What Does Jeremiah 2:14 Mean in the King James?
Is Israel a servant? is he a homeborn slave? why is he spoiled?
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
Israel is under plunder, but the verse asks whether bondage is his birthright.
THE MEANING
The verse places Israel’s seizure beside the question of whether he is born to servitude. The plunder is real, and the question of why it is happening remains exposed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being plundered does not prove that bondage is my birthright.
THE ROOT
יְלִיד בַּיִת
yelid bayit
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
to bear, give birth, beget
“homeborn slave” in this verse is yelid bayit. Homeborn carries the language of birth and origin. The question sets that origin beside Israel’s present bondage: being seized does not itself mean he was born a slave.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: to bear or give birth
יָלַד
The verb behind “homeborn” makes birth, rather than present treatment, central to the question.
yeled: child
יֶלֶד
The same root names the one brought forth, linking the slave’s status to the question of what someone is born into.
לָבַז
la-vaz
GROWS FROM
בזז
b-z-z
to plunder, seize as spoil
“spoiled” in this verse is la-vaz. The word presents Israel as spoil: someone taken and treated as booty. That makes the verse’s contrast sharp, the seizure is happening, while the question asks whether servitude is his native condition.
ALSO GROWS
bazaz: to plunder or despoil
בָּזַז
The verb names the act that places a person or people in the position of spoil.
bizzah: booty or spoil
בִּזָּה
This noun names what is seized, illuminating how the verse portrays Israel’s condition.
THE PATTERN
Captivity is a real condition, while scripture keeps open the deeper question of belonging.
But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore.Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.THE THREAD
And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her: and the highest himself shall establish her.Both texts use ילד (y-l-d), the root meaning “to bear or give birth”: Jeremiah asks whether Israel is a homeborn slave, while the psalm speaks of someone born in Zion. The shared root brings birth and belonging into view even when present conditions look like capture.
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