What Does Jeremiah 6:29 Mean in the King James?
The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.
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 fire consumes the instruments of refining, yet the wicked remain unseparated.
THE MEANING
The verse shows a refining effort reaching its limit: the bellows burn out and the lead is consumed, yet the wicked are not torn away. It speaks now to the difference between exposure and release: a process can spend every means of refinement while what needs to be removed remains attached.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that pressure alone guarantees purification: here the fire is spent while the wicked remain unseparated.
THE ROOT
נִתָּקוּ
nittaqu
GROWS FROM
נתק
n-t-q
to tear off, break loose, or sever
The word translated “plucked away” carries the force of something being torn loose. The verse says the refining fails at this point of separation: the wicked remain attached.
ALSO GROWS
nataq: to tear off or break away
נָתַק
This is the action the verse says has not happened; the wicked have not been torn free.
nittequ: they broke or burst loose
נִתֵּקוּ
Jeremiah uses this same root for bonds being burst in Jeremiah 5:5, sharpening the contrast between breaking restraints and remaining unseparated here.
צָרַף
tsaraph
GROWS FROM
צרף
ts-r-p
to refine or smelt metal
“melteth” in this verse is tsaraph. The root names the work of refining, and the verse intensifies it with the repeated form “refine, refining.” Yet the work is in vain: the process continues, but the separation it should produce does not occur.
ALSO GROWS
tsoreph: a refiner or metalworker
צֹרֵף
The refiner is named by the same root as the act of refining, joining the worker and the process in one word-family.
tzerufah: refined or purified
צְרוּפָה
This branch names the result expected from refining, which the verse says is not achieved.
THE PATTERN
Refining tests what is present and separates what can remain from what must be removed.
The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts.And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:THE THREAD
I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.“Burst the bonds” uses the same root as “plucked away” here: נתק, to tear loose or sever. In one verse the bonds are broken; in the next, the wicked are not torn away.
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