Jeremiah 19:8

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues of it.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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וְלִשְׁרֵקָ֑ה

shᵉrêqâh

H8322

“and · to/for · hissing”

Conjunction + Preposition + Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 8× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at 2 Chronicles 29:8

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H8319

TWOT: 2468a

hissing, whistling

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

14: words
12: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וְלִשְׁרֵקָ֑ה hissing H8322 — appearing just 8 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וְלִשְׁרֵקָ֑ה hissing H8322 occurs in 8 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
6 nouns
1 pronoun
2 prepositions
1 particle

Verb forms

וְשַׂמְתִּי֙ Qal · Sequential Perfect
עֹבֵ֣ר Qal · Participle Active
יִשֹּׁ֥ם Qal · Imperfect
וְיִשְׁרֹ֖ק Qal · Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

כֹּ֚ל all H3605 ×2
עָלֶ֔יהָ upon H5921 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In the original languages it is 14 Hebrew tokens and 23 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Jeremiah 19:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Jeremiah 18:16 to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished, and shake his head.
1 Kings 9:8 Though this house is so high, yet shall everyone who passes by it be astonished, and shall hiss; and they shall say, Why has Yahweh done thus to this land, and to this house?
Jeremiah 49:13 For I have sworn by myself, says Yahweh, that Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the cities of it shall be perpetual wastes.
2 Chronicles 7:20–21 then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
Jeremiah 25:18 [to wit], Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings of it, and the princes of it, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day;
Jeremiah 50:13 Because of the wrath of Yahweh she shall not be inhabited, but she shall be wholly desolate: everyone who goes by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.
Zephaniah 2:15 This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, "I am, and there is none besides me." How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss, and shake their fists.
Leviticus 26:32 I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein will be astonished at it.

Jeremiah 9:9–11 Shall I not visit them for these things? says Yahweh; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
Lamentations 2:15–16 All that pass by clap their hands at you; They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, [saying], Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Jeremiah 19:8 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְשַׂמְתִּי֙ אֶת הָעִ֣יר הַזֹּ֔את לְשַׁמָּ֖ה וְלִשְׁרֵקָ֑ה כֹּ֚ל עֹבֵ֣ר עָלֶ֔יהָ יִשֹּׁ֥ם וְיִשְׁרֹ֖ק עַל כָּל מַכֹּתֶֽהָ

I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues of it.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Structure differs

In the Septuagint, Jeremiah is about an eighth shorter than the Hebrew and arranges its material differently — the Oracles Against the Nations (Hebrew chapters 46–51) appear in the middle of the Greek book, after 25:13. Because the chapter and verse boundaries do not line up, a verse-for-verse comparison with the Hebrew is not shown.

A verse-for-verse comparison isn’t shown here because the chapters and verses don’t line up. Switch to the LXX edition with the MT / LXX toggle above to read the Greek directly.

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from a public-domain English Septuagint. How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וְאַשְׁוֵי יַת קַרְתָּא הָדָא לְצָדוּ וּלְאִשְׁתְּמָמוּ כֹּל דְיֶעְבַּר עֲלָהּ יִכְלֵי וְיָנִיד עַל כָּל מַחְתָהָא:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Jeremiah 19:8 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Jer 19:8 And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.

Ver. 8. And I will make this city desolate.] See Jer 18:10.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

(See on Jer 18:16).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

John Calvin's Commentaries

Jeremiah proceeds with his denunciation, and it was necessary for him to add this amplification, that he might penetrate into their hard and perverse hearts; for had he employed only a single sentence, or a common mode of speaking, in describing their calamity and the ruin of the city, they would not have been at all moved. Hence he enlarges on the subject, and advances with greater vehemence, and always speaks in the person of God, that his denunciation might have greater weight.

I will set, etc. Here is to be noticed a second reason; for it was not enough that a calamity should be denounced on the Jews, without adding this, that it was inflicted by God’s hand, and that thus the punishment of their wickedness was just. Then he says, I will set this city for an astonishment; for so in this place the word שמה sheme ought to be rendered, inasmuch as the reason afterwards follows, astonished shall be whosoever shall pass through it He adds also, for a hissing, which is rather a mark of detestation than of scorn; yet the desolation of the whole land, and also the ruin of the holy city in which God had chosen an habitation for himself, might have filled all with terror, and ought justly to have done so. Whosoever, he says, shall pass through shall be astonished, and shall hiss on account of all her stroke; for it was not to be a common calamity, but one in which might be seen God’s dreadful judgment. It follows —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Desolate, and an hissing.—See Jer_18:16.

Because of all the plagues thereof.—The word is used in its wider, and yet stricter, sense as including all the blows or smitings (as in Isa_14:6) that are thought of as coming from the hand of God.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing,.... An hissing to its enemies; an hissing because desolate; when its walls should be broken down, its houses burnt with fire, and its inhabitants put to the sword, or carried captive:

everyone that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and hiss; surprised to see the desolations of it; that a city once so famous and flourishing should be reduced to such a miserable condition; and yet hiss by way of detestation and abhorrence of it, and for joy at its ruin:

because of all the plagues thereof: by which it was brought to desolation, as the sword, famine, burning, and captivity.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

This is no more than we met with before, Jer 18:16, and shall again meet with. Men’s honour and reputation is ordinarily very dear to them, it was especially to the Jews, who valued themselves much upon the reputation their city and their temple had, and the security they promised themselves from their right in the holy city and land. God tells them he will make them as much a scorn and reproach as ever they were for an honour or praise; as great a wonderment for the wrath and vengeance he would execute upon them, as they had been in their flourishing state for the mercies which he bestowed upon them.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

Comp. Jer_18:16

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Jeremiah, in the Prophets, opens this verse with 14 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shᵉrêqâh (“hissing”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “hissing” (shᵉrêqâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does 2 Chronicles 29:8, which shares the word «hissing», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “all” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וְשַׂמְתִּי֙» is a Qal Sequential Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Jamieson, Fausset & Brown read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 14 Hebrew ↔ 23 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 19 words in this verse.
“all” occurs 2× in this single verse.
12 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 14 words in this verse.