What Does Jeremiah 50:10 Mean?
And Chaldea shall be plundered; all who plunder her shall be filled, 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
And Chaldea shall be a spoil: all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the LORD.THE KEY
The same Hebrew seed names Chaldea as plunder and her attackers as plunderers, placing the taker inside the fate it creates.
THE MEANING
Chaldea is exposed as spoil, and those who strip her take until they are sated. The verse shows that a power that takes from others can itself become what is taken. The LORD names this reversal as certain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a plunderer is untouchable and can keep taking without limit is undone: Chaldea becomes spoil, and her attackers reach fullness.
THE ROOT
לְבַז
le-baz
GROWS FROM
בָּזַז
to plunder, seize as spoil
“plundered” in this verse is le-baz. English places “spoil” as the object and “spoil her” as the action, but both forms grow from ב־ז־ז. The attackers and what they take are joined by one root, so the word itself carries the verse’s reversal.
ALSO GROWS
baz: spoil, booty
בַּז
This noun names what Chaldea becomes.
bozez: plunderer
בֹּזֵז
This active form names the people who take her; the same root links the takers to the spoil.
bazuz: plundered, stripped
בָּזוּז
This passive form shows the other side of the root: a people can be acted upon and made spoil.
יִשְׂבָּעוּ
yisbaʿu
GROWS FROM
שָׂבַע
to be full or sated
“filled” in this verse is yisbaʿu. The plunderers do not take without end: they reach fullness. The word gives their taking a limit, while keeping the violence of what fills them in view.
ALSO GROWS
sabeaʿ: full, sated
שָׂבֵעַ
This form names the state the plunderers reach.
sovaʿ: satiety, fullness
שֹׂבַע
This noun makes the stopping point explicit: the taking culminates in fullness.
THE PATTERN
A force sent outward can return upon the one who wields it, turning the agent into the object of the same violence.
His toil turns back upon his head, and his violence comes down upon his skull.Therefore all who eat you shall be eaten, and all who press you, every one of them, shall go into captivity; those who despoil you shall be despoiled, and all who prey on you I will give for prey.If anyone is bound for captivity, into it he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, he must be killed with the sword. Here is the bearing up under, and the trust of the set-apart ones.THE THREAD
Therefore all who eat you shall be eaten, and all who press you, every one of them, shall go into captivity; those who despoil you shall be despoiled, and all who prey on you I will give for prey.Jeremiah 30:16 unfolds the reversal in parallel lines: those who prey on another become prey, and those who spoil another become spoil. It opens the structure compressed in this verse: the one who takes can become the thing taken.
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