What Does Jeremiah 50:38 Mean?
A sword is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up, for it is a land of hewn images, and they rave over their nothings.
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 drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up: for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols.THE KEY
The verse links dried waters with people raving over idols, exposing devotion consumed by what human hands carve while the life-giving source runs dry.
THE MEANING
The waters are drying in the land of carved images, and the people are raving over their idols. The verse holds that depletion and fixation together: a made object commands fervor while the waters that sustain the land recede.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the belief that a human-made object can sustain the life it cannot give.
THE ROOT
יִתְהֹלָלוּ
yitholelu
GROWS FROM
הלל
halal
Praise or boast; in this form, rave or act wildly.
“rave over” in this verse is yitholelu. The word translated “mad” belongs to the same root family as praise and boasting. The verse reveals how fervor can become a kind of raving when it is fixed on idols.
ALSO GROWS
halal: praise, boast
הָלַל
The same root family names praise; here its force turns toward raving over idols.
tehillah: praise, song of praise
תְּהִלָּה
This related word shows the root naming voiced praise, while Jeremiah uses its form for frenzy directed at idols.
פְּסִלִים
pesilim
GROWS FROM
פסל
pasal
Hew, carve, cut into form.
“hewn images” in this verse is pesilim. “Graven images” carries the act of carving within the word: these are forms shaped by human hands. Set beside the drying waters, the word sharpens the contrast between what is fixed in a made form and what sustains life.
ALSO GROWS
pasal: hew, carve
פָּסַל
This verb names the act that gives an image its fixed shape.
pesel: carved image, idol
פֶּסֶל
This singular noun grows from the same root, keeping the act of carving inside the name for the image.
THE PATTERN
When devotion settles on human-made forms, the life-giving source is shut off and people become shaped by what they trust.
Then the burning of the LORD's anger will flare against you, and he will shut the heavens, so that there is no rain, and the ground will not give its yield, and you will perish swiftly from upon the good ground which the LORD gives you.Those who make them are like them, everyone who leans on them.And they exchanged the weight of the imperishable God for an image shaped like perishable humankind, and of winged ones, four-footed ones, and crawling things.THE THREAD
Let every thing that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.Jeremiah’s “mad” (יִתְהֹלָלוּ, yitholelu) comes from הלל (halal), the same root behind “praise” in this psalm. The shared root links fervor and praise, while the surrounding verses show how much depends on where that praise is directed.
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