What Does Jeremiah 15:20 Mean?
I will set you for this people as a fortified wall of bronze. They will fight against you, but they will not overpower you, for I am with you to deliver you and to pull you out, says the LORD.
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 I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the LORD.THE KEY
The wall does not prevent the fight; it prevents the fight from having the final word.
THE MEANING
You can be opposed and still be held: the verse names the fight without making it the final authority. The LORD’s nearness is joined to bringing you out and rescuing you, so protection is pictured as presence and deliverance, not a life without pressure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Resistance is not proof that you have been abandoned, and it does not by itself determine the outcome.
THE ROOT
לְהוֹשִׁיעֲךָ
lehoshiʿakha
GROWS FROM
י־ש־ע
y-sh-ʿ
Deliver, bring into safety.
“deliver” in this verse is lehoshiʿakha. The verse’s rescue carries movement out of danger toward safety and room. The same root forms words for deliverance, so the act of being brought out and the deliverance itself belong to one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
yeshaʿ: Deliverance
יֵשַׁע
It names the safety toward which the action in the verse moves.
yeshuʿah: Deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
It shows that the root holds both the act of bringing out and the resulting deliverance.
וּלְהַצִּילֶךָ
ulehatsilekha
GROWS FROM
נ־צ־ל
n-ts-l
Rescue, snatch away from danger.
“pull you out” in this verse is ulehatsilekha. The Hebrew places this rescue verb beside יָשַׁע, adding the sense of being pulled free from danger. Both acts are grounded in the words “I am with thee”: rescue begins in presence, not distance.
ALSO GROWS
hitsil: He rescued
הִצִּיל
This form names the act of pulling someone out of danger.
matsil: Rescuer
מַצִּיל
It names the one who carries out the rescue promised here.
nitsol: One rescued; survivor
נִצּוֹל
It names the person who has been brought through danger.
בְּצוּרָה
bĕṣūrāh
GROWS FROM
ב־צ־ר
b-ts-r
Fortify, make secure or inaccessible.
“fortified” in this verse is bĕṣūrāh. The word is a description of fortification, linked to the Hebrew word for a fortress. The fight remains in the sentence; the image marks the limit of what the fight can accomplish.
ALSO GROWS
mivtsar: Fortress, stronghold
מִבְצָר
It makes the wall’s image more substantial than a simple boundary: it is a place made secure.
batsur: Fortified, secure
בָּצוּר
It shares the root’s sense of being made inaccessible to attack.
THE PATTERN
Opposition may reach the one held by God, but it does not own the outcome.
Many are the evils against the aligned one, but the LORD snatches him out of them all.No weapon shaped against you will push through, and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you will condemn. This is the portion of the servants of the LORD, and their alignment is from me, declares the LORD.Pursued, but not left behind; thrown down, but not perishing.THE THREAD
Many are the evils against the aligned one, but the LORD snatches him out of them all.The Hebrew word translated “delivereth” uses the same נ־צ־ל root as “deliver” in Jeremiah 15:20. The shared verb sharpens the promise as rescue out of actual affliction, not a claim that affliction never arrives.
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