What Does Jeremiah 23:27 Mean?
Who plan to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams, which they recount each man to his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.
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
Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.THE KEY
The verse reveals forgetting as an exchange: retold visions can replace the nature of God with the nature of another master.
THE MEANING
Repeated spiritual claims can train you to forget God’s nature and recognize another master in its place. “My name” holds more than a label; it carries the character of the One being forgotten. The verse speaks now wherever trusted voices make repetition feel like proof of divine authority.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A claim is not God’s voice simply because it comes as a dream and is repeated by someone trusted.
THE ROOT
לְהַשְׁכִּיחֵנִי
ləhaškîḥēnî
GROWS FROM
ש־כ־ח
š-k-ḥ
To forget or let slip from mind; in the causative form, to cause someone to forget.
“cause to forget / have forgotten” in this verse is ləhaškîḥēnî. The verse places the causative form beside the ordinary form: some voices aim to make forgetting happen, and the fathers’ forgetting is its inherited result. English can make this sound like a simple lapse, while the shared root links influence and outcome.
ALSO GROWS
shāḵaḥ: To forget.
שָׁכַח
The fathers’ verb comes from this root, showing the forgetting that the verse says is repeated.
hiškîaḥ: To cause someone to forget.
הִשְׁכִּיחַ
This causative branch reveals that the dreams are presented as a means of producing forgetfulness, not merely accompanying it.
בַּעַל
baʿal
GROWS FROM
ב־ע־ל
b-ʿ-l
To own or possess; as a noun, an owner, master, or husband.
The rival name carries the sense of master or owner, so the exchange reaches beyond labels to the question of whose authority claims the people. “My name” holds God’s nature, while Baal names another mastery.
ALSO GROWS
baʿal: Owner, master, or husband; also the name Baal.
בַּעַל
The verse’s replacement name carries the weight of a rival master, making the forgetting an exchange of allegiance.
bāʿal: To own, possess, or rule over; to be a husband.
בָּעַל
This verbal branch brings out the sense of possession behind the title: the people are being turned toward another claim of authority.
THE PATTERN
When God’s nature is forgotten, a substitute can receive the allegiance that belonged to God.
Guard yourself, that you do not let the LORD your God slip from you, by not guarding his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command you this day.Thus they exchanged their weight for the shape of an ox that eats grass.who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and bowed down and served the creation beside the one who created, who is praised for the ages. Amen.THE THREAD
Does a maiden forget her ornaments, or a bride her sashes? Yet my people have forgotten me days beyond counting.Both verses use שׁכח (sh-k-ḥ, “forget”): Jeremiah 2:32 asks how God’s people can let him slip from mind, while Jeremiah 23:27 shows voices helping that forgetting take hold. The comparison with ornaments and a bride’s attire makes the loss feel like a rupture in what is held close.
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