What Does Jeremiah 23:2 Mean?
Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel against the shepherds who feed my people; you have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and you have not visited them. Behold, I will visit upon you the harm of your deeds, says the LORD.
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 God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD.THE KEY
The shepherds who refuse to attend the flock are brought under the very attention they withheld.
THE MEANING
When those entrusted with your care scatter you and fail to attend to you, that neglect is not invisible. God attends to the shepherds’ actions with the attention they withheld from the flock. The verse holds abandonment and accountability in the same movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that neglect by those entrusted with care goes unseen and carries no account.
THE ROOT
פְּקַדְתֶּם
peqadtem poqed
GROWS FROM
פקד
paqad
To attend to, muster, appoint, or reckon with.
“visited” in this verse is peqadtem poqed. The same root names the shepherds’ failure to attend the people and God’s attending to the shepherds’ deeds. It holds care and reckoning together: what they ignore in the flock is not erased, but brought into account.
ALSO GROWS
pequddah: Oversight or an entrusted charge.
פְּקֻדָּה
The root can name the responsibility of oversight, making the shepherds’ absence a failure of their charge.
paqīd: Someone appointed to oversee.
פָּקִיד
The word connects attendance with an assigned role: the shepherds’ neglect is a betrayal of what they are appointed to do.
הָרֹעִים
haro'im ro'im
GROWS FROM
רעה
ra'ah
To tend, pasture, or feed.
“feed” in this verse is haro'im ro'im. The title contains its assignment: a shepherd is one who tends and feeds. The passage places הָרֹעִים (haro’im, shepherds) beside רַע (ra, evil); their shared opening consonants make the shepherds’ name echo against the harm of their deeds, though the words are not identical roots.
ALSO GROWS
ro'eh: A shepherd or tender of a flock.
רֹעֶה
It shows that the role is defined by tending, which the verse says these shepherds fail to do.
mir'eh: A place where a flock feeds.
מִרְעֶה
The pasture is where tending provides sustenance; the verse’s accusation exposes a rupture in that care.
הֲפִיצוֹתֶם
hafitzotem
GROWS FROM
פוץ
puts
To scatter, disperse, or spread abroad.
“scattered” in this verse is hafitzotem. The verb here is causative: the shepherds make the dispersal happen. Together with “driven them away,” it makes the flock’s scattering the outcome of their actions, not an accident that simply befalls them.
ALSO GROWS
hēfīts: To disperse or spread something abroad.
הֵפִיץ
This causative form shows how the shepherds actively produce the flock’s dispersion.
nafuts: To be dispersed.
נָפוּץ
The passive form shows the condition of those scattered, sharpening the contrast with the shepherds who cause it.
THE PATTERN
A shepherd’s care is measured by whether the flock is kept from abandonment, and failed care is answered by God’s intervention.
Hear and respond to the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the far islands, and say, The one who scattered Israel will gather him and guard him, as a shepherd tends his flock.Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds. I will search for my flock from their hand, and I will stop them from feeding the flock. The shepherds shall feed themselves no more, for I will snatch my flock from their mouth, so that they will not be food for them.I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his living soul for the sheep.THE THREAD
Go, gather the elders of Israel, and say to them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, I have surely visited you, and have seen what is done to you in Egypt.The same Hebrew root פקד (paqad, attend to or visit) appears in “I have surely visited you,” where attention means seeing what is done and entering the situation. In Jeremiah 23:2, that same active attention turns toward the shepherds’ deeds after they withhold it from the flock.
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