What Does Jeremiah 22:6 Mean in the King James?
For thus saith the LORD unto the king’s house of Judah; Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.
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 pictures the city’s devastation as the loss of those who can dwell there: the place is left without anyone to settle in it.
THE MEANING
The verse calls the king’s house Gilead and the head of Lebanon, then names its desolation: wilderness and cities with no inhabitants. It speaks now against the belief that splendor makes a dwelling permanent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief undone is that being esteemed as beautiful or powerful makes a house immune to desolation.
THE ROOT
נוֹשָׁבוּ
nōshāvû
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-sh-b
To sit, remain, dwell, or settle.
The phrase “not inhabited” uses a form of ישב (y-sh-b), a root whose basic sense is sitting or settling. The city’s emptiness is more than damaged buildings: no one remains to dwell there.
ALSO GROWS
yōshēv: A person who sits, resides, or inhabits a place.
יֹשֵׁב
The city’s desolation means its inhabitants, the people who would settle there, are gone.
mōshāv: A dwelling place or settlement.
מוֹשָׁב
The same root names both the act of dwelling and the place made a home, sharpening what the empty cities have lost.
THE PATTERN
A place’s grandeur cannot preserve its inhabitants when judgment leaves its houses desolate.
In mine ears said the LORD of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.THE THREAD
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!“Not inhabited” in Jeremiah and “sit” in Lamentations grow from the same root, ישב (y-sh-b): to sit, dwell, or settle. Lamentations makes the root’s absence visible, a city that once held many people now sits alone.
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