What Does Jeremiah 23:23 Mean?
Am I a God close at hand, says the LORD, and not a God from afar?
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
Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off?THE KEY
Distance measures where you feel God, not the reach of God’s presence.
THE MEANING
The LORD is God when you feel close and when God feels far away. Your sense of distance does not set the boundary of God’s presence or sight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that feeling far from God means God has left or cannot see you.
THE ROOT
מִקָּרוֹב
miqqārōv
GROWS FROM
קרב
q-r-b
Approach, draw near.
“close at hand” in this verse is miqqārōv. The same root forms words for approaching and for something brought near. So “at hand” carries the sense of nearness as approach, while the question holds that nearness together with God’s presence afar.
ALSO GROWS
qārab: Approach, draw near.
קָרַב
The verb gives the nearness in the verse a sense of movement toward, not just closeness in space.
qorbān: Offering, something brought near.
קָרְבָּן
This related word preserves the root’s movement of bringing near, showing how the idea extends beyond physical distance.
מֵרָחֹק
mērāḥōq
GROWS FROM
רחק
r-ḥ-q
Be distant, be far away.
“from afar” in this verse is mērāḥōq. The word names distance, not absence: the question asks whether the far place lies outside God’s reach, and its implied answer is no. Near and far are both within the range of God’s presence.
ALSO GROWS
rāḥōq: Far, distant.
רָחוֹק
This adjective names the far end of the contrast in the verse.
hirḥīq: Move or put far away.
הִרְחִיק
This related verb shows distance as something that can be made or extended, yet the verse does not make it a limit on God.
THE PATTERN
No distance a person can travel or hide within places them beyond God’s presence.
Where shall I go from your breath? And where shall I flee from your face?Can anyone hide in hidden places that I shall not see him? says the LORD. Do I not fill the heavens and the earth? says the LORD.That they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.THE THREAD
Can anyone hide in hidden places that I shall not see him? says the LORD. Do I not fill the heavens and the earth? says the LORD.The next verse makes the near-and-far question concrete: no secret place escapes God’s sight, and God fills heaven and earth. Distance does not create a boundary around God’s presence.
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