What Does Jeremiah 50:18 Mean in the King James?
Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria.
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
Babylon faces the same reckoning as Assyria: no empire is beyond the reach of the one who calls it to account.
THE MEANING
The LORD places Babylon’s king and land under judgment, measuring them alongside Assyria. The verse speaks now wherever power seems unanswerable: a ruler’s reach does not place that ruler beyond the LORD’s reach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that conquest makes a ruler untouchable: the power that judges others is itself answerable.
THE ROOT
פָּקַד
paqad
GROWS FROM
פקד
To attend to, visit, or muster; in a judgment context, to call to account.
“Punish” names the outcome, while פקד carries the movement of attending to or visiting someone. The same root can describe care or judgment: what changes is what the visitation meets.
ALSO GROWS
paqīd: An officer or overseer.
פָּקִיד
The branch shows the root’s connection to oversight: one who is appointed to watch over a charge is also answerable for it.
pequddah: Oversight, charge, appointment, or visitation.
פְּקֻדָּה
The word can hold both a charge entrusted and an account called for, illuminating why a powerful king remains within the reach of judgment.
THE PATTERN
No scale of power places anyone outside the reckoning for what they do.
Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.Who will render to every man according to his deeds:THE THREAD
And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken.The Hebrew verb translated “visited” here comes from פקד, the same root rendered “punish” in Jeremiah 50:18. In both verses, the root carries the idea of direct attention; what that attention brings is care for Sarah and judgment for Babylon.
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