But I will protect the orphans who remain among you. Your widows, too, can depend on me for help.”
Parallel translations
- WEB Leave your fatherless children. I will preserve them alive. Let your widows trust in me.”
- KJV Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.
- BSB Abandon your orphans; I will preserve their lives. Let your widows trust in Me.”
- NKJV Leave your fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; And let your widows trust in Me.”
- NASB “Leave your orphans behind, I will keep them alive; And let your widows trust in Me.”
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
Amid Edom's ruin, God shows mercy by promising to preserve the orphans and inviting widows to trust Him. Even in judgment, His compassion reaches the helpless.
Overview
After announcing Edom's devastation, the LORD makes a tender provision for its most vulnerable survivors. This reflects God's consistent care for the fatherless and widow throughout Scripture (Psalm 68:5). The verse anticipates the gospel pattern in which judgment and grace meet, and points to the God who alone is the trustworthy refuge for the destitute.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ps 68:5A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
- Jas 1:27Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
- Hos 14:3Assyria can’t save us. We won’t ride on horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ‘Our gods!’ for in you the fatherless finds mercy.”
- 1 Tim 5:5Now she who is a widow indeed, and desolate, has her hope set on God, and continues in petitions and prayers night and day.
- Prov 23:10–11Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless:
- Mal 3:5I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says Yahweh of Armies.
- Ps 82:3“Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
- Deut 10:18He does execute justice for the fatherless and widow, and loves the foreigner, in giving him food and clothing.
- Jonah 4:11Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?”
- Ps 146:9Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.
- Ps 10:14–18But you do see trouble and grief. You consider it to take it into your hand. You help the victim and the fatherless.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 49:11 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.