Even the jackals draw out the breast, they nurse their young ones: But the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
Parallel translations
- KJV Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
- BSB Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like an ostrich in the wilderness.
- NKJV Even the jackals present their breasts To nurse their young; But the daughter of my people is cruel, Like ostriches in the wilderness.
- NASB Even jackals offer the breast, They nurse their young; But the daughter of my people has proved herself cruel, Like ostriches in the wilderness.
- NLT Even the jackals feed their young, but not my people Israel. They ignore their children’s cries, like ostriches in the desert.
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
Even wild jackals nurse their young, but the famine has made the people cruel to their children.
Overview
The siege famine has so hardened mothers that they neglect their own children, unlike even wild animals that nurse their young. The comparison to ostriches, thought to be careless of their offspring, heightens the horror. This depicts how severe judgment unravels the most basic bonds of compassion, the bitter fruit of sin (Deut. 28:53-57).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ezek 5:10Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within you, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and I will scatter the whole remnant of you to all the winds.
- Luke 23:28–29But Jesus, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
- Lam 4:10The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- Lam 2:20“Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Shall the women eat their offspring, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- 2 Kgs 6:26–29As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”
- Jer 19:9I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, shall distress them.”’
- Lev 26:29You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.
- Job 39:13–16“The wings of the ostrich wave proudly; but are they the feathers and plumage of love?
- Deut 28:52–57They will besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trusted, throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which Yahweh your God has given you.
- Rom 1:31without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful;
- Isa 49:15“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you!
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 4:3 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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