶטֶב (qetev) is probably metaphorical here for the sting of a disease (HALOT 1091-92 s.v.).

[3:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “the master, the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].” On the title “the Lord who commands armies,” see the note at 1:9.

[3:1]  ¹⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “support and support.” The masculine and feminine forms of the noun are placed side-by-side to emphasize completeness. See GKC 394 §122.v.

[3:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “all the support of food, and all the support of water.”

[4:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “bread.” The term “bread” might function as a synecdoche of specific (= bread) for general (= food); however, the following parallel line does indeed focus on the act of breaking bread in two.

[4:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “there is not a divider to them.” The term פָּרַשׂ (paras), Qal active participle ms from פָּרַס (paras, “to divide”) refers to the action of breaking bread in two before giving it to a person to eat (Isa 58:7; Jer 16:7; Lam 4:4). The form פָּרַשׂ (paras) is the alternate spelling of the more common פָּרַס (paras).

[4:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “eaters of delicacies.” An alternate English gloss would be “connoisseurs of fine foods.”

[4:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “are desolate.”

[4:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “were reared.”

[4:5]  ²² tn Heb “in purple.” The term תוֹלָע (tola’, “purple”) is a figurative description of expensive clothing: it is a metonymy of association: the color of the dyed clothes (= purple) stands for the clothes themselves.

[4:5]  ²³ tn Heb “embrace garbage.” One may also translate “rummage through” (cf. NCV “pick through trash piles”; TEV “pawing through refuse”; NLT “search the garbage pits.”

[4:5]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew word אַשְׁפַּתּוֹת (’ashpatot) can also mean “ash heaps.” Though not used as a combination elsewhere, to “embrace ash heaps” might also envision a state of mourning or even dead bodies lying on the ash heaps.

[4:6]  ²⁵ tn The noun עֲוֹן (’avon) has a basic two-fold range of meanings: (1) basic meaning: “iniquity, sin” and (2) metonymical cause for effect meaning: “punishment for iniquity.”

[4:6]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the daughter of my people.”

[4:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the sin of.” The noun חַטָּאת (khatta’t) often means “sin, rebellion,” but here it probably functions in a metonymical (cause for effect) sense: “punishment for sin” (e.g., Zech 14:19). The context focuses on the severity of the punishment of Jerusalem rather than the depths of its degradation and depravity that led to the judgment.

[4:6]  ²⁸ tn Heb “without a hand turned.” The preposition ב (bet) after the verb חוּל (khul) in Hos 11:6 is adversative “the sword will turn against [Assyria’s] cities.” Other contexts with חוּל (khul) plus ב (bet) are not comparable (ב [bet] often being locative). However, it is not certain that hands must be adversarial as the sword clearly is in Hos 11:6. The present translation pictures the suddenness of Sodom’s overthrow as an easier fate than the protracted military campaign and subsequent exile and poverty of Judah’s survivor’s.

[5:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “because of the burning heat of famine.”

[4:9]  ³⁰ sn Wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt. All these foods were common in Mesopotamia where Ezekiel was exiled.

[4:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “bread.”

[4:9]  ³² tc The LXX reads “190 days.”

[4:10]  ³³ sn Eight ounces (Heb “twenty shekels”). The standards for weighing money varied considerably in the ancient Near East, but the generally accepted weight for the shekel is 11.5 grams (0.4 ounce). This makes the weight of grain about 230 grams here (8 ounces).

[4:10]  ³⁴ tn Heb “from time to time.”

[4:11]  ³⁵ sn A pint and a half [Heb “one-sixth of a hin”]. One-sixth of a hin was a quantity of liquid equal to about 1.3 pints or 0.6 liters.

[4:12]  ³⁶ sn Human waste was to remain outside the camp of the Israelites according to Deut 23:15.

[4:13]  ³⁷ sn Unclean food among the nations. Lands outside of Israel were considered unclean (Josh 22:19; Amos 7:17).

[4:14]  ³⁸ tn The Hebrew term refers to sacrificial meat not eaten by the appropriate time (Lev 7:18; 19:7).

[4:16]  ³⁹ tn Heb, “break the staff of bread.” The bread supply is compared to a staff that one uses for support.

[4:16]  ⁴⁰ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[4:17]  ⁴¹ tn Or “in their punishment.” Ezek 4:16-17 alludes to Lev 26:26, 39. The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here, 3:18, 19; 7:13, 16; 18: 17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”

[5:10]  ⁴² tn In context “you” refers to the city of Jerusalem. To make this clear for the modern reader, “Jerusalem” has been supplied in the translation in apposition to “you.”

[5:10]  ⁴³ tn Heb “all of your survivors.”

[5:10]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “to every wind.”

[5:11]  ⁴⁵ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.

[5:12]  ⁴⁶ sn The judgment of plague and famine comes from the covenant curse (Lev 26:25-26). As in v. 10, the city of Jerusalem is figuratively addressed here.

[5:12]  ⁴⁷ sn Judgment by plague, famine, and sword occurs in Jer 21:9; 27:13; Ezek 6:11, 12; 7:15.

[14:21]  ⁴⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.