Jeremiah 5:17

17 It will devour your harvest and food; it will devour your sons and daughters; it will devour your flocks and herds; it will devour your vines and fig trees; it will shatter your fortified towns in which you trust— with the sword!

Jeremiah 5:17 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 5:17

And they shall eat up thine harvest
The standing corn in the fields, cut it down, and give it as fodder to their horses, which is usually done by armies; or the increase of the earth, when gathered into the barn, which so great an army would consume: and thy bread;
which includes all kind of provisions: which thy sons and thy daughters should eat;
which is an aggravation of the calamity and misery, that that should become the prey of their enemies, which they with so much labour and pains had provided for their children, who would now be deprived of it, and suffer want, The Targum renders it,

``shall kill thy sons and thy daughters;''

that is, with the sword; and so Kimchi interprets it; and so other versions read, "they shall eat up, or devour, thy sons and thy daughters" ^F26; the sword ate them up, or devoured them; and they who besieged them were the cause or occasion of their being eaten literally, even by their own parents; see ( Lamentations 2:20 ) ( 4:10 ) : they shall eat up thy flocks and thy herds;
their sheep and oxen, as the Targum interprets it: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees:
that is, the fruit of them, as the same paraphrase explains it: they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with
the sword;
that is, such strong and fortified cities as Jerusalem, and others, in which the Jews trusted they should be safe from their enemies; these the Chaldeans would enter into, kill with the sword those they found in garrisons, demolish the fortifications, take away what wealth and riches were laid up there, and so impoverish them, and render them weak and defenceless. The Targum of this clause is,

``shall destroy the fortified cities of thy land, in which thou trustedst thou shouldest be safe from those that kill with the sword.''

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FOOTNOTES:

F26 (Kytwnbw Kynb wlkay) "vorabunt filios tuos et filias tuas", Calvin; "devorabunt", Vatablus; "comedent filios tuos et filias tuas", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius.

Jeremiah 5:17 In-Context

15 I am about to bring a distant nation against you, people of Israel, declares the LORD. It is an established nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don't know, whose speech you won't understand.

16 Its weapons are deadly; its warriors are many.

17 It will devour your harvest and food; it will devour your sons and daughters; it will devour your flocks and herds; it will devour your vines and fig trees; it will shatter your fortified towns in which you trust— with the sword!

18 Yet even in those days, declares the LORD, I won't completely destroy you.

19 And when they ask, "Why has the LORD our God done all these things to us?" you must reply, "Just as you have abandoned me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land not your own."