And in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.
Parallel translations
- WEB In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.
- BSB By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.
- NKJV By the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
- NASB On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
- NLT By July 18 in the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, the famine in the city had become very severe, and the last of the food was entirely gone.
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
By the fourth month a severe famine left no bread in the city. Hunger broke Jerusalem's ability to resist.
Overview
The famine fulfilled the covenant curses for unfaithfulness (Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28) and the specific judgments Jeremiah announced. Bread, the staff of life, failing within the walls signals total collapse. The scene of a starving city points by contrast to Christ, the Bread of Life, who alone satisfies a people otherwise perishing under judgment.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Isa 3:1For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water.
- Jer 39:2And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, the city was broken up.
- Jer 38:9My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is: for there is no more bread in the city.
- 2 Kgs 25:3And on the ninth day of the fourth month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land.
- Jer 19:9And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.
- Deut 32:24They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
- Deut 28:52–53And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
- Lam 5:10Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
- Lam 4:4–6The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
- Ezek 5:10–12Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.
- Ezek 4:9–17Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
- Ezek 14:21For thus saith the Lord GOD; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?
- Ezek 7:15The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.
- Lev 26:26And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.
- Zech 8:19Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace.
- Jer 21:9He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey.
- Jer 25:10Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle.
- Jer 15:2And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.
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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 52:6 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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