What Does Jeremiah 20:13 Mean?
Sing to the LORD, praise the LORD, for he has brought the living soul of the poor out of the hand of evildoers.
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
Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.THE KEY
The rescued life becomes a voice of praise: the LORD pulls the needy person’s living self out of the evildoer’s grip.
THE MEANING
You sing to the LORD because he has delivered the needy person’s living self from the hand of those who do harm. The verse names that grip as real and the LORD as the one who breaks it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that need leaves a person owned by whoever holds power over them.
THE ROOT
הִצִּיל
hitsil
GROWS FROM
נצל
natsal
To snatch away, rescue, or deliver.
“brought out” in this verse is hitsil. הִצִּיל (hitsil, he rescued) is a form of נצל (natsal, to snatch away or rescue), so “delivered” carries the force of taking a life out of another’s grasp. Rescue removes the hold named by “the hand of evildoers.”
ALSO GROWS
natsal: To snatch away or rescue.
נָצַל
The base verb makes deliverance an act that takes someone out of danger and away from the hand holding them.
hitsilam: He delivered them.
הִצִּילָם
This form appears in Psalm 34:17, where the LORD delivers people from their troubles, extending the same rescue beyond this verse.
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
nephesh
The living self: a person, life, or appetite.
נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, living soul) names the needy person as a whole living self. Deliverance reaches the person whose life is held in another’s hand.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: Living soul, person, self.
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the living person whose life the verse says is delivered.
naphash: To rest or be refreshed.
נָפַשׁ
This related verb connects the living self with rest and renewal; here that self is the one rescued from harm.
THE PATTERN
The LORD removes the endangered from the reach of harm, and the rescued life finds its voice.
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.And when Peter came to himself, he said, "Now I truly know that the LORD has sent his messenger, and has taken me out of the hand of Herod, and from all that the people of the Jews were waiting for."Who brought us out of so great a death, and brings us out; in whom we hope that he will yet bring us out.THE THREAD
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.Jeremiah’s הִצִּיל (hitsil, he rescued) and the Psalm’s הִצִּילָם (hitsilam, he delivered them) share נצל (natsal, to rescue or snatch away). The shared verb shows the same movement: the LORD hears the cry and takes people out of the reach of their troubles.
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