Their blood they have shed like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them.
Parallel translations
- KJV Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them.
- BSB They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury the dead.
- NKJV Their blood they have shed like water all around Jerusalem, And there was no one to bury them.
- NASB They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem; And there was no one to bury them.
- NLT Blood has flowed like water all around Jerusalem; no one is left to bury the dead.
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
Blood was poured out like water with no one left to bury the dead. The slaughter was overwhelming and the survivors helpless.
Overview
The poured-out blood 'like water around Jerusalem' conveys the scale of the massacre. With no one to bury the dead, the city lay in utter desolation. Such suffering presses the cry for God's mercy and points to the day when He wipes away every tear and death is no more.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Jer 14:16The people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They shall have no one to bury them — them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness on them.
- Jer 16:4“They shall die grievous deaths: they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground; and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth.”
- Rev 11:9From among the peoples, tribes, languages, and nations people will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not allow their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb.
- Rev 16:6For they poured out the blood of the saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve this.”
- Ps 79:10Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Let it be known among the nations, before our eyes, that vengeance for your servants’ blood is being poured out.
- Rev 17:6I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered with great amazement.
- Rom 8:36Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
- Ps 141:7“As when one plows and breaks up the earth, our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.”
- Jer 25:33The slain of Yahweh shall be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung on the surface of the ground.
- Rev 18:24In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on the earth.”
- Jer 8:1–2“At that time,” says Yahweh, “they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves;
- Matt 23:35that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar.
- Jer 15:3“I will appoint over them four kinds,” says Yahweh: “the sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy.
- Jer 34:20I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 79:3 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
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.