Jeremiah 9:21
in Jeremiah 9For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
For death is come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.
KJV
For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.
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This verse in Jeremiah 9
Commentary
13 notes on this verseAmid so many passions of this body of ours, amid so many enticements of this world, who indeed can keep his footstep safe and undefiled? The eye looks back and leads the mind's perception astray, the ear hears and turns one's attention away, a whiff of fragrance hinders thought, a kiss of the mouth introduces guilt, a touch kindles the fire of passion. "Death has entered in through the window," the prophet said. Your eye is your window.
This site's exposition
summon the wailing women
on Jeremiah 9:17-22
The call to “summon the wailing women” and “send for the most skillful among them” names the professional mourners, whose trade was grief on command. Yet “the sound of wailing is heard from Zion” before they arrive, and the women are told “Teach your daughters to wail”.
This site's exposition
death has climbed in through our windows
Death is pictured climbing through windows the people thought were barred, which Gill takes as the Chaldeans scaling walls and houses. Clarke follows the figure from the streets into homes and palaces. Ambrose later applied it to the eye as the window of the soul.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers5 voices
We can take the windows as meaning the bodily sense through which life or death gains entrance to the soul. That is what the prophet Jeremiah means when, speaking of sinners, he says, "Death is coming up through your windows." How does death come up through windows? If the eyes of a sinner should "look on a woman to lust after her." He who has looked on a woman thus "has committed adultery with her in his heart." Then death has gained entrance to that soul through the windows of the eyes.
By "windows" he refers to the error of their thinking: through them they gave entrance to the error and the blow inflicted by it. You would not be wide of the mark to call the body's senses "windows"—sight, taste, smell, hearing and touch. Both life …
O Lord, keep watch over my mouth, for it is written, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." Again, you have declared, "I tell you, that of every idle word people speak, they shall give account on the day of judgment." The prophet prays, therefore, that his words may not be vain but holy and pleasing to God. "Set a guard at the door of my lips." He is asking for a guard around his lips like the rampart of a castle, that he may never capitulate to sin. It is Jeremiah who says, "Death has come up through our windows." A person has five windows: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. If I look at a woman to lust after her, I have already committed adultery in my heart, and death has come through my window of sight. If the sound of the harp, organ or flute unnerves me, death has entered my soul through the sense of hearing. Again, if I touch something soft and supple, and wantonness breaks down the resistance of my flesh, death has entered through touch, and so down the line.
(Verse 20, 21.) Therefore, listen, women, to the word of the Lord, and let your ears receive the speech of His mouth, and teach your daughters lamentation, and each one her neighbor mourning. For death has entered through our windows, it has come into our houses: to destroy the children from outside, the young men from the streets.
The prophet says, "Death is come up through the windows." Surely he does not mean actual windows—otherwise we could shut our windows and never die. But the bodily senses—sight, hearing, and so on—are windows to us and death enters us through them if we sin …
5 more voices on this verse
The Church Fathers1 voice
One window is one of our senses. The Bridegroom looks out through it. Another window is another sense. Through it he gazes with active concern for our well-being. For what senses are there through which the Word of God does not look out? The following example teaches us what "looking out through the windows" means and in what way the Bridegroom sees through them. Where he does not look out, there is death found coming up, as we read in Jeremiah: "See, death is come up through your windows." When you look on a woman to lust after her, death comes up through your windows.
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
For death is come up into our windows,.... Their doors being shut, bolted, and barred, they thought themselves safe, but were not; the Chaldeans scaled their walls, broke in at the tops of their houses, or at their windows, and destroyed them: for the invasion of the enemy, and the manner of their entrance into them, seem to be described.
Death - The unavoidableness of the ruin is expressed metaphorically, alluding to the storming of a city, wherein there is no respect had to sex, youth, or age.
It is usual now, even in the severest military executions, to put none to the sword. It is usual now, even in the severest military executions, to put none to the sword but those that are found in arms; but then even the boys and girls playing in the streets were sacrificed to the fury of the conqueror. [2.] Those that are slain shall be left unburied (
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
For death is come up into our windows - Here Death is personified, and represented as scaling their wall; and after having slain the playful children without, and the vigorous youth employed in the labors of the field, he is now come into the private houses, to destroy the aged and infirm; and into the palaces, to destroy the king and the princes.
The words behind it
11 Hebrew wordsEvery 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.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| כִּֽי־ | ki- | for | H3588 → | 4482 times |
| עָ֤לָה | ʾalah | it has come up | H5927 → | 890 times |
| מָ֙וֶת֙ | mavet | death | H4194 → | 156 times |
| בְּחַלּוֹנֵ֔ינוּ | bechaloneinu | in windows our | H2474 → | |
| בָּ֖א | ba' | it has come | H935 → | 2568 times |
| בְּאַרְמְנוֹתֵ֑ינוּ | bearmenoteinu | in fortresses our | H759 → | 32 times |
| לְהַכְרִ֤ית | lehakhrit | to cut off | H3772 → | 288 times |
| עוֹלָל֙ | olal | child[ren] | H5768 → | 20 times |
| מִח֔וּץ | michutz | from [the] street | H2351 → | 164 times |
| בַּחוּרִ֖ים | bachurim | young men | H970 → | 44 times |
| מֵרְחֹבֽוֹת׃ | merechovot | from [the] open places | H7339 → | 43 times |
כִּֽי־for
ki-H3588 →4482 times
עָ֤לָהit has come up
ʾalahH5927 →890 times
מָ֙וֶת֙death
mavetH4194 →156 times
בְּחַלּוֹנֵ֔ינוּin windows our
bechaloneinuH2474 →
בָּ֖אit has come
ba'H935 →2568 times
בְּאַרְמְנוֹתֵ֑ינוּin fortresses our
bearmenoteinuH759 →32 times
לְהַכְרִ֤יתto cut off
lehakhritH3772 →288 times
עוֹלָל֙child[ren]
olalH5768 →20 times
מִח֔וּץfrom [the] street
michutzH2351 →164 times
בַּחוּרִ֖יםyoung men
bachurimH970 →44 times
מֵרְחֹבֽוֹת׃from [the] open places
merechovotH7339 →43 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach 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
Jeremiah 15:7I will scatter them with a winnowing fork at the gates of the land. I will bereave and destroy My people who have not turned from their ways.
it leads to
- Jeremiah 51:2
I will send strangers to Babylon to winnow her and empty her land; for they will come against her from every side in her day of disaster.
- Matthew 3:12
His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
- Jeremiah 5:3
O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than…
- Isaiah 41:16
You will winnow them, and a wind will carry them away; a gale will scatter them. But you will rejoice in the LORD; you will glory in the Holy One of Israel.
- Isaiah 9:13
But the people did not return to Him who struck them; they did not seek the LORD of Hosts.
- Jeremiah 51:2
Through
Jeremiah 6:11But I am full of the LORD’s wrath; I am tired of holding it back. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the young men gathered together. For both husband…
it leads to
- Jeremiah 20:9
If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of…
- Jeremiah 20:9
Through
2 Chronicles 36:17So 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…
- Psalms 74:20
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Jeremiah
This page draws on 13 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Ambrose of Milan, FLIGHT FROM THE WORLD 1:3; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Epiphanius of Salamis, PANARION 1:9.4:10; Jerome, HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 51 (PS 140); Jerome, Commentary on Jeremiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Origen of Alexandria, COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 3:13; Origen of Alexandria, HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2:12 and Theodoret of Cyrus, ON JEREMIAH 3:9.21.