What Does Joel 2:18 Mean in the King James?
Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people.
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
Here, divine jealousy is fierce investment in the land, and pity is the act of sparing its people.
THE MEANING
This verse names a care that reaches both the ground beneath you and the people living through its damage. The LORD’s concern is fierce, and his compassion does not end as a feeling: the verb can mean to spare, holding the people within life rather than abandoning them to ruin.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that devastation makes you or your community disposable to God is undone: the verse presents divine concern as still directed toward both land and people.
THE ROOT
וַיְקַנֵּא
wayqannēʾ
GROWS FROM
קנא
q-n-ʾ
To show zeal; to be jealous.
“jealous” in this verse is wayqannēʾ. This root carries the force of zeal, an invested claim rather than a passing feeling. Here that intensity is directed toward the land, showing care that reaches the ground itself, not only the people’s inward lives.
ALSO GROWS
qinʾāh: Zeal, jealousy.
קִנְאָה
This noun names the intensity carried by the verb: the LORD’s care is active and deeply invested.
qannāʾ: Jealous, zealous.
קַנָּא
This form describes the quality of the one whose commitment is expressed in the verse.
וַיַּחְמֹל
wayyaḥmōl
GROWS FROM
חמל
ḥ-m-l
To spare or show compassion.
The root joins pity with sparing: compassion is not only a feeling but the choice to preserve what could be lost. That makes the verse’s pity concrete, the people are not discarded in the face of ruin.
ALSO GROWS
ḥemlāh: Compassion, pity.
חֶמְלָה
The noun gives a name to the compassion expressed as an act in this verse.
wattaḥmōl: She had compassion.
וַתַּחְמֹל
In Exodus 2:6 the same root describes compassion toward a vulnerable child, a response that protects life.
THE PATTERN
Compassion in Scripture does not stop at feeling; it preserves vulnerable life and moves toward restoration.
And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children.But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath.And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.THE THREAD
And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children.The “compassion” here comes from the same Hebrew root, חמל (ḥ-m-l), meaning “to spare or show compassion,” as Joel’s “pity.” In Exodus it meets one crying child; in Joel it reaches an entire people, and in both verses compassion preserves life.
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