What Does Jeremiah 1:7 Mean?
But the LORD said to me, Do not say, I am a youth, for to all that I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
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
But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.THE KEY
The sender, not the speaker’s age, determines where the voice goes and what it carries.
THE MEANING
When “I am a child” feels decisive, the sending comes with a destination and a charge to speak. The sender establishes the voice’s reach and its message; age does not set either limit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that youth or inexperience automatically disqualifies a voice from carrying a consequential word.
THE ROOT
אֶשְׁלָחֲךָ
ʾešlaḥăḵā
GROWS FROM
שׁ־ל־ח
š-l-ḥ
Send, send forth, release.
“send” in this verse is ʾešlaḥăḵā. The Hebrew sending carries movement toward a destination, with the sense of releasing someone into it. The commission is both dispatch and release: the sender determines where the voice goes and what it is sent to do.
ALSO GROWS
shaluaḥ: Sent, dispatched.
שָׁלוּחַ
The sent one carries a mission received from the sender; the movement is not self-appointed.
shilluach: Sending away, dismissal, release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch makes the release within “send” audible: the one sent is let go toward a purpose.
תְּדַבֵּר
tedabber
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
Speak, utter.
The verb for speaking and the noun for a word or matter grow from the same root. Hebrew holds utterance and what is uttered together: here, the voice carries the matter it is commanded to speak.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The spoken word is held together with the matter it expresses, linking Jeremiah’s voice to the content entrusted to him.
dibbur: Speech, utterance.
דִּבּוּר
This noun names the act of speaking itself, echoing the verse’s focus on a voice carrying words.
THE PATTERN
The sent voice carries words supplied and authorized by the one who sends.
And now go, and I will be with your mouth, and I will teach you what you will speak.For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me has given me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.For it is not you who speak, but the breath of your Father speaking in you.THE THREAD
Now go, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.The word translated “send” in both verses is שָׁלַח (shalach), “send forth; release.” In Exodus, the sent voice is aimed toward Egypt (מִצְרַיִם, Mitzrayim, “the two narrows”) to bring people out; Jeremiah’s commission carries that same root of release into its destination.
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