What Does Jeremiah 48:37 Mean in the King James?
For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped: upon all the hands shall be cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth.
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
Mourning becomes visible as subtraction: hair is removed, skin is cut, and rough cloth covers the loins.
THE MEANING
Mourning reaches the whole body: the head is bare, the beard diminished, the hands cut, and sackcloth covers the loins. Loss appears across skin and clothing, with no part of the body left outside its mark.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Mourning is only an invisible feeling.
THE ROOT
גְּרוּעָה
gĕruʿāh
GROWS FROM
גרע
To diminish, reduce, or take away.
“clipped” in this verse is gĕruʿāh. The beard is described with a word from the root for diminishing or being held back. Its removal is part of a larger pattern of loss written onto the body.
ALSO GROWS
gāraʿ: Diminish or take away.
גָּרַע
This is the root verb behind “clipped”; the beard’s removal is a visible diminishing.
nigraʿ: Be held back or excluded.
נִגְרַע
This form shares the root’s sense of something being taken away, deepening the verse’s language of loss.
גְּדֻדֹת
gĕdudōt
GROWS FROM
גדד
To cut or gash oneself.
“cuttings” in this verse is gĕdudōt. The word names cuts on the hands, not a vague sign of sorrow. Its root also forms the verb for cutting oneself, making grief visible in the skin.
ALSO GROWS
titgōdĕdū: Cut yourselves.
תִתְגֹּדְדוּ
Deuteronomy uses this same root for cuts made on the body, clarifying what the hands bear here.
vayyitgōdĕdū: They cut themselves.
וַיִּתְגֹּדְדוּ
The same root describes bodily cuts in 1 Kings, linking the verse’s “cuttings” to an embodied act of mourning.
קָרְחָה
qorḥāh
GROWS FROM
קרח
To become or make bald.
“bald” in this verse is qorḥāh. The root makes the head’s bareness concrete: mourning is expressed by removing what normally covers it. Alongside the diminished beard and cut hands, baldness makes loss visible across the body.
ALSO GROWS
qērēaḥ: A bald person.
קֵרֵחַ
This related form names the person whose head bears the same condition described here.
yiqrĕḥū: They make baldness.
יִקְרְחוּ
This verb form uses the same root for making a bald patch, showing that the word carries the act of removal as well as its result.
THE PATTERN
When loss overwhelms, mourning becomes visible through the body and what covers it.
And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.THE THREAD
He is gone up to Bajith, and to Dibon, the high places, to weep: Moab shall howl over Nebo, and over Medeba: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew baldness word, קָרְחָה (qorḥāh, baldness), and the same clipped-beard form, גְּרוּעָה (gĕruʿāh, diminished or shorn). The shared roots make Jeremiah’s bodily signs echo the same language of grief.
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