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the Week of Proper 11 / Ordinary 16
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Updated Bible Version

Isaiah 32:12

They shall smite on the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Church;   Israel, Prophecies Concerning;   Women;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Isaiah;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Isaiah, Book of;   Mourning Customs;   Taber;   The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary - Rain;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Isaiah;   Relationships, Family;   Teat;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Beautiful, the, in Jewish Literature;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Beat your breasts in mourningfor the delightful fields and the fruitful vines,
Hebrew Names Version
They shall strike on the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
King James Version
They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
English Standard Version
Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,
New American Standard Bible
Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,
New Century Version
Beat your breasts in grief, because the fields that were pleasant are now empty. Cry, because the vines that once had fruit now have no more grapes.
Amplified Bible
Beat your breasts [in mourning] for the beautiful fields, for the fruitful vine,
World English Bible
They shall strike on the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Men shall lament for the teates, euen for the pleasant fieldes, and for the fruitefull vine.
Legacy Standard Bible
Beat your breasts for the desirable fields, for the fruitful vine,
Berean Standard Bible
Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vines,
Contemporary English Version
Slap your breasts in sorrow because of what happened to the fruitful fields and vineyards,
Complete Jewish Bible
Beat your breasts in mourning for the pleasant fields and fruitful vines,
Darby Translation
They shall smite on the breasts [in lamentation] for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vineyards.
Easy-to-Read Version
Beat your breasts in sorrow. Cry because your fields are empty. Your vineyards once gave grapes, but now they are empty.
George Lamsa Translation
Mourn and beat upon your breasts, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
Good News Translation
Beat your breasts in grief because the fertile fields and the vineyards have been destroyed,
Lexham English Bible
mourning over breasts, over fields of delight, over the fruitful vine,
Literal Translation
be wailing over breasts, over pleasant fields, over the fruitful vine.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Ye shal knock vpo youre brestes, because of the pleasaunt felde, and because of the fruteful vynyarde.
American Standard Version
They shall smite upon the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
Bible in Basic English
Have sorrow for the fields, the pleasing fields, the fertile vine;
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Smiting upon the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine;
King James Version (1611)
They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fieldes, for the fruitfull vine.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
For as the infantes weepe when their mothers teates are dryed vp: so shall you weepe for your faire fieldes and fruitfull vineyardes.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
and beat your breasts, because of the pleasant field, and the fruit of the vine.
English Revised Version
They shall smite upon the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
girde youre leendis; weile ye on brestis, on desirable cuntrei, on the plenteuouse vyner.
Webster's Bible Translation
They shall lament for the breasts, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
New English Translation
Mourn over the field, over the delightful fields and the fruitful vine!
New King James Version
People shall mourn upon their breasts For the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
New Living Translation
Beat your breasts in sorrow for your bountiful farms and your fruitful grapevines.
New Life Bible
Beat your breasts for the good fields, for the vine full of fruit,
New Revised Standard
Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Upon your breasts, continue smiting: For desirable fields, For fruitful vine.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Mourn for your breasts, for the delightful country, for the fruitful vineyard.
Revised Standard Version
Beat upon your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,
Young's Literal Translation
For breasts they are lamenting, For fields of desire, for the fruitful vine.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,

Contextual Overview

9 Rise up, you women that are at ease, [and] hear my voice; you careless daughters, give ear to my speech. 10 For days beyond a year you shall be troubled, you careless women; for the vintage shall fail, the ingathering shall not come. 11 Tremble, you women that are at ease; be troubled, you careless ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and gird [sackcloth] on your loins. 12 They shall smite on the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. 13 On the land of my people thorns and briers shall come up; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city. 14 For the palace shall be forsaken; the populous city shall be deserted; the hill and the watch-tower shall be for dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks; 15 until the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is esteemed as a forest. 16 Then justice shall dwell in the wilderness; and righteousness shall abide in the fruitful field. 17 And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever. 18 And my people shall abide in a peaceable habitation, and in safe dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

lament: Lamentations 2:11, Lamentations 4:3, Lamentations 4:4

pleasant fields: Heb. fields of desire, Deuteronomy 8:7, Deuteronomy 8:8, Deuteronomy 11:11, Deuteronomy 11:12, Ezekiel 20:6, Ezekiel 20:15

Reciprocal: Isaiah 7:23 - be for briers Isaiah 28:22 - a consumption Jeremiah 49:3 - gird Ezekiel 26:12 - thy pleasant houses

Cross-References

Genesis 22:17
that in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.
Genesis 32:3
And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother to the land of Seir, the field of Edom.
Genesis 32:4
And he commanded them, saying, Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your slave Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now:
Genesis 32:6
And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to your brother Esau, and moreover he comes to meet you, and four hundred men with him.
Genesis 32:13
And he lodged there that night, and took of that which he had with him a present for Esau his brother:
Genesis 32:15
thirty milch camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty she-donkeys and ten foals.
Exodus 32:13
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your slaves, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.
Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie, Neither a son of man, that he should repent: Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?
1 Samuel 15:29
And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not man, that he should repent.
Matthew 24:35
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

They shall lament for the teats,.... Either of the beasts of the field, that should be dried up, and give no milk, through the great drought that should be upon the land; or through the waste of the herbage by the enemy; or else of the women, their breasts and paps, which should afford no milk for their infants, through the famine that should press them sore, which would occasion great lamentation, both in mothers and children; though some think are to be understood of the fields, and are explained by them in the next clause; the fruitful earth being compared to a woman, its fields are like breasts or paps, which yield food and nourishment, but now should not afford any, and therefore there would be cause of lamentation. Jarchi interprets it, "they shall beat upon their breasts" m a gesture used in lamentation to express exceeding great grief and sorrow, Luke 18:13 some, because the word rendered "lament" is of the masculine gender, and so not applicable to women, render the words in connection with the preceding verse Isaiah 32:11 thus,

"gird sackcloth on your loins, and on your mourning breasts'' n;

though they may be interpreted indefinitely, "there shall be lamentation for the teats", among all sorts of people, men, women, and children:

for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine; as the fields are when covered with corn and grass, and the vines with clusters of grapes, but now should not be, either through drought, or by being foraged and trampled on by the enemy.

m So it is explained in T. Bab. Moed Katon, fol. 27. 2. n So Castalio.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They shall lament for the teats - Interpreters have been not a little perplexed by this expression. Lowth supposes it is to be taken in connection with the previous verse, and that it denotes that sackcloth was to be girded upon the breast as well as upon the loins. Others have supposed that it denotes to ‘smite upon the breasts,’ as a token of grief; others, that the word ‘breast’ here denotes children by a synecdoche, as having been nourished by the breast, and that the women here were called to mourn over their children. But it is evident, I think, that the word breasts here is used to denote that which nourishes or sustains life, and is synonymous with fruitful fields. It is so used in Homer (Iliad, ix. 141), where οίθαρ ἀρούρης oithar arourēs denotes fertility of land. And here the sense doubtless is, that they would mourn over the fields which once contributed to sustain life, but which were now desolate. In regard to the grammatical difficulties of the place, Rosenmuller and Gesenius may be consulted.

The pleasant fields - Margin, as in Hebrew, ‘Fields of desire.’

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 32:12. They shall lament - for the pleasant fields - "Mourn ye for the pleasant field"] The Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate read ספדו siphdu, mourn ye, imperative; twelve MSS., (five ancient,) two editions, the Septuagint, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Syriac, and Vulgate, all read שדה sadeh, a field; not שדי shedey, breasts.


 
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