What Does Jeremiah 51:30 Mean in the King James?
The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken.
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
“Mighty men” and “might” share the same Hebrew root, yet that very power sits idle while Babylon’s bars break.
THE MEANING
The force you call mighty can go motionless: Babylon’s fighters stop fighting and sit in their strongholds as their strength fails. The verse says they become “as women,” using a gendered image of humiliation, while dwellings burn and the bars are broken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Strength and defenses do not make a power unbreakable: warriors can remain behind their fortifications while their might fails and the bars give way.
THE ROOT
גִּבּוֹרֵי
gibbōrê
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
To be strong, to prevail.
“mighty men / might” in this verse is gibbōrê. English presents the warriors and their strength as separate facts, while Hebrew places both under גבר, the language of strength and prevailing. The verse stages collapse inside the very root that names their power.
ALSO GROWS
gibbôr: A mighty one, warrior.
גִּבּוֹר
This is the word for Babylon’s mighty men: they embody the quality their strength seems to promise.
gevûrâ: Might, strength.
גְּבוּרָה
This is the word for the strength that fails, so the warriors and their failing capacity share one seed.
gābar: To be strong, prevail.
גָּבַר
The root’s sense of prevailing sharpens the collapse: what appears to prevail no longer carries the fighters into battle.
יָשְׁבוּ
yashvu
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-sh-b
To sit, dwell, remain.
“Remained” can sound like mere duration; the Hebrew form also carries the sense of sitting or dwelling. Their stopping the fight becomes physical stillness inside the strongholds, exposing how the appearance of defense has become immobility.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: To sit, dwell.
יָשַׁב
This is the root behind “remained,” making the warriors’ posture part of the verse’s picture of failed strength.
moshav: A seat or dwelling.
מוֹשָׁב
This related form echoes the image of men settled inside their holds while the city’s defenses fail.
THE PATTERN
Human force is not self-sustaining: strength fails, and what appears secure can be overturned.
There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;THE THREAD
Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:“Mighty man” (גִּבּוֹר, gibbor) and “might” (גְּבוּרָה, gevurah) in Jeremiah 51:30 share גבר (g-b-r), the language of strength and prevailing. Jeremiah 9:23 names that same power and denies it as ground for boasting; here, the men who bear it find it failing.
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