Jeremiah 48:6
in Jeremiah 48‘Flee! Run for your lives! Become like a juniper in the desert.’
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the wilderness.
KJV
Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the wilderness.
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This verse in Jeremiah 48
Commentary
5 notes on this verseFlee, save your lives - The enemy is in full pursuit of you. Be like the heath - כערוער caaroer, “like Aroer;” which some take for a city, others for a blasted or withered tree. It is supposed that a place of this name lay towards the north, in the land of the Ammonites, on a branch of the river Jabbok; surrounded by deserts. Save yourselves by getting into the wilderness, where the pursuing foe will scarcely think it worth his while to follow you, as the wilderness itself must soon destroy you.
This site's exposition
Against Moab thus saith the Lord
on Jeremiah 48:1-10
The Moab oracle opens with a gazetteer of falling towns, Nebo, Kiriathaim, Heshbon, Horonaim, the weeping going up the ascent of Luhith, and the ground of it is stated at verse 7: because thou hast trusted in thy works and in thy treasures. Chemosh shall go forth into captivity with his priests, the national god deported with his staff, which is the ancient Near East's own language for a theology defeated, as the bench notes from the monuments. Verse 10's curse on doing the Lord's work deceitfully, or keeping the sword from blood, is stated as what it is in place, the executioner charged not to soften an appointed judgment; the commentators note how often it is quoted out of this grim setting.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
Flee, save your lives,....
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
They exhort one another to flee. heath--or the juniper (see on Jer 17:6). MAURER translates, "Be like one naked in the wilderness." But the sense is, Live in the wilderness like the heath, or juniper; do not "trust in" walls (Jer 48:7) [GROTIUS].
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
Like the heath - Or, Like a destitute man. See the marginal reference note.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| נֻ֖סוּ | nusu | flee | H5127 → | 159 times |
| מַלְּט֣וּ | maletu | save | H4422 → | 95 times |
| נַפְשְׁכֶ֑ם | nafshekhem | life your | H5315 → | 754 times |
| וְתִֽהְיֶ֕ינָה | vetihyeinah | so they may be | H1961 → | 3559 times |
| כַּעֲרוֹעֵ֖ר | kaaroer | like a juniper bush | H6176 → | |
| בַּמִּדְבָּֽר׃ | bamidbar | in the wilderness | H4057 → | 270 times |
נֻ֖סוּflee
nusuH5127 →159 times
מַלְּט֣וּsave
maletuH4422 →95 times
נַפְשְׁכֶ֑םlife your
nafshekhemH5315 →754 times
וְתִֽהְיֶ֕ינָהso they may be
vetihyeinahH1961 →3559 times
כַּעֲרוֹעֵ֖רlike a juniper bush
kaaroerH6176 →
בַּמִּדְבָּֽר׃in the wilderness
bamidbarH4057 →270 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Genesis 19:17As soon as the men had brought them out, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Do not look back, and do not stop anywhere on the plain! Flee to the mountains, or…
it leads to
- Matthew 24:16–18
then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
- Luke 9:62
Then Jesus declared, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
- Philippians 3:13–14
Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
- Genesis 19:26
But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
- Genesis 19:22
Hurry! Run there quickly, for I cannot do anything until you reach it.” That is why the town was called Zoar.
- Matthew 24:16–18
Through
Psalms 11:1In the LORD I take refuge. How then can you say to me: “Flee like a bird to your mountain!
it leads to
- Isaiah 26:3–4
You will keep in perfect peace the steadfast of mind, because he trusts in You.
- Psalms 56:11
in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
- 1 Samuel 23:14
And David stayed in the wilderness strongholds and in the hill country of the Wilderness of Ziph. Day after day Saul searched for him, but God would not deliver David into his hand.
- Isaiah 26:3–4
About Jeremiah
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763).