What Does Jeremiah 3:17 Mean?
At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD, and all the nations will be drawn to it, to the nature of the LORD, to Jerusalem, and they will no longer walk after the stiffness of their evil heart.
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
At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart.THE KEY
The nations stop following the stubborn heart and gather around the LORD’s throne in the city whose name carries wholeness.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s throne becomes the center of the reader’s life, and Jerusalem carries the nature of wholeness. Peoples gather toward that center, and the old path of following the stubbornness of an evil heart gives way to a different direction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that the heart’s most stubborn impulse must determine the path ahead; another center of rule gathers people toward wholeness.
THE ROOT
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete.
Jerusalem carries the שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) word-family in its name. Here the LORD’s throne and the city’s nature converge: the nations gather to a center of wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
The city’s name carries the quality toward which the gathered peoples move.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
The root’s sense of completeness gives depth to Jerusalem as more than a place name.
shillem: Completed, repaid.
שִׁלֵּם
The same root can describe something brought to completion, echoing the passage’s movement toward wholeness.
וְנִקְבְּצוּ
wenikbetzu
GROWS FROM
קבץ
q-b-ts
To gather or collect together.
The nations are drawn into one gathering around the LORD’s throne. That shared direction replaces the scattered course of people following the stubbornness of their own hearts.
ALSO GROWS
qibbetz: Gathered, collected.
קִבֵּץ
This verb makes gathering the central action of the nations in the verse.
qibbutz: Gathering, collection.
קִבּוּץ
The noun form shows the shared assembly held within the verb’s root.
niqbetzu: They were gathered.
נִקְבְּצוּ
This form is the same root as the verse’s promise that all nations gather toward Jerusalem.
יֵלְכוּ
yel'khu
GROWS FROM
הלך
h-l-k
To walk or go.
The verse describes a whole course of movement: the people no longer walk after the stubbornness of an evil heart. Their direction changes as they gather toward the LORD’s throne.
ALSO GROWS
halakh: To walk, go.
הָלַךְ
The root gives the verse its image of a life moving in a chosen direction.
halikhah: Going, walking.
הֲלִיכָה
This noun form keeps the focus on movement as an ongoing course.
mahalakh: Course, process.
מַהֲלָךְ
The related word makes visible how a way of walking can shape the larger course of life.
THE PATTERN
A shared center gathers people into a new direction and loosens the rule of the stubborn heart.
Hear and respond to the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the far islands, and say, The one who scattered Israel will gather him and guard him, as a shepherd tends his flock.And many peoples shall go and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will aim us along his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for out of Zion the instruction shall go forth, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.And I, if I am lifted up from the ground, will draw all humankind to myself.THE THREAD
Hear and respond to the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the far islands, and say, The one who scattered Israel will gather him and guard him, as a shepherd tends his flock.Jeremiah 31:10 uses קבץ (qavats, to gather), the same root as “shall be gathered” here. It opens the gathering further: the people are gathered and kept like a shepherd’s flock.
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