What Does Jeremiah 28:15 Mean?
Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, Hear and respond now, Hananiah. The LORD has not sent you, but you make this people lean their full weight upon a lie.
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
Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah; The LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie.THE KEY
A voice can manufacture confidence in people without carrying the commission that would make its message true.
THE MEANING
This verse names a present danger: confidence can be manufactured around a lie, even when the speaker carries a sacred title. The certainty a message creates cannot certify that it is truly sent by the LORD.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A message that gives people confidence must therefore be from God.
THE ROOT
שְׁלָחֲךָ
shelaḥakha
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
To send forth, dispatch, or release.
The verse turns on whether this voice is actually sent. The root carries the sense of being sent forth from a source, so confident speech alone cannot supply the commission it lacks.
ALSO GROWS
shaluach: One sent; an envoy.
שָׁלוּחַ
The branch names a person by the act of being sent, making the question of a prophet’s source central.
mishloach: A sending or dispatch.
מִשְׁלוֹחַ
The same root can name the sending itself, highlighting the difference between a message that is commissioned and one that only claims authority.
Shiloach: Sent; the name of the waters of Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name preserves the sense of being sent forth, giving this root a concrete image of movement from a source.
הִבְטַחְתָּ
hibtaḥta
GROWS FROM
בטח
batach
To feel secure, trust, or rely on.
“lean their full weight upon” in this verse is hibtaḥta. The Hebrew verb says Hananiah caused the people to feel secure in falsehood. The accusation reaches beyond a mistaken statement: their sense of safety is being anchored to something untrue.
ALSO GROWS
mivtaḥ: Security, confidence, or a place of refuge.
מִבְטָח
This branch names the security the people are placing in the lie.
batuach: Secure or confident.
בָּטוּחַ
It shows how trust can feel like safety without proving that what supports it is sound.
חֲנַנְיָה
Ḥananyah
GROWS FROM
חנן
chanan
To show favor or be gracious.
“Hananiah” in this verse is Ḥananyah. The name joins this root of favor with Yah, carrying the sense “Yah is gracious.” That confession sits in tension with the verse’s charge: a name associated with favor does not establish that the speaker’s message is from the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
chen: Favor.
חֵן
This branch makes the root of favor audible within Hananiah’s name.
channun: Gracious; full of favor.
חַנּוּן
It echoes the name’s confession while the verse tests the message itself, not the promise suggested by the name.
THE PATTERN
A claim to speak for God is tested by its source and truth, not by the confidence it creates.
I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.When the prophet speaks in the nature of the LORD, if the word does not come to be, nor arrive, it is the word the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it in a boiling over. You shall not cower from him.Beloved, do not lean your weight on every breath, but test the breaths, whether they come out of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.THE THREAD
I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.The same Hebrew root for “sent” appears in both verses. Jeremiah 23:21 makes the source-test explicit: a voice can speak and run with certainty without being sent by the LORD.
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