What Does Jeremiah 50:30 Mean?
Therefore her young men shall fall in her wide places, and all her men of war shall be silenced in that day, declares 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
Therefore shall her young men fall in the streets, and all her men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith the LORD.THE KEY
The Hebrew behind “cut off” carries an image of silence: Babylon’s men fall in the open streets, and its war-making force goes quiet.
THE MEANING
Here, Babylon’s young men fall in the streets, and its fighting men are silenced when the appointed day arrives. The verse holds the violence plainly: the city’s armed strength does not keep its streets from becoming the scene of its collapse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a city’s armed strength can guarantee its safety when judgment reaches it.
THE ROOT
יִדַּמּוּ
yiddammū they will
GROWS FROM
דמם
To be silent, still, or cease.
“silenced” in this verse is yiddammū they will. The Hebrew verb rendered “cut off” carries the sense of falling silent or ceasing. In this verse, that stillness is the violent silencing of the city’s fighting men.
ALSO GROWS
demamah: Stillness or silence.
דְּמָמָה
This related word gives the warriors’ silencing an audible counterpart: what remains is a hush.
vayyidom: He or it fell silent or stood still.
וַיִּדֹּם
This verb form shows the same root moving from active force into stillness.
יִפְּלוּ
yippəlū they will
GROWS FROM
נפל
To fall or be brought down.
The verb names a collapse, not only a change in status. The young men’s fall happens in the streets themselves, where the city’s strength is exposed.
ALSO GROWS
hippīl: To cause to fall or bring down.
הִפִּיל
This causative form shows the root can describe a force bringing someone down.
mappālāh: Downfall or overthrow.
מַפָּלָה
This noun carries the same root into the image of a larger collapse.
בִּרְחֹבֹתֶיהָ
birchovoteha in her
GROWS FROM
רחב
To be broad or spacious.
“wide places” in this verse is birchovoteha in her. The word for the streets comes from a root of breadth. Here, those broad public spaces mark exposure: the collapse unfolds where it can be seen.
ALSO GROWS
rachav: Wide or broad.
רָחָב
This adjective makes the spatial sense inside the word for streets visible.
merchav: A broad or spacious place.
מֶרְחָב
This related noun echoes the open setting where the city’s fighters fall.
THE PATTERN
A city’s public power cannot shield it when judgment reaches the point of collapse.
Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty ones in the war.The nations have heard of your lightness, and your shriek has filled the land; for mighty man has stumbled against mighty man, and the two of them have fallen together.And he cried out with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great has fallen, has fallen, and has become the place where demons settle, and the holding place of every unclean breath, and the holding place of every unclean and hated bird.THE THREAD
Though he falls, he will not be hurled down, for the LORD props him up with his hand.Jeremiah’s יִפְּלוּ (yippəlū, “they will fall”) and the psalm’s יִפּוֹל (yippol, “he will fall”) share נפל (n-p-l; naphal), meaning “to fall.” The shared root opens a sharp distinction: here, fighters fall as a city’s power collapses; in the psalm, the fallen person is upheld.
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