What Does Jeremiah 43:13 Mean in the King James?
He shall break also the images of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with fire.
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 Hebrew calls the “images” standing pillars at the “house of the sun”, then says they are broken, showing how what is erected can be brought down.
THE MEANING
This verse confronts you with a hard image: what is raised and honored as divine can be broken, and the houses built for its gods can burn. It names destruction without softening it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it undoes is that a monument or house made sacred by worship is beyond destruction.
THE ROOT
מַצֵּבוֹת
matzevot
GROWS FROM
נצב
n-ts-v
to stand, be stationed, or set upright
The word translated “images” means standing pillars or monuments, from נצב (natsav), “to stand, be stationed.” Beth-shemesh means “house of the sun”; the verse places the breaking at that sun-house, then turns to fire consuming the gods’ houses.
ALSO GROWS
matzevah: a pillar or standing stone
מַצֵּבָה
This is the singular form behind the verse’s plural, showing that the “images” are upright monuments.
nitzav: standing or stationed
נִצָּב
It preserves the root’s idea of something positioned upright, so the breaking reverses what had been set up.
וְשִׁבַּר
veshibbar
GROWS FROM
שבר
sh-b-r
to break, shatter, or fracture
The verb is shabar, “to break” or “shatter.” Its branch shever can name fracture or ruin, carrying the aftermath of the breaking inside the word.
ALSO GROWS
shever: breakage, fracture, or ruin
שֶׁבֶר
The same root names what breaking leaves behind, making the pillars’ collapse a rupture.
mishbar: breaker, surf, or breaking waves
מִשְׁבָּר
The root also names waves that break with force, giving the action a forceful edge.
THE PATTERN
What human hands raise as divine cannot secure its own permanence.
And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him.And the idols he shall utterly abolish.Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands:THE THREAD
Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.Jeremiah 10:11 names the end of gods that did not make the heavens and earth: they perish. Here that claim takes physical form as pillars are smashed and god-houses burned.
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