What Does Jeremiah 42:13 Mean in the King James?
But if ye say, We will not dwell in this land, neither obey the voice of the LORD your God,
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
Here, refusing to dwell in the land and refusing to hear the LORD’s voice are joined as one choice.
THE MEANING
The sentence exposes a refusal with two faces: leaving the land and refusing the LORD’s voice. The reader meets it wherever the desire to move away and the refusal to hear direction arise together; “hear” carries response, not sound alone.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that where you choose to dwell and which voice you heed are separate matters.
THE ROOT
נִשְׁמַע
nishmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׁמע
Hear, listen, heed, respond.
Here, “obey” is literally hearing: the refusal is not a failure to catch sound but a refusal to receive the voice as direction. The same root opens the Shema, where hearing is bound to response, a connection easy to miss in English.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen and respond.
שְׁמַע
The same root begins Deuteronomy’s call to hear, showing that hearing can include a response to what is heard.
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch names what arrives through hearing, linking the voice received with what is carried forward.
THE PATTERN
The choice of where to dwell and which voice to heed are bound together.
That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:THE THREAD
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:“Hear” here is שְׁמַע (shemaʿ), from the same root שׁמע as “obey” in Jeremiah. The refusal to hear names the opposite of this call: hearing that receives and responds.
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