What Does Jeremiah 13:1 Mean?
Thus says the LORD to me, Go and take for yourself a linen belt, and set it upon your loins, and do not bring it into the waters.
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
Thus saith the LORD unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.THE KEY
A belt fastened at the loins makes the body the place where this sign is worn.
THE MEANING
The command moves through a precise bodily sequence: acquire a linen girdle, fasten it at the loins, and keep it out of water. The belt’s closeness to the body and its condition both matter.
THE ROOT
אֵזוֹר
ʾēzôr
GROWS FROM
אזר
ʾ-z-r
To gird or bind around.
“belt” in this verse is ʾēzôr. אֵזוֹר, “girdle,” is linked to אָזַר, “to gird,” so the word carries both the object and the act of binding it around the body. The location matters: Jeremiah 13:11 makes the girdle’s closeness to the loins central to the image.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāzar: To gird.
אָזַר
The verb names the action that gives the girdle its purpose: binding it around the body.
ʾēzôr: Belt or girdle.
אֵזוֹר
The noun names the object that is fastened at the loins in this verse.
THE PATTERN
A physical object placed on or carried by the body can become a prophetic sign through an enacted image.
And the LORD said, As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years, a sign and a wonder upon Egypt and upon Cush.Before their eyes you shall lift it upon your shoulder, and in the dark you shall lift it. You shall cover your face, so that you do not see the earth. For I have set you as a sign to the house of Israel.And when he came to us, he lifted Paul's belt, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus says the Set-Apart Breath, so will the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man whose belt this is, and will hand him over into the hands of the nations.THE THREAD
For as the belt clings to the loins of a man, so have I caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to me, says the LORD, that they might be to me a people, and a name, and a praise, and an adornment. But they would not hear and respond.The same Hebrew word for “girdle” returns, and the next verse names its closeness to the loins as the image’s key. The fastening commanded here becomes a picture of what cleaves closely.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us