What Does Jeremiah 31:28 Mean in the King James?
And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the LORD.
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
The same watchful gaze holds the uprooting and the rebuilding.
THE MEANING
You are not outside God’s attention when something in your life is being pulled apart. The verse holds affliction and demolition within the same watchfulness as building and planting. That attention remains turned toward what can grow.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being uprooted means you have been abandoned, or that care only looks like preservation.
THE ROOT
שָׁקַדְתִּי
shaqadti
GROWS FROM
שקד
sh-q-d
to stay awake, be alert, keep watch
“watched over” in this verse is shaqadti. Hebrew repeats the same alert verb for overseeing both the uprooting and the rebuilding, so the changed outcome does not mean a change in attention. Its related word שָׁקֵד (shaqed, almond) is associated with early flowering; Jeremiah 1:12 uses the watch verb where the KJV says “hasten,” linking watchfulness with readiness to carry a word into action.
ALSO GROWS
shaqed: Almond
שָׁקֵד
Jeremiah 1:11–12 links the almond branch with the verb for watching; the tree’s early flowering gives the image of watchfulness waking into bloom.
shoqed: Watching, keeping watch
שֹׁקֵד
In Jeremiah 1:12 the same root describes God watching over a word until it is done; here it describes watchfulness spanning both dismantling and renewal.
THE PATTERN
One watchful work can uproot what cannot remain and establish new growth in its place.
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.THE THREAD
Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.The Hebrew word rendered “hasten” comes from שקד (sh-q-d), the same root as “watched over” here. In both verses, watchfulness stays with what is underway until it is carried out.
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