What Does Jeremiah 28:4 Mean in the King James?
And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went into Babylon, saith the LORD: for I will break the yoke of 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
This promise of release is the chapter’s disputed claim: its truth rests on fulfillment, not on how completely it names the return people long for.
THE MEANING
Hananiah’s line describes a total reversal: the exiles return and Babylon’s yoke breaks. Within Jeremiah 28, Jeremiah challenges that forecast and says fulfillment will show whether the word is truly from the LORD. The verse speaks now about the difference between a release someone longs to hear and a claim that can bear the weight of reality.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A promise that feels freeing is not proof that freedom is coming; confidence and God’s name do not replace fulfillment.
THE ROOT
אֶשְׁבֹּר
eshbor
GROWS FROM
שָׁבַר
shavar
To break, shatter, or fracture.
“break” in this verse is eshbor. The root’s force is not a gentle easing: the yoke is pictured as split apart. The same verb appears in Jeremiah 30:8, so this wording echoes a promise of release while Jeremiah 28 tests who can rightly speak it.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
This is the verb used for the yoke in the verse.
shever: A break, fracture, or ruin.
שֶׁבֶר
The related noun keeps the image of breaking as a concrete rupture, not merely a change in circumstances.
מֵשִׁיב
meshiv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
To turn back or return; in this form, to bring back or restore.
English “bring again” can sound like simple relocation, while shuv carries the movement of return. The wording gathers both Jeconiah and the exiles into that return, whose credibility the chapter puts to the test.
ALSO GROWS
shav: Returned or turned back.
שָׁב
It shows the basic movement carried by the verse’s promise to bring the exiles back.
teshuvah: Return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This later Hebrew noun preserves the turning contained in the return described here.
THE PATTERN
A claim to speak from God remains accountable to what comes to pass and must be tested.
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the LORD hath truly sent him.Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.THE THREAD
For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him:Jeremiah 30:8 uses the same Hebrew verb, שָׁבַר (shavar), “to break,” for the yoke. Beside Hananiah’s claim in Jeremiah 28:4, the repeated wording sharpens the question of who speaks the promise and what confirms it.
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