What Does Jeremiah 49:17 Mean?

Also Edom shall become a ruin. Everyone who passes by her shall be stunned, and shall hiss at all her blows.

Jeremiah 49:17 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Also Edom shall be a desolation: every one that goeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof.

THE KEY

Edom’s desolation and the passerby’s astonishment share one Hebrew root: the ruin and the shock belong to the same word-family.

THE MEANING

Here Edom is a place made desolate in full view: passersby are astonished and hiss at its devastation. Ruin becomes public, audible, and impossible to overlook.

THE ROOT

שַׁמָּה

shammah

GROWS FROM

שׁמם

sh-m-m

To be desolate or appalled.

“a ruin” in this verse is shammah. The noun translated “desolation” and the verb translated “astonished” both grow from ⁨שׁמם⁩ (sh-m-m, to be desolate or appalled). English makes one the condition of Edom and the other the passerby’s reaction; Hebrew draws both from the same root, so the witness’s shock echoes the landscape’s ruin.

ALSO GROWS

yishom: be astonished, be appalled

יִשֹּׁם

This is the passerby’s response in the verse, formed from the same root as Edom’s desolation.

shamem: be desolate; be appalled

שָׁמֵם

This verbal form holds the ruined state and the stunned response within the same root-family.

THE PATTERN

A ruined place becomes a public witness, drawing a visible and audible response from those who see it.

And this house, which was high, every one who passes by it shall be stunned and shall hiss, and they shall say, "Why has the LORD done so to this land and to this house?"

1 Kings 9:8 · SDVThe ruin of a place arrests passersby and draws astonishment and a hiss from them.

And it will come to pass that all who see you will shake away from you, and say, Nineveh is ravaged; who will shake their heads for her? From where will I seek comforters for you?

Nahum 3:7 · SDVThose who see the ruined city respond aloud, making its devastation public.

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.

Revelation 18:9 · SDVWitnesses see the city’s burning and answer with lament.

THE THREAD

To make their land stunned, and a whistling of the ages. Everyone who crosses by it shall be stunned, and shake his head.

Jeremiah 18:16 · SDV

Jeremiah 18:16 pairs ⁨שַׁמָּה⁩ (shammah, desolation) with ⁨יִשֹּׁם⁩ (yishom, be appalled), repeating the same root connection between ruin and the witness’s response. Its “perpetual hissing” extends that public echo beyond the moment of seeing.

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