What Does Jeremiah 50:3 Mean in the King James?
For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.
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
The Hebrew word for “desolate” also carries the shock of being stunned: the emptied land is appalling to witness.
THE MEANING
A force rises against her and empties her land until no one lives there. People and animals both depart, giving the devastation its full measure: no living residents remain. The verse’s stark image speaks now wherever a place is stripped of every living presence.
THE ROOT
לְשַׁמָּה
ləšammāh
GROWS FROM
שׁמם
To be desolate or appalled; to leave waste.
“desolate” in this verse is ləšammāh. English presents desolation as a condition of the land, while this Hebrew root also carries the sense of being stunned. The same root can describe both the emptied place and the shock of seeing it.
ALSO GROWS
shemamah: Desolation, waste.
שְׁמָמָה
This noun from the same root makes the land’s emptiness explicit; the verse says the force turns her land into this condition.
yishom: He will be astonished or stunned.
יִשֹּׁם
In Jeremiah 50:13, this form of the same root describes the passerby’s response to Babylon’s desolation, joining the empty land with the shock it produces.
THE PATTERN
The devastation of a place is shown by the disappearance of its inhabitants and the silence that follows.
For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.THE THREAD
Because of the wrath of the LORD it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.The root שׁמם (sh-m-m) returns in both “desolate” and “astonished”: the land is emptied, and the passerby is stunned by what they see. The shared root joins the devastation itself to the shock of witnessing it.
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