They will devour the food of your harvest; they will devour your sons and daughters. They will devour your flocks and herds; they will devour your grapes and figs. And they will destroy your fortified towns, which you think are so safe.
Parallel translations
- WEB They shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds. They shall eat up your vines and your fig trees. They shall beat down your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword.
- KJV And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword.
- BSB They will devour your harvest and food; they will consume your sons and daughters; they will eat up your flocks and herds; they will feed on your vines and fig trees. With the sword they will destroy the fortified cities in which you trust.”
- NKJV And they shall eat up your harvest and your bread, Which your sons and daughters should eat. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds; They shall eat up your vines and your fig trees; They shall destroy your fortified cities, In which you trust, with the sword.
- NASB “They will devour your harvest and your food; They will devour your sons and your daughters; They will devour your flocks and your herds; They will devour your vines and your fig trees; They will demolish your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword.
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
Hearing of David's anointing over all Israel, the Philistines mobilize to attack, and David withdraws to a stronghold. The united kingdom faces its first major threat.
Overview
The Philistines, alarmed that David now rules a united Israel, march out to seek him, but David prudently retreats to a defensive position. The newly crowned king immediately confronts the enemy he was raised up to defeat. The episode sets the stage for God-given victories that confirm David as Israel's deliverer.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- 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.
- Deut 28:33A nation which you don’t know eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always;
- Hos 8:14For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire on his cities, and it will devour its fortresses.”
- Deut 28:30–31You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit.
- Jer 50:7All who found them have devoured them; and their adversaries said, ‘We are not guilty, because they have sinned against Yahweh, the habitation of righteousness, even Yahweh, the hope of their fathers.’
- Ezek 36:4therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh: Thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which are become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are all around;
- Jer 4:26I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of Yahweh, before his fierce anger.
- Isa 62:9but those who have harvested it will eat it, and praise Yahweh; and those who have gathered it will drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.”
- Jer 1:15For, behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” says Yahweh. “They will come, and they will each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls all around, and against all the cities of Judah.
- Isa 65:22They will not build, and another inhabit. They will not plant, and another eat: for the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, and my chosen will long enjoy the work of their hands.
- Judg 6:3–4So it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the children of the east came up against them.
- Zeph 3:6I have cut off nations. Their battlements are desolate. I have made their streets waste, so that no one passes by. Their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, so that there is no inhabitant.
- Jer 4:7A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations; he is on his way, he has gone out from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.
- Jer 8:16The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembles; for they have come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those who dwell therein.”
- Hab 3:17–18For though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls:
- Jer 50:17“Israel is a hunted sheep. The lions have driven him away. First, the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.”
- Lam 2:2The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied: He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; he has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
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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 5:17 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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