What Does Jeremiah 47:3 Mean in the King James?
At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong horses, at the rushing of his chariots, and at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers shall not look back to their children for feebleness of hands;
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 fathers’ hands go slack under terror, until even the turn toward their children fails.
THE MEANING
When overwhelming violence bears down, its noise can seize attention and drain strength until even a parent cannot turn toward a child. The verse names that bodily collapse in hands gone slack and keeps the children’s exposure in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The inability to reach someone in a moment of terror does not by itself prove indifference; the verse locates the failure in strength drained from the hands.
THE ROOT
רִפְיוֹן
riphyon
GROWS FROM
רפה
raphah
To slacken, sink, release, or let fall.
The noun translated “feebleness” comes from רפה (raphah), “to slacken, release, let fall.” Here, hands lose readiness under the force of what the fathers hear; the word makes their failure bodily and immediate, without turning it into a verdict on their attachment.
ALSO GROWS
raphah: To slacken, let fall, or release.
רָפָה
This verbal form shows the dropped-hand sense inside “feebleness”: strength slackens under the force of the moment.
harpu: Release; let go, as in the phrase traditionally rendered “Be still.”
הַרְפּוּ
The same root can describe hands slackening under fear or the act of releasing one’s grip.
THE PATTERN
When terror arrives as overwhelming force, the body can lose its strength and its ability to turn toward others.
Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt:She is empty, and void, and waste: and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness.Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.THE THREAD
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.The noun רִפְיוֹן (riphyon) here and הַרְפּוּ (harpu) in Psalm 46:10 come from רפה (raphah), “slacken, release, let fall.” Jeremiah shows hands forced slack by terror; the phrase “Be still” carries the same root’s sense of release, so one seed names both collapse and letting go.
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