What Does Jeremiah 6:25 Mean in the King James?
Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side.
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 Hebrew phrase behind “fear is on every side” names terror as an enclosure, so even the field and the familiar road lie inside the danger.
THE MEANING
The warning speaks now to the moment when both open ground and the road you know are exposed to an enemy’s sword. The verse names fear as surrounding danger, not as a threat confined to one route. Movement itself offers no guaranteed escape here.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that choosing a familiar road guarantees safety: here both the open field and the traveled way are exposed.
THE ROOT
מָגוֹר
magor
GROWS FROM
גור
gur
To dread or fear; here it gives fear the sense of terror.
English can make fear sound like a feeling inside a person, while מָגוֹר מִסָּבִיב (magor missaviv, “terror all around”) gives that terror a perimeter. The same phrase resurfaces as a name in Jeremiah 20:3, compressing the surrounding threat into a name.
ALSO GROWS
gur: To dread or fear.
גּוּר
The verb shows the fear beneath the noun: this is dread, not merely caution about a route.
megurah: Terror or dread.
מְגוּרָה
This related noun carries the same fear-root into another form, reinforcing how the verse names the surrounding condition.
דֶּרֶךְ
derek
GROWS FROM
דרך
darak
To tread, step, or travel.
English makes a way sound like a route simply waiting there; דֶּרֶךְ (derek, “way” or “path”) belongs to a root of treading. The road is a path already walked, yet the verse places it under threat alongside the open field.
ALSO GROWS
darak: To tread, step, or march.
דָּרַךְ
The verb makes the path an act of stepping through it, which sharpens the warning against walking this way.
midrakh: A place to tread or a footstep.
מִדְרָךְ
This related word keeps the path connected to the steps that mark it; familiarity does not place those steps beyond danger.
חֶרֶב
cherev
GROWS FROM
חרב
charav
To dry out, lie waste, or become desolate.
The word for sword shares its root letters with the vocabulary of desolation. That echo lets the threat carry the ruin it brings within the word itself.
ALSO GROWS
charev: To be dry or desolate.
חָרֵב
This verbal form places the sword alongside the language of what has been laid waste.
chorbah: Ruin or desolation.
חָרְבָּה
This related noun makes the sword’s destructive shadow audible in the shared root.
THE PATTERN
When threat surrounds a person, Scripture gives that terror a repeated name and circumference.
And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The LORD hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magor-missabib.For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.THE THREAD
And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The LORD hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magor-missabib.Jeremiah 6:25 uses מָגוֹר מִסָּבִיב (magor missaviv, “terror all around”); Jeremiah 20:3 uses the same phrase as a name. The connection turns the warning’s enclosing threat into a compressed name.
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