Jeremiah 15:12

Hebrew Names Version

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

Parallel Translations

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

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.

Complete Jewish Bible
"Can iron break iron and bronze 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 is me, my mother, that you have borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole eretz! I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; [yet] everyone of them does curse me. ¹¹ The LORD said, Most assuredly I will strengthen you for good; most assuredly I will cause the enemy to make supplication to you in the time of evil and in the time of affliction. ¹² Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass? ¹³ Your substance and your treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your borders. ¹⁴ I will make [them] to pass with your enemies into a land which you don't know; for a fire is kindled in my anger, which shall burn on 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
The LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.

Genesis 15:3
Avram said, "Behold, to me you have given no seed: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir."

Genesis 15:5
The LORD brought him outside, and said, "Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." He said to Avram, "So shall your seed be."

Genesis 15:8
He said, "Lord GOD, whereby will I know that I will inherit it?"

Genesis 15:9
He said to him, "Take me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon."

Genesis 15:13
He said to Avram, "Know for sure that your seed will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years.

Genesis 15:14
I will also judge that nation, whom they will serve. Afterward they will come out with great substance.

1 Samuel 26:12
So David took the spear and the jar of water from Sha'ul's head; and they got them away: and no man saw it, nor knew it, neither did any awake; for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the LORD was fallen on them.

Job 33:15
In a dream, in a vision of the night, When deep sleep falls on men, In slumbering on the bed;

Acts 20:9
A certain young man named Eutychus sat in the window, weighed down with deep sleep. As Sha'ul spoke still longer, being weighed down by his sleep, he fell down from the third story, and was taken up 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.