What Does Zechariah 8:14 Mean in the King James?
For thus saith the LORD of hosts; As I thought to punish you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath, saith the LORD of hosts, and I repented not:
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The Hebrew holds judgment as a deliberate plan to do harm, not a passing thought, and says it is not withdrawn.
THE MEANING
The LORD names provocation as the ground of a judgment he intends and does not withdraw. The verse addresses you now with its full severity: harm is spoken plainly, and refusal to relent is part of the claim. Nothing here makes judgment vague or painless.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that every announced judgment is only a warning that will be withdrawn: the verse explicitly says the LORD does not relent.
THE ROOT
זָמַמְתִּי
zāmamtî
GROWS FROM
ז־מ־ם
z-m-m
To devise, plan, or purpose.
This verb names a devised purpose, not a passing thought. It makes the intended judgment deliberate in the verse itself.
ALSO GROWS
zāmam: Devise, plan, intend.
זָמַם
This is the verb’s base form; it shows the force behind “thought” here is purposeful intent.
mezimmāh: Purpose, plan, discretion.
מְזִמָּה
This related word can describe a formed plan or purpose, reinforcing that the verse speaks of intention rather than a fleeting idea.
וְלֹא נִחָמְתִּי
wəlōʾ niḥamtî
GROWS FROM
נ־ח־ם
n-ḥ-m
To relent or regret; in other stems, to comfort or console.
“repented not” in this verse is wəlōʾ niḥamtî. Here the LORD says he does not relent from the intended course. The same root also yields words for comfort, placing relenting and consolation within one word family without making them identical in this line.
ALSO GROWS
niḥam: Relent, regret, or be moved to withdraw an action.
נִחַם
This form shows the sense carried by “repented” in the verse: changing course or relenting.
mənaḥēm: Comforter, one who consoles.
מְנַחֵם
This related form reveals the root’s wider range, which English “repent” does not show.
לְהָרַע
ləhārāʿ
GROWS FROM
ר־ע־ע
r-ʿ-ʿ
To be bad, or to do evil or harm.
The Hebrew phrase also says “to do harm” or “to do evil.” That sense makes the intended judgment concrete beneath the familiar word “punish.”
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Evil, badness, harm.
רַע
This related word keeps the verse’s intended act connected to harm itself.
raʿāh: Evil, harmfulness, calamity.
רָעָה
This form shows the word family can name harmful conditions as well as harmful action.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats judgment as a stated intention whose movement toward harm or away from it is made explicit.
But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.THE THREAD
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.The same Hebrew root, נחם (nāḥam, relent or regret), stands behind Zechariah’s “repented not” and Jonah’s “repented.” The difference is whether the LORD relents from the declared harm.
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