What Does Jeremiah 48:15 Mean?
Moab is ravaged, and gone up out of her cities. His chosen young men have gone down to the slaughter, says the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.
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
Moab is spoiled, and gone up out of her cities, and his chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.THE KEY
Even Moab’s chosen young men descend into slaughter: being selected as its strength does not shield them from the ruin.
THE MEANING
Moab is devastated, its people gone from its cities, and its chosen young men go down to slaughter. The verse holds the loss of place and the killing of people together without softening either. The speaker names himself as King, the LORD of hosts.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a people’s chosen strength guarantees its safety falls away here: even Moab’s selected young men go down to slaughter.
THE ROOT
שֻׁדַּד
shuddad
GROWS FROM
שדד
sh-d-d
To devastate, despoil, or plunder.
“ravaged” in this verse is shuddad. The word translated “spoiled” belongs to the same root as words for plunder and the plunderer. The verse’s ruin is not a vague decline: it is devastation that strips a people of what they hold.
ALSO GROWS
shod: Devastation, plunder
שֹׁד
This branch gives the ruin a concrete shape: Moab is stripped and devastated.
shoded: Spoiler, plunderer
שֹׁדֵד
This branch names the one who devastates, bringing the force behind “spoiled” into view.
מִבְחַר
mibḥar
GROWS FROM
בחר
b-ḥ-r
To choose or select.
The phrasing identifies these young men as Moab’s choice, the ones singled out as its best. Their descent to slaughter makes the loss sharper: being chosen marks their value, but does not protect them from the violence named here.
ALSO GROWS
baḥur: Young man, often one selected for strength or service
בָּחוּר
It echoes the verse’s young men and shows how their youth and selection converge in one phrase.
baḥir: Chosen one
בָּחִיר
This branch reinforces that the men are singled out; their chosen status does not avert their fate.
THE PATTERN
When a people’s strongholds fall, the loss can reach both the city and those chosen to defend it.
Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty ones in the war.Therefore her young men shall fall in her wide places, and all her men of war shall be silenced in that day, declares the LORD.They will fall by the mouth of the sword, and be led away captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled by the nations until the seasons of the nations are filled.THE THREAD
You, daughter who settles in Dibon, come down from your weight, and sit in thirst, for the one who strips Moab shall climb up upon you, and ruin your strongholds.“Spoiled” here and “spoiler” in the next verse come from the same Hebrew root, שדד (shadad), meaning to devastate or plunder. The next verse names the agent of the devastation and brings the ruin of Moab’s cities and strongholds into sharper focus.
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