What Does Jeremiah 30:1 Mean?

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

Jeremiah 30:1 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

THE KEY

Here, “word” is davar (⁨דָּבָר⁩), which can mean both speech and a matter or thing, so the LORD’s message arrives as something happening, not merely something said.

THE MEANING

The LORD’s address reaches the reader as something that meets a person in the present. The message is bound up with the matter unfolding in the life of the one who receives it. The verse names the moment when speech becomes encounter.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a divine word is only information or a slogan: here, the word is also a matter that arrives in a hearer’s life.

THE ROOT

דָּבָר

dāḇār

GROWS FROM

דבר

speech; a matter, thing, or affair

Davar can name a spoken word, a matter, or an affair, holding utterance and what is at stake within the same word. Here the message comes to Jeremiah as an address that enters the present, rather than detached information.

ALSO GROWS

dibber: he spoke

דִּבֵּר

This verb from the same root shows that the word is active speech: it is spoken and reaches a hearer.

devarim: words; matters or things

דְּבָרִים

The plural carries both senses of davar, keeping speech and the matters it concerns together.

THE PATTERN

A word from the LORD reaches a hearer as an address that can be carried forward in speech or writing.

Take a roll of a book, and write in it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah, until this day.

Jeremiah 36:2 · SDVThe words spoken to Jeremiah become a written record that carries the address onward.

And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon the tablets, so that the one who calls it out may run.

Habakkuk 2:2 · SDVThe LORD’s answer is received and made legible so another person can encounter it.

God, who in many portions and in many ways spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets.

Hebrews 1:1 · SDVGod’s address reaches people through the speech of prophets.

THE THREAD

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Jeremiah 1:4 · SDV

Jeremiah 1:4 uses the same word, davar (⁨דָּבָר⁩), and the same arrival formula. The opening of chapter 30 places its message within that continuing encounter: the word comes to a hearer.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us