What Does Jeremiah 29:6 Mean in the King James?

Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.

Jeremiah 29:6 · 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 place that feels like an interruption is still “there”, a place where life is commanded to multiply.

THE MEANING

You hear a communal charge to form households and raise children in the place where you are. The repeated “there” refuses to make location a condition for life: the community grows in that very place instead of becoming fewer. The verse speaks into displacement without calling it the end of its story.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that life can only begin again after returning to the right place; the verse names “there” as a place where a community can multiply.

THE ROOT

וּרְבוּ

urevu

GROWS FROM

רבה

rabah

Increase, become many.

English “increased” can sound like a statistic; the Hebrew says, “be many.” The same root also gives a word for abundance, so the command reaches beyond mere survival: communal life becomes numerous there.

ALSO GROWS

rov: Abundance, multitude.

רֹב

This branch names the abundance toward which “be many” points.

hirbah: Increased, made numerous.

הִרְבָּה

This form shows the same root describing an increase brought about, echoing the verse’s movement toward more life.

תִּמְעָטוּ

tim'atu

GROWS FROM

מעט

ma'at

Become few or small; lessen.

English “diminished” can sound as though an outside hand reduces the people; the Hebrew verb also carries the sense of becoming few. Set against “be many,” it names two opposing communal directions in the same place.

ALSO GROWS

me'at: A little; few.

מְעַט

This branch gives the smallness that the verse sets against becoming many.

him'it: Diminished, made fewer.

הִמְעִיט

This form shows the root describing a reduction in number, the direction the verse rejects.

THE PATTERN

Life is not postponed until conditions are ideal; it takes root and multiplies in the place it occupies.

Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them;

Jeremiah 29:5 · KJVLife takes root where the community is, through homes, gardens, and the fruit they yield.

But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.

Exodus 1:12 · KJVThe community multiplies within the very conditions pressing against it.

And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.

Acts 6:7 · KJVThe word and the community both grow, showing multiplication as a living movement.

THE THREAD

But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.

Exodus 1:12 · KJV

“Multiplied” in Exodus 1:12 comes from the same Hebrew root as “increased” here. The shared root links growth to the very setting that presses against it: pressure is named, but it does not get the final word over the community becoming many.

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