What Does Jeremiah 19:8 Mean?
And I will make this city a waste, and a hissing. Everyone who passes by there will be stunned and hiss because of all its blows.
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 I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.THE KEY
The Hebrew uses one root for the city’s desolation and the witnesses’ astonishment: the ruin becomes so visible that even passing eyes are caught by it.
THE MEANING
Ruin here is exposed, not concealed: the city becomes a public scene of devastation, and every passerby is arrested into an audible response. The same Hebrew root names both the city’s desolation and the onlookers’ astonishment, so their shock echoes the condition they see.
THE ROOT
שַׁמָּה
shammah
GROWS FROM
שׁמם
To be desolate, laid waste, or appalled.
“a waste” in this verse is shammah. The city’s desolation and the passersby’s astonishment come from the same root. Hebrew lets the ruined place and the shock it causes echo one another in a way the English words conceal.
ALSO GROWS
shemamah: Desolation, devastation.
שְׁמָמָה
This noun shares the root behind the city’s desolation, keeping the state of the place joined to the astonishment it provokes.
shamemu: They were appalled or astonished.
שָׁמְמוּ
Isaiah 52:14 uses this root for those appalled by a sight, showing how the same root can name a witness’s response to what is laid bare.
שְׁרֵקָה
sheriqah
GROWS FROM
שרק
To whistle or hiss.
The verse repeats this sound: the city becomes a hissing, and the passersby hiss in response. What English can make sound like a label for the city is also the audible reaction of those who see it.
ALSO GROWS
sheriqah: A hissing or whistling.
שְׁרֵקָה
This noun names the city’s public condition as a sound that marks the scene.
yishroq: He will hiss or whistle.
יִשְׁרֹק
The verb describes what the passerby does, repeating the sound attached to the city.
מַכֹּתֶיהָ
makkoteha
GROWS FROM
נכה
To strike or smite.
The word rendered “plagues” carries the image of blows or strikes. The verse keeps the devastation concrete: the passersby react to the marks of what has struck the city.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: A blow, wound, or plague.
מַכָּה
This noun is the singular form behind the city’s “plagues,” making the devastation sound like blows received.
nakah: To strike or smite.
נָכָה
The verb exposes the action beneath the noun: the city bears the effects of being struck.
THE PATTERN
When a city’s devastation is exposed as a public sign, those who see it become witnesses to its scale.
And this house, which was high, every one who passes by it shall be stunned and shall hiss, and they shall say, "Why has the LORD done so to this land and to this house?"To make their land stunned, and a whistling of the ages. Everyone who crosses by it shall be stunned, and shake his head.And the kings of the earth, who sold themselves with her and feasted with her, shall weep and beat their breasts over her when they look upon the smoke of her burning. Standing far off for the fear of her scourging, saying, Woe, woe, the great city Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.THE THREAD
As many were stunned at you, so his look was ruined beyond any man, and his shape beyond the sons of men.The Hebrew word translated “astonied” comes from the same שׁמם root as Jeremiah’s “desolate” and “astonished.” Isaiah shows that this root can name the shock a sight produces; Jeremiah makes that shock the response to a city laid waste.
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