What Does Jeremiah 48:1 Mean in the King James?
Against Moab thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Woe unto Nebo! for it is spoiled: Kiriathaim is confounded and taken: Misgab is confounded and dismayed.
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
Misgab means a height or stronghold, yet it is shamed and dismayed alongside the cities, the place that sounds safest shares their collapse.
THE MEANING
Nebo is devastated, Kiriathaim is captured, and Misgab, the height or stronghold, is shamed and dismayed. The verse holds the reader close to a collapse that reaches from settled place to elevated refuge, where even height offers no shelter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a high place or stronghold guarantees safety is undone: Misgab itself is shamed and dismayed.
THE ROOT
שֻׁדָּדָה
shuddadah
GROWS FROM
שדד
shadad
To devastate, plunder, or strip by force.
The word translated “spoiled” carries the force of violent stripping and plunder. Its root family names both the violence and the plunderer, presenting Moab’s loss as an active devastation rather than an abstract decline.
ALSO GROWS
shod: Violence, devastation, or plunder.
שֹׁד
This noun keeps violence inside the description of being spoiled: the place is ravaged.
shoded: A plunderer or destroyer.
שׁוֹדֵד
This related form makes the force behind the devastation visible: something is being done to Moab.
הֹבִישָׁה
hovishah
GROWS FROM
בוש
bosh
To be ashamed or disappointed; to have hope fail.
“confounded” in this verse is hovishah. The same shame-word falls on Kiriathaim and Misgab, joining the captured city and the high refuge in one exposure. The repetition shows both places sharing the same condition of shame and failed security.
ALSO GROWS
busha: Shame or disgrace.
בּוּשָׁה
The noun makes explicit the public disgrace contained in the word translated “confounded.”
hevish: To put to shame, disappoint, or frustrate.
הֵבִישׁ
This related form shows how the verse’s collapse brings expectations of safety to nothing.
מִשְׂגָּב
misgav
GROWS FROM
שגב
sagav
To be high, elevated, or out of reach; by extension, to be secure.
Misgab’s name carries the sense of a height or refuge, the very claim that the verse exposes. The root’s association with being raised or out of reach meets a scene where height cannot prevent shame and dismay.
ALSO GROWS
sagav: To be high, elevated, or inaccessible.
שָׂגַב
The verb supplies the image carried in Misgab’s name: a place set above or beyond reach.
misgav: A high refuge or stronghold.
מִשְׂגָּב
The place-name holds the promise of shelter in its meaning, while the verse shows that refuge failing.
THE PATTERN
Elevation, power, and fortification cannot shelter a place when it is brought down.
And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.THE THREAD
The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence; because in the night Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence;“Laid waste” and “spoiled” draw on the same Hebrew root, שדד (shadad), meaning to devastate or plunder. Both verses name Moab and repeat the same image of violent loss, letting Jeremiah’s single warning open into a wider landscape of devastation.
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