What Does Jeremiah 16:14 Mean?

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, that it shall no longer be said, The LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

Jeremiah 16:14 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

THE KEY

The LORD’s life is not trapped in the one remembered rescue that first brought you out.

THE MEANING

The living God is not confined to one remembered rescue or one old formula; another way out of constriction remains possible now. The story of deliverance can widen without erasing what came before.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie undone is that one defining rescue is the last form deliverance can take, or the only evidence that the LORD is living.

THE ROOT

הֶעֱלָה

he'elah

GROWS FROM

עלה

ʿ-l-h

Rise, ascend, go up; in this causative form, bring up.

⁨הֶעֱלָה⁩ (he’elah, brought up) comes from ⁨עָלָה⁩ (ʿalah, rise or go up): deliverance is phrased as an ascent. ⁨מִצְרַיִם⁩ (Mitzrayim, Egypt, the two narrows) carries ⁨צַר⁩ (tsar, narrow or constricting) with its dual ending, setting that ascent against constriction.

ALSO GROWS

ʿalah: Rise, ascend, go up.

עָלָה

This is the same root in its basic verbal form: being brought out of Egypt is pictured as being raised up.

ma'alah: Ascent, step, or degree.

מַעֲלָה

The noun carries the same upward movement, making the verse’s language of deliverance directional: up and out.

THE PATTERN

A single defining rescue gives way to new testimony as deliverance continues.

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when they will no longer say, The LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But the LORD lives, who brought up and led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north land, and out of every land where I had driven them; and they shall settle upon their own ground.

Jeremiah 23:7-8 · SDVThe Egypt formula is widened to include being brought from the north and scattered lands, so one rescue does not exhaust the testimony.

Do not remember the former things, nor fix your gaze on the things that went before. Behold, I am making a new thing; now it sprouts; will you not perceive it? I will even lay a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the parched land.

Isaiah 43:18-19 · SDVA new way and fresh waters appear beyond what is already remembered, making room for another opening.

The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.

Luke 4:18 · SDVDeliverance appears as the release of captives and the setting at liberty of the bruised, a continuing expression of release.

THE THREAD

But the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands where he had thrust them, and I will bring them back to their ground, which I gave to their fathers.

Jeremiah 16:15 · SDV

The same verb, ⁨הֶעֱלָה⁩ (he’elah, brought up), returns here, while the point of departure expands from Egypt to the north and the scattered lands. The next line does not erase the first rescue; it shows the living testimony widening through another act of bringing out.

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