What Does Jeremiah 23:35 Mean?
Thus shall you say each one to his neighbor, and each one to his brother, What has the LORD answered? and, What has the LORD spoken?
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
Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath the LORD answered? and, What hath the LORD spoken?THE KEY
God’s word is not a private possession: this verse places the question of what the LORD has answered and spoken between neighbors.
THE MEANING
You ask another person, “What hath the LORD answered? and, What hath the LORD spoken?” The verse holds both the answer and the utterance in view, treating God’s speech as something to be recognized together. A claim does not become God’s word simply because someone says it is.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a private claim to divine speech authenticates itself is undone here: the question is spoken between neighbors.
THE ROOT
דִּבֶּר
dibbēr
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; to express a word or matter.
English “spoken” can sound like a passing event, but the same root names a word or matter. The question asks what God has put into speech, the substance people can ask about together.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word, matter, thing.
דָּבָר
The spoken word is also the matter at hand, so the question concerns the substance of what is said.
dibbēr: Spoke, declared.
דִּבֵּר
This is the verb used in the verse: the LORD’s speaking is named directly as the source being asked about.
עָנָה
ʿānâ
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
To answer, respond.
The Hebrew asks what the LORD answered, keeping the response tied to a question or need. God’s speech is presented as engagement, not merely information.
ALSO GROWS
maʿăneh: Answer, response.
מַעֲנֶה
The noun carries the same root sense of a response, bringing the idea of answering into focus.
wayyaʿan: And he answered.
וַיַּעַן
This verbal form shows the root in action: an answer is a response given, not an isolated statement.
THE PATTERN
A claim to speak for God remains accountable to what God actually says.
I raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and I set my words in his mouth, and he speaks to them all that I command him.Beloved, do not lean your weight on every breath, but test the breaths, whether they come out of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.THE THREAD
I raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and I set my words in his mouth, and he speaks to them all that I command him.Jeremiah’s “spoken” and Deuteronomy’s “words” share the root דָּבָר (dābār, “word” or “matter”), joining the act of speaking to the substance spoken. Deuteronomy shows why the question matters: the messenger speaks the words God gives.
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