What Does Jeremiah 25:16 Mean?

And they shall drink, and reel, and rave, because of the sword that I will send among them.

Jeremiah 25:16 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.

THE KEY

The terror is both drunk and sent into the midst: the people reel as the sword enters their shared life.

THE MEANING

The verse presents collective terror as something swallowed and something unleashed among the people: they drink, reel, and lose their senses as the sword is sent among them. The violence is direct, and its consequences are bodily and communal.

THE ROOT

שֹׁלֵחַ

sholeach

GROWS FROM

שלח

shalach

Send forth, release, or let go.

“send” in this verse is sholeach. The sword is not merely described as present; it is sent forth into the people’s midst. The root holds the force of release and arrival, making the violence immediate and shared.

ALSO GROWS

Shiloach: Siloam or Siloah, named as “Sent.”

שִׁלֹחַ

The sent waters at Siloam form a striking contrast with the sword sent among the people here.

mishloach yad: The sending or extension of a hand.

מִשְׁלוֹחַ יָד

This branch shows the root reaching outward into action, as the sword is released into their midst.

חֶרֶב

cherev

GROWS FROM

חרב

charav

Be dry, desolate, or laid waste.

The English names the weapon, while its consonantal family also names being laid waste and the ruin left behind. The sword carries devastation into the shared space “among them.”

ALSO GROWS

charav: To become dry or be laid waste.

חָרַב

This verb links the sword’s presence with devastation, the condition it brings into the verse.

chorbah: Ruins or desolation.

חָרְבָּה

This noun names the desolate aftermath that belongs to the sword’s word family.

THE PATTERN

The cup a people drink can become a condition that overtakes them together.

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.

Jeremiah 25:15 · SDVThe cup of fury is given to the nations to drink, setting up the collective upheaval in the next verse.

For they eat the bread of restlessness, and drink the wine of violence.

Proverbs 4:17 · SDVViolence is pictured as something taken in, joining what is consumed with the life that follows.

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.

Revelation 14:10 · SDVThe image again makes judgment a cup that is drunk and experienced.

THE THREAD

And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.

John 9:7 · SDV

Siloam is named as “Sent,” from the Hebrew ⁨שִׁלֹחַ⁩ (Shiloach, sent), in the same word family as ⁨שָׁלַח⁩ (shalach, send forth or release) here. The shared root sets a sharp contrast: the sword sent among the people brings terror, while washing in the sent pool precedes the man’s restored sight.

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