What Does Jeremiah 50:11 Mean?
Because you were glad, because you leaped, you who trample my inheritance, because you thresh the grass like a heifer, and neigh like stallions.
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
Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of mine heritage, because ye are grown fat as the heifer at grass, and bellow as bulls;THE KEY
The verse makes the plunderer’s joy part of the violence: celebration over what is taken becomes the sound of taking itself.
THE MEANING
When you delight in another’s loss, this verse sets that joy beside the ease of a heifer at pasture and the loud force of bulls. The scene exposes how abundance can accompany the trampling of what belongs to God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that flourishing proves innocence dissolves: the verse places the plunderer’s joy and ease beside the trampling of God’s inheritance.
THE ROOT
תִּשְׂמְחִי
tismechi
GROWS FROM
שׂמח
Be glad, rejoice.
The verse pairs תִּשְׂמְחִי (tismechi, you are glad) with תַעֲלֹזִי (taalozi, you exult), drawing on two distinct Hebrew roots for celebration. שׂמח (samach, be glad) is also the root behind Proverbs 24:17’s warning about rejoicing over another’s fall.
ALSO GROWS
simchah: Joy, gladness.
שִׂמְחָה
The noun shows that the act of being glad and the state of joy grow from the same root.
mesameach: One who gladdens, makes glad.
מְשַׂמֵּחַ
This causative form shows the root can describe not only feeling joy but also producing it.
תִדְשִׁי
tidshi
GROWS FROM
דּוּשׁ
Thresh or tread grain.
“thresh the grass” in this verse is tidshi. The verb behind “grown fat” belongs to דּוּשׁ (dush, thresh or tread grain), bringing the motion of threshing into the heifer’s image. The plunderer’s exuberance carries the physical force of trampling within it.
ALSO GROWS
dush: Thresh, tread grain.
דּוּשׁ
This verb names the treading motion that gives the heifer’s image its force.
dish: Threshing.
דִּישׁ
The related noun names the threshing process, keeping pressure and trampling within the image of apparent abundance.
THE PATTERN
Joy over another’s ruin reveals how the heart participates in the harm.
Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart leap when he stumbles.And do not gaze upon the day of your brother, the day he became a foreigner. Do not rejoice over the children of Judah on the day they lost their way. Do not make your mouth large in the day of the narrow place.Love does not rejoice over misalignment, but rejoices with truth.THE THREAD
Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart leap when he stumbles.Jeremiah’s “were glad” and Proverbs’ “be glad” share the Hebrew root שׂמח (samach, be glad or rejoice). Proverbs places that same joy at the moment another falls, making the plunderer’s gladness part of the harm the verse reveals.
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