Jeremiah 15:12

Complete Jewish Bible

"Can iron break iron and bronze from the north?

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Can anyone smash iron,iron from the north, or bronze?

Hebrew Names Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

King James Version
Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?

English Standard Version
Can one break iron, iron from the north, and bronze?

New American Standard Bible
"Can anyone smash iron, Iron from the north, or bronze?

New Century Version
No one can smash a piece of iron or bronze that comes from the north.

Amplified Bible
"Can anyone crush iron, The iron from the north, or bronze?

World English Bible
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

Geneva Bible (1587)
Shall the yron breake the yron, and the brasse that commeth from the North?

Legacy Standard Bible
"Can anyone smash iron,Iron from the north, or bronze?

Berean Standard Bible
Can anyone smash iron-iron from the north-or bronze?

Contemporary English Version
The Lord told me to say: People of Judah, just as you can't break iron mixed with bronze, you can't defeat the enemies that will attack from the north.

Darby Translation
Will iron break? iron from the north? and bronze?

Easy-to-Read Version
"Jeremiah, you know that no one can shatter a piece of iron. I mean the kind of iron that is from the north. And no one can shatter a piece of bronze either.

George Lamsa Translation
For he is hard as iron and as brass.

Good News Translation
(No one can break iron, especially the iron from the north that is mixed with bronze.)

Lexham English Bible
Can anyone break iron, iron from the north, or bronze?

Literal Translation
Can one break iron, iron or bronze from the north?

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Doth one yron hurte another, or one metall that cometh from the north, another?

American Standard Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

Bible in Basic English
Is it possible for iron to be broken; even iron from the north, and brass?

JPS Old Testament (1917)
Can iron break iron from the north and brass?

King James Version (1611)
Shall yron breake the Northren yron, and the steele?

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Doth one iron hurt another? or one metall that commeth from the north another?

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Will iron be known? whereas thy strength is a brazen covering.

English Revised Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Whether yrun and metal schal be ioyned bi pees to irun fro the north?

Update Bible Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and bronze?

Webster's Bible Translation
Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?

New English Translation
Can you people who are like iron and bronze break that iron fist from the north?

New King James Version
Can anyone break iron, The northern iron and the bronze?

New Living Translation
Can a man break a bar of iron from the north, or a bar of bronze?

New Life Bible
"Can anyone crush iron, iron from the north, or brass?

New Revised Standard
Can iron and bronze break iron from the north?

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Shall iron crush the iron from the North and the bronze?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Shall iron be allied with the iron from the north, and the brass?

Revised Standard Version
Can one break iron, iron from the north, and bronze?

Young's Literal Translation
Doth one break iron -- northern iron, and brass?

THE MESSAGE
"O Israel, O Judah, what are your chances against the iron juggernaut from the north? In punishment for your sins, I'm giving away everything you've got, giving it away for nothing. I'll make you slaves to your enemies in a strange and far-off land. My anger is blazing and fierce, burning in hot judgment against you."

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Can anyone smash iron, Iron from the north, or bronze?

Contextual Overview

¹⁰ Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth, a man who is the object of strife and controversy throughout the land! I neither lend nor borrow, yet all of them curse me. ¹¹ Adonai said, "I promise to release you for good, I promise to make your enemies appeal to you when calamity and trouble come. ¹² "Can iron break iron and bronze from the north? ¹³ I will give away your wealth and your treasures as plunder, and you will not be paid for them, because of all your sins throughout your territory; ¹⁴ and I will make you pass together with your enemies into a land you do not know. For my anger has become a blazing fire, and it will flare up against you."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Shall iron: Jeremiah 1:18, Jeremiah 1:19, Jeremiah 21:4, Jeremiah 21:5, Job 40:9, Isaiah 45:9, Habakkuk 1:5-10

Reciprocal: Daniel 2:40 - forasmuch 1 John 5:15 - if

Cross-References

Genesis 2:21
Then God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the person; and while he was sleeping, he took one of his ribs and closed up the place from which he took it with flesh.

Genesis 15:3
You haven't given me a child," Avram continued, "so someone born in my house will be my heir."

Genesis 15:5
Then he brought him outside and said, "Look up at the sky, and count the stars — if you can count them! Your descendants will be that many!"

Genesis 15:8
He replied, " Adonai , God, how am I to know that I will possess it?"

Genesis 15:9
He answered him, "Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a dove and a young pigeon."

Genesis 15:13
Adonai said to Avram, "Know this for certain: your descendants will be foreigners in a land that is not theirs. They will be slaves and held in oppression there four hundred years.

Genesis 15:14
But I will also judge that nation, the one that makes them slaves. Afterwards, they will leave with many possessions.

1 Samuel 26:12
So David took the spear and the water jug from Sha'ul's head and got away. Nobody saw or knew about it, and no one awoke, because they were all asleep — a deep sleep from Adonai had fallen over them.

Job 33:15
"In a dream, in a vision at night, when slumber falls upon people, as they sleep in their beds,

Acts 20:9
and there was a young fellow named Eutychus sitting on the window-sill. As Sha'ul's drash went on and on, Eutychus grew sleepier and sleepier; until finally he went sound asleep and fell from the third story to the ground. When they picked him up, he was dead.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?] Can iron break iron, especially that which comes from the north, which was harder than the common iron; or steel, the hardest of all? though the Jews were hard as iron, they could not prevail against and overcome Jeremiah, who was made an iron pillar and brasen walls against them, Jeremiah 1:18, and so these words are spoken for his comfort and encouragement: or they may respect the Jews and the Chaldeans; and the sense be, that the Jews, as mighty and as strong as they fancied themselves to be, and boasted that they were, they could not find themselves a match for the Chaldean army, which came out of the north; and may be said to be as hard as the northern iron, which came from the Chalybes, a people in the north, near Pontus, from whom steel has its name in the Latin tongue; and this sense agrees with what follows.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The steel - “brass,” i. e., bronze. By the “iron” is meant Jeremiah’s intercession; but this cannot alter the divine purpose to send Judah into exile, which is firm as steel and brass. For “brass” see Exodus 25:3 note. The alloy of copper and zinc now called brass was entirely unknown to the ancients.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 15:12. Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? — Shall our weak forces be able to oppose and overcome the powers of the Chaldeans? נחשת nechasheth, which we here translate steel, property signifies brass or copper united with tin, which gives it much hardness, and enables it to bear a good edge.