Skip to content
mannafest.faith

Deuteronomy 32:25

in Deuteronomy 32

Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

Without shall the sword bereave, And in the chambers terror; It shall destroy both young man and virgin, The suckling with the man of gray hairs.

KJV

The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.

This verse in Deuteronomy 32

Commentary

5 notes on this verse

This site's exposition

They will be wasted from hunger

on Deuteronomy 32:24-25

The list runs through famine, fever, wild beasts and serpents, which is close to the covenant curse of Leviticus 26:22 and 26:25. Verse 25 names four ages in a single line, the young man, the virgin, the suckling and the man of gray hairs, so nobody stands outside the sentence. Lamentations 1:20 describes Jerusalem in the same two halves, the sword abroad and death at home.

This site's exposition

Outside, the sword will take their children

Ezekiel 7:15 repeats this division of the sword outside and terror inside for the fall of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 9:21 pictures death climbing through the windows to take children from the streets. Neither the field nor the house offers cover.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices

The sword without,....

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

A promise of the destruction of their enemies and oppressors at last, and the glorious deliverance of a remnant of Israel,

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

When the sword is without, there cannot but be terror within. 5 , Without were fightings, within were fears. Those who cast off the fear of God are justly exposed to the fear of enemies. [2.] Universal deaths.

The words behind it

13 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • מִחוּץ֙from outside

    michutzH2351 →164 times

  • תְּשַׁכֶּל־it will make childless

    teshakel-H7921 →

  • חֶ֔רֶבa sword

    cherevH2719 →413 times

  • וּמֵחֲדָרִ֖יםand [will be] from inner rooms

    umechadarimH2315 →

  • אֵימָ֑הterror

    ʾeimahH367 →

  • גַּם־both

    gam-H1571 →769 times

  • בָּחוּר֙young man

    bachurH970 →

  • גַּם־as well as

    gam-H1571 →769 times

  • בְּתוּלָ֔הyoung woman

    betulahH1330 →50 times

  • יוֹנֵ֖קa suckling-child

    yonekH3243 →33 times

  • עִם־with

    ʾim-H5973 →1050 times

  • אִ֥ישׁa person of

    ʾishH376 →1663 times

  • שֵׂיבָֽה׃gray hair

    seivahH7872 →

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Lamentations 4:4

    The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.

    it leads to

    • Psalms 22:15

      My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death.

  • Through

    Ezekiel 7:15

    The sword is outside; plague and famine are within. Those in the country will die by the sword, and those in the city will be devoured by famine and plague.

    it leads to

    • Ezekiel 5:12

      A third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine within you, a third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and a third I will scatter to every…

    • Jeremiah 14:18

      If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land…

    • Lamentations 1:20

      See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.

  • Through

    Lamentations 1:20

    See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.

    it leads to

    • Lamentations 2:11

      My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of…

  • Through

    Isaiah 30:16

    “No,” you say, “we will flee on horses.” Therefore you will flee! “We will ride swift horses,” but your pursuers will be faster.

    it leads to

    • Isaiah 31:1

      Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy…

  • Through

    2 Chronicles 36:17

    So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God…

    it leads to

    • Psalms 74:20

      Consider Your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land.

    • Ezra 9:7

      From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of…

Where this verse is studied

About Deuteronomy

Moses Viewing the Promised Land, Frederic Edwin Church, 1846. Public domain.
Moses Viewing the Promised Land, Frederic Edwin Church, 1846. Public domain.

This page draws on John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.