Therefore Yahweh says, “Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together will stumble against them. The neighbor and his friend will perish.”
Parallel Translations
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Therefore Yahweh says, “Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together will stumble against them. The neighbor and his friend will perish.”
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Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them; the neighbour and his friend shall perish.
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Therefore thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall stumble against them, the neighbour and his friend, and they shall perish.
Cross-references (18)
Passages linked to Jeremiah 6:21 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 8:14 He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel, he will be a stumbling stone and a rock that makes them fall. For the people of Jerusalem, he will be a trap and a snare.
- Jeremiah 13:16 Give glory to Yahweh your God, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and while you look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it deep darkness.
- Ezekiel 3:20 “Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he will die. Because you have not given him warning, he will die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered; but I will require his blood at your hand.
- Isaiah 9:14-17 Therefore Yahweh will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed, in one day. The elder and the honorable man is the head, and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail. For those who lead this people lead them astray; and those who are led by them are destroyed. Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over their young men, neither will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is profane and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
- 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.
- Isaiah 24:2-3 It will be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the creditor, so with the debtor; as with the taker of interest, so with the giver of interest. The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word.
- Jeremiah 9:21-22 For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets. Speak, “Yahweh says, “ ‘The dead bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester. No one will gather them.’ ”
- Jeremiah 15:2-9 It will happen, when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go out?’ then you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says: “Such as are for death, to death; such as are for the sword, to the sword; such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.” ’ “I will appoint over them four kinds,” says Yahweh: “the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy. I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Who will mourn you? Who will come to ask of your welfare? You have rejected me,” says Yahweh. “You have gone backward. Therefore I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you. I am weary of showing compassion. I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land. I have bereaved them of children. I have destroyed my people. They didn’t return from their ways. Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas. I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly. She who has borne seven languishes. She has given up the spirit. Her sun has gone down while it was yet day. She has been disappointed and confounded. I will deliver their residue to the sword before their enemies,” says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 16:3-9 For Yahweh says concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who became their father in this land: “They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be as dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.” For Yahweh says, “Don’t enter into the house of mourning. Don’t go to lament. Don’t bemoan them, for I have taken away my peace from this people,” says Yahweh, “even loving kindness and tender mercies. Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them. Men won’t break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Men won’t give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother. “You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.” For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.
- Jeremiah 18:21 Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless and widows. Let their men be killed and their young men struck by the sword in battle.
- Jeremiah 19:7-9 “ ‘ “I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth. I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues. I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them.” ’
- Jeremiah 21:7 Afterward,” says Yahweh, “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants, and the people, even those who are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. He will strike them with the edge of the sword. He will not spare them, have pity, or have mercy.” ’
- Lamentations 2:20-22 “Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their offspring, the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? “The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered, and not pitied. “You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side. There was no one that escaped or remained in the day of Yahweh’s anger. My enemy has consumed those whom I have cared for and brought up.
- Ezekiel 5:10 Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within you, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and I will scatter the whole remnant of you to all the winds.
- Ezekiel 9:5-7 To the others he said in my hearing, “Go through the city after him, and strike. Don’t let your eye spare, neither have pity. Kill utterly the old man, the young man, the virgin, little children and women; but don’t come near any man on whom is the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.” Then they began at the old men who were before the house. He said to them, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” They went out, and struck in the city.
- Romans 9:33 even as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.”
- Romans 11:9 David says, “Let their table be made a snare, a trap, a stumbling block, and a retribution to them.
- 1 Peter 2:8 and, “a stumbling stone and a rock of offense.” For they stumble at the word, being disobedient, to which also they were appointed.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Here God, in plain words, declares what vengeance he…
Here God, in plain words, declares what vengeance he would execute on the people. He says first, that he would lay for them stumbling blocks He no doubt compares the judgments which were nigh to nets or traps; for the Jews hoped to escape. He therefore says, that they would be ensnared: “Wherever ye go, “he says, “ye shall meet with those nets by which God will catch you: Fall, therefore, shall both fathers and sons, the neighbor and his friend ”
He means by these words, that however they might conspire together, they would yet be exposed to the same punishment. For when sons follow the examples of their fathers, they think themselves innocent; and also when any one has many associates, he thinks himself safe in his licentiousness. As, then, consent or society hardens the ungodly, so that they fear not the wrath of God, the Prophet on this account includes sons with their fathers, and a neighbor with his friend, as those who were to perish together, and without any difference. The word “stumbling blocks” is indeed metaphorical; but in the next verse the Prophet speaks without a figure, and says —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jer 6:21 Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I…
Jer 6:21 Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them; the neighbour and his friend shall perish.
Ver. 21. Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks.] {a} Heb., Stumblements - i.e., occasions, preparations, and means to work their ruth and ruin; what these are, see Jer 6:22.
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{a} Strages - sc., et clades in quas incident et corruent. , Slaugher and defeat in which they fell and were riuned.
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.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain I will lay stumbling-blocks; God gives this name to…
I will lay stumbling-blocks; God gives this name to all the occasions of the Jews’ ruin; he exposeth them, or suffereth such things to be laid in their way, as shall be the occasion of their destruction; such things which they shall not get over. Or an hypallage, I will bring destruction upon them; as the Hebrews use to speak, They have sent a city into the fire, i.e. They have sent fire into the city. Or God doth here compare his judgments to traps, wherein they shall be taken, which they thought easily to have evaded. What these stumbling-blocks are seem to be expressed in the following verses.
The fathers and the sons together; as well the fathers, that have more prudence and policy, as the children, that are more inadvertent, or possibly may count themselves less guilty, shall perish by these stumbling-blocks; no recovering for themselves, Isa 8:14,15.
