Bible Strands
Jeremiah 48:33
Joy and gladness are removed from the orchard and from the fields of Moab. I have stopped the flow of wine from the presses; no one treads them with shouts of joy; their shouts are not for joy.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh speaks through Jeremiah against Moab during a prophetic oracle of judgment on its agricultural prosperity. The declaration targets the land's inhabitants as their expected harvest is about to be destroyed.
The words — The Hebrew term שִׂמְחָה (simchah) denotes joy, paired with גִּיל (gil) for rejoicing, both declared removed from the orchards of Moab. The verb נֶאֶסְפָה (ne'essephah) literally means "has been gathered up" or "removed," indicating divine withdrawal of blessing.
The thread — This motif of stripped harvests and silenced presses echoes the agricultural curses in Isaiah 5:10 and 7:23, where vineyards yield poorly or become thorns. It aligns with the disappointed expectations recorded in Haggai 2:16, where promised abundance fails to materialize.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that human celebration depends entirely on sustained divine provision rather than agricultural effort alone. It confronts readers with the reality that withheld blessing leaves even ritual shouts empty and unfulfilled.
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
And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful field, and from the land of Moab; and I have caused wine to fail from the winepresses: none shall tread with shouting; their shouting shall be no shouting.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 5:10 For ten acres of vineyard will yield but a bath of wine, and a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.”
- Haggai 2:16 from that time, when one came expecting a heap of twenty ephahs of grain, there were but ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty baths, there were but twenty.
- Isaiah 7:23 And on that day, in every place that had a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, only briers and thorns will be found.
- Isaiah 9:3 You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy. The people rejoice before You as they rejoice at harvest time, as men rejoice in dividing the plunder.
- Isaiah 16:9 So I weep with Jazer for the vines of Sibmah; I drench Heshbon and Elealeh with my tears. Triumphant shouts have fallen silent over your summer fruit and your harvest.
- Isaiah 24:7 The new wine dries up, the vine withers. All the merrymakers now groan.
- Isaiah 32:9 Stand up, you complacent women; listen to me. Give ear to my word, you overconfident daughters.
- Jeremiah 25:9 behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.
- Joel 1:5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth.
- Joel 1:12 The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, palm, and apple—all the trees of the orchard—are withered. Surely the joy of mankind has dried up.