What Does Jeremiah 17:22 Mean?
Do not bring out a burden from your houses on the sabbath day, and do no work; but set apart the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.
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
Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.THE KEY
In Hebrew, “carry” and “burden” grow from נשא (nasa, lift or bear), so the Sabbath bars both the load and the act of bearing it.
THE MEANING
The verse makes rest visible at the house door: the burden does not go out, ordinary work stops, and the day is set apart. Its pattern speaks to the reader now as a boundary around what is carried and done, rather than another task added to the day.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sacred day is not made sacred by adding more work; here it is marked by stopping the ordinary carrying and labor.
THE ROOT
תִשְׂאוּ
tisa'u
GROWS FROM
נשא
n-s-ʾ
to lift, carry, or bear
“carry / burden” in this verse is tisa'u. The verb for carrying and the noun for burden share נשא (nasa, lift or bear). The verse binds the load to the labor: both the thing carried and the act of carrying meet the Sabbath boundary.
ALSO GROWS
tisa'u: you carry or bear
תִשְׂאוּ
This is the verb the verse uses for taking the burden out of the house.
massa: burden, load; also an utterance
מַשָּׂא
The noun for the load grows from the same root as the verb for bearing it.
הַשַּׁבָּת
ha-shabbat
GROWS FROM
שבת
sh-b-t
to cease or stop
The Sabbath carries the sense of cessation in its root. The verse makes that cessation concrete: carrying and work stop, and the day is set apart.
ALSO GROWS
shavat: to cease, desist, or rest
שָׁבַת
This verb names the stopping that gives the Sabbath its shape.
shabbaton: Sabbath rest or a complete rest
שַׁבָּתוֹן
This related form extends the same root into a designated rest.
וְקִדַּשְׁתֶּם
veqiddashtem
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
to set apart as sacred
“set apart” in this verse is veqiddashtem. The verse pairs setting the day apart with ceasing from ordinary work. Sacredness here is expressed as a boundary around the day’s usual activity.
ALSO GROWS
qodesh: sacredness; something set apart
קֹדֶשׁ
It names the set-apart quality the verse assigns to the Sabbath day.
miqdash: sanctuary, a set-apart place
מִקְדָּשׁ
The related word applies the same root to a place marked as set apart.
THE PATTERN
Sabbath rest takes shape through cessation: carrying and work stop, and the day is set apart.
And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made, and he stopped on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.He said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.For the one who has entered into his settling has himself also settled from his own works, as God did from his.THE THREAD
And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made, and he stopped on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.The Hebrew verb שָׁבַת (shavat, cease) in Genesis and the word שַׁבָּת (shabbat, Sabbath) in Jeremiah share the root שבת. Genesis makes the root’s action plain: the day is marked by ceasing from work.
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