What Does Jeremiah 6:24 Mean in the King James?
We have heard the fame thereof: our hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail.
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
A report can enter as constriction before it becomes action: distress grips, hands slacken, and pain gathers like labor.
THE MEANING
The threat reaches you first through what you hear; before you can answer it, your hands go slack. Distress takes hold as a bodily contraction, with pain like labor.
THE ROOT
צָרָה
tsarah
GROWS FROM
צרר
tsarar
To bind, press in, or constrict; hence, to be in a tight or narrow place.
“anguish” in this verse is tsarah. The word carries more than an emotion: it pictures distress as confinement. That narrowing grips the body and leads into the image of labor.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight
צַר
It gives distress a spatial shape: life feels pressed into a narrow place.
metsar: A narrow or confined place
מֵצַר
Psalm 118:5 uses this word for distress before the speaker is set in a broad place.
רָפוּ
rafu
GROWS FROM
רפה
raphah
To slacken, become limp, or let drop.
“wax feeble” in this verse is rafu. The phrase pictures the hands themselves slackening as distress closes in. This root can also express letting go, so the body’s weakness appears as a grip released.
ALSO GROWS
raphah: To slacken, sink, or let drop
רָפָה
It shows that the hands’ weakness is a loosening, not just an abstract feeling of fear.
harpu: Release, let go
הַרְפּוּ
This form from the same root family makes the slackening of the hands legible as a release of grip.
THE PATTERN
When threat overwhelms, scripture makes distress bodily, as labor seizes the body.
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.Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail.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 צָרָה (tsarah, distress) and the psalm’s מֵצַר (metsar, narrow place) draw on צרר (tsarar, to bind or constrict). The psalm answers that narrowing with מֶרְחָב (merchav, broad place): the distress that grips here has a path into spaciousness.
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