What Does Jeremiah 23:21 Mean?
I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
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
I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.THE KEY
Spiritual momentum can imitate divine commission: these prophets run without being sent and speak without receiving a word.
THE MEANING
The verse names a voice that moves before it has been sent and speaks before it has received a word. Its distinction reaches the reader now: movement, confidence, and religious language do not by themselves reveal a message’s source.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that speed, confidence, or religious language proves a message comes from God; activity alone does not establish commission.
THE ROOT
שָׁלַחְתִּי
shalachti
GROWS FROM
שָׁלַח
shalach
to send, send forth, release, let go
The root holds sending and release together. A messenger is defined by having been sent; the prophets’ movement has no such source.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: messenger or envoy; one sent
שָׁלִיחַ
This branch makes the source part of the messenger’s identity, sharpening the contrast with prophets who run without being sent.
shulchan: table; provision extended outward
שֻׁלְחָן
The root’s outward movement can extend provision to others; here, outward motion alone does not make the prophets’ words a message from God.
דִּבַּרְתִּי
dibbarti
GROWS FROM
דָּבַר
davar
to speak; word or matter
“spoken” in this verse is dibbarti. In Hebrew, word and speaking belong to one root family. The verse makes the absence of God’s word the measure of the prophets’ speech, revealing an utterance without a received source.
ALSO GROWS
davar: word, matter, thing
דָּבָר
The word that should have been received is absent before the prophets’ own speech begins.
dibber: to speak, declare
דִּבֵּר
This speech-form belongs to the same root family as “word,” linking the denied message with the prophets’ claimed utterance.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats being sent as the source that gives a messenger’s movement and speech their provenance.
Then the LORD said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in my nature. I did not send them, nor have I commanded them, nor have I spoken to them. They prophesy to you a false seeing and a divining, and a hollow thing, and the daubing of their heart.The one who speaks from himself seeks weight for himself; but the one who seeks the weight of the one who sent him, this one is true, and there is no crookedness in him.And how will they herald unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!THE THREAD
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here I am; send me.Isaiah’s אֶשְׁלַח (eshlach, “I will send”) shares the root שָׁלַח (shalach, “send, release”) with Jeremiah’s “I have not sent.” Isaiah’s speaker answers a call to be sent; Jeremiah’s prophets are already running, though no sending or word from God precedes them.
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