What Does Jeremiah 42:22 Mean in the King James?
Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go and to sojourn.
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 you desire can be the very place where the danger named here meets you.
THE MEANING
You can know a warning and still feel pulled toward the place it names; desire does not make that destination safe. The verse holds the danger there without softening it: sword, famine, and pestilence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a destination is a refuge simply because you desire to go there.
THE ROOT
חֲפַצְתֶּם
chafatztem
GROWS FROM
ח־פ־ץ
To delight in, take pleasure in, or desire.
The verse says they desire the destination, not merely that they have a route in mind. This root joins wanting with taking pleasure: the danger lies where longing aims, so desire itself gives no assurance of safety.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēpheṣ: Delight, pleasure, or desire.
חֵפֶץ
This noun shows the pleasure held in the desired destination, beyond the simple act of choosing it.
ḥāphēṣ: To delight in or desire.
חָפֵץ
This verb names the inward pull behind the movement toward the place.
יָדֹעַ תֵּדְעוּ
yādōaʿ tēdʿû
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ע
To know or perceive.
The repeated form is literally “knowing, you will know,” an emphatic certainty. English gives the force as “know certainly,” while the Hebrew repetition sets that certainty against the continuing pull of desire.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: Know or perceive.
יָדַע
This is the root verb beneath the verse’s emphatic warning.
hôdîaʿ: Make known or inform.
הוֹדִיעַ
This causative form carries knowing from one person to another, as the warning here is made known before the outcome is named.
לָגוּר
lāgûr
GROWS FROM
ג־ו־ר
To dwell temporarily as a stranger or sojourner.
“to sojourn” in this verse is lāgûr. The destination is not only a place to reach; it is a place to remain as a sojourner. The verse ties the desire to go there to an intention to inhabit it, even with the danger named there.
ALSO GROWS
gēr: A sojourner or resident alien.
גֵּר
This related noun carries the sense of dwelling in a place as someone who does not belong to it by birth.
megûrîm: Sojournings or places of sojourn.
מְגוּרִים
This form makes the root’s connection to a place of dwelling explicit.
THE PATTERN
A chosen path carries its outcome with it, even when it looks like the way to safety.
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:Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
The LORD hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah; Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have admonished you this day.The same doubled formula, יָדֹעַ תֵּדְעוּ (yādōaʿ tēdʿû, “knowing, you will know”), appears in both verses. Its return makes “know certainly” the hinge between a clear boundary and the consequence named here.
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