New Living Translation
Jeremiah 50:38
38A drought will strike her water supply, causing it to dry up. And why? Because the whole land is filled with idols, and the people are madly in love with them.
Jeremiah 50:38 in other versions
- King James Version (KJV)A drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up: for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols.
- New International Version (NIV)A drought on her waters! They will dry up. For it is a land of idols, idols that will go mad with terror.
- English Standard Version (ESV)A drought against her waters, that they may be dried up! For it is a land of images, and they are mad over idols.
- New King James Version (NKJV)A drought is against her waters, and they will be dried up. For it is the land of carved images, And they are insane with their idols.
Context of Jeremiah 50:38
36The sword will strike her wise counselors, and they will become fools. The sword will strike her mightiest warriors, and panic will seize them. 37The sword will strike her horses and chariots and her allies from other lands, and they will all become like women. The sword will strike her treasures, and they all will be plundered. A drought will strike her water supply, causing it to dry up. And why? Because the whole land is filled with idols, and the people are madly in love with them. 39“Soon Babylon will be inhabited by desert animals and hyenas. It will be a home for owls. Never again will people live there; it will lie desolate forever. 40I will destroy it as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns,” says the Lord. “No one will live there; no one will inhabit it.
Read all of Jeremiah 50Jeremiah 50:38 word by word
חֹ֥רֶב אֶל־מֵימֶ֖יהָ וְיָבֵ֑שׁוּ כִּ֣י אֶ֤רֶץ פְּסִלִים֙ הִ֔יא וּבָאֵימִ֖ים יִתְהֹלָֽלוּ׃Read the interlinear
Words taken from the KJV.
Cross-references for Jeremiah 50:38
- Jeremiah 50:12But your homeland will be overwhelmed with shame and disgrace. You will become the least of nations— a wilderness, a dry and desolate land.
- Jeremiah 51:32All the escape routes are blocked. The marshes have been set aflame, and the army is in a panic.
- Isaiah 44:27When I speak to the rivers and say, ‘Dry up!’ they will be dry.
- Revelation 16:12Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great Euphrates River, and it dried up so that the kings from the east could march their armies toward the west without hindrance.
- Revelation 17:15Then the angel said to me, “The waters where the prostitute is ruling represent masses of people of every nation and language.
- Jeremiah 50:2This is what the Lord says: “Tell the whole world, and keep nothing back. Raise a signal flag to tell everyone that Babylon will fall! Her images and idols will be shattered. Her gods Bel and Marduk will be utterly disgraced.
- Jeremiah 51:44And I will punish Bel, the god of Babylon, and make him vomit up all he has eaten. The nations will no longer come and worship him. The wall of Babylon has fallen!
- Isaiah 46:1Bel and Nebo, the gods of Babylon, bow as they are lowered to the ground. They are being hauled away on ox carts. The poor beasts stagger under the weight.
- Daniel 3:1King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold statue ninety feet tall and nine feet wide and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.
- Daniel 5:4While they drank from them they praised their idols made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
- Habakkuk 2:18“What good is an idol carved by man, or a cast image that deceives you? How foolish to trust in your own creation— a god that can’t even talk!
- Revelation 17:5A mysterious name was written on her forehead: “Babylon the Great, Mother of All Prostitutes and Obscenities in the World.”
- Jeremiah 51:7Babylon has been a gold cup in the Lord’s hands, a cup that made the whole earth drunk. The nations drank Babylon’s wine, and it drove them all mad.
- Isaiah 44:25I expose the false prophets as liars and make fools of fortune-tellers. I cause the wise to give bad advice, thus proving them to be fools.
- Acts 17:16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city.
Commentaries on Jeremiah 50:38
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 38A drought is upon her waters - May not this refer to the draining of the channel of the Euphrates, by which the army of Cyrus entered the city. See on Jeremiah 50:24; (note). The original is, however, חרב chereb, a sword, as in the preceding verses, which signifies war, or any calamity by which the thing on which it falls is ruined.Read the comment
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 38A drought - Rather, “a sword,” i. e., military skill and forethought. They are mad upon their idols - Omit their. The word for idols, literally terrors Psalm 88:16 is used in this one place only of objects of worship. Probably it refers to those montrous forms invented as representations of their deities.Read the comment
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary · v. 33-46Verses 33-46 It is Israel's comfort in distress, that, though they are weak, their Redeemer is strong. This may be applied to believers, who complain of the dominion of sin and corruption, and of their own weakness and manifold infirmities. Their Redeemer is able to keep what they commit to him; and sin shall not have dominion over them. He will give them that rest which remains for the people of God. Also here is Babylon's sin, and their punishment. The…Read the comment
- Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 38The Euphrates River flowed through Babylon, supplying water to the city. The Persians reportedly diverted the river during a siege. They dug a canal around the city walls and attacked through the dry riverbed.Read the comment
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 3838. drought--Altering the pointing, this verse will begin as the three previous verses, "A sword." However, all the pointed manuscripts read, "A drought," as English Version. Cyrus turned off the waters of the Euphrates into a new channel and so marched through the dried-up bed into the city (Jr 51:32). Babylonia once was famed for its corn, which often yielded from one to two hundredfold [Herodotus]. This was due to its network of water-courses from the…Read the comment
In the dictionaries
Commentaries on Jeremiah 50
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
- Tyndale Open Study Notes
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
- Rashi on Tanakh
- Calvin’s Commentaries
- Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
- John Wesley’s Notes
- Darby Translation Notes
- Geneva Bible Translation Notes
- Kingcomments
- Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
- Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
- Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition
- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
- EGW Writings
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Commentaries