What Does Jeremiah 48:43 Mean?
Dread, and the pit, and the snare, shall be upon you who settle in Moab, says the LORD.
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
Fear, and the pit, and the snare, shall be upon thee, O inhabitant of Moab, saith the LORD.THE KEY
The Hebrew makes fear, a pit, and a snare sound like one tightening cascade of danger.
THE MEANING
You are addressed inside a tightening field: dread, a pit, and a snare all come upon you. The verse places inner alarm beside physical danger and entanglement, compressing them into one present threat.
THE ROOT
פַּחַד
paḥad
GROWS FROM
פחד
p-ḥ-d
To fear or dread; to tremble before danger.
The verse stacks פַּחַד (paḥad, dread), פַּחַת (paḥat, pit), and פַּח (paḥ, snare): these are distinct words, not one shared root, but their repeated פ־ח (p-ḥ) sound binds terror to entrapment. English gives three separate threats; Hebrew lets them strike the ear as one tightening sequence.
ALSO GROWS
pāḥad: To fear or dread
פָּחַד
The verb shows fear as an active response to danger, while this verse presents dread as part of the threat pressing upon the one addressed.
mipḥād: Terror, dread; something feared
מִפְחָד
This related noun makes dread feel like a force one encounters, fitting the verse’s pairing of fear with a pit and a snare.
THE PATTERN
Entrapment closes in through linked dangers, so fleeing one threat can lead directly into another.
Dread, and the pit, and the snare, are upon you, O settler of the earth.As when a man flees from a lion, and a bear meets him, or he goes into the house and leans his hand against the wall, and a serpent bites him.And that they may come back to their senses out of the snare of the Slanderer, who have been caught alive by him into his will.THE THREAD
Dread, and the pit, and the snare, are upon you, O settler of the earth.Isaiah repeats the same three Hebrew words in the same order, with the same sound-cluster linking dread, pit, and snare. Jeremiah addresses Moab; Isaiah places that same sequence upon the inhabitant of the earth.
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