“I sent plagues on you like the plagues I sent on Egypt long ago. I killed your young men in war and led all your horses away. The stench of death filled the air! But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.
Parallel translations
- WEB “I sent plagues among you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses; and I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.
- KJV I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
- BSB “I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
- NKJV “I sent among you a plague after the manner of Egypt; Your young men I killed with a sword, Along with your captive horses; I made the stench of your camps come up into your nostrils; Yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the Lord.
- NASB “I sent a plague among you as in Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses, And I made the stench of your camp rise up in your nostrils; Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord.
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
God sent plagues like Egypt's, war that killed their young men, and the stench of death, yet they did not return. Even devastating judgments left them unrepentant.
Overview
The plagues recall the exodus, now turned against Israel; military defeat slew their soldiers and captured their horses. The 'stench' of corpses filled their camps. These severe judgments were meant to break their pride and turn them back. Their continued refusal reveals how sin had deadened them to God's voice.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 33
- Deut 28:60He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you.
- Lev 26:25I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
- 2 Kgs 13:7For he didn’t leave to Jehoahaz of the people any more than fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing.
- Joel 2:20But I will remove the northern army far away from you, and will drive it into a barren and desolate land, its front into the eastern sea, and its back into the western sea; and its stench will come up, and its bad smell will rise.” Surely he has done great things.
- Deut 7:15Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, will he put on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you.
- Exod 9:3–6behold, Yahweh’s hand is on your livestock which are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the herds, and on the flocks with a very grievous pestilence.
- Deut 28:26–27Your dead body will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away.
- Ps 78:49–50He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil.
- Amos 8:3The songs of the temple will be wailings in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh. “The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.
- Amos 4:6“I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in every town; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.
- Exod 8:19Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is God’s finger:” and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he didn’t listen to them; as Yahweh had spoken.
- Deut 28:22Yahweh will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.
- Jer 11:22therefore Yahweh of Armies says, ‘Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine;
- Lev 26:16I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.
- 2 Kgs 13:3Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, continually.
- Jer 18:21Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, and their young men struck by the sword in battle.
- Exod 9:17as you still exalt yourself against my people, that you won’t let them go.
- Jer 8:1–2“At that time,” says Yahweh, “they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves;
- Jer 15:3“I will appoint over them four kinds,” says Yahweh: “the sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy.
- Exod 14:4I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will follow after them; and I will get honor over Pharaoh, and over all his armies; and the Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh.” They did so.
- 2 Kgs 8:12Hazael said, “Why do you weep, my lord?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel. You will set their strongholds on fire, and you will kill their young men with the sword, and will dash their little ones in pieces, and rip up their pregnant women.”
- Isa 9:13Yet the people have not turned to him who struck them, neither have they sought Yahweh of Armies.
- Exod 15:26and he said, “If you will diligently listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you.”
- Jer 6:11Therefore I am full of Yahweh’s wrath. I am weary with holding in. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.
- Exod 10:3Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and said to him, “This is what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me.
- Exod 12:29–30At midnight, Yahweh struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of livestock.
- Exod 9:34–35When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders had ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants.
- Exod 9:12Yahweh hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he didn’t listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken to Moses.
- Jer 16:4“They shall die grievous deaths: they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground; and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth.”
- Exod 10:27But Yahweh hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he wouldn’t let them go.
- Jer 9:22Speak, “Yahweh says, “‘The dead bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester; and no one will gather them.’”
- 2 Kgs 10:32In those days Yahweh began to cut away parts of Israel; and Hazael struck them in all the borders of Israel;
- Jer 48:15Moab is laid waste, and they have gone up into his cities, and his chosen young men have gone down to the slaughter,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.
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Christ at the center
Amid judgment on injustice, Amos promises the raising up of David's fallen tent — read by James in Acts 15 as the ingathering of the nations into the kingdom of the risen Christ.
How Amos 4:10 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.
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