What Does Jeremiah 34:16 Mean in the King James?
But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.
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
They profane God’s name by reversing the very release that was supposed to embody it.
THE MEANING
The charge lands now: you set people free, then take them back and place them under your service again. “My name,” שְׁמִי (shemi, “my name”), carries the nature represented by the name; this reversal makes the release and that nature contradict each other. The verse names the undoing of another person’s freedom as a profaning of God’s name.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A release can be revoked without contradicting the character represented by the name invoked in granting it.
THE ROOT
שִׁלַּחְתֶּם
shillachtem
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send out, send forth, release, let go.
“set at liberty” in this verse is shillachtem. The release is an act of sending people out from under their masters’ control. The verse then turns that sending around and brings them back into service, exposing how a release can be made and then undone.
ALSO GROWS
shalach: Send, send forth, release, let go.
שָׁלַח
This root names the act by which the people are first set free.
shaliach: Messenger or envoy; one who is sent.
שְׁלִיחַ
A messenger carries the sender’s intention outward; here, sending people out means releasing them from another’s control.
shilluach: Sending away or dismissal.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch makes the release concrete: the people are sent away free, not merely promised freedom.
חִלַּלְתֶּם
chilleltem
GROWS FROM
חלל
Profane or treat as common.
“polluted” in this verse is chilleltem. The text calls the reversal a profaning of God’s name: the name is שְׁמִי (shemi, “my name”), carrying the nature represented by it. By making the release revocable, the people treat that nature as common and contradict it in their actions.
ALSO GROWS
chillel: Profane or treat as common.
חִלֵּל
This is the verb behind “polluted”; it names the way the reversal dishonors the name.
chol: Common or unconsecrated.
חֹל
The shared root connects profaning with treating something as ordinary, though the verse names the deed rather than an abstract status.
עֲבָדִים
avadim
GROWS FROM
עבד
Serve or work; be in service.
The released people are returned to the role of servants, and the sentence assigns them back to service under the same root. It shows the reversal in full: the people who were sent out are made into labor for their former masters again.
ALSO GROWS
eved: Servant or worker.
עֶבֶד
This is the personhood imposed on those who were released and then brought back into subjection.
avodah: Service, labor, or work.
עֲבֹדָה
The related word names the work and subordination to which the former servants are returned.
THE PATTERN
A release is undone when the people set free are pulled back under the mastery they left.
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.THE THREAD
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.Jeremiah uses the root שׁלח (shalach, “send forth, release”) for those the masters had set free. Exodus speaks the release as a command; Jeremiah shows what it means to reverse that sending and return the people to service.
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