What Does Jeremiah 2:27 Mean in the King James?
Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us.
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 exposes the contradiction of making lifeless things your parent, then demanding they rise and deliver you.
THE MEANING
You call a made thing the source that brought you forth, turn your back on the LORD, and then ask that claimed source to rise and deliver you when trouble closes in. The verse holds those divided movements together in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whatever you treat as your source of life can also rescue you, even when it has no life of its own.
THE ROOT
יְלִדְתָּנִי
yelidtani
GROWS FROM
י־ל־ד
to bear, beget, or give birth
“brought me forth” in this verse is yelidtani. This is the language of birth and parentage: the stone is addressed as the one who gave birth, not merely as something that made an object. The wordplay אֶבֶן (even, stone) as אָב (av, father) + בֵּן (ben, son) compresses parent and child into the very object now called a parent.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: child
יֶלֶד
The child belongs to the same word-family as the act of bringing forth, making the stone’s claimed parenthood especially stark.
toledot: generations, descendants
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The word for generations grows from the language of birth, echoing the lineage the stone is falsely asked to supply.
הוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ
hoshiʿenu
GROWS FROM
י־ש־ע
to deliver, bringing someone out of constriction toward spaciousness
“save us” in this verse is hoshiʿenu. The cry is for deliverance, a way out when trouble presses in. The contradiction is that the people ask a lifeless object to rise and carry out the very deliverance it cannot give.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
The plea in the verse is for the movement out of trouble that this root names.
moshia: deliverer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
The root can name both the act of deliverance and the one who delivers, sharpening the question of whom the people are asking to arise.
THE PATTERN
A created thing cannot bear the life and deliverance role assigned to it, and trouble exposes the mismatch.
And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.THE THREAD
Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.The words arise and save recur, and the plea for deliverance comes from the root י־ש־ע (yasha, deliver). Here the cry is addressed to the LORD, making the contrast in Jeremiah turn on who is asked to arise.
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