You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them.
Parallel translations
- WEB Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look, and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand.
- KJV Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long: and there shall be no might in thine hand:
- BSB Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand.
- NKJV Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand.
- NASB Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them constantly; but there will be nothing you can do.
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
Their children will be carried off to other peoples while they watch helplessly, powerless to act.
Overview
The agony of seeing one's children enslaved with no power to intervene is among the bitterest curses. This foreshadows the trauma of exile and captivity. The helpless longing portrays the deep grief that follows abandonment of God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 21
- Joel 3:6and have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, that you may remove them far from their border.
- Deut 28:41You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours; for they will go into captivity.
- 2 Chr 29:9For, behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.
- Job 17:5He who denounces his friends for plunder, Even the eyes of his children shall fail.
- Ps 119:82My eyes fail for your word. I say, “When will you comfort me?”
- Lam 5:17For this our heart is faint; For these things our eyes are dim;
- Mic 4:10Be in pain, and labor to give birth, daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now you will go out of the city, and will dwell in the field, and will come even to Babylon. There you will be rescued. There Yahweh will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.
- Deut 28:65Among these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul.
- Jer 16:2–4“You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place.”
- Job 11:20But the eyes of the wicked shall fail. They shall have no way to flee. Their hope shall be the giving up of the spirit.”
- Ezek 24:25You, son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their heart, their sons and their daughters,
- Ps 119:123My eyes fail looking for your salvation, for your righteous word.
- Num 21:29Woe to you, Moab! You are undone, people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to Sihon king of the Amorites.
- Neh 5:2–5For there were that said, “We, our sons and our daughters, are many. Let us get grain, that we may eat and live.”
- Isa 38:14I chattered like a swallow or a crane. I moaned like a dove. My eyes weaken looking upward. Lord, I am oppressed. Be my security.”
- Deut 28:18The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed.
- Amos 5:27Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,” says Yahweh, whose name is the God of Armies.
- Ps 69:3I am weary with my crying. My throat is dry. My eyes fail, looking for my God.
- Lam 2:11My eyes fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.
- Jer 15:7–9I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I have bereaved them of children. I have destroyed my people. They didn’t return from their ways.
- Lam 4:17Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help: In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Moses promised a Prophet like himself to whom Israel must listen (18:15); Jesus is that Prophet, the one who keeps the covenant we broke and becomes the curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).
How Deuteronomy 28:32 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.