What Does Jeremiah 25:3 Mean?
From the thirteenth year of Josiah, son of Amon, king of Judah, until this day, these twenty-three years, the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking; but you have not heard and responded.
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
From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even unto this day, that is the three and twentieth year, the word of the LORD hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking; but ye have not hearkened.THE KEY
The word can arrive again and again while its meaning remains unreceived, because hearing and responding are not the same event.
THE MEANING
A message can keep reaching you while your attention stays closed to it. Here, to hear means more than sound reaching the ear: hearing opens into response, while repeated speech alone does not guarantee reception.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hearing something repeatedly means you have truly received it.
THE ROOT
שְׁמַעְתֶּם
shema'tem
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed.
“heard and responded” in this verse is shema'tem. The Hebrew verb can hold hearing and heeding together, so the verse points to more than sound reaching the ear. Its tension is between a word repeatedly spoken and a listener who does not take it in as a response.
ALSO GROWS
shama: To hear or heed.
שָׁמַע
This is the verb behind “hearkened”; its range lets hearing include the listener’s response.
shemuah: A report or thing heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch makes clear that something can be heard as a report without being heeded.
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak; word or matter.
The same root gives the noun for a word or matter and the verb for speaking. The verse holds both together: the word comes, and it is spoken, yet hearing that responds remains absent.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This verb from the same root echoes the repeated speaking in the verse.
davar: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The spoken word is also a matter placed before the listener, not merely a sound passing by.
THE PATTERN
A word reaches its purpose through hearing that becomes response.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of the trained, so that I might know how to sustain the faint one with a word. Morning by morning he rouses, he rouses my ear to hear and respond as the trained do.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
The LORD has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but you have not heard and responded, nor bent your ear to hear.The same Hebrew root שמע (shama, hear or heed) appears in “hearkened” and “hear.” The verse repeats the idea of hearing, revealing that an ear can encounter the message without opening into response.
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