What Does Nehemiah 13:24 Mean in the King James?
And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each 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
The Hebrew says the children did not “recognize” how to speak their people’s language, linking lost speech with what has become unfamiliar.
THE MEANING
Where the surrounding voices shape a child’s speech, the language of their people can become unfamiliar from within. The loss reaches beyond vocabulary: those words are no longer available in the child’s own voice.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A people’s language can disappear from the next generation without their connection to that people changing.
THE ROOT
מַכִּירִים
makirim
GROWS FROM
נכר
Recognize, distinguish, or know as familiar.
“could not speak” in this verse is makirim. The Hebrew phrase says they did not know how to speak Judean; the verb is from a root that can mean recognize or distinguish. Alongside inability, it evokes a language that has become unfamiliar to the children.
ALSO GROWS
hikkir: Recognize or distinguish.
הִכִּיר
It makes the break in speech also a break in what the children can recognize as familiar.
nokhri: A foreigner or stranger.
נָכְרִי
This related form shows how the boundary between familiar and foreign can surface in the language of belonging.
מְדַבֵּר
medabber ledabber
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak or utter.
“spake; speak” in this verse is medabber ledabber. Both the children’s mixed speech and their inability to speak Judean use forms of the same root. That root also names a davar, a word or matter: speech carries what a people can share, not merely how their words sound.
ALSO GROWS
davar: A word or matter.
דָּבָר
The shared root links speaking to the words and matters carried in a people’s language.
dibbur: Speech or utterance.
דִּבּוּר
This noun makes explicit the shared root beneath both forms of “speak” in the verse.
לָשׁוֹן
lashon
GROWS FROM
לשן
Tongue; by extension, language or speech.
The phrase translated “the language of each people” is literally like the tongue of each people. English makes language sound abstract; Hebrew names it through the tongue that speaks it.
ALSO GROWS
lashon: Tongue or language.
לָשׁוֹן
The same word names both the speaking organ and a people’s language.
leshonot: Tongues or languages.
לְשׁוֹנוֹת
The plural keeps the image of languages as distinct tongues, as in the verse’s “each people.”
THE PATTERN
A shared language carries words across a community and between generations.
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.THE THREAD
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.Nehemiah uses forms of דבר (davar) for both “spake” and “speak”; Deuteronomy uses that same root for “talk” with children. Together, the verses show how words are carried forward through everyday speech.
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