What Does Jeremiah 52:29 Mean?
In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar, he uncovered from Jerusalem eight hundred and thirty-two living souls.
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
In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he carried away captive from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty and two persons:THE KEY
The count names 832 persons, keeping forced displacement attached to human lives rather than leaving it as an abstraction.
THE MEANING
The verse makes displacement concrete: 832 persons are carried away from Jerusalem. Each counted person is a living self, so the scale of the loss stays visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A number can make suffering feel impersonal; here the count keeps the displaced visible as persons.
THE ROOT
הוּגְלָה
hūglāh
GROWS FROM
גלה
gālāh
Uncover, expose; in derived forms, carry away into exile.
“uncovered” in this verse is hūglāh. Here the passive form means “was carried away into exile.” The same root family also includes uncovering and revealing, so the Hebrew holds exile alongside exposure without changing the verse’s immediate sense.
ALSO GROWS
niglāh: Be uncovered, be revealed.
נִגְלָה
This branch shows that the root also speaks of what is exposed or brought into view.
higlâh: Send into exile, deport.
הִגְלָה
This causative form is the exile branch closest to the verse’s passive verb and names forced displacement.
נֶפֶשׁ
néfesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
néfesh
A living self, person, or life.
“living souls” in this verse is néfesh. The word rendered “persons” names living selves rather than faceless units. A related verb can mean to rest or recover, bringing the needs of embodied life into the count.
ALSO GROWS
nefashot: Persons, lives; the plural of nefesh.
נְפָשׁוֹת
The plural makes clear that the number refers to many living selves.
nāphaš: Rest, recover, refresh oneself.
נָפַשׁ
This related verb links the counted person with the capacity for rest and recovery.
THE PATTERN
When Scripture numbers people moving through upheaval or gathering, it keeps the collective event attached to counted lives.
And the children of Israel pulled up from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides the little ones.All the assembly together was forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty.Then those who gladly took his word in were immersed, and that day about three thousand living souls were added to them.THE THREAD
And he drank of the wine, and was drunk, and he was uncovered in the midst of his tent.Genesis uses the same Hebrew root for Noah being uncovered; Jeremiah uses a passive form of it for a person carried into exile. The root family spans uncovering and exile, while each verse’s form and context give it its precise sense.
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