What Does Zechariah 14:12 Mean in the King James?
And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
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 repeats one verb of dissolution across flesh, eyes, and tongue while the person remains standing.
THE MEANING
You are shown a judgment that reaches flesh, sight, and speech: all three dissolve while the person remains upright. Jerusalem carries the name-nature of wholeness, and the verse holds that wholeness at the center of an uncompromising image of bodily ruin.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An upright posture proves that a person is intact; here the body dissolves while its owner still stands.
THE ROOT
מָקַק
maqaq
GROWS FROM
מ־ק־ק
maqaq
Melt, waste away, decay.
“consume away” in this verse is maqaq. The verb repeats across flesh, eyes, and tongue, carrying one process through the body, perception, and speech. Its sense of melting or wasting away makes this an image of ongoing dissolution while the person remains on their feet.
ALSO GROWS
yimmakku: They pine away (Leviticus 26:39).
יִמַּקּוּ
The same root describes people wasting away, linking bodily dissolution here with a longer process of decay.
unemaqotem: You shall pine away (Ezekiel 24:23).
וּנְמַקֹּתֶם
The root again names people who waste away, making Zechariah’s image of flesh, eyes, and tongue a vivid bodily instance of that process.
מַגֵּפָה
maggefah
GROWS FROM
נ־ג־ף
nagaph
Strike, strike down; also stumble.
“plague / smite” in this verse is maggefah. The Hebrew names the plague and the Lord’s smiting with words from the same root, joining the affliction to the blow that brings it. The verb’s direct force remains present in the bodies that then dissolve.
ALSO GROWS
nagaph: Strike or strike down.
נָגַף
This is the root behind “will smite,” making the plague’s force a direct strike.
maggefah: Plague or defeat.
מַגֵּפָה
This is the word translated “plague”; its shared root with “smite” binds the event and the blow together.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שׁ־ל־ם
shalem
Be complete or whole; shalom carries the sense of wholeness.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries shalom, wholeness, in its name. That name sits in sharp tension with the bodies coming apart: the verse places wholeness at the contested center without softening the violence around it.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
The name Yerushalayim carries this sense, setting the city’s nature beside the bodily dissolution in the verse.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This form makes the root’s sense of completeness explicit, sharpening the contrast with the attackers’ bodies coming apart.
THE PATTERN
Catastrophe becomes visible on the body rather than remaining abstract.
The LORD shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.THE THREAD
And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.Leviticus uses מָקַק (maqaq, “melt or waste away”) for “pine away,” the same root rendered “consume away” here. Zechariah gives that wasting a stark bodily form: flesh, eyes, and tongue dissolve while the person is still standing.
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