What Does Jeremiah 51:64 Mean in the King James?
And thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
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 collapse is complete when what sinks can no longer be brought back to standing.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of power brought low: Babylon sinks beneath the calamity God brings and does not regain its standing. It also names the exhaustion that follows. The closing words mark the boundary of Jeremiah’s saying.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that power can always rebuild itself after disaster dissolves here: Babylon sinks and does not recover its standing.
THE ROOT
תָקוּם
taqum
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
Arise, stand, or be established.
The same root carries the sense of standing and being established, so “shall not rise” reaches beyond upward movement: Babylon will not regain a settled position. Hebrew also forms words for a place and for raising or establishing something from this root.
ALSO GROWS
maqom: Place; a standing place.
מָקוֹם
This word for place grows from the root for standing, linking position with the ability to stand.
heqim: Raise up, set up, establish.
הֵקִים
This form makes explicit that the root can mean restoring something to standing, the very possibility denied to Babylon.
THE PATTERN
A fall is measured by whether anything can restore the fallen to standing.
They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.THE THREAD
In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:Amos uses קום (qum, “arise” or “stand”) for raising what has fallen. That shared root sharpens Jeremiah’s words: Babylon’s destruction is marked by the absence of renewed standing.
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