What Does Leviticus 26:32 Mean in the King James?
And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.
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
In Hebrew, the land’s desolation and its enemies’ astonishment share one root: the waste itself enters the witness.
THE MEANING
God brings the land into desolation, and even the enemies dwelling there are appalled by what they inhabit. The damage reaches the ground itself and registers in those who remain inside it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being an enemy of the people in a place means I can remain untouched by what happens to that land.
THE ROOT
הֲשִׁמֹּתִי
hashimmoti
GROWS FROM
שׁמם
Be desolate; be appalled or stunned.
“desolation / astonished” in this verse is hashimmoti. The Hiphil form הֲשִׁמֹּתִי (hashimmoti, “I make desolate”) and וְשָׁמְמוּ (veshomemu, “they are appalled or desolate”) share the root שׁמם (shamem). The Hebrew joins the land’s ruin to the witnesses’ shock, while English separates them into desolation and astonishment.
ALSO GROWS
shemamah: Desolation, waste.
שְׁמָמָה
This noun makes the land’s condition a branch of the same root that names the enemies’ response.
shamem: To be desolate or appalled.
שָׁמֵם
This verbal form holds physical ruin and stunned response within the same word-family.
THE PATTERN
When a place is laid waste, its ruin reaches those who inhabit or witness it, leaving them stunned or grieving.
And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble at every moment, and be astonished at thee.And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.THE THREAD
They have made it desolate, and being desolate it mourneth unto me; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart.Jeremiah repeats שׁמם (shamem, “be desolate”) for the land’s ruin, the same root that joins Leviticus’s desolated land to its enemies’ astonishment. The repetition lets the desolation spread through the sentence, from the land itself to the mourning that surrounds it.
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