What Does Jeremiah 25:23 Mean?
Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all who are at the clipped edges,
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
Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the utmost corners,THE KEY
What the KJV renders as the farthest corners also carries the image of people defined by a clipped edge.
THE MEANING
This verse reaches you now with a list that moves beyond familiar centers: Dedan, Tema, Buz, and those at the edge all remain in view. Its language gathers remoteness and a clipped boundary into one phrase, so no marked or distant people vanish from the reckoning.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that distance from the center makes a person invisible is undone here: the list names the edge with equal directness.
THE ROOT
מְקֻצְצֵי פֵּאָה
mequṣṣəṣê pe'ah
GROWS FROM
קצץ
Cut off, clip, or crop.
“at the clipped edges” in this verse is mequṣṣəṣê pe'ah. The phrase pairs מְקֻצְצֵי (mequṣṣəṣê, clipped ones) with פֵּאָה (pe’ah, edge or corner), so the edge is also presented as something clipped. That lets the phrase carry both a far boundary and the image of a clipped bodily edge.
ALSO GROWS
mequṣṣəṣê: Those clipped or cropped.
מְקֻצְצֵי
This participial form describes the people in the verse through the image of clipping.
weqatsota: You shall cut off.
וְקַצֹּתָה
The same root names a literal cutting off in Deuteronomy 25:12, making the clipped-edge force of the phrase concrete.
THE PATTERN
A boundary at the edge still lies within the reach of divine presence and action.
Their camels shall be plunder, and the crowd of their herds shall be plunder. I will winnow to every breath those clipped at the edges, and I will bring their calamity from all around, declares the LORD.Where shall I go from your breath? And where shall I flee from your face?But you will take hold of power when the Set-Apart Breath comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the farthest edge of the ground.THE THREAD
Then you shall cut off her hand, and your eye shall not spare her.The Hebrew verb וְקַצֹּתָה (weqatsota, you shall cut off) shares the root קצץ (qatsats, cut off or clip) with Jeremiah’s מְקֻצְצֵי (mequṣṣəṣê, clipped ones). The link makes the clipped-edge force of the phrase physical and unmistakable.
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