What Does Nehemiah 5:1 Mean in the King James?

And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews.

Nehemiah 5:1 · KJV

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 loudest cry rises from inside the circle of brothers, where shared identity has failed to prevent harm.

THE MEANING

A people and their wives can raise a great cry against their own brethren; shared identity does not erase the distress between them. Their outcry makes an internal fracture audible rather than hiding it beneath kinship.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

Shared identity does not guarantee safety: a community’s own brothers can become the source of its people’s distress.

THE ROOT

צַעֲקַת

tsa'aqat

GROWS FROM

צעק

To cry out or call aloud in distress.

The noun ⁨צַעֲקַת⁩ comes from ⁨צעק⁩, a cry raised aloud in distress or appeal. English “cry” can sound like a private emotion; this root carries the force of an outcry that makes suffering public.

ALSO GROWS

tsa'aq: To cry out; to call aloud.

צָעַק

The verb shows the outcry as an act: distress finds a voice and cannot stay hidden.

tse'aqah: A cry or outcry.

צְעָקָה

This noun names the voiced distress that Nehemiah calls “great.”

THE PATTERN

People’s outcries make hidden harm public and call the hearer to account.

And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

Exodus 3:7 · KJVThe cry of a pressed people makes their affliction audible to one who hears.

Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

James 5:4 · KJVThe withheld wages and workers’ cries expose economic harm and reach the Lord’s ears.

Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.

Proverbs 21:13 · KJVThe verse shows that refusing to hear the poor person’s cry ends in a cry that is itself unheard.

THE THREAD

And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

Exodus 3:7 · KJV

Nehemiah’s ⁨צַעֲקַת⁩ and Exodus’s “their cry” come from the same root, ⁨צעק⁩: the outcry of distress. Here that cry rises from within the community, making harm between kin impossible to keep quiet.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us