What Does Jeremiah 23:4 Mean in the King James?
And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the LORD.
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 promise of safety reaches its deepest point in the last phrase: under true shepherding, no one goes missing.
THE MEANING
The promise speaks now to people under care that actually tends them: fear recedes, dismay loosens its hold, and no one is left unaccounted for. The shepherds’ care is more than a title; it is the ongoing work of tending the flock.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that fear and dismay must be permanent, or that anyone can go missing without being noticed.
THE ROOT
יִפָּקֵדוּ
yippāqēdû
GROWS FROM
פקד
The root’s range includes attending to, visiting, appointing, and, in this form, being missing or lacking.
The verse holds both ends of being accounted for: the flock is attended to, and no one is missing from it. The root links the shepherds’ care with the promise that the flock will not be lacking.
ALSO GROWS
paqad: attend to; visit
פָּקַד
Jeremiah 23:2 uses this same root when it says the former shepherds did not attend to the flock.
pequddah: oversight; charge; visitation
פְּקֻדָּה
This related form shows the root’s connection to care entrusted as a responsibility.
רֹעִים
roʿim
GROWS FROM
רעה
To tend or pasture a flock.
“shepherds ... feed them” in this verse is roʿim. “Shepherds” and “feed them” are forms of the same Hebrew root: רעה (raʿah, to tend or pasture). The verse presents shepherding as the continuing act of tending, not only the name of a role.
ALSO GROWS
roʿeh: shepherd; one who tends a flock
רֹעֶה
It names the kind of care the verse says is set over the people.
mirʿeh: pasture; grazing ground
מִרְעֶה
This related word connects tending with the place where a flock receives what sustains it.
THE PATTERN
When the flock is actively tended, want and dispersion give way to security and care.
A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;THE THREAD
Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD.“Visited” in this verse and “be lacking” in Jeremiah 23:4 share פקד (paqad, attend to or visit), though they appear in different Hebrew forms. The earlier shepherds fail to attend to the flock and it is scattered; here, the promise is that no one will be missing.
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