What Does Jeremiah 51:64 Mean?
And you shall say, Thus Babylon shall sink, and not rise from the harm that I bring upon her. And they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
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 thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.THE KEY
The collapse is complete when what sinks can no longer be brought back to standing.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of power brought low: Babylon sinks beneath the calamity God brings and does not regain its standing. It also names the exhaustion that follows. The closing words mark the boundary of Jeremiah’s saying.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that power can always rebuild itself after disaster dissolves here: Babylon sinks and does not recover its standing.
THE ROOT
תָקוּם
taqum
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
Arise, stand, or be established.
The same root carries the sense of standing and being established, so “shall not rise” reaches beyond upward movement: Babylon will not regain a settled position. Hebrew also forms words for a place and for raising or establishing something from this root.
ALSO GROWS
maqom: Place; a standing place.
מָקוֹם
This word for place grows from the root for standing, linking position with the ability to stand.
heqim: Raise up, set up, establish.
הֵקִים
This form makes explicit that the root can mean restoring something to standing, the very possibility denied to Babylon.
THE PATTERN
A fall is measured by whether anything can restore the fallen to standing.
They are dead and will not live. The slackened ones will not rise. Therefore you have visited them and wiped them out, and you have caused all their memory to lose the way.In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen, and close up its breaches; I will raise up its torn-down places, and I will build it as in the days of the ages.And the rain came down, and the rivers came, and the winds breathed and fell against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.THE THREAD
In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen, and close up its breaches; I will raise up its torn-down places, and I will build it as in the days of the ages.Amos uses קום (qum, “arise” or “stand”) for raising what has fallen. That shared root sharpens Jeremiah’s words: Babylon’s destruction is marked by the absence of renewed standing.
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