What Does Jeremiah 14:22 Mean in the King James?
Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.
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 heavens do not generate their own rain: the verse traces even their showers back to the one who made all things.
THE MEANING
The verse tests what the reader treats as powerful against the gift of rain: no created power can make the heavens give it. The LORD is the maker of all these things, and the reader’s waiting turns toward the source of what sustains life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that a created power can guarantee the conditions of life on its own.
THE ROOT
וּנְקַוֶּה
uneqavveh
GROWS FROM
קוה
qavah
To wait for, look toward, or hope for with expectation.
“wait upon thee” in this verse is uneqavveh. The word translated “wait” comes from a root that also appears in a Hebrew word for hope. Jeremiah uses that noun in this chapter for the LORD as “the hope of Israel,” so the waiting here is directed toward the one who gives rain.
ALSO GROWS
miqveh: Hope; also a gathering or pool.
מִקְוֵה
Jeremiah 14:8 calls the LORD מִקְוֵה (miqveh), “the hope of Israel”; elsewhere the word names a pool or gathering, echoing the water imagery here.
yeqavvu: They wait or hope.
יְקַוּוּ
Isaiah 40:31 uses this form for those who wait upon the LORD, showing the same root as an expectation directed toward God.
בְּהַבְלֵי
behavlei
GROWS FROM
הבל
hevel
To evaporate; vapor, emptiness, or what is fleeting.
The word translated “vanities” belongs to the semantic field of vapor and what quickly disappears. The verse sets these insubstantial powers beside the lasting agency of the one who makes all things.
ALSO GROWS
hevel: Vapor; vanity.
הֶבֶל
The singular form opens “vanities” into the image of something that dissipates and cannot hold its shape.
havalim: Vapors; vanities.
הֲבָלִים
This plural form is the word used in the verse, keeping the nations’ supposed powers within the image of what is fleeting.
יִתְּנוּ
yittenu
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
To give, set, put, or place.
“give showers” in this verse is yittenu. The verse asks who can give the showers, then names the LORD as maker. The root’s range of giving and placing lets the rain read as provision from the maker, rather than a resource any power can command.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
The root of “give showers” carries the concrete sense of giving or placing something into the world.
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root frames the showers as something given, rather than something the heavens produce by their own power.
THE PATTERN
Life-giving provision in creation points beyond itself to the Maker as its source.
Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.THE THREAD
O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?The “hope” of Israel in Jeremiah 14:8 is מִקְוֵה (miqveh), from the same root קוה (qavah) as “we will wait” in this verse. The shared root shows the reader’s waiting taking the shape of hope directed toward the LORD, who is both Israel’s hope and the maker of all these things.
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