What Does Jeremiah 19:13 Mean in the King James?
And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.
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 offerings on the rooftops mark the houses themselves, until the dwelling takes on the condition of Tophet.
THE MEANING
Incense rises to the host of heaven, and drink offerings go to other gods; the roof becomes a site of devotion. That devotion marks the houses themselves with Tophet’s defilement. The verse presents a dwelling as shaped by what is honored within it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what is offered in a home leaves the home untouched.
THE ROOT
טִמְּאוּ
ṭimməʾû
GROWS FROM
טמא
ṭ-m-ʾ
Be unclean; make unclean or impure.
“defiled” in this verse is ṭimməʾû. The root carries both the act of making unclean and the resulting condition of impurity, so the defilement does not remain at the point of offering. Here the rooftop rites mark the houses as a whole, making the dwelling resemble Tophet.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmēʾ: Unclean or impure.
טָמֵא
This branch names the condition the houses take on through the offerings made on their roofs.
ṭumʾāh: Impurity or defilement.
טֻמְאָה
This noun makes visible the condition that spreads from the acts of offering to the dwellings themselves.
THE PATTERN
What is honored through offerings gives a place and its people a defining allegiance.
And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by the LORD, and that swear by Malcham;And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.THE THREAD
And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.Leviticus uses the same Hebrew root for the land described as defiled; Jeremiah applies that condition to the houses whose rooftops carry offerings to other gods. The land’s response, vomiting out its inhabitants, shows how defilement reaches beyond a ritual site and changes what can remain in a place.
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