What Does Jeremiah 7:19 Mean in the King James?
Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?
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 provocation does not stop at God; it turns back on the provokers and marks them with shame.
THE MEANING
What you direct against the LORD also turns back upon you, leaving shame on your own face. The verse holds God’s anger and your own injury together; neither erases the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that misdirected devotion can injure God while leaving the devotee untouched.
THE ROOT
בֹּשֶׁת
bōsheth
GROWS FROM
בושׁ
b-w-sh
To be ashamed, or to be put to shame.
The KJV’s “confusion” carries the sense of shame and disgrace: בֹּשֶׁת (bōsheth, shame) grows from בּוֹשׁ (bōsh, to be ashamed). The verse makes that shame personal and visible: the provocation rebounds until the self wears it on its face.
ALSO GROWS
bōsh: To become or be put to shame.
בּוֹשׁ
This verbal form shows the state carried by “confusion”: the self is left exposed in shame.
būshāh: Shame or disgrace.
בּוּשָׁה
This related noun echoes the verse’s consequence: the provocation culminates in disgrace borne by the provokers themselves.
THE PATTERN
What is turned against the LORD bends back on its maker, making the self bear the consequence.
Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:THE THREAD
As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets,Jeremiah 7:19 uses בֹּשֶׁת (bōsheth, shame); this verse uses בּוֹשׁ (bōsh, to be ashamed), from the same root בושׁ. The shared root gives “confusion” a sharper shape: shame is what surfaces when the wrong is exposed.
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