What Does Jeremiah 25:11 Mean in the King James?
And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
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
Desolation and imposed service move together here: Babylon’s rule lays waste to the land and makes its peoples serve for a measured span.
THE MEANING
The verse meets the reader with devastation named plainly: a whole land becomes waste, and nations serve Babylon’s king for seventy years. It shows how constriction can reach both the place people inhabit and the work they are made to do.
THE ROOT
וְעָבְדוּ
veʿavdu
GROWS FROM
עבד
Work, serve, labor.
“serve” in this verse is veʿavdu. The root names both the work being done and the servant who performs it. Here, serving is an imposed condition under Babylon’s rule, not an abstract duty.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeved: Servant.
עֶבֶד
The branch names the person bound to the service described in the verse.
ʿavodah: Labor, service.
עֲבוֹדָה
It makes visible the work contained in the nations’ service to Babylon.
לְחָרְבָּה
leḥorbāh
GROWS FROM
חרב
Be dry, waste away, be laid waste.
The word translated “desolation” carries the root of dryness and being laid waste. Paired with the nations’ service, it shows devastation reaching both the land and its people.
ALSO GROWS
ḥārēv: Dry, desolate.
חָרֵב
It carries the land’s ruined condition back to the root’s image of dryness.
heḥĕrīv: Lay waste, devastate.
הֶחֱרִיב
This form names the act that produces the desolation described here.
לְשַׁמָּה
leshammah
GROWS FROM
שמם
Be desolate, be appalled.
This root holds devastation and the stunned response to it together: the desolate state is itself appalling. “Astonishment” can sound like a passing reaction, while the Hebrew keeps it attached to the ruined land.
ALSO GROWS
shāmēm: Be desolate, be appalled.
שָׁמֵם
It shows the condition and the shock of desolation joined in one root.
shemāmāh: Desolation, waste.
שְׁמָמָה
It names the devastated state that stands beside the land’s חרב desolation.
THE PATTERN
Service names the condition of being under another power, whether imposed by conquest or entered through what one yields.
Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?THE THREAD
For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him:The Hebrew root עבד, which names service here, appears again where strangers no longer serve under the yoke. The shared root connects imposed labor with the breaking of the bonds that hold it in place.
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