What Does Jeremiah 32:30 Mean in the King James?
For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have only done evil before me from their youth: for the children of Israel have only provoked me to anger with the work of their hands, 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
Hebrew uses one root for the act of provoking and the anger it stirs, tying the people’s deeds directly to the response.
THE MEANING
The verse addresses you with a hard truth: evil can become a pattern carried from early life and made visible in what your hands produce. Those actions stir the LORD’s anger, and the repeated “only” leaves no soft edge in the charge.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that the LORD’s anger is detached from human action: here, it is stirred by the continuing work of people’s hands.
THE ROOT
מַכְעִיסִים אֹתִי
makhʿisim oti
GROWS FROM
כעס
k-ʿ-s
To be angry or vexed; in a causative form, to anger or provoke.
“provoked me to anger” in this verse is makhʿisim oti. The Hebrew verb means that the people are making the speaker angry; “provoke” and “anger” are joined in one word-family. That makes the response part of the verse’s description of what their actions do.
ALSO GROWS
kaʿas: Anger or vexation; also, to be angry or vexed.
כַּעַס
It names the anger within the same root-family as the action that stirs it.
makhʿis: One who angers or provokes, in a causative form.
מַכְעִיס
Jeremiah uses its plural form for the people’s ongoing act of stirring anger.
מַעֲשֶׂה
maʿaseh
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿ-s-h
To do or make.
The verse does not leave evil as an abstract label: it calls it the work of their hands. Hebrew keeps doing and deed in one word-family, making the actions themselves visible in the charge.
ALSO GROWS
ʿasah: To do or make.
עָשָׂה
This is the action at the root of the “work” named in the verse.
maʿaseh: Work, deed, or action.
מַעֲשֶׂה
This is the noun in “the work of their hands,” giving the actions a tangible form.
הֵרַע
hēraʿ
GROWS FROM
רעע
r-ʿ-ʿ
To be bad or evil; to do evil.
“done evil” in this verse is hēraʿ. The verse uses the same root-family for evil and for doing evil, joining the quality with the act. Its repeated “only” describes that act as a persistent pattern rather than a passing moment.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Evil or bad.
רַע
It names the quality expressed in the act described by the verse.
hēraʿ: Did evil; acted badly.
הֵרַע
This is the verb form used for what the people do.
THE PATTERN
What a person repeatedly does becomes visible in their actions and the fruit they produce.
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.THE THREAD
Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions: and the plague brake in upon them.The Hebrew verb translated “provoked him to anger” comes from the same כעס root as Jeremiah’s “provoked me to anger.” Psalm 106:29 echoes the link between actions and anger, while Jeremiah makes the hands’ work explicit.
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