What Does Jeremiah 1:13 Mean in the King James?
And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The threat is already visible as pressure in a vessel, and even its hidden direction is named before it breaks open.
THE MEANING
The word meets you with a question that makes you look closely at what is gathering. The pot is seething and faces north: pressure is taking shape before it spills. What is hidden has a direction, and the vision lets you see it while it is still contained.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Danger is not always shapeless or invisible until it strikes; here, its direction and pressure are already in view.
THE ROOT
צָפוֹנָה
tsafonah
GROWS FROM
צפן
tsaphan
To hide, conceal, or store away.
“north” in this verse is tsafonah. Northward is צָפוֹנָה (tsafonah), part of the צפן (tsaphan) word-family of hiding and storing away. The direction gives shape to what is concealed: the danger is not without form, but gathering from a named quarter.
ALSO GROWS
tsafanta: You stored or laid up.
צָפַנְתָּ
Psalm 31:19 uses this root for goodness laid up; here, the same family of hiddenness makes the pot’s direction feel like a source not yet fully seen.
tsafun: Hidden, concealed, or stored away.
צָפוּן
This branch makes the verse’s northward orientation resonate with what remains out of sight until its approach becomes visible.
נָפוּחַ
naphuach
GROWS FROM
נפח
naphach
To blow, puff, or fan.
The Hebrew word rendered “seething” also carries the sense of being blown or fanned. Its root appears in words for bellows and for one who blows coals, so the pot is pictured as more than hot: it is pressure being driven within a vessel.
ALSO GROWS
mappuach: Bellows.
מַפּוּחַ
Jeremiah 6:29 uses this form for bellows, showing how the root describes force that fans heat.
mappeach: One who blows on coals.
מַפֵּחַ
Isaiah 54:16 uses this word for the smith who blows coals in the fire, echoing the driven intensity of the pot.
THE PATTERN
A prophetic image carries a message that becomes legible when the word names what its details mean.
And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it.The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.THE THREAD
Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.The next verse repeats the north-word, צָפוֹן (tsafon, north), and names what the pot’s orientation holds: evil breaks forth from there. The hidden direction becomes an explicit force, and the contained image opens into what is moving toward the land.
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