What Does Jeremiah 51:42 Mean in the King James?
The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.
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 is not merely struck by a sea; the waves become a single covering that erases its outline.
THE MEANING
Babylon (בָּבֶל, Bavel) carries the biblical sound-play with בָּלַל (balal, to mix or confuse); here that tangled power is itself submerged. The image speaks now of what seems fixed and sovereign yet is overtaken by a force too broad to resist. The ending stays stark: Babylon is covered beneath a multitude of waves.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that a powerful structure is permanent simply because it seems too large to be overwhelmed.
THE ROOT
נִכְסָתָה
nikhsetah
GROWS FROM
כסה
כָּסָה (kasah): to cover, conceal, or lay a covering over.
“covered” in this verse is nikhsetah. The Hebrew form pictures Babylon hidden beneath the sea, not merely struck by it. This root also names a covering itself, so the waves become the surface laid over the city’s visible form.
ALSO GROWS
kissah: he covered
כִּסָּה
This verb keeps the root’s consonants intact and shows the act of laying a cover over what was visible.
mikhseh: covering, roof
מִכְסֶה
The same root names a covering as well as the action; here the multitude of waves collectively becomes that covering.
THE PATTERN
A rising sea turns a multitude into an overwhelming force that can cover what once looked secure.
Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.THE THREAD
A Psalm of David, Maschil. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.Both verses draw on כסה (kasah, “to cover”). In Jeremiah, a city is buried beneath waves; in the psalm, a transgression is covered, showing how the same root names the act while what lies beneath it changes the force of the image.
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