What Does Jeremiah 28:7 Mean?
Yet now hear and respond to this word that I speak in your ears, and in the ears of all the people.
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
Nevertheless hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears, and in the ears of all the people;THE KEY
A prophetic word becomes a shared matter when it is heard by both its addressee and the whole people.
THE MEANING
The word reaches you in a space where others can hear it too; it is not sealed inside one person’s private certainty. What is spoken becomes a shared matter, held in common hearing and available to be remembered.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This dissolves the idea that a message spoken in God’s name is a private certainty held only by its speaker or recipient; the whole people are named as hearers.
THE ROOT
שְׁמַע
šəmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
š-m-ʿ
Hear, heed; in this imperative, hear and respond.
“hear and respond” in this verse is šəmaʿ. English can make hearing sound like the passive receipt of sound, while שְׁמַע calls for attentive reception. Here that hearing is shared: Jeremiah speaks to one person and names the whole people as listeners.
ALSO GROWS
šəmūʿāh: Report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch shows how a spoken message travels through hearing and becomes something a community can carry.
šōmēaʿ: One who hears or listens.
שׁוֹמֵעַ
The verse names not just a sound but the people who receive it as listeners.
דָּבָר
dābār
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; the noun can mean a word, matter, or thing.
The word Jeremiah speaks is also called a matter: what is said enters the shared world as something people can hold in mind. English tends to separate speech from the matter spoken, while דָּבָר holds them together.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: He spoke or said.
דִּבֵּר
This is the speaking action that gives the shared matter its voice.
dəvārīm: Words, matters, or things.
דְּבָרִים
The plural keeps speech and matters together, matching this verse’s word spoken into the people’s hearing.
THE PATTERN
When a word concerns a people, it is spoken into shared hearing so the community can receive and remember it together.
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.Then Paul stood up and motioned with his hand, and said, Men of Israel, and you who stand in awe of God, give ear.So then trust comes out of hearing, and hearing comes through the word of God.THE THREAD
And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for your servant hears and responds.The same hearing-root appears in Samuel’s answer, paired with the speaking-root in “Speak.” Hearing here is active reception of speech; Jeremiah’s address expands that encounter from one hearer to the whole people.
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