What Does Jeremiah 13:13 Mean in the King James?
Then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.
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
Here authority offers no shelter: the king, priest, prophet, and every resident receive the same intoxication.
THE MEANING
The verse puts Jerusalem’s entire civic and sacred order under judgment: rulers, priests, prophets, and residents are all filled with drunkenness. No title places anyone outside the impairment named here.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that political power or religious office guarantees clear sight or immunity from judgment. The same impairment reaches the throne, the priesthood, the prophets, and all the inhabitants.
THE ROOT
שִׁכָּרוֹן
shikkārôn
GROWS FROM
שכר
sh-k-r
To become drunk; to be intoxicated.
“drunkenness” in this verse is shikkārôn. The noun grows from שכר (sh-k-r), the root of becoming drunk. Its word family also names intoxicating drink and the person in an intoxicated state, keeping the drink and its effect close together; here the whole civic and sacred order is named as filled with that condition.
ALSO GROWS
shēkār: Strong or intoxicating drink.
שֵׁכָר
This branch names what can produce the state of intoxication named in the verse.
shikkôr: A drunk or intoxicated person.
שִׁכּוֹר
This branch names the person in the condition that the verse says fills the whole city.
THE PATTERN
Judgment is pictured as an intoxicating portion that reaches its recipients and brings them into impairment.
For thus saith the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:THE THREAD
Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.The word translated “drunken” shares the root שכר (sh-k-r) with Jeremiah’s “drunkenness.” Isaiah says the staggering can be real even without wine or strong drink, opening the root’s image of impairment beyond a literal beverage.
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