What Does Jeremiah 27:13 Mean in the King James?
Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?
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 grim logic of empire: under its threat, yielding can be the path that keeps life.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks from inside coercion: when a ruler demands subjection, yielding can be the condition of staying alive, while refusal exposes a people to violence, hunger, and disease. Here “serve” carries the weight of being placed beneath another power, and the threatened costs remain physical.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that resistance always preserves freedom: under this threat, refusal does not escape domination but leaves the people exposed to death.
THE ROOT
יַעַבְדוּ
yaʿavdu
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
To work, labor, or serve.
“serve” in this verse is yaʿavdu. This root links serving to labor and to the status of a servant, making the king’s demand a form of subjection rather than an abstract duty. The word holds the work and the power relation together.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeved: Servant; enslaved person
עֶבֶד
This related word makes the human position beneath an authority visible in the verb “serve.”
ʿavodah: Service; labor
עֲבֹדָה
This branch shows the work bound up with serving, clarifying the cost of submission named in the verse.
דִּבֶּר
dibber
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak or declare; a related formation is associated with destruction and pestilence.
The spoken form דִּבֶּר (dibber, “he spoke”) sits beside דֶּבֶר (dever, “pestilence”), whose consonants match. The verse places the declared warning alongside a material devastation, holding speech and consequence together without making the pestilence a metaphor.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word; matter; speech
דָּבָר
This branch shares the speech-root with the LORD’s warning that has been spoken.
dever: Pestilence; plague
דֶּבֶר
This is one of the threats named in the verse, and its consonants echo those of “spoken.”
THE PATTERN
In a life-or-death choice, the path that looks like surrender can preserve life, while clinging to the apparent safer path can end in death.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:Thus saith the LORD, He that remaineth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live; for he shall have his life for a prey, and shall live.He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.THE THREAD
And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.Both verses use עבד (ʿ-b-d, “work or serve”) for serving the king, and verse 8 makes the subjection physical by naming the neck beneath a yoke. It also repeats the sword, famine, and pestilence, showing the cost attached to refusal.
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