What Does Jeremiah 23:38 Mean?
But if you say, The burden of the LORD, therefore thus says the LORD, Because you say this word, The burden of the LORD, and I have sent to you, saying, You shall not say, The burden of 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
But since ye say, The burden of the LORD; therefore thus saith the LORD; Because ye say this word, The burden of the LORD, and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the LORD;THE KEY
The phrase they keep pinning on the LORD becomes the weight their speech must carry.
THE MEANING
When you put a saying under the LORD’s name, this verse holds that wording accountable to the LORD. Here, repeating “the burden of the LORD” is itself the violation, even though it sounds like religious language.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A phrase does not become the LORD’s word simply because it bears the LORD’s name.
THE ROOT
מַשָּׂא
maśśāʾ
GROWS FROM
נשׂא
To lift, carry, or bear.
“burden” in this verse is maśśāʾ. מַשָּׂא grows from נשׂא, “to lift, carry, bear”; in prophetic speech it can name an utterance borne. Here, the speakers keep lifting that label onto the LORD after being told not to, and their invocation itself becomes the weight at issue.
ALSO GROWS
nāśāʾ: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This verb supplies the physical motion beneath מַשָּׂא: a word called a burden is something taken up and carried.
nāśîʾ: A prince or leader; one raised up.
נָשִׂיא
The same root can name a person lifted into prominence, showing how נשׂא ranges from bearing weight to being elevated.
THE PATTERN
Words spoken under the LORD’s name return as a weight of accountability to the speaker.
But the prophet, who boils over to speak a word in my nature, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the nature of other gods, that one dies.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.But I say to you, every word without work that humankind speaks, they will give back an account of it in the day of judgment.THE THREAD
The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah son of Amoz saw.Isaiah’s heading uses the same Hebrew noun, מַשָּׂא (maśśāʾ, “burden” or prophetic utterance), for a message borne. That connection shows why Jeremiah’s warning turns on the speakers’ repeated use of this phrase, rather than making the word itself forbidden in every setting.
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