What Does Jeremiah 15:2 Mean?
And it shall be, when they say to you, Where shall we go out? Then you shall say to them, Thus says the LORD; such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for hunger, to hunger; and such as are for captives, to captives.
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
And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.THE KEY
The answer to “Where shall we go?” is a repeated destination: each named fate becomes the place its person arrives.
THE MEANING
The verse meets the question “Where shall we go?” with a brutal answer: each person is directed toward the fate named for them, death, sword, famine, or captivity. The repeated “to” leaves no safe destination within the sentence; each outcome remains concrete.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that choosing a direction always opens an escape: here, every named route ends in its corresponding calamity.
THE ROOT
מָוֶת
mavet
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
to die.
The Hebrew repeats the same death word as both the fate and its destination: “for death, to death.” The sound and root leave no distance between the condition and where it leads.
ALSO GROWS
mût: to die
מוּת
The verb and the noun share the same root, binding the act of dying to the destination named here.
met: dead
מֵת
This form names the state reached when the verse’s destination is fulfilled.
רָעָב
ra’av
GROWS FROM
רעב
r-ʿ-b
to be hungry.
The famine word grows from the root for hunger: deprivation is carried into the name of the fate itself. Its repetition, “for famine, to famine”, makes hunger both the condition and the destination.
ALSO GROWS
ra’ev: hungry
רָעֵב
The person marked by hunger stands beside the named famine, showing the root’s movement from bodily state to calamity.
ra’avon: famine, scarcity
רָעָבוֹן
This related form also names deprivation, extending the root’s sense of hunger into widespread lack.
שְׁבִי
shevi
GROWS FROM
שבה
sh-b-h
to take captive.
“captives” in this verse is shevi. The word for captivity belongs to a root of taking someone captive. The repeated “for captivity, to captivity” makes capture itself the endpoint, with no opening named beyond it.
ALSO GROWS
shavah: to take captive
שָׁבָה
The verb names the act that becomes the captive person’s fate in this verse.
shavuy: captive
שָׁבוּי
This related form names the person held by the force the verse describes.
THE PATTERN
A named fate becomes a destination, with each person carried toward the outcome that matches it.
And when he comes, he shall strike the land of Egypt; the ones for death to death; the ones for captivity to captivity; the ones for the sword to the sword.Then Jesus said to him, Turn your sword back to its place, for all who take up the sword will perish by the sword.If anyone is bound for captivity, into it he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, he must be killed with the sword. Here is the bearing up under, and the trust of the set-apart ones.THE THREAD
From the hand of the grave I will ransom them; from death I will buy them back. Death, I will be your plague; grave, I will be your destruction. Relenting is hidden from my eyes.Hosea repeats the same Hebrew root מות (m-w-t), “to die,” found in Jeremiah’s word for death. Jeremiah names death as a destination; Hosea addresses that same death as something that can be confronted, leaving the threat in Jeremiah intact while opening a further connection.
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