What Does Jeremiah 48:22 Mean?
And upon Dibon, and upon Nebo, and upon Beth-diblathaim,
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 upon Dibon, and upon Nebo, and upon Beth-diblathaim,THE KEY
The repeated “upon” turns judgment into a roll call: Dibon, Nebo, and Beth-diblathaim are named one by one.
THE MEANING
The judgment reaches named places, not an abstraction at a distance. Dibon, Nebo, and Beth-diblathaim each enter the same repeated phrase, leaving no town outside its reach.
THE ROOT
בֵּית דִּבְלָתַיִם
Bêṯ Diblāṯayim
GROWS FROM
בית
b-y-t
House, dwelling, or household.
Beth-diblathaim is commonly understood as “house of two fig cakes,” with דְּבֵלָה (debelah, “fig cake”) behind its second element. Beth means “house,” so the list names a house identified with provision, then places it under the same repeated “upon.”
ALSO GROWS
Bethel: House of God.
בֵּית־אֵל
The same Beth element marks a place as a house, here associated with God.
Bethlehem: House of bread.
בֵּית לֶחֶם
The same house element frames a place by what it holds.
THE PATTERN
Prophetic judgment becomes concrete by naming the cities and places it reaches.
And the one who strips shall come upon every city, and no city shall slip away. The valley also shall be ruined, and the level ground left desolate, as the LORD has spoken.He climbs to Bajith and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep. Moab howls over Nebo and over Medeba. Every head of theirs is shaved bare, and every beard is shorn.And the great city splits into three parts, and the cities of the nations fall, and great Babylon is remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the burning of God's anger.THE THREAD
And the one who strips shall come upon every city, and no city shall slip away. The valley also shall be ruined, and the level ground left desolate, as the LORD has spoken.The broader declaration says every city is reached; this verse gives three names from within that total. The list turns the scope of the judgment into a map.
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