What Does Jeremiah 42:17 Mean in the King James?
So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: and none of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them.
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 place chosen as refuge can become the very narrowing from which no one escapes.
THE MEANING
This verse names a choice that promises a place to stay, yet the sword, famine, and pestilence meet those who turn toward Egypt; there is no survivor or escapee from the harm God brings. It speaks now wherever a refuge is trusted to erase a danger that follows the choice there.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that changing places guarantees escape from the danger one fears.
THE ROOT
מִצְרַיִם
Mitsrayim
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
ṣ-r-r
To press, bind, or narrow.
Mitsrayim (מִצְרַיִם, Egypt) carries the image of constriction, with the -ayim ending marking two narrowings. That makes the direction of the verse matter: the men move toward narrowing and find no opening of escape there.
ALSO GROWS
metzar: A narrow place or strait.
מֵצַר
It gives the place-name’s constriction a concrete shape: a passage narrowed until movement is difficult.
tsarah: Distress or trouble.
צָרָה
The same narrowing image reaches inward: distress is a constriction, and Egypt becomes the chosen place where that distress overtakes them.
פָּלִיט
palit
GROWS FROM
פ־ל־ט
p-l-t
To slip away or escape.
The word translated “escape” pictures someone slipping out of danger. Paired with the separate word for a remnant, it closes both possibilities: no one gets away, and no one is left behind.
ALSO GROWS
palat: To escape or slip away.
פָּלַט
It names the very escape the verse says will not be available.
peletah: Escape or deliverance; a remnant that survives.
פְּלֵיטָה
Its sense of survival echoes the verse’s insistence that no one remains beyond the harm.
THE PATTERN
A way that seems safe can still lead into the harm a person hoped to escape.
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.There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:THE THREAD
And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.Both verses carry the name Mitsrayim (מִצְרַיִם, Egypt), but the movement is reversed: here, people turn toward Egypt to stay; there, they see Egypt’s pursuing power recede. The shared name places the warning beside a scene of deliverance from Egypt’s reach.
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