What Does Jeremiah 17:13 Mean in the King James?
O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.
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
Israel’s “hope” is named with a word that can also mean a gathered pool, just before the verse calls the LORD the fountain of living waters.
THE MEANING
Your hope is the LORD, both the one you await and the source of living water. To forsake that source is to come to shame and be written in the earth; the verse leaves that stark image beside the fountain of life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that leaving the source of life is a harmless alternative: it names shame and an earth-written fate.
THE ROOT
מִקְוֵה
miqveh
GROWS FROM
קוה
qavah
to wait for, hope for
The word for hope, מִקְוֵה (miqveh), and the later word for fountain, מָקוֹר (maqor), share the written sequence מ־ק־ו but come from distinct roots. Their echo lets hope and water-source resonate: the LORD is both the one Israel awaits and the source that flows.
ALSO GROWS
tiqvah: hope, expectation
תִּקְוָה
This related word carries the same root into expectation, making hope more than a passing wish.
miqveh: a gathering or pool of water
מִקְוֵה
The same word can name gathered water, linking Israel’s hope with the fountain of living waters in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Life is found in its source; turning away from that source leaves only what cannot sustain life.
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.THE THREAD
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.The same Hebrew verb for forsaking appears in both verses, and Jeremiah 2:13 names the one forsaken as “the fountain of living waters.” That makes the image in 17:13 explicit: to forsake the LORD is to leave the source itself.
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