What Does Jeremiah 14:15 Mean in the King James?
Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.
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 LORD’s שֵׁם (shem, name as nature) can be claimed by a voice he never שָׁלַח (shalach, sent forth).
THE MEANING
The phrase “in my name” is שְׁמִי (shemi, “my name”): a claim to speak from the LORD’s nature, while the verse separates that claim from actually being sent. The promise that sword and famine will not be in the land does not remove them; those same forces consume the prophets who denied them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A speaker invoking God’s name is necessarily speaking with God’s authority. The verse breaks that equation: invocation and sending are not the same thing.
THE ROOT
שְׁלַחְתִּים
shelaḥtîm
GROWS FROM
שׁלח
š-l-ḥ
To send forth, release, or let go.
The verse’s hinge is not whether the speakers use the LORD’s name, but whether they are sent from him. שָׁלַח (shalach, send forth) makes sending a real movement from a source, not a title a speaker can give himself.
ALSO GROWS
shilleaḥ: Send away, release, let go.
שִׁלֵּחַ
This branch carries the root’s sense of release: a true sending comes from the one who releases the messenger.
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name of the waters of Shiloah.
שִׁלֹחַ
The sent waters make sending concrete as movement from a source; here the speakers claim a source the LORD says they do not have.
יִתַּמּוּ
yittammū
GROWS FROM
תמם
t-m-m
To be complete, finished, or brought to an end.
The Hebrew verb under “consumed” means they come to an end. The same root can describe what is complete and whole; here the prophets reach their end by the very sword and famine they declare absent.
ALSO GROWS
tamim: Complete, whole, sound.
תָּמִים
This branch shows the root’s sense of reaching fullness, which can also mean reaching a final end.
tom: Completeness, integrity.
תֹּם
The root can name a state of completeness; in this verse, the prophets’ course is instead completed through the violence they deny.
THE PATTERN
A claim to speak in God’s name is tested by its source and its truth, not by the sacred wording it wears.
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?THE THREAD
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.Isaiah shares the root שׁלח (shalach, send forth) with Jeremiah’s “I sent them not.” Isaiah describes what God sends going out with purpose and accomplishing it, sharpening the contrast between a voice that claims the LORD’s name and a word that actually comes from his sending.
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