What Does Jeremiah 32:32 Mean in the King James?
Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
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 wrongdoing is not assigned to one corrupt office: kings, priests, prophets, and residents all stand inside the same indictment.
THE MEANING
The verse places rulers, officials, priests, prophets, and residents inside one shared indictment. Their conduct causes anger; the Hebrew verb ties that anger directly to what they do. Jerusalem, whose name carries the resonance of wholeness, appears here amid communal fracture.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The harm comes from one corrupt leader while the rest of the community remains uninvolved.
THE ROOT
לְהַכְעִיסֵנִי
lehaḵʿīsēnî
GROWS FROM
כעס
k-ʿ-s
To be vexed or angry; in the Hiphil, to cause anger or provoke.
English can make “provoke me to anger” sound like anger is an added reaction. Hebrew uses the causative form of כעס, binding the anger to the deeds named in the verse and placing responsibility across its list of actors.
ALSO GROWS
kaʿas: Anger, vexation.
כַּעַס
This noun names the state carried by the same root as the verse’s causative verb.
lehaḵʿīs: To cause anger, provoke.
לְהַכְעִיס
This is the causative infinitive in the verse: the actors’ deeds cause the anger described.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete; שָׁלוֹם (shalom) means wholeness. Yerushalayim carries this wholeness doubled in its -ayim ending.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The city name carries the doubled wholeness of shalom, yet the verse places it beside a community-wide indictment. English preserves the place name but leaves this tension between wholeness and communal fracture unheard.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
Its resonance in Yerushalayim sharpens the contrast with the wrongdoing named here.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This form from the same root makes the name’s association with completeness audible.
THE PATTERN
When wrongdoing becomes a shared system, scripture names leaders, religious offices, and ordinary people as participants.
For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.THE THREAD
The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.The same causative root כעס appears as children, fathers, and women take part in the actions that provoke anger. Beside Jeremiah 32:32’s list of public and religious offices, this verse shows the indictment extending through household life too.
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