Now was Israel not a laughingstock to you? Or was he caught among thieves? For whenever you speak about him you shake your head in scorn.
Parallel translations
- WEB For wasn’t Israel a derision to you? was he found among thieves? for as often as you speak of him, you shake your head.
- KJV For was not Israel a derision unto thee? was he found among thieves? for since thou spakest of him, thou skippedst for joy.
- BSB Was not Israel your object of ridicule? Was he ever found among thieves? For whenever you speak of him you shake your head.
- NKJV For was not Israel a derision to you? Was he found among thieves? For whenever you speak of him, You shake your head in scorn.
- NLT Did you not ridicule the people of Israel? Were they caught in the company of thieves that you should despise them as you do?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Moab had mocked Israel as a thief caught in the act, shaking her head in scorn, and now faces the same derision.
Overview
God recalls how Moab despised and ridiculed Israel in her troubles. Now the mocker becomes the mocked, reaping what she sowed. This reversal illustrates the biblical principle that those who scorn God's people answer to Him, and it warns against contempt that ignores our own need for mercy.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 19
- Jer 2:26As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets;
- Mic 7:8–10Don’t rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me.
- Zeph 2:8I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the insults of the children of Ammon, with which they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border.
- Ezek 25:8Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because Moab and Seir say, Behold, the house of Judah is like all the nations;
- Lam 2:15–17All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that men called ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?”
- Ezek 26:2–3Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken: the gate of the peoples; she is turned to me; I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste:
- Ezek 35:15As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do to you: you shall be desolate, Mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.
- Prov 24:17–18Don’t rejoice when your enemy falls. Don’t let your heart be glad when he is overthrown;
- Ezek 36:2Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because the enemy has said against you, Aha! and, The ancient high places are ours in possession;
- Ps 79:4We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.
- Job 16:4I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,
- Ps 44:13You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and a derision to those who are around us.
- Ezek 36:4therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh: Thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which are become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are all around;
- Obad 1:12–13But don’t look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don’t rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don’t speak proudly in the day of distress.
- Matt 26:55In that hour Jesus said to the multitudes, “Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to seize me? I sat daily in the temple teaching, and you didn’t arrest me.
- Jer 18:16to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing. Everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished, and shake his head.
- Matt 7:2For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you.
- Matt 27:38Then there were two robbers crucified with him, one on his right hand and one on the left.
- Zeph 2:10This they will have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of Yahweh of Armies.
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 48:27 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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