Psalms 141:7

141:7 As when one plows and breaks up the soil, ¹ 

so our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.

Jeremiah 8:1-2

8:1 The Lord says, “When that time comes, ²  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. 8:2 They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. ³  These are things they ⁴  adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, ⁵  from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people ⁶  will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 14:16

14:16 The people to whom they are prophesying will die through war and famine. Their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem ⁸  and there will be no one to bury them. This will happen to the men and their wives, their sons, and their daughters. ⁹  For I will pour out on them the destruction they deserve.” ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 15:3

15:3 “I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ¹¹ 

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 25:33

25:33 Those who have been killed by the Lord at that time

will be scattered from one end of the earth to the other.

They will not be mourned over, gathered up, or buried. ¹² 

Their dead bodies will lie scattered over the ground like manure.

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. ¹³ 

Revelation 11:9

11:9 For three and a half days those from every ¹⁴  people, tribe, ¹⁵  nation, and language will look at their corpses, because they will not permit them to be placed in a tomb. ¹⁶ 

[141:7]  ¹ tn Heb “like splitting and breaking open in the earth.” The meaning of the statement and the point of the comparison are not entirely clear. Perhaps the psalmist is suggesting that he and other godly individuals are as good as dead; their bones are scattered about like dirt that is dug up and tossed aside.

[8:1]  ² tn Heb “At that time.”

[8:2]  ³ tc MT, 4QJer^a and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJer^c reads “the sun and all the stars.”

[8:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”

[8:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[8:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.

[8:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”

[14:16]  ⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “And the people to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem and there will not be anyone to bury them, they, their wives, and their sons and their daughters.” This sentence has been restructured to break up a long Hebrew sentence and to avoid some awkwardness due to differences in the ancient Hebrew and contemporary English styles.

[14:16]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “their evil.” Hebrew words often include within them a polarity of cause and effect. Thus the word for “evil” includes both the concept of wickedness and the punishment for it. Other words that function this way are “iniquity” = “guilt [of iniquity]” = “punishment [for iniquity].” Context determines which nuance is proper.

[15:3]  ¹¹ tn The translation attempts to render in understandable English some rather unusual uses of terms here. The verb translated “punish” is often used that way (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3 and compare usage in Jer 11:22, 13:21). However, here it is accompanied by a direct object and a preposition meaning “over” which is usually used in the sense of appointing someone over someone (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.1 and compare usage in Jer 51:27). Moreover the word translated “different ways” normally refers to “families,” “clans,” or “guilds” (cf. BDB 1046-47 s.v. מִשְׁפָּחָה for usage). Hence the four things mentioned are referred to figuratively as officers or agents into whose power the Lord consigns them. The Hebrew text reads: “I will appoint over them four guilds, the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the skies and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy.”

[25:33]  ¹² sn The intent here is to emphasize the large quantity of those who are killed – there will be too many to insure proper mourning rites and proper burial.

[34:20]  ¹³ sn See this same phrase in Jer 7:33; 16:4; 19:7.

[11:9]  ¹⁴ tn The word “every” is not in the Greek text, but is implied by the following list.

[11:9]  ¹⁵ tn The Greek term καί (kai) has not been translated before this and the following items in the list, since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[11:9]  ¹⁶ tn Or “to be buried.”