What Does Micah 6:14 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied; and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee; and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver; and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword.
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 verse makes survival unstable: hunger remains after eating, and even what escapes is still exposed to the sword.
THE MEANING
You can take in what should sustain you and remain unsatisfied; the lack is within you. You can get something free, yet it remains exposed to violence. The verse holds both conditions together now: consumption does not ensure fullness, and escape does not ensure safety.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it undoes is that more intake guarantees fullness, or that whatever you manage to rescue is therefore safe. Here eating leaves hunger intact, and escape does not end exposure to the sword.
THE ROOT
פָּלַט
pālaṭ
GROWS FROM
פלט
To slip out of danger or escape.
The verb translated “deliver” comes from the root פלט, the language of slipping free and surviving. It appears in both halves of the verse: escape cannot be secured, and what does escape is handed over to the sword.
ALSO GROWS
pālîṭ: One who has escaped; a survivor or fugitive.
פָּלִיט
This is the person-shaped branch of the root: escape is someone who has slipped free.
miplāṭ: Refuge; a place of escape.
מִפְלָט
A refuge offers the protection the verse withholds: getting free does not guarantee continued safety.
שָׂבֵעַ
śāvēaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׂבע
To be sated or have enough.
“satisfied” in this verse is śāvēaʿ. The verse pairs eating with the failure to reach שׂבע, fullness. Its language makes the gap plain: taking in food does not necessarily end hunger.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: Full or satisfied.
שָׂבֵעַ
This is the state the eating in Micah’s verse fails to produce.
śōbaʿ: Satiety or fullness.
שֹׂבַע
The noun names the condition that remains out of reach even after food is taken in.
THE PATTERN
What is gathered cannot guarantee inward fullness or continued possession.
And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram.The phrase “one that had escaped” uses פָּלִיט (pālîṭ), a branch of the same root as “deliver” in Micah. Genesis shows escape as a survivor who has slipped free; Micah shows that even what escapes can still be handed to the sword.
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