What Does Jeremiah 14:16 Mean in the King James?
And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness upon 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 verse turns wickedness into something poured onto a people, until even their dead lie uncovered in the streets.
THE MEANING
The verse names a human catastrophe without covering it: famine and violence leave bodies in the streets, with no one to bury them. It holds the people’s wickedness in the same image as what is poured upon them, joining wrongdoing and calamity in a single sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that reassuring prophecy can shield a community from famine, violence, or the cost of wrongdoing. The verse says those words do not cover what is happening.
THE ROOT
רָעָתָם
ra'atham
GROWS FROM
רָעַע
To be bad or bring harm; words from this root can name wrongdoing and calamity.
The word rendered wickedness belongs to a word family that can also describe harm or disaster. That overlap lets the verse hold both shades together: the people’s evil and the calamity poured upon them.
ALSO GROWS
ra'ah: Evil or wrongdoing
רָעָה
This is the sense KJV gives as wickedness in the verse.
ra'ah: Harm, trouble, or calamity
רָעָה
This sense brings the devastation around the word into view without erasing its moral weight.
וְשָׁפַכְתִּי
veshafakhti
GROWS FROM
שׁפך
To pour out, spill, or shed.
“pour” in this verse is veshafakhti. The Hebrew verb can describe liquid poured out and blood shed. English uses different images here and in Genesis 9:6, while the shared root makes the force of the action audible beneath both.
ALSO GROWS
shaphakh: Pour out
שָׁפַךְ
This is the verb used for what is poured upon the people in this verse.
shofekh dam: Shed blood
שֹׁפֵךְ דָּם
Genesis 9:6 uses this same root for bloodshed, joining pouring and spilling life.
THE PATTERN
The language of pouring makes violence or judgment concrete as something spilled into the world or falling upon people.
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.THE THREAD
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.The Hebrew verb behind pour in Jeremiah is also used here for shed blood. The shared root connects two images English separates: what is poured out can be blood spilled into the open.
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