What Does Jeremiah 50:21 Mean?
Climb up against the land of Merathaim, against it, and against those who settle in Pekod. Dry them up, and devote them to destruction after them, says the LORD, and do all that I have commanded you.
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
Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod: waste and utterly destroy after them, saith the LORD, and do according to all that I have commanded thee.THE KEY
The targets already carry the verdict: מְרָתַיִם (Merāṯayim, Merathaim, “double rebellion”) names the land, while פְּקוֹד (Pĕqōd, Pekod) echoes פקד (pāqad, “visit, reckon”).
THE MEANING
You meet a command to devastate both the named land and its inhabitants, carrying out the full commission. The verse states the violence plainly: destruction is total and explicitly placed under the LORD’s command. Its names make rebellion and reckoning sound inside the order itself.
THE ROOT
מְרָתַיִם
Merāṯayim
GROWS FROM
מרה
m-r-h
To rebel or resist.
Merathaim is commonly heard as “double rebellion,” with its ending carrying a dual sense. The name makes the land’s supposed character part of the sentence before the command to devastate it.
ALSO GROWS
mārāh: To rebel or resist.
מָרָה
This verb connects the place-name to the rebellion named in the oracle.
mĕrî: Rebellion or defiance.
מְרִי
This noun makes the name’s wordplay audible: the land is named in the language of the charge against it.
פְּקוֹד
Pĕqōd
GROWS FROM
פקד
p-q-d
To attend to, visit, muster, or reckon; context determines whether the visitation is care or accountability.
Pekod echoes the root פקד (pāqad, “attend to, visit, reckon”). Here the command to destroy gives that visitation a punitive force, and Jeremiah 50:18 uses the same root for “punish.”
ALSO GROWS
pāqad: To attend to or visit; also to reckon with.
פָּקַד
The same root underlies the name Pekod and the judgment named in Jeremiah 50:18.
pĕquddāh: A charge, oversight, or appointed duty.
פְּקֻדָּה
This branch shows the root can carry the sense of an assigned accounting or responsibility, sharpening the name’s judicial undertone.
הַחֲרֵם
haḥărēm
GROWS FROM
חרם
ḥ-r-m
To place under a ban or devote irrevocably; in this verse, to devote to destruction.
“devote them to destruction” in this verse is haḥărēm. “Utterly destroy” renders a word for placing something under an irrevocable ban. The command therefore names a total, final destruction, not a limited defeat.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: A ban or something placed under it.
חֵרֶם
This noun shows the force of the command: its target is placed under a total, irrevocable prohibition.
heḥĕrîm: To devote something under the ban.
הֶחֱרִים
This verb form belongs to the same root as “utterly destroy” and expresses the act as a complete dedication to destruction.
THE PATTERN
A scriptural name can compress a nature or coming action into the sentence around it.
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.Let not my lord, I beg you, set his heart on this man of worthlessness, Nabal, the withering one. For as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and withering is with him. But I, your handmaid, did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent.And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.THE THREAD
Therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel. Look, I will visit the king of Babylon and his land, as I visited the king of Assyria.Here “punish” comes from פקד (pāqad, “visit, attend to, reckon”), the root echoed in Pekod. The name carries the same reckoning that this verse states plainly in the verb.
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