What Does Zechariah 14:19 Mean in the King James?
This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
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 word translated “punishment” also names a miss or breach, holding the failure and its consequence together.
THE MEANING
This verse places Egypt and every nation under the same condition: refusing to come up and keep the feast carries judgment. The word rendered “punishment” also carries the sense of a miss or breach, and its repetition places Egypt and all such nations within the same consequence. The summons is upward and communal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that refusing the shared summons is inconsequential; here, that refusal carries a named judgment.
THE ROOT
חַטָּאת
chatta't
GROWS FROM
חטא
chata
To miss, err, or stray; the noun can name the breach and its associated consequence.
The noun rendered “punishment” is from a root that names missing or erring. That root adds the breach beneath the consequence, and the verse repeats the word for Egypt and every nation that refuses the feast.
ALSO GROWS
chata: To miss, err, or sin.
חָטָא
This verb shows the root’s basic movement: falling short or going astray.
chet: A missing, offense, or sin.
חֵטְא
This noun keeps the sense of a breach visible beneath the consequence named here.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
tsarar
To bind, press, or constrict.
Egypt’s name carries the image of narrowness and constriction. Set beside the refusal to come up, it gives the warning a shape: turning from the summons leaves the nations under the condition Egypt names.
ALSO GROWS
metzar: A narrow place or strait.
מֵצַר
It makes the image in Egypt’s name concrete: a narrowed passage or confined place.
tsarah: Distress or trouble.
צָרָה
This branch shows how constriction becomes an experience of distress.
יַעֲלוּ
ya'alu
GROWS FROM
עלה
alah
To go up or ascend.
“come up” in this verse is ya'alu. The verse’s summons is explicitly upward: the nations are to rise to the feast. The same root also names an offering that ascends, giving the movement both a physical and a ritual dimension.
ALSO GROWS
olah: An ascending offering, often rendered “burnt offering.”
עֹלָה
This word preserves the upward motion of the root in a ritual offering.
ma'aleh: An ascent or step.
מַעֲלֶה
This branch makes the root’s upward movement tangible as a rising or step.
THE PATTERN
Refusing the summons to come and receive is portrayed as closing the flow of provision.
And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.And then the LORD’s wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you.In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.THE THREAD
And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.This verse repeats the same verb for “come up” and names the material consequence: no rain. The nearby verse makes the punishment concrete as withheld provision.
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