Jeremiah 47:2

This is what the LORD says: “See how the waters are rising from the north and becoming an overflowing torrent. They will overflow the land and its fullness, the cities and their inhabitants. The people will cry out, and all who dwell in the land will wail

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — The LORD addresses the prophet Jeremiah concerning a coming judgment on the Philistines, timed before Pharaoh’s military strike on Gaza. The message frames an invading army as a sudden, unstoppable flood sweeping through the territory.

The words — The phrase הִנֵּה־ מַיִם עֹלִים מִצָּפוֹן (hi.neh Ma.yim 'o.Lim mi.tza.fOn) translates literally as "see waters [are] rising from the north." The participle עֹלִים ('o.Lim) specifies an upward, advancing motion that grounds the flood metaphor in physical movement.

The thread — This northward flood imagery recurs in Jeremiah 1:14, where disaster is poured out from the north, and Isaiah 8:7, which equates the Euphrates’ mighty waters with the king of Assyria. Both passages deploy the same hydrological metaphor to describe foreign armies executing divine judgment.

Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge the declared certainty of an inescapable devastation that will trigger universal wailing. It demands acceptance of the judgment’s inevitability before examining its historical or political mechanics.

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

Thus saith the Lord; Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land, and all that is therein; the city, and them that dwell therein: then the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl.

Cross-references

Isaiah 8:7 the Lord will surely bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—the king of Assyria and all his pomp. It will overflow its channels and overrun its banks.
Isaiah 15:2 Dibon goes up to its temple to weep at its high places. Moab wails over Nebo, as well as over Medeba. Every head is shaved, every beard is cut off.
Jeremiah 1:14 Then the LORD said to me, “Disaster from the north will be poured out on all who live in the land.
Jeremiah 8:16 The snorting of enemy horses is heard from Dan. At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds, the whole land quakes. They come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who dwell in it.
Jeremiah 46:20 Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but a gadfly from the north is coming against her.
Psalms 24:1 A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.
Psalms 50:12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof.
Psalms 96:11 Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice; let the sea resound, and all that fills it.
Psalms 98:7 Let the sea resound, and all that fills it, the world, and all who dwell in it.
Isaiah 14:31 Wail, O gate! Cry out, O city! Melt away, all you Philistines! For a cloud of smoke comes from the north, and there are no stragglers in its ranks.