What Does Jeremiah 13:13 Mean?
And you shall say to them, Thus says the LORD, Look, I will fill all who settle in this land, the kings who settle upon the throne of David, and the priests, and the prophets, and all who settle in Jerusalem, with drunkenness.
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
Then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.THE KEY
Here authority offers no shelter: the king, priest, prophet, and every resident receive the same intoxication.
THE MEANING
The verse puts Jerusalem’s entire civic and sacred order under judgment: rulers, priests, prophets, and residents are all filled with drunkenness. No title places anyone outside the impairment named here.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that political power or religious office guarantees clear sight or immunity from judgment. The same impairment reaches the throne, the priesthood, the prophets, and all the inhabitants.
THE ROOT
שִׁכָּרוֹן
shikkārôn
GROWS FROM
שכר
sh-k-r
To become drunk; to be intoxicated.
“drunkenness” in this verse is shikkārôn. The noun grows from שכר (sh-k-r), the root of becoming drunk. Its word family also names intoxicating drink and the person in an intoxicated state, keeping the drink and its effect close together; here the whole civic and sacred order is named as filled with that condition.
ALSO GROWS
shēkār: Strong or intoxicating drink.
שֵׁכָר
This branch names what can produce the state of intoxication named in the verse.
shikkôr: A drunk or intoxicated person.
שִׁכּוֹר
This branch names the person in the condition that the verse says fills the whole city.
THE PATTERN
Judgment is pictured as an intoxicating portion that reaches its recipients and brings them into impairment.
For thus says the LORD God of Israel to me, Take this cup of burning wine from my hand, and make all the nations, to whom I send you, drink it.Awake, awake, rise, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his burning. You have drunk the dregs of the cup of reeling, and drained them.And he himself drinks from the wine of the seething of God, poured out undiluted into the cup of his swelling. And he is tormented in fire and sulfur before the face of the set-apart messengers, and before the face of the Lamb.THE THREAD
Linger and be stunned; stare and stare! They are drunk, but not from wine; they reel, but not from strong drink.The word translated “drunken” shares the root שכר (sh-k-r) with Jeremiah’s “drunkenness.” Isaiah says the staggering can be real even without wine or strong drink, opening the root’s image of impairment beyond a literal beverage.
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