What Does Jeremiah 2:15 Mean in the King James?
The young lions roared upon him, and yelled, and they made his land waste: his cities are burned without inhabitant.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The roar is the opening sound of a land becoming שַׁמָּה (shammah), desolation.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks wherever predatory force bears down on a people: land becomes desolate, cities burn, and inhabitants are gone. The roar is paired with a visible result, so the devastation reaches beyond fear into the place people live.
THE ROOT
לְשַׁמָּה
le-shammāh
GROWS FROM
שׁמם
sh-m-m
Be desolate or appalled; lay waste.
“waste” in this verse is le-shammāh. The root gathers the land’s ruin into the condition of desolation, while a related form can describe being appalled by that devastation. The burned cities without inhabitants make that condition visible.
ALSO GROWS
shemamah: Desolation; a deserted place.
שְׁמָמָה
It names the state the land enters when the young lions overrun it.
shamem: To be desolate or appalled.
שָׁמֵם
It connects the physical ruin of the land with the stunned response to devastation.
THE PATTERN
Predatory power announces itself through a roar and turns that threat into the taking or devastation of human life.
Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it.As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.THE THREAD
The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.Both verses use the root שׁמם (sh-m-m) for a land made desolate. Jeremiah 4:7 opens the same image further: the lion’s approach, the ruined land, and the empty cities recur together.
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