What Does Jeremiah 3:24 Mean in the King James?

For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

Jeremiah 3:24 · 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

Here shame is pictured as a mouth consuming a people’s labor, provision, and children.

THE MEANING

The verse names shame as a devourer: it consumes work built across years, along with provision and children. Its reach moves from what sustains a household to the life continuing through it.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that shame is only a private feeling, with no cost beyond the one who feels it.

THE ROOT

אָכְלָה

ʾākhəlāh

GROWS FROM

אכל

ʾākal: to eat, consume.

“devoured” in this verse is ʾākhəlāh. The root for eating makes shame an eater, with labor, herds, sons, and daughters as what it consumes. The loss reaches both the yield of years and the life carried forward by a family.

ALSO GROWS

maʾakhal: food; something eaten

מַאֲכָל

This branch names what is consumed, making the verse’s list of losses the devourer’s food.

ʾakhilah: eating; consumption

אֲכִילָה

This branch names the act itself, keeping the image focused on consumption rather than an abstract misfortune.

יְגִיעַ

yegîaʿ

GROWS FROM

יגע

yāgaʿ: to exert oneself, toil, or grow weary.

“labour” in this verse is yegîaʿ. This root holds the exertion of labor and the weariness it brings; ⁨יְגִיעַ⁩ can also name the product of that labor. The devouring therefore reaches both the effort spent and what that effort has yielded.

ALSO GROWS

yāgaʿ: to toil; to grow weary

יָגַע

The verb makes the human exertion behind the lost livelihood audible.

yegîʿāh: toil; labor

יְגִיעָה

This noun shares the root and reinforces that what is consumed has been produced through sustained effort.

yāgēaʿ: weary; exhausted

יָגֵעַ

This form shows the cost of the labor in the people themselves, not only in what they possess.

THE PATTERN

A devouring force is known by what it consumes: livelihood, provision, or the vulnerable.

For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.

Exodus 10:15 · KJVThe devouring is measured by its reach through the land’s food and fruit until nothing green remains.

Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.

Psalm 14:4 · KJVPeople themselves become the food, making exploitation as ordinary as eating bread.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

Matthew 23:14 · KJVThe image of devouring exposes how the vulnerable can lose their homes to those who should protect them.

THE THREAD

Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.

Psalm 14:4 · KJV

Both verses use the Hebrew root ⁨אכל⁩ (ʾākal), “eat, consume,” to show harm as devouring. Psalm 14:4 pictures people being eaten like bread; here shame consumes a people’s labor and the life of their families.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us