What Does Jeremiah 48:13 Mean?
And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of their leaning upon Beth-el.
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
And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Beth-el their confidence.THE KEY
By placing Chemosh beside Bethel, the verse shows that even a sacred name cannot guarantee the security people place in it.
THE MEANING
Moab and Israel stand under the same exposure: both find that what they trusted can become their shame. The name Bethel, בֵּית־אֵל (Bēṯ-ʾĒl, “house of God”), carries sacred identity, yet the verse calls it Israel’s confidence. The same truth reaches you now: a revered name or place cannot guarantee that the security attached to it will hold.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A revered place or divine name guarantees that the safety attached to it is real.
THE ROOT
מִבְטַחָם
mivtaḥām their confidence
GROWS FROM
בטח
To trust, feel secure, or rely on.
“their leaning upon Beth-el” in this verse is mivtaḥām their confidence. The word translated “confidence” grows from the same root as the verb for trusting. The verse exposes the difference between the feeling of security and what can actually carry it: even a place called בֵּית־אֵל (Bēṯ-ʾĒl, “house of God”) can become a failed refuge.
ALSO GROWS
bāṭaḥ: To trust or feel secure.
בָּטַח
This verb appears in Jeremiah 17:7 for trust placed in the LORD, showing that the verse’s question is where security rests.
mivṭāḥ: Confidence, security, or a place of security.
מִבְטָח
This noun shares the root of “their confidence” and makes reliance itself the verse’s focus.
בֹּשׁוּ
bōšû they were
GROWS FROM
בוש
To become ashamed or confounded.
“ashamed” in this verse is bōšû they were. The Hebrew uses this same root for Moab and Israel, binding their outcomes together. Their different sacred centers lead to the same exposure: what they relied on becomes a source of shame.
ALSO GROWS
bōš: To be ashamed or confounded.
בּוֹשׁ
This is the basic verb behind the verse’s repeated description of both peoples.
bûšāh: Shame or confusion.
בּוּשָׁה
This noun shows the exposed state that follows when confidence in a refuge collapses.
THE PATTERN
A refuge’s reliability is revealed when the people who trust it meet the crisis it cannot carry.
And they shall be shattered and ashamed of Ethiopia, their leaning, and of Egypt, their adornment.Some lean their full weight on chariots, and some on horses; but we remember in the nature of the LORD our God.And the rain came down, and the rivers came, and the winds breathed and fell against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.THE THREAD
Blessed is the man who leans his full weight upon the LORD, and the LORD is his leaning.The word translated “confidence” here, מִבְטַחָם (mivtaḥām, “their confidence”), shares the root בטח (bāṭaḥ, “trust or feel secure”) with “trusteth” in Jeremiah 17:7. The shared root reveals that the issue is not trust itself, but what receives it.
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