What Does Jeremiah 46:10 Mean?
For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge himself on those who press him. The sword shall eat, and be full, and drink deep of their blood, for the Lord GOD of hosts has a slaughter in the north country by the river Euphrates.
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
For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.THE KEY
The verse calls its battlefield slaughter a sacrifice and describes the sword itself as saturated with blood.
THE MEANING
This verse places you before judgment in its full violence: the sword devours, fills itself with blood, and the slain are named as a sacrifice to the LORD of hosts. Its image makes vengeance bodily and costly, rather than an abstract verdict.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that its judgment is bloodless or abstract: it is pictured as a sword saturated with blood and a sacrifice beside the Euphrates.
THE ROOT
נְקָמָה
neqāmāh
GROWS FROM
נקם
n-q-m
To avenge or exact vengeance.
Hebrew repeats נקם in two forms: a “day of vengeance” is followed by the purpose “to avenge” the adversaries. The English separates noun and verb, but both the day and its action grow from one root.
ALSO GROWS
nāqam: To avenge.
נָקַם
This verb supplies the action immediately following “day of vengeance.”
nōqēm: An avenger; one who takes vengeance.
נֹקֵם
This form shows the same root can name the one carrying out the act.
זֶבַח
zevaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ
To slaughter or sacrifice.
The closing word זֶבַח names the slaughter with the vocabulary of an offering. The verse holds the battlefield and the sacrificial image together, without hiding the violence in either.
ALSO GROWS
zāvaḥ: To slaughter or sacrifice.
זָבַח
The verb carries the same double sense that makes the verse’s battlefield image so stark.
zōvēaḥ: One who sacrifices; an offerer.
זֹבֵחַ
This form keeps the act of slaughter connected to the person presenting an offering.
וְרָוְתָה
wərāwətāh
GROWS FROM
רוה
r-w-h
To be saturated or drink one’s fill.
“be full and drink deep” in this verse is wərāwətāh. Here the sword is described as saturated with blood. The same root can describe a weary soul being replenished, so the root names fullness while the surrounding scene determines what fills it.
ALSO GROWS
rāwāh: To be saturated; to drink one’s fill.
רָוָה
This is the root sense behind the sword being drenched with blood.
hirwēti: I have satiated or replenished.
הִרְוֵיתִי
Jeremiah uses this form for replenishing the weary soul, showing the root’s other setting.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s vengeance is presented as a decisive reckoning with concrete consequences.
For it is a day of vengeance for the LORD, a year of repayments for the quarrel of Zion.Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give room to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will give back, says the LORD.And from his mouth goes out a sharp sword, so that with it he strikes the nations, and he shepherds them with a rod of iron, and he treads the winepress of the seething and swelling anger of God the all-ruling.THE THREAD
For I have drenched the faint living soul, and I have filled every languishing living soul.Jeremiah 31:25 uses הִרְוֵיתִי (hirwēti, “I have replenished”), from רוה (r-w-h, “be saturated; drink one’s fill”), the same root behind “made drunk” here. One root describes a sword saturated with blood and a weary soul replenished; the scene determines what fills it.
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