What Does Jeremiah 13:18 Mean?
Say to the king and to the great lady, Lower yourselves, sit down, for the crown of your adornment shall come down from your heads.
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
Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down: for your principalities shall come down, even the crown of your glory.THE KEY
The command to make themselves low lands beside the crown’s descent, showing that status cannot hold its wearer above the fall.
THE MEANING
The king and queen stand under a command to lower themselves and sit, because the crown displaying their splendor is coming down. The verse speaks wherever rank is treated as protection: its visible sign is subject to the same descent as its wearer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a title or visible crown makes its wearer immune from being brought low.
THE ROOT
הַשְׁפִּילוּ
hashpilu
GROWS FROM
שפל
To be low or to bring low.
“lower yourselves” in this verse is hashpilu. The command carries the sense of lowering oneself, a movement made explicit in the same verse when the crown comes down. The root joins humility to a change in height: the person and the sign of rank both enter the downward movement.
ALSO GROWS
shafal: Low, humble.
שָׁפָל
The adjective shares the root’s sense of lowliness, showing the spatial meaning inside the command to humble oneself.
shephelah: Lowland.
שְׁפֵלָה
This word for low-lying land makes the root’s image concrete: to be low is to occupy a lower place.
עֲטֶרֶת
ateret
GROWS FROM
עטר
To surround or encircle; to crown.
The crown is an encircling mark of rank on the head, yet here that sign of elevation itself comes down. The verse lets the visible symbol of height share in its wearer’s descent.
ALSO GROWS
atar: To encircle or crown.
עָטַר
The verb reveals the surrounding image within the crown worn as a sign of rank.
atarah: Crown or wreath.
עֲטָרָה
This related noun shows the root’s movement from encircling to the visible emblem that descends in the verse.
תִּפְאַרְתְּכֶם
tiph’artkhem
GROWS FROM
פאר
To adorn, beautify, or glorify.
The word rendered “glory” also carries the sense of beauty or adornment, making the crown and the splendor it displays part of one visible picture. Both the sign of honor and its beauty are exposed to coming down.
ALSO GROWS
pa’ar: To adorn or beautify.
פָּאַר
This verb shows the root’s connection between glory and visible adornment.
tif’eret: Beauty, splendor, or ornament.
תִּפְאֶרֶת
This related noun makes the crown’s splendor an adornment that can also descend.
THE PATTERN
Human height built on pride is brought down, while the lowly are raised.
The lifted eyes of man shall be brought low, and the heights of men shall bow down, and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.Gaze at every one who is lifted up, and bend him; and tread down the wicked beneath them.He has pulled the mighty down from their seats, and lifted up the low.THE THREAD
The lifted eyes of man shall be brought low, and the heights of men shall bow down, and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.Jeremiah’s “Humble yourselves” and Isaiah’s “shall be humbled” share the Hebrew root שפל (shafal, to be low or bring low). Jeremiah gives the lowering as a command; Isaiah uses the same root for pride brought down.
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