What Does Jeremiah 49:23 Mean?
Concerning Damascus. Hamath is shamed, and Arpad, for they have heard harm. They melt. In the sea is anxiety, and it cannot stay still.
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
Concerning Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted; there is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.THE KEY
The report does not stop at the ear: what is heard melts the cities and leaves the sea unable to settle.
THE MEANING
A frightening report can unsettle the people and places it reaches. Here their courage dissolves, anxiety spreads across the sea, and even the sea cannot be quiet.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that news is weightless once heard: it can unsettle the people and places it reaches.
THE ROOT
נָמֹגוּ
namogu
GROWS FROM
מוג
Melt, dissolve, lose firmness.
“They melt” in this verse is namogu. “Fainthearted” carries the image of something melting and losing its firmness. The report makes courage dissolve, while the sea itself remains unable to settle.
ALSO GROWS
namog: Melted, became faint.
נָמוֹג
It gives the loss of courage a physical image: firmness gives way.
namogu: They melted or melted away.
נָמֹגוּ
This plural form shows a whole people losing their firmness together.
שָׁמְעוּ
sham'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed.
The word for “tidings,” shemuah, and the verb “they have heard,” sham’u, grow from the same root. The report is what is heard, and here hearing it leads directly to the cities losing their composure.
ALSO GROWS
shama: Hear, listen, heed.
שָׁמַע
This is the verb behind “they have heard.”
shemuah: Report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This is the word behind “evil tidings,” linking the report to the act of hearing.
shema: Hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This form shows how hearing can carry a response, a movement also visible in the cities’ reaction.
דְּאָגָה
de'agah
GROWS FROM
דאג
Worry, be anxious.
The line pictures anxiety on the sea, where it cannot settle. The unease has become part of the whole scene, not merely a private feeling.
ALSO GROWS
da'ag: To worry or be anxious.
דָּאַג
This verb carries the anxious state named in the verse.
de'agah: Anxiety, worry.
דְּאָגָה
This noun places that anxiety on the sea itself.
THE PATTERN
A destabilizing report turns what seemed firm into something that melts, while unrest spreads through the whole scene.
And when we heard these things, our hearts melted, and no breath stood up any longer in any man from your face. For the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth below.Then the chiefs of Edom shall be startled; shuddering shall take hold of the rams of Moab; all the dwellers of Canaan shall melt.People breathing out their living souls from fear in their hearts, and from watching for what is coming upon the inhabited earth, for the strength of the heavens will be shaken.THE THREAD
Then the chiefs of Edom shall be startled; shuddering shall take hold of the rams of Moab; all the dwellers of Canaan shall melt.Jeremiah’s “fainthearted” is namogu, from mug, the same root rendered “melt away” here. The shared word makes fear bodily and collective: what seemed firm loses its firmness.
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