What Does Jeremiah 20:8 Mean?
For whenever I speak, I cry out; violence and ruin I call, because the word of the LORD has become a reproach to me, and a mockery all the day.
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 since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.THE KEY
Hebrew uses the same root for “I speak” and “the word,” binding the speaker’s voice to the message that makes him a target.
THE MEANING
You can speak the word you carry and find that it draws ridicule onto you. When that word names violence and plunder, the contempt can follow you through the day; the verse leaves that exposure fully visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a message is false simply because it makes its speaker an object of ridicule.
THE ROOT
אֲדַבֵּרָה
ʾadabbērāh
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; a spoken word, matter, or thing.
“whenever I speak” in this verse is ʾadabbērāh. The Hebrew forms behind “spake” and “word” grow from the same root. The verse joins the speaker’s act of speaking to the word that becomes reproach and derision to him.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: Spoke, uttered
דִּבֵּר
This is the verb behind “spake,” linking the speaker’s voice to the word in the next phrase.
dābār: Word, matter, thing
דָּבָר
This is the noun behind “the word of the LORD,” showing that the speech and its message share one root.
אֶקְרָא
ʾeqrāʾ
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
To call, proclaim, or name.
The second “cried” uses a different verb from the first cry: qara can also mean to call or proclaim. The speaker is naming violence and ruin aloud, giving the cry the force of a public declaration.
ALSO GROWS
qārāʾ: Call, proclaim, name
קָרָא
This verb carries the act of calling violence and spoil into public speech.
miqrāʾ: Reading, convocation
מִקְרָא
This related noun can refer to something called or proclaimed, echoing the public reach of the speaker’s cry.
שֹׁד
shod
GROWS FROM
שדד
sh-d-d
To devastate or plunder.
“ruin” in this verse is shod. “Spoil” carries the force of active plunder, rooted in ravaging and devastation. Beside “violence,” it names both the harm and the stripping that follows.
ALSO GROWS
shādad: To devastate, plunder
שָׁדַד
The verb behind “spoil” gives the word the force of harm done through ravaging and seizure.
shōdēd: Plunderer, destroyer
שֹׁדֵד
This branch names the agent of the devastation the speaker cries out about.
THE PATTERN
Naming the violence a community tolerates can make the speaker the target of its contempt.
To whom shall I speak and bear witness, that they may hear and respond? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot bend it. Behold, the word of the LORD has become to them a taunt; they have no delight in it.Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos has bound himself against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words.The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I bear witness about it that its works are worthless.THE THREAD
Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his nature. But his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it in, and I could not.The “word” and “speak” in verse 8 share the root דבר, and verse 9 brings both together again: he resolves not to speak, yet the word remains within him. The same root connects ridicule outside him with the word he cannot extinguish inside.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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