What Does Jeremiah 3:25 Mean?
We lie down in our shame, and our disgrace covers us, for we have missed the mark against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth until this day, and we have not heard and responded to the voice of the LORD our God.
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
We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.THE KEY
This confession reveals shame as the covering left by a failure to hear and respond to the LORD’s voice.
THE MEANING
Here, shame is the place you lie down and disgrace the covering around you. The missing response to the LORD’s voice runs from the fathers through “this day,” so the confession holds an inherited pattern and a present one in the same “we.” It speaks the failure plainly before God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that this failure belongs only to the past because it was inherited; the verse names it as continuing “unto this day.”
THE ROOT
שָׁמַעְנוּ
shamaʿnu
GROWS FROM
שמע
shamaʿ
to hear, heed, respond
“heard and responded” in this verse is shamaʿnu. The word translated “obeyed” belongs to a root that gathers hearing and response into one movement. The confession describes a broken response to a voice, not merely a failure to perform.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; hear and respond
שְׁמַע
The command form makes hearing active, the same response missing from the confession.
shemuʿah: A report or message; what is heard
שְׁמוּעָה
The same root names both listening and what reaches the listener; here, the LORD’s voice has not been received.
חָטָאנוּ
chataʾnu
GROWS FROM
חטא
chataʾ
to miss, miss the mark
“missed the mark” in this verse is chataʾnu. The confession says this missing is “against the LORD our God,” then gives it a shape: not hearing and responding to the LORD’s voice. The word carries a relation and a direction, not only a label of guilt.
ALSO GROWS
chet: A miss; wrongdoing
חֵטְא
This noun keeps the confession connected to a mark missed in relation to the LORD.
chattaʾt: Missing; an offering for the missing
חַטָּאת
The same root names both the missing and the offering associated with it.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s voice calls for a present response, and the heart’s condition shows whether it receives or hardens.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you will hear and respond to his voice.While it is said, Today, if you will hear and respond to his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the embittering.THE THREAD
And he said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I trembled, because I was bare; and I hid myself.Genesis uses the same שמע (shamaʿ, hear and respond) root rendered “obeyed” in Jeremiah. It places hearing beside fear over nakedness and hiding, showing how shame and a broken response to the voice meet.
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