Jeremiah 34:20

20 will be handed over to their enemies, to those who want to take their life. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land.^[a]

Jeremiah 34:20 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 34:20

I will even give them into the hand of their enemies
The Chaldeans, who were the enemies of the Jews, that were come from a far country to invade, dispossess, ravage, and plunder them; and what can be a greater punishment than to be given up into an enemy's hand, to be in his power, and at his mercy? and into the hand of them that seek their life;
not their wealth and substance only, but their lives also; nothing less will content them: and their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven,
and to the beasts of the earth;
not only such should be the cruelty of their enemies that sought their lives, that they should slay them with the sword, and give them no quarter; but such their inhumanity, that they should not suffer their carcasses to be buried, but leave them exposed to birds and beasts of prey; of the princes of Judah, see ( Jeremiah 52:10 ) .

Jeremiah 34:20 In-Context

18 As for those who disobeyed My covenant, not keeping the terms of the covenant they made before Me, I will treat them like the calf they cut in two in order to pass between its pieces.

19 The officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the pieces of the calf

20 will be handed over to their enemies, to those who want to take their life. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land.

21 I will hand Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials over to their enemies, to those who want to take their life, to the king of Babylon's army that is withdrawing.

22 I am about to give the command"-[this is] the Lord's declaration-"and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, capture it, and burn it down. I will make Judah's cities a desolation, without inhabitant."

Footnotes

• [a]. Jr 7:33; Dt 28:26; Isa 18:6