What Does Jeremiah 6:9 Mean in the King James?
Thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall throughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn back thine hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets.
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 remnant is not spared by being what is left; the hand turns back to glean it again.
THE MEANING
You meet a field where surviving the first gathering does not end the harvest: the hand returns for what remains. The remnant is still treated as harvestable, and the baskets receive what was left behind.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that whatever survives the first blow is therefore safe from the next.
THE ROOT
עוֹלֵל
ʿōlēl
GROWS FROM
עָלַל
to glean, gathering what remains in a field or vineyard
The Hebrew repeats the root in עוֹלֵל יְעוֹלְלוּ, literally “gleaning they will glean,” intensifying the action. With the hand turning back into the baskets, the image is of an exhaustive pass through what remains.
ALSO GROWS
ʿōlēl: gleaning
עוֹלֵל
This form stands directly before the verb, intensifying the act of gleaning.
yeʿōlēlû: they will glean
יְעוֹלְלוּ
The same root repeated in the verb makes the gleaning thorough.
שְׁאֵרִית
she'erit
GROWS FROM
שאר
to remain, be left, or survive
“Remnant” comes from the language of remaining: it is what is left after something has been taken. Here, what remains is not beyond reach; it is the very thing the gatherer returns to collect.
ALSO GROWS
sha'ar: to remain or be left
שָׁאַר
This verb is the seed of the remnant: what survives the first taking.
she'ar: remainder or rest
שְׁאָר
This related form also names what remains after something has been removed.
הָשֵׁב
hashēv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
to turn, return, or bring back
“turn back” in this verse is hashēv. The return verb points the hand back into the baskets: the harvest is not finished when the first pass ends. Here, return serves another gathering, so the root does not itself promise restoration.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: to turn or return
שׁוּב
The hand’s movement is a literal return into the field and toward the baskets.
meshûvâ: turning away or apostasy
מְשׁוּבָה
This related form shows that the root names turning, while this verse’s returning hand gathers what remains.
THE PATTERN
The vineyard’s remaining fruit can become the focus of a further, exhaustive gathering.
When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done.Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the firstripe fruit.And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.THE THREAD
And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God.Leviticus uses the same Hebrew root for “glean,” עָלַל (ʿalal), but sets a limit: some of the vineyard must remain for the poor and the stranger. Jeremiah’s returning hand makes that same act an image of gathering the remnant itself.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us