What Does Jeremiah 15:4 Mean?
I will give them to be shaken among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem.
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 cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.THE KEY
The Hebrew beneath “removed” is נָתַן (nathan: give, set, place): the verse presents the scattering as God setting a people into public dread across the kingdoms.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to how one ruler’s acts in one city can become a whole people’s scattering across the earth. God names himself as the one who places them in this exposed condition and ties it directly to what Manasseh did in Jerusalem. The violence of that consequence remains plain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a ruler’s deeds affect only the ruler or the place where they happen; here their consequence reaches a whole people across kingdoms.
THE ROOT
וּנְתַתִּים
u-netattim
GROWS FROM
נתן
give, set, place
“give them to be shaken” in this verse is u-netattim. The verb at the heart of the clause carries the sense of giving or setting. Here that placement is into dread, so the dispersal is not only distance from home; it is a condition laid bare before the kingdoms.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: gift, what is given
מַתָּנָה
This branch shows the root’s range of giving; in this verse, the placement is a severe judgment, not a gift.
netinim: those assigned or given; temple servants
נְתִינִים
The word can describe people given to a place or service; here the people themselves are the object of an imposed placement.
מְנַשֶּׁה
Menashsheh
GROWS FROM
נשה
forget, cause to forget
Manasseh’s name carries the sense of causing to forget. That resonance stands beside the verse’s direct claim that what he did in Jerusalem is the stated cause of the people’s scattering.
ALSO GROWS
nashah: to forget or cause to forget
נָשָׁה
This verb carries the root sense present in Manasseh’s name.
Menashsheh: Manasseh; a name associated with causing to forget
מְנַשֶּׁה
The person named as the cause bears a name formed from the language of forgetting.
בִּירוּשָׁלָם
bi-Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
whole, complete; wholeness
“Jerusalem” in this verse is bi-Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries the sound of שָׁלוֹם (shalom), wholeness. The deeds named here occur in a place whose name holds that resonance, while their consequence is a people’s scattering.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness
שָׁלוֹם
This is the wholeness carried in the city’s name, set beside the dispersal named in the verse.
shalem: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch keeps the idea of wholeness present in the place named as the site of the deed.
THE PATTERN
A ruler’s deed can reach beyond the place where it happens and become a consequence borne by many.
Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel, Look, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears will ring.Therefore, as through one man falling short entered into the world, and death through it; and so death passed through to all people, because all have missed the mark.THE THREAD
See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil.Jeremiah’s Hebrew verb beneath “removed” is נתן, “give, set, place”; Deuteronomy uses the same root in “I have set before thee.” Together, the verses show the root’s range: something can be set before a person, or a people can be set into a condition of terror.
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