What Does Jeremiah 27:20 Mean in the King James?

Which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took not, when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem;

Jeremiah 27:20 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The verse makes absence count: what the conqueror did not take belongs to the record as much as those he carried away.

THE MEANING

The verse holds two realities together: Jeconiah and Judah’s nobles are carried from Jerusalem to Babylon, and the king’s taking has a limit. Its opening “took not” makes what remains part of the account, so removal does not become a claim that everything is gone.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a conquering power takes everything: the sentence remembers what remains outside its seizure.

THE ROOT

בְּהַגְלוֹתוֹ

behaglotô

GROWS FROM

גלה

To uncover or expose; in the Hiphil, to cause someone to go into exile or deport them.

“carried away captive” in this verse is behaglotô. English describes the captives’ condition, while the Hebrew form names the ruler’s act of exiling them. The same root ⁨גלה⁩ (galah, to uncover or reveal) also carries the sense of exposure, so exile registers as removal from shelter as well as place.

ALSO GROWS

galah: Uncover, reveal.

גָּלָה

This form shows the root’s uncovering sense, adding exposure to the removal expressed by exile.

higlah: He exiled or deported.

הִגְלָה

This Hiphil form belongs to the same causative family as the verse’s phrase, where someone is made to go into exile.

לְקָחָם

leqacham

GROWS FROM

לקח

To take, receive, or seize.

“took not” in this verse is leqacham. The negation marks the edge of the king’s seizure rather than erasing the act of taking. The clause preserves a distinction between those carried away and the things that remain, making the limit part of the record.

ALSO GROWS

laqach: To take or receive.

לָקַח

The base verb names the action whose reach the phrase “took not” limits.

leqichah: Taking or receiving.

לְקִיחָה

This noun keeps the taking visible as a discrete act, clarifying that the verse records both seizure and its boundary.

THE PATTERN

The account of loss marks its limits by naming what remains.

For thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the residue of the vessels that remain in this city,

Jeremiah 27:19 · KJVThe verse names the vessels still in the city, making the remainder part of the account of what is at risk.

But the captain of the guard left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen.

2 Kings 25:12 · KJVEven amid removal, the account specifies the people left in the land and what they are left to do.

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

2 Corinthians 4:9 · KJVThe paired clauses name what happens and what does not happen, holding harm and its limit together.

THE THREAD

Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.

Isaiah 47:2 · KJV

Both verses use ⁨גלה⁩ (galah, uncover or reveal): Jeremiah uses it in the Hiphil for deporting Jeconiah, while Isaiah uses it for uncovering. The shared root holds exile and exposure together, showing removal as separation from place and protection.

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