What Does Jeremiah 50:37 Mean in the King James?
A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures; and they shall be robbed.
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 sword reaches from Babylon’s armed strength to its stored wealth, stripping away both the means of defense and the fruits of possession.
THE MEANING
The verse lays out a total unmaking: horses, chariots, mixed ranks, and stored wealth all come under the sword. Its comparison of the defeated to women uses a gendered image of helplessness, and the violence remains stark. The verse confronts the reader with how fully power and possessions can be stripped away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that arms, allies, and accumulated wealth can make a person or nation untouchable.
THE ROOT
חֶרֶב
ḥerev
GROWS FROM
ח־ר־ב
to dry out, become waste or desolate
חֶרֶב (ḥerev, “sword”) shares its root letters with words for desolation. The sword in this verse is therefore bound to the ruin it leaves behind: it strikes the forces that guard the city, then reaches its wealth.
ALSO GROWS
ḥārab: to become desolate or waste
חָרַב
This branch makes the sword’s outcome visible in the root itself: what it strikes is left ruined.
ḥorbāh: ruin, desolation
חָרְבָּה
The passage’s repeated sword moves toward this state, from broken defenses to plundered stores.
וּבָזָזוּ
u-vāzāzū
GROWS FROM
ב־ז־ז
to plunder, seize as spoil
The root of “robbed” names the taking of wealth as spoil. The verse moves from a sword falling on the treasures to those treasures changing hands: what was gathered is now exposed to plunder.
ALSO GROWS
bāzaz: to plunder, take as spoil
בָּזַז
This verb names the action that follows the sword’s attack on Babylon’s treasures.
bizzāh: spoil, booty
בִּזָּה
This branch names what stored wealth becomes when the city can no longer keep or guard it.
THE PATTERN
Force and stored wealth cannot secure lasting immunity from loss.
There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.THE THREAD
O thou sword of the LORD, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still.Both verses use חֶרֶב (ḥerev, “sword”): here it strips a city’s forces and stores, while there the sword is addressed as a violence that can be returned to its sheath. Together they show the same destructive force from the side of its impact and from the plea for it to end.
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