What Does Zechariah 8:14 Mean?
For thus says the LORD of hosts. As I purposed to do harm to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, says the LORD of hosts, and I did not relent.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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 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The Hebrew holds judgment as a deliberate plan to do harm, not a passing thought, and says it is not withdrawn.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It undoes the belief that every announced judgment is only a warning that will be withdrawn: the verse explicitly says the LORD does not relent.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.
“purposed” in this verse is zāmamtî. 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.
“did not relent” 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.
“do harm to” in this verse is ləhārāʿ. 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.
As for you, you planned evil against me, but God planned it for good, to make it as it is this day, to keep a great people alive.If that nation, against which I have spoken, turns from its harm, I will relent of the harm I had planned to do to them.And God saw their deeds, because they turned back from their harmful way; and God relented from the harm he had spoken to do to them, and he did not do it.THE THREAD
And God saw their deeds, because they turned back from their harmful way; and God relented from the harm he had spoken to do to them, and he did not do it.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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