What Does Jeremiah 48:39 Mean in the King James?
They shall howl, saying, How is it broken down! how hath Moab turned the back with shame! so shall Moab be a derision and a dismaying to all them about him.
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
Hebrew gives Moab’s defeat two turns: it is overturned, then it turns its back, until collapse becomes public laughter.
THE MEANING
The verse holds shock, shame, ridicule, and alarm together as Moab’s collapse unfolds in public. It speaks now wherever a community’s fall is witnessed: the onlookers howl, and the fallen one is exposed to the gaze of those around it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that public reversal can be kept private: Moab’s shame becomes derision and dismay to all around it.
THE ROOT
נֶהְפַּךְ
nehpak
GROWS FROM
הפך
haphak
To turn, overturn, or change.
The word translated “broken down” comes from a verb of overturning. The next clause uses a different verb for turning, so the verse gives Moab’s reversal both as a changed condition and as a turned-away posture.
ALSO GROWS
haphak: Turn, overturn, change.
הָפַךְ
This is the root verb behind Moab being “broken down”; collapse is pictured as an overturning.
mahpekhah: Overthrow, overturning.
מַהְפֵּכָה
This noun from the same root makes the verse’s language of collapse concrete as a reversal.
וַיַּפְנוּ עֹרֶף
vayyifnu ʿoref
GROWS FROM
פנה
panah
To turn or face toward or away.
“turned the back” in this verse is vayyifnu ʿoref. The verb belongs to the turn-and-face family, while עֹרֶף (ʿoref) means neck or back. Moab’s shame is pictured as a literal reversal of orientation: it turns its back before its neighbors.
ALSO GROWS
panah: Turn, turn toward or away.
פָּנָה
This is the verb used in the verse; paired with “back,” it makes the turn directional and bodily.
panim: Face, presence.
פָּנִים
The related face-word sharpens the contrast: Moab does not face its neighbors but turns its back to them.
לִשְׂחוֹק
lischoq
GROWS FROM
שחק
sachaq
To laugh or play; in this verse, to become the object of laughter or derision.
“derision” in this verse is lischoq. The Hebrew says Moab becomes “laughter.” Its defeat changes not only its position but its public standing: the surrounding people now laugh at it.
ALSO GROWS
sachaq: Laugh, play, mock.
שָׂחַק
The root verb spans ordinary laughter and mockery; here Moab becomes the target of that laughter.
mesachaqim: Those laughing or playing.
מְשַׂחֲקִים
This form shows the root can describe people doing the laughing, while Jeremiah makes Moab the object of it.
THE PATTERN
When public power collapses, surrounding witnesses turn the ruin into a spectacle of hissing, fear, or lament.
All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more.And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,THE THREAD
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.Jeremiah’s לִשְׂחוֹק (lischoq, laughter or derision) and Psalm 2’s יִשְׂחָק (yischaq, shall laugh) come from the same root, שחק (sachaq). The shared word links Moab’s public humiliation with the psalm’s image of power becoming laughable before God.
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