What Does Jeremiah 48:29 Mean in the King James?
We have heard the pride of Moab, (he is exceeding proud) his loftiness, and his arrogancy, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his heart.
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
Jeremiah’s repeated pride-language is one rising image: the heart makes itself high.
THE MEANING
Pride here swells into a whole posture: self-exaltation gathers into a heart that stands high over others. As you read, the words expose how the claim to be elevated can fill the inner life until it becomes the heart’s defining shape.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a high view of oneself proves true greatness; the verse names that elevation as pride.
THE ROOT
גְּאוֹן
ge'on
GROWS FROM
גאה
gʾh
To rise, be high, or exalt oneself.
English gives several labels for Moab’s pride, but the Hebrew repeats words from the same elevation family. That repetition makes pride feel like a swelling upward motion, with the heart’s height as its final expression.
ALSO GROWS
ge'eh: High, proud.
גֵּא
This word appears in the verse’s description of Moab as exceedingly proud, making the posture of height explicit.
ga'avah: Pride, exaltation.
גַּאֲוָה
This is the root behind “his arrogancy,” tying that label to the same rising movement.
ga'ah: To rise high or exalt oneself.
גָּאָה
The verb shows the motion beneath the verse’s repeated descriptions of pride.
גֹּבַהּ
govah
GROWS FROM
גבה
gbh
To be high or lofty.
“loftiness” in this verse is govah. The verse shifts from גאה (gʾh) to גבה (gbh): separate roots, but both mean being high and share the consonants gimel and he. That sound and meaning echo links arrogance with height, until the closing phrase makes the heart itself the elevated thing.
ALSO GROWS
gavah: To be high or exalted.
גָּבַהּ
The verb carries the same vertical sense as “loftiness,” making the verse’s image more than a figure of speech.
gavoah: High, lofty.
גָּבֹהַּ
This adjective shows how the root describes a state of elevation, matching the posture attributed to Moab.
higbiah: To raise or lift high.
הִגְבִּיהַּ
This causative form brings out the action of making something high, echoing the heart’s self-exaltation.
THE PATTERN
Scripture marks self-exaltation as a height that precedes or meets a lowering.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.THE THREAD
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.Jeremiah’s גְּאוֹן (ge’on, pride) and Proverbs’ גָּאוֹן (ga’on, pride) are the same Hebrew word. Proverbs unfolds the movement compressed here: the raised self precedes a fall, making the height-language a trajectory, not just a description.
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