What Does Jeremiah 19:3 Mean in the King James?
And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle.
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 verse turns hearing into consequence: the warning of calamity rings through the very ears asked to receive it.
THE MEANING
A word names calamity here, and its reception has force: the ears of everyone who hears ring. The verse speaks now wherever a warning stops being distant information and becomes something the body registers.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hearing a warning means receiving it as neutral information without consequence.
THE ROOT
תְּצִלֶּינָה
tetsallēnāh
GROWS FROM
צלל
To ring, tinkle, or resound.
“tingle” in this verse is tetsallēnāh. The Hebrew verb pictures a sound reverberating in the ears. The warning is not only heard; its impact is rendered as ringing within the hearer.
ALSO GROWS
ṣālal: To ring or tinkle.
צָלַל
This is the sound-verb behind the verse’s form, making the ears’ response a reverberation rather than mere reception.
ṣilṣəlîm: Cymbals.
צִלְצְלִים
This related form names ringing instruments; the shared sound-image makes the ears’ tingling feel like a struck resonance.
רָעָה
rāʿāh
GROWS FROM
רעע
To be bad or harmful; to bring trouble or calamity.
The root holds a range from badness to harm and calamity. Here, “evil” carries the force of disaster coming upon the place, alongside the word’s wider sense of what is bad.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad, evil, harmful.
רַע
This adjective shows the root’s broad sense of what is bad, which can name both moral wrong and destructive conditions.
rāʿāh: Harm, trouble, calamity.
רָעָה
This noun brings the root’s force into the announced event: the place is struck by calamity.
שִׁמְעוּ
shimʿû
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear, listen, or receive what is heard.
The command “Hear” and the later “whosoever heareth” repeat the same root. The verse begins by calling for hearing, then shows hearing itself as the place where the warning’s force lands.
ALSO GROWS
šāmaʿ: To hear or listen.
שָׁמַע
This is the verb-root behind both the command and the description of each hearer.
šəmûʿāh: A report, tidings, or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This related noun names news as something received by hearing, linking the spoken warning to its hearers.
THE PATTERN
A decisive message becomes a bodily event in the one who hears it.
And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?THE THREAD
Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.This verse repeats the Hebrew tingle verb צלל (ṣālal, “ring or tingle”) in a closely matching warning of calamity upon Jerusalem. The shared root binds the bodily ringing to the announced disaster, making the ears’ response part of the message’s force.
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