What Does Jeremiah 16:16 Mean?
Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall fish them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the crags.
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
Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.THE KEY
The verse closes every refuge by turning the pursued into catch in water and quarry on land.
THE MEANING
The LORD sends fishers first and hunters after them, pursuing the people from every mountain and hill into the rock’s hidden clefts. This is a sentence of judgment and capture, with no terrain outside the reach of the search.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If I find a sufficiently hidden place, the LORD’s pursuit cannot reach me.
THE ROOT
וְצָדוּם
ve-tsadum
GROWS FROM
צוד
tsud
To hunt; to capture as prey.
The verse does not only describe someone searching; its verb names a hunt. The same root names the hunter and the game, placing the pursued in the position of quarry to be captured.
ALSO GROWS
tsayad: Hunter
צַיָּד
The person sent to pursue them shares the root of the act itself.
tsayid: Game or prey; also provision obtained by hunting
צַיִד
This branch makes the hunted people sound like quarry, not merely people being observed.
וְדִיגוּם
ve-digum
GROWS FROM
דוג
dug
To fish; to catch by fishing.
“fish” in this verse is ve-digum. Hebrew uses the fishing root for both the agents and their action, making the first image a concrete capture. Set beside the hunt, it reaches from the implied water of the catch to the mountains and rock clefts on land.
ALSO GROWS
dag: Fish
דָּג
The catch is built into the same word family as the act of fishing.
dayyag: Fisherman
דַּיָּג
The fishers named in the verse carry the same seed as the verb describing what they do.
אֶשְׁלַח
eshlaḥ
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
To send, send forth, or send away; to release.
“am sending” in this verse is eshlaḥ. Here the LORD’s sending dispatches agents into pursuit. The same root also carries sending away and release, so the language holds both meanings while this particular sending serves capture.
ALSO GROWS
shilluaḥ: Sending away; release or dismissal
שִׁלּוּחַ
It shows the release sense carried by the root behind the hunters’ dispatch.
Shiloach: Sent; the name associated with the sent waters
שִׁלֹחַ
This water-name comes from the same sending root that launches the fishers in the verse.
THE PATTERN
No terrain or hiding place can put the pursued beyond the reach of divine search.
Though they hide themselves at the top of Carmel, I will search them out and take them from there. Though they are hidden from my eyes at the bottom of the sea, from there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.If I climb into the heavens, you are there; if I spread my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there.And no creation is hidden before him, but all things are naked and bared at the throat to the eyes of him to whom our account belongs.THE THREAD
Then the LORD said to Moses, Go in to Pharaoh, and say to him, Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews. Let my people go, that they may serve me.The verb translated “send” here comes from שׁלח (shalach, send forth or release), the same root behind Pharaoh’s command, “Let my people go.” Here it dispatches hunters toward the people; in Exodus it demands their release, holding pursuit and release in the same root.
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