What Does Jeremiah 11:1 Mean?
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
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 word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,THE KEY
The word that “comes” is both spoken address and the matter itself: what reaches Jeremiah already carries reality within it.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s word reaches Jeremiah as an utterance that is already speaking. The verse places you at the threshold of an address whose meaning unfolds as it is heard.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that God’s word is only information about reality: here, “word” also names a matter, and the word arrives as a speaking presence.
THE ROOT
הַדָּבָר
ha-dāḇār
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
To speak; a word or matter spoken of.
Davar can name both a spoken word and a matter or affair. The English “word” can sound like information alone, while the Hebrew holds speech and substance together.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: spoke
דִּבֵּר
This verb makes the word an utterance: what reaches Jeremiah is already saying.
devarim: words; matters or affairs
דְּבָרִים
The same root names both what is said and what is at stake, giving the arriving word substance.
הָיָה
hāyâ
GROWS FROM
ה־י־ה
h-y-h
To be, become, or come into being.
“came” in this verse is hāyâ. The Hebrew phrase can be read as “the word that was to Jeremiah.” The word’s arrival carries the sense of becoming present, not only traveling from one place to another.
ALSO GROWS
hayah: was; became; happened
הָיָה
The word is described through being and becoming, so its arrival reads as presence taking shape.
yihyeh: he or it will be
יִהְיֶה
This form keeps the root’s connection to what comes to be, echoing the word’s becoming present to Jeremiah.
THE PATTERN
The divine word arrives as living utterance: it speaks, brings forth, and lays reality open.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.The Hebrew word translated “word” here is davar, the same word at the center of Jeremiah 11:1; it can also name a matter or affair. Psalm 33:6 joins that word with ruach, breath, opening the arriving word as voiced, reality-bearing presence.
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