Bible Strands
Jeremiah 22:20
Go up to Lebanon and cry out; raise your voice in Bashan; cry out from Abarim, for all your lovers have been crushed.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses the king of Judah and the nation at a moment of impending collapse, immediately after pronouncing a dishonorable burial outside Jerusalem’s gates. The command functions as a final summons to public mourning before the stated judgment unfolds.
The words — עֲלִי ('a.Li) = go up and צְעָקִי (tze.'A.ki) = cry out. The text pairs these imperatives to direct a public lament across three distinct geographic regions.
The thread — The geographic summons echoes Numbers 27:12, while the motif of failed "lovers" appears in Lamentations 1:2 and Ezekiel 23:22. These passages collectively trace a pattern of seeking political alliances that ultimately provide no rescue.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that human alliances cannot avert divine judgment. It requires the reader to accept the stated consequence of ignored warnings without seeking alternative explanations.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up thy voice in Bashan, and cry from the passages: for all thy lovers are destroyed.
Cross-references
- Numbers 27:12 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go up this mountain of the Abarim range and see the land that I have given the Israelites.
- Lamentations 1:2 She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.
- Ezekiel 23:22 Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will incite your lovers against you, those from whom you turned away in disgust. And I will bring them against you from every side—
- Deuteronomy 32:49 “Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo, in the land of Moab across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites as their own possession.
- 2 Kings 24:7 Now the king of Egypt did not march out of his land again, because the king of Babylon had taken all his territory, from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River.
- Isaiah 20:5 Those who made Cush their hope and Egypt their boast will be dismayed and ashamed.
- Isaiah 30:1 “Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin.
- Isaiah 31:1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD.
- Jeremiah 2:36 How impulsive you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria.
- Jeremiah 4:30 And you, O devastated one, what will you do, though you dress yourself in scarlet, though you adorn yourself with gold jewelry, though you enlarge your eyes with paint? You adorn yourself in vain; your lovers despise you; they want to take your life.