What Does Jeremiah 33:3 Mean in the King James?
Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.
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 “mighty things” are described in Hebrew as fortified things, and the call meets what has been inaccessible to your knowing.
THE MEANING
You are invited to call toward God from the edge of what you can presently understand. The answer opens disclosure of what has been inaccessible to your knowing. What you do not know now is not proof that nothing is there to be known.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what lies beyond your understanding must remain permanently closed gives way here: the verse describes inaccessible things as capable of being shown.
THE ROOT
בְּצֻרוֹת
bəṣūrōṯ
GROWS FROM
בצר
batsar
To cut off access, fortify, or make inaccessible.
“mighty things” in this verse is bəṣūrōṯ. The word describes things as fortified or out of reach, not merely impressive. The verse says these barriers to knowing can be crossed through disclosure.
ALSO GROWS
batsur: Fortified, inaccessible.
בָּצוּר
It shares the verse’s image of something protected from ordinary access.
mivtsar: Fortress, stronghold.
מִבְצָר
A stronghold makes the root’s image tangible: a boundary that keeps something beyond reach.
קְרָא
qera
GROWS FROM
קרא
qara
To call, summon, proclaim, or read aloud.
The same root can name a summons and a public reading: calling gives voice to what was not yet spoken. Here the call begins a movement from what is hidden toward an answer and disclosure.
ALSO GROWS
qara: To call, summon, or name.
קָרָא
This is the root verb behind the invitation to call.
miqra: A convocation or public reading.
מִקְרָא
This branch shows the root extending from a personal call to words voiced and heard in assembly.
יְדַעְתָּם
yeda'tam
GROWS FROM
ידע
yada
To know, recognize, or perceive through experience.
“knowest not” in this verse is yeda'tam. Yada can describe knowing through encounter, not only possessing information. The verse speaks of what you have not yet known and places that unknowing beside a promise of disclosure.
ALSO GROWS
yada: To know or recognize.
יָדַע
This is the verb behind the verse’s description of what is not yet known.
da'at: Knowledge or perception.
דַּעַת
This noun shows the same root forming the state or capacity of knowing.
THE PATTERN
What is beyond present knowing can open through a call, a search, or a revealing encounter.
Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.THE THREAD
Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;Isaiah echoes the same Hebrew roots: qara (קרא, “call”) and anah (ענה, “answer”). Jeremiah extends that call-and-answer movement into the disclosure of what has been inaccessible to your knowing.
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