What Does Jeremiah 1:1 Mean?
The words of Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin.
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
The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin:THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “words” can also mean the matter being spoken, so this opening presents speech as substance carried in a named life.
THE MEANING
As you meet this verse now, you encounter words that are more than sounds: davar can name both speech and the matter it carries. Jeremiah’s name is commonly understood as “YHWH raises,” while Hilkiah means “my portion is YHWH,” placing the message in a voice marked by its name and lineage. The line gathers speech, a person, and belonging into one sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The idea that words are only sounds, detached from what they carry, is undone: davar can mean both speech and the matter spoken.
THE ROOT
דִּבְרֵי
divrê
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; the root also names a word or matter.
English “words” can sound like utterances alone, but davar can also mean a matter or thing. The speech here carries substance within it.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The verse’s “words” belong to a word-family that joins what is said with the matter it carries.
dibbēr: Spoke or declared.
דִּבֵּר
This verb shows the speaking action within the same root as the words named here.
יִרְמְיָהוּ
Yirmeyahu
GROWS FROM
רום
r-w-m
Rise, be high, or exalt.
Jeremiah’s name is commonly understood as “YHWH raises” or “YHWH exalts.” The opening introduces its speaker through a name that carries the image of being lifted.
ALSO GROWS
rām: High or exalted.
רָם
The name’s sense of being raised echoes this root’s language of height.
yārūm: He will rise or be exalted.
יָרוּם
This verb form makes the root’s upward movement audible within the name’s commonly understood meaning.
חִלְקִיָּהוּ
Ḥilqiyyāhū
GROWS FROM
חלק
ḥ-l-q
Divide, share out, or allot.
Hilkiah is commonly understood as “my portion is YHWH,” from ḥēleq, a share or portion. Calling Jeremiah “the son of Hilkiah” places the speaker in a line whose name expresses where its share belongs.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēleq: Portion or share.
חֵלֶק
This noun supplies the sense of “portion” in the name Hilkiah.
ḥālaq: Divide, apportion, or share out.
חָלַק
The verb reveals the root’s movement of assigning a share, beneath Hilkiah’s name.
THE PATTERN
A word can pass through a human voice while remaining rooted in its source and active in the hearer.
Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, Look, I have set my words in your mouth.I raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and I set my words in his mouth, and he speaks to them all that I command him.And for this reason we also thank God without leaving a gap. For when you took hold of the word of God that you heard from us, you received it not as the word of humankind, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also works in you who trust.THE THREAD
To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah, son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.The next verse uses the same Hebrew root, דבר (d-b-r), for “word of the LORD.” That root connection places Jeremiah’s words within the larger movement of a word that comes to him.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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