What Does Jeremiah 25:2 Mean?
Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all who settle in Jerusalem, saying,
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
The which Jeremiah the prophet spake unto all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying,THE KEY
The repeated “all” turns Jeremiah’s speech from a private oracle into a word placed in the hearing of an entire people.
THE MEANING
You encounter a word spoken into the whole community, not kept in a private corner. The repeated “all” makes shared hearing part of the message, while “saying” holds open what is about to be spoken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The word is meant only for a hidden few; the repeated “all” places it within the hearing of an entire people.
THE ROOT
דִּבֶּר
dibbēr
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
to speak, utter
“spake” in this verse is dibbēr. The verb דִּבֶּר (dibbēr, “he spoke”) and the noun דָּבָר (dābār, “word” or “matter”) grow from the same root. The speech here is bound to the word spoken: it becomes audible in the shared space of the people.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: word, matter, thing
דָּבָר
The same root makes speech and the word spoken kin; Jeremiah’s public address carries the word into the people’s hearing.
mədabbēr: speaking; one who speaks
מְדַבֵּר
This speaking form keeps the root’s action visible: the word reaches the community through a voice.
THE PATTERN
A word entrusted to one voice enters the hearing of the whole people.
When all Israel comes to see the face of the LORD your God in the place he will choose, you will call out this instruction before all Israel, in their ears.And he called aloud from it before the wide place that was before the gate of the waters, from first light until the middle of the day, facing the men and the women, and those who could tell the difference, and the ears of all the people were turned toward the book of the instruction.When this voice arose, the crowd came together and was poured into confusion, because each one heard them speaking in his own tongue.THE THREAD
Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, Look, I have set my words in your mouth.The Hebrew root דבר (d-b-r) appears in “spake” here and in דְּבָרַי (dĕvāray, “my words”) there, binding speaking to what is spoken. The word placed in Jeremiah’s mouth becomes the public address heard by the people.
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