What Does Jeremiah 28:8 Mean in the King James?

The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.

Jeremiah 28:8 · 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

Prophecy is not measured by reassurance: this verse names war, calamity, and pestilence reaching whole nations.

THE MEANING

A warning can sound frightening and still name what threatens whole communities. Here, harm reaches across lands and kingdoms, not only into one person’s life.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

A frightening warning must be false because a message from God should promise safety.

THE ROOT

רָעָה

raʿah

GROWS FROM

רָעַע

rāʿaʿ

To be bad or to bring harm.

Here, “evil” sits between war and pestilence, so the word opens onto harm and calamity, not only personal moral failure. The warning concerns destructive events that can reach whole societies.

ALSO GROWS

raʿ: Bad, harmful; evil.

רַע

The same word family can describe moral wrong or something harmful; the surrounding war and pestilence point to harm here.

raʿah: Harm, trouble, calamity.

רָעָה

This is the form rendered “evil” in the verse, framed by war and pestilence.

THE PATTERN

Warnings that name catastrophe can expose what threatens whole communities, from cities to nations.

For thus saith the Lord GOD; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?

Ezekiel 14:21 · KJVThe warning names destructive forces together and makes their reach across a community plain.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Matthew 24:6 · KJVThe verse names war directly while refusing to treat its frightening sound as the whole story.

And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

Luke 21:11 · KJVLike Jeremiah’s list, it speaks plainly of disasters extending across places and peoples.

THE THREAD

Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

Amos 3:6 · KJV

Amos uses the same Hebrew word, ⁨רָעָה⁩ (raʿah, harm or calamity), for the “evil” that can come upon a city. Beside war and pestilence here, it carries the sense of public calamity, opening the word beyond wrongdoing within an individual.

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