What Does Jeremiah 48:10 Mean in the King James?
Cursed be he that doeth the work of the LORD deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.
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 Hebrew root behind “sword” also names desolation, binding the withheld blade to the ruin it is meant to cause.
THE MEANING
To the reader now, this verse names a brutal equation: the work of the LORD includes a sword that must not be held back from blood. Its language makes restraint a failure within that commission, leaving its lethal force explicit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine service is always harmless: the curse explicitly names a sword held back from blood.
THE ROOT
חֶרֶב
ḥerev
GROWS FROM
חרב
ḥ-r-b
To dry up or become desolate; this root also gives the word for sword.
The Hebrew word-family of חרב (ḥ-r-b, sword and desolation) holds the blade and the ruin together. The verse’s withheld sword is the instrument of devastation described in the surrounding lines.
ALSO GROWS
ḥārav: To become dry or desolate
חָרַב
This verb shares the root behind the sword, linking its force with the ruin that follows.
ḥorbāh: Desolation, ruin
חָרְבָּה
This form appears in Jeremiah 48:9 for Moab’s cities, placing the root of desolation beside the sword in this verse.
רְמִיָּה
remiyyāh
GROWS FROM
רמה
r-m-h
To deceive, cheat, or act treacherously.
“deceitfully” in this verse is remiyyāh. רְמִיָּה (remiyyāh, treachery or slackness) carries both betrayal and lax performance. That double sense sharpens the first curse: the work is condemned when it is handled treacherously or slackly.
ALSO GROWS
mirmāh: Deceit, fraud
מִרְמָה
This related noun shows the root’s connection to betrayal, a shade carried by the KJV’s “deceitfully.”
rāmāh: He deceived
רָמָה
This verb form makes the root’s act of deception explicit, showing what the verse’s “deceitfully” contains.
THE PATTERN
These texts present divine judgment as violence that must reach its target, with sparing or withholding treated as failure.
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.THE THREAD
Give wings unto Moab, that it may flee and get away: for the cities thereof shall be desolate, without any to dwell therein.The Hebrew behind “desolate” is לְחָרְבָּה (leḥorbāh, into desolation), from חרב (ḥ-r-b), the same root as חֶרֶב (ḥerev, sword) in the next verse. The oracle places the blade and the ruined city side by side as branches of one root.
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