What Does Jeremiah 11:12 Mean in the King James?
Then shall the cities of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem go, and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense: but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble.
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 makes the failure absolute: the gods who receive the incense cannot deliver those who cry to them.
THE MEANING
When pressure comes, the reader reaches for powers they have fed with attention and offerings. The verse says those powers do not deliver in the hour of trouble. Something can receive devotion and still be unable to answer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that whatever receives your devotion is therefore able to rescue you.
THE ROOT
יֹושִׁיעוּ
yôšîʿû
GROWS FROM
ישע
Deliver, rescue; bring out of trouble.
“save” in this verse is yôšîʿû. The Hebrew intensifies the denial: “deliver, they will not deliver”, the failure is categorical, not merely delayed. The root names the movement into deliverance, and the verse exposes that devotion cannot give a powerless object that capacity.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: Deliverance, rescue.
יְשׁוּעָה
This is the capacity the verse says these gods lack: bringing a person out of trouble.
moshia: One who delivers.
מוֹשִׁיעַ
It names the role the gods are expected to fill but fail to perform.
מְקַטְּרִים
məqaṭṭərîm
GROWS FROM
קטר
Make smoke; burn incense.
“offer incense” in this verse is məqaṭṭərîm. The verse names the devotion by its smoke-making act, then places that act beside a cry for help. An offering can rise toward an object without making that object able to deliver.
ALSO GROWS
qetoret: Incense.
קְטֹרֶת
The same root names what is offered to these gods, tying the ritual directly to the powers that fail to rescue.
qiṭṭēr: Burn incense.
קִטֵּר
This verb makes the action behind the offering explicit: incense is burned, but deliverance does not follow.
THE PATTERN
A thing can receive devotion while remaining unable to answer or deliver.
They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place, and he standeth; from his place shall he not remove: yea, one shall cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor save him out of his trouble.They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;THE THREAD
Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses.Both verses use the Hebrew root יָשַׁע (yasha, deliver) for what happens, or fails to happen, in trouble. In Jeremiah the gods cannot deliver; in the Psalm, the LORD does.
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