TO UPROOT, pluck up — a farmer's verb for tearing a plant out by the root, turned here against a whole nation torn from its own ground. The identical verb opens Jehovah's charge to Jeremiah at his commissioning: “I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to UPROOT and to tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10, already on these pages) — the same destructive verb that describes what already happened to Israel here becomes the verb attached to the man sent to warn Judah it is about to happen to them too. → first discussed at Deut 29:27