By July 18 in the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, the famine in the city had become very severe, and the last of the food was entirely gone.
Parallel translations
- WEB On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.
- KJV And on the ninth day of the fourth month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land.
- BSB By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.
- NKJV By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
- NASB On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine is so severe there is no bread. The siege brings the people to starvation.
Overview
The prolonged blockade produces a devastating famine, leaving the inhabitants without food. This horror fulfills the specific covenant curses warned of in the Law and by the prophets (Lev. 26; Jer. 21). The suffering reveals the bitter fruit of national sin and the seriousness of forsaking the Lord.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Lev 26:26When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.
- Ezek 7:15“‘The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine within. He who is in the field will die by the sword. He who is in the city will be devoured by famine and pestilence.
- Ezek 14:21For thus says the Lord Yahweh: “How much more when I send my four severe judgments on Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the evil animals, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and animal!
- Deut 28:52–53They will besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trusted, throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which Yahweh your God has given you.
- Jer 38:2“Yahweh says, ‘He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live, and his life shall be to him for a prey, and he shall live.’
- Lam 4:4–10The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst: The young children ask bread, and no man breaks it to them.
- Jer 52:6In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.
- Ezek 5:12A third part of you will die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed within you. A third part will fall by the sword around you. A third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.
- Jer 37:21Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard. They gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city was gone. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.
- Jer 39:2In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city),
- Ezek 5:10Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within you, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and I will scatter the whole remnant of you to all the winds.
- Zech 8:19Yahweh of Armies says: “The fasts of the fourth fifth, seventh, and tenth months shall be for the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.”
- Ezek 4:9–17“Take for yourself also wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel. Make bread of it. According to the number of the days that you shall lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, you shall eat of it.
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Christ at the center
Amid the long decline toward exile, the promise to David's house refuses to die; the flickering lamp kept burning anticipates the coming King who will not fail or be cut off.
How 2 Kings 25:3 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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