What Does Jeremiah 17:21 Mean in the King James?
Thus saith the LORD; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;
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
Yerushalayim, the city of wholeness, is where the burden is stopped, because Hebrew names the load from the very act of carrying it.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to your living self at a threshold: the load does not pass through Jerusalem’s gates on the Sabbath. Rest takes visible form in what is not carried in. The city’s name carries the language of wholeness, and its gates mark where the burden stops.
THE ROOT
מַשָּׂא
massa
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasa
Lift, carry, bear.
The noun מַשָּׂא (massa, a burden or load) grows from נָשָׂא (nasa, to lift or carry): the burden is what gets carried. The same verb can describe bearing wrongdoing in the idiom for forgiveness, so its range includes carrying something away as well as carrying it in.
ALSO GROWS
massa: Burden, load.
מַשָּׂא
This is the verse’s word for the thing the Sabbath boundary keeps from being carried through the gate.
nasa avon: Bear or carry wrongdoing; used idiomatically for forgive.
נָשָׂא עָוֹן
The same seed that names carrying a physical load can describe bearing wrongdoing away.
הִשָּׁמְרוּ
hishameru
GROWS FROM
שמר
shamar
Guard, watch over, keep.
“take heed to yourselves” in this verse is hishameru. The opening warning comes from shamar: guard yourselves. It addresses the living self as something watched over, while the verse’s gates make guarding concrete in the same passage.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Watchman, guardian.
שֹׁמֵר
The person who watches over a gate embodies the guarding named by this root.
mishmeret: Charge, guard duty, watch.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
The word can name an entrusted watch, giving “take heed” the sense of active care.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
shalem
Be whole, complete; wholeness.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The name Yerushalayim carries the language of shalom, wholeness. Here its gates become the threshold where a burden is kept from crossing on the Sabbath.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the wholeness carried within the city’s name.
Yerushalayim: Jerusalem; the city associated here with twofold wholeness.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
The verse places its Sabbath boundary at the gates of the city of wholeness.
THE PATTERN
Rest becomes visible when a boundary stops labor and burdens from being carried across it.
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:And it came to pass, that when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the sabbath, I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the sabbath: and some of my servants set I at the gates, that there should no burden be brought in on the sabbath day.Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.THE THREAD
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.Jeremiah’s מַשָּׂא (massa, burden) comes from נָשָׂא (nasa, carry or bear), the verb Isaiah uses for bearing griefs. The shared root places the stopped load at Jerusalem’s gate beside griefs that are borne.
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