Bible Strands
Jeremiah 47:7
How can it rest when the LORD has commanded it? He has appointed it against Ashkelon and the shore of its coastland.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jeremiah addresses the personified sword of the LORD, responding to the weapon's earlier plea for rest. The oracle is delivered during the prophetic vision of Babylonian forces advancing against Philistine cities.
The words — The Hebrew תִּשְׁקֹטִי (tish.ko.ti) literally means "will you be inactive," directly countering the sword's request to cease. The verb צִוָּה (tzi.vah) translates as "he has commanded," establishing divine authorization for the attack.
The thread — This pattern of divinely directed military judgment appears in Isaiah 10:6, where God dispatches a nation to execute His rage, and Ezekiel 14:17, where He commands a sword to pass through a land. It corresponds to Micah 6:9, where the Lord calls the city to heed the rod and the One who ordains it.
Why it lands — The text explicitly states that the sword cannot rest because Yahweh has issued a direct order against Ashkelon and its coast. It requires the reader to acknowledge that historical violence proceeds by explicit divine command rather than autonomous human action.
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
How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea shore? there hath he appointed it.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 14:17 Or if I bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through it,’ so that I cut off from it both man and beast,
- Micah 6:9 The voice of the LORD calls out to the city (and it is sound wisdom to fear Your name): “Heed the rod and the One who ordained it.
- Isaiah 10:6 I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.
- 1 Samuel 15:3 Now go and attack the Amalekites and devote to destruction all that belongs to them. Do not spare them, but put to death men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
- Isaiah 13:3 I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have even summoned My warriors to execute My wrath and exult in My triumph.
- Isaiah 37:26 Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble.
- Isaiah 45:1 This is what the LORD says to Cyrus His anointed, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him, to disarm kings, to open the doors before him, so that the gates will not be shut:
- Isaiah 46:10 I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’
- Ezekiel 25:16 therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I will stretch out My hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and destroy the remnant along the coast.
- Amos 3:6 If a ram’s horn sounds in a city, do the people not tremble? If calamity comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?