What Does Jeremiah 18:13 Mean?
Therefore, thus says the LORD. Ask now among the nations, who has heard such things? The virgin of Israel has done a very stunning thing.
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
Therefore thus saith the LORD; Ask ye now among the heathen, who hath heard such things: the virgin of Israel hath done a very horrible thing.THE KEY
Israel’s self-contradiction becomes so stark that the verse asks the surrounding nations whether they have ever heard its like.
THE MEANING
The image of Israel as a virgin stands beside an appalling act; the identity does not erase the deed. The question reaches beyond the familiar circle, asking whether anyone has heard of such conduct. The contradiction speaks now wherever a name and an action stand in sharp conflict.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sacred or honored identity makes the actions carried out under it beyond scrutiny. The verse places the identity beside the deed and summons witnesses beyond it.
THE ROOT
שָׁמַע
shamaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
shamaʿ
Hear, listen, learn of.
The root also gives words for a report or tidings. The nations are asked whether they have heard of such a deed, framing Israel’s rupture as public astonishment rather than a hidden label.
ALSO GROWS
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; what is heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch makes the question about more than sound: it asks whether the deed has become a report anyone knows.
shemaʿ: Hearing, report, reputation.
שֵׁמַע
The verse asks what can be heard beyond Israel’s own circle, making the act’s public recognition part of its force.
שְׁאַלוּ
shaʾalu
GROWS FROM
שאל
shaʾal
Ask, inquire, request.
“Ask” in this verse is shaʾalu. The verse begins by directing the inquiry outward, then asks what anyone has heard. Asking and hearing together turn the surrounding nations into witnesses to the scale of the contradiction.
ALSO GROWS
sheʾelah: Question, request.
שְׁאֵלָה
This branch echoes the verse’s call to inquire beyond the people named in it.
mishʾal: Petition, desire.
מִשְׁאָל
The root can express a request as well as a question; here, the inquiry reaches outward for a measure of what has happened.
THE PATTERN
When a community’s actions contradict the identity it bears, the contradiction becomes visible beyond its own circle.
Hear and respond, O heavens, and bend your ear, O earth, for the LORD has spoken. I have raised children and lifted them high, and they have broken away from me.Has a nation exchanged its gods, though they are not gods? But my people have exchanged their weight for what cannot profit.For the nature of God is spoken against among the nations through you, as it stands written.THE THREAD
Now therefore, if you will truly hear and respond to my voice, and guard my covenant, then you shall be my own treasure from among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.The Hebrew root שׁמע (shamaʿ, hear) appears in both verses; in Exodus, hearing is rendered as obeying, joining what is heard to a response. Jeremiah’s question about who has heard such a thing opens a further question: what does a people’s conduct answer when its identity is heard?
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