What Does Jeremiah 48:24 Mean?
And upon Kerioth, and upon Bozrah, and upon all the cities of the land of Moab, far or near.
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 Kerioth, and upon Bozrah, and upon all the cities of the land of Moab, far or near.THE KEY
Distance from the center does not shield a city: the warning reaches every place, near or far.
THE MEANING
The warning rests upon Kerioth, Bozrah, and every city of Moab, whether close or far. Distance does not remove a place from its reach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a place far from the center, or left unnamed, falls outside the reach of judgment.
THE ROOT
קָרוֹב
qarov
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־ב
q-r-b
Approach, come near.
The word for “near” belongs to the same root family as approaching and drawing near, and here it stands opposite “far” to span the whole map. Proximity offers no exemption: the warning reaches the named cities and all the cities between.
ALSO GROWS
qarab: Approach; draw near.
קָרַב
The root’s action of approaching echoes the verse’s concern with nearness, while showing that closeness itself does not place a city beyond the warning.
qerev: The midst; the inner part.
קֶרֶב
The same root reaches from nearness to what is within or among, resonating with the verse’s movement from named cities to all the cities of the land.
korban: A drawing near.
קָרְבָּן
This branch carries the root’s nearness into the idea of approach; here, the far and near are both within the scope of what is declared.
THE PATTERN
A judgment declared over a whole land reaches every place within it, near or far.
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.Though they dig into the grave, from there my hand will take them. Though they climb up into the heavens, from there I will bring them down.For like a snare it will come in upon all who sit upon the face of the whole earth.THE THREAD
The LORD is near to those whose heart is broken, and delivers those crushed in breath.The Hebrew word translated “nigh” is qarov (קָרוֹב), from the same q-r-b root as “near” here. In Jeremiah, nearness does not shelter a city from judgment; in the psalm, the LORD is near to the brokenhearted.
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