What Does Jeremiah 21:6 Mean in the King James?
And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence.
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 Hebrew root behind “smite” also forms מַכָּה (makkah, “blow” or “plague”), so the verse’s violence is already inside its verb before “pestilence” names its form.
THE MEANING
The sentence speaks now with citywide force: people and animals are named together as exposed to the blow, and the text says they die of a great pestilence. Nothing in the wording narrows the death to soldiers, leaders, or one kind of life.
THE ROOT
הִכֵּיתִי
hikketi
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
to strike, beat, smite
The verb הִכֵּיתִי (hikketi, “I will smite”) comes from נכה, which also forms מַכָּה (makkah, “blow,” “wound,” or “plague”). The act of striking and the blow it produces belong to one word family; here, the separate word “pestilence” names the means by which the strike reaches both people and beasts.
ALSO GROWS
nakah: to strike or smite
נָכָה
This is the root verb behind “I will smite,” making the sentence’s force explicit.
makkah: a blow, wound, or plague
מַכָּה
This noun from the same root links the act of striking with the harm that follows, while the verse names pestilence as its instrument.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places human life within a wider creaturely field that shares both judgment and preservation.
Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.THE THREAD
Behold, the hand of the LORD is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain.Exodus 9:3 uses the same Hebrew noun דֶּבֶר (dever, “pestilence”), rendered “murrain” in the KJV, for a severe outbreak among livestock. Jeremiah repeats that word while naming people and beasts together, widening the scene from the herd to the city’s whole living population.
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