Jeremiah 18:21

Therefore deliver up their children to the famine,.... To be starved, and perish by it, as they were in the siege of Jerusalem, both by the Chaldeans, and the Romans:

and pour out their [blood] by the force of the sword: or, "upon the hands of the sword" f; by means of it; that is, the blood of the parents of the children; let the one perish by famine, and the other by the sword; which, when thrust into a man, blood gushes out, and runs upon the sword to the handle of it:

and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and [be] widows; let them have neither husbands nor children; which latter might be a comfort to them, when they had lost their husbands; but being stripped of these also, the affliction and distress must be the greater:

and let their men be put to death; or "slain with death" g; with the pestilence, as Kimchi rightly interprets it; see Revelation 6:8; Jarchi understands it of the angel of death; see Hebrews 2:14;

[let] their young men [be] slain by the sword in battle; such being commonly employed in military service, as being the most proper persons for it.

f על ידי חרב "super manus gladii", Montanus, Schmidt. g יהיו הרגי מות "occisi morte", Pagninus, Montanus, "i.e. peste" Schmidt; "occisi mortis", Cocceius.