Jeremiah 34:20

20 I'm handing the lot of them over to their enemies who are out to kill them. Their dead bodies will be carrion food for vultures and stray dogs.

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 Everyone who violated my covenant, who didn't do what was solemnly promised in the covenant ceremony when they split the young bull into two halves and walked between them,

19 all those people that day who walked between the two halves of the bull - leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, palace officials, priests, and all the rest of the people -

20 I'm handing the lot of them over to their enemies who are out to kill them. Their dead bodies will be carrion food for vultures and stray dogs.

21 "'As for Zedekiah king of Judah and his palace staff, I'll also hand them over to their enemies, who are out to kill them. The army of the king of Babylon has pulled back for a time,

22 but not for long, for I'm going to issue orders that will bring them back to this city. They'll attack and take it and burn it to the ground. The surrounding cities of Judah will fare no better. I'll turn them into ghost towns, unlivable and unlived in.'" God's Decree.