What Does Jeremiah 9:15 Mean in the King James?
Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.
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
Judgment enters through the same mouth that receives nourishment: bitterness becomes food and drink.
THE MEANING
Here, the LORD’s judgment reaches this people through food and drink: wormwood is what they are fed, and water of gall what they are given. Suffering enters through the very things that ordinarily sustain a body.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that judgment stays outside ordinary necessities: here, even food and water carry it.
THE ROOT
מַאֲכִילָם
maʾakhilam
GROWS FROM
אכל
Eat, consume, take food.
“feed them” in this verse is maʾakhilam. The Hebrew frames this as making them eat, using the same root that names ordinary food. Wormwood occupies the place of nourishment: the bitter thing is not merely tasted but made into a ration.
ALSO GROWS
ʾokhel: Food, nourishment.
אֹכֶל
This form shares the root of “feed,” making the contrast between food and wormwood part of the word’s own structure.
maʾakhal: Food, something eaten.
מַאֲכָל
The same root names what is consumed; here, what they consume is the bitterness given to them.
וְהִשְׁקִיתִים
ve-hishqitim
GROWS FROM
שקה
Give a drink; water or irrigate.
“give them to drink” in this verse is ve-hishqitim. This root can describe giving drink and watering land. Paired with the root for eating, it gives the poison the full shape of provision: what enters as food and what enters as drink.
ALSO GROWS
mashqeh: A drink or beverage; also a cupbearer.
מַשְׁקֶה
The root can name both what is served and the one who supplies it, sharpening the verse’s image of bitter water deliberately given.
hashqayah: Watering or irrigation.
הַשְׁקָיָה
The same root describes supplying water to land; here, that supplying action reaches the people through water of gall.
THE PATTERN
When bitterness enters as food or drink, what should sustain life becomes the means through which harm is received.
Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.THE THREAD
Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;Deuteronomy names the same pair, gall and wormwood, as fruit borne by a root among the people. Jeremiah gives that bitterness as food and water, bringing the root’s yield directly into what sustains them.
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