What Does Jeremiah 22:25 Mean?
And I will give you into the hand of those who seek your living soul, and into the hand of those whose face you fear, even into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
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
And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, even into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.THE KEY
The verse gives fear a body: the face you fear becomes the hand into which your living self is delivered.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the exposed place where the person whose face you fear holds power over your life. “Thy life” names your whole living self, and the repeated hand makes the transfer stark and concrete.
THE ROOT
נַפְשְׁךָ
nafsh’kha
GROWS FROM
נ־פ־שׁ
n-p-sh
Living self, life, or living being; a related verb form describes being refreshed.
“your living soul” in this verse is nafsh’kha. The Hebrew noun here is the same one translated “soul” in Genesis’s account of the human becoming a living being. The verse names the whole living self as what is being sought and handed over.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh chayyah: Living soul; living being
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
Genesis 2:7 uses this phrase for the human; the same noun that appears as “life” here names the person as a living whole.
vayinnaphash: Was refreshed
וַיִּנָּפַשׁ
Exodus 31:17 uses this related verb for being refreshed, showing another branch of the root’s language of living and recovery.
נְתַתִּיךָ
netattikha
GROWS FROM
נ־ת־ן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“give thee” in this verse is netattikha. The verb carries the sense of placing as well as giving: the living self is set within another’s hand. The fourfold repetition of “hand” makes the destination of that transfer the verse’s unsoftened center.
ALSO GROWS
mattan: Gift; something given
מַתָּן
This noun makes the root’s giving concrete; here the one given over is a person whose life is sought.
nathun: Given; placed
נָתוּן
This form describes the state of being placed, echoing the verse’s direct transfer into another’s hand.
THE PATTERN
Scripture describes a life’s exposure or protection by naming whose hand holds it.
My times are in your hand; snatch me from the hand of my enemies and from those who pursue me.In whose hand is the living soul of every living thing, and the breath of all flesh.I give them the life of the ages, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.The Hebrew noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, living soul) appears in Genesis as “soul” and in Jeremiah as “life.” Genesis names the human as a living self; Jeremiah shows that same self as the one being sought and handed over.
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