What Does Jeremiah 42:14 Mean in the King James?

Saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell:

Jeremiah 42:14 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The Hebrew root for “war” is ⁨לחם⁩, the same consonants in ⁨לֶחֶם⁩ (“bread”), so the verse binds escape from violence to escape from hunger.

THE MEANING

You hear safety imagined as absence: no war in sight, no trumpet sounding, no hunger for bread. The plan ends with “there will we dwell,” so escape is pictured as settling somewhere threat and need cannot reach. The verse exposes how a refuge can be built from the conditions you long to have disappear.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that a new place can guarantee safety by removing every threat and need.

THE ROOT

מִלְחָמָה

milḥāmāh

GROWS FROM

לחם

⁨לחם⁩ (l-ḥ-m) means to fight or wage war in the verb from which ⁨מִלְחָמָה⁩ is formed.

The word for war grows from ⁨לחם⁩, the same three consonants written in ⁨לֶחֶם⁩, bread. The connection need not mean bread derives from battle: in this verse, the consonantal echo binds the wish to escape violence to the wish to escape hunger.

ALSO GROWS

lāḥam: fight, wage war

לָחַם

This verb shares the root’s consonants and names the action beneath ⁨מִלְחָמָה⁩.

leḥem: bread

לֶחֶם

It bears the same three consonants; here the echo places bread beside war without requiring it to be a morphological derivative of the war verb.

וְיָשַׁבְנוּ

ve-yāshavnū

GROWS FROM

ישב

⁨ישב⁩ (y-sh-b) means to sit, remain, or dwell.

“There will we dwell” makes the imagined escape a settled condition, not a brief shelter. The root holds sitting and dwelling together, so the promise of relief already sounds like settling into a new life.

ALSO GROWS

yōshēv: one who dwells; an inhabitant

יֹשֵׁב

This participle describes a person by the act of remaining in a place.

mōshāv: dwelling place; seat

מוֹשָׁב

This noun carries the root into the place where someone sits or settles.

THE PATTERN

Fear can make escape look like lasting safety even when the feared condition follows the person into the refuge.

And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.

Psalm 55:6 · KJVThe speaker imagines flight as the way to reach rest, making escape itself seem curative.

But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.

Isaiah 30:16 · KJVThe attempt to outrun danger accelerates the pursuit instead of securing safety.

And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Hebrews 2:15 · KJVFear becomes a bondage carried within, so changing place alone cannot release its hold.

THE THREAD

Then it shall come to pass, that the sword, which ye feared, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof ye were afraid, shall follow close after you there in Egypt; and there ye shall die.

Jeremiah 42:16 · KJV

The promised absence of war and hunger meets its opposite here: sword and famine follow into Egypt. The connection shows that changing location cannot by itself guarantee release from what is feared.

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