What Does Jeremiah 8:21 Mean in the King James?
For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.
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 uses the same root for the people’s “hurt” and the speaker’s “hurt,” making their break and his breaking one event.
THE MEANING
A people’s wound can break the one who sees it from within. Grief darkens him, and horror grips him; the verse lets the wound remain visible instead of naming it away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that another people’s wound can be observed without entering the observer: the speaker is broken by their breaking.
THE ROOT
שֶׁבֶר
shever
GROWS FROM
שבר
sh-b-r
To break or shatter; as a noun, a break or fracture.
“hurt / am I hurt” in this verse is shever. The first “hurt” names the people’s break, and the second uses the same root for the speaker’s own breaking. Hebrew binds the two in one word-family, so the pain is shared at the level of the sentence itself.
ALSO GROWS
shabar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
This verb is the root behind the speaker’s “am I hurt”: his state is described as breaking.
mishbar: A breaker or breaking wave.
מִשְׁבָּר
The root also names a breaking wave, giving the people’s rupture the force of something that crashes and breaks.
שַׁמָּה
shammah
GROWS FROM
שׁמם
sh-m-m
To be desolate or appalled; to become waste.
The word translated “astonishment” shares its root with desolation. The horror that grips the speaker is not a passing surprise; it is the desolation of seeing what has been broken.
ALSO GROWS
shamem: To be desolate or appalled.
שָׁמֵם
This verbal form shows the root’s movement from shock into a state of desolation.
shemamah: Desolation or waste.
שְׁמָמָה
The shared root links the speaker’s horror with the devastation he witnesses.
THE PATTERN
A people’s rupture becomes personal grief in the one who sees it.
For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.THE THREAD
For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.Both verses call the people’s wound שֶׁבֶר (shever, a break): 8:21 says the speaker is broken by it, while 8:11 exposes the false peace laid over it. The shared root ties the communal wound to both the grief it produces and the denial that can conceal it.
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