Jeremiah 11:22

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine;

World English Bible · Public Domain

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הַבַּֽחוּרִים֙

bâchûwr

H970

“the · young men”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute

Appears 46× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Deuteronomy 32:25

Full BDB Definition

Origin: participle passive of H977

TWOT: 231a

youth, young man

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

15: words
14: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַבַּֽחוּרִים֙ young man H970 occurs in 45 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
7 nouns
1 preposition
2 adverbs
1 particle

Verb forms

אָמַר֙ Qal · Perfect
פֹקֵ֖ד Qal · Participle Active
יָמֻ֣תוּ Qal · Imperfect
יָמֻ֖תוּ Qal · Imperfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

יָמֻ֣תוּ to die H4191 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In the original languages it is 15 Hebrew tokens and 22 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Jeremiah 11:22 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Jeremiah 18:21 Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, [and] their young men struck of the sword in battle.
2 Chronicles 36:17 Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed: he gave them all into his hand.
1 Thessalonians 2:15–16 who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and didn't please God, and are contrary to all men;
Jeremiah 9:21 For death is come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from outside, [and] the young men from the streets.
Lamentations 2:21 The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered, [and] not pitied.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Jeremiah 11:22 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

לָכֵ֗ן כֹּ֤ה אָמַר֙ יְהוָ֣ה צְבָא֔וֹת הִנְנִ֥י פֹקֵ֖ד עֲלֵיהֶ֑ם הַבַּֽחוּרִים֙ יָמֻ֣תוּ בַחֶ֔רֶב בְּנֵיהֶם֙ וּבְנ֣וֹתֵיהֶ֔ם יָמֻ֖תוּ בָּרָעָֽב

therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Structure differs

In the Septuagint, Jeremiah is about an eighth shorter than the Hebrew and arranges its material differently — the Oracles Against the Nations (Hebrew chapters 46–51) appear in the middle of the Greek book, after 25:13. Because the chapter and verse boundaries do not line up, a verse-for-verse comparison with the Hebrew is not shown.

A verse-for-verse comparison isn’t shown here because the chapters and verses don’t line up. Switch to the LXX edition with the MT / LXX toggle above to read the Greek directly.

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from a public-domain English Septuagint. How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

בְּכֵן כִּדְנַן אֲמַר יְיָ צְבָאוֹת הַאֲנָא מַסְעַר עֲלֵיהוֹן עוּלֵימֵהוֹן יִתְקַטְלוּן בְּחַרְבָּא בְּנֵיהוֹן וּבְנָתֵיהוֹן יְמוּתוּן בְּכַפְנָא:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Jeremiah 11:22 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Jer 11:22 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine:

Ver. 22. Behold, I will punish them.] Sic tandem bona causa triumphat. The visible vengeance of God followeth close at the heels of the persecutors of his faithful messengers.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joseph Benson's Commentary

Jer 11:22-23. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will punish them — Hebrew, פקד עליהם, I will visit, namely, this their wicked conduct, upon them; I will inquire into it, and reckon with them for it. The young men shall die by the sword — Though they be young priests, not men of war, their sacred office shall be no protection to them. Their sons and their daughters shall die by famine — Which is a more grievous death than that by the sword, Lam 4:9. Thus two of God’s four sore judgments would overwhelm their town in destruction, which should be so entire that there should be no remnant of them — None to be the seed of another generation: they sought Jeremiah’s life, and therefore their lives shall be taken: they wished to destroy him, root and branch, that his name might be no more remembered, and therefore there shall be no remnant of them: and herein the Lord is righteous. Thus evil would be brought upon them, even the year of their visitation — And that would be evil sufficient, a recompense according to their deserts. Such is the consequence of opposing the truth and cause of God, and his servants in the execution of their office! Such is the deplorable condition of those that have the prayers of good ministers and good people against them.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

The retribution of their intended murder shall be in kind; just as in Messiah's case (Psa. 69:8-28).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 22. Behold, I will punish them] And the punishment is, Their young men shall die by the sword of the Chaldeans; and their sons and daughters shall die by the famine that shall come on the land through the desolations occasioned by the Chaldean army.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) The young men.—As the context shows, these are the men of military age who would die fighting, while their children should perish from famine within the walls of the besieged cities.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

22. punish] lit. as mg. visit upon.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And there shall be no remnant of them,.... And thus the measure they meted out to the prophet was measured to them; they devised to destroy him root and branch, the tree with its fruit; and now none shall be left of them; such who escaped the sword and the famine should be carried captive, as they were; for though there were none left in Anathoth, there were some preserved alive, and were removed into Babylon; since, at the return from thence, the men of Anathoth were a hundred twenty and eight, Neh 7:27,

for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation; or, "in the year of their visitation" (s); that is, of the visitation of their sins, as the Targum; which was the year of the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, and was in the nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar, Jer 52:12 and this was not a chance matter, but what was fixed and determined by the Lord.

(s) , Sept. "anno visitationis eorum", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Schmidt.

Next: Jeremiah Chapter 12

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The young men - i. e., those of the legal age for military service.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

Their sons and their daughters, etc. The lot of the weaker sex and of the male children under the military age is contrasted with that of the young warriors.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Jeremiah, in the Prophets, opens this verse with 15 words (14 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is bâchûwr (“young man”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “young man” (bâchûwr) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Deuteronomy 32:25, which shares the word «young man», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to die” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«אָמַר֙» is a Qal Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Joseph Benson's Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 15 Hebrew ↔ 22 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 7 words in this verse.
“to die” occurs 2× in this single verse.
14 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 15 words in this verse.