What Does Jeremiah 35:9 Mean in the King James?
Nor to build houses for us to dwell in: neither have we vineyard, nor field, nor seed:
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
This list reaches beyond possessions to continuity itself: no place to settle, no ground to cultivate, and no seed for what comes next.
THE MEANING
The verse names a life with no house to settle into, no vineyard or field to tend, and no seed to carry growth forward. The absence reaches beyond present provision into the next season and the possibility of descendants.
THE ROOT
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
To sow; seed is what is sown, and the same word can also mean offspring.
The Hebrew word זֶרַע (zeraʿ, seed) names both what goes into the ground and the descendants who continue a line. Naming the seed as absent reaches beyond a missing crop to the loss of what could carry life forward.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: to sow
זָרַע
The verb names the act that puts seed into the ground; without seed, there is nothing to sow.
zeraʿ: seed; offspring
זֶרַע
The same word holds both the coming harvest and future descendants, widening the verse’s absence beyond food.
לָשֶׁבֶת
lāšeḇeṯ
GROWS FROM
ישב
To sit, remain, or settle.
The verb translated “dwell” grows from a root that also means sitting or settling. With no house to dwell in, the verse describes the absence of a settled place as well as the absence of cultivated ground and seed.
ALSO GROWS
yāšaḇ: to sit, dwell, or settle
יָשַׁב
This is the verb behind “to dwell,” so dwelling carries the sense of settling into a place.
môšāḇ: dwelling place, settlement, or seat
מוֹשָׁב
This related noun shows the same root naming the settled place itself, not only the act of staying.
THE PATTERN
What is sown carries continuity beyond the present, even when its future form is still unseen.
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:THE THREAD
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.Both verses use זֶרַע (zeraʿ, seed). Genesis names seed as something held within the fruit; Jeremiah names it as absent, so the list reaches beyond food into the capacity for continuation.
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