What Does Jeremiah 49:22 Mean in the King James?
Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread his wings over Bozrah: and at that day shall the heart of the mighty men of Edom be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.
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 verse describes the mighty men’s fear as מְצֵרָה (metsērāh, constriction), giving their collapse the bodily language of labor pangs.
THE MEANING
A force rises over Bozrah, and the hearts called mighty contract into the distress of a woman in labor. The image lets human strength and bodily vulnerability occupy the same moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that might makes a person immune to fear; here, even the mighty are overtaken by distress.
THE ROOT
מְצֵרָה
metsērāh
GROWS FROM
צרר
tsarar
To bind or press in; by extension, to constrict or bring into distress.
The word translated “pangs” carries the sense of being pressed in or constrained. The verse makes the mighty men’s fear feel like narrowing in the body, not merely a loss of confidence.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight.
צַר
It shares the language of constriction that gives the labor pangs their force.
tsarah: Distress, trouble.
צָרָה
It shows how the same narrowing can name a condition of distress.
Mitsrayim: Egypt; the two narrows.
מִצְרַיִם
Its צ־ר sound-shape echoes constriction, linking the verse’s distress to the movement from narrowness toward spaciousness.
גִּבּוֹרִים
gibborim
GROWS FROM
גבר
To be strong or prevail.
“mighty men” in this verse is gibborim. “Mighty” names more than a fixed quality: gibborim comes from the language of prevailing. The verse places that prevailing strength beside constriction, showing how quickly the mighty heart can be overtaken by terror.
ALSO GROWS
gever: A man, an adult male.
גֶּבֶר
It shares the root of strength and prevailing with the “mighty men” in the verse.
gevurah: Might, strength.
גְּבוּרָה
It names the strength the verse shows giving way before distress.
THE PATTERN
As overwhelming judgment approaches, apparent strength surfaces as bodily distress.
And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.THE THREAD
I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.Jeremiah’s מְצֵרָה (metsērāh, constriction and distress) echoes the Psalm’s הַמֵּצַר (hammetzar, the narrow place) in the צ־ר family of narrowing. Psalm 118:5 opens that image outward: distress gives way to being set in a large place.
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