What Does Jeremiah 52:14 Mean in the King James?
And all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about.
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’s shock is total: every wall around the city associated with wholeness is torn down.
THE MEANING
This verse holds the full force of a boundary’s collapse: the assault reaches every side, leaving no protected edge. Jerusalem carries the resonance of wholeness while its entire enclosure lies shattered. The violence is complete around the perimeter.
THE ROOT
נָתְצוּ
natetsu
GROWS FROM
נתץ
natats
Tear down, break apart.
“brake down” in this verse is natetsu. This root names the dismantling of a structure, not merely damage to one spot. Here it describes the army tearing away the city’s enclosing boundary.
ALSO GROWS
lintots: To tear down.
לִנְתּוֹץ
Jeremiah 1:10 uses this form for pulling down, giving the root the same force of dismantling.
nittats: To be torn down.
נִתַּץ
This passive form shows the other side of the action: a structure receiving the force of the tear-down.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
shalem
Whole, complete.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The name carries the resonance of shalom, wholeness. That resonance stands beside the sight of the city’s entire enclosure shattered, holding the wound in sharp view.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
The city’s name echoes this word for wholeness as its walls are broken all around.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This form makes the contrast in the verse vivid: the name carries wholeness while the physical boundary is demolished.
סָבִיב
saviv
GROWS FROM
סבב
savav
Turn around, circle, surround.
“round about” in this verse is saviv. The word is built on the root of circling or surrounding, so the verse specifies a breach that consumes the circumference, not just one wall. The surrounding enclosure itself is what the army takes away.
ALSO GROWS
savav: To circle or surround.
סָבַב
The verb makes the all-around scope of the destruction concrete.
sovev: Turning or surrounding.
סוֹבֵב
This form carries the same surrounding motion that the verse places around the city.
THE PATTERN
When the enclosing boundary is torn down, the place or life within it is left exposed.
And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.THE THREAD
See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.The Hebrew root נתץ appears there as “to pull down,” the same tear-down named here. Jeremiah 52:14 gives that root a stark physical image: the city’s circumference itself comes apart.
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