What Does Jeremiah 12:14 Mean in the King James?
Thus saith the LORD against all mine evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit; Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among 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 same uprooting reaches both the neighbors who touch Israel’s inheritance and Judah itself, holding judgment and displacement together.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of an inheritance entrusted by God: a neighbor’s reach into it is a violation, and the LORD answers with uprooting. Judah is also pulled from among the neighbors, so the same sentence holds judgment and displacement together. Belonging does not make a people untouchable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that belonging to God’s people guarantees immunity: Judah, too, is plucked from among the neighbors.
THE ROOT
נָטַשׁ
nāṭaš
GROWS FROM
נתש
n-ṭ-š
To pull up or uproot; in other contexts, to leave or forsake.
The English “pluck” carries the force of uprooting, while the same root can also mean leaving or forsaking. The verse applies it first to the neighbors and then to Judah, binding judgment to an unsettling displacement rather than reserving the action for outsiders.
ALSO GROWS
netāšām: To pull them out by the roots.
נְתָשָׁם
This is the form used for the neighbors: the response to their reach into the inheritance is their removal from their land.
nāṭaštî: To leave behind or forsake.
נָטַשְׁתִּי
Jeremiah 12:7 uses the same root for leaving the heritage, linking this uprooting to a prior withdrawal.
הִנְחַלְתִּי
hinḥalti
GROWS FROM
נחל
n-ḥ-l
To inherit or receive possession; in a causative form, to assign something as an inheritance.
The verse uses this root both for Israel’s inheritance and for God’s act of causing Israel to inherit it. The land is presented as an allotted possession, so the neighbors’ reach touches a gift and its assigned boundary.
ALSO GROWS
naḥalah: An allotted possession or heritage.
נַחֲלָה
This is the word for what the neighbors touch: the object of the violation is an inheritance, not unclaimed ground.
yinḥalû: They receive or possess as an inheritance.
יִנְחֲלוּ
This verb form from the same root shows inheritance as an action of receiving possession, not only a thing one owns.
הַנֹּגְעִים
hanogʿim
GROWS FROM
נגע
n-g-ʿ
To touch or reach; in other forms, to strike or afflict.
The word translated “touch” can carry the force of reaching or striking. In this sentence, the neighbors’ contact is an encroachment with consequences, not casual proximity.
ALSO GROWS
nāgaʿ: To come into contact with or reach toward.
נָגַע
This is the basic verb-family behind the neighbors’ contact with the inheritance.
negaʿ: A blow, mark, or affliction.
נֶגַע
This related form shows how the root can extend from contact to injury, adding weight to the boundary-crossing in the verse.
THE PATTERN
When an inheritance is seized, judgment can uproot the claimant and place possession elsewhere.
For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.THE THREAD
I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.The word translated “left” comes from the same root as “pluck” in verse 14. That shared root links the uprooting of the neighbors and Judah to the earlier statement of abandonment, making the verse’s displacement part of a harder, connected movement.
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