What Does Jeremiah 50:42 Mean?
They shall grip the bow and the spear. They are cruel, and they show no compassion. Their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, each one set in rank like a man going to battle, against you, O daughter of Babylon.
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
They shall hold the bow and the lance: they are cruel, and will not shew mercy: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in array, like a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “mercy” belongs to the same word-family as “womb,” so the army’s terror includes its refusal of protective compassion.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you with a force already armed and arranged for battle, roaring like the sea and refusing compassion. The violence is directed at a whole people, and the text names that terror without softening it.
THE ROOT
יְרַחֲמוּ
yeraḥămû
GROWS FROM
רחם
r-ḥ-m
To have compassion or show mercy.
The verse says the attackers will not show רָחַם (rāḥam, compassion). The related word רֶחֶם (reḥem, womb) gives compassion a bodily image of protective tenderness, making their refusal feel especially stark.
ALSO GROWS
raḥămîm: Compassion, mercies
רַחֲמִים
This noun names the compassion the armed force refuses.
reḥem: Womb
רֶחֶם
This related word gives compassion a bodily resonance of shelter and protection.
עָרוּךְ
ʿārûḵ
GROWS FROM
ערך
ʿ-r-kh
To arrange or set in order.
“set in rank” in this verse is ʿārûḵ. The threat is composed, not shapeless: each rider is arranged for battle. The root reveals coordination behind the violence, with the force deliberately set in order.
ALSO GROWS
ʿārakh: To arrange, set in order
עָרַךְ
This verb carries the action behind the army’s prepared formation.
maʿărāḵāh: An array or battle formation
מַעֲרָכָה
This related noun makes the organized structure of the threat visible.
THE PATTERN
The refusal of compassion appears both in violence against the vulnerable and as a settled human disposition.
Their bows will dash the young men; they will show no compassion on the fruit of the womb; their eye will not pity the children.Because he does not remember to do faithful love, and pursues the bowed-down man and the needy, to slay the heart-stricken.Unjoined, covenant-breakers, without kin-love, truceless, without compassion.THE THREAD
As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those in awe of him.Both verses use the root רחם (rāḥam, to show compassion): Jeremiah names its refusal, while the psalm describes the LORD’s compassion like a father’s toward children. The shared root brings the withheld tenderness into view.
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