The Meaning of Jeremiah 48:6 Explained

Jeremiah 48:6

KJV: Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the wilderness.

YLT: Flee ye, deliver yourselves, Ye are as a naked thing in a wilderness.

Darby: Flee, save your lives, and be like a shrub in the wilderness.

ASV: Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the wilderness.

KJV Reverse Interlinear

Flee,  save  your lives,  and be  like the heath  in the wilderness. 

What does Jeremiah 48:6 Mean?

Verse Meaning

The Moabites would need to flee for their lives. They would be as rare, isolated, and forsaken as juniper trees in the desert, and their safety would lie in their isolation.

Chapter Summary: Jeremiah 48

1  The judgment of Moab
7  for their pride
11  for their security
14  for their carnal confidence
26  and for their contempt of God and his people
47  The restoration of Moab

What do the individual words in Jeremiah 48:6 mean?

Flee save your lives and be like the juniper in the wilderness
נֻ֖סוּ מַלְּט֣וּ נַפְשְׁכֶ֑ם וְתִֽהְיֶ֕ינָה כַּעֲרוֹעֵ֖ר בַּמִּדְבָּֽר

נֻ֖סוּ  Flee 
Parse: Verb, Qal, Imperative, masculine plural
Root: נוּס  
Sense: to flee, escape.
מַלְּט֣וּ  save 
Parse: Verb, Piel, Imperative, masculine plural
Root: מָלַט 
Sense: to slip away, escape, deliver, save, be delivered.
נַפְשְׁכֶ֑ם  your  lives 
Parse: Noun, feminine singular construct, second person masculine plural
Root: נֶפֶשׁ  
Sense: soul, self, life, creature, person, appetite, mind, living being, desire, emotion, passion.
וְתִֽהְיֶ֕ינָה  and  be 
Parse: Conjunctive waw, Verb, Qal, Conjunctive imperfect, third person feminine plural
Root: אֶהְיֶה 
Sense: to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out.
כַּעֲרוֹעֵ֖ר  like  the  juniper 
Parse: Preposition-k, Noun, masculine singular
Root: עֲרֹועֵר 
Sense: naked, stripped, destitute.
בַּמִּדְבָּֽר  in  the  wilderness 
Parse: Preposition-b, Article, Noun, masculine singular
Root: מִדְבָּר 
Sense: wilderness.