Contemplative Bible Reading

Jeremiah 44:13-14 (New International Version)

¹³ I will punish those who live in Egypt with the sword, famine and plague, as I punished Jerusalem. ¹⁴ None of the remnant of Judah who have gone to live in Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah, to which they long to return and live; none will return except a few fugitives.”

This phrase “sword, famine, and plague” occurs in many places in the Bible. This passage in Jeremiah is only one. These three words make a lot of sense, especially in the ancient world.

The sword means a war – a type of war that we would find particularly cruel and barbarous. A war conducted literally with swords, clubs, rocks – conduction face to face and hand to hand. All wars destroy the infrastructure of a society. The ancient form of war did an excellent job of that.

The famine soon followed the war. The one part of a society that was given a tremendous blow was agriculture. Invading armies consumed to livestock – protein source gone. With working farm animals gone (plow power), and many farmers killed, crops failed – carbohydrates gone.

The plague means disease. With much of the food gone, people were malnourished if not absolutely starving to death. They were weak and susceptible to disease. And throw in all those  dead bodies lying around from the war. It is easy to see the meager water supplies being polluted.

Sword, famine, and plague. The people in ancient times knew these well and how one quickly led to the next. These three literally erased societies and cultures.