What Does Jeremiah 49:29 Mean?
Their tents and their flocks they shall take, their curtains and all their vessels, and their camels. They shall cry out to them, Terror is all around.
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
Their tents and their flocks shall they take away: they shall take to themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels; and they shall cry unto them, Fear is on every side.THE KEY
The final cry makes terror a perimeter: what is taken is not only property, but the sense that any direction remains safe.
THE MEANING
When shelter, livelihood, coverings, tools, and transport are stripped away, loss reaches every layer of ordinary security. The cry “Fear is on every side” names the experience of finding no direction free from threat; fear becomes a shared reading of the whole scene.
THE ROOT
מָגוֹר
magor
GROWS FROM
גור
To sojourn or dwell as a stranger; also to shrink back in fear.
The Hebrew מָגוֹר (magor, terror) carries the same consonants as a root that also has the sense of sojourning and shrinking back. Beside the stolen tents, that echo lets the verse hold both removed shelter and the dread of being left exposed.
ALSO GROWS
gur: To sojourn or dwell as a resident stranger.
גּוּר
This sense of the root brings the verse’s stolen tents into the sound of its word for terror.
gur: To shrink back or be afraid.
גּוּר
This is the root’s fear sense, carried here by magor, terror.
מִסָּבִיב
missaviv
GROWS FROM
סבב
To turn, go around, or encircle.
The Hebrew describes terror as being around the people, making the perimeter itself feel occupied by threat. “Every side” is the shape of their exposure, not merely a measure of how frightened they feel.
ALSO GROWS
sabab: To turn around or surround.
סָבַב
This verb gives the surrounding motion beneath the verse’s spatial image.
saviv: Around, on every side.
סָבִיב
This is the word that makes the terror feel all-encompassing.
וְקָרְאוּ
veqar'u
GROWS FROM
קרא
To call out, summon, proclaim, or name.
“cry out to” in this verse is veqar'u. The verse uses a verb of calling: the terror is voiced to others and becomes the announcement that names the whole scene. English “cry” can sound like a private reaction, while this root also carries the force of calling something out.
ALSO GROWS
qara: To call out or proclaim.
קָרָא
This is the action in the verse: they call out the danger to one another.
miqra: A convocation or public reading.
מִקְרָא
This related noun shows how the root of a cry can also name something publicly called together or proclaimed.
THE PATTERN
When danger surrounds ordinary means of safety, terror is named as the whole horizon rather than one isolated threat.
For I hear the whispering of many; terror is all around, as they sit down together against me, and plot to take my living soul.For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Tell, they say, and we will tell it. All the men of my wholeness watched for my stumbling, saying, Perhaps he will be coaxed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our vengeance on him.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
For I hear the whispering of many; terror is all around, as they sit down together against me, and plot to take my living soul.Psalm 31:13 uses the same Hebrew phrase, מָגוֹר מִסָּבִיב (magor missaviv, terror all around). It reveals that the cry in Jeremiah names an encircling threat, not simply fear over possessions lost.
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