What Does Jeremiah 9:2 Mean in the King James?
Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
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 speaker imagines a traveler’s shelter in the wilderness because the deeper wish is to leave a people whose closeness has become betrayal.
THE MEANING
Betrayal inside a people can make even a temporary shelter among strangers feel safer than home. The imagined departure measures how thoroughly trust has fractured; the wilderness lodging offers distance from treachery, not comfort.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that shared identity guarantees loyalty: people can gather as one community while acting treacherously toward one another.
THE ROOT
וְאֶעֶזְבָה
weʾezvah
GROWS FROM
עזב
to leave, abandon, or forsake
“leave” in this verse is weʾezvah. The line uses the verb for leaving or forsaking one’s people. The temporary wilderness lodging is an imagined refuge from a bond whose trust has collapsed.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāzav: to leave or forsake
עָזַב
This verb carries the same act at the heart of the verse: departure from one’s own people.
ʿazuvah: forsaken, abandoned
עֲזוּבָה
This form names the state that follows leaving, bringing the severed belonging in the verse into view.
בֹּגְדִים
bogdim
GROWS FROM
בגד
to deal treacherously or betray trust
“treacherous men” in this verse is bogdim. This word names betrayal of trust, widening the charge beyond the adultery named just before it. The failure is collective: the gathered people are marked by faithlessness toward one another.
ALSO GROWS
bāgad: to act treacherously, deal faithlessly
בָּגַד
This verb makes clear that the word describes betrayal, not simply a bad reputation.
bōgēd: a traitor, one who acts treacherously
בֹּגֵד
This singular form names the person whose betrayal is multiplied in the verse’s assembly of faithless people.
THE PATTERN
When trust breaks within a community, distance can begin to seem like shelter.
And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.THE THREAD
Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.The Hebrew verb translated “forsake” comes from the same root as the speaker’s “leave” in Jeremiah. Here the root names a human wish to sever a bond; in Deuteronomy, it names the abandonment God promises not to enact.
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