What Does Jeremiah 25:17 Mean?
Then I took the cup from the LORD's hand, and made all the nations drink, to whom the LORD had sent me.
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
Then took I the cup at the LORD’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me:THE KEY
The cup becomes a portion carried through the prophet’s hands until every nation receives it.
THE MEANING
What is held in the LORD’s hand becomes a portion no nation can simply ignore. The messenger carries it outward, and the nations are made to drink; the verse leaves the force of that judgment unsoftened.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A nation’s power does not make it exempt from judgment; the cup reaches all the nations named.
THE ROOT
וָאַשְׁקֶה
va’ashqeh from shaqah
GROWS FROM
שקה
To give drink, water, or irrigate.
“made ... to drink” in this verse is va’ashqeh from shaqah. The verb is causative: the nations are made to drink what is given to them. The same root can describe water sustaining a garden, so the action of giving drink is shared; what fills the cup determines whether it nourishes or judges.
ALSO GROWS
mashqeh: A drink; also a cupbearer, one who gives drink.
מַשְׁקֶה
The branch makes the giver visible: the prophet carries a portion and delivers it to those who must drink.
yashqeh: He waters or irrigates.
יַשְׁקֶה
The same verb-root can describe water supplied to make a garden flourish, exposing how one root holds both provision and the delivery of judgment.
שְׁלָחַנִי
shelachani from shalach
GROWS FROM
שלח
To send forth, release, or let go.
The messenger is sent forth with the cup, so the judgment moves outward through an act of sending. The root’s sense of release gives the scene motion: what is held in the LORD’s hand is released into the nations’ reach.
ALSO GROWS
shallach: Send away; release; let go.
שַׁלַּח
This is the root behind the command to let the people go, linking the prophet’s being sent with something released and set in motion.
Shiloach: Sent; also the name of the waters of Shiloah.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name preserves the sense of something sent forth, echoing the prophet who carries the cup outward.
THE PATTERN
The cup held in the LORD’s hand becomes a portion of judgment that those named to receive it must drink.
For a cup is in the hand of the LORD, and the wine foams, full and mixed; he pours from it, but its dregs, all the wicked of the earth, drain and drink.Awake, awake, rise, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his burning. You have drunk the dregs of the cup of reeling, and drained them.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.THE THREAD
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.This verse names the cup as the wine cup of fury and gives the command enacted in verse 17. The repeated language of the LORD’s hand, the nations, and making them drink shows the cup as a delivered portion, not a passing image.
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