What Does Jeremiah 50:26 Mean in the King James?
Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses: cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly: let nothing of her be left.
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
Here “destroy utterly” carries the root חרם (ḥ-r-m), placing the city under an irrevocable ban that reaches even what its storehouses conceal.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of a power approached at its farthest edge, its stores opened, and its whole form piled into heaps until nothing remains. Its violence is total; no reserve or survivor stands outside the sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that hidden reserves or distance from a threat guarantee a place outside judgment.
THE ROOT
וְהַחֲרִימוּהָ
wəhaḥărîmûhā
GROWS FROM
חרם
ḥ-r-m
To ban or devote irrevocably; here, to devote to destruction.
“destroy utterly” in this verse is wəhaḥărîmûhā. The Hebrew verb carries the language of placing something under a ban, not merely damaging it. The command leaves no portion outside that total claim.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāram: To ban or devote irrevocably.
חָרַם
This verb form exposes the root beneath “destroy utterly”: the action claims the whole city for destruction.
ḥērem: A thing placed under a ban or devoted, often to destruction.
חֵרֶם
The noun names what the verb does, making the city’s destruction an all-encompassing sentence.
סָלּוּהָ
sallûhā
GROWS FROM
סלל
s-l-l
To raise, heap up, or build an embankment.
“cast her up as heaps” in this verse is sallûhā. The verb for piling the city into heaps belongs to the same root family as words for raised roads and siege mounds. The image is of elevation turned into ruin: the city itself becomes what is heaped up.
ALSO GROWS
mesillah: A raised road or highway.
מְסִלָּה
The same root that raises a path is used here for raising the city’s remains into heaps.
sōlĕlāh: A siege mound or embankment.
סֹלְלָה
This raised earth is used against a city; Jeremiah’s image makes the city itself the mound.
שְׁאֵרִית
she'erit
GROWS FROM
שאר
sh-ʾ-r
To remain or be left over.
The final clause names a remnant through the root meaning “remain.” The verse denies not only survival but anything left over to count as a remnant.
ALSO GROWS
shāʾar: To remain or be left over.
שָׁאַר
This verb gives the root sense behind the final denial: nothing is to remain.
sheʾar: A remainder or what is left.
שְׁאָר
This noun shares the root of “remnant,” making the verse’s endpoint explicit: no remainder is left.
THE PATTERN
When judgment reaches a fortified power, its structures are dismantled until its claim to permanence disappears.
For thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defenced city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built.And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.THE THREAD
And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers;“The cursed thing” translates חֵרֶם (ḥērem), a thing placed under a ban, from the same root as Jeremiah’s “destroy utterly.” Deuteronomy names the refusal to keep anything from what is banned; Jeremiah extends that totality to the whole city.
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