What Does Jeremiah 9:18 Mean in the King James?
And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
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 word for “eye” also means “spring,” so grief pours from the face like water from its source.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you where sorrow reaches the body: the lament rises aloud, and your eyes become a source whose waters run down. Grief appears here as a voice and a visible flow.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that grief must stay composed and private; here lament is summoned and tears are part of the truth.
THE ROOT
עֵינֵינוּ
ʿênênû
GROWS FROM
עין
ʿayin
Eye; the same Hebrew word also means a spring or source of water.
English divides eye and spring into unrelated images, but Hebrew uses עַיִן for both. Here, the tears flow from eyes that also evoke water-sources, and the verse’s repeated flow completes that image.
ALSO GROWS
maʿyan: spring, fountain
מַעְיָן
It carries the עין source-image into a word for spring, making the eye and water-source linguistically kin.
ʿeinot: springs, fountains
עֵינוֹת
The plural keeps the source meaning in the same word-family, echoing the waters flowing from the eyes.
יִזְּלוּ
yizzəlû
GROWS FROM
נזל
n-z-l
To flow, trickle, or run down.
“gush out” in this verse is yizzəlû. The Hebrew verb pictures water in motion: the eyelids’ waters flow down. Beside עין, “eye” and “spring,” it makes lament feel like a source that keeps moving.
ALSO GROWS
nāzal: to flow, drip, or run down
נָזַל
This is the base verb behind the flowing waters in the verse.
nōzēl: flowing; a fluid or liquid
נוֹזֵל
The same root names what flows, tying the verb to the water in the verse’s image.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, grief takes bodily form: lament is voiced and sorrow flows as tears.
I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,THE THREAD
Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.The word translated “a well” is מַעְיָן (maʿyan), from the עין word-family that also names an eye. That shared root opens Jeremiah’s tears as springs: a valley becomes a water-source, and so does the face.
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