What Does Jeremiah 13:3 Mean?
And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, 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
And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying,THE KEY
The word that returns is not only speech: Hebrew davar can also mean a matter or thing, so the message already belongs to what is unfolding.
THE MEANING
A word can meet you again at the edge of its meaning. Here the LORD’s address returns for a second time, and the sentence holds you at the instant before its content is spoken. The return is part of the encounter; what follows is still opening.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; as a noun, word, matter, or thing.
English gives you a message arriving; Hebrew gives you davar, a word that can also name a matter or thing. The language holds speech and matter close together, so this returning address is more than a repetition of sound: it puts something before the hearer.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke; to speak.
דִּבֵּר
The verse ends with “saying”; the noun and the act of speaking grow from the same root, joining the arriving word to the voice that speaks it.
davar: Matter, affair, or thing.
דָּבָר
The English “word” does not show this range; the Hebrew lets the address carry the sense of a matter being placed before the hearer.
THE PATTERN
In Scripture, a divine address can return while its meaning is still being perceived and brought into form.
For God speaks in one, and in two he does not repeat; yet man does not perceive it.And as for the dream being doubled to the Great House twice, it is because the word is set firm by God, and God will hasten to do it.And the voice spoke to him again the second time, What God has cleansed, do not make common.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.The same Hebrew word, davar (דָּבָר, word or matter), appears here: Psalm says the heavens are made by the LORD’s word. Jeremiah’s returning word belongs to the same scriptural pattern in which speech carries a matter toward realization.
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