What Does Jeremiah 50:37 Mean?
A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people who are in her midst, and they shall be as women. A sword is upon her storehouses, and they shall be plundered.
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
A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures; and they shall be robbed.THE KEY
The sword reaches from Babylon’s armed strength to its stored wealth, stripping away both the means of defense and the fruits of possession.
THE MEANING
The verse lays out a total unmaking: horses, chariots, mixed ranks, and stored wealth all come under the sword. Its comparison of the defeated to women uses a gendered image of helplessness, and the violence remains stark. The verse confronts the reader with how fully power and possessions can be stripped away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that arms, allies, and accumulated wealth can make a person or nation untouchable.
THE ROOT
חֶרֶב
ḥerev
GROWS FROM
ח־ר־ב
to dry out, become waste or desolate
חֶרֶב (ḥerev, “sword”) shares its root letters with words for desolation. The sword in this verse is therefore bound to the ruin it leaves behind: it strikes the forces that guard the city, then reaches its wealth.
ALSO GROWS
ḥārab: to become desolate or waste
חָרַב
This branch makes the sword’s outcome visible in the root itself: what it strikes is left ruined.
ḥorbāh: ruin, desolation
חָרְבָּה
The passage’s repeated sword moves toward this state, from broken defenses to plundered stores.
וּבָזָזוּ
u-vāzāzū
GROWS FROM
ב־ז־ז
to plunder, seize as spoil
“plundered” in this verse is u-vāzāzū. The root of “robbed” names the taking of wealth as spoil. The verse moves from a sword falling on the treasures to those treasures changing hands: what was gathered is now exposed to plunder.
ALSO GROWS
bāzaz: to plunder, take as spoil
בָּזַז
This verb names the action that follows the sword’s attack on Babylon’s treasures.
bizzāh: spoil, booty
בִּזָּה
This branch names what stored wealth becomes when the city can no longer keep or guard it.
THE PATTERN
Force and stored wealth cannot secure lasting immunity from loss.
No king is delivered by the multitude of an army; a mighty one is not snatched free by much strength.But God said to him, Mindless one, this night your living soul will be demanded back from you. Then whose will those things be that you have made ready?Your riches have rotted, and your garments have been eaten through by moths.THE THREAD
O sword of the LORD, how long until you are still? Gather yourself into your sheath. Lie down, and be silent.Both verses use חֶרֶב (ḥerev, “sword”): here it strips a city’s forces and stores, while there the sword is addressed as a violence that can be returned to its sheath. Together they show the same destructive force from the side of its impact and from the plea for it to end.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us