What Does Jeremiah 2:20 Mean?
For from the ages I have broken your yoke and torn away your cords. You said, I will not serve, for upon every high hill and under every green tree you lie down as a harlot.
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
For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.THE KEY
The freed one refuses to serve, then gives herself to another master.
THE MEANING
The yoke over you can be broken, yet freedom does not choose your allegiance for you. You can refuse one form of service and still wander toward other powers, giving yourself over to them in the verse’s stark image of playing the harlot.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The old yoke is broken, so I must be free; the verse shows that release alone does not end bondage.
THE ROOT
אֶעֱבֹד
e'evod
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
Work, serve, labor.
Beneath the KJV’s “I will not transgress” is אֶעֱבֹד (e’evod), “I will serve”; with the negation, “I will not serve.” This root gathers serving, service, and servant under one seed: the broken yoke leaves the question of service open, and the verse shows desire wandering into another allegiance.
ALSO GROWS
eved: Servant, one who serves.
עֶבֶד
The freed person may refuse one master while becoming a servant to another.
avodah: Work, labor, service.
עֲבֹדָה
The verse turns on what receives service after the yoke is broken.
THE PATTERN
Release breaks an imposed yoke, while what follows reveals the allegiance that still governs the freed person.
Therefore say to the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the loads of the Egyptians, and I will snatch you from their service, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments.Do you not know that to the one you set yourselves beside as servants for hearing and response, his servants you are, the one you hear and respond to; whether of falling short unto death, or of hearing and response unto alignment?Stand, then, in the freedom for which the Anointed One set us free, and do not be caught again in the yoke of slavery.THE THREAD
And he said, Surely I will be with you, and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.The Hebrew verb עבד (ʿ-b-d), meaning “serve” or “work,” is the same root behind Jeremiah’s “I will not transgress” and Exodus’s “ye shall serve God.” The verses place two outcomes beside a broken yoke: service to God, or refusal of that service followed by wandering into other worship.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us