Jeremiah 50:13

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

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.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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וְיִשְׁרֹ֖ק

shâraq

H8319

“and · to hiss”

Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 12× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at 1 Kings 9:8

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2468

to hiss, whistle, pipe - (Qal) to hiss (as a signal)

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 →

16: words
13: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וְיִשְׁרֹ֖ק to hiss H8319 — appearing just 12 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וְיִשְׁרֹ֖ק to hiss H8319 occurs in 12 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

5 verbs
8 nouns
2 prepositions
1 particle

Verb forms

תֵשֵׁ֔ב Qal · Imperfect
וְהָיְתָ֥ה Qal · Sequential Perfect
עֹבֵ֣ר Qal · Participle Active
יִשֹּׁ֥ם Qal · Imperfect
וְיִשְׁרֹ֖ק Qal · Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

כֻּלָּ֑הּ all H3605 ×3
עַל upon H5921 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In the original languages it is 16 Hebrew tokens and 16 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 50:13 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.
Jeremiah 49:17 Edom shall become an astonishment: everyone who passes by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues of it.
Job 27:23 Men shall clap their hands at him, And shall hiss him out of his place.
Isaiah 14:4–17 that you shall take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
Jeremiah 19:8 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.
Jeremiah 25:12 It shall happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says Yahweh, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it desolate forever.
Jeremiah 51:37 Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.
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?

Habakkuk 2:6–18 Won't all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, 'Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?'
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.
Zechariah 1:15 I am very angry with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, but they added to the calamity."

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 50:13 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

מִקֶּ֤צֶף יְהוָה֙ לֹ֣א תֵשֵׁ֔ב וְהָיְתָ֥ה שְׁמָמָ֖ה כֻּלָּ֑הּ כֹּ֚ל עֹבֵ֣ר עַל בָּבֶ֔ל יִשֹּׁ֥ם וְיִשְׁרֹ֖ק עַל כָּל מַכּוֹתֶֽיהָ

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.

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)

עַל דְאַרְגֵיזְתְּ בָּבֶל קֳדָם יְיָ לָא תִּתְיְתֵב וּתְהֵי לְצָדוּ כֻּלָהּ כֹּל דְיֶעְבַּר עַל בָּבֶל יִכְלֵי וִיגִיד עַל כָּל מְחָתָהָא:

(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 50:13 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 50:13 Because of the wrath of the LORD it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.

Ver. 13. It shall not be inhabited, but be wholly desolate.] Babylon standeth not now in the same place as of old, nor is there hardly any ruins of the old city remaining, as travellers tell us. Pausanias saith that in his time there was nought to be seen of it but the walls only; and Jerome saith {a} that in his it was turned into a park for deer. Omne in medio spatium solitude est. See on Jer 50:3.

{a} Lib. viii. in Isa. xiii.

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.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

In sign of contempt and disdain.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

(Isa 13:20).

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 again repeats that the destruction of Babylon would be an evidence of God’s vengeance, because the Chaldeans had unjustly raged against the Church. But the name of God seems also to have been designedly mentioned, that the faithful might more readily receive this prophecy: for had they thought that what Jeremiah said came from man, they would have hardly believed his words, for what he said exceeded the comprehension of men. He then mentioned the indignation of God, that the faithful might know that it was absurd to form an opinion concerning the ruin of Babylon according to the present aspect of things, because God would do a work there beyond the common course of things.

He then says, that it would become a waste, so that every one passing through it would be astonished, and yet would not pity it. This way of speaking often occurs in the Prophets, when they wish to describe a waste exceeding what is common. In the meantime, what follows ought to be noticed, that this arrangement would excite no commiseration, but rather mockery, which the Prophet denotes by the word hissing. It then 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

(13) Every one that goeth . . .—We note the reproduction of the formula of Jer_19:8; Jer_49:17.

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

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

13. Cp. chs. Jer_18:16, Jer_19:8, Jer_25:9; Jer_25:11, Jer_49:17, with notes.

be inhabited] See on Jer_17:25.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Because of the wrath of the Lord, it shall not be inhabited,.... That is, Babylon; which the Targum expresses,

"because thou, Babylon, hast provoked the Lord;''

by their idolatry, luxury, ill usage of his people, and profanation of the vessels of the sanctuary; therefore it should be destroyed, and left without an inhabitant in it:

but it shall be wholly desolate; as it now is. Pausanias says (o), in his time there was nothing but a wall remaining; and Jerom (p) says, he had it from a brother Elamite, or Persian, that Babylon was then a park or place for royal hunting, and that beasts of every kind were kept within its walls: of mystical Babylon, see Rev 16:19;

everyone that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues; any traveller that had seen it in its glory would now be astonished to see the desolation of it; and, by way of scorn and derision, hiss at the judgments of God upon it, and rejoice at them, and shake their head, as the Targum.

(o) Arcadica, sive l. 8. p. 509. (p) Comment. in Isaiam, fol. 23. C.

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

It shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate; the same thing was threatened against Babylon, Isa 13:20, It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. Shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues: it seemeth to be a proverbial speech made use of to express the miserable state of a place; we had it before, Jer 49:17, applied to Edom. It is according to the threatening, Deu 28:37. See Jer 25:9,11; 29:18; 42:18; Eze 5:15.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

All but the first clause of this verse is taken from Jer_19:8 Jer_49:17.

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 16 words (13 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shâraq (“to hiss”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word shâraq carries the sense “to hiss.” How does it shape the verse?
1 Kings 9:8 shares the word «to hiss» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“all” occurs 3× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «תֵשֵׁ֔ב» is Qal Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 16 Hebrew ↔ 16 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 22 words in this verse.
“all” occurs 3× in this single verse.
13 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 16 words in this verse.