Bible Strands
Jeremiah 48:7
Because you trust in your works and treasures, you too will be captured, and Chemosh will go into exile with his priests and officials.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jeremiah pronounces judgment against Moab during an active campaign of divine destruction. The oracle follows a command to flee and immediately precedes a description of total urban and geographical ruin.
The words — בִּטְחֵךְ (bitḥeḵ) means "trusting in you" or "your trust," and תִּלָּכֵדִי (tilḵādî) means "you will be captured."
The thread — The warning against self-reliance appears in Psalms 52:7, which contrasts trusting in wealth with making God a refuge, and in Jeremiah 9:23, which forbids boasting in wealth. The judgment on Moab and Chemosh echoes the earlier pronouncement in Numbers 21:29.
Why it lands — The text states that reliance on human achievements and accumulated wealth results in capture and exile. It requires the reader to abandon self-sufficiency and recognize that misplaced trust inevitably produces ruin.
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
For because thou hast trusted in thy works and in thy treasures, thou shalt also be taken: and Chemosh shall go forth into captivity with his priests and his princes together.
Cross-references
- Numbers 21:29 Woe to you, O Moab! You are destroyed, O people of Chemosh! He gave up his sons as refugees, and his daughters into captivity to Sihon king of the Amorites.
- Psalms 52:7 “Look at the man who did not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his wealth and strengthened himself by destruction.”
- Jeremiah 9:23 This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the wealthy man in his riches.
- Jeremiah 49:3 Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai has been destroyed; cry out, O daughters of Rabbah! Put on sackcloth and mourn; run back and forth within your walls, for Milcom will go into exile together with his priests and officials.
- 1 Kings 11:33 For they have forsaken Me to worship Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites. They have not walked in My ways, nor done what is right in My eyes, nor kept My statutes and judgments, as Solomon’s father David did.
- Isaiah 46:1 Bel crouches; Nebo cowers. Their idols weigh down beasts and cattle. The images you carry are burdensome, a load to the weary animal.
- Jeremiah 48:13 Then Moab will be ashamed of Chemosh, just as the house of Israel was ashamed when they trusted in Bethel.
- Jeremiah 48:46 Woe to you, O Moab! The people of Chemosh have perished; for your sons have been taken into exile and your daughters have gone into captivity.
- Hosea 10:13 You have plowed wickedness and reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your mighty men,
- 1 Timothy 6:17 Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy.