What Does Jeremiah 11:11 Mean in the King James?
Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.
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 Hebrew frames escape as “going out”: here both the exit and the response to the cry are closed.
THE MEANING
This verse holds before the reader judgment in its starkest form: calamity closes the way out, and a cry meets no hearing. The cry is real, yet the LORD says he will not receive it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that crying out always guarantees rescue or a response: here the cry is real, yet the LORD says he will not hear.
THE ROOT
לָצֵאת
la-tset
GROWS FROM
יצא
To go out, emerge, or come forth.
Their inability is expressed as a blocked going out: the calamity leaves no exit. The root makes the force of “escape” concrete as movement out from within what has closed around them.
ALSO GROWS
yotze: One who goes out or emerges.
יוֹצֵא
This branch names the very movement the verse says they cannot make.
motsa: An exit, outlet, or source.
מוֹצָא
The same root can name an outlet; here that possibility is shut.
אֶשְׁמַע
eshmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear, listen, or heed.
“hearken” in this verse is eshmaʿ. This root spans hearing, attending, and receiving what is heard. Here that reception is deliberately withheld; Psalm 34:17 uses the same root for the LORD hearing a cry.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear, listen, or heed.
שְׁמַע
The attentive sense of this root makes the refusal more than a sound failing to reach someone: the cry is not received.
shemuʿah: A report or tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch names what arrives through hearing, sharpening the contrast with the cry that receives no response.
THE PATTERN
A plea does not itself reopen a way that judgment has closed.
They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings.When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:THE THREAD
The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.The verb rendered “heareth” is שָׁמַע (shamaʿ), the same root behind “hearken” in Jeremiah, and the verse pairs hearing with deliverance from trouble. The shared root makes Jeremiah’s refusal precise: hearing and an opening out are present here, while in Jeremiah both are withheld.
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