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The neighbour and his friend; men of all sorts and conditions, the greatest intimates and associates, though all lay their heads together for counsel, yet shall they not be able to help one another, but a promiscuous destruction there shall be, Jer 6:11; Jer 13:14.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Therefore thus saith the Lord,.... Because of their immorality…
Therefore thus saith the Lord,.... Because of their immorality and hypocrisy, their contempt of his word, and confidence in legal rites and ceremonies:
behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people; by which may be meant the judgments of God upon them, raising up enemies against them, and suffering them to invade their land; particularly the Assyrians, as the following words show. Moreover, the prophecies of the false prophets, and the doctrines which they were permitted to spread among the people, were snares and stumblingblocks unto them, they being given up to believe their lies, and to be hardened by them; nay, even true doctrines, the doctrines of justification and salvation by Christ, yea, Christ himself, were a rock of offence, and a stumbling stone to these people, Isa 8:14.
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and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them; or, "by them" (z); the latter following the examples of the forager; and so it denotes, that as the corruption was general, the punishment would be:
and the neighbour and his friend shall perish; in the same calamity, being involved in the guilt of the same iniquity, in which they encouraged and hardened one another. The Septuagint and Arabic versions by "stumblingblocks" understand an "infirmity" or "disease", which should come upon the people, and make a general desolation among them. Kimchi interprets the whole of the wickedness of fathers and children, neighbours and friends, and such as were in trade and partnership, and of their delight in mischief; that though they were aware of the stumblingblocks, yet would not give each other warning of them. The whole, according to the accents, should be rendered thus, "and they shall fall upon them, the fathers and the sons together, the neighbour and his friend, and they shall perish"; falling and perishing are said of them all.
(z) "in iis", Schmidt; "in eis", Cocceius, Pegnanius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain I will say - I will suffer such things…
I will say - I will suffer such things to be laid in their way, as shall be the occasion of their destruction. The neighbour - Men of all sorts and conditions.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Jer 6:21-26. Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks before this…
Jer 6:21-26. Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people — I will suffer such things to be laid in their way as shall be the occasion of their destruction. Or, I will bring calamities upon them, by which they shall fall. The neighbour and his friend shall perish — Men of all sorts and conditions. Behold, a people cometh, &c. — The Chaldeans are here again described, as in Jer 5:15; a distant nation, violent, cruel, armed with bows and spears, and well mounted. A great nation from the sides of the earth — Or rather, from the coasts, ends, or extremities of the earth, as Dr. Waterland reads it. Their voice roareth like the sea — The shouts of hostile armies are fitly compared to the waves of the sea, which dash upon the shores with a great noise. And they ride upon horses — Of which there was a great scarcity in Judea, which was one reason that induced the Jews to enter into alliances with Egypt, that they might be furnished with horses from thence. We have heard the fame thereof — The prophet personates the people, and describes the very great consternation which Judah and Jerusalem should be in, upon the approach of this formidable enemy. Our hands wax feeble — We have no heart to make any resistance; anguish hath taken hold of us — We are in an extremity of pain, like that of a woman in travail. Go not forth into the fields, &c. — Thus he expresses the great danger that would be everywhere. O daughter of my people, &c. — Here the prophet calls upon them to lament the desolations that were coming upon them; as if he had said, Hear thy God calling thee to weeping and mourning, and answer his call. Gird thee with sackcloth — Not only put on sackcloth for a day, but gird it on thee to be worn constantly. Wallow thyself in ashes — Lie down among them; use all the tokens of the deepest mourning, and most bitter lamentation; and that not forced, and for show, but with the greatest sincerity, as parents mourn for an only son, and think themselves comfortless because they are childless. The expression, as for an only son, was proverbial among the Jews, to denote the greatest grief. For the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us — Though he is not come yet, he is coming; the decree is gone forth, let us therefore meet the execution of it with a suitable sadness.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain “Behold,” I give unto “this people” causes of stumbling,
“Behold,” I give unto “this people” causes of stumbling,
And they shall stumble against them:
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Fathers and sons together,
“The neighbor and his friend shall perish.”
This is the natural consequence of their conduct. Their service of Yahweh was a systematic hypocrisy: how then could they walk uprightly with their fellow-men? When God lays stumblingblocks in men’s way, it is by the general action of His moral law Jam 1:13-14, by which willful sin in one point reacts upon the whole moral nature Jam 2:10.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain stumbling-blocks--instruments of the Jews' ruin (compare Mat 21:44; Isa…
stumbling-blocks--instruments of the Jews' ruin (compare Mat 21:44; Isa 8:14; Pe1 2:8). God Himself ("I") lays them before the reprobate (Psa 69:22; Rom 1:28; Rom 11:9).
fathers . . . sons . . . neighbour . . . friend--indiscriminate ruin.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 21. I will lay stumblingblocks — God does this…
21. I will lay stumblingblocks — God does this in two ways, neither of which is any impeachment of his holiness. First, by the general action of moral law by which sin reacts upon the nature of the sinner; and, second, by outward visitations in the realm of physical nature or human society. To these last there is here special reference.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 21. stumblingblocks] The enemy shall trip them up in…
21. stumblingblocks] The enemy shall trip them up in their easygoing ways. Cp. Jer_6:15.
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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (21) And the fathers and the sons together .…
(21) And the fathers and the sons together . . .—Better, I give unto this people stumbling blocks, and they shall stumble over them: fathers and sons together, neighbour and his friend, shall perish.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain I will lay stumbling-blocks, etc, Of the regenerate Israel…
I will lay stumbling-blocks, etc, Of the regenerate Israel of the future it is prophesied (Isa_54:15) that his enemies shall "fall upon him or, "by reason of him." Of the unregenerate Israel of the present, that he shall "fall" (i.e. come to ruin) upon the "stumbling-blocks" presented, not without God"s appointment, by the terrible northern invader.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.