What Does Jeremiah 22:19 Mean?
He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, dragged and sent out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
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
He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.THE KEY
The verse calls it burial, then shows a body dragged beyond the gates of Yerushalayim (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, Yerushalayim), a name carrying shalom (שָׁלוֹם, wholeness): death becomes public expulsion.
THE MEANING
You meet a sentence in which burial names no honored rest: the body is dragged and cast beyond the gates. Its location sharpens the image, the body is thrust outside Yerushalayim (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, Yerushalayim), whose name carries shalom (שָׁלוֹם, wholeness), and the text leaves that expulsion brutal and public.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A king’s rank guarantees an honored death and burial.
THE ROOT
קְבוּרַת
qevurat
GROWS FROM
קבר
To bury; to inter a body.
“burial / buried” in this verse is qevurat. The Hebrew phrase repeats the seed in קְבוּרַת חֲמוֹר יִקָּבֵר (qevurat chamor yiqqaver, “a donkey’s burial he shall be buried”), binding the name of the rite to its act. The dragging and casting turn that repetition into grim irony: the line calls it burial while depicting a body discarded without honor.
ALSO GROWS
qevurah: Burial
קְבוּרָה
This is the noun used in the phrase “the burial of an ass.”
qeber: Grave, tomb
קֶבֶר
The grave is the place burial leads to; the verse instead ends with the body cast beyond the gates.
סָחוֹב
sāḥôḇ
GROWS FROM
סחב
To drag or haul away.
This root describes a body hauled by force, rather than carried in a burial procession. In Jeremiah 49:20, the same root describes enemies being dragged away, giving the verb a forceful, humiliating edge.
ALSO GROWS
sāḥôḇ: Drag, haul
סָחוֹב
This form names how the body moves in this verse: it is pulled away.
yisḥavum: They will drag them away
יִסְחָבוּם
In Jeremiah 49:20, the same root describes captives being dragged out, revealing the force carried by this verb.
וְהַשְׁלֵךְ
ve-hashlekh
GROWS FROM
שלך
To throw, cast, or hurl.
“sent out” in this verse is ve-hashlekh. The verb completes the act: the body is thrown beyond the gates, not laid to rest. Jeremiah 36:30 uses this same root for Jehoiakim’s body being cast out to the heat by day and frost by night, making the disposal and exposure explicit.
ALSO GROWS
hishlikh: He threw or cast
הִשְׁלִיךְ
This form shows the root’s direct force: a body can be hurled away rather than carefully placed.
venishlakh: And he shall be cast out
וְנִשְׁלַךְ
Jeremiah 36:30 uses this form for the same king’s body, then names its exposure to heat and frost.
THE PATTERN
When a body is denied burial, its public exposure becomes part of the judgment.
Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David, and his corpse shall be thrown out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.And the carcass of Jezebel shall be like dung on the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel, so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel.And from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations they look upon their fallen bodies for three and a half days, and they do not release their fallen bodies to be laid in tombs.THE THREAD
Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David, and his corpse shall be thrown out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.This verse repeats the root שלך (sh-l-k, to cast) for Jehoiakim’s dead body. It opens the present line further: being cast out means exposure to the day’s heat and the night’s frost, with no protected resting place.
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