Death is pictured here as a relentless individual that is able to find its way to people. Their doors may be closed, but death will find its way through their windows. It has even entered their palaces, indicating either that that even the most secure locations in the nation are not safe, or that death comes to both the great and the small, or both of the above. It even comes to children and young men.
The personification of death in this way is more typical of Canaanite texts that speak of Mot as the god of death. The Old Testament does not give death a personality.1 Death is maybe spoken of in this way here because one of the main reasons the Lord’s judgment has come to Judah is because of her worship of the Canaanite gods.
21 For death has come up into our windows; it has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares.