What Does Jeremiah 46:6 Mean in the King James?
Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; they shall stumble, and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates.
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
Speed and strength are not exits: the verse shows both ending in the same stumble and fall.
THE MEANING
The reader meets a collapse no human advantage can outrun: the swift do not flee away, and the mighty do not escape. They stumble and fall northward by the Euphrates, keeping the consequence concrete rather than turning it into a vague defeat. The verse exposes how speed, strength, and position can fail to become shelter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that enough speed or strength guarantees an exit. Here both end in the same fall.
THE ROOT
כָּשְׁלוּ
kāšəlû
GROWS FROM
כשל
k-sh-l
To stumble, totter, or fail.
English “stumble” can sound like a minor misstep, but כשל also carries the sense of tottering and failure. Paired with “fall,” it reveals a progression: those who seem able to move with force lose their footing before they are brought down.
ALSO GROWS
mikshol: Stumbling block; obstacle.
מִכְשׁוֹל
The same root names what trips someone, linking the stumble to an obstruction that cannot simply be passed through.
kishshalon: Stumbling; failure.
כִּשָּׁלוֹן
This branch carries stumbling into breakdown, matching the movement from losing footing to falling.
יִמָּלֵט
yimmālēṭ
GROWS FROM
מלט
m-l-ṭ
To slip away, escape, or be delivered.
Escape and deliverance belong to the same Hebrew root, so the failed escape is also a failed rescue. The verse names the mighty man’s strength, yet it yields no refuge from the fall.
ALSO GROWS
nimlāṭ: Escaped; got away.
נִמְלָט
This is the same root in a form describing someone who gets free; here the mighty man cannot do so.
miflāṭ: Refuge; escape.
מִפְלָט
This noun makes escape itself a kind of refuge, sharpening the verse’s picture of strength that cannot find shelter.
THE PATTERN
Speed, strength, and status cannot guarantee escape when a decisive collapse arrives.
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?THE THREAD
The nations have heard of thy shame, and thy cry hath filled the land: for the mighty man hath stumbled against the mighty, and they are fallen both together.The same Hebrew root כשל (k-sh-l), meaning to stumble or fail, appears in both verses. Here mighty men collide and both fall, making clear that the stumble is not an isolated slip but a collapse of strength.
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