What Does Jeremiah 17:2 Mean in the King James?
Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills.
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 children remember not only their parents’ devotion but the altars themselves, whose name is rooted in sacrifice.
THE MEANING
What is placed at the center of worship becomes part of what children remember: here, altars and groves beneath green trees and on high hills. One generation’s devotion leaves visible marks that the next generation carries in memory.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A person’s devotion leaves no trace beyond the person who practices it.
THE ROOT
מִזְבְּחוֹתָם
mizbechotam
GROWS FROM
זבח
To slaughter or sacrifice.
The remembered altars are not passive landmarks: their name carries the act of sacrifice within it. The children inherit places organized around offering.
ALSO GROWS
zavaḥ: To slaughter or sacrifice.
זָבַח
The verb names the act at the root of what an altar is for.
zebaḥ: Sacrifice or sacrificial offering.
זֶבַח
This noun shows the offering and the altar belong to the same word family.
בִּזְכֹר
bizkhor
GROWS FROM
זכר
To remember or call to mind.
“remember” in this verse is bizkhor. Remembering shares its root with words for a memorial. The verse presents memory as something that can keep a practice present across generations.
ALSO GROWS
zikkaron: Remembrance or memorial.
זִכָּרוֹן
A memorial makes remembering tangible, like the altars named in the verse.
zeker: Remembrance or memorial name.
זֵכֶר
This branch connects remembering with what remains present in a name or reputation.
THE PATTERN
What is remembered and enacted in one generation becomes part of the next generation’s inherited landscape.
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.THE THREAD
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.Both verses use זכר (z-k-r, zakar: remember). Here children keep the altars in memory; in 31:34 the LORD says, “I will remember their sin no more,” so the same root names both what a generation carries forward and what is no longer held against it.
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