What Does Jeremiah 26:13 Mean?
So now make good your ways and your doings, and hear and respond to the voice of the LORD your God, and the LORD will relent of the harm he has spoken against you.
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
Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you.THE KEY
The harm announced over you is not sealed: as your course turns and your hearing responds, the LORD relents.
THE MEANING
The verse addresses your present course: your ways and actions can become good, and your hearing of the LORD can become responsive. It holds that change beside the LORD’s relenting from harm already spoken over you. The announced outcome remains open to response.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You are already trapped in the outcome spoken over you, and nothing can change what comes next.
THE ROOT
וְיִנָּחֵם
weyinnāḥēm
GROWS FROM
נחם
Relent, be moved to comfort or console
The root נחם (nacham, relent or comfort) carries both the language of relenting and the language of consolation. Here the LORD’s relenting withdraws the announced harm in response to a changed course; the word family gives that change a personal, responsive quality.
ALSO GROWS
nechamah: Comfort, consolation
נֶחָמָה
This related word shares the root of the LORD’s relenting, linking the response to the language of consolation.
menachem: One who comforts
מְנַחֵם
This branch shows the root describing a response that meets distress, illuminating the LORD’s response to the threatened harm.
שִׁמְעוּ
shem'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed
“hear and respond to the voice” in this verse is shem'u. The word translated “obey” is the command “hear.” Its root joins hearing with heeding and response, so the verse places attentive response to the LORD’s voice alongside a changed way of life.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear; heed and respond
שְׁמַע
This familiar form makes clear that the call is not merely to receive a sound but to answer it.
shemu'ah: A report; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch names what reaches the ear, while the imperative in the verse carries hearing through into response.
הֵיטִיבוּ
heitivu
GROWS FROM
יטב
Be good, do well, make good
The verb translated “amend” is literally a call to do well or make good, applied to both ways and doings. Change here reaches the path and its practices, not only a person’s regret.
ALSO GROWS
yatab: Be good; go well
יָטַב
This form connects amendment with a course becoming good in its direction and outcome.
meitiv: One who does good
מֵיטִיב
This form brings the root into action, echoing the verse’s pairing of ways with deeds.
THE PATTERN
When people turn from a harmful course, the future spoken over them can change.
And God saw their deeds, because they turned back from their harmful way; and God relented from the harm he had spoken to do to them, and he did not do it.Turn around, then, and turn back, so that your shortcomings may be wiped away, and the times of breathing again may come from the face of the LORD.THE THREAD
If that nation, against which I have spoken, turns from its harm, I will relent of the harm I had planned to do to them.The same root, נָחַם (nacham, relent), describes the LORD’s response in both verses. Jeremiah 18:8 places a turn away from evil beside that relenting, showing that the spoken outcome remains responsive to a changed course.
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