What Does Jeremiah 15:14 Mean?
I will make you cross over with your enemies into a land you have not known, for a fire is kindled in the burning of my anger, and it will burn upon you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you.THE KEY
The unknown land is no escape from the burning: the verse carries you there with the fire still reaching you.
THE MEANING
You are carried into ground you do not recognize, among those set against you; unfamiliarity offers no shelter in this sentence. The LORD’s anger is kindled as fire, and that fire burns upon you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that unfamiliar surroundings put you beyond the reach of what you face; the fire burns upon you even after you are carried into unknown ground.
THE ROOT
אַפִּי
appi
GROWS FROM
אנף
To be angry; to flare up.
The word translated “anger” is appi, literally “my af.” Af names both the nostril and anger, so the English abstraction carries a bodily image of heat flaring at the nostrils.
ALSO GROWS
anaph: To be angry; to flare up.
אָנַף
This verb carries anger as an active flare, matching the fire kindled in anger here.
af: Nostril; anger.
אַף
The bodily image sits inside “mine anger,” giving the fire a concrete heat at the nostrils.
appayim: Nostrils; also anger, literally the dual nostrils.
אַפַּיִם
This form makes visible the bodily image that English renders as an abstract emotion.
וְהַעֲבַרְתִּיךָ
veha'avarticha
GROWS FROM
עבר
To cross over or pass beyond; in the causative form, to make someone cross.
“cross over” in this verse is veha'avarticha. The verb is causative: “I make you cross.” Its root also forms words for a passage and the far side, so the unknown land is a threshold reached through a crossing you do not choose.
ALSO GROWS
avar: To pass or cross over.
עָבַר
This is the basic action carried by the verse’s “make thee to pass.”
ma'avar: A crossing; a passage.
מַעֲבָר
The same root names the passage itself, making the movement through the verse’s danger visible.
ever: Beyond; the other side.
עֵבֶר
The root carries the idea of reaching the far side, even when that side is unfamiliar.
קָדְחָה
qadḥah
GROWS FROM
קדח
To kindle or burn.
The fire is kindled through a root that also names burning fever. Anger’s fire is presented as active heat with bodily force, not a remote feeling.
ALSO GROWS
qadaḥ: To kindle; to burn.
קָדַח
This is the verb behind the fire that is kindled in the verse.
qaddaḥat: Burning fever; inflammation.
קַדַּחַת
The related word keeps the root’s heat concrete and bodily, sharpening the force of the fire image.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures anger as heat that kindles and consumes, making judgment a force that reaches what it burns.
For a fire is kindled in my nostrils, and it burns down to the lowest Sheol; it eats the earth with her yield, and sets ablaze the foundations of the mountains.Who stands before his seething? Who rises in the burning of his nostril? His heat is poured out like fire, and the rocks are torn apart by him.For our God is a fire that devours.THE THREAD
And you, even you, shall let go of the inheritance I gave you; I will set you to serve your enemies in a land you have never known, for you have kindled a fire in the burning of my anger, which shall burn for the ages.Both verses use קדח (qadaḥ), the root behind “kindled”: here the fire is kindled in the LORD’s anger, while Jeremiah 17:4 says “ye have kindled” it. The repeated root makes the fire a continuing pattern in Jeremiah, and this verse makes its burning personal, upon you.
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