What Does Nehemiah 5:13 Mean in the King James?
Also I shook my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. And all the congregation said, Amen, and praised the LORD. And the people did according to this promise.
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 turns a broken promise into a physical image: what is not made to stand gets shaken loose from home and livelihood.
THE MEANING
A promise carries weight now: when its word is not upheld, the promise-breaker is pictured as shaken from house and labor, left empty. The congregation says “Amen,” praises the LORD, and then acts according to the word; agreement becomes visible in what the people do.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that verbal agreement or praise by itself completes a promise; the people’s action is the verse’s final measure.
THE ROOT
יָקִים
yaqim
GROWS FROM
קום
Rise, stand, or cause to stand.
The word translated “performeth” carries the sense of making the word stand. The verse sets that against the person being shaken out: the commitment is either upheld, or the one who will not uphold it faces removal from home and livelihood.
ALSO GROWS
qum: Rise; stand.
קוּם
The basic action behind “establish” shows a promise as something made to stand.
heqim: Raise; establish.
הֵקִים
This causative form makes the link between standing and carrying a commitment through.
נָעַרְתִּי
naʿarti
GROWS FROM
נער
Shake, shake off, or shake out.
“shook / shake out / shaken out” in this verse is naʿarti. The same root describes Nehemiah shaking his garment, God shaking out the one who breaks the pledge, and that person being shaken out. English repeats the image, but the Hebrew ties the gesture and its consequence together with one verb.
ALSO GROWS
yenaʿer: He will shake out.
יְנַעֵר
This is the same root in the warning, so the gesture becomes the image of what follows.
naʿur: Shaken out.
נָעוּר
This form describes the person’s removal with the same root as the initial shaking.
הַדָּבָר
ha-davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak; word, matter, or thing.
“promise / word” in this verse is ha-davar. Where KJV says “promise,” the Hebrew says “this word” or “this matter.” Joined to the root for “establish,” the spoken commitment is something meant to stand in the world, with consequences for house and labor.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word; matter; thing.
דָּבָר
The pledge is named as a word or matter, joining speech to what happens materially.
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form shares the root and connects the pledged word to the act of speaking it.
THE PATTERN
A spoken commitment gains substance when it is upheld in action.
That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt keep and perform; even a freewill offering, according as thou hast vowed unto the LORD thy God, which thou hast promised with thy mouth.And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.THE THREAD
That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?Job uses the same נ־ע־ר root for the wicked being shaken off the earth. That shared verb opens Nehemiah’s gesture as a concrete image of removal: a person can be shaken loose from the place that holds them.
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