Bible Strands
Jeremiah 50:12
your mother will be greatly ashamed; she who bore you will be disgraced. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Jeremiah pronounces judgment against Babylon, addressing the empire directly after it boasted over Israel's plunder. This oracle occurs at the precise moment the nation's triumph is declared over before its sudden desolation.
The words — The text declares the mother will be "greatly ashamed" and "disgraced," drawing on the Hebrew בּוֹשָׁה (bōšāh, "she will be ashamed") and חָפְרָה (ḥāpherāh, "she will be abashed").
The thread — The desolation imagery runs into Jeremiah 51:43, where Babylon's cities become a dry land where no one passes, and into Isaiah 13:20, which states the territory will never be settled or pitched with tents.
Why it lands — The passage states that political pride and plundering will result in total humiliation and ecological ruin. It requires the reader to acknowledge that human arrogance cannot prevent the certainty of divine judgment.
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
Your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed: behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 51:43 Her cities have become a desolation, a dry and arid land, a land where no one lives, where no son of man passes through.
- Isaiah 13:20 She will never be inhabited or settled from generation to generation; no nomad will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flock there.
- Isaiah 14:22 “I will rise up against them,” declares the LORD of Hosts. “I will cut off from Babylon her name and her remnant, her offspring and her posterity,” declares the LORD.
- Isaiah 23:13 Look at the land of the Chaldeans—a people now of no account. The Assyrians destined it for the desert creatures; they set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They brought it to ruin.
- Jeremiah 25:12 But when seventy years are complete, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, declares the LORD, and I will make it an everlasting desolation.
- Jeremiah 25:26 all the kings of the north, both near and far, one after another—all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. And after all of them, the king of Sheshach will drink it too.
- Jeremiah 49:2 Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will sound the battle cry against Rabbah of the Ammonites. It will become a heap of ruins, and its villages will be burned. Then Israel will drive out their dispossessors, says the LORD.
- Jeremiah 50:35 A sword is against the Chaldeans, declares the LORD, against those who live in Babylon, and against her officials and wise men.
- Jeremiah 51:25 “Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, you who devastate the whole earth, declares the LORD. I will stretch out My hand against you; I will roll you over the cliffs and turn you into a charred mountain.
- Jeremiah 51:62 and say, ‘O LORD, You have promised to cut off this place so that no one will remain—neither man nor beast. Indeed, it will be desolate forever.’