What Does Jeremiah 19:10 Mean in the King James?
Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee,
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 vessel’s name echoes emptying, so its public shattering turns what can be poured out into a visible image of ruin.
THE MEANING
The verse makes the break public: the bottle shatters before witnesses rather than in secret. Its name echoes emptying, so the image holds both the collapse of a container and the loss of what it can hold. It speaks now of ruin brought into full view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that destruction can always remain hidden: here, the break happens in front of witnesses.
THE ROOT
וְשָׁבַרְתָּ
wəšābartā
GROWS FROM
שבר
To break, fracture, or shatter.
English “break” can sound like a single action, but שבר (sh-b-r; shavar, break) also names a fracture that leaves a breach. The same verb appears in the next verse, where the broken vessel cannot be made whole again.
ALSO GROWS
shever: A break, fracture, or ruin.
שֶׁבֶר
This branch makes the verb’s deeper force visible: the action creates a breach, not just a momentary interruption.
nishbar: Broken or fractured.
נִשְׁבָּר
The broken state is the result carried by the verb, connecting the public act to the vessel’s lasting condition.
הַבַּקְבֻּק
habbaqbuq
GROWS FROM
בקק
To empty or pour out; by extension, to lay waste.
The noun בַּקְבֻּק (baqbuq, bottle) is commonly connected with בקק (b-q-q; baqaq, empty or pour out). The verse therefore joins the vessel with the idea of emptying: when it shatters, its capacity to hold is lost in plain sight.
ALSO GROWS
baqaq: To empty or pour out.
בָּקַק
This verb echoes in the bottle’s name, bringing the act of emptying into the image of the shattered vessel.
buqah: Emptiness or desolation, as in Nahum 2:10.
בּוּקָה
The same root can extend from an emptied vessel to a state of devastation, deepening the verse’s image of ruin.
THE PATTERN
The broken vessel makes collapse visible, whether it names personal desolation or a public verdict.
And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.THE THREAD
And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.It repeats שבר (sh-b-r; shavar, break) and explains the bottle’s breaking as a rupture that cannot be made whole again. This verse makes the public act precise and names its unsoftened consequence.
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