What Does Jeremiah 52:13 Mean in the King James?
And burned the house of the LORD, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he 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 repeated “all” levels every kind of shelter in the verse: sacred, royal, civic, and elite.
THE MEANING
The fire reaches the LORD’s house, the king’s house, Jerusalem’s houses, and the homes of its great men. By repeating “all,” the verse leaves sacredness, political authority, and social rank exposed to the same destruction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A building’s sacred role or a person’s rank does not make it untouchable; this verse overturns the belief that importance guarantees shelter from destruction.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׂרֹף
wayyiśrōp
GROWS FROM
שׂרף
Burn, consume by fire.
“burned” in this verse is wayyiśrōp. The verb’s root also names the “burning ones” (seraphim) and a burning or conflagration. Here, fire passes through every kind of house in the list; no sacred or social category is a shelter from it.
ALSO GROWS
śĕrāphîm: Burning ones; seraphim.
שְׂרָפִים
Isaiah uses this same word-family for beings associated with fire, showing that the root can name burning beings as well as the act consuming the houses here.
śĕrēphāh: A burning or conflagration.
שְׂרֵפָה
This noun names burning as an event, the same force the verb describes moving through the city.
THE PATTERN
When judgment is depicted as fire, it reaches the places and structures people rely on for safety and power.
Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.THE THREAD
Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:“Seraphim” shares the root שׂרף (ś-r-p, burn) with “burned” here. In Jeremiah the word-family accompanies fire consuming houses; in Isaiah it names the beings bringing a coal to the prophet, whose touch the next verse says removes his iniquity.
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