What Does Jeremiah 10:20 Mean?
My tent is ravaged, and all my cords are torn. My children have gone out from me, and they are not. There is none to stretch out my tent any more, and to raise my curtains.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.THE KEY
The devastation reaches beyond the torn shelter: even the children and the hands that could raise it again are gone.
THE MEANING
Your shelter is ravaged, and every cord that holds it is snapped. Those who came from you are gone; no one remains to stretch the tent or raise its curtains. The loss reaches past the dwelling to the people and hands that could carry it forward.
THE ROOT
שֻׁדָּד
shuddad
GROWS FROM
שדד
sh-d-d
To devastate, plunder, or deal violently with.
“ravaged” in this verse is shuddad. The word carries the force of violent devastation, not ordinary wear or disorder. The snapped cords and absent children show how far the ravaging reaches: the shelter and its continuity are both lost.
ALSO GROWS
shod: Plunder, devastation, violence.
שֹׁד
This noun names the violent stripping behind a dwelling left ravaged.
shadud: Laid waste, devastated.
שָׁדוּד
This form describes the tent’s state: not simply untidy, but laid waste.
נֹטֶה
noteh
GROWS FROM
נטה
n-ṭ-h
To stretch out, extend, incline, or turn aside.
“stretch out” in this verse is noteh. The same root that describes stretching a tent can describe an inclination or a turning. Here, no one is left to extend the dwelling’s reach; the verb’s outward movement has stopped.
ALSO GROWS
natah: To stretch out or extend.
נָטָה
This is the movement the tent requires, and the verse says no one remains to make it.
netiyyah: Inclination or turning.
נְטִיָּה
The related noun preserves the root’s sense of movement in a direction, which makes the lost extension of the tent more than a tear in its fabric.
מֵקִים
meqim
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
To rise or stand; in a causative form, to raise or establish.
The closing verb means making the curtains stand. Their absence is not just missing fabric: no one remains to raise the structure again.
ALSO GROWS
qum: To rise or stand.
קוּם
The base verb names the standing that the tent’s curtains need.
heqim: To raise or establish.
הֵקִים
This causative form shows what setting up the curtains entails: making them stand in place.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling’s collapse involves the whole structure: its covering, supports, and the people who can raise it.
Widen the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your dwellings stretch out. Do not hold back; lengthen your cords, and grip your pegs.A Song of degrees for Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders toil in emptiness. Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in emptiness.For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is taken down, we have a house built by God, not made by hands, of the ages, in the heavens.THE THREAD
Widen the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your dwellings stretch out. Do not hold back; lengthen your cords, and grip your pegs.Both verses use the same Hebrew root for “stretch forth,” and both name the tent, curtains, and cords. Here no one can extend the dwelling; there those same parts are named as able to lengthen and strengthen.
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