What Does Jeremiah 10:15 Mean in the King James?
They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
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
What is made from wandering cannot endure when its appointed reckoning comes.
THE MEANING
Things fashioned from delusion may look solid, yet the verse calls them fleeting and insubstantial. Their appointed visitation comes, and they perish. This is a present measure of what can and cannot last.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that something becomes enduring or real simply because human hands make it and people trust it.
THE ROOT
תַּעְתֻּעִים
taʿtuʿim
GROWS FROM
תעה
T-ʿ-H
To wander, stray, or go astray.
The word translated “errors” carries the shape of wandering off course. These works are not merely mistaken; they are shaped by a straying that leads into delusion.
ALSO GROWS
taʿah: To wander or stray.
תָּעָה
It exposes the movement beneath the “errors”: a departure from the true path.
toʿeh: One who wanders or has gone astray.
תֹּעֶה
The same root names both the wandering and the one caught in it.
taʿtuʿim: Delusions or deceptions.
תַּעְתֻּעִים
This is the form in the verse: what is made from straying can itself mislead.
הֶבֶל
hevel
GROWS FROM
הבל
H-B-L
Vapor or mist; by extension, what is fleeting and insubstantial.
“Vanity” here is not only emptiness as an idea; it evokes something that cannot hold its form. The works of straying may appear substantial, but their nature is fleeting.
ALSO GROWS
havalim: Vanities, fleeting things.
הֲבָלִים
The plural form in Ecclesiastes extends the image to things that lack lasting substance.
hevel: Vapor, mist, or vanity.
הֶבֶל
This is the same word used here, making the idols’ apparent solidity part of the illusion.
פְּקֻדָּה
pequddah
GROWS FROM
פקד
P-Q-D
To attend to, appoint, muster, or count.
The word translated “visitation” carries the sense of an appointed encounter or oversight. The verse locates the idols’ end at the time they are called to account: they perish.
ALSO GROWS
paqad: To attend to, appoint, muster, count, or visit.
פָּקַד
Its range brings appointment and accounting into the verse’s moment of visitation.
paqīd: An appointed official or overseer.
פָּקִיד
This branch carries the sense of assigned oversight that also lies beneath the visitation.
pequddah: Oversight, an appointed charge, or visitation.
פְּקֻדָּה
This is the verse’s word for the appointed moment when the works perish.
THE PATTERN
What is shaped from delusion has no endurance when its appointed reckoning comes.
They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.THE THREAD
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.Jeremiah calls the idols hevel; Ecclesiastes uses that same Hebrew word for what is fleeting and insubstantial. The shared root reveals why their apparent solidity cannot make them last.
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