What Does Jeremiah 26:7 Mean?
So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house 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
So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “heard” can carry listening into response, and the next verse shows this crowd answering with a death sentence.
THE MEANING
The words reach every role in the room: those who lead, those who speak, and all the people gathered with them. The Hebrew verb for “heard” is *shama*, whose range includes listening that turns into response; the verse holds the moment when a word has arrived and the answer is about to show itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that hearing sacred words means receiving them in agreement: the same hearers seize Jeremiah in the next verse and say, “Thou shalt surely die.”
THE ROOT
שֹׁמְעִים
shomʿim
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed; hear and respond.
“heard” in this verse is shomʿim. The Hebrew form presents the people as hearing Jeremiah while he speaks, keeping reception active in the scene. Because שמע can hold hearing that moves toward response, the verse sits at the hinge between a word entering the ear and an answer taking shape.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear, listen, heed.
שְׁמַע
The opening command of Deuteronomy 6:4 uses this root, showing how hearing can carry an invitation to respond.
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The root can name both the act of hearing and the message received, linking Jeremiah’s spoken words to the listeners who take them in.
מְדַבֵּר
medabber
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak; word, matter, or thing.
“speaking / words” in this verse is medabber. English separates “speaking” and “words,” but Hebrew forms both from דבר. The act of speaking and the words spoken share one seed, binding the utterance to the matter it carries.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This verb form belongs to the same root as “words,” so speech and its content are joined in the verse’s wording.
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The root’s range lets “these words” carry the sense of a matter being spoken into the shared space.
THE PATTERN
In Scripture, hearing opens a word toward response, and the hearer’s answer reveals what the word has become in them.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for your servant hears and responds.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.The opening word, “Hear,” is *shema*, from the same root שמע as “heard” here. That shared root places Jeremiah’s listeners inside a word that leans toward response; the next verse reveals theirs.
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