What Does Jeremiah 31:30 Mean in the King James?
But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.
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 sourness does not pass from the eater to the next generation: the verse binds consequence to the one who takes the fruit.
THE MEANING
You bear the consequence of your own crookedness; another person’s act does not make you guilty in their place. The sour grape makes that consequence tangible: the one who eats feels it in his own teeth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that a parent’s wrongdoing makes the child guilty for that wrongdoing. The verse locates the iniquity in the person who commits it.
THE ROOT
יָמוּת
yāmût
GROWS FROM
מות
To die; to reach death.
“shall die” in this verse is yāmût. The verb and the word for death share the consonants מות, joining the act to the outcome named here. The eater image gives that ownership a sensory shape: the one who eats the sour grape feels it in his own teeth.
ALSO GROWS
māwet: Death
מָוֶת
The same consonants name the outcome of the verb, keeping death and dying in one word family.
môt: Dying; death
מוֹת
This form uses the same root consonants, connecting the act of dying to the death it names.
הָאֹכֵל
hāʾōkhēl
GROWS FROM
אכל
To eat; consume.
“eateth” in this verse is hāʾōkhēl. The root appears in words for both eating and food, keeping the act and what is taken in together. Here, the eater bears the sourness directly: the image echoes the verse’s insistence that each person bears their own consequence.
ALSO GROWS
ʾōkhel: Food
אֹכֶל
This noun shares אכל with “eateth,” linking the one who eats to what is eaten.
maʾakhal: Food; something eaten
מַאֲכָל
Its root consonants אכל name what is consumed, reinforcing the verse’s image of taking in the sour fruit.
THE PATTERN
The consequence of an act belongs to the person who acts, rather than passing guilt from parent to child.
The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.The Hebrew noun עָוֹן (ʿāwōn, iniquity) appears in both verses. Ezekiel spells out the boundary Jeremiah compresses into “his own”: a son does not bear his father’s iniquity, nor a father his son’s.
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