Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man.
Parallel translations
- WEB Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror; on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man.
- KJV The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
- NKJV The sword shall destroy outside; There shall be terror within For the young man and virgin, The nursing child with the man of gray hairs.
- NASB ‘Outside the sword will make them childless, And inside, terror— Both young man and virgin, The nursing child with the man of gray hair.
- NLT Outside, the sword will bring death, and inside, terror will strike both young men and young women, both infants and the aged.
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
Outside the sword bereaves and inside is terror, striking young and old, infant and aged alike. It matters because it depicts judgment as sparing no one in its reach.
Overview
The pairing of sword without and terror within pictures inescapable danger on every side. The sweep from nursing infant to gray-haired elder shows the totality of the calamity. Such sobering judgment language reveals the seriousness of covenant unfaithfulness and magnifies the safety found in God's mercy, secured for His people through Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ezek 7:15The sword is outside; plague and famine are within. Those in the country will die by the sword, and those in the city will be devoured by famine and plague.
- Lam 1:20See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.
- 2 Chr 36:17So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God gave them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,
- Isa 30:16“No,” you say, “we will flee on horses.” Therefore you will flee! “We will ride swift horses,” but your pursuers will be faster.
- Lam 4:4The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.
- Lev 26:36–37As for those of you who survive, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that even the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. And they will flee as one flees the sword, and fall when no one pursues them.
- Jer 9:21For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
- 2 Cor 7:5For when we arrived in Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were pressed from every direction—conflicts on the outside, fears within.
- Lam 2:19–22Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 32:25 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.