What Does Jeremiah 51:57 Mean?
And I will make drunk her princes, her wise men, her governors, her rulers, and her mighty men. They shall sleep the sleep of the ages, and not wake, says the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.
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
And I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.THE KEY
The verse makes drunkenness the first stroke of judgment: before the rulers fall, their ability to command themselves is stripped away.
THE MEANING
Judgment reaches every layer of a ruling order at once: princes, wise men, captains, governors, and warriors lose their capacity to act. Their sleep is a sleep of an age, and “they shall not wake” closes off recovery. The closing name, the King and LORD of hosts, locates the judgment in authority higher than the armies themselves.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that political rank, expertise, and military force make a power untouchable.
THE ROOT
וְהִשְׁכַּרְתִּי
wə-hishkartî
GROWS FROM
שכר
š-k-r
To become drunk or intoxicate.
“make drunk” in this verse is wə-hishkartî. The root links the intoxicating drink, the state of drunkenness, and the act of making someone drunk. Here, the rulers themselves are made to embody that loss of command: the ones who direct others lose control of their own faculties.
ALSO GROWS
shekhar: Intoxicating drink; strong drink.
שֵׁכָר
The drink and the state it produces share the same root, tying the rulers’ incapacity to the language of intoxication.
shikkor: Drunk; intoxicated.
שִׁכּוֹר
This branch names the state imposed on the rulers, so the verse pictures authority being disabled from within.
וְיָשְׁנוּ
wə-yāshənū
GROWS FROM
ישן
y-sh-n
To sleep or be asleep.
The Hebrew pairs the verb “they shall sleep” with the noun for sleep from the same root: literally, they sleep a sleep. That doubling makes their loss of agency feel complete, the sleep takes them, and they do not wake.
ALSO GROWS
shenah: Sleep; a period of sleeping.
שֵׁנָה
This noun shares the verb’s root and appears in the verse’s phrase for their sleep.
yashen: Sleeping; asleep.
יָשֵׁן
This form names the resulting state, showing the root’s movement from sleeping to being asleep.
עוֹלָם
ʿolam
GROWS FROM
עלם
ʿ-l-m
An age or far-reaching span of time.
“sleep of the ages” in this verse is ʿolam. The Hebrew phrase is a “sleep of ʿolam,” holding a span of ages beneath the KJV’s “perpetual.” The following words, “they shall not wake,” make this duration final here while the root keeps its scale of time visible.
ALSO GROWS
ʿolamim: Ages; long spans of time.
עוֹלָמִים
The plural keeps the root’s age-long timespan visible in the verse’s description of sleep.
leʿolam: For an age; for a long duration.
לְעוֹלָם
This form carries the same timespan into phrases about what continues through an age.
THE PATTERN
Entrenched power becomes helpless when the LORD takes away its ability to perceive, rule, or rise.
For the LORD has poured out upon you a breath of deep sleep, and has shut your eyes; the prophets and your heads, the seers he has covered.He has pulled the mighty down from their seats, and lifted up the low.Therefore her blows shall come in one day, death, and mourning, and hunger; and she shall be burned down with fire, for strong is the LORD God who judges her.THE THREAD
So you shall say to them, Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel. Drink, and be drunk, and vomit, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword that I will send among you.Both verses use שכר (š-k-r, “to intoxicate”) for drunkenness imposed in judgment. Jeremiah 25:27 makes the consequence explicit, falling and not rising, so the sleep in Jeremiah 51:57 carries the same finality.
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