What Does Jeremiah 42:14 Mean?
Saying, No, but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we will see no war, nor hear the sound of the ram's horn, nor go hungry for bread, and there we will settle.
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
Saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell:THE KEY
The Hebrew root for “war” is לחם, the same consonants in לֶחֶם (“bread”), so the verse binds escape from violence to escape from hunger.
THE MEANING
You hear safety imagined as absence: no war in sight, no trumpet sounding, no hunger for bread. The plan ends with “there will we dwell,” so escape is pictured as settling somewhere threat and need cannot reach. The verse exposes how a refuge can be built from the conditions you long to have disappear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a new place can guarantee safety by removing every threat and need.
THE ROOT
מִלְחָמָה
milḥāmāh
GROWS FROM
לחם
לחם (l-ḥ-m) means to fight or wage war in the verb from which מִלְחָמָה is formed.
The word for war grows from לחם, the same three consonants written in לֶחֶם, bread. The connection need not mean bread derives from battle: in this verse, the consonantal echo binds the wish to escape violence to the wish to escape hunger.
ALSO GROWS
lāḥam: fight, wage war
לָחַם
This verb shares the root’s consonants and names the action beneath מִלְחָמָה.
leḥem: bread
לֶחֶם
It bears the same three consonants; here the echo places bread beside war without requiring it to be a morphological derivative of the war verb.
וְיָשַׁבְנוּ
ve-yāshavnū
GROWS FROM
ישב
ישב (y-sh-b) means to sit, remain, or dwell.
“settle” in this verse is ve-yāshavnū. “There will we dwell” makes the imagined escape a settled condition, not a brief shelter. The root holds sitting and dwelling together, so the promise of relief already sounds like settling into a new life.
ALSO GROWS
yōshēv: one who dwells; an inhabitant
יֹשֵׁב
This participle describes a person by the act of remaining in a place.
mōshāv: dwelling place; seat
מוֹשָׁב
This noun carries the root into the place where someone sits or settles.
THE PATTERN
Fear can make escape look like lasting safety even when the feared condition follows the person into the refuge.
And I say, Who will give me wings like a dove! Then I would fly away and settle.But you said, "No, for upon horses we will flee, therefore you will flee," and, "Upon the swift we will ride, therefore those who pursue you will be swift."And loosen those who through fear of death were held in slavery throughout all their living.THE THREAD
And it shall be that the sword you fear will overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine you are troubled by will cling to you there in Egypt, and there you will die.The promised absence of war and hunger meets its opposite here: sword and famine follow into Egypt. The connection shows that changing location cannot by itself guarantee release from what is feared.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us