What Does Jeremiah 48:20 Mean?
Moab is ashamed, for it is shattered. Howl, and cry out. Declare it in Arnon, that Moab is ravaged.
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 confounded; for it is broken down: howl and cry; tell ye it in Arnon, that Moab is spoiled,THE KEY
The verse makes devastation public: “spoiled” names violent plunder, and the cries carry that loss into the open.
THE MEANING
You encounter a place that is not merely embarrassed; it is broken down and plundered, and its grief is audible. The call to tell the news at Arnon brings the devastation into public view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a ruined place should hide its grief: here the loss is named aloud, and the cries are part of the truth.
THE ROOT
שֻׁדָּד
shuddad
GROWS FROM
שדד
shadad
To devastate or plunder violently.
“ravaged” in this verse is shuddad. This root carries physical ruin and loss, not just disgrace. Its branches name both the devastation and the plunderer, so “spoiled” holds the force that takes a place apart.
ALSO GROWS
shod: Plunder, violence, devastation.
שֹׁד
It names the wreckage carried by “spoiled.”
meshoded: A plunderer or devastator.
מְשׁוֹדֵד
It names the force behind the loss that Moab’s cries make public.
הַגִּידוּ
haggidu
GROWS FROM
נגד
nagad
To be in front; by extension, to declare or make known.
“Declare” in this verse is haggidu. This root links telling with bringing something before view. The call to tell the news at Arnon makes Moab’s devastation public rather than hidden.
ALSO GROWS
higgid: He declared or made known.
הִגִּיד
It shares the act of bringing news into view.
nagid: A leader, one who stands before others.
נָגִיד
It preserves the root’s image of what stands in front; here the devastation is set before witnesses.
THE PATTERN
When devastation overtakes a place, its loss is voiced publicly and witnessed by others.
In their streets they gird themselves with sackcloth. On their rooftops and in their streets everyone howls, and the weeping comes down.They will raise their voice over you, and cry out in bitterness, and cast up dust upon their heads, and roll themselves in the ashes.And the kings of the earth, who sold themselves with her and feasted with her, shall weep and beat their breasts over her when they look upon the smoke of her burning.THE THREAD
Let my driven ones sojourn with you, Moab; be their hiding place from the face of the ravager. For the squeezer is no more, the ravaging runs out, the trampling is used up from the land.Jeremiah names Moab as plundered; Isaiah uses the same Hebrew root behind “spoiler” while naming Moab as a refuge for outcasts. That shared root connects a place under devastation with the danger it can shelter others from.
